AskHistorians

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How did Athenians think Socrates was corrupting their young? Do historians accept that Plato's version of events really happened?	20
How widely accepted is the theory that climate change contributed to the spread of the Black Death? What are the prevailing theories of its causes and spread/why it was so much worse in the 14th century than other deadly epidemics, even previous and subsequent instances of the same disease?	20
How did the red light district in Amsterdam come about? What about its relatively lax enforcement of drug laws? What led Amsterdam (and presumably the Netherlands in general) to develop greater legal permissiveness than the rest of Europe?	20
What's the evidence that the remnants of Crassus's legion ended up in China?	20
Browsing the FAQs, it's obvious that early Christianity was progressive for its time regarding women's rights and treatment. Did this change at some point, was it a case of values shifting around them, or was there some other cause for a change in perception?	19
In the 1872 US presidential election, after election day but before the electoral college voted, the Democratic nominee, Horace Greeley, died; were there any contingencies in place when this happened and did this affect either major party's rules for how to handle such a situation?	19
Before Alcoholics Anonymous, what treatment options were available for alcoholics, and did any of them work?	19
All in the Family was the most popular show on television in the 1970s and a cultural phenomenon. What drove this popularity? Was Archie Bunker, the racist, sexist face of the older generation, meant to be sympathetic?	19
In The Great Escape, Allied prisoners receive care packages from home including luxuries even few of their captors would have access to (cigarettes, chocolate); were prisoners of war really allowed such luxuries in WWII?	19
Tristam Shandy strikes me as a post-modernist work written in the middle of the 18th century, down to including bits later eras would label as of questionable taste. Was this a product of the work coming before novels had rules? Am I overstating how surreal it was for something that old?	19

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