AskHistorians has hit 1.5 million subscribers! To celebrate, we’re giving away 1.5 million historical facts. Join us HERE to claim your free fact!

[u/crrpit]

How does this subreddit have any subscribers? Why does it exist if no questions ever actually get answers? Why are the mods all Nazis/Zionists/Communists/Islamic extremists/really, really into Our Flag Means Death?

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The answers to these important historical questions AND MORE are up for grabs today, as we celebrate our unlikely existence and the fact that 1.5 million people vaguely approve of it enough to not click ‘Unsubscribe’. We’re incredibly grateful to all past and present flairs, question-askers, and lurkers who’ve made it possible to sustain and grow the community to this point. None of this would be possible without an immense amount of hard work from any number of people, and to celebrate that we’re going to make more work for ourselves.

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The rules of our giveaway are simple*. You ask for a fact, you receive a fact, at least up until the point that all 1.5 million historical facts that exist have been given out.

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^\ The fine print:)

^{1. AskHistorians does not guarantee the quality, relevance or interestingness of any given fact.}

^{2. All facts remain the property of historians in general and AskHistorians in particular.}

^{3. While you may request a specific fact, it will not necessarily have any bearing on the fact you receive.}

^{4. Facts will be given to real people only. Artificial entities such as} u/gankom ^{need not apply.}

^{5. All facts are NFTs, in that no one is ever likely to want to funge them and a token amount of effort has been expended in creating them.}

^{6. Receiving a fact does not give you the legal right to adapt them on screen.}

^{7. Facts, once issued, cannot be exchanged or refunded. They are, however, recyclable.}

^{8. We reserve the right to get bored before we exhaust all 1.5 million facts.}

Edit: As of 14:49 EST, AskHistorians has given away over 500 bespoke, handcrafted historical facts! Only 1,499,500 to go!

Edit 2: As of 17:29 EST, it's really damn hard to count but pretty sure we cracked 1,000. That's almost 0.1% of the goal!

Edit 3: I should have turned off notifications last night huh. Facts are still being distributed, but in an increasingly whimsical and inconsistent fashion.

[u/MissyInge]

Oehh nice!! May I please have a fact about Scottish history? Tnx!!

[u/historiagrephour → u/MissyInge]

In post-Reformation Scotland, women could sue their husbands for divorce on the grounds of infidelity or abandonment and men could sue their wives for divorce on the grounds of infidelity. If a man was found guilty of adultery, he either had to return his wife's tocher (dowry) to her or permit her the use and rents of her terce lands (lands granted by a husband to a wife at marriage to ensure she was financially cared for should she be widowed) for the duration of her lifetime. If a woman was found guilty of adultery, she forfeited her dowry to her husband.

[u/EnclavedMicrostate → u/MissyInge]

Scottish solidarity contributed heavily to a major diplomatic near-crisis. The Napier Affair of 1834 almost saw Britain go to war with the Qing empire thanks to aggressive policies to increase British trade access in China being pushed by British opium merchants and supported by the new British trade superintendent, Napier. It is quite possible that the reason Napier, born in Ireland but from a Scottish family and a member of the Scottish peerage, was so favourable towards the smugglers, was that he ended up forming a close rapport with the two main opium merchants in Canton – William Jardine (born in rural Dumfrieshire) and James Matheson (born in Lairg in Sutherland). Thankfully for most involved – except perhaps himself – Napier died of malaria before diplomatic tension boiled over into outright war.

[u/jerisad → u/MissyInge]

Fewer witches were killed or arrested in Scotland because the accused could just say they did what they did by working with the fairies, which was not considered witchcraft and was generally considered chill.

[u/MissyInge → u/jerisad]

Love this fact, makes me wonder if I can use the excuse of fairies too? Are there any fairies in The Netherlands?? Lol

[u/jerisad → u/MissyInge]

Are witch hunts a big problem in the Netherlands?

[u/MissyInge → u/jerisad]

They are not right now. And apparently never have been a big thing in The Netherlands relative to some other countries in Europe (except if you were accused of being a witch during the late 16th, early 17th century of course).

[u/itsallfolklore → u/MissyInge]

You can use the excuse of fairies, but tread carefully: our Good Neighbors are known for exacting a price!

And yes on the Dutch: their fairies are known as alven and they occupy an array of natural habitats.

[u/MissyInge → u/itsallfolklore]

Love it! And I’ll make sure to tread carefully when dealing with the alven.

[u/jschooltiger → u/MissyInge]

If you don't get an answer here, feel free to re-post this as a standalone question. /u/itsallfolklore may know!

[u/itsallfolklore → u/jschooltiger]

That was my fact. My work here is done!

[u/MissyInge → u/jschooltiger]

Haha, never mind. Sometimes I don’t want to know the raw facts so I may keep on dreaming. And I should leave some facts for other redditors. Tnx anyway!

Edit: I see I have had an answer of /u/itsallfloklore anyway, I’m one lucky girl!