History thread

[BnM]

Is it bias free? @Neigs.

Read my previous post, glad you could make sense of it. What a mess

[Niegs]

Is it bias free? @Neigs.

Read my previous post, glad you could make sense of it. What a mess

Seeing as it was written in the 1920s, I'm sure there's some criticisms to be had of it now. My brain can't hold in too many facts now, though, so I tend to read things that just give me the gist.

Makes me wonder, now, if books for youth aren't a nice straightforward read on many subjects? A brief overview, older ones offering a bit more context (though possibly also leaving out horrific/newly-discovered things), but no spin by a researcher with a slant looking to tell a tale and sell a book different from the other large tomes out there?

[Niegs]

For ASMO et al., Lipscomb in the flesh on the History Hit end of year quiz.

[GogLais]

Just read Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. You’ll like it if that’s the sort of thing you like, which I do. Enough to get me to sign up on a WEA Stuarts on-line course anyway.

[Jock42]

The Ardestie Earth House is pretty much across the road from me, decided to take a wander up to it.

Ardestie Earth House, likely built in the first two centuries AD, is an underground passage over 24m long, with a stone-lined drain in its floor. Excavations in 1949 and 1950 revealed a complex of buildings at ground level, with access to the earth house within one building.

People have speculated on the use of earth houses, but the variation in shape and size across Scotland suggest there was no single consistent use. One suggestion is that they were used for storage.

Evidence suggests that most earth houses were destroyed, or at least infilled, in the late AD 100s – coinciding with the Roman withdrawal from Britain.

[Niegs]

I've been enjoying the WW2 escapes podcast For You the War is Over and had a right chuckle that this fella posed as a Bulgarian officer by the name of "I(van) Bagerov".

https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/s ... 80005&l=nl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_James_(British_MP)

[laurent]

One of the French history youtube guy has now an English channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@notabeneinenglish

I do enjoy his stuff, it's dubbed in English so you don't get an outrageous French accent.

[Niegs]

A really great 'doco' on the Vietnam War from the perspective of Aussie nurses!

[ASMO]

For ASMO et al., Lipscomb in the flesh on the History Hit end of year quiz.

Thanks for that, i shall watch it at home tonight. (Note to self....have tissues handy)

[Niegs]

Saved this on St Patrick's Day, but forgot about it. An interesting tale of early Toronto (and have heard that Ottawa also had a 'Gangs of New York' feel in the 1800s, with - iirc - Irish, French-Can, and Scots gangs ruling the city until it was cleaned up).

[Hugo]

Thanks for posting Nieg. It reminds me, I was recently reading about a battle between (if I remember correctly) some Irish Americans and Canadians.

Here it is, the so called Fenian raids: https://time.com/5549199/irish-invade-canada/

[fishfoodie]

Thanks for posting Nieg. It reminds me, I was recently reading about a battle between (if I remember correctly) some Irish Americans and Canadians.

Here it is, the so called Fenian raids: https://time.com/5549199/irish-invade-canada/

You should know better than most; it's just the Irish; in a permanent state of Revolution !

The Irish in Latin America

Admiral William Brown (AKA Guillermo Brown) - founder of the Argentine Navy
Ambrose O’Higgins
Bernardo O'Higgins

The San Patricios, who got sick of being treated like shit by the WASPs, & joined the Mexicans they were supposed to be fighting

Even in Europe & beyond:

In the same period Eoin MacNeill noted that ‘self determination is now the Watchword in World Politics … the world war was the death agony of an old world and the birth-agony of a new world.’ Sinn Féin welcomed the rise of republicanism in Europe, Fr Michael O’Flanagan telling one Mayo audience that ‘Poland and Finland and the Ukraine were today free from the subjugation of the Russian yolk … in Austria the Bohemians and the Czechs were also free, and there was no hearts in Europe more rejoiced than Irish hearts that Bohemia was a republic.’ In this context, it was difficult to claim that the demand for an Irish republic was illogical.
....
Indeed the Indian nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai promised the Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia in March 1919 that ‘by 1925 there would be far more Sinn Feiners in India than in Ireland.’ Irish activists in the United States asserted that as ‘India is the pivot of the British Empire … that pivot must be broken by the combined efforts of India, Ireland, Egypt, Persia, Russia and China.’
...

https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index ... -go-global

Even in Israel, the Haganah/Irgun adopted wholescale the method & organization of SF & the IRA, & did so under the tutelage of Rob Briscoe.

The Irish are often that dog that you can kick just so many times before it decides that enough is enough.

[Niegs]

Thanks for posting Nieg. It reminds me, I was recently reading about a battle between (if I remember correctly) some Irish Americans and Canadians.

Here it is, the so called Fenian raids: https://time.com/5549199/irish-invade-canada/

A friend of mine lives in a town in which one of the battles was fought...

The Battle of Ridgeway (also known as the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge) was fought on the morning of 2 June 1866, near the village of Ridgeway and the town of Fort Erie in Canada West (present-day Ontario). 850 Canadian soldiers clashed with 750 to 800 Fenians, Irish American insurgents who had crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York.

Preamble : Why Ridgeway is so Important to Canada 150

“The Fenian Raids, where Americans of Irish descent decided to invade parts of Canada in order to convince Britain to release Ireland from British rule seems really farfetched today, all those recently returning veteran soldiers of Irish descent from the American Civil War were a huge threat to the Canadian colonies,” explained David Pampe,The Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR),in Toronto."QOR were right there on Juno Beach and they were in the Battle of Ridgeway,”

Some Canadian historians argue that 2016, which is the 150th anniversary of the New Brunswick and Ontario Fenian Raids and the 10 regiments created in response to that threat , deserves to be as significant a date as 2017 - Canada’s 150th birthday.

And that the role played by those New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Upper and Lower Canada volunteer militia can been seen as important as that played by the politicians then negotiating Confederation.The battle has been called ‘The Battle that created Canada.’ This conflict, and actually losing the battle but not the war, was a catalyst for Confederation.

Events of the Battle of Ridgeway

On June 1, 1866, the Fenian army of more than a thousand soldiers, which would soon grow to 2,000, crossed the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie.

Led by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Booker, 850 Canadians clashed with the Fenians on Ridge Road the next day in what would become known as the first modern industrial-era battle to be fought and led exclusively by Canadians. Despite the inexperience of the troops, many of them University of Toronto students just pulled from final exams, they performed well under fire, according to historic accounts from the time.

However, the anticipated reinforcement of another 600 British and Canadian troops, under Lieutenant-Colonel George Peacocke, would never reach the battle. Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret’d) Dan Mackay, former commanding officer and long-time historian for The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh's Own) explained that LCol Peacocke was using a map showing all the postal routes, which were not necessarily the most direct.

“Moreover, he did not have any cavalry, which could have provided him with valuable intelligence, including where the Canadian Militia force was located, as well as the Fenian Force, and the best route to join up with them.”

The absence of LCol Peacocke and his troops, poor communications and a questionable order to prepare for cavalry led to a Canadian defeat at Ridgeway. Nine Canadians were killed and 32 wounded. Another eight soldiers died within the year following the battle due to disease from contaminated drinking water.

The museum I worked for had one of these, I think with just one bar. It was an interesting tradition - doubt it's still a thing - to just get a campaign/battle bar on a general service medal/ribbon.

[Hugo]

Thanks for posting Nieg. It reminds me, I was recently reading about a battle between (if I remember correctly) some Irish Americans and Canadians.

Here it is, the so called Fenian raids: https://time.com/5549199/irish-invade-canada/

You should know better than most; it's just the Irish; in a permanent state of Revolution !

The Irish in Latin America

Admiral William Brown (AKA Guillermo Brown) - founder of the Argentine Navy
Ambrose O’Higgins
Bernardo O'Higgins

The San Patricios, who got sick of being treated like shit by the WASPs, & joined the Mexicans they were supposed to be fighting

Even in Europe & beyond:

In the same period Eoin MacNeill noted that ‘self determination is now the Watchword in World Politics … the world war was the death agony of an old world and the birth-agony of a new world.’ Sinn Féin welcomed the rise of republicanism in Europe, Fr Michael O’Flanagan telling one Mayo audience that ‘Poland and Finland and the Ukraine were today free from the subjugation of the Russian yolk … in Austria the Bohemians and the Czechs were also free, and there was no hearts in Europe more rejoiced than Irish hearts that Bohemia was a republic.’ In this context, it was difficult to claim that the demand for an Irish republic was illogical.
....
Indeed the Indian nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai promised the Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia in March 1919 that ‘by 1925 there would be far more Sinn Feiners in India than in Ireland.’ Irish activists in the United States asserted that as ‘India is the pivot of the British Empire … that pivot must be broken by the combined efforts of India, Ireland, Egypt, Persia, Russia and China.’
...

https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index ... -go-global

Even in Israel, the Haganah/Irgun adopted wholescale the method & organization of SF & the IRA, & did so under the tutelage of Rob Briscoe.

The Irish are often that dog that you can kick just so many times before it decides that enough is enough.

This stuff is fascinating. Thanks for linking.

[Uncle fester]

Saved this on St Patrick's Day, but forgot about it. An interesting tale of early Toronto (and have heard that Ottawa also had a 'Gangs of New York' feel in the 1800s, with - iirc - Irish, French-Can, and Scots gangs ruling the city until it was cleaned up).

More fascinating Canada facts.

signal-2023-05-09-12-55-10-128.png (303.46 KiB) Viewed 2553 times

[Niegs]

Reminds me that 27 states have territory that lie north of Canada's most southerly point:


Which is...



Back to history from geography, there's a band here called 54-40, which is a reference to the political slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight!" used by future President Polk to settle the Oregon boundary dispute. I think that'd have taken all of modern British Columbia up to the southern most part of Alaska (then Russian?) We settled on the 49th later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute

Which led to probably the dumbest conflict in the history of North America? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

[Hugo]

Thanks for posting Nieg. It reminds me, I was recently reading about a battle between (if I remember correctly) some Irish Americans and Canadians.

Here it is, the so called Fenian raids: https://time.com/5549199/irish-invade-canada/

A friend of mine lives in a town in which one of the battles was fought...

The Battle of Ridgeway (also known as the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge) was fought on the morning of 2 June 1866, near the village of Ridgeway and the town of Fort Erie in Canada West (present-day Ontario). 850 Canadian soldiers clashed with 750 to 800 Fenians, Irish American insurgents who had crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York.

Preamble : Why Ridgeway is so Important to Canada 150

“The Fenian Raids, where Americans of Irish descent decided to invade parts of Canada in order to convince Britain to release Ireland from British rule seems really farfetched today, all those recently returning veteran soldiers of Irish descent from the American Civil War were a huge threat to the Canadian colonies,” explained David Pampe,The Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR),in Toronto."QOR were right there on Juno Beach and they were in the Battle of Ridgeway,”

Some Canadian historians argue that 2016, which is the 150th anniversary of the New Brunswick and Ontario Fenian Raids and the 10 regiments created in response to that threat , deserves to be as significant a date as 2017 - Canada’s 150th birthday.

And that the role played by those New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Upper and Lower Canada volunteer militia can been seen as important as that played by the politicians then negotiating Confederation.The battle has been called ‘The Battle that created Canada.’ This conflict, and actually losing the battle but not the war, was a catalyst for Confederation.

Events of the Battle of Ridgeway

On June 1, 1866, the Fenian army of more than a thousand soldiers, which would soon grow to 2,000, crossed the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie.

Led by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Booker, 850 Canadians clashed with the Fenians on Ridge Road the next day in what would become known as the first modern industrial-era battle to be fought and led exclusively by Canadians. Despite the inexperience of the troops, many of them University of Toronto students just pulled from final exams, they performed well under fire, according to historic accounts from the time.

However, the anticipated reinforcement of another 600 British and Canadian troops, under Lieutenant-Colonel George Peacocke, would never reach the battle. Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret’d) Dan Mackay, former commanding officer and long-time historian for The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh's Own) explained that LCol Peacocke was using a map showing all the postal routes, which were not necessarily the most direct.

“Moreover, he did not have any cavalry, which could have provided him with valuable intelligence, including where the Canadian Militia force was located, as well as the Fenian Force, and the best route to join up with them.”

The absence of LCol Peacocke and his troops, poor communications and a questionable order to prepare for cavalry led to a Canadian defeat at Ridgeway. Nine Canadians were killed and 32 wounded. Another eight soldiers died within the year following the battle due to disease from contaminated drinking water.

The museum I worked for had one of these, I think with just one bar. It was an interesting tradition - doubt it's still a thing - to just get a campaign/battle bar on a general service medal/ribbon.

Niegs, I. missed this earlier in the week, thanks!

[Jock42]

The museum I worked for had one of these, I think with just one bar. It was an interesting tradition - doubt it's still a thing - to just get a campaign/battle bar on a general service medal/ribbon.

We still have a GSM with clasps AFAIK.

[Niegs]

Here's a look at a nation in a time you don't often see!

[Niegs]

[Niegs]

[Niegs]

A British soldier's last letter home... jesus...

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1705 ... 30435.html

[Niegs]

This historian doesn't mince her words! (time stamped at a point that sums it all up, really)

[Dinsdale Piranha]

This historian doesn't mince her words! (time stamped at a point that sums it all up, really)

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

[Niegs]

This historian doesn't mince her words! (time stamped at a point that sums it all up, really)

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Oh, that's weird. I wonder if the whole channel's blocked or just this historical 'Fight Club' series?

Anyway, Georgian London women's bareknuckle boxing... researcher says they were stripped to the waist because one could be swung around by the corset "... and, you know, people want to see their tits."

[Dinsdale Piranha]

This historian doesn't mince her words! (time stamped at a point that sums it all up, really)

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Oh, that's weird. I wonder if the whole channel's blocked or just this historical 'Fight Club' series?

Anyway, Georgian London women's bareknuckle boxing... researcher says they were stripped to the waist because one could be swung around by the corset "... and, you know, people want to see their tits."

Looks like it's just that series. VPN has resolved the issue.

[shaggy]

This historian doesn't mince her words! (time stamped at a point that sums it all up, really)

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Oh, that's weird. I wonder if the whole channel's blocked or just this historical 'Fight Club' series?

Anyway, Georgian London women's bareknuckle boxing... researcher says they were stripped to the waist because one could be swung around by the corset "... and, you know, people want to see their tits."

And now it’s back to topless darts at Roehampton.

[mat the expat]

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Oh, that's weird. I wonder if the whole channel's blocked or just this historical 'Fight Club' series?

Anyway, Georgian London women's bareknuckle boxing... researcher says they were stripped to the waist because one could be swung around by the corset "... and, you know, people want to see their tits."

And now it’s back to topless darts at Roehampton.

Females used to duel topless as well

[Uncle fester]

The surprising story of ww2 concentration camps on British soil.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ation-camp

[Hugo]

I'm going through my Africa phase right now & Im reading Walter Rodneys classic text "How Europe underdeveloped Africa".

Fascinating book. He threw out a theory that I've never read before about how the industrialists and capitalists of the northern United States wanted slavery to end because it acted as a brake on industrialisation. I guess the fact the gilded age that followed the civil war sort of proves there's something in this idea.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this read.

[Uncle fester]

So josh Widdecombe is a direct descendant of King Edward I (and King Phillip iii of France). That means he has a better claim to the throne than Charles, doesn't he?

[Biffer]

Think I recommended this on another thread, but the Fall of Civilisations podcast is excellent. Two or three hours on an ancient civilisation and why it collapsed. Sumerians, Greenland, Easter Island, etc.

And a couple of quirky bits of history on twitter



The Knights Hositaller thread linked in that one is good too.

[Uncle fester]

The Knights Hospitaller air force story is hilarious as well.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

The Knights Hospitaller air force story is hilarious as well.

That's genuinely interesting! I'm off to Malta in April so it's time to brush up on my Maltese history - of which there's quite a bit it seems.

[Hugo]

This is an interesting one, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Sov ... on_of_Iran

Basically it was to limit German influence in neutral lran and ensure allied supply lines to the Soviet Union. Following the invasion, on 16 September 1941 Reza Shah abdicated and was forced into exile by us. Its somewhat interesting because he was someone who had worked for 15 odd years (by that time) to secularise Iran and reduce the political power of the Muslim clergy.

[Uncle fester]

This is an interesting one, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Sov ... on_of_Iran

Basically it was to limit German influence in neutral lran and ensure allied supply lines to the Soviet Union. Following the invasion, on 16 September 1941 Reza Shah abdicated and was forced into exile by us. Its somewhat interesting because he was someone who had worked for 15 odd years (by that time) to secularise Iran and reduce the political power of the Muslim clergy.

And he was installed by the Brits in the first place.

Iran is a shithole now and source of a lot of problems in the region but the west has to take some of the blame here.

[Hugo]

This is a good podcast (presented by Melvyn Bragg) on the opium wars. He presents and there are contributions from some Chinese academics.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00776k9
One of the points that I thought was fascinating was they mention about how in the long run the unequal treaties actually benefitted China because the west forced the country to open up and trade whereas before it had been more closed off. Not sure how legitimate that point was but it was interesting nonetheless.

To be honest I was a bit dubious on this because as far as I was aware they were involved in big trade with the Spanish through the Philippines - exchanging silver that had been mined in south America for manufactured Chinese goods that were then taken to Spain via Latin America on those big galleons.

[Hugo]

Also, another thing I stumbled on the other day. The America hero of the My Lai massacre, Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot. This is a moving piece, he was obviously a very noble man and it seems his story should be more widely known. He was flying over where the massacre was taking place, landed and placed himself between the American forces and the Vietnamese people they were killing and said that if they opened fire on the Vietnamese then he would open fire on them:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/l ... story.html

[Biffer]

Also, another thing I stumbled on the other day. The America hero of the My Lai massacre, Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot. This is a moving piece, he was obviously a very noble man and it seems his story should be more widely known. He was flying over where the massacre was taking place, landed and placed himself between the American forces and the Vietnamese people they were killing and said that if they opened fire on the Vietnamese then he would open fire on them:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/l ... story.html

Yeah, and the way he was treated afterwards was disgraceful

[Niegs]

Whoa!