/u/JJVMT's posts
I'm a twenty-something, upper-class (or prosperous middle-class) Londoner in the 1810s. In terms of everyday dress, which years of the decade (if any) am I likely to be using knee breeches and which years am I likely to use trousers that go down to my ankle?
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Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene contains affected Middle English diction that would've been as archaic to him as Shakespeare's diction is to us now. Earlier than that, did any Middle English authors attempt to write in a way that invoked pre-Norman Old English?
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Is there any truth to the romantic idea that 50's rock 'n' roll helped pave the way to desegregation, as white youth embraced for the first time an African-American-made genre, and concert-goers supposedly toppled literal race barriers? (2nd attempt)
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Did Bela Lugosi really learn his lines in Dracula (1931) phonetically due to lack of English skills? I've heard this story a lot, but I find it hard to believe for many reasons.
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IIRC, most witch-burnings happened in Protestant countries, so why is Spain (& Catholic Europe generally) still seen as the epitome of Early Modern religious repression? Has the term "Protestant Inquisition" gained any currency to convey that Draconian religious enforcement was common to both sides?
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Disney's Peter Pan shows pirates with tattoos. Did any European pirates from the 17th and 18th centuries (on whom PP's pirates are clearly based) have tattoos?
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I've long had the idea that Russia in the 90s under Yeltsin was characterized by rapprochement with the West. Did Russia and/or the EU ever seriously consider Russia as a potential new EU member during that time? If yes, why did such plans ultimately fall through?
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What are the roots of the terracotta roof tiles ("tejas") so characteristic of Spanish and Spanish-American architecture? Also, why are they so firmly associated with Spain and its former colonies when similar roofing methods exist elsewhere?
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Following the English Reformation, how did English Protestant communities deal with churches and other sites that might be of interest to continental Catholic pilgrims (e.g., Canterbury Cathedral)? Did they ban such pilgrims from visiting? Grudgingly tolerate them? Attempt to profit off them?
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