Anyone else nerd out on history?

This is my quest too, and you're right. The story of Christopher Columbus is a good example of that. We were taught that he sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but not that he went on a murderous rampage across central American in search of gold and never actually setting foot in North America.
The whole Colombus story that we were taught is not even close to the truth . MUCH of the history we learned in school is far from accurate . I read a book many years ago about that very subject . But if you question the accepted narrative ( especially Colombus ) you get labelled .
 
The whole Colombus story that we were taught is not even close to the truth . MUCH of the history we learned in school is far from accurate . I read a book many years ago about that very subject . But if you question the accepted narrative ( especially Colombus ) you get labelled .
Nothing at all wrong with straightening out history. Nothing wrong with facts and truth.

It's completely wrong to put past history in some or another context of today and use this as justification for this or that cause. It's just wrong. Period. If someone does this, well they should be called out on it and let's talk facts and truth. I particularly see this regarding natives in N and S America as being such great stewards of the land and such perfect people. No people are perfect. ALL RACES HAD SLAVES. For example.
 
Nothing at all wrong with straightening out history. Nothing wrong with facts and truth.

It's completely wrong to put past history in some or another context of today and use this as justification for this or that cause. It's just wrong. Period. If someone does this, well they should be called out on it and let's talk facts and truth. I particularly see this regarding natives in N and S America as being such great stewards of the land and such perfect people. No people are perfect. ALL RACES HAD SLAVES. For example.

It's like those who want to condemn people because their great great great great great great great grandfather was a slave owner. Meanwhile, they do nothing to further awareness for the ~40 million people currently living in slavery today. In fact, in conversation with people about that, many didn't even know that slavery was still a thing in this world. They thought it died (globally) after the Civil War.
 
It's like those who want to condemn people because their great great great great great great great grandfather was a slave owner. Meanwhile, they do nothing to further awareness for the ~40 million people currently living in slavery today. In fact, in conversation with people about that, many didn't even know that slavery was still a thing in this world. They thought it died (globally) after the Civil War.
Indeed the part we should learn from history is: Slavery is evil.
 
They thought it died (globally) after the Civil War.

That's the interesting part. Slavery wasn't explicit to the USA - it was used all over the places by all different civilizations/countries/centuries but it's like people turn a blind eye to it and aim at the one country (that's still young too!)

Yes, it's really helping with the straightening out the assumptions of where the (slow) migrations went. Fascinating for sure.

Technically America was first visited by Asians. Maybe China buying up US land is just the world coming back in full circle!

Slightly unrelated note: Does anybody follow the Warhammer 40K storyline? WH40K is usually seen as a hobby for people who skip a shower or 10 but the storyline and lore behind the game is amazing and has some extremely close relations with actual human interaction/history. Luetin09 on YT does a great job at explaining the game, it's relation with real-life, and real-world examples.

Skip to 7mins to skip the beginning intro if you like. This is so far my favorite video from him because he brings in real economical and societal aspects into his videos that relate to the WH40k lore.
 
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Technically America was first visited by Asians.
Well yes, of course from Siberia side. And that keeps going back further than the historians and archeologists thought first. Some of the natives claim it's so old "they have always been here". Interesting, but closing on ~20K years now if my memory serves. I think foot prints and dating and such. Still in ice age so coastal bouncing.

By land in ships? This is not hard fact yet. I read a couple books on it. Talk about interesting! There is some evidence of west coast South America and I think some kind of genetic tracing of chickens of all things.
 
Well yes, of course from Siberia side. And that keeps going back further than the historians and archeologists thought first. Some of the natives claim it's so old "they have always been here". Interesting, but closing on ~20K years now if my memory serves. I think foot prints and dating and such. Still in ice age so coastal bouncing.

By land in ships? This is not hard fact yet. I read a couple books on it. Talk about interesting! There is some evidence of west coast South America and I think some kind of genetic tracing of chickens of all things.

Indeed! As far as I recall, the oldest known settlers of NA came across that land bridge. I've been watching a bunch of youtube videos from the History channel, PBS, and such about Geological formations and how it played a part in the migration of every species. One that came to mind was the [now extinct] American Camel that migrated to Asia through the Bering Strait and is the extremely old predecessor of today's camels.
 
I'm having trouble finding the article now. If my memory serves me correctly, I thought there some pre-historic tools were found along the East coast of North America that pre-dates the crossing from Siberia. I think it also looked more like the tools used by pre-historic man in Europe than it did those from Asia. I may be remembering this poorly. As I said, I can't find the article on it.
 
Yes, History was briefly my major until my young, soft mind recognized the 'earning a living' concept, when it was replaced by Business Economics.... I did however take as many history classes as I could fit into my schedule and, in one of those classes, British Colonial History, I met my future Wife who was cramming toward a double major in History along with Engineering (which she hated, but was the only way she was going through college..long story).
 
I'm having trouble finding the article now. If my memory serves me correctly, I thought there some pre-historic tools were found along the East coast of North America that pre-dates the crossing from Siberia. I think it also looked more like the tools used by pre-historic man in Europe than it did those from Asia. I may be remembering this poorly. As I said, I can't find the article on it.

I started Googling and found this article on NBC about the findings of tools in a cave in Mexico that predates Cooper's Ferry in Idaho and even before the last Ice age. Fascinating stuff!
 
There were probably several American colonization events over the course of modern human history. Likely thousands of years apart. Several ice ages ebbed and flowed which would have opened and closed corridors for people to make their way into North America because of rising and falling sea levels and just physical ice barriers.
 
I started Googling and found this article on NBC about the findings of tools in a cave in Mexico that predates Cooper's Ferry in Idaho and even before the last Ice age. Fascinating stuff!

I found it. It was from the Smithsonian magazine.

From the complete nuclear genome of a Siberian boy who died 24,000 years ago—the oldest complete genome of a modern human sequenced to date. His DNA shows close ties to those of today’s Native Americans. Yet he apparently descended not from East Asians, but from people who had lived in Europe or western Asia.

 
I woke up at 4am, couldn't go back to sleep, so I've been watching history documentaries. First the history of the Kievan Rus, then the early expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and now the siege and capture of Constantinople. For some reason, I find it very interesting, especially war history. The rise and fall of great empires, alternate history scenarios based on how one battle or decision could've gone another way, the traditions and practices of early peoples and how they've evolved, etc... The alternate history scenarios are especially interesting to me, because I think it helps bring to light the significance of how things actually went. I'm also a firm believer that if you choose to ignore history, you're doomed to repeat it.

If you have not seen it yet you should watch the Netflix series about the rise of the Ottoman Empire. It is not entirely accurate from the historical perspective but it does cover a lot of ground very well.

I really liked watching that series as well as that on the Sengoku period in Japanese history and The Last Czar, all on Netflix.
 
I really enjoyed the History Documentary and I think Timeline on "The man that saved the world". It's really scary when you realize how much stuff we aren't told by the government. Supposedly in June of 1981 a Russian Satellite glitched and thought an ICBM was headed toward Moscow. From what it said and from declassified pictures Russian ICBMs were armed and the silo doors opened. According to the guy that stopped the whole ordeal two keys were in the console and officials were 10 minutes away from firing.
 
I had an idea that most of the history I learned in school was just lies at a very young age, probably about 4th grade. Things just do not add up when they said a certain king willingly gave the throne to a civil engineer, or a certain country won or lose a battle because of their belief or philosophy. A lot of them sound like lies to me, the further back it was the weirder it sound.

I was more convinced later when others on the internet found evidence not in the main history that those histories were suspicious. Carbon dating, genetic info, financial records of food prices, fossils in different layers on earth, civilian diaries, the naming of historic sites, etc.

I am more convinced than before that we are just repeating what our ancestors did in the past, and history is just repeating itself with a slightly different variation each time, and most importantly history was written by the winners, and I am not going to worship someone as good or evil just because they win or lose. You can say I am a history nerd in a different way, and I gave up using history as a proof of anything.
 
I could ponder the "what if" scenarios all day long. WWII is full of them.

What if one of the assassination attempts on Hitler's life was successful?

A bit more subtle take but I read in Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction that Hitler and the Nazis gained ascendancy mainly because of the severity of the Depression in the US. Germany had a conservative PM in control of the Weimar Republic prior and he was working with American investors to undermine the Versailles Treaty and fund Germany as they knew the nation was ultimately good for it and he almost certainly would have consolidated power in a democratic Germany had the rug not been pulled out during the economic collapse after 1929. That was Tooze's most viable alternate history as Germany was heading toward some form of extremism in the economic chaos between communist insurrectionists and Freikorp militia battling in the streets. I think looking at the economic aspects of war primarily with the strategic and operational stuff aside, I sort of got the impression that certain things are historical inevitability and even a few different choices wouldn't change things that drastically.....


What if the D-Day invasion never happened or was beaten back into the sea?
What if Germany accomplished air superiority over Britain?
What if the Germans steamed forward and captured Moscow in the early months instead of delaying to encircle Kiev?
What if the recon reports of German tanks sitting idle outside the Ardennes was taken seriously by French command?
....

There's a lot to all of the above, but D-Day was going to just be redone, there already was a second lessor known D-day with the landings that took place in the South of France (Operation Dragoon). The only other option was to go up through the Italian boot and that was a terrible one, but it was also Churchill's favorite...

P.S.: I should mention that there was an emergency contingency plan called Operation Sledgehammer that could have taken place in 1942, but might've been a real disaster...

Germany did to an extent achieve air superiority but the Luftwaffe was unable to consolidate this as they were not a true strategic air arm and couldn't sustain the operational tempo with twin enigined bombers and exhausted aircrews that had been fighting total war since September of 1939. But even with air supremacy, the German Heer and SS and the Navy would have faced a tough slog as they were not set up for amphibious warfare and a wargame held in the early 1970's when most of the commanders were still alive and able came to the conclusion that the German invasion (Sealion) force became a beached whale in a strategic statement at best and probably faced mass surrender...
 
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