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values | prompt stringlengths 1 40.3k | response stringlengths 60 40k | sub_score int64 20 238k | comment_score int64 30 57.2k |
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AskHistorians | You're at a party, in mixed company. The people around you find out your area of specialization. What is the inevitable question you dread?
In my case, it's not so much the questions as the immediate rhetorical ploys. *"Such a senseless tragedy... trench warfare was so stupid... those awful generals... a rupture in... | Ninjas. When people find out I have an expertise in Feudal Era Japan, I always get questions about Ninjas. I enjoy talking about the Shinobi(Ninja), but most people have a very distorted and false image of who the Shinobi really were. They have this image in their mind of men in black costumes somersaulting from roofto... | 319 | 275 |
AskHistorians | You sometimes hear,"People on their cellphones all the time are ruining society." What other, older technologies were accused of ruining society, breaching ettiquette, or corrupting youth? | As the brilliant Ovid said: "Let other people praise ancient times, I am content to live in these." No, it does not answer your question but it is relevant.
| 166 | 183 |
AskHistorians | What part of history do you find the least interesting?
I love history, and I know you all do as well. But history is huge, and some parts just aren't that interesting (blasphemy!). I'm curious to see what parts of history (be it time periods, regions, themes) just don't do it for you.
I'll start: I just can't get i... | Two classicists walking past the Modern History department, one turns to the other and scorns: "Pfft, Journalists" | 83 | 142 |
AskHistorians | What are some incredible pieces of military luck throughout history?
The first that comes to mind for me is that prior to the Battle of Antietam, two Union scouts came upon General Robert E. Lee battle plans and troop layouts wrapped around 3 cigars. This did not prevent George B Mclellan from greatly overestimating t... | Sometimes weather just chooses a side:
[The Mongol invasion of Japan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan)
[The Spanish invasion of England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Wind) | 144 | 93 |
AskHistorians | What is the history of historical study? When did humans first start studying history?
What is the history of historical study? When did humans first start studying history? Do we still have the original information from the first historians? How accurate were they? Is there any major gaps in our historical knowledge... | History as we understand it is not very old; the 'forensic' approach to history which is focused on a single set of events, their causes, and extrapolations of that evidence, is probably the History that Thucydides wrote. But history didn't become what we would recognise arguably until the 19th century; one of our mode... | 64 | 198 |
AskHistorians | Who are your favorite historic people?
Since we have a thread about [people in history we hate](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tjq2l/are_there_any_little_known_historical_characters/), I thought it might be interesting to have a thread about obscure/little known, strange, or interesting people we enjoy... | In my own period, I think Lt. Col. Frederick Marshman Bailey (1882-1967) makes for an interesting subject. Like Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's wonderful *Master and Commander* books, Bailey combined a penchant for zoology with a still greater penchant for sensational feats of espionage. He was, however, mostly ... | 91 | 85 |
AskHistorians | Are there any little known historical characters that you hate more than most others?
Obviously we all think Hitler and Kim Il-Sung are assholes, but in your focus, do you just hate someone more than the average character? | For being a major European monarch, it's a bit disheartening to be able to categorize him as "little known," but I have to say Leopold II of Belgium:
He was able to dupe the entire western world into giving him the Congo as his own private property. He used the guise of philanthropy and free trade, and perfected the... | 93 | 210 |
AskHistorians | Sent here from r/assassinscreed, did city guards used to patrol rooftops?
Assassins Creed is a video game that is very good at keeping the settings historically accurate. Everything from the city maps and guard outfits to the characters and events. In the games, though, the city guards don't just patrol the streets; t... | The whole notion of "guards" that are like cops, which is everywhere in fantasy and historical fiction, is an anachronism. Police forces as we know them today date basically to the nineteenth century. Guards were certainly protecting targets of government or military value (not rooftops unless there was a guard post bu... | 73 | 96 |
AskHistorians | He who controls the spice controls the [world] ?
There was a time when colonial powers were very concerned with the trade in spices. Do you have insights into those amazing times when people would literally kill for a taste of Nutmeg? Why were spices so celebrated? What caused their fall from prominence in later tim... | I get the impression from your comment that you don't have a problem, academically, with the notion that a pinch of Nutmeg might be valuable enough to cost someone their life but that you have a hard time understanding it on a more personal level.
Let me try to work up a modern example for you... perhaps something a l... | 64 | 148 |
AskHistorians | Who were the ancient "Celts" that lived throughout Europe during the time of the Roman Empire? Why is it today anything "Celtic" usually always refers to only Ireland?
What was their origins and culture? What happened to them? How did they differ from the other peoples of Europe during that time? | There are two things that we can confidently assert about the Celts; that this can comfortably describe a group of people speaking a similar language to one another, and that many of those people shared a similar culture. It would be a mistake to view them as a single ethnic group; even besides the usual argument of 'e... | 117 | 386 |
AskHistorians | It can take weeks to canoe between Polynesian islands. How did the first island settlers discover new islands, and why did anyone risk the journey? | The Jared Diamond book *Collapse* has a section on Polynesian expansion. I read the book about a year ago, but I will do my best to paraphrase. Hopefully somebody much more knowledgeable than me will provide a better and more complete explanation.
From what I can recall, population crashes were pretty common througho... | 189 | 110 |
AskHistorians | How accurate is this article?
I came across this Cracked.com article titled, "6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America." (Link: http://www.cracked.com/article_19864_6-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-founding-america_p2.html ) How accurate is it? | I have Loewen's book right in front of me, and I can't find the passage that's cited in the book he uses as evidence to support that (notice that there's no citation). It's not even on Loewen's alternate timeline of explorers of America (pages 40-41 in the revised edition).
Even so, Loewen's point in _Lies My Teacher... | 74 | 84 |
AskHistorians | Has there ever been documented evidence of anyone finding (pirate) buried treasure?
I vaguely recall reading that true treasure chests, like you and I would picture belonging to pirates, were from Spanish ships bringing gold back to the old world.
Some of these have been recovered from ship wrecks, but never buried. | Pirates had no need to bury their treasure. Ports like Tortuga and Port Royale were more than happy to accept their gold and loot. With an average career expectancy of two to three years why bury treasure you wouldn't have gotten to spend? Pirates were pirates because they wanted to live well, be their own masters, ... | 119 | 90 |
AskHistorians | Why did Mary I of England have to speak Latin to Philip of Spain if she herself spoke Spanish? | The reason international languages exist is to put both parties on equal footing. It would seem submissive and defeatist for Mary to speak Philip's language, and it would certainly put Philip into a position of power in the negotiations. In order to ensure that both parties were equally speaking a foreign language, L... | 110 | 249 |
AskHistorians | Did US involvement in Vietnam do any good at all?
I graduated college but no history class ever got past WWII before the semester ended so I know little about the Vietnam war.
With the benefit of hindsight, would it be accurate to say we might as well have never gone to Vietnam in the first place? Since the North co... | >With the benefit of hindsight, would it be accurate to say we might as well have never gone to Vietnam in the first place?
Probably. The US went into Vietnam with a fundamental misunderstanding of what the North Vietnamese government wanted, and a fundamental misunderstanding of politics in the communist bloc (e.g... | 105 | 87 |
AskHistorians | Did the U.S. government ever own any slaves, or were all slaves in the U.S. privately owned? | Slaves helped build the White House and the federal Capitol building. Though it appears it was by paying the owners as independent contractors rather than direct ownership by the government. | 110 | 82 |
AskHistorians | Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get the works?
So why did Constantinople change its name? Or is it none of my business? | First off, that is nobody's business but the Turks.
Constantinople was by bounds the largest and most important city in its region. Therefore, people would just refer to it as "the city" or in Greek, "ei polis" (η πολισ). More specifically, the way you say "into the city" is "eis stein polin" (εισ την πολιν), which en... | 140 | 269 |
AskHistorians | Have there ever really been masked crime-fighting vigilantes?
I know there are some folks today who don costumes and patrol the streets, but they do their best to abide by the law. Are there any historical vigilantes of note who weren't necessarily lawful? | Ku Klux Klan? I know, but that was the original intent. Good cautionary lesson there.
Unmasked, Guardian Angels are still around.
Vigilantes don't have a good record. My heroes: the [Interrupters](http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/). | 82 | 108 |
AskHistorians | What are some historical mysteries in your field of study?
I'm looking for more obscure ones, but new details about known mysteries are also welcome. | What exactly happened at the end of the Bronze Age that caused destruction and collapse in so many cultures in the eastern Mediterranean, even in major inland empires, and all in the space of just a few decades? | 115 | 99 |
AskHistorians | As an Indian, I've always wondered why India is so damn populated. Why is the subcontinent full of people?
Surely it is not because we like to have kids as much. In that case the, Arabs have us beat in terms of popping out babies. | There are a few places in the world that 'civilization' has developed at an extremely accelerated rate in. These tend to be called 'Cradles of Civilization'. These tend to be in highly fertile river valleys.
India, at the very least, is one of these Cradles of Civilization, due to the Indus river and the civilization ... | 165 | 216 |
AskHistorians | Dear Historians of Reddit, in your opinion what is the single most seemingly insignificant event which ended up having the most wide-spread consequences?
A sort of historical Rube Goldberg machine. | It's far from being the most important on a global scale, but it's one about which I often find myself thinking because of the people involved and the eventual consequences.
During the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, a young English officer was seriously injured just prior to being captured. With the gallantry for which ... | 76 | 94 |
AskHistorians | What were Nazi Germany's plans post-WWII in the case of an (unlikely) Axis victory?
If this question is too broad I'll segment it into parts;
1. Did the Nazi's have a concrete plan on what to do in the event of an Axis victory or were they just 'winging it' for lack of a better term?
2. Just how far would their ethni... | Territories in the east were to be governed as something like German colonial provinces called *Reichkommissariaten*, whose inhabitants would be mostly killed off by an engineered famine called the [Hunger Plan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan), with the survivors being used as slave labour on German farms or ... | 261 | 356 |
AskHistorians | Why is India poor considering it's rich and wealthy history?
It was One of the agricultural hubs of the world after all. At what point did India / the subcontinent become poor ?
Thank you. | I'm an Indian, and a layman, and it's very well accepted here that a major cause of India's underdevelopment today is the economic and political policies followed by the East India Company, and later the British Government.
I'm reproducing below some (rather lengthy!) notes I've made on the subject, I'll be glad if p... | 61 | 210 |
AskHistorians | I have a possibly prurient and somewhat unusual question about how certain sex acts have historically been perceived... [NSFW]
This is open to anyone.
Basically, I'm wondering how people viewed oral sex within your period of study, and whether there were different shades of opinion when it came to fellatio vs. cunnil... | Woo, here we go! So with regard to the Romans: the Romans had a word for sexual purity, *pudicitia*, which carried with it different, specific expectations for men vs. women and upper-class vs. lower-class. Because most of the source material we have comes from the male perspective, we know a *lot* about what *pudiciti... | 620 | 1,979 |
AskHistorians | My apologies for the Bill Sloan AMA. It apparently was an /r/gameoftrolls bit.
I fully apologize for this. The moderators will be discussing this, and we will be commenting shortly.
**Edit**
I'll go ahead and make a statement since I was the one putting myself out there.
Yes, *we* should have vetted better. Next... | Fine, I'll be the bad guy. My issue isn't that we got duped. It was how eternalkerri handled herself in the thread.
I think what bothered me the most about her actions was the fact that the comments being "squelched" as she put it, didn't actually violate the AskHistorians guidelines to the right. "Bill Sloan"(or whoe... | 196 | 118 |
AskHistorians | What are some of the greatest military bluffs of history?
I remember being taught, as a boy scout, about Baden Powel. He was in some war somewhere (I can't remember the details), and his fort was about to be overrun by some other army.
He didn't have many supplies and no razor wire, so he had his men put up stakes ar... | Posted this before, but I think it's on topic here as well.
In 1805, during the wars of the 3rd Coalition, Napoleon was pretty much wiping the floor with the Russian/Austrian armies. After the battle of Ulm, where an Austrian army commanded by General Mack was surrounded and destroyed by Napoleon, the allies tried to... | 297 | 448 |
AskHistorians | Are there any ideas in history which were originally held as mad conspiracy theories, which have since been proven true?
I don't mean this in a scientific sense (i.e. the Earth goes 'round the sun), but rather something akin to current speculation about JFK's assassination.
**Edit**: I should have been clearer: if an... | [MK-ULTRA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA) is probably the quintessential proved conspiracy theory.
Edit: If MK-ULTRA isn't disturbing enough, here's a bonus: [Ted Kaczynski was (probably) an MK-ULTRA test subject while he was at Harvard.](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.htm) | 218 | 187 |
AskHistorians | Why is the Korean war always passed over?
I've taken a few U.S. history courses and the Korean War is always passed over with little mention at all. In tv documentaries you see alot of WWII and alot of Veitnam but little to no korea. Why don't people talk about it? It's an annoying gap in my historical knowledge. | There were a lot of reasons. First, the ending didn't lend itself well to a good storyline. While an armistice was reached, thereby ending hostilities, a peace treaty was never signed. In a sense, the Korean War is still ongoing. As events like the Axe Murder Incident of 1976, and the recent shelling of a South Korean ... | 115 | 82 |
AskHistorians | How do historians (or archaeologists) separate what is real history from what is legend in old texts?
Like, if our culture was wiped out, but the Star Wars expanded universe was left behind, the cultures ahead of us might think that Star Wars was real history and all those things really did happen. There's enough desc... | This is a very serious and hard question and one that every historian grapples with.
The short answer is that you have to use good judgment when reading these ancient texts. Why was it written? By whom? Was he/she in a position to know the things they did, or did they guess? Are there corroborating evidence (archaeol... | 162 | 154 |
AskHistorians | What are some weird cultural quirks, trends,
preferences, customs and taboos from your area
and time period of interest?
Here is one to get the ball rolling: Shakespeare is extremely popular in Germany, and Germans think he reads better in German than English.
I'm hoping to see a wide variety within the specified c... | Speaking in terms of the Edwardian era: the hobble skirt. It's one of the least practical fashion items ever invented, but people were just *mad* for them. [Here's an astounding postcard](http://i.imgur.com/8t7Pj.jpg) from the period that features one.
The basic principle is a regular skirt that's either cinched w... | 109 | 132 |
AskHistorians | Political bias aside, was Richard Nixon a bad president? Was JFK a good president?
Everyone loves to hate on Nixon. He obviously screwed the pooch with Watergate and was a generally unlikeable guy, but it seems to me that ending the Vietnam war and opening up China should still qualify him as a good president.
Likewi... | How do you define a "good" president? Is a good president one who imposes his priorities on the nation and achieves concrete progress toward his goals? Or is a good president one who uses the tools of government to extend the benefits of liberty, democracy, and prosperity to ever greater numbers of Americans? The first... | 86 | 112 |
AskHistorians | Why did the Sumerians find this fart joke funny?
The oldest known joke in the world is from 1900 BC in ancient Sumer:
Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.
I'm guessing you lose something in translation here, but does anyone know why this would hav... | Layman speculation here: I've heard this joke before and I always assumed that the way it was phrased in the original language was similar to formal or ceremonial religious sayings, but unexpectedly ends up being a fart joke. I picture it like a modern American walking up to someone and saying "We hold these truths to ... | 175 | 238 |
AskHistorians | NMW (or anyone else) Why was Charles I of Austria "so tits"?
This is in response to [this post](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u4vxu/dear_historians_of_reddit_in_your_opinion_what_is/c4suwlm) by [happybadger](http://www.reddit.com/user/happybadger)
>> The successor they ended up getting, Cha... | Oh, right! I knew I forgot to add something, there - my apologies to those who asked.
The short answer: It's a matter of perspective, and not everyone is agreed on it. The general consensus is that he was a better man than a ruler, but that depends on what sort of metric of "ruler success" you intend to employ.
I t... | 74 | 254 |
AskHistorians | In the American Civil War, why was reuniting the Union seen as beneficial to the North?
From the layman's stuff I've read, it doesn't seem like the North wanted to go on a crusade to free the southern slaves. When I'm reading about the period, I feel like I'm missing something big and obvious. Why did they want the So... | It was in large part a matter of defending the Constitution and legacy of the Revolution. Please bear in mind that the South, via secession, believed it was doing the exact same thing. Many in the North rejected the notion often put forth in the South that the Constitution was a type of contract where, if one party did... | 158 | 196 |
AskHistorians | So today is the 150th anniversary of the bloodiest day in American history, Antietam. This had me wondering what was the bloodiest day in human history? | The [Shaanxi earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1556_Shaanxi_earthquake) is believed to have killed more than 800,000 people. | 227 | 143 |
AskHistorians | You're a married, Roman citizen serving the legion hundreds of miles from home. How is your family supported?
I was thinking about HBO's "Rome."
Vorenus has been off fighting in Gaul for seven years. His wife and young children are not camp followers: they live in Rome.
How would his wife have supported the family? ... | A roman legionary wasn't *supposed* to be married. A married man joining would have their marriage annulled. They wouldn't have expected any form of state support for any family.
Unoffically, marriages were tolerated, and the wives would often be camp followers, providing services like washing and cleaning to the sol... | 360 | 330 |
AskHistorians | Towards the end of Rome, were Germanic barbarians still dressed in furs, or were they in fully roman clothing?
I was thinking about this as I watched a Capital One credit card ad, with barbarians giving advice to normal citizens dressed in classic barbarian garb.
In a lot of movies about Rome, even ones dealing with ... | The term barbarian is fairly misleading when you talk about the sacking of Rome.
An average person would be hard pressed to tell a Vandal, Visigoth, or what have you, apart from a Roman, simply due to the fact that they were so intertwined during this time period. Roman generals were often half-Vandal, or married to ... | 101 | 80 |
AskHistorians | What was the major religion of the arab world pre-Islam?
Title says it all... | There wasn't really a major religion, rather there were quite a few jostling with each other. Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism had a major presence, along with minor Abrahamic faiths such as the gnostic sects. There was also an Arabian polytheistic tradition with many tribal Gods and demons.
It's not really h... | 118 | 127 |
AskHistorians | Is there any other instance in history where a different race of people were imported into a land as slaves and eventually became fully assimilated as equals into society? If so how long did it take?
Just wondering if there is any close comparison to African slaves in North America and if so what that transition look... | Don't forget the other parts of America, too. Blacks and mixed-race descendants compose a large percentage of Latin America's population, and in some cases (mainly in the Caribbean islands) they are the majority. | 241 | 177 |
AskHistorians | How did Switzerland become and remain a prosperous nation for such a long time? | Hint: [Most of Switzerland wasn't until recently.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Switzerland). That was a reason why Swiss mercenaries hired themselves all over Europe for centuries and there was massive emigration. Apart from some prosperous trading cities, Switzerland was quite poor until industrialization ... | 209 | 156 |
AskHistorians | US historians: while we're currently enjoying some presidential campaign blunders, what were the most disastrous campaigns in US history?
Has a candidate ever crashed and burned in public humiliation? Has anyone ever said something that earned major ostracism? Has a party ever thrown a fit or abandoned ship?
Additio... | [Clayton Williams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Williams) ran for governor of Texas in 1990. During a debate with his opponent Ann Richards, he compared rape to bad weather. He said, "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."
Before this debate, he was leading in the polls by 20%. He lost this election. | 541 | 742 |
AskHistorians | What are some major disagreements among historians today?
I'm curious about theory, methodology, and things like that. I'm a history student, and whenever a professor goes over historiography, they tend to point out how things were done "wrong" before, but *now* we've got it right! Of course, every historian before th... | In Biblical Archaeology, there are issues debating the chronology of certain digs dated to the Iron I-IIa ages. Some dates simply don't match up, and Archaeologists are proposing their own explanations.
Israel Finkelstein, proponent of the "Low Chronology", says that some sites traditionally dated to the 11th-century ... | 403 | 120 |
AskHistorians | How did David Duke, a former KKK leader, win 39% of the vote in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election?
What factors led to 39% of the voters being willing to support a former KKK leader for governor? I can understand that some Republican voters would vote for their party's candidate regardless of who it was, but D... | Ok folks, you will notice the large number of removed answers.
That's because they weren't answers. They were pithy one liners that brought nothing to the table, were idle speculation, or attempts to be witty that fell terribly flat.
If you are going to answer questions in this sub, answer with a **QUALITY** answer,... | 177 | 473 |
AskHistorians | What has been the most important secret ever kept (for some duration)?
My vote would be for the cracking of the Enigma code in WWII and the decisions made to keep it secret (ie. allowing German movements to go ahead uninterrupted so as to not draw suspicion).
The Manhattan project looms large/r. | Another WWII example:
The precise D-day landing location(s) - blow-up tanks and planes were used along the south coast to confuse spy planes (http://greg.org/archive/23rd_inflatable_tank.jpg) and false 'intel' was intentionally washed up on French shores in the hope it would reach Nazi high command (which it did).
W... | 407 | 254 |
AskHistorians | How much was torture used by the Allied forces in WWII?
I've heard quite a bit about the sort of stuff the Germans and Japanese did, but very little about the Allied forces. Now is this because it didn't really happen or is it because it's not taught? | It happened and it isn't taught:
http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=432
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/dec/17/secondworldwar.topstories3
And it's probably not taught partly because it was not systematic, unlike the Nazis. Partly also because we really really really need to believe that WW2 was a just wa... | 120 | 82 |
AskHistorians | What's the single weirdest historical event or fact you are aware of?
What's the most mind-blowingly bizarre event or fact of history that you know? | My favourite awkward historical moment is the US capture of Guam.
The back drop of this is the Spanish-American War, where the intense fighting is going on in Cuba and the Philippines. But Spain still has other colonies in the Pacific like Guam. However, Guam is pretty remote and only gets mail and news about once a m... | 528 | 893 |
AskHistorians | Why are former African colonies generally much less developed than former Asian colonies?
When I think of the progress of places like Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore even India and Vietnam, I see nations that have medium to high standards of living for most of their people (mostly urban). I know that the brutality ... | I would break the answer down 3 ways.
* Asia was the goal, Africa started as way to get to Asia.
* Asia did have a better infrastructure in general to start with, it's in more northern climes, less malaria etc. and is more hospitable to expanding.
* Asia was trading things like tea and spices - needed agriculture wich... | 116 | 85 |
AskHistorians | Actual speech to the soldiers?
You know the deal, in every movie when a commander has to give a speech to the men, they break out the tried and true stuff that seems terribly anachronistic. "Don't fight for me, or god, or the king, fight for you/freedom/etc." See Braveheart or Kingdom of Heaven for the biggest offende... | One of my favorite speeches was by Queen Elizabeth I in 1588. She was rallying her troops to fight the invading Spanish Armada, which almost surely would have lead to a massive defeat of the British if they had landed and actually fought. She went down to the battlefield to give this speech directly to her soldiers, ev... | 186 | 151 |
AskHistorians | How did an army surrender in your area of study? And are there any cases in history where they faked surrendering to take advantage of the other side?
Was it a white flag being carried onto the battlefield like movies lead us to believe or were there different ways?
I'm interested in any wars from any periods.
Edit... | Faking retreats is common enough, but faking a surrender by misusing a flag of truce is to commit the war crime of [perfidy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy) Even before the Hague Coventions, I imagine that it was viewed very dimly. | 158 | 122 |
AskHistorians | Historically, have we ever hit a "peak oil" like situation with other commodities? What should we expect?
I was watching a [documentary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=youtu.be) over at [r/documentaries](http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/) which talked about how people don't understand the... | The belief in peak 'x' has been very common in history. However what actually occurs isn't 'peak x', it's that innovation drives the search for substitutes and/or making the original issue irrelevant.
For instance, here's an extremely well written essay from Victorian times about their concept of peak coal:
[The C... | 255 | 222 |
AskHistorians | In 1604 there was a supernova visible by the naked eye for several weeks. What did cultures around the world think about this phenomenon?
I've been reading a book that references Kepler's Supernova, but it really didn't go into much detail. I've done some google searching, but I can't seem to find an answer to my ques... | When Kepler discovered the Super Nova in 1604 this was not as big a deal as when Tycho Brahe, who Kepler worked for in Prague since 1600, had discovered "his" supernova in 1572. According to the still mainly dominant Aristotlean world view, the sky consisted of certain spheres. The fixed stars sphere, starting right be... | 447 | 243 |
AskHistorians | Adolf Hitler ruined that mustache for everybody. Are there any other examples of despicable people in history who tainted a certain look or personal style? | It wasn't because of one person, but the queue hairstyle was closely associated with the Manchu domination of China during the Qing Dynasty. During the dynasty, the Manchu rulers attempted to impose their hairstyle on the men within the empire. After the Dynasty fell, it became a symbol of the Qing oppression and took ... | 187 | 111 |
AskHistorians | Movies always make out ancient warriors to be these huge guys with huge muscles that you'd have to get in gyms. Basically what I'm asking is, on average how buff or big were spartan warriors or a knight in the crusades?
Thanks everybody got some good answers | They were indeed strong, but not with the sort of big bulky muscles Ahnold and his ilk have. Big muscles are developed through short movements such as lifting weights, which would have been seen as quite strange for a soldier of the past. Warriors had to be able to march for long distances bearing their combat load a... | 510 | 396 |
AskHistorians | What are some of the most famous gifts one country has given another?
[This thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/10j778/statue_of_libertys_head_in_paris_1878/) got me to thinking about large gifts given from one country to another. It seems as though perhaps (??) this used to be more common than it is today. ... | The biggest I can think of is the statue of Liberty. France gave it to America. | 302 | 276 |
AskHistorians | How much freshwater did Columbus need to bring on his voyage across the Atlantic?
Not necessarily Columbus, but I was curious how much water the ships that were used to cross the ocean in that era could hold - it seems like they'd need a lot of room. | They brought beer. The alcohol content kept it clean and free of infections. Fresh water would have gone stagnant and been infected within a few weeks of leaving.
| 157 | 137 |
AskHistorians | Why has Western formal dress become the world's preference for formal dress?
As opposed to another country's, like China or India. Or even countries rejecting Western suits in favor of their own traditional formal attire. | Because during the era when participation in global (as opposed to internal or international) diplomacy, commerce, and culture first became a requirement for a nation's success, the western powers were dominant in both the military and economic spheres.
That could change, as the international 'center of gravity' shift... | 223 | 272 |
AskHistorians | Do you consider any specific historic event to be overrated? | The Baby boomers have become notorious for turning all of the events of the '60s into EARTH-SHATTERING EVENTS OF GREAT CONSEQUENCE.
The Cuban Missile crisis was a case of saber-rattling gone too far. Treated as a great triumph for JFK, it was pretty much a wash, with both sides making reasonable concessions. While it ... | 57 | 116 |
AskHistorians | How was news circulated in ancient times? What is considered to be the first 'modern' periodical/news source? | The Acta Diurna were official announcements, results of trials, high-level marriages/births, etc put out in ancient Rome beginning in the later Republic. They were inscribed into tablets and displayed in the forum, which were later filed in the Tabularium on the Capitoline.
The more important announcements were 'ma... | 150 | 80 |
AskHistorians | How have birthdays been celebrated in history?
When did celebrating birthdays start?
What kinds of gifts or ceremonies occurred? | The tradition of birthday parties started in Europe a long time ago. It was feared that evil spirits were particularly attracted to people on their birthdays. To protect them from harm, friends and family would to come be with the birthday person and bring good thoughts and wishes. Giving gifts brought even more good c... | 209 | 138 |
AskHistorians | What ancient stucture's origin is the most puzzling?
I'm talking about anything, the nazca lines, stonehenge, the pyramids, great wall of china, that tomb full of lifesize stone soildiers (can't remember the name) anything like that. | [Gobekli Tepes'](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe) origin is puzzling indeed. | 450 | 195 |
AskHistorians | Joan of Arc - how much of her story is pure legend?
I don't mean things like 'did she really speak to God' since such questions aren't the purview of history. Rather, to what extent was she a mascot and to what extent was a peasant girl actually a military wunderkind? Popular history remembers her as someone who more ... | It's not too far from the truth. Before the Hundred Years War, the idea of "France" as a nation was largely unknown, with various regions having their own national identity completely separate from the monarchy. Afterwards, France was a more-or-less unified state.
The lifting of the siege of Orleans was a major turn... | 143 | 129 |
AskHistorians | Can anybody tell me what era this ring is from?
Images: http://imgur.com/a/FZOXC
I found this ring in the Mediterranean sea with my metal detector after a huge storm. It's not like any of the modern rings I usually find, it tests as pure gold (22ct or above according to my kit) and has no hall marks or stamps. It co... | Closeup of the stones please. The concept of an angled pavillion on the back of the stone to reflect light didn't arise until the renaissance, the modern form of faceted gems didn't emerge until just before the French Revolution.
I do a bit of hobby faceting, I will be able to make guesses about the back of hte stone... | 392 | 182 |
AskHistorians | Did Hitler ever publicly comment on Roosevelt's death? | Would it be too much off topic to ask if the Japanese commented on Roosevelt's death? I don't recall hearing anything at the time, nor afterwards. We were on Okinawa at the time, and although we heard scuttlebutt about various Japanese propaganda, it wasn't about the president. Then again, we were kind of busy at the t... | 211 | 142 |
AskHistorians | Are there any conspiracy theories that have proven to be true?
I figure that they're classified as "conspiracy theories" for a reason. | Watergate: A criminal conspiracy involving elements of the CIA, Justice Department, and reaching all the way to the White House. What's worse, it included that favorite of conspiracy nuts, a campaign to suppress the truth and to intimidate, undermine or otherwise silence those who sought the truth.
If there weren't ... | 56 | 94 |
AskHistorians | We've heard of the Red Scare, the fear of communism in the USA, but was there a "Blue Scare" in the Soviet Union?
I wondered if the Russians feared capitalism way the Americans feared communism. I would think it would be interesting if there was in the eastern bloc.
Thank you :) | Yes, sort of. Where the fears were located and how they were dealt with though is much much different. The Soviet leadership was very proactive in quelling their fears. This meant the imprisonment, exile, purging, and murder of millions of people whose political views, ethnic origins, or in 'family history' were seen t... | 424 | 232 |
AskHistorians | Why didn't Quebec join the 13 Colonies' revolution against England?
As I understand it, the 13 Colonies attempted to get Quebec to join them in the revolution. Given the French support for the American Revolution, and the French population in Quebec, why didn't Quebec join the other colonies in a revolt? | This is half-remembered knowledge so anyone can jump in to correct me on this but how I understood it was that the Quebecois were actually doing quite well at the time of the revolution. First off they didn't have many British troops stationed there as well as the fact that the British respected French Catholic laws. T... | 246 | 169 |
AskHistorians | What did Roman soldiers wear in the cold?
So pretty much every depiction of roman legionaires I've seen has some of the same basic elements- short skirt/kilt, exposed legs, and sandals. Sounds fine for the warmer climates, but there were definitely cold parts of the empire. What were the guys in say Germany or the mod... | In a word: Pants.
Originally pants were seen as a barbarous clothing; however after a dozen or so winters in Northern Europe, Legionnaires got over the civility debate about whether pants are acceptable clothing or not and decided to keep their giblets warm instead.
| 197 | 199 |
AskHistorians | What historical fact or event do you know for sure is true/really happened, but makes absolutely no sense to you?
I thought of this after I read that Columbia Territory's name was thought to be confusing with the District of Columbia, leading it to be renamed...Washington. | The Dutch [Tulip Mania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) is fucking weird. A whole country went nuts over tulips for a few years, and then the market crashed. At one point a single bulb of the most coveted variety was 2,500 Florins when the average yearly salary was 150 Florins. | 438 | 425 |
AskHistorians | Why has the Welsh language survived much better than Scottish Gaelic, despite Wales having been dominated by the English for well over 1000 years?
I've always wondered why, after a millenium of English occupation and eventually annexation in 1503 (07?), why has the Welsh language continued to survive in a large area t... | One factor in preservation is that Welsh can claim to be the language of Wales, whereas Scotland has always had a linguistic divide, with the Highlands speaking Gaelic and the southern and eastern parts of the country speaking Scots (and Orkney and Shetland speaking Norn until a few centuries ago).
Also, the Highland ... | 237 | 114 |
AskHistorians | How did people near the end of the Egyptian civilization view the people from it's beginnings?
EDIT: I'm not really sure what time period. Just the time period we think of when we hear "ancient egypt." Pyramids, pharaohs, and ancientness.
EDIT: While we're at it, any good and easy to understand reference materi... | I am not an expert in this but I live in Egypt so I've been around all the locations a lot of times.
Basically ancient Egyptian civilization lasted a very long time, so by the end of it, the stuff that happened at the beginning was already very old.
Whoever wanted to take power in Egypt had to reference this "antiqui... | 117 | 127 |
AskHistorians | Which state has the worst record of picking a president?
Political pundits during this election keep talking about how important the swing state of Ohio is and how it has picked the president every election since the 1960s. Is there any state that has done the opposite and picked the losing candidate regularly? Ohio ... | Only one way to find out! Brb 30 minutes.
EDIT: Didn't realize data entry took so long, sorry for the delay. All data is in (2012 Florida projection for Obama).
I used data from [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_election_results_by_state) and made a spreadsheet [here](https://do... | 275 | 353 |
AskHistorians | Were "greasers" anything like the gangs of today, or was it just a fashion fad?
Watching West Side Story, or reading The Outsiders, one gets the idea that greasers were pretty tough cookies. Did the greasers of the mid-twentieth century have any sort of gang affiliations or gang related violence like say the Bloods or... | They were not organized gangs in the way we use the term today. Greaser was more of a label that was used in the same way that hipster is used today, a categorization coined by outsiders. It is my understanding that greasers did not refer to themselves as such.
Modern gangs like the Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood di... | 172 | 115 |
AskHistorians | How did the South become very religious and conservative, and places like the Northwestern states, and even Northern states, are much more "liberal"? | Northern states are more urban while the South is more rural. Urban population is generally more cosmopolitan and secular. Also most immigrants that came to the US in late 19th and early 20th century tended to settle in the north, making it more diverse. It should be noted that northern states too have a lot of conserv... | 272 | 231 |
AskHistorians | From your period of expertise, what is a human trait that was revered, held in high regard or even just generally accepted that would typically be looked down upon today?
I recognize this is a very open-ended question, but I imagine there are a lot of very unique answers out there.
I'm curious about everything from ... | There is absolutely no way that the media would have given FDR the same consideration of his disability that they did in the 1930's and 40's. Even when he was "walking" you could tell something was wrong. Many people knew he had problems, but the full extent of his disability was relatively well hidden. Also, the media... | 91 | 80 |
AskHistorians | Why didn't the Nazi's build air craft carriers?
It seems like a really good idea to have an aircraft carrier or two supporting in the Battle of Britain. So why did they move more into U-boats and not air craft carriers? | They did build an aircraft carrier!
The [Graf Zepplin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_aircraft_carrier_Graf_Zeppelin), she was completed^1 but never saw action, and in the end it was decided that her pilots, aircraft and armaments could be put to better use elsewhere.
There was some talk of getting her up to fig... | 243 | 216 |
AskHistorians | Was Imperial Japan of the WWII and pre-WWII eras ever a police state to the degree of Germany?
I was wondering whether or not imperial Japan was ever what we'd call a police state- my definition being a state in which people had few, if any rights, an authoritarian government, and a secret police force. I ask because ... | Your questions cover a period of aprox 40 entire years and an entire nations people so this is going to be quite a long answer.
Imperial Japan during the years leading up to World War II, notably 1910s and 1920s were a time of **rapid progression and modernization**, a continuation of the **Meiji Reformation**, a top... | 151 | 628 |
AskHistorians | Did Vikings or pirates ever develop moral codes limiting what they could do to their victims?
I'm curious both about legal or social rules in the case of Vikings, and moral decrees from pirate captains. | A very curious bit of Viking morals: it's wrong to steal, but it's right to take by force. One of the Icelandic sagas tells of a Viking raid in the Baltic, where the Viking party manages to steal stuff from a farm under the cover of darkness without the occupants realizing what's going on. Halfway back to the boats, th... | 50 | 101 |
AskHistorians | [Meta] Okay, I'm going to explain this for the last time.
In the past two days we have had two threads, one about Puerto Rico statehood and one about "Why is the South so Conservative".
Both threads were rather popular, but both were full of empty answers, stereotypes, pun threads, circle-jerking, outright bad infor... | Pro tip, if you have to start your answer off with "I'm not a historian but I'd guess".... you should delete whatever post you were going to type.
Also
1- Why is the South Conservative and the North Liberal?
2- Why did the South switch from Democrat to Republican?
Get asked about every 3 days, it would be stellar... | 2,553 | 831 |
AskHistorians | Why did Russia experience a literature 'golden age' in the 19th century? | This century was incredibly transformative for the Russian Empire. In the course of one century they experienced the following (and the intellectual movements that followed:
1. Napoleonic wars, and the Decemberists who mutinied after the war.
2. The Nihilists who saw the former as too aristocratic and traditionalist... | 315 | 175 |
AskHistorians | What was Albert Einstein so famous?
I understand his work in physics and how it was ground breaking but so were so many other influential scientists at the time, e.g. who did work into quantum physics. Why is Einstein remembered so well by the general populace today (and at the time) above all others?
EDIT: Please d... | Well, I'm not sure anyone can give you a perfect answer to a question like this but I'll give it a go. First off I'll simply note that all of Einstein's contributions predate quantum mechanics as we know it and for the most part predate even the old quantum theory (what you might call BKS, short for Bohr Kramers Slater... | 186 | 685 |
AskHistorians | When did it become common for people to own pets? And has it always been animals like cats and dogs? Are there any examples of civilizations that had what we would think of as exotic animals as common pets? | Historically speaking, pets were present in Ancient Greek and Roman culture. However, the widespread ownership of animals with no utilitarian function began to emerge as a category in the sixteenth century. Yet, it was a great luxury to have a pet. This was a contrast to the Middle Ages when domestic animals and humans... | 160 | 119 |
AskHistorians | What work has done the most damage to your field?
I don't like to be negative, but we often look to the best sources in the field and focus on what has been done right.
Clearly, things go wrong, and sometimes the general public accepts what they are given at face value, even if not intended as an educational or schol... | Disney.
You bastards. Pirates were not merry singing gentlemen of the sea nor were they psychotics.
They were a criminal organization on par with a narco-sydicate. | 798 | 587 |
AskHistorians | Just saw LINCOLN where he was portrayed as having unwavering loyalty to abolitionism and America's Grandpa... this isn't true, is it? General questions about the movie's accuracy
For instance, I recall reading somewhere that Lincoln gave speeches to people saying things like "I have no intention of abolishing slavery"... | Lincoln, somewhat pragmatically, until the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation made it impossible, would have left existing slave holding states with slaves. He believed and a large number of contemporaries and historians agree that containing it would leave to its natural death, through economic faults in the sy... | 205 | 140 |
AskHistorians | Was there as much resistance to the NHS in the UK as there is to universal healthcare in the US today?
All I know from school is that the NHS was created partly in response to the need to give veterans of WWII lasting healthcare in Britain and that it strove to provide free and univeral healthcare to all (which has be... | I wouldn't say the two really compare, given the vast disparities in social contexts and the history of each movement, but a short answer would be no.
The first recognisable institutions of the welfare state began to emerge in Britain in 1908, following Herbert Asquith's appointment as Prime Minister. The Liberals int... | 375 | 270 |
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