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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/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/OnlyInSilence

Is there any actual historical evidence anywhere of the Allies in WW2 letting allied civilians or servicemen die in order to protect the fact they had cracked enigma?

A trope that pops up in fiction occasionally is the notion that the allies let the Germans blow up certain Atlantic convoys/cities in ww2, lest the Third Reich get suspicious about how the their attacks were always being predicted. Off the top of my head, an episode of the TV sh…

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…

Posted by /u/GreenBrilliant3761

[Historical Accuracy] In the 2002 movie Ted Bundy, the execution scene depicts prison staff plugging the inmate’s rectum with cotton during the physical preparation for the electric chair. Was this an actual historical protocol in early Am…

I recently watched the 2002 film Ted Bundy (starring Michael Reilly Burke), which features a highly detailed, clinical, and graphic preparation sequence before Bundy is electrocuted. A specific detail shown is the insertion of cotton/gauze into the rectum to prevent post-mortem…

Posted by /u/Sungodatemychildren

Isaac Newton famously was a great physicist and mathematician, but less famously he was also into alchemy. Was he a good alchemist?

Posted by /u/soupnear

How did average citizens deal with property damage in WW2?

How did the average man who, in one way or another, experienced some kind of property damage pay for it to be repaired or otherwise continue their life? I’m thinking in particular of the blitz, but this could apply to many circumstances. If my home got bombed and was completely…

Posted by /u/ClothesDreyer

Is it right to throw out all of great man theory or am I misunderstanding it?

I largely agree that history isn’t shaped entirely by “great men.” But something I’m still confused about: post-WWI Germany may have always gotten a far-right fascist dictator, but Hitler’s specific focus on Jews and the Holocaust led to the near-destruction of an entire ethnic-…

Posted by /u/platypodus

What is the significance of the "wizard's staff"/"magic staff"?

The earliest examples I can think of would be in the Old Testament. Moses raises his staff to part the waters, of I recall correctly.

Posted by /u/ThatOneBLUScout

How did certain foods come to be seen as "Breakfast Foods" even though nothing is stopping you from eating them whenever you want?

Eggs, Pancakes, Omelets, Cereal, Toast, Hash-browns, Ect. All of those are considered staples for breakfast, but it's considered a bit odd to eat them later in the day. I was wondering how that started.

Posted by /u/TheOnlyKirby90210

Are there books about what black households ate during the great depression?

I've always been curious about this as I've grown up and learned bits and pieces about food through the ages. It's just one of those things I've noticed that specific topics about the daily lives of the average black household don't seem to be mentioned a lot during the great de…

Posted by /u/Chinoyboii

To what extent might modern Palestinians descend from Jewish, Samaritan, and other local Levantine populations who converted to Christianity or Islam, and what historical evidence exists for or against this possibility?

From what I understand, current scholarship on Palestinian ancestry generally indicates that a substantial portion of their ancestry derives from Levantine populations that continued to live in the region despite successive conquests, migrations, expulsions, conversions, and per…

Posted by /u/KartenMapper35

How was the process of Turkification of Anatolia?

How was the process of Turkification of Anatolia?

Posted by /u/TurtleBlaster5678

Why did US President Jimmy Carter switch America's recognition of the legitimate Chinese government from Taiwan to China?

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter officially recognized the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China. This was a hard pivot from the previous US foreign policy position that the Republic of China (Taiwan) was the sole legitimate government What did the…

Posted by /u/IHad360K_KarmaDammit

After abolitionist Watson Brown was killed during the raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859, his body was mutilated, mummified and publicly displayed with a sign saying "thus always with abolitionists". Was it common to treat the bodies of partic…

His Wikipedia page describes the display of his body: Anatomy professor Hugh Holmes McGuire stained the arteries, drained of blood, with red dye, treated the muscles so they resembled wood, and preserved the nerves with varnish. The skin, half of the skull, and the brain were re…

Posted by /u/matt2621

A new connection

I've wanted to change recently to be a better husband and father. I admittedly had not put God first in my life each day so 2 weeks ago I started getting up a little earlier to go for a run and read a verse from the Bible app on my phone. Then I read numerous people reccommendin…

Posted by /u/Intelligent-Swim1723

During the Middle Ages, how important was having a claim to start a war of conquest, what was seen as a legitimate claim and to whom did a conqueror have to justify themselves?

What lead me to this question is mainly the Norman Conquest, but I'd be interested in any answers about the Middle Ages in general. Regarding the Norman Conquest: Both Harald Hardrada and William the Conqueror claimed the English throne based on promises of late English kings, w…

Posted by /u/Wooden_Airport6331

What was life like after escaping through the Underground Railroad?

If someone made it to the North, where might they find housing and employment? Were there charities and churches with the means to help people get on their feet? How much did poverty and discrimination affect survivors of slavery who made it North?

Posted by /u/Mauricio716

How were complex ships designed and built in the 16th or 17th century?

I'm trying to understand how shipbuilding actually worked in the 16th century, when European ships had already become extremely large and technologically sophisticated. Who was responsible for designing these ships? Were there people equivalent to naval architects, or was ship d…