AskHistorians

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The Wikipedia article on the Father of the House says that the UK House of Commons' one inherited the responsibility of conducting the election of the Speaker from the Clerk, who isn't entitled to speak and had to do it silently, after some kind of incident in the 1971 election. What was it?	31
Do the terms 'The Dreaming'/'Dreamtime' describe a system of signs common to many Aboriginal cultures from common inheritance or long interaction before colonisation, or are they from one people's culture and used to reinterpret a lot of very different cultural phenomena in the post-colonial era?	30
Why did the British-colonised part of the Caribbean splinter into so many independent countries despite proximity and shared history and culture?	29
What did pre-modern Arab intellectuals make of ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent?	28
I'm the prince of a tiny immediate principality in the Holy Roman Empire in the 18th century. What are my foreign relations like (inside and outside HRE)? What am I trying to accomplish with them? What am I worried about?	22
Did (greater) India have its own versions of the Romance of Alexander, or any other semi-historical traditions regarding the Greek invasion?	22
What were foreign powers doing during the Warlord Era in China?	19
I'm a scholar in Baghdad during the rule of Harun al-Rashid interested in ancient Mesopotamia. What kind of information do I have available? Is there anyone kicking around who can still read any of the relevant classical languages?	19
The Wikipedia article 'Names for India' reports that from the many names for the country, Bharat was chosen as the official name in 1950. What was the process like? Were there any close runners-up?	18
What did the Egyptian and Syrian governments believe about Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities in the run up to the Yom Kippur War?	18

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