askhistorians

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It's said that Shakespeare invented a great many new words in his works. How could he expect his audience to understand them?	17
Pompey was Julius Caesar's son-in-law, despite being six years his senior; were marriages with this sort of extreme age-gap common among the Roman aristocracy? Would it have been noteworthy, or at all a source of public scandal?	17
The word 'sinister' was taken directly from Latin, where it is associated with left-handedness; were associations between other-handedness and something ominous or foreboding particular to Roman society? Do we know where these associations came from?	17
How uncommon were royal annulments when Henry VIII tried to get one? Was his expectation that the church would grant him one out of the ordinary?	17
Modern evangelical Christians seem to place a great deal of emphasis on the Revelation (as opposed to the life of, or teachings of, Jesus); was this historically a point of emphasis, or is this a modern trend? Are there any theories as to why it has become such a focal point?	17
What sources did the brothers Grimm compile their tales from? Were they self-aware that they were preserving heritage?	17
Was China's influence on southeast Asia ever comparable to European influence in Africa and the Americas in the age of colonization?	17
What's known about the historical Buddha?	17
When Columbus returned from the new world, how did other European countries react? Did they realize he hadn't, in fact, reached the far east? Did they immediately set about explorations of their own? Did technological breakthroughs make his voyage possible, or was it a question of will?	17
How is it that in the United States, racial identity has been tied to the notion of 'one drop'? Is this common among former slave societies, and if not, how did the United States end up with its (seemingly) weird notion of racial identity? By 1998, is this changing?	17

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