askhistorians

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What were Medieval Christian & Muslim rulers' and intellectuals' perceptions of/ideas about Samaritanism? Did people outside the Levant know that the Samaritan community still existed & had a distinct culture? Did states treat or acknowledge Samaritans differently from (Rabbinic) Jewish people?	6
Did the people who showed up in market season in the early medieval Scandinavian trade towns (Birka, Hedeby, etc.) have an idea of what was available (if so, how?), or did they show up and decide what they wanted after "window shopping"?	6
Were there any special intelligence/spying shenanigans happening in the latter half Yugoslavia's history given its self-appointed role as independent crossroads between East and West and its tourism industry serving both blocs?	6
What was the Qing (& various neighboring countries who had been deeply influenced by Chinese political thought) notion of "sovereignty" in the 18th-19th centuries, how did it differ from European ideas of it, and how did it change when confronted with European occupation?	6
Did insurance systems for ships exist in ancient Rome? If so, was it expected that every big ship would have insurance? How would they handle a "it's stuck in the canal!" situation?	6
How reliable was food security in the United States in the late 19th century, at the large regional and national level? Would the great locust plagues of the 1870s be enough to cause local starvation and national price fluctuations?	6
Why does Fort Sumpter loom so large in American popular memory as the start of the Civil War? The South had already been attacking & seizing Federal forts & other properties for months by then.	6
Why did the 20th century U.S. largely back (politically diverse) liberal democratic movements and governments in Europe while backing (largely right-wing) dictatorships and illiberal democracies elsewhere?	6
Did the aristocracy and academics of Japan, Korea or Vietnam see Neo-Confucianism as a foreign way of thinking that had become native? Or as a set of universal intellectual and social principles? Or something else entirely?	6
What did the "mental map" of the world look like for Parthian and Sasanian Persia? Was the Iranian plateau at the center of the world? If not, where? Was far western Europe distant but knowable, or was it inherent inaccessible and mysterious?	6

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