About r/history
In its own words:
r/history is a place for discussions about history. Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobility is! This is a somewhat more serious subreddit compared to many others. Make sure to familiarize yourself with our rules and guidelines before participating. All posts must be manually approved by a moderator. Thanks!
The community was created on Jan 25, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 19, 2026, it has gained 2,542 subscribers (+0.01%). Among the 13 communities on our history list it is the largest. It sits just behind r/WritingPrompts (#44) and ahead of r/blog (#46) in our ranking.
What sets r/history apart
Relative to its huge audience, posting is calm — around 0.6 new posts a day per million members, which puts it in the quietest fifth of the Top 100. A good post has less competition here.
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026, r/history grew from 18,744,987 to 18,755,053 subscribers (+10.1K, +0.05%). That is about 252 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (8 so far), so it gets longer every week.
Top posts on r/history this week
What the community upvoted most over the last seven days, as ranked by Reddit (collected Oct 29, 2026).
- Case of mysterious medieval skeleton buried in Roman era sarcophagus at Westminster Abbey finally solvedu/foodie_2598 · Oct 24 · link
- How A Canoe Helped Turn Hawaiian Culture Into A Source Of Pride And Even Influenced Hollywoodu/Poiboykanaka808 · Oct 26 · link
- Engineers perform delicate operation on explosives-packed World War II shipwreck, but bombs remain in placeu/foodie_2598 · Oct 23 · link
- The Surprising History Of Hawaiians In The Civil Waru/Poiboykanaka808 · Oct 28 · link
- The Decades-Long Battle Within the Democratic Party Establishment Between the Heirs of Dean Acheson and Franklin Rooseveltu/thenationmagazine · Oct 23 · link
- Hungary Commemorates 70th Anniversary of 1956 Revolution Against Soviet Ruleu/Julian81295 · Oct 23 · link
- Rediscovered: primary source sheds light on a pivotal moment in ophthalmologyu/goodoneforyou · Oct 28 · link
- Weekly History Questions Thread.u/AutoModerator · Oct 24 · text post
- Bookclub and Sources Wednesday!u/AutoModerator · Oct 28 · text post
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/history, from 2017 to 2020, ranked by Reddit.
- New "Discovery Mode" turns video game "Assassin's Creed: Origins" into a fully narrated, interactive guided tour through a detailed recreation of Ptolemaic-period Egypt.u/hanburgundy · Feb 21, 2018 · 53,161 points · 735 comments · link
- We are not here to help you with your End of Term papers.u/Cozret · Jun 9, 2018 · 38,157 points · 0 comments · text post
- A 1776 excerpt from John Adam's diary where he describes the time he had to share a tiny bed with Benjamin Franklin and, instead of sleeping, they had an argument about whether to keep the windows op…Apr 14, 2018 · 35,568 points · 580 comments · link
- Famous Viking warrior burial revealed to be that of a womanu/Cozret · Sep 9, 2017 · 34,583 points · 473 comments · link
- 3,000-year-old underwater castle discovered in Turkey's largest lakeu/MonoLoupe · Nov 22, 2017 · 33,849 points · 964 comments · link
- Researchers built a database from 4000 year old clay tablets, plugged it into an economic trade model, and pinpointed 11 potential lost citiesu/drock45 · Nov 18, 2017 · 33,714 points · 952 comments · link
- /r/history is closing down for the next 24 hours in response to current events and reddit's response as a platformu/creesch · Jun 3, 2020 · text post
- 700-year-old Knights Templar cave discovered in Englandu/grepnork · Mar 8, 2017 · 31,854 points · 938 comments · link
- The "Harlem Hellfighters" were the first African American regiment in WWI who were assigned to the French forces. None were captured, never lost a trench, or a foot of ground to the enemy. They retur…u/authentic010 · Mar 11, 2017 · 31,087 points · 455 comments · video
- In 1830, American consumption of alcohol, per capita, was insane. It peaked at what is roughly 1.7 bottles of standard strength whiskey, per person, per week.u/johntentaquake · Aug 10, 2018 · 31,200 points · 1,791 comments · link
What r/history talks about
Across 73 recent posts (Oct 21–Oct 28), the words that come up most are “war”, “empire”, “dust”, “whatbroketheempires” and “civil”. Other frequent themes are world, america, instagram, africa, medieval and source. Recurring phrases include “civil war”, “dust empire”, “world war” and “royal jackfruit”. By format, 36% are videos, 33% are text posts and 32% are links.
Popular post flairs: Article (21), Video (20), Discussion/Question (14), News article (3), Image Gallery (2), Podcast (1).
Activity and best time to post
r/history gets about 11 new posts a day. The public archive holds 322,769 posts and 3,074,679 comments in total, about 9.5 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Wednesday (17 posts) and the quietest was Tuesday (7). Posting peaks around 13:00 UTC and is lowest around 01:00 UTC.
Rules of r/history
The moderators of r/history list 15 rules. In short:
- Rule 1: Keep it civil!
- Rule 2: No current politics or soapboxing
- Rule 3: No historical negationism, denialism or alternate history.
- Rule 4: Comments should be on-topic and contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way
- Rule 5: Discussions limited to events over 20 years ago
- Rule 6: Post in the right subreddit
- Rule 7: Follow the rules and guidelines of reddit
- Rule 8: Post from the original site.
- Rule 9: Text posts require actual research and must be sourced
- Rule 10: Titles of links should accurately describe the content not be sensationalized or misleading
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/history and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/history have?
r/history has 18,755,053 subscribers (Oct 29, 2026), which makes it the #45 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 10,066 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026.
When was r/history created?
r/history was created on Jan 25, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from Jan 26, 2008.
Is r/history still active?
Yes. r/history gets about 11 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 322,769 posts and 3,074,679 comments. In a sample of 73 recent posts we counted 58 different authors.
What is the best time to post in r/history?
Based on post counts from Oct 21, 2026 to Oct 27, 2026, the busiest day was Wednesday and the quietest Tuesday, and most posts arrive around 13:00 UTC, with the fewest around 01:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What kind of posts are on r/history?
The community describes itself as: “r/history is a place for discussions about history. Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobili…” Recent post titles often mention war, empire, dust, whatbroketheempires and civil. Most posts are videos (36%).
Is r/history SFW?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/history as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
What are the rules of r/history?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/history accepts both text and link posts. It has 15 posted rules, starting with: “Rule 1: Keep it civil!”; “Rule 2: No current politics or soapboxing”; “Rule 3: No historical negationism, denialism or alternate history.”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
What subreddits are similar to r/history?
Communities with similar topics include r/HistoryMemes (12.8M), r/OldSchoolCool (19.7M), r/suggestmeabook (3.4M), r/books (27.3M) and r/interesting (2.2M).
Stats from public data (data updated Oct 29, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Oct 29, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/history.