Quotulatiousness

April 24, 2022

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Got Him – Yamamoto – WW2 – 191 – April 23, 1943

World War Two
Published 23 Apr 2022

The mastermind of Pearl Harbor meets his fate this week in the Solomons, as do a great many Italian airmen and sailors in the Mediterranean in the Palm Sunday Massacre trying to supply the desperate Axis forces in Tunisia.
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April 7, 2022

Republic to Empire: The Triumph of Caesar

Filed under: Europe, History, Italy, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

seangabb
Published 5 Mar 2021

In 120 BC, Rome was a republic with touches of democracy. A century later, it was a divine right military dictatorship. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this transformation with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
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March 26, 2022

History of Rome in 15 Buildings 02. The Rostra

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

toldinstone
Published 2 Oct 2018

This second episode of our History of Rome presents the Rostra, the speaking platform in the Roman Forum, as a key to understanding the turbulent world of the Late Republic. It focuses on the career of Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator, who was successively applauded and impaled on the Rostra.

If you enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my forthcoming book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

You can find a preview of the book here:

https://toldinstone.com/naked-statues…

If you’re so inclined, you can follow me elsewhere on the web:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorian…
https://www.instagram.com/toldinstone/

To see the story and photo essay associated with this video, go to:
https://toldinstone.com/the-rostra/
Thanks for watching!

March 20, 2022

Kharkov Falls Once Again – WW2 – 186 – March 19, 1943

World War Two
Published 19 Mar 2022

The British are attacking the Mareth Line in North Africa while the Americans hit the Axis flank, but the Allies are withdrawing in Burma. It’s the Germans who are pulling back in the USSR, though, and there is another attempt from within German command to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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December 26, 2021

A Red Christmas – WW2 – 174 – December 25, 1942

World War Two
Published 25 Dec 2021

The Soviet offensive Operation Mars is over; it has failed, but Operation Little Saturn has been such a success that the Axis are forced to cancel their own Operation, Winter Storm, which was to relieve the troops trapped in Stalingrad. They remain trapped because Adolf Hitler has now forbidden them from trying to break out. The Allies run into tough Axis defense in both Tunisia and on Guadalcanal, and a French bigwig is assassinated.
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July 24, 2021

History Hijinks: Rome’s Crisis of the Third Century

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 23 Jul 2021

Local Empire Too Stubborn To Die — Field Historian Blue is here at the scene of Ancient Rome with more on the Crisis of the Third Century.

SOURCES & Further Reading
https://www.britannica.com/place/anci… + Aurelian, Postumus, Zenobia
The Great Courses The Roman Empire: From Augustus to The Fall of Rome lectures 13 14 and 15, “From Commodus to Caracalla”, “The Crisis of the Third Century” and “Diocletian and Late Third-Century Reforms”, by Gregory Aldrete
The Enemies of Rome Chapter 20 “Parthia, Persia, Palmyra” by Stephen Kershaw

Partial Tracklist: “Scheming Weasel”, Sneaky Snitch”, “Marty Gots A Plan” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

Content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

PODCAST: https://overlysarcasticpodcast.transi…

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MERCH LINKS: http://rdbl.co/osp

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From the comments:

Facundo Cadaa
2 hours ago
Thumbnail: “Rome’s big crisis”

Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?

June 18, 2021

Heydrich, Architect of the Holocaust, Dies – WAH 036 – June 1942, Pt. 1

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 17 Jun 2021

Reinhard Heydrich is fighting for his life, as the hunt of his assassins continues. Meanwhile, news of the Nazi atrocities starts to reach the Allied countries.
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June 12, 2021

QotD: The assassination attempt(s) on Bismarck

Filed under: Germany, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… 19th-century history, particularly the years from the 1848 revolutions to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The key was Bismarck, the Prussian minister-president who unified Germany. If you want to learn about Bismarck, you will probably pick up a book by some historian of international relations, such as A.J.P. Taylor. That’s the right place to start. But it means you can read a lot about Bismarck before finding out about the time in May 1866 when a guy shot him.

Ferdinand Cohen-Blind, a Badenese student of pan-German sentiments, waylaid Bismarck with a pistol on the Unter den Linden. He fired five rounds. None missed. Three merely grazed his midsection, and two ricocheted off his ribs. He went home and ate a big lunch before letting himself be examined by a doctor.

But even the books that condescend to mention this triviality may not tell you about the other time a guy shot Bismarck: A young Catholic tried to kill him in July 1874, during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf Bismarck had engineered, but only managed to score his right hand with a bullet.

The point is not that Bismarck was particularly hated, although he was. The point is that this period of European (and American) history was crawling with young, often solitary male terrorists, most of whom showed signs of mental disorder when caught and tried, and most of whom were attached to some prevailing utopian cause. They tended to be anarchists, nationalists or socialists, but the distinctions are not always clear, and were not thought particularly important. The 19th-century mind identified these young men as congenital conspirators. It emphasized what they had in common: social maladjustment, mania, an overwhelming sense of mission and, usually, a prior record of minor crimes.

[…]

Bismarck was not much of a democrat, but his example is instructive. He was so phlegmatic about being shot that he obtained both of the guns he had been shot with. He kept them in his desk, ready for use against a third guy with the same bright idea.

Colby Cosh, “Those old terrorist tendencies”, Maclean’s, 2014-12-07.

May 28, 2021

The Plot to Kill Hitler’s Hangman – Operation Anthropoid – WAH 035 – May 1942, Pt. 2

World War Two
Published 27 May 2021

Arthur Harris and his RAF Bombers carry out a massive bombing raid on Cologne. Meanwhile, one of the architects of the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich is the target of a spectacular assassination attempt.
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January 11, 2021

QotD: Conspiracy theories

Filed under: Media, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

It is hard to know, but most likely the conspiracy theory is one of the oldest parts of human society. In fact, the popularity of conspiracy theories is probably a good measure of social trust. Low-trust societies, like you find in the Middle East, tend to be shot through with conspiracy theories. High trust societies in Northwest Europe tend to have less of it, but even they are prone to bouts of conspiracy mongering. The Great Fear that swept through rural France is a good example.

In modern times, the conspiracy theory has been formalized. The assassination of John Kennedy is probably when this formalization process began. For example, a conspiracy theory needs a series of hard to accept coincidences. In the case of Kennedy, we have the amazing marksmanship of the shooter and then his unlikely assassination at the hands of a Jewish gangster, while he was in police custody. The Jack Ruby part is what made the whole thing perfect for the conspiracy theorists.

The first step in a conspiracy theory is that the obvious answer or the official answer must be eliminated as a lie or implausible. In the case of the Kennedy assassination, the start of the conspiracy dynamic was the dismissal of Oswald as the lone actor. It is a variation on the old Sherlock Holmes line. Once you eliminate the parsimonious explanation, then the more complex and convoluted explanations become more plausible. That opens the door to endless speculation.

We see this with the QAnon cult on-line. All of it starts with the assumption that the obvious answer is wrong. For example, it is plainly obvious that Bill Barr is covering up the FBI spying scandal. He’s had years to do what should have taken a few months. Instead of accepting that rather obvious and plausible explanation, the QAnon people reject it and instead weave wildly complex theories about how half of Washington is about to be charged with crimes.

Another aspect of the formal conspiracy theory is the liberal use of the associative property to connect unrelated events. Person A knows Person B and Person B once had lunch at the same place as Person C. If any of these three people can be tied to the event in question, then it is assumed the other two are connected. The weakest associations are enough to assume a conspiracy. The associative property is an essential element of the modern conspiracy theory.

In the case of Kennedy, for example, organized crime is a popular player, because Jack Ruby was a minor criminal. His tenuous association with organized crime opens the door for linking any number of underworld characters with the assassination. It also opens the door for all sorts of theories about the Kennedy administration’s connections to organized crime. The associative property then ties communism, organized crime and the Cuba situation to the assassination.

The Z Man, “Conspiratorial Rule”, The Z Blog, 2020-10-01.

October 10, 2020

I AM Julius Caesar

The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Published 2 Jul 2020

Politician, warrior, priest, lover.

My name is Gaius Julius Caesar and I led one of the most extraordinary lives in recorded history.

My victories over foes both foreign and domestic are still studied today. I upended the Roman Republic and became its first dictator.

I loved Cleopatra.

My brutal assassination has been synonymous with bitter betrayal for 2000 years.

New videos from The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the I AM series allows the great figures of history to introduce themselves in brief, compelling, historically-accurate episodes. Look for more I AM videos of your favorites!

I AM Julius Caesar! Welcome to the first episode of the I AM series where you live history itself through the mind, viewpoints and lives of a historical character!

See and experience the world they lived and celebrate their triumphs and feel their defeats.

This first episode is on Julius Caesar, the revolutionary who set into place the foundations of what would become the Roman Empire.

This was written, directed and created by the extraordinary professional DW Draffin! He is an audio book narrator, stage actor, and independent author.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR
https://www.audible.com/search?search…

STAGE ACTOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTept…

INDEPENDENT AUTHOR
https://www.amazon.com/DW-Draffin/s?k…

If you need a professional then contact him!

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Join our community!

September 25, 2020

“In the Name of God” – The History of Terror – Sabaton History 086 [Official]

Filed under: France, History, Media, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 24 Sep 2020

Terrorism might be one of mankind’s oldest weapons. Since antiquity, horrific violence and assassinations were used to overthrow supposed tyrants and strike fear into the heart of the public.

The French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, saw terrorism evolving into its modern form. Political opponents, counter-revolutionaries, or simply sympathizers of the “old order”, were targeted and eliminated in a wave of terror. Political murder became romanticized.

Throughout the centuries until today, terror persists as a weapon of the few against the masses, in an effort to change society by force. Nothing made that clearer than the terrorist attacks against the United States on 9/11 2001.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to “In The Name Of God” on the album Attero Dominatus: https://music.sabaton.net/AtteroDomin…

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Editor: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editor: Marek Kaminski
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory
Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.com
Sources:
– Alfred Grohs

All music by: Sabaton

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

May 23, 2020

Failed Assassinations — History Hijinks

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 22 May 2020

If videogames have taught me anything, it’s that an assassin can solve a lot of problems. But sometimes plans fall apart, and sometimes it’s for the absolute DUMBEST reasons.

SOURCES & Further Reading: A History of Venice by Norwich, Rebellion by Ackroyd, The Poison King by Mayor.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

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February 14, 2020

Silent But Deadly: Welrod Mk IIA

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Dec 2016

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

The Welrod is a nearly completely silent bolt action pistol designed by SOE Section 9 for covert operation and assassination use during WW2. Chambered for the .32ACP cartridge (which is subsonic to begin with), the Welrod uses a ventilated barrel and large-volume suppressor with several solid rubber wipes to bring its firing report down to the minimum possible level. This noise reduction only lasts for about a dozen shots, after which time the rubber wipes have more or less bore-sized permanent holes in them, reducing the suppressor’s effectiveness to pretty much on par with other typical designs.

The Welrod is a manually operated pistol, to avoid action noise. It feeds from a Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless magazine, which also serves as its grip. A grip safety is the only safety device, and it fires using a striker mechanism. The Welrod was first introduced in 1943, with a larger 9x19mm version added later in the war. They appear to have been manufactured by BSA, with a total of about 14,000 made. Welrods were in service as recently as Desert Storm, and are most likely still in use for those times when a very efficient silent pistol is necessary.

Thanks to the Institute of Military Technology for allowing me to have access to this very cool pistol and bring it to you! Check them out at:

http://www.instmiltech.com

November 15, 2019

Murder and Fascism – Rise of the Ustaše | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1934 Part 3 of 4

Filed under: Europe, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

TimeGhost History
Published 14 Nov 2019

King Aleksandar has been working to forge a single Yugoslav identity in his troubled Balkan state. But ethnic nationalism still runs strong, and a shadowy fascist movement fiercely committed to destroying Yugoslavia is emerging.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel & Spartacus Olsson
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Wieke Kapteijns
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorizations: Klimbim/Olga Shirnina: https://klimbim2014.wordpress.com

Oleg M, Dememorabilia, Julius Jääskeläinen, Adrien Fillon.

Image sources: FORTEPAN / Gyöngyi, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, TH-Bibliothek Zürich: Wehrli, Leo.

Icons from the Noun Project: jail by Strongicon, Police by IconTrack, Hand by Fahmi, coin stacks by emilegraphics, Government by Adrien Coquet, president by bezier master, dots by Alexander Skowalsky, List by Gregor Cresnar, Protest by Juan Pablo Bravo, crack by Dilon Choudhury, thunder by Phonlaphat Thongsriphong, Music by sanjivini, Death by Icon Island, curtains by Bartama Graphic.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
There is a lot going on in this episode. Extreme nationalism, fascism, authoritarianism, terrorism, and so on so forth. These things are controversial enough, but they’re also taking place in one of history’s biggest minefields: the Balkans. We’ve done absolutely everything we can to stick to the facts and stay objective. It’s a tough one to research but we have used credible academic texts and know we’ve done a good job.

If you think we’ve got something wrong, then feel free to (politely!) point it out in the comments. But remember that just because you don’t like how a particular group or person has acted, it doesn’t mean that the facts are wrong. Also, try to refrain from drawing any parallels with the modern-day to support your agenda. The fact that Yugoslavia struggled with ethnic tension has nothing to do with present-day debates on immigration and multiculturalism. Let’s stick to history, not myth.

Cheers,
Francis

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