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This Thread Will Go Down in [History]

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  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    I keep hearing "Welcome back to the stage of history!" from Soul Calibur every time I see the thread title

  • ZellpherZellpher Registered User regular
    Oh! And one of our assignments is fixing crappy historical wikipedia pages.

  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    My favorite history is american civil war history because it presents a wide variety of fuckups and morons to laugh at, and the sobering reminder that the people in charge of important things are as flawed as anyone else, and that you should not place a great moral standing upon them just because.

    Ambrose Burnside is a personal hero of mine.

    I used to find Burnside carbine cartridges a lot when metal detecting

    dqlklpweyp82.jpg

  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    Zellpher wrote: »
    Oh! And one of our assignments is fixing crappy historical wikipedia pages.

    A friend of mine inserted false historical information into a Wikipedia article and eight years later, it still hasn't been fixed

    Well, people "fixed" it by making terms and other things more consistent

    He was mostly trying to prove you could smuggle anything onto Wikipedia as long as you refer to a printed source but I think the jokes he made were also rather funny

    So

    Well

  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    I feel like the most problematic articles are those where the whole premise is wrong, like the article about pre-Christian Alpine traditions

    Years ago, I tried to fix an article like this (not this one) because I studied under a person who was one of the few people to actually have any true expertise in the area - it was a completely fruitless endeavor since people would not accept that the whole article had to be rewritten (maybe it was the person who wrote the original one)

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mWeNNiG9YU

    The world's first anti-tank rifle!

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    My favorite wars were the Cod Wars between the UK and Iceland. There will never be a funnier resource war than one where both sides were very carefully trying not to shoot each other.

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    I like the era leading up the American revolution and after
    I like Victorian Europe for how bonkers and serious it was
    I like the Dark Ages
    I like the Holy Roman empire during the medieval era
    I like WW1 and 2 for various reasons
    I like the 1880's - 1920 America as it's really neat and bonkers what we did in the name for 'Merica

  • Indie WinterIndie Winter die Krähe Rudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered User regular
  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular

    and never will be finished! there's a fault in the mountain that was hidden until more modern ground-penetrating radar systems came along and if they tried to finish the work the whole thing might crumble.

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Here's a pretty cool video about the Triplex Acies using the Total War engine to visualize it. It's stuff ya'll probably know already, but I think it's really need to get a visual representation of it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWAkNNWo920

    Question: The Dark Ages. I've heard a bunch of stuff over the years about how the term isn't used anymore because the period actually wasn't one of "darkness" or retrograde knowledge, and I've also heard stuff that says that like, no, it was a huge step back for everyone. Is there historical consensus on this? Is it a matter of debate? Or is it one of those "things I learned as a kid like columbus thought the earth was flat."

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    I thought it was called the Dark ages as we know little of what was happening in Europe at the time hence dark

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    Brainleech wrote: »

    awww! lookit! lookit this widdle fella :3c


    edit: haha, right around 3:30, the tank commander is all 'dude i'm gonna totally wreck this sign, check it out'

    and the guy on the back is all 'vous êtes un homme fou, jean-eric'

    Metzger Meister on
  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    The Dark Ages is a shitty term because it's based on our collective boner for classical knowledge

    Like, it's true, there was a lot that was lost or otherwise forgotten, and some of what the Greeks knew was like, really smart shit

    But just because they didn't have the knowledge of those esteemed men at the time doesn't mean they were a bunch of fuckin' idiots

    They just were functioning on a different knowledge base and view of the world, where different thoughts took form and precedence

    Essentially calling it the Dark Ages is saying, "Well they weren't educated in the way that we were educated, and therefore they can't have been very intelligent"

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    The Dark Ages is a shitty term because it's based on our collective boner for classical knowledge

    Like, it's true, there was a lot that was lost or otherwise forgotten, and some of what the Greeks knew was like, really smart shit

    But just because they didn't have the knowledge of those esteemed men at the time doesn't mean they were a bunch of fuckin' idiots

    They just were functioning on a different knowledge base and view of the world, where different thoughts took form and precedence

    Essentially calling it the Dark Ages is saying, "Well they weren't educated in the way that we were educated, and therefore they can't have been very intelligent"

    I've heard it was basically a result of people in the Renaissance wanting to distance themselves from the current knowledge/beliefs/styles/etc and go back to older "forgotten" knowledge. So dump on your immediate predecessors and reach way back into history.

    Oh god were the Renaissance era thinkers just huge hipsters? :P

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Also a not very nuanced view of the fall of Rome to the Barbarian hordes.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Some of it is Renaissance, some Enlightenment... Edward Gibbon wrote a massive and at the time seminal work that set the tone of the "Dark Ages" for centuries.

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Yeah, it was one big Greek and Rome fetish, essentially

    So if the men who destroyed Rome were a dominant power, they must be savages, because who could destroy such a bastion of goodness as Rome?

    Mind you, we're talking fifth century Rome, which was tremendously in decline at this point

    And really the whole idea of the destruction of Rome is a fallacy - Rome wasn't built in a day, and it didn't fall in a day either

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Here's a pretty cool video about the Triplex Acies using the Total War engine to visualize it. It's stuff ya'll probably know already, but I think it's really need to get a visual representation of it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWAkNNWo920

    Question: The Dark Ages. I've heard a bunch of stuff over the years about how the term isn't used anymore because the period actually wasn't one of "darkness" or retrograde knowledge, and I've also heard stuff that says that like, no, it was a huge step back for everyone. Is there historical consensus on this? Is it a matter of debate? Or is it one of those "things I learned as a kid like columbus thought the earth was flat."

    did anyone else hear the voices from the orignial Rome: Total War in their heads while this guy was talking?

    all like TRIARII! PRINCIPES! WAR DOGS!

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    Hullloooooo there history thread! This IS relevant to my interests!

    @Zellpher this may be overly nosy for a stranger, but do you have any internships under your belt or leads on work after university? (She asks, as a history major who failed to successfully find a job in her field.)

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Love the absolute fuck out of that game

  • ZellpherZellpher Registered User regular
    Hullloooooo there history thread! This IS relevant to my interests!

    @Zellpher this may be overly nosy for a stranger, but do you have any internships under your belt or leads on work after university? (She asks, as a history major who failed to successfully find a job in her field.)

    I'm doing an internship over the summer at a local museum. I'm applying for grad school this fall, figured it'd be a good idea to actually do archival work before committing. Unfortunately I was born on the wrong coast for 90% of archivist programs. I'm currently working under someone in my department on a textbook (just index revisions, which is basically just judgmental data entry).

    Speaking of which, I should probably get back to it...

    but yeah, after the internship everything is just a giant, terrifying question mark.

  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Some of it is Renaissance, some Enlightenment... Edward Gibbon wrote a massive and at the time seminal work that set the tone of the "Dark Ages" for centuries.

    Also the downplaying of Byzantine accomplishments

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Love the absolute fuck out of that game

    for my money it's the best game in the series.

  • ZibblsnrtZibblsnrt Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    I've heard it was basically a result of people in the Renaissance wanting to distance themselves from the current knowledge/beliefs/styles/etc and go back to older "forgotten" knowledge. So dump on your immediate predecessors and reach way back into history.

    There's also probably a half-decent chance that some of the Late Antiquity stuff just wasn't as much on their radar in general, either because the knowledge was lost to them - we've found a lot through archaeology, recovered documents, stuff that was just sitting in libraries, etc. - so it was easier for them to just see things utterly falling apart and going dark for awhile.

    On top of that there were a lot of vibrant, impressive changes and developments all through that period that would've just been off the cultural radar for a lot of people whose worldviews were still thinking in terms of a golden age and a constant decline since. Late antiquity and the early medieval era were pretty vibrant in terms of development of art, architecture, technology, government, the works; we more or less got three of the main European states from Charlemagne, but it's understandable with the historical traditions at the time that folks in the Renaissance would have taken that for granted, or even seen it as a step back.

    I'm always kind of amused at the staying power of the whole dark age concept, though, it being based on the Glorious Past versus our Terrible Present - especially since there were three or four periods modern historians class as medieval renaissances, while meanwhile the Roman Empire collapsed twice by the 470s...

  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    Read a mindblowing newspaper article today.

    Otto Skorzeny, you might have heard of him. Or maybe you haven't. Otto was a Bond villian henchman for the Nazis. He had a scar on his face from fencing.
    1878294-388px_skorzenyotto.jpg
    This was deliberate. Young men would fence with only eye and nose protection in order to get cool fencing scars. There's pictures of the results of one of these fencing matches but here's a prematch photo.
    06664a918110d92ac2c92827446473d9.jpg
    Otto was in the SS, did a bunch of spec ops missions and stuff. He came up with the idea of Germans dressing like Allied soldiers to sneak past Allied lines and do sabotage. Which is just not cricket and so when he got caught he was going to be executed until a British soldier at his trial brought up the fact that Allied troops had done the same thing. So he was merely put in jail, which he escaped from.

    Anyway, he led a very active life, both during WW2 and afterwards. Lots to read about, if you're interested. He was a Nazi, a special ops guy, SS hero, and...

    MOSSAD assassin?

    Yes, after the war Otto worked with MOSSAD to assassinate his fellow Nazis.

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    Well holy crap.

    I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't gotten hold of that yet.

  • ZellpherZellpher Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    The self/complicit-mutilation of fencing enthusiasts is a topic that I am both fascinated by and haven't done any research on. I don't even know where to start.

    I have many questions about it. Like, is it where the "scars get all the ladies" ideal comes from? Were there methods to discover is someone had faked it? What was the experience of scarification like? Would your close acquaintances know but cover for you? How much was honor culture a part of it versus some other rising cultral force? I don't even have a firm grasp of the timeline of how far back the practice extended. Dueling culture as a whole is pretty foreign to me but seems like a huge part of (at least western) culture that's outside of my knowledge base.

    Zellpher on
  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    This article has most of the deets.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dueling_scar
    Dueling scars (German: Schmisse) have been seen as a "badge of honour" since as early as 1825. Known variously as "Mensur scars", "the bragging scar", "smite", "Schmitte" or "Renommierschmiss", dueling scars were popular amongst upper-class Austrians and Germans involved in academic fencing at the start of the 20th century. Being a practice amongst university students, it was seen as a mark of their class and honour, due to the status of dueling societies at German and Austrian universities at the time, and is an early example of scarification in European society. The practice of duelling and the associated scars was also present to some extent in the German military.

  • ZellpherZellpher Registered User regular
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    This article has most of the deets.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dueling_scar
    Dueling scars (German: Schmisse) have been seen as a "badge of honour" since as early as 1825. Known variously as "Mensur scars", "the bragging scar", "smite", "Schmitte" or "Renommierschmiss", dueling scars were popular amongst upper-class Austrians and Germans involved in academic fencing at the start of the 20th century. Being a practice amongst university students, it was seen as a mark of their class and honour, due to the status of dueling societies at German and Austrian universities at the time, and is an early example of scarification in European society. The practice of duelling and the associated scars was also present to some extent in the German military.

    The Peter Gay book in the further reading section of that article looks fantastic. "The Cultivation of Hatred: The Bourgeoise Experience, Victoria to Freud" is a damn fine title for a book.

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    Paging @Grey Ghost for all the shit he was telling me about the dueling book he read recently

    GERMANY: Exactly as insane as expected

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • JoeUserJoeUser Forum Santa Registered User regular
    Wouldn't scars mean you weren't very good?

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    yeah but they're manly

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited April 2016
    JoeUser wrote: »
    Wouldn't scars mean you weren't very good?

    If you fight long enough with bladed things scars are kind of an inevitability (or death if you are using these bladed things in not training/dueling situations). "Experienced fencers, who had fought many bouts, often accumulated an array of scars. A duelist who died in 1877 "....fought no less than thirteen duels but had 137 scars on head, face and neck""

    It also shows, undeniably, that you are brave enough to fight with bladed weapons and in these cases in particular risk taking hits to the face. It was intimidating enough for me to do kendo in Japan, and that's with some pretty decent full facial protection gear on and wooden sticks (though a small possibility of serious injury/death still existed). I mean, it's in essence silly machismo BS saying I'm such a badass I willingly put myself in situations where people can swing blades at my face.

    Inquisitor on
  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    I cant imagine even wanting to stab someone. Shit is gross.

    I can't believe people used to fight with swords and spears

  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    Uriel wrote: »
    I cant imagine even wanting to stab someone. Shit is gross.

    I can't believe people used to fight with swords and spears

    Fencing is a lot of fun!

    Its like one-on-one poker but with swords too!

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Fencing is indeed a ton of fun, with proper safety equipment. :P

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited April 2016
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    JoeUser wrote: »
    Wouldn't scars mean you weren't very good?

    If you fight long enough with bladed things scars are kind of an inevitability (or death if you are using these bladed things in not training/dueling situations). "Experienced fencers, who had fought many bouts, often accumulated an array of scars. A duelist who died in 1877 "....fought no less than thirteen duels but had 137 scars on head, face and neck""

    It also shows, undeniably, that you are brave enough to fight with bladed weapons and in these cases in particular risk taking hits to the face. It was intimidating enough for me to do kendo in Japan, and that's with some pretty decent full facial protection gear on and wooden sticks (though a small possibility of serious injury/death still existed). I mean, it's in essence silly machismo BS saying I'm such a badass I willingly put myself in situations where people can swing blades at my face.

    It's worth mentioning here that actually in the German university culture that predominated at the end of the 19th century up til WWI (and again under the Nazis), scars gained in duels were a status symbol, indicating your courage and honor and also that you were a member of the upper echilon of society.

    E: So basically it were super desirable to get cut on the face. Because Germans.

    Lost Salient on
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    JoeUser wrote: »
    Wouldn't scars mean you weren't very good?
    In these duels the winner was the person who took the most damage because it showed how tough they were.

This discussion has been closed.