I was watching Bye Bye Birdie the other day, which features a musical number involving a youthful and well-attended Shriners meeting. Yet, today, I only think of them as the ancient, old men in tiny cars at obscure parades. Down the street from my house, the four-storey Masonic Temple is being converted into a new condo tower with a single meeting room set aside for the Masons. Why did societies like these decline in North America in the late 20th Century, and why were they popular in the first place?

[deleted]

I've just watched the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' and I'm wondering, how is it possible that the Hutu's had no problem at all with killing all those Tutsi's? Was it their culture to just kill everyone that seemed as an enemy for them or did the Tutsi's really ruined the lives of the Hutu's who where alive at that moment?

Im really interested in geography and was wondering what area of france most of the french settlers came from , im probably guessing the western coast of france . Im french canadian myself and am quite curious . thanks !

I've studied Japan quite a bit, but I've never been able to find the footage of the bombs going off. Just the aftermath.

In early 2011, I asked a Seattle eldergoth (who would now be about 50) this question, and she said that, as early as 1985, the people who listened to Bauhaus and the people who listened to Skinny Puppy already went to the same clubs, where both genres were played, and moved in the same social circles. What can empirical historical evidence tell us about the veracity of this claim?

It clearly seems that democracy would be the system that most people would prefer so why did all of Europe become a Monarchy?

Driving past a very old university town got me wondering about this and I thought it could make a perfect AskHistorians query.

Did the concept of higher schooling spread through medieval Europe along with the use of the latin form of the word? Or did the various institutions have different names originally? Either way, what was the idea behind the use of the word universitas and who came up with it?

[deleted]

I'm a big fan of reading various economic histories, particularly those related to bubbles that have occurred over time. However, recently, I've read many reports that the reports of the tulip bubble were quite over exaggerated. One of the books I read is Mackay's "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". So I have a few questions:

1. is Mackay's reporting generally suspect (e.g., is it across all subjects or just tulips or)?

2. Assuming 1) above is suspect, if anyone cares to comment on its inaccuracies, that would be nice.

3. Are there any suggested books (ideally going over multiple periods, not just one) that are viewed as fairly accurate that I could read?

I had a couple of questions from the plot of Julius Caesar (which I appreciate may not be entirely historical).

Firstly, Mark Antony offers Caesar a crown. How did Antony have the authority to do this? Wasn't Caesar essentially his boss?

Secondly, Caesar in his will leaves 75 drachmas to "every several man", as well as lands to be used as "common pleasures". Did this actually happen?

I have recently found myself looking down the rabbit-hole of Abrahamic Mythology and one aspect that has really interested me are the Grimoires and Demoninicoms that start to appear in the 15th and 16th centuries.

My main question is in the title, what were these text's Religious and Historical significance? Whilst I find them extremely interesting they come across as almost akin to a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual or a Pokedex from Pokemon. How were these texts used and consumed in their contemporary society?

I was looking for some help in developing a solid colonial history reading list. This would be in preparation for going off into grad school next year. I'm looking for anything that would have effluenced the the minds of people coming to The New World/colonies to give me a solid platform to build off of.

Thanks.

I have found a lot of information about the public opinion of Empire before the First World War, with media being saturated by pro-imperialist/jingoistic stories and groups such as the scouts being set up to attract youth to the idea of Empire, but then after 1914 there seems to be much less information on the subject. Did the British public see Empire as a point of pride after the War, or were they embarrassed by the weaknesses and limitations of Empire exposed by the conflict?

As my question states, this woman is sitting on a load of artifacts that none of us know much about or know how to deal with. As she is getting older, I want to help her find a way to display or share the history she is now in charge of. Is it best to get in touch with universities, museums, etc.? I just want to make sure most of it is taken care of when she passes, rather than a free for all money grabbing scheme that I'm worried it will become. How do I help her, and my family, figure out what to do?

I’ve seen a lot of pictures popping up regarding the catacombs in Paris. I wondered why they were constructed and why they are not looked at as monuments of death?

It's hard to find academic population estimates of Abbasid Iraq. McEvedy and Jones' Atlas of World Population history gives a peak of 2.5 million. However, given the common estimates of ~1 million people in Abbasid Baghdad at its height, that would give Iraq a ridiculously high urbanization rate of 40%.

I know the Dutch reached urbanization rates like that during their Golden Age, but they had very efficient agriculture, and even they had to import lots of grain from the Baltic to feed their cities.

Has more recent work been done on the population of Abbasid Baghdad and Iraq? What do modern scholars think about their historical populations? As an aside, are there any other regions in the pre-industrial era that reached such high urbanization rates?