AskHistorians

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What's different about America specifically that led it to have such strong opposition to gun control? Whereas Australia, Canada, and more recently New Zealand all restricted access to guns after mass shootings, there was no such reaction in America after the Columbine massacre. Why?	710
I've always struggled to see the American War of Independence as a conventional anti-colonial uprising. It seems more similar to the Boer Wars of South Africa; a settler society which developed an identity of its own, and wanted to break free from the metropole. Is this accurate?	484
In the Arabic language, the words "West" and "strange" share the same root. Is there a deeper meaning behind this? Did Arabs associate the West with Otherness? Did they define themselves as being "of the East", in the same way the West does now?	462
I'm a Muslim in what is now Malaysia in 1500, and I want to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. How do I do this? Is it even a possibility for me?	195
Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese man, was one of Hollywood's first sex symbols. During the same period, fear of the "Yellow Peril" was at its peak. How did these two things affect each other?	151
Hours after the 9/11 attacks, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, asked a National Security Council meeting," Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?" Why did he ask this? What was the context?	151
Did Pablo Escobar really offer to pay off Colombia's national debt? Was this offer realistic, and was it ever taken seriously?	148
How do professional historians explain the causes of the Shia-Sunni schism in Islam? Are there socio-economic causes for it?	127
Australia is currently suffering from kangaroo overpopulation. Was this an issue before European colonisation? If so, how was it managed by the Aboriginal Australians?	126
The Zapatista uprising in 1994 established a group of autonomous communities in Mexico which have survived to this day. What was the ideological background of this uprising, and how was it able to survive so long?	121

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