Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Dec 2020http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
The Browning M2 heavy machine gun is one of the longest serving firearms in US military service, and still going strong. Let’s take this one out to the range and find out why!
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
This month marks exactly 300 years since the Whig statesman Robert Walpole officially became our first prime minister. Not only was the country squire and landowner the first politician to occupy 10 Downing Street, he has also served the longest time at the top: an unbroken 20-year reign dubbed the “Robinocracy”.
Most historians rate Walpole as one of our more successful prime ministers: he stabilised the nation’s finances, saw off Jacobite sedition, and kept the country out of foreign wars, proudly boasting: “There are 50,000 slain in Europe this year and not one Englishman.” But inevitably, there was a downside to Walpole: he was charged by his enemies with corruption.
In fact, considering the spectacular eighteenth-century standards of sleaze, Walpole was — to borrow a phrase coined by Tony Blair — “a pretty straight kind of guy”. True, he spent six months in the Tower of London accused by his political foes of all sorts of malpractice; but he was eventually cleared. True, too, that he built a magnificent mansion, Houghton Hall, in his native Norfolk — but he had legitimately made a fortune in the South Sea Bubble financial crash that ruined so many others (by buying shares when they were low and selling them when they were high). Nevertheless, Walpole was not above sailing close to the wind of propriety, cynically remarking: “Every man has his price.”
Nigel Jones, “Scandal, corruption and collusion: 300 years of British prime ministers”, The Critic, 2021-04-03.
World War Two
Published 3 Jul 2021It’s that time of the year again — the time when the Axis Powers drive deep into the Soviet Union. Fall Blau is the name of this year’s huge offensive, and it begins this week, making great gains from the very beginning, but the Axis Powers are also making big gains this week in North Africa, taking Mersa Matruh and pushing to within 100 km of Alexandria. Can nothing stop them?
(more…)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Dec 2020http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
The M2 Browning machine gun was first conceived in 1918, as a request by General John Pershing of the AEF for a large-caliber anti-aircraft and antitank machine gun. John Browning scaled his M1917 water-cooled .30 caliber design up to .50 caliber, and the first prototypes were test fired in November of 1918. Impetus behind the project faltered after the Armistice, but Colt continued to develop the gun during the 1920s and 1930s. It was first adopted in 1922 by the US Coastal Artillery as an anti-aircraft gun, but significant manufacture would not come until World War Two. By this time, the gun’s main role had shifted, from antitank to being an aircraft armament, and some 2 million were made during World War Two, primarily as aircraft guns.
The M2 remains in service today, highlighting the brilliance and longevity of John Browning’s designs.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
Epimetheus
Published 20 Oct 2019Who were the Mughals? Rise and Fall of the Mughal Empire explained (Documentary)
The Mughal empire’s history from Babur to the fall in 1857.
This video and others like it are sponsored by my Patrons over on patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/Epimetheus1776
Maritime Foundation
Published 25 Oct 2015HMS Victory – In Her True Colours
Painting HMS Victory – Repainted in the true colours Nelson would have known.
Produced by Maritime Films UK (www.maritimefilmsuk.tv) for the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
World War Two
Published 1 Jul 2021During the occupation of South-East Asia, Japan builds a large system of institutionalised rape to “keep their soldiers happy”. Meanwhile, Allied refugees from Burma find a safe haven in India, but for some, hardship continues.
(more…)
In the latest Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes wonders about the almost-forgotten revolution that pre-dated the much better known Industrial Revolution:
Illustration of a seed drill from Horse-hoeing husbandry, 4th edition by Jethro Tull, 1762 (original work 1731).
Wikimedia Commons.
Whatever happened to “the Agricultural Revolution” of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Britain? In recent years I’ve hardly seen the term used at all, and the last major book on the subject was seemingly published twenty-five years ago. It has become almost totally eclipsed by its more famous sibling “the Industrial Revolution”, with its vivid associations of cotton, coal, and exponential hockey-stick graphs.
Yet for all that popularity, nearly every book investigating the causes of modern economic growth complains about the use of The Industrial Revolution. Even one of the pioneers of economic history, T. S. Ashton, who actually wrote the book The Industrial Revolution, complained on the very second page about the term’s inaccuracy. Much like “Holy Roman Empire”, there’s an error in every word. It involved too many series of changes to really be a The, was about so much more than just industry, and was too gradual a process to properly call a revolution. Yet Ashton had to concede that the term had “become so firmly embedded in common speech that it would be pedantic to offer a substitute.” And this was in 1948. In the intervening three quarters of a century, the term has become all the more difficult to dislodge.
I am, like everyone else, guilty of perpetuating the term Industrial Revolution. It’s a useful shorthand for people to at least get a rough idea of what I’m talking about, for me to then refine. Best to start with what people know, or at least what they think they know, and go from there. You may think of the Industrial Revolution as being about cotton, coal, and steam, but the period also saw major developments in every other industry, from agriculture to watch-making, and everything in-between. And so on. My preferred terms, like “acceleration of innovation”, always require at least a paragraph or two of explanation first.
With the term Agricultural Revolution, however, there’s just no need to reference it. Nobody really talks about it, or has anything more than a very vague conception of what it may mean. At best, people recall a few things from decades-old textbooks: names like “Turnip” Townshend or Jethro Tull, and perhaps a smattering of jargon like selective breeding, crop rotation, or enclosures. Even these are widely misunderstood. See last week’s post, for patrons, on how we get almost everything about the enclosure movement wrong. As for the Agricultural Revolution’s timing, who knows? When, over the course of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and maybe even nineteenth centuries is it supposed to have occurred? With the Industrial Revolution, there’s at least a “classic” period of 1760-1830, with a few decades of leeway. That is of course up for debate, and I’m especially keen on pushing it back much earlier, but it’s at least a half-decent starting point. With the Agricultural Revolution, there’s just no baseline at all. The experts themselves can’t agree.
For all that the term Agricultural Revolution has lost its salience, however, early modern changes to the productivity of agriculture were perhaps the most important of all. The ability to support a much larger population is itself a major economic achievement. For all that we obsess over historical measures of GDP per person, we often forget the much earlier and extraordinary increase in just the sheer number of people. In the early seventeenth century England’s population not only recovered to its pre-Black Death peak of about 5 million, but then from 1700 onwards it began to exceed it. By 1800, after just another century, the population of Britain had doubled to 10 million. And this in a period throughout which the country was a net exporter of grain.
TimeGhost History
Published 30 Jun 2021Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for crafting the League of Nations at Versailles, but even he couldn’t bring America out of its isolationism. This season he pours out his disappointment in his first-ever radio address. Optimism still reigns in the world of popular culture though, this season the Charleston is born.
(more…)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Mar 2017This is a very rare Ross automatic pistol, patented in 1903 by Charles Ross, of the Ross Rifle Company in Quebec. It is a short recoil, toggle locked design, made for the .45 Ross proprietary cartridge (although efforts were made, unsuccessfully, to make a .45 ACP version for the US 1907 pistol trials).
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
World War Two
Published 29 Jun 2021An extensive network of spies and radio operators are gathering intelligence and sending it to Moscow from Western Europe. They are a colourful group of people who go by the name of Die Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra.
(more…)
The Tank Museum
Published 11 Dec 2020Tank museum Historian David Fletcher discusses the Ferret Armoured Car, also commonly known as the Ferret Scout Car. Built between 1952 and 1972 by Daimler, the Ferret was pressed into service in a reconnaissance role and saw service with the British Army, RAF and multiple commonwealth countries throughout its service life.
(more…)
Two Pretenders who now arose were Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, and they succeeded in confusing the issue absolutely by being so similar that some historians suggest they were really the same person (i.e. the Earl of Warbeck).
Lambert Simnel (the Young Pretender) was really (probably) himself, but cleverly pretended to be the Earl of Warbeck. Henry VII therefore ordered him to be led through the streets of London to prove that he really was.
Perkin Warbeck (the Older and more confusing Pretender) insisted that he was himself, thus causing complete dissension till Henry VII had him led through the streets of London to prove that he was really Lambert Simnel.
The punishment of these memorable Pretenders was justly similar, since Perkin Warmnel was compelled to become a blot on the King’s skitchen, while Perbeck was made an escullion. Wimneck, however, subsequently began pretending again. This time he pretended that he had been smothered in early youth and buried under a stair-rod while pretending to be one of the Little Princes in the Tower. In order to prove that he had not been murdered before, Henry was reluctantly compelled to have him really executed.
Even after his execution many people believed that he was only pretending to have been beheaded, while others declared that it was not Warmneck at all but Lamkin, and that Permnel had been dead all the time really, like Queen Anne.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 16 Nov 2016Note to viewers: This video contains images of the *Blue Mosque* in Istanbul, which is Not the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia was a church, later converted into a mosque, but the Blue Mosque, which, to be fair, looks fairly similar to the Hagia Sophia, is a totally different building, and was built by the Ottomans.
HE LIVES! … by at least a few medical metrics. Blue went on a huge training montage for the entirety of Autumn and is back to talk about the history of Islam!
If you have any questions about anything in the video and would like to learn more, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!
MERCH LINKS:
Shirts – https://overlysarcasticproducts.threa…
All the other stuff – http://www.cafepress.com/OverlySarcas…Follow us on Twitter @OSPYouTube!
Almost exactly the same could be said for the American Douglas Dauntless dive bomber (255mph, 2 x 0.5 and 2 x 0.3 mg, 1,200lbs bombs, 1,115 mile range). Arrived at the same time, same strengths, similar weaknesses. Like all American aircraft it could absorb considerably more damage than any Japanese plane, but like all daylight attack aircraft, its top speed made it a sitting duck against organized fighter defenses. The greatest success of the Dauntless was at Midway, where the sacrificial run of the TBD Devastator torpedo bombers fortuitously arrived just far enough in advance to pull the entire Japanese fighter cover away and allow the Dauntlesses exactly the sort of unopposed attacks that the theoretically inferior Japanese “Val” dive bombers had enjoyed at Ceylon and Coral Sea. The increased success of the Dauntless later in the war was in direct parallel to the increased ability of American fighters to clear a path. By the time of the sinking of the Yamato in 1945, Dauntless formations always had almost completely unopposed runs. (Perhaps that is why it continued in operation when every other contemporary aircraft had been replaced?)
Nigel Davies, “Comparing naval aircraft of World War II”, rethinking history, 2010-12-20.
Powered by WordPress
