The History Thread!

Hey, Not So Badass Longcoat? I asked around w.r.t. that GDR Interior Ministry vest you were referring to, and while I couldn't find any actual photos, a friend pointed me to this, a skirt that looks like it's part of a matching uniform set.

Does anyone have a link to a recording of "Jamie Foyers"? Not the version from the Spanish Civil War, but the original version about the Peninsular War.

Who has the more descendants; Genghis Khan or Charlemange?

I'd imagine Genghis Khan bar none.

The Khan. He has a long lasting genetic legacy that is amazingly wide spread even into the Western World.

I had a thought recently. Would this count as an example of The Great Politics Mess Up?

In this one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, Babs Bunny and Montana Max were competing on a game show, and this exchange happened.

Host: Now Babs, who was the first President?
Babs: George Washington.
(Montana Max discreetly holds up a bag of money)
Host: Oh I'm sorry, you didn't let me finish the question. It's actually "who was the first President of Namibia?".
Buster: (looking it up in a book on the history of Africa) Namibia doesn't even have a President. Something tells me this game is rigged.

Ironically, by the time the episode aired, Namibia did get its first President.

edited 5th May '16 7:49:39 AM by Demetrios

I think that would fall under Hilarious in Hindsight because animation can take many months to produce.

Researcher: Communist teaching experiment much broader than thought

edited 5th May '16 11:52:24 PM by TerminusEst

Being in the US, I half expected it to be some wildly-exaggerated reaction to one of Marx's texts showing up in the curriculum, but no, apparently this was full-blown Soviet textbooks being used in class, complete with laughable statements like "there's no pollution in the Soviet Union!" (And in completely unrelated news, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant fulfilled its five-year quota of heat and energy generation in three milliseconds, with absolutely no adverse side-effects either; it's completely unrelated to the vacation the entire population of Pripyat is taking.)

Top fucking kek, m8.

Lol. That is hilarious.

Sadly, it's almost impossible to find the Cold War shenanigans of Finland in English. Including the Social Democratic Party's political espionage organization that turned into the ultimate anti-communist network in Finland and the Finnish Army's deniable operations into Soviet territory in case of another invasion (mostly caches of all sorts).

That just raises questions regarding the quality of Soviet textbooks of that vintage. I've read plenty of cringeworthy material in textbooks here, but nothing as ridiculous as a total denial of pollution.

Unfortunately I think its spiritual descendants are now on RT...

A little off-topic, but are there any war films set in World War I that use the Battle of the Somme?

I'm not so sure about films completely dedicated to the Somme, but the vast majority of World War I films - especially British ones - must have an obligatory Somme trench warfare sequence as part of popular history's pastiches.

There is one called "The Trench" which is fittingly a UK film.

Thanks

You're not wrong — but that also includes TV Series as well as films...

Speaking of World War I the newest Battlefield is taking place there.

Been reading about the Republican National Convention of 1860. Lincoln was very much a dark horse candidate among all the more powerful movers and shakers in the party who were gunning for the nomination. To ensure his victory, his campaign team engaged in some interesting actions.

Lincoln's home state of Illinois was chosen as the place to hold the convention on the grounds that the other options would be seen as blatant favoritism towards the favorite son from those state. Lincoln's allies on the selection committee argued that since Lincoln was such a small fry, Illinois might as well have been neutral ground. Thus Lincoln obtained home field advantage by virtue of not being important.

Lincoln's team milked this home field advantage for all it was worth by printing fake tickets to the convention and distributed them to local Lincoln loyalists, ensuring that Lincoln's supporters were stuffed into the galleries while the supporters of other candidates with real tickets couldn't get in.

They also arranged for pro-Lincoln newspapers to be sent to all the Republican delegates arriving in the state, creating the impression that Lincoln had a lot more support than he really did among the rest of the delegates.

At the convention, they deliberately placed Lincoln's delegates between those of the two major contenders, Seward and Chase, to prevent them from colluding with each other and reaching a deal in the even of a contested convention.

Since that is indeed what happened, throughout the endless rounds of voting, Lincoln's men went into overdrive and went to as many delegates as possible telling them that there was no way their candidate was going to win, but that Lincoln was their second best choice, as he held most of the same views as their guy but without the political baggage. This did convince many delegates to switch their votes.

During each round of voting, as Lincoln's tally grew larger, the galley viewers, which had been stuffed with Lincoln supporters, cheered louder and louder, again giving the false impression to the delegates that Lincoln had more supporters from throughout the rest of the country than was true. This put pressure on the remaining delegates to vote for what they thought was the general public opinion among Republicans.

Finally, "against" Lincoln's wishes, his team struck deals with the other major candidates, ultimately resulting in four of his rivals being made cabinet members in exchange for the delegates.

Well it seems like not much has really changed in the realm of politics.

That is some amazingly sneaky work for Honest Abe, but then again, Lincoln was always a master politician who could sneak with the best of them. You almost get the impression that he could have been among the greatest rogues and scoundrels of all time; he just chose not to.

I sure wish we knew what that Lost Speech was.

What "Lost Speech"?

The one he made that was apparently so well-spoken and eloquently made that the reporters failed to write it down because of how transfixed they were (or it may have been suppressed to keep the country from tearing itself apart, which it eventually did anyway).

Suppression is actually very likely. Lincoln ran as being moderate on the slavery issue both in the primaries and the general election in order to increase his appeal among non-radical voters. Speeches strongly condemning slavery were what hurt the party favorite, William Seward, as his radical stance alienated potential conservative allies. In pops Lincoln going "Hey! I'm anti-slavery too, and I haven't made any scary speeches! Vote for me!"

Honest Abe, or his campaign team at least, was flat out lying on this. Besides the Lost Speech, Lincoln had already given several virulent attacks on slavery speeches which he instructed Republican newspapers to not print during the campaign to keep up his image as a moderate.

Not that it helped in the South, they'd already made up their minds about him. Being a Lincoln supporter down in the Slaveocracy risked personal and property damage. Some mean were beaten, others had business burned down. At least one dude who voted for Lincoln in a straw poll in Mississippi was beaten, had burning tar poured over him, and was chucked in a boat and set adrift on the river.

North however, it did help waylay fears that Lincoln might push hard on the slavery issue and trigger civil war. Apparently people tried hard not to think that the South would just go ahead and trigger it on their own.