History
Exploring "Why" questions about History
491 articles
Why can I tell the difference between two different voices or two different instruments when the note they are making is the same?
It is a slightly difficult concept to explain so I apologize if I make little sense, but first forget about frequency and just focus on the shape of the waveform. Each type of "sound" has a different
Why is the drug war bad? and what are some viable alternatives to the “drug war”?
The "drug war" has the same problem as the "war on terror." People are fighting things, not people. The "drug war" has no soldiers, no enemy army, and no capital we can invade, so it's a fight that wi
Why can I Skype someone on the other side of the world with no lag, but multi-billion dollar news corporations have delay when speaking to someone in another country/location on TV?
When you're using Skype, you're both using regular internet connections, running through cables in the ground. This is relatively lag-free. When they speak to people on the news etc, you'll often hear
Why are Japanese WWII war crimes almost never mentioned?
"Never mentioned" in what context? The rape of Nanking, comfort women, and the Bataan Death March were all introduced to me in high school history class.
Why are all sub moderators locking their subs? How the hell does this help anyone?
It shows that they disapprove of the way they've been treated by the reddit administrators. Kind of like sit-ins during the civil right's movement.
Why do pens suddenly stop working on only one piece/region of paper?
Doing lots of mechanical work on cars I can tell you one of the biggest issues with using ball point pens can be small amounts of oil. Either engine oil or if you tend to have oily fingers, that can b
Why are birds and bees associated with talking to kids about sex?
Usually the first thing you learn about procreation is that of plants (flowers). The German expression is, appropriately, “Bienen und Blümchen”, which translates to “bees and flowers”. There are male
why is a building like the Sagrada Familia taking so long to finish despite the availability of modern engineering techniques?
Gaudi died, and then a fire and anarchists destroyed the plans and some models Gaudi had built. There's also that it's a really bizarre piece of architecture. Most of the problem is figuring out what
Why aren’t films sold with compression, making bluray quality dvds?
You can only use MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 on a disc if you want most DVD players to understand it. MPEG-4 uses more complicated tricks that wouldn't run on cheap hardware back in 1995.
Why do people complain about illegal immigrants taking jobs? Shouldn’t they complain about the companies who give illegals jobs?
The is nothing to be explained other than the person that hire those illegal immigrants are of the same nationality of the person that complains about it. Very often those who hire illegals are compla