The History Thread!

If you have 40 minutes to set aside, here is a very fascinating documentary about the history and power of the Varangian Guard.

They also have a good series on the incredible life of Harald Hardrada.

I just thought of this one. So if swords were usually used as sidearms and emergency weapons in historical times, then why do they often get viewed as and treated like main weapons?

flanderization? idk

You can probably explain it partly with swords working so well alongside guns, that they stay relevant for long enough before becoming mostly part of dress-wear. As warfare changes it gets to stay along as a fancy Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age, becoming a stylish accessory of dashing cavalrymen and dueling officers, even though they are still primarily side-arms. I believe it helps that it also is easier to fit swords onto a theatre stage and propaganda-posters.

Random ranting.

It's both frustrating and kinda hilarious how white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, etc in America (or am I just repeating myself) keep screaming out "civil war".

Dude. You guys LOST that one. And if it happens again, the Blue states have even bigger advantages this time around.

But of course, you can't expect those idiots to actually know their history. Besides, they don't even want war anyway - they just want one-sided murder and lynchings.

In pre-Columbian America, would someone living in South America know that there were also people living in North America (as in today's US and Canada)?

Unless they traded with them its super unlikely they would acknowledge their existence,its a big continent after all.

Yes. Contact was minimal, but there was awareness. Though they wouldn't know absolutely everyone, for example the Incans would know there was a power structure in Mexico known as the Aztecs, but they most likely wouldn't know of, say, the Inuits. There is strong speculation that the part of the Aztec epic known as the Popol Vuh that talks about the gods receiving fake sacrifices was an Incan insertion made to mock the Aztec human sacrifice procedure. Also, while this is oral history and possibly falsified, there's a famous anecdote around here about the ancient Cahokians being irritated at being overshadowed in sophistication by the Iroquois.

Don’t red states have more firearm owners or am I misunderstanding your argument?

Honestly, it's irrelevant: the biggest factor behind the Union's victory over the Confederates and the US over the Nazis is the same thing - much bigger population, infrastructure, and overall industrial capacity.

As of now the Red states need the Blue states, what with the former constantly subsidizing the latter. If the American far rights really started the second Civil War, well, it would be like the Nazi Germany and the Imperial Japan starting war against the US back in the 40s...despite US being THE single biggest exporter of oil and many of the crucial resources necessary for those two countries.

But of course, conservatives hate history lessons.

Edited by dRoy on Sep 10th 2023 at 10:53:43 PM

This idea just occurred to me.

When and how did people find out that lead is the best metal to use for crafting bullets?

Can't say for sure, but I suppose that it happened through lots of trial and error, after using projectiles of stone and iron. I think the biggest advantage that lead has is that it can be so easily molded, so that you can get many bullets and quickly. Lead is very malleable and can be formed into even intricate shapes, which is why it was a popular material even for water-pipes in Rome. Shame that it is a very poisonous material, too.

Lead used to be used for many of our common goods, from the Romans having lead sewers to the Egyptians having lead cosmetics to the Victorians having lead plates for food. So we had plenty of time to realize lead is bad for people. Then along came guns. The Mafia used to fill hollow bullets with mercury because even just a little of that in a wound made for triple fatality. This logic would slowly morph into ubiquitous lead use.

Watching a short but sweet video about the British Empire made me think of this one.

Why don't you hear about Spain's role in the American Revolution as much as the French contribution? :S

Probably because Spain's involvement is not widely known,for one.

I came across a list of castles and fortifications in South Africa. I thought castles fell out of style in the 17th Century.

In the other thread we discussed the typical differences between castles and other fortifications, namely that a castle is both a fortification and the residence of an important person, which also makes it different from a fancy manor house without a defensive structure. But over time that became less important, so you will find manors referred to as "castles", even if they aren't built on a spot where there had originally been one. But if we think of fortifications made of stone or concrete, then those would remain useful for a few more centuries. But technically speaking, a fort containing a local administrative center and the residence of a local ruler, that would count as a castle.

Edited by Mara999 on Oct 14th 2023 at 12:03:13 PM

Is it true or false that it went like this?

When the Americans won the Revolution from the British Empire, the people thought that the United States of America would be a kingdom in its own right, and that George Washington would be its king. But he turned it down, saying this about it: “I did not defeat George III so that I could become George I.”

I love how this explains the complicated web of military alliances and pacts that led to the first world war

For the past few years there have been archeological digs at the spot where Korsholma Castle had stood in Medieval times, and had been the administrative center for the entire Bothnian Gulf at the time. So far, the digs have mostly discovered objects from 17th and 18th-century life, when the castle had been torn down but the spot was inhabited by influential lords and still very important to the region. Yesterday it was revealed that they had finally discovered timber from the 1300's, when the original wooden fortification was built. Now there is concrete evidence of some type of wooden fortification in Medieval times, possibly one fitting within the definition of a castle. I'm biased and giddy, because this means that there is evidence of Medieval life from near where I live, which means that there is a possibility of future Medieval-themed activities of some sort. Perhaps even a festival?

Edited by Mara999 on Oct 27th 2023 at 5:29:19 PM

Something I've been pondering about. Why and how was it that the people of Athens were male chauvinists even for Ancient Greece?

I don't know how much more chauvinistic they would have been compared to other Greeks outside of Sparta, but I suppose that in general Athenian attitudes can be partly chalked up to them being in practice the elite of their own city. Free Athenians were barely one third of the total adult population, so regardless of how much focus was put on their egalitarian system and values, they themselves had to be aware that they were among the highest up in the local pecking-order. As the free Athenian men were essentially an elite social class, it stands to reason that they would desire to have control over social mobility in the city, but even more importantly, breeding rights within their own class, to keep out the influence of foreign-born or otherwise inferior men. Couple that with a general distrust of women, for pretty much the same reasons and excuses that can be heard today. Women are in general smaller, have higher voices, are less hirsute, et cetera, which has been the go-to excuse for millennia to render women as child-like, thus seen as not capable of dealing with things on their own. My guess for why Athena was seen as an exception and made the patron deity of the city, was probably because she was born from her dad's skull, meaning that she may physically have been a woman, but she is pretty much on the intellectual level of a man. Plus, of course, that deities are exempt from human failures.

Does anybody else get the feeling that the Early Modern Period is underrated or even outright ignored when it comes to how history is taught? Cody of Alternate History Hub has this great video about the subject. It's very informative and it has some good jokes here and there.

Good video . As an aside, I too prefer Warhammer Fantasy to 40K.

Depends a lot on what country we are talking about, but I suppose there might be several reasons why history education in schools tends to gloss over the early modern period. I guess a part of it could be because there is so much cultural context that needs to be covered, but which could be seen as problematic and awkward to talk about. Things like early colonialism, slavery, religious warfare, and such. Those same subjects will appear quite steadily even in later historical periods, but when it comes to 19th-century history, many countries can skim through those bits in favour of focusing more on early democratic developments and the glory of nationalism. Ditto with 20th-century history, where problematic colonial and post-colonial things can be ignored in favour of talking about the heroic resistance towards Nazis, the Cold War, the Space Race, and other things that may be dumbed down to present a more positive spin on actual events. That, and that history is pretty much disappearing from the curriculum in many places, because the subject causes people to raise too many pesky questions regarding the established national mythology.

Here in Finland it still depends a lot on which language you use in school. In Finnish-language schools the history-lessons have focused mostly on history post-1917, when the country became independent, with some dips in 19th-century history to set up the narrative of independence, as well carefully avoiding talking too much about the several centuries when Finland was Eastern Sweden. In Swedish-language schools, like mine, the history lessons cover a very abbreviated and simplified summary of the period between 1200 AD and present-day history, with the bulk of it focusing on the same period as the Finnish-language history, though with a minority perspective. The biggest difference is that Swedish-language history also dips more into the various wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, when Sweden had huge imperialistic ambitions and picked a fight with a lot of older established powers surrounding the Baltic Sea. One of the more popular wars of the period to cover is the later portion of Thirty Years' War when Sweden got involved, due to a legendary troop of Finnish light cavalrymen called the Hakkapeliitta.

Edited by Mara999 on Nov 3rd 2023 at 8:42:39 PM