AskHistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
What is actually known about Roman gladiators? The revisionist view seems to be that they were professionals who barely ever killed each other while the traditional view is that they were mostly condemned slaves and criminals who were meant to die. Was it a mix of both?	1850
What was the social context behind all the Victorian paintings of nude sex slaves? NSFW	1243
Why did the Greeks use a long-distance runner to deliver news at the Battle of Marathon instead of traveling by horse? Did they not have any horses?	1198
Why didn't the Black Death of 1348-50 lead to a large-scale breakdown of government and society and how did Western Europe recover so quickly?	524
I found an old highly upvoted answer on here that makes some very bizarre sounding claims about Roman sexual attitudes. Does this have any historical basis to it?	312
What is the evidence for widespread sex abuse in the Catholic Church prior to the 20th century? I'm aware of texts like "Liber Gomorrhianus" that detail sex abuse in the 11th century and I know of many other stories, but what was the reality and how how does it compare to 20th century scandals?	253
I've heard it claimed that Native Americans inoculated infants against poison oak by feeding them small buds to make them immune. Is that true or a myth? If not, how did they avoid poison oak and ivy since it seems like those would have been serious issues for people living in woodland areas?	222
At what point in WWII did the average German soldier realize they were going to lose and how did they react?	184
What has led to the Book of Ecclesiastes being preserved in Bibles throughout the millennia despite its apparent nihilistic and even atheistic themes? What have theological discourses said about it over the centuries?	166
How devastating really was William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North in 1069-70? I've heard it described as anywhere from a wholesale genocide and slaughter to something more mild. What are the sources and evidence?	156

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