AskHistorians

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Apple syrup — a sweetener made from dehydrated apple juice — was once popular in the United States. Today, molasses and maple syrup are still sold in stores, despite being more expensive than sugar, but you almost never see apple syrup. Why did it all but disappear?	40
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine trekked into the Central Asian Mongol Empire in the 1240s on a fact-finding and diplomatic mission, and wrote a treatise, the Ystoria Mongalorum, on how Europeans could defeat the Mongols. How good was his advice?	39
Should we picture Classical Greek cities filled with single-family homes rather than the huge apartment buildings of cramped units found in Roman cities? Could average Greek people afford their own homes, while Romans couldn't?	39
Why did classical slavery die off in Europe?	39
US prisoners have more to fear from fellow inmates than their wardens. When and why did rape, violence, and gang conflict begin to dominate US prisons? Why are they so dangerous? NSFW	39
When and why did owning many books change from something only the wealthy could afford to the current situation - with even relatively poor people in developed countries being able to own many books (perhaps second-hand)?	39
When did governments start taking on considerable debt instead of matching expenditures with income? Did the city states of Greece, the Roman emperors, and the leaders of the Quin Dynasty take on state debt to bankroll their projects?	39
How did both sides of ancient letter correspondences survive?	39
Carpetbaggers were caricatured as northern parasites by the southerners after the civil war. How fair was this assessment? What were northerners up down south?	39
Pliny the Elder wrote that a Roman supplicant visiting the Emperor Tiberius invented some sort of shatter-proof, flexible glass, which Tiberius decided should not exist. Do historians or scientists think this was a real invention, or just a story? Could the Romans have made shatter-proof glass?	39

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