AskHistorians

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The author William Boyd claims that with Anton Chekhov, "For the first time in literature the fluidity and randomness of life was made the form of the fiction. Before Chekhov, the event-plot drove all fictions." Is that true at all?	4
Did alchemists have any concerns about the potential economic consequences of being able to turn common metals into gold?	4
What led Hugh Trevor-Roper to think the Hitler Diaries were real?	4
Joris-Karl Huysmans called Edgar Degas's Little Dancer of Fourteen Years "the first truly modern attempt at sculpture I know." What made it truly modern, and what did "modern" mean to a French writer or artist in 1880?	4
Why are there so many paintings of Europeans in the 18th century wearing turbans?	3
How did the term "nativism" come to be used for an ideology which, in the US, is all about the descendants of colonists and immigrants who massacred and displaced the country's native population?	3
The Japanese were deemed honorary Aryans by Hitler, but how confident could they be that this designation would last after the war was over, or whenever their alliance was no longer considered useful? Did they have a plan in case they were next in line for genocide by the Nazis?	3
Has anyone ever successfully used the interpretation of Second Amendment as a means of defense against government tyranny to legally defend themselves after shooting a police officer or soldier?	3
Why was it "No Irish need apply" and not just "No Irish"? Was there a specific reason for the somewhat ambiguous, passive-aggressive wording of this phrase compared to more open discrimination at the time?	2
What are some better alternatives to A World Only by Fire for books about medieval life?	2

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