With a cutoff of Napoleon and earlier, who wins in a 64 Bracket Single Elimination Chess tournament amongst all the greatest names of Antiquity, Medieval, Renaissance, and Age of Sail/European Colonization?

My great uncle fought with the Dutch army against the Wehrmacht in 1940 and after the capitulation was in the armed resistance. After WW2 he emigrated to Australia and my grandfather, his brother died before I was born. Little is known in the family apart from him being wounded at Maasbruggen, Rotterdam. And that his code name in the resistance was ‘Theo’.

I have been searching his name on the the internet and found some documents that aren’t declassified until 2025. As stated I live in the Netherlands and would love to find out more about his military records and such.

Where can I go ask for which information?

Who was Countess Maria Pia Soderini of corso umberto in Rome Italy and what ever happened to her after WW2? My great uncle stayed with her for a short time during the war before he was shot down. I can’t find much about her when I search.

Are there any examples of ancient or historical descriptions of weather phenomenon that we don't know what is being described? Did they experience weather we don't have now?

In antic Greek, Did students had to drink the sperm of the Master when they finished their education ?

Were The Beatles invited to play at Woodstock?

In the American old west, was the saloon the only place you could buy liquor?

What are the origins of organized greyhound racing?

Since they practiced oral curriculum a lot, and certain acts might have been framed by culture to bear a symbolic meaning, for example, as a consumption of semen of knowledge, we have reasons to suspect the answer to your question to be positive.

Het Nationaal Archief in Den Haag lijkt me een goede plek om te beginnen. Op de site onder "onderzoek", "hulp bij uw onderzoek" kun je al gericht zoeken onder "Tweede Wereldoorlog", "Militairen en Marinepersoneel" etc.

Je kunt ook in levenden lijve archiefstukken inzien zie site onder: "onderzoeken", "plan uw bezoek".

(nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken)

Anders heeft de lokale bibliotheek of gemeente van bijv. Rotterdam misschien ook wat archieven over destijds die je op aanvraag in kunt zien.

Hopelijk heb je hier wat aan. Succes met de zoektocht, makker!

https://www.beatle.net/50-years-ago-the-beatles-do-not-play-woodstock/

I think Timur would certainly be in the discussion, he was supposedly a very avid chess player and the Tamerlane chess variant is attributed to him.

Emperor Justinian I of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The man has it all, skill, shrewdness, patience, and the ability to think strategically on multiple levels. With apologies to Trajan, Justinian might just have been the real "Last Roman." Hi dynasty was one of the last to be named in Latin. His dynasty was also the last one to rule Rome itself.

Justinian spent his entire career getting amazing things done with never quite enough resources to do them properly. He weathered the plague and invasions from literally all sides, locked horns with a Persian empire at the height of its own strength, and still managed to reclaim several lost Roman provinces including Hispania, Italia and Africa. He goes down in history as one of the greatest individual monarchs the world has ever known.

Started as an outgrowth of coursing in England, and emerged in its recognizable modern form, featuring circular or oval tracks, with the invention of the mechanical, or artificial, hare in 1912 by an American, Owen Patrick Smith. O.P. Smith had altruistic aims for the industry to stop the killing of the jack rabbits. In the 1920s it was popular with the middle class in the US and the US, but quickly became a working class phenomenon in the 1930s.

Thanks :)

It’s an impossible question to answer. There are some truly fantastic generals that we know about, and all had some chance at defeating any of the others under the right conditions. Flat out, Napoleon had the most recorded victories of any known General, and in his prime he was certainly a contender for top spot, but he never had to fight the Golden Horde, possibly the only pre-modern army faster than him. He had Marshalls under him that would also qualify as top of the line generals in their own right. Archduke Charles, one of the only men to defeat Napoleon while Napoleon was at in his prime, would also have to be on the list. Then there is the great Korean general Eulji Mundeok, a man capable of directing hundreds of thousands of men while fighting terrible odds and coming out on top, or Emperor Tokugawa, who had one of the most elite medieval armies in the word, or any one of a dozen ancient and classical era Chinese generals…

Why did Poland and Soviet Russia go to war in 1918/1919 - 1921?

[removed]

Cardinal Richelieu or Axel Oxenstierna? I would look for people who were able to see moves in advance and design a plan. Along this theme would be some of the Native American leaders who were able to keep their people afloat despite the advantages colonizers had, when one thinks about how few Iroquois there were, yet how long they resisted colonial powers, that has to be some higher level strategy. Certain African leaders would also be nominees as well.

Short answer: the soviets didn’t see Poland as an independent country.

As far as they were concerned, it was a part of Russia that had been occupied by the Germans. Also, controlling Poland would mean that they would be able to intervene in Germany, at the time going through communist uprisings.

Poland also acted aggressively towards the Soviets in order to secure its borders. Making war inevitable.

In what way did the sound of a chiming cuckoo clock become associated with insanity?

Where would works of Renaissance masters like Titian or Caravaggio (I know you could also call Caravaggio Baroque, but that's not relevant here) have been publicly displayed in the 1850s?

Stop touring or performing in front of any audience after 1966.

Have people always been doing it in the butt and just not talking about it or did we really not know it worked that way too?

Super bedankt Albert. Ben erg blij met je antwoord, dit betekent veel voor me.

[removed]

Isn't sodomy literally in the bible?

Honestly, people have been doing that for a very long time. Male homosexual activity is documented in the early BC’s across the world. There are entire sections dedicated to anal penetration in the Kama Sutra for heterosexual anal penetration.

Given it’s not much of a leap for a horny brain to go “What if I stick it in here” I think it’s safe to say that humans have been going for that bootyhole since we were early hominids running from Pleistocene megafauna.

But did the promotors invite them, anyway?

Thank you!

>Het Nationaal Archief in Den Haag lijkt me een goede plek om te beginnen. Op de site onder "onderzoek", "hulp bij uw onderzoek" kun je al gericht zoeken onder "Tweede Wereldoorlog", "Militairen en Marinepersoneel" etc.
>
>Je kunt ook in levenden lijve archiefstukken inzien zie site onder: "onderzoeken", "plan uw bezoek".
>
>(nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken)
>
>Anders heeft de lokale bibliotheek of gemeente van bijv. Rotterdam misschien ook wat archieven over destijds die je op aanvraag in kunt zien.

Translation 4 Ya:The National Archives in The Hague seems like a good place to start. On the site under "research", "help with your research" you can already search specifically under "World War II", "Military and Navy personnel" etc.
You can also view archive documents in person, see site under: "research", "plan your visit".
(nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken)
Otherwise, the local library or municipality of Rotterdam, for example, may also have some archives about that time that you can view on request.

They had museums back then, but, in England at least, you could also go tour private homes when the family was away and private collections often had works by great masters.

Wife and I were in Williamsburg today before her marathon next week, and it had me wondering:

Since the Olympics existed for so long, how common has it been over the millennia for humans to run for fun? Or to get dedicated exercise in general? (E.g., push ups, sit ups, and those sorts of basic exercises, even if they didn’t look exactly like we do them today)

This was triggered by seeing a couple out for a run in historic Williamsburg, VA, and it made me wonder how out of place someone running like that would be in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Why do some men bow with one hand in front of their stomach and one hand behind their back?

Another answer is: fking soviets wanted to spread fking communism to the Europe. And Poland was the first country on their way.

So, this probably has a more modern explanation, but I remember learning about an Ancient Greek play, The Birds, which references a “cloud cuckoo land.” Why do we use it today? Probably one of those Victorian era cultural things that caught on.

Edit: A quick search seems to corroborate this. Also maybe the inspiration for being on “cloud nine.”

Lots of churches had paintings and sculptures.

In the USA it was considered pretty nutty before the late 70s or 80s to run for exercise or fun unless it was for a particular sport. Jogging was getting a start in the late 60s, but the long distance for no reason was frowned upon by orthopedists.

[removed]

Bowing is a sign of deference or respect.

The right hand in front to show you are weaponless.

The left behind, to hide your “evil” or dirty hand.

Follow up: we know the Old West was violent but are there any stats of how many people were actually killer's or a percentage of the population which was killed?

Does anyone have suggestions for something that advances George Hourani's Arab Seafaring? I was moving some old books around from undergrad and remembered how fond I was of it, but it was published in '95 so I'm hoping there's something more current that built off it.

Did the Vietnam war have any positive affect on relations between white and black Americans since they went on patrols with each other and had probably never spent so much time with one another before?

• “Hopefully this is of some use to you. Good luck with the search, buddy!”

How did the Politburo work in the USSR?

Aristophanes coined a term meaning "an unrealistic or ridiculous utopia" in his satirical play "The Birds" in 414 ce. That term was later (much later-- 1800s) translated as "Cuckoo Cloud Land" or "Cloud Cuckoo Land." It's not much of a stretch to apply the beliefs of Cloud Cuckoo Land to the cuckoos themselves. Additionally, cuckolding referred to a woman's infidelity, often as an insult to her husband (unrelated to Cloud Cuckoo Land; most likely related to the cuckoos' hiding their eggs to be raised by other birds), again, painting the poor cuckoo in a less-than-flattering light.

[removed]

Something else I have wondered is, did they have beer? Beer would be tough to have out in places with no refrigeration and tough to keep carbonated I would think.

What is the spiciest old world spice? Since all chilies are mesoamerican.

and Catallus has poems about it.

At least re carbonation I don’t think old timey beer was carbonated with CO2 or anything, it was probably flatter

The Tempest stela from 18th Dynasty Egypt has been much discussed and debated. Many scholars believe it describes damage and odd weather caused by the eruption of Thera, but this remains uncertain.

Yeah, the old way is to prime it with sugar and seal it to create the carbonation after the fermentation cycle. Home brewers do this to carbonate in bottles. I don't know how this would have been done back in the 1800s. Bottled beer would be expensive to transport vs barrels, but do barrels go flat after they're tapped?

There's a lot of variables that if there was a process it would be interesting. At the same time it would make more sense to just serve wine and liquor.