/u/derstherower's posts
How did "esquire", a rank of nobility that were apprentices to knights, come to be the title for lawyers?
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In Greek mythology, humans were created by Prometheus, and Zeus sentences him to eternal torture. Prometheus is a Titan, the predecessors to the Olympians who were overthrown by them. Is there any significance to the fact that Greek religion did not credit the Olympians as the creators of humanity?
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Yuengling is America's oldest brewery, founded in 1829 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. How similar is a pint of lager today to one from 1829?
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Why is Romania so "Roman"? They are the only country in the area to speak a Romance language and their name literally means "Roman", yet their actual territory was ruled by Rome for a relatively short period of time. What led to them becoming so Romanized compared to the surrounding area?
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Within a few short decades in the early 20th century, the United States went from being a middling power to being the most powerful nation on Earth. Was this a major shock to the former Great Powers, or had there been a growing sense of "American inevitability"?
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Titanic did not have enough lifeboats partly because the prevailing wisdom was that lifeboats would ferry passengers to a rescue ship. Titanic's sinking was one of the lengthiest of its era, with the nearest ship still over an hour away. Did people expect a sinking like that to take much longer?
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The Church of England was founded so Henry VIII could divorce his wife. Why then was Edward VIII marrying a divorcee such a massive scandal that he (as Head of the Church) was forced to abdicate? What caused these changes in doctrine over 400 years?
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Popular history of the Byzantine Empire has the empire fracturing after the 4th Crusade and then being reformed by the Palaiologos Dynasty in 1261. How exactly was it reformed? What gave the Empire of Nicaea the authority to declare a new empire? How was this revival viewed by contemporary nations?
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"There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago." Was telling scary stories really a tradition at Christmastime? If so, why did this tradition fall out of practice?
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