askhistorians

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The famous horror Theater of Grand Guignol in Paris supposedly had boxes in the back that theater-goers could rent if they became too "aroused" by the production and needed "privacy". How much truth is there to this legend? Were people really having sex in the theater mid-performance? NSFW	146
Was is sensible, from a tactical standpoint, for the Great Wall of China to be as complete as it is? We often see photos of it traversing steep hills; would invading armies had been able to pass through these places, had the wall not been there?	139
Setting aside morality, from a purely legal standpoint how sound was the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dredd Scott case of 1857?	59
Where does the idea of the Christian heaven being in the sky come from? How recent is the modern day representation of it literally being made of clouds, and where did that representation come from?	47
Did the ancient Greeks consider the story of Icarus a cautionary tale about hubris, or is that a more modern interpretation?	43
Questions about the narrative that Soviet submarine officer Vasili Arkhipov single-handedly prevented nuclear armageddon during the Cuban missile crisis	40
I was watching a video of Japan's surrender at the end of WWII and was surprised to see the documents signed with multiple pens so they could be given as keepsakes, even 80 years ago. Just how old is the multi-pen tradition, and what is its history?	29
Are there any examples of technological feats from history that scientists today are unable to replicate?	25
I've heard that, in the Vietnam War, Vietnamese land mines were specifically designed to injure rather than kill in order to get medics to expose themselves to snipers while treating land mine victims. Is there truth to this? Or was it an American narrative built around an observed phenomenon?	21
Were people of Medieval Europe just constantly sick with multiple diseases?	19

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