askhistorians

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History is more than battles and inventions. If you could get the History Channel to air a documentary about world history in ONE topic that was neither military nor technological history, what would you choose?	443
Was there really a "medieval mind"? Did medievals merely hold different beliefs and values from moderns, or did they really "think different" in a way that's difficult for moderns to understand?	286
I'm a literate, well-off commoner in the High Medieval society you study. Do I consider myself a) "free," b) "unfree but that's the way things ought to be," c) "unfree and it's bad but I can't change it," d) "freedom doesn't really matter one way or the other," e) "what's freedom?"	87
President Nixon resigned after GOP leaders told him the pro-acquittal bloc in the Senate had dwindled from 36 votes (barely enough to acquit) before the Smoking Gun Tape, down to "maybe fifteen" a week later. Do we know which Republican Senators were ready to stand by Nixon at the end?	80
The Shuttle was capable of both launching and retrieving satellites. Did the US ever contemplate a mission to "retrieve" a USSR or China military satellite?	44
My history teacher said France’s victories 1792-1807 were because her foes were Anciens Régimes: sclerotic, feudal, unmeritocratic and irrational. How true is this? What French reforms specifically made her superior at war? How could "the A.R." persist through so many (pre-Revolution) European wars?	34
Were the Romans messy eaters? Do we generally overestimate how mannered ancient people were?	10
Under what circumstances (if any) did the Framers of the U.S. Constitution anticipate or endorse the idea of "Faithless Electors" outright denying the Presidency to the presumptive Prez-Elect?	9

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