Welcome to the second edition of the 2021 AskHistorians digest! Its been a heckuva week. Just…. What a week. I had TWO fire alarms last night and that was just one night. But we are going to focus on the exciting positive stuff. Like having hundreds of fantastic, super awesome history answers to browse through! Huzzah! Especially in this rather draining of times, don’t forget to thank the brilliant authors who put so much work in writing all this.

Start things off with the weekly features, and some BIG meta threads.

• 2020 is a Wrap! Please Take a Moment to Vote for Your Absolute Favorite Answers of the Past Year for the 'Best of AskHistorians 2020'! Get your vote in now!

• Announcing the 'Best of December' Award Winners!

• /u/OriginsOSU joined us for the great AMA I am Dr. Jim Harris, an historian of science and medicine--especially infectious disease--at the Ohio State University and Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective contributor. Ask me Anything!

• AskHistorians Podcast Episode 166 - Vikings and Popular Culture

• The Thursday Reading and Rec

• The Friday Free For All.

• /u/KongChristianV revises the Saturday Showcase!

• META: Today's sedition at the United States Capitol is something unprecedented in American history.

• Does marketing questions as "GREAT QUESTION" subtlety bias which questions get answered? Does it make people feel uncomfortable because a question not marked can be implied as a average/below average question?

• Meta is anyone else dissapointed the sub completely disregarded the 20 year rule to report on the riot at the US Capitol? was a good opportunity to lay out the reasonings behind the recent big meta.

And with that my folder lies empty. I return once more to the shadows to lurk and gather more posts for the ever hungry digest. Wherever you are, whatever your doing, I hope you stay happy, healthy and awesome. See you next Sunday folks!

Welcome back to another installment of "The Real Questions", where we take a look at the wilder side of /r/AskHistorians! Here, I shout out some of the unique, oddly specific, atypical, amusingly phrased, or otherwise interesting questions of the week, the ones that make me say "Finally, someone is asking the real questions."

Below are my entries for this week - questions with a ‡ have a link to an older thread. What do you think were the realest questions? And be sure to check out my full list of Real Questions.

/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/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/Ma3Ke4Li3 asked I am an officer in Napoleon's army starting to retreat from Moscow. What would I do to my prisoners of war?

/u/party_bonus asked for Reviews/criticism of Joseph Henrich’s WEIRD hypothesis?

/u/BZH_JJM asked What would a "Personal Hygiene" college course have looked in 1920 Southern California?

/u/RusticBohemian asked George Washington and James Monroe were deists. Lincoln had irregular Christian beliefs as well. Today, a Christian failing to fall in line with a mainline branch of the religion would face major hurdles in attaining the US presidency. Did irregular religious beliefs cause blowback for these men?

/u/tsarcus asked Supposedly dogs are humans’ “oldest friend”. So how come cats seem to be represented much more in ancient cultures?

/u/Spiritual-Thanks518 asked Did the Bantu, at the end of the 16th century, subdue, enslave or invade the lands of Khoisan for pastures in South Africa? Did the Bantu arrive the same period as Dutch colonists in South Africa?

(Is South Africa a gap in AH's collective knowledge? My questions about boycotts and the uMkhonto we Sizwe have also gone unanswered.)

/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?

Don’t forget to take the chance to shout out the interesting questions that caught your eye but remain overlooked! Perhaps a wandering expert will take notice, or it will inspire someone else in their question asking.

• /u/sophrosynos asked What was the process of joining a Roman legion, in Caesar's time? Could anyone approach a legion and join?

• /u/wonkyfactory asked Were medieval European knights good at their job?

• /u/RusticBohemian asked The exiled Napoleon was sent to rule the little island of Elba. How did his new subjects take to having the conqueror of Europe as their sovereign for 10 months? How did Napoleon rule in these constrained circumstances? Did he shake up the sleepy island with grand designs?

How soon after the ratification of the 12th amendment did the US Vice President become "heir apparent" to party nomination for President, rather than the Secretary of State?

American pilots testing the "Akutan Zero" noted that the cockpit was designed for a significantly smaller pilot. How did Americans and Japanese compare in size at the time? What were the size requirements of the USN and IJN?

How similar were Corsica and Sardinia culturally, prior to the Corsican revolution? How much did they diverge in the generations following France's annexation of Corsica?

How did Singapore pay for its massive bureaucracy and public works projects as a developing nation?

How and when did Orson Welles's reputation recover from the failure of "Citizen Kane?"

Was the Battle of Hastings considered a defeat in the minds of the English people today?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kukq17/was_the_battle_of_hastings_considered_a_defeat_in/

Why did Napoleon appoint Jean Bernadotte as the heir of Sweden in 1810 despite almost having court-martialed him 4 years ago?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kr20jn/why_did_napoleon_appoint_jean_bernadotte_as_the/