AskHistorians

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What are some common misconceptions people have about medieval Europe?	27
We know quite a bit about public entertainment in the Roman Empire, with gladiator fights, chariot races, circuses, and more. What was public entertainment like in Abbasid-era Baghdad? Was there an equivalent to the Coliseum? Did they shed blood for sport?	20
According to my textbook, under the Qin emperor the Chinese build 4,000 miles of roads in just TWELVE YEARS, from 222 B.C.E. to 210 B.C.E. That rivals the network built by the Romans, and it took the Romans several hundred years to build theirs. How on earth was this done so quickly?	19
How do we know what Ancient Egyptian (or any ancient language) sounded like? How accurate are names like “Osiris” and “Tutankhamen” to what they actually sounded like when spoken by Ancient Egyptians?	15
Where does the idea that masturbation will make you go blind (and give you hairy palms, and all the others) come from?	15
In the game Crusader Kings 2, peasant uprisings are a common, if minor, annoyance. How common were such uprisings in real-world medieval Europe?	15
Why do bakers have an extra in their dozen?	14
In 1551, Ottoman engineer Taqi al-Din sketched a design for what we would now recognize as a steam engine. However, he couldn't think of a use for it other than turning a spit, and never built one. With that in mind, have historians identified what determines whether or not an invention "takes off"?	12
I recently heard somewhere- I can't remember where, unfortunately- that feudalism, as we commonly think of it, didn't actually exist. Is this true?	8
I'm a petty criminal living in 1500s England with a death wish. What crime do I have to commit to get the death penalty?	8

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