AskHistorians

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Say I'm a Soviet soldier in Berlin just after the Germans surrendered and I decide that I like the Capitalist West more and want to desert. Would I be able to cross over into one of the other Occupied sections of Germany and be accepted? Are people like me common?	133
Historians, what are some of the best history books that have come out in 2016?	131
In the opening chapter of Misha Glenny’s book, The Balkans, he describes how the Ottoman Janissaries, once an elite group of soldiers sworn to serve the Sultans and the Empire, had by 1794 “degenerated into a corporation dedicated to self-aggrandizement”. What the hell happened?	120
TIL that from the late 1950’s to the 1970’s, the New York City Housing Authority had its own police force. What were the effects of this experiment in community policing? Was it more effective then the NYPD?	115
Did the founding fathers ever recognize the disconnect between their words and the reality?	111
How did the wider European community react to Bartolome de Las Casas accounts of Spanish atrocities in their colonies?	110
Why were Chinese men so obsessed with the idea of widow chastity?	110
I, being born in America, know what advertising looks like in a capitalist society but what did advertising look like in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries?	106
Why was France given a zone of occupation in Berlin? Considering their defeat, surrender and lack of major participation in either the Eastern or Wester Fronts.	96
For hundreds of years the Catholic Church was the sole religious institution in Western Europe. Yet, after the Protestant Reformation we see a burst in anti-Catholic rhetoric and violence. Was this always underneath bubbling beneath the surface? Or was it a product of the Reformation?	90

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