Hi everyone! I'd like to single out two people this week for putting in an effort above and beyond the call of duty:

• /u/commiespaceinvader for their point-by-point takedown of a Holocaust denialist video. commiespaceinvader's stamina in combating ignorance and bigotry is something that deserves recognition and all of our thanks.

• How plausible is it that the Holocaust never happened?

• super-flair /u/kieslowskifan was seemingly everywhere I looked over the past several days, tackling an amazing 33 questions in the last 10 days. Curious to know just how much they've been pouring forth, I exported their comment history into MS Word for a quick count, and came up with >35,000 words, equivalent to 59 pages! I'm not going to link to all of the posts, but here are a few that I found interesting:

• What happened to the people who were driving the Death Trains- trains to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belsetz and similar?

• What property/financial loss did Japanese-Americans incur when they were interned?

• How did Stalin manage to become dictator of USSR if he was a bad public speaker and generally dumb?

• I am a business owner in 1942 Germany, and one of my partners owes me money. Can I sue him? Did Nazi Germany have a somewhat fair private law system?

• Why was Tajikistan/Uzbekistan a part of the USSR but not Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, or Poland? T/U weren't even Slavic and were much further from Moscow.

• How well does the movie Gandhi (1982) portray Gandhi? - kfan addresses aspects of this 34 year old film in detail, as if they'd just seen it

• How were the living conditions in West germany compared to East Germany

• Why is Rasputin famous? - I got a laugh out of the incongruous link to the Boney M video :)

So here are some questions from the last week that were popular and/or interesting and did not receive an answer yet. Is there any brave soul to tackle these? Or will they be lost in time, like tears in a fun naked run through sprinklers?

/u/Khatjal wanted to know if Martin Luther’s love of poop humour was typical for other scholars at the time

/u/DeaditeQueen wondered about the length and a possible matchmaking system for gladiator battles

/u/1111235 asked about the contact of ancient Polynesian societies with mainland societies like China

/u/textandtrowel wrote a wonderful answer on the end of the Viking Age, check it out here!

If I may, can I ask about your thoughts on S. Ashby's 'What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration' (2015), which is a direct response to Barrett's work. I thought that it introduced some neat things from a more sociological perspective, but it would be great to hear from an expert too :)

Rundown:

• /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov answered "How were overseas American soldiers' ballots handled during WWII?"

• /u/the_alaskan on "In a TED-Ed video circulating on Facebook, they claim that, "Businessmen and intellectuals, wanting to be on the right side of public opinion, endorsed Hitler. They assured themselves, and each other, that his more extreme rhetoric was only for show." Is this claim accurate?" and "When did higher education become stereotypically politically liberal?", with additional input from /u/kieslowskifan.

• /u/kieslowskifan also going solo on "During the War of the Sixth Coalition, did the Poles suffer repercussions from the Coalition forces for their collaboration with Napoleon?" and "I am a business owner in 1942 Germany, and one of my partners owes me money. Can I sue him? Did Nazi Germany have a somewhat fair private law system?"

u/hborrgg brings out the primary sources to answer When and why armour declined in use.

For about four weeks now I've been meaning to link a couple of unanswered questions I had to the Sunday Digest, and every week I forget until Monday. :( I'm now at work on monday morning and realised I'd forgotten to do it again... So this is late, but hopefully some nice relevant person will see them:

How did the court of Güyük Khan (1206-48, third Great Khan of the Mongol Empire) know latin?

Did Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan plan on building a matching, black Taj Mahal for himself?

There's a bit more detail in the links.

EDIT: Next week I swear I'm gonna remember and this'll be the first post in there.

Obviously there was plenty of great answers last week, but /u/Mictlantecuhtli did a fantastic job replying to my inquiry about Teuchitlan Tradition's societal structure and it deserves as many eyes on it as possible.

On my list this week:

• From /u/kieslowskifan: "How were the living conditions in West germany compared to East Germany?", "How did the US react to German Unification? (1871)", "I saw a map on Wikipedia showing North Korea as not aligned with USSR and Communist China. Did North Korea really avoid aligning with USSR and China and if they are able to do this, how are they able to avoid aligning with the mentioned countries' influence?", "How did the East German state collapse so quickly and effectively to allow the reunification of Germany?", and "How were relations between The United States and Imperial Russia?"

• From /u/Tiddums: "Why did European communist systems fall yet Asian communism persists?"

• From /u/PapiriusCursor: "Why did roman soldiers wear those brushes on their helmets?"

u/Iguana_on_a_stick had a great answer about changes in roman military technology between Scipio and Caesar

u/WARitter went into detail this week about munition armor and Royal Armor