Two components:

1. By making more generous promises for people who chose to be gullible.
2. Exclusivity rights

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1. Generous promises

For example, some pagan religions allow possibility for life in afterlife.

Christianity offers, resurrection for those who live according to their beliefs. Islam offers for certain people 72 virgins in the afterlife.

In Soviet Union, socialism has been made a de-facto religion and people were promised that their basic needs are addressed (inexpensive food, medical care, shelter), and after 20 years everyone would live the lifestyle of rich people who can chose whether to work or not

2. Exclusivity rights

If the teritory has elements of the statehood a ruler or (or ruling class) can elect that one religion is to be used in the territory exclusively. After some generations people cannot imagine their life withouth the religion that was forcefully imposed to their ancestors.

Christianity started becoming wide spread when the Roman emperor ( I can’t remember his name ) had an experience that he believed God was talking to him and he made it the official religion of the realm

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Sounds like Spain was absolutely infested with owls back in the day...

Yes, but from a historically minded viewpoint, it's annoying because it's inaccurate. My comment was made to highlight the differences between historical reality and what we are led to believe through pop culture.

Because correctly or not, people see greatness as something you do, not something you preside over. We’re sympathetic to people overcoming odds and subverting expectations and this is most achievable on the battlefield. And if we’re being real, conquest is one of, if not the most significant way in which history changes course. Where would Rome have gone without Caesar? Islam without Khalid Ibn Al Walid?

The songs and storytellers remember these people because they changed the world. But at the end of the day it’s propaganda, the person with the best story is most remembered. Richard the lionheart is a great example of this carrying over to someone whose reign was a categorical failure simply because we’ve established an expectation of warfare being the road to greatness. People don’t talk about how he bankrupted his kingdom or lost the Angevin lands in france as part of his story, so it might as well have never happened

If you enjoyed reading about Guillaume le Conquérant, I strongly suggest you read about Harald Hardrada: A Scandinavian prince who had to fled to Russia and served later in the Byzantium Varangian guard in several battles (legend say he use birds to burn down an entire Italian city).

He then became king of Norway (or Sweden..?) only to die in an epic way at Stamford Bridge few weeks before Hasting...

Indeed, a tough bastard.

oooh...Maybe they were for apprentices to practice on, then given to children.

At first I thought they were given to children as comfort, like the owl looks out for you while you're sleeping kind of thing and some kept them into adulthood. Just like we do now with comfort toys and keepsakes.

Hitler was not actually that great of a planner or organizer. The current theory in historical circles about Hitler's management style is that he would kind of voice ideas he might want to get done and then underlings would compete to get them done to impress him. Whoever did it the best would gain his favor and maybe some promotions or a bigger area to manage. There's been some push back on this theory about whether or not Hitler was more intentional or involved in organization, but where that seems to happen were in things Hitler was really interested in like architecture or war planning.

With diplomacy Hitler was kind of distractible. If things were going well he would get more involved, often making grandiose plans. When they weren't he would look for something else to occupy him.

I've never hear of him making plans for reparations from Vichy France. Operation Barbarossa started a year after the Battle of France. He spent just enough time on France to get an occupation set up so he could plan an invasion of England and start planning the part of the war that was more important to him, clearing out the east for Lebensraum. The Battle of Britain didn't go the way he thought, the air war wasn't really as grandiose as he liked, and he kind of lost interest and turned to focus on Barbarossa.

If Barbarossa had turned out differently his attention might have returned to France and he might have been interested in getting reparations to rebuild after the war, but it's hard to say. He was kind of famous for having these monologues at his dinner guests and saying all sorts of grandiose things. He would bring up reparations, but it's all the steps after that we don't really seeing happen. No one was drafting up plans to enforce a reparations policy, or at least if they were they weren't getting invited to dinner with Hitler to take the next steps forward. And if you were ambitious you were probably focusing more on things that Hitler was interested in, like rounding up Jewish people or prosecuting the war, or increasing France's industrial contributions to the war machine.

Realistically, Vichy couldn't borrow money from anyone. And in German SOP they looted France's treasury when they took over. So the best way for France to be useful was to exploit France's industrial base and that's what Germany did. I think the Vichy economy operated at like 110% of it's prewar level in the first year and most of that was producing German war materiel. There's a decent paper on that aspect of the occupation here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30034464

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So when then did the idea of reunification fall out of fashion?

When people talk about the population of Rome declining, they're usually talking about after the Western empire fell; but in fact, it appears to have been on the dole for virtually since the empire began with Augustus. Why is this?

What kind of annoys me about the popular presentation of history is that people like William the Conqueror or King Richard the Lion-heart were see as chads. Neither of them were good rulers, outside of warfare.

The big statue at Bohemian Grove is just for fun too

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This was generally not a war of cultures since American and British citizenry were extremely similar. It was (very simplistically) an issue of taxation and representation. During the 7 Years War, also known as the French and Indian War, Britain spent a large sum on protecting and defending its colonies throughout America from the French. This war was a massive drain on the British economy and to help recover they decided to tax the American colonies more heavily than before since much of that expense had come specifically from defending the colonies themselves.

Even after the war there were substantial factions on both sides who assumed the two would be reunited again eventually due to the cultures and citizens being essentially one and the same. This is all of course a very simplistic explanation and of there are tons of nuances on each side.

Oh my God mom you just don't get it. They are not toys, they're collectibles!!!

But as soon as he married his childless wife, he was even more vengeful for the past due to the fact that the marriage was not his best bet so he killed her to save his children. In fact due to his bloodline so it was almost impossible for him to win her hand and she was killed just like anyone who dies in a tv drama. And finally he had the last blow to take England from the Saxon and start a new era for mankind.

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http://www.johnkellerman.com/the-life-of-william-the-conqueror-b100843.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/08/history/the-story-of-william-the-contquer-the-conqueror/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_conqueror

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/20/the-most-violent-contquer-in-the-world/

Regardless of what they were used for, I absolutely love the workmanship of these artifacts. I can definitely see the resemblance of an owl in most of the examples shown in the article. I think that's neat.

Slate is between 2.5 and 4 on the Mohs scale ... almost as hard as marble and limestone, but not as hard as granite or natural quartz. I can't imagine a young child scribing that hard of stone; early teens, sure. But these are too well done; more on the level of artisan.

It would have to be a much harder stone tool applied with a great deal of pressure. That would require an adult allowing a child/young teen use of valuable tools. Unlikely.

Had these owls been exclusively in children's tombs one might consider it a toy. But they were in adults tombs as well. I think it would be an amulet or deity reference considering the characteristics of owls in general.

They worked more then us, on the days they worked. Which was half the year usually. Then it was working on infrastructure projects and leisure.

Modeled FOR a child.

Well to look like the was ready to HAVE a child if we get specific.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM&t=0m29s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5FcxmVwVVK0

Norman nobles were famed adventurers, because there were too many nobles for the duchy of Normandy, so internal competition forced a lot of them to go out and seek their fortune elsewhere.

Hence why you see Norman invasions pretty much everywhere in Europe especially in the Mediterranean.

Many of them were evidently inspired by Guillaume’s/William’s epic tale and wanted the same for them.

These were just the “Live Laugh Love” signs of their day. Crucial to perfect that rugged hut decor.