askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
When did European universities stop using Latin as the language of instruction?	16
How did 18th-century-style wigs remain part of the uniform of British judges so long after they disappeared from everyday use?	16
Was the War of the Roses any less of a civil war than the English Civil War? Why is it not considered the First English Civil War?	16
The US lowered the federal voting age to 18 in 1971 (around the same time as many Western countries), with most states eventually responding by lowering the age of majority to 18. Why wasn't there a similar trend with the legal drinking age, as occurred in most other Western countries?	16
Some Mexican friends of mine have told me that the story of the Niños Héroes valiently defending Chapultepec Castle to the death during the Mexican-American War has been embellished beyond recognition from what really happened. Is that true? If so, what really happened?	15
Nowadays, the matching, often colorful suits of 50's and 60's rock bands seem old-fashioned or even twee. What impression did they give when they were current? Were they considered rebellious, or were they an attempt to appease the older crowd on whom they depended for record deals? (2nd attempt)	15
Why does "By Jove!" appear in Early Modern English literature? Wouldn't it have been seen as blasphemy to invoke a pagan god? Or was Jove at that point seen as a contraction of Jehovah, with its pagan origins forgotten?	15
Why were there three separate movies from 1986 to 1988 dealing with the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati that produced Frankenstein (1818) and The Vampyre (1819)? Did anything happen circa 1986 to put the event in the public consciousness? A well-publicized 170th anniversary commemoration?	15
What became of the Angles and Saxons who stayed behind in what's now Germany? How long did it take for them and their insular cousins to come to see each other as separate peoples?	15
How did Western European noble families, with their belief that work is demeaning, make their fortunes last generations? How could they gain new income and wealth outside marriage alliances?	15

« < > »