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Post a cool historical fact

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  • GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
    I'm here wondering how people get hurt so bad, but then I remember that I'm actually careful to only Jaywal kwhen there are no cars close enough to be an issue.

    Also, fun fact: Jaywalking is only such when you step out into the path of a car that is forced to swerve or stop/slow down to avoid you. If you don't actually come close enough to interfere with traffic, it isn't jaywalking.

    That, or my sister was lied to in Traffic School.

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  • Volucrisus AedriusVolucrisus Aedrius Registered User regular
    Much of how injured a person gets for jaywalking depends on the vehicle. If somebody at gunpoint forced me to step in front of a moving vehicle I'll take a Goddamn Focus over a Hummer. The Focus is ramped, my body will get swept at the ankle up and over the top. I will fuck myself with a pinecone before I offer to outrun a Hummer or something broad enough at the face to suck me under.

    Somebody on these here forums pulled a barely living person out from under a Jeep.

    Shit be fucked up.

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    As I have angrily lectured random teenagers before

    "Do you have any idea what would happen to my car if I ran into you?!?"

    Absolutely nothing

    It's easy to not realize just how much kinetic energy is in a car, even going just 30 miles an hour. And how extremely vulnerable the human body is compared to power like that.

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  • GoatmonGoatmon Companion of Kess Registered User regular
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  • Dead LegendDead Legend Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Much of how injured a person gets for jaywalking depends on the vehicle. If somebody at gunpoint forced me to step in front of a moving vehicle I'll take a Goddamn Focus over a Hummer. The Focus is ramped, my body will get swept at the ankle up and over the top. I will fuck myself with a pinecone before I offer to outrun a Hummer or something broad enough at the face to suck me under.

    Somebody on these here forums pulled a barely living person out from under a Jeep.

    Shit be fucked up.

    If you're talking about my story it was mostly shock/concussion & cosmetic damage but it could've been a lot worse.

    The dumbass was on the hood of the jeep going down a hill and got dragged down.

    Met the kid a few years later.

    Dead Legend on
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  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Hah, looking more into Anne Applebaum. Her husband is a treat. He is the extremely right wing Minister of Foreign Affairs for Poland.
    From 1998 to 2001 he served as deputy minister of foreign affairs in the Jerzy Buzek government. During the latter appointment, Sikorski became notorious in the Polish expatriate community, Polonia, for designing and promoting a particularly strict policy regarding Polonia’s citizenship status in Poland. As a result of that policy, Poland refused to recognize the acquired citizenships of Polish emigrants, including hundreds of thousands of recent refugees from Communism and their children, and insisted that they be subject to all obligations of Polish citizenship, while at the same time making it impossible to renounce such citizenship because of an extremely cumbersome administrative procedure. This policy became known as the “passport trap” because it was mainly implemented as harassment of departing travellers (primarily citizens of the United States, Canada, and Australia) who were prevented from leaving Poland until they obtain a Polish passport.

    jkZziGc.png
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    That's why you don't just study from one book, Phaze. You gotta hit the history from multiple angles to get the most inclusive perspective.

    Our teacher's a self-identified socialist, so I'm pretty sure he has a good reason for assigning that one, regardless

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  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    The Medvedev's could be considered more openly biased against Soviet Russia

    being as they directly felt its effects through censorship, imprisonment, and exile

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  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Dubh wrote: »
    The Medvedev's could be considered more openly biased against Soviet Russia

    being as they directly felt its effects through censorship, imprisonment, and exile

    What do you mean?

    jkZziGc.png
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    It's was self-explanatory

    one would expect someone to carry a grudge against a government that committed him to a psych ward just to shut him up

    Doobh on
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  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    It's no good to study history from perspectives that only conforms to your own views.

    It's why I split my Crusade history in to three main groups, Madden, Reilly, and Tyerman. All of them use the latest research but all of them come to different conclusions/perspectives.

    It's not an exhaustive study on every aspect of every event, but it does cover a range of views on different events.

    manwiththemachinegun on
    Doobh
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    Bingo, MMG

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  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    so what's your opinion of the Crusades then?

  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Dubh wrote: »
    It's was self-explanatory

    one would expect someone to carry a grudge against a government that committed him to a psych ward just to shut him up

    I don't even know who you're talking about and have no idea what sort of context you were presenting that post in.

    jkZziGc.png
  • I Win SwordfightsI Win Swordfights all the traits of greatness starlight at my feetRegistered User regular
    so what's your opinion of the Crusades then?

    boys will be boys

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  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Pharezon wrote: »
    Dubh wrote: »
    It's was self-explanatory

    one would expect someone to carry a grudge against a government that committed him to a psych ward just to shut him up

    I don't even know who you're talking about and have no idea what sort of context you were presenting that post in.

    you're the one discrediting one of the authors I'm reading

    and I just punched through a nearly six hundred page book of hers, so I might be a little touchy about someone implying that the information is useless in some fashion

    there's other people on that list with different accounts of the Soviet Union, and I'm sure they can all be discredited from a certain perspective
    if Applebaum was someone that actually fabricated historical evidence, and plagiarizes work as a matter of practice, I'd be more concerned

    Doobh on
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  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    As someone just finding out about some of the naval battles of the American revolution, I thought this was a great story. You hardly ever hear about Spanish contributions to American Independence. The aftermath of the battle created a financial crisis in Britain.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_9_August_1780

    The flagship Santísima Trinidad, one of several ships to carry the name, was a nightmare.
    A Spanish first-rate ship of the line of 112 guns, which was increased in 1795–96 to 130 guns by closing in the spar deck between the quarterdeck and forecastle, [with] around 1802 to 140 guns, thus creating what was in effect a continuous fourth gundeck although the extra guns added were actually relatively small. She was the heaviest-armed ship in the world when rebuilt, and bore the most guns of any ship of the line outfitted in the Age of Sail.

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • FavlaudFavlaud just straight up awful Registered User regular
    Gatsby wrote: »
    A delightful little video on the origins of Keep Calm and Carry On

    http://youtu.be/FrHkKXFRbCI

    i had no idea that it was only found as recently as 2000

    Al_wat
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    so what's your opinion of the Crusades then?

    For me, it's less about what they were and more about how they're viewed in modern times. It's easier to define them by what they weren't. They weren't examples of western Imperialism or forced religious conversion. Neither side was wholly in the right or wrong, and there were heroes and jerks on both sides. There was Reconquista going on in Spain just as there was campaigning in the Holy land. I don't believe it was a clash of "barbarous East vs noble West" or vice versa. To me, it makes it an interesting period to study. Especially when you get into cool stuff like how the Assassins jockeyed between both sides, how the Kingdom of Jerusalem ruled its provinces, and how the failures of the Crusades affected the later Holy Leagues, or how the Barbary pirates, a group that once did battle with the Knights Hospitallers, survived long enough to fight American marines centuries later.

    I think Crash Course history has a very fair summery of events. Whatever we think about the Crusades, how foolish or short sighted they were, they were important as hell to the Christians and Muslims of that time period.

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    so what's your opinion of the Crusades then?

    Defensive action

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  • ArangArang HUEY LEWISRegistered User regular
    so what's your opinion of the Crusades then?

    For me, it's less about what they were and more about how they're viewed in modern times. It's easier to define them by what they weren't. They weren't examples of western Imperialism or forced religious conversion. Neither side was wholly in the right or wrong, and there were heroes and jerks on both sides. There was Reconquista going on in Spain just as there was campaigning in the Holy land. I don't believe it was a clash of "barbarous East vs noble West" or vice versa. To me, it makes it an interesting period to study. Especially when you get into cool stuff like how the Assassins jockeyed between both sides, how the Kingdom of Jerusalem ruled its provinces, and how the failures of the Crusades affected the later Holy Leagues, or how the Barbary pirates, a group that once did battle with the Knights Hospitallers, survived long enough to fight American marines centuries later.

    I think Crash Course history has a very fair summery of events. Whatever we think about the Crusades, how foolish or short sighted they were, they were important as hell to the Christians and Muslims of that time period.

    the barbary wars only came about twenty years after the end of the knights on malta, though

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  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Dubh wrote: »
    Pharezon wrote: »
    Dubh wrote: »
    It's was self-explanatory

    one would expect someone to carry a grudge against a government that committed him to a psych ward just to shut him up

    I don't even know who you're talking about and have no idea what sort of context you were presenting that post in.

    you're the one discrediting one of the authors I'm reading

    and I just punched through a nearly six hundred page book of hers, so I might be a little touchy about someone implying that the information is useless in some fashion

    there's other people on that list with different accounts of the Soviet Union, and I'm sure they can all be discredited from a certain perspective
    if Applebaum was someone that actually fabricated historical evidence, and plagiarizes work as a matter of practice, I'd be more concerned

    Still have no idea why you brought up Medvedev, let alone what Medvedev you're talking about. The PM of Russia?

    jkZziGc.png
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    Roy and Zhores Medvedev

    two of the authors on that list of books

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  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    True, but they had been bleeding out for quite sometime. Napoleon took over Malta without much trouble, and they slowly lost control of their resources throughout Europe.

    The cool thing about the Knights Templar and Hospitallers is that they were international orders at a time where Christian countries were constantly fighting each other.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    I think she means Roy Medvedev

    he's a Russian historian who lost his father to a Stalin-era purge and he's not a fan of the Gen Sec, shall we say

    Doobh
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    Well, let's be fair

    Getting conquered by Napoleon ain't no shame

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Oh, duh.

    jkZziGc.png
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    Pharezon wrote: »
    Pharezon wrote: »
    Oh, duh.

    you're killing me, Smalls

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  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    To be fair to Roy Medvedev, he did speak out against the attempts by the Soviet government to pretend Stalin was a great hero and he wasn't afraid to take some shit from the authorities when it came to defending democracy and so on

    but he also supports the current regime and let's be honest, Vladimir Putin is a rather awful man. The murder of journalists hardly endears his regime to me, shall we say.

    Doobh
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Kana wrote: »
    Well, let's be fair

    Getting conquered by Napoleon ain't no shame

    I always liked that the commodity he most valued in generals was luck.

    Also, the Napoleonic wars were bloodbaths. It's difficult for me to imagine what that must have been like.

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    You're making my point better than I could, Solar

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  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    Oh, and my education has basically confirmed what Solar said to Koshian a while back

    the Kulak situation was a mess

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  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    To be fair, if I can't make decent points on the subject of history after three years of studying it at university then I might as well just kill myself in shame

    But thank you anyway!

  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Nothing happened to in Ukraine. It was all the Germans.

    jkZziGc.png
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    what you have to remember about studying the Soviet Union and Communist Europe is that for years and years, the only history being written on it was either a) from inside the bloc, in which case it was heavily censored and controlled, or b) from outside the bloc, in the west, in which case it was often hugely misinformed and sometimes blatant ideological saber rattling.

    It's only since the wall came down that we've been able to really look at the records with something resembling proper historical practice and that's why the public and sometimes, yes, professional perceptions of the subject are so off. So many people consider Communist Europe to have been this solid block of grey dystopia and that's simply not true. Albania was fucking awful, Yugoslavia was pretty good, for example.

    So it's really important with this subject to get a lot of views, because there's an inherent idealogical base to the entire subject and so you need to look at various opinions on that to really get a good idea on what went on and how and why and so on.

    Fascinating subject, though. One of my favourite pieces of history to read about.

  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    At the very least, we can confidently agree

    the Gulags were terrible

    and Stalin was a monster

    (who am I kidding, there's always a point of contention out there)

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  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    To be fair to Roy Medvedev, he did speak out against the attempts by the Soviet government to pretend Stalin was a great hero and he wasn't afraid to take some shit from the authorities when it came to defending democracy and so on

    but he also supports the current regime and let's be honest, Vladimir Putin is a rather awful man. The murder of journalists hardly endears his regime to me, shall we say.

    so did Stalin, oddly enough

    there's lots of primary source evidence (meeting minutes and the like) that shows Stalin telling Khruschev to shut the hell up when he started lionizing Stalin

    yes, Khruschev

    I know

    Antimatter
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Well we had people saying for years that Stalin was this giant shithead

    and then after there is this opening of the subject, people experiment with alternative views and so there's this mish mash of perspectives where historians, understandably, try to explore other avenues

    now, personally, I feel that he was indeed a giant shithead. Also that he was not only a giant shithead but a giant incompetent shithead and also that his actions not only crippled a nation but also did so in a way that was needlessly cruel as well as twisting the ethics of a communist ideal I otherwise find quite appealing.

    But it's important to say "and this is why," rather than just take it as read. Being from western societies means our upbringing places us against guys like Stalin by default and disliking Stalin because he was a Soviet Dictator and the Soviets were Bad does not cut it, in my opinion.

    Solar on
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  • PharezonPharezon Struggle is an illusion. Victory is in the Qun.Registered User regular
    Shorty wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    To be fair to Roy Medvedev, he did speak out against the attempts by the Soviet government to pretend Stalin was a great hero and he wasn't afraid to take some shit from the authorities when it came to defending democracy and so on

    but he also supports the current regime and let's be honest, Vladimir Putin is a rather awful man. The murder of journalists hardly endears his regime to me, shall we say.

    so did Stalin, oddly enough

    there's lots of primary source evidence (meeting minutes and the like) that shows Stalin telling Khruschev to shut the hell up when he started lionizing Stalin

    yes, Khruschev

    I know

    Which can be attributed to Khruschev not wanting to get shot and dumped in a ditch, I think.

    jkZziGc.png
  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Pharezon wrote: »
    Shorty wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    To be fair to Roy Medvedev, he did speak out against the attempts by the Soviet government to pretend Stalin was a great hero and he wasn't afraid to take some shit from the authorities when it came to defending democracy and so on

    but he also supports the current regime and let's be honest, Vladimir Putin is a rather awful man. The murder of journalists hardly endears his regime to me, shall we say.

    so did Stalin, oddly enough

    there's lots of primary source evidence (meeting minutes and the like) that shows Stalin telling Khruschev to shut the hell up when he started lionizing Stalin

    yes, Khruschev

    I know

    Which can be attributed to Khruschev not wanting to get shot and dumped in a ditch, I think.

    ...he didn't want to be shot and dumped in a ditch, so he routinely did the opposite of what Joseph Stalin wanted?

    that's uh

    hm

    Shorty on
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