The History Thread

#21

cmon it’s not like they were that bad. dont let down my man brutus and julius salad

#22

I find history that old to be too ambiguous. The further back you go, the less accurate records are. I also feel that little real progress was made in the middle ages. I know very very little of history pre-renaissance, though, so correct me if I’m completely wrong.

#23

yes, lots of records were commissioned by the higher ups in the government to explain how sexy and what a great ruler each person serving was. some are true, some arent

#24

Pulling it back farther when the Ottoman Empire ruled the balkans their harsh treatment of the ethnic natives is what lead to such nationalist ideals

The ottomans would impose laws banning schools that taught any language but Turkish this is what lead to the asination of the arch duke.

Wilhelm who’s cousin was the tsar of Russia also played into the progression into war. One wanting to show the other who was superior and they were ready to have millions of people die to do it all under the blindfold of war and aggression

Ww2 solved nothing and it is modern history. Actually some of the most important battles to ever occur took place before the year 1500

And their are plenty of records of very old times. For instance the mongols and Romans keep massive catalogs of their conquest and battles

But history is written by the victorious so records of new and old will always have some falsification

It came be seen in the opposite way too, not much is known about the Vikings but what we do know is told from the mouths of the people they pillaged so course it’s biased

#25

I didn’t know that, thanks!

I never said that a WWII was progress. Lots of other major developments occurred from 1450 to now that led to various facets of our modern society, more, I think, than did prior to 1450. To name a few; the renaissance set the stage for secularization by emphasizing the glory of man and causing cries for church reform from Christian humanists that contributed to the reformation; the split of Christianity into two groups during the reformation weakened the power of the church, allowing for further secularization, observable in the “new monarchs” of the 17th century, which would lead to religious toleration; the peace of Westphalia in 1648 set the tone for future peace conferences, in that it was the first peace whose provisions were insured by multiple countries, and inagurated a semblance of religious freedom in the holy Roman empire by allowing the kings of the various states making up the holy roman empire to chose thier state’s religion; the scientific revolution gave us an understanding of the solar system; the enlightenment inspired the creation of republics, among other things; and the industrial revolution began the industrial economy we live in today.

#26

One of my favorite events in history is the Hussite wars

Where the holy Roman Empire and the catholic church launched 5 crusades against my country at the time Bohemia and we defeated every one

Thought different German states would continue to attack us throughout the following 500 years

#27

Here’s the deal. The Treaty of Versailles BLAMED Germany for WW1 when that was simply not true. Serbia and Austria-Hungary were the countries going to war. The secret alliance system got all the major countries involved. On top of that, Germany had NO money and was still expected to pay high reparations. When times get that bad and the people have NO hope, they become susceptible to fascism. Hitler was exactly that and more. If we would have maybe been a tad bit easier on Germany then perhaps some of that could have been avoided.

#28

Here’s a good debatable topic: Was America justified in dropping the 2 atomic bombs on Japan to end WW2?

#29

Exactly it was a war in Europe

Then Germany invaded Belgium to invade France and sunk defenseless supply and commercial vessels

Germany did not start the war in eastern Europe but they did escalate it into a world War

I guess they shouldn’t have invaded half of Europe at one time. And used mass chemical warfare and slaughter on a unseen scale

It was not a harsh treaty when you consider how little the Germans actually followed it and how much death they caused

Atomic bombs are a sad and destructive weapon

But it saved the life’s of Japanese and Americans

If the Americans has chosen to instead contine their island hoping and eventually land in Japan where everyone would be fighting to the death, the carnage would be far worse then that of the bombings

And then of course the long occupation America would have in Japan compared to the rather shorter one we know today.

I don’t know if you can ever justify it but it did spare the lives of many people and ended what could of been a war that lasted into 1947

#30

Do you guys think Andrew Jackson should be on the $20 bill?

#31

Not American but it is just simpler to not have people on something you will be using in abundance like currency.

Though I’m happy with my countries money because it has hero’s on it but I could understand an American not wanting Andrew Jackson.
Or someone who cares about the image of their country

Seeing as he was going to be tried for genocide but was pardoned

Not exactly someone you want on the face of your money

#32

unless you are the mongols

#33

From what I have seen they never used their faces on any currency, probably because putting their face everywhere was not seen as good characteristics as the roots of mongol society are anti materialistic unlike what you would see in a lot of the world

#34

was a meme

#35

Recently watched a few vidoes from Ted-ex which im not a fan of but i just wanted to see how they would handle it

it was a series called History vs (controversial figure)

The Genghis Khan one was probably the biggest waste of 6 minutes Ive experienced in a long time
I mean it tried to imply he was a loyal and faithful husband who was respectable to women because had the same wife all his life.

Where in reality he just kept her alive all his life and would go on to rape thousands of people just by himself, which they never mentioned Im not sure why. it is suppose to be a trial with a back and forth but every time they try to make one side glorify the person in question

displaying brutality on truly unheard of scale. Then people try to defend it by saying o everyone was doing it back then. Again no everyone was not killing millions in military campaigns and massacring everyone in major cities. If this was the case Europe would of been in a extremely worse state then it was in and would swiftly been defeated by the mongols. Where they would have wars and conquer, systematic slaughter was a rarity as displayed by the mongols. Just take a look at 13th european wars and battles even the current crusades did not show anywhere near the form of murder inflicted by the mongols

Im not sure who these videos appeal to? the mongols? But just sifting through the replies it seems they are pandering to just purely uniformed and ignorant people

So I wanted to ask if anyone else here watches any history shows on tv,youtube whatever

I myself watch Jazby “3 minute history” and his other stuff feature history and simple history though as the name implies is very simple and does not go into much detail

Jazby is great for rather obscure history

#36

I am doing a project on Yugoslavia from the 80s to the present for my European history class.
@Tauntauned do you have anything helpful you could tell me about your fellow slavs in what used to be Yugoslavia?

#37

i can assist, just cut my right hand cleaning a knife of mine so it may be a mess.
ill do this and then sleep

so when the Ottoman empire was collasping all these balkan countries started to rise up. nationalism and the like from ottoman oppresion. so ww1 ends but then people decide no actually we are going to try and fit all these people who some of which were on different sides in ww1 into one country

in the 80s is when it began to crumble. reduction in power of the goverment and further increase in ethnic and religious tensions

more and more the people of these regions began to develop their own independent
cultures

seeing no need to be united. it kicked off in the 90s with Slovenia and Croatia independence which was a success for them.

those these would see high levels of brutality dealt by serbia. killing thousands of croats and Slovenians, i would call this ethnic cleansing on their part.

this brutality and the success of these nations sparked more unrest and Independence

macedonia and bosnia followed

and with the collapse of the soviet union the Yugoslav government which was just serbia at this point had lost a key ally who was supplying their war efforts and being condemned by many nations

the slaugther seen in croatia would be nothing to compare to the genocide that would unfold in bosnia

some call the bosnian war a civil war but it was the serbian government funding radical serbs in bosnia to lash out and start a war. though eventually the un intervened it was not untill after brutal fighting had taken place and massacres as well.

one of my greatest comrades is bosnian and she fled the country with her parents during the war she was very young during it. bosnians now very divided since the country was split for the Bosnian and serb-bosinans

Well they had spent so much time trying to stop these countries from breaking away it only led to the further destruction of their country and deep unrest

which would be seen when Macedonia and kosvo broke away, some call that the end of yugoslavia but i think it ended right when the croats and slovenians broke away its just been one continuous conflict really

this has left serbia (yugoslavia) hate by its neighbors and even deeply divided within its our borders

i always saw the idea of yugoslavia as ridiculous its like the austro-hungarian empire it was a relic that could of never lasted. Like the soviet union too which corresponds with the fall of yugoslavia you cant cram an abundance of different peoples into one country and pretend they are similar

even Czechoslovakia is somewhat hopeful thinking but we had enough sense to separate peacefully though the Balkans were not given a choice for peace

I would say these countries were partially inspirited by the revolutions in Poland and Czechoslovakia that ousted the communist

if i had to talk about 3 main points i would do

  1. ethnic tensions,economical problems
  2. how yugoslavia became a pro serb government not carrying about anyone else
  3. The yugoslav wars

i might also include how the fall of the soviet union was related to the fall of yugoslavia

and how it was a time for revolution and change and europe and yugoslav goverment did not want to change

stubbing my toe feels worse then any cut honestly

#38

Thank you, sir. Any information or resources you could provide would be helpful.

Ouch.

#39

Well, I don’t know if it was necessarily completely justified, but I can name two good reasons, in my mind anyway:

  1. As @Tauntauned has already pointed out, the Americans were advancing on the island quickly, but the Japanese “defend the homeland or die a bloody, screaming death” mentality was going to make that a long and grueling affair that would have added years to the war and countless more lives taken.

  2. Say we hadn’t dropped the bombs, right then. How then, would the Cold War have played out differently without the demonstration of just how horrific nuclear weapons are? Remember, even after the conclusion of WWII, some American generals still wanted to use smaller field-grade nukes against the Koreans. I think it’s good that the entire world got to see firsthand just what kind of effect weapons like those have when used. I believe someone might actually have “pressed the button” otherwise, not realizing the full gravity of what would actually result.

#40

you missed some of the other points of the video: the mongols may have been brutal, but they were not uniquely brutal and they also did try to send diplomats etc.