AskHistorians

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There is a bit in Boardwalk Empire where one chracter gives another vodka as gift & its treated as a big deal. In the audio commentary the director explains that in the 1920s vodka was rarity in the US because of what was going on in Russia at the time. True?	112
follow up: is this a real document?	111
In 1995 Boris Yeltsin very briefly considered launching nukes after a weather rocket was briefly mistaken for a missile. How did they go about turning over control of the nukes to the new government when the USSR fell? Was there any talk of not doing so?	110
Wikipedia says the vikings had to leave Britain in AD 1005 because a famine struck their army. Did that famine just effect them, or were the native English badly hit as well?	110
is there a particular, non random, reason that Rome was able to built an empire spanning most of Europe (apart from Russia and Scandinavia) and the near east, where no other iron age city state on the Mediterranean coast could/would?	110
I was just watching an interview with Chris Matthews where he said when a new President is sworn in the white house is redecorated almost immediately (at least that was his experience of the Carter to Reagan transfer). Did LBJ do it that quickly or did he wait so as not to appear in bad taste?	109
in 425 Valentinian III became the western roman emperor at the age of six. how would that have made his childhood different from that of a normal aristocratic Roman child?	109
We know the temple of Jupiter was still there in 455 because the vandals took its gold roof titles. Were the Christian Romans using the temple for something else or was it just derelict at this point? In the later case why hadn't they taken gold from it?	108
Would medieval historians (circa 1116) have understood there was a difference (in terms of reliability) between Homer's stories of the Trojan war, and something like Livy's history of the Punic wars?	106
In movies and TV shows emperors, kings and sultans always just keep all their gold in a room in their palace. Suppose I'm a medieval Sultan or byzantine emperor, where do I keep my personal wealth?	106

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