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.
The first Sunday Digest of September 2022 hits the ground running, and brings with it a mountain of fantastic history threads for your enjoyment! Don’t forget to show some appreciation for those hard working contributors, upvote your favorites, shower them in thanks, and check out the usual weekly features!
Start off with the AMA! I'm Ken Mondschein, a professional historian of swordfighting and medieval warfare who's so obsessed with Game of Thrones I wrote a book about it! AMA about the Real Middle Ages vs. GoT/HotD/ASOIAF! Big thanks to /u/kmondschein!
Tuesday Trivia: War & Military! This thread has relaxed standards—we invite everyone to participate!
Then stop by the Thursday reading and rec thread!
Then we had the Friday Free for All!
We had a brilliant meta this week in I’ve noticed that peoples answers in this sub are often links to old posts with really interesting answers. With that in mind, please post the most interesting answers about anything you’ve found in this sub :) And while far to many people participated to call them all out, props to /u/Zimmozsa for getting it started.
And that wraps us up for another day. I hope you enjoyed all the great history, keep it classy out there everyone, and I’ll see you again next Sunday!
Sunday is also a chance to shout out some fantastic questions that caught our eyes, but still remain unanswered. Feel free to post up your own, or those you came across over the last week, and maybe we’ll get lucky with some wandering experts!
/u/amor_fati99 asked In the videogame Hearts of Iron 4 Canada starts out as a puppet of the United Kingdom in 1936, however is this actually accurate?
/u/begomeordodocks asked how did the caribbean react to the american civil war? what were their reactions? did any west indians, etc immigrate to fight for any side?
/u/banuk_sickness_eater asked What was the general excuse given by ancient medical practitioners/healers/doctors for what must have been a historically terrible track record of success?
It's the first Digest of the month, which means it's time 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!"
Something I've been thinking about a decent amount in recent months is the direction of this project, and how the scope of a 'real' question has changed in the last two years. When I started it was a lot of just funny, weird, and unusual questions, but it's definitely expanded to include things that are somehow off the beaten path, or even just interesting. And that's okay, but I've been wondering if it's gotten too broad. I don't claim to be the definitive authority on what makes a question 'real', but I also want to make this more compelling than merely "Threads that jelvin found interesting this month"—which, to be clear, is a valid form of curation, just not the kind I want to do.
I'm kinda rambling, but also looking for inspiration. What tone is right for such a digest? Are there ever entries that feel odd, even from a liberal interpretation of the definition? How do you define a Real Question? What makes it different from a mod-flaired Great Question?
Below are my entries for the last month - questions with a link to an older response are marked with ‡. This list is a little shorter than usually, partially because my selection process was a little different due to the aforementioned musings, and partially because, er, ihadotherstuffgoingon. 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.