askhistorians

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How accessible was the roman legal/judicial system to poor citizens? What about non-citizens? Was relief against a legal wrong possible in practice? Especially in the early Imperial period. Also, wildcard, the Icelandic Commonwealth?	61
Where did France's Japanophilia's come from? Was all of Europe as interested in Japanese media at some point and then everyone else's tastes changed, or is the story of contemporary French Japonisme unique?	61
Various news articles from the 1970s I've seen assert that Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church was a creation of the Korean CIA. Where did the US congressional committee that made this claim get their evidence & how did S. Korea's neighbors (esp. Japan) react?	59
If we could send 19th century ship architects to 1000 CE could they still build something like a fast, sophisticated clipper ship? What intermediate incremental knowledge or tech (metallurgy?) would be missing?	58
Did the ancient Romans swear upon their testicles when making oaths?	58
How far did wood travel in late Antiquity & the Middle Ages? Was it all very local? My house in the Western U.S. (& much of the stuff in it) includes wood from Brazil, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, etc.	54
How did Persian literature come to be so widely read among Muslim elites after the Arab Conquests reached Iran? The same didn't seem to happen for Greek or Latin literature when the Arab Conquests reached Roman and former Roman lands.	54
What do we know about Indo-Greek & Greco-Bactrian religious beliefs? Does the mixed Greek & indigenous symbols in coinage & art from these regions point to religious syncretism or simply Greek religion existing in parallel with Hinduism/Buddhism/etc.?	53
When did sumo wrestling become so conservative?	53
How important was the Nation of Islam and its unique understanding of Islam and history to the shaping of Americans' perception of Muslims in the late 1950s to 60s? If a white American in 1960 for example heard the term "Muslim", how likely is it they would imagine an NOI member?	50

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