History discussion - no, hitler has never seeked the spear of destiny - General

on history and longbowmen: The origin of the middle finger came during the hundred years war. The French made a habit of cutting off the middle and ring fingers of English archers to keep them from continuing their devastating archery. So before a battle, the English archers stuck up those two fingers to mock the incoming French army. I hope I'm not pulling it out of my ass

[QUOTE=OrionChronicles;39513186]on history and longbowmen: The origin of the middle finger came during the hundred years war. The French made a habit of cutting off the middle and ring fingers of English archers to keep them from continuing their devastating archery. So before a battle, the English archers stuck up those two fingers to mock the incoming French army. I hope I'm not pulling it out of my ass[/QUOTE] It's actually the gesture where you flash your index and middle finger kinda like a peace sign, not your middle finger. But yeah it supposedly originated from the English cutting off french archers' fingers.

[QUOTE=OrionChronicles;39513186]on history and longbowmen: The origin of the middle finger came during the hundred years war. The French made a habit of cutting off the middle and ring fingers of English archers to keep them from continuing their devastating archery. So before a battle, the English archers stuck up those two fingers to mock the incoming French army. I hope I'm not pulling it out of my ass[/QUOTE] [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_%28gesture%29]Urban legend.[/URL] (I was going to link it to Snopes but the article doesn't want to load.) The middle finger as a rude gesture dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It probably came about because it looks sort of like a dick. edit: Also, the inverted-peace-sign thing they do in Britain is of unclear origin, but probably not from the French chopping off fingers.

As history nerds can I just get a round of applause for Total War games and how they not only never shilled out historical accuracy to make their games sexier and stupider but spat in the eyes of low standards by managing to create fun-as-fuck games anyway.

[QUOTE=Kommodore;39513369]As history nerds can I just get a round of applause for Total War games and how they not only never shilled out historical accuracy to make their games sexier and stupider but spat in the eyes of low standards by managing to create fun-as-fuck games anyway.[/QUOTE] The Total War series has always been neat but I've never been able to play them, every single time I fail spectacularly in the battlefield even when the odds are in my favour. I just stick with Paradox games

[QUOTE=Kommodore;39513369]As history nerds can I just get a round of applause for Total War games and how they not only never shilled out historical accuracy to make their games sexier and stupider but spat in the eyes of low standards by managing to create fun-as-fuck games anyway.[/QUOTE] Total war games are iffy on certain specifics when it comes history, also the size of armies are way way too large more often than not. But it makes for some fun gameplay nonetheless. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] For example in Rome total war one of the best units in the game are the Urban Cohorts despite them basically being the Roman riot police who would hardly take the field of battle.

[QUOTE=Kommodore;39513369]As history nerds can I just get a round of applause for Total War games and how they not only never shilled out historical accuracy to make their games sexier and stupider but spat in the eyes of low standards by managing to create fun-as-fuck games anyway.[/QUOTE] As far as historical accuracy goes, throw that out of the window but gameplay, man i can hardly think of any games that ive played more than total war. gotta love em [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] Regardless of whether 'Jesus' as we know him/as the bible describes his actions actually did the things attributed to him, I think we can all agree that [I]someone[/I] in the time period did [I]something[/I] that spawned one of the most culturally significant movements in Western Civilization. We may never know for sure exactly who Jesus was but as historians we can examine his impact and my suppositions from there. Clearly something was happening in Judea at that time and it has made a tremendous impact on the world since then so we should examine it from that point, not argue over minute details of the matter. Same goes for Muhammad.

Imagine losers of old wars, killed and or tortured are corpses inside those old statues in your old history books. Like The guys that had hot iron poured in their mouth thens had their heads remolded into masques. That's what a lot of statues make me think of.

Would you say that things like Credit Mobilier, the Whiskey Ring, and the reign of Boss Tweed were examples of unregulated capitalism, kinda like laissez-faire? I labeled them as such for an APUSH assignment to track the relatively sudden shift to regulated capitalism(Sherman Antitrust, Wabash case, and Interstate Commerce Act happened shortly after those events)

As the admin of Wolfenstein Wiki I very much enjoy thread title.

Well it looks like this thread is up for a good start. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Iago;39512016]I know i'm gonna sound a bit fucked up here but I think hitler was a pretty cool guy except for that jew thing and all.[/QUOTE] Well he liked dogs and was a vegetarian. Apparently, he was actually a very polite man when he was not throwing fits and being a paranoid asshole (not to mention he absolutely hated it when people discussed his orders). But yeah, during the entire part where he was stuck in that bunker in Germany, he pretty much turned into a crazed piece of shit who didn't take shit from anyone. Hitler was truly a fascinating character. He had quite a filled life to say the least : failed painter, pimp, soldier during WW1, political prisoner, politician, leader of a country and eventually world supervillain. It's amazing to see all the myths surrounding him - he was kind of an idiot and a paranoid tool with parkinson's disease, but a lot of people still believe he was actually smart and a good tactician (which he wasn't, at all. If he was a good tactician, he would not have started the war to begin with and he would not have pissed off Russia, let alone tried to invade them).

[QUOTE=TMBGFan;39513007]There probably was a guy named Jesus (or, ahem, Yeshua) that did stuff in Judea around 30 CE, but whether or not he did any of the stuff reported in the bible (and exactly how accurate the bible's account of the stuff he did do is) is the real question. [editline]a[/editline] (the answer to those questions are "maybe" and "probably not")[/QUOTE] If this is the case, doesn't that defeat the point of calling him Jesus at all? If no one at the time called him Jesus, and he's not the 'Jesus' people popularly think of, then how real actually is that? If the best conclusion you can end up is "there may have been a man in Jerusalem who may have been the man people later referred to as Jesus, who may or may not have done any or all of the things that are claimed he did in the Bible", then that's pretty flimsy.

[QUOTE=Megafan;39515267]If this is the case, doesn't that defeat the point of calling him Jesus at all? If no one at the time called him Jesus, and he's not the 'Jesus' people popularly think of, then how real actually is that? If the best conclusion you can end up is "there may have been a man in Jerusalem who may have been the man people later referred to as Jesus, who may or may not have done any or all of the things that are claimed he did in the Bible", then that's pretty flimsy.[/QUOTE] It's thought Jesus' full real name was Jesus of Nazarreth. Then Christians called him Jesus Christ. The very few documents we have about him were written by Christians or Jewish archivists and are thus considered biased. Some historians accept them as credible documents, other don't. With something that old it's really hard to tell but personally I don't think an entire religion could have been based on absolutely thin air, there has to be some guy who inspired it to begin with or else it would not have worked at the time.

People didn't think King David existed until only a couple years ago when archaeological evidence was found of him.

[QUOTE=Megafan;39515267]If this is the case, doesn't that defeat the point of calling him Jesus at all? If no one at the time called him Jesus, and he's not the 'Jesus' people popularly think of, then how real actually is that? If the best conclusion you can end up is "there may have been a man in Jerusalem who may have been the man people later referred to as Jesus, who may or may not have done any or all of the things that are claimed he did in the Bible", then that's pretty flimsy.[/QUOTE] Defeat the point?? No, Jesus is just the modern name for him. It's theorised his actual name was something akin to Yeshua, Christ being a title, meaning roughly "anointed one" iirc. That's just how his name has been transliterated over centuries and languages, doesn't mean that because his name wasn't actually "Jesus" that its point is defeated. It's no different than referring to Japan as Japan when it actually would have been referred by the japanese peoples as Nihon or Nippon, or really any other retronym.

According to all history things ever,Serbia always is conquered by big fat empire,rebels,turns into a major power,collapses,repeat.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;39509252]Algeria was a defeat because it was a war of terror against a people that only asked for freedom. We pretty much just sent the army there and asked them to do police work, which ended up in torture and basic executions. We behaved like this because after the huge moral annihilation that was WW2 we needed something glorious to grasp to, and the sight of Algeria and others colonies as proof that the French colonial empire still existed and was actually strong was good enough. When the people of Algeria actually started to rebel and ask for independence, it turned to shit pretty fast.[/QUOTE] no algeria was a defeat because the french had every advantage except the will to win

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;39516029]no algeria was a defeat because the french had every advantage except the will to win[/QUOTE] It's the consequences of the war I'm focusing on rather than how it actually went. It was a mistake to start it and it was a mistake to deny its existence for so long.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;39515400]People didn't think King David existed until only a couple years ago when archaeological evidence was found of him.[/QUOTE] Except we haven't found archaeological evidence of Jesus yet. It is a nice thing that scientific methodology can be applied to history, to help us determine what really happened in the past. We assume Jesus didn't exist until new evidence appears to say otherwise. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=luverofJ!93;39515585]Defeat the point?? No, Jesus is just the modern name for him. It's theorised his actual name was something akin to Yeshua, Christ being a title, meaning roughly "anointed one" iirc. That's just how his name has been transliterated over centuries and languages, doesn't mean that because his name wasn't actually "Jesus" that its point is defeated. It's no different than referring to Japan as Japan when it actually would have been referred by the japanese peoples as Nihon or Nippon, or really any other retronym.[/QUOTE] Right, but does anything but the following exist to say that the founder of Christianity (known as Jesus) exists? 1: The bible (which treats us with rich information such as Jewish mythology and that Pi = 3) 2: Early Christian texts Do also note that not a single part of the new testament was written until at least a century after the death of Jesus. It wasn't even finished until the early middle ages, and even then, translation and transcription errors cropped up aplenty. There is no physical archaeological evidence that Jesus existed. No tombs have been found that match the description of the tomb he was buried in (or rather, one of the four descriptions), no prison cell has "Jesus was here" carved into it, no cross has been found, no drawings of a man with a crown of thorns, and of course, no body.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;39516132]It's the consequences of the war I'm focusing on rather than how it actually went. It was a mistake to start it and it was a mistake to deny its existence for so long.[/QUOTE] the french didn't start the war [quote]In the early morning hours of November 1, 1954, FLN maquisards (guerrillas) or "terrorists", as they were called by the French, launched attacks in various parts of Algeria against military and civilian targets in what became known as the Toussaint Rouge (Red All-Saints' Day). They also attacked many French civilians, killing several.[citation needed] From Cairo, the FLN broadcast a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state – sovereign, democratic and social – within the framework of the principles of Islam." It was the reaction of Premier Pierre Mendès France (Radical-Socialist Party), who only a few months before had completed the liquidation of France's empire in Indochina, which set the tone of French policy for five years. On November 12, he declared in the National Assembly: "[B]One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the Republic. The Algerian departments are part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French.... Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession.[/B]" At first, and despite the Sétif massacre of May 8, 1945 "that have between 20 000 and 45 000 deaths, according to other sources", and the pro-Independence struggle before World War II, most Algerians were in favor of a relative status-quo.[/quote] truer words were never spoken

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;39516614] Right, but does anything but the following exist to say that the founder of Christianity (known as Jesus) exists? 1: The bible (which treats us with rich information such as Jewish mythology and that Pi = 3) 2: Early Christian texts Do also note that not a single part of the new testament was written until at least a century after the death of Jesus. It wasn't even finished until the early middle ages, and even then, translation and transcription errors cropped up aplenty. There is no physical archaeological evidence that Jesus existed. No tombs have been found that match the description of the tomb he was buried in (or rather, one of the four descriptions), no prison cell has "Jesus was here" carved into it, no cross has been found, no drawings of a man with a crown of thorns, and of course, no body.[/QUOTE] Yeah rofl the first christians had it all planned out they would just make up this guy named jesus and a new religion which would then profit to them the chance of living in constant fear of being killed for declining the caesar worship and the roman gods.

[QUOTE=Falchion;39516972]Yeah rofl the first christians had it all planned out they would just make up this guy named jesus and a new religion which would then profit to them the chance of living in constant fear of being killed for declining the caesar worship and the roman gods.[/QUOTE] it really wouldn't be that unprecedented

[QUOTE=Falchion;39516972]Yeah rofl the first christians had it all planned out they would just make up this guy named jesus and a new religion which would then profit to them the chance of living in constant fear of being killed for declining the caesar worship and the roman gods.[/QUOTE] i mean, do you really think that if this was their mindset that it would happen like that? world leaders don't "decide" to found countries on monday when they go to sleep sunday night.

[QUOTE=Falchion;39516972]Yeah rofl the first christians had it all planned out they would just make up this guy named jesus and a new religion which would then profit to them the chance of living in constant fear of being killed for declining the caesar worship and the roman gods.[/QUOTE] Except you need to provide evidence, which is what separates me (and a lot of academics who distrust the bible as a source of historical information) from conspiracy theorists. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=AgentBoomstick;39517187]i mean, do you really think that if this was their mindset that it would happen like that? world leaders don't "decide" to found countries on monday when they go to sleep sunday night.[/QUOTE] Some actually have done things similar. Look at the decolonization of Africa, or when the aftermath of World War one.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;39516614]Except we haven't found archaeological evidence of Jesus yet. It is a nice thing that scientific methodology can be applied to history, to help us determine what really happened in the past. We assume Jesus didn't exist until new evidence appears to say otherwise. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] Right, but does anything but the following exist to say that the founder of Christianity (known as Jesus) exists? 1: The bible (which treats us with rich information such as Jewish mythology and that Pi = 3) 2: Early Christian texts Do also note that not a single part of the new testament was written until at least a century after the death of Jesus. It wasn't even finished until the early middle ages, and even then, translation and transcription errors cropped up aplenty. There is no physical archaeological evidence that Jesus existed. No tombs have been found that match the description of the tomb he was buried in (or rather, one of the four descriptions), no prison cell has "Jesus was here" carved into it, no cross has been found, no drawings of a man with a crown of thorns, and of course, no body.[/QUOTE] It was not [I]finalised[/I] as it is now until the medieval age but existed in form since even a few hundred years after christ when people first tried to formalise it. Also for an issue such as this where it may be impossible to form a complete perspective on what occurred in the 1st century, absense of evidence doesn't necessarily mean that jesus wasn't buried in a tomb, or that it doesn't exist. I'm not arguing that there is, just that any self-respecting academic would form preclusions based on limited evidence, even if it's tilted towards one side such as jesus not existing. Really, with such lack of clarity on the issue, the only reasonable conclusion historians can objectively reach is something or other happened in the 1st century a.d. that led to a hugely significant cultural development in Western Civilization(and by extension human history). Jesus may be real, or maybe just the personification representing the impetus for this event(whether that be "cultists coming up with something that grew into something huge" or not). Also don't be so dependent upon simply judging history based on scientific method, assuming Jesus [I]didnt[/I] exist based on lack of evidence is unreliable considering it may be just a lack of the right evidence(destroyed, unfound, etc.) that may prove or disprove his existence. Like I said, best we can do is study "Jesus" through his profound social and cultural effects.

[QUOTE=luverofJ!93;39517870]It was not [I]finalised[/I] as it is now until the medieval age but existed in form since even a few hundred years after christ when people first tried to formalise it. Also for an issue such as this where it may be impossible to form a complete perspective on what occurred in the 1st century, absense of evidence doesn't necessarily mean that jesus wasn't buried in a tomb, or that it doesn't exist. I'm not arguing that there is, just that any self-respecting academic would form preclusions based on limited evidence, even if it's tilted towards one side such as jesus not existing. Really, with such lack of clarity on the issue, the only reasonable conclusion historians can objectively reach is something or other happened in the 1st century a.d. that led to a hugely significant cultural development in Western Civilization(and by extension human history). Jesus may be real, or maybe just the personification representing the impetus for this event(whether that be "cultists coming up with something that grew into something huge" or not). Also don't be so dependent upon simply judging history based on scientific method, assuming Jesus [I]didnt[/I] exist based on lack of evidence is unreliable considering it may be just a lack of the right evidence(destroyed, unfound, etc.) that may prove or disprove his existence. Like I said, best we can do is study "Jesus" through his profound social and cultural effects.[/QUOTE] I am assuming the null hypothesis until basically sufficient evidence is brought to show that the guy called Jesus existed. At least we can all agree that if he did exist, he was mortal, not born of a virgin, did not rise from the dead or other such miracles, and most certainly wasn't the son of god (as we have to be secular).

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;39516886]the french didn't start the war truer words were never spoken[/QUOTE] The French did start the war. It's a matter of perceptions. They took a mere protest as an act of aggression and opened fire on peaceful protesters who did nothing more than ask for independence. As for the consideration of Algeria as a French territory, it's also a matter of perception. We considered it a territory because it benefited us, but the people of Algeria did not see it that way. How come they were considered as part of France yet did not have the same rights as people in the actual country ? Why did they have to be part of a country if they did not want to and had good reasons to be an independent state ? The French were entirely responsible for the atrocities that followed. There is no denying that. [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Sobotnik;39516614]Except we haven't found archaeological evidence of Jesus yet. It is a nice thing that scientific methodology can be applied to history, to help us determine what really happened in the past. We assume Jesus didn't exist until new evidence appears to say otherwise.[/QUOTE] But we do have proof of his existence in the form of several texts. Because you and a couple historians consider these inexact or not enough doesn't mean everyone does. Not to mention there is no way Christianity would have reached such a huge state as a religion if it had no one to start it with. Do you really think people would have followed a new religion at the risk of being killed by the current regime if it wasn't for a charismatic guy pushing them to do so by his presence and actions ? Even cults at our time work around one person in the form of the guru. You can't base a religion on absolute thin air it has some truth to it (even though it's been obviously very romanticized). [editline]8th February 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Sobotnik;39517939]At least we can all agree that if he did exist, he was mortal, not born of a virgin, did not rise from the dead or other such miracles, and most certainly wasn't the son of god (as we have to be secular).[/QUOTE] This is exactly what most historians assume. He was just a guy called Jesus of Nazareth who was a good speaker and had quite a number of friends following him around. Historical records even mention him as being a fortune teller, which correlates with the romanticized version of his life as told by christian belief. [editline]bleh[/editline] IRRELEVANT INFO TIEM Back in the middle ages the Arabic civilization was actually the most cultured and well organized culture in the world. North Africa and the middle east used to be the cultural center of the world, and most of current science comes from the Arabs (Algebra, Alchemy aka the ancestor of chemistry, a lot of words starting by "al" come from Arabic sciences). A much lesser known fact is that Arabic armies were actually not a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters as a lot of people make them up to be. They were more disciplined than, say, west-european armies and had a much stricter set of rules to fight by, starting with the most important rule of no civilian kills, and no ransacking. They showed up for war, killed the warriors of the other side, and take the conquered lands as they were, rather than destroy everything, steal everything, etc. It was rather pragmatic considering you'd rather rule over a territory you don't have to rebuild from the ground up than a land of ashes and blood, but it's still interesting to know that they weren't the barbarians we think they were. It also shows how much of a disgrace current extremists from the middle-east are considering they are destroying their own heritage (Timbuktu, formerly the cultural capital of the world, has seen a lot of its cultural landmarks destroyed by the Islamists when they went through it) and pretty much deny what used to make them respectable people. Thankfully not all of Middle-east is like that.

I think Richard III has unfairly been given a bad name :( Silly Tudor propoganda

[QUOTE=scurr;39518492]I think Richard III has unfairly been given a bad name :( Silly Tudor propoganda[/QUOTE] Well when you are in a war it's very common to use propaganda to demonize your enemy so more people agree with you. During the first world war, the French had very silly propaganda. Some of the newspaper claimed german soldiers rotted more quickly than fellow french soldiers because they had longer bowels. Yeah.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;39518322]The French did start the war. It's a matter of perceptions. They took a mere protest as an act of aggression and opened fire on peaceful protesters who did nothing more than ask for independence. As for the consideration of Algeria as a French territory, it's also a matter of perception. We considered it a territory because it benefited us, but the people of Algeria did not see it that way. How come they were considered as part of France yet did not have the same rights as people in the actual country ? Why did they have to be part of a country if they did not want to and had good reasons to be an independent state ? The French were entirely responsible for the atrocities that followed. There is no denying that.[/QUOTE] it was an act of aggression plain and simple. the protesters were a vocal minority that wanted independence and they declared war on the french government with their violence. Silent enim leges inter arma.