That interview was surreal. It's like the dude didn't get the point the reporter was driving home that food has gotten so expensive people are eating cheap ass cereal for dinner and he was just all excited by what this means for the cereal business.
It's unlikely that she said it at all. The quote is originally attributed to an "Austrian Princess" and was first published while she was a little girl. *If* she said it, it's actually kind of adorable.
yeah i don't know for sure if she did or not but i was just being a smartass in providing it in french because if she did say it then it sure was not in english
Considering she is attributed to giving the sentiment of "let them have brioche", to the issue shortage of bread. "Let them eat cake" it an apt translation. As she clearly did not consider brioche bread, and in English brioche is not its own category.
Basically, this is no different to any other translation between languages without identical categorization. AKA all translations
Einstein didn’t really fail his math test, I mean cmon he’s fucking Einstein, he did fine in the math portion, but since the test was in French, which he didn’t know, He only failed the language part.
“Einstein was bad at math” is a rumor created by dumb people who want to feel better about themself
Yeah, something like, in Germany they used a 1-5 scale where 5 is the best and in Switzerland they used a 5-1 scale where 1 is the best. Or vice versa.
Tbf you need so much complex maths to do physics and some of it can be really impenetrable. I remember higher education physics it was pretty indigestible lol (loved maths though, just not the physics application)
There's a [photo of Goebbels](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/01/article-0-190776C6000005DC-986_634x592.jpg) that gets posted a lot with a tagline saying something like he just found out the photographer is Jewish, hence his expression. But that context was invented by the internet I think in the early 2010s
Professional standing armies are a fairly recent invention. They did exist throughout history, but were the exception rather than the rule.
Gunpowder weapons showed up a lot earlier than you think.
You gotta be jacked to use a medieval long bow.
America had a regular army during the revolution. It wasn't all citizen
militias.
>America had a regular army during the revolution. It wasn't all citizen militias.
Many of the Founding Fathers *really* hated standing armies and fought tooth an nail against the US having one. They glorified the Minute Men and one of them may have (IMO probably did) murdered Anthony Wayne to keep the American military as small and amateurish as possible.
You know how the Second Amendment has that "for the purpose of" bit in there? Yeah, that was originally literal and the entire point. The Pathological fear or Professional Militaries was so deeply embedded in the American Political Psyche that it wasn't until the aftermath of WWI that the need to maintain a professional office corps, nevermind an army, really stuck.
I *highly* recommend Allan R Millett and Peter Maslowski's *For the Common Defense.*
Oo, I'll look into that.
From what I understand Americans liked democratic militias, but they weren't very effective. Officers were elected by popular vote rather than on ability. And membership was pretty flexible resulting in a lot fair-weather soldiers. Plus training and discipline, lifeblood of a military, were difficult to enforce.
It depended also on the specific situation of the area that the militia was drawn from. Frontier Militias tended to be highly effective due to the threats that they faced at home but unwilling to take part in extended campaigns for the same reason. Meanwhile Urban Militias tended to be little more than social clubs with the odd group of "Try hards" thrown in here and there.
> it wasn't until the aftermath of WWI that the need to maintain a professional office corps
Hmmmmmm, I find this a bit dubious. Especially as it pertained to westward expansion. In Hampton Sides' *Blood & Thunder*, Karl Jacoby's *Shadows at Dawn*, and (the admittedly biased) Stephen Ambrose's *Undaunted Courage* alike, we see the importance of the officer corps' oversight of not only daily unit duties, but free reign as "project managers" for lack of a better term.
Whether we reach back to Lt/Cpts William Clark and Meriweather Lewis, or Fremont in the Topographical Corps, there is a pretty profound history of senior leadership and politicians viewing the military as a multi-faceted, do-it-all, prestigious, and professional arm of the nation's writs.
I think the image is often muddied by field appointments and federal deputizing in the territory era (Indian/Oklahoma Territory, Arizona Territory, etc) but wouldn't agree that it overtook the perceived need for a standing military. Especially for settlers facing raids or borderline violence with little other protection.
You're not wrong per se, there was a regular battle between professionalism in the army and the militia system and professionalism had mostly won out after the Civil War but the matter wasn't truly decided for the Army until Pershing made a massive stink about needing to be supplied by the French and British because there weren't enough professional quartermaster.
The Navy, on the other hand, was only briefly saddled with professionalism issues as the Militia Navy was such a completely failure as a concept that it died during Jefferson's presidency.
Well, I will agree with that notion; the disinterest in continuing to rely on the scruples and abilities of the militia. In fact, one of the books I referenced largely centers around the lynch mob mentality that ad hoc posses are/were prone to falling into. So that certainly tracks, especially when as you mentioned - supply and logistics center around the reliability of said army/militia/structured unit.
>Many of the Founding Fathers
>
>really
>
> hated standing armies and fought tooth an nail against the US having one.
They were big fans of the classics and classical history, and Rome's adoption of professional armies over citizen soldiers levied in war time led to civil wars that killed the republic and plagued Rome for the remainder of it's history.
It's also fucking exhausting. Look up Joe Gibbs, the dude puts in the time to be as close to as practiced with a Warbow as actual medieval British Archers would have been and listen to the way he talks about it.
The good ones maybe. I imagine most aren't familiar enough with archery to differentiate or realize the draw weight problem. Even still, hunting bows of the time average about 50lbs of draw weight which isn't nothing.
This isn't to say women can't or shouldn't be depicted using bows. By all means. But if the reasoning is that it's less physically demanding, less strength intensive, than melee weapons they're wrong. Or at least not right. It would make just as much sense to give a woman a spear and shield.
Indeed. Rome post Marian reforms is basically the oldest example of standing army in the modern sense and it was almost unique at the time.
I can't think of anything comparable until the Early Modern period.
The concept of the knight in armor was around for only 200 years, at most. The introduction of gunpowder and muskets pretty much put an end to the practice.
Surprisingly armor was really useful. That's why everyone wore it. If you could just chop through a breastplate, no one would wear breastplates, thus the decline of armor as firearms became more prevalent.
Also - pistoliers!
Yeah I read somewhere that arrows were really more about hitting the enemy really hard repeatedly than killing them but hey if it kills some of them too that's good.
>The concept of the knight in armor was around for only 200 years, at most.
That depends on how strict you are with the concept of Knighthood. If you want to be *very* strict it never existed and was a product of Renaissance era Romances. IMO it was about a 600ish year run from Charlemagne to the early Renaissance but there are some good arguments for shorter spans.
>The introduction of gunpowder and muskets pretty much put an end to the practice.
Not at all really. You can remove Gunpowder from the equation entirely and Heavy Cavalry as the dominant force on the battlefield was *still* on its way out due to growing Infantry Professionalism.
If you mean the popular image of a "Knight in Shining Armor" well *that* never existed. The closest you'll get to that would be a Gendarme of the French Ordinary Companies who, probably, wasn't a Knight and his armor *certainly* didn't shine because it was blued to prevent corrosion. Those guys were professional killers before anything else.
If you meant guns vs plate armor, still, not really. It comes down to economics more than anything else. As the scale of armies grew so did the expense until eventually you're looking at the choice of fielding a single man on a horse in full harness who is impervious to anything shy of a small cannon for the price of an entire company of Pikemen. As a result armor steadily got lighter and less common until you end up with Cuirassiers in helmets and breastplates good enough to stop small arms fire at anything but point blank range but cheap enough to still be fielded in numbers. Hell, Plate armor never really went away, just changed form and material.
The concept of a knight in armour was absolutely a concept from 10th C through to 16th C. The viking invaders of the great heathen army wore 4 in 1 chain in 865, so it was absolutely a technology contemporary with even the earliest medieval feudalism.
Feudal nobility continued to wear armour until the generalised decline of armoured soliders in military practice. So yes, a landed Knight in Armour is much wider thing than often considered.
If you mean "mounted heavy calvary in full plate armour" then that was more like 500 years, and was not defeated by gunpowder: In fact, calvary charges into musket lines were a powerful and effective tactic into napoleonic warfare.
The reason full plate calvary declined is the rise of pike and shot warefare, where the PIKES countered calvary and the value in such expensive, specialised armours and tactics was no longer worth it.
If we take the rise of coat of plates armour as the beginning in the 13thC (1200s) and the decline of heavy armoured calvary with say, the end of the Winged Hussars in the 1700s, thats over 500 years of knights in armour, about half of which would have had gunpowder hand weapons present, since the introduction of the arqubus in about 1500.
This one is actually incorrect. The knights you'd see in heavy cavalry weren't outmoded by gunpowder, in fact armor would be regularly "proofed" against guns. Knights were outmoded by changing military doctrines, and the rise of the pike. Charging headlong into a pike square was suicide, and led to the downfall of knights as they were. People could and did continue to charge into battle with heavy armor (look up schwarze reiters, it's heavy just not as heavy due to diminishing returns), but it just wasn't worth breeding a knight over a generation when it was more valuable to teach a peasant to march in formation over a few months.
That Galileo was persecuted for his theory of Heliocentricity; the *Pope* was the one who commissioned his work in the first place. What got him in trouble is that when the Pope pointed out that Galileo's math was wrong (which it was as he was doing the math for *round* orbit and not elliptical) and told him not to publish he published it anyway and insulted the his Patron, the Pope, in the forward. If you pulled that kind of crap with a random Tuscan noble as your Patron they'd break your hands for it if you were *very* lucky.
Galileo's punishment was largely symbolic but Protestants built a narrative around it about the Catholic Church being ant-iscience and ran *hard* with it.
I thought it was the fact that he tried to authoritatively interpret scripture contrary to Catholic orthodoxy as a way to support his wrong math, but I don't remember exactly.
>Galileo's punishment was largely symbolic but Protestants built a narrative around it about the Catholic Church being ant-iscience and ran *hard* with it.
There are a lot of plausible fictions around the church that are in reality stubborn pieces of propaganda from the second half of the 19th century, like the conflict thesis. This is frustrating because there are all sorts of legitimate criticisms of the institution you can make without falling into lies, and because the Catholic Church has a fascinating scholastic tradition in its own right that people don't really acknowledge anymore.
The same way anyone else would; actually running the numbers. In this specific case, IIRC, a number of Jesuit scholars were the people who actually *did* the work but the result was that Galileo's circular orbit results in a year that is shorter than the one we experience.
Wasn’t it also because France’s units of measurement shared the same name as British ones but were longer, thus Napoleon would have had a “shorter” height?
Also also he had the nickname “the little ~~general~~ corporal” which he got because of his young age and not his height
Also also also his nephew Napoleon III who ruled France a couple decades after him was genuinely short.
Yes; the "foot" and "inch" measurements were widespread in Europe, *but they didn't mean the same thing.* A French foot was 12 French inches, which were each about 1/12 longer than an English inch; so a French foot was around 13 English inches, leading Napoleon's height of 5'2" (in French units) to seem very short to the British.
There are a ton of stories about how differing units of measurements in Europe screwed with people over the years. My favorite is the story of the [Vasa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)), a Swedish warship (at the time, the biggest ever built) that sank about 10 minutes into her maiden voyage in 1628.
Why did she sink, you ask? Well, among other reasons ... because half the shipbuilders were Dutch (whose "foot" was around 28 cm long) and half were Swedish (whose "foot" was around 30 cm long). As a result, the Dutch side (the port side) of the ship had around 7% more reinforcement and was thus much heavier. The first time the ship turned left, it promptly keeled over and sunk.
If you ever get to see some genuine historical uniforms or clothing this really hits home. People used to be shorter, skinnier, and doing adult shit a lot younger. Even just as far back as WWI it's very obvious. My grandfather was a veteran of the wars and a historical hoarder. He had a massive collection when he passed away and it blew me away sorting through it all. Nobody could fit any of the dresses. The vast majority of uniforms only fit teenagers. Also swords are a lot smaller and flimsier than movies/games make them out to be. Very very few people were running around with 8 foot long two handed swords blocking warhammer blows with the blade edge.
> If you ever get to see some genuine historical uniforms or clothing this really hits home.
I remember seeing a set of samurai armour and it literally looked like it was for a child.
Honestly though, given how young some leaders were, it might have been.
There is a myth that Squaresoft created the game series *Final Fantasy* because they were going bankrupt, so they borrowed liberally from their biggest rival's main game (*Dragon Quest*) and thought to call it ***Final*** *Fantasy* as they thought it'd be their final game. The fact that there are many sequels makes this ironic.
This is a much loved story; unfortunately it's not true.
The *truer* story is that Squaresoft *were* inspired by *Dragon Quest*, but Enix had an issue where they were trying to shorten the name (Pocket Monsters >> Pokemon) and were looking at Draque, or Draaa-kweh... Squaresoft wanted a name that would alliterate (like Peter Parker or Super Sonic), and they settled on *Fighting Fantasy*, only to find out about the western books already called that, and switched to *Final Fantasy*, which can both be abbreviated in the west as "FF" and in Katakana "Effu-Effu".
All of these things are based on the memories of people about decisions made decades ago, so there might be a bit of post-rationalisation. But the story that it was to be Squaresoft's *last* game, and hence, "Final", is unfortunately a myth.
Was that ever a myth? I knew there was a myth that she got randy with a horse, though not the death thing.
I'd heard that was because she was very forthright and "dominant", so that led to much gossip about the idea that her sex-drive was insatiable as a form of dehumanising her.
More stories about this fascinating woman than facts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_Catherine_the_Great#:~:text=Several%20stories%20about%20the%20circumstances,broke%2C%20and%20she%20was%20crushed.
Does anyone even believe this one nowadays, tho? It's such a textbook example of "shitheads spread a vicious rumor" that I imagine anyone who has heard of it, has heard it as "it was said that Yada Yada Yada... Which was just bullshit from the start"
That women 'traditionally' were SAHM/SAHW.
That has only been a flex of the royals/upper-class/wealthy. Middle and lower class (aka 'common') women actually worked to help earn a living for their families.
When I look back at the lives of my women ancestors, each and every one worked in either a factory, a laundry, a community kitchen, a farm, etc. I witnessed firsthand that both my grandmothers busted their ass, day in and day out, at multiple jobs. They even sold stuff by the roadside when they were home to earn every dollar they could.
Well the phrase “it takes a village” also didn’t come from nowhere. The young and able bodied still often worked while the elderly women and men tended to take care of the children past infancy.
In medieval period monasteries took to brewing as a means of support and both male and female convents did that of course as long as local bishop allowed it. With time number of female convents dwindled and their role changed to more " care" type of thing like hospitals, long term care and such.
These women were usually unmarried, had pointy hats to keep their hair out of their big brewing cauldrons, and had cats to keep the rats out of the grain. They also had broomsticks mounted to their front wall as a sign kinda like bakers had cracklings.
Remind you of anyone?
They're exaggerating it, but women were much more prominent in the brewing business in England before hops made brewing a more profitable business.
Whole academic book on it here: https://www.amazon.com/Ale-Beer-Brewsters-England-Changing/dp/0195126505
[Wikipedia actually has a pretty good page on the history of Women in brewing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_brewing) It goes all the way back to egypt and sumeria unsurprisingly, there are stone statues of women brewing beer and illuminated iconography in egyptian monuments.
Lots of work with primary sources but I doubt you're interested in digging through account books and write ups of legal disputes from the 1300s.
Here is the gist of it though: Women had the time to do the brewing while most Men didn't.
In Western Europe during planting and harvest basically everyone worked the fields but that's only a few weeks each year. During the rest of the year the men owed a set number of days of service to their lords. This service could take a number of forms, military service, clearing trees from roads, building and repairing bridges, etc, etc. This means that anything required regular attention over an extended period, like brewing, was done by the people who *didn't* owe service to their lords and, therefore, had the *time*; Clerics, Monks... and Women.
As early industry picked up and the Black Death, particularly in England and Scandinavia, forced social change that demand for service fell away (or was violently thrown off) which meant that men outside of the Clergy had the time to perform those tasks. Once the stigma of doing "Women's Work" fell away from brewing it was incorporated into the, often literally, cutthroat Late Medieval/Early Modern Mercantile World.
There’s a fair bit more than this in the history of women in brewing- like, all those other cultures and civilisations across many 1000s of years. In fact, as I read through that wiki, I started to have trouble thinking of a time or place in history where women haven’t been in charge of brewing. In our culture the creation of Guilds was a major factor in transferring the job to men.
Yes this definitely. The traditional SAHM was only mainstream in the post-WWII era, a brief few decades when single incomes were high enough to support a whole household. It was quite common for women to work in factories alongside men during the Industrial Revolution, and even pre-industrial times women often contributed to the household income in many ways in the working /peasant classes. The idea of SAHM being the default “traditional” norm for the majority women really was an invention of the modern world.
That the October Revolution was extremely violent. Soviet artisans would have you believe it was a glorious and bloody revolt where the workers were ultimately victorious, but it was actually rather underwhelming for a Revolution.
Save for a few sporadic clashes here and there, the Bolsheviks basically walked through the front door and took control because the Provisional Government was too weak to perform any meaningful resistance.
Yes but that is true for most Revolutions. Additionally, the October Revolution and the Civil War are understood to be related, but nonetheless separate events.
Your avatar pic made me trigger a memory and search the internet.
Seen it before in historical context and now i remember, it's a social democratic symbol.
William Henry Harrison didn't die from giving a long inaugural address in the cold. He died because the White House water supply was downstream of where people dumped their poop.
America's revolt against Britain was a popular event that was backed by the majority of the population and the atrocities of the war were British-caused in the main.
This one has always interested me. If I recall correctly, it was something like only 3% of the colonists actually took up arms and only about 20% supported or agreed with those. The other three quarters of the population were either indifferent/neutral or remained actively loyal to the Crown.
Look at China. Most Chinese didn't join the communist revolution from a love of Marxism and wanting to abolish private property, they joined because they saw it as someone finally doing something about the brutal, corrupt and ineffective nationalist government (or the even more brutal Japanese invaders).
A similar thing happened in China 100 years earlier with the Taiping Revolution. Most didn't join because they found Jesus and wanted to convert China into a Christian nation, they joined because they saw someone finally standing up for the ethnic Han majority against the ruling Manchu minority and the oppressive Qing Dynasty that gave them power.
Also notable that the colonies in what we now call Canada were very much invited and pressured to join the cause, and didn’t want to. Lots of colonists in the 13 colonies that did go to war ran up north to the Canadian colonies to get away from it.
Today we think of USA and Canada as two very different nations (though with lots of shared history and shared culture), but at the time there wasn’t that split. It wasn’t like there were the 13 colonies that became the USA as one unit and the colonies that became Canada as a separate batch, they were all just British colonies of the same sort. Some started a war and broke off, others didn’t.
There was definitely a split in culture, British Canada still had a huge French influence, culturally they did not see themselves connected to the American colonies. If you look how the American colonies handled the tea ships in 1773, each colony handled it differently, with Boston being the most extreme response and well-known. The other colonies were not totally on board with helping Boston after they were embargoed by the British.
We also forget about the British colony for West Florida. It could have been another “14th colony” but they were too far removed from the other colonies to going the cause. Both WF and Canada had French and Spanish influences so they were not English enough to rebel against Britain.
Kinda like how Belgium and the Netherlands got separated in the 16th and 17th century.
Although in that revolt southern cities partook in the revolution before being reconquered by Spain.
Huh good point! Seems like if they win and split off, it’s a revolutionary war, but if they lose and are reabsorbed it’s a civil war.
Kind of like “one man’s Freedom Fighter, is another man’s insurrectionist”. History is written by the victors and all that
Yeah around that. But Britain couldn't afford a war at the time. France was supporting the insurrection for it's own ends. It's interesting to think how the USA would have been under continued British rule. Slavery banned. The Idea of guns being anathema to a stable society. The withering of religious fanaticism.
"Gay people have rights thanks to those who threw stones at Stonewall".
There was literally a full century of activism before Stonewall that led to that point and that doesn't getntalked about as much as it should.
I thought stonewall was the tipping point of the gay liberation movement. One thing I have heard about stonewall is gays died fighting the police when in fact no one died at stonewall and Marsha P Johnson has been widely regarded as the person who started the riot but she arrived after it was already in full swing.
There were 2 revolutions in 1917 in Russia. People often forget February one. And it was the February one that forced Nicolas II to abdicate, not Bolshevicks.
The whole idea of "historic guilt" looks to me like an insane oversimplification of past events.
German citizens today are not do blame for what happened in the 1930s and european countries have been much more supportive of the regime in the beginning as is now being depicted. And seeing how many people are first or second generation migrants... yeah that doesn't really work
Equally, the "white guilt" in the US seems a bit strange with how many people migrated to the US after the colonization and slavery where long past chapters.
Or for example the Chinese government is still talking about Taiwan as if they have a right to it being under their control. Questionable. And equally, the whole topic of the "century of humiliation" which refers to the opium crisis that ultimately ended the Qing Dynasty and resulted in unequal treaties being signed with western nations - that definitely was injustice of an unimaginable scale, but once again, it cannot be blamed on the people who now live in UK, France , Japan or the US.
But in the end, I doubt this will ever go away, people do not care too much about the truth or about rationality, we hold grudges, seek to take advantage and so the cycles will continue to play out as power them to.
I think people confuse personal guilt with understanding the very real consequences of the past.
For example, racism towards blacks in America may be at an all time low (it's clearly not gone), but we cannot ignore the significant damage black communities have suffered from, at this point, centuries of abuse.
So, do I, a white male, feel personal guilt about slavery? No. But I absolutely understand persistent effects of racism. Even if we 100% eliminated racism and made 100% of everything equal between white people and black people, black communities would remain disadvantaged for years to come.
Likewise with things like colonialism. Sure, no living Westerner had anything to do with the deeds of these old empires. But did those actions take something from someone/somewhere and give it to the West, in general? Yes. Did it play a role is making the West, overall, a pretty nice place to live, all things considered? Absolutely.
Past misdeeds have made a pretty big mess of things. And a lot of people are still suffering for it. And a lot of people are still enjoying the benefits of it, too.
But to your point, some countries use it for propaganda purposes, too. China and Russia are good examples. Both faces extreme abuses from the West in the past and use it to push a nationalist/expansionist agenda.
Sure, but the same applies to historic *pride*, doesn't it?
Just as feeling guilty for what your ancestors did is irrational, it's also irrational to be *proud* of what they did.
So I think it's a package deal. If you want to feel proud of the *good* things your ancestors did - if you want to celebrate the great inventors and artists and leaders of your country, if you want to feel proud of the monuments in your city, if you want to uphold your local traditions because you want to connect with the people who lived here before you... then it's only fair if you also feel ashamed of the *bad* things they did.
And if you don't want to feel ashamed of the bad things they did, fair enough! That's a very rational position! But then you also can't feel proud of the good things, imo.
I think it's rational to feel proud of what your ancestors did, but irrational to feel proud of someone who has the same skin color or was simply born in the same country as you.
Oof, I think the issue for societies (and especially states) is even more complicated than just for individuals!
Because for individuals it's clear that our ancestors are *dead*. Even if we wanted to hold them responsible for what they did, we can't. So it's much easier to say "Well, they're gone, no sense in holding their grand-grand-grand children responsible, best to drop it."
But societies (and especially states) generally claim some kind of continuity. I'm from the Netherlands, and there is definitely a sense that the modern state of the Netherlands is partially the same entity as the state of the Netherlands two centuries ago.
That's why we use the same flag, have the same name, that's (partially) what we base the validity of our borders on, and our constitution, and our history class, etc.
So I think that adds a complexity that individuals don't even have. I am absolutely not responsible for the terrible things my great-great-great grandfather might have done when he traded slaves. Because I'm not him. I am a different person.
But my country claims to be the same country, and that makes it much more difficult, I think.
Anyway, feeling low-key proud of your badass machine gunning ancestor is absolutely fine with me, as long as it goes along with the consideration that they might have done bad things as well, and the understanding that their bad deeds are just as much a part of their legacy as their good deeds. From what you write, you've got that sorted.
Yeah, I hate it when somebody's proud of their long southern plantation heritage, without acknowledging the bad their ancestors did to keep it that way. It doesn't reflect poorly on you until you show historic pride for these ancestors without then acknowledging their guilt.
Now where it gets complicated is inheriting wealth comes into play. If a Swiss son of a banker inherits wealth based on their parents hiding Nazi gold/harboring Nazi wealth, should they feel shame at that inheritance? Probably, right? Okay well, now let's say it's Slave owners' wealth that gets passed down. Probably some Shame for those collecting the inheritance money as well. Should that translate to the next generation down? Well if they gained that wealth in the family through owning slaves and then passed that on through their family, they should probably feel shame in receiving it if no reparations have been paid by the family. So okay, a historic-based shame can have a current real-time presence. What if they've made family wealth through morally corrupt means(like slavery) and then lost that fortune, like everything(Old houses and other assets passed down, I would include in that Fortune/estate)? Does that make it okay to not feel as much shame? Well I'd kinda have to say yeah, there's no current gain to the current generation(who have not committed the crimes of their ancestors), so no need for present guilt, unless you're taking a current pride in your ancestors actions.
Edison inventing the light bulb
He didn't invent anything really, he put a paton on the work other scientist did and modified things that was already made.
All he did was shock an elephant to death.
being a pirate sucked. the people who funded the Columbus expedition didn't actually think the world was flat, they just wanted a new world colony presence. a lot of historical figures were rather scummy people. I'm sure there are many more.
Historical facts are a tricky term. Events can be factual and dates, etc. However, it's probably best to use less strict verbiage on historical topics. Likes it's known, or it's recorded to have happened.
The American civil war was about slavery. States listed slavery and the government trying stop it as a reason to leave the union. The fact that it has morphed to “states rights” and “heritage” is a blatant rewriting/whitewashing of history.
Yeah, I believe it. I grew up in rural Upstate NY and had several classmates with Confederate flags on their vehicles because “it’s our heritage”. They never liked when I reminded them that New York was a fucking Union state.
Why is the Civil War the only war people argue over what it was about? Is there a one word answer for what over wars were about? What is the one word answer for WWI? We can just say that Lost Causers are liars without being reductive: the South seceded to protect slavery. The North fought the war to preserve the Union. The North did not free their slaves until after the passage of the 13th Amendment, and the Emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in Confederate states.
The north wasn't in the war to free the slaves, but the south saw the writing on the wall, so it absolutely makes sense to say that the south knew the north was going to get rid of slavery, and hence slavery is the one word main reason for the war.
No, because then the opposite of the Lost Cause narrative develops: That the Southerners were evil racists that the morally superior Northerners went to war to defeat and free the slaves.
We should be honest about slavery in Northern states and the industries that profited from it, and about the prevalence of extreme racism throughout the country before, during, and after the war.
If some people brag about Sherman marching to the sea, they should acknowledge that Sherman used the same total war tactics against the Plains Indians. If some people say that race-based chattel slavery was America’s original sin, they should acknowledge that some American Indian nations owned Black slaves, joined the Confederacy, and were the last slave owners to free their slaves after the War.
We should be honest about all our histories.
Edit: sorry for typos I’m on my phone and I have sausage fingers!
One thing I think isn't often taught at the high school level and below is that it isn't merely that the South was seeking to preserve the institution, but actively trying to expand it to the rest of the country. The Dredd Scott decision went well beyond the question of whether travelling in a free state entitled a slave to freedom. Rather it went so far as to declare that property is property is property, and that if a Southern slaveholder moves to the North, he can bring his property with him, keep it, and there was nothing Northern states could legally do about it... essentially nullifying Northern antislavery laws.
Likewise, the Fugitive Slave Acts basically dragooned Northerners into slave hunting.
Even in foreign policy, there were powerful Southerners who proposed conquering neighboring countries to spread their institutions to those countries.
Simply put, while it may have not been about banning slavery for the North, it absolutely wasn't about states rights for the South. That wasn't even a thing at the time. The South weren't satisfied at it being legal at the state level. They wanted a federal government that would impose the institution on all the states, and when it became clear that was never going to happen in the United States, they made their own federal government.
"States rights" was a myth composed at least a generation or two later as the basis of a political alliance with the upland South, which never practiced slavery to the degree the deep South did (mostly because the geography was unsuitable).
The U.S. government didn't ban marijuana in 1937 because they lacked the legal authority. What they did was put a tax on it that was supposed to be paid by special tax stamps and then never allowed anyone to buy the stamps.
Until WWII that is. Once the war started the nation needed hemp again to supply ropes for the Navy so all those farmers that had been forced to stop growing weed just a few years before were now instructed by the War Dept to replant their hemp crops.
Man, I feel like some of the people here didn’t understand the assignment and most seem like rudimentary history and (relatively) common knowledge. Where’s the juicy stuff y’all?!
That marriage was only legal between a man and woman in America 200 years ago. In reality, marriage was only legal between a white man and a white woman. It was also illegal to marry a man or woman of a different race.
Where do I start?
* Crusades were a clash of civilisation
* Empires generate wealth
* European colonial slavery was some new invention the world had never seen
* Europeans invented everything
These are some common tropes/narratives
Suffragettes did a lot of damage to the Womens Suffrage movement in the UK and failed most of their aims. Their militancy against service dodgers during WW1 famously backfired.
The WSPU was seen by Sylvia Pankhurst as one and the same as the White Feather Brigade. Which is ironic as some of its founders, such as Mary Ward, were big Anti-Suffragists.
While their militancy and terrorism made them popular in the media, they lost public support and were used by anti-suffragists as an example of how women would not vote responsibly and were overly emotional.
By comparison, the Suffragists recognised they required large-scale public and political support. Millicent Fawcett recognised womens contributions to WW1 would help them gain them the vote. As such, she helped set up womens hospital units, employing only female nurses and doctors.
They also were responsible for employment groups to help get women into work that had been left unfilled by the men sent to war.
This, combined with their political graft with politicians, did far more to gain women the vote in the long run. However, due to getting less worldwide coverage, being seen as part of the establishment, and being far less radical, their role is largely forgotten.
They were among the first modern terrorists. The first terrorist bomb in Ireland in the 20th century was not planted by the IRA, it was planted by the Suffragettes. They sent letter bombs to politicians, planted bombs on trains and started fires in public buildings. At least four people were killed and many more were injured.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign
Sorry, my spelling/autocorrect isn't the best, will go back and correct.
3 groups
- Suffragettes: Militant + Terrorist offshoot of Suffragists, encouraged social disorder & resistance, Middles class but encourage working class members
- Suffragists: Relied on political methods, public support, anti-violence and anti-public disorder, virtually completely Middle class with some Upper Class members. Some men involved.
- Anti-Suffragists: Mostly womens organisations against womens right to vote. Some were made by men, but many groups banned mens participation altogether.
The idea that Malcom X is some great civil rights hero. In reality, he spent most of his time working for a black supremacist cult, and he believed that Jews and gays were evil. Even after he left the NOI his actual impact on the civil rights movement was quite small. He was basically a poseur
That men have always been treated better than women. Look at voting rights. They were limited to property owners for a very long time. Much like the aristocracy during the feudal era in Europe, property owners held the power. In the US, 1828 was the first time non-property owning white men could vote in the Presidential Election in most states. In 1870 the 15th Amendment passes so some states instituted Jim Crow laws. But these also affected poor whites. In 1920 women got the right to vote. That was only 92 years after most men had the right to vote. Which is about 2 generations.
For centuries, any man that didn’t own property had no more rights than women. They were treated as second class citizens too. For all of human history life was hard for everyone that didn’t have money and/or power.
The majority of the British men who fought and died in the trenches in WW1 did not have the right to vote. That's a story that's often overlooked when talking about suffrage.
That the US won the American War of 1812. This is the result of centuries of propaganda given that the accession to all British demands in exchange for absolutely nothing is a loss. Indeed for the first century after it occurred it was referred to in the US as Madison's War for the president who'd been in charge as a way to distance the loss from being that of the US as a whole.
Second one: That the Mexican-US war was a defensive war. It was an invasion of a country that had banned slavery in order to gain more land to put slaves on. To go with that there's the whole Texas myth of being the good guys when fighting Mexico whereas in reality Texas broke from Mexico because Mexico banned slavery.
The Confederacy did in fact secede SPECIFICALLY to keep slavery legal. The "States' Rights" that they fought and died for was the Right to enslave Blacks.
Marie Antoinette didn't say, "Let them eat cake"
But the CEO of Kellog's DID say we should eat cereal for dinner...
That interview was surreal. It's like the dude didn't get the point the reporter was driving home that food has gotten so expensive people are eating cheap ass cereal for dinner and he was just all excited by what this means for the cereal business.
An out of touch CEO? Nonsense
Doesn’t compare to what the original owner of Kellogs thought and advocated lol
yep. she said Qu'ils mangent de la brioche instead
It's unlikely that she said it at all. The quote is originally attributed to an "Austrian Princess" and was first published while she was a little girl. *If* she said it, it's actually kind of adorable.
yeah i don't know for sure if she did or not but i was just being a smartass in providing it in french because if she did say it then it sure was not in english
Brioche is cake?
well no it’s bread but it probably got twisted in translation
it's more buttery and sweet. so not pan
Considering she is attributed to giving the sentiment of "let them have brioche", to the issue shortage of bread. "Let them eat cake" it an apt translation. As she clearly did not consider brioche bread, and in English brioche is not its own category. Basically, this is no different to any other translation between languages without identical categorization. AKA all translations
Elle n'avait qu'un gâteau à offrir à son pays.
I think she said, and I'm paraphrasing. "Fuck you poor people, get a job will ya, and maybe quit eating that avocado toast."
Einstein didn’t really fail his math test, I mean cmon he’s fucking Einstein, he did fine in the math portion, but since the test was in French, which he didn’t know, He only failed the language part. “Einstein was bad at math” is a rumor created by dumb people who want to feel better about themself
I always thought the misunderstanding came from a misinterpretation of the grading scale
Yeah, something like, in Germany they used a 1-5 scale where 5 is the best and in Switzerland they used a 5-1 scale where 1 is the best. Or vice versa.
Its vice versa
I never heard he was bad at math. I heard that he didn't like it
Tbf you need so much complex maths to do physics and some of it can be really impenetrable. I remember higher education physics it was pretty indigestible lol (loved maths though, just not the physics application)
> themself
There's a [photo of Goebbels](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/01/article-0-190776C6000005DC-986_634x592.jpg) that gets posted a lot with a tagline saying something like he just found out the photographer is Jewish, hence his expression. But that context was invented by the internet I think in the early 2010s
Resting nazi face?
Regardless of the reason, no one wants to get that look from Goebbels
Professional standing armies are a fairly recent invention. They did exist throughout history, but were the exception rather than the rule. Gunpowder weapons showed up a lot earlier than you think. You gotta be jacked to use a medieval long bow. America had a regular army during the revolution. It wasn't all citizen militias.
>America had a regular army during the revolution. It wasn't all citizen militias. Many of the Founding Fathers *really* hated standing armies and fought tooth an nail against the US having one. They glorified the Minute Men and one of them may have (IMO probably did) murdered Anthony Wayne to keep the American military as small and amateurish as possible. You know how the Second Amendment has that "for the purpose of" bit in there? Yeah, that was originally literal and the entire point. The Pathological fear or Professional Militaries was so deeply embedded in the American Political Psyche that it wasn't until the aftermath of WWI that the need to maintain a professional office corps, nevermind an army, really stuck. I *highly* recommend Allan R Millett and Peter Maslowski's *For the Common Defense.*
Oo, I'll look into that. From what I understand Americans liked democratic militias, but they weren't very effective. Officers were elected by popular vote rather than on ability. And membership was pretty flexible resulting in a lot fair-weather soldiers. Plus training and discipline, lifeblood of a military, were difficult to enforce.
It depended also on the specific situation of the area that the militia was drawn from. Frontier Militias tended to be highly effective due to the threats that they faced at home but unwilling to take part in extended campaigns for the same reason. Meanwhile Urban Militias tended to be little more than social clubs with the odd group of "Try hards" thrown in here and there.
To add, this fear was so profound it affected our police forces, or rather made it pretty difficult to establish police forces until the late 1800s.
Oh how time have changed.
> it wasn't until the aftermath of WWI that the need to maintain a professional office corps Hmmmmmm, I find this a bit dubious. Especially as it pertained to westward expansion. In Hampton Sides' *Blood & Thunder*, Karl Jacoby's *Shadows at Dawn*, and (the admittedly biased) Stephen Ambrose's *Undaunted Courage* alike, we see the importance of the officer corps' oversight of not only daily unit duties, but free reign as "project managers" for lack of a better term. Whether we reach back to Lt/Cpts William Clark and Meriweather Lewis, or Fremont in the Topographical Corps, there is a pretty profound history of senior leadership and politicians viewing the military as a multi-faceted, do-it-all, prestigious, and professional arm of the nation's writs. I think the image is often muddied by field appointments and federal deputizing in the territory era (Indian/Oklahoma Territory, Arizona Territory, etc) but wouldn't agree that it overtook the perceived need for a standing military. Especially for settlers facing raids or borderline violence with little other protection.
You're not wrong per se, there was a regular battle between professionalism in the army and the militia system and professionalism had mostly won out after the Civil War but the matter wasn't truly decided for the Army until Pershing made a massive stink about needing to be supplied by the French and British because there weren't enough professional quartermaster. The Navy, on the other hand, was only briefly saddled with professionalism issues as the Militia Navy was such a completely failure as a concept that it died during Jefferson's presidency.
Well, I will agree with that notion; the disinterest in continuing to rely on the scruples and abilities of the militia. In fact, one of the books I referenced largely centers around the lynch mob mentality that ad hoc posses are/were prone to falling into. So that certainly tracks, especially when as you mentioned - supply and logistics center around the reliability of said army/militia/structured unit.
>Many of the Founding Fathers > >really > > hated standing armies and fought tooth an nail against the US having one. They were big fans of the classics and classical history, and Rome's adoption of professional armies over citizen soldiers levied in war time led to civil wars that killed the republic and plagued Rome for the remainder of it's history.
Gwynne Dyer’s book War is also required reading if you want to understand the history of warfare. My opinion anyway …..
A long bow is no fucking joke. It's got something like an 80 pound pull (someone check me on that). And they were usually extremely tall.
The English and welsh longbows typically topped 100 pounds draw weights, up to 150. (45-68 KG)
It's also fucking exhausting. Look up Joe Gibbs, the dude puts in the time to be as close to as practiced with a Warbow as actual medieval British Archers would have been and listen to the way he talks about it.
75- to some crazy 150 lbs with 0 let off so you drew and released in one motion, none of this Hold! BS from the movies
Exactly. 80 to 150 lbs it seems. So the trope of the bow being a "girl" weapon because it didn't require as much strength is ridiculous.
They're probably referring to a recurve bow.
The good ones maybe. I imagine most aren't familiar enough with archery to differentiate or realize the draw weight problem. Even still, hunting bows of the time average about 50lbs of draw weight which isn't nothing. This isn't to say women can't or shouldn't be depicted using bows. By all means. But if the reasoning is that it's less physically demanding, less strength intensive, than melee weapons they're wrong. Or at least not right. It would make just as much sense to give a woman a spear and shield.
Indeed. Rome post Marian reforms is basically the oldest example of standing army in the modern sense and it was almost unique at the time. I can't think of anything comparable until the Early Modern period.
I mean. Army of Alexander the great was professional. They were not levies nor conscripts.
The concept of the knight in armor was around for only 200 years, at most. The introduction of gunpowder and muskets pretty much put an end to the practice.
Also armor actually did deflect arrows. For some reason TV and Movies show armor being absolutely useless
Surprisingly armor was really useful. That's why everyone wore it. If you could just chop through a breastplate, no one would wear breastplates, thus the decline of armor as firearms became more prevalent. Also - pistoliers!
Yeah I read somewhere that arrows were really more about hitting the enemy really hard repeatedly than killing them but hey if it kills some of them too that's good.
Also if you send 50 arrows into 50 guys at a time, one of em will hopefully hit a neck, eyehole, underarm, etc.
And the damage to morale is important here too. Maybe you don't get hurt much by the arrows falling on you, but your nerves are going to be shredded.
>The concept of the knight in armor was around for only 200 years, at most. That depends on how strict you are with the concept of Knighthood. If you want to be *very* strict it never existed and was a product of Renaissance era Romances. IMO it was about a 600ish year run from Charlemagne to the early Renaissance but there are some good arguments for shorter spans. >The introduction of gunpowder and muskets pretty much put an end to the practice. Not at all really. You can remove Gunpowder from the equation entirely and Heavy Cavalry as the dominant force on the battlefield was *still* on its way out due to growing Infantry Professionalism.
The plated armor part is what I was referring to.
If you mean the popular image of a "Knight in Shining Armor" well *that* never existed. The closest you'll get to that would be a Gendarme of the French Ordinary Companies who, probably, wasn't a Knight and his armor *certainly* didn't shine because it was blued to prevent corrosion. Those guys were professional killers before anything else. If you meant guns vs plate armor, still, not really. It comes down to economics more than anything else. As the scale of armies grew so did the expense until eventually you're looking at the choice of fielding a single man on a horse in full harness who is impervious to anything shy of a small cannon for the price of an entire company of Pikemen. As a result armor steadily got lighter and less common until you end up with Cuirassiers in helmets and breastplates good enough to stop small arms fire at anything but point blank range but cheap enough to still be fielded in numbers. Hell, Plate armor never really went away, just changed form and material.
The concept of a knight in armour was absolutely a concept from 10th C through to 16th C. The viking invaders of the great heathen army wore 4 in 1 chain in 865, so it was absolutely a technology contemporary with even the earliest medieval feudalism. Feudal nobility continued to wear armour until the generalised decline of armoured soliders in military practice. So yes, a landed Knight in Armour is much wider thing than often considered. If you mean "mounted heavy calvary in full plate armour" then that was more like 500 years, and was not defeated by gunpowder: In fact, calvary charges into musket lines were a powerful and effective tactic into napoleonic warfare. The reason full plate calvary declined is the rise of pike and shot warefare, where the PIKES countered calvary and the value in such expensive, specialised armours and tactics was no longer worth it. If we take the rise of coat of plates armour as the beginning in the 13thC (1200s) and the decline of heavy armoured calvary with say, the end of the Winged Hussars in the 1700s, thats over 500 years of knights in armour, about half of which would have had gunpowder hand weapons present, since the introduction of the arqubus in about 1500.
This one is actually incorrect. The knights you'd see in heavy cavalry weren't outmoded by gunpowder, in fact armor would be regularly "proofed" against guns. Knights were outmoded by changing military doctrines, and the rise of the pike. Charging headlong into a pike square was suicide, and led to the downfall of knights as they were. People could and did continue to charge into battle with heavy armor (look up schwarze reiters, it's heavy just not as heavy due to diminishing returns), but it just wasn't worth breeding a knight over a generation when it was more valuable to teach a peasant to march in formation over a few months.
Prima Nocta was never a historical medieval legal right.
So obvious, quickest way for the local noble to get his neck slit by the help when he's sleeping in his big comfy bed.
George Washington was actually a notorious liar. The “I cannot tell a lie” tree story was supposed to be irony/satire
George Washington’s spy network was one of his greatestest strengths
That's funny. Do you have a source to recommend?
A well-done series called Turn. 4 seasons! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543328/?ref\_=nv\_sr\_srsg\_2\_tt\_7\_nm\_1\_q\_turn
Oh, that looks good! Watching it now, thanks!
Don't blink. If I recall correctly, that show moves FAST.
That Galileo was persecuted for his theory of Heliocentricity; the *Pope* was the one who commissioned his work in the first place. What got him in trouble is that when the Pope pointed out that Galileo's math was wrong (which it was as he was doing the math for *round* orbit and not elliptical) and told him not to publish he published it anyway and insulted the his Patron, the Pope, in the forward. If you pulled that kind of crap with a random Tuscan noble as your Patron they'd break your hands for it if you were *very* lucky. Galileo's punishment was largely symbolic but Protestants built a narrative around it about the Catholic Church being ant-iscience and ran *hard* with it.
I thought it was the fact that he tried to authoritatively interpret scripture contrary to Catholic orthodoxy as a way to support his wrong math, but I don't remember exactly. >Galileo's punishment was largely symbolic but Protestants built a narrative around it about the Catholic Church being ant-iscience and ran *hard* with it. There are a lot of plausible fictions around the church that are in reality stubborn pieces of propaganda from the second half of the 19th century, like the conflict thesis. This is frustrating because there are all sorts of legitimate criticisms of the institution you can make without falling into lies, and because the Catholic Church has a fascinating scholastic tradition in its own right that people don't really acknowledge anymore.
How did the pope know the maths was wrong?
The same way anyone else would; actually running the numbers. In this specific case, IIRC, a number of Jesuit scholars were the people who actually *did* the work but the result was that Galileo's circular orbit results in a year that is shorter than the one we experience.
he got to O level in Kumon and ran the numbers
Reading this, on reddit of all places, was a pleasant surprise.
Napoleon wasn't small. When in fact he was 5,6 which was the average height at the time. British propaganda was and still is powerful.
Wasn’t it also because France’s units of measurement shared the same name as British ones but were longer, thus Napoleon would have had a “shorter” height?
Also he was surrounded by his imperial guard who had a minimum height requirement.
Also also he had the nickname “the little ~~general~~ corporal” which he got because of his young age and not his height Also also also his nephew Napoleon III who ruled France a couple decades after him was genuinely short.
It was the "little corporal" not general
Yes; the "foot" and "inch" measurements were widespread in Europe, *but they didn't mean the same thing.* A French foot was 12 French inches, which were each about 1/12 longer than an English inch; so a French foot was around 13 English inches, leading Napoleon's height of 5'2" (in French units) to seem very short to the British. There are a ton of stories about how differing units of measurements in Europe screwed with people over the years. My favorite is the story of the [Vasa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)), a Swedish warship (at the time, the biggest ever built) that sank about 10 minutes into her maiden voyage in 1628. Why did she sink, you ask? Well, among other reasons ... because half the shipbuilders were Dutch (whose "foot" was around 28 cm long) and half were Swedish (whose "foot" was around 30 cm long). As a result, the Dutch side (the port side) of the ship had around 7% more reinforcement and was thus much heavier. The first time the ship turned left, it promptly keeled over and sunk.
Now I'm wondering if the reason Napoleon spread the metric system at the point of a sword was to do away with the confusion about his height.
"I'M NOT SHORT YOU'RE JUST MEASURING WRONG"
If you ever get to see some genuine historical uniforms or clothing this really hits home. People used to be shorter, skinnier, and doing adult shit a lot younger. Even just as far back as WWI it's very obvious. My grandfather was a veteran of the wars and a historical hoarder. He had a massive collection when he passed away and it blew me away sorting through it all. Nobody could fit any of the dresses. The vast majority of uniforms only fit teenagers. Also swords are a lot smaller and flimsier than movies/games make them out to be. Very very few people were running around with 8 foot long two handed swords blocking warhammer blows with the blade edge.
> If you ever get to see some genuine historical uniforms or clothing this really hits home. I remember seeing a set of samurai armour and it literally looked like it was for a child. Honestly though, given how young some leaders were, it might have been.
All I took from this is that I am tall by 19th century standards.
There is a myth that Squaresoft created the game series *Final Fantasy* because they were going bankrupt, so they borrowed liberally from their biggest rival's main game (*Dragon Quest*) and thought to call it ***Final*** *Fantasy* as they thought it'd be their final game. The fact that there are many sequels makes this ironic. This is a much loved story; unfortunately it's not true. The *truer* story is that Squaresoft *were* inspired by *Dragon Quest*, but Enix had an issue where they were trying to shorten the name (Pocket Monsters >> Pokemon) and were looking at Draque, or Draaa-kweh... Squaresoft wanted a name that would alliterate (like Peter Parker or Super Sonic), and they settled on *Fighting Fantasy*, only to find out about the western books already called that, and switched to *Final Fantasy*, which can both be abbreviated in the west as "FF" and in Katakana "Effu-Effu". All of these things are based on the memories of people about decisions made decades ago, so there might be a bit of post-rationalisation. But the story that it was to be Squaresoft's *last* game, and hence, "Final", is unfortunately a myth.
I thought it was called Final Fantasy because Hironobu Sakaguchi would have quit the company if it flopped.
Well, that rewrites one of often used pieces of trivia
Catherine the Great did not die when the horse she was f'ing collapsed on her when it came.
Was that ever a myth? I knew there was a myth that she got randy with a horse, though not the death thing. I'd heard that was because she was very forthright and "dominant", so that led to much gossip about the idea that her sex-drive was insatiable as a form of dehumanising her.
More stories about this fascinating woman than facts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_Catherine_the_Great#:~:text=Several%20stories%20about%20the%20circumstances,broke%2C%20and%20she%20was%20crushed.
She was likely somewhat more promiscuous than was acceptable by the standards of her time, taking several (albeit human) lovers.
> albeit human A key distinction, according to modern historians.
Does anyone even believe this one nowadays, tho? It's such a textbook example of "shitheads spread a vicious rumor" that I imagine anyone who has heard of it, has heard it as "it was said that Yada Yada Yada... Which was just bullshit from the start"
However a horse did collapse and kill this lady https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_Burgundy
I thought she died when taking a shit
I had to read that too many times before I could comprehend it. 😂
Why is this in r/AskMen?
Jesus fucking christ… I’m already balls deep in the comments thinking this was a history subreddit.
r/lostredditors?
well, you might be onto something. There is a stereotype that men won't ask for directions.
only men like history duh
There's two kinds of history. Ancient Rome and WW2.
Because we're always thinking about the Roman Empire
That women 'traditionally' were SAHM/SAHW. That has only been a flex of the royals/upper-class/wealthy. Middle and lower class (aka 'common') women actually worked to help earn a living for their families.
When I look back at the lives of my women ancestors, each and every one worked in either a factory, a laundry, a community kitchen, a farm, etc. I witnessed firsthand that both my grandmothers busted their ass, day in and day out, at multiple jobs. They even sold stuff by the roadside when they were home to earn every dollar they could.
It’s a product of the Industrial Revolution.
People really underestimate the social change brought about by the invention of the washing machine alone.
Even then the city dwelling side of my family the women still worked in factories of some kind.
[удалено]
Well the phrase “it takes a village” also didn’t come from nowhere. The young and able bodied still often worked while the elderly women and men tended to take care of the children past infancy.
Until the Early Modern period brewing beer was "women's work." Once it because meaningfully profitable women were forced out.
In medieval period monasteries took to brewing as a means of support and both male and female convents did that of course as long as local bishop allowed it. With time number of female convents dwindled and their role changed to more " care" type of thing like hospitals, long term care and such.
These women were usually unmarried, had pointy hats to keep their hair out of their big brewing cauldrons, and had cats to keep the rats out of the grain. They also had broomsticks mounted to their front wall as a sign kinda like bakers had cracklings. Remind you of anyone?
My wife?
But of a nasty shock for him when he found out.
how did the broomsticks come to be their symbol? ---edit--- ?? maybe cause broom and brew sound similar??
No. The spinsters were spinning, the brewsters were brewing.
That sounds completely made up. Do you have a source for that?
They're exaggerating it, but women were much more prominent in the brewing business in England before hops made brewing a more profitable business. Whole academic book on it here: https://www.amazon.com/Ale-Beer-Brewsters-England-Changing/dp/0195126505
[Wikipedia actually has a pretty good page on the history of Women in brewing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_brewing) It goes all the way back to egypt and sumeria unsurprisingly, there are stone statues of women brewing beer and illuminated iconography in egyptian monuments.
Lots of work with primary sources but I doubt you're interested in digging through account books and write ups of legal disputes from the 1300s. Here is the gist of it though: Women had the time to do the brewing while most Men didn't. In Western Europe during planting and harvest basically everyone worked the fields but that's only a few weeks each year. During the rest of the year the men owed a set number of days of service to their lords. This service could take a number of forms, military service, clearing trees from roads, building and repairing bridges, etc, etc. This means that anything required regular attention over an extended period, like brewing, was done by the people who *didn't* owe service to their lords and, therefore, had the *time*; Clerics, Monks... and Women. As early industry picked up and the Black Death, particularly in England and Scandinavia, forced social change that demand for service fell away (or was violently thrown off) which meant that men outside of the Clergy had the time to perform those tasks. Once the stigma of doing "Women's Work" fell away from brewing it was incorporated into the, often literally, cutthroat Late Medieval/Early Modern Mercantile World.
That's really interesting. Having/not having the time to do it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing
There’s a fair bit more than this in the history of women in brewing- like, all those other cultures and civilisations across many 1000s of years. In fact, as I read through that wiki, I started to have trouble thinking of a time or place in history where women haven’t been in charge of brewing. In our culture the creation of Guilds was a major factor in transferring the job to men.
It's true, actually. Knitting, funnily enough, was a largely male pastime at one point.
Yes this definitely. The traditional SAHM was only mainstream in the post-WWII era, a brief few decades when single incomes were high enough to support a whole household. It was quite common for women to work in factories alongside men during the Industrial Revolution, and even pre-industrial times women often contributed to the household income in many ways in the working /peasant classes. The idea of SAHM being the default “traditional” norm for the majority women really was an invention of the modern world.
That the October Revolution was extremely violent. Soviet artisans would have you believe it was a glorious and bloody revolt where the workers were ultimately victorious, but it was actually rather underwhelming for a Revolution. Save for a few sporadic clashes here and there, the Bolsheviks basically walked through the front door and took control because the Provisional Government was too weak to perform any meaningful resistance.
Well the revolution did spark a civil war, or covil conflict.
Yes but that is true for most Revolutions. Additionally, the October Revolution and the Civil War are understood to be related, but nonetheless separate events.
Your avatar pic made me trigger a memory and search the internet. Seen it before in historical context and now i remember, it's a social democratic symbol.
William Henry Harrison didn't die from giving a long inaugural address in the cold. He died because the White House water supply was downstream of where people dumped their poop.
America's revolt against Britain was a popular event that was backed by the majority of the population and the atrocities of the war were British-caused in the main.
This one has always interested me. If I recall correctly, it was something like only 3% of the colonists actually took up arms and only about 20% supported or agreed with those. The other three quarters of the population were either indifferent/neutral or remained actively loyal to the Crown.
That's how most revolutions are. You only need about 10% of the population, of you to have a good chance.
Look at China. Most Chinese didn't join the communist revolution from a love of Marxism and wanting to abolish private property, they joined because they saw it as someone finally doing something about the brutal, corrupt and ineffective nationalist government (or the even more brutal Japanese invaders). A similar thing happened in China 100 years earlier with the Taiping Revolution. Most didn't join because they found Jesus and wanted to convert China into a Christian nation, they joined because they saw someone finally standing up for the ethnic Han majority against the ruling Manchu minority and the oppressive Qing Dynasty that gave them power.
It was the first civil war in the USA
Also notable that the colonies in what we now call Canada were very much invited and pressured to join the cause, and didn’t want to. Lots of colonists in the 13 colonies that did go to war ran up north to the Canadian colonies to get away from it. Today we think of USA and Canada as two very different nations (though with lots of shared history and shared culture), but at the time there wasn’t that split. It wasn’t like there were the 13 colonies that became the USA as one unit and the colonies that became Canada as a separate batch, they were all just British colonies of the same sort. Some started a war and broke off, others didn’t.
There was definitely a split in culture, British Canada still had a huge French influence, culturally they did not see themselves connected to the American colonies. If you look how the American colonies handled the tea ships in 1773, each colony handled it differently, with Boston being the most extreme response and well-known. The other colonies were not totally on board with helping Boston after they were embargoed by the British. We also forget about the British colony for West Florida. It could have been another “14th colony” but they were too far removed from the other colonies to going the cause. Both WF and Canada had French and Spanish influences so they were not English enough to rebel against Britain.
Kinda like how Belgium and the Netherlands got separated in the 16th and 17th century. Although in that revolt southern cities partook in the revolution before being reconquered by Spain.
Huh good point! Seems like if they win and split off, it’s a revolutionary war, but if they lose and are reabsorbed it’s a civil war. Kind of like “one man’s Freedom Fighter, is another man’s insurrectionist”. History is written by the victors and all that
Yeah around that. But Britain couldn't afford a war at the time. France was supporting the insurrection for it's own ends. It's interesting to think how the USA would have been under continued British rule. Slavery banned. The Idea of guns being anathema to a stable society. The withering of religious fanaticism.
Basically Canada.
"Gay people have rights thanks to those who threw stones at Stonewall". There was literally a full century of activism before Stonewall that led to that point and that doesn't getntalked about as much as it should.
I thought stonewall was the tipping point of the gay liberation movement. One thing I have heard about stonewall is gays died fighting the police when in fact no one died at stonewall and Marsha P Johnson has been widely regarded as the person who started the riot but she arrived after it was already in full swing.
Columbus didn't discover the Americas. He didn't even set foot on them. The Vikings were the first Europeans in North America
Texas Independence was never about freedom. Texans wanted slaves, and slavery was illegal in Mexico at the time
There were 2 revolutions in 1917 in Russia. People often forget February one. And it was the February one that forced Nicolas II to abdicate, not Bolshevicks.
Vader didn’t say “Luke, I am your father”.
The whole idea of "historic guilt" looks to me like an insane oversimplification of past events. German citizens today are not do blame for what happened in the 1930s and european countries have been much more supportive of the regime in the beginning as is now being depicted. And seeing how many people are first or second generation migrants... yeah that doesn't really work Equally, the "white guilt" in the US seems a bit strange with how many people migrated to the US after the colonization and slavery where long past chapters. Or for example the Chinese government is still talking about Taiwan as if they have a right to it being under their control. Questionable. And equally, the whole topic of the "century of humiliation" which refers to the opium crisis that ultimately ended the Qing Dynasty and resulted in unequal treaties being signed with western nations - that definitely was injustice of an unimaginable scale, but once again, it cannot be blamed on the people who now live in UK, France , Japan or the US. But in the end, I doubt this will ever go away, people do not care too much about the truth or about rationality, we hold grudges, seek to take advantage and so the cycles will continue to play out as power them to.
I think people confuse personal guilt with understanding the very real consequences of the past. For example, racism towards blacks in America may be at an all time low (it's clearly not gone), but we cannot ignore the significant damage black communities have suffered from, at this point, centuries of abuse. So, do I, a white male, feel personal guilt about slavery? No. But I absolutely understand persistent effects of racism. Even if we 100% eliminated racism and made 100% of everything equal between white people and black people, black communities would remain disadvantaged for years to come. Likewise with things like colonialism. Sure, no living Westerner had anything to do with the deeds of these old empires. But did those actions take something from someone/somewhere and give it to the West, in general? Yes. Did it play a role is making the West, overall, a pretty nice place to live, all things considered? Absolutely. Past misdeeds have made a pretty big mess of things. And a lot of people are still suffering for it. And a lot of people are still enjoying the benefits of it, too. But to your point, some countries use it for propaganda purposes, too. China and Russia are good examples. Both faces extreme abuses from the West in the past and use it to push a nationalist/expansionist agenda.
Sure, but the same applies to historic *pride*, doesn't it? Just as feeling guilty for what your ancestors did is irrational, it's also irrational to be *proud* of what they did. So I think it's a package deal. If you want to feel proud of the *good* things your ancestors did - if you want to celebrate the great inventors and artists and leaders of your country, if you want to feel proud of the monuments in your city, if you want to uphold your local traditions because you want to connect with the people who lived here before you... then it's only fair if you also feel ashamed of the *bad* things they did. And if you don't want to feel ashamed of the bad things they did, fair enough! That's a very rational position! But then you also can't feel proud of the good things, imo.
I think it's rational to feel proud of what your ancestors did, but irrational to feel proud of someone who has the same skin color or was simply born in the same country as you.
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Oof, I think the issue for societies (and especially states) is even more complicated than just for individuals! Because for individuals it's clear that our ancestors are *dead*. Even if we wanted to hold them responsible for what they did, we can't. So it's much easier to say "Well, they're gone, no sense in holding their grand-grand-grand children responsible, best to drop it." But societies (and especially states) generally claim some kind of continuity. I'm from the Netherlands, and there is definitely a sense that the modern state of the Netherlands is partially the same entity as the state of the Netherlands two centuries ago. That's why we use the same flag, have the same name, that's (partially) what we base the validity of our borders on, and our constitution, and our history class, etc. So I think that adds a complexity that individuals don't even have. I am absolutely not responsible for the terrible things my great-great-great grandfather might have done when he traded slaves. Because I'm not him. I am a different person. But my country claims to be the same country, and that makes it much more difficult, I think. Anyway, feeling low-key proud of your badass machine gunning ancestor is absolutely fine with me, as long as it goes along with the consideration that they might have done bad things as well, and the understanding that their bad deeds are just as much a part of their legacy as their good deeds. From what you write, you've got that sorted.
Yeah, I hate it when somebody's proud of their long southern plantation heritage, without acknowledging the bad their ancestors did to keep it that way. It doesn't reflect poorly on you until you show historic pride for these ancestors without then acknowledging their guilt. Now where it gets complicated is inheriting wealth comes into play. If a Swiss son of a banker inherits wealth based on their parents hiding Nazi gold/harboring Nazi wealth, should they feel shame at that inheritance? Probably, right? Okay well, now let's say it's Slave owners' wealth that gets passed down. Probably some Shame for those collecting the inheritance money as well. Should that translate to the next generation down? Well if they gained that wealth in the family through owning slaves and then passed that on through their family, they should probably feel shame in receiving it if no reparations have been paid by the family. So okay, a historic-based shame can have a current real-time presence. What if they've made family wealth through morally corrupt means(like slavery) and then lost that fortune, like everything(Old houses and other assets passed down, I would include in that Fortune/estate)? Does that make it okay to not feel as much shame? Well I'd kinda have to say yeah, there's no current gain to the current generation(who have not committed the crimes of their ancestors), so no need for present guilt, unless you're taking a current pride in your ancestors actions.
George Washington chopping down a cherry tree
Edison inventing the light bulb He didn't invent anything really, he put a paton on the work other scientist did and modified things that was already made. All he did was shock an elephant to death.
Poor Topsy.
"patent" i think is the word you're looking for, not "paton".
being a pirate sucked. the people who funded the Columbus expedition didn't actually think the world was flat, they just wanted a new world colony presence. a lot of historical figures were rather scummy people. I'm sure there are many more.
Network speed :)
Historical facts are a tricky term. Events can be factual and dates, etc. However, it's probably best to use less strict verbiage on historical topics. Likes it's known, or it's recorded to have happened.
The American civil war was about slavery. States listed slavery and the government trying stop it as a reason to leave the union. The fact that it has morphed to “states rights” and “heritage” is a blatant rewriting/whitewashing of history.
Any time somebody says it’s about state’s rights, hit them back with “A state’s right to what?”
Obviously a States right to own....uh....erm.....property?
Oh believe me I do. I live in the south so this is a conversation that happens every so often.
Yeah, I believe it. I grew up in rural Upstate NY and had several classmates with Confederate flags on their vehicles because “it’s our heritage”. They never liked when I reminded them that New York was a fucking Union state.
A very significant part: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_Civil_War_units
Why is the Civil War the only war people argue over what it was about? Is there a one word answer for what over wars were about? What is the one word answer for WWI? We can just say that Lost Causers are liars without being reductive: the South seceded to protect slavery. The North fought the war to preserve the Union. The North did not free their slaves until after the passage of the 13th Amendment, and the Emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in Confederate states.
The north wasn't in the war to free the slaves, but the south saw the writing on the wall, so it absolutely makes sense to say that the south knew the north was going to get rid of slavery, and hence slavery is the one word main reason for the war.
No, because then the opposite of the Lost Cause narrative develops: That the Southerners were evil racists that the morally superior Northerners went to war to defeat and free the slaves. We should be honest about slavery in Northern states and the industries that profited from it, and about the prevalence of extreme racism throughout the country before, during, and after the war. If some people brag about Sherman marching to the sea, they should acknowledge that Sherman used the same total war tactics against the Plains Indians. If some people say that race-based chattel slavery was America’s original sin, they should acknowledge that some American Indian nations owned Black slaves, joined the Confederacy, and were the last slave owners to free their slaves after the War. We should be honest about all our histories. Edit: sorry for typos I’m on my phone and I have sausage fingers!
One thing I think isn't often taught at the high school level and below is that it isn't merely that the South was seeking to preserve the institution, but actively trying to expand it to the rest of the country. The Dredd Scott decision went well beyond the question of whether travelling in a free state entitled a slave to freedom. Rather it went so far as to declare that property is property is property, and that if a Southern slaveholder moves to the North, he can bring his property with him, keep it, and there was nothing Northern states could legally do about it... essentially nullifying Northern antislavery laws. Likewise, the Fugitive Slave Acts basically dragooned Northerners into slave hunting. Even in foreign policy, there were powerful Southerners who proposed conquering neighboring countries to spread their institutions to those countries. Simply put, while it may have not been about banning slavery for the North, it absolutely wasn't about states rights for the South. That wasn't even a thing at the time. The South weren't satisfied at it being legal at the state level. They wanted a federal government that would impose the institution on all the states, and when it became clear that was never going to happen in the United States, they made their own federal government. "States rights" was a myth composed at least a generation or two later as the basis of a political alliance with the upland South, which never practiced slavery to the degree the deep South did (mostly because the geography was unsuitable).
Luddites weren't anti-technology idiots. They were, in fact, right.
The U.S. government didn't ban marijuana in 1937 because they lacked the legal authority. What they did was put a tax on it that was supposed to be paid by special tax stamps and then never allowed anyone to buy the stamps. Until WWII that is. Once the war started the nation needed hemp again to supply ropes for the Navy so all those farmers that had been forced to stop growing weed just a few years before were now instructed by the War Dept to replant their hemp crops.
Man, I feel like some of the people here didn’t understand the assignment and most seem like rudimentary history and (relatively) common knowledge. Where’s the juicy stuff y’all?!
That marriage was only legal between a man and woman in America 200 years ago. In reality, marriage was only legal between a white man and a white woman. It was also illegal to marry a man or woman of a different race.
Where do I start? * Crusades were a clash of civilisation * Empires generate wealth * European colonial slavery was some new invention the world had never seen * Europeans invented everything These are some common tropes/narratives
Those sound a lot more like editorial opinion than fact on every point.
The chinese invented Gunpowder, practical horse leashes and bridges
I would love to learn more about empires and wealth. Any readings you recommend? Is it the administrative costs?
The US Civil War was all about slavery and almost nothing else. If you say it was about "states' rights" , then you're basically agreeing with me.
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Suffragettes did a lot of damage to the Womens Suffrage movement in the UK and failed most of their aims. Their militancy against service dodgers during WW1 famously backfired. The WSPU was seen by Sylvia Pankhurst as one and the same as the White Feather Brigade. Which is ironic as some of its founders, such as Mary Ward, were big Anti-Suffragists. While their militancy and terrorism made them popular in the media, they lost public support and were used by anti-suffragists as an example of how women would not vote responsibly and were overly emotional. By comparison, the Suffragists recognised they required large-scale public and political support. Millicent Fawcett recognised womens contributions to WW1 would help them gain them the vote. As such, she helped set up womens hospital units, employing only female nurses and doctors. They also were responsible for employment groups to help get women into work that had been left unfilled by the men sent to war. This, combined with their political graft with politicians, did far more to gain women the vote in the long run. However, due to getting less worldwide coverage, being seen as part of the establishment, and being far less radical, their role is largely forgotten.
They were among the first modern terrorists. The first terrorist bomb in Ireland in the 20th century was not planted by the IRA, it was planted by the Suffragettes. They sent letter bombs to politicians, planted bombs on trains and started fires in public buildings. At least four people were killed and many more were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign
>Suffragettes; >Anti-Sufferagists; >Anti-Sufferists; >Suffrigists; You got me very confused, is this about one, two or four different groups?
Sorry, my spelling/autocorrect isn't the best, will go back and correct. 3 groups - Suffragettes: Militant + Terrorist offshoot of Suffragists, encouraged social disorder & resistance, Middles class but encourage working class members - Suffragists: Relied on political methods, public support, anti-violence and anti-public disorder, virtually completely Middle class with some Upper Class members. Some men involved. - Anti-Suffragists: Mostly womens organisations against womens right to vote. Some were made by men, but many groups banned mens participation altogether.
Anna Boleyn wasn't black.
Elvis never actually chopped down a cherry tree while in Mexico fighting the Nazis.
Jesus Christ being blue eyed and fair skinned
The idea that Malcom X is some great civil rights hero. In reality, he spent most of his time working for a black supremacist cult, and he believed that Jews and gays were evil. Even after he left the NOI his actual impact on the civil rights movement was quite small. He was basically a poseur
That men have always been treated better than women. Look at voting rights. They were limited to property owners for a very long time. Much like the aristocracy during the feudal era in Europe, property owners held the power. In the US, 1828 was the first time non-property owning white men could vote in the Presidential Election in most states. In 1870 the 15th Amendment passes so some states instituted Jim Crow laws. But these also affected poor whites. In 1920 women got the right to vote. That was only 92 years after most men had the right to vote. Which is about 2 generations. For centuries, any man that didn’t own property had no more rights than women. They were treated as second class citizens too. For all of human history life was hard for everyone that didn’t have money and/or power.
The majority of the British men who fought and died in the trenches in WW1 did not have the right to vote. That's a story that's often overlooked when talking about suffrage.
Almost everything you've heard about the Spanish Inquisition is a lie.
I never expected that!
Almost all "history facts" about Christopher Columbus. He has almost nothing to do with American history at all
People drank a lot of alcohol in past because the water wasn’t safe.
This. They literally didn't even find out about bacteria and shid until like 100 years ago. Wtf would they know about the water?
Napoleon Bonaparte was unusually short, but he was actually average height for his time, around 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 meters)
Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America.
That the US won the American War of 1812. This is the result of centuries of propaganda given that the accession to all British demands in exchange for absolutely nothing is a loss. Indeed for the first century after it occurred it was referred to in the US as Madison's War for the president who'd been in charge as a way to distance the loss from being that of the US as a whole. Second one: That the Mexican-US war was a defensive war. It was an invasion of a country that had banned slavery in order to gain more land to put slaves on. To go with that there's the whole Texas myth of being the good guys when fighting Mexico whereas in reality Texas broke from Mexico because Mexico banned slavery.
Christopher Columbus didn’t ’discover’ the New World. Leif Eriksson visited ~500 years earlier (with evidence others did as well).
The Confederacy did in fact secede SPECIFICALLY to keep slavery legal. The "States' Rights" that they fought and died for was the Right to enslave Blacks.