askhistorians

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For 132 years after Marcus Aurelius died, Roman emperors frequently adopted all or part of his name on their ascension. Was he the emperor his successors wanted to be like? Did his name have unusual staying power and a halo of "good emperor" surrounding it among the Roman people?	8
What practical advantage did Ptolemy gain by seizing the corpse of Alexander The Great and putting it on display in his lands in Egypt?	8
How widely available was meat in the Soviet Union, and how much did an average person consume?	8
The infantry of medieval armies were often not peasants with spears, but highly trained and well-armed urban militias. How eager to fight and warlike were these militias? Did they train frequently? How did they do on the battlefield?	8
Women often face systems that label them responsible for crimes committed against them, like rape, and murder. In the west, legal systems don't do this, and our culture is moving further away from it. When and why did the west begin moving away from the blame-the-victim approach common elsewhere? NSFW	8
In the United States, most areas award government-funded construction projects to the lowest qualified bidder by law. How did governments decide who to hand lucrative construction contracts to before this was the norm?	8
Should we believe what Julius Caesar tells us about the Helvetti in his "Gallic War"?	8
The WWII-Era Battleship Missouri spent 29 years in mothballs before an extensive refit returned it to active service in the mid 1980s. Did restoring a vintage warship turn out to be a wise move? How effective was it against the challenges faced by modern fleets?	8
The Declaration of Independence is a damning indictment of the king of England. How fairly did it judge his rule?	8
What time would your average Roman eat dinner?	8

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