askhistorians

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My grandmother once said that, as a young woman in 1930s New York, she would chat with her friends in French when their husbands were around, because all the young ladies in her social circle learned French in school but all the young men learned German or Russian instead. Was this a common split?	5443
As late as 1905, Japan gained international acclaim for the humane way it treated Russian soldiers in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905. When and why did the Japanese soldiers become bloodthirsty "savages" committing barbaric acts in WW2? NSFW	5176
When did it become unacceptable for teenagers (specifically 13-14 year olds to be sexualized? NSFW	5116
Young man: how did the Village People's "YMCA," a song celebrating the closeted homosexual interactions occuring in 1960's Christian gymnasiums, become an anthem which a room full of 13 year olds at a church gathering would enthusiastically dance to in later decades?	5076
In the 1890s, Argentina was the richest country, in the world. Today, their GDP per capita is barely higher than it was 120-130 years ago. What happened?	4999
The Mormon church (in)famously maintained that Black people did not have souls until the 1970s. What were the internal politics that led to finally abandoning this position?	4926
In the early NES games from Nintendo (Ice Climber, Wrecking Crew, Kid Icarus), there seems to be an obsession with casting eggplants as evil. Did that have anything to do with the cultural zeitgeist or even deeper history of eggplants in Japan, or was someone just obsessed with purple veggies?	4848
I have no access to a university, so how can I learn history in depth without a university ??	4678
Where did pop Christianity get the idea that people become angels when they die, when this isn’t suggested anywhere in the Bible?	4575
Is there any evidence of human meat processing in Nazi concentration camps? NSFW	4538

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