re: 101 years ago today: America officially enters World War I

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growth of personal civil liberties.

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And in 1915, Great Britain, the nation just 15 years removed from shoving the Afrikaners into concentration camps, was the EPITOME of human rights!



THE KAISER EATS BABIES !



The paragon of human rights Great Britain gave women the right to vote in 1918. So did Germany. The USA, who went to war in 1917 because of German suppression of civil rights, gave women the right to vote in 1920. It all adds up !

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Dan Carlin Hardcore History: Blueprint for Armageddon

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Great podcast, but I wish I could have edited it. He went on about mud so many times, it was ridiculous. I get it. There was mud. Lots of mud. Bad mud.

In total, he probably dedicated two hours of that program to mud. It dragged badly at times because of that, although the overall listen was good.

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Yeah, considering the guy did so much fricking that 0.5% of the world, or 16 million people owe their existence to Genghis banging strange.

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Well, I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Adolf Hitler either, so I consciously don’t take any of that into account.

If you think about the chances of your very existence with the number of sperm and egg cells and actions that your parents had to perfectly create for your existence, and then think the same about their parents and so on and so forth, then your very existence is almost like one in infinity. So I don’t take the greatest rapist in world history as a good thing, but rather a bad thing.

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Exactly. I had high hopes for it as I had already listened to his WWI series. But instead of going in-depth, he just hit the usual high points of (1) Barbarossa (2) Stalingrad (3) Kursk and (4) fall of Berlin. He just skimmed over the rest. Its like he just rushed it.

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Agree

I wonder if he had a publishing deadline, too many irons in the fire, or was just resting on his laurels.

Odd for ones work to vary so widely in quality.

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Not trying to be a dick, it why would you want to kill Genghis Khan?

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Khan was pretty tolerant of other religions, particularly Christianity, and made the silk road safe.genghis khan making of the modern world is a really good book that spins him in a positive light. I love khan stuff so i would recommend it.

He also salted the middle east and destoried untold amounts of ancient history that is forever lost to the world during the wars with the Shah.

It is hard for me to feel bad for the Shah because it is the ultimate don't start none/wont be none.

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I was thinking Julius Caesar would be the one more people had the problems with.

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my big Roman "what if" is: what if julian the apostate had lived?

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Over 100 years after the fact, the USA's interpretation of the events of WWI are shaped almost entirely by British wartime propaganda.

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huh? propaganda or not, kaiser wilhelm was 100% in favor of aggressive german militaristic expansion during the early 20th century and absolutely moved the german empire towards a military led dictatorship. that is historical fact

My grandfather - born in 1888 - fought in WW1.

I have some stuff he traded German soldiers for during the Christmas cease fire (1917 I believe).

I have a pewter match box with a Keiser helmet stamped into it and a bayonet.

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THINK

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What I aim to do is to REMIND people, including me, that there is value in thinking about historical events of the past. You know, REALLY giving it thought. In that way, IMHO, we can enjoy history more deeply and at the same time deepen the value of learning history.

I thought that somebody would post the following reason why the USA went to war with Imperial Germany: Germany's illegal and barbaric violation of Maritime Law with her U-boat warfare.

My reply would be that both the USA and the UK practiced, if anything, an even more ruthless brand of unrestricted submarine warfare against Imperial Japan a mere 24 years after the USA went to war to enforce International Maritime Law in 1917. The UK and the USA were PERFECTLY FINE with it, after all, just a short time later!

Another point I'd make to argue that enforcement of Maritime Law wasn't a logical reason is because the UK was using passenger liners to ship munitions from the USA to the UK while the USA was neutral. I believe that this was illegal under Maritime Law. If it were perfectly legal, why would the UK lie about it? The irrevocable facts are that the Lusitania carried war materials from the USA to the UK. On July 30th, 1916, the Black Tom docks were filled to the brim with high explosives suitable for making field artillery shells. The USA was neutral then. These war materials were destined for the Vickers Armory in the UK.