We can taste a greater variety of flavors than you listed. It is merely a limitation of language that there are limited words to describe different flavors. For instance English also uses the words creamy, rich, tangy, hot, spicy, and herbaceous to describe flavors. These just aren't the "basic" flavors you listed above, but totally distinct flavors.

It would be up to the state legislature to write the laws regarding how to define and structure the police. These laws may have sections which allow for a county, city, or other municipalities to create police forces.

Mostly the rise of Abrahamic faiths. Christianity in particular has had a huge influence on cultures and beliefs over the last 1500+ years, including by supplanting or eliminating other religions which had different beliefs about death and the afterlife.

Latex can be harvested directly from trees, and still is, but most plastics used today are from petroleum.

Simply put, plastics are chains of carbon+other stuff. Petroleum is very rich in carbon+other stuff. Refineries break down big chains of petroleum into smaller parts. They then combine these smaller parts into other big chains, which are the various types of plastic we use today. The same can be done with natural latex, but that stuff isn't as abundant so we don't use it much anymore.

An analogy of this would be starting with a house. You break down the house into smaller parts: wood, nails, drywall, paint, and so on. You then use these parts to build a bunch of sheds.

Archers definitely shot for accuracy and power, at relatively close range, and not in volleys. Volley fire was done in the age of gunpowder, and on TV and movies for dramatic effect. Having archers who would use different strength bows hold arrows is useless. That would just slow down and exhaust your archers. It's not like after years of practice they don't know how to shoot accurately. Combat with archers involved them firing at will, when in range, and covered by other troops, or in a defended position. They pretty much always fired straight at their target, as seen in nearly every contemporary depiction of archers.

So these archers would fire arrows at a target maybe 50ft away, as fast as they could. The targets would need to move up fairly slowly under shield cover, since it was a) terrifying and loud, and b) you needed to stay in formation or you'd get hit.

Ammo was definitely an issue. Armies would prepare tens of thousands of arrows before campaign.

From https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e7xa3/how_expensive_were_arrows_and_how_many_did_your/

"When Henry V succeeded the throne, he immediately began restocking the royal armoury in the Tower of London for a foray into France. He set the fletchers of England to begin making arrows, and we have a record of a contract for 12,000 arrows that cost the Crown £37, 10s, which translates to about $25,000. Arrows were produced in sheaves of 24, and archers carried between 60-75 with them into battle. They were expected to be able to shoot about 12-20 arrows per minute (An archer who could shoot no more than 10 arrows per minute was considered to be unfit for military service. Each archer carried two sheaves of arrows in his quiver and the rest stuck in his belt for quick and easy access, though he may have stuck them in the ground when he was entrenched in a position (say, Agincourt.) Each archer could therefore only shoot for about 3.5-7 minutes with the arrows he had (which is NOTHING in a battle. Seriously, 5 minutes of shooting and you're outta ammo? That's crazy.), so there were wagons that were also filled with arrows, and young boys provided a constant transport of arrows from those wagons to the front lines."

That 12,000 was just one contract. He probably had many more contracts to supply his archers.

Battles in real life are nothing like on TV. Battles often lasted many hours, mostly involving small battles fought in short bursts. You'd have two lines of troops mostly marching or standing around trying to outmaneuver the other army, and a few small battles involving a few dozen men would pop up every now and then. One or two might die, one or two might get injured. Eventually one side would create a small gap, the other side might fill the gap stuff reinforcements. This goes on and on for a few hours until one side is too scared, tired, or injured to reform the line, the enemy will seize the gap, cohesion and order breaks down, and then you'd lose the battle.

In such a fight having skilled archers is very powerful. If you are standing 50ft from the enemy and getting shot at, you are stuck in that position, allowing your enemy to maneuver. It's very hard to advance under fire. If that's not enough, the archers might kill, injure, or terrify that part of the army and they may break and flee. Such a gap can be easily exploited for victory.

The basics are pretty much the same today as a hundred years ago. There's only so many ways to do the standard sewing machine stitch, one really, but newer machines may be able to do different stitches. You may have needed a different machine set up for the different stitch, before.

There have been many sewing machine companies, and you're very correct in that Singer is probably the most well known. They've simply produced a good product, and were literally the first to hit the market. They've managed to maintain popularity and good products since their founding. Other companies definitely exist, though. Companies like Brother have developed features that make sewing at home much easier, and Juki is actually the king of sewing machines worldwide. My parents have a Juki from the 80s which is still running strong, and still worth a few hundred bucks.

Funds and infrastructure are limited, and need to be balanced against other diseases, costs, and time. In the USA it's not a big enough deal to mandate. Infections in the USA are extremely rare, literally only a few reported cases a year. In poorer regions where it is more prevalent, more dangerous and contagious diseases are prioritized.

Is there any genre or movement you are excited to see developing? Or put another way, what is the new music that you are looking forward to seeing grow?