AskHistorians

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Romans without male heirs adopted grown men to keep their lines going. But what about the adoption of women? Do we have any accounts of women being adopted? Was this not done because there was no political value?	137
Churchill got a lot of flack for the failed Gallipoli campaign, which was his idea. Was it a good idea? Was the failure due to execution or because it wasn't realistic?	136
How did Celtic people remove their torcs without being decapitated? How did they get them on in the first place?	134
Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," had an "an immediate impact on British economic policy." What changed after people read Smith's book? What were the convincing arguments and what changes were made?	134
Bonnie and Clyde didn't just target banks, but frequently robbed funeral homes. What sort of loot would they get from a funeral party or the establishment itself?	133
Latin was the lingua franca for diplomatic and scientific papers in the 16th-18th centuries. But was it used as a spoken bridge language between Europeans with no other common language? Would an educated Pole have communicated with an educated German or Englishman in Latin?	132
Bertrand Russel warned of the "plague of efficiency," stealing man's soul and leisure time. That was 86 years ago, but when did the "death of leisure" begin, and what started it? Do we blame religion? The industrial revolution?	129
The popular Indian film RRR depicts incredibly racist and brutal English soldiers and government officials during the Raj. The film's introduction says it's exaggerating, but does the depiction have any relation to reality? How abusive were the English?	125
Victorians were prude by today's standards, yet victorian painters always seemed able to find women willing to pose nude, whether they were in Europe, America, or overseas in Arab-dominated countries. How hard would it have been to find willing nude models? How frowned on was their work?	125
The introduction of potatoes to Asia and Europe caused a population boom, since farmers could grow a huge number of calories on even marginal land. Did sweet potatoes have a similar impact?	125

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