WW2 Questions:

Did the Soviets ever bomb, like Britain and the US did, German cities? If so why do we never hear about it.

How did the Germans not discover Churchill was on a destroyer to meet FDR off the coast of Canada in 1941 when U Boats reigned supreme? If not occasionally sitting off the coast of the US, and Canada? Wouldn't a small fleet, not protecting anything, and heading in the wrong direction not raise suspicions?

If during WW2 Japan limited their aggression to Manchuria without advancing onto China, could Japan have kept Manchuria?

Japan invaded China years before WW II, in 1937 Your premise in that sense is not correct. If you mean, prior to WW II, would depend on if & how China got out of its civil war & how the USSR/USA took up position.

So in 1943, Germany had about 240 uboats, of which 118 were operational at sea, which was apparently their peak number during the war. How do you suggest they monitor the entire northern Atlantic like that, though? They were not reigning supreme in that sense.

Yes my bad thats what i meant. Thank you, i understand it's a bit of a hypothetical question.

Is there an Indian equivalent of a Japanese Samurai or a European knight?

Based on the qualifiers lf being a land owning, nobility class trained in combat, I would say India had the Rajputs, who can definitely be seen as Indian"knights". Also, although more Nepali than Indian, I would maybe add Gurkhas here too.

Given that the King/Queen of the UK is also the head of the Church of England, why is the UK not considered a theocracy?

This is honestly a very good question. The US has no official religion, and yet it’s more of a theocracy than the UK in practice. I believe it has more to do with actual practice than anything else. A “pure theocracy” basically says that the monarch is divinely selected. In a way, this used to be the thinking in many parts of the UK, although I don’t believe it has ever been known as a theocracy. The UK now has religious freedom, and as far as I know, there are very few religious laws handed down from the monarchy. So you could argue it’s a theocracy by a literal definition, but not in practice. Being head of the Church of England is primarily a handed-down tradition, with very little power over religion overall.

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The Soviets didn't have the type of Air Force that the Western Powers did. That said, they weren't very shy about hitting cities with artillery, or sacking them the old-fashioned way.

One thing people forget about naval warfare is that the ocean is really big. Technologies like radar only really came into their own during WWII, and a huge part of every admiral's job was actually finding the enemy fleet. It's one of the reasons why the Allies' code breaking advantage was so important.

Furthermore, the U-boat was a strategic weapon that was generally used to raid merchant shipping. If surface vessels could find U-boats, they were generally capable of winning the tactical engagement. Especially because the Western vessels often operated in flotillas that included weapons specifically designed to counter submersibles.

Edit: spelling.

If the Japanese managed to keep the rest of China in a perpetual civil war, maybe.

If the rest of China managed to consolidate, unlikely.

The scenario is complicated by the fact that the mere presence of the Japanese served as somewhat of a unifying presence. And if I remember correctly, the Chinese at the time actively worked to keep Japan from sitting back and consolidating. I think I recall hearing somewhere that the Nationalists hit the Japanese in Shanghai specifically to overextend them, but if someone can speak to that with more authority I would appreciate it.

I'm looking for any books/information (in English) on how average people lived in Germany/Prussia during the late nineteenth century. Things like food, dress, social interactions, etc., especially in rural areas.

Can anyone suggest anything?

Uboats stayed away from coasts b/c they were vulnerable to submarine spotter planes. The US and Britain used PBY-5s. There's other things like submarine nets, placing boats around each other to shield a boat. The other thing was German intelligence just wasn't very good compared to the allies. There's no German equivalent to cracking the Enigma machine.

Soviets did bomb and a lot of their pilot groups are very famous. There's lots of stories and media about the Night Witches. The Long Range Air Force (ADD) started bombing German cities in '42. Their tempo increased as the Soviet's progressed. I think it's mostly that media rarely focuses on Soviet air power. People seem to be more interested in their tanks.

But they were comfined to only north western india

Also rajput means "son of king"

Isn't this more of a norms/custom thing though at this point? As in, there's no actual legislation/policy/etc stopping them from doing it?

Best book on modern Ireland (North and South)?

The Kshatriya, the warrior part of the caste system.

It might feel like an overly simple answer, but what being a knight or samurai actually meant would also change massively over the centuries, and the common definition of 'minor landed nobility' often doesn't fit, so we need to be that broad to be accurate.

But I thought the Germans had broken the British Naval codes in early 41?

The Russians were effectively out of range from German cities for a long time, since they had very few strategic bombers, preferring two engine bombers instead; those strategic bombers they did have mostly targeted cities around the Baltic, aiming for railway junctures, airports, and the like.

I don't think they ever did enough damage to be meaningful, though: the Russian strategic bombing regiment dropped 144,750 kilograms of ordinance total during 1941 (before losses basically grounded them,) while the US dropped 1,510,463 kilograms of bombs in a single raid on Toyko in 1945.

Unsurprisingly, when the Soviets decided they DID need something bombed, they would ask the Western Allies to do so, though this was generally rare.

one can reasonably argue that ww2 in Asia starts in 1937. Saying that ww2 started in 39 is a very European/Western centric view point

Church of England doesn't extend to all of the UK I guess.

No Church of Wales but there is a Church of Ireland.

Church of Scotland he is considered an ordinary member.

So I would guess that since he is just the Supreme Governor of a church that extends to a small part of the Nation it could technically fall outside a theocracy?

Besides the point, but yes, you can make that observation & it is a fair one to make. Personally, I frame it as multiple separate wars ultimately coaslesced into one, broader, all-encompassing conflict.

You could potentially, call England/Great Britain a theocracy in the 16th and 17th centuries when their king or the queen actually held a great deal of political power, but this is no longer the case. Much the same could be applied to Denmark-Norway, and Sweden since they also official state churches that their monarchs were the head of. Currently, however, the monarchs of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK are all constitutional monarchs and belonging to the official state church is no longer a requirement for full citizenship.

Also, the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell could also be classified as theocracy, though Cromwell was not a king.

i mean thats not besides the point at all but ok

Been a long time since i read it but The Pursuit of Glory by Tim Blanning does, iirc, touch on a lot of these things in the time period it covers, 1648 to 1815. I can distinctly remember some accounts of how god awful it was to travel by road in those days, and the impact mass printed newspapers and pamphlets on social interactions.

Granted, that's a bit before the time period you're looking but it could give you a good starting point.

Not really, the question can be answered/considered irregardless of it. But ok.

> I think I recall hearing somewhere that the Nationalists hit the Japanese in Shanghai specifically to overextend them, but if someone can speak to that with more authority I would appreciate it.

By no means an expert, but I'm currently reading China's War with Japan 1937 to 1945, by Rana Mitter, and that's pretty much what the author said about the battle of Shanghai, it was an additional front to tie up the Japanese and show them that China was prepared to fight. This was important because the Japanese were already advancing rapidly in the north. Chang clearly put a lot of importance on the Shanghai front since he committed his best trained troops to it, and they took appalling loses.

What was most interesting for me to learn is that the Japanese, after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, were not expecting much resistance and thought it would be a repeat of when they seized Manchuria without a fight. That China resisted really baffled and surprised them. They didn't even formally declare war on China. In fact, as late as the fall of Nanjing, the war was still being referred to in Japanese circles as "The China Incident." Chinese resistance and the loses they were inflicting on Japan also caused rage and anger among Japanese troops, which was likely a factor that caused the Rape of Nanjing.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll give it a look.

The line between norms/customs and legislation/policy is very thin in some parts of the UK government. Monarchs have tried to expand their own power and it isn't successful in history. Though yes, you could technically call it a theocracy now, though it impacts governance less than the term might imply.

Eh, Ksatriyas weren't ( or aren't I guess) all warriors. They were supposed to be warriors or at least rulers and administrators in theory but in practice not so much

What is the conflict between Israel and Palestine (not so much present day, but over the centuries, if that long)? Any resource suggestions?

The short version:

The area of Palestine and the areas around it has been occupied, and called home, by many different groups over thousands of years.

Jewish people lived in the region in antiquity, likely having split from an indigenous population (rather than anything like presented in Exodus). However, many groups (including Rome) eventually conquered this region, and overtime there were several Jewish diasporas where Jewish people migrated out of the region.

The origins of the Palestinian people is also a bit complex, with some identifying directly with the indigenous people as well.

Of course some Jewish people continued to live in the region continuously, but a huge factor was the persecution that Jewish people faced in Europe and other areas that they migrated to. In 1492, the Jewish people were forced to leave the Iberian peninsula (the Alhambra Decree). The Ottoman Empire, having flourished in the time in between, offered a home to these fleeing Jewish peoples and they settled in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine.

While we don't want to paint things as perfect relationship between Jewish and Ottoman peoples, there wasn't constant hatred and fighting either. There were some elements of class, which gave benefits but also took away equal opportunities. Such as the rights for more secular courts, but not being allowed the same titles, roles, etc. that Muslims could gain. But there were periods and examples of unity (Michelle Campos' Ottoman Brothers is a great read on this tension).

The Ottoman Empire was badly weakened by a drought which happened to coincide with the First World War, which is some really poor timing. This allowed for groups within the Empire that wanted autonomy to start making moves, which fractured things further (e.g. The Turks). After the War, the Allies took it upon themselves to start policing the region and creating new nations. Based on popular beliefs at the time, and understanding the troubles which led to WWI, they began to separate people into their own groups figuring it would help. One of these areas was Mandatory Palestine.

In M.P the French and the British controlled how things were run, and the British Prime Minister created the Balfour Declaration which supported Zionists which believed that they deserved to reverse the diasporas and return and have their homeland in the region like they had in antiquity. So he promised them that this could be done as part of M.P. Of course, this angered some other groups that the British had screwed over, including the Turks, who felt there was a sense of favourtism and too much Western influence when this was about self-determination and autonomy.

They tried a bunch of different proposals, some taken with actual steps, some just ideas on paper: including only Jewish people zones, and only Arab people zones (population exchanges were an unfortunately popular idea at this time as well). The more and more that the western powers tried to get involve, the more tensions rised. And as one side would grow more extreme, the other would do so in response. By the 1940s things were incredibly heated, and WWII meant there was only so much attention that could be placed here, but also was heightened by the antisemitism which was at the centre stage of Nazism which made Jewish peoples even stronger in their demand for a home of their own under their own control. War would break out in M.P, and the British firmly decided they didn't want to deal with any of this that they helped create, and slowly withdrew.

M.P. ended in 1948 and as soon as it did a group of Arab states declared war and Israel declared in dependence. A full scale war was on. Israel would win this war, and help to cement a fear of their neighbours wanting their destruction, and help cement a fear of Israel trying to take over and conquer the arab people in the region. These tensions have gone in waves and valleys, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel

So both continue fighting each other, now in less large scale wars but in smaller fights, and instead of looking for ways to make peace and equal concessions, there's just more finger pointing, and thus continued tensions.

Of course, like I said ,this is the short version and it's almost 5k words. It's a very complicated thing, and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface.

Thanks! That matches what I remember, but it's been a long time since I read anything about that front and I didn't want to make a claim I couldn't substantiate.

While the Monarch is the Head of the Church there are 2 things I see that keep it from being a Theocracy,

1.) The religion though a state religion is not imposed as the only allowed religion in the country, as it qould be in a Theocracy. The UK is home to Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, many other forms of Christianity, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians and many other people and also people whp subscribe to a religion or are Atheist. All are allowed to freely practice and exist without the state penalizing them for not being Anglican.

2.) The role as Head of the Church of England coexists with the role of Monarch and theoretically could be separated or delegated to another individual though this has never happened and most likely never will. It exists seperately as a safeguard against Republicanism, i.e. should the UK become the Republic of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and do away with the Monarchy as it did between 1649-1660 with the Commonwealth. The role as Head of the Church of England transferred from Charles I to Charles II despite Charles II living in exile in France and the commonwealth heads were Puritans Oliver Cromwell and then his son Richard Cromwell who inherited ran the country as the "Lord Protector" (which was also a hereditary leadership office) so the office of Head of the Church of England is seperate from the Monarch while simultaneously being held by the Monarch and because the office of that role is separate technically the Monarch isn't acting in the role of Head of the Church of England while doing their job as Monarch. Think of the Head of the Church of England as a form of inherited Papacy or Bishopric where a man or a woman who inherits it. The Pope is actually in the same situation he is both Head of the Catholic Church but also he is the elected King of Vatican the country. So the Pope too a religious head while simultaneously being a monarch.

Who invented ZERO? I’m no mathematician, so please explain this to me like I’m a dummy. To my understanding, the Babylonians flirted with the theory of zero in numeric systems, those from India were the first to actually use zero in numeric systems, and the Mayans were the first overall to use zero, but this was done so in their calendar systems. Please correct me if misunderstood :)

That's true, but also the problem: the same thing eventually happened with the Samurai, and knights varied by region, with some Spanish knights being administrators involved with commerce, where French knights would be explicitly banned from such a thing.

The only thing really in common is the expectation that such a class will provide something of value to a war when needed, and that they're supposed to be able to fight, even if they really can't.

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The UK doesn't actually have a written Constitution. Their Constitution is basically precedent. Arguably the entire government is more of a norms/customs thing and has evolved through English History.

If you have an audible account, I can recommend the various Great Courses on English History. An interesting sub theme of all of them is the evolution of the English government based on evolving norms and customs. I'm not aware of any good source that focuses on the topic, but I'm sure something exists, and now I might ask for one on Book Club Wednesday.

Wow. And that's the short version? No wonder I could never figure it out. I'm still confused.
Very complicated.

quiz: list all countries invaded by Israel in the 6 day war question: what happened in 1989 in that one place in china I forgot then name pls correct me

Ok I wasn't aware that there were samurai and knights that didn't fight in wars

I would say though that ksatriyas were/are a much broader social class and included many sub castes and communities most members of which never even touched a weapon in their lives

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During WW2 when Army officers used to stay inside underground bunkers, did they also had toilets underground, or they did the numbers outside in wild or separate toilet? If the toilet / washrooms were also underground then how did the plumbing worked? How did they get rid of 'wastes'?

Are you talking about Tianenman Square?

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how did they figure out the death toll in wars like WW2? essentially, how did they count how many died?

Wow this is perfect!! Thank you so much!

One of the big changes the 19th century brought in the wake of the French Revolution, was that we began to register everything. The concept of a census and people registers is an old one, but in modern history it became a standard operating measures of modern states. Everything is registered in modern states, when (and where) you are born, when (and where) you die, when (and who) you marry & everything in between and so much more.

So basically, you'd have an administrative footprint that allows you to compare.

Did the Māori make return voyages to the Pacific Islands after colonising Aotearoa?

why was korea divided against itself, even before the korean war?

how did the decimal system permeate human society and basically become the methodology used by every major culture in the world?

How did Belgian soldiers get to the Western Front?

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Prior to the introduction of potatoes into Europe, what were the dietary staples of the majority of the Irish population?

Did multiple populations come to bow and arrow technology independently? For example in North America and Europe.

Most of the Belgian army (around 137,000 men) retreated and then held their part of the Western front, the Yserfront until 1918.

Several thousand men fled occupied Belgium via the Netherlands to Great Britain where they registered with the Belgian recruitment agencies. From the spring of 1915, the Germans closed this escape route with a heavily guarded border barrier along the Belgian-Dutch border, based on an deadly 200V electric fence, called "De Dodendraad" (The Wire of Death) by the Belgians. Smugglers then specialized in transferring war volunteers, but their numbers still declined. Among the 33,500 Belgian internees in the Netherlands, fewer and fewer soldiers fled to rejoin the field army behind the Yser. In October 1916, the Belgian government finally forbade the internees to flee.

Because the Belgian front sector was protected by large inundations which made German attacks difficult it was a relatively quiet sector of the trenches with no large operations comparable to the great battles at Ypres, the Somme or Verdun. The Belgians did refrain from larger actions because they knew they could not replace their losses.

The Soviet Union launched a number of bombing raids against Berlin in 1941 and 1942, by naval planes operating from Saarema island and by long range air force units. The last attack in 1942 involved 200 planes. The damage inflicted by the attacks was very moderate however and the Soviet planners decided their heavy bomber assets would be better employed against military targets closer to the front.

More on the Soviet bombing raids against Berlin

Shortly before the end of the war Berlin was again bombed by 111 Soviet planes.

Who discovered queen bees?

And that is excluding spending 6 paragraphs talking about factionalism between different Zionist groups.

>There's lots of stories and media about the Night Witches.

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment/46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was one of many tactical light bombing units of the Soviet Union, these units were intended for short range tactical and harassing attacks and thus would not bomb German cities, until the end of the war when the front was in Germany.

Bread, same as it was in the rest of Europe and also the Middle East and North Africa.

The advantage of potatoes is that they are less vulnerable to heat and cold than grains, don't spoil as easily, take less land to cultivate, can grow larger without killing the rest of the plant, and don't have to be milled before they can be eaten.

They didn't.

Rather, the bow and arrow are thought to have been invented by prehistoric humans in Africa around 72,000 years ago. This was around the same period that significant numbers of humans began migrating out of Africa.

A good answer might be Johannes Swammerdam.

Where did the literary/folklore trend of spiritual empowerment being associated with disability originate?

Does anyone know the average size of paper that was historically used for journals?

As in, what size paper did men use for their journals. Such as sailors, explorers, etc.

Easily actually.

You just take how many men you SHOULD have, and see how many are missing.

You ALWAYS have a running count on these numbers, because that's your manpower.

Think of it like this:

If I have a squad of 12 men, and two of those men get killed, I have to report that, THAT DAY. At the end of every day, I am passing back status updates on how many men, weapons, ammo, supplies etc etc I have, and what I've spent.

If I am a commander, and I send a force of 1,000 to go land on a beach, at the end of the day, I am going to get a report back on what my status and remaining unit strength is.

If I had 300 men killed, 150 injured, and 50 missing, that all has to get counted up by their units, reported up the chain, and tracked by their units, and the units above them, all the way up to me.
Because I need to know that of 1,000 men I sent to that beach, right NOW I only have 500 combat able men left.

This is how I stay aware of questions like:

• the Task Force still functional? Do they still have enough strength to keep working?

• Do they have enough men left to defend the beach they just took?

• If not, what do I do about it? Do I replace the whole unit with another healthy one? Or do I just send some spare men to replace their losses? Where can I get those spare men from? What numbers does everyone else have? Do I just accept that we CAN'T hold that beach, because we don't have the numbers to do it?

Meanwhile, the analysts, and war planners are getting those same numbers too, to answer questions like

-Based on our losses at Tarawa, Peleliu, Guadalcanal, etc "approximately how many men does it cost to take an island?"

-Do we have enough men to take all the islands we need to? Is that plan possible? Is that plan acceptable? Even if we CAN sacrifice enough lives to take every island by force, are we WILLING to? Or do we need to look for an alternative plan? (see: Not invading the Japanese mainland by foot)

-What tactic/strategy changes resulted in more/less casualties? What's working, what's not working?

TL;DR:

WWII, WWI, and every war before it, as far back as civilization goes, armies have always kept running counts of deaths, because

Before a battle - "How many men do we have?"

After a battle - "How many men do we have left?"

are critical tactical/operational/strategic pieces of information. Every unit commander at every level would be tracking and reporting to the people above them.

*Note, the historical accuracy of OUR modern day estimates of those numbers will be affected by the quality and accuracy of the record keeping, and how long ago the records were taken.

*Second note, for a nice theatrical depiction of what we mean here, fast forward this video to 40:45

>Because the Belgian front sector was protected by large inundations which made German attacks difficult

For King and for country we

Are flooding the river

I have a painting I can’t identify, perhaps someone here can assist? The claim is it’s from Rome and a depiction of Christ as detailed in a Quora post. Sadly I can’t find a better version of the image anywhere.Link

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A reverse image search on TinEye shows that it's indeed a fresco from the Nunziatella catacombs in Rome.

However, Wikimedia Commons shows two images from the Nunziatella catacombs and seems to label both of them as frescos of Jesus.

The Quora user's errs, though, in putting a date of c. 3rd century on the frescoes (no one seems that certain and the range could be anywhere from the 3rd to 6th century) and saying that's it definitely the "original depiction of Jesus". There are other depictions of Jesus definitely from the 3rd century such as a slab showing the adoration of the Magi and a fresco from the Catacomb of Callixtus. One of the oldest known depictions of Jesus is actually a painting from a church in Syria that is dated to around 232 CE.

Paper size was very variable, so there's no firm answer. However for a written-only journal it would probably be an octavo or smaller binding simply for compactness' sake and ease of use without a writing surface. The sizes would have varied, but an octavo was approximately the height and width of a mass market paperback (thickness, of course, varied). For anyone not carrying all their own gear (sailors, aristocrats with porters, etc), they would have wanted bigger pages, especially for maps and sketches, so it would have been about the size of a modern sheet of printer/typewriter paper.

One good example are the various notebooks carried by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-1806. They carried a number of 4in x 6in notebooks (approx 10cm x 15cm) with many loose pages. accompanying.

How did the Germans recover from the capture of part of the Hindenburg Line after the Nivelle Offensive (1917)? Was that a major issue for them?

I wonder why I couldn’t find it anywhere else. Maybe it’s because I was using google to do the search? Anyway, that’s neat stuff, thanks for the assistance! I got curious after a discussion elsewhere and decided to go looking for some more info that led me to the Syrian depiction and later the aforementioned linked image. It looked like a canvas painting to me almost, since it has what appears to be a name at the bottom.

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Because those lines had fall back lines. So, in a sense, it limited gains made. They were however overall on the defensive during this period.

Ever since Joseon began to break up under the tension of foreign pressure, and ultimately, was absorbed into the Japanese empire, the Koreans had been divided over how to reshape a future Korea. The advent of marxist revolutionary ideologies certainly was not helping to reconcile different ideals.

Pretty sure Leonardo da Vinci was behind it becoming well known and widely used

>what happened in 1989 in that one place in china I forgot then name pls correct me

If I tell you, I am going to lose a lot of Social Credit

Tianmen Square btw

In the war of the spanish succesion, France , Britain, and the United Provinces held a lot of peace talks before the end of the war.. Why did these peace talks not go through?

Who was the last European king to lead his army into battle?

Which state that claimed to be the succesor of Rome had the most illegitemate claim?

It would probably be Albert I of Belgium in World War 1, though you might have to define "lead," since that can mean either directly acting as general, fighting alongside the troops as moral support, or just being in the same room as some generals when a decision is made.

I won’t argue with MeatballDom, but do consider carefully the effect of the end of the Ottoman empire on those who had been top dogs (ie: the Arabs of the area the Ottomans called ‘Palestine’)

In the 1920s the formerly colonised occupants (Bedouin, Maronites,Druze, Jews, Kurds etc) were happy the tables had turned. In a world where colonialism is being reevaluated, today’s “Palestinians” can be viewed as the last remnants of the Ottoman imperialists.

As such, the Arab side of the conflict can be seen as a reactionary attempt to restore things to the ‘good old days’. The Israeli side of the conflict is really complex now, as it is not just a Jewish survival thing. It is a multitude of ethnic and political groupings and is too complex/controversial to comment on here.

Any of them. They're all former pieces of the Roman empire. There isn't any rulebook declaring what is and isn't authentically Roman.

Because they couldn't agree on the terms.

Pivotal was the regime change at the British courts, which saw the Whigs ousted by the Tories & the death of the Austrian Archduke, which suddenly saw the prospect arise of seeing the two Habsburg branches reunited - to which the British and Dutch were "nope".

Tsar Nicholas II would definitely fit that last line

Is there a good textbook/ textbook style book on History from the 21st century, or 1990s-present? I can't find good results on google

Looking for recommendations on history books by way of Game of Thrones. Been really enjoying rereading Thrones, and obviously it's based on medieval history, War of the Roses, etc. As someone who doesn't really have an 'in' on the real world side of things, any good books about real history that might scratch a similar itch?

Thanks!

War of the Roses by Dan Jones is a good narrative history of the conflict.

Outside of the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire which is literally just the part of Rome that did not fell, any of them as other commenter said.

But I would add also the Catholic Church. It was the only institution of the Empire that survived in the West. (I'm not familiar with Eastern Orthodoxy but I'm sure you can argue the same thing for at least the Patriarch of Constantinople).

How did the old societies deal with/avoid unwanted pregnancies? More specifically prostitutes

Someone's going to inevitably mention silphium and it going extinct because of people using it as contraceptive, which is a misunderstood concept, but it does have some basis in reality in that a lot of herbs and such were used in a variety of way to help with contraceptive. Some of these things were taken orally, with the belief that it might help (silphium was mainly used as an herb for food, so if it did have these properties there would be a lot of missing babies throughout the Mediterranean). Others would be made into a paste and put inside the woman to essentially collect the sperm within that paste, or it could be dried and placed inside to have the same effect but a bit less messy -- well at least I'd imagine so.

You also had methods we wouldn't recommend in the modern day, when far safer options exist, but in antiquity are not bad, like the pull-out method. Using this method greatly reduces the risk (though still not completely, and you're stuck with hoping the person does this properly).

The Accursed Kings of Maurice Druon is a really good read.

Also, from the article:

"American author George R. R. Martin called The Accursed Kings "the original game of thrones", citing Druon's novels as an inspiration for his own series A Song of Ice and Fire."

Ancient Romans would discard unwanted children after birth (if they had deformities) on refuse piles.

Vlad the impaler was said to have favored a kilij, which makes sense for his time spent in the ottoman court, but there are also other reports of him inheriting a toledo blade from his father. Would it have been a Toledo kilij? Or would it have been vastly different? Wondering how it would have looked :)

It is also worth mentioning that much of China's more modern and trade industries were based in Shanghai. It was a very,very important economic hub for Chiang's nationalists. One that he threw his best troops at in order to try to preserve.

But also it was a fight within sight of the world. Shanghai was a modern city by Chinese terms and it was one with an International Settlement that could actually show themselves off to the world.

Unlikely.

First, Manchuria IS China. Before the Japanese invaded it was run by a Chinese warlord who went on to literally kidnap Chiang-Kai Shek in order to get him to agree to end his encirclement campaigns of the communists and instead focus on the Japanese. Chiang himself probably also thought war was inevitable with Japan. So in that sense the Chinese were never going to allow the continued occupation of their land forever.

A lack of war would likely allow Chiang's nationalists to consolidate itself by finishing its encirclement campaigns on the Communists. The rest of the warlords would follow in due time I'd imagine. While its unlikely China would launch some sort of offensive war in the WW2 timescale, it is unlikely they would wait forever when much of their ideology and history in those recent decades was based on undoing the "century of humiliation" - which would mean the foreign concessions would gave to go, including Japan.

But beyond that, if WW2 still goes the same way - Japan is still loosing. The might of the UK, then combined with the US and then the USSR would still be more than enough to put Japan down even if it weren't tied up in Chinese affairs. The end result would probably end with much, if not all, of Manchuria being returned to China as we saw in real life. And the only reason some of it might not be is because we can't ever be too sure what the allied powers would've taken had they been given a freer hand in Manchuria at the end if the war. Either way the clock was ticking for Japan.

Thank you for your lenghty response!

Please someone tell me how the pilgrim/puritan women dealt with hot summers. Were they allowed to change clothes? Take off their top layer? How did they cope? There’s like nothing I can find to answer this specific question at first glance

Why don’t Semitic people eat pork?

I know Jews don’t eat pork because of religion, but I’m guessing that the basis of the religion could be from culture (because Muslims also follow the no-pork). Did they get sick commonly at the time? I read that getting parasites like Trichinellosis was a thing back then but so could have happened with chickens and salmonella, they could have also prohibited chicken.

I don't have an exact answer for you, although I can say that the north Atlantic region experienced what is called the "little ice age" during that time, so it would have been a bit cooler than it is now. What gets me is when I see pictures of female slaves wearing dresses while picking cotton in the deep south. That must have been unbearable.

I don't know. The earliest example I can think of would be Homer. There are many motifs that I see throughout world history in terms of literature and mythology that are common among different cultures, e.g. a hero who narrowly escapes death as an infant. If the trend to which you are referring is common among different cultures, then there might not be any known origin.

From what I understand, Ireland had representation in the British parliament before becoming independent. Would I be correct in guessing that those MPs were wealthy protestants? Were there any Catholic MPs? Did Ireland have any seats in the House of Lords?

Now that I think about it, the answer might be simpler than I thought. Many primitive societies did not have written languages, so there would be a few people who spent their time memorizing long stories and other things word for word. If someone were disabled and couldn't hunt or farm, then it was only natural that they would fill that role. To the extent that that person was perceived as more knowledgable than others, people would take their advice on spiritual matters as well.

Oh, I see! Very interesting. This is an excellent answer, thank you!

Right?? Like did they find the clothing itchy?? Uncomfortable? Or were they fine with it?

In a way, it's kind of like a reverse theocracy. Instead of the church telling the state what to do, the state is telling the church what to do.

Now that I think about it, I would say that unless you are a navy seal or something like that, all of us are wimps compared to people back then. Their tolerance for pain and discomfort was far higher than ours.

Women in some Muslim countries walk around completely covered in the scorching heat.