AskHistorians

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Pop history often presents Yugoslavia as a "nationalist time bomb" destined to blow, held together only by the force of strongman President Tito. But he died in 1980 and the first Yugoslav war began in 1991. What was really going on?	3372
When I look up the history of Mongol women in the era of Genghis Khan and his sons/grandsons I only find information on Mongol queens and princesses. How did the other 99.9% of Mongol women live?	3219
In New Orleans, Delphine LaLaurie was arrested & tried at least once for mistreatment of slaves & her house was burned down by an angry mob in 1834. What made her level of brutality so scandalous & what separated it, legally and socially, from the "acceptable" brutality of day-to-day slave life?	2748
Who was healthier: a rich city-dweller in 1st century Europe or a rich a city-dweller in 11th century Europe? What about a poor city-dweller in 1st century Europe compared to a poor a city-dweller in 11th century Europe?	2383
Accountants and lawyers give advice but doctors give orders. How did physicians (and medical researchers), especially in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, get imbued with so much authority over their patients/subjects, who seemed to have almost zero choice in their own care?	794
Modern language assumes a degree of agency when dealing with illness ("fighting cancer"/"don't give up"/"giving up and dying") and that personal will contributes at least a little to healing. Would a medieval European have thought the same way?	628
1050 CE: I'm a countryside farmer in what is now eastern France (Burgundy). Who do I consider a foreigner? Is a Christian in Dijon a foreigner? What about a Jew in Dijon? Or either in Paris? Is a guy in the next valley a foreigner? How does a foreigner become "one of ours?"	529
What's the background behind this very NSFW propaganda print from around the time Japan won the Russo-Japanese War? Who would have produced it or consumed it? I take it falls under the category of "Shunga". Was it "mainstream" or "pornographic" or both/neither? NSFW	491
Was Hitler's model of government organization, with multiple inefficient, redundant and competing agencies, a form of "coup-proofing" like that undertaken by modern authoritarian states, or was it really just about his belief in competition/"survival of the fittest"?	491
Did the Paraguayan women who raised the next generation after the Paraguayan War (where something like 70%+ of the male population was killed, died of disease/malnutrition, or fled the country) perceive their children (especially sons) as being fundamentally different from the generations before?	348

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