askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
Dumas' "Three Musketeers" seem - at least in most versions of the tale - to barely if ever touch a musket. Is this accurate?	82
The residential seaside hotel was a staple setting of British drama and comedy at least until the 1970s (Fawlty Towers) but seems to have fallen out of use as a fictional setting since. Have such places declined themselves, or are they merely depicted less often?	82
Are there examples from history of a commander deliberately sending his troops to die?	80
I gather that Papal Indulgences were first issued during the Crusades to essentially "give last rites in advance" to Christians likely to die far from a priest. Is this right, and how did this turn into the "buy your way out of purgatory" scheme that Martin Luther criticised?	68
I'm a man in 1930s Europe. Women have just never interested me, and neither have men. Do I have any concept of being "asexual"? Do any writings of the time discuss the idea?	58
The 1934 World Cup was held in Mussolini's Italy and the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany. Was there any controversy over the awarding of these prestigious events?	56
Were presidents Garfield and McKinley "sainted" after their assassinations in the same way as Lincoln and Kennedy?	55
Characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories are often described as having attacks of "Brain Fever". Was this an actual diagnosis at the time or is Conan Doyle using the term loosely?	53
Why did Lady Jane Grey fail to be accepted as England's queen, despite apparently being a more acceptable monarch to the largely Protestant English than staunch Catholic Mary Tudor?	53
[Meta] I want to discuss history, not just ask questions, but /r/history sucks. Would /r/AskHistorians consider allowing more open-ended threads?	53

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