askhistorians

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By the time of the Great Schism (1054), did Catholics and Orthodox Christians consider each other heretics, excommunicates, or somehow false Christians? Put simply, did each group think the other was going to hell? (7th attempt)	1074
Why wasn't Dante's Divine Comedy translated into English until the late 18th century? How did it miss the Early Modern English wave of Italian translations that included Orlando Furioso?	733
As a kid in the 1990s, I seem to recall movies regularly taking a year to come out on home video following their theatrical release. Why did they take so long, and why did this ultimately change?	675
Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897) are often paired together as some of the greatest English-language horror novels of the 19th century (if not all time), despite 79 years between them. When did this pairing begin? Is it wholly a product of Universal Studios adapting them 9 months apart in 1931?	670
Why didn't Ireland close the last Magdalene laundries until the 1990s(!)? Surely they seemed dreadfully archaic well before then, did they not?	485
Over the centuries, why don't the Welsh seem to have opposed English dominance the way the Irish and Scots have?	434
Europe has had universities since the High Middle Ages, so why didn't (future) kings attend them until—if I'm not mistaken—the 19th century?	389
Two of Washington State's most influential alternative rock bands (the Melvins and Nirvana) sprang up in and around Aberdeen, a small lumber town far from the state's urban centers. Did 1980's Aberdeen have any special traits that would make this fact less unlikely than it would seem on the surface?	365
In The Godfather (1972), post-WWII mafiosi seem to have congressmen as personal puppets to do their bidding. Is there any grain of truth in this depiction?	350
As a child in the early 90s, I clearly recall a common refrain by my parents' generation: "Videogames will rot your brain!" Often, a nearly literal meaning was implied. Given the pervasiveness of this very specific wording, was there a well-known, influential spreader of this idea in the 1980s/90s?	313

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