askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
Do any serious historians subscribe to the theory that a tribe called the Belgae brought Germanic languages to England much earlier than the Anglo-Saxons?	28
Did what we now call gentrification occur in London or any other European city in the nineteenth century?	28
Where did servants of illustrious European houses in the 18th and 19th centuries find time to have families? At least in novels of the era, they seem to be on call at all hours, existing as a mere means for such families' ends. Did they often die bachelors/spinsters due to lack of time for families?	28
Why are patronymic surnames so rare in German (e.g., Johannessohn) when they are so common in other Germanic languages (e.g., Johansson, Johnson)?	27
Unlike its Founding Fathers, the modern US is quite religious compared to the rest of the West. Did American religiosity come later, or were ordinary Americans always more religious than the elite class of most FFs?	27
When Louisiana became part of the US, it retained its French/Spanish civil law. Why didn't the southwestern states retain Mexican civil law following accession to the US?	27
How were Latinos with visible non-European ancestry treated in the American South circa 1940-1960? Would they have had to ride at the back of the bus?	27
In the film Luther (2003), a young Martin Luther, in a surprisingly modern fashion, refuses to condemn a youth who has committed suicide. Was the real Luther so understanding about suicide? This seems to go against the very strict and severe persona that emerges from his writings.	27
Given Sweden's and Norway's high profile in the black metal world, why have Denmark's contributions and influence in the genre seemingly been so modest by comparison? Denmark has slightly more people than Norway and the densest population in Scandinavia, so this demographically makes little sense.	27
In 18th/19th century novels, characters faint at a frequency that would seem incredible today. Was fainting really such a regular occurrence at the time?	27

« < > »