The History Thread!

Starving to death as compared to being worked to death in a prison camp?

Not sure how much I'd prefer the latter.

Were there ever zebras in northern and western Africa? Or just in the eastern and southern regions?

For some reason, the French History courses at the University of Toronto go from 1610-1848, then 1848 to the present. Apparently the Revolutions of 1848 are a far more important break-off point than the French Revolution and the establishment of the modern French state?

edited 14th Jun '16 7:39:46 PM by SantosLHalper

Could be it's seen that it alone doesn't really mean anything, unless it's put into the far wider context.

edited 14th Jun '16 11:45:50 PM by TerminusEst

Not by the looks of it:

Santos - one of the big reasons for that is because of how everything up to the original revolution can be considered to be part of the causes of it, due to how despotic the original monarchy was.

Then after it, you have the reactionaries who restored the original monarchy, and Napoleon and others. Hell, you even have people like Proudhon in that era and early anarcho-capitalists who were a reaction against the socialists of the era.

Up until 1848 you have plenty of things which are all linked to the revolution, so stopping there is uncommon in many areas for how it all feeds.

I'm taking a course on Silver Age Russian literature next fall. Only I barely know a thing about Russian history. Anyone know of any good books that can catch me up with the history of that time period so I don't enter the class completely blind?

I can't really recommend any but what's called 'Silver Age' is much shorter than what people think, so just look stuff up before 1917.

Speaking of Russian history, I only now learned that Nicholas II and King George V were cousins.

Whoa.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was cousin to both of them, too. All European royalty were related, to some degree, due to centuries of intermarriage.

...and Queen Victoria and her many children.

WWI is sometimes jokingly called "The Cousin's War" due that.

I recall the Kaiser once whined that if grandma had still been around, she wouldn't have let George and "Nicky" form an alliance against him.

Not surprising, since Kaiser Wilhelm II wasn't the most popular member of the pre-WWI Royal gatherings — he had the reputation as a bit of a bore.

Didn't he push his way out of Prince Albert^note Prince of Wales, BTW so he could hold Victoria's hand as she was dying?

History student here. I recently had an exam about the American Revolution, which is... quite a complex revolution, actually. Gotta hand it to the American colonists, though: stickin' it to The Empire was an unprecedented move... and yet, they succeeded.

I just marvel at the fact that we (Australia) haven't had a major revolt... ever. ^note  Unless you count the Eureka Stockade in the 1800s... though that was curbed pretty quickly.

edited 17th Jun '16 3:45:06 AM by TheOnlySaneTeen

Based upon an important principle: When faced with an enemy that's several times bigger than you, remember that you don't have to defeat them utterly. You just have to hurt them badly enough that they'll decide to leave you alone.

We weren't exactly Britain's only problem either. They had a lot on their plate in Europe and during the course of the revolution not one but two other foreign wars and rapidly changing politics that would eventually lead to Napoleon tramping all over the place raising hell. The US even had the good fortune to be backed by France who contributed a good sized force of troops but more importantly a good sized naval force. Basically the colonies had good timing and a rather feisty rival to the British to back us up. The British weren't going to keep at the US forever and the Colonies needed to hold out long enough for Britain to reach the point where they needed to shift their forces elsewhere. We basically ran down the clock and ran up the bill.

Projecting as much force as they did over seas was expensive and it took a good bit of time to go from British holdings to the US. Not only did they commit a large body of troops but naval assets and even hired Hessian mercenaries. It is kind of like the US more recent foreign adventures in Afghanistan. Really expensive, had a time limit, and required a lot of military attention.

It's also worth mentioning that a large number of the "British" troops at the start of the conflict were actually locally recruited from the colonies, and were considered by the British Army brass to be second-rate formations. The actual truthfully British units generally were considered by both sides to be the most elite redcoats; I recall an anecdote mentioning that one particular British regiment stationed in New York survived to repetitively face Washington's army through the entirety of the war.

Talking about the American Revolution, I already posted my idea here for a Batman video game or DC Elseworld set in such a setting right?

Roughly 200 years later, Americans realized that they were on the receiving end of it this time. XP

The American revolution and the Vietnam war are eerily similar. Right down to everyone hyping up the atrocities of the "Empire" side and ignoring those of the rebels, the city dwellers generally being pro status quo, and all the Natives being slaughtered after the Imperial power leaves.

You and I must be reading very different histories of both those wars.

Kenneth C. Davis offered a much better comparison in Don't Know Much About History:

Most of the Loyalists were from cities like New York and Philadelphia who didn't want independence, as they feared the impact it would have on trade with Great Britain, people regularly harped on the British empire for Tyranny, while ignoring the fact that the colonists owned slaves, and committed many of the same atrocities, the same thing happened in Nam, where everyone talked about the Mi La massacre while their was hardly a mention was made of Communist crimes. And of course US and the British were more favored by the aboriginal peoples of Vietnam and the 13 colonies respectively, and both groups of aboriginal were devastated when the rebels came to power.

Holy fuck was Julius Evola off his rocker.