askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
82 Why is Vice President Charles Curtis, a Native American, such an obscure figure in American History?	3074
English kings like Æthelwulf famously took pilgrimage to Rome (half a continent away) or the Holy Land. Did Ethiopian Kings ever take an equivalent pilgrimage to these sorts of Mediterranean locations?	1067
In various Hollywood movies (e.g. Blade, Hellboy, Guardians Of The Galaxy), we see a structure that channels a victims blood into a carved pattern. Is there a historical precedent for this?	473
I found an image of an 100 year old Japanese typewriter with over 2000 characters. Was this actually used? How did countries like Japan or China deal with introduction of inventions like typewriters?	398
Who were the Scythians? I've heard people say "Scythian" was just the generic term for steppe nomad and others talk about Scythians as a real ethnic group. Which one is right? Both?	301
In 1976 Egyptian Sheik Hazem Salah Abu Ismail railed against "the secularists and the Masons and the atheists and the communists..." Why Masons? Did Freemasons have an impact in Egyptian history?	296
How does the concept of the "Golden Age of Islam" emerge? Was it influenced by debates over the nature of the middle ages in the West?	252
I've seen Medieval Iceland cited as an example or (or nearly an example of) an anarcho-capitalist society. How accurate is this claim? Where does it come from? If false does it ultimately derive from a true observation?	173
How did Machiavelli's reforms of Florence's military work? How effective were their Roman style legionaries?	172
If you were a white baseball fan in the 1920-1940s how much would you know about the Negro Leagues? If you were a black baseball fan how much would you know about the Negro Leagues or MLB?	152

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