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.
/u/Jordan42 blew my mind with Systems of mail delivery at sea in the 18th century.
/u/bitparity explains how historians can ethically and responsibly construct historical narrative out of scattered evidence in What types of research/pieces of information do historians use/consider concrete evidence in determining the truths of the past?
I saved a few items this week:
/u/yodatsracist's answer in Why have Jews been expelled in so many countries? really saved that thread from a packet of low-quality and sometimes racist answers.
/u/Elm11 deserves a big, big round of applause for his/her mammoth four-part answer on the question How vital was the arrival of troops from Siberia to the of Defence of Moscow in WW2?
/u/Reedstilt had a good answer for those always tricky "earliest" questions in What is the earliest documented interaction between a foreign country, and Australian Aboriginals?
/u/Holokyn-kolokyn nicely answered an inquiry about the capability of WWII German artificial oil projects with Pre-War German Synthetic Oil Development
/u/bigbluepanda was gilded for his/her answer to the question How effective was the Great Wall of China after its completion?
I'm pretty ignorant about Rome, so I'm glad /u/XenophonTheAthenian is around to answer questions like this one about Mark Antony.
/u/sunagainstgold discussed the different definitions of "spice" in an answer to the question Why were spices so sought after in the 16th century?
/u/firedrops did a good job here shooting down a common myth about Haitian religious practices.
/u/BritainOpPlsNerf had what I thought was a good answer about cavalry without horses in the modern era
/u/Killfile had the best answer to the popular question of how important the capture of Moscow would have been during WWII.
/u/I_Envy_Sisyphus on Ancient Israelite weapons AND on why the freed Helots didn't revolt in Sparta!
With some delay, here is my weekly rundown:
Jeez, their's a lot of WW2 posts in this list.