The History Thread!

The Feast of St. John the Baptist is tomorrow and my neighborhood is holding their yearly festival. It's a culturally rich celebration that spans several countries and branches of Christianity, but I'm mostly concerned about the fact that there are now deep fried oreos being sold two blocks from my apartment and I completely lack willpower.

That sounds interesting actually. Where are you at that has that celebration if you don't mind my asking?

Cap and Ball Channel presents Napoleonic Era Jäger rifles and light infantry tactics.

On this date 66 years ago today, Best Korea invaded Worst Korea in the start of what is called by some historians "The Forgotten War".

edited 25th Jun '16 9:44:43 AM by MajorTom

Gives us this.

The war that destroyed my grandparents' generation.

x4 I'm in Queens, NY. Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. A very large percentage are first and second generation immigrants, so you get a lot of authentic culture. It's a pretty damn cool place to live. It's like a global culture sampler platter. I live right next to the Greek neighborhood, and up the street is the Egyptian neighborhood. A short bus ride and you're in the Indian neighborhood, where you can look at the sari displays in store windows. I live in one of the Italian sections. I moved here from the ultra Italian section of Connecticut, so I've been immersed in the culture my whole life, despite never having been to Italy.

We were discussing "cultural Catholicm" in the LGBT thread the other day, and mine runs very deep. Despite not being a practicing Catholic, I take part in the feast day celebrations in my neighborhood The picture is super ultra blurry but here's our St. Anthony of Padua statue. He hangs out on the street a few blocks from myself during some feast days. According to tradition, pinning money to the statue brings good luck/good fortune. He's the patron saint of lost and stolen items, so I guess that adds up. You probably can't see it in the blurry picture, but there are one dollar bills taped all over one side of the statue. After the festival, the money is donated to the church

edited 26th Jun '16 8:26:58 AM by Cailleach

St. Anthony of Padua, who is also known as St. Anthony of Lisbon (since he was born in Lisbon), and is a patron saint of the country.

Here, festivities around him happen in Lisbon, and tend to involve lots of sardines and marriages (since he's a patron saint of marriages, as you probably know).

Cailleach: Very neat. Omaha can be like that sometimes. Somehow the city became a common stop for immigrants traversing the US from various points.

The Korean War was the first time Filipino troops fought in a foreign land. It was also the first time they went to a country where it's actually quite cold when it's December (and there's actually snow).

I've been looking at the Heroic Bastard page, and it makes me wonder; are there some neat stories about Real Life examples of this trope from royalty? On that note, my friend is a descendant of one of Henry II's bastards

With a little help from Nuno Álvares Pereira, John, Grand Master of the Order of Aviz, became the king (though he had some actual legitimacy to the throne, as shown by his defender/advocate João das Regras) of Portugal, thereby solving the sucession crisis of 1383-85 and stopping the Castillians from uniting the crowns of Castille and Portugal. He was the son of Peter I and a woman named Teresa Lourenço (and that's the only thing we know about her). Does it count?

edited 26th Jun '16 6:17:03 AM by Quag15

Other than Jack Strong, are there written accounts surrounding Ryszard Kuklinski's defection to the US?

I want to see Sabaton do an epic power metal ballad about how King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died after gorging himself on pastries.

T'was a noble and beautiful death.

His last words were probably: "Totally worth it."

Meanwhile, I've been looking at William the Silent's leadership/founding of the Dutch/UPN.

The guy was good at it.

How did they choose Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as the anthem of the European Union?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_of_Europe#Adoption

For the uniforms of the Imperial Japanese Army, given how the Imperial Japanese Army had French military advisers, then German military advisers due to the Franco Prussian War, whose uniforms were the first to be the inspiration to those worn by the Imperial Japanese Army?

The very first western-style uniform of the IJA, was inspired by the French advisors. The later one was taken from the Imperial German Army uniform, which would evolve into the World War 2 uniform.

The other wiki is more indepth.

edited 29th Jun '16 9:28:29 AM by TerminusEst

Somebody hold my tea. I just found out yesterday that the Non-Aligned Movement is still around.

Ehm. Holy carp .___.

Anyone knows if the organisation has actually achieved anything concrete in its lifetime? I mean, to my knowledge, at least two of the founding head of states (Nasser and Sukarno) were best buddies with the USSR, and the various Cold War shenanigans between its members (which included Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Laos, Cambodia, friggin North Korea - whose claim is technically correct, the best kind of correct) kind of make the whole thing look like a pretty bad joke.

They've actually made quite some effort into working on the situation in the Western Sahara, and while it's still in doubt it's become much less violent due to their efforts.

They've also had quite a hand in reforming the UN, especially due to the awkward situation of certain places like Taiwan.

Probably the biggest though is the hand they've played in disarmament, which has actually had a huge impact on rules concerning chemical and biological weapons, and isn't something to sneer at.

Today, 100 years ago, the Battle of the Somme commenced.

I feel that Vlad the Impaler is the real world equivalent to Sinestro. Knight Templar dictators who use fear and being The Dreaded to protect their nation? Yeah, I bet that if they somehow met they'd be best friends

The Somme at 100: a commemoration sees 1500 volunteers around Britain, each dressed as a WWI Tommy, carrying a card of the soldier they represent and the age they were when they died on the First Day of the Somme.