I speak both Spanish and English natively, and I have noticed over the years how much simpler (or I guess "streamlined" is a better term?) English is, grammatically speaking, than Spanish. There is only one second-person pronoun, contraction is common, and there is effectively no (or very little) use of the subjunctive mood. Most other European languages (including Germanic, Romantic, and others) have these grammatical features and others that English has shed.

Is this simply a characteristic of Anglophone culture? Or has this shift been tied to specific historical moments? And why have other languages resisted similar shifts?

In the Viceroyalty of Spain you breakway provinces like Venezuela, Rio de la plata, but in Brazil case it seemed to stay intact for hundreds of years. Why?

I understand Rome debased its coinage over time, but I'm curious who actually decided how much money was minted and how that reached distant provinces. Was there any deliberate monetary policy, or was it mostly driven by the emperor's spending needs?

I was wondering how the average archer in a battle would know which arrows are theirs after a battle. Would they just pick random, unbroken ones?

It seems humans everywhere are obsessed with growing grass almost anywhere we can. I know the plant has many uses, but does that really explain why it is so ubiquitous?

Differently for other commuinst states in Europe, we had two German states. Thus Germansliving in the East Germany could compare their living conditions, their freedoms (or rather lack of them) with the West Germany. East Germany existed only for just more than forty years, but, during this time, did Germans living in the east created any form of East German patriotism or pride of their country? Or maybe they saw it as a new form of Soviet occupation and wanted to unite with the rest of Germens in the west?

Would glasses have been considered not majestic enough for the King?

Did Groves ever go in-depth into why he chose Oppenheimer? Was his scientific brilliance really enough to get him the job?

Hello all!

I've recently visited the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, and was struck by how much shelter the area provided as well as the condition that the structures were in. Of course, my observations come after extensive stabilization work by hundreds of archaeologists over the years, but even when the structures were first being photographed in the early 19th century they seemed to be in remarkable condition.

I understand that there was a severe drought towards the tail end of the 13th century which led to the initial displacement, but after the conclusion of the drought why didn't other peoples move in? The soil was still of very high quality thanks to the wind deposition of the Mesa that attracted people to the area to begin with, and the alcoves were still very much present.

Any insights are greatly appreciated, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

The Celtic peoples of Gaul had self-reproducing warrior elites, systems of taxation, social classes, a class responsible for preserving law and conducting trials, orally transmitted legal codes, higher-level coordinating institutions that operated across tribes, an advanced material culture confirmed by archaeology, extensive participation in long-distance trade, systems of military mobilization in times of crisis, complex diplomacy with one another, large fortified settlements known as oppida, and their own coinage.

When all of these elements are taken together, I find it very strange to describe each Celtic polity simply as a tribe. Why are these polities treated as tribes or chiefdoms rather than states? And why does the standard used to classify them seem stricter than the standard applied to "states" in other parts of the world?

I know there's no single cause of the 1967 war between Israel and its neighbors. The entire Levant was a powder keg by that time. But was a mistaken intelligence report the spark?

The Conflicted Podcast episode on the Six Day War mentions this: In early 1967 Soviet intelligence sent an alert to Egyptian intelligence that Israel was staging a large force near its northern border with Syria. The Soviets warned that Israel was on the verge of a surprise attack on Syria, and that Egyptian forces should prepare for an attack on them as well.

(According to the podcast) Israel was not staging forces nor intending to launch a surprise attack. The Soviet intelligence was false. The IDF made attack plans and practiced extensively, but there was no preparation for attack. Soviet analysts we're mistaken.

(Again, according to the podcast), the intel report caused Nasaar to put the Egyptian army on high alert. Worse, it prompted him to announce the closure of the Strait of Tiran, which Israel had already stated was a "red line." Using the closure as a cassis belli, Israel prepared for a war.

How accurate is this? How did Soviet analysts conclude that Israel was preparing an attack? Was the report Nassers main reason for closing the strait? And did Israel vote the closure as the primary justification for the war?

So I'm something of an artist myself, and to me song lyrics seem to be a form of poetry. But when I've witnessed this discussed within poetry communities, the consensus is always that they are distinctly not poetry. The reasoning typically rests on the form - that songs have repeating choruses, or that the lyrics are meant to be performed with music rather than stand alone.

However, the more that I read poetry, the more that I've encountered plenty of poems with repeating choruses. The more that I learn about the history of the art, the more that I've realized much older poetry was originally performed to music (Ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, etc). It seems like a shift happened at some point where much of this poetry stopped being performed to music and began being read as literature instead, prompting the modern divergence between the two art forms - but I haven't actually seen any explanations for when, why, or how this occurred. What's the history behind this?

I am mostly curious on the layout of cities near the Sahel like the Mali and Ghana Empire (Although would also appreciate answers on the forest regions).

I know how y'all love to hate GG&S; this bestseller by a biographer smells *awfully* similar to me and so I am wondering whether it commits similar (especially similarly presentist) errors.

Reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms (which I'm aware is not a substitute for real history), Cao Cao's pursuit of widows or otherwise taken women is portrayed as particularly lascivious and greedy to the point of dire consequences to himself and his family. It seems like several of those events occurred in real history as well. Furthermore, on the Shu side, the idea of marrying a widow or sleeping with someone else's wife seemed to be portrayed in a particularly negative light: re Zhao Zilong refusing to marry his sworn brother's widow, though I imagine that could be more due to the idea of your sworn brother's wife essentially being your own sister. So, my question: aside from the moral judgment placed on marrying widows and stealing wives in the Romance, how was such a thing actually viewed during the era itself? Was it controversial to marry a widow and were widows subject to the idea that they were no longer pure or marriage material, or was it relatively common considering the massive amount of death at the time? Was marrying your enemy's widow or the widow of another man essentially a power grab - eg. you can't have anything I don't have - or was it done purely out of actual non-political desire? I would love an answer to any and all of these questions, as reading the Romance has really got me thinking!

Are these terms synonymous? They tend to get translated into English as "transgender" or (in older sources) "eunuch" but I'm not sure if this is accurate.

Also, ​is the word Hijra related to the Arabic / Urdu term muhajir, or are they unrelated?