>it’s why one of the Nazi symbols is that black cross as this is what the Teutonics wore

That's completely false. While it's true that Iron Cross is a reference to the Teutonic Knights it did not originate with the Nazis, it's a Prussian medal that dates back to the Napoleonic Wars. They used it because Prussia has its origins in the Order.

The Nazis used it because it's a German military symbol, but it is not associated with the Nazis in Germany (although it is in the West), it's still the symbol of the German Armed Forces and they still use it to this day on vehicles (here it is on a tankand here it is on an helicopter).

The short answer is that people did not knew the details and the scale but knew something really bad was happening to the Jews when they were sent East. German soldiers knew more since they were actors of parts of the holocaust, and knew that the death camps were a thing. As for what the average German felt if varied from person to person and is extremely difficult to tell.

For more specific answers this thread links to a lot of excellent answers.

Wikimedia's got you. There are population pyramids for nearly all the countries, and for the major ones you got several from the early 20th century.

Penicillin and vaccine that saved billions of people, the eradication of smallpox (which killed 300 million people on the 20th century alone), the end of high infant mortality rates, mass literacy, the end of massive war in the West, lasting peace in Western Europe for the first time in millennia, in 1900 around 70% of humanity lived in extreme poverty now it’s closer to 20%, …

Yes things may look bad. But we live in the best era of humanity.

>november criminals
>
>Pardon, the who?

I think that's an expression in the 1920s that reffers to the Social Democrats/other left groups who overthrew the Imperial governement and signed the armistice.

Probably the Battle of Cannae, where Hannibal defeated a larger Roman army. He didn't use shield walls but tight formations that trapped the Romans... and he slaughtered them all. It's considered one of the greatest victory in military history.

Would stability be a better term then?

1. exactly. Keep in mind that up until 299 Rome had been at war with Persia. Defending Rome wasn't an abstract idea, the empire was threatened.
2. We live in a society where we consider that humans all have the same fundamental rights and value. This is not the norm in antiquity. Roman society is extremely hierarchical. There are actual legal distinctions between categories of people, and not just between free people and slaves. The rich, powerful and from old Roman families are supposed to be on top of every hierarchy. Then lowborn citizens. Then non citizens. Then slaves. This hierarchy is part of Roman society. In Roman religion the powerful ones hold the priesthoods, they are the superiors of lowborn and foreigners. Christianity has for its main tenets that everyone is equal and also gave a lot of importance to women (which for Romans always have a subordinate role). In Christian communities you could have non citizens/citizens of low birth, or even slaves (to not even talk about women) in position of authority over good roman citizens. This is unthinkable for Romans. This is an actual danger for them because it reject the traditional hierarchy. It is seen as "destroying the essence of Roman society", an attack against their society (to simplify a lot they see it as a conspiracy to destroy what makes Rome Rome).
3. Yes, more or less. The persecution of 303 is maybe when it starts to be a systematic persecution of the religion itself (it is still debated by historians), but even then because it seen as a dangerous cult: it is a cult that endanger Rome's relations to gods... but it's also a religion that goes against Rome social structure.

Christians (when they became important enough to be noticed) did not practice sacrifices, which were essential for the Roman religion (it's not about faith, it's about the correct actions, a simple prayer wouldn't do), so the question is moot. Also if you read Pliny's letter to Trajan (written around 112) some things are pretty clear: he has to discover who is and who is not a Christian and he notes this

>Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged

This is confirmed by other sources: Christians absolutely refused anything to do with the Roman Religion, which as I said was a crime in itself.

>. Judaism was also emphatically monotheistic

It was also a very old religion (which is something the Romans respected) and during the Temple era the Jewish authorities had a deal with Rome: they would not sacrifice to Roman Gods... but will make a sacrifice to their god for the emperor, which, as far as the Roman were concerned, was good enough.

I think there is a mistake in your question. The Holy Roman Empire was a medieval state that existed in Germany from the 9th century onward. It was a Christian kingdom, the Holy in its name refer to the fact that pope crowned the Emperor.

So no persecution there. unless you refer to the wars of religions between catholics and protestants in the 16th century. If that's the case say so and I can answer that.

​

Now. What I think you mean is the Roman Empire when it was still Pagan (before emperor constantine converted in the 4th century), right?

​

In that case the answer is very interesting. Rome had a public religion, the religion was the religion of the state/government. All Romans participated in its rites (and no one else. You were Romans because you participated in the cult, you participated because you were Roman). The idea is that if all the citizens worship the gods of Rome, the gods are happy and Rome stays a world power. Often you hear that Rome was tolerant of other religions, it's usually true but the idea is that they literally didn't care about your religion as long as: as a Roman you still participate in the official religion and your foreign faith is not done inside the limit of the city of Rome... as a Roman if you do that you can worship Isis or Mithras or whatever on your own, that's no problem at all.

Now the problem with Christianity is that it claims to be the one true god and one true faith (which while not new is not the norm at this time for other religions) and explicitly forbids the worship of other deity. So Christians didn't go to the temple of Jupiter to do their yearly sacrifice and didn't participate in the city wide worship of Venus and all the other religious duties expected of Roman citizens... and that's a problem for Rome. The citizens needs to participate in the official religion for the gods to help Rome. But not participation you are endangering Rome. And that's they were persecuted.

Add to that that the Roman society is extremely hierarchical, and that Christianity is very egalitarian, this is also seen as an attack against Rome. So persecution too.

​

Christianity was not the first religion to be persecuted that way, the Bacchanalia (a mystery cult that also forbid the official religion and blurred hierarchical lines) was persecuted violently in 200BC. But it's important to keep in mind that it wasn't really about the religion itself. There were a lot of Roman Monotheists at the time or Romans who practiced other faiths... but also the main city cults.

In conclusion: The main problem was that Christianity forbid the practice of the official religion, which was a religious duty. So the state persecuted them for violating the law pretty much as if they refused to pay taxes. It's wasn't religious discrimination in itself but actions against the fact that Romans refused to do their legal obligations.

They had the field, the knowledge, the networks, the crops, so on. Changing crops is not as simple as clicking a button. It would require months if not years of work.

Impact on World History is not a good qualifier, it's too vague. So if you want a more precise answer you need a more precise question. What kind of impact? Culturally? Linguistically? Politically? And by world history do you mean still visible today?

Because a lot of states had impact on history, like a lot. China basically defined east Asian culture, the Mongol empire is responsible for a lot of Russian history, eastern Europe was hugely impacted by Germany, Austria and Russia. France had as much an impact as the British in the make up of Africa. So on, so on.

One thing to keep in mind, Rome/Byzantium wasn't as big on dynasties and royal blood as feudal Europe were. Of course there were dynasties and it was important, but there wasn't this ideas that you could only rule if you had imperial blood. If you became an emperor without any imperial ancestry, that wasn't a problem.

Keep in mind that Byzantines called themselves Romans... but no one else did. Feudal Europe didn't see them as the heirs to the Roman emperors, to them that was the pope and the Holy Roman Emperors. They just saw them as "the Greeks", who were also heretics. So no Europe didn't look for Imperial Roman blood after the fall of the Empire. There were some marriages with the imperial dynasties but they weren't seen really as anything special.

That wrong. Rome didn’t impose its polytheism. According to Roman theology the Egyptian gods were basically the same as theirs. Traditional beliefs were kept in place with some Greek influences and some syncretism. The last traces we have of traditional Egyptian religion is around the 4th century AD.

When the Muslims arrived the country was Christian. And wasn’t imposed and neither was the shift quick. It’s only in the late Middle Ages that Islam became the majority religion.

> forced conversion, ethnic cleansing etc. - would come later.

That's not really something Muslim states do. There are massacre in war times, there are individual war bands who harass minorities. There are heavy discriminations (ghetto like conditions, special tax and humiliating laws). But mass conversion and ethnic cleansing is more of a Iberian Christian thing than something Muslim states did historically (I'm talking about antiquity and medieval period here, 18-19th centuries are a totally different thing and are more closely related to nationalism than anything in the case of Turkey for example).

It's complex but in short, the main tenets of Islam weren't a new thing in the region. Monotheism, the Abrahamic god, all those were known. And Christianity wasn't united at all, there were a lot of variations between doctrines. So it appeared as another Abrahamic faith, it was familiar. Then the Arab Muslim won militarily very quickly and brought stability to what was a war zone between Rome and Persia.

And finally, the Muslim empire were relatively tolerant of other faiths. But if you're not Muslim you have to pay a tax. So you got a faith that isn't that far from your own, their empire is successful... and if you stay Christian/Zoroastrian you have to pay... It took time but gradually populations converted on their own.

Forced conversions were pretty rare for Muslims (that's just not a thing they do as a rule, two arguments: the Quran says not to do so, and non Muslim can be a source of cash with special taxes). They integrated local populations which drifted toward Islam on their own. Again it wasn't immediate, Egypt was still mostly Christian in the 13th century (and still is 10% Christian today).

In Arabia: local polytheism, but also Christian and Jewish communities.

In the "Persian Empire" (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan) : mainly Zoroastrians and significant Christian communities.

In the Levant (Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey) : Orthodox Christians.

Outside of Arab polytheists all those are still somewhat around. Mainly Christians (in Lebanon and Egypt mainly).

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).

So this would be impossible. First civilization doesn't really mean anything. It's a subjective construct. You should rather look for states/political entities. And the history of the world is just too big a subject. You can't show every evolution of every border.

What exist are:

-either specific videos of timelapse of specific wars, this channel is perfect for this

-or broad simplification of world history. This is the most famous one, lots of problems but okay overall.

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.

Every nation had his own calendar. Usually people counted years by kings (in the nth year of king X’s reign), this is called a regnal year. But ancient historians sometimes used a (often mythical) date of origin of their city.

Example : Romans usually used the consul of the year in everyday life (“in the year when Cicero was consul”) but for history work they counted “AUC”/ad urbe condita, meaning from the foundation of the city, the mythical date of the foundation of Rome of 753BC. We only stopped using that date as year zero one around the 6th century btw.

Other examples: the ancient Greeks counted from 776 thought to be the first Olympic Game (a very important cultural Panhellenic event).

The regnal count was still the most common. Still used today: in Japan date (for ceremonial purposes) is sometimes recorded as year X of an era (“era” being here the rule of an emperor, 2022 is the fourth year of the Reiwa era for example).

It's not a secret organization per se, they never denied existing, it's that their rituals are kept secret.

So, there are layers to this.

Yes there are quite a lot of primary documents from antiquity. The easiest ones to find: engraved texts. That's how we managed to recreate for example the Res Gestae, a kind of autobiography/propaganda made by the emperor Augustus: we found several copies of it in ruins.

Then, texts on paper: we have those too. Quite a lot actually, but not from the region of Rome or Greece... but Egypt (which was under Greek then Roman control). The dry climate is excellent for the conservation of papyri. So we regularly find new fragments there. Often it's everyday stuff (personal or even legal writings like a will) which are a gold mine for historians but there are also quite a lot of fragment of ancient texts. Which help us with the next part: how can we know if our texts are exact?

So. First thing to understand: with very very few exception: we do not have complete primary documents from antiquity. We rely on copy and sometimes fragments that concur with the copies. Which for example help us establish that one major text from Antiquity had a fixed form relatively early in its history: the Bible. It also confirmed that our Homeric texts are also correct (since those were used in school we have quite a lot of them). And no, ancient text did not survive a thousand years, they were regularly copied.

So with taking that into account how can we know that we have the exact copy? We usually can't and we need to accept that. Usually not because of malicious intent, but due to mistakes. What we can have are usually close approximations though. First, we compare texts. We trace the origin of manuscripts and see if they have the same text: if a manuscript copied from a French manuscript and one copied from one that originally comes from Constantinople what's more likely is that it's the correct one. Same idea with differences, if only one text differ we assume that it's wrong. If one version is more complex we assume that it's the right one though (since simplifying is more likely to happen that increased complexity). And so on and so on and so on.

Now censorship. To be honest it had happened at times, it's pretty blatant (the usual non christian writing that says stuff like "and in Judea came a man that was the true son of the One God" and stuff). But usually it's rare and we see it. So don't worry about that.

I want to add one final thing though, that underlines your question... Christian monks and Arab copyists are not in anyway more likely suspects than your average ancient copyist. If they did not like a text, or did not care, they did not record it (this actually happened before the Christian era too, books needed to be copied regularly, it's long and expensive). If they copied a text, that's because they had an interest in it. And medieval scientist and philosophers would not dare modify ancient texts, why would they? Those are their work tools. They know they were pagans, and may try a lot in their commentary to justify that "no if they knew about Jesus/the Prophet they would totally have converted" or so. But they didn't touch the text (again the exceptions we have are far and few).

Contrary to the Jewish people (who are, you know, actually a thing) there is no single definition of who is a witch. There is not a parallel community that was tolerated and then marginalized. Who was targeted vary from time to time and place to place. In some places mostly men, in other mostly women. Sometimes the witches are lone actors, for the 17th century puritans there was a global conspiracy against Christendom (akin to contemporary global conspiracies). But usually it’s the people who are different or not liked. Foreigners, unmarried adults, those who live alone or are not as pious as others… and women who do not fit the mold. Widows, those who know “secrets” (traditional midwives and healers),… it varies a lot but it’s those who are already “suspects”.