They didn't.

Rather, the bow and arrow are thought to have been invented by prehistoric humans in Africa around 72,000 years ago. This was around the same period that significant numbers of humans began migrating out of Africa.

Bread, same as it was in the rest of Europe and also the Middle East and North Africa.

The advantage of potatoes is that they are less vulnerable to heat and cold than grains, don't spoil as easily, take less land to cultivate, can grow larger without killing the rest of the plant, and don't have to be milled before they can be eaten.

You could potentially, call England/Great Britain a theocracy in the 16th and 17th centuries when their king or the queen actually held a great deal of political power, but this is no longer the case. Much the same could be applied to Denmark-Norway, and Sweden since they also official state churches that their monarchs were the head of. Currently, however, the monarchs of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK are all constitutional monarchs and belonging to the official state church is no longer a requirement for full citizenship.

Also, the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell could also be classified as theocracy, though Cromwell was not a king.

Yes. The famous Bedlam House in London was opened to the public at some in the late 16th or early 17th century as a method of funding it. Public tours of Bedlam only ended in 1770.

• Women in the Medieval Court: Consorts and Concubines by Rebecca Holdorph
• Iran Under the Safavids by Roger Savory
• The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry by Tracy and Christine Adams

The Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Both sides took heavy losses which included the leaders of both armies, the Ottoman sultan Murad I and Lazar Hrebeljanović.

Virginia Rounding puts that rumor down to three factors:

• The scholar and traveler Adam Ölschläger had claimed in the mid-17th century that Russians liked sleeping with horses and his claims became sort of an in-joke in Western Europe.
• Catherine loved horse riding.
• Catherine wasn't married throughout her reign, but still had a vigorous sex life with her various favourites.

If by bathing you mean "fulling immersing yourself in water", then yes, most people would only bathe once a week. Keep in mind that most people did not have running water in their homes until around the mid-19th century so taking a full bath in the past often meant have to haul multiple buckets of water.

That being said, though, it was very common to take sort of sponge baths everyday by washing the face, hands, feet, armpits, and genitals. (I did that recently when our pipes got filled with resin from a malfunctioning water softener and I found that I stayed surprisingly clean even without taking a full shower.) Also, it's important to remember that handwashing before meals was a must throughout pre-modern Asia and Europe.

The real problem was not so much lack of bathing as a difficulty keeping water clean. That had also been a problem in the ancient Roman public baths; the water in them was not chlorinated like modern swimming pools are, which meant so rather than preventing disease, they seem to have been very likely to given visitors internal parasites.

One reason is that the disease most responsible for decimating Native American populations was smallpox and smallpox does not seem to have been nearly as common in Early Medieval Europe as was in the Early Modern Europe.

Among Eurasians and Africans, the mortality rate of smallpox was 30%, but among Native Americans and indigenous Australians, it was more like 90%.

The term was coined by the late medieval/early Renaissance scholar and poet, Francesco Petrarca, better known to Anglophones as Petrarch.

He viewed 14th century Italy as a corrupt and ignorant time and place in comparison to his (a bit overly rosy) view of Classical Antiquity. To be fair to him, 14th century Italy was not a particularly fun place to be, as it was wracked with internal political divisions, economic decline, and the threat of foreign invasion and it was about to get even worse when plague hit in the 1340s.

Southern Italy and Sicily after the dissolution of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies is pretty close. The Sicilian Mafia, Neapolitan Camorra, and Calabrian 'Ndrangheta existed before 1860, but they came into their own in a big way after that point. Yet, even so, they never quite replaced government, nor fully managed to make themselves part of it.

Even closer to what you describe, though, would be Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

There's little evidence of anyone talking about generations (in the sense of societal generations) before the 19th century.

Despite that, there is plenty of evidence of people complaining about Kids These Days, even though they didn't call them, for instance, Boomers, Millennials, or Gen Z.

There are next-to-no academic historians who do.

Certainly, they might say that a historical figure has a major effect on history, but the idea that, say, the French Revolution or World War II would have just not happened if Robespierre or Hitler had been stillborn is seriously devalued these days.

Suffice to say, that the causes of the French Revolution and World War II both went beyond the simple will of one man.

Perpetual prayers for the dead and masses for the dead were meant to lessen people's time in purgatory. Most Protestant sects rejected the belief in purgatory, so they also did away with masses and perpetual prayer for the dead.

Both officially remain part of Catholic doctrine and requesting a mass for a dead loved one is as simple as calling up a local parish to request one, setting a date, and paying a small fee, it's just not practiced nearly as much as it was in the past.

The High and Late Middle Ages and the 19th and early 20th centuries in general

How a historical figure is viewed by posterity often really depends on who you're asking.

Genghis Khan, whom you specifically mention, has often been viewed positively by Mongols, Turks, and Western Europeans, yet the Han Chinese view of him is more mixed and he's often viewed as a utter villain by Central and Eastern Europeans, Indo-Iranians, and Arabs.

For another example, Tamerlane is a hero to Central Asian Turks, yet Arabs, Indo-Iranians, and Georgians tend to remember him as a one of the blackest of villains.

For a more recent example, the way the French and Corsicans view Napoleon are both different from how the rest of Europe tends to view him.

In regards to how this applies to how posterity will view Hitler, it's hard to say. Nazi Germany's conquests might look extensive on paper, yet they lasted no more than twelve years, which was not enough to fundamentally alter the established cultures and customs with German culture and customs. This situation is quite different w.r.t. to the conquests of Roman emperors, Genghis Khan, or Alexander the Great, which did fundamentally alter both cultures and customs.

Diocletian. His reforms after the Crisis of the Third Century did away entirely with the pretense of Republicanism.

The thing about the Epic of Gilgamesh is that it's arguably the oldest extant example of a tale that's very loosely based on a true story; Gilgamesh is generally agreed to have been a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk... but anything beyond that basic fact is unknown.

While little is really known of the historical Gilgamesh, surviving Mesopotamian law codes such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, Laws of Eshnunna, and Code of Hammurabi don't support the idea of any actual kings having the legal right to rape their female subjects. While rape of women in these law codes was often treated as a property crime against a woman's father or husband (or owner if she was a slave), it was nonetheless a crime.

The text about the pharaoh Unas is, however, another ball of wax. Its context is a pyramid text honoring Unas as a living incarnation of the crocodile-headed fertility god, Sobek. So, we probably should be hesitant to take that passage literally. Unlike with the Mesopotamians, however, we can't look at any actual law codes, because no ancient Egyptian law code has survived.

A French or Anglo-Norman noble referring to peasants might call them villeins. Though villein tended to be specific to serfs (rather than free peasants), most peasants in France, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, northern Iberia, and post-1066 England were serfs.

Most of the time securing the body of a dead monarch was of the utmost importance to confer legitimacy on the succeeding monarch, but there were scenarios when a monarch disappeared during a battle or was taken into captivity and never seen again.

For one example, the Roman Emperor, Valerian, was taken captive after the Battle of Edessa and disappeared into Persian captivity, never to be seen alive again. The same thing happened a little less than a thousand years later when Baudouin IX, count of Flanders and Hainaut and Latin emperor of Constantinople, was captured by the Bulgarians after the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 and disappeared into Bulgarian captivity, never to be seen alive again.

In both cases, the result was panic and confusion. Valerian's capture reignited the Crisis of the Third Century and caused the temporary breakup of the Roman Empire. Baudouin, on the other hand, was quickly replaced as emperor by his brother, Henri, while his young daughter, Jehanne, became countess of Flanders and Hainaut, though her rights were often challenged as there was more doubt that her father was actually dead. In 1225, a Burgundian serf named Bertrand took advantage of the confusion to claim that he was actually Baudouin and became involved in revolts of nobility and peasants alike against Jehanne. He was, however, eventually unmasked as an imposter by Jehanne's cousin, Louis VIII of France, and executed.

Earlier in history, even though there was a body, there were rumors that Roman emperor Nero wasn't actually dead and would return one day. There were no less than three Nero imposters, even as late as the 5th century.

More famously, the lack of a body allowed Perkin Warbeck to masquerade as Richard of Shrewsbury and earlier, during the Third Crusade, John of England tried to take advantage of his brother Richard's long disappearance to seize the throne, but he achieved little support and Richard later turned up as a prisoner in Germany.

Carved pumpkins were originally carved turnips and rutabagas meant to scare off evil spirits and also referenced a folk tale about a greedy man named Jack.

Carving pumpkins became a thing when British and Irish people began colonizing North America and began using pumpkins instead, which had the advantage of being bigger, easier to carve, and more abundant in the Americas than turnips or rutabagas.

While it's often popular to try to connect these practices to ancient Celtic polytheism, the truth is the actual evidence is quite lacking. Not much is actually known about any ancient Celtic religion or its practices.

Trick-or-treating probably derives from the Medieval English and Irish practices of souling: on All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day, people would go from door to door asking for soul cakes in exchange for saying prayers for the deceased relatives of the cakes' givers to lessen their time in purgatory.

Dressing in costumes, otoh, is probably related to the medieval practice of mumming: groups of people in costume going door to door to act short plays or sing in exchange for food. Mumming was strongly associated not along with All Hallows' Ever, but also Easter, Christmas, New Years' Day, and Plough Monday.

Manorial court records, wills, and archeological evidence suggest that at least some peasants were wealthy enough to own painted cloths, religious icons, silver spoons, tablecloths, brightly colored clothing, and jewelry. The stereotype of dark and dirty peasant hovels does have some truth to it, if you're talking about the poorest peasants, but not all peasants were poor; most were middling and a few were fairly wealthy.

As for colors of clothing, red and yellow were the cheapest colors to produce while black, scarlet, indigo blue, and purple were the most expensive and were often restricted by sumptuary laws.

Your question is based on a false premise.

The Russo-Japanese War and World War I didn't involve the Soviet Union (they involved the Russian Empire, which was a very different beast from the USSR); Poland didn't take part in World War I (I think you're thinking of the Polish–Soviet War, a separate war and took place during the Russian Civil War); the Soviets WON the war against Finland; and the Soviets didn't defeat Nazj Germany because of the winter. At most, it can be said that the winter caused the failure of Operation Barbarossa, but that's not remotely the same thing as helping them successfully take Berlin.

That being said, much of the perception of Westerners during the Cold War of the perceived invincibility of the USSR was incorrect, but that had little to do with their military power and everything to do with their economy. Collectivization during the 1930s basically destroyed Soviet agriculture and premiers after Stalin were forced to buy grain from abroad to prevent starvation. These problems were later compounded by the high price tag of the Soviet War in Afghanistan and the cleanup after the Chernobyl disaster coupled with revolts by the Baltic states.

• Carlo III, Duke of Parma — Stabbed to death by two unknown men while taking a walk.
• Juan Prim, Prime Minister of Spain — Shot by unknown persons while leaving the Cortes.
• Aleksandr II of Russia — Blown to pieces by a bomb by members of the populist revolutionary group, Narodnaya Volya.
• Sadi Carnot, President of France — Stabbed to death by an anarchist.
• Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain — Shot by an anarchist.
• Umberto I of Italy — Shot by an anarchist.
• Empress Elisabeth of Austria — Aunt by marriage of the famous Franz Ferdinand; stabbed by an anarchist.
• Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich of Russia — Blown to pieces by Socialist Revolutionaries.
• Carlos I of Portugal and Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal — Shot by republicans.
• Pyotr Stolypin, Prime Minister of Russia — Shot by a socialist revolutionary, though since the assassin was also an informant for the Okhrana, it's possible that there was a conspiracy afoot.
• Georgios I of Greece — Shot by a man with unclear motivations.
• Eduardo Dato, Prime Minister of Spain — Shot by Catalan anarchists.
• Symon Petliura — Shot by a Jewish poet who blamed him for pogroms during the Russian Civil War.
• Sergei Kirov — Member of the Politburo. Shot by a disgruntled loner with delusions of grandeur, though he was later made to have been acting on the orders of former rivals of Stalin.
• Reinhard Heydrich — Blown up by the Czechoslovak Resistance.
• Ion Gheorghe Duca, Prime Minister of Romania — Shot by three members of the Iron Guard for trying to suppress the movement.
• Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma — Killed by a bomb planted on his fishing boat by members of the IRA.