askhistorians

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People plunged their arms into cauldrons of boiling water to snatch up stones in the middle ages as a way of proving their innocence. Many historians report people coming away without severe burns. How did this work?	6
Did the ancient Greeks and Romans use Kykeon as an alcoholic beverage? As a meal replacement? As a psychoactive compound to bring on religious experiences?	6
The emperor Julian the Apostate reopened the Delphic oracle and rebuilt the temple of Apollo in a bid to revive paganism. He apparently received several oracles from the oracle. Would there have been any remnants of the old cult left by this time? Was the old Pythia still alive?	6
Is it true that the first generation of social security beneficiaries were miserable in retirement, and wanted to work?	6
How much would it cost the fully excavate and preserve the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum? Given the potential goldmine of artifacts and lost texts it contains, why haven't the excavations moved forward after so much time?	6
Slavery has mostly ended everywhere, and most countries never fought a horrible Civil War like the US to do it. Do we have reason to think industrialization and economic development would have rendered the institution unprofitable in another fifty years if the war hadn't been fought?	6
Roughly how many "genetic Turks" moved into Anatolia as they conquered it from the Byzantine Empire, and afterward? Are the Turks today mostly of the same genetic stock as existed under the Byzantines, with a bit of Turkic DNA mixed in? Or did most of the original inhabitants get replaced?	6
Beans & other legumes were extremely common foods, historically. Did most cultures soak and/or sprout them before cooking and consuming them?	6
Italian scholars sought out Greek texts in Constantinople to bring back to Italy. But did the Byzantine Roman scribes preserve Latin texts and retain the ability to speak Latin? Were their libraries stocked with Latin classics? Did the Italians find any "missing," Latin texts alongside the Greek?	6
Was there a shift from the attitude that littering was ok to that it was not at some point in American history? When was this, and what brought about the shift?	5

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