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 Post subject: WTF Moments in History
PostPosted: Tue 04 Oct 2011, 23:24 
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As the title says, WTF moments in history.

My favourite one was that Romans had so much trouble with Parthians, they went in with thousands upon thousands of troops, attacked, and left with 500~ soldiers and without an emperor, who was captured and used as a stool for mounting horses. The fun times.

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PostPosted: Wed 05 Oct 2011, 01:30 
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Qaar wrote:
As the title says, WTF moments in history.

My favourite one was that Romans had so much trouble with Parthians, they went in with thousands upon thousands of troops, attacked, and left with 500~ soldiers and without an emperor, who was captured and used as a stool for mounting horses. The fun times.


Valerian, right?

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PostPosted: Wed 05 Oct 2011, 13:38 
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Hmmmm. How about this story from Herodotus? Herodotus is wonderful for WTF moments... but his veracity is sometimes doubtful. :-s

Candaules, the ruler of Lydia from 735 BCE to 718 BCE loved his wife so much that he bragged to his bodyguard Gyges how amazingly beautiful she was, and told Gyges to come with him and look at her naked from the closet. Of course, Gyges being a good little boy, he refused at first, but then agreed, because Candaules was the king, after all.

So they did that. And the queen found out.

The queen went to Gyges (actually, she summoned him to her, but whatever) and gave him an ultimatum: either you must commit suicide, or you must kill Candaules and become my husband. She reasoned that only one person in the world should know what she looked like naked, and that should be her husband, and there could only be one husband. So one of the two had to be killed.

Gyges kills Candaules, and becomes the next ruler of Lydia.

He was a good king, too.


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PostPosted: Sun 09 Oct 2011, 01:28 
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I have to answer this one.

1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.

2. Edo Period, Japan

This might be the first true modern urban culture in the world, and it was outside anything christian. Sure, things weren't perfect, but at least, they knew how to make live a millionaire city without current technology. There are reasons why the biggest city in the world is still in Japan.

3. Prehistory

It was a hard time, you could die very young. But at least, you lived pretty well it seems, if you were not sick. 40 years of vivid life is better than 80 years of boring routine.

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PostPosted: Sun 09 Oct 2011, 02:42 
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Yiuel wrote:
1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.


From what I know some scholars suggest the reason why a Chinese Industrial Revolution never happened was because China didn't have the socio-economic prerequisites for the Industrial Revolution, unlike in Europe, although personally I think that's Eurocentric BS. Make of it what you will, of course.

Actually the possibilities of alternate history are the true WTF Moments in History, in a sense. Everything could have been so, so different had it not been for just this one little thing.

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PostPosted: Sun 09 Oct 2011, 04:23 
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Yiuel wrote:
1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.


Descriptions of 12th century Kaifeng sound like 18th century London! O_O

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PostPosted: Wed 12 Oct 2011, 03:01 
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taylorS wrote:
Yiuel wrote:
1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.


Descriptions of 12th century Kaifeng sound like 18th century London! O_O


And people wonder why I go all crazy and that my favorite Kanji is :



For those illiterate, it is the kanji used for the Song dynasty.

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PostPosted: Wed 12 Oct 2011, 03:35 
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Yiuel wrote:
taylorS wrote:
Yiuel wrote:
1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.


Descriptions of 12th century Kaifeng sound like 18th century London! O_O


And people wonder why I go all crazy and that my favorite Kanji is :



For those illiterate, it is the kanji used for the Song dynasty.


That's me! :oops:

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PostPosted: Thu 13 Oct 2011, 04:47 
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Yiuel wrote:
taylorS wrote:
Yiuel wrote:
1. Song Dynasty, China.

You cannot beat an industrial revolution happening 500 years before the current one. They didn't go far enough, but they were about to bring it. Shame on you Mongols.


Descriptions of 12th century Kaifeng sound like 18th century London! O_O


And people wonder why I go all crazy and that my favorite Kanji is :



For those illiterate, it is the kanji used for the Song dynasty.


Illiterate? You make it sound like knowing hanzi is required. ;-)

The Song Dynasty is one of my favorites.

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PostPosted: Thu 13 Oct 2011, 21:51 
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Six-day-war.

Gott mit uns!

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PostPosted: Fri 14 Oct 2011, 04:54 
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Bristel wrote:
Illiterate? You make it sound like knowing hanzi is required. ;-)

The Song Dynasty is one of my favorites.


It sure is for me, but that's because Japanese was my major. And I'm planning to move to Japan and work there. Kind of... required, if you ask me.

:P

It is my favorite ever since I read about it.

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PostPosted: Fri 14 Oct 2011, 04:56 
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Yiuel wrote:
Bristel wrote:
The Song Dynasty is one of my favorites.


It is my favorite ever since I read about it.

Qin and Tang here.

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PostPosted: Fri 14 Oct 2011, 05:58 
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Meh, the interdynastic wars are more interesting :D
春秋、戰國、三國時代

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PostPosted: Fri 14 Oct 2011, 16:13 
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我看书看三国。 (for class. Can't say that quite yet.)

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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:33 
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The biggest WTF moment?
The sheer stupidity of the Kaiser in WWI in that he didn't make peace when he could have.
He had easily almost won the war in 1915, but in 1916 and 1917 the tables turned. Germany couldn't fund the war quite well.

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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:35 
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I wonder how the world would have changed if Germany actually did win WWI. Back then they weren't Nazis, right?

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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:37 
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rickardspaghetti wrote:
I wonder how the world would have changed if Germany actually did win WWI. Back then they weren't Nazis, right?


Nazis came because of WWI failures.
Had the Kaiser won in 1915, the February and October revolutions would have been stomped since Russia would've had more troops than it did in 1917 (it even dropped out of the war due to the revolution)

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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:42 
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Darkgamma wrote:
The biggest WTF moment?
The sheer stupidity of the Kaiser in WWI in that he didn't make peace when he could have.
He had easily almost won the war in 1915, but in 1916 and 1917 the tables turned. Germany couldn't fund the war quite well.


Parallel to Julian the Apostate's burning the Byzantine navy when he invaded Persia so his troops couldn't retreat; and not accepting the Persians' repeated offers to surrender while the Persian army slowly gathered its scattered strength.

General lesson; When you've won, say "We win!", take your winnings, make friends with your erstwhile opponents, and go home.

Hell, Detroit/Windsor and nearby areas have lots of casinos where people still fail to learn that lesson.

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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:43 
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Darkgamma wrote:
rickardspaghetti wrote:
I wonder how the world would have changed if Germany actually did win WWI. Back then they weren't Nazis, right?


Nazis came because of WWI failures.
Had the Kaiser won in 1915, the February and October revolutions would have been stomped since Russia would've had more troops than it did in 1917 (it even dropped out of the war due to the revolution)

Right. Is it possible a German victory in WWI would have been better considering WWII? If the Nazis never came about or at least didn't come to power, how many lives could not have been saved? But perhaps then WWII could have come about for different reasons and be just as devastating even without the holocaust?
Wow, I really shouldn't get into this discussion. I know far too little really, and this is definitely the wrong place to have one. The thread will get clogged and locked in a flash and I might be held responsible. Please forgive me, aszev!

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俺はその証だ。
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PostPosted: Sat 15 Oct 2011, 21:48 
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rickardspaghetti wrote:
I wonder how the world would have changed if Germany actually did win WWI. Back then they weren't Nazis, right?


Yeah, the Germans definitely weren't Nazis in WWI. It's an unfortunate misconception people still have. While I can understand why someone would think WWII as a good vs. evil war (though I'll have reservations on that), WWI was definitely not a good vs. evil war. WWI, from what I learned, was definitely a war where either side could have won.

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