Specifically, the media trope of two (or more) children disguising themselves as one adult to sneak into some forbidden place. Did writers during the English renaissance, for instance, write about street hooligans donning kirtles to sneak into public houses?

So I'm thinking about people who first colonized far-off lands, something like Easter island, Hawaii, South America, or anywhere where you would need to go very far to get there.

Of course you can't just drink seawater, and they didn't have large hulls filled with water barrels or grog or what have you. These were (I think?) much smaller than the kinds of boats European explorers would use much later.

I have some ideas but I'm not sure.

• Catch rainwater and drink it. But this means you'll have to sail during a rainy period and also have some large basins taking up valuable room on your boat.

• Store fruits such as coconuts. Break it open and drink later, and you can store these in the sun and they won't shrivel. But since you are rowing all day you'll need a lot of water and you'd need like a lot of fruits.

• I thought about boiling and catching the water as it evaporates, but I don't know how to do this in ancient setting. Maybe?

• I thought about some kind of sieve, but I don't think that can work on seawater.

• Maybe they just somehow found room for containers with water, but I think space would be at a premium and I'm guessing these weren't that big of boats.

So there are my guesses, help me out historians!

This started as a joke comment about combining the "I am a hot blooded male..." and "I am an average horse..." question category into one but I dug into it and now have more questions than when I started.

There are clickbait articles claiming that Harriet the tortoise was owned by both Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin. A more detailed article in the guardian mentions that genetics show that Harriet was from an island the Beagle did not visit. It then reopens that question by saying nobody can find the genetic study.

I tried searching for "land turtle" and tortoise in Darwins notes but it mostly seemed to be accounts of hunting them by natives and sailors alike.

The idea that a living tortoise can sail from the Galapagos to Australia via London makes the world back then seem smaller.

It seems that collecting tortoises and keeping them alive to eat later was a thing sailors did for several centuries. Were they just stacked in the hold? Did anyone look after them? Are there accounts of how this was done? Did every sailor get to eat tortoise or just the officers? If they were not eaten by the end of the voyage would they be gifted to people? Has anyone tracked down what tortoises Darwin owned and when? Did the admiralty or any other navies keep any other live provisions?

As most people probably know, the Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, commanding the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departed England in the spring of 1845 with the aim of discovering the Northwest Passage, but ultimately became stuck in pack ice the following summer, its crew succumbing to disease and cannibalism after their supplies gave out in 1848 and a desperate southward march across the Canadian wilderness left no survivors.

A lot of what articles and videos about the expedition seem to leave out or gloss over is what was supposed to be a successful outcome of the mission. Were they supposed to literally sail all the way through from east to west and wind up on the northern coast of Canada? If that was the case, then I can't imagine they would've wanted to sail back the same way - it'd be much safer to take a southern route from there.

Or were they supposed to just find a navigable path westward enough to where they encountered a sign of some other expedition approaching from the west, and therefore conclude that the passage existed without having actually traversed it?

In either event, how long would it have taken England to find out? The telegraph didn't exist in those days, so any message from the expedition would have to have been hand-delivered. Would it have been possible for such a message to reach London before the returning Erebus and Terror did so themselves?

I'm curious about the history of towels, particularly how they evolved from simple pieces of cloth into the soft, highly absorbent bath towels we use today.

- What did people in Antiquity and the Middle Ages use to dry themselves after washing or bathing?

- When did towels resembling modern terry-cloth towels first appear?

- Were proper towels considered luxury items for much of history, or could ordinary people afford them?

- When did even poorer households begin to own dedicated towels?

I'm especially interested in everyday life in Europe, including rural households, and how access to towels differed between social classes.

Thanks!

I understand that during the Renaissance astrology was consulted by Popes, monarchs, etc. before setting dates for important events but how did the Catholic Church, given how seriously it prosecuted heresy at the time, reconcile this practice with church doctrine?

Could a person from India go to South Africa or a person from Canada go to the British isle without a passport or border restrictions?

When did junk mail start, and when did it become so ubiquitous? I feel like everyone just throws it straight on the trash without a second thought - has it ever been effective or profitable?

Looking at pictures from soldiers back then practically nobody was clean shaven, perhaps 1/100, and this is including from shortly before the war as well so it's unlikely to be due to wartime necessity.

Is it even right to say there was one? I guess I'm trying to figure out how, if at all, the hebrewpeople became a distinct group in canaan, if this is being phrased properly, and if it isn't please tell me!

Thanks!

Hi recently while visiting the czech republic I went to Spielberg in Brno. Where I learned that it was used to jail political prisoners amongst them the carbonari are there any good books on them preferably in English or polish?

Thank you in advance

Mozart is probably the most famous, but a number of other well-known classical composers seem to have followed in his footsteps by getting an early start. Was this a function of how music was taught at the time, or was there a deliberate effort to find the next Mozart? Did other musical traditions elsewhere in the world experience a similar phenomenon?

I was watching Godzilla this weekend and was surprised that Takashi Shimura was in it. He was already a big star when it was filmed and it made me wonder why someone with his stature would appear in a horror movie. Nowadays, many big actors wouldn't be caught dead in a horror film (pun intended), but I'm not sure if it was different in 50s Japan. Was Godzilla expected to just be some schlocky horror film, or something more mainstream watched by all?

I'm guessing no one imagined it would turn into one of the most successful film series of all time, but were they expecting it to be big? Kaiju-size big? Were people hoping it would be successful enough for a sequel, or didn't even give it a thought?

What were the expectations for its success? Was it planned to be a niche title, or aimed at the mainstream? Was there a big stigma towards horror movies at the time? Is that stigma not present in Japan? Did the concept of a "B-movie" exist back then? How'd they land a big actor like Takashi Shimura? Did anyone understand what a big deal this film was going to be?

I'm probably being petty and I don't know why it bothers me so much it just seems overdone and unnecessary.

Hi, I am here because I am planning a fantasy novel set in the Victorian era. So, I really want to know how to describe the daily life of several groups in the 1880s and 1890s. This main character would be a boy whose family income is about 1000 GBP to 1500 GBP. He and his family lived in southern England near Exeter. How can I describe his and his family's daily life when he was 8 years old? What profession would his dad have? What food would be on the dining table? Any detail would be welcome.

A lot of people assume that 4-5 ranks of pike points pointed out of the front of the Macedonian Phalanx makes it a terrifying prospect for fighting against it from the front. However, it seems to me that past the first two ranks, you run into increasing difficulty seeing and maneuvering your pike. The mass of pikes would also seem to me to interfere with one another, meaning to drill a formation like this, you'd deliberately limit the range of movement of each rank of pikes so as to prevent them from hitting each other. What do we actually know from the historical accounts and re-enactments?

I would like to know what historical texts (such as the biography of Boucicaut or fencing manuals) and modern forensic/osteological analysis of battlefields (like Towton or the Mary Rose) actually tell us about their physical reality.

Specifically: What kind of muscle development, body composition, and physical stature did they generally have? How did their training from childhood affect their bone density and symmetry? And what did their daily 'strength and conditioning' routine look like outside of weapon play?

Were there techniques that didn't involve weapons? What kind of physique would be comparable to that of a medieval knight? (Certainly not a bodybuilder, but not a skinny person either.)

Thanks.

I've seen it in some older media. 16 and 17 year olds who are already emancipated. Heck, 16 and 17 year olds who are allowed in bars (no drinking) and have no curfews.

I know of the amount of runaway street kids in the late 60s to mid 70s. Was this related? Were the laws different back then? What about the social views?

I am looking for documented historical parallels to the Long March, the withdrawal of the Chinese Red Army between 1934 and 1936 amid the Chinese Civil War.

For this comparison, I have defined a specific set of operational criteria:

1. A substantial organized military force undertaking a multi-thousand-kilometre movement to evade encirclement and ongoing pursuit by opposing forces;

2. Extended movement through geographically difficult terrain, including high-elevation mountain zones and wetlands;

3. Disrupted, unreliable lines of supply and limited access to provisions and medical support over much of the route.

From what I have read, withdrawals satisfying all of these constraints appear uncommon. Many long-distance movements in military history fall into other categories: pre-planned offensive marches, orderly retreats toward pre-established supply bases, or disorganized routs in which unit cohesion breaks down. Only a small number of cases partially overlap with this full set of conditions.

I am not asking for judgements of relative hardship, uniqueness, or moral comparison. I am interested only in well-attested historical withdrawals that fit this defined operational profile, with reference to scholarly or contemporary sources where possible. This question is limited to military and historical analysis; no modern political commentary is intended.

This refers to the Ancient Mesopotamian Goddess of love, war, and fertility. In the extant poems by Enheduanna (or at least someone using her name), Inanna is praised above all the other gods and goddesses. Some poems by Enheduanna portray her thanking Enlil for things, but some portray her as literally above all other gods. This doesn’t necessarily make much sense, because Enlil was the head of the pantheon? One theory was that even Enlil was subject to passions, the domain of Inanna-Ishtar. Is this true? Is it possible it is also a political nature, where Sargon conquers Sumer, and subjects all their gods to a distinctly Akkadian Ishtar? Thanks!