askhistorians

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In 1973 a federally funded American family planning clinic forcibly sterilized two black children, the Relf sisters, by lying to their parents about giving them birth control. Were these just rogue workers acting on their own, or were they following an official policy of eugenics?	6
Why is history often (possibly even as the standard in academic writing?) written about in the present tense? Doesn't this just introduce more potential for inaccuracy, confusion and even bias?	6
Madagascar was first settled by sailors from the Austronesian islands between 200 and 500 BCE, roughly 2 million years after humans first began migrating out of Africa, making it one of the last settled landmasses. Did nobody in Africa travel directly to Madagascar in all that time? Why not?	6
Auschwitz now bears a plaque with the famous quote from George Santayana, "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again." Considering Santayana was himself a eugenicist, was this choice of quote intended to be ironic and/or contradictory?	6
When did law enforcement start doing cavity searches? How did they come to be a standard practice?	5
Was 1877-1923 really the nadir of American race relations as Wikipedia claims? Surely that nadir would've been prior to the abolition of slavery?	5
How did Christian slaves in America reconcile sharing a religion with their owners? For instance, did they expect to coexist with them in heaven? Did they think their owners were sinful, whether for enslaving fellow Christians or otherwise? Did they think God approved of their enslavement?	5
Why have books never had a content rating system like the ESRB for videogames or the MPA for films?	5
Did the historical Israelites actually fight the wars and conquer the cities and peoples described in Numbers, Joshua and other books of the Bible?	5
The United States hasn't declared war on a country since 1942, despite obviously having fought in many wars since then. Why?	4

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