askhistorians

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On this day in 1867 America bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million and paid... by check?! Was this normal for deals of such significance? How did nations typically purchase land from one another during this era?	4430
Who/what was the serpent who tempted Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden first intended to be, in the Torah? Christian layfolk often refer to it as Satan, but someone pointed out that the story predates the Christian conception of Satan by nearly 2000 years. Was it just a sneaky snek? A literary trope?	3363
The Chinese and Persian zodiacs are identical, except the latter swaps the dragon for a whale. What is the origin of this cultural link?	3051
The Nazis were unable to make the trains run on time: "By 1940, tens of thousands of freight cars were frozen in miles of log jams." Are ideas of fascist efficiency overblown? If so, where did they originate?	2799
Why did the Italian/Spanish style of fencing with two weapons (a rapier and a parrying dagger) lose favor to the French style of fencing with a single blade?	2597
In 1580, Nagasaki was ceded to the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Church. What was daily life like in Nagasaki under Jesuit "rule"? To what extent did Jesuits directly administer Nagasaki? WHat was the nature of the dynamic among residents of Nagasaki, Portuguese traders, and the Jesuits?	1382
Brazil is the Blackest country outside of Africa, with roughly half of its population identifying as Afro-Brazilian. What is the history of segregation in Brazil (especially after emancipation), and was there a "successful" racist institutional backlash to integration like Jim Crow in the U.S.?	1298
“Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, public sex (especially in parks) was far more common than it is today, for lack of better options.” Is this assertion true? If so, when did this change and why?	958
India's Supreme Court is considering decriminalizing gay sex, in part because "it is argued to be at odds with precolonial India's acceptance of homosexuality." What was precolonial India's perspective of homosexuality?	555
Dante's 'Divine Comedy' features 8 verses written in Occitan, while the rest is in Italian. Today, Occitan is not widely spoken and is scarcely known. What was Occitan's cultural significance at the time of Dante's writing, and why did it lose prominence in the centuries after?	526

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