History
Exploring "Why" questions about History
491 articles
Why have all great empires throughout history inevitably fallen?
An empire is typically created and sustained by conquest. That's a lot of pissed-off people who are ready to revolt at the earliest opportunity. So a significant part of the empire's wealth and milita
Why do clothes and other items in foreign countries, namely Asian ones, use bizarre English phrases that would have 0 meaning in English speaking countries?
Just like American clothes with Asian characters on them. It looks cool. On a related note, my friend went to Japan and bought a shirt that said "cockroach" on it in a stylized font.
Why wasn’t there a surge in African economic migrants during the second half of the 20th century to Europe as there is today?
Conditions did not seem so bad at home. Perhaps laws actually changed which enabled them to feel safe once they got to a destination. Cell phones with texting has change a lot of things in the last de
Why are there no Wikipedia pages on famous medieval jesters?
Apparently your Google/Wiki search talents are awful. [Archibald Armstrong](_URL_2_) [William Sommers](_URL_1_) [Robert Armin](_URL_0_)
Why do some countries governments (like russia and mexico) openly admit to having UFO tracking and contact attempts while others (like the US) flat out deny their existence?
Something can both not exist and yet still have things looking for them. If mexico and russia started a program to track unicorns and the USA denies that unicorns exist, it does not mean that unicorns
Why do the Scottish want independence?
In addition, I would point out that it's not the Scottish people themselves pushing for independence, but the ruling SNP party - Nearly all public surveys on the subject show the Scottish people are g
Why is the Falkland war such a big deal?
The declassification thing is a bit of a red herring, all classified documents in the UK are declassified after a certain period of time, depending on their classification, unless the information in t
Why when it’s dark can I sometimes see things better by not looking directly at them?
Your retina has two types of cells for detecting light -- rods and cones. Cones are used to perceive color and fine details, while rods are bad at color and details, yet very sensitive to low levels o
Why is the Times New Roman font so popular?
Times new roman is very traditional. Many businesses or professionals that wish to attract middle-aged to older audiences use this traditional aspect of the font to appeal to said audience. Just like
Why could families survive reasonably comfortable on single incomes back when my parents were growing up, but these days with more women working, why are so many families with two incomes still str…
Generally speaking, there are way more people, who need way more things, and much faster. Everything costs more, and people aren't paid enough. In 1975, a new house costed around $200,000 (In today's