Groundbreaking and adventurous, Earhart is forever one of the world’s most iconic figures. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and also set multiple flying records. However, she’s also an iconic mystery: During a 1937 circumnavigational flight, she disappeared and was never heard from again. The disappearance continues to confuse scientists, and has only grown more fascinating through the years.
Conspiracy theorists on Reddit would have a field day plying her with questions.
Reddit users who frequent /r/trees would choke on their Funyuns if they got a chance to question the guitar god. An absurdly talented and revolutionary musician, Hendrix reinvented rock, developing new techniques on the electric guitar and expanding the use of distortion and the wah-wah pedal.
A notorious hedonist who truly lived a sex/drugs/rock’n’roll lifestyle, Hendrix would field a million questions from Redditors, who no doubt want to know if he really did wear a bandana laced with acid.
How could he not make this list? A civil rights leader who essentially changed the course of American history, MLK, Jr. preached non-violence and led peaceful protests and marches against segregation. You can’t even say the phrase “I have a dream” without thinking of him, because he strung those words together so powerfully that they belong to him now.
Redditors would hang on his every AMA word to see what wisdom he'd drop next.
A delicate beauty, Marie Antoinette became the queen of France at age 19. Naturally, she did what any teen queen would do: throw lavish parties, buy extravagant clothes and purchase pricey estates. Her level of fame and infamy puts her on par with modern day socialites, loved and hated for their excessive wealth and flashy lifestyles. However, she was mostly hated – the French Revolution flared during her reign and Antoinette was soon beheaded.
If she did a Reddit AMA, it would be a toss between fawning girls who want to know how to throw perfect party, and sly users that trick her into saying “Let them eat cake.”
A rock’n’roll author who lived hard and fast, Hemingway is a storyteller for the ages. He reinvented the writing game with his quick style, shaped in part by his experience as a journalist, crafting prose that was straightforward and to the point.
Aspiring authors queuing up for writing advice would likely get a response along the lines of, “Keep things short. Truth and bravery are all that matter. And remember: You will never be better than me."
The feminist icon and Mexican painter was a tough broad with a visionary artistic sense. She epitomized the self-portrait and donned flower crowns before Coachella even existed. An unconventional beauty, Kahlo shrugged off standard trends, proudly rocking a unibrow as a statement and an art piece in its own right.
Hop into her Reddit AMA, where she would likely spill secrets about her explosive marriage to Diego Rivera, and reveal she’s a huge fan of selfies.
An enigmatic painter who gifted us with the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, Da Vinci is the ultimate artist. Not only was he a gifted painter, he was also a genius inventor who designed blueprints for forerunners of modern technology, such as machine guns, helicopters and more. The man was an actual polymath, an expert in a wide variety of subjects.
His AMA would be packed with art fans, and people who’ve read way too much Dan Brown.
Rough rider, carrier of big sticks and all around badass, Theodore Roosevelt would school you on the art of being legendary. The former two-term U.S. president is the hero drippy political nerds aspire to be. This is a man who got shot while making a speech and calmly uttered, “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” then kept on speaking. He died in his sleep at the age of 60, because, like the saying goes, “If Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.”
Reddit might give up Ron Swanson for a day to speak with President Roosevelt.
Every woman has, at one point or another, looked up to Cleopatra. The last pharaoh of Egypt has been name-dropped more times throughout history than Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton and Marilyn Monroe combined – but that’s exactly what she would have wanted. At the time of her reign, she fashioned herself as the reincarnation of the goddess Isis, a magical deity regarded as the ideal mother and wife. Cleopatra took the similarities and ran with them, becoming the ultimate symbol of power, beauty and intelligence, known for her cunning ways and dramatically short life.
Here’s a brain we’d love to pick. Though scientists dispute his accuracy, French seer and apothecary Nostradamus is famous for predictions he made in the 1500s that creepily apply to events like World War II, the French Revolution and Hurricane Katrina. He published a book called Les Propheties in 1555, full of quatrain predictions about the future. It was packed with eerie divinations and is still in print to this day.
Amidst all the users asking ‘Damus to predict their immediate futures would be some serious Redditors challenging his actual prophetic abilities.
Andy Warhol would have loved the Internet. The artist was renowned for his love of fame and socialites. He rose to notoriety through the pop art movement, a style that derived its inspiration from pop culture. Warhol was known for turning ordinary objects like Campbell’s Soup cans into works of art, and experimenting with wild color palettes. He also directed numerous films, creating documentaries and shorts that often starred his cadre of glamorous It girls.
In his trademark droll style, he would happily answer all questions in his AMA surrounding his glitzy lifestyle, while doling out Warholisms like, “In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes.”
Go ahead — ask me anything.
That's the simple prompt behind Reddit's extremely popular series, "Ask Me Anything," or AMA. The question and answer directive offers Redditors a chance to submit queries to a variety of interesting people, from ex-Mafia bosses to a slew of mega-famous names, such as Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Al Gore.
See also: 13 Fantastic Subreddits You Should Subscribe To
The AMA is mostly a vehicle for a shared learning experience. Unless you're Woody Harrelson, who will go down in Reddit history as one of the worst of all time, most AMAs are full of interesting, insightful and funny questions and responses, a place where people are happy to spill secrets and confessions.
Unfortunately, Reddit hasn't been around forever. There are quite a few people we'd like to subject to a no-holds-barred Q&A. Here are the famous historical figures who would have hosted awesome AMAs, from MLK Jr. to Andy Warhol, who would certainly print it out and measure it in inches.
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Image: Flickr, jrr_wired