/r/askhistorians
In 1911, Kanno Sugako was executed for her role in a plot to bomb the emperor. She advocated for gender equality and overturning the political hierarchy as a means to do it. What was the state of contemporary socialist and anarcha-feminist thought, and who were some influential predecessors?
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'Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back' was initially released to mixed reviews. What were the criticisms of the film, and why did the reception change over time to where it is now considered to be one of the best films ever made?
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How did sunflowers, a new-world plant domesticated by Native Americans, become one of the main agricultural products of Ukraine?
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I'm a poor farmer's child growing up in rural 19th-century America. My mother just taught me the alphabet, and it's time to start reading. She puts me on her knee and opens a copy of....what? What sort of reading material for children was available? The Bible? Plutarch's Lives? Some Shakespeare?
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Why did the British lose the American War of Independence, according to the British in the late 18th and early 19th century?
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How did the modern drum kit (kick, snare, hi-hat, toms, cymbals) develop? Additionally, how/why did modern drumming and percussion take such a prominent place in compared to in classical music?
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Ciphers and codes were all the rage in the Renaissance. In England, women embroidered them into dresses and put them in prayer books. Mary, Queen of Scots, wrote coded letters, as did the conspirators that assassinated Elizabeth I. How did so many people come to learn codes? How broad was there use?
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