When did we as a species start shaving our armpits and why?

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I'm sorry, but we don't allow 'First'/'Last' questions on r/AskHistorians, and so we have removed this submission. It's not that the question is bad; it is simply that, given the rules of this subreddit, these types of questions are ill-suited to its format. We've found that they tend to get responses along the lines of "the first/last example I know of," or else many short, speculative responses in the case that the answer went unrecorded. This results in many removed comments, and very few answered threads.

If this is a question you still are interested in a response to though, you have options!

• Consider the core of the question to rephrase and resubmit. Instead of asking, for instance, "Who was the first person killed by a firearm?", try "What do we know about the early development and use of firearms?". Asking about origins, developments, or declines is more likely to get in-depth, knowledgeable answers.

• Every other Wednesday we run a "Short Answers to Simple Questions", and if you can hang on to your question until then, it can likely fit unchanged.

• Finally, you could also try submitting your question to r/History or r/AskHistory, which doesn't have submission criteria quite as strict.

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