askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
[health] Did any civilizations in the premodern world have any understanding of diabetes?	3
Thomas Jefferson had an extensive sheet music collection in his library, and historians have identified many of the pieces he owned. Is this true with John Adams? Did he have a large sheet music collection, and do historian know what was in it?	2
Does the claim "base-10 systems of measurement are more intuitive" predate the development of the metric system, or were early metric advocates the first to make this claim?	2
Does an understanding of the basics of human conception predate written history?	1
Did African and Indigenous American musical idioms and practices influence the music produced by European composers in 16th and 17th century Latin America?	1
How did African and Indigenous American musical idioms and practices influence the music produced by European composers in 16th and 17th century Latin America?	1
Did high taxes create famines after bad harvests in the Roman Empire, or was the tax regime flexible enough to adjust in such cases?	1
Did any recourse exist for surviving victims of "Aryanization" policies in France after the conclusion of the second World War? If so, what forms did it take?	1
In some early modern monarchical courts, it seems that courtiers who aided the king in dressing and ablution may have enjoyed a particularly favored place due to their intimacy with the monarch. How did this square with the idea that gentlemen did not work with their hands?	1
In European aristocratic and genteel tradition, "working with one's hands" was a sure sign of low status. By what reasoning did aristocratic practices like making war, helping a monarch dress, or aiding a monarch in their ablutions did not qualify as "working with one's hands?"	1

« < > »