AskHistorians

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The 90s Japanese Animated TV series 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' rapidly acquired widespread popularity, despite it's controversial themes of loneliness and depression. While it's effect on the anime industry is well-known, did it also popularise concerns about mental health, especially for the young?	11
Did the unification of Japan improve the living standards of the Japanese peasantry?	11
Did the pre-Christian Romans really have no accessible religious figures?	11
In 1963, during preparations for the Second Sci-Fi Pacificon, significant controversy was caused by the planners decision to ban Walter Breen, a suspected pederast from attending. Did this controversy signify significant support for radical, unpopular causes in the sci-fi community in this period? NSFW	10
Communal meals were a central part of worship in the Ancient world. Would temples, churches, cult centres and the like have maintained professional cooks or would everyone bring things to make a meal?	10
I read a quote from Ho Chi Minh that greatly praised Confucius and Jesus as inspirations for his ideology but made no mention of Buddha. Did this reflect a particularly anti-Buddhist tendency in Vietnamese communist thought?	10
Joseph Campbell proposes that around 2000BC, a "Great Reversal" occurred related to how Near Eastern peoples thought about death, from just a part of life, to the idea of death as an escape from life, typified by the 'Dialogue of a Misanthrope with his Own Soul'. Is this theory still accepted?	9
Was the Chinese practice of the 'two crownings and the three respects' widely observed before the Yuan dynasty?	9
What would the wedding of a wealthy, religiously Hellenic couple in a major city of the Eastern Roman Empire look like around the 4th to 6th centuries AD?	8
When the Emperor Aurelian was besieging the city of Tyrana, it was said that he had a vision of Apollonius of Tyana advising him to spare the city to win the war, which came to pass. Is the legend of the Emperor Constantine's vision based of this earlier story?	8

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