askhistorians

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The American South is mostly Baptist, yet many of the most prominent Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, were Episcopalians. Is there a reason for this religious difference?	1526
The common claim in the American South of having "Cherokee blood" in one's family is apparently often a euphemism for having a distant black ancestor. This would seem to suggest that Southerners historically had a much better opinion of Native Americans than blacks. Why would this be the case?	933
As the first black republic in history, how did Europeans and Americans view Haiti in the 19th century? Did they see it simply as an aberration or disaster or did they recognise its uniqueness?	255
Many Latin American countries today seem to identify themselves mostly with their Pre-Columbian past rather than with the Spanish, who are portrayed as their conquerors rather than founders. Why is this and how has Latin American identity evolved over time?	214
I've read that, during the conversion of the Germanic peoples, there was a period of time in which Christianity and Germanic paganism were syncretised together. How long would this period have lasted and what evidence of it do we have?	178
How did Evangelicalism gain a foothold in the previously uniformly-Catholic Latin America?	96
What is the origin of modern-day Flat Earth-ism?	89
Today most Japanese people practice both Shinto and Buddhism to some degree. So how did these two religions become so thoroughly combined together in Japan?	81
Early Christian history is full of infighting over seemingly minor theological differences (such as whether Christ had two natures in one or one nature in two). Would ordinary laypeople actually have known or cared about these issues enough to cause the division it did?	76
How did Reform Judaism emerge from Orthodox Judaism? Was there ever a Jewish equivalent to the Protestant Reformation?	74

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