Its spooky just how much phenomenally good stuff gets produced on AskHistorians every week! Gather round the digest campfire to tell & read some history tales! Don’t forget to upvote and thank those hard working contributors who do so much for the sub.

• AskHistorians Podcast Minisode - Dimensions of the Second Sino-Japanese War with /u/Lubyak

• Get some reading ideas in the Thursday Reading and Rec!

• Friday Free for All time!

• It feels like it’s been awhile since our last META, but here’s Are there less strict subs that r/askhistorians?

• Why is 20 years generally agreed upon as "history"?

That’s it for me for another week everyone. I hope you enjoyed the wealth of threads we have here, keep it classy out there and I’ll see you again next Sunday!

Sunday is also a chance to take some time and show some appreciation for those overlooked questions that caught our eye. Maybe we’ll get lucky and a wandering expert will stop by, or they’ll inspire future questions. Feel free to post up your own or others that you saw and liked!

• /u/Kochevnik81 asked What kept the Gallican Church from repudiation Papal authority?

• /u/nueoritic-parents asked If asked to name a city/ I pick up a travel brochure, there’s a good chance London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Rome, etc. will be named. While these cities are centuries old, Miami is at most a century old. When did Miami become a city most anyone could name/a travel destination? And why did it?

• /u/Xirdus asked 9-pin bowling was allegedly banned in Connecticut in 1841. But was it really? I can't find any sources.

And we're back, for another installment of "The Real Questions", where we take a look at the wilder side of r/AskHistorians! Here, I give a shout-out to people asking the more atypical questions on this sub: questions that investigate amusing, unique, bizarre, or less common aspects of history, as well as ones that take us through intriguing adventures of historiography/methodology or niche/overlooked topics and moments in history. It's always a wide (and perhaps confusing) assortment of topics, but at the end of the day, when I see them I think, "Finally, someone is asking the real questions!"
Below are my entries for the last month - questions with a link to an older response are marked with ‡. Let me know what you think were the realest questions you saw this month, and be sure to check out my full list of Real Questions.