Extra Credits
Published on 24 Mar 2018Genghis Khan wanted to establish a long-lasting legacy of conquering and growth for the Mongols, but at what cost? Even his own sons fought each other for the throne. Would peace truly last in the lands he had conquered?
March 26, 2018
Genghis Khan – The Final Conquering Years – Extra History – #6
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March 18, 2018
Genghis Khan – Beginnings of the Great Mongol Nation – Extra History – #5
Extra Credits
Published on 17 Mar 2018The man now known as Genghis Khan, leader of all Mongols, was ready to show the world what he was made of. He acted in fairness towards his own people and happily began integrating Chinese citizens and their culture, but showed no mercy to those who opposed him.
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King George V in World War 1 I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 17 Mar 2018He was monarch over the largest empire the world has ever seen. When the war came he saw his duty as the face of determination for his people: King George V.
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March 12, 2018
Genghis Khan – Khan of All Mongols – Extra History – #4
Extra Credits
Published on 10 Mar 2018Temüjin had a plan: a set of strategies to keep amassing wealth and followers for himself while keeping unity between all the disparate Mongol tribes he was collecting. But Jamukha and Ong Khan had other plans…
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And the next premier of Ontario is likely to be … Doug Ford?
Saturday’s Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership contest went down to the wire … and beyond, as voting glitches pushed the announcement of a winner beyond the time the party had rented the facility in Markham, so attendees had to go elsewhere to wait for the final result. In a disturbingly similar way to the last US presidential election, Christine Elliot won the popular vote, but the result hinged on the number of constituencies won, which went to Ford. Several of my (Liberal or NDP) friends on Facebook, who’d announced they’d joined the PCs explicitly to vote against Ford, were aghast at the result.
New Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford at the 2014 Good Friday procession in East York.
Photo via Wikimedia.
In the National Post, Chris Selley reports on the three-ring circus:
In the end, maybe caucus had it right. If more than anything else Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives wanted to win on June 7 then maybe they should have stuck with interim leader Vic Fedeli. If the ultra-folksy MPP for Nipissing wasn’t the most compelling imaginable premier-in-waiting, he would certainly have cut a less divisive figure than Doug Ford, who was announced as the party’s new leader late Saturday night in a small room at a Markham conference centre.
“To the party members I say thank you. To the people of Ontario I say relief is on its way,” Ford told reporters and campaign workers. “And to Kathleen Wynne, I say your days as premier are numbered.”
That got a massive cheer, of course, but this is an outcome that many in the party consider a worst-case scenario. An Angus Reid poll released this week asked “soft” Tory voters whether each candidate would make them more or less likely to support the party: Ford’s net score (more likely minus less likely) was minus 27 per cent; Christine Elliott, who finished a very narrow second Saturday — her third failed shot at the position — was at plus 20.
Sticking with Fedeli would also have spared the party the hideous embarrassment of Saturday’s botched convention. Vote-counting dragged on for hours thanks to a chunk of ballots that had been allocated to the wrong ridings. A packed crowd of partisans was left in the dark for three hours, then told to hang tight for another 30 minutes, and then sent away into the night with no result. In lieu of a cascade of balloons, there was booing and hollering. Various Ford supporters, citing ostensibly conclusive media reports earlier in the day that Ford had won, alleged party elites were trying to steal it.
These were not the ideal circumstances in which to build unity, which was the stated purpose of the event. “You’ve been through a very tough couple of months — perhaps the toughest times in the history of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario,” Alberta United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney told the crowd. “You’ve gone through weeks of anxiety and adversity. But I am certain that you will overcome this time of trial, and that this afternoon, with the election of your leader, you will emerge stronger, united and victorious in the election.”
“This afternoon,” he said. We were so young then.
CORRECTED: 2018 Ontario PC leadership electoral point flow. #onpcldr pic.twitter.com/0w89PK9Er2
— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) March 11, 2018
The flow of votes from Allen to Ford was expected, but what I didn’t expect was the proportion of Mulroney votes that flowed to Ford instead of Elliot (I’d expected roughly 100% to Elliot, but a significant number went to Ford instead).
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the leadership campaign was how well Ford managed to stick to his talking points and not be baited into the kind of media spectacle his late brother seemed to specialize in. A tougher test awaits in the June provincial election, however. The Liberals and NDP have been gifted a full warehouse of attack ads, based on the Ford brothers’ chaotic and at times incoherent term in office in Toronto, but there may be a limit to the overall usefulness of this arsenal: rather like the US media attacking Trump during the last US election, we’ve probably heard it all before.
The circus may not be over yet, however, as reports on Sunday indicated that Christine Elliot is demanding an investigation into the election.
March 11, 2018
Soviet Leaders in 7 Minutes (History)
Austin Olney
Published on 19 Apr 2016Learn about the leaders of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Lenin
1917-1922
Joseph Stalin
1922- 1953
Georgy Malenkov
1953-1955
Nikita Khrushchev
1953 – 1964
Leonid Brezhnev
1964 – 1982
Yuri Andropov
1982 – 1984
Konstantin Chernenko
1984 – 1985
Mikhail Gorbachev
1985 – 1991Music – Goldeneye 64 Menu
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March 10, 2018
Jacob Rees-Mogg versus the Tory establishment
In the Continental Telegraph, Hector Drummond describes the rise of Jeremy Corbyn despite the bitter resistance of the Labour party establishment and says that the mistake Labour made was allowing Corbyn on the ballot in the first place — the party rank and file were far more ideologically “left” than the MPs and party officials. “When Corbyn was elected leader, it looked like Labour had shot itself through the foot. It now looks like what actually happened was that New Labour shot itself through the heart.”
On the other side, the closest equivalent threat to the Tory party establishment appears to be Jacob Rees-Mogg:
It’s clear that the wet Tory establishment is not keen on Jacob Rees-Mogg. On the surface that appears to be because he holds robust views that are at odds with theirs: he’s an actual Conservative, and they are, of course, anything but. But I wonder if there’s a deeper fear there as well: do they worry that if Rees-Mogg becomes leader then the party will slip out of their grasp in the way that Labour was taken over by hard-left, Momentum commies?
[…]
So I suspect the Tory establishment think that at all costs Rees-Mogg must be kept off a leadership ballot, because there’s a good chance he would win: he constantly tops the polls among party members for preferred leader. You see how the thinking would go after that. He’ll appoint a dry Cabinet. The likes of Gove and Johnson would be given a freer rein. Maybe even John Redwood would come into cabinet. All the disgruntled right-wingers who’ve quit the party in recent decades would come flocking back, including all the racists. We’d have a proper Brexit. The new members would get involved in choosing more right-wing candidates in local constituencies, which the central office would now be okay with. Some centrist MPs and councillors would quit the party, and The Guardian and the BBC will big up their huffy resignation letters. Anna Soubry, having left the party, will do wall-to-wall TV interviews telling the BBC and CNN how bad the Tories are under Rees-Mogg. And so the Tories would lose voters from the middle as they come to be seen as another bunch of UKIP-style golf-club bores, and Jeremy Corbyn will win the election (which the Tory establishment will think is a horrible outcome, but not quite as horrible as Rees-Mogg winning the election).
However, such fears are a bit overblown. True, Anna Soubry probably would quit, but that’s a good thing. Disgruntled right-wingers may come back into the fold, but that’s a good thing as long for the Tories (as long as overt racists are kicked out) – the Tories need those people back voting for them, and working for them.
But I can’t see Rees-Mogg upturning the Conservative establishment. Maggie Thatcher couldn’t do it, she remained a outlier for her entire career despite being PM for years, so I doubt Rees-Mogg could either (although I hope he can). And although there’s a lot of energy on the right at the moment, there’s nothing like Momentum, with its quasi-religious fervour, and its Stalinist-style fanaticism. Plus the wider establishment, like the BBC, the civil service and the Universities are virulently anti-right, and they have a vice-like grip on power, and they’ll harry the Conservatives under Rees-Mogg. So the party would go right to some degree, but not to any great extent. And eventually the squishy MPs will kill off Rees-Mogg once he makes a mistake.
But it should be good while it lasts, as long the Establishment fails to prevent him getting onto the leadership ballot paper.
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March 5, 2018
Genghis Khan – The Debut of Temüjin Khan – Extra History – #3
Extra Credits
Published on 3 Mar 2018Jamukha and Temüjin were officially fighting for control of the Mongolian steppes, appointing themselves the titles of “khan.” But each man practiced wildly different strategies to gain prestige — Jamukha showed no mercy, but Temüjin took a more egalitarian route.
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February 26, 2018
Genghis Khan – The Rivalry of Blood Brothers – Extra History – #2
Extra Credits
Published on 24 Feb 2018When Temüjin needed help to find his kidnapped wife, Börte, his blood brother and friend Jamukha came to his aid, and the two eventually combined their camps and families. But peace would not last long…
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January 30, 2018
DicKtionary – A is for Air Force – Curtis LeMay
TimeGhost
Published on 17 Jan 2018A is for Air Force, you know that of course
And we turn to the states to look at the dates
When the man in command, that some couldn’t stand
Is our hero today, General Curtis LeMay.Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Like TimeGhost on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimeGhostHistory/
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Based on a concept by Astrid Deinhard and Indy Neidell
Produced by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Camera and Edit by: Spartacus Olsson
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January 21, 2018
Sun Tzu – The Art of War l HISTORY OF CHINA
IT’S HISTORY
Published on 8 Aug 2015Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is a book on military strategies written around 500 BC, between the collapse of the Zhou dynasty and the rise of the first emperor of imperial China. Today Tzu’s guidelines are still as applicable as ever. They are still being read by military commanders, politicians and businesspeople all over the world. Also known as “Master Sun’s Military Methods”, the book explains basics like the “Strategy of Attack”, “Moving the Army” and even “Employing Spies” in 13 short chapters, restricting itself to general principles rather than detailed instructions of strategy and tactics. Learn all about this timeless and influential military masterpiece on IT’S HISTORY.
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January 8, 2018
Mark Steyn reviews Darkest Hour
The latest screen depiction of Winston Churchill gets the once-over from Mark Steyn:
Churchill tends to the Churchillian, which is to say the epic. Darkest Hour, by contrast, is very finely focused. Joe Wright, director, and Edward McCarten, writer, confine their two dark hours of screen time to a couple of critical weeks in May 1940, when Hitler’s invasion of Norway precipitated Neville Chamberlain’s retreat from Downing Street. Aside from some rather elaborately choreographed overhead shots and a lush grandiose score, Darkest Hour is filmed claustrophobically, too – in poky sitting rooms, Downing Street basements, attics, Westminster ante-rooms, and chilly lavatories; the lighting is crepuscular. The fate of the world is being determined, but we never glimpse the far horizons, only the dingy backrooms.
What happened that month was a showdown between the two principal contenders for the Prime Ministership, Mr Churchill and Lord Halifax. Stephen Dillane is excellent as Halifax, the vulpine cadaver looking down (in every sense) from the Commons gallery at Churchill’s turns at the dispatch box. Unfortunately, aside from skillful deployments of his inscrutable yet condescending eyebrows, he gets somewhat short shrift on screen, so as a Churchill vs Halifax cage match it never quite comes off – presumably because the third Viscount Halifax is entirely unknown in Hollywood. (“Third Viscount Halifax? Hey, let’s see what the first two gross before we commit to that…”)
This is a pity, because the two men were on opposite ends of the seesaw, and, capacious as Churchill’s own bottom is, most of the other players – the King, Chamberlain, the parliamentary party, defeatist generals, Dominion prime ministers around the globe – were inclined to park their own butts down Halifax’s end. On May 10th, the day Winston became PM, the Germans invaded Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Ten days later, Hitler’s army reached the Channel, and was within reach of throttling the 300,000-strong British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, and seizing the entire French fleet. In that dreadful month of May, Churchill wanted to fight on; Halifax preferred to use Mussolini’s “good offices” to sue for a “peace” that would leave Britain and its empire more or less “intact” – save for East Africa, Suez, Malta, Gibraltar and sundry other places that would have to be addressed, per the Italian ambassador in London, “as part of a general European settlement”.
In other words, we are at the great hinge moment of the twentieth century: Had Halifax prevailed, there would have been a neutered Berlin-friendly British Empire directly bordering America on the 49th parallel and all but directly the Soviet Union in Central Asia. There would have been no potential allies for Moscow in the event of war with Germany, thus incentivizing a successful conclusion in late 1940 to Molotov’s talks in Berlin to join the Axis; and no allies whatsoever for Washington, assuming Japan still felt the need to bomb Pearl Harbor the following year. Instead, Churchill prevailed – and Britain and its lion cubs fought on, playing for time until first the Soviets and then the Americans joined the war against Germany, Italy and Japan. That year in which the moth-eaten Britiish lion and its distant cubs stood alone is, more than any other single factor, the reason why the world as ordered these last seventy years exists at all.
[…]
As with Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, one’s admiration for the film is tempered by a terrible profound sadness – for a people who “won the war, and lost their country anyway”. To anyone old enough to remember an England where one could “walk into any pub in the country and ask with perfect confidence if the major had been in”, the sense of loss can bring tears to the eye. Unlike Iron-Man 5 and Spider-Man 12 and Cardboard-Man 19 and Franchise-Man 37, this is the story of an actual, real-life superhero: You leave the theater with the cheers of the House ringing in your ears …and return to a world where quoting Churchill in his own land can get you arrested.
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January 5, 2018
Machinations In The British High Command I THE GREAT WAR Week 180
The Great War
Published on 4 Jan 20181918 starts with machinations in the British High Command since Prime Minister Lloyd George is holding back troops and generally would like to replace Sir Douglas Haig as commander.
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December 10, 2017
Father Victory – Georges Clemenceau I WHO DID WHAT IN World War 1?
The Great War
Published on 9 Dec 2017Today we look at the life of Georges Clemenceau, otherwise known as the Tiger or Father Victory. Before he went on to become French Prime Minister (twice) and played an important role in the later stage of the First World War, Clemenceau studied medicine, fought in the Franco-Prussian war, travelled to various destinations across the globe and founded two newspapers.
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December 4, 2017
Otto von Bismarck – Lies – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 2 Dec 2017We’ve wrapped up our series on Otto von Bismarck, but we’ve only touched on the first half of his life! Maybe someday we’ll get to come back. Until then, James answers questions and discusses errors in this episode of Lies!
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