Historical "facts" and popular representations of histrical figures that are wrong

[beastro]

As for WWII, it never ended.

The European theatre didn't end until 1990. In 1945, Germany was fractured and didn't exist as a country, only East Germany and West Germany, none of which were official combatants in the war. The peace treaty was only signed in 1990 after the Berlin wall came down and the country of Germany was reunited.

Clear delineation between the end of the Second World War, a war in Europe fought against Fascism, and the Cold War, a war fought against Communism.

The pacific theatre never ended, Japan and Russia never signed peace agreements with each other and there is still and island in the pacific that both countries have troops stationed and neither are willing to give up, meaning WWII is still a currently active war.

Triviality.

When such things occur it's best to remind oneself of the definitions of "de facto" and "de jure".

 

[A3sir]

The movie 300 is a thorn in my side. As someone who had looked into the battle of Thermopylae, it got a little bit frustrating with the poor representation of the phalanx, giving the persians elephants, gunpowder, that massive guy, the last stand only containing 300 Spartans (when in reality, there was around two thousand people in the last stand), no mention of Admiral Themistocles, the reasoning for Spartans not sending the full force and the representation of Spartan training as being solely about strength, when in fact they were trained to win at all costs (the right of passage was to murder a slave without being caught, requiring stealth over brute force).

Annoyingly, there are people I know who believe that film was accurate.

Uhh, you do realise that the entire movie is David Wenham's character telling a story to get the rest of the army's adrenaline pumping, right? It was never meant to be an accurate retelling, simply propaganda about how awesome those 300 Spartans were. It just really annoys me when people don't understand this and complain about the historical inaccuracies.

This ignores the slant of the comic and the movie which leans in a direct Frank Miller is quite well known for.

For starters, being one of the archetypical conservative Hellenes, a Spartan would never spin such a blasphemous tale to rouse the hearts of all of Greece - he'd most likely get beaten to death.

It doesn't matter what it ignores because it shows in the actual movie that that is what is happening, you can't just watch a movie and pick a scene and decide that bit didn't happen. The film IS an embellished story told my Delios to pump up the Spartan army. It shows in the movie that that's what it is and to deny that is to just ignore parts of the film.

 

[beastro]

Depending on what you see as "history", Jesus Christ wasn't a handsome, white, long-haired, bearded man. He was middle-eastern and would have had darker skin. Not sure about the hair and handsomeness though.

I think the image of a white Jesus only exists in the minds of those from European descent, particularly Americans.

Kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, the guy kind of lived in the Middle East. Why would he be white >_>

For the same reason Medieval and Renaissance painters detailed historical battles of Antiquity they painted in contemporary military equipment such as knights on barded horses and European pike formations.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Edison didnt invent shit.

Linchon didn't give a fuck about slaves

The Americans were being a bit unreasonable about the whole Revolutionary war thing.

Lincoln was a abolitionist. That was part of why the south split after his election, they feared he would try to take away the slaves. Though it is true that he would have allowed the south to keep their slaves if it meant the war ended.

 

[beastro]

Look im not sure EXACTLY about the definitions of communism and facism but isnt it pretty contradictory to say that Hitler, probably the most famous fasict who ever lived) could have been communist but for a few small differences?

He basically wanted communism without the men doing the work getting the credit. It was a warped nationalism.

Honestly I think trying to "pin it down" like that is a mistake. Hitler, like just about every dictator that has ever existed, wanted power and didnt want to share it with anyone. Trying to exact his political motives from history and rumour is essentially impossible.

In the end communism and facism and most other dictatorships fail for the exact same reason. They are dictatorships. Every dictatorship ends. And the more the dictator wants to continue their rule the bloodier and nastier the war that comes after. Thats why democracy was invented so that there could be a smooth transistion of power from one dictatorship to the other. And it also gives the great masses the misguided impression that they have a genuine choice.

I'm fervently communist and believe it to be the great form of government one could have. Sadly, people treat it as a dictatorship (often at least a borderline military dictatorship, to boot) and its message is muddied.

There's never been true communism because people keep fucking it up lol. A girl can dream, though.

I completely agree on that. Communism would be the good way to run a society but it requires those who govern to be utterly selfless and make judgements based on the greater good of the people rather than on ANY of their own personal beliefs. Bad people for the job are already corrupt and most good people dont get there. The good people who DO get to the top of the greasy pole end up not being good people anymore.

Perhaps im too cynical but I genuinely dont think that ANY political regime can be good because its always run by a man or woman. Apart from the fact that the people who want power the most are the least appropriate ones to handle it. Men and women are human. The only things that seperates you and me from the position of US preseident of Galatic overload is ambition and oppurtunity.

Ambitious people want power and will sacrifice most things (or everything) to get it. That makes them more likely to get it. And then when they get there? MAYBE 1 in a thousand is a good decent kind of person. The rest are in it because theyre greedy (for money or power or whatever) and so make choices based on what THEY want.

No human society can be governed well and no human society can be GREAT (in my eyes) when you always get those kinds of people making the biggest descions.

It's about progress though, right? We've come a long way as a species over the last two thousand years--a long way. I believe we will achieve something like perfection eventually, and maybe not as far into the future as you'd think. Assuming we survive that long lol.

No, we haven't come a long way.

We are still the same creatures we were then and tens of thousands of years ago. The only thing that divides us from them is our collection and recorded knowledge and that is an extremely fragile thing. You lose that and it won't take many generations for state of civilization to irreparably degrade.

Um, "tens of thousands of years ago" we were barely human. Hell, not much longer than ten thousands years ago we only just began farming. You want to go back "tens" of thousands? Yeah, okay, you go Google what humans were like a good thirty thousand years ago and see if there's much of a difference between them and your average American lol.

You really have to learn that subtlety is a key facet of good trolling.

Just a quick heads up: calling someone a troll or accusing someone of trolling is against the rules. You've done it a few times already. Informing you so you can stop. I don't know if mods warn each instance or what, but yeah.

Then please think before posting. Many of the things which you've posted on here, especially you're early comments about Hitler, are extremely inflammatory.

Also, how can one not assume someone is a troll when they first claim to admire and support strong leader of the type like Adolf Hitler and then turn around and claim that they're a Communist, a political ideology that is strictly anti-hierarchical in nature?

Fascism is communism with a slightly warped idea of politics. Also, you want to try and say you can't admire someone and disagree with one of their beliefs? Well, I'm sure everyone you've ever thought was nice was perfect

Fascism was an ideology which espoused a melding of what ever one thought were the "good" qualities of the Free Market and Communism without including the the "bad" parts.

Nazism is distinct from Fascism.

There are no redeeming qualities about Hitler which are not distorted by his massively flawed ones.

Case in point: He loved his mother very deeply.... except he was a giant misogynist.

Anything one might admire about his character a political figure are things one might admire from a cult leader or sociopath.

Distinct in that Nazism was a form of Fascism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

Anywho: again, unless you want to claim you must like the entirety of a person and their every belief to say that you like them without being branded a liar, I think I've dismissed your point.

I think the only person who'd take your position towards Hitler would be one who did it solely to get others backs up.

They are either of that category or fully support everything he did ideology included.

Sorry, are you going to go ahead and tell us that one cannot like someone without "fully supporting everything they did/do, ideology included"? Because I'd like to see you try.

Course not.

However not too many try and pick and choose what qualities they like and don't like from such a historical figure, especially when the ones you've stated that you admire are deplorable.

"I don't like it, therefore you cannot like it."

I don't see the logic.

Neither do I.

What I did say which you quoted is that if you honestly do admire those qualities in Hitler then it is a very sickening thing.

 

[direkiller]

Edison didnt invent shit.

Linchon didn't give a fuck about slaves

The Americans were being a bit unreasonable about the whole Revolutionary war thing.

Haha, someone who agrees with me about the Revolution. People don't seem to realize that one of the "intolerable acts" was paying for the French Indian war, which prior to, the American colonists weren't paying much in the way of taxes, and another one was basically saying that Quebec was a safe place for Catholics.

This kina ties in

The Boston Tea parry was about tax cuts to the East India company, basically made there tea cheaper then local merchants allowing them to get rid of a surplus and saved them from bankruptcy rather then newly imposed taxes.

 

[TheOneBearded]

Depending on what you see as "history", Jesus Christ wasn't a handsome, white, long-haired, bearded man. He was middle-eastern and would have had darker skin. Not sure about the hair and handsomeness though.

I think the image of a white Jesus only exists in the minds of those from European descent, particularly Americans.

Kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, the guy kind of lived in the Middle East. Why would he be white >_>

Ah ha! I know the answer to this one. It was how he was interpreted during the Italian Renaissance - a handsome, white man. Many other angels and saints were also drawn this way. I don't know why they based his image off of themselves, but, then again, there is a Chinese Jesus.

Off Topic: A while back you changed your avatar(screaming girl's face) to look like it, but drawn with some sort of red dye or paint. What exactly did you use to draw it? Seeing that it happened a little after your menst. blood thread, I am curious.

 

[beastro]

The movie 300 is a thorn in my side. As someone who had looked into the battle of Thermopylae, it got a little bit frustrating with the poor representation of the phalanx, giving the persians elephants, gunpowder, that massive guy, the last stand only containing 300 Spartans (when in reality, there was around two thousand people in the last stand), no mention of Admiral Themistocles, the reasoning for Spartans not sending the full force and the representation of Spartan training as being solely about strength, when in fact they were trained to win at all costs (the right of passage was to murder a slave without being caught, requiring stealth over brute force).

Annoyingly, there are people I know who believe that film was accurate.

Uhh, you do realise that the entire movie is David Wenham's character telling a story to get the rest of the army's adrenaline pumping, right? It was never meant to be an accurate retelling, simply propaganda about how awesome those 300 Spartans were. It just really annoys me when people don't understand this and complain about the historical inaccuracies.

This ignores the slant of the comic and the movie which leans in a direct Frank Miller is quite well known for.

For starters, being one of the archetypical conservative Hellenes, a Spartan would never spin such a blasphemous tale to rouse the hearts of all of Greece - he'd most likely get beaten to death.

It doesn't matter what it ignores because it shows in the actual movie that that is what is happening, you can't just watch a movie and pick a scene and decide that bit didn't happen. The film IS an embellished story told my Delios to pump up the Spartan army. It shows in the movie that that's what it is and to deny that is to just ignore parts of the film.

And if that is the case then I stand by my my historical nitpicking and state that no Spartan would lace his story with such anti-religious undercurrents.

I understand what you're getting at, but I hate films which don't even pay lip service to historical accuracy and 300 makes no qualms about where it stands on that matter.

 

[A3sir]

As for WWII, it never ended.

The European theatre didn't end until 1990. In 1945, Germany was fractured and didn't exist as a country, only East Germany and West Germany, none of which were official combatants in the war. The peace treaty was only signed in 1990 after the Berlin wall came down and the country of Germany was reunited.

Clear delineation between the end of the Second World War, a war in Europe fought against Fascism, and the Cold War, a war fought against Communism.

The peace treaty ending the European theatre in WWII was signed in 1990. It's not about the struggles merging into one flowing conflict, the piece of paper saying "Germany surrenders" was signed in 1990, it is an undeniable fact that the European theatre didn't end until 1990.

AsThe pacific theatre never ended, Japan and Russia never signed peace agreements with each other and there is still and island in the pacific that both countries have troops stationed and neither are willing to give up, meaning WWII is still a currently active war.

Triviality.

When such things occur it's best to remind oneself of the definitions of "de facto" and "de jure".

It doesn't matter if something is trivial, the fact is it is there and the second world war "rages" on.

Trivial things that you can giggle at is what makes history great.

 

[beastro]

Depending on what you see as "history", Jesus Christ wasn't a handsome, white, long-haired, bearded man. He was middle-eastern and would have had darker skin. Not sure about the hair and handsomeness though.

I think the image of a white Jesus only exists in the minds of those from European descent, particularly Americans.

Kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, the guy kind of lived in the Middle East. Why would he be white >_>

Ah ha! I know the answer to this one. It was how he was interpreted during the Italian Renaissance - a handsome, white man. Many other angels and saints were also drawn this way. I don't know why they based his image off of themselves, but, then again, there is a Chinese Jesus.

Off Topic: A while back you changed your avatar(screaming girl's face) to look like it, but drawn with some sort of red dye or paint. What exactly did you use to draw it? Seeing that it happened a little after your menst. blood thread, I am curious.

Because people are a product of their time and place.

They did it no differently then people today making historical epics that have nothing in common with the era dealt with besides the wardrobe and setting.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

Hitler may not have only had one testicle. Only 1 person during WWI stated he did but none of his medical records after then made any reference to it whatsoever. Even his private physician never mentioned it. Although it can't be proven to be false, it can't be proven to be true either

The rumour came from the fact he had been a choir boy, and it was common practise back then to cut off a testicle to keep your voice high. Buuut, it wasn't done to all and we don't know if He had. It would explain why he was so pissed off all the time.

Urm... Richard the third wasn't a nut job, he was in fact a very nice guy and all the stories to the contrary were made up by shakespeare as a way of sucking up to the queen, who was of tudor decent. And the whole thing about Dick Turpin who WASN'T a very nice guy, and was in fact a nutjob. People aren't too sure about how the rumour on him changed, but he was a vicious bastard who killed two people in cold blood (Apparently AFTER they'd given him their money). Christ, It's Grand theft auto Londone Towne.

 

[Agow95]

Napoleon boneparte wasn't short, he was shorter than the average englishman in his time sure, but he was taller than the average frenchman, also he didn't steal the sphinx's nose, there are drawings and mentions of it without a nose from before he was even born.

 

[beastro]

As for WWII, it never ended.

The European theatre didn't end until 1990. In 1945, Germany was fractured and didn't exist as a country, only East Germany and West Germany, none of which were official combatants in the war. The peace treaty was only signed in 1990 after the Berlin wall came down and the country of Germany was reunited.

Clear delineation between the end of the Second World War, a war in Europe fought against Fascism, and the Cold War, a war fought against Communism.

The peace treaty ending the European theatre in WWII was signed in 1990. It's not about the struggles merging into one flowing conflict, the piece of paper saying "Germany surrenders" was signed in 1990, it is an undeniable fact that the European theatre didn't end until 1990.

AsThe pacific theatre never ended, Japan and Russia never signed peace agreements with each other and there is still and island in the pacific that both countries have troops stationed and neither are willing to give up, meaning WWII is still a currently active war.

Triviality.

When such things occur it's best to remind oneself of the definitions of "de facto" and "de jure".

It doesn't matter if something is trivial, the fact is it is there and the second world war "rages" on.

Trivial things that you can giggle at is what makes history great.

With that line of thinking, how many other wars that never had formal conclusion continue to "rage" on. I doubt there was a formal peace between the Ottomans and the Byzantines after the fall of Constantinople.

Could we argue that the Ottoman-Byzantine Wars continue to this very day?

Again, de facto and de jure.

 

[beastro]

Depending on what you see as "history", Jesus Christ wasn't a handsome, white, long-haired, bearded man. He was middle-eastern and would have had darker skin. Not sure about the hair and handsomeness though.

I think the image of a white Jesus only exists in the minds of those from European descent, particularly Americans.

Kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, the guy kind of lived in the Middle East. Why would he be white >_>

For the same reason Medieval and Renaissance painters detailed historical battles of Antiquity they painted in contemporary military equipment such as knights on barded horses and European pike formations.

Because we're dumb creatures and we would prefer to think of our god as looking like us and not the people we want to blow up and steal from >_>

Yes, that is far more consistent with history as oppose to what I just described.