  Near-infrared images are used to investigate the brightest red stars in the
disk of the nearby spiral galaxy M81. Red supergiants (RSGs) form a
well-defined sequence on the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) that peaks near
M_K = -11.5; RSGs with this peak brightness are seen throughout all fields that
were studied, indicating that star formation occured over a large part of the
M81 disk only ~ 10 Myr in the past. The number of RSGs per unit integrated
K-band light is compared at various locations in the disk. We conclude that
star-forming activity in M81 during the past 10 - 25 Myr (1) was distributed
over a larger fraction of the disk than it is at the present day, and (2) was
not restricted to a given radial interval, but was distributed in a manner that
closely followed the stellar mass profile. Star counts indicate that the mean
SFR of M81 between 10 and 25 Myr in the past was ~ 0.1 solar masses per year,
which is not greatly different from the present day SFR estimated from Halpha
and FUV emission.
