The History Thread

[hw88]

2 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Did you go through Freidrichstrasse Station and the Palace of Tears? 

Unfortunately no. I've been 3 or 4 times but each time on a rather tight schedule so haven't been able to take everything in. 

[The Art of Hand and Foot]

Edit

Edited December 23, 2022 by The Art of Hand and Foot

[The Hallucinating Goose]

10 hours ago, hw88 said:

Unfortunately no. I've been 3 or 4 times but each time on a rather tight schedule so haven't been able to take everything in. 

I've been to the museum and memorial in the former customs hall and taken trains from the station but never saw it when it was divided in two. The museum is very emotional. 

[hw88]

I've been to the Zeppelinfeld in Nuremberg where the Nazi rallies were held**. Nuremberg is probably my favourite Germany city, they've rebuilt it well after the war. I've also been to Colditz and the Mohne and Eder dams - and Sagan (the site of Stalag Luft III) which is now in Poland.

**NB They don't like you doing Hitler salutes on the podium - or anywhere else for that matter!

[The Masked Poster]

On 22/12/2022 at 14:12, Tight Maggot said:

 

I often wonder if any form of compensation was paid to either Cambodia or Laos (who also had about 2 million tons dropped on them), I understand the American Generals reasoning behind the bombing but how do you do that to a country and have no accountability is a very sad reflection on how this world operates.

It's interesting that you mention Cambodia and criticise American generals. But make absolutely no reference to Pol Pot. 

Maybe he just had a bad press? 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, hw88 said:

I've been to the Zeppelinfeld in Nuremberg where the Nazi rallies were held**. Nuremberg is probably my favourite Germany city, they've rebuilt it well after the war. I've also been to Colditz and the Mohne and Eder dams - and Sagan (the site of Stalag Luft III) which is now in Poland.

**NB They don't like you doing Hitler salutes on the podium - or anywhere else for that matter!

The Nuremburg rally grounds are an emotional place. I remember standing on that podium and just getting shivers right through my body at the thought that I was standing on the exact spot, the exact little tiny bit of concrete that Adolf Hitler also stood on. I'm getting shivers just thinking about it now. One of the most amazing places I've ever been. 

[Tight Maggot]

17 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

It's interesting that you mention Cambodia and criticise American generals. But make absolutely no reference to Pol Pot. 

Maybe he just had a bad press? 

Ok, I will reference Pol Pot and his chums the Khmer Rouge, can you actually believe that both the US and Britain ended up supporting the Khmer Rouge after Vietnam tried to oust them from power. Have a quick search online and you will be enlightened. 

 

[The Masked Poster]

1 hour ago, Tight Maggot said:

Ok, I will reference Pol Pot and his chums the Khmer Rouge, can you actually believe that both the US and Britain ended up supporting the Khmer Rouge after Vietnam tried to oust them from power. Have a quick search online and you will be enlightened. 

 

Sorry pal, any thread I seem to reply to gets locked. Maybe I am just unlucky? Either way I can't answer. See you. 

[Tight Maggot]

Not to worry, a lot of things went on in that time period that were covered up (although how you can drop 2.7 million tons of bombs on a neutral country over 4 years and keep it from the general public is beyond me ) There is always two sides of the coin in every discussion/argument, I like to try and see things from both points of view and not to just believe the first thing we are told. 

[Midlands hobo]

On 22/12/2022 at 18:55, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

I whisper this softly, being at the Stonehenge end of the county.  Stonehenge is very fine, but, visually, Avebury is far more spectacular!

I like the way you can drive through it. Mother in law volunteers at Avebury manor.

[Futtocks]

On 22/12/2022 at 18:55, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

I whisper this softly, being at the Stonehenge end of the county.  Stonehenge is very fine, but, visually, Avebury is far more spectacular!

Happy day, WWD, happy day...

 

[Midlands hobo]

Templars is a big one for me. The ultimate unsolvable riddle.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

On 23/12/2022 at 22:49, The Masked Poster said:

It's interesting that you mention Cambodia and criticise American generals. But make absolutely no reference to Pol Pot. 

Maybe he just had a bad press? 

Been to the killing fields in cambodia (Cheung ek I think it's called).....I'm not an emotional man but I cried my eyes out

Edited December 24, 2022 by Bedfordshire Bronco

[Padge]

On 21/12/2022 at 19:12, Exiled Townie said:

A little know fact that is glossed over in the majority of history books I read about the battle of Agincourt.

From Juliet Barker's book 'Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle' :-  Many of the English and Welsh archers were suffering from dysentry, and were reduced to removing their soiled breeches and undergarments in an attempt to allow nature to take its course more easily ie not wearing anything from the waist down — an option not available to the men-at-arms, encased in their padded steel plate suits, they just had to 'go' in their armour. Grim though the sight of them must have been, the smell was probably worse.

Imagine being a French knight,being attacked by naked from the waist down archers, followed by men at arms with poo squelching out of their armour - they don't teach that in history class.

I bet the French $f!t themselves

[Padge]

On 22/12/2022 at 17:15, Bostik Bailey said:

The Norman conquest was actually a (very distant) relative of the king (Edward the confessor) claiming the crown from a usurper Harold Godwineson, who had no hereditary claim the the throne whatsoever. In the years leading up to Edwards death Harold put all his cronies into all the major earldoms etc. so in reality the Norman conquest was just restoring the ‘rightful’ hereditary line to the throne.

Which brings us to the very important point that a lot of people don't realise. The French have never invaded and conquered England, the Normans were no more French than the Scots, they were of Norse origin and kicked the $h!t out of the French and took their Northern coastal lands.*

 

*Roughly correct but its a long story.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Padge

[Padge]

On 22/12/2022 at 22:35, Maximus Decimus said:

I was actually going to start a thread about your favourite historical artefacts but it may as well go here. Mine might at first seem unusual, but I will explain! As an ancient history graduate, I have long studied famous people and events from long in the past. Great statues, buildings and valuable artefacts are great and it is nice to think that they were once inhabited by those people but for me nothing beats the feeling I get when I look at these ostraka from Athens.

Ancient Athens had a policy whereby anybody who was deemed to be getting too powerful could be ostracised for 10 years. They would vote on broken pieces of pottery (ostraka) and then whoever got the most would be banished. They have found many of these, and they include the names of many famous Athenians such as Perikles, Themistokles, Kleon, Miltiades, Thucydides etc. I just love thinking that these were written by ordinary citizens who actually knew these people and wanted rid of them. It makes them feel so much more real whereas there is something faintly mythical about reading their names in ancient texts. 

Greek democracy was based on 'lot' in it's early years. You were elected not by vote by the chance your name being drawn in a lottery. It was a like jury service. This gaurenteed no affiliations being built.

[Padge]

On 24/12/2022 at 23:01, Midlands hobo said:

Templars is a big one for me. The ultimate unsolvable riddle.

They are fascinating and a real enigma.

[Padge]

I am fascinated by ancient engineering. Experimental archeology shows how simple some of the great buildings of the past could have been built without alien levatational technology having to be employed. It also shows how some fantastic ideas got lost because man is a destroyer of what he doesn't understand.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Padge

[Padge]

should have been an edit

Edited December 26, 2022 by Padge

[The Rocket]

On 22/12/2022 at 03:44, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I'll start us off with a fact I found out a couple of days ago. 

During the Vietnam War, the US dropped more bombs than every combatant combined during the Second World War. 

Incredible. 

As a lover of history thanks for starting a great thread. I think my love of history stems from its` ability to put everything into perspective i.e. when I am reading something (or watching Time Team ) all my petty cares and worries seem so trifling when I think of all the lives that have gone before.

I suppose the other element is how often we see the same or very similar things played out just with different actors. Reading J.B. Bury`s classic A History of Greece a couple of years ago I was amazed by the number of parallels with what is happening in world politics even recently. From concerns with foreign interference in elections to the rise of populist politicians.

With regard your ` more bombs on Vietnam ` fact - unrelated but another interesting comparison - I read a while back that there has been more concrete poured in China over the last 20 years (it may be less) than there has in the U.S. since the end of the second World War. Quite extraordinary.

 

[Padge]

4 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

With regard your ` more bombs on Vietnam ` fact - unrelated but another interesting comparison - I read a while back that there has been more concrete poured in China over the last 20 years (it may be less) than there has in the U.S. since the end of the second World War. Quite extraordinary.

 

Not a good comparison, the population sizes may have a big impact on fiures. Concrete poured per capita/year would make more sense.

[The Rocket]

7 minutes ago, Padge said:

Not a good comparison, the population sizes may have a big impact on fiures. Concrete poured per capita/year would make more sense.

Yes and I`m aware that I could have added that America has been a developed country during that period as well, whereas China has been a developing nation, building all the infrastructure that the U.S. would largely already have. However, I thought the comparison was interesting on purely a volume scale and the time periods compared.

One might also add that the technology surrounding concrete and the use of alternatives makes the figure even more remarkable.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

As a lover of history thanks for starting a great thread. I think my love of history stems from its` ability to put everything into perspective i.e. when I am reading something (or watching Time Team ) all my petty cares and worries seem so trifling when I think of all the lives that have gone before.

This is very true. I suffer from anxiety issues from time to time and find myself worrying about the most minor of things, things very insignificant that I find dwell on my mind for hours and I end up arguing with myself, telling myself to stop being silly, whatever the thing is really doesn't matter, telling myself I'll have forgotten about it in a couple of days anyway. Reason I tell you this is because there was a moment in 2016 that really hit me in terms of my realisation of how sheltered and boring my life is, and indeed how little my problems matter in the grand context of humanity. 

I was undertaking a 3 week rail journey around central Europe and on day 1, I got the train from Hull to London and then got the Eurostar to Paris where I would catch my 3rd train of the day to Heidelberg. This was only a few months after the Paris terrorist attacks. When the Eurostar arrived in Paris, innocent little goose here stepped off the train and found myself face to face with a French soldier holding an assault rifle. When I was waiting for my train, I sat on some steps and watched soldiers patrolling the main station concourse, just walking up and down, up and down. 

Yeah I might be from a working class Northern city but it's pretty quiet and boring round here, at least it is in the area I'm from. The kind of things I worry about are whether i remembered to buy milk or whether my colleague remembered to order stationary or something along those lines, not being shot in the street by terrorists and seeing those soldiers really hit me that this was the reality of the world, the kind of thing I saw on tv but never actually experienced.

It made me realise my life is cozy, comfortable, relaxing compared to so many other people and I tell myself all the time now when I start worrying to just get a grip and remember that some people would do anything to have my "rubbish" life. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by The Hallucinating Goose

[gingerjon]

11 hours ago, Padge said:

Which brings us to the very important point that a lot of people don't realise. The French have never invaded and conquered England, the Normans were no more French than the Scots, they were of Norse origin and kicked the $h!t out of the French and took their Northern coastal lands.*

 

*Roughly correct but its a long story.

If you're going that way then the English lost in 1066 and the name of the country 'England' is simply a nostalgic reminder for a lost and destroyed culture.

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

If you're going that way then the English lost in 1066 and the name of the country 'England' is simply a nostalgic reminder for a lost and destroyed culture.

"England" had already been ruled by Vikings over the previous century or two, in whole or in part. The Normans came to assert a claim over "England", not change the place all that much. Indeed England being "England", a Kingdom in its own right, and later the descent from Aethelstan giving legitimacy to the English crown's claim to suzreignity over the rest of Britain and Ireland was their important thing.

The Normans came to England to be English. They did similar in Scotland. They were 50/50 in their attitude in Ireland. They thought the Welsh were just odd.