askhistorians

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Did historians in Rome in 200 AD have a deeper knowledge of Roman history than historians of the present day?	220
How much of the assembly's reaction to Saddam Hussein's 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge, where alleged co-conspirators are arrested live and some members stand up to shout their support, was improvised?	135
The Roman conquest of Britain happened across a time-span of 41 years. Would the people in Britain feel in a state of imminent invasion of the island that ends up lasting decades? Or it was more like "oi, heard the Romans invaded Rutupiae last year" - "whatever, it's far from us, keep tilling mate"	123
The movie "Dunkirk" has a scene where a British soldier tries to shoot at a dive bomber with his rifle. How common were these attempts at the Dunkirk beach, or more generally, as a military tactic? Were they effective? Why didn't everyone at the beach do it?	88
Was NASA's modus operandi really to award contracts to the lowest bidder before the Apollo-program era? What about during and after it?	34
In 280 BC, Pyrrhus of Epirus landed in Roman Italy and won his first battle against the Romans, that had never seen war elephants before. Are there contemporary accounts of that first encounter with these brooding creatures ?	18
With the Soviet and US first manned space missions just three weeks apart, what level of knowledge did each have about the other's space efforts?	18
The ancient Romans likely never landed in America, but, based on their seamanship and knowledge about long voyages, could they have reached it if they tried to?	13
Which significant historical events or prominent historical figures would have been recognizable to most Romans in 200 AD?	7
How did the Japanese public and regular citizens of the rest of the world react to the detonations of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?	5

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