History questions not worth their own thread

[LightSpectra]

What would you say are the most familiar battles to people that aren't well acquainted with history?

Certainly Waterloo and Stalingrad. Likely also Marathon, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and Hastings; maybe also Cannae, Gettysburg, Tours, Agincourt, the Tet Offensive, Bunker Hill, Austerlitz, and Verdun. Am I missing any?

 

[mitsho]

HAstings is a very anglo-saxon phenomenon, I'd only expect people to know it in England and maybe the US. I agree with the others on your A list, but would move Hastings to the B-list.

Others for the B-list: Issos, Trafalgar, "Rubicon" (= something with caesar), and "the-most-important-battle-of-my-own-country" (which of course varies from nation to nation".

 

[Camikaze]

Am I missing any?

In Australia- Gallipoli and Kokoda.
And perhaps Iwo Jima and the Somme? Maybe Bosworth Field?

 

[Steph]

Hastings is very well known by the French, it's when the British Isles got some decent blood from France to improve the stock.

A side note: Tours is known as Poitiers by the French.

An important side question would be : do people know the battles, or do they know of the battles?

 

[privatehudson]

Hastings is very well known by the French, it's when the British Isles got some decent blood from France to improve the stock.

I guess that would be the viking blood then since the native Franks and Gauls were no use to anyone.

An important side question would be : do people know the battles, or do they know of the battles?

Mostly the latter but they think its the former because of the "popular" view of the battle holding sway. People tend to know for example that at Waterloo Boney had piles, Uxbridge and Wellington's amusing anecdote and that the Scots Greys launched a glorious cavalry attack. They don't usually know things like Boney put himself in a near impossible position, why that was the case or that Dutch troops helped to repel the Imperial Guard's last attack.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Many young Americans think we fought the Russians in WWII. To call "normal" peoples' knowledge of history infantile is to insult the intelligence of newborns.

 

[Masada]

Many young Americans think we fought the Russians in WWII.

Once you make the connection that Fascism = Communism its all begins to fall into place.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Once you make the connection that Fascism = Communism its all begins to fall into place.

Well I am living during Obama's presidency, you know.

 

[Cobalt Command]

Many young Americans think we fought the Russians in WWII. To call "normal" peoples' knowledge of history infantile is to insult the intelligence of newborns.

Indeed. I remember quite clearly thinking Napoleon led a unified Europe(headed by Germany) against a world threatening USSR controlled by Hitler in the 1970's.

 

[Dachs]

What would you say are the most familiar battles to people that aren't well acquainted with history?

Certainly Waterloo and Stalingrad. Likely also Marathon, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and Hastings; maybe also Cannae, Gettysburg, Tours, Agincourt, the Tet Offensive, Bunker Hill, Austerlitz, and Verdun. Am I missing any?

Of those, for Americans, just D-Day, Pearl Harbor, maybe Gettysburg, and maybe Stalingrad, and to that I'd probably add the Battle of the Bulge. I think you overestimate how well the people who aren't well acquainted with history are acquainted with military history.

 

[LightSpectra]

Indeed. I remember quite clearly thinking Napoleon led a unified Europe(headed by Germany) against a world threatening USSR controlled by Hitler in the 1970's.

Sounds like an alternate history conspiracy sci-fi written by Hideo Kojima.

 

[Plotinus]

Surely the Somme. That seems more obvious to me than half of the ones mentioned on this page, some of which I don't think I've heard of at all.

 

[Dachs]

Surely the Somme. That seems more obvious to me than half of the ones mentioned on this page, some of which I don't think I've heard of at all.

Probably for British people. Not a particularly well known event for Americans - the First World War in general isn't all that well known by most around here except for the two words trench and warfare.

 

[aronnax]

Probably for British people. Not a particularly well known event for Americans - the First World War in general isn't all that well known by most around here except for the two words trench and warfare.

Everyone knows WWII, with the Nazis and the Japanese.

But then there make the connection that in order for there to have a World War II.
There needs to be a WWI.

And they ask themselves.


"What the Puck is that?"

 

[flyingchicken]

Any of you guys know a bunch of easily-accessible articles on America in Latin America? So far I'm just reading through this site (in English).

 

[Atticus]

In a ring from 19th or early 20th century there's a inscription "Prima double elw". What would that mean?

I have some clues: it's supposedly brass, and "double" or "elw" could be old word for it. I don't know what language these words are btw, but the double could also mean that the ring is half of a ring that is meant to be broken in two.

 

[Plotinus]

Could it be the maker's hallmark?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Why were ancient pagan religions so easily given up in Europe?

 

[Dachs]

Why were ancient pagan religions so easily given up in Europe?

Define "easily".

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I should have put "I have that impression." And anyway there have been no large scale revivals since the like 900s.