AskHistorians

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Did Napoleon Bonaparte ever actually say "China? There lies a sleeping giant. Let him sleep, for when he wakes he will move the world."	392
Were there any secularization drives in the Islamic world besides Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's well-known efforts?	127
Is the perception of increasing lawlessness in younger generations a common, standard illusion throughout history?	127
Why didn't the British West Indies emerge as a single country like Canada and Australia when it gained independence?	119
At the time, how did the Finnish rationalize their unique position in WWII (a democracy on the side of the Axis)?	64
Is it true that by the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America?	43
The Thuggees, the Taiping, the Shakers, the Cathars, the Manicheans... what are some influential dead religious movements from history that not many people know about?	13
I have seen "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time" attributed to Abraham Lincoln, PT Barnum, and James Thurber: is the actual source of this quote lost?	8
How and why did the American Second Amendment change in popular and legal perception and meaning over time, from Redcoats and muskets and community service on the frontier, to criminals and handguns and personal liberty in urban environments?	5
I just read about the Bugis people, the Vikings of Southeast Asia because they discovered Australia and New Guinea long before the European Age of Discovery. What other maritime cultures had a golden era of exploration in the Middle Ages?	5

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