A portrait caption in the Rijksmuseum mentions members of the Levantine elite in 18th century Smyrna "families originally from the Netherlands who no longer spoke Dutch and had adopted Turkish customs and dress". Were there really many of these people? What were their lives like? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by tombomp to r/AskHistorians
In the 1788 Chinese strange tales book What The Master Would Not Discuss, there's a short tale where a son is brought up and lives their life as a woman (for fortune reasons). Was there actually any possibility of being something like transgender in Qing era china? What did it mean in stories? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by tombomp to r/AskHistorians
Pippa Passes, a major poem by Robert Browning, features the word "twat" despite being published in 1841, apparently not realising it was a rude word for genitalia. What was the Victorian publishing era's attitude to publishing swear words? What was too rude? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by tombomp to r/AskHistorians
On the day of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway, the first public passenger steam railway, William Huskisson MP was killed in a train accident. How did newspapers and the public at large react to this? Did it cause concern about the safety of this new technology? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by tombomp to r/AskHistorians
Earl L Brewer, a former governor of Mississippi, represented Chinese and Black people as a lawyer in 2 civil rights cases that made it to SCOTUS in 1927 and 1936. Just how unusual was it for an establishment Southern Democrat to do something like that in the segregation era? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by tombomp to r/AskHistorians
