askhistorians

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Today, you can find many U.S. government footage from the 1950s depicting nuclear tests on YouTube. Considering the contemporary secrecy around these tests, who was the primary audience for these films when they were created?	1150
The Beatles recorded German versions of some of their biggest hits (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”/"Komm gib mir deine Hand", etc), as did other bands of the era (The Honeycombs' "Have I the Right"/"Hab ich das Recht?"). How common was this for bands in the 60s? What made the German market so appealing?	284
Was there any incentive whatsoever for entrepreneurship in the USSR? If I had an idea for a product, was there a process by which I could introduce it to the market?	24
Did the Romans have special plays for Saturnalia similar to how we have Christmas movies now?	23
In WWII movies, you might see mail clerks delivering mail from home to the soldiers, and vice versa. How long would it have taken for a letter or package sent from the continental US to be delivered to a US soldier serving in the European theater post D-Day? How about the other way around?	21
How common was living in a hotel in the past? Why did this become less common?	17
In 1439, Albert II bequeathed the Duchy of Austria, and the Kingdoms of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia to his unborn son, Ladislaus the Posthumous. Did succession of this kind have precedent in Europe? What terms, if any, did his will have for the succession of these realms if the child was a girl?	15
How religious was the average medieval European lord compared to their subjects? Would they have attended the same religious services as the peasantry?	11
In a 2009 interview with Scientific American, Sergei Khrushchev describes the Soviet space program as "decentralized", with competing manned lunar programs. Is this accurate? If so, other than the N1, what were the other manned lunar programs like in the Soviet Union?	9
How did large passenger liners deal with storms or heavy seas in the days before advanced ship stabilization technology?	7

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