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Posted by /u/J2quared

Comedian Steve Harvey claimed that state lotteries were created as successors to the “numbers game,” a lottery popular in many Black communities. Is this historically accurate? To what extent did state lotteries replace or draw inspiration…

Posted by /u/Jaredlong

Why did Albert Einstein become so famous? I understand WHAT he is famous for, but I don't understand why his work made him an international celebrity and a household name.

Brownian motion, general relativity, special relativity, E=mc2. I know WHAT Einstein is famous for and this is not a question about the importance of his scientific contribution. My question is why did Einstein reach a level of such legendary fame that his very name became synon…

Posted by /u/larrycsonka

I read in Mozart: Reign of Love that Symphonies were often chaotic in the 1700s, with people playing cards, making out, and chatting during them. Are there other accounts of this? If so, at what point did symphonies become stuffy?

In Mozart Reign of Love, Jan Swafford posits that operas and symphonies were a social gathering, often being up to 6 hours long. The music was written such that it was lowkey and allowed people to socialize with occasional big numbers to capture attention. They mention people wo…

Posted by /u/Choice_Pack_5379

Quit porn

It pulls your heart away from God and the life you want to live It can become something you depend on instead of turning to God for strength It trains your mind to focus on lust instead of love, respect, and purity It can damage your view of yourself and other people It takes aw…

Posted by /u/RedHeadedSicilian52

How come Christianity disappeared from the Maghreb after the Muslim conquests, but not Egypt and the Levant?

My understanding is that all of these regions had Christian majorities before the rise of Islam (though, to be clear, many of them followed extremely heterodox brands of Christianity, such as Monophysitism and Donatism). While the percentage of Christians certainly declined over…

Posted by /u/ConsciousMaybe6930

I am a pater familiās in the 2nd century CE Roman Empire. I really, really hate my eldest son for being unfilial, obstinate and arrogant and would much prefer my grandson, his son, to inherit me after my death. What can I do to make this h…

Posted by /u/hoetrain

In 1864, Christian IX reportedly offered to bring all of Denmark into the German Confederation to avoid losing Schleswig-Holstein, and Bismarck turned it down. Why would Prussia reject sovereignty over Danish territory and the Baltic strai…

I have been interested in the Second Schleswig War and the postwar negotiations. According to a documentary source citing Magne Lund & Preben Strange’s Fra Altona til Dybbøl, the sequence around late June 1864 went roughly like this: After the Danish defeat at Duebbel, Bismarck…