askhistorians

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Where does black metal corpse paint come from? I've seen BM musicians claim it came from Old Norse Berserkers, but that seems to me like a crafty attempt to assign a romantic, mystical, and pagan origin to what would much more easily and credibly be explained by... Kiss and King Diamond.	14
Just the other day, there was a question about the name Halfdan(e) among Viking-era Norsemen. Were there other similarly formed names (e.g., Halfswede or Halfgeat, or whatever would have been the proper Old Norse forms)?	14
During the 1950s and 1960s, was the difference in standards of living between Western Europe and Latin America smaller than it was in the 90s?	14
Between "Funiculì, funiculà" and "Tarantella napoletana" (links inside), how did Neapolitan music become the default "soundtrack" to represent Italy in media made outside Italy?	14
In both The Irishman (2019) and Hoffa (1992), Jimmy Hoffa is portrayed as particularly foul-mouthed and hot-headed. Are these portrayals true to life in those characteristics?	13
After breaking with Rome, how did England deal with foreign Catholics who might want to make pilgrimages to places associated with Catholic saints like Canterbury Cathedral?	13
Why wasn't Dante's Divine Comedy translated into English until the turn of the 19th century despite Early Modern England's evident interest in Italian literature?	13
Did the nautical technology exist in the 1290s for Europeans to have traveled to the Americas?	13
Was Hans Asperger a committed Nazi?	13
Why did the Dems nominate Mondale in 1984? Was his role as the other half of Jimmy Carter's monumentally unsuccessful reelection bid four years earlier not a major political liability at the time?	13

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