Today:
Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.
I've been saving up "day of"s/Sunday Digests for months, but rarely have had free time on Sunday mornings/early afternoons. In two weeks, I'm switching time zones (East Coast to GMT +3) so maybe the new time will be more conducive to me posting more. Here are some of the more recent.
/u/tiako from today: Would a common roman (first century) be influenced by long distance trade, or was commercial access to benefits of Indian and eastern goods something exclusive to upper class luxuries?
/u/keyilan on Since when has "Did good" in place of "Did well" become acceptable?
/u/profrhodes in How Loyal were Colonial Troops (e.g British Africans, Indians, etc)? (read the follow ups, too)
/u/boringdude00 in Why are so many independent cities around Los Angeles? (this is actually from our sister sub, /r/asksocialscience)
/u/Geisterkrieg in Who came up with the idea of nobility ?
/u/anthropology_nerd in Theory Thursday about the Toba eruption
/u/CptBuck in Did the Quran introduce any new words to Arabic? If so, how many?
/u/cazador5 in What is actually known about William Wallace?
several people in Been watching too much Game of Thrones: How much time would an important medieval lord spend in the capital versus in his own lands? How did this change over time?, waddup /u/Bakuraptor, /u/butter_milk, /u/idjet, and /u/Enrico_Dandolo
both /u/shlin28 and /u/butter_milk in What would happen to a priest or monk who broke the oath of celibacy in the late middle ages?
/u/llamastingray in The actual reason for the Invasion of Czechoslovakia in detail?
/u/commustar in How were peanuts introduced into African cuisine?
Those are just from the past two weeks or so. The oldest ones I have saved with Day of/Sunday Digest in mind go back 8 months (!), with maybe 4-8 saved posts a month on average.
/u/The_Alaskan had a surprisingly detailed answer to Was there any reaction from the US when Louis Riel, an American citizen, was executed by the Canadian government in 1885?
I don't know if the research was already done or just easily done, but it was impressive and interesting to read!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Sunday Digest post must contain a submission that is self-promoting. This is that comment.
I was very pleased to find /u/DsagjiiggsScjjigsjsb's question Was Ghana the first major Sahelian empire, or was it simply the first we have written sources for?
I was even more elated when each of my replies resulted in several novel follow-up questions. Thanks, DsagjiiggsScjjigsjsb!
Posting lots of interesting facts/debates about Edward I with /u/cazador5 in this thread was some of the most fun I've had in this subreddit.
This was a pretty good week on AH! Without further ado:
/u/immadevonian on "Attitudes to British soldiers with depression and PTSD during 1914-1945"
/u/astrogator answered "How high was the chance of an auxiliary soldier of the roman army to make it through his 25 years of service required to attain roman citizenship alive?"
/u/gyokusai_into_ships on "Would a wounded Japanese soldier during World War II be welcomed home as a hero or shamed because he did not die on the battlefield?"
/u/tobymoby616 wrote 'bout Parthinian coins as primary sources
/u/keyilan answered "Why does Min Chinese descend from Old Chinese rather than Middle Chinese?" and also "Richard Kim's "Lost Names" and Korean Occupation"
/u/cazador5 double-teaming "What kind of a man was Edward I? How did he get his nicknames "Longshanks" and "The Hammer of Scots"?" with /u/Valkine.
/u/domini_canes on "How was a young United States viewed after its revolutionary war? Was there "hope" or "dread" for this young nation from the leaders of the other great powers?"
/u/historiagrephour answered "Was there notable opposition to allowing James VI to ascend to the English throne?"
/u/kieslowskifan answered "When discussing Axis troops in WW2, the Italians and Romanians are often seen as weaker or inferior forces. The facts do seem to indicate that they were less effective than the German troops. Why?"
/u/JDHoare answered "Carl Jung in his "Psychology and Religion" says that, during WWI, there were sporadic sacrifices to Wotan by the youth in Germany. Did this really happen?"
/u/idjet answered "When did Jews migrate to Eastern and Western Europe, and why?"
/u/The_Alaskan on "What was the effect of the American Civil War on the frontier?" and "How did European Nations react to the American Civil War?"
/u/thefourthmaninaboat on "My late grandfather was a deck hand on a Royal navy arctic convoy ship, in his teens. What (assuming he was typical) would his daily life have been like during WW2?"
/u/xenophontheathenian on "How did Julius Caesar's armies react to his assassination?"
/u/commodorecoco answered "What was life like in the Northern Andean Chiefdoms around 500AD?"
/u/celebreth answered "What are some examples of Roman infantry tactics being countered effectively?"
/u/LegalAction answered "How did the massive casualties during the second Punic war affect Roman Society?"
/u/Antiquarianism answered "Could evidence of Sahara-area civilization in the Holocene Wet Phase be hidden by the current-day desert?"
/u/kieslowskifan wrote a very interesting overview on the legacy of WW1 and WW2 military accomplishments within the post-war militaries.
Pardon me if this has been said, but I really enjoyed how /u/The_Alaskan answered "Is there any cultural or linguistic similarity between the natives of Alaska and the natives of eastern Siberia?" Here's the link: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39bebq/is_there_any_cultural_or_linguistic_similarity/