askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
A teacher once told me that before the Columbian exchange the turnip was the most popular root vegetable in Western Europe, land used for potatoes in 1800 was probably used for turnips in 1400. True?	38
In 1514 was it common knowledge in Europe that gun powder was invented in China?	38
aside from who the nationality of the ruling family, how did Ptolemaic Egypt differ from when the country last had a native ruler?	38
did the Romans at all associate their supposed superiority to barbarians with their greater technical knowhow (IE example they had watermills well the Celts were still grinding by hand) or did they imagine it to be an entirely cultural superiority (IE "we make better art & poetry than them")?	38
Suppose you're a typical Saxon Lord in AD999. How much of your time is taken up by leisure activities (drinking, hunting, eating, ect), and how much of your time is taken up with actually administrating and/or defending your lands?	37
Suppose you visited Thebes (Egypt) in 1395BC, mid way through the New Kingdom period. Suppose you visited Thebes in 1103BC, during the decline after Sea People invasions. What differences (if any) would you expect to see?	37
how old is the notion of the political party?	37
As I understand it in ancient times although people understood things like politics changed over time, they assumed their basic way of life would just stay the same forever. When did people start to think of technological change as something constant and on going like we do in modern times?	37
In 1974 what proportion of the USSR's population had actually read Marx?	37
A while back Someone on an alt-history forum told me there is a fringe theory about Odin having been a real person who lived some thousands of years ago. Is that a real theory? If "yes" how plausible is it?	37

« < > »