AskHistorians

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I've read that during the 1905 revolution in Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas threatened to shoot himself if the Tsar did not endorse his Prime Minister's plan. During the February Revolution, Interior Minister Protopopov offered to kill himself to save face. Was suicide really seen in such a casual way?	13
Is Professor Candida Moss's work on Early Christianity, 'The Myth of Persecution' considered reliable? Do scholars generally agree that most of the hagiography of the time was invented?	13
I've read that during the 1905 revolution in Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas threatened to shoot himself if the Tsar did not endorse his Prime Minister's plan. During the February Revolution, Interior Minister Protopopov offered to kill himself to save face. Was suicide really seen in such a casual way?	12
When Pepin the Short deposed Childeric III, he allowed him to live the rest of his life in a monastery. When did this method of neutralising an opponent die out in Western Europe?	11
Much like Stalin's mother desired for him to become a priest, Mao Zedong's mother desired for him to become a monk. What opportunities for advancement might have been open for him had he chosen that path and could he have still influenced Chinese politics?	10
One of the delegates to the 1878 Congress of Berlin was Marshal Mehmed Ali Pasha, a man who was born in Prussia in 1827 and ran away as a young man to the Ottoman Empire. How much were young men of that time exposed to and influenced by portrayals of the Ottoman Empire, both positive and negative?	10
How did Byzantine Emperors such as Alexios I Komnenos justify making deals and treaties with Muslim power, even against other Christian realms despite being highly religious?	9
The Byzantine Emperor Alexander (912-913) was accused of publicly sacrificing to a boar idol in the Agora. Can we dismiss this as pure propaganda or could there be truth to this? Could some of the Roman elite have had pagan leanings?	8
Why did the Diem brothers spend so much political capital on persecuting Buddhists in South Vientam? Was it simple religious bigotry, naked corruption, based on fears of a Buddhist-Communist alliance or what?	7
The Greco-Roman world had a general taboo on polygamy, only broken by those who took great liberties with tradition such as the Emperor Caligula. What factors do historians suggest for the emergence of this taboo in strong contrast to Near Eastern and Germano-Celtic traditions?	6

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