History Major. Cripple. Vaguely Left-Wing. In pain and constantly irritable.
Explanation: The Praetorian Guard were the main bodyguard of the Emperors of the Roman Empire. They had a… nasty tendency to turn on the Emperors they were supposed to be protecting, either overthrowing them or extorting them for more bribes. Hope you’re willing to pay regularly to renew your subscription to “not being stabbed to death”, my Emperor!
Explanation: While sieges always provide some amount of advantage to the defenders, usually this is in stalling, rather than destroying, a determined enemy. During the 16th and 17th century AD, however, the Ottoman Turks had adopted then-cutting-edge professionalized military units in the form of the Janissaries (infantry) and Sipahis (cavalry). This advantage in military organization could lead to some very stunning victories, especially against their somewhat hidebound perennial foe, Habsburg-ruled Austria, which still gathered troops on an ad-hoc, feudal basis.
Explanation: In the Greek Dark Age, there was considerable technological innovation and advancement - but the organized polities of the period had fallen apart so totally that the surviving societies cannibalized the works of their predecessors and sometimes regarded the achievements of their ancestors as outright mythical or impossible to replicate by human hands. Organization makes many seemingly-impossible things possible.
‘Cyclopean’ is a type of architecture. The Dark Age Greeks once thought they were made by cyclops on account of how massive the stones were, and how impossible it seemed for human hands to move so many so great a distance, hence the name. In reality, they were just a style preferred by prior civilizations.
Context From Original OP:
At the height of Martial Law in the Philippines, thousands of academics, scholars, and students were detained. One of these academics were historians William Henry Scott and Zeus Salazar, and they were arrested in 1972.
Scotty, as he is known, was arrested due to having a copy of Mao’s writings in his bookshelf and was cited as one of the “evidences” for his alleged communist sympathies despite the fact that he’s only using it to teach Asian History, while Salazar was arrested due to his involvement in the First Quarter Storm and Diliman Commune years prior. Both Scotty and Salazar share the same prison cell in Fort Bonifacio near what is now Bonifacio Global City and they often have tense arguments and disagreements about history and anthropology.
It got to a point that jail guards got curious about their discussions that they ask for history lessons, which Salazar obliged and gave lectures on Filipino History, listening to their takes on the subject. Scotty later recalls that his time in jail was “one of the best days of his life” as he was surrounded by detained academics and had all the time in the world to have endless intellectual discussions away from university admin work.
Their detention was even recorded by renowned Filipino author Jose “Butch” Dalisay in his novel “Killing Time in a Warm Place” who also shared the same cell with Scotty and Salazar.
Context From Original OP:
At the height of Martial Law in the Philippines, thousands of academics, scholars, and students were detained. One of these academics were historians William Henry Scott and Zeus Salazar, and they were arrested in 1972.
Scotty, as he is known, was arrested due to having a copy of Mao’s writings in his bookshelf and was cited as one of the “evidences” for his alleged communist sympathies despite the fact that he’s only using it to teach Asian History, while Salazar was arrested due to his involvement in the First Quarter Storm and Diliman Commune years prior. Both Scotty and Salazar share the same prison cell in Fort Bonifacio near what is now Bonifacio Global City and they often have tense arguments and disagreements about history and anthropology.
It got to a point that jail guards got curious about their discussions that they ask for history lessons, which Salazar obliged and gave lectures on Filipino History, listening to their takes on the subject. Scotty later recalls that his time in jail was “one of the best days of his life” as he was surrounded by detained academics and had all the time in the world to have endless intellectual discussions away from university admin work.
Their detention was even recorded by renowned Filipino author Jose “Butch” Dalisay in his novel “Killing Time in a Warm Place” who also shared the same cell with Scotty and Salazar.
Context From Original OP:
At the height of Martial Law in the Philippines, thousands of academics, scholars, and students were detained. One of these academics were historians William Henry Scott and Zeus Salazar, and they were arrested in 1972.
Scotty, as he is known, was arrested due to having a copy of Mao’s writings in his bookshelf and was cited as one of the “evidences” for his alleged communist sympathies despite the fact that he’s only using it to teach Asian History, while Salazar was arrested due to his involvement in the First Quarter Storm and Diliman Commune years prior. Both Scotty and Salazar share the same prison cell in Fort Bonifacio near what is now Bonifacio Global City and they often have tense arguments and disagreements about history and anthropology.
It got to a point that jail guards got curious about their discussions that they ask for history lessons, which Salazar obliged and gave lectures on Filipino History, listening to their takes on the subject. Scotty later recalls that his time in jail was “one of the best days of his life” as he was surrounded by detained academics and had all the time in the world to have endless intellectual discussions away from university admin work.
Their detention was even recorded by renowned Filipino author Jose “Butch” Dalisay in his novel “Killing Time in a Warm Place” who also shared the same cell with Scotty and Salazar.
Context From Original OP:
At the height of Martial Law in the Philippines, thousands of academics, scholars, and students were detained. One of these academics were historians William Henry Scott and Zeus Salazar, and they were arrested in 1972.
Scotty, as he is known, was arrested due to having a copy of Mao’s writings in his bookshelf and was cited as one of the “evidences” for his alleged communist sympathies despite the fact that he’s only using it to teach Asian History, while Salazar was arrested due to his involvement in the First Quarter Storm and Diliman Commune years prior. Both Scotty and Salazar share the same prison cell in Fort Bonifacio near what is now Bonifacio Global City and they often have tense arguments and disagreements about history and anthropology.
It got to a point that jail guards got curious about their discussions that they ask for history lessons, which Salazar obliged and gave lectures on Filipino History, listening to their takes on the subject. Scotty later recalls that his time in jail was “one of the best days of his life” as he was surrounded by detained academics and had all the time in the world to have endless intellectual discussions away from university admin work.
Their detention was even recorded by renowned Filipino author Jose “Butch” Dalisay in his novel “Killing Time in a Warm Place” who also shared the same cell with Scotty and Salazar.
They were trying to get them to kill each other. Normally this would be a foolproof plan, but giving historians an audience to pontificate to is an even higher priority than quibbling over details with other historians!
No deeper joke, just a meme-maker with strong opinions on medieval helmets - AS WE ALL SHOULD HAVE
Explanation: General George McClellan, pictured, was a Union general of the US Civil War. Other than his famously tense relationship with Abraham Lincoln, he is remembered primarily for his ridiculous level of caution in military operations - something which, counterproductively, resulted in a great many more Union deaths than an aggressive approach would have yielded. Several opportunities to shorten or outright end the war were lost because of McClellan’s tendency to overestimate the enemy by a grotesque margin.
Nevertheless, he was a good military administrator and organizer, and he did make the Union Army under his command into a formidable fighting force.
He just didn’t fucking use it.
Explanation: Emperor Diocletian of the Late Roman Empire is a contentious figure. Many, like myself, deride his ‘reforms’ as autocratic, oppressive, ruinous, and against the traditions of Rome. Others claim that his reforms were necessary and extended the life of the ailing Roman Empire.
He, uniquely for a Roman Emperor, did not die in office, but instead retired peacefully, of his own volition no less, to go farm cabbages.
If only he would have found his calling a little sooner in life.
Explanation: The Byzantine Empire, based in Greece and Anatolia (modern Turkiye), had a… contentious relationship with Western Europeans.
The Varangian Guard, recruited from Germanic peoples (largely Norse, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons) was a bodyguard unit of the Byzantine Empire renowned for its loyalty and bravery, despite the fact that they were foreigners.
Crusaders, on the other hand, had a long history of… interfering with Byzantine business, even as they claimed to crusade to ‘help’ the ailing Byzantine Empire. Notably, in the 4th Crusade, the Crusade sacked Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and temporarily dissolved the Empire entirely!
still would
Fucking Jefferson.
Chad Big Ben as usual 🙏
Also of note, Jefferson’s limited (theoretical, rather than practical, considering that he never made any serious attempt to free his own slaves) anti-slavery views distinctly did not come with anti-racism. Ben Franklin, on the other hand, became an anti-racist as he interacted with Black folk on an equal basis, noting that the difference between white and Black folk was merely visual rather than mental.
I’m guessing it’s Operation Bernhard
Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War.
The cylindrical automata is probably the closest, but that’s more like a music box (still very advanced and cool) than a gramophone.
Trump only got winged, I vote he takes a shot to the chest just to be sure.
Indigenous folk: “Yo this is a real, actual threat you will encounter”
European colonists, 90% of the time before dying horribly: “lmao yeah right, I’m sure we can handle it”
When in a new region… listen to the fucking locals. They may not always be correct, but they sure as shit know more than you do about the area, lmao
Note: Muslims traditionally regard Jesus Christ (“Isa”) as a prophet of God and an important religious figure, so this isn’t quite as absurd as it might initially appear. To the Christians, they are performing a ritual in the name of the Son of God (and who is also, simultaneously, God); to the Muslims, they are receiving a ritual in the name of a great servant of God!
Time to ride a horse across the the Bay of Baiae, fuck them prophecies
Somewhat related, I recently was reading an academic work on street life in Pompeii, and the word ‘roasted’ was used in the modern, slang meaning of the term, and I had to stop a moment and consider what a bizarre timeline I live in.