Now there are just a few more questions I'd like to have answered about that "historical crucifixion..."
1. The Roman Prefect, Pilate, convenes a trial for JC under Roman law...then proceeds to violate almost every possible known rule of that law. Pilate declares the prisoner innocent, then orders him executed. That was just as unlikely in 33 CE as it would be for an American judge to do the same thing today.
If Pilate had run a trial in such a way, he would have probably been immediately relieved for gross incompetence and sent back to Rome. There was certainly precedent for that. When Jewish and Samaritan citizens complained about bad treatment under Herod Archelaus, the Romans exiled him all the way to modern Vienna, Austria. And Archelaus was the son of Herod The Great, with presumably a lot more political muscle than Pontius Pilate.
As far as we know, Pilate managed to hang on as Prefect of Judea for about another decade after JC's death.
Not bad for an unpopular ruler in a notoriously fractious Roman province, loaded with armed insurgents like the sicarii. And uncountable numbers of ranting, raving religious fanatics who finally pushed their luck too far in 66 CE.
2. JC is only crucified because Pilate cravenly caves in to a mob.
But according to the Xians' fave historian, Flavius Josephus, that wasn't the way Pilate dealt with mobs.
From The Jewish War, 2.175-77:
On a later occasion (Pilate) provoked a fresh uproar by expending upon the construction of an aqueduct the sacred treasure known as Corbonas; the water was brought from a distance of seventy kilometers. Indignant at this proceeding, the populace formed a ring round the tribunal of Pilate, then on a visit to Jerusalem, and besieged him with angry clamor.
He, foreseeing the tumult, had interspersed among the crowd a troop of his soldiers, armed but disguised in civilian dress, with orders not to use their swords, but to beat any rioters with cudgels. He now from his tribunal gave the agreed signal.
Large numbers of the Jews perished, some from the blows which they received, others trodden to death by their companions in the ensuing flight. Cowed by the fate of the victims, the multitude was reduced to silence.
Like much of Josephus, the passage raises more questions than it answers. There was nothing wrong with spending "sacred treasure" on a public works project to benefit the whole community - according to historians, that was exactly one purpose of such treasure.
And Pilate would have only spent that money with the permission of the local religious authorities. The aqueduct in question had been started by Herod The Great, with construction ceasing on his death, and was sitting unfinished. So it wasn't some new idea that Pilate came up with just to annoy the locals.
The whole thing is almost Monty Python-ish: "Clean water? Hell, no, we won't have it! Let's riot!"
3. JC was crucified "between two thieves" (except in the gospel of John, where their occupation isn't mentioned). But theft wasn't a capital crime under Roman law, any more than it is today.
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