In 1983, in the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet Air Force shot down a civilian flight with a sitting US congressman on board. Given our image of Cold War tensions being as taut as piano wire, how did this not immediately make the war very very hot? (old.reddit.com)
In the Bond film A View To A Kill. James remarks that they're pumping sea water into the oil fields and a geologists states that the area is near a fault line and that it is incredibly dangerous. Is this true? and if so why? (old.reddit.com)
After Rome had already gone crazy for all things Greek, it got obsessed again with the Second Sophistic in the 1st century, and then again with the Third Sophistic in the 5th. What explains this renewal of obsession with Greek culture? What new was there to be exposed to/interested in? (old.reddit.com)
Why can I sleep 10 hours and wake up on the same thought train as when I fell asleep, but when I wake from a 10 minute nap I have to remind myself where I am, who I am, and what year it is? (old.reddit.com)
Do the notable socialist ‘regimes’ of the 20th century—the USSR, China, Cuba etc—owe their authoritativeness much to a survivorship bias or something inhered in their doctrine? (old.reddit.com)
Recently, I have found out about 100’000 to 200’000 Zoroastrians still exist. But I was wondering how? The Islamic conversions of Iran definitely wouldn’t have let them stay right? How did they avoid religious extinction for so long? (old.reddit.com)
How and why did Rome experience such massive depopulation after the Western Empire's collapse (from 1 million people to only 50,000 in the Middle Ages)? (old.reddit.com)
I got laid last night and I was really loud.. Do I apologize to my housemates or do I say nothing in case they didn't hear it/were sleeping? (old.reddit.com)
If having someone’s license plate after a hit and run can get police to arrest the other driver for the crime, how come having them on dash cam video doing dangerous things on the road isn’t enough evidence to get the cops to act? (old.reddit.com)
Do the asymmetries in size and structure between the left and right lungs cause any differences in gas exchange rates? In other words, does the right lung "breathe more" than the left lung due to it being bigger? (old.reddit.com)
What did the regular people of Ancient Egypt think of their rulers getting down and dirty with their blood relations? How did the common folk view incest? (old.reddit.com)
Caribbean islands are fantastically profitable colonies, what stopped that wealth from continuing to accrue to them post independence? (old.reddit.com)
For women that have been physically abused by their partners, what do you wish your friends said or didn't say to you when you told them? (old.reddit.com)
Do all 20 amino acids get 'used' about equally overall in building the proteins we need on a daily basis? Relatedly do all 20 amino acids show up about equally as often in the translation of our protein-coding genes or do some appear more? (old.reddit.com)
Why is Eminem considered the first "big" white rapper when The Beastie Boys were all white and were popular back in 1986 (according to a quick google search), years before Em's 1999 success? (old.reddit.com)
Ancient Mediterranean piracy was largely wiped out by the Romans in the first century BC. But what about Indian Ocean piracy? With the vast wealth of India, Rome and China crisscrossing the seas from Egypt to Malacca, was piracy a major issue in the region in antiquity? (old.reddit.com)
Archie Bunker treats his wife and daughter like absolute shit, but no one says anything about it; did people in the 70s think he was an asshole, or was his behavior more or less normal for men in the 70s? (old.reddit.com)
Is it true that mad cow disease is caused by acts of cannibalism? If so, why is cow eating cow’s brain more dangerous than cow eating rat’s brain? (old.reddit.com)
Tomato juice is somewhat of a niche beverage, yet it is extremely popular aboard north american aircrafts. When, and how, did tomato juice become so popular and ubiquitous in this situation? (old.reddit.com)
Why do all modern home appliances have to make a beeping sound for every button pressed and why don't manufacturers at least give you the option to disable it? (old.reddit.com)
The Pontic-Caspian steppe is very rich in what is apparently very fertile soil (chernozem). But from what I can tell the region has mostly been inhabited by pastorialist nomads as opposed to agricultural societies. Why? (old.reddit.com)
Elizabeth I was technically born out of wedlock, due to the annulled marriage of her parents, meaning she could not claim the throne. How convoluted were the legal proceedings to allow her reign to become legitimate? (old.reddit.com)
Is it true that humans have the genes required to produce their own vitamin C? If so why are we unable to like in Fish or Guinea Pugs? (old.reddit.com)
If a train is moving at 50 mph, and a fly is flying at 1 mph from the back to the front of the train, is the fly moving at 1 mph or at 51 mph? (old.reddit.com)
Is the LGBTQ+ flag design getting out of control? I thought the symbolism was to bed inclusive of everyone, but it keeps changing seemingly to the point that, in my opinion, it looks like a mess now. (old.reddit.com)
Women who have met the love of their life after a lot of difficulty, could you share what, if anything, changed in your life shortly before you met them? (old.reddit.com)
In Game Of Thrones during the siege of Winterfell, Ramsey Bolton was keeping the inhabitants of the castle awake by constantly blowing a trumpet. This drove them mad and made them want to sally out. Did things like these ever occur in real life? (old.reddit.com)
Did peasants ever try to leave their lords and establish a village of their own, and did these villages abandon the feudal system or would the founders be considered the lords of said villages? (old.reddit.com)
In retellings of how the Dutch handed over Manhattan to the British in exchange for Suriname, you hear it said that the Dutch got swindled. But would Manhattan really have been valuable to the Dutch if it stayed a lone Dutch colony surrounded by English colonies? (old.reddit.com)
On the evening before his death, George Washington read the newspapers with his secretary, Tobias Lear. What sort of stories would he have been printed in them? (old.reddit.com)
The recent assassination of Shinzo Abe has had some links made to the Unification Church. What is the history of the Unification Church in Japan and how involved has it been in Japanese politics? (old.reddit.com)
NASA stated that they've recorded massive solar flares that are likely to hit Earth and cause geomagnetic storms. What exactly does this mean, and what are the risks? (old.reddit.com)
Did the "average ancient person" attend public executions, or was it viewed as barbaric? Say Rome announced they planned to behead a valuable POW - how large of an audience could be expected? (old.reddit.com)
In the historical film OfficeSpace (1999), a laid-off software engineer turned magazine salesman quips that his pay is better now than it was as a SWE. Was the labor market for programmers actually so dire (or the market for salespeople so excellent) in the late 90’s for this to be plausible? (old.reddit.com)
FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs was placed on FBI's most wanted list in the mid-2000s for the many crimes that were committed within the cult. How did Rulon Jeffs and his predecessors manage to stay under the radar for so long, despite committing the same crimes as Warren for generations? (old.reddit.com)
Would I be right in assuming that the Japanese Warring States period's name (Sengoku Jidai 戦国時代) is an intentional allusion to the much earlier Chinese period of the same name (Zhànguó Shídài 戰國時代)? When, how, and by who was this period named? (old.reddit.com)
"This. Isn’t. Sparta.” by historian Bret Devereaux argues that Sparta was a horrible place to live, had poorly educated citizens, was militarily mediocre, culturally stagnant, and was ruled by elites who were pretty crappy too. Anything inaccurate in that assessment? (old.reddit.com)
Australia is currently suffering from kangaroo overpopulation. Was this an issue before European colonisation? If so, how was it managed by the Aboriginal Australians? (old.reddit.com)
In the Beach Boys song "409", the song states that the singer "saved my pennies and saved my dimes" to buy a brand new Chevy Impala 409. While I expect this line not to be taken literally, would it have been difficult for a teen (the band's audience) to buy a brand new car at the time? (old.reddit.com)
Could I (an American pregnant woman with no insurance) at my last weeks before the expected delivery, fly to Denmark as a TOURIST, only to give birth to a child there without having to pay the enormous price tags like in the USA? (old.reddit.com)
As microchips get smaller and smaller, won't single event upsets (SEU) caused by cosmic radiation get more likely? Are manufacturers putting any thought to hardening the chips against them? (old.reddit.com)
I'm a soothsayer in the first century CE. Pliny the Elder wrote about my use of crystal balls. How would my crystal ball have been manufactured? How spherical would it have been? How much would it have cost me? (old.reddit.com)
Why are there almost no color photos of Canadian residential schools despite having took place during a time that we had color photography commonly available? (old.reddit.com)
According to Wikipedia, the annexation of the Golan Heights is considered illegitimate because "land gained by either defensive or offensive wars cannot be legally annexed under international law". Where is the cut-off date for this legality? (old.reddit.com)
Why do teen-focused shows and movies still depict well adjusted teens with relationships and active sex lives, when in reality the majority of US teens don’t have that? (old.reddit.com)
How is colonialism (after 15th century) different from ancient kingdoms and empires that conquered other kingdoms and tribes all the time? (old.reddit.com)
When I (33f) was way younger I used to cry myself to sleep by imagining scenarios where I would disappear, move, or die and only then would people I love (real and imaginary) would realize my worth - is that normal? (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture based in modern day Ukraine was established a millennium before Sumeria and Egypt and had settlements far larger than either of them. How come they are rarely if ever mentioned as an early civilization? (old.reddit.com)