History!!

[HerrBobo]

Why did Xerxes I inherit the Persian throne even though he wasn't Darius I's first son?

He won the civil war?

Godbutbetter, they tested them in Russia. Is that what you mean?

What was the first Aircraft to make an air to air kill in WW2?

 

[ryanxm]

Oh, and I'd always wondered. Which was the first country or culture (In recorded history) to have a female leader?

i think it was the egyptians.

i remember watching a program somewhere about one of the egyptian pharaohs being female, but the rest of eygpt didn't like that so they tried to erase her from their history.

wish i could remember what she was called.

cliopatria?

 

[HerrBobo]

**cut**

i'm on the PS3 so i can't write much .. i'll just say 2 things .. but i can't go into as much depth as i'd like

1. there is an official history .. it's what's printed in school history books as objective fact

2. history IS written by the winners ... the observers can only write what the winners allowed them to ... information has and always will be controlled by the greater power

he who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future

Not fully correct. The only way you can get the facts 100% right is if you were there youself. Even pirmary sources are just an interpretation of the facts. Each person will se an even in a diffrent light.

 

[SsilverR]

**cut**

i'm on the PS3 so i can't write much .. i'll just say 2 things .. but i can't go into as much depth as i'd like

1. there is an official history .. it's what's printed in school history books as objective fact

2. history IS written by the winners ... the observers can only write what the winners allowed them to ... information has and always will be controlled by the greater power

he who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future

Not fully correct. The only way you can get the facts 100% right is if you were there youself. Even pirmary sources are just an interpretation of the facts. Each person will se an even in a diffrent light.

it's a double edged sword .. even in disproving me you've also helped prove my point

 

[Vision of Division]

Why did Xerxes I inherit the Persian throne even though he wasn't Darius I's first son?

Godbutbetter, they tested them in Russia. Is that what you mean?

Nope, It helped Franco win the Spanish Civil War.

 

[HerrBobo]

Why did Xerxes I inherit the Persian throne even though he wasn't Darius I's first son?

Godbutbetter, they tested them in Russia. Is that what you mean?

Nope, It helped Franco win the Spanish Civil War.

Oh you mean the Condor legion and all that? They tested their a/c in the Spanish civil war.

 

[Vision of Division]

Why did Xerxes I inherit the Persian throne even though he wasn't Darius I's first son?

Godbutbetter, they tested them in Russia. Is that what you mean?

Nope, It helped Franco win the Spanish Civil War.

Oh you mean the Condor legion and all that? They tested their a/c in the Spanish civil war.

Yeah, specifically the bombing of Guernica. When my history teacher told that story I thought it was so cool. (and tragic ofcourse)

 

[HerrBobo]

Who was the first Roman emperor to have a beard?

The wall builder; Hadrian.

He and Trajan were, IMO, the two best Emperors.

What was the first Aircraft to make an air to air kill in WW2?

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

Why wasn't the Vatican tried for warcrimes during World War II?

Because they didn't actually do anything, they just stood there and watched as the slaughter happened, which some people might think is an even worse crime, but hey, whatcha gonig to do...Actually, the Vatican and the catholic church were some of the first to resist mussolini, playing BBC radio broadcasts and giving aid to partisans.

 

[Tales of Golden Sun]

Why did Xerxes I inherit the Persian throne even though he wasn't Darius I's first son?

He won the civil war?

Nope, it's because his mother Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the king that had made the Persian Empire great. It's all about the blood, man.

 

[Swaki]

which country was the first to legalize gay marriage and stick whit it?

No clue but your avatar is terrifying.

thanks, scary wasn't really what i was going for but its the first compliment iv gotten on my avatar.

 

[Vision of Division]

What was special about christmas 1914?

 

[HerrBobo]

What was special about christmas 1914?

I was gonna say the truce on the Western front but it seems to easy.....

What aircraft made the first air to air kill of WW2?

 

[Vision of Division]

What was special about christmas 1914?

I was gonna say the truce on the Western front but it seems to easy.....

What aircraft made the first air to air kill of WW2?

But it's so heartwarming!!

 

[boholikeu]

Great thread. Here are a few questions that surprised me when I first learned their answers:

1) What was the world's first novel?

2) Who invented the toilet?

3) Who was Emperor Norton I?

Richard the Lionhart did give each man a banner too look like there were more there than there actually was but what actually defeated Saladins large Army was he single-handedly charged the saracen line stark naked. He surprised the saracens apparently coming out of nowhere. the saracens tried to kill him; shooting arrows and crossbows non of them hitting him, When he reached their lines he killed several men without a blow landing on him. The Saracens thought he was a demon and fled. Thus Richard Defeated a force of several thousand more than him. Funny story.

He then tried this trick single handly charging a french castle naked.. The lookout simply shot him with a crossbow which did lead to his death from gangrene.

I call shenanigans. I remember reading that naked story, but it comes from a highly fictionalized version of his life written in French, so I don't really think it happened.

It was still a pretty good read though (it says he got his name from actually eating the heart of a lion which he killed with his bare hands).

It doesnt make sense to me because how often do people die running marathons and he was a professional runner surely he would have to run distances like that for a living.

People actually die from running marathons fairly often. It wouldn't totally surprise me if it were true.

 

[Vision of Division]

Great thread. Here are a few questions that surprised me when I first learned their answers:

1) What was the world's first novel?

2) Who invented the toilet?

3) Who was Emperor Norton I?

1) The Bible?

2) The Romans?

3) I read your unedited post, but I won't spoil it.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

**cut**

i'm on the PS3 so i can't write much .. i'll just say 2 things .. but i can't go into as much depth as i'd like

1. there is an official history .. it's what's printed in school history books as objective fact

2. history IS written by the winners ... the observers can only write what the winners allowed them to ... information has and always will be controlled by the greater power

he who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future

It may just be me, but I would hardly see a school text book as objective fact. And if a book purports to be fact it does a poor job of teaching history. However I'll go so far as to say that school text books are carefully constructed interpretations that serve the purpose of conveying history. However, as a student advances the layers of untruths and simplifications should be pealed away. We can't teach an 11 year old every facet of how history is written and so we construct a useful story (that borders on lie on account of omissions and simplifications). If and when a person continue with history things will change. I have spent a great deal of time unlearning most of the crap I learned in school as it was borderline wrong when I started at university. It was good enough for school however.
Biology in school is also a far cry from the truth you learn later on if you keep at it.
My point is: what I learned in school was not precisely a lie, but neither was it precisely the truth. It was a useful story constructed to use a scaffolding for further education.

With all that out of the way, it may be right that say Tacitus was hampered by the fact that the next ruling house wanted to control what he wrote. It's then up to the historian to (me for example) to interpret what he wrote in the proper context and attempt to siphon away the propaganda and pressures from the ruling house in order to get closer to the "truth". History may be influenced by power in the short run I'll grant you but as time goes historians we'll keep digging at it so as to approximate truth as closely as possible.

I'll also say that a text book on say the French Revolution written today will be very different from one written 50 years ago. A lot have changed in how we look at history since then. Now we may approach it from a statistical perspective (serial history), a Marxist materialistic view, a gender social study, a purely political history, a discourse analysis, deconstructionism, semiotics or a bunch of other approaches. History is not, as Leopold von Ranke proposed just a matter of describing the past "as it actually were." Schools of history pops up all the time and each time it all changes a bit. There was a time when a history of Greece would never take into account the municipal structures or the social relations between citizens. Now a lot of them do. There was a time when it wouldn't take into account the geographical lay of a region in an attempt to explain social structures. Now it probably would. History and the writing of history is never set in stone. It's an ever changing process of reinterpretation and shifts in thinking.

 

[boholikeu]

Great thread. Here are a few questions that surprised me when I first learned their answers:

1) What was the world's first novel?

2) Who invented the toilet?

3) Who was Emperor Norton I?

1) The Bible?

2) The Romans?

3) I read your unedited post, but I won't spoil it.

Thanks for not spoiling. I realized the question is much better if I ask it that way =)

I'm sorry to say the first two aren't correct though. The Bible is not technically a novel, and while the Romans did invent bathroom (I believe) I was asking about the toilet. Big hint, though possibly a misleading one: the inventor's name lives on as a slang word for "toilet".

 

[Azraellod]

Oh, and I'd always wondered. Which was the first country or culture (In recorded history) to have a female leader?

i think it was the egyptians.

i remember watching a program somewhere about one of the egyptian pharaohs being female, but the rest of eygpt didn't like that so they tried to erase her from their history.

wish i could remember what she was called.

cliopatria?

if you mean Cleopatra, this was supposed to have been before her.

 

[Vision of Division]

Great thread. Here are a few questions that surprised me when I first learned their answers:

1) What was the world's first novel?

2) Who invented the toilet?

3) Who was Emperor Norton I?

1) The Bible?

2) The Romans?

3) I read your unedited post, but I won't spoil it.

Thanks for not spoiling. I realized the question is much better if I ask it that way =)

I'm sorry to say the first two aren't correct though. The Bible is not technically a novel, and while the Romans did invent bathroom (I believe) I was asking about the toilet. Big hint, though possibly a misleading one: the inventor's name lives on as a slang word for "toilet".

Haha, the first was a pretty stupid anwer. But is it Mr. Can? Mr. Lavatory? Are his initials W.C. perhaps?