askhistorians

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How different is modern corn/cornmeal from what native Americans were eating prior to western contact? What happened to change our corn?	35
Were Byzantine commentaries on ancient Greek philosophical works meant to "update," or "Christianize" the philosophies for contemporary medieval audiences, or did they just try to explain the philosophical ideas better than the original authors had?	34
Did emperors continue to use Hadrian's massive villa outside Rome after Hadrian died in 138 A.D.? What ended up happening to the opulent place?	34
Were the squat and cross-legged-floor-sitting the normal rest positions in Western Europe before the modern era, or were chairs dominant from early on? Would we have found lots of people squatting or sitting cross legged around low tables in ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt?	34
Many Germanic tribes attacked the Romans in 166 -180 A.D. because they were being pressured by the Goths, who were invading their territories from what is modern Poland. Why was the conquest of Roman territory considered a better bet than defending their own territory?	34
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was sick for most of his life. What is the scholarly/medical consensus about what ailed him, and is it considered likely that his doctors' treatments were worsening his condition?	34
The sweet potato got to the islands of japan from the Americas only 400 years ago. How did the normal orange sweet potato of the Americas turn into the purple okinawan sweet potato so quickly?	34
The meticulous collection of human feces for fertilizer in China, Japan, and Korea, chronicled in "Farmers of Forty Centuries," is argued by the author to be a cornerstone of Asia's enduring agricultural productivity and high population density. To what degree did western civs do this as well?	33
Did the Athenian Theater of Dionysus sit empty 50 weeks of the year? What went on there when the week-long Dionysia and Lenaia festivals weren't going on?	33
To what extent did retirement exist before the end of WW2? How common was retirement? Did most people work till they were too sick or decrepit to do so and then had relatives care for them?	33

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