Recent content by sydhe

If they were already present in Spain, he wouldn't have had to ship them at all. He went by land from Iberia to Rome, and wouldn't have to transport them for the final battle since there already were elephants in North Africa. If he needed to get them to Spain, it's not all that far from North...

I voted both Spanish and French for Oklahoma. Though technically Napoleon wasn't emperor until 1804, this region was part of the Louisiana Purchase, so he ruled it from 1800 to 1803. (and, of course, the French ruled it until they gave it to Spain in the 1760s.

Moscow was occupied by the Poles during the Time of Troubles. (Napoleon's invasion doesn't matter here since the capital was in St. Petersburg at the time)

Rocky Laocoon foreold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky waters. They did him in, and most of his kin, teaching him to be such a bother.

Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom

Then there's the sliver of Empire called the Empire of Trebizond that lasted until 1461, and the Principality of Theodoro (I never heard of it either), a fragment of the Trebizond empire that lasted until 1475...

Modern city states would include Singapore, Djibouti, Cracow (it was a free city for a while, as were Trieste, Fiume and Danzig.)

Lead, tin, mercury, unobtainium, limestone, pandemonium, etc.

Favorites: Zara Yakob (generally good neighbor and friendly), Hatshepsut (easy to make friends with; it's almost a shame to wipe her out), Mansa Musa (not particularly aggressive, and a fair tech trader), and Frederick. Least favorite: Montezuma, Shaka, Ragnar and Catherine, because they're...

It's one of the few elements that expand when they solidify. By alloying it with other metals, you can create an alloy that doesn't shrink or expand when solidifying, which was really useful for typesetting. (Antimony was also used for the same reason, but it's poisonous.) Bismuth is below two...

William III's claim was more tenuous, since Prince Consorts generally didn't become king, especially since Mary II died in 1694.

Elizabeth of York herself had a better claim to the throne than Henry VII if she'd wanted to press it. Since her children included Henry VIII and Margaret Queen of Scots, the later British monarchs had a legitimate claim, at least till 1688.

I'm fond of the Davies book, which has a nice chapter on Burgundies. All the Burgundies. He came up with ten Burgundies throughout history, some of which have no territory in common, and he was being conservative. I like Susan Wise Bauer's books as a multivolume popular history. I suspect...

It is possible to get the chariot quest event after you discover Theology. This can happen if you bypassed the Classical Age on the way to Theology. You then fail the quest when you discover one of the techs that normally would have advanced you to the Classical Age. I just discovered this...

Early China also had irrigation and benefited from the loess replenishing the soil. They also don't seem to have had the salinization problem Mesopotamia had. They also gradually moved south, where rice flourishes, and had a large area suitable for culivation.