askhistorians

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How, practically, did the Khmer Rouge manage to kill a third of Cambodia’s population? How did they even keep the state functioning?	2112
The 17th century was a period of extraordinarily cold weather, often dubbed the "Little Ice Age". We have plenty of records of cold temperatures themselves, but do we have any of people noticing the average temperature going down year by year?	604
Did Stalin and Beria ever make reference to or joke about their shared Georgian heritage? Did they ever speak Georgian together?	545
Skara Brae is well-known as one of the best-preserved Neolithic settlements in Europe. It's also very far north, at the very top of the British Isles. Was the climate and food supply significantly different during its inhabited period?	333
Paraguay is the only country in the Americas whose majority population today speaks an indigenous language (Guarani). Did the Triple Alliance War have anything to do with this? Was the mortality rate higher among Spanish speakers?	296
We still discuss James Buchanan's "ambiguous" sexuality. How did media - especially lowbrow newspapers - of the time deal with this? Was it as big a deal as it would be today?	240
The Achaemenid Persians - amazingly - had buildings where ice could be made and stored year-round. But in Europe and America, ice was a luxury cut from lakes and glaciers all the way up until the invention of electric refrigeration. What made the Persian method special or difficult to replicate?	86
Why are so many Spaniards named "Jesus", but almost no Englishmen? Did the name become taboo in England (etc.), or was the taboo relaxed in Spain?	80
The Japanese nation dates its imperial lineage all the way back to the 600s B.C. But, aside from the earliest legendary Emperors, was there ever an Emperor whose claim of descent is historically disputed?	52
What language was spoken/written in ~8th-century Afghanistan?	52

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