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[–]arminius_saw[M] [スコア非表示] stickied comment (48子コメント)

Hello everyone,

In /r/history we like to discuss history in an accessible and informative manner, and are of course open to discussion of sensitive topics. However, it is our belief, which we have observed to be true time and time again, that allowing discredited fringe theories, false narratives, and disingenuous revisionism to enter into discussions serve only to derail conversation and turn threads into cesspits.

So with this in mind, be aware that /r/history does not allow posts which advocate Holocaust/Holodomor/Rape of Nanking/etc. denial, the Lost Cause school of Civil War history, or other such ahistorical hogwash. Posters who violate this prohibition risk being banned without warning for violations of Rule 2. This policy is not meant to in any way stifle intelligent discussion about these topics, but merely to keep the focus of this subreddit on history, and not conspiracy theories, for the same reason that /r/science would remove comments which advocate six-day creation, or the flat-Earth theory. There are plenty of spaces on reddit that you can post denialist theories, but this is not one of them.

If you have questions or concerns about this policy, please direct them to modmail rather than derail discussion in this thread by replying here.

[–]randomguy186 1183ポイント1184ポイント  (96子コメント)

Misrepresentation: In 1492, everyone thought the world was flat. Columbus, after carefully studying nearly 2,000 years of evidence, decided the world was round. No one would finance the crazy dude except the enlightened Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus discovered America and proved the world was round.

Fact: In 1492, everyone knew the world was roughly spherical with a circumference of 24,000 miles. Columbus, ignoring nearly 2,000 years of evidence, decided the circumference was 8,000 miles. No one would finance the crazy dude except the benighted Ferdinand and Isabella. (In their defense, their nation had just ended a centuries-long war and hadn't had much time for academic study.) Columbus (to the day he died) insisted he'd traveled to India the East Indies and denied that he'd landed on a new continent.

EDIT: Corrected his ostensible destination. (Thank you /u/gil_bz.)

[–]gil_bz 264ポイント265ポイント  (14子コメント)

insisted he'd traveled to India

This thread seems the best place to mention that in no way did Columbus think that he reached India. He thought that he had reached the East Indies.

[–]chinesefood 63ポイント64ポイント  (12子コメント)

Eratosthenes knew! Roughly.

[–]Lampwick 78ポイント79ポイント  (7子コメント)

I have a coworker who's really into flat earth theory. A lot of the theory is leveraged on "spherical earth is a recent invention", citing the Columbus myth. He quit talking to me about it after I told him to look up Eratosthenes.

[–]DatAsstrolabe 211ポイント212ポイント  (13子コメント)

Columbus (to the day he died) insisted he'd traveled to India and denyied that he'd landed on a new continent.

It's possible that he knew he had discovered a new continent, but insisted that he had travelled to India, because his privileges and rewards were dependent upon this 'achievement'. Not a lot of proof though.

[–]Circuit_Anal 99ポイント100ポイント  (8子コメント)

That last sentence is new to me. Made me giggle.

[–]amalgam_reynolds 73ポイント74ポイント  (5子コメント)

Columbus also never set foot on mainland North America, which is what I always thought as a kid. Other then a scant few landings in Central and South America, he stayed completely around Cuba, Jamaica, and several other of those islands.

[–]pikkamakk 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

It was because he mixed up units(arabian mile with roman mile) and he thought that Asia was much larger, because that way he would certainly make it.

[–]KovolKenai 978ポイント979ポイント  (72子コメント)

That Einstein was bad at math. There's even a motivational billboard by my place that says "As a student, he was no Einstein". He was way above his classmates' skill level and was bored with what he was being taught so he went on to more advanced stuff. It gets me every time.

Also that the US, during the space race, spent millions to make a pen that would work in zero gravity while the Russians just used a pencil. The reason we didn't want to use pencils was because they could break or bits of graphite could get inhaled or into electric components.

[–]reximhotep 620ポイント621ポイント  (11子コメント)

The whole reason for the Einstein thing is the difference in the Swiss and German grading system. Einstein went to school in Switzerland where a 6 was the best grade (which is what he had in math). In Germany a 6 is the worst grade, so his later German biographers got that wrong.

[–]TheZombieMolester 132ポイント133ポイント  (1子コメント)

Wow I didn't know that, it makes a lot of sense though

[–]_TB__ 40ポイント41ポイント  (0子コメント)

My mom kinda tricked me with this one too, when she was young 6 was the lowest but for me today it's the highest. This is in norway btw.

[–]regollyek 255ポイント256ポイント  (25子コメント)

Goes along with the whole "millionares and billionares drop out of college!" And it's like well yeah, some of them did, because they were smarter than the courses being taught. It was a waste of their time. Being a drop-out doesn't make you more likely to become rich or successful.

[–]18_throwaway11 183ポイント184ポイント  (14子コメント)

Actually I think this one has to do more with a different type of fallacy. Billionaires and inventors are not necessarily academic geniuses, and many have been uninspiring academically.

I think the fallacy is that "many billionaires dropped out of school" doesn't work backwards - it's totally false to say "many people who dropped out of school are billionaires". I can't remember the name of that fallacy, but that's often the rationale I hear people use. "I dropped out of school. It's cool, so did Steve Jobs." Yeah, well so did 1 million other people who became heroin addicts and prostitutes.

EDIT: I know reddit loves their fallacies, but the one I'm referring to is neither confirmation bias nor post hoc ergo propter hoc. It's actually a formal fallacy called affirming the consequent

[–]WednesdayWolf 99ポイント100ポイント  (8子コメント)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, more commonly called post hoc. Starting at a conclusion and working your way backwards - because X followed Y, Y must have caused X.

[–]Highside79 25ポイント26ポイント  (4子コメント)

I lot of them dropped out because they were already rich and just decided to do something else. It is one thing to drop out cause you have a better idea of something to do (which does happen) than to drop out cause your parents are billionaires anyway and you got bored.

[–]pydry 89ポイント90ポイント  (6子コメント)

Also that the US, during the space race, spent millions to make a pen that would work in zero gravity while the Russians just used a pencil. The reason we didn't want to use pencils was because they could break or bits of graphite could get inhaled or into electric components.

IIRC it was developed by a private company that did spend millions (of its own money) and NASA bought them at retail price.

I think until the pen was invented both NASA and Cosmonauts used pencils and after both of them used these pens.

[–]Prince-of-Ravens 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

He was way above his classmates' skill level and was bored with what he was being taught so he went on to more advanced stuff.

And even more, it wasn't even "he got bad grades because he was bored." He ACED those clases.

[–]TheRedCormorant 1990ポイント1991ポイント  (659子コメント)

To think that one side or another in any conflict is totally good or totally bad makes me mad. People, not just us historians, are unfortunately not taught this.

It should also be remembered (and preached with vigor) should always be aware of this, and should remember that perspective and points of view distort and variate experiences of the same event.

[–]Youandmcgregor 281ポイント282ポイント  (180子コメント)

Brilliantly put. All conflicts are nuanced on both sides and there are often very understandable reasons for both positions when one is able to take a dispassionate approach to listening to both sides.

[–]c_hannah 97ポイント98ポイント  (9子コメント)

I am having an interesting experience here in Germany.

I was raised with the idea that 'the German's were evil between 1933-1945, then they were victims of Russian communism.' That's just what I learned in school.

I am getting my masters degree here and am specifically asking the older people I meet (not acquaintances, but the people it wouldn't be weird to ask) about their experiences during and after the war. An older couple I know (in their early 80s) said that they would tell me some stories and I can record them. The man was part of the mass relocation of Germans after the war.

[–]ippolit_belinski 32ポイント33ポイント  (1子コメント)

Please, if you can, share these tapes/transcripts with us! I'm very curious about these experiences as well.

On an interesting and similar note, for instance, a lot of elderly I met in Belarus were very sympathetic to pre-Gorbatchev Soviet Union. They are very critical of 'freedom', and they are fully aware gulags, etc. Their critique is primarily that freedom cannot put bread on the table. But I have to admit that these stories are primarily from the very old, those born in the 1930s/40s (so very vulnerable), whilst the generation born in 1960s is more critical.

[–]karowhat 27ポイント28ポイント  (0子コメント)

Recorded first person accounts from anything older than 50 years is quickly becoming gold.

[–]tflack 104ポイント105ポイント  (163子コメント)

I am just asking: how do you gingerly propose say, Hitler's side of WW2? Wasn't he "bad" - not wanting to get super down the philosophical rabbit hole, just wondering from a pro.

[–]loterian 211ポイント212ポイント  (25子コメント)

I think the idea isn't that nobody ever has the moral high ground, but that no side is ever completely bad or completely good. For instance, while I can say pretty confidently that the Nazis were, taken as a whole, an evil organization, that does mean that every single German soldier or member of the Nazi party was evil. And it does not mean that anything that the Allies did during the war was good, even though as a whole, they were in the right.

[–]keroumnome 152ポイント153ポイント  (16子コメント)

The people from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and other bombed cities have a very good reason for not seeing the Allies as this wonderful force for good, even though as you said, they were in the right.

[–]Martenz05 58ポイント59ポイント  (8子コメント)

Not to mention all the mass murders done by the Soviets on the Eastern front. Much of which they pinned on the Nazis, like the Katyn Massacre.

[–]I_Love_GTR 92ポイント93ポイント  (7子コメント)

The Germans raped, pillaged, and murdered because they felt the Slavs were inferior. The Russians raped, pillaged, and murdered because "the Germans started it."

I love the way one of my history professors put it: "The Russians and Germans both did some terrible shit. The reason you hear more about the Nazis than the Soviets is because Hitler went international with his genocide, Stalin kept his domestic."

[–]scalpingheads 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Then again, the people from Nanjing and all across China have a very good reason for seeing the Japanese from cities such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki as evil monsters that deserved to get bombed. Two sides to every coin

[–]IM_A_SQUIRREL 754ポイント755ポイント  (56子コメント)

Before I start my explanation, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not apologizing for, condoning, or in any way supporting Hitler or the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a truly despicable event that I believe should always be remembered and condemned. This is simply an exploration of the side of the conflict that is difficult to explore impartially. After stating the difficulty of doing so, I will attempt to explore it impartially because I believe that it is important to attempt to do so.

Now, for Hitler. Undeniably, the outcome of his actions was terrible. He directly led to a war that killed many millions, both in battle and in camps. He bred hatred, fear, and violence. But let's temporarily bracket the outcomes of his actions and see why he may have done what he did.

Hitler wanted to bring Germany to prosperity. After World War I, Germany was severely punished and was in economic ruin. He, and many others, believed that Germany had been wronged in the Versailles Treaty, and he wanted to right the wrongs he perceived. To him, the Germans deserved living space in order to fix their economy and unify all the ethnic Germans who were living in other countries due to the redrawing of borders that had taken place at Versailles.

This view of expansion as the right of a people is not new. It's basically a recasting of the idea of Manifest Destiny (which was not a new idea itself). He believed that it was the right and destiny of the Germans, as a superior people, to spread their influence and expand their territory as much as they could. But this idea ran into problems partially because all the countries bordering Germany were already well established. Nobody was going to give up their land to fulfill his German expansionist dream.

To carefully put this in perspective, I propose contrasting it to a time when another country believed that it had the right and destiny to expand. For this contrast, I will use the period when the US expanded westward, even though it is not a perfect comparison. When the US pursed its policy of Manifest Destiny, it was able to expand basically unopposed. There were no great powers blocking the way, only Native American tribes who were mostly unable to defend themselves. We mustn't forget that this instance of Manifest Destiny also led to a mass genocide. Note: this genocide is still very different from the Holocaust. I am not attempting to minimize the Holocaust in any way through this comparison. The system of suffering, violence, and terror that is created and perpetuated is unparalleled as far as I am concerned. What I'm really trying to say that expansionism often creates situations in which one group believes that it is owed something and has the right to take it, no matter the consequences for the people in current possession of said thing.

To unite the Germans under his cause, Hitler, whose extreme antisemitism and desire to persecute Jews had been evident before his rise to political power, used the Jews (and Communists, homosexuals, and other "undesirables") as a scapegoat. It is easier to mobilize a large group of people to do your bidding if you make them hate a common enemy. The ones he could not bring to the cause through hatred, he coerced through fear and other means.

In doing this, he did exactly what /u/TheRedCormorant is warning against: he made one group (the Germans) totally good and another group (the Jews and other undesirables) totally bad in the eyes of his followers. When you paint one group and justified no matter what and another group as terrible no matter what, it is not hard to come to the horrifying conclusion that the "bad" group should be persecuted or even totally eliminated.

This is just one of the reasons why portraying the two sides of a conflict as totally good and totally bad is dangerous. You can also run into another problem that arises from the case of Nazi Germany: you may portray a group as so twisted and evil (think comic-book villain bad) that it seems unimaginable that a person or group would do what they did. When we stop trying to understand the circumstances and causes of an action (no matter how horrible and unjustifiable that action ends up being), we set ourselves up to repeat it through ignorance.

In this way, we have a duty to try to understand why Hitler and the Nazi's did what they did without justifying it. We must not ignore these factors by creating the mindset that anyone who tries to understand is also trying to justify, erase, or distort the past. Inquiry and explanation of horrible events are vital because they help us identify root causes, circumstances, and steps that may lead to a similar situation in the future. Only through careful, impartial study can we achieve an understanding of an event that can help us prevent its repetition.

I know I'm not the person you asked this question to, but I felt compelled to answer it anyway. As I looked through this thread, I saw many people shutting down any attempted explanations about why Nazi's did what they did by bringing up the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities. In doing so, inquiry is stifled because nobody wants to be construed as apologizing for or defending the Nazi's, even if they are not doing so. Attempting to block any explanations (note: not justifications; justifications are wrong) of the causes of Nazism is wrong. This is a very sensitive topic and while we mustn't ever forget the Nazi atrocities, we have to be able to explore the causes of them without letting the results prevent us from making an impartial assessment of the causes.

If anyone thinks that I am attempting to apologize for, condone, justify, or support Hitler and the Nazi atrocities, I am very sorry that you have missed my point. I hope that you some day come to the understanding that history and life have many nuances and that the view that any one side of a conflict is absolutely right or wrong is in part what led to the rise of Nazism.

Edit: phrasing

[–]arminius_saw 97ポイント98ポイント  (11子コメント)

To unite the Germans under his cause, Hitler used the Jews (and Communists, homosexuals, and other "undesirables") as a scapegoat. It is easier to mobilize a large group of people to do your bidding if you make them hate a common enemy.

I do want to mention that this gives more of a mercenary bents to Hitler's targetting of the Jews. Certainly from a sort of macro politics level it makes sense, but it's worth noting that Hitler was raving about the Jews long before he even had any kind of realistic chance at coming into power. I would tend to say that the "unite the people against a common enemy" strategy was something that dovetailed with Hitler's existing views rather than something he deliberately came up with.

[–]IM_A_SQUIRREL 42ポイント43ポイント  (0子コメント)

Very true. I had trouble wording everything properly. I'll edit what I wrote in order to make it clear that his hatred of the Jews preceded his rise to power and its usefulness for his political purposes.

[–]thunderdragon94 35ポイント36ポイント  (2子コメント)

I would just like to expand on your reasoning for why it's important to understand why these atrocities took place. The moment you set up an entire group of people as inhuman in their evil doing, you implicitly create the argument that you or your country could never do something like that, because we obviously couldn't, because we aren't monsters; they're the monsters. It's an implicit attempt to absolve yourself of the responsibility of preventing the next massacre. There were many, many monsters in Nazi Germany. There were also many people in denial about those monsters, because they believed that it would take inhuman evil to commit such acts, and they could not bring themselves to believe that their neighbors and friends would be so evil. This second group of people are the ones who had a chance at preventing the Holocaust, but were in denial until too late. There is nothing essential in the difference between those people, and the average citizen in an average country. Some humans in any group have the potential to be evil, and if you create a schema about what kind of inhuman thing it would take to be evil, you ignore the evil next door.

[–]Usernametaken112 31ポイント32ポイント  (4子コメント)

Objective write up.

Its unfortunate you needed to preface just about every point with assurances you weren't a Nazi or that you didn't agree with the ideology of the day.

That should go without saying but in today's world, not so obvious.

[–]IM_A_SQUIRREL 24ポイント25ポイント  (3子コメント)

Thank you!

I may have gone a bit overboard with the assurances, but I wanted to leave absolutely no room for someone to derail the discussion with wild accusations that I support the Nazi's. Then everything devolves to shit-slinging and everybody ends up losing.

[–]salientsapient 62ポイント63ポイント  (2子コメント)

Well, there was an American Nazi Party in the 30's, and Germany was full of people who were at least tolerant of Nazi ideas. The Germans would have said they were unique because of some special racial trait that justified their actions. But the reality is that there is no evil gene, nor a Nazi gene. Eugenics was popular around the world in the early 20th century.

What happebed in Germany was in many ways a result of the falloit from the first world war. Hitler served in the war, and it resulted in really bad Economic conditions which left people looking for a change. Trying to understand Hitler isn't to apologise for him, or to say that he wasn't evil. It's to say that he wasn't Just evil. And the better we understand the conditions that led normal people to do evil things, the better we can try to avoid making those conditions in the future. If the Nazis were Just Evil, with no justification, we can't work to prevent those justifications, which would be emotionally comforting since we can tell ourselves we would never have done that. But it is a terrible disservice to the future of the world.

[–]Youandmcgregor 75ポイント76ポイント  (43子コメント)

He wasn't right, by my standards today. Ask a German, if you can get them to talk with you about it without being defensive. The people who supported Hitler, I mean the average citizen, gained a lot after a very shitty time in their economy etc. There were many domestic issues that were seemingly resolved in the eye of the public through Hitler's approach and the mass murders were not front page news to the folks in Germany at the time. Not an easy one to defend but you can really find facts that support very plausible reasons for a German at that time to support Hitler. Especially the average less educated individual.

[–]BarfReali 395ポイント396ポイント  (185子コメント)

In the documentary "Fog of War" I think Robert McNamara says that if the US Allies had lost the war, there would be so many people from the Allied side that would be tried for war crimes.

EDIT: changed a word

[–]TheCuriousGiraffe 362ポイント363ポイント  (165子コメント)

See, pet peeve of mine, the US doesn't have a monopoly on winning the Second World War. There were many allied countries who all took part and helped each other.

[–]Cat-of-damehood 334ポイント335ポイント  (144子コメント)

I always felt Russia/the Soviet Union played a pretty big role, but in history class it wasn't mentioned much more than that the Nazis tried to invade but forgot their winter boots.

[–]Thunder_bird 297ポイント298ポイント  (71子コメント)

My Russian friends were taught just the opposite in Soviet-era schools. WWII was called the Great Patiotic War. The Soviets defeated the Nazis almost single handedly. There was no mention of the West supplying the Soviets, D-day was a minor skirmish, no word on the North African or Italiam campaigns, and no word on the bombing campaign in Europe.

Also there was NOTHING taught about the Pacific war against the Japanese. My Russian friends only read about the Pacific campaigns as adults, when they emigrated to the West. Until then, they did not know the Allies ever fought Japan at all.

Edit: they were taught about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but these were explained as an American attempt to intimidate the Soviets. The Japanese cities were just innocemt targets of American imperialism.

[–]McCFred 121ポイント122ポイント  (19子コメント)

The Soviets defeated the Nazis almost single handedly.

I mean, thats obviously not true, but we do have to keep in mind that even if we subtracted every other part of the war, the Eastern Front would still be the largest war in history. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses of any nation involved.

So its certainly wrong to neglect the role of US, Britain, other Allies in the European Theatre, but saying that it was a 50/50 effort is also a bit misleading.

[–]Parysian 108ポイント109ポイント  (30子コメント)

The USSR did played more than a 'pretty big' role. Almost as many German soldiers were captured or killed by the USSR than by the rest of the allies combined. And the Eastern Front lasted for years, so it's not like the Nazis came in the middle of winter and that was that, they just couldn't keep themselves supplied long enough to last out several winters.

[–]Explosion_Jones 103ポイント104ポイント  (19子コメント)

Not almost as many, of the 8 million German military deaths, 5 million died in Russia. The Eastern front was a titanic struggle that absolutely dwarfs any other part of the second world war. It's fucking batshit crazy how little anyone seems to know about it

[–]cdjcon 36ポイント37ポイント  (11子コメント)

The War in China was a close second. Almost no discussion.

[–]chronicallyfailed 26ポイント27ポイント  (7子コメント)

Holy shit, the fact that I had completely forgotten about the war in China until you mentioned it shows how little it is talked about.

In five school terms worth of covering the second world war in history, China was not mentioned once.

[–]Parysian 11ポイント12ポイント  (3子コメント)

Very true, but I was using numbers for Germans captured as well as killed. The USSR took fewer prisoners by a large margin.

[–]Anon_Amous 48ポイント49ポイント  (20子コメント)

I would argue that without Russia, the Allies would not have seen victory in WW2. If Hitler hadn't made lebensraum a core tenet of his philosophy and cultivated a deeper alliance with the soviets, I honestly do believe a Third Reich might exist in Europe today, provided that the USSR and the Germans didn't annihilate each other in WW3, which would also be pretty possible.

It's interesting to think about. The Russians paid a high cost in human life for WW2, I don't think it's unfair to credit them highly for the Allied victory.

[–]MalekuaMan 7ポイント8ポイント  (5子コメント)

Curtis LaMay said that about Ww2 American airmen as well.

[–]antiquarian_bookworm 531ポイント532ポイント  (54子コメント)

I find it frustrating when people have the desire to try to lump everyone at some time in the past into one viewpoint.

The past is very similar to the present, not everybody is on the same page. The past also has a confusing diversity to it, just like today.

[–]Cyclone_1 386ポイント387ポイント  (41子コメント)

I find it frustrating when people have the desire to try to lump everyone at some time in the past into one viewpoint.

You see that a lot with the Founding Fathers of the US, I think. I always get a chuckle from listening to people talk about them as if they were some kind of cohesive unit that always agreed on everything.

[–]antiquarian_bookworm 187ポイント188ポイント  (30子コメント)

That's a good example. Some of them couldn't stand to be in the same room with each other, their viewpoints were so diverse. =-)

[–]DiscoDrugDance 73ポイント74ポイント  (27子コメント)

Jefferson and Adams were rivals, iirc

[–]Parnasse 131ポイント132ポイント  (8子コメント)

Hamilton pretty much didn't get along with anyone except Washington, yet he wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, founded the Treasury, took part in expanding the military, etc.

[–]SilverMoonshade 33ポイント34ポイント  (0子コメント)

Add me to the list of those guilty of this. I didn't become aware of how much hostility some of them had for each other until my daughter, who is a history nerd, and I began reading through biographies on the Founding Fathers.

[–]Astralogist 14ポイント15ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm pretty sure they disagreed more often than they agreed with each other.

[–]entenkin 87ポイント88ポイント  (7子コメント)

That reminds me of some trash documentary I saw where they reconstructed a face from a random skull they found in Jerusalem, and said, "Could this be the face of Jesus?"

Uhhh... Nope, unless you think they all looked the same back then. How much do you look like your next door neighbor?

[–]WilliamofYellow 56ポイント57ポイント  (6子コメント)

To be fair, the ancient Jews would be a lot more ethnically homogenous than modern Americans.

[–]bromand77 569ポイント570ポイント  (88子コメント)

The words: "Et tu, Brute?"

I have met many people who believe, that these were the last words of Caesar, but in fact they are the work of Shakespeare.

EDIT: Changed Brutus to Brute.

[–]Bix_Brecht 146ポイント147ポイント  (21子コメント)

The first time I watched "Rome" I was really looking forward to what they were going to do with Ceasar's last words. I thought it was really well done that he said nothing but then the next episode Brutus drops "et tu mother?" when they're trying to convince him to kill Antony. That and not showing Antony's eulogy of Ceasar, I thought were clever.

[–]Mephistopholees 69ポイント70ポイント  (1子コメント)

I do like when Antony references Brutus' speech, though

It was a marvelous speech, at any rate. A touch cerebral for that crowd, perhaps...

[–]Bix_Brecht 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah that and the guy explain what happened at the end of the episode. I thought it was a great way to make the point without going up against one of Shakespeare's greatest scenes.

[–]bromand77 17ポイント18ポイント  (13子コメント)

Very funny of you to mention that series, as I am watching it at the moment! Watched the last episode of series 1 a few days ago, and watching season 2 now. I'm a fan, and agree: it's very well done!

[–]-Remove_Kebab- 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

I've always thought Ciarán Hinds played Caesar's death perfectly in that he doesn't say it, but you can actually see it in his eyes. Every time I re-watch the show, I just see "et tu, Brute" in his gaze in those moments. They alluded to the popular misconception without repeating it.

[–]thrasumachos 61ポイント62ポイント  (22子コメント)

Well, according to Suetonius, it was kai su teknon, Greek for "and you, my child."

[–]Extraportion 109ポイント110ポイント  (4子コメント)

It is claimed that caesar last words were addressed to brutus and may have said something to that affect. However, the only thing that is relatively reliable is that he saw brutus and covered his face then sort of gave up fighting.

Remember that caesar had forgiven brutus for his stance with pompey during the civil war, he had given him command and all sorts of responsibility. He had essentially saved him. But brutus (same family as those who had a hand in toppling the last of the tyrant kings thus establishing the Republic) perhaps due to some love of the Republic decided to be a liberator and betray what was ostensibly a father figure to him. It's why I love Brutus, either he was a total shit as portrayed in the inferno, or perhaps one of the most Nobel and self sacrificing people to have ever lived (a la swift). Either way I like it.

Incidentally before the whole caesar thing one of the only other mentions of brutus was in a letter of cicero basically stating what a corrupt dick he was, and something regarding wanting a shit tonne of animals to kill in some up coming games. It has been such a long time since I have read up my late roman Republic sources that I am quite rusty.

[–]EgoExertus 162ポイント163ポイント  (12子コメント)

They aren't even his last words in the play. The full statement is: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar."

[–]parkerf14 51ポイント52ポイント  (4子コメント)

It would technically be "Brute," because Brutus would have been used in the Vocative.

Sorry, Latin grammar Nazi

[–]Ekolot 735ポイント736ポイント  (200子コメント)

That Hitler invaded Russia in the winter or the whole reason for his defeat on the Eastern Front was lackluster preparations for the cold.

[–]throw_away909090[S] 276ポイント277ポイント  (156子コメント)

Do you mind elaborating on that point? I think I'm one of the people that fell for that one. :/

[–]Ekolot 714ポイント715ポイント  (147子コメント)

While for one, Hitler invaded in July (edit: late June); start of summer. As to why he lost in the East there are a million reasons but here are the most prominent ones.

1.) vastly underestimating the size and strength of the Soviet military. Although they crushed them in the first few months of the war things stalled at Moscow allowing the Soviets to bring up millions of troops in the reserve to push back the German army.

2.) Supply lines. Too far, too thin, and constantly under attack by partisans. All of this led to under-supplied troops at the front and numerous combat effective German divisions having to be held back in the rear to face the partisans instead of the overarching Soviet threat.

3.) The German high command and Hitler predicted a very short war, "over by Christmas" is the common saying. Hitler was even quoted as saying all you have to do is "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down". When the war dragged on, and new fronts in the west, Italy, etc started opening up Germany became increasingly bogged down.

4.) The Soviets had an almost steady stream of supplies due to a high manufacturing yield and the Lend Lease program from the Allies which gave them enough supplies to equip hundreds of divisions and feed their populace. The Germans on the other hand were relying on bombed out oil fields in Romania, iron ore from Sweden under attack from submarines, and all their production at home was gradually being moved underground or performed by slave (read: unreliable) labor.

5.) Also, a lot of micromanaging on Hitler and his inner circle's part. This led to the encirclement and destruction of entire German armies (see 6th Army in Stalingrad).

This is just a basic rundown, and I'm in no way a historian. There are a lot more reasons.

[–]gmrepublican 159ポイント160ポイント  (43子コメント)

I'll bring up a couple of points here.

The invasion was a three front attack. They were going to go for Leningrad in the North, Moscow through the center, and Ukraine in the south. The first two went well, specifically the trek to Moscow. There are reports of German soldiers being able to see the Kremlin from where they were (although they were likely around 200 kilometers away). Had Hitler pushed on, the Germans may well have captured Moscow.

Rather than push through, Hitler diverted many of the troops fighting on the Northern fronts to the South to fight in Ukraine. By this point, he assumed the opportunity for victory would be there in the Spring. He was, of course, wrong.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor had a large impact as well, if only after the initial German surge in the summer of 1941. Millions of well-trained troops were kept in Siberia to prevent against a Japanese invasion. But, after learning that Japan had no intention of attack the Soviet Union, Stalin relocated these troops immediately to fight against the Germans. Compare an Eastern Russian fighter against a German, and you can see why the invasion was a failure (equipment and familiarity of climate).

[–]MightySasquatch 88ポイント89ポイント  (29子コメント)

The Russians biggest army was in or near Kiev. The Germans couldn't have just ignored it. The reasons the Ukrainian front went so poorly is that was where the best and most numerous Russian troops were. If they ignore it, their front is stretched, it can harass their supply lines. It gives it a chance to regroup. It's all, very risky.

Of course, maybe risk taking would be what is needed to take the Soviet Union out. If instead they diverted everything to Moscow, captured Moscow, and maybe even killed Stalin there is a small chance that the Soviet government collapses. Because I think that was the only chance the Germans had of winning that war.

Even with Stalin killed though I think the Soviet Union fights on.

[–]Artyomic 42ポイント43ポイント  (26子コメント)

It depends when Stalin dies. Stalin was the Soviet government. If he died and there was no clear successor virtually every part of the Soviet war machine would be thrown in chaos.

[–]wrong_hole_lol 17ポイント18ポイント  (39子コメント)

What would have been the optimal strategy for Hitler after his successes in Western Europe?

[–]Ekolot 65ポイント66ポイント  (23子コメント)

It's hard to say, even in hindsight. If Germany had been able to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain, this could have been able to prevent the opening of a Western Front by denying the Allies a bastion but attacking Russia was a catch 22 situation for Germany.

If Germany had waited till their forces had sufficiently rested, recovered, and recouped materiel losses then that would have come at the cost of allowing the Soviets to do the same: revamping their officer corps after the Great Purges and modernizing their military.

Or

Germany could have attacked in the summer of 1941 (they did) and put up with a crippled Soviet military but also the possibility of a two front war with Britain and her allies.

*another interesting thing to consider is how much the outcome of the war would have changed had the Italians not completely fucked up their invasion of the Balkans. The Germans were forced to delay their invasion by of the USSR by several weeks and divert forces to help Italy quell the Balkans. These weeks were crucial because the Germans were at the brink of seizing Moscow before the winter kicked in and immobilized their advance ( if Germany had attacked earlier then maybe this winter storm would have been too late to stall the Germans and halt their conquer of Moscow).

[–]bialyorzel01 28ポイント29ポイント  (16子コメント)

Also, it's questionable how much the capture of Moscow would have actually pushed the Soviets into a peace.

[–]Artyomic 32ポイント33ポイント  (12子コメント)

Even if the Russians would not surrender, there comes a point where they would simply lose the ability to fight. There are only so many factories and people in Russia, and Moscow is an incredibly important city in terms of population and industry.

I mean, the ROC never surrendered to the PRC, but the PRC unquestionably won the Chinese Civil War. Eventually the ROC simply couldn't resist.

[–]bialyorzel01 16ポイント17ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, but even if they took Moscow, they would have had a LOT on their plate with just keeping the sum of their gains. Russia's industrial core lay in the Urals and the US might still have propped them up. Point is, Russia would have still had the capacity to fight even sans Moscow. However, it might have happened, perhaps if Stalin was taken out.

[–]MightySasquatch 24ポイント25ポイント  (3子コメント)

Hitler was ideologically opposed to the Soviet Union and everything he did was an attempt to destroy them. If we want to eliminate that ideological motivation and instead switch to a pure strategic standpoint it gets pretty tough.

After knocking out France Germany does turn it's attention to Britain to take them out as well. This is the Battle of Britain. It's successful early on as they strike mainly at shipping and airbases in the south but as they head north defenders advantage in the form of radar, anti-aircraft artillery and early warning systems gives the British the advantage and they win the conflict.

After losing this there is no hope of being able to invade Britain, which would have been a shoestring at best. At this point Germany only has a limited set of options: 1. Sit and build a navy / bigger airforce and try to invade Britain again in a year or two 2. Send the luftwaffe south, bomb and possibly invade Malta and push east in Egypt. Given lots of equipment the Germans likely could have broken through the British defenses and continued to push East and cut off the Suez canal, stretching British resources. 3. Invade the Soviet Union.

Can't really think of too many other options. I suppose they could have invaded Spain in order to take Gibraltar which would have complicated Allied supply lines. But this would have taken time, it would have taken a ton of troops to occupy (Denmark alone had over 100,000), and the loss of Gibraltar wouldn't do anything to weaken the defense of Britain. Spain was also an ideological ally so that would have caused some backlash as well. Likewise taking Egypt and even if they could push farther east than that and taken Iraq/Palestine I'm not sure it would have ended up accomplishing much.

In any case the real problem is that the Soviet Union was practically a ticking time bomb. There is a theory that the reason the Soviet Union had it's air force so far forward during Operation Barbarossa is they were planning on invading the Germans. This is just a theory but I do believe that the Soviet Union would have invaded Germany in 1942 or 1943 if they were preoccupied with other activities, like building up for Britain or attacking in the Med.

So Germany really had only one choice if it was to remain at war, and that was invade the Soviet Union.

It is possible they could have sued for peace though. Perhaps taken Alcase-Lorraine back, kept Czechoslovakia and Austria and the German speaking parts of Poland (the Danzig Corridor). Of course this goes against Nazi ideology, the German economy at the time was geared for war, and I'm not even sure the Brits would have listened even if Germany gave up France. Plus the Allies could have just gone back to war after rebuilding in a few years.

tl;dr there weren't really any good options

[–]sevensidedmarble 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

Another option I've considered is digging in after the Battle of Britain failed. Calling it a day if you will. Egypt is indeed a tempting target, but the Germans should have done everything in their power to avoid war with the USSR, consolidate their power in the huge tracts of territory they've already taken, and wait out/build sufficient infrastructure to deter an allied invasion until the allies are ready to broker a peace deal. If they did that, they might have succeeded in taking over most of Central Europe and keeping it into peace time. It's the same thing that ultimately happened to Napoleon, he had set some goals too damn high.

[–]Artyomic 35ポイント36ポイント  (15子コメント)

Additionally:

  • The Germans thought the Russians had about 10% of the tanks they actually had. OKW was stunned by how many Stalin had at his disposal. Granted, a lot were death traps, but tanks nonetheless.

  • The Germans invaded a bit too late. It's possible that a May invasion rather than June would have been successful.

  • The Germans decided to attack Kursk, even though the Russians knew they were coming. The Russians had time to build 300km deep of fortifications, station millions of men, thousands of tanks and guns, and uncountable landmines. Quite possibly the single strongest fortified line ever built.

  • The Germans invaded Russia and didn't bring coats.

  • Later in the war, Germany abandoned the reason for its success, its mobility. Instead Hitler chose fortress city doctrine.

  • The German economy didn't fully mobilize until shockingly late in the war.

[–]marisacoulter 9ポイント10ポイント  (2子コメント)

I'm reading Stalingrad by Jochen Hellbeck right now- in one night, August 23 1942, workers in a Stalingrad factory built or repaired 60 tanks to use against the German invasion the next morning, apparently.

[–]Artyomic 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

Ah yes, the famous Stalingrad Tank Factory. At times, the workers would finish a tank and soldiers would drive it directly off the production line into combat several blocks away. Occasionally tanks were sent off into combat before even being given gunsights.

[–]Ranger33 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Also, the fact that the railroads in Russia used a different gauge of track from the railroads in Europe. The Germans had to replace the tracks as they went, or waste time unloading stuff from one train and loading onto another.

Kursk always blows my mind. I just can't even picture what it looked like, what it must have been like for the Germans to fight through one heavily fortified line and find another right behind it.

[–]R0cket_Surgeon 258ポイント259ポイント  (28子コメント)

I was pretty clueless about the more gritty details until I listened to Dan Carlins "Ghosts of the Ostfront" series.

What absolute insanity Operation Barbarossa was, it's like you find it hard to believe it actually took place yet there are still veterans who fought in it, alive today.

[–]SmEvans1 95ポイント96ポイント  (13子コメント)

Gotta love Dan Carlin, I'm halfway through his blueprint for armagedden series myself. He's very good at presenting the true horror of history.

[–]R0cket_Surgeon 38ポイント39ポイント  (8子コメント)

You should check out his "Logical Insanity" episode as well, his descriptions and anecdotes of what it was like on the ground under the late war allied bombing campaigns is so dark and grim I actually got emotional listening to it.

[–]oohKillah00H 1020ポイント1021ポイント  (165子コメント)

Every year I see people praising Guy Fawkes because they watched V for Vendetta, and I just think of him as a religious extremist who fought, murdered, and used terrorism to impose Catholicism on others.

[–]Suchanuglybaby 522ポイント523ポイント  (113子コメント)

People who praise him because of V for Vendetta obviously didn't get V for Vendetta...

[–]TurMoiL911 242ポイント243ポイント  (19子コメント)

V for Vendetta also ends right before everybody has to figure out how their country is going to function because they just toppled a totalitarian government with no plans for a replacement.

Or as the movie alludes to...

[–]ContraPositive 60ポイント61ポイント  (57子コメント)

People also read Watchmen and think it is in praise of Ayn Rand.

[–]Suchanuglybaby 45ポイント46ポイント  (31子コメント)

Which... How?

[–]Vironomics 67ポイント68ポイント  (13子コメント)

At a guess... They view Ozymandias as a self-made capitalistic hero in the same vein as John Galt, who willfully dominates parasitic governments and subsumes them to his will. Any casualties in this pursuit are acceptable, as the life of a parasite is worthless since they are nothing more than a drain on society, and if the deceased had been heroic capitalists they would have been able to act in their own self-interest and save themselves.

[–]falconear 26ポイント27ポイント  (9子コメント)

Well, to begin with the characters are adaptations of the Charlton Comics characters. Rorschach in particular was based on a character called The Question, created by Steve Ditko (of Spider-man fame). Steve was absolutely an Objectivist, and pushed that onto his characters.

So when Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, he made Rorschach a sort of parody of those sort of absolutist ideals. "Never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon," is a cool phrase but a terrible practice. In my opinion anybody who thinks Watchmen was praising this philosophy needs to go back and read it again. Alan Moore was clearly making the point that life requires compromise, and there's no clear right or wrong/ good or evil choices, and you'll probably feel dirty when it's all done.

Edit: added 2 words.

[–]Spiritofchokedout 61ポイント62ポイント  (10子コメント)

People love to impose Randian views onto any superhero story because it's really really easy to find supporting evidence for that argument.

"Oh here we have someone operating outside of the bounds of the law and styling themselves as special and 'apart' from the crowd because of their exceptional abilities..."

It's so amateur lit class it's almost pitiful. I wouldn't even mind if there wasn't a fresh deluge of 18 year-olds re-iterating some Cracked.com piece from 2009 every single year like it's a fresh observation or some hidden meaning that is the lens through which the genre should be viewed.

For all the legitimate criticism you can lobby at Alan Moore he was smart enough to make V for Vendetta as much of a condemnation of terrorism as it was a self-righteous "fight the power" piece, and Watchmen was largely a metatextual exercise and not "what if superheroes but were real and totally realism real?"


Incidentally the rebuttal to almost all of these arguments is "Yes that is a very valid overtone/undertone you picked up on. Did you ever consider that these are primarily Gods and Monsters stories starring modern and postmodern archetypes of post-industrial humans whose outsized conflicts use a stylized version of our society as window dressing? Maybe it really is that simple, and that simplicity doesn't mean stupid?"

[–]DruFigg 36ポイント37ポイント  (5子コメント)

Then there's people who confuse the fictional character V with the historical person Guy Fawkes, like what appears to have happened several times in this thread.

[–]Nyther53 296ポイント297ポイント  (49子コメント)

The idea that the 300 Spartans stood alone at Thermopylae to delay the Persians. They weren't even a third of the total greek force that stayed behind for the delaying action, there were over a thousand thespians as well that everyone just deletes from the story because they want it to be about how badass the Spartans were.

[–]fhizfhiz_fucktroy 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

yes, but remember that 99% of the thespians died (not sure if that's before they fled or if they just eventually died), and after days there there were still over half of the 300 left.

Sure the spartans saw their helots and probably the thespians to some extent as expendable and probably used them to help block the blow. But I still think they deserve most of the praise they get. But that misinterpretation does bother me as well.

[–]RARhovan 486ポイント487ポイント  (86子コメント)

That the French were cowards and prone to surrendering. Or that they were not skilled fighters.

Many many reasons relate to their swift loss at the beginning of WW2 but the skill and bravery of the average man on the line wasn't one of them.

[–]vikingzx 196ポイント197ポイント  (29子コメント)

No kidding. Read some stories of the French Resistance and they did some amazing stuff.

Their rapid loss had much more to do with their leaders being both unconvinced of the power and utility of the tank and their belief that their WW-I style Maginot Line and a lack of preparedness for Germany's new tactic: blitzkrieg.

They lost, but there were a lot of reasons for it.

[–]insaneHoshi 85ポイント86ポイント  (8子コメント)

Their belief in the maginot line was solid, it achieve its purpose, which was to decrease the front width and to force Germany to attack through Belgium and Netherlands slowing them down and bringing the uk into the war

[–]Thjoth 32ポイント33ポイント  (3子コメント)

The French military sustained around 40,000 to 60,000 casualties in under a month when the Germans invaded. They were certainly fighting, but they were being routinely outmaneuvered and outgunned, to say nothing of the initial surprise when the Nazi invasion went around the Maginot line. Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples of French bravery and combat ability at the time. They effectively saved most of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, as French and Belgian troops held the line to let the British and wounded evacuate, until they literally ran out of ammunition. The Italians invaded France after they were already broken by the Germans, but they met the shattered, drunken remnants of the French first army and were repulsed so overwhelmingly that French soldiers actually crossed the border headed the other direction. There are plenty of others.

The French decision to surrender was more of an attempt to preserve a population they could possibly fight with later, rather than allow the entire French military to fight to a man and end up with nothing but ashes.

[–]FinlandAAR 32ポイント33ポイント  (7子コメント)

Funny thing was that the French tanks were really good, perhaps even better than the German ones. They just weren't utilized properly.

[–]The_Blue_Guy 14ポイント15ポイント  (2子コメント)

You are right they were definitely better than the German tanks. the advantage German tanks had were more experience due to the Spanish conflict and a better doctrine on how to use them in combat. In a one one one confrontation the french tanks had better arms and Armour but the Germans massed their tanks to attack important areas and out maneuvered the slower french tanks

[–]reximhotep 67ポイント68ポイント  (31子コメント)

Where does that come from? Here in Europe we certainly do not think that, we hold Napoleons military skills in rather high esteem.

[–]Wakiem_ 107ポイント108ポイント  (12子コメント)

I think it's mostly an American inside joke about WW2.
Between its unification and that of Germany hundreds of years later it was basically the greatest power in Europe.

[–]Azrael11 77ポイント78ポイント  (4子コメント)

Yeah I think it started off with the WWII loss, then was compounded by their later defeats in Vietnam and Algeria. Plus their messing with NATO and developing their own nuclear capability was seen a fuck you to the credibility of US protection in the Cold War. So, cue the French military jokes that then got ingrained into US culture.

Then in 2003 when France didn't back us in Iraq they all got revived.

[–]Samocoptor 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

And English. Although that's just because it's a point of British pride to insist we're better than the French, there's no real malicious point to it though.

[–]Arkonthorn 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

As a french I can vouch for the sentiment. We love to tease each other in this fashion and I plan to make my love of those damn brits and their culture and humor a secret until my last breath.

[–]Samocoptor 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

Damn straight. You'd be hard pressed to find one of us who openly admit it, but the English love the French really. Only makes the rivalry bigger, though.

This comic pretty much explains it.

[–]ThusShatZarathustra 728ポイント729ポイント  (49子コメント)

Judging the past on 21st century morality.

You've failed as a historian if you do this.

[–]Youandmcgregor 106ポイント107ポイント  (28子コメント)

I like your approach. Good to ponder. I'm just curious what exactly you mean in more detail. In ancient Greece, the great philosophers discussed ideas of justice and fairness etc. Righteousness is a topic of many ancient texts. Most of 21st century morality seems to justify itself with supporting arguments from ancient texts (the bible, the Tao, the upanishads, the great works of Plato and so on).

[–]doctormink 70ポイント71ポイント  (4子コメント)

Arguably, the notion of a 21st century morality is about as misguided as talk of ancient morality. Different eras, and different regions within these eras have different moral codes. Probably the one most marked change is a shift away from an eye for an eye conception of justice towards a more rationalistic system. However, this is a relatively pragmatic as this shift is essential for mass civilizations. You just can't have a rational organized civilization if everyone is running around avenging blood debts.

Nowadays, if we look at the world, especially on a global scale, we're not going to find great consensus on moral issues. As a side note, I also don't see many philosophers studying Plato's moral thought. Aristotle maybe, but not Plato so much.

edit: typo

[–]Carnieus 52ポイント53ポイント  (13子コメント)

A good example of this is when people try to discredit Martin Luther King because he may have been homophobic by today's standards.

[–]J662b486h 277ポイント278ポイント  (43子コメント)

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is often reviled for "not really freeing the slaves", because it applied only to the states in rebellion where it couldn't be enforced and not to the few slave states that had remained in the Union. The actual context of the times is more complicated than that.

First of all, the Proclamation itself stated that the slaves would "henceforward and forever" be free, meaning that after the war ended and the states rejoined the Union the slaves would still be free (and of course if the South won then it didn't matter what Lincoln did). So you could argue it did free the slaves, but it took some time to be implemented.

Even more, it helps to have an understanding of some of the fundamental issues behind the war. Many of the anti-slavery moderates in the North believed the best way to end slavery was to contain it where it currently was practiced, so that it would eventually wither and die as the country grew with all free states. The Southern states agreed with this analysis and believed it was critical to their survival that new states enter the union as slave states. This led to the upheaval and violence in Kansas over whether it would be admitted as a slave or free state, which in turn was a major contributor to the South's decision to leave the union.

So when Lincoln declared all the South would re-enter the Union as free states it was recognized by his contemporaries, both North and South, that this meant the few remaining slave states would inevitably wither and die off. And in fact the Proclamation was the first step in the eventual passing of the 13th amendment.

As one final thought: if Lincoln hadn't issued the Emancipation Proclamation (and assuming no one else did either, of course) then after the war the Southern states would have re-entered the Union as slave states. We'll never know how long it would have taken under that scenario before slavery was finally eradicated.

[–]Evolving_Dore 156ポイント157ポイント  (12子コメント)

Not to mention the Emancipation Proclamation instantly freed about 30,000 (I believe) slaves in rebel states that had been recaptured by the Union.

What really bothers me is when people use Lincoln's quote about "winning the war without freeing the slaves" as some sort of indication that he didn't want to free them. In full context, it's clear that he meant the opposite: that winning the war was so important that he would do it even without freeing the slaves.

Here's the full quote:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

And here are a few more Lincoln quotes, which make his personal views on slavery even clearer:

"I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist."

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it, is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow."

"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism."

And people still try to say that Lincoln didn't want to free the slaves.

[–]flossdaily 34ポイント35ポイント  (3子コメント)

You're leaving out the key issue surrounding the Proclamation.

The entire legal authority of the Proclamation was based on the notion that the President's constitutionally granted war powers could override the constitutional protections of slavery.

Lincoln believed he had no authority to free slaves in states that he was not at war with.

[–]stuffinhead 179ポイント180ポイント  (13子コメント)

Well the whole issue of identity politics has been pretty much adressed, but to name a few specifics:

-nationalism: the projection of current states onto the past, which not only misinterprets the structure of older states but also antropomorphises them as actors. States, like corporations, are not people.

-the myth of progress (usually linked to western identity): The idea that history is a constant progress of improvement, and that ideas that were unsuccessful were always rightly discarded. It leads to arrogance that blinds us to make the same mistakes.

-the idea of history as merely the choices and actions of a few key figures at 'turning points'. Changes are slow, our biases just keep us from seeing them until a point where they become undeniable.

[–]Level3Kobold 38ポイント39ポイント  (5子コメント)

Itheres also the fallacy of "inevitable history", which glosses over or minimizes the significance of individuals. People like Cortez, Augustus Caesar, George Washington, Henry The 8th, William the conqueror, Genghis Khan, Karl Marx, etc greatly impacted the development of history due largely to being the right person in the right place at the right time.

[–]BtmnDetroitDeserves 7ポイント8ポイント  (3子コメント)

It's also important to realize the power of ideology and how the cultural moment influenced these people instead of looking at them as completely free actors who made choices purely of their own free will.

Ideologies do not need people intentionally organizing and maintaining them. That's the whole thing about ideologies: they are things you wake up "knowing" without question. Thus, I believe we overemphasize this "great man" theory because we think that these figures were suspended above ideology.

[–]GermanGamering 73ポイント74ポイント  (10子コメント)

It bothers me how effective British propaganda was in convincing people then and now that napoleon was short.

[–]Bert_the_Avenger 25ポイント26ポイント  (6子コメント)

Same with carrots and good eyesight.

[–]dpash 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

It was pretty good and hiding the development of radar though. :)

[–]rivershimmer 126ポイント127ポイント  (29子コメント)

It bothers me when people misinterpret life expectancy. If life expectancy at birth is thirty, it usually doesn't mean most die in their late twenties/early thirties and few if any lucky fucks made it to sixty. It means infant and child mortality is so high it skews the stats.

It also bothers me when people think that prior to 1920, everyone married by 14 or so in America and Europe.

[–]house221b 55ポイント56ポイント  (8子コメント)

Scotsman here. My biggest bug is that people think William Wallace was a kilt wearing freedom fighter with the ST Andrews flag painted across his face

The English were pure evil.

England actually ruled us in agreement from our lords and brought a lot of people out of poverty. I'm not saying they were all perfect human beings but it's a tall order to believe that all English people were evil.

Bravehearts depictions aren't aided by the fact that Stirling, Scotland has a massive statue of Mel Gibson as William Wallace erected in the city.

[–]dpash 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

I remember reading lots of people during the referendum talking about how the English invaded Scotland, ignoring that a) the two kingdoms were united in personal union under a Scottish king and b) the Scottish Lairds sold the nation out to the English in return for being compensated for their losses in the great Darien debacle. It was the Acts of Union after all, not the Acts of Conquest.

Now, the Welsh on the other hand? They have a genuine grievance.

(That's not to say that Westminster didn't carry out some honestly terrible policies in Scotland)

[–]MacMillan_the_First 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

It amazes me how people think that the average Scot gave a shit about who ruled them in the days before defined 'nationalities'. William Wallace and Robert Bruce didn't fight for the country, they fought for the Crown to be theirs, and had to sway the people and nobility to them.

[–]gilker 146ポイント147ポイント  (14子コメント)

That Texas fought for independence due to Mexican injustice. The fact that the Mexican government had abolished slavery shortly beforehand had nothing to do with it. Says so by omission right there in every Texas history book.

[–]Flarping 53ポイント54ポイント  (6子コメント)

Not only that, but part of the long term plan was to eventually outnumber the Mexicans in the region so the American immigrants could at some point seize control. The story is VERY similar to the annexation of Hawaii - pretend that this new, independent nation is requesting to join the U.S., as if annexation wasn't the goal the entire time. It just looks bad if America conquers another country's territory outright without "enough" reason.

Side note: I'm a person of Mexican descent living in Texas who definitely prefers Texas being part of the U.S.

[–]Mspeck1986 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

Fun fact of the day: many of the German immigrants who'd settled in the region sided with Mexico during the 1848 Mexican-American War and would leave to what would become present day Mexico after its defeat.

We still wound up with a large enough German population that it was the second most common spoken language up until WW2 and a German-Texan dialect that is estimated to become extinct within the next 30 years or so.

[–]bombaEZ 186ポイント187ポイント  (23子コメント)

Magellan circumnavigated the world. No, he died in the Philippines before he could finish his damn trip.

[–]IgnisDomini 581ポイント582ポイント  (110子コメント)

The whole "Dark Ages" thing.

It's called the "Dark Ages" because we know less about it than the Roman Empire, not because it sucked. Also, renaissance writers shat on it constantly as a way of claiming themselves to be better than their predecessors, not because of how it actually was.

Knowledge was not "lost" during the Dark Ages. In fact, many new things were invented, such as the flying buttress. The reason there weren't the same feats of engineering then as there were under Rome was because the small, decentralized post-roman kingdoms simply couldn't muster the resources necessary for them, not because they didn't know how.

Also, the Church did not suppress knowledge and understanding after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (The Eastern one was doing just fine by the way), they played a huge role in preserving knowledge and furthering academic and scientific knowledge. A few incidents, such as Galileo (who was imprisoned not because of his discoveries but because he was a political enemy of the current pope - his discoveries were just a convenient excuse) do not mean that the Church "hated science."

Edit: Forgot to mention the most notorious example of this myth. I present to you, THE CHART! This stupid thing is an inside joke in and of itself over on /r/badhistory.

[–]haby112 255ポイント256ポイント  (22子コメント)

While you're not wrong about that there is a misconception, it isn't an all or nothing deal.

The term Dark Ages was explicitly a Renaissance term used to shit on, what they considered, unenlightened people who lived between them and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

There was real knowledge that was lost. Some engineering techniques disappeared completely in western Europe that can't just be hand waved away with economic poverty. Entire collections of Greek and Roman thinkers were lost forever. Though it is true that the Medieval periods did see advances and developments of their own, and there was not a complete stagnation of technological or scientific advancments.

The church did not conduct uniform suppression of the sciences, and it is true that many Christian traditions were paramount in preserving what knowledge did survive. Though there were various things that the church and its constituents did do that fucked things up, including occasional instances of suppression. If anything, the churches biggest folly was their devaluing of Roman and Greek sources, especially pre Augustine. This is especially apparent in the various instances of monastic manuscripts being written right over washed off Greek and Roman writings.

[–]moultano 161ポイント162ポイント  (11子コメント)

What really drove this home for me was the coin collection in the basement of the National Museum of Rome. The coins are arranged chronologically through Rome's history, and accompanying each coin is a description of the motivation for its particular design and what was going on at the time. The coins from the Roman Empire look almost modern in the complexity of their designs. As soon as Rome was conquered, the coins start to look like they were made in a 6th grade art class, and never recover until the Renaissance. There's certainly a lot to say about the Dark Ages that is more complicated than the popular narrative but you can't look at that sequence of coins and deny that something real was lost.

[–]antiquarian_bookworm 79ポイント80ポイント  (8子コメント)

I collect ancient coins, and can verify that...

Coins of the Constantinian period (4th century) ---> http://www.google.com/search?q=Coins+of+the+Constantinian+period&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u

A lot of the coins (above) of that period are so well made, that people who have never seen them before don't believe they are real ancient coins.

Coins of the Vandals occupying parts of western empire --> http://www.google.com/search?q=roman+coins+of+vandals+&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u

Coins of Ostrogoths in Rome ---> http://www.google.com/search?q=roman+coins+of+ostrogoths&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u

I have a gothic coin done about 6th century, and it is a forgery of Justin II, and the portrait of the emperor looks like Bart Simpson.

[–]FoiledFencer 9ポイント10ポイント  (6子コメント)

I have a gothic coin done about 6th century, and it is a forgery of Justin II, and the portrait of the emperor looks like Bart Simpson.

If you upload a picture you will make my day.

[–]antiquarian_bookworm 17ポイント18ポイント  (5子コメント)

Your spiky haired emperor, Justin II, or maybe Justinian I (obverse) ---> http://i.imgur.com/F43rIWL.jpg

reverse, showing "M", 40 nummi value ---> http://i.imgur.com/scFnC2p.jpg

This coin is likely an imitation made by the tribe called Gepid, judging by the art style. They neighbored the Byzantine empire, to the north west.

An official 40 nummi coin of Justinian I ---> http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/gandinga/id/jnian1/jn1044.jpg

I'm not sure if that is a mimic of Justin II, or Justinian I. Notice the attempted letters "SPP" on the mimic.

I like the "barbaric" and ancient forgery coins, because they tend to be very unique.

[–]macemillion 70ポイント71ポイント  (2子コメント)

Yeah the idea that NO knowledge was lost after the fall of the western Roman Empire is simply not true. It's not that everything was lost, but as you state some key engineering techniques definitely were, amongst other things.

[–]AsKoalaAsPossible 74ポイント75ポイント  (21子コメント)

It's pretty strange that THE CHART lists that era as the "Christian Dark Age", acknowledging the fact that different religions and cultures were going through different historical periods at the same time, but it fails to account for the Muslim Golden Age, which more or less fills that gap.

[–]Sol_Oriens 36ポイント37ポイント  (8子コメント)

Flying buttresses and advances of the High Middle Age were made after centuries of recovery from economic downturn. The centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in Europe were fraught with famine, warfare, and an extreme and noticeable lack of quality buildings being constructed and quality earthenware etc being made, not to mention a sudden localization of trade goods and much lower agricultural yields including smaller livestock.

[–]grog23 49ポイント50ポイント  (5子コメント)

I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but how do we know the Renaissance writers weren't actually telling the truth? How can we verify what they were saying was right?

[–]IgnisDomini 65ポイント66ポイント  (4子コメント)

Because while there weren't as many writings from the Dark Ages that survived, there still were writings, and lack of firsthand accounts doesn't mean a lack of archaeological evidence.

What we do know of the Dark Ages contradicts the idea that they were a time of misery and ignorance, like how pop culture presents them.

[–]VillainsDefender 102ポイント103ポイント  (22子コメント)

That the Boston tea party was a response to the British taxing tea. It was actually a response to the British scrapping taxes on tea, as while it was taxed black market smugglers make huge sums of money undercutting official sellers. When the tax was scrapped they could no longer compete and angrily responded by throwing the tea into the harbour.

[–]Sonos 22ポイント23ポイント  (6子コメント)

The whole War for Independence urks me when people talk about it.

The fact most people think it was Patriots Rebels vs the British. No. The colonies were almost 50/50.

[–]zazzy440 76ポイント77ポイント  (28子コメント)

That the stock market crash of 1929 caused the Great Depression.

[–]throw_away909090[S] 47ポイント48ポイント  (12子コメント)

I definitely thought this one was true. I'm guessing there were other factors at play, but how much of a role did the crash have?

[–]antiquarian_bookworm 98ポイント99ポイント  (7子コメント)

Technically, the stock market crash was more of a symptom than a direct cause. The cause was over extension of lending, and overly enthusiastic investment (beyond real value). Very similar to the crash of 2007-8.

[–]HighTreason25 12ポイント13ポイント  (1子コメント)

So the crash was more of a wake up call to the state of the economy, rather than the actual cause?

[–]jesse9o3 19ポイント20ポイント  (0子コメント)

IMO it's somewhat akin to what the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in relation to WW1. Events had been brewing for years and then suddenly one big incident which creates a situation that spirals out of control.

So for WW1 it's decades of stuff like the Bosnian Crisis, Moroccan Crises, Entente Cordialé etc. then you've got the Assassination which leads to the July Crisis which thanks to the decades of build up goes from a regional dispute into one of the bloodiest wars in history.

The Great Depression isn't all that dissimilar. You've got about a decade of prosperity with people buying all the latest goods and investing in the stock market but towards the end of the 1920s the cracks start to show. Because people were always buying the latest goods there was massive oversaturation of the market, companies were producing far more goods than they could shift. Then you might ask how people could afford all these new goods? Simple, they borrowed from banks or invested in the stock market. It was a boom period, loans were cheap and stocks were almost always on the up. Trouble is this led to the banks lending far, far more money than they actually had, but this wouldn't be a problem, I mean not unless everyone tried to take out all of their money at once for some reason.

And unfortunately that did happen, thanks to the Crash. A lot of money was lost just on the Crash, between October 28th and October 29th, over $30 billion was lost. This fairly quickly spiraled out of control as many people who had borrowed to buy stocks could no longer afford to payback their loans so when the inevitable rush to withdraw money following the crash the banks simply didn't have enough to give out. This crashed the banks and lost a lot of money in savings so people could no longer afford the goods companies had gone into debt to make, assuming they'd make back the money quickly. This meant they either had to lay people off or close down, which meant even more people had even less money which just created a horrible cycle of less customers, less jobs, less money and repeat. What this also meant is that very few people could afford their mortgages so homelessness went up massively. And since no one had any money, the prices of goods plummeted, exacerbating the problem of unemployment but also meant that with farmers for example, corn and milk was worth so little that they either let it rot or poured it down the drain in an attempt to raise prices. This combined with the mortgages foreclosing and the Dust Bowl devastated the American farming industry with around 750,000 farms closing between 1930 and 1935. It was just horrible for pretty much everyone up until the 1940s.

So yeah, the Crash was merely the first push that brought the rest of the dominoes of the Depression down

[–]sach223 8ポイント9ポイント  (8子コメント)

This isn't true? What caused it then. Just curious

[–]-ARedditUser- 187ポイント188ポイント  (51子コメント)

That Hitler only caused the deaths of Jews. He killed Gays, Blacks, Slavs and well over 11,000,000 of them.

[–]ialwaysforgetmename 76ポイント77ポイント  (29子コメント)

Are there people actually saying he only killed Jews? People tend to focus on exterminating the Jews which is different than saying he didn't try exterminating other groups as well.

[–]tripwire7archaeologist of new, week 18 141ポイント142ポイント  (27子コメント)

People tend to quote "6 million" as the number of Holocaust victims, when in reality it was 11 million, 6 million was just the Jewish victims.

[–]Batyrsik 46ポイント47ポイント  (4子コメント)

And that's if you don't include all the people in the USSR the Nazis starved to death or killed. Then it runs up to almost 30 million. Nobody ever remembers that.

[–]Narwhalburgerbear 10ポイント11ポイント  (2子コメント)

I was taught during black history month that Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, was black. I know several other people that were taught this as well from different schools. It really pissed me off to find out he was white. Also, George Washington Carver has nothing to do with the invention of peanut butter. Ancient civilizations ate peanut butter.

[–]IAMColonelFlaggAMA 67ポイント68ポイント  (9子コメント)

That people thought Columbus would fail because they believed Earth was flat. Not only did they know that Earth is round, they had a pretty accurate measurement of the circumference. People thought Columbus would fail because they didn't know the Americas were there, and thought it was all open ocean.

[–]waaarg 42ポイント43ポイント  (2子コメント)

And Columbus believed the earth to be roughly 1/3 of it's actual size. He thought it would be a short trip through that open ocean, when in reality everyone knew it was a long, long, long way to India and he wasn't planning on enough supplies to make it.

He completely lucked out that there were the Americas there, because had they not been and he kept on going through to India they would have all starved to death long before they got there

[–]Tinfoilpain 27ポイント28ポイント  (6子コメント)

Does anyone else have no idea what to believe after reading parts of this thread? I just wanted to be entertained while I eat my burrito.

[–]ddett23 19ポイント20ポイント  (1子コメント)

Actually there exists several sources that contradict your burrito theory. In reality Tinfoilpain was eating a taco because Mexico didn't like that they were losing money by exporting burritos.

[–]Matrix_V 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

Actually it's more complicated than that. Part of the political unease regarding burrito export laws of the time was related to consumer confidence regarding Mexican vs foreign burritos.

[–]MadGadFly_ 75ポイント76ポイント  (29子コメント)

For me living in Canada, being taught that Canada won the War of 1812 irritates me the most. Especially when our history teachers brag about how WE razed the White House.

[–]-ARedditUser- 48ポイント49ポイント  (5子コメント)

OMG SO TRUE. Everyone in my class thinks that except for Americans in the class. It was a stalemate and Canada wasn't even a country back then.

[–]The1trueboss 41ポイント42ポイント  (2子コメント)

Until I came on Reddit I never realized that this myth existed. But it appears to be held by many Canadians (although some Americans believe we won every war we were in hands down), I can't understand how a British army of Regulars brought up from being stationed in the Caribbean somehow translates to Canadians. Burning the White House, and winning the war. Even though that army then marched towards Baltimore and lost.

[–]SoftBeej 237ポイント238ポイント  (80子コメント)

People who say the United States was founded as a Christian nation. People that think our founding fathers were Christian and use that to argue that we need to "go back to Christian values in this country". Just pure ignorance of US history.

[–]the_kicker_of_elves 90ポイント91ポイント  (20子コメント)

That is fair, but you also cannot say that none of the founding fathers were influenced by religion. The truth is it was a mix. The "Founding Fathers" were not a single group with a single opinion.

[–]self_driving_sanders 61ポイント62ポイント  (0子コメント)

"influenced by religion" is miles away from "establishing a Christian Nation" though.

[–]lillyluminatus 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

Being influenced by the mainstream of thought and ideology in your time isn't exactly the same thing as promoting a theocracy. I know that's not what you're saying, but I think it's the "America was intended to be a theocracy" line of thought that the commenter is objecting to.

[–]MentalPatient 110ポイント111ポイント  (10子コメント)

What bothers me is that history is being called fact in general. :-)

Let's face it, some stories just get distorted with the passage of time.

[–]MacMillan_the_First 22ポイント23ポイント  (2子コメント)

The opposite of this is what annoys me.

People disregard how much we actually know, people think that there were a few historians kicking around throughout the course of history when in fact there were loads from which we can piece together history.

[–]brainsick_noodle 35ポイント36ポイント  (4子コメント)

I hate hearing people talk about "The Greeks" and "The Romans" etc, as if those groups were homogeneous across space and time. The massive variations in cultural, religious and philosophical experience found throughout the countries inhabited by those people and across the thousands of years that they existed, cannot be accurately represented by the handful of famous literary sources commonly cited and generally known. E. R. Dodds put it well: "And we must beware especially of attributing to a timeless and unlocated phantom, called 'the Greek', what were in fact the highly personal judgements of some man of genius, an Aeschylus or a Plato. Consider what a fantastic caricature would result if some future historian set out to reconstruct the religion of the Englishman from a comparative study of Paradise Lost, the philosophy of Berkeley, and the poems of William Blake." - E. R. Dodds, The Ancient Concept of Progress and other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief

Edit: a word

[–]kerat 69ポイント70ポイント  (9子コメント)

For me without a doubt it is the whole "Al-Ghazali was anti science and destroyed the Islamic Golden Age with his dogma" popularized by none other than Neil Degrasse Tyson and evangelized ever since on Reddit by his army of fans

[–]Wakiem_ 45ポイント46ポイント  (3子コメント)

And how Bruno and Galilei were innocent, well-meaning sages who only got shut up because they presented the inconvenient truth to the violent oppressors in the Catholic establishment.

[–]pikachoosey 107ポイント108ポイント  (14子コメント)

Ada lovelace is the first computer programmer. Charles Babbage invented the analytical engine and wrote the first programs for it. Thus he should be the first programmer.

Ada lovelace translated a paper on the analytical engine and made notes about it. The program she is credited "note g" with was written by babbage.

https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html

[–]IgnisDomini 83ポイント84ポイント  (1子コメント)

To be fair, Ada Lovelace did do other important things for the early field of computer science, she just didn't do that.

[–]TigerExpress 38ポイント39ポイント  (0子コメント)

Probably the most important thing Ada Lovelace did, though not intentionally, was to inspire Grace Hopper. There's much evidence that the programs Ada is given credit for were really written by Babbage but Lovelace seems to have come up with the concept of the subroutine on her own, which is an idea that Hopper revived and pushed into the mainstream of computing. Without Hopper reading Lovelace's writing, she might have never pushed for subroutines. They eventually would have been invented independently and Lovelace's contribution rendered a historical dead end.

[–]GaryTheKrampus 21ポイント22ポイント  (10子コメント)

The modern celebration of the Analytical Engine is pretty generous to both Babbage and Lovelace, if you ask me. It was never built and in fact could never have been built. We have to take a few liberties with Babbage's design to get a Turing-complete Engine, which isn't surprising, because the concept of universal computation would have hardly made sense at the time. While the Analytical Engine's data processing capabilities were pretty impressive, they were lifted from the earlier Jacquard Loom, which (IMHO) ought to be more celebrated.

While we're at it, it pains me that computer-science-historians aren't nearly as generous to the Incan khipu from over 400 years earlier. They developed a tree data structure that could store numeric data, developed numerous data storage protocols and encodings (including encodings of nominal, non-quantitative data!!), and standardized these protocols for data communication across the empire. They even encoded algorithms on khipu which could be systematically executed on new data. For people living in the 1400s in pre-Columbian South America, that's insane! If you know anything about the importance of the tree in computer science, the khipu seems downright anachronistic.

[–]scatgreen2 21ポイント22ポイント  (4子コメント)

The three-fifths rule. Southern slave owners would have loved for slaves to be counted as whole persons because they were the ones benefitting.

[–]theMan_fromJapan 14ポイント15ポイント  (0子コメント)

Two things that might have been said:

1) Einstein wasn't bad at math when he was young. He was quoted saying he mastered differential and integral calculus before the age of 15.

2) Michael Jordan wasn't cut from the basketball team as a sophomore in highschool. Jordan didn't make his varsity team because he was 5'10" and his friend Leroy Smith made it instead, at 6'7" because they were in need of height and had a lot of upper classmen. I think every basketball coach in the country would have done this in order to allow Jordan to get solid playing time on JV instead of riding the bench on varsity.

These two stories should not be used as "failures make it out to be successes" stories. My teacher in high school had a poster with these examples and it pissed me off every day.

[–]Commogroth 248ポイント249ポイント  (51子コメント)

The Crusades. Nearly everyone gets this one wrong. After several centuries of violent Muslim expansion and conquest, the Seljuk Turks were banging on the doors of Byzantine. Byzantine asked Rome for help repelling the invaders. This defensive war then morphed into an attempt to recapture other lands the Muslims had conquered-- most importantly The Holy Land. For some reason, everyone forgets all about the Muslim conquests that sparked the Crusades, and just labels them as crazy Christian aggression.

[–]ann50331 110ポイント111ポイント  (5子コメント)

It's not quite right to say that it was all retaliation. It is sort of akin to blaming he death of franz Ferdinand for ww1, there is much more going on.

The crusades were a holy war in the same way that the Muslim conquests were. It became an opportunity to conquer, not just defend. It lasted over 200 years and was headed by many different popes. The idea was to reclaim the holy land.

Saying a 200 year bloody and prolonged crusade occurred as a defense against Muslim conquests in turkey is a bit too simplistic.

[–]ODISY 72ポイント73ポイント  (31子コメント)

That American Sherman tanks were bad tanks, fuck you history channel!