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Posted by /u/Thundertushy

What was life as a diabetic like in Rome in 2nd Century AD?

Aretaeus of Cappadocia described life with diabetes as short, disgusting and painful. What would life as a 2nd Century AD person with diabetes have been like? Let's assume that the person is wealthy enough (i.e. prosperous merchant or landowner) to have a physician on staff to s…

Posted by /u/lewisiarediviva

How Ubiquitous Was the Carrying of Fire?

I ran across a factoid some years ago that ran something like: “Up until the modern era, most people were never more than 1000 feet from a fire their whole lives” Without getting too into the weeds on specifics like distance, do we think this is broadly true? Does anyone recogni…

Posted by /u/Wooden_Airport6331

I am an American conscript in Vietnam. I refuse to continue. What happens to me?

In this hypothetical, there is a moral and/or psychological reason that I won’t continue, like PTSD, perhaps witnessing or participating in civilian casualties. Perhaps I believe that my death is already inevitable. I feel that have nothing to lose by deserting. Could I be execu…

Posted by /u/OfficialAli1776

Why are Egyptian ruins so well preserved compared to Greco-Roman ones, despite being older?

Obviously a major exception being a Pantheon, but I went to Greece and Rome and the ruins were, well, ruins. The Athenian Acropolis was in really sorry shape, the Parthenon is barely being held together as just an exoskeleton of its former self (I know about the Venetians blowin…

Posted by /u/optiplex9000

I've been watching Ken Burn's WW2 Documentary and it shows an American news reel from the 40s with footage from the Germans setting up the Atlantic Wall defenses. How did Americans get their hands on this footage from the Germans?

Posted by /u/kill4588

If I'm an average shepherd girl living in the Mongolian steppe during the peak days of golden horde, what is the chance for me to have a cat?

It's pretty known for the nomads to have dogs, but how about cats?

Posted by /u/Serious-Musician4235

According to Martin van Creveld (Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939–1945), Max Hastings (Overlord, Their Wehrmacht Was Better Than Our Army) and Trevor N Dupuy, the German army was vastly superior to the Allies on a tac…

So, this is quite interesting. I don't think any other army in history has garnered as much of a 'following' among analysts and historians as the German army of WW2 (Heer). Decentralized command structure (Auftragstaktik) is often named as one of its main advantages, as is its s…