askhistorians

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The commercial phonograph existed as early as the 1880's - why did it take until the late 1920's for cinema to make significant use of pre-recorded audio technology?	10
How developed were Indian financial credit institutions in the late Mughal period? Should bankers like the Jagat Seth's be seen in the fashion of the Fuggers, sustaining a complex lending and accounting system, or had European innovations in bookkeeping not penetrated the subcontinent?	10
Aristocratic second sons in medieval Europe are often imagined being pressured into a monastery or set up to rise through clerical office, but what kind of background produced normal, run-of-the-mill parish priests?	9
When I read about radical movements in the early 1900s, it seems America was enamored with Georgism while Russia was a fight between Marxists and various Anarchist tendencies. Why did Russians, who sat in an even worse position of land monopolization, seemingly not produce Georgists besides Tolstoy?	9
During the sixty year reign of the Qianlong Emperor in the 1700s, the population of China doubled. When this happened contemporaneously in Europe, historians could point to the huge changes of the Great Divergence, but what was going on in the comparatively continous China?	9
Pro-Mao protests rocked Hong King during the 1960s, well after mass famines in the PRC communes were public knowledge, and in the middle of the chaotic iconoclasm of the cultural revolution. What made Maoist revolution continually attractive for the Hong Kong youth in the face of these disasters?	8
How did "Moderate Republicans" in 1861 expect the Civil War to end? Did normal voters actually think Slavery would still exist after a full secession war to maintain it was put down, just with Slave owners lacking their outsized power and expansionism?	8
I hear Rabbinical, Oral Tradition based "Talmudic" Judaism beat out its competitors to inherit the mantle of Jewish religion in the 3rd or 4th century...but there were Jewish communities in Yemen, India, even China. How did they experience the transition to the dominance of the Talmudic framework?	6
Two-Spirit peoples in Native American tribes often have specific social roles to fulfil, but where they expected to take a life partner and raise a family like cis women?	6
Unlike any other terrorist organization I can think of, the IRA was known for using Armalite Rifles and FALs. Why were these small arms more common in Northern Ireland than the more typical AK-47?	6

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