askhistorians

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Millennials in the US widely believe that getting hired was easier for their parents & grandparents, who are known such stories as “I walked right up to manager and said, ‘I’d like a job, when can I start?’ He hired me on the spot!” How true was this in, say, 1970?	8372
How did Soviet soldiers stay warm at night while bivouacking the field in winter? Did they have large heated tents? Platoon-sized cuddling in cold? Or were their sleeping bags/bedrolls really warm enough to make sleeping in the field not much different than any other army?	2861
Arab Muslims endured centuries of Ottoman, and later British, domination without prolonged and vitriolic conflict. Why, then, did Israel’s founding in 1948 provoke an immediate, frenzied, multinational invasion followed by decades of anger? What made that different?	2368
Notorious SS officer Reinhard Heydrich was kicked out of the German Navy in 1931 for “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman”. Has it ever been determined specifically what he did to receive such a harsh, but vague, penalty?	1141
President Harry Truman left office with the lowest approval ratings of any outgoing US President, ever. What made Truman so unpopular by the time his presidency concluded?	923
It’s been claimed that WW1 lowered the average height in France since taller men were less likely to survive trench warfare. Regardless of that particular claim’s veracity, did casualties from either World War cause long-term demographic impacts for any of the nations involved?	432
Adolf Hitler’s “medicinal” hard drug habits are well-documented, but is there any evidence that Hitler being high as a kite affected the course of the war?	325
Stalin reportedly feigned a total lack of English language ability in order to eavesdrop on British & US conversations using his limited, but functional, grasp of English. How well could Stalin actually speak & understand English?	285
The “Clean Wehrmacht” narrative has been debunked regarding the Heer’s conduct, but the “Clean Kriegsmarine” narrative persists largely unchallenged. How clean was the Kriegsmarine?	169
Fierce rivalry between the Army and Navy in Imperial Japan was a major handicap to Japan’s war effort. How did two branches of the same national military end up so bitterly hostile to each other?	129

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