It’s a very rainy December day up here in Canada-land, so what better way to spend some time then by curling up with a fresh, toasty hot edition of the Sunday Digest! With hundreds of hand crafted threads, there is sure to be something that will catch your eye, your mind or perhaps even your heart.

Don’t forget to upvote your favorites and say thanks to those brilliant authors who put so much time into contributing.

• Start off with the important news. AskHistorians Calls, Will You Choose To Answer? The /r/AskHistorians Flair Application Thread XXII!

• /u/mimicofmodes had some thoughtful advice in this weeks Monday Methods: Researching for Fiction.

• Then we had /u/AnnieAuthor join us for I'm Annie Whitehead, British author and historian, and I'll be here to talk about Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England from 8amET/12pmGMT until 12pmET/5pmGMT. Ask me anything!

• We’ve got an AMA today with /u/gaelicmichael on Scottish Highland Immigrant Communities in North America! Come ask questions!

• Lots of good recommendations in the Thursday Reading and Rec thread!

• Join the party in the Friday Free For All!

• A special holiday themed thread! AskHistorians 2020 Holiday Book Recommendation Thread: Give a little gift of History!

And thus we come to a close for another week my friends. Enjoy the many threads, and have yourselves a happy and healthy holiday season. I’ll see you all next Sunday!

Every Sunday is also a great chance to shout out the interesting questions that remain overlooked. Perhaps a wandering expert will take interest, or you’ll see something to inspire your own questions! Feel free to mention any others that caught your eye.

• /u/SarahAGilbert asked 31 years ago today 14 women were killed at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal. Now the massacre is widely accepted as an anti-feminist attack; what were anti-feminist movements like at the time? What role did they play in the massacre?

• /u/Shashank1000 asked The bourgeoisie and the middle class were much more numerous in Eastern European countries than in Russia in 1917. What happened to them and their property (stocks, houses, bank deposits) after the establishment of Socialism?

• /u/Libertat asked What were the diplomatic, political and popular reactions to Haitian independence in the United States?

/u/OneEconomy5009 asked Why did China agree to "One country, two systems" in the first place.

/u/BZH_JJM asked How was the 1812 Overture received in France?

/u/akir94 asked I'm a peasant in a medieval European village, and I want a house of my own. Who would construct it? How expensive would it be? Do I need to get anyone's permission?

/u/ReadWriteSign asked I'm a young woman of marriageable age in Alexandria in 1800. What are the chances I'll be able to marry one of those handsome French soldiers and travel the world?

/u/DreamcastJunkie asked Why has "Hercules, son of Zeus" become such a fixture in pop culture when those names are mismatched?

/u/TheGreenCockalorum asked How did masted ships in the Medieval period deal with bridges for river travel/trade?

/u/spitfire451 asked What was the 'failure rate' of transatlantic crossings in the late 18th century?

/u/DerSohnDesDetlefs asked During the civil war, Ulysses S. Grant directed freed slaves to be paid 12.5 cents per pound of cotton picked and ginned. How does this compare to agricultural wages for white workers of the same time period?

/u/Theundercave asked Why did it take until 1973 for bridge over the Bosphorus straight to be built, connecting both sides of Istanbul?

/u/IronWarriorU asked The Grapes of Wrath depicts terrible conditions and miniscule demand for migrates arriving in California. Is this depiction accurate? If so, how did California manage to stabilize?

/u/best_of_badgers asked Lawrence Sheriff, who supplied groceries to Queen Elizabeth I, was apprenticed to a London grocer for seven years. What did grocers do in those days that required such long training?

/u/robux4mayor asked Since Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the earth, and knowing that the Romans and Greeks had that information, did they ever discuss of what "lied out there" if they knew how big the earth was? Like did they ever speculate about other continents such as north or south America?

/u/Traditional_Act_360 asked How did Jimmy Carter react to the Jonestown Massacre?

/u/bebbanburg asked I’m a smith/armourer in the Roman Empire of the 4th century. Where do I get the raw materials to make my wares and where do these raw materials come from?

/u/msibylla asked How much ecological damage and animal extinctions were caused by the ancient empires of the Mediterranean and Near East?

Was Julian Jaynes correct about changes in the ways ancient texts described emotion, pre- and post-Bronze Age Collapse? (Setting aside any loaded speculation why.)

How did the Polynesians discover new islands and routes?

Principalities vs Kingdoms: What was the practical value of being a kingdom, rather than a principality? What was to stop a Welsh or Monegasque (or any other) prince from declaring themselves a king?

What were the effects of the various boycotts on South Africa? Were any in response to specific events?

In a Chappelle's Show sketch, American "troubled teens" are sent to a "boot camp" run by Nelson Mandela. What were the uMkhonto we Sizwe's reputations for discipline and brutality? Did Mandela have a role in combat training? Were Mandela's views on recreational marijuana use known?

/u/Basilikon asked American race riots occur frequently in the 20th century until about 1922, and then don't show up again until the Detroit Riot of 1943. Why does the US appear to have gone through the Great Depression without any of the large scale racial violence that characterized it before and after?

/u/ibbity asked Did Arthur Conan Doyle's 1893 Sherlock Holmes story "The Aventure of the Yellow Face," which expresses approval of interracial marriage and procreation, receive any backlash in the press or in general society at the time it was published?

/u/dk asked How did the Dalai Lama become such a respected spiritual figure in the Western world?

/u/[deleted] asked Was Amelia Earhart considered attractive by the men of her time, or was she considered too "butch"?

I rarely ask questions, but did this week. It didn't get anywhere, so I'm linking it again, as I am curious about it:

At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th a lot of work on Mesopotamia was done by German scholars. What saw them focus on this era and region?