askhistorians

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John of Wallingford said that Vikings were very hygienic by the standards of the time. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, on the other hand, was disgusted by the hygiene of the Vikings he observed. How do we resolve these two contradictory accounts?	27
Nuclear weaponry is a heavy theme in the 1954 Japanese movie Gojira (AKA Godzilla). Was there a backlash among some Japanese people for using such a horrific part of their history for a plot device in a monster movie?	23
How did the banjo, an instrument with origins in Africa that got popularity in the Americas, become a staple in traditional Irish music?	22
What about Britain has attracted so many nations to invade it in antiquity and the early Middle Ages?	22
It's often been said that most of our modern Christmas traditions originate from Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. What would a typical English Christmas celebration have looked like prior to the release of this book?	21
Robin Hood robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is a fairly recent addition to the legend (Victorian Era). Prior to that, why did people listening to these stories sympathize with a thief?	20
How common was human sacrifice in Aztec civilization? Did they only do it every once in a while, or was it a regular thing?	17
If repeating rifles existed at least since the 1860s with the Henry Rifle, why did it take until 1892 for the US military to adopt one (the Springfield Model 1892) on a mass scale? Were single shot rifles more appealing somehow?	16
"The Adventures of Superman" was a very popular radio show in the 1940s. Was it common for kids to have grown up in this era having Superman be their hero without ever actually having a concrete idea of what he looks like?	15
Was John Wilkes Booth getting bad reviews prior to his assassination of Lincoln, as is claimed in the Sondheim/Weidman musical "Assassins"?	15

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