/r/askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Author
Why is Afrikaans considered a language, rather than a dialect of Dutch, when Australian English (which developed under similar circumstances/distances) is just a dialect?	1525	AsaTJ
Richard Nixon seems smarmy due to Watergate. But he also made "courageous" decisions that would have caused a lot of backlash among his supporters, in international relations, civil rights, and the environment. Were these decisions as courageous as they seem in hindsight?	1525	RusticBohemian
The Chinese government is often criticised for wide-reaching state-driven policies such as the Four Pests Campaign, the One Child Policy, the Great Leap Forward, etc. Given the information available to them at the time, were these reasonable decisions?	1525	normie_sama
During the 1950s when kids in the U.S. were learning "duck and cover" and Cold War paranoia was extremely prevalent among Americans, were average citizens and children in the U.S.S.R. experiencing the same mass anxiety about nuclear annihilation?	1522	agnosticbeliever138
What common medieval fantasy tropes have little-to-no basis in real medieval European history?	1521	Vladith
There's a legend that NJ and NY had a dispute over Staten Island which they settled by saying that NY would get whichever islands could be circumnavigated in less than one day. Is there any truth to this legend?	1521	ArmandoAlvarezWF
Could Romulus and Remus simply be stand ins for two early settlements that had been growing on the banks of the Tiber in the 8th century BCE? Or do Historians think that they might have actually been real figures?	1521	Logical-Steak4716
Lack of oil is often discussed as a major factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Did the Allies ever run into large stores of unused vehicles as a result of this? If production was so high later in the war wouldn't there be large warehouses of unused hardware?	1520	TheEarthShallTremble
I have a relative who was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI and fled to the US because the Austro-Hungarian Army wouldn't let him keep kosher. He ended up getting drafted by the US army. In WWI, did the US army make allowances for Jewish dietary concerns?	1520	barristerbarrista
Is anything in this 'wiccan' meme/comic abput the pagan origins or Christmas symbolism accurate?	1519	AnnalsPornographie

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