askhistorians

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On May 22nd, 1984, the CIA filed a report called "Mars Exploration" where there was a guy who was psychically exploring Mars or something. What was really going on here?	447
I'm a medieval European king and I'm about to declare an absolutely absurd law, like making pants illegal. What's the official process that I would have to go through and what checks and balances are in place to prevent something so utterly idiotic?	220
Why did St. Nicholas, in particular, become Santa Claus? The guy was a 3rd century bishop from Anatolia, why was he in particular merged with Odin and given an association with Christmas	203
In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, bastards of noblemen have bastard names, i.e. Snow, Sand, Flowers, etc. Is this based on anything in history? How were bastards acknowledged throughout history, specifically the medieval history that ASOIAF is based on?	185
Charlemagne had multiple wives and concubines. What was the difference and when did Christianity decide to enforce monogamy in western Europe?	106
Yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp - why did English shepherds keep celtic numbers while the rest of the language adopted the one, two, three, four, five that we're more familiar with today?	103
Was Queen Elizabeth aware of, or involved in, the genocide in Kenya in the 1950s?	88
I'm a Christian or a Jew living in the Abbasid Caliphate. Given that my religion doesn't have a prohibition on alcohol, but the state religion does, how easy is it for me to find alcohol? For that matter, how often did Muslims in the Abbasid Caliphate drink alcohol (despite it being haram)?	82
In 1791, what was a well-regulated militia?	82
Was Catherine of Aragon black? (Or, given that modern notions of race didn't exist in the 16th century, was she darker-skinned?)	80

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