AskHistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
A number of modern Muslim majority countries have laws that restrict the sale/production of alcohol. However, wine features heavily in medieval Islamic poetry - none of the historical Islamic kingdoms seems to have cracked down on it. Were there any attempts at prohibition prior to the modern era?	3922
How is Yuengling, a company founded in 1829, America's oldest brewery? That is, that seems fairly late in the US of America's existence for a brewery to be established, including the colonial period. Were their older breweries that went under - and why? Was it a risky business?	3880
If I thought there was an open 'niche' in my local economy in the Soviet Union, how would I go about filling it? For example, if I thought my town or city needed or wanted a Mexican restaurant, was there any mechanism to open one?	3194
Were there any 'losers' in the Columbian Exchange - vegetables or fruits that ended up being dropped from popular consumption in either the Americas or Europe because they were replaced by something better in their culinary niches?	3057
How did the Roman Republic survive during the Second Punic war? It lost hundreds of thousands of men - how did harvests still come in and material goods get produced? If the Romans were buying grain and goods, how did the state maintain its income having lost a large portion of the tax base?	2079
In Fiddler on the Roof, why is a tailor poor and a butcher rich? Is it just random or meant to depict the actual status or wealth associated with these jobs in old Eastern European Jewish villages?	1736
If knitting is a relatively recent invention, how did people in Siberia, Scandinavia, Mongolia and other cold climates make heavy socks prior to adopting knitting?	1639
What did villages in the Roman Empire look like? Did peasants live in huts or in houses? If they had houses, what did they look like? Many European villages today have houses from the medieval era - did Roman villages have sturdy houses that lasted into the Medieval era?	684
Why did France countries develop into a territorial kingdom rather than dynastic one? That is to say, whereas the rest of Europe seemed to have ever-changing borders due to royal marriages and inheritances, why was France seemingly (on a map at least) so relatively stable?	454
Why was it necessary for the Pope to send missionaries to Anglo-Saxon England? What happened to the native Christian clergy of Roman Britain? Did Christianity vanish in Britain or did surviving Christian clergy/monks make no effort at converting the Anglo-Saxon rulers?	256

« < > »