AskHistorians

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The Great Jewish Revolt took place only a few decades after the life of Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity. What - if any - influence did early Christianity have on the Great Jewish Revolt, and how did early Christians view the Revolt, if we know?	10
What traits of Habsburg Austria made it capable of sustaining a multi-ethnic empire for so long?	9
What evidence do we have of how pre-industrial societies viewed and treated those with "highly visible" psychiatric and neurological illnesses, such as schizophrenia, Tourette's, OCD, PTSD, dementia, et alia?	9
What are the conditions that have existed in Chinese government, society, and/or culture at most points in the country's history that have allowed a myriad of religions and philosophies (Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, shamanism, folk religions, et cetera) to co-exist relatively peacefully?	7
Compared to places such as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, Africa has a panoply of languages and ethnicities, sometimes even with dozens in the same country. Why has Africa retained a diversity of such things while other places have mostly homogenized, even amongst pre-colonial peoples?	6
I'm commoner in early modern Europe. Aside from economic/logistical concerns, what's to keep me from packing my bags, moving to another village/city, claiming a false name, and starting a new life? What measures did the authorities take to try and stop this sort of thing from happening, if any?	6
My understanding of mercenaries in the Thirty Years' War and other such conflicts is that their ranks drew from regions and peoples from all across Europe. With these organizations being multinational affairs, how was communication handled? Did pidgin languages develop? Did they use a lingua franca?	6
What were the circumstances that prevented metal tool and weapon working techniques from becoming widespread in the pre-Columbian Americas? Metallurgy for vanity items existed en masse, and some evidence of utilitarian metallurgy exists in western Mexico, but why did it stop there and not spread?	5
Do we have any records on how Egyptian commonfolk felt about Akhenaten's religious revolution? Was there genuine, true-believer conversion to Atenism at the Pharoah's behest, or did most people tend to resist the change?	5
What was daily life like for common folk living in the territories administered by Catholic holy orders such as the Teutonic Knights and Knights Hospitaller? Were there any significant differences between the life of a peasant living in a secular monarchy and one living in a "theocracy" like those?	5

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