Special Vote! What should Extra History cover?

Jeffrey

Okay, I wanna clarify what I said so I don't seem like too much of a jerk. :P Extra Credits has a list that they post with every vote of what topics are coming up next in the series. We never vote for the next topic immediately after the one we are currently watching, they are always several ahead. So they do have a "to-air" list, if not a "to-do" list. So since everyone seems to love these topics, why not hold the vote for a bit and just get around to doing them all? I didn't mean make the show biweekly or double the workload or something to that effect.

Stephen

And increasing the schedule further to biweekly would require, what, 3 new artists, doubling the amount of music produced by the musicians if not hiring more, a new writer and a new editor? Which doesn't exactly seem feasible for a fair while, if at all...

Stephen

Heck, there's some interesting history behind the humble cornish pasty and how it came to exist. (Packed lunch for miners, which apparently used to have the initial carved on one end both so the miners could tell who's pasty was who's, and because at one point both savory and sweet was put into the same pastry so that it was literally an entire meal in a single pie crust, savory pie one end, sweet pie the other, so it needed to be eaten the correct way round)

Stephen

In part, I want War of the Roses to win so that James will talk more about Duelist of the Roses on the Q&As...

Timothy McLean

Maybe you should stop letting people see the results before they've cast a vote...

Timothy McLean

It's no surprise that they're similar, since Martin loosely based A Song of Ice and Fire in part on the War of the Roses.

Timothy McLean

I personally want to see Extra History get enough funding that they can put out a full series each week, so they can get through more of the parts of history they really want to cover. Maybe that's more of a "wish," though...

Timothy McLean

I personally want to see Extra History get enough funding that they can put out a full series each week, so they can get through more of the parts of history they really want to cover. Maybe that's more of a "wish," though...

Extra History

It's four days this time, although I actually think 3 days is the ideal. After that point I can tell that the rate at which people are voting really drops off. I just happened to calculate the ending date wrong, but since I posted it that way, it's only fair if I stick to it!

Jessica Cheeri

Well, they could do a one-ep on packing lunch if they did an episode on Nicolas Appert, who came up with a way to preserve food in portable containers in the 1790s. The French military was offering 12000 Francs for a way to pack food so they didn't have to forage. Granted the invention was a lunchbottle and not a box but it counts, and led directly to modern canning

RMS Oceanic

"The Lancasters send their regards."

Mikkel Kaas

Hah, I did feel like something was wrong, but didn't bother actually doing the math :P

Marco Honrade

Awwww, I was hoping to have the final vote. Oh well, it seems you extended the deadline. Better to give more time for people to vote anyways, it seems rather common that people didn't see the vote announcement until its too late. Maybe 3 days for voting is too short?

Extra History

Yikes, I set the timer wrong! Realized it when I saw your message. Try voting now - the poll should be re-open for another 22.5 hours.

Extra History

The vote's open till Tuesday - still 24 hours yet to go!

Mikkel Kaas

Wow, such close vote yet again. Sadly I didn't see the mail until now.

Martin Verran

It's Walpole. Walpole Tied the Vote back up.

Nessf

Just for amusement's sake: I have in fact had one friend refuse to read beyond book one in A Song of Ice and Fire on the grounds that he already knew how it would end: The Lancaster's would win.

Nessf

The Gracchi Brothers(starts this week) --> History of Paper Money --> Libertadores --> The results of this vote. Edit: Their schedule assumes that each series will take 6 weeks + lies. If a particular topic takes less time than that, they fill it in with one-off episodes on a topic of their choice (such as the recent episode about Lindisfarne) Edit again: To anyone reading later, I swear there was a question here I was answering when I wrote this....

Marco Honrade

Time to cast my vote with less than a minute left, I decided on Catherine the Great, Seven Years War, and Marie Curie.

Extra History

We're actively considering that! It may happen somewhat soon, but I'd like to have at least one free-for-all suggestion list in between now and then. In order to run this special "Second Chances" vote, I had to replace the usual $10 reward with a different one, so I want to make sure everyone who didn't get to send in their topic this time gets a chance to send their absolute favorite next time.

Extra History

ANTTI YOU JINXED IT!

Extra History

I wish, though. ;D

Extra History

I'm starting to believe that you all are coordinating somewhere behind the scenes. It's a blind vote, but any time one of the three leaders falls behind, miraculously another round of voters show up to bounce it back into the tie. ;)

Extra History

Oh no! Her odds are looking pretty low, unfortunately, although I'd really love to cover her too. :(

Extra History

Yeah, it's winner takes all with these. Topics that win can come back in future votes, but they don't get to go onto the production schedule unless they straight up win a voting contest.

Extra History

It's still special!

Extra History

It's a hard choice!

Extra History

Yeah the Seven Years War is... broad. Last time James was saying that he hadn't even decided yet which PART of the war to cover, and I suspect that if it wins, it will only scratch the surface (and maybe elicit interest for further exploration in a later series, the way Justinian & Theodora did).

Extra History

I find a lot of people do that! I think it makes a lot of sense, and it's great to see curiosity and an interest in new things. :)

Extra History

Well, we did already cover the history of Jo(h)n Snow...

Extra History

Any of them would be lots of fun to make!

Extra History

I would just vote for all five, to show them you love them! Little known fact: the topics have feelings.

Extra History

It isn't bridges, but I remember during the Justinian and Theodora series I wound up researching the "ship mills" that Belisarius invented and being absolutely blown away. I think I sent David this long paragraph (in loving but absolutely unnecessary detail) about what ship mills were and how they worked and he was just like... "O_O Okay here's a picture..." Anyway. I doubt we could ever do a series on something as specific as that but I am susceptible to getting excited about technology and wanting to write one-offs about it. -Soraya

Extra History

I'm just kidding, I love that it's so close. Shows how well-loved all of these topics are!

Extra History

Y'all are gonna give me ulcers.

My name is not important

Damnit! I didn't see Curie until after I voted >_

Josh Kendall

Withdrawn...

Nessf

Generally no - whichever topic gets the most votes is the one that gets made. Sometimes they'll do a runoff vote of previously failed topics.... like this one, actually.

Nessf

You might want to hit the "Patron Posts" tab. >..>

Stephen

Tom Scott did a video on the engineering side of them, and their purpose, but didn't really discuss the history of their invention or the inventor: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzOQwktMCc" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzOQwktMCc</a>

Josh Kendall

Pretty unrelated, but did anybody see Robert Warpole in the latest Game Theory episode? The one about Pokémon Go teams?

Aaron hutchinson

There's a part of me that wants to see Catherine win, but I also want the Wars of the Roses to win.

Martin Verran

Kira Stegner

Stephen, I have never seen a bridge like that! That is so cool. (Sorry, I couldn't reply directly.)

Jessica Cheeri

Voted for Catherine the Great, Marie Curie, and Seven Years' War. With Seven Years War though I'd kinda like to see it as part of a series on the French and Indian Wars (including Queen Anne's War as a theater of the Spanish Succession before the Seven Years War) because of Acadia and who runs Canada and the private navies in the Caribbean. Of course, Britain and France were fighting in immediate-post-Mughal India in the Karnatic War during this too

Stephen

And just three votes between 1st and 3rd place now. 1 vote between 1st and 2nd.

Bert Macy

I always find myself voting for the one i know least about. While I know that there's tons i don't know about the others. I feel it's most likely to increase the amount of things i know if i pick the one i know least about. you know?

Stephen

You've said you want to make sure that this is (at least sometimes) usable by schools in the past. Maybe at some point you could ask us to suggest from a narrower band than 'all history up to 1920' for both trying to steer suggested topics to aspects you haven't covered yet or for a while, or towards things that would be of use to school curricula.

Stephen

There's only 6 votes between first and third place (Catherine the Great and War of the Roses, respectively) atm, so... Three way tie is still possible! (2nd is currently 7 year war)

Stephen

I... Genuinely would like to see a one off on a specific type of bridge... <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_bridge" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_bridge</a>

Sean Sarff

War of the Roses would be great to see. It's basically Game of Thrones Historic edition.

schuyler

All look grate

Warrior of Virtue

Would it be less tactful to not vote at all or to vote for all five? Because I honestly can't decide which one I want to see more.

Kira Stegner

Everything you do is super interesting! I'm sure you could do a video on the history of... I don't know... lunchboxes, and it would turn out great!

Timothy McLean

Time is depressingly finite.

Extra History

Can't help it, I'd love to talk about Shakespeare's Queen some day! But I get that.

RMS Oceanic

Looks like we're at risk of another three way tie at current rates. :)

GooGhoul

Ah yes! Seven Years' War was behind but now it's in a three way tie for first.

Dani McKenzie

<whiney kid="" voice=""> Can't you do all the histories? :-) </whiney>

Dani McKenzie

They were separately by only 7 votes when I voted this morning. Talk about making your vote count!

Antti Björklund

Well at least it's not a three-way tie...

Antti Björklund

I just felt Elizabeth and her era have already been done "to death" (so to speak) in various other documentaries, so I'm not sure what you could do to put a new spin on the subject. The other subjects, I feel, haven't been done that much.

Extra History

And at the time I'm writing this, they're tied. Because of course they are!

Extra History

That's certainly a possibility, as we've had special polls before, although do bear in mind that geography is not the only type of variety to have in history. I'm happy that this one happens to feature a lot of women, and most recently we had a poll that was all non-war topics! But for this particular poll, every single choice presented is the second place winner from the last four vote sessions. You all had more say in this particular vote list than we did. :)

Extra History

Hahaha. They're all pretty interesting!

Extra History

Poor Elizabeth! I'm curious, mind if I ask why she was the only one left out?

Extra History

WE all have our preferences!

Timothy McLean

Ah, the ancient conundrum. "I only have 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week." The Extra Credits team seems to deal with that a lot.

Timothy McLean

At this time, the frontrunners (Catherine the Great and the War of the Roses) have been voted on by 51% and 49% of the voters, respectively. I find this amusing.

Robert Griffith

Once again, your topic choices, while all good, are very Eurocentric. I have loved your coverage of less-well-known, non-European history subjects (the Zulu Empire, Admiral Yi, and the Opium Wars especially). Maybe sometime in the near future you should do a poll that is nothing but subjects from countries you have not yet covered?

Tiberia Prima

I couldn't decide and just voted for all of them. Grr.

Antti Björklund

Ah the problem with being a history geek: I couldn't decide for a long time what NOT to vote for. In the end ended voting for everything EXCEPT Elizabeth I.

Kieran Elliott

A tough set of choices. Personally I prefer the runs focusing explicitly on an event or period rather than a named person, not sure why - things like Sengoku Jidai inevitably focus in on the key players, and things like the Suleiman run inevitably cover the wider context and major events of the period.

Extra History

I mean, every topic that appears - even if it loses - has a chance of coming back, either in a special vote or just as a re-nomination so they're all on the To-Do list, such as it is. But we can only actually produce one at a time.

Extra History

15 is a good number!

Extra History

The fact that people wrote to us after watching the Shaka Zulu Epic Rap Battle to say they understood the references *because of our series* still ranks as one of my proudest weird internet moments.

Jeffrey

Perhaps if the ties keep coming so close, perhaps that shows a significant enough demand for the topics that all of them should be added to the To-Do list.

Marco Honrade

Ah, so the topics are we discussed last time. Still can't decide which topics to support. As much as i want to vote for all them, voting for all, for me personally, is equivalent to voting for none. My usual rule of thumb is to vote for topic I want others to know most and the topic, which I know least. Here's for an exciting, tense 15th Extra History Topic Royale.

Joo-Hwan Jun

Funny how two of the selections were referenced in the latest Epic Rap Battles of History, Seven Years War (Frederick the Great) and Catherine the Great.