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If I had a library filled with all the surviving latin and greek texts from antiquity, how big would that library actually be?
What is Donatello David's penis size (the bronze statue).
Why is a ballistic missile submarine in the United States called a "boomer"?
If a Baltic German of Riga immigrated to the US pre-WWI, would they be marked as Russian, Latvian, or German?
Did James II of England have smallpox? I've tried looking it up and have found no answer, and the only source for this comes from "Catherine of Braganza - Charles II's Restoration Queen" by Satah-Beth Watkins on page 86. The excerpt:
"Mary [of Modena] took one look at her bridegroom - James was by now scarred by smallpox - and burst into tears."
Why did France leave NATO in 1966?
Did the Inca make potato bread? Did the Aztecs and Mayans make corn bread?
What is the origin of "What do we want,... When do we want it, now!"?
What movement is it attributed to? Can anyone claim its creation?
I asked this on the last SAtSQ thread yesterday but obviously got in way too late, so I'll copy & paste it here:
Can anyone recommend a good version of The Iliad for someone who isn't a trained historian, so to speak? I picked up a copy in a charity shop a few years ago but thought it was dull as dishwater. Recently though, I read a version of The Odyssey which was incredible (and have since re-charity-shopped, without checking who did it), so I think I must have just have had a fairly naff translation of The Iliad.
And on that note, when it comes to translating versions of ancient texts, how much of a personal touch is a translator/historian generally allowed/expected to bring to the table? Stephen Fry's two books Mythos & Heroes are written entirely in the vernacular and all the better for it IMO, but I can just imagine it sends some fusty old professor somewhere round the wall that he's done that.
I was listening to The Templars by Dan Jones who mentioned that Frederik II the Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated four times. Is that the record number of Excommunications for one person?
What is a good source for learning about proto-Indo-European mythology (as a layman)? Is Dumézil's work still worth reading or is it outdated by now?
What was the first "comic book" to be sold to the public independent of other items? In other words, not as an insert in a newspaper or at the back of a magazine. When was the first time someone forked over cash for the sole privilege of reading sequential art?
Was Russian revolution of 1905 isolated within the borders of Russian empire, or did it also impact countries or events abroad?
As someone who has been paying way too little attention to world politics during my whole life, I want to educate myself on the matter. But since it's specifically about politics I'm not sure what is the best way to approach it with countless of biased sources over the internet.
So my question is if there are any great unbiased places to find a lot of information or if you have any other tips on how to sift through the internet as fast as possible while getting consistently reliable sources.
If it matters I'm mostly going to be looking for info about conflicts/dictatorships from ~1950s until today but I'm also interested in general history though I assume there will be less bias there.
What percentage of slave owners in the American south, just before the Civil War started, could be considered plantation owners?
What calendar was used in the city of Elis, Archaic-Classical Greece?
Did medival castles have permanate headspikes, spikes to put heads on, or were the spikes just put in a bucket or something as needed?
What was the estimated ratio of the Native American population vs the European settlers’ population in 1890s America?
How much did the US spend out of their total budget in army propaganda during the WW2?
I'm looking for the name of the mask in this image. It's a type of mask worn somewhere in the middle-east but I can't find the name of it anywhere.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjAzODUwMjM1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjU2MjU2MQ@@._V1_.jpg
I know that as Kaiser, Wilhelm II favored the New Palace in Potsdam, much like his father, but where did he and his wife live when his father and grandfather were in power. Was it in Berlin, Potsdam, or somewhere else?
How contemporary historians view the notion of cyclical history? Are there any academic work regarding this concept?
When was the first major call to abolish the Electoral College in the United States?
How many ancient literature works have survived until today? I was wondering how many different books from the earliest human history until, let's say, the era of Isidoro de Sevilla (7th century AD) have survived until today? And i mean books not as how many physical copies, but how many 'works', texts, etc. I'm not counting tablets, fragments, inscriptions, logistical witings, etc., just complete works like, let's say the books of Aristotle, Cicero, and in general every writer from the ancient world. Thanks!
What is a primary source that dubbed the 80s the "Decade of greed"?
If I describe a set of armor can you identify which precise time period and country/nation it comes from?:
Era: medieval Europe
Armor type: leather with an iron “bucket style” helmet
Wearing a rectangular piece of fabric draped over the chest and back, primarily black with orange trim and orange insignia. Not sure what the insignia was but either a dragon or a cross
https://www.britannica.com/technology/prairie-schooner
This link says team of 12 horses, a horse can typically pull its own weight, quite literally.
The average draft horse weighs about 1500 Lbs, and these wagons had a "Dead load of 1200 and a "Live" load of 2000.
The question is, since 4 horses can effectively pull this load, are the extra horses spare tires essentially?
Asking because this is quite an overestimite and irregularity, and posted because this is technically an historical question about the oregon trail, specifically wagon usage.
For the typical farmer of eastern europe in the mid-1800's, would it be fair to assume that they were doing pretty much the same thing that their parents did, in pretty much the same place, for hundreds and hundreds of years prior? Maybe even a few thousand years?
Aueerse Des Etrancers ? Translate in english Found on a painting labeled Near Brest Brittany
Has the US regained the money it costed to buy Alaska?
Did the people who lived in modern day Lithuania region fear the Roman Empire around 1 CE?
I was reading about the Limes the Romans established to delineate their claimed territory and land that was held and unceded - Caledonians and Germanic people having held their land as the two popular examples.
Are there similar 'lines' that other empires/governments/etc. have established in such a distinct way that are similar to the Limes? I'm open to a wide interpretation to my question though I'm particularly interested in cases where the line was drawn after attempting to conquer and were successfully resisted leading to the government basically saying, 'alright, eff it, all of us probably shouldn't go past here from now on.'
I'm not strictly speaking about 'hard borders,' in a modern sense but specifically to draw between them and 'barbarians' or whatever local distinctions that were made that they determined to be dangerous and/or unable to be ousted.
I have read a couple of James C Scott's books and I think he makes a compelling case for the idea that patrolled borders and border obstructions often were as much for preventing egress as they were for ingress, but that doesn't seem entirely important to my question (though I'd love a conversation about it at some other time).
did women wear the petticoat like everyday in the 50s? or only for special days?
Where the tantric texts allowing sex for monks originally composed by the first Buddhists or were they concocted later?
Why & how does Prince Edward island maintain its status as a province when it's such a small area & population?
I have a quick question:
What color were the Aztec pyramids?
I was watching a local production of "Newsies" and did a little research into the actual story of the newsboy strike in 1899. I discovered that the actual protagonist was someone called "Kid Blink," but could not find much more info that looks credible. Is there much known about "Kid Blink," and where can I find it?
In regards to 16th century Jerkins, the pictures I can find the doublets are all contrasting to the doublets but I wonder if thats just because they are easier to tell. How can you tell for sure if someone is wearing a jerkin and how often might they be matching?
My 4th grade teacher once told my class while teaching us Texas history that Sam Houston developed gangrene in a wound on his leg and that it smelled so bad that his wife left him. A google search has turned up nothing about this, just the common account of his injured leg during the battle of San Jacinto. Was his story true?
