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[theignoramus]

I wasnt aware that the Trudeau government supported Augusto Pinochet or that the Pearson government supported General Suharto.

 

[Alucrid]

In Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls and after midnight.

Not true in the Chester that I live near!

Although I can't buy a car on Sunday.

 

[Vipershark]

The US' involvement with Unit 731, and how they basically let them off the hook when they were the equivalent of those crazy nazi "doctors".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

 

[Mik2121]

Mexico's Daddy, the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, didn't actually want independence for New Spain. He was just angry that the French had conquered Spain and that their influence was spreading to the new continent.



The thing was that Mexico had already abolished slavery -an issue for which Texas landlords were obviously against.

Say what? :lol :lol

Unless you mean when the little guy became king of Spain for a few years, otherwise France has never owned even a little piece of Spain

 

[Chuckie]

I wasnt aware that the Trudeau government supported Augusto Pinochet or that the Pearson government supported General Suharto.

In the beginning almost everybody supported Suharto. The CIA even helped him in power

 

[SmokyDave]

Apparently my country used to own some big landmass over the Atlantic before some filthy Frenchman stole it from us. Something like that, anyway.

In Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls and after midnight.

Sadly not. There is something similar in local byelaw but if you actually 'bowed a Welshman, you'd still go down for murder.

My Welsh nemesis, SmokyDaffydd lives to see another day.

 

[Chuckie]

Sadly not. There is something similar in local byelaw but if you actually 'bowed a Welshman, you'd still go down for murder.

My Welsh nemesis, SmokyDaffydd lives to see another day.

Too bad, you could've borrowed my bow

 

[MikeOfTheLivingDead]

Doesn't really blow my mind but I find it neat that there are more Bald Eagles in British Columbia alone than in the entire United States.

This is not true. More than half of the world's population live in Alaska alone. The birds do migrate in the winter, but the population of Alaska is about twice that of BC. If you want to claim there are more bald eagles in BC than the lower 48 you might be right, but it will be pretty close.

 

[RustyNails]

Yeah, that sniper dude, Simo, had the most confirmed kills in a war. Insane.

He was a spawn camper.

 

[genjiZERO]

No

Then why is it called "Latin America"?

 

[afternoon delight]

A few years ago was really surprised when I read about the School of the Americas and also OPERATION AJAX.

AJAX:

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (and called the 28 Mordad coup d'état in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States.[1] The crushing of Iran's first democracy launched 25 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to power until he was overthrown in February 1979.[2

It was about oil, primarily. The story itself is terrifying and sad.

School of the Americas

The School of the Americas and current WHINSEC have been criticized concerning the human rights violations performed by a number of its graduates.[5][11] Critics argue that the school trains attendees in practices such as genocide, massacres of civilians, and egregious human rights violations,[5][12] while WHINSEC argues "that no school should be held accountable for the actions of its graduates."[10]
According to the Center for International Policy, "The School of the Americas had been questioned for years, as it trained many military personnel before and during the years of the "national security doctrine" — the dirty war years in the Southern Cone and the civil war years in Central America — in which the armed forces within several Latin American countries ruled or had disproportionate government influence and committed serious human rights violations in those countries." SOA and WHINSEC graduates continue to surface in news reports regarding both current human rights cases and new reports.

 

[MikeOfTheLivingDead]

The US' involvement with Unit 731, and how they basically let them off the hook when they were the equivalent of those crazy nazi "doctors".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

You make it sound as if the US was participating in what was going on in Unit 731, which is not the case.

 

[Evolved1]

A french armada saved our asses at yorktown... american history probably would have been much different if not for their assistance. The brits would have won the damn war and we'd have no such things as freedom fries.

 

[Vipershark]

You make it sound as if the US was participating in what was going on in Unit 731, which is not the case.

No, but they did let all of 731 off the hook for war crimes to get their hands on the stuff 731 was using to torture people with.

 

[genjiZERO]

A french armada saved our asses at yorktown... american history probably would have been much different if not for their assistance. The brits would have won the damn war and we'd have no such things as freedom fries.

which makes American antagonism towards the French so irritating. Hell, if Lafayette hadn't come over and taught Washington to be a proper general the terrorist unpatriotic fringe group led by the cabal known as the Continental Congress would probably have lost, and Canada would be a lot larger than it is today.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

We once condoned ownership of other people. Now I know that is not some great revelation but I still find it utterly fucked up.

People sometimes look back at the Nazis and wonder how people became so inhumane. Sadly, that is more the rule than the exception over the long haul of human history. But in the last few decades we really have made a lot of progress.

This shit. The Nazi's weren't even that bad compared to histories previous villains. People always put the Nazi's and Imperial Japan as an example of how horrible humanity can be but looking further upon history it's simply "just another war". But do to the wide spread of media, further unification, and people being a bit more aware of the variety of world things have gotten better. Still a crap load of progress to be had.

50 Things You Are Not Supposed To Know!
http://50thingstonotknow.blogspot.com/

Some interesting stuff here:

Advertisers Influence on News Media is Widespread (also water is wet)

Work Kills More People Than War

World War III Almost Started in 1995

That being said this doesn't have any links for sources so I doubt it's all that trust worthy.

The US' involvement with Unit 731, and how they basically let them off the hook when they were the equivalent of those crazy nazi "doctors".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Does anybody know if the super violent Hong Kong film based on this any good? I kinda want to watch it.

which makes American antagonism towards the French so irritating. Hell, if Lafayette hadn't come over and taught Washington to be a proper general the terrorist unpatriotic fringe group led by the cabal known as the Continental Congress would probably have lost, and Canada would be a lot larger than it is today.

This is true.

Not to mention the French kept the British busy while the war was going on.

 

[ClassyPenguin]

which makes American antagonism towards the French so irritating. Hell, if Lafayette hadn't come over and taught Washington to be a proper general the terrorist unpatriotic fringe group led by the cabal known as the Continental Congress would probably have lost, and Canada would be a lot larger than it is today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War I never got the France hate either.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Then why is it called "Latin America"?

Sarcasm, but it came up in another thread so at least some people won't know. Latin America refers to a cultural-linguistic bloc of countries that all speak Romantic or Latin-based languages. Portuguese, Spanish and French are all derived from Latin.

 

[Dyno]

Too bad, you could've borrowed my bow

 

[Ferrio]

https://park-204.wikispaces.com/file/view/Gimli_vexed.jpg/33426999/Gimli_vexed.jpg

:lol

 

[T'Zariah]

The USA actually supplied some of the terrorists we fought today simply because they hated communists. Oh, the IRONY. :lol

 

[Walshicus]

Commonwealth of England: 1649 to 1653, 1659 to 1660

Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland - The Protectorate: 1653 to 1659

For 11 years, England was - and for a shorter period Scotland and Ireland were - governed as a Republic Commonwealth.

 

[JzeroT1437]

Commonwealth of England: 1649 to 1653, 1659 to 1660

Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland - The Protectorate: 1653 to 1659

For 11 years, England was - and for a shorter period Scotland and Ireland were - governed as a Republic Commonwealth.

Cromwell's regime and the British Civil War, right?

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Al Capone started the whole armored limo that Presidents use today.

"These attacks prompted Capone to fit his Cadillac with bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires, and a police siren. Every attempt on his life (by Moran, who was almost certainly involved in most of the attacks) left him increasingly shaken. This car was seized by the Treasury Department in 1932 and was later used as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's limousine."

Nothing big just something I thought was cool.

 

[Zaphod]

I had no idea that we recognized the Vichy France government. I guess looking at history with hindsight can make it hard to understand what was going on at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France#Relationships_with_the_Allied_powers

 

[mavs]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War I never got the France hate either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III_of_France#Grand_Scheme_for_the_Americas Now you know.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

well Caranthania (a slavic predecesor state to modern day slovenia), had a very basic form of democracy

http://www.groundreport.com/World/The-European-Tribe-That-Inspired-Thomas-Jeffersons/2835524

from a not realy about the country, more about the people, one of the people responsible for the holocaust was of slovenian descent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilo_Globocnik

Slavic tribes back in their home territories in Russia all used a primitive form of democracy. Tribal democracy was, from the little sources we have about them, developed to an extant that the tribal structure allowed. Such a shame that we know very little about those period of history of our ancestors.

Nothing to diminish the heroic deeds of the Finnish soldiers, but it was far more Soviet failure than Finnish success. The purges of the 30s had taken a severe toll on officers of all ranks, this along with outdated and poorly maintained weaponry, no equipment for dealing with winter conditions and Kliment Voroshilov being entirely incompetent meant the Soviet position was not nearly as strong as figures on wikipedia would have you believe.

Indeed. USSR military was a disaster until 1942.

 

[suoodS]

Is this in reference to the Japanese internment camps during World War II?

Late reply, but yes it was

 

[GDGF]

I think that it's mad interesting that there's a 52 year old undetonated nuclear bomb sitting at the bottom of the sea just a few miles off of the georgia coast.

That's what my National Novel Writing Month entry was about last year. It was a buddy comedy :lol

I live just a few miles away from that bomb ( Savannah, GA)

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

50 Things You Are Not Supposed To Know!
http://50thingstonotknow.blogspot.com/

Learn something new every day.

One of the Heroes of Black Hawk Down Is a Convicted Child Molester
The movie Black Hawk Down was one of the biggest box office draws of 2001, and it earned its
director, Ridley Scott, an Oscar nomination. (He didn't win, but the movie got two Academy
Awards for editing and sound.) Based on Mark Bowden's nonfiction book of the same title, it
concerns the disastrous raid of Mogadishu, Somalia, by US elite soldiers in 1993.
One of these Special Forces soldiers underwent a name-change as he moved from the printed
page to the big screen. Ranger John "Stebby" Stebbins became Ranger Danny Grimes when
played by Scottish heartthrob Ewan McGregor. Why? Because in 2000, Stebbins was court-
martialed and sent to the stockade for rape and sodomy of a child under twelve.
This decidedly unheroic turn of events was confirmed by the Army, the Fort Leavenworth
military prison (Stebby's home for the next 30 years), and Black Hawk Down's author. Bowden
told the New York Post that the Army asked him to change Stebbins' name in the screenplay in
order to avoid embarrassing the military.
In an email to the newspaper, Stebby's ex-wife, Nora Stebbins, wrote: "They are going to make
millions off this film in which my ex-husband is portrayed as an All-American hero when the
truth is he is not."

 

[theignoramus]

This shit. The Nazi's weren't even that bad compared to histories previous villains. People always put the Nazi's and Imperial Japan as an example of how horrible humanity can be but looking further upon history it's simply "just another war". But do to the wide spread of media, further unification, and people being a bit more aware of the variety of world things have gotten better. Still a crap load of progress to be had.

they were on the same morally degenerate level as history`s previous villains, but they had more efficient means of violence and murder, which is why they were able to destroy so much in such a brief period of time.

 

[genjiZERO]

Sarcasm, but it came up in another thread so at least some people won't know. Latin America refers to a cultural-linguistic bloc of countries that all speak Romantic or Latin-based languages. Portuguese, Spanish and French are all derived from Latin.

I know. I'm being difficult. It's a personal pet peeve.

But the criticisms are true, it really doesn't make sense to refer to things emanating from almost every country south of Mexico as "Latin". For one thing when referring to languages that are derived from Latin you use the word "Romance" which about literally means "[to speak like] a Roman". This is important because it helps maintain the distinction between Vulgar Latin (the speech of the Romans which both Portuguese and Spanish are derived from) and Classical Latin (a scholarly language that existed side-by-side). Thus, "Romance America" would be perfectly acceptable. Also, using language as the reason for adopting of the word Latin produces absurd result because it's used arbitrarily. Under the Latin-as-language reasoning Quebec should also be considered part of Latin America.

The use of the word Latin is also erroneous because it implies connection with Latin culture - and indeed the term used in the context of "Latin America" seems to have more of a cultural implication than a linguistic one. But this use is even more egregious because the Spanish and Portuguese aren't even close to being culturally Latin. Sure the Iberian peninsula was an early conquest of Rome, and was Romanised, but that doesn't mean that the Gallic and Phoenician peoples of Iberia adopted the culture of the Latium (Lazio) region of Italy whole-sale, or even sufficiently enough to be able to refer to themselves as "of the Latini". I'm not sure I'd consider Venetian culture Latin and it's only a short trip away. If anything Germanic or North African cultures were the dominant culture in Iberia at the time of Spanish and Portuguese colonial conquest.

Anyway, for some reason I've become really sensitive about this recently. Whenever someones says something on facebook like "I love these Latin beats" I start replying in actual Latin, and lament that the Latini are under the thumb of the corrupt Etruscan tarquins, and that we will throw them out and establish a republic. Also, it's true that the rhythms and beats are quite nice. Those Greeks in Sicily are quite smart, and have made music so much easier, since their mathematicians, who call themselves Pythagoreans, developed the "chromatic scale" and taught it to us.

 

[MattyGrovesOrMe]

Before Newfoundland joined Canadian confederation in 1949, it was a dominion of the British Commonwealth, managed by powers that be in GB. As a dominion, Newfoundland was entitled to and had self-rule from 1907 to 1934, but actually gave up its powers of self-government willingly (partly due to Great Depression issues, partly due to political corruption). It is one of the few examples in world history of a territory giving back direct government control to a colonial power.

Not my country, but always a fun tidbit: Helen Keller was a radical socialist.

 

[Fritz]

Anyway, for some reason I've become really sensitive about this recently. Whenever someones says something on facebook like "I love these Latin beats" I start replying in actual Latin, and lament that the Latini are under the thumb of the corrupt Etruscan tarquins, and that we will throw them out and establish a republic. Also, it's true that the rhythms and beats are quite nice. Those Greeks in Sicily are quite smart, and have made music so much easier, since their mathematicians, who call themselves Pythagoreans, developed the "chromatic scale" and taught it to us.

Eww, you don't want to be that guy.

 

[genjiZERO]

Eww, you don't want to be that guy.

I can't help it. I'm pretty neurotic about semantic misuse. Especially if the misuse deals with culture, and especially if that culture is Rome or other cultures of Antiquity. But I digest . . . I don't want to derail the thread

 

[Leunam]

I can't help it. I'm pretty neurotic about semantic misuse. Especially if the misuse deals with culture, and especially if that culture is Rome or other cultures of Antiquity. But I digest . . . I don't want to derail the thread

Speaking of misuse.

 

[genjiZERO]

Speaking of misuse.

Spoiler

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

I can't help it. I'm pretty neurotic about semantic misuse. Especially if the misuse deals with culture, and especially if that culture is Rome or other cultures of Antiquity. But I digest . . . I don't want to derail the thread

It's as stupid as US citizens referring to their country and their nationality as "America" or "American", as though they have dominion over an entire continent. It's annoying, but one could argue that it isn't misuse if everyone instantly understands your meaning.

*"Begging the question" dinosaur comic*

 

[Trurl]

It's as stupid as US citizens referring to their country and their nationality as "America" or "American", as though they have dominion over an entire continent. It's annoying, but one could argue that it isn't misuse if everyone instantly understands your meaning.

*"Begging the question" dinosaur comic*

It's about as annoying as Irish people pretending that they're not British even though they live on one of the British Isles.


Actually, that's not annoying at all.

 

[BobDylan]

California didn't pass prop 19

Mind blown

 

[Koodo]

I was completely unaware until I moved here that Canada were assholes to Japanese citizens post-WW2.

Shocked me. Never expected copious maple syrup consumers to be so mean.

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

How much of a Jerk/Asshole both Teddy roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were, when I was taught in elementary/middle school how they were great heroes and awesome presidents.

 

[dr3upmushroom]

How much of a Jerk/Asshole both Teddy roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were, when I was taught in elementary/middle school how they were great heroes and awesome presidents.

Seriously. Out of all presidents I still don't know how to really feel about Teddy, hard to hate on such a badass.

 

[Hitokage]

It's as stupid as US citizens referring to their country and their nationality as "America" or "American", as though they have dominion over an entire continent. It's annoying, but one could argue that it isn't misuse if everyone instantly understands your meaning.

It's not the only example of a subordinate area sharing the name of the area it's located in.

 

[Salazar]

In Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls and after midnight.

Sadly not. There is something similar in local byelaw but if you actually 'bowed a Welshman, you'd still go down for murder.

My Welsh nemesis, SmokyDaffydd lives to see another day.

Bring it. I ain't scared.

 

[Learn2read]

It's as stupid as US citizens referring to their country and their nationality as "America" or "American", as though they have dominion over an entire continent.

The US is the only country in the world with "America" in it's name. Deal with it.

 

[Mustaphadamus]

i was pretty surprised to find out that people of 17th century fishing villages on the south-west coast of england lived in a perpetual fear of being raided by north-african barbary corsairs and sold in to slavery. it was one of the primary causes for the ramping up of british naval strength, which led on to their eventual nautical dominance.

A LOT of people do not know that Europeans were taken as slaves into the middle east, and north Africa. Wasn't on the scale of enslaved African's in the west but there was a significant amount of white/European slaves.

 

[SpeedingUptoStop]

Mad informative thread. Is there any more dirt on the US circa WWII? My girlfriend always tells me how uninformed I am about the shit that went down during that era.

 

[Router]

Ned Kelly, the guy that wore this....

His end game was to kick the English out and create an irish/republic state.

 

[Zenith]

Oliver Cromwell was on the list of "Greatest Britons" despite massacring thousands of Irish and leading a dictatorship so puritanical the people rebelled after 10 years.