askhistorians

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Why did so many Syrians and Lebanese people migrate to Latin America?	15
IIRC, Early Modern torture and punishment were considerably more brutal than their Medieval counterparts. If so, why is "Medieval" often used as a byword to describe cruel and unusual punishment?	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
Well known is Christian groups' opposition to Life of Brian, but was there a negative reaction from Jewish groups too? After all, it has a gag based on a long list of slurs for Jews, and the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" scene could be read as a defense of Roman imperialism in the Levant.	15
Is it a misnomer to use Medieval in reference to non-(Western) European cultures?	15
It seems to me that 1980's Hollywood reflects a strong nostalgia for the 1930s (especially 30's gangsters; see examples inside)? Was 30's nostalgia a real trend at the time, or am I falling prey to confirmation bias? If it was, what prompted it? The half century mark, or something else?	15
Why wasn't Dante's Divine Comedy translated into English until the late 18th/early 19th centuries when there was a clear interest in Italian literature among Early Modern English people?	15
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
I understand that England had about 8 civil wars from 1088 to 1651, so why is only the last of such civil wars (lowercase) called the Civil War (uppercase)? Does it have to do with involving a larger cross-section of society rather than only royals and high nobles fighting over succession?	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

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