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Posted by /u/ArgentineBeauty

A Kenyan woman who couldn't get a business loan because she had no collateral found support through a program helping women entrepreneurs across Africa overcome that barrier. Her bakery has since grown more than tenfold, creating dozens of…

Posted by /u/WartimeHotTot

How did US homelessness during the Great Depression compare to homelessness today?

The way I was taught about the Great Depression in school made it seem like there was extreme political pressure coming from homeless people themselves, and this ended up affecting politics at the highest level. To me, it seemed that the term Hoovervilles (along with Hoover blan…

Posted by /u/Asleep_Wealth5602

We are historians of childhood and food, authors of 'First Helpings: A History of Children and Food'. Feel free to AMA.

Our names are Dr Deborah Albon and Dr Amy Palmer and we are the authors of ‘First Helpings: A History of Children and Food’ published by Reaktion Books. This book explores the relationship between children and food in history, drawing on a rich variety of social records, cookery…

Posted by /u/Crazy-Blacksmith-336

Why didn't Argentina, despite having one of the largest European settler populations outside Europe, end up becoming part of the Global North like the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand? What caused it to diverge so much economically an…

Posted by /u/Bongolio-the-seal

At what point did the Confederacy's leadership in the US Civil War realise the war could not be won? What was the attitude among the CSA's government as this became apparent?

I assume that it was not solely a few days before Appomatox that the CSA's government realised that the war was a lost cause. So at what point did everyone realise the jig was up? Were there any people who thought the war could be won even at the very end? Like, I assume we have…

Posted by /u/ManicMarine

Why didn't Stalin incorporate Poland into the USSR after 1945?

Poland had been a part of Imperial Russia, at least a large chunk of historic Poland had been. Stalin incorporated other nations such as the Baltic states. The USSR had had a significant population of Poles prior to 1939. It would have avoided the need to ethnically cleanse the…

Posted by /u/wastevens

What's the origin of American Resturants serving "Take home leftovers" amounts of food?

I saw a post elsewhere about how, contrary to much of the world, the expectation at most non-fine dining restaurants is you will be served between a meal-and-a-half to two meals worth of food per order. When/how did this develop as an American cultural norm, distinct from the wo…

Posted by /u/SystemOfTheUpp

Why do historians use the terms 'Soviets' and 'Russians' interchangeably when discussing the USSR?

I understand that the USSR was very heavily Russian-dominated from the get-go but especially following Stalin's Russification policies, but the use of "Russians" and "soviets" as synonyms never made sense to me. I've seen it in primary sources, history books, academic papers wri…

Posted by /u/ArgentineBeauty

An 11 year old boy with autism amazed his neuropsychologist by silently building a remarkably sophisticated geometric structure. Inspired by children like him, a Moroccan centre helping neurodivergent children realise their potential now p…

Posted by /u/dr-doc-phd

It's 1978, Christopher Reeves has just made me believe a man can fly, and I now want to read as much Superman as I can. How do I get caught up on nearly 40 years worth of comics?

Today if I wanted to start reading older Superman comics, I could pirate them online, or purchase one of the many omnibuses. But in 1978 those omnibuses didn't exist, and the internet was still a twinkle in young Al Gore's eye. While I could certainly start buying the books as t…