I promise this is not a joke question. I am honestly curious:

Chick-Fil-A claims that they invented the chicken sandwich. While I delightfully consume their products, I have to question the legitimacy of this statement. I did a little research on my own, and found inconclusive evidence (basically, Chick-Fil-A can't prove that they did, even though they claim to).

So I'm wondering, who invented the chicken sandwich? Was it something the common man ate that was exploited by Chick-Fil-A? Is there a first record of someone putting delicious chicken goodness between two slices of bread?

My follow up questions (if anyone is willing to answer) would be were sandwiches historically a "poor man's food" or did the elite members of society consume them as well?

Thanks in advance!

Help.

I am researching a strike from 1933, and came across the term "brick sandwiches" which I am not familiar with. Here is the quotation, from a Communist publication, for context:

One hundred women, specially picked by the captains, waited for the scabs to come out. When the police had them placed in the patrol wagons and in taxis, all at once bricks, bats, and other missiles began to fly; two patrol wagons and one taxi were smashed, oen policeman had a broken leg, with the result that the shop remained closed the following day.

The women learned quickly how to carry brick sandwiches. (Ralph Shaw, "St. Louis' Biggest Strike," Labor Unity, August 1933)

The article then moves onto a different section and explains the term no further. Any historians out there who might be able to shed some light?

I was reading Honorius of Autun's "On the Arts" and I encountered this interesting line. Did no one multiply by numbers higher than ten in the 12th century?

When I read about corsets, I always wonder what pregnant women did. Were they expected to wear corsets as well? If so, were they still laced tightly or was it a special maternity corset? Wouldn't this be dangerous? I'm thinking mainly of U.S. and North America during the Victorian-era, but I would also be interested in hearing about other time periods.

The Ancient Etruscans gave Rome its alphabet, dress, architecture, religion, and culture. But did it stop there? Did the Etruscans mix with the Romans/other Italic cultures much? And can it be definitely said whether modern Italians possess Etruscan ancestry or not?

I've recently read about the Highland clearances and the Irish potato famine and it seems that especially amongst politicians such as Disraeli and Trevelyan, the Scottish and Irish celts were seen as racially inferior to Anglo-Saxons. Was there a particular reason for this or was it just the targeted racism of its day?

Edit: these have been some really great and detailed answers. Thanks for the insight :)

I've been watching The Civil Wars series created by Ken Burns and produced by PBS in 1990. I’m curious about Major General George B. McClellan, a brief General-in-Chief of the Union Army.

General McClellan was known for being overly cautious and slow to act. Edwin M. Stanton, the United States secretary of war said, ““If he had a million men he would swear the enemy has two million, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three.”

How does history remember McClellan’s overall contribution to the war effort? Did his reluctance to fight, in some sense, prolong the fighting of the American Civil War?

Given that the French Revolution was all about getting rid of a monarchy, I doubt he would have had absolute power... Any ideas?

There are other Canadian islands that are larger and more heavily populated, but Cape Breton Island is part of Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island is part of British Columbia. Yet PEI, with a population smaller than most medium-sized Canadian cities, is a province of its own. How did that happen?

I Thought Id get a better response from here than the actual /r/explainlikeimfive... thanks :)

Here in Canada, we hear a lot about the United Empire Loyalists, who left the American colonies during the war because of their loyalty to the British Crown. But we never hear about people (if any) who went the other way. Was there a movement of people we could call the anti-Loyalists?

Both were vast, sparsely populated land masses that were colonized by Europeans. Despite similar initial conditions, why did the US became so massive and Canada didnt?

India was large and diverse. Why did the British conceive of it as one entity instead of several?

How did we not end up with a "West Austria" and an "East Austria" for the rest of the Cold War?

For example, did they boil water to clean their utensils and cookware?

This probably comes up often but I can't find it in either in FAQ or via search.

I know that the after the first battles in 1914 the regular British army had been weakened to the point that Volunteer (later conscripted) forces were needed to take up the fighting.

However what happened to the remnant of the professional British army? Were they simply ground down in combat or spread out among the new units to provide experience and training?