AskHistorians

Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
In the 1940s, the Superman radio program had him taking on the KKK. How was this received, nationwide, particularly in the south? Superman has an association with "all-American" values; had that already been established by this time?	4353
How involved was the CIA in the crack epidemic? Is this primarily an urban legend or grounded in truth? Is there any substance to the charge that they deliberately funneled the drug to inner city neighborhoods in the 1980s?	4259
The Roman pantheon was presented to me in school as the same as the Greek, just with different names; was it that simple, or were there cultural distinctions being glossed over in the interest of brevity/simplicity? If there were differences, what were they?	4051
Marcus Aurelius, one of the "five good emperors" and author of 'Meditations', is known to have been addicted to opium; was opium use common among the elites at the time? Would the general public have had access to it? Was there any stigma attached to its use or the dependence on it?	3898
Why, 150 years after the Civil War, is the US so seemingly more affected by the scars of slavery than other WH countries, even those whose experience was harsher (esp. where sugar was the primary crop)? Is this just a myopic view, or is something else making the US a special case?	3888
Otto von Bismarck famously anticipated that the next great European war would be the result of some 'damned foolish thing in the Balkans'. Who were the opposing forces that made such a conflict appear inevitable? Is there any consensus for why the region has so long been a powderkeg?	3733
Tent cities are increasingly common in the US, but I don't remember any from when I was a kid (80s-90s); I know they were common also at the heights of the Depression (or was this a myth?); how was this remedied then? Was it addressed by government action, private actors, or a mix?	3641
According to Ken Burns, the average soldier in the Civil War was 5'8 and 140 pounds, which seems exceptionally small and light for a population selected to fight; would this have been consistent with European armies of the same time period? If not, what would explain the differences?	3518
Three American Presidents were assassinated in the 36 years between 1865 and 1901, making it a shockingly common occurrence for a modern first world nation at the time. Do we know what affect this had on the national psyche? Did any prominent figures reflect upon it publically?	3456
25 years after she'd been burned at the stake for heresy, Joan of Arc was re-tried by the church and found innocent. What motivated this? Was it as exceptional as it sounds for the medieval church to re-try cases that had already been adjudicated?	3295

« < > »