History Thread

[Shawnathan Horcoff]

Read up on it guys.

[CENTER]*transports back to eighth grade*[/CENTER]

[AD]

[CENTER]*transports back to eighth grade*[/CENTER]

I meant this part wiseass.

Earlier in the day, the couple had been attacked by Nedeljko Čabrinović, who had thrown a grenade at their car. However, the bomb detonated behind them, hurting the occupants in the following car. On arriving at the Governor's residence, Franz angrily shouted, "So this is how you welcome your guests — with bombs?!"[32]

After a short rest at the Governor's residence, the royal couple insisted on seeing all those who had been injured by the bomb at the local hospital. However, no one told the drivers that the itinerary had been changed. When the error was discovered, the drivers had to turn around. As the cars backed down the street and onto a side street, the line of cars stalled. At this same time, Princip was sitting at a cafe across the street. He instantly seized his opportunity and walked across the street and shot the royal couple.[32] He first shot Sophie in the abdomen and then shot Franz Ferdinand in the neck. Franz leaned over his wife crying. He was still alive when witnesses arrived to render aid.[4] His dying words to Sophie were, 'Don't die darling, live for our children.'[32] Princip's weapon was the pocket-sized FN Model 1910 pistol chambered for the .380 ACP cartridge provided him by Serbian Army Colonel and Black Hand member Dragutin Dimitrijević.[33] The archduke's aides attempted to undo his coat but realized they needed scissors to cut it open. It was too late; he died within minutes. Sophie also died en route to the hospital.

Princip was sitting at a café mulling over how he was a pussy for missing on his chance the first time when the car stopped right in front of him.

[jester]

It's really amazing that they didn't leave town immediately.

[jester]

I'm getting a kick out of everyone's (seemingly) sudden discovery on facebook today that Christopher Columbus didn't bring rainbows and unicorns to the New World.

[Ernie]

pffft I learned about that in the 2nd season of The Sopranos.

[Ernie]

Would the Soviets ever have surrendered? How many would Hitler have had to kill for that to happen?

As for Stalin getting murdered in his dacha.. pretty safe to say he was paranoid about that during his whole time in power, so would be hard to figure out how likely it actually was.

[Sturminator]

Reading a lot about the Eastern Front lately. It wasn't certain that the Nazis would have lost.

Far from it. Had the 6th army made a more concerted push towards Moscow, they may well have taken the city early in the campaign, which would have changed everything. They got very close at one point - close enough to see the city, but elected not to push. It is also the case that Stalingrad may have gone down quite differently had the Germans not foolishly elected to bomb it first, thereby creating the very conditions (lots of rubble and broken buildings which favor infantry in maneuver) that eventually caused them to bog down.

The Yak-9 and La-7 were possibly as good as or better than any German fighter (save the jets), and the P-51.

Mostly an academic point, given that it was the La-3 which saw by far the lion's share of service on the Eastern front, and the "black lacquered flying coffin" very much earned its hideous reputation in combat against the Messerschmidt. The Yak-9 first saw service late in the battle of Stalingrad when the tide of the eastern front was already turning, and the La-7 didn't come into mass production until even later. These planes should really be compared to exactly the vehicles you dismiss - the German jets and the American P-51 - that is, the late war advanced designs. The comparison here isn't flattering to the Russian air force.

[jester]

Well, the great counterfactual is which German city gets nuked first if the war lasted long enough.

[Sturminator]

Or maybe: how many German cities does it take before a generals' putsch dispossesses hitler of his head and germany capitulates?

[Ernie]

Or maybe: how many German cities does it take before a generals' putsch dispossesses hitler of his head and germany capitulates?

You've gotta think the first nuke would have been aimed straight at Hitler.

[jester]

You've gotta think the first nuke would have been aimed straight at Hitler.

Eh ... Berlin was not a good test subject because it had already been bombed to hell. They likely would have chosen a city to make a demonstration upon that was relatively standing so that they could assess the damage done by the bomb. The other caveat is that there would have been considerable reluctance to use the bomb in Europe compared to Asia, I think. That being said, Churchill would not have thought twice.

The real point is that I don't think there is any way Germany ultimately wins the war, but it could have played out very, very different.

[Sturminator]

You've gotta think the first nuke would have been aimed straight at Hitler.

Allied intelligence probably couldn't have located der führer in real time, to say nothing of getting a bomb all the way to the wolfsschantze, where he generally liked to kick it with his homies. My guess is they'd have started with a smallish city of some significance to the nazi party that was reachable by allied air power. Nürnberg would have made a lot of sense presuming it hadn't already been flattened by conventional munitions.

[Ernie]

I thought the scenario was that Hitler had long tied up the Eastern Front by the time America developed the bomb.

I just don't see any value in liquidating German cities. Hitler would have let them all been obliterated and still wouldn't have given in.

It's a good question whether the bomb could have been delivered to Germany though. By the time the bomb was ready to go, Hitler would have had uncontested control over the European continent with all the resources he'd need to rebuild the Luftwaffe.

[AD]

And possibly V2s carrying nuclear warheads.

[jester]

I thought the scenario was that Hitler had long tied up the Eastern Front by the time America developed the bomb.

I just don't see any value in liquidating German cities. Hitler would have let them all been obliterated and still wouldn't have given in.

It's a good question whether the bomb could have been delivered to Germany though. By the time the bomb was ready to go, Hitler would have had uncontested control over the European continent with all the resources he'd need to rebuild the Luftwaffe.

You think the Japanese Emperor was an easier sell on surrender? Sturm's point, however, is equally important. Hitler would almost certainly have had a revolt on his hands (already had problems there) if nukes started dropping on Germany.

And possibly V2s carrying nuclear warheads.

Germans were way behind on nuclear development.

[Ernie]

And possibly V2s carrying nuclear warheads.

The Germans didn't prioritize their nuclear program, and it's doubtful they would have beaten the US to a workable nuclear weapon, much less been able to put it on a V2. Ironically, Germany's best hope of developing a nuclear weapons would have been at the hands of Jewish physicists, but they were forced to flee to the US and ended up spearheading the Manhattan Project instead.

[Ernie]

You think the Japanese Emperor was an easier sell on surrender? Sturm's point, however, is equally important. Hitler would almost certainly have had a revolt on his hands (already had problems there) if nukes started dropping on Germany.

Hitler would have let it all burn to the ground, and actually did so long after the war was hopeless. It would have been even worse if Speer hadn't ignored Hitler's orders to destroy all of Germany's infrastructure.

The Japanese Emperor did surrender when he realized the situation was hopeless.

[Sturminator]

Ya...I was going to write some sort of in-depth reply, but then I remembered that discussing war hypotheticals inevitably devolves into full-on nerd circle jerkage, and I could just as well save my cock the wear and tear.

The wolfsschanze was in northeast Poland (or old Prussia if you're into that sort of freaky shit), by the way.

[VLoo]

I would appreciate it if you fellas kept having this circle jerk. It's interesting.

[Jaymz]

One of the biggest flaws with Barbarossa was the German’s intelligence failure to accurately gauge the amount of reserves the Soviets could call upon. I’ve read that the Germans estimated that the Soviets could call upon aprox. 300 Division sized units, when the actual total was closer to 600. Now some of that was due to the Soviets ability to transfer their Siberian forces to the West, but it was mainly an intelligence failure. This is especially a problem since one of Barbarossa’s main aims was the destruction of Soviet forces (hence the constant attempts at encirclements during the campaign). That also is a reason why Guderian’s “turn to the South” to capture Kiev makes sense from a High Command perspective. This was the main aspect of their strategy. Smash the forces in the field, with Territorial gains being secondary.

Capturing Moscow in Nov./Dec. would have certainly made things more difficult for the Soviets. Moscow was the transportation Hub for the Soviets, so the loss of it would have made transporting troops to the various parts of the front more difficult. However, I just don’t know if the Germans could have held on at that point. They were at the end of their logistical tether, and had suffered huge casualties (for them) during the invasion. That’s part of the reason that the Summer 42 campaign wasn’t only focused on one part of the front, rather than a general offensive. They didn’t have the reserves to make up for their losses, while the Soviets did.

I’ve always thought that when the Germans were unable to capture/destroy the Soviets Heavy Industry, that made the campaign unwinnable. The Soviets/Russians always had the manpower to defeat the Germans. But if they could have knocked out their ability to wage a modern war, they could have knocked them out of the war. But, when the Soviets were able to move enough Industry to continue arming their forces, the game was up.

[Dr_Chimera]

How the CIA goaded the Soviets into Afghanistan (and ignited Middle Eastern extremism). http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/internet-samizdat-releases-suppressed-voices-history/

[Elvid]

Lawrence of Arabia’s Caliphate That Never Was

[Captain Roy Bringus]

[YOUTUBE]cMfVnBmpMm8[/YOUTUBE]

[Germz]

The East India Company: The original corporate raiders

[jester]

The East India Company: The original corporate raiders

Okay ... when this books comes out, I look forward to reading some reviews of it. On Clive, Plassey, etc.

It was at this moment that the East India Company (EIC) ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, and became something much more unusual. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 locally recruited Indian soldiers had become the effective rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was transforming itself into an aggressive colonial power.

So, there's a very good book that came out recently that essentially lays out that the EIC had been operating as a sovereign entity for some time prior to the mid-18th c. It's by a guy named Philip Stern. It's indisputable that what happens in the mid-18th c. is very important, but the EIC had ceased to be a "conventional corporation" long before Plassey. What Clive gave them was control over territory and tax revenue--which the folks in London were not particularly pleased about. Too much hassle.

Then we get this:

We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath – Clive.

What?

The British state assumed control over foreign policy in India with the India Bill of 1784, which created the Board of Control to manage affairs in India. Clive was what Clive was, but he had absolutely nada to do with the MASSIVE expansion of India at the end of the 18th c. under Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington ... who was a direct representative of the state, not the EIC. He was, however, largely operating independent of the government and the EIC directors.

Shit, here's a quote from Mornington writing back to London (from a diss. chapter I'm currently working on): "I trust we are for ever established here, if you in England have the firmness to meet all the clamours of monopoly, and to place the government of your Indian empire on a respectable basis." I mean, he's basically teabagging 'em ... and would go on to whine about the honors he didn't receive.

The first section of this piece really dances all over and is ignoring some pretty substantive changes that took place between the beginning, middle, and end of the 18th c. Hopefully that is not a problem that extends to the book.

[jester]

Yes, worth remembering that the relationship between the crown and parliament and the EIC had been in interplay going back to the 17th century. The wealth the company brought back to England caused the established nobility to clamp down on them and try to get a piece of the action. It started a continual slide until full nationalization and imperialism. It all started with the granting of a monopoly IMO. If they had had british competitors, might've kept them honest enough to not have gone into the history books as blood soaked conquerers.

It was actually less to get a piece of the action (they already had that as private shareholders, tax revenue, etc.), but to get some control over an entity with increasing importance to British national security. They worried about getting dragged into conflicts because of the actions of a private company, and they also increasingly needed to maintain the security of British trade to India due to its swiftly increasing portion of the British economy.

What makes the story especially complicated is that the EICs board of directors and secret committee were deeply uncomfortable with developments in the 18th c. They wanted to be traders, not rulers. Sovereignty brought with it responsibilities both outside of their expertise, and overhead that hurt profit. Ultimately you had two camps in the EIC, those in London with one perspective and the other on the ground in India (often individuals looking to earn personal fame and fortune).

Clive is a big part of that story, but it's equally important to recognize that he (like many imperial Britons) was essentially a rogue figure operating with the freedom of great distance.

[jester]

It's good, but an investment for sure.

[RTWAP]

[YOUTUBE]zPIhMJGWiM8[/YOUTUBE]

[jester]

I saw this earlier. Feel like I need to read the argument to understand how they are reaching these numbers. Don't really dispute the point, but how do they define battlefield?

[Dr_Chimera]

[YOUTUBE]R5i9k7s9X_A[/YOUTUBE]

[NyQuil]

Could another English king be buried under a car park?

Just three years after the extraordinary discovery of King Richard III under a car park, researchers think another medieval English monarch might be found buried beneath a parking lot and are hoping to find him.

Philippa Langley, the inspiration behind the successful hunt for Richard III's remains, is now on the trail of his forebear Henry I, one of the first rulers of England following the Norman conquest in the 11th Century.

http://news.yahoo.com/could-another-english-king-buried-under-car-park-092844115.html

[Captain Roy Bringus]

If you've got a free hour and the desire, this is worth a watch.



No Fedoras though.

[Chimera's sense of humour]

Could another English king be buried under a car park?

Just three years after the extraordinary discovery of King Richard III under a car park, researchers think another medieval English monarch might be found buried beneath a parking lot and are hoping to find him.

Philippa Langley, the inspiration behind the successful hunt for Richard III's remains, is now on the trail of his forebear Henry I, one of the first rulers of England following the Norman conquest in the 11th Century.

http://news.yahoo.com/could-another-english-king-buried-under-car-park-092844115.html

I wish they'd stop disturbing these ancient royal burial parking lots. You don't see them destroying the parking lots of the pharaohs.

[Bernie Bernbaum]

.

[Shawnathan Horcoff]

I imagine this story is going to fly under the radar, to use a terrible turn of phrase, but this is huge. Wasn't even aware of the 2011 findings.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/evidence-m ... 36?cmp=rss

Lmao, what decade is this?

Eh, fellas?

[Edgar_mawx]

I imagine this story is going to fly under the radar, to use a terrible turn of phrase, but this is huge. Wasn't even aware of the 2011 findings.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/evidence-m ... 36?cmp=rss

Neat. Thanks for posting.

[vf]

I imagine this story is going to fly under the radar, to use a terrible turn of phrase, but this is huge. Wasn't even aware of the 2011 findings.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/evidence-m ... 36?cmp=rss

That phrase is ignorant, hurtful and exclusionary.

Interesting story though, never caught wind of this story before.

[Dr_Chimera]

[Shawnathan Horcoff]

May we never again know its terror.

[Dr_Chimera]

Was Fidel the most interesting man in the world?

[Elvid]

[Dr_Chimera]

[Dr_Chimera]

[Dr_Chimera]

Scumbucket Zbigniew Brzezinski is dead.

[senate]

From 1973:

[Dr_Chimera]

Seems like an uncontroversial, even obvious, view until one reads something like this - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 21206.html - or considers the way colonialist thinking is justified in respect to American foreign policy.

The Bruce Gilley article is here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... 17.1369037

[Dr_Chimera]

Ireland's official twitter account on Churchill (see whole thread).

[PredsFan77]

2:07 in the afternoon I thought they were all shittanked on guiness by then

[Elvid]

How Saddam and ISIS Killed Iraqi Science

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 7ZaCGdK.99