askhistorians

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China's first university, the Imperial University of Peking, was founded in 1898, but it surely had much older educational institutions. What distinguishes a "university" in the Western understanding from these older academies, and why did China find it necessary to establish one?	2792
The prevailing narrative surrounding the collapse of Yugoslavia is that after the death of Tito, the country inevitably dissolved into ethnic chaos without a strongman to "keep everyone in line." Does this match the current scholarly analysis of what happened?	1437
What is the history of republics and republicanism outside of Europe?	193
In Stan Rogers' song "Barrett's Privateers," a royal letter of marque is issued to the captain of a sloop barely fit to cross a pond, never mind sea serious naval action. How lax were standards for getting a license to privateer in the American Revolutionary War?	121
What led 3/4 of American state legislatures to surrender a massive amount of power by ratifying the 17th amendment?	114
By the time of Cleopatra, most Egyptian pyramids were already thousands of years old. What did later Ancient Egyptians think or say about these relics of their even-more-ancient past?	106
William Jennings Bryan, at just 36 years old, won the Democratic nomination for the 1896 US presidential election. Was his age an issue during the campaign?	68
Is there any validity to the idea that the writers of the United States Constitution were at least partially inspired by the Iroquois' Great Law of Peace?	59
How much did the Guyanese government and media know about the People's Temple and Jonestown? What was their reaction to the cult's mass suicide?	50
Did the Germans buy the RAF's carrot story about night vision?	36

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