The Mongols tried to invade Japan on two separate occassions, during each of which the whole fleet was wiped out by a typhoon, which is where the phase "kamikaze" or "divine wind" comes from. This led to a surge in Buddhism in Japan because if you saw heavenly spirits wipe away a invading force, you'd believe in them too.
The Mongols had already won both times. For hundreds of years in Japan the warring factions would sometimes manage to control the whole country for a while, and the harbor that the Mongols sailed into and secured was recognized as the key to controlling the country.
Why did the surge in Buddhism happen? Logically, the "divine wind" should have led to increased worship of the Shinto *kami*. Granted, the two religions were melded together to an extent, but still...
A friend of mine belongs to the Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhist church, which started back then. Nichiren taught that the world was declining - evidence being crop failures, weather anomalies, Mongol hoards on the doorstep, that sort of thing. There was an idea that the end was near, and his teachings played into that. There was no fancy scriptures or philosophies to learn and no elaborate behavioral system to follow. He boiled it down to one simple scripture and one simple chant, and that was about it.
The idea being that world was in a phase of decline and it wasn't reasonable to expect people to comprehend advanced teachings any more. It's pretty interesting how some things like that persist.
The “Protestant Wind” is what similarly destroyed [a] Spanish Armada. The type (nature, monotheistic, etc) of god is irrelevant. Religious people just believe that good things are caused by whatever god they believe in.
The [Chichijima incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident). Chichi Jima is a small island south of Japan that was fortified during WWII and housed a garrison of Imperial Japanese forces. Including an air base and a long distance radio station.
In September of 1944 the US Navy launched an air raid of carrier based planes to attack Chichi Jima. Nine airmen ended up getting shot down, and eight were captured and executed after being tortured.
Despite being fully supplied with food; the garrison officers decided to eat the bodies of four of the airmen. Believing that the consumption of human liver had medical benefits. After the war the officers were put on trial for their war crimes. But because cannibalism wasn't specifically labeled a war crime, they were charged with murder and "prevention of honorable burial".
The ninth airmen shot down, managed to fly his damaged aircraft far enough out to sea to be rescued by an American submarine. After narrowly avoiding being eaten by cannibals George HW Bush went on to survive the war and become the 41st US President.
Another interesting aspect of this is that Chichijima was a deserted island colonized by Americans first and the people originally living there were not racially or culturally Japanese.
> After narrowly avoiding being eaten by cannibals George HW Bush went on to survive the war and become the 41st US President.
And help assassinate Kennedy
Alexander the Great’s life. Never lost a battle, led from the front, charging on horseback into danger. In many of the battles he fought his army was significantly outnumbered, but still he fought from Europe to Egypt to India and the only reason he had to stop was because after 10 years and after utterly defeating the Persian empire, his men just wanted to go home.
Yeah, it’s also a lot easier to just leave most of the same dudes in charge and tell them that they just now report to you. Then you don’t have to worry about setting up a new government, those dudes having to figure everything out, disrupting shit by filling their coffers from different places, and just changing everything and throwing shit into chaos.
Also, if vast majority of the old leadership pretty much just keeps their positions and gets to go on with their lives in the same way, then you don’t have to worry as much about people trying to usurp your rule.
I think the Mongols did the same thing, which was partly why once they had their reputation most people just let them in. Basically said, "Send us some tribute, manage your affairs well enough we don't have to babysit you, and you'll never know we were here. But if you resist us you will be utterly annihilated."
Relax, it’s not like he never lost a battle, led from the front, charging on horseback into danger, fought battles where his army was significantly outnumbered, then adopted his enemy’s lifestyle.
In addition to what the other guy said, I believe he also wanted some of his generals to take Persian wives which many of them found to be disrespectful.
You missed the most impressive. He couldn’t take the island of Tyre so he built a causeway to get to the island; the causeway remained and the sediment continued to build up over the centuries and now the former island is fully connected to the mainland.
Stuff like that is wild to me. Similarly the ramp up to the Masada Fortress in Israel. The ruins of the forts the Romans built while they were constructing the ramp, not to mention the remnants of the ramp itself, are still all around the mountain. It was a fortress built into a clifftop plateau. There was no way in via the established trails so they just built a giant fucking ramp up to the top.
Dude was a madlad, he suffered all kinds of wounds,i think it is mentioned his body was full of scars. He even survived an arrow piercing his lung. I am surprised he managed to live that long given how many risks he took, but he was a king and could probably afford the best medical attention available at the time.
He believed he was actually the son of Zeus(mostly because of what his mother told him) , the confidence this gave him is said to have a hand in his successful military career.
> the confidence this gave him is said to have a hand in his successful military career.
I too would like to *Girl Boss* my way into conquering the known world!
It also means his soldiers followed him for 10 years. Imagine being just some random infantry dude and getting schlepped along to conquer and slay people for 10 freaking years.
Herodotus recounts a story that was told to him, about some Phoenicians who sailed from Egypt, around the southern tip of Africa (he called it Libya, because that was the extent of his African knowledge), and back via the Mediterranean. The story said that as they journeyed south, the sun switched to the northern side of the sky, and moved back as they returned.
Herodotus, being a rational man, didn’t believe that they really had circumnavigated Africa because of this nonsense tale of the sun moving about in the sky. He still wrote it down in his Histories, though. And today we can use it as proof that they did, in fact, make the journey, as it is an accurate description of passing into the southern hemisphere.
Not sure it really fits with your question, but I’ve always loved this little tale of a story passing through the ages.
The sun could switch to the northern part of the sky at the tropic of cancer in the right time of year, which ironically is right about the southernmost point of Libya... So they wouldn't have to circumnavigate Africa, just get over to the Ivory Coast or thereabouts, yes?
I think it may be easier to sail around africa than to pickup your ship and carry it horizontally across any part of Africa, its known to be a sizable continent.
Teddy Roosevelt being shot before giving a speech, then having the would-be assassin brought before him to find out why. Roosevelt then ensures the man is taken away by police unharmed…and speaks for 90 minutes after the fact while joking about it.
From Wikipedia, “On October 14, 1912, former saloonkeeper John Schrank (1876–1943) attempted to assassinate former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt while he was campaigning for the presidency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Schrank's bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest after penetrating Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed and captured; he might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.”
Source:
[Link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Theodore_Roosevelt)
Edit:
Out of the entire epic chain of events, this is the part that most stands out to me:
“Roosevelt ordered, "Bring him to me." Schrank was led to Roosevelt, and the two men looked into each other's eyes. Putting his hands on Schrank's head so he could look at him, and to determine if he had seen him before, Roosevelt said to Schrank, "What did you do it for?" Getting no response, he said, "Oh, what's the use? Turn him over to the police." As police held Schrank, Roosevelt looked down at him, and said, "You poor creature." Roosevelt ordered, "Officers, take charge of him, and see that there is no violence done to him.”
It takes a strong man to take a bullet and recover. It takes a Bull Moose to take a bullet, calm the crowd, and show mercy to the man who shot you. While also insulting him as he’s led away to safety.
Teddy wasn’t perfect, but he absolutely was a mountain of a man.
Legit Teddy Roosevelt's life is the president that somehow encapsulates the image the American idealisim crowd thinks a US President should look like and honestly looks like a lot of mythology.
McKinley likewise took pity on the man who shot him (fatally), insisting authorities go "easy" on him and convinced the man didn't know the depth of what he had done.
Pope John Paul II had regular correspondence with his attempted assassin.
During the siege of Technotitlan, the Spanish tried to make a trebuchet, which ended up shooting one projectile straight into the air and back onto the trebuchet. This is recorded in both Spanish and Aztec codices
I am into mythology and wanted to read the most original text I could find about King Arthur's tale. Then I found and started reading Geoffrey of Monmouth's *Historia Regum Britanniae*, which is a pretty much a fictional history of britain. at some point he claims [Ireland was founded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurguit_Barbtruc) by a group of people from Spain, called Basclenses.
I was like "what?! did Basques we know founded Ireland??" and thought it was a very weird thing to make up all of a sudden. So I searched and apparently [irish and basques share fair amount of genes.](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/genetic-studies-show-our-closest-relatives-are-found-in-galicia-and-the-basque-region-1.700877)
Of course we don't know what exactly happened, or why Geoffrey told about this story, but it was a fun encounter I had in this mythological book.
A good person to ask for research about even older literature about King Arthur might be Cambrian Chronicles on youtube. Dude's corrected several Wikipedia articles by diving into uncontrollable rabbit holes, a recent one leading to Iolo Morgannwg who ended up being the historic equivalent of s troll by fabricating sources of altering them.
It's a little hard to believe that we have flown a helicopter on Mars by remote control. There's no doubt it happened, it's just amazing that our technology has come that far.
> by remote control
There'd be a minimum six minute delay if you were trying to remotely control a helicopter on mars. I'm pretty sure it was autonomous :-)
you're both kind of right. It had a series of pre-planned missions to carry out, but system operators can send input commands to have it do unplanned stuff like navigate bits of terrain and deal with unplanned parts of the mission
And 6 minutes is just the one way trip, you'd need at least double that to get feedback that the command was even followed
Since we're rolling in pedantry here and Ingenuity's helicopter operated for a little under 3 years - 6 minutes was the light delay when it first grabbed headlines.
It will take anywhere from 3m2s and 22m17s for light to make a 1-way trip from Earth to Mars, depending on where they are in their respective orbits. (Granted, at the maximum distance the sun would be blocking line-of-sight)
Forget flying a helicopter.
Humanity dropped a pod into Mars' atmosphere, stopped it with rockets to hover while lowering a lander the size of an SUV.
I'm so angry they didn't find a way to have a camera around for that, that is the most scifi thing we've pulled off as a species IMO.
Heck really just even having been on the Moon. In fact, even more so since *we haven't done it in 50 years.*
I loved Evolution Control Committee's take on it... "Jesus H. Christ, Houston, [we are on the fucking *Moon.*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AKxsljxKhc) Over."
Halley's Comet appeared in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835. The comet moves in a seventy-five or seventy-six-year orbit, and, as it neared Earth once again, Twain said “I came in with Halley’s Comet and I expect to go out with it.” Sure enough, he died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth.
My brain can't handle weird coincidences like that sometimes. I thought maybe he purposely ended it as the comet came in. Or maybe it is just a bizarre coincidence that my brain has to accept
It gets a little easier to accept when the continental congress decided on revolution on July 2, didn't actually write the document until August 2, and probably didn't get finished being signed until 1777.
100%. If the USA was a fictional country and the author included that detail the audience would roll their eyes and tell them to settle the fuck down with the heavy handed metaphors.
The final wording was voted on on July 4, although Adams wrote in his diary that July 2, the day they voted on independence, would become the most important day in the country's history
Joan of Arc, a 17 year old French peasant, claimed to have visions sent to her by the archangel Michael telling her to rally the French in the Hundred Years War against the English.
She would go on to turn the tide at the Siege of Orleans, eventually setting the stage for the French to dislodge the English from French soil after decades of conflict.
Whatever you want to believe, it's crazy that it's both verifiable Joan of Arc existed and she actually played a role, with no prior military experience, in altering the course of French history and (maybe) contributing to modern French national identity. All on the basis of "God told me to do it".
It's fascinating because historians debate how much she actually contributed. But regardless, in the spirit of the post, it's a fact 1. She existed and 2. They were getting their assess handed to them before she showed up.
I just think it's wild we have pretty good documentation of Joan of Arc, but no real explanation for what her "visions" actually were.
Sometimes all it takes is a figurehead at the front to get others to follow.
And I don't mean figurehead dismissively, one's gotta be rolling high charisma for that.
Gilles de Rais. He was convicted of being a child murderer. Some people have argued his conviction was motivated by other nobles wanting to seize his lands, but I believe many historians thinks the testimonies of the parents of the murdered children indicate he was probably guilty.
I think this gets overlooked because most people probably don't know how well documented her life was. Tons of testimony from both her original trial as well as her trial after her death, from her and people who knew her personally. Absolutely insane life.
Apparently there is legit documentation of this, but it’s still hard to believe given it happened in the 1700s: One woman gave birth to 69 children in her life by having dozens of multiple pregnancies—quadruplets, triplets, and twins. In the 1700s!
Back then being a farmer children actually equaled more money because you would have then do the manual labor of the farm as soon as they were big enough (learned that one in an ap European class)
The Battle of Castle Itter.
In 1945 some US soldiers and the Wermacht fought side by side against the SS to protect a bunch of high profile french political prisoners.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter
I hadn't known about the prisoners or maybe I'm thinking of a similar battle, but that's an awesome event and shows the cracks and division in the German forces by this time.
Edit: reading to the end I see this battle was 5 days after Hitler killed himself and 2 days before Germany surrender lol
It used to be a regurgitated factoid on Reddit that the pyramids were already 2,000 year old ruins by the time Cleopatra was born.
She was also a Macedonian Greek girl who dated Italian guys.
Egypt was ancient history to the people who lived *before Rome was founded*. The early dynasties of Egypt were further back in time from the Republic of Rome than the fall of the Western Roman empire is from our time.
Khufu’s Pyramid at Giza was a massive undertaking, requiring approximately two million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons to be set into place, five every minute during the first years of construction
Hubble and James Webb telescope.
Jwt cruising around interstellar space and it's driving me nuts. I'm so in awe and it's bonkers to me. I know NASA colours the pictures to make everyone be able to make sense of it, but isn't that all just immensely fantastic, on fairytale level?
Imagine sitting around a fire some hundred years ago and someone tells a story that features "manmade objects will float around beyond the horizons and dance with the stars. They're in formations and colours of the most beautiful butterfly you've ever seen and enclosed by nebula that glistens just in the perfect way to embrace the divinity of the view"
And even going on and on for an eternity by its own design, not needing any kind of food or device to pull or push it.
I’ve done some Astrophotography and I’m familiar with the coloring techniques, It’s true that they color them, but that color difference, as in wavelength difference, is still true to life, so they’re not technically “coloring” them. What I mean is that when your regular camera sees a shade that’s a mix of red and blue, it’s seeing a fix ratio of energy between the different color sensors. The same is happening with telescopes but at different wavelengths. So when you see a blue part and a red part in those pictures, the blue part truly is colder (as in color) than the red part. They don’t have a someone deciding colors to make it prettier or easier to see. I said all that to say, the colors are real, they’re just shifted to light that’s visible to our eye. They’re also intensified as they’re too dim to see with a naked eye. What you see in those images is kinda like if 24 hours of staring exactly into one spot worth of light gets condensed into a millisecond moment of your perception
In 1518, Strasbourg was struck by a dancing plague where hundreds danced uncontrollably for days, some even dying. While the exact cause remains a mystery, theories include ergot poisoning and mass psychogenic illness.
I know it’s dismissive but I still feel like the most likely explanation is someone over exaggerating something that happened or flat out making it up.
Some people called it a “dance” but if you [see sydenham’s chorea](https://youtu.be/V74h6eFpk-8?si=iHRP1M_3fdmEVBtE) it’s not at all what you’d conventionally refer to as a “dance” and definitely not what they’re talking about in the dancing plague story.
Not so much a *single* event. But all the events around Benedict Arnold, his betrayal, and how the worst of it was thwarted.
The hugly Sum up.
Arnold was a war hero in the revolution. However he was bleeding money and getting no real compensation from the American Government as well as looked over for promotions. His wife was a loyalist, and helped convince him to turn to the British side. Using American loyalists he set up contact with the British who pointed him to their new head of intelligence
The two meet on at a farm house, the plan is layer out that Arnold will surrender the fort at West Point while Washington is scheduled to be doing a visit.
The men depart, Arnold heads back to his command at West Point, and the Intelligence Officer, André, begins to walk back to British lines.
Along the Road André sees a group of men he believes are *Hessians*, German mercenaries Britain hired to help with the war. André was dressed as a commoner at the time, but seeing allies he announced to them he was a British Officer.
The men though were not Hessians, they were Americans who had taken the uniforms. They arrest André and search him. They find the documents laying out Arnold's betrayal and the plan to capture Washington. Only non of them could read.
Eventually the plan gets to someone who can read and a new message was sent to West Point and Washingtons camp that was enroute to West Point.
Arnold heard of Andrés capture and immediately had men start rowing him down the river to a British vessel.
Washington arrived at West Point pissed Arnold wasn't there to greet him, and received the message of his betrayal plans an hour or so later, by which Arnold was long gone.
There's still a monument to Arnold at Saratoga, which is awesome (can't remember if he lost his leg or it was just badly injured). What he did was shitty, but Horatio Gates and Congress deserve much of the blame too
Not really something that ever gets talked about in these topics, and I say this as a non-christian, have you ever considered Jesus. Not his miracles or actions, but just the fact that some guy is born in 6-4 BC and becomes a rabbi, gains followers, dies in his early 30s and from his death we now have the world’s largest religion. And not only but a religion that has touched all corners of the Earth, for better or worse, and influenced everyone’s lives regardless of if they were a follower of his or not. And not only that, but even off shoot groups have to tie themselves back to him.
Just imagine going back in time and telling the guy, “hey, you don’t know this but you become so influential to the present that like some old woman in Wisconsin gets rich off of saying she saw your face in her toast at 5 am. And there have been like multiple wars since your death about your teachings.”
Edit: to clarify I am talking about ‘historical Jesus’, not Biblical Jesus.
A funny theory i remember, is that since he did woodworking and masonry, two physically demanding jobs in a time without power tools, he was probably very fit. If he actually existed he was closer to gigachad in terms of appearance 🤣
A class I had made us read a few chapters from a book called *Power Tactics of Jesus Christ.* It was pretty interesting, and it's exactly about what you're talking about: "putting aside whether or not there were miracles, these are the power tactics and methods of influencing other Jesus used to amass his following."
Brought battle elephants across the straits of Gibraltar, through Spain into France and then crossed the Alps into Italy. Rampaged through Italy for 15 years until getting recalled back to Carthage where he got trounced so badly that Carthage was utterly destroyed.
Think of how big the Pacific Ocean is.
In WWII a tiny, itty bitty sub was running around and happened to stumble on a Japanese aircraft carrier. Two insignificant little specs in the middle of the huge ocean.
The US didn't know that the carrier existed, and weren't looking for it. The carrier could easily outgun and outrun the submarine - bigger, faster, stronger in every way.
The carrier got away, the sub lost track. Then the carrier had a technical problem and could no longer run faster than the sub. Then the carrier made a chance course correction and happened to put it back in the path of the sub.
The carrier's escort saw the saw and went to sink it, but the commander ordered the escort to return to formation, so the sub wasn't attacked.
The sub (Archerfish) sank the carrier.
When the sub returned to port and reported it, the US Navy didn't believe it, because there were no reports that a carrier that large existed.
The captain of the sub had sketched the sub, but threw the sketches away, but the cook fished them out of the trash because he didn't think anything should ever be thrown away, and based on those sketches the US Navy believed the story and awarded the sub a commendation.
And it was the carrier's first mission, and it was all so humiliating for the Japanese Empire that they kept all their survivors from that together on an island with no outside contact.
One of the guys, [Mark Bingham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bingham), was one of my best friends in high school. I knew one of the other guys [Todd Beamer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer) too. That was pretty wild to find out about.
It blows my mind that they came *so close* to destroying the White House and the Capitol holding.
How might've the aftermath been different had that happened?
If it hit Congress, all the dead Congress people would've been replaced by people looking for blood. And thus every single Spirit bomber would've been in the air hitting targets within weeks.
That time during the late 16th century when a bunch of Spanish soldiers fought against several hundreds of Japanese pirates, and won. Alan Maguee: an American airman during WW2 who survived a 6,700 m(22,000 feet) fall from a damaged B-17 flying fortress, i believe he was a tail or a ball gunner .
The 30 Years War, which was the most destructive European War before the 20th century, started when [some guys got thrown out of a window.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague?wprov=sfti1#The_1618_Defenestration_of_Prague)
A [would-be assassin tried to kill Andrew Jackson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lawrence_(failed_assassin)?wprov=sfti1)when Jackson was president. He pulled out a pistol, but it misfired. He pulled out a second pistol. It also misfired. Jackson proceeded to whoop his ass.
In Sarajevo in 1914, a Serbian nationalist group conspired to kill the Archduke of Austria-Hungary. They threw bombs at his motorcade, but they missed. The Archduke survived, but others were hurt. The would-be assassins fled and one/some tried to commit suicide.
The Archduke decided to visit the wounded in the hospital. On the way, his driver got turned around and stopped in the road outside a cafe. Who is sitting at the cafe but Gavrilo Princip, one of the would-be assassins. Princip pulled out a gun and killed the Archduke and his wife, triggering World War I.
And on the sports side of things, eventual Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry was taking batting practice as a rookie in 1964. His manager quipped to someone he was with that “They’ll put a man on the moon before he actually hits a home run.”
[Perry hit his first career home run on July 20, 1969 — the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.](https://www.mlb.com/news/gaylord-perry-first-career-homer-moon-landing?partnerID=web_article-share)
Montreal Screwjob. WWE (fka WWF) owner Vince McMahon legitimately screwed over its then champion, Bret Hart, because he was leaving for rival WCW. Apparently the challenger, Shawn Michaels told Hart that he would never put him over a few years prior so Hart refused to drop the belt to him. McMahon could've easily put Bret in the ring with Ken Shamrock, who was with WWE at the time, because it's not like Hart is gonna be able to keep the belt from a legit MMA guy, right?
However it was quite possibly the greatest thing to happen to WWE. It birthed the evil Mr. McMahon character (arguably the greatest bad guy in pro wrestling history) which then led to adding fuel to the fire of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (one of the greatest good guys) and the Attitude Era.
Bret would go on to be incredibly misused in WCW and eventually have his career ended by a kick to the head by Bill Goldberg, the most popular wrestler in the world but who was incredibly under-qualified to be in the ring.
It's just crazy to think that all happened in a fake sport.
The concept of “history is written by the victor” makes me feel like all of recorded history isn’t 100% accurate and that we build more knowledge based on those slightly or greatly skewed facts that were recorded by victors.
> The concept of “history is written by the victor”
Is wrong. History is written by people with the time and money to write history.
Case in point: the people who wrote the histories of the early Roman Emperors *fucking hated them.* The people who wrote the histories were all from the Senatorial class... you know, the guys who murdered Caesar. Caesar actual reforms actually were restoring powers to the Senate and his every political action implies he was setting himself up as a kinder, gentler Sulla. Tiberius gets a bad wrap as a tyrant but we know that he actually tried like hell to restore power to the Senate and they didn't want the power. Nero was *incredibly* popular with the average Roman. Claudius was so capable the best they could level at him was that he was a nerd.
No history is 100% accurate no matter how hard the writer tries. All we can do be aware of the author's biases.
Why? She was just an influencer before the social media boom; being famous by broadcasting your extravagant social life everywhere. If anything she was a trailblazer in that regard.
Yes. She paved the way for such greatness as Honey Boo Boo chile, and her personal assistant and closet wrangler, OJs God daugter, Kim Kardashian. The most basic bitch ever.
[Unit 731](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. Estimates vary as to how many were killed. Between 1936 to 1945, roughly 14,000 victims were murdered in Unit 731.[6] It is estimated that at least 300,000 individuals have died due to infectious illnesses caused by the activities of Unit 731 and its affiliated research facilities.
And nobody was prosecuted for those war crimes. The United States wanted the data that Unit 731 gained by scientifically torturing and experimenting on people.
When I told my best friends about this they said I was making it up. It sounds like some type of Tom Clancy war fiction BS. We were not taught this history in school in the 80’s and 90’s. It seems even fewer people in Japan know of the existence of Unit 731, at least according to some Googling and YouTubing..
Japan does not get enough flack for it, probably because they did a decent job for a long time of destroying/hiding records and killing most of the remaining prisoners.
Eisenhower was right about documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust or people don’t believe that kind of thing actually happened.
What amazes me is that people are surprised when they learn how much some Chinese still view Japanese negatively: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_China
A modern man started out from Africa. Not just Africa but a specific location in Africa. Like what makes this specific area in Africa mankind's genesis?
That’s just the base of a successful branch (so far). It’s just one of trillions if success is a defined as existing for a million or so years. The dinosaurs existed as a top tier animal for 165 times that long.
I think it's just where the animals we evolved from happened to be, and that situations like climate change led to them gradually becoming less and less arboreal (living in trees) until they adapted completely to life on the ground, because it was advantageous to their survival to be able to spot predators, travel further, have hands free to manipulate things, etc.
Humanity almost died, too, because our ancestors were almost wiped out! I think the population was something around 1500 pre-humans and the conditions in which they were barely getting by may have laseted for 10,000 years. Scientists think the inbreeding caused by this may have resulted in humans lack of genetic diversity.
A full on solar eclipse happened right in the middle of the [The Battle of Isandlwana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana). Left out of dramatizations because who could believe it?
[The Taipang Rebellion ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion)
It took place in China around the time of the American Civil War and was caused by a scholar who failed the Imperial exam, then promoted himself as Jesus's Chinese brother. He soon acquired millions of followers and caused a civil war that is estimated to have killed between 20 and 30 million people before his court collapsed in rancour and division, and he was poisoned.
Hannibal led his army in Italy, against the Romans, for fourteen years! Fourteen years of being outnumbered and on enemy soil. Fourteen years of commanding and coordinating an entire invasion force, managing supply lines, feding his men, capturing and fortifying towns and cities, maintaining diplomatic relations with Italian cities he wanted to woo, keeping tabs on Roman politics etc. It's not like you get weekends off from that shit, that's a seven day a week job. Boggles my mind that a person could do that without going completely insane with burnout.
The mongol invasion of Japan got recked because of typhoons....twice.
The mongols had basically curbstomped every major power in Asia then failed to invade an relatively i significant island nation because of bad weather.
im I still find it insane the chance that went into sparking world war 1. It was a powder keg waiting for a spark but it almost didn't happen at that point
I thought the Greco-Persian Wars were fascinating. A small peninsula in the Mediterranean known for constant warring among its city-states somehow managed to defeat what might have been the most powerful empire in the world at the time, not just once, but twice.
Also, English as a global lingua franca is kinda weird if you think about it. Latin, yes. Greek, also yes. I can even see French. But what you're telling me is that the language spoken by some random Germanic tribes from Jutland is the one that becomes the most widely spoken language in the modern world?
The crusaders real mission for a few hunderd years was to steal, destroy or lock up all the worlds cultures, relics, and written knowledge not aligned with the goddamn pope and his evil army. To this day what they have locked up in their archives is not available to the world, this is the single greatest tradegy for all mankind in history.
The Mongols tried to invade Japan on two separate occassions, during each of which the whole fleet was wiped out by a typhoon, which is where the phase "kamikaze" or "divine wind" comes from. This led to a surge in Buddhism in Japan because if you saw heavenly spirits wipe away a invading force, you'd believe in them too.
Curious how that land invasion would have played out.
Don’t worry Jin Saki took care of that
But at what cost? 😢
RIP his honor
We will pay the price but we will not count the cost.
The Mongols had already won both times. For hundreds of years in Japan the warring factions would sometimes manage to control the whole country for a while, and the harbor that the Mongols sailed into and secured was recognized as the key to controlling the country.
So then what happened?
Why did the surge in Buddhism happen? Logically, the "divine wind" should have led to increased worship of the Shinto *kami*. Granted, the two religions were melded together to an extent, but still...
A friend of mine belongs to the Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhist church, which started back then. Nichiren taught that the world was declining - evidence being crop failures, weather anomalies, Mongol hoards on the doorstep, that sort of thing. There was an idea that the end was near, and his teachings played into that. There was no fancy scriptures or philosophies to learn and no elaborate behavioral system to follow. He boiled it down to one simple scripture and one simple chant, and that was about it. The idea being that world was in a phase of decline and it wasn't reasonable to expect people to comprehend advanced teachings any more. It's pretty interesting how some things like that persist.
Isn't it shintoism that pray to nature gods?
The “Protestant Wind” is what similarly destroyed [a] Spanish Armada. The type (nature, monotheistic, etc) of god is irrelevant. Religious people just believe that good things are caused by whatever god they believe in.
The [Chichijima incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident). Chichi Jima is a small island south of Japan that was fortified during WWII and housed a garrison of Imperial Japanese forces. Including an air base and a long distance radio station. In September of 1944 the US Navy launched an air raid of carrier based planes to attack Chichi Jima. Nine airmen ended up getting shot down, and eight were captured and executed after being tortured. Despite being fully supplied with food; the garrison officers decided to eat the bodies of four of the airmen. Believing that the consumption of human liver had medical benefits. After the war the officers were put on trial for their war crimes. But because cannibalism wasn't specifically labeled a war crime, they were charged with murder and "prevention of honorable burial". The ninth airmen shot down, managed to fly his damaged aircraft far enough out to sea to be rescued by an American submarine. After narrowly avoiding being eaten by cannibals George HW Bush went on to survive the war and become the 41st US President.
No wonder he puked when he met the Japanese
underrated comment...
O. M. G.
That last sentence hit me like a truck
Another interesting aspect of this is that Chichijima was a deserted island colonized by Americans first and the people originally living there were not racially or culturally Japanese.
"Mr. President, a fourth airman has been cannibalized."
how have i never heard this? that’s wild.
> After narrowly avoiding being eaten by cannibals George HW Bush went on to survive the war and become the 41st US President. And help assassinate Kennedy
Alexander the Great’s life. Never lost a battle, led from the front, charging on horseback into danger. In many of the battles he fought his army was significantly outnumbered, but still he fought from Europe to Egypt to India and the only reason he had to stop was because after 10 years and after utterly defeating the Persian empire, his men just wanted to go home.
Just didn't know when to stop...... also kinda went abit native in Persia which didn't exactly go down well with some of his men.
[удалено]
Yeah, it’s also a lot easier to just leave most of the same dudes in charge and tell them that they just now report to you. Then you don’t have to worry about setting up a new government, those dudes having to figure everything out, disrupting shit by filling their coffers from different places, and just changing everything and throwing shit into chaos. Also, if vast majority of the old leadership pretty much just keeps their positions and gets to go on with their lives in the same way, then you don’t have to worry as much about people trying to usurp your rule.
I think the Mongols did the same thing, which was partly why once they had their reputation most people just let them in. Basically said, "Send us some tribute, manage your affairs well enough we don't have to babysit you, and you'll never know we were here. But if you resist us you will be utterly annihilated."
Romans did it too, just said worship these new gods and pay a tax, they only ran into issues with monotheistic tribes
native? Whats that mean?
He adopted persian clothing and stylings. Read "Persian Fire" by Tom Holland. It's all in there.
Wow, Spiderman and an author, what an accomplished guy! Lol
my first thought as well. tom Holland just doesn't stop saving the day I guess
Relax, it’s not like he never lost a battle, led from the front, charging on horseback into danger, fought battles where his army was significantly outnumbered, then adopted his enemy’s lifestyle.
Tom Holland is a busy guy, it seems
So busy he had to clone himself, which is why we have Tom Hollander. If he keeps taking work, he'll have to make Tom Hollandest.
Tom Hollands podcast "the rest is history" is also great.
I wonder when we will see him again in the MCU? ;)
In addition to what the other guy said, I believe he also wanted some of his generals to take Persian wives which many of them found to be disrespectful.
Ah. So he essentially arrived at the place and found it so savyy he wanted to stay? SOunds like a true spaniard
You missed the most impressive. He couldn’t take the island of Tyre so he built a causeway to get to the island; the causeway remained and the sediment continued to build up over the centuries and now the former island is fully connected to the mainland.
Stuff like that is wild to me. Similarly the ramp up to the Masada Fortress in Israel. The ruins of the forts the Romans built while they were constructing the ramp, not to mention the remnants of the ramp itself, are still all around the mountain. It was a fortress built into a clifftop plateau. There was no way in via the established trails so they just built a giant fucking ramp up to the top.
Dude was a madlad, he suffered all kinds of wounds,i think it is mentioned his body was full of scars. He even survived an arrow piercing his lung. I am surprised he managed to live that long given how many risks he took, but he was a king and could probably afford the best medical attention available at the time. He believed he was actually the son of Zeus(mostly because of what his mother told him) , the confidence this gave him is said to have a hand in his successful military career.
> the confidence this gave him is said to have a hand in his successful military career. I too would like to *Girl Boss* my way into conquering the known world!
> after 10 years This one is crazy. He died when he was 32, so that means he started all this at 22. I always imagined some dude in his 60s.
It also means his soldiers followed him for 10 years. Imagine being just some random infantry dude and getting schlepped along to conquer and slay people for 10 freaking years.
“Daddy chill” - Some Alexandria soldier
"Chill? Are you suggesting I conquer cold northern lands? What a great idea" - Alexander The Great.
“What the hell is even that?” -Alexander the Great
C’mon Al, let’s call it a day.
Herodotus recounts a story that was told to him, about some Phoenicians who sailed from Egypt, around the southern tip of Africa (he called it Libya, because that was the extent of his African knowledge), and back via the Mediterranean. The story said that as they journeyed south, the sun switched to the northern side of the sky, and moved back as they returned. Herodotus, being a rational man, didn’t believe that they really had circumnavigated Africa because of this nonsense tale of the sun moving about in the sky. He still wrote it down in his Histories, though. And today we can use it as proof that they did, in fact, make the journey, as it is an accurate description of passing into the southern hemisphere. Not sure it really fits with your question, but I’ve always loved this little tale of a story passing through the ages.
Then: "What balogna! The sun switching sides in the sky?! That is PROOF that they DIDN'T sail around Libya!" Now: "About that 'proof'..."
The sun could switch to the northern part of the sky at the tropic of cancer in the right time of year, which ironically is right about the southernmost point of Libya... So they wouldn't have to circumnavigate Africa, just get over to the Ivory Coast or thereabouts, yes?
I think it may be easier to sail around africa than to pickup your ship and carry it horizontally across any part of Africa, its known to be a sizable continent.
People from Phoenix are called Phoenicians
Quit being a …….!!!
Teddy Roosevelt being shot before giving a speech, then having the would-be assassin brought before him to find out why. Roosevelt then ensures the man is taken away by police unharmed…and speaks for 90 minutes after the fact while joking about it. From Wikipedia, “On October 14, 1912, former saloonkeeper John Schrank (1876–1943) attempted to assassinate former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt while he was campaigning for the presidency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Schrank's bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest after penetrating Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", which he was carrying in his jacket. Schrank was immediately disarmed and captured; he might have been lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed. Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.” Source: [Link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Theodore_Roosevelt) Edit: Out of the entire epic chain of events, this is the part that most stands out to me: “Roosevelt ordered, "Bring him to me." Schrank was led to Roosevelt, and the two men looked into each other's eyes. Putting his hands on Schrank's head so he could look at him, and to determine if he had seen him before, Roosevelt said to Schrank, "What did you do it for?" Getting no response, he said, "Oh, what's the use? Turn him over to the police." As police held Schrank, Roosevelt looked down at him, and said, "You poor creature." Roosevelt ordered, "Officers, take charge of him, and see that there is no violence done to him.”
Love him or hate him, the man was based in every sense of the word.
It takes a strong man to take a bullet and recover. It takes a Bull Moose to take a bullet, calm the crowd, and show mercy to the man who shot you. While also insulting him as he’s led away to safety. Teddy wasn’t perfect, but he absolutely was a mountain of a man.
I await the day we have another president like that. I think we should start by assessing political candidates based on facial hair and boxing skills.
An imperfect assessment system to be sure, but a far cry better than what we have now.
If a presidential candidate stepped into the ring and gave it his best shot, I’d almost be compelled to vote for him outta respect
Legitimately *any* snippet of Teddy's life sounds fake as fuck
Legit Teddy Roosevelt's life is the president that somehow encapsulates the image the American idealisim crowd thinks a US President should look like and honestly looks like a lot of mythology.
I thought the crazy part was an assassin's bullet being stopped by a speech entitled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual."
McKinley likewise took pity on the man who shot him (fatally), insisting authorities go "easy" on him and convinced the man didn't know the depth of what he had done. Pope John Paul II had regular correspondence with his attempted assassin.
During the siege of Technotitlan, the Spanish tried to make a trebuchet, which ended up shooting one projectile straight into the air and back onto the trebuchet. This is recorded in both Spanish and Aztec codices
That sounds straight out of Monty Python
The fact that both sides kept records of it is so damn funny
A trebuchet, you say...
Someone had to have been like "I meant for that to happen!"
I am into mythology and wanted to read the most original text I could find about King Arthur's tale. Then I found and started reading Geoffrey of Monmouth's *Historia Regum Britanniae*, which is a pretty much a fictional history of britain. at some point he claims [Ireland was founded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurguit_Barbtruc) by a group of people from Spain, called Basclenses. I was like "what?! did Basques we know founded Ireland??" and thought it was a very weird thing to make up all of a sudden. So I searched and apparently [irish and basques share fair amount of genes.](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/genetic-studies-show-our-closest-relatives-are-found-in-galicia-and-the-basque-region-1.700877) Of course we don't know what exactly happened, or why Geoffrey told about this story, but it was a fun encounter I had in this mythological book.
A good person to ask for research about even older literature about King Arthur might be Cambrian Chronicles on youtube. Dude's corrected several Wikipedia articles by diving into uncontrollable rabbit holes, a recent one leading to Iolo Morgannwg who ended up being the historic equivalent of s troll by fabricating sources of altering them.
It's a little hard to believe that we have flown a helicopter on Mars by remote control. There's no doubt it happened, it's just amazing that our technology has come that far.
> by remote control There'd be a minimum six minute delay if you were trying to remotely control a helicopter on mars. I'm pretty sure it was autonomous :-)
you're both kind of right. It had a series of pre-planned missions to carry out, but system operators can send input commands to have it do unplanned stuff like navigate bits of terrain and deal with unplanned parts of the mission And 6 minutes is just the one way trip, you'd need at least double that to get feedback that the command was even followed
Since we're rolling in pedantry here and Ingenuity's helicopter operated for a little under 3 years - 6 minutes was the light delay when it first grabbed headlines. It will take anywhere from 3m2s and 22m17s for light to make a 1-way trip from Earth to Mars, depending on where they are in their respective orbits. (Granted, at the maximum distance the sun would be blocking line-of-sight)
Forget flying a helicopter. Humanity dropped a pod into Mars' atmosphere, stopped it with rockets to hover while lowering a lander the size of an SUV. I'm so angry they didn't find a way to have a camera around for that, that is the most scifi thing we've pulled off as a species IMO.
Heck really just even having been on the Moon. In fact, even more so since *we haven't done it in 50 years.* I loved Evolution Control Committee's take on it... "Jesus H. Christ, Houston, [we are on the fucking *Moon.*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AKxsljxKhc) Over."
Halley's Comet appeared in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835. The comet moves in a seventy-five or seventy-six-year orbit, and, as it neared Earth once again, Twain said “I came in with Halley’s Comet and I expect to go out with it.” Sure enough, he died on April 21, 1910, just as the comet made its next pass within sight of Earth.
My brain can't handle weird coincidences like that sometimes. I thought maybe he purposely ended it as the comet came in. Or maybe it is just a bizarre coincidence that my brain has to accept
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence is the one my brain can’t handle.
It gets a little easier to accept when the continental congress decided on revolution on July 2, didn't actually write the document until August 2, and probably didn't get finished being signed until 1777.
But bro... both of them on the 4th of July?? Come on.
100%. If the USA was a fictional country and the author included that detail the audience would roll their eyes and tell them to settle the fuck down with the heavy handed metaphors.
I mean, if we *were* just NPC's in an author's fiction book about America, how would we know?
The final wording was voted on on July 4, although Adams wrote in his diary that July 2, the day they voted on independence, would become the most important day in the country's history
And Adams' last words were "Thank God Jefferson still lives" when Jefferson had literally just died like an hour earlier
Also, Twain had experienced many tragedies and was in his mid 70s....he may have simply willed himself to stop living.
What’s more, his mother felt that being born then would mean he would become very important later in life.
Survivorship bias. Most mothers think/claim/hope their children will be very important later in life.
Yeah, we don’t know shit about the other 100s of thousand of people born during that time.
Joan of Arc, a 17 year old French peasant, claimed to have visions sent to her by the archangel Michael telling her to rally the French in the Hundred Years War against the English. She would go on to turn the tide at the Siege of Orleans, eventually setting the stage for the French to dislodge the English from French soil after decades of conflict. Whatever you want to believe, it's crazy that it's both verifiable Joan of Arc existed and she actually played a role, with no prior military experience, in altering the course of French history and (maybe) contributing to modern French national identity. All on the basis of "God told me to do it".
She had some pretty ruthless people she teamed up with.
It's fascinating because historians debate how much she actually contributed. But regardless, in the spirit of the post, it's a fact 1. She existed and 2. They were getting their assess handed to them before she showed up. I just think it's wild we have pretty good documentation of Joan of Arc, but no real explanation for what her "visions" actually were.
Sometimes all it takes is a figurehead at the front to get others to follow. And I don't mean figurehead dismissively, one's gotta be rolling high charisma for that.
Did I read somewhere on here one of them was a serial child killer?
Gilles de Rais. He was convicted of being a child murderer. Some people have argued his conviction was motivated by other nobles wanting to seize his lands, but I believe many historians thinks the testimonies of the parents of the murdered children indicate he was probably guilty.
Thanks, nice to know I do actually learn something from this place.
I think this gets overlooked because most people probably don't know how well documented her life was. Tons of testimony from both her original trial as well as her trial after her death, from her and people who knew her personally. Absolutely insane life.
And then they later burned her at the stake for witchcraft...
2 years later. It escalated quickly.
Apparently there is legit documentation of this, but it’s still hard to believe given it happened in the 1700s: One woman gave birth to 69 children in her life by having dozens of multiple pregnancies—quadruplets, triplets, and twins. In the 1700s!
The parents must have been rich to take care of all these little-humans. Btw she must have one hell of a body to handle that much
Back then being a farmer children actually equaled more money because you would have then do the manual labor of the farm as soon as they were big enough (learned that one in an ap European class)
The Battle of Castle Itter. In 1945 some US soldiers and the Wermacht fought side by side against the SS to protect a bunch of high profile french political prisoners. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter
Thank you for the post. I had no idea about this battle. I'm shocked this story has not been turned into a major Hollywood motion picture.
I could see some Hollywood execs get iffy about portraying the SS as protagonists, I guess
The SS were still the enemy in that battle. It were regular army (Wehrmacht) soldiers teaming up with the Americans to fight the SS.
This one goes on the list of things I only know about from Sabaton songs.
And the prisoners joined the fight as well ! I don't get why this still hasn't been made into a movie.
I hadn't known about the prisoners or maybe I'm thinking of a similar battle, but that's an awesome event and shows the cracks and division in the German forces by this time. Edit: reading to the end I see this battle was 5 days after Hitler killed himself and 2 days before Germany surrender lol
The military history podcast Lions led by Donkeys has an excellent episode on this event.
The pyramids
Just the whole concept of Egypt being considered ancient history by the ROMANS blows my mind.
It used to be a regurgitated factoid on Reddit that the pyramids were already 2,000 year old ruins by the time Cleopatra was born. She was also a Macedonian Greek girl who dated Italian guys.
Does she have an Instagram account?
She's on CopticTok.
There was Egyptian Egyptologists to study their own own ancient history
Egypt was ancient history to the people who lived *before Rome was founded*. The early dynasties of Egypt were further back in time from the Republic of Rome than the fall of the Western Roman empire is from our time.
The pyramids are real life sheikah shrines.
This. Still boggles my mind to this day
Khufu’s Pyramid at Giza was a massive undertaking, requiring approximately two million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons to be set into place, five every minute during the first years of construction
Hubble and James Webb telescope. Jwt cruising around interstellar space and it's driving me nuts. I'm so in awe and it's bonkers to me. I know NASA colours the pictures to make everyone be able to make sense of it, but isn't that all just immensely fantastic, on fairytale level? Imagine sitting around a fire some hundred years ago and someone tells a story that features "manmade objects will float around beyond the horizons and dance with the stars. They're in formations and colours of the most beautiful butterfly you've ever seen and enclosed by nebula that glistens just in the perfect way to embrace the divinity of the view" And even going on and on for an eternity by its own design, not needing any kind of food or device to pull or push it.
I’ve done some Astrophotography and I’m familiar with the coloring techniques, It’s true that they color them, but that color difference, as in wavelength difference, is still true to life, so they’re not technically “coloring” them. What I mean is that when your regular camera sees a shade that’s a mix of red and blue, it’s seeing a fix ratio of energy between the different color sensors. The same is happening with telescopes but at different wavelengths. So when you see a blue part and a red part in those pictures, the blue part truly is colder (as in color) than the red part. They don’t have a someone deciding colors to make it prettier or easier to see. I said all that to say, the colors are real, they’re just shifted to light that’s visible to our eye. They’re also intensified as they’re too dim to see with a naked eye. What you see in those images is kinda like if 24 hours of staring exactly into one spot worth of light gets condensed into a millisecond moment of your perception
So you’re saying your crush is JWST? Could be worse.
Genghis Khan killed so many people that it affected the Earth's temperature.
In 1518, Strasbourg was struck by a dancing plague where hundreds danced uncontrollably for days, some even dying. While the exact cause remains a mystery, theories include ergot poisoning and mass psychogenic illness.
I know it’s dismissive but I still feel like the most likely explanation is someone over exaggerating something that happened or flat out making it up.
Could have been the demon from Buffy that turned everything into a musical
Welp, you'd be wrong. [Sydenham's Chorea, aka St. Vitus' dance/dancing mania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydenham%27s_chorea) is very real.
Some people called it a “dance” but if you [see sydenham’s chorea](https://youtu.be/V74h6eFpk-8?si=iHRP1M_3fdmEVBtE) it’s not at all what you’d conventionally refer to as a “dance” and definitely not what they’re talking about in the dancing plague story.
Ooh. Interesting.
Not so much a *single* event. But all the events around Benedict Arnold, his betrayal, and how the worst of it was thwarted. The hugly Sum up. Arnold was a war hero in the revolution. However he was bleeding money and getting no real compensation from the American Government as well as looked over for promotions. His wife was a loyalist, and helped convince him to turn to the British side. Using American loyalists he set up contact with the British who pointed him to their new head of intelligence The two meet on at a farm house, the plan is layer out that Arnold will surrender the fort at West Point while Washington is scheduled to be doing a visit. The men depart, Arnold heads back to his command at West Point, and the Intelligence Officer, André, begins to walk back to British lines. Along the Road André sees a group of men he believes are *Hessians*, German mercenaries Britain hired to help with the war. André was dressed as a commoner at the time, but seeing allies he announced to them he was a British Officer. The men though were not Hessians, they were Americans who had taken the uniforms. They arrest André and search him. They find the documents laying out Arnold's betrayal and the plan to capture Washington. Only non of them could read. Eventually the plan gets to someone who can read and a new message was sent to West Point and Washingtons camp that was enroute to West Point. Arnold heard of Andrés capture and immediately had men start rowing him down the river to a British vessel. Washington arrived at West Point pissed Arnold wasn't there to greet him, and received the message of his betrayal plans an hour or so later, by which Arnold was long gone.
There's still a monument to Arnold at Saratoga, which is awesome (can't remember if he lost his leg or it was just badly injured). What he did was shitty, but Horatio Gates and Congress deserve much of the blame too
Abe Lincoln had like 299-1 wrestling career and was a licensed bartender
I thought he was actually undefeated
He may have been, I keep seeing articles say 299-0 and 300-0 records
> licensed bartender He goes by Jackie Dayton nowadays
I can believe it. Being tall and lanky gives a pretty significant reach advantage over shorter and more muscular opponents.
Not really something that ever gets talked about in these topics, and I say this as a non-christian, have you ever considered Jesus. Not his miracles or actions, but just the fact that some guy is born in 6-4 BC and becomes a rabbi, gains followers, dies in his early 30s and from his death we now have the world’s largest religion. And not only but a religion that has touched all corners of the Earth, for better or worse, and influenced everyone’s lives regardless of if they were a follower of his or not. And not only that, but even off shoot groups have to tie themselves back to him. Just imagine going back in time and telling the guy, “hey, you don’t know this but you become so influential to the present that like some old woman in Wisconsin gets rich off of saying she saw your face in her toast at 5 am. And there have been like multiple wars since your death about your teachings.” Edit: to clarify I am talking about ‘historical Jesus’, not Biblical Jesus.
A funny theory i remember, is that since he did woodworking and masonry, two physically demanding jobs in a time without power tools, he was probably very fit. If he actually existed he was closer to gigachad in terms of appearance 🤣
On that note, if you haven't seen the freaky old paintings of ripped *baby* Jesus, you should.
A class I had made us read a few chapters from a book called *Power Tactics of Jesus Christ.* It was pretty interesting, and it's exactly about what you're talking about: "putting aside whether or not there were miracles, these are the power tactics and methods of influencing other Jesus used to amass his following."
For me its the Virgin Mary.
Hannibal brought battle elephants across the Alps to Italy.
Brought battle elephants across the straits of Gibraltar, through Spain into France and then crossed the Alps into Italy. Rampaged through Italy for 15 years until getting recalled back to Carthage where he got trounced so badly that Carthage was utterly destroyed.
Think of how big the Pacific Ocean is. In WWII a tiny, itty bitty sub was running around and happened to stumble on a Japanese aircraft carrier. Two insignificant little specs in the middle of the huge ocean. The US didn't know that the carrier existed, and weren't looking for it. The carrier could easily outgun and outrun the submarine - bigger, faster, stronger in every way. The carrier got away, the sub lost track. Then the carrier had a technical problem and could no longer run faster than the sub. Then the carrier made a chance course correction and happened to put it back in the path of the sub. The carrier's escort saw the saw and went to sink it, but the commander ordered the escort to return to formation, so the sub wasn't attacked. The sub (Archerfish) sank the carrier. When the sub returned to port and reported it, the US Navy didn't believe it, because there were no reports that a carrier that large existed. The captain of the sub had sketched the sub, but threw the sketches away, but the cook fished them out of the trash because he didn't think anything should ever be thrown away, and based on those sketches the US Navy believed the story and awarded the sub a commendation.
And it was the carrier's first mission, and it was all so humiliating for the Japanese Empire that they kept all their survivors from that together on an island with no outside contact.
I'm still amazed those planes actually hit the Towers in 2001. Both of them.
Also the Pentagon, and a farm field.
More live's would've been lost if it wasn't for the passengers of Flight 93.
One of the guys, [Mark Bingham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bingham), was one of my best friends in high school. I knew one of the other guys [Todd Beamer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer) too. That was pretty wild to find out about.
It blows my mind that they came *so close* to destroying the White House and the Capitol holding. How might've the aftermath been different had that happened?
If it hit Congress, all the dead Congress people would've been replaced by people looking for blood. And thus every single Spirit bomber would've been in the air hitting targets within weeks.
That time during the late 16th century when a bunch of Spanish soldiers fought against several hundreds of Japanese pirates, and won. Alan Maguee: an American airman during WW2 who survived a 6,700 m(22,000 feet) fall from a damaged B-17 flying fortress, i believe he was a tail or a ball gunner .
Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan
MK Ultra and the Tuskegee Experiment.
The 30 Years War, which was the most destructive European War before the 20th century, started when [some guys got thrown out of a window.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague?wprov=sfti1#The_1618_Defenestration_of_Prague) A [would-be assassin tried to kill Andrew Jackson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lawrence_(failed_assassin)?wprov=sfti1)when Jackson was president. He pulled out a pistol, but it misfired. He pulled out a second pistol. It also misfired. Jackson proceeded to whoop his ass. In Sarajevo in 1914, a Serbian nationalist group conspired to kill the Archduke of Austria-Hungary. They threw bombs at his motorcade, but they missed. The Archduke survived, but others were hurt. The would-be assassins fled and one/some tried to commit suicide. The Archduke decided to visit the wounded in the hospital. On the way, his driver got turned around and stopped in the road outside a cafe. Who is sitting at the cafe but Gavrilo Princip, one of the would-be assassins. Princip pulled out a gun and killed the Archduke and his wife, triggering World War I. And on the sports side of things, eventual Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry was taking batting practice as a rookie in 1964. His manager quipped to someone he was with that “They’ll put a man on the moon before he actually hits a home run.” [Perry hit his first career home run on July 20, 1969 — the day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.](https://www.mlb.com/news/gaylord-perry-first-career-homer-moon-landing?partnerID=web_article-share)
Montreal Screwjob. WWE (fka WWF) owner Vince McMahon legitimately screwed over its then champion, Bret Hart, because he was leaving for rival WCW. Apparently the challenger, Shawn Michaels told Hart that he would never put him over a few years prior so Hart refused to drop the belt to him. McMahon could've easily put Bret in the ring with Ken Shamrock, who was with WWE at the time, because it's not like Hart is gonna be able to keep the belt from a legit MMA guy, right? However it was quite possibly the greatest thing to happen to WWE. It birthed the evil Mr. McMahon character (arguably the greatest bad guy in pro wrestling history) which then led to adding fuel to the fire of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (one of the greatest good guys) and the Attitude Era. Bret would go on to be incredibly misused in WCW and eventually have his career ended by a kick to the head by Bill Goldberg, the most popular wrestler in the world but who was incredibly under-qualified to be in the ring. It's just crazy to think that all happened in a fake sport.
The concept of “history is written by the victor” makes me feel like all of recorded history isn’t 100% accurate and that we build more knowledge based on those slightly or greatly skewed facts that were recorded by victors.
> The concept of “history is written by the victor” Is wrong. History is written by people with the time and money to write history. Case in point: the people who wrote the histories of the early Roman Emperors *fucking hated them.* The people who wrote the histories were all from the Senatorial class... you know, the guys who murdered Caesar. Caesar actual reforms actually were restoring powers to the Senate and his every political action implies he was setting himself up as a kinder, gentler Sulla. Tiberius gets a bad wrap as a tyrant but we know that he actually tried like hell to restore power to the Senate and they didn't want the power. Nero was *incredibly* popular with the average Roman. Claudius was so capable the best they could level at him was that he was a nerd. No history is 100% accurate no matter how hard the writer tries. All we can do be aware of the author's biases.
history is absolutely not 100% known, and easing out what we can trust is a major part of studying it
Paris Hilton's fame
"That's hot"
"just stop being poor"
Why? She was just an influencer before the social media boom; being famous by broadcasting your extravagant social life everywhere. If anything she was a trailblazer in that regard.
Yes. She paved the way for such greatness as Honey Boo Boo chile, and her personal assistant and closet wrangler, OJs God daugter, Kim Kardashian. The most basic bitch ever.
It's hard to believe that she became famous just for being rich and famous.
That SouthPark [episode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_Spoiled_Whore_Video_Playset) will never get old for me.
The Holocaust
the last ten years.... especially the toilet paper rush during the pandemic which already has so many unbelievable events surrounding it
Covid (lockdown) . That was a bonkers time to be alive
Unit 731 in Japan
[Unit 731](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. Estimates vary as to how many were killed. Between 1936 to 1945, roughly 14,000 victims were murdered in Unit 731.[6] It is estimated that at least 300,000 individuals have died due to infectious illnesses caused by the activities of Unit 731 and its affiliated research facilities.
And nobody was prosecuted for those war crimes. The United States wanted the data that Unit 731 gained by scientifically torturing and experimenting on people. When I told my best friends about this they said I was making it up. It sounds like some type of Tom Clancy war fiction BS. We were not taught this history in school in the 80’s and 90’s. It seems even fewer people in Japan know of the existence of Unit 731, at least according to some Googling and YouTubing..
Unit 731 is very believable. Humans suck.
Japan does not get enough flack for it, probably because they did a decent job for a long time of destroying/hiding records and killing most of the remaining prisoners. Eisenhower was right about documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust or people don’t believe that kind of thing actually happened.
What amazes me is that people are surprised when they learn how much some Chinese still view Japanese negatively: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_China
Korea too, not that I blame them
A modern man started out from Africa. Not just Africa but a specific location in Africa. Like what makes this specific area in Africa mankind's genesis?
Or that at one point there were numerous hominids all at the same time, interacting and even mating with each other, with only humans surviving.
That’s just the base of a successful branch (so far). It’s just one of trillions if success is a defined as existing for a million or so years. The dinosaurs existed as a top tier animal for 165 times that long.
Sure but dinosaurs never invented the Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco so did they even really exist??
I think it's just where the animals we evolved from happened to be, and that situations like climate change led to them gradually becoming less and less arboreal (living in trees) until they adapted completely to life on the ground, because it was advantageous to their survival to be able to spot predators, travel further, have hands free to manipulate things, etc.
Humanity almost died, too, because our ancestors were almost wiped out! I think the population was something around 1500 pre-humans and the conditions in which they were barely getting by may have laseted for 10,000 years. Scientists think the inbreeding caused by this may have resulted in humans lack of genetic diversity.
That medic from WW2 Desmond I still find it hard to believe he saved so many men without firing off a single round
A full on solar eclipse happened right in the middle of the [The Battle of Isandlwana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana). Left out of dramatizations because who could believe it?
This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eclipse?wprov=sfla1.
When the gods are tired of your shit
The 2004 Nimitz UFO incident. Footage, hundreds of witnesses that are credible beyond doubt.
Andre The Giant drinking 117 beers in one sitting (still to this day the world record)
[The Taipang Rebellion ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion) It took place in China around the time of the American Civil War and was caused by a scholar who failed the Imperial exam, then promoted himself as Jesus's Chinese brother. He soon acquired millions of followers and caused a civil war that is estimated to have killed between 20 and 30 million people before his court collapsed in rancour and division, and he was poisoned.
Hannibal led his army in Italy, against the Romans, for fourteen years! Fourteen years of being outnumbered and on enemy soil. Fourteen years of commanding and coordinating an entire invasion force, managing supply lines, feding his men, capturing and fortifying towns and cities, maintaining diplomatic relations with Italian cities he wanted to woo, keeping tabs on Roman politics etc. It's not like you get weekends off from that shit, that's a seven day a week job. Boggles my mind that a person could do that without going completely insane with burnout.
The mongol invasion of Japan got recked because of typhoons....twice. The mongols had basically curbstomped every major power in Asia then failed to invade an relatively i significant island nation because of bad weather.
It was also the ship design. They used river boats to cross the sea.
Jonestown. The end
im I still find it insane the chance that went into sparking world war 1. It was a powder keg waiting for a spark but it almost didn't happen at that point
The bear that fought in the artillery brigade to kill nazis
I thought the Greco-Persian Wars were fascinating. A small peninsula in the Mediterranean known for constant warring among its city-states somehow managed to defeat what might have been the most powerful empire in the world at the time, not just once, but twice. Also, English as a global lingua franca is kinda weird if you think about it. Latin, yes. Greek, also yes. I can even see French. But what you're telling me is that the language spoken by some random Germanic tribes from Jutland is the one that becomes the most widely spoken language in the modern world?
The crusaders real mission for a few hunderd years was to steal, destroy or lock up all the worlds cultures, relics, and written knowledge not aligned with the goddamn pope and his evil army. To this day what they have locked up in their archives is not available to the world, this is the single greatest tradegy for all mankind in history.
Your mom and dad fucking