The only way I know of to have insight into whether a question posted to this sub has been answered is to look at the comment count - normally, a topic with no interaction would have 0 comments. However, because of the AutoModerator comment that's posted and stickied to every single post, even questions that have no community engagement will show at least '1 Comment.' Already that's asking me to treat posts in this sub differently than others - to remember that there needs to be at least two comments to clue me in that someone has actually already left a response to the topic...

But even that method isn't reliable, because I'll frequently come across posts that have 2, 3, even 7 or so comments counted... but when I click in to the post itself, there's nothing there, it's barren, but for the ever-present AutoMod comment. ( I assume this is due to having multiple rule-breaking posts already removed / hidden? )

Is there anything we can do to address what I see as a failing of UX? The best part about /r/AskHistorian posts is the quality and depth of answers that are posted in the comments - but it's getting to the point now where I can't tell whether clicking on a post here will lead to that kind of quality content, or if I'll just be wasting my time.

Could we add a flair to posts that don't have any mod-approved answers yet? Or do something to adjust the comment count so questions don't have the appearance of being answered from the outside, only to prove unanswered once you click through? Does this annoy anyone else? Is it just me?

What is the historical context for this?

Besides Liberia which is a rather new country if I recall, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that hasnt been colonized? Why is that? Is it a Geography thing or what?

It seems somewhat random that a celebration starting in Galveston would become the new national day to celebrate abolition. The anniversaries of the emancipation proclamation, 13th Amendment, Appomattox, the end of slavery in the border states, etc would be more likely to become the nationally celebrated day. Why did Juneteenth win out among all possible contenders?

I've always had the idea in my head of an officer and his staff marching over to the enemy with a white flag in hand, but I can imagine that that would only be effective for declaring the surrender of smaller units, and not whole army groups or countries. Was there some specific predesignated procedure for declaring things like this, respected by all sides?

Are the origins of the Orc mythology related to or even our encounters with Neanderthals? Are there stories in history texts to lead to that conclusion?

I have found many Italians who claim the discovery of America even though the expeditions to America were all under the name of Castille/Spain - since, basically, they funded those expeditions.

As a curiosity, Christopher Columbus never wrote anything in Italian / Ligurian - even when talking to family and friends back in Genova - why?

Thanks!

It's almost as if Japan did nothing wrong to Japanese people. Why is this never discussed, and also is Japan's war crimes worse than Germany's?

So, in most paintings done on the Catholic Monarchs (the Capitulation of Granada, Columbus' meeting etc...) there's this guy(s) accompanying them while wearing their royal standards as actual clothing and carrying a sceptre (something akin to the Lictors of the Roman Republic). What were they called and what was their function ?

While most famous Japanese Holdout stories are much longer, it's still amazing to me that a whole group of Japanese soldiers can stay alive and undetected on an island less than a quarter the size of Manhattan with thousands of enemy combatants. What do we know about these men? How were they able to find food and water? Were they fighting regularly up until their surrender in 1947, or were they in hiding the whole time?

I know about debutante balls but did the daughters of noblility really put on a small beauty pageant for the queen? And is the title of Seasons Incomparable even real? I've tried to research it but it always goes back to Bridgerton.

and I was kind of asking my teacher a bit of stuff about marie antionette and he also talked about the quote: "let them eat cake". Now my brother said that there is no evidence of that quote being true and so I am now asking myself why should it be made up and from who?

Also, I apologize for my bad english skills, I‘m not a native speaker.

I’ve been hearing people say he is a racist because he caused the Bengal famine but then I hear others say that it was Japan because they captured Burma and it made it hard to ship in food and also there was a cyclone the previous year. But then other things I’ve read have quotes about him saying things like Anglo-saxons are superior. I’ve also heard things about how he wanted to gas Iraq (I don’t know how much of this is true). So not looking through a modern day perspective, was Churchill a bigger racist compared to everyone else at the time? (I’m not asking through a modern day perspective considering most people were very racist in that time, instead I’m simply asking if he was a bigger racist than everyone else.)

I read some discussion about spoilers here on reddit and some users claimed that "our grandparents" didn't care about spoilers and that people approached entertainment in a different way in our grandparents' era. The current obsession with spoilers, they said, is a sign of the commodification of the experience.

I'm not that old but I don't think spoilers were a big deal even in the recent past, like 20 years ago. But maybe they were? Or is the current obsession with them really a new phenomenon?

I recently read the novel Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters, which takes place in Victorian England, and an odd detail made me curious. There's a scene where an upper class woman ends up in a slum in London, and she's creeped out by a chamber pot that has an eye painted on the inside, with the lines:

"Use me well and keep me clean / And I'll not tell of what I've seen!

A present from Wales"

It's obviously meant to illustrate how she finds the lower class characters tacky/tasteless, but is there any historical basis for chamber pots like this? I'm especially amused by the last line's implication that this was a souvenir. I'm picturing "My parents went to Wales and all they got me was this stupid chamber pot."

Why did Napoleon become an artillery lieutenant? why didn't he join cavalry or infantry?

I am an Ancient History teacher putting together a unit on Qin Shihuangdi. One of the syllabus dot points requires me to examine his legacy. I was wondering if anyone could point me towards some good academic sources in English, please.

Thanks in advance

I'm thinking about ancient languages that were lost, and later on we re-discovered how to interpret, with no native speakers for thousands of years. Then we find a Rosetta stone, but how do we get from some hieroglyphic written in 2900 BCE to the syllables we now use?

I mean in general, not just for that example. Any language where the chain was broken for a long period of time and we re-learned to read it from text. Could it be that the sound we call an ancient ruler has no resemblance to the sound he was called then?

Why do occultism and exotericism of the 19th and 20th centuries have such strong ties to fascism, racism and traditionalism?

I'm thinking for example about Blavatsky's view on race, Guenon's doctrine of Perennialism, Evola's self described "superfascism". Is there something inherent in exoterical doctrines which leads to fascism, or am I just making spurious connections judging from a few cherry picked examples?

Where was the Kuwaiti military during the gulf war? When i look at videos from the war i only see civilian resistance fighting the Iraqi army but no sign of the Kuwaiti military. Did they all desert?

Edit: it says theres more than 1 comment but i only see 1 for some reason is this a glitch or something?