/u/coldcynic's posts in /r/AskHistorians

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"Cornfields now are where Troy once was". How do abandoned cities physically disappear and have to be excavated?

4142 upvotes

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Were the state-owned British railways better than before the nationalisation?

59 upvotes

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Why did many American hotels discriminate against Jewish people? Did 'Christians only' policies affect atheists and people of other religions? Was it a thing in other democratic countries?

37 upvotes

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A pop history book I saw years ago claimed the German army only had ten days' worth of ammunition at the end of the 1939 invasion of Poland. Is it even remotely true?

19 upvotes

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How did the internal passport system work and what did travel look like for different social classes in the last decades of the Russian Empire?

10 upvotes

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Paperwork seems like a natural part of a state nowadays. How much of it were historical empires producing?

8 upvotes

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Just how anarchic and filled with looters was west Russia in 1916-1917? How did it compare to actual revolutionary periods in 1905-7 and from 1917? What about WW2?

8 upvotes

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Reading about the American Civil War, one keeps finding mentions of Lincoln pressuring generals to attack; did it lead to unnecessarily high casualties?

6 upvotes

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I'm a merchant a few centuries before early writing. How do I keep track of anything? How far do I travel? What's my day like?

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In the 1640s, while Poland-Lithuania was still close to its peak, its king Władysław IV planned to reconquer Constantinople. If we disregard the parliament's scepticism, was this plan economically and militarily realistic?

5 upvotes

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Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
"Cornfields now are where Troy once was". How do abandoned cities physically disappear and have to be excavated?	4142
Were the state-owned British railways better than before the nationalisation?	59
Why did many American hotels discriminate against Jewish people? Did 'Christians only' policies affect atheists and people of other religions? Was it a thing in other democratic countries?	37
A pop history book I saw years ago claimed the German army only had ten days' worth of ammunition at the end of the 1939 invasion of Poland. Is it even remotely true?	19
How did the internal passport system work and what did travel look like for different social classes in the last decades of the Russian Empire?	10
Paperwork seems like a natural part of a state nowadays. How much of it were historical empires producing?	8
Just how anarchic and filled with looters was west Russia in 1916-1917? How did it compare to actual revolutionary periods in 1905-7 and from 1917? What about WW2?	8
Reading about the American Civil War, one keeps finding mentions of Lincoln pressuring generals to attack; did it lead to unnecessarily high casualties?	6
I'm a merchant a few centuries before early writing. How do I keep track of anything? How far do I travel? What's my day like?	6
In the 1640s, while Poland-Lithuania was still close to its peak, its king Władysław IV planned to reconquer Constantinople. If we disregard the parliament's scepticism, was this plan economically and militarily realistic?	5