askhistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
Seven out of the ten US presidents in the period from 1869 to 1923 were from the state of Ohio, yet before or since not a single other president has been. Was this just a coincidence or was there some kind of political significance to the state at this time?	5547
How did Worcestershire sauce, an English product, come to be so ubiquitous in Japanese cuisine that simply the word for sauce (ソース) can be used to refer to it?	3260
The Tet Offensive is famously considered a complete tactical failure for the North Vietnamese, but ended up leading to US withdrawal. Did the North Vietnamese command believe that the operation would actually see success or was their only goal to dissuade the Americans from fighting further?	2393
Why do people say that the French always surrender? Have they really capitulated more than most nations?	1400
How on earth did the Unabomber evade capture for nearly 20 years, despite the costliest FBI investigation in history?	641
Isaac Newton was a deeply religious person, being a well known theologian and engaging privately in occult studies. How did Newton’s religious views contribute to his revolutionary way of thinking about the physical world?	240
The island of Lemnos is often cited as possessing the last "Roman" (as in the empire) population as late as 1912. Is this really the case or just anecdotal? If so, how is this possible?	153
In a letter to a young admirer, Beethoven wrote that “only art and science raise men to the God-head.” I find the mention of “science” here to be unexpected. Did Beethoven ever show any interest in science? Was he close to any contemporary scientists?	93
Who are the Druze and how did they come about? They seem to be quite distinct from other Muslims and Wikipedia has surprisingly little information on them.	18
Between 1 and 1500 AD, India was the largest economy in the world. How did such a fragmented develop such a vast economy and why is this not mentioned more?	14

« < > »