askhistorians

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The standards used to determine 20/20 vision are relatively recent, starting in the late 19th century. What did people say before this instead of “hindsight is 20/20?”	2
How did teaching, nursing, and being a secretary become the only “proper” professions a woman could work at, at least in the US? Didn’t teaching used to be a man’s job? Was it a part of “women raise children” thing which then extended to teaching them?	2
I’ve read early cartoons, as in Steamboat Willie, were directly inspired by vaudeville performances, ie blackface performances, and many of the early cartoon animators were former vaudeville performers themselves. Is this true? Are Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and the rest based on racist performances?	2
Are there specific point-able reasons for why English, perhaps maybe American English seems to be a language especially stuffed to the brim with loan words? That is, why does a modern English sentence have a high chance of containing words that trace back to 10 different parts of the world?	2
Before 1901, it was anyone’s guess as to what made people sick. Once germs were discovered, how did people react? By freaking out, because it turns out the world is full of tiny animal things you can’t see? Did the average lay-person people accept germ theory?	2
The US Holocaust Museum states that “About 200,000 handicapped people were murdered between 1940 and 1945 under the T-4 program. The T-4 program became the model for the mass murder of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and others in the camps.” Why didn’t I know this?	2
What was the state of anti-Irish/Catholic sentiment in the 1880s in London?	2
Before formula for babies was available, how did people ensure a newborn could be fed if the mother died in childbirth? Did royalty make sure to always have a woman with milk on hand? What about everyone without access to hundreds of servants?	2
There are several aspects of an archetypical stereotypical Jew- long nose, fat, greedy and stingy, and generally untrustworthy. Where did all these inaccurate stereotypes come from? What did antisemítica think of Jews before these taking points existed?	2
I’ve recently learned there were a large number of Jews in Georgia in its founding years. What enticed so many Jews to come over, and how did they deal with being the antisemitism they’d have endured?	2

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