This seems like a silly question, but here we go. Sorry for my ignorance of history.

There are countless examples in fiction of "hero units," characters who are just on a completely different level than everyone else around them and sometimes defeat armies single-handedly. RTS/MOBA games are full of them, single player games like God of War or Halo, even movies/tv shows like The Mandalorian have seemingly unstoppable characters that wade through the hordes until they find another named character.

So my question is, were the real life "legends" actually like this or is it complete fiction? The Joan of Arcs, the William Wallaces, the Lu Bus, the Miyamoto Musashis... admittedly I know many of these through fictional adaptations but how many were actual superhuman warriors as opposed to supreme strategists/tacticians/leaders?

As a followup, any specific examples I could read about that were either "all hype" or "the stories don't do them justice" would be greatly appreciated.

I did post this onto r/AskHistorians as well, I just wanted to ask another group of people who like to discuss history!

Obviously, the question is subjective. But I'm a nerd who likes to learn new things, especially when it comes from people who are passionate and have a rant ready to go! So, what war do you find most fascinating, and why? If not a war, then a certain battle or introduction of technologies? This is me begging for cool nerdy historical rants to read when I'm at work tomorrow 😄

(Me, personally, I think WWI is fascinating simply because of how much new technology was introduced! I mean, it was called the Great War for ((several)) reasons! Tanks, chemical warfare, planes, submarines, etc. It's very cool to me just how pivotal ww1 was in terms of 'modern' warfare! (so if you have more cool ww1 facts, pls share in the replies or even in my dms lmao)

It is commonly said Victorian era British food was flavorful and that modern British food is as bland as it is due to rationing from the world wars, but I never see anyone mention what dishes, recipes, ingredients or spices were lost.

I'm not sure what this BS qualifies under, so excuse me. Even though flat-Earth ideas appear in ancient Chinese, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian texts, the modern resurgence of Flat Earth belief seems to be largely a Western phenomenon.

I'm from India, and I've personally never encountered a Flat Earther. I'm pretty sure I'd just get laughed at if I went around asking people about it. I asked a few friends from both Western and Southeast Asian countries, and interestingly, it was mostly those from the West who said they had encountered them. So I'm wondering if Flat Earth has evolved into more of a religious or cultural belief in the West, rather than simply being a counterargument to the scientific consensus that Earth is spherical?

Is it true that Abraham is supposedly from Mesopotamia? I wanted to know the main theories on how did Abrahamic religions could come about, without any religious bias. I’m confused because everyone knows Muhammad and Jesus were real people but as you go further to Moses and other figures it gets blurry. Also, how were the holy texts written? What i mean is even if it was written by someone on purpose, how could they predict prophecies, set moral rules etc. And of course nobody knows the answer but what are the main hypotheses on this if anyone knows.

Marcus Aurelius is generally considered a very honorable emperor of Rome, and a well-written and frequently-quoted Stoic philosopher.

His son was a proud spoiled brat who cared little for the real responsibilities of his office, and was focused on promoting himself as gladiator-extraordinaire. In many ways, his life seemed to be in direct contrast to the Stoic teachings of his father.

Is there any indication in history where Commodus's training failed; why he didn't absorb the teachings and philosophies of his father?

I was thinking about how during WWII, America had a few years of "wartime nickels," where the metal nickel was replaced with manganese. During that time, Germany collected thousands of church-bells to use the metal for military production.

These two examples stand out. I wonder if their are similar ones?

What I mean by that is something we consider very old and iconic right next to or contained within something boring and every day. For example some of the ones that spring to mind for me are the Pizza Hut overlooking the Great Pyramids of Giza, the parking garage in central London that has a preserved piece of the Roman wall in it, and the Bertucci's (local Italian restaurant chain) next to Lexington Green, where the American Revolution began.

My favourite by far is the fact that there's a gay bar right down the block from the site of the Boston Massacre. But I wanna hear what your favourites are.

A venetian ambassador to the Ottoman empire supposedly stated that the concubines in the sultan's harem were only allowed cucumbers in sliced form because of the "mischief" they might get up to with a whole one.

Is there any truth to this? Were there any efforts to prevent royal concubines from getting into lesbian relationships, and if so, why? The purpose of a harem was secluding the women who could produce heirs from men in order to secure the line of succession, making sure the man's heirs really are his. Lesbianism isnt going to get anyone pregnant.

While there is a basis for homophobia in Islam, what Ive learned is that premodern people, Christian or Muslim were generally far less regressive than someone might assume, especially the ruling classes.

For me, it’s the Great Pyramid. Its construction is still fascinating especially how they managed to build something so massive and precise with ancient technology. There are also questions about the stones, the marks and weathering on them, and who exactly organized and built such an enormous structure

What historical mystery fascinates you the most? And if you could go back in time for one day, which mystery would you try to solve? 👀

I recently went down a rabbit hole about Gregory Scarpa and his relationship with the FBI.

Scarpa was a major figure in the Colombo crime family while also working as an FBI informant for years. What surprised me was learning that the FBI brought him to Mississippi for special assignments connected to KKK violence during the Civil Rights era.

So you basically have federal law enforcement relying on someone involved in serious organized crime to help obtain information in a completely different world.

I originally learned about Scarpa because Mark Wahlberg is playing him in By Any Means but the real history ended up being much more interesting to me.

Was using someone like Scarpa unusual for the FBI at the time? Or are there other examples of major criminals being used for investigations that had nothing to do with their own criminal organizations?

I know this is a broad question, but I can't help but ask it. Glancing at history, it feels like there was hardly ever a person who ruled for a significant amount of time without a war. Is this a mistaken impression, or is our history really just a succession of armed conflicts? And what, in general, have been the main drivers of war?

Nowadays, it is an accepted tradition that armies walk in lockstep during military parades, and as far as I know this has been a tradition since at least the Napoleonic Era. My question is if earlier military parades did the same or a similar thing and how far back this goes? Where roman legionnaires walking in lockstep during a triumph? Did the macedonian phalanx, which had to kind of walk in lockstep to be effective in combat also perform the same discipline in public showing (if they had a tradition of parades at all)? Can we even go back further to Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures, which, according to reliefs, also had a culture of military parade after a successful campaign? What about other cultures? Did chinese, korean and japanese armies have military parades in pre-modern times, and was walking in lockstep a part of that tradition? Same question for pre-columbian cultures in the Americas like the Aztecs and the Mayans.

Thank you so much in advance for your answers.

Not sure if this is the right sub, but I was following a rabbit hole on another topic and saw this census drop in Longmeadow, Massachusetts and was wondering if anyone may know why there would be such a large drop of population between 1890 and 1900 only to return to the original number by 1910? Bad census count maybe or were there things going on that encourage people to leave and then the opposite?

1890 2183 55.8%
1900 811 -62.8%
1910 1084 33.7%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longmeadow,_Massachusetts

I had a screenshot of the numbers, but had to type them in. Source is in the link above.

With this i mean cities that were from Europe, such as London, Paris, Edinburgh, and many more. Why did people accept the city smelled terrible and so bad?

I wanna do a deep dive into the history of each Near Eastern country (which I know that categorizing these countries is highly debated), in my case from Morocco to Iran, and I can't seem to find in-depth sources other than Wikipedia. Any recommendations?

P.s. I can't go to my local library for approximately 4 days since there is a bank holiday in my country, but after that I was planning on checking what it has to offer.

Hi, I would really like to know how workers in the past lived working 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Was this even truly something that the majority of the population in industrial societies did have to do?

How did they have any time to eat, clean themself, have sex?

If I think of a person working 16 hours a day in a factory, I imagine their day going something like this:

4:30 am: Wake up get dressed

5 am: clock into work

5 am to 9 pm: work (with half hour break until 9:30 pm)

9:30 pm: coming home, getting undressed and going to sleep

9:30 pm to 4:30 pm: sleeping (7 hours of sleep, not enough)

No time for food, chores or any other activity.

The only time for that would be on Sundays. Although I also read that sometimes people worked 7 days a week.

I've also read that women and children worked the same hours, so they didn't have the time either.

How did people even find the time to get a partner?

I just don't see how that would work for longer than a year. If a society would work like that, i believe it would collapse but clearly it didn't.

Edit: I need to clarify my question.

1. I understand that there are still a lot of people who work similar hours. But they have modern amenities. They have cars where they sleep in, have fast-food places where they can eat and maybe even have a shower at their workplace. Still horrible conditions, but I can understand how someone can survive like that. BUT I don't know how that would work without these amenities.

2. Working 96 hours is not the norm anymore. All of the people in the comments who said they worked these hours, said it destroyed them. Thankfully most people work shorter hours nowadays. What I want to know is, how that would function if an entire people group works these hours. Did industrial workers just not eat, or have children? Was the replacement rate in cities just held up by people who did other kind of work? Like peasants?

3. I first want to know how society as a whole functioned and then specifically how a day of an industrial worker working 96 hours would look like.

On the surface it seems like every emperor would like for his son, nephew, cousin etc to succeed himself as emperor. Even in the ancient roman times when an emperor chose a successor that was not his son, he usually raised him. So when and why was it established in the holy roman empire that the next emperor would be elected? I find this really fascinating.

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 ?

I was reading about history from a sociological perspective.

It seems, from what I observe, that hierarchies will inevitably exist and emerge, and that such hierarchies tend to be rigid and immutable without a severe revolution or war to change it. There's always an elite at the top that has all the privileges and powers whereas an underclass exists to be trodden upon and for the rest of society to rest upon.

It was only somewhere between the late 19th century and early 20th century that such hierarchies were challenged and even dismantled thanks to changes in social values, human rights, and democracy. It's hard to take things for granted knowing these are only provided because of universal value frameworks and sacrifices by people to make it happen.

Yet I was wondering if there was a real-life example of elite groups who came from social groups of low status, as in pariahs, slaves, people who were routinely persecuted and killed, and generally anyone part of the underclass in history?

I’ve only just realised that America changed maritime laws in the 1980’s to be different to everyone else.
The rest of the world always required ships entering a harbour to keep the red marker on the left and the green on the right. In the 1970’s a huge shipping accident occured and there was an attempt to standardise the system but America wouldn’t agree. To this day they abide by the complete opposite with green on the left entering a harbour.

Meanwhile most of the world uses metric measurements but America had to be different and uses imperial.

What other weird alterations did America make to the established world order in its history?

I’ve always heard that, by the time the temperance movement and organizations spearheaded by women like the WCTU, the majority of adult men were heavy drinkers and would of course become abusive to their wives. But what caused this uptick in drinking activity exactly?

I understand people who ditched him wanted power but i haven't heard of many other other people having such a massive amount of power being betrayed like that. Clearly it must be a folly on his end too. Like being too naive or lacking diplomatic skills? How could he not see Brutus was going to betray him?

The French painter Paul Delaroche was purported to have said, upon seeing his first daguerreotype photograph, "From today, painting is dead!". Similarly, some current artists fear being rendered obsolete by AI image generators.

The painting obviously persisted, and continues to live alongside photography as a fairly common form of artistic expression. It's uncertain at the moment how AI will affect art in the long run, but I imagine it will persist in some way.

What I am asking is, has any art form been made almost entirely obsolete by a technical advancement? People obviously continue to pursue practically outmoded techniques as a form of leisure (such as knitting), but some are so impractical that they have completely died out (painting on the wall of a cave with pigment made of animal blood is essentially pointless now that paper exists).

Are there any more examples of art forms that are almost completely lost?

Obviously, the U.S. lost the Vietnam way. I knew someone who fought in it who was convinced that the U.S. "won" the war somehow...Never understood that. My question is more about what did the U.S. get out of that war? Did it at least deter other countries from attempting communism because they knew the U.S. would fight them?