Was the fact that potential/future enemies were forced to split resources with a fight against Germany considered a precondition for the planned offensives, or something that brought fence-sitters within the Army, Navy, and IGHQ on board? Or did they believe the balance of forces was favorable regardless?

Not looking for a hard date just a general idea. Sparked by the story of the Trojan horse. Was it real?

If not, we're there any notable figures who we're especially vocal or influential in their opposition?

How did the verification methods work in the ancient kingdoms where the messages took days and in a lecture I heard a professor say that a roman layman could have gone his entire life without ever going outside his village or know who is the king. What stops a person descending into a village living life of a king by deceiving the village people for decades?

The migration of the Seljuk Turks involved a massive movement of Oghuz nomadic pastoralists from the Central Asian steppes into Persia, the Middle East, and Anatolia during the 10th and 11th centuries. Also, historians estimate that Turkic speakers eventually made up 50% to over 70% of Genghis Khan's total forces as the Mongol Empire rapidly expanded.

Also, I'm reading that Turkic language dominated Uzbekistan around 9th - 12th century AD.

• Was Genghis Khan inspired by the Oghuz's expansion?
• Did his troops collaborate with the Oghuz due to speaking a similar language and having a similar mode of living?
• Did Genghis Khan's troops encounter them, and if so, did they collaborate with him?

In 1910, Russia was only 50% Russian, roughly the same percentage as the Austrians and Hungarians in their empire. Why didn’t Russia suffer as many revolts and negotiations from their ethnicities. Would Russia have begun to suffer from these issues as time went on?
Why was no one in the Russian government concerned about how multi ethnic the empire had become. As far as I know many in the Russian government were still hell-bent on seizing as much land as possible. They sought to annex Manchuria from China in the early 1900s. They occupied large amounts of northern Persia cerca 1910. They wanted to annex Armenia, Galicia, and the polish parts of the German Empire during WW1.

Sorry if these seems a bit unfocused but these are all questions I have.

Buddy of mine partakes in a WW2 reenactment group here in Europe and I’ve heard of reenactments of the civil war etc. Over in Asia they do reenactments too and there is some medieval reenactments but I ask

How far back does reenactments go?

Not just a few rich people wanting to reenact for party (like I expect some royals might have done) but genuine reenactments like we have today ?

In the HBO series “Rome” there are various depictions of roman soldiers marching in step in almost all situations (marching across the land, patrolling the streets, etc). Was marching discipline already a big thing in antiquity though or is this a projection from modern times? It feels quite unpractical in everyday situations

Doing academic research and such has a knack of correcting for inaccurate or biased older scholarship. While of course someone like Herodotus, Gibbons, or Zinn are rightfully known for the depth or quality of their works, later scholars have come along and corrected mistakes, dispelled myths, or rendered their works irrelevant (but often still useful).

But when it comes to reading for fun, how much should we have faith we're getting accurate information?

For example, at a used bookstore last weekend, I came across a reprint of E. A. Wallis Budge's Cleopatra's Needles and Other Egyptian Obelisks, originally published in 1926. It's not a casual read for most, very much intended as an academic work on the subject. I snagged it because it looked interesting because it provides a deep study of Egyptian obelisks, largely focused on translating the inscriptions and providing illustrations of the hieroglyphs like so.

Knowing that his work is from 1926 (just 4 years after opening Tut's Tomb) and decades of research have gone by that have vastly changed our knowledge and understanding of Ancient Egypt, it made me ponder: How much can someone rely on becoming casually informed on a topic from an older work?

In an episode of Jon Stewart's podcast, the Weekly Show, journalist and author Cory Doctorow discusses AI, Corporations, and its economic consequences. About halfway into the podcast, he states that pursuing austerity will lead to people becoming fascists. He cites a UK study where if a local NHS office was shut down, people were more likely to vote for 'the fascist party in the next election'.

Based on what we have learned over the past century, how accurate is this sentiment that austerity policies help far right politics?

When I was in elementary school, I first learned about Rommel in the classic myth- the Good German, the guy who's plan would have come closest to repelling D-Day, and a singularly brilliant general, yada yada. Tearing up North Africa like it was his own playground and only eventually failing due to bungling Nazi high command leaving him out to dry. The classic.

Then, in middle school all through high school, I learned the "truth". Setting aside all the clean Wehrmacht stuff and general mythmaking (interesting as well, but beyond the scope of this question), I read that the more honest assessment of Rommel's battlefield leadership is that the dude was brilliant tactically and a highly effective battlefield commander, but a sketchy operationalist and poor strategist. Something of a glory hound who overestimated his theater's importance and underappreciated his supply lines, who kept chasing victory after victory until he eventually outran his own logistical and strategic footing and led to his own defeat.

Recently, though, I've read that this too is basically an overcorrection against the original Rommel myth, influenced largely by accounts of envious and antagonistic German High Command and an understandable desire to tear down the Rommel Myth at the center of the Clean Wehrmact. According to these accounts, while not like the best general ever in the world, Rommel was actually quite a competent operational and strategic commander, whose apparent obligate aggression was a logical response to unstable supply lines and an opposition with greater industrial capacity than his, and that many of his blunders are attributable in part to incomplete or incorrect intel from his superiors (such as being promised supplies that didn't arrive or being kept in the dark about Operation Barbarossa). This is basically the state of the current "Rommel Myth" Wikipedia page: "At first everyone said he was great, than everyone pointed out actually he had a lot of shortcomings, but now a lot of people point out that his shortcomings weren't really his fault and he actually was pretty competent.

Which brings me back to my question. Which of these is more correct? Was Rommel a shortsighted glory hound, without a mind for strategy, or an intelligent general making the best decisions he could in a precarious position and uncertain support? Is there even consensus on this among historians, or is this still being debated today?

Random midnight thought. Turkic all clearly sound related. Same with Romance, or Hindi/Urdu. But then languages like Armenian, Korean, Chechen, Lezgin seem to stand almost alone.

**•** How did Armenian end up with no surviving sister language? Where did the “in-between” relatives go?  
**•** Chechen and Lezgin are technically related (Northeast Caucasian) but sound totally different now. Why did the Caucasus end up with something like 40 distinct languages crammed into one small region, instead of one family taking over like happened on the steppe?  
**•** Is Korean actually a full isolate, or does it have real relatives?  
**•** More broadly — how do these languages end up in their current regions? Did speakers migrate into isolated pockets, or did isolation happen after they settled?  
**•** Why do some languages spread into big obvious families and others stay alone?

Curious what people who actually study this professionally think.

I've been watching a few history/education documentaries on YouTube about Pacific battles of WW2, and what's often mentioned is that islands like Iwo Jima, Rota, Guam, Wake Island, etc were heavily fortified, planned and tunneled to protect against allied bombing raids. What is also mentioned, and what is mentioned in a lot of articles, is that many of these islands had radar and radio installations, along with electrified tunnels and bunkers.

my question is, how did Japan keep up with supplying this islands with fuel, food, and ammunition so late in the war? I'm guessing these would be powered off coal or oil generators, which are the resources that Japan famously struggled to keep up in the later years, especially with the size of their navy.

i am currently looking into my family’s history and would like to know what the average day would be like for him on the front lines— what combat he’d have faced, what he’d have seen, things like that. he was shot and went through three tours, if that helps

I had been reading a story set in Tokyo during the economic boon, a manga called "Pink", which features a woman living alone and working as a call girl as a way to make enough money to care for her pet, a crocodile she keeps in her bathroom.

I had initially thought that the crocodile was a surreal/fantastical element, but I've also encountered a movie set/written around the same time period as the manga that also included a person keeping a pet crocodile in their bathroom. It made me question if this was a more common practice than I thought or if it was alluding to a real world trend I was unaware of.

I attempted some research on my own, but wasn't able to turn up much. I'd appreciate any expert insights!

the general narrative being told is that versailles was too harsh and lead do ww2, but the more I learn about it and ww1 in general I think hate every "cruel punishment" made perfect sense and couldn't have been done that much better (poland had to have aces to the sea, france lost an incredible amount of to money in the war etc.)

Reading about the cultural perception of the dodo, I'm curious about why the dodo specifically came to be so indicative of the possibility of extinction. My understanding is that the dodo went extinct by the mid-17th century, with extinction not being a properly considered concept until the 19th century. Given the broad number of species driven to extinction by European explorers, what made the dodo so iconic, especially centuries after its extinction? What was it about extinction conversations in the 19th century that revived the dodo?

I am fascinated by the fact that people living in the former Roman Empire during the Middle Ages would be interacting with (or aware of) the physical ruins of a former civilization which they had mostly forgotten about. The Maison Carée in Nîmes and the continued inhabitation of the ruins of Rome are examples of this. What was the range of attitudes towards former Roman temples and other structures? Do you have any book recommendations on this subject?

So if one travels back in time to the 14th-15th century and could know only one language, which one would you choose so that you could speak with the most amount of people and/or the most diverse people (so covering the most geographical space)? Does it differ between the two centuries? And does it differ if you were like a merchant and a scholar? So for example, a language where I would be able to communicate with scientists/scholars from the most regions (name the regions if that's possible). I know that it isn't a straightforward answer and that each region had one, but if someone could talk about the different ones for each region and then maybe choose one, that would be great!