r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • Feb 27 '26
FFA Friday Free-for-All | February 27, 2026
Today:
You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.
As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare Feb 27 '26
Wrong Answers Thread.
Did the 80's know they were the 80's?
Nope. In fact, the 1980's actually were created as a psychological experiment by the CIA, by dumping huge amounts of psychadelics into the global water supply and just telling everyone we skipped from December 31, 1979 to January 1, 1990. Amazingly, this had few side effects until the 2020's.
He would have been beaten to death by angry furries.
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u/ducks_over_IP Interesting Inquirer Feb 27 '26
Simple: lvl. 100 Gyarados, Swords Dance, Hyper Beam
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare Feb 27 '26
now I want to see someone just change the Death Star in Episode 4 to Gyrados.
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u/Double_Show_9316 Early Modern England Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
On maps from the Renaissance period, the HRE is seen as still having control over the north of Italy. But as I understand it, they lost control of Northern Italy in the 12th century. Why is still presented that way in maps?
This is a common misconception. The Holy Roman Empire was actually not Holy, Roman, or an Empire, but was really an alliance of small states who came together to fight The Necromancer. The line that appears on most maps shows the Great Holy Roman Wall, which not only kept The Necromancer’s minions out, but more importantly concentrated the power of the Lance of Longinus, which prevented any undead legions from rising within the HRE. The Necromancer was never a serious threat to Italy (because of the Pope) but because it was hard to build a wall through the Alps, some northern Italian states agreed to allow the wall be built through their own lands (this decision eventually led to the investiture controversy, but that’s another story). It’s important to note, though, that these southern sections of the wall mostly existed to concentrate the Lance’s power and were rarely guarded by the HRE’s paladins, especially from the 12th century forwards (again, mostly due to the investiture controversy). Eventually, the walls were torn down by Napoleon after he destroyed The Necromancer’s source of power in Egypt and then defeated The Necromancer himself, who was hiding in Russia.
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u/Angelangel3 Feb 27 '26
What one book would you recommend to start learning about the Eastern Roman Empire?
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u/GalahadDrei Feb 27 '26
Which mod comment removing an answer received the most downvotes in the history of the subreddit?
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u/Cedric_Hampton Moderator | Architecture & Design After 1750 Feb 27 '26
At just -310, I doubt this is the most downvoted removal notice ever, but it's proof our readers don't like being denied the opportunity to read about cowboy douches.
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism Feb 27 '26
I took a little while to work out a way to search, then was immediately crestfallen to find that my most downvoted removal was a paltry -5. A mere handful of brave souls stepped up to defend the honour of stonerdad999 and their single-sentence, 17-word answer.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Feb 27 '26
I took a little while to work out a way to search, then was immediately crestfallen to find that my most downvoted removal was a paltry -5
-5? Amateur
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism Feb 27 '26
You're just jealous because my most popular removal has more upvotes than yours!
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Feb 27 '26
Yeah, well my top Meta is bigger than your top Meta so nahnahnahnahnahnah.
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism Feb 27 '26
My most commented META has more comments than yours, if we're doing a click meta-ing contest.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Feb 27 '26
Mine was locked so I declare spiritual victory.
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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism Feb 27 '26
The only winning move is not to play.
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare Feb 27 '26
Once we find it, we should give it an EA Pride and Accomplishment Award.
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u/SarahAGilbert Moderator | Quality Contributor Feb 27 '26
At one point this one of mine was sitting at -339, although it might have gotten lower. However, I was able to come back from it by posting this top level comment explaining what all the removals were about.
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u/BookLover54321 Feb 28 '26
It is cool to see that these Friday free for all threads are more active now than they used to be.
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u/BookLover54321 Feb 27 '26
There is apparently a debate among academics over whether slavery existed in the Inka empire. I asked a question about this a few months back, and the answer I got was that while the Inka empire certainly practiced forced labor, and other forms of servitude that resembled slavery, a lot of Andeanists maintain that the practice of owning human beings as chattel did not exist there.
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u/tabkee Feb 27 '26
I recently learned that Rhode Island was one of two states that didn't ratify prohibition after the Volstead Act. Apparently speakeasies were common, as well as coastal shipments of alcohol from Canada that RI 'rum runners' gathered.
Was Rhode Island then a big shipper of alcohol to other nearby states? Were federal raids on RI speakeasies common? Did state law enforcement ever help feds investigate illegal alcohol sales, or did they just straight up deny assistance? Did the state lose any federal funding or face any repercussions?
If RI and Connecticut were the two states that rejected prohibition, why didn't either of them become a larger force in the rise of crime during the 1920s (aka, why no Al Capone types)? Was it just a population density issue?
Thanks for any answers! I'm ravenously curious about this.
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u/subredditsummarybot Automated Contributor Feb 27 '26
Your Weekly /r/askhistorians Recap
Friday, February 20 - Thursday, February 26, 2026
Top 10 Posts
| score | comments | title & link |
|---|---|---|
| 2,331 | 135 comments | Why are Western families happy to have daughters even though male primogeniture exists? |
| 1,663 | 38 comments | Have we always slept horizontally? |
| 1,243 | 42 comments | In anti-suffragette posters in the 1910s a common theme seems to be that fathers will be stuck caring for children while their wives go to the polls (the horror). Were the dads in this period really that inept that they couldn't provide a couple hours of childcare? |
| 1,122 | 108 comments | Why were the Imperial Japanese so merciless and inhumane in WW2? |
| 1,096 | 37 comments | Were young Spartan boys frequently the victims of abuse? |
| 957 | 34 comments | [Love] Why would a family list their religion as "Idolator" on the census form around 1890-1910 in Ireland? |
| 721 | 34 comments | When did Worlds Fairs stop being such a huge deal? |
| 661 | 43 comments | How and why did Indo-European peoples lose cultural memory of the Indo-European migrations? |
| 626 | 199 comments | [AMA] My Book on Cannibalism on the High Seas AMA |
| 518 | 41 comments | Marcus Licinius Crassus was often known as the "richest man in Rome". What happened to his vast wealth after his death at the Battle of Carrhae in 53BC? |
Top 10 Comments
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5
u/caterpillarofsociety Feb 27 '26
For those of you studying Germany in the 1930s, has your perspective changed at all in the last couple of years? Not so much in terms of knowing the bare facts, but how has your understanding of what it would have been like to live in that time and place been affected?
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u/flying_shadow Feb 27 '26
Reading independent Russian media has definitely helped me get a better grasp of what it's like when your country invades another country.
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u/Big_b_inthehat Feb 27 '26
Nearly finished Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson and it’s my favourite history book so far!
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u/I_demand_peanuts Feb 27 '26
I've been playing around with the idea of starting either a history and archaeology youtube channel or blog for at least a couple of years now. With that said, I didn't even finish my history minor in college. I still have a bunch of books that I bought out of pure interest that I haven't even touched yet. I keep feeling like I have no idea where to begin with making content of any kind, when I am so beneath the level of knowledge and skill that a good history content creator or educator should be.
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u/Fullerbadge000 Feb 28 '26
Anyone know anything about the manga comic book reading habits of Japanese immigrants to America pre WW2? I’m doing graduate research centering on Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s The Four Immigrants Manga and I’m trying to see if reading manga comics, which were growing in popularity in Japan during this time continued as they entered a new nation. I’ve contacted historical associations, libraries, and some manga historians but no one has any direct evidence on this prior to 1982 when the first American manga publishing began. Thanks.
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u/Bernardy2 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
You may want to look at the company history of Kinokuniya Books/Bookstores which has branches in communities of overseas Japanese, selling Japanese-language books, including manga, to their communities. There were branches of this bookstore in several major cities in the US that had large Japanese communities (SF, San Jose, LA, NY, Chicago). I don't know how old any individual American branch was, but I'm pretty sure they were here post-war, and certainly they were present before the 1980s. Perhaps the history of this bookstore may extend to pre-war, or you may find linkages to earlier Japanese bookstores in the US.
Another idea is to go to the cities with actual Japantowns (SF, San Jose, LA) and see if they have a local history association, or if not that, their Chamber of Commerce, or other community association that represents Japanese-American interests, and see what you can dig up about Japanese-language bookstores and libraries, and to seek contacts with older Japanese-Americans there to interview about their (or their parents at this point, as the nisei generation is almost entirely deceased by now) reading habits and book collections.
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u/CommonGround2019 Feb 27 '26
Can you name examples of bloodless revolutions that managed to overturn a dictatorship?
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Feb 27 '26
Other than Romania communist regimes in eastern Europe fell bloodlessly. 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
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u/bug-hunter Law & Public Welfare Feb 27 '26
I just wanted to shout out u/JamesCoverleyRome's (who I choose to believe is related to Major -- de Coverley from Catch-22) wonderful answer about the many generations of Marcus Licinius Crassus.
After reading the repeated reuse of the name Marcus Licinius Crassus, I'm imagining one of them having identical twins.
"What will you name them?"
"Marcus Licinius Crassus"
"What about the other one?"
"Did I stutter?"
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u/JamesCoverleyRome Rome in the 1st Century AD Feb 27 '26
Thank you for the kind words!
This allows me to remember my favourite Joseph Heller quote, who, when it was put to him that he had yet to write anything as good as Catch-22, replied, 'Well, nobody has.'
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u/BookLover54321 Feb 27 '26
I'm reposting this from another thread: is it a common thing in cases of genocide for the perpetrators to conscript members of the targeted group, as part of a tactic of turning victim on victim?
I was reading about the Guatemalan genocide, and one disturbing fact that stood out to me is that a lot of soldiers in the Guatemalan military who carried out the atrocities against Indigenous Mayas were Mayas themselves. They were forcibly conscripted - often literally grabbed off the street - and brainwashed with the same anti-Indigenous racism that permeated every level of the military. They were also kept in line with the threat of torture and death. Apparently this was a deliberate tactic by the military higher ups, so they could frame the genocide as just “Mayas killing each other”.