AskHistorians

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In South Africa's last apartheid election of 1989, the ruling National Party won 1.039 million votes. In the first open non-apartheid election in 1994, the NP won about 4 million votes. How did this happen? Did over two million non-whites vote for the ruling party of Apartheid?	24
When European explorers such as the Portuguese and British landed in Kerala, were they surprised to learn the local populace was already largely following St. Thomas Christianity?	23
In January 1920, Prohibition, enforced under the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, became law across the United States. It remained illegal until its repeal in 1933. Why then, did the Prohibition Party run candidates in the 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 elections when its aim had already become law?	11
How were the Tate-LaBianca Murders, the trial of Charles Manson, and the Helter Skelter theory presented in the contemporary Soviet press? Was the bizarre nature and motivation of the case considered evidence of capitalist social depravity?	10
In 1832, Fr. Charles Constantine Pise became the first and to this date only Catholic priest to be Chaplain of the Senate. This was a time of extreme anti-Catholicism. What was the reaction Pise's appointment and was there opposition to him?	6
Pro-Soviet native partisans fought Nazi occupation of the Baltic states during WWII. Given that the USSR had annexed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania the year prior, how did partisans loyal to the USSR manage to come into existence so rapidly?	6
Are there any extent memoirs or other primary sources of Japanese citizens who were born in the Tokugawa Shogunate (1850s-60s), grew up through the Meiji period, Japanese imperial era, and died in a post-war westernizing Japan in the 1950s-60s? If so, what kind of experiences do they share/convey?	5
Was there extensive, codified literary censorship in the antebellum South?	5
The American Colonization Society, founded to relocate black freedmen outside of the United States, survived well into the 20th century and decades after emancipation. Why didn't the organization dissolve after the Civil War? How did it change post-emancipation?	4
When the US invaded Mexico during the war of 1846-48, was there any push or military strategy for the capture and repatriation of the thousands of slaves who had escaped the U.S South to freedom in Mexico in the years prior?	3

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