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The Cool Stuff From [History] Thread

24567100

Posts

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    I see the crazy hip dress. And I get the idea, because wide hips meant something at the time(easier childbirth). However I find it hard to believe this was actually worn by any number of people, and was anymore than the garbage we see at fashion shows today (or concept cars if you will. the real version is nothing like the high concept).

    Obviously clothes like that were a ultra-high-class-only thing, and that dress is just the most extreme example of the squared-off dresses that were around at the time, most of the other examples on that page were less huge (and correspondingly less hilarious).

    But really it's not that much crazier than the dresses that the upper class ladies would be wearing for the next 150 years in courts around the world (unless they're too hot for that shit, see: Italy). It's all held up by an understructure of either stiffened leather or later on thin steel (crinoline). Think of all those huge bell-shaped dresses the french ladies are all floating around in right before the revolution starts chopping their perfectly coifed heads off.

    Even into the 1860/70s women's upper class fashion was still using the crinoline. This is President Grant's 14 year old daughter's day dress:

    b76da31974e427cbfb348cafb0aa74f8.jpg

    And this is what you have to wear to make a dress like that actually work:

    2006bb1094_crinoline-about-1860.jpg

    You can kinda see why the dresses get so big: they're probably actually more comfortable the bigger they get. Those horrid things going out of fashion finally is one reason why the petticoat fades out of fashion a bit as well - women no longer had to protect their bare legs from their own clothes.

    Kana on
    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.
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited August 2013
    Leonid Brezhnev: Renaissance Man

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: World's Biggest Gunsmoke Fan

    Picture

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: A priest, a rabbi, and the President of the Soviet Union walk into a bar, and stop me if you've heard this one...

    Picture

    Nowadays "Leon" Brezhnev is primarily remembered for having enormous bushy eyebrows and being responsible for something called the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'--after all, it's named after him, which is pretty much all (almost) everyone who's ever heard of the term can actually say about it, since the overwhelmingly majority of people, including the 1970s CIA and Mr. Brezhnev himself were only vaguely aware of what it was. Your armchair historians will also know him for his highly comical level of vanity, and the litany of Soviet jokes inspired by it, such as "Did you hear Chairman Brezhnev is going in for chest surgery? They need to expand it so they can fit another hero of the country gold medal," and "No, Chairman Brezhnev, it's not pronounced 'OOOOOOOOOOOhhh....' Those are the rings of the Olympic emblem."

    Leonid Brezhnev: If people are telling jokes about me, they must like me. This is actually something Brezhnev is described as telling his ministers on more than one occasion.

    However, before his death in the early 1980s, the portly Russo-Ukrainian strode across the world stage as a mighty colossus, presiding over a massive military build-up that brought the USSR closest in parity of conventional forces to the USA that it would ever be (though, to be fair, it wasn't that close), while simultaneously embracing the period of detente, or relaxed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nixon described him as possessing "a great deal of raw, animal magnetism". Richard Nixon. Despite the economic slowdown (which in reality only began in the mid-1970s in earnest, amid many slowing markets worldwide, and reflected not just mismanagement but greater interdependence between the world and Soviet economies), he is still remembered favorably by many in Russia and elsewhere in the C.I.S. for having ruled in a period of social stability, economic abundance (by the standards of the time, of course), and great national pride. The Levada Public Opinion Centre (praised in the west on the important basis of being criticized by Moscow) rated him most successful in retrospect according to their polling, with a 56% approval and 29% disapproval. Many in Europe considered him the most "American" of Soviet leaders--after all, he pulled his country into a familiar little quagmire we've all just come to call 'Afghanistan'.

    On the other hand...he also saw the rise of the Soviet hippi. Damn longhairs, what can you do?

    What was his secret? To borrow a TV Tropes term, Brezhnev, a man who loved the American TV series Gunsmoke, watching hockey, and reckless driving, was a bunny-ears lawyer. On the domestic side, aside from boring things like 'national delimination' and 'How tall should the Armenian Genocide monument be?', Brezhnev's major responsibility was that over appointments. Many of the best administrative minds of the age, many of whom are also well-respected throughout the world, were promoted into their positions by Brezhnev who knew well enough that such trivial things as 'Subcontinental Asian Peace negotaitions' and 'Naval Readiness' bored him. Kosygin, who probably did more for peace between India and Pakistan than any single other individual (and, coincidentally, also failed), including Indian Prime Minister Shastri, Gromyko, who presided over the high-point of US-Soviet relations with his straightforwardness, commitment to rationalism and willingness to say "No," even when a lesser man desperately would have said "Yes", and Sergey Gorshkov, admired today by many in the U.S. navy establishment for his leadership--all owed their appointment in large part to vain man known to tear up during particularly emotional president speeches, like lazy, sane version of John Boehner.

    Leonid Brezhnev: Delegate, delegate, delegate. Those hockey games aren't going to watch themselves. Fun fact: in the same period, the USSR's Orbita became the world's first nationwide satellite television network. Coincidence? You be the judge.

    This left Brezhnev time to do the important things--rub elbows with the Russian Orthodox church, smooch various German leaders, exchange knock-knock jokes with Jimmy Carter, shoot stuff in the forests while wearing sweaters from the set of Sanford and Son.

    Picture

    Or compare fashionable kneesocks with Richard Nixon

    Picture

    All this from a leader whom, in much of the world, has been overshadowed by the likes of Mikhail "Zero Percent Approval Rating" Gorbachev, Boris "I got drunk a lot and ordered tanks to shoot at Parliament in 1993" Yeltsin, and Vladimir "Along with being a Judo Master, I've decided to go with a shirtless James Bond villain look" Putin. Leonid Brezhnev: If you can't brief me on Championship League hockey, I don't want you in my government.

    EDIT: Edited because images aren't showing up correctly, at least for me.

    Synthesis on
  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Leonid Brezhnev: Renaissance Man

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: World's Biggest Gunsmoke Fan

    Picture

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: A priest, a rabbi, and the President of the Soviet Union walk into a bar, and stop me if you've heard this one...

    Picture

    Nowadays "Leon" Brezhnev is primarily remembered for having a huge eye of eyebrows and being responsible for something called the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'--after all, it's named after him, which is pretty much all (almost) everyone who's ever heard of the term can actually say about it, since the overwhelmingly majority of people, including the 1970s CIA and Mr. Brezhnev himself were only vaguely aware of what it was. He is less known for his highly comical level of vanity, and the litany of Soviet jokes inspired by it, such as "Did you hear Chairman Brezhnev is going in for chest surgery? They need to expand it so they can fit another hero of the country gold medal," and "No, Chairman Brezhnev, it's not pronounced 'OOOOOOOOOOOhhh....' Those are the rings of the Olympic emblem."

    However, before his death in the early 1980s, the heavyset Russo-Ukrainian strode across the world stage as a mighty colossus, presiding over a massive military build-up that brought the USSR closest in parity of conventional forces to the USA that it would ever be (though, to be fair, it wasn't that close), while simultaneously embracing the period of detente, or relaxed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nixon described him as possessing "a great deal of raw, animal magnetism". Richard Nixon. Despite the economic slowdown (which in reality only began in the mid-1970s in earnest, amid many slowing markets worldwide, and reflected not just mismanagement but greater interdependence between the world and Soviet economies), he is still remembered favorably by many in Russia and elsewhere in the C.I.S. for having ruled in a period of social stability, economic abundance (by the standards of the time, of course), and great national pride. The Levada Public Opinion Centre (praised in the west on the important basis of being disliked by many in the highest offices in Moscow) rated him most successful in retrospect, with a 56% approval and 29% disapproval. Many in Europe considered him the most "American" of Soviet leaders--after all, he pulled his country into a familiar little quagmire we've all just come to call 'Afghanistan'.

    On the other hand...he also saw the rise of the Soviet hippi. Damn longhairs, what can you do?

    What was his secret? To borrow a TV Tropes term, Brezhnev, a man who loved the American TV series Gunsmoke, watching hockey, and reckless driving, was a bunny-ears lawyer. On the domestic side, aside from boring things like 'national delimination' and 'How tall should the Armenian Genocide monument be?', Brezhnev's major responsibility was that over appointments. Many of the best administrative minds of the age, many of whom are also well-respected throughout the world, were promoted into their positions by Brezhnev who knew well enough that such trivial things as 'Subcontinental Asian Peace negotaitions' and 'Naval Readiness' bored him. Chernenko, who probably did more for peace between India and Pakistan than any single other individual (and, coincidentally, also failed), including Indian Prime Minister Shastri, Gromyko, who presided over the high-point of US-Soviet relations with his straightforwardness, commitment to rationalism and willingness to say "No," even when a lesser man desperately would have said "Yes", and Sergey Gorshkov, admired today by many in the U.S. navy establishment for his leadership--all owed their appointment in large part to vain man known to tear up during particularly emotional president speeches, like lazy, sane version of John Boehner.

    Leonid Brezhnev: Delegate, delegate, delegate. Those hockey games aren't going to watch themselves.

    This left Brezhnev time to do the important things--rub elbows with the Russian Orthodox church, smooch various German leaders, exchange jokes with Jimmy Carter, shoot stuff in the forests while wearing sweaters from the set of Sanford and Son.

    Picture

    Or compare fashionable kneesocks with Richard Nixon

    Picture

    All this from a leader whom, in much of the world, has been overshadowed by the likes of Mikhail "Zero Percent Approval Rating" Gorbachev, Boris "I got drunk a lot and ordered tanks to shoot at Parliament in 1993" Yeltsin, and Vladimir "Along with being a Judo Master, I've decided to go with a shirtless James Bond villain look" Putin. Leonid Brezhnev: If you can't brief me on Hockey Championship League, I don't want you in my government.

    EDIT: Edited because images aren't showing up correctly, at least for me.
    Anyone else read "animal magnetism" in the Futurama Nixon voice?

  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    .
    The Ender wrote: »
    The other camp essentially viewed the settlement of the Americas by Europeans as the rape of the new world, an inherently aggressive exploitation of a purer culture. Which I mean, obviously they have a point, but the spread of disease in that argument is often treated as a conscious action - traders using "smallpox infected blankets" as if they had a national plan based on germ theory. In reality the spread of European diseases through native populations were so virulent that purposefully spreading the disease was kind of pointless, like throwing a lit match into an already burning wildfire (alcohol on the other hand, really was used as a tool of suppression as a trade good, but not until later). But in this view, the spread of disease to an uninfected population takes on a moral implication, the Noble Savage destroyed by modern man's uncleanliness. So for one of the defining diseases of the 18th and 19th centuries to be a new world disease, and a sexually spread disease at that... They didn't much care for that, as it turns their Noble Savages in The State of Nature into just another population.

    We do have written & signed letters from military commanders acknowledging that they gave native communities blankets & clothing infected with smallpox. The germ theory wasn't formalized, but it was well enough understood on some rudimentary level that militaries were actively engaged in biological warfare.

    Contagion and quarantine was known and practised since Roman times. They may not have known what was causing it, but they understood the effect well enough.

    sig.gif
  • HefflingHeffling No Pic EverRegistered User regular
    rockrnger wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Leonid Brezhnev: Renaissance Man

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: World's Biggest Gunsmoke Fan

    Picture

    also known as

    Leonid Brezhnev: A priest, a rabbi, and the President of the Soviet Union walk into a bar, and stop me if you've heard this one...

    Picture

    Nowadays "Leon" Brezhnev is primarily remembered for having a huge eye of eyebrows and being responsible for something called the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'--after all, it's named after him, which is pretty much all (almost) everyone who's ever heard of the term can actually say about it, since the overwhelmingly majority of people, including the 1970s CIA and Mr. Brezhnev himself were only vaguely aware of what it was. He is less known for his highly comical level of vanity, and the litany of Soviet jokes inspired by it, such as "Did you hear Chairman Brezhnev is going in for chest surgery? They need to expand it so they can fit another hero of the country gold medal," and "No, Chairman Brezhnev, it's not pronounced 'OOOOOOOOOOOhhh....' Those are the rings of the Olympic emblem."

    However, before his death in the early 1980s, the heavyset Russo-Ukrainian strode across the world stage as a mighty colossus, presiding over a massive military build-up that brought the USSR closest in parity of conventional forces to the USA that it would ever be (though, to be fair, it wasn't that close), while simultaneously embracing the period of detente, or relaxed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nixon described him as possessing "a great deal of raw, animal magnetism". Richard Nixon. Despite the economic slowdown (which in reality only began in the mid-1970s in earnest, amid many slowing markets worldwide, and reflected not just mismanagement but greater interdependence between the world and Soviet economies), he is still remembered favorably by many in Russia and elsewhere in the C.I.S. for having ruled in a period of social stability, economic abundance (by the standards of the time, of course), and great national pride. The Levada Public Opinion Centre (praised in the west on the important basis of being disliked by many in the highest offices in Moscow) rated him most successful in retrospect, with a 56% approval and 29% disapproval. Many in Europe considered him the most "American" of Soviet leaders--after all, he pulled his country into a familiar little quagmire we've all just come to call 'Afghanistan'.

    On the other hand...he also saw the rise of the Soviet hippi. Damn longhairs, what can you do?

    What was his secret? To borrow a TV Tropes term, Brezhnev, a man who loved the American TV series Gunsmoke, watching hockey, and reckless driving, was a bunny-ears lawyer. On the domestic side, aside from boring things like 'national delimination' and 'How tall should the Armenian Genocide monument be?', Brezhnev's major responsibility was that over appointments. Many of the best administrative minds of the age, many of whom are also well-respected throughout the world, were promoted into their positions by Brezhnev who knew well enough that such trivial things as 'Subcontinental Asian Peace negotaitions' and 'Naval Readiness' bored him. Chernenko, who probably did more for peace between India and Pakistan than any single other individual (and, coincidentally, also failed), including Indian Prime Minister Shastri, Gromyko, who presided over the high-point of US-Soviet relations with his straightforwardness, commitment to rationalism and willingness to say "No," even when a lesser man desperately would have said "Yes", and Sergey Gorshkov, admired today by many in the U.S. navy establishment for his leadership--all owed their appointment in large part to vain man known to tear up during particularly emotional president speeches, like lazy, sane version of John Boehner.

    Leonid Brezhnev: Delegate, delegate, delegate. Those hockey games aren't going to watch themselves.

    This left Brezhnev time to do the important things--rub elbows with the Russian Orthodox church, smooch various German leaders, exchange jokes with Jimmy Carter, shoot stuff in the forests while wearing sweaters from the set of Sanford and Son.

    Picture

    Or compare fashionable kneesocks with Richard Nixon

    Picture

    All this from a leader whom, in much of the world, has been overshadowed by the likes of Mikhail "Zero Percent Approval Rating" Gorbachev, Boris "I got drunk a lot and ordered tanks to shoot at Parliament in 1993" Yeltsin, and Vladimir "Along with being a Judo Master, I've decided to go with a shirtless James Bond villain look" Putin. Leonid Brezhnev: If you can't brief me on Hockey Championship League, I don't want you in my government.

    EDIT: Edited because images aren't showing up correctly, at least for me.
    Anyone else read "animal magnetism" in the Futurama Nixon voice?

    Arrrrrooooooo!!!

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Badass of the Week is one of my favorite history sites.

    And I just noticed they let you filter by categories now, awesome.

    I've pulled out a few:

    Lydia Litvyak, WWII female fighter ace
    Desmond Doss, Medal of Honor recipient who never even carried a weapon
    Viktor Leonov - I just have to quote Ben Thompson about the size of Comrad Leonov's balls:
    Rather than leading this operation, Leonov was serving under a Captain, who had his 140-man team parachute into what was supposed to be a lightly-defended airfield. However, once the men hit the ground and started taking fire, they realized that this was no lightly defended bullshit, and that they were now staring at something on the order of 3,500 Japanese rifles aimed at their heads. Leonov's commander surrendered, and the ten Spetsnaz officers were taken into the Japanese HQ to meet with the garrison commander.

    The Russians immediately demanded his surrender.

    The Japanese dude was obviously like, "what the fuck is wrong with you assholes," and right in the middle of the negotiation (and I think I am using the word "negotiation" pretty liberally here) Viktor Leonov suddenly out of nowhere got super pissed, slammed his fist down on the table, and shouted, "We've been fighting in the West throughout the war and we have enough experience to assess our situation. We will not allow ourselves to be taken hostage! You will die like rats when we break out of here!" Then one of his men pulled out a grenade and threatened to frag the entire room.

    The Japanese surrendered.

  • NocrenNocren Lt Futz, Back in Action North CarolinaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2013
    My favorite Badass of the Week

    Voytek. Member of the Polish 22nd Transport Artillery Supply Company.

    Beer drinkin', cigarette smokin', ammo carrier.

    Company mascot.

    voytek3.jpg

    Bear.

    Nocren on
    newSig.jpg
  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    Nocren wrote: »
    My favorite Badass of the Week

    Voytek. Member of the Polish 22nd Transport Artillery Supply Company.

    Beer drinkin', cigarette smokin', ammo carrier.

    Company mascot.

    voytek3.jpg

    Bear.

    That is fucking badass, and now I'm even prouder of my polish heritage

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    Just discovered this (doh ho ho) so I haven't listened to much yet, but:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0368knw

    BBC radio 4 history program where they interview guest professors and experts in the field. Seems a bit dry, but educational.

    And with the archive of over 600 episodes it must have some good stuff in here

    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.
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Veevee wrote: »
    Nocren wrote: »
    My favorite Badass of the Week

    Voytek. Member of the Polish 22nd Transport Artillery Supply Company.

    Beer drinkin', cigarette smokin', ammo carrier.

    Company mascot.

    voytek3.jpg

    Bear.

    That is fucking badass, and now I'm even prouder of my polish heritage

    Some time ago, somebody had the unit emblem as their avatar for a while!

    I totally forget who though.

    Let's just say, if the Poles had more bears like Voytek, Belarus would still be annexed into Eastern Poland. That was one tough bear.

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Voytek is awesome. I'm also a big fan of Jack Churchill:
    But that wasn't even the most balls out thing Mad Jack did on that campaign. One night, he single-handedly took forty-two German prisoners and captured a mortar crew using only his broadsword. He simply took one patrolling guard as a human shield and went around from sentry post to sentry post, sneaking up on the guards and then shoving his sword in their faces until they surrendered. His response when asked about how he was able to capture so many soldiers so easily:

    "I maintain that, as long as you tell a German loudly and clearly what to do, if you are senior to him he will cry 'jawohl'(yes sir) and get on with it enthusiastically and efficiently whatever the situation."

    Really, the long and short of it is WWII had a metric ton of badasses participating.

  • y2jake215y2jake215 certified Flat Birther theorist the Last Good Boy onlineRegistered User regular
    Kana wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    The other camp essentially viewed the settlement of the Americas by Europeans as the rape of the new world, an inherently aggressive exploitation of a purer culture. Which I mean, obviously they have a point, but the spread of disease in that argument is often treated as a conscious action - traders using "smallpox infected blankets" as if they had a national plan based on germ theory. In reality the spread of European diseases through native populations were so virulent that purposefully spreading the disease was kind of pointless, like throwing a lit match into an already burning wildfire (alcohol on the other hand, really was used as a tool of suppression as a trade good, but not until later). But in this view, the spread of disease to an uninfected population takes on a moral implication, the Noble Savage destroyed by modern man's uncleanliness. So for one of the defining diseases of the 18th and 19th centuries to be a new world disease, and a sexually spread disease at that... They didn't much care for that, as it turns their Noble Savages in The State of Nature into just another population.

    We do have written & signed letters from military commanders acknowledging that they gave native communities blankets & clothing infected with smallpox. The germ theory wasn't formalized, but it was well enough understood on some rudimentary level that militaries were actively engaged in biological warfare.

    ...Do you have versions of those links that are legible? I can't make out anything from them

    they both say something like "you would do well to inoculate the indians by way of Blankets", that's about as much as I can make out

    C8Ft8GE.jpg
    maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    y2jake215 wrote: »
    Kana wrote: »
    The Ender wrote: »
    The other camp essentially viewed the settlement of the Americas by Europeans as the rape of the new world, an inherently aggressive exploitation of a purer culture. Which I mean, obviously they have a point, but the spread of disease in that argument is often treated as a conscious action - traders using "smallpox infected blankets" as if they had a national plan based on germ theory. In reality the spread of European diseases through native populations were so virulent that purposefully spreading the disease was kind of pointless, like throwing a lit match into an already burning wildfire (alcohol on the other hand, really was used as a tool of suppression as a trade good, but not until later). But in this view, the spread of disease to an uninfected population takes on a moral implication, the Noble Savage destroyed by modern man's uncleanliness. So for one of the defining diseases of the 18th and 19th centuries to be a new world disease, and a sexually spread disease at that... They didn't much care for that, as it turns their Noble Savages in The State of Nature into just another population.

    We do have written & signed letters from military commanders acknowledging that they gave native communities blankets & clothing infected with smallpox. The germ theory wasn't formalized, but it was well enough understood on some rudimentary level that militaries were actively engaged in biological warfare.

    ...Do you have versions of those links that are legible? I can't make out anything from them

    they both say something like "you would do well to inoculate the indians by way of Blankets", that's about as much as I can make out

    This made me look up inoculation on Wikipedia. It seems it predates the germ theory of disease by a century in the west, longer in Asia. Crazy...

    sig.gif
  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    edited July 2013
    Tomanta wrote: »
    Voytek is awesome. I'm also a big fan of Jack Churchill:
    But that wasn't even the most balls out thing Mad Jack did on that campaign. One night, he single-handedly took forty-two German prisoners and captured a mortar crew using only his broadsword. He simply took one patrolling guard as a human shield and went around from sentry post to sentry post, sneaking up on the guards and then shoving his sword in their faces until they surrendered. His response when asked about how he was able to capture so many soldiers so easily:

    "I maintain that, as long as you tell a German loudly and clearly what to do, if you are senior to him he will cry 'jawohl'(yes sir) and get on with it enthusiastically and efficiently whatever the situation."

    Really, the long and short of it is WWII had a metric ton of badasses participating.

    I love a good Mad Jack story, but my favorite Churchill (besides Winston) is the one that put the name Churchill on the map, that being:

    John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough

    Dude hammered the dregs and remnants of the New Model Army into a (for the time) modern fighting force that would go on to make a frequent habit of kicking the French (and Jacobites) in the ass and leading England to continental prominence for the first time in almost 500 years.

    Sadly, the Wikipedia entry ignores a very important part of his early rise to office while working for then James, Duke of York. The only reason he was placed into James' service was because of his natural abilities in the bedroom and he was a lowborn favorite of at least 3 of Charles II's mistresses and 1 of James' and said mistresses went to bat for him when he was looking for a place at court in his late teens/early 20's.

    A brilliant career and a noble family with a now 300+ year history, all because the man could fuck.

    BlackDragon480 on
    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    For something with an international flavor:

    In the Chinese-speaking world, there's an old saying applying to arguably the three most famous sisters in Chinese history, the Soong sisters. It goes, roughly, "One married for money, one married for power, and one married for love of country."

    The eldest, Soong Ai-ling, married the richest man in China, the prosperous banker and finance minister Kung Hsiang-hsi.

    The middle sister, Soong Ching-ling, married the 'Father of modern China', Sun Yat-sen.

    The youngest sister, Soong May-ling, married Sun's successor, Chiang Kai-shek. She became famous in the United States as Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

    Fate (well, fate and revolution) put Madame Chiang and Madam Sun on opposing sides of the Chinese civil war--Madame Chiang became arguably the most famous Chinese person in United States history, speaking before congress, touring the United States and rallying its people the Nationalist cause. Madame Sun, following the death of her husband, because a major pillar of the Chinese government, but dismayed with the Chiangs behavior, ultimately sided with the communist revolutionaries by refusing to leave the country in 1949 when the war ended, and causing a split in the KMT, the political party her husband founded. For more than a decade, she served as honorary vice-president o the new People's Republic of China.

    Madame Chiang survived her husband (she died in the 1990s in the United States) and became a powerful spokeswoman for the nationalist cause until her stepson's ascendance to power forced her to step down. It's quite possible that before the end of the civil war, she was the most powerful woman in the world, having a major hand in determining KMT and government policy and being one half of the partnership of a rigid dictatorship controlling the most populous state in the world.

    Synthesis on
  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    The coolest thing about Voytek was how he would often climb trees to watch pitched battles off in the distance. Bear was baller as fuck.

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    44.spanish_civil_war.png

    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.
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    Random stuff from browsing reddit history forums:

    George Orwell (the tall one) with his unit during the Spanish civil war
    Orwell-Spain.jpg

    The White House during Abraham Lincoln's administration. The statue is of Thomas Jefferson:
    qKMmQXC.jpg

    And then from 1900
    north-lawn-1900.jpg

    A Carny from 1911, I bet you can guess what she was called:
    CdNnlRT.jpg

    Kana on
    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.
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    I always liked Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

    I mean, sure is pa went on safaris and led the Rough Riders, but not to be out done by his father, Theodore Jr. Decided to go ashore at Utah beach in the first wave on D-day. The only General to go in the first wave, his peers in the officer corp did not expect him to live. Upon hitting the beach and learning he was a mile off target, Theodore declared that they would "Start the war from right here" Here survive the Normandy invasion, and welcomed those who thought he would die on the beach later in the day.

    Did I mention he did all this with arthritis, wounds from the First World War, and heart problems?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt,_Jr.

    TL;DR Fighting the Spanish and hunting helpless animals is for pansies, real men crate at the Nazi war machine with only a cane and a pistol.

  • PLAPLA The process.Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    My grandparents fled Franco to a mining town in France. After he died, they moved back to Sevilla.

    PLA on
  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    So Franco named a chap called Juan Carlos to succeed him after his death, grooming him to continue his regime.

    Within two years of Franco's death, Juan Carlos had transitioned Spain from Authoritarianism to Democracy as a Constitutional Monarchy.

    Franco got punk'd.

  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    I always found the idea of the Chinese "discovering" the Americas as irrelevant, because regardless of whether or not they got there before Columbus, the Vikings beat them both by centuries.

    It's still neat if they made it there, but they wouldn't be the first sailors to find the place.
    Leif Ericson and Zheng He were both late to the party, though; the real discoverers were pedestrians crossing the Bering Strait, they just didn't leave a written record notifying everybody of their achievement. Or so the most reasonable theories suggest.

    Always seemed pretty headstrong to me, claiming to have discovered a place people are living in. It's like how the "first man to summit Everest" was absolutely the first man "other than a Sherpa" to do so.

    The natives don't count because I was talking specifically about sailors. Obviously the people who crossed by the bridge back in prehistory were the first, but they didn't exactly sail there.

    Aren't we all sailors on the goodship called Earth on the sea of stars?

    :p

    My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
  • King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    So Franco named a chap called Juan Carlos to succeed him after his death, grooming him to continue his regime.

    Within two years of Franco's death, Juan Carlos had transitioned Spain from Authoritarianism to Democracy as a Constitutional Monarchy.

    Franco got punk'd.

    Threat of peasant uprising has a way of persuading people I guess

    I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
  • KaputaKaputa Registered User regular
    Kana wrote: »
    Random stuff from browsing reddit history forums:

    George Orwell (the tall one) with his unit during the Spanish civil war
    Orwell-Spain.jpg
    Along those lines, Homage to Catalonia is Orwell's account of his experience in the Spanish Civil War. Worth reading IMO.

  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    Same with Hemingway.

  • DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    I forgot about badass of the week. Everytime someone mentions it, I loose 8-12 hours of my life. Still so super awesome.

    Jack Churchill's life is amazingly hilarious and badass. Although it's said about some of his conquests (taking the 42 prisoners in the middle of the night with a broadsword) was basically battle fatigue and the germans going "you know what? Its been too long, were done with this. Fuck it you have to take us alive anyways".

    DiannaoChong on
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  • Megaton HopeMegaton Hope Registered User regular
    Kana wrote:
    Obviously clothes like that were a ultra-high-class-only thing, and that dress is just the most extreme example of the squared-off dresses that were around at the time, most of the other examples on that page were less huge (and correspondingly less hilarious).

    But really it's not that much crazier than the dresses that the upper class ladies would be wearing for the next 150 years in courts around the world (unless they're too hot for that shit, see: Italy). It's all held up by an understructure of either stiffened leather or later on thin steel (crinoline). Think of all those huge bell-shaped dresses the french ladies are all floating around in right before the revolution starts chopping their perfectly coifed heads off.
    And let's take a moment to speak of the coiffures in question. Ladies in pre-revolutionary France had the most unreasonable standards regarding hairstyles, to the point where those styles were more accurately described as sculpture:

    http://www.morbidoutlook.com/fashion/historical/1999_11_frenchhair.html
    Hair truly became an art form; a sculpture requiring many stylists, assistants, and all sorts of tools, props and even ladders! Never were more incredible hairstyles accepted as the norm. Portraits and letters from this period show us such themes as spinning windmills and running brooks made from mirror shards. ... Princesse de Machin once had her own tresses wrapped around the bars of a birdcage containing live butterflies! Ribbons, artificial flowers, gauze, pears and other such demands elevated hair above and beyond two feet, three with feathers.

    In the time of Marie Antoinette, styles in architecture, landscaping and even current events were incorporated into these super structures. Entire gardens and ships on rolling waves could be found on ladies’ heads, making them monuments to ingenuity.

    http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/programs/hair.html
    These hairstyles were labor-intensive and required cushions and wool, pomatum and powder, and an array of decorations. They were uncomfortable, they attracted insects and mice, and they could be fire hazards.

    Of course, they attract pests because once you've constructed such an elaborate superstructure to clothe your scalp, just dismantling it again would be a waste of time, money, and other peoples' effort.

  • Knuckle DraggerKnuckle Dragger Explosive Ovine Disposal Registered User regular
    Jimmy Stewart was not only the first Hollywood star to enlist for WWII, he was also one of the few (if not the only one) to do so before Pearl Harbor. He also saw serious combat, flying at least 20 combat missions in the B-24, often as pilot of the lead plane. He ended the war as a full colonel, transferred to the reserves and finally retired in 1968 as a brigadier general (having originally enlisted as a private).

    Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.

    - John Stuart Mill
  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    During the period between WWI and WWII, the United States' strategic plans for conflict with different nations were all colour coded. Stuff like Orange for Japan, Black for Germany, Yellow for China - OMG RACIST - and so on. There were also "Rainbow plans", for when a coalition fought against America. WWII as it occured would be considered Orange-Black-Grey, at least at one time.

    War Plan Red concerned War with Great Britain. Since Britain still had a large empire at the time, the different territories were subdivided into different shades of red. Britain was red proper, Canada - anticipated to the primary field of battle - was Crimson, India was Ruby, Australia was Scarlet and New Zealand was Garnet.

    Wait, isn't this forgetting someone? Yep: Ireland, which would not (mostly) break away from Britain until 1949. What was its shade of red?
    Emerald

    640px-War_Plan_Red.svg.png

    Seriously, there are some stereotypes you can't shake off.

  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    I always liked Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

    I mean, sure is pa went on safaris and led the Rough Riders, but not to be out done by his father, Theodore Jr. Decided to go ashore at Utah beach in the first wave on D-day. The only General to go in the first wave, his peers in the officer corp did not expect him to live. Upon hitting the beach and learning he was a mile off target, Theodore declared that they would "Start the war from right here" Here survive the Normandy invasion, and welcomed those who thought he would die on the beach later in the day.

    Did I mention he did all this with arthritis, wounds from the First World War, and heart problems?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt,_Jr.

    TL;DR Fighting the Spanish and hunting helpless animals is for pansies, real men crate at the Nazi war machine with only a cane and a pistol.

    And Ted Jr.'s nephew Kermit Jr. got in on the ground floor of CIA staged coups when he rounded up a motley bunch of conspirators and overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in the summer of 1953. The AIOC (we now know them today as BP) and Britain's foreign ministry put intense pressure on Truman and later Eisenhower to stage a coup in Iran and put the Shah back in power, and Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers (Ike's Secretary of Defense and head of the CIA) finally did so in one of many examples of the US backing the Shah against political enemies.

    Kermit Roosevelt Jr.

    Coup of 1953

    Fun addendum, in response to his losing power in '52 and '52 (along with the help of CIA trainers and lots of US funding) shortly after the Shah got back to Iran he started laying the groundwork for:

    Savak


    a wonderful group of people that liked making people vanish more than David Copperfield.

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
  • Clown ShoesClown Shoes Give me hay or give me death. Registered User regular

    I always liked Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

    I mean, sure is pa went on safaris and led the Rough Riders, but not to be out done by his father, Theodore Jr. Decided to go ashore at Utah beach in the first wave on D-day. The only General to go in the first wave, his peers in the officer corp did not expect him to live. Upon hitting the beach and learning he was a mile off target, Theodore declared that they would "Start the war from right here" Here survive the Normandy invasion, and welcomed those who thought he would die on the beach later in the day.

    Did I mention he did all this with arthritis, wounds from the First World War, and heart problems?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt,_Jr.

    TL;DR Fighting the Spanish and hunting helpless animals is for pansies, real men crate at the Nazi war machine with only a cane and a pistol.

    And Ted Jr.'s nephew Kermit Jr. got in on the ground floor of CIA staged coups when he rounded up a motley bunch of conspirators and overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in the summer of 1953. The AIOC (we now know them today as BP) and Britain's foreign ministry put intense pressure on Truman and later Eisenhower to stage a coup in Iran and put the Shah back in power, and Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers (Ike's Secretary of Defense and head of the CIA) finally did so in one of many examples of the US backing the Shah against political enemies.

    Kermit Roosevelt Jr.

    Coup of 1953

    Fun addendum, in response to his losing power in '52 and '52 (along with the help of CIA trainers and lots of US funding) shortly after the Shah got back to Iran he started laying the groundwork for:

    Savak


    a wonderful group of people that liked making people vanish more than David Copperfield.

    Don't forget that part of the coup involved propaganda leaflets claiming that Mosaddegh was anti-Islamic to whip up a bit of religious fervour amongst hard-liners. That definitely didn't backfire.

  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    I personally like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_watch_me and the story behind it.

    Its from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis in Canada.

    Funny to think that Canada had its very own homegrown terrorists and managed to deal with them. Not without the government suspending is freedoms, but sometimes that's what it takes.

    The interview where the phrase comes from is awesome. Its basically a reporter that says that having high government officials kidnapped is the price you pay for freedom and Pierre Trudeau(prime minister and obviously a high government official) essentially saying fuck you right back. If you can get the CBC feed you can watch it on Youtube.

    Edit: While the martial law during the October Crisis was in effect, the military only enforced the law, the civilian government still functioned and all suspects where brought before a civilian court. Canada: polite, even under Martial Law.

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • LoveIsUnityLoveIsUnity Registered User regular
    I went to school for literature and not history, but a big part of my college education revolved around positioning literature in a social and historic context. This has resulted in weird gaps in knowledge where I know a lot about, say, 19th century British history but don't know nearly as much as I should about the USA at that time period (and I really should since that's where I live). I'm going to keep a close eye on this thread, since it's already really interesting, but I figured I might as well drop in and tell a story that I loved hearing when I was in college and still find fascinating. I'm sure that some of you have heard it already, so I'll try to find one that's more obscure next time.

    I'm sure that everyone has heard of Mary Shelley. She is, at least in terms of the public consciousness, the most famous writer in her family and of course wrote Frankenstein, which many people consider the first science fiction novel. What a lot of people may not know are the circumstances surrounding her husband's burial, which was straight up weird.

    Percy Shelley, Mary's husband, was probably the most celebrated Romantic poet of his time. Byron had the interesting personal life, Coleridge had the opium problems (alright Keats had them too), and Wordsworth was a filthy hippie, but Shelley was the most celebrated writer in his time. When Shelley died, a core group of friends (commonly referred to as the Byron-Pisan circle and included Lord Byron and Edward Trelawny), got together to burn his body. At the time of Shelley's death, there was a law in effect in Genoa (which is where he drowned) that bodies had to be cremated for fear of plague outbreaks, and he was cremated in accordance with that law.

    Actual historical accounts of the funeral pyre vary, but most of them corroborate each other on the main points. By some accounts, (and this famous painting) Mary Shelley was present at the cremation. It would have been tradition for Mary to not be at her husband's funeral, but, well, she wrote Frankenstein when she was 18 so she can probably do whatever the hell she feels like. What is known, however, is that at some point Lord Byron got very, very drunk and decided to go swimming which left Trelawny alone with the body. Trelawny supposedly noticed that the heart of Byron was not burning, which of course played into the Romantic spirit - Shelley's heart was too pure to burn, etc... (In all actuality, doctors now believe that his heart was calcifying, which is why it appeared not to burn and was more resistant to cremation than the rest of his body.) Trelawny reached into the funeral pyre and removed Shelley's carbonized heart, badly burning his hand in the process. (Don't worry, he totally poured wine all over it afterwards to make it feel better.) He briefly flirted with the idea of keeping Shelley's heart but ultimately was persuaded by friends to give it to Mary. Mary mostly kept the heart wrapped up in a drawer but was known to occasionally carry it with her in a purse. Percy's heart wasn't buried until 67 years after his death and was buried separate from him. Shelley's gravestone bears the inscription "Cor Cordium" or "Heart of Hearts."

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  • Captain MarcusCaptain Marcus now arrives the hour of actionRegistered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    I personally like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_watch_me and the story behind it.

    Its from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis in Canada.

    Funny to think that Canada had its very own homegrown terrorists and managed to deal with them. Not without the government suspending is freedoms, but sometimes that's what it takes.

    The interview where the phrase comes from is awesome. Its basically a reporter that says that having high government officials kidnapped is the price you pay for freedom and Pierre Trudeau(prime minister and obviously a high government official) essentially saying fuck you right back. If you can get the CBC feed you can watch it on Youtube.

    Edit: While the martial law during the October Crisis was in effect, the military only enforced the law, the civilian government still functioned and all suspects where brought before a civilian court. Canada: polite, even under Martial Law.

    That transcript is ridiculous- the guy's like "well one of the costs we have to pay is that people like you could be kidnapped" and Trudeau says that's bullshit, we can't have a shadow government run by terrorists kidnapping government officials.

  • RchanenRchanen Registered User regular
    So Franco named a chap called Juan Carlos to succeed him after his death, grooming him to continue his regime.

    Within two years of Franco's death, Juan Carlos had transitioned Spain from Authoritarianism to Democracy as a Constitutional Monarchy.

    Franco got punk'd.

    Threat of peasant uprising has a way of persuading people I guess

    Yeah, but then you read his wikipedia page and outside of elephant hunting its one long list of crowning moment of awesome.

    Hell, telling Hugo Chavez to shut up.

  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited July 2013
    So I just finished up a Uses of History class for my Policy program

    Would stuff like that go in here or is hyper academic stuff 'meh'?

    In the realm of silly tidbits, French Winemakers had a 300 year lawsuit going on in an attempt to become the 13th great guild of Paris. Precedents brought up by each side included: Biblical quotes, quotes from Shakespeare, quotes from the Hammurabic Code, and what can only be called the performance art style slaying of multiple chickens (to show what would happen if people were drunk all the time)

    Ethan Smith on
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited July 2013
    No mention of Simo Hayha yet? Excellent.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

    Also here, along with some other equally badass indivuduals:

    cracked.com/article_17019_5-real-life-soldiers-who-make-rambo-look-like-pussy.html

    In terms of pure numbers, he was the killingest killer who ever killed. Seven-hundred and five confirmed kills, all within a 100 day period. Was eventually shot in the head by a Russian soldier... and survived. He recovered in time for peace being declared, then he became a Moose Hunter because clearly he hadn't murdered enough things yet.

    To add something to the Jack Churchill story; he's also probably the only person in WWII to have scored a kill with a longbow. His wikipedia page confirms he was the only British soldier to have done so, which makes me wonder who the hell else was as crazy as he was.

    Mr Ray on
  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    Mr Ray wrote: »
    In terms of pure numbers, he was the killingest killer who ever killed. Seven-hundred and five confirmed kills, all within a 100 day period.

    Without a telescopic sight

    That's absurd

  • MadCaddyMadCaddy Registered User regular
    During the period between WWI and WWII, the United States' strategic plans for conflict with different nations were all colour coded. Stuff like Orange for Japan, Black for Germany, Yellow for China - OMG RACIST - and so on. There were also "Rainbow plans", for when a coalition fought against America. WWII as it occured would be considered Orange-Black-Grey, at least at one time.

    War Plan Red concerned War with Great Britain. Since Britain still had a large empire at the time, the different territories were subdivided into different shades of red. Britain was red proper, Canada - anticipated to the primary field of battle - was Crimson, India was Ruby, Australia was Scarlet and New Zealand was Garnet.

    Wait, isn't this forgetting someone? Yep: Ireland, which would not (mostly) break away from Britain until 1949. What was its shade of red?
    Emerald

    640px-War_Plan_Red.svg.png

    Seriously, there are some stereotypes you can't shake off.

    Where'd this come from? Why isn't Phillipines and Guam blue, but Puerto Rico is?

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited July 2013
    Some fun facts about a certain historical bad ass and the twilight of the British Empire:

    The Mahatma Gandhi is best remembered for his advocacy of nonviolent forms of civil resistance.

    That isn't the whole story.

    Mohandas Gandhi: The Greatest "I Told You So" in Human History

    In his own words, by the time the Second World War had begun, Gandhi very loudly warned the United Kingdom that they would leave India, sooner or later. Of course, he'd been saying that for more than a decade, But now he was serious, saying the British would leave India "to anarchy or to God."

    Britain left it to the both. The first years of the war, by 1941, actually went relatively well, as the British squeezed India for its resources to fight off German fascism's attempts to creep across the channel from occupied France. Indeed, the early months of the war, and the Atlantic Charter, seemed to just barely stave off an Indian uprising the likes of which Britain couldn't imagine. But by 1943, the "Quit India" movement had hit full steam, especially after Churchill and London made a point that the Atlantic Charter applied to Europeans living under the jackboot of Nazism, not Indians living under the hooves of the British Raj, and that any autonomous government would have to come over the war, but it might not if the Indians didn't get their shit in gear and do their part to stick a boot up Germany's ass so don't test them. This tended to cause many Indians to do things like derail war equipment trains or raid government offices.

    How bad did things get? The British response to "Quit India" was a crackdown involving fifty army battalions and five cases of aerial bombardment. In other countries, this is generally called "war".

    Mohandas Gandhi: Just try occupying a country with bomber aircraft. Just try it.

    Gandhi wasn't alone. While it's legendary in the Asian subcontinent, for Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, the Azad Hind Fauj, or "Indian National Army" is little known in the west, despite Gandhi's fame. The free Indian Army was the brainchild of Subhas Chandra Bose, who was not the last leftist revolutionary to come out of Bengal (as Pakistan would painfully learn 25 years later). In an insanely complex scheme involving the anti-British Indian community in Berlin, the German Abwehr (military intelligence service that was accused of undermining Hitler), the NKVD, and a submarine to Japan, he created a threat to the British Raj that rivaled Gandhi. Oh, and he grew a beard to escape British house arrest in Calcutta.

    Subhas Candra Bose: Indian James Bond

    Bose, an old rival of Gandhi from the nasty political infighting of the late 1930s, originally approached the Soviet Union for the materiel needed to raise an army against the British occupation. Sadly, Moscow declined, but since Germany had yet to invade, they transported him safely to Berlin where Bose could request assistance from another serious P.I.T.A. to the British: Hitler. Der Fuhrer agreed, allowing him to organize a few thousand Indian diaspora, upon which Hitler promptly pounded it into the ground by invading the Soviet Union. Not only did this frighten Bose, a dedicated leftist, but it also turned his 'Indian Legion' into a impotent propaganda tool. It was time to try someone else.

    Picture

    Bose is the not Japanese guy on the bottom left. He was the only civilian to be transferred between two different submarines belonging to two different navies (the IJN and Kriegsmarine) of the war,

    In Japan, Bose had better luck: the Japanese were going to run roughshod through British-occupied Asia, and Tokyo gave the 'okay'. Bose not just had an army, he had the Azaz Hind, the Provisional Government of Free India in Japanese-occupied Singapore. That was pretty much all they'd give to him, since Japan was busy invading everyone around it, and India was on the 'far' side of the region--but Bose took what he got and ran with it.
    40,000 to 45,000 Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army who had surrendered at Singapore had volunteered to the join the army of liberation. To the professional core of ex-prisoners of war were added civilian recruits from Indian plantation laborers in Malaysia, petty traders in Burma and shopkeepers in Thailand. Punjabi Muslims, Sikh and Pathan professional soldiers mingled with Tamil and Malayli workers in a national army led by a Bengali. An overwhelming majority of the two million Indian expatriates in South East Asia responded with great emotional fervor to Bose's cry for 'total mobilization', his battle-cry 'Chalo Delhi' and his national greeting 'Jai Hind'

    Bose took a semi-effective army (that was almost immediately swamped by Chinese partisans in Burma and the British remnants in Asia) and, while not doing much from a military standpoint, scared the shit out of the British Raj. Arrests weren't working. Floggings weren't working. Starvation wasn't working. And now, while fighting Japan, British commanders had to keep an eye over their shoulder in case that crowd of disgruntled Indians would certainly turn into a improvised army. Of course, Japan lost the war, and so did the INA--but not content to botch the job so much, the British did the worst thing that they could: they simultaneously prosecuted three Free Indian commanders--a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Sikh--and allowed a high-powered legal team including the future first Prime Minister of India, Nehru, to defend them.

    Subhas Candra Bose: If you're going to hang them, don't turn them into martyrs first, stupid.

    And that'll have to be enough for tonight--I'd start on the Bengal Famine, but that's depressing as hell. Suffice to say, Gandhi, and pretty much every effective opponent of the British Raj, found themselves wadding knee-deep (or at least ankle-deep) in the blood of the subcontinent before independence.

    Synthesis on
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