/r/askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Author
In many medieval movies such as Braveheart there are often scenes with military commanders shouting motivational speeches to entire armies on the battlefield without using voice amplification of any sorts. In real life, were they really able to hold speeches like that and is this how it was done?	2707	Tillidsmanden
In HBO's Rome, it is very common to see very rich, powerful, influential and high ranking people like Caesar, Marc Antony and Octavian take direct interest in the personal life of their soldiers (Pullo and Vorenus). Was this complete fiction or did it have some sort of historical precedent?	2707	Humpback_whale1
My humanities teacher claims that in prehistory, human society was generally matriarchal, being ruled by priestesses, and that the main religion was mother-earth worship. She claims that this information is being passively covered up by acedemia. Would you consider this accurate?	2706	TheDwarvenGuy
The Jewish Temple at Elephantine postdates the Babylonian Exile, when the Jews are thought to have transitioned to monotheism. Yet the documents found at that temple attest to polytheistic worship of YHVH and his wife, Anat-Yahu. What does this reveal about the evolution of Judaism?	2706	Pempelune
Athens, a small city of 250k, gave rise to a miracle in 500 BC and produced Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Sophocles, Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras, Thucydides, Herodotus, Solon, Pericles, etc — it seems so unlikely! What juice were they drinking? What birthed such brilliance?	2706	RusticBohemian
As the US continued to expand westward, was there ever consideration of moving the capital further west as well?	2705	hahaheehaha
Why are so many of the capital cities of most Latin American countries in the mountains?	2705	CloudEngineer
The American Midwest seems filled with beautiful structures, such as court houses and universities, made with marble and intricate craftmanship, in even small towns, all built 1910ish. If these were built today the material and labor would make costs so high. How did these small towns do it?	2703	Spam4119
How recent is awareness of dates? Did everyone in the 13th century know they were in the 13th century? Did everyone in 1516 know it was 1516?	2702	TueuEnSerie
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"- Would the average Elizabethan peasant 'get' what Shakespeare was getting at?	2702	td4999

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