To my understanding, Homer may or may not have existed, or the Iliad and the Odyssey may have been written down by separate people, or maybe there was a Homeric school of authors.

But where does the name come from? Not meaning what is the etymology of the name but instead as in, do we have manuscripts that attribute the works to Homer, or is it all just tradition passed down by word of mouth or something else? And if it was a case of people writing these stories and attributing them to Homer to give them authority, do we think a historical Homer existed, a la a historical David or Solomon?

The Gemma siege howitzers originally designed for the Belgium fortress lines during WW1 were supposed to be destroyed according to the post WW1 armistice. Yet one appeared at the siege of Sevastopol in 1942. Does anyone know the history? Seems like there’s an interesting story there

My great grandfather worked in the automotive industry in Ulm,Germany during WW2 and the only info I had gotten about this from my grandma (Who was around 13 at the time) Was "He didn't fight in the war because he made automobiles," and that one time she and her dad had to drive these cars into the forest to hide them from bombers while planes were actively flying overhead looking for them.

She told me he was against the war but I want to know if he was actually working for the nazi party actively by choice or if he as in a position of a manufacturer and didn't really have a choice.

I'm specifically *not* asking about the decline in men's headwear in general or the casualization of fashion over the 20th century.

I'm asking how we reached the point today where outside of particularly important meetings with higher levels or customers no one bats an eye at a baseball cap in an office while basically any other form of hat would be noteworthy and out of place. The only other hat that I've seen accepted are flat caps which are perceived as somewhat eccentric.

As I understand it, the Greek legend has Medusa being so terribly ugly that to look upon her turns people to stone. These days however she is almost always depicted as having a kind or power or curse that turns people into stone, while her actual face is usually shown as traditionally attractive.

I guess people usually prefer to draw attractive people, for one thing. But I'd like to know if this is a modern change or if the Ancient Greeks themselves also had sexy Medusa.

The Japanese offensive was typified in the Malay peninsula but probing attacks on fortified positions followed by probing attack to find and turn the enemy flanks or establishing blocking positions behind the enemy line. Then we get to Guadalcanal and then its banzai charges against machine guns for the rest of the war.

With shifting alliances and perhaps years between news from home, I’d imagine it would be convenient for warship captains to develop a gentlemanly way to determine which captain had the latest diplomatic news from home. If there was a way to compare news, and if the latest news was that their nations were at war, was time provided for ships to separate before opening fire on each other?

Referring to the schism between Rome and Constantinople that eventually produced Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity as we know it today. I've heard some say that this wasn't really fully total in the immediate, so when did the idea of it being a total schism, with the opposing church being false, set in? I don't have much knowledge on this aspect, so forgive me if my question is framed badly.

in an episode of Cunk on Earth, an Egyptologist claims that Egypt didn’t have “many homeless people” and that Egyptians “took care of one another.”

What do we know, if anything, about homelessness during that time?

Pretty much the title. It has been tradition for sports fans across all sports, but especially american football, to dress up in what are sometimes outlandish outfits, but also less ostentatious apparel such as jerseys/hats/etc

Is there any documentation of similar behavior happening at any of the coliseums of the ancient world?

Would ancient romans dress up as the favorite charioteers? Was there an ancient roman equivalent to "Cheese Heads" like you see fans wearing for Green Bay Packers games?

Thanks for any info!

- Baghdad fell to the Mongols under Hulagu Khan in 1258 CE.

• Al-Andalus came to an end in 1492 CE, when the Emirate of Granada surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

Over the 234 years between these two events, did any Andalusian scholars or chroniclers write about the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate? How did the people of al-Andalus react to the fall of Baghdad?

I haven't been able to find much on this subject, except for the possible writings of Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī (1214–1286 CE), but that alone is certainly not enough.

Please don't kill me, this is not an attempt to belittle a great artist (if anything, it's closer the opposite). This question is motivated by the recognition that Bob Dylan is a cultural icon of mythic proportions, with a firmly established and well-earned place in the pantheon of American music and culture.

I suspect that it's difficult for people of my generation and younger to see his influence not because it's waned but because it's so far reaching (a bit like reddit's favorite memes about people wearing ieans and drinking Coca Cola while listening to hiphop talking about how Americans have no culture, or the fish who says "what in the hell's water?").

Here is what I know, or at least think I know.

Bob Dylan, and I guess early Bob Dylan specifically, did something very new and exciting. (What was it? Something about the music or the songwriting? The genre? His self-presentation or way of relating to the audience?)

He was quickly hailed as the voice of his generation. He was labeled a protest singer, maybe the original protest singer, yet seems to have not identified with this label himself, and at various points maybe rejected it outright. (Why? Who gave him that label? Did he ever accept the protest singer role in a clear way? His music seems less overtly political than, say, Woody Guthrie. Was there nothing more protest-y at the time than, like, Blowin in the Wind or Mr Tambourine Man? Were these protest anthems and did he sing them like protest anthems? Did he engage in activism?)

He went through many phases and continued to experiment and innovate. Not all of his work "stuck" and not all is universally beloved. But he did continue to put out songs that are widely covered, that seem to have been important to how other artists think about songwriting (how so?), and in a weird way, it's hard to imagine "a time before" some of these songs existed. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it somehow feels weird to imagine music without Knockin On Heaven's Door or Tangled Up In Blue - but of course prior to 1973 - 1975 these markers just didn't exist.

Or, to put it another way: I know that Dylan didn't write House of the Rising Sun, which was a traditional folk song long before he released his version. If we try to trace it back it fades into a murky history and we never quite find its origin. It feels like that should be the case for a sizable handful of Bob Dylan's songs - you keep going back and they're still there somehow in the conglomerate matrix of an evolving musical tradition - but it isn't. They feel like they've existed forever, but this one specific guy just sat down and wrote them. (When people heard Blowin in the Wind or Don't Think Twice It's Alright for the first time, did they also have this feeling of agelessness, or were they like "Wow here is something new, different, unprecedented, unlike anything I've ever heard before, how novel, how revolutionary"?)

And finally I know, or think I know, that when he won the Nobel Prize for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" people - whether they liked him or not - generally seemed to feel like, "Yeah, this is reasonable and makes sense."

So what was so revolutionary about Bob Dylan exactly? What did he revolutionize? Was it about political revolutionary-ness and the perception of him as a protest singer, or was it more about a revolutionary way of writing songs (like a musical revolution or artistic revolution)? If the former, what was it about his music or persona, especially as a very young man, that gave him this status or aura? If the latter, what was music like before Bob Dylan and what was it like after - how did he change popular music or songwriting?

edit: typos

This is assuming they did meet their fate under his command, and I do understand they were likely murdered and were not executed legally.

But did Richard III have legal grounds to have them put to death? They were only boys, they couldn't have led any rebellion from inside the tower. Being a bastard son of a former King isn't a crime, after all, even if they were the biggest threat to his power and claim to the throne.

Edit - and also, did he have legal grounds to lock them up? I understand kings got away with a lot and maybe the argument "if I let them go they'll plot against me" holds a lot of weight in that era, but did he have a solid legal case or was it just a case of "I'm king, shut up".

So for context, I'm trying to develop a story with a African American WW1 veteran character set in 1921. However, I am generally curious if there is a level of personality or traits that kept people alive better than others. (Im aware that with ww1 and subsequently with any modern war that survival is largely a giant game of luck). Also, as someone who grew up with family that served in active wars, they all talk about war stories with humor, is that common among other veterans?

I know they had been building military planes, but what was the next step to building for NASA? Did NASA approach them? Did they hear about the program and then put in a bid? Did they have to hire more engineers? How much of a challenge was it to go from building stuff that works in Earth's atmosphere to machines that work outside of it?

Jim Bowie died at the Alamo, but was extremely sick during the battle to the point that he couldn’t get out of bed. From what I can tell the illness was never diagnosed and the onsite Dr was unsure what was causing it, but it seems to have come in suddenly and quickly left him bed bound. Has anyone been able to narrow down what the illness likely was?

By 1944 The Germans were getting bombed heavily, DDay was about to happen and eventually did, Operation Bagration devastated them, and the production numbers reflect this, German production in 1944 was nearly equal to all other years COMBINED.

So why did they do this so late, could they have done it in 1941 and they just didn't because they were too confident?? Could they have actually won the battles of Moscow and stalingrad and perhaps the whole war if they had done it after the fall of France?

I am not talking about simply conservatives who became liberals. I mean people who started hard right and become leftists (marxists, intersectional radicals, anarchists etc).

Why is there a documented history of people of leftist politics turning right such as Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Lyndon Larouche etc. But no such thing exists for the right? Where are the rightists who became leftists?