TIL: Today I Learned

[Mouthwash]

How did contemporaries react? Did England become a pariah state as well?

 

[Lexicus]

I mean, I'd heard of an English Civil War involving Parliamentarians, but I assumed that they lost. Why is this not as well known as the actual French Revolution?

It should be. The English Revolution was probably more important than the French Revolution. Getting a good narrative monograph of the English Revolution is on my list of things.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

TIL the English did the French Revolution more than a century before the French did.

I mean, I'd heard of an English Civil War involving Parliamentarians, but I assumed that they lost. Why is this not as well known as the actual French Revolution?

What might be stranger is that in England the American Civil War is more well known than the English Civil War, but that might be because of the dominance of American pop culture.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The English Revolution wasn't very thorough, was it ? They didn't massacre the nobility and didn't even wipe out the royal family. A really half assed affair compared to what the French and the Russians did.

 

[Dachs]

TIL the English did the French Revolution more than a century before the French did.

I mean, I'd heard of an English Civil War involving Parliamentarians, but I assumed that they lost. Why is this not as well known as the actual French Revolution?

Because it happened in the seventeenth century, which is full of incredibly important, world-shattering events that are rarely taught due to time constraints. War in general is rarely taught in pre-graduate education. Furthermore, the historiographical concept of the General Crisis hasn't really percolated down very far, so even the stuff that wasn't particularly heavy on war gets skipped.

Early modernity is a vast hole in general historical education, which kind of sucks!

How did contemporaries react? Did England become a pariah state as well?

Not really!

The biggest problem that foreign powers had with the French revolutionaries was that they tried to export the revolution. The revolutionaries' ideology was annoying, but certainly not worthy of an intervention. There were plenty of ideological opponents of the French revolutionaries, of course. Catherine the Great of Russia and Gustav III of Sweden were foremost among them. But neither power was involved in the actual war that erupted in 1792. It was primarily French efforts to vacate Imperial sovereignty that occasioned the crisis with Austria and Prussia and thus the war. (Mismanagement both by the "men on the scene" and by the new emperor, Franz II, did not exactly help things.) At the time of the outbreak of war, Louis was actually still the king, and hoped to ride the coattails of a jolly war of national regeneration to renewed popularity. It didn't work out that way, of course.

England also picked fights with other powers in Europe during the Commonwealth. Cromwell's regime fought the Scottish and Irish, went to war with Spain over Spanish harboring of the exiled Charles (II), and fought with the Dutch over the Navigation Act. But it also managed to ally with royalist France and in general was more pragmatic (and also less successful) with its efforts to export the revolution. A "Western Design" to conquer parts of the Spanish empire in the Americas fell apart in the face of Spanish resistance and Caribbean disease. The English of the 1650s did not play particularly well with others, but they did a better job of it than did the French of the 1790s, both for intentional and unintentional reasons.

The English Revolution wasn't very thorough, was it ? They didn't massacre the nobility and didn't even wipe out the royal family. A really half assed affair compared to what the French and the Russians did.

The French didn't massacre the nobility or wipe out the royal family very well. In fact, in 1814-15, when the dust finally cleared, the French had more nobility and royal families, because they had the Bourbon ones and the Bonaparte ones. Then they got even more after the July Revolution of 1830: Orléanists, Legitimists, and Bonapartists.

 

[Traitorfish]

Are most people familiar with any revolution except the famous American, French and Russians revolutions, and perhaps whatever revolutions may have occurred in their own country and which the government has decided to make a thing out of for legitimacy purposes? The English Revolution seems more like the rule than the exception, especially given (as Dachs said) it was longer ago than most, and was carried out largely by people who don't have the conceptual toolset to think of themselves as revolutionaries.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes, me, but I read history in my spare time so I know oddities (including the Swedish Royal House not being really Swedish nor royal ), but the general population? Hell, no.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It was actually a couple of days ago, I learned on Jeopardy, from a whole category on the subject . . .

. . . that in certain countries giving a child particular specified names is illegal.

Evidently, in France, it is illegal to name a child "fraise," strawberry. Stupid anywhere, but illegal?!

 

[Synobun]

I wish they had made it illegal to name a child Gori the Grey.

 

[Phrossack]

It was actually a couple of days ago, I learned on Jeopardy, from a whole category on the subject . . .

. . . that in certain countries giving a child particular specified names is illegal.

Evidently, in France, it is illegal to name a child "fraise," strawberry. Stupid anywhere, but illegal?!

They also ban names like Fañch, a normal Breton name, because "ñ" isn't a French character.

Well, "ç" isn't a Breton character, but little François is allowed in Brittany. Bevet Breizh!

 

[Gori the Grey]

I was self-named Gori the Grey, as an adult.

Yeah, another country, I want to say Iceland?, banned names that used letters not in their alphabet.

 

[Lohrenswald]

It was actually a couple of days ago, I learned on Jeopardy, from a whole category on the subject . . .

. . . that in certain countries giving a child particular specified names is illegal.

Evidently, in France, it is illegal to name a child "fraise," strawberry. Stupid anywhere, but illegal?!

China is the only country I know where you can call a child whatever you want

 

[Gori the Grey]

What's prohibited in US?

I don't believe US was in any of the answers, and they would have put it there (for shock value) if there were names that were illegal here.

 

[Lohrenswald]

What's prohibited in US?

************ and such probably

 

[Lohrenswald]

United States
Main article: Naming in the United States
Restrictions vary by state, and most are imposed for the sake of practicality. For example, several states limit the number of characters in a name, due to limitations in the software used for official record keeping. For similar reasons, some states ban the use of numerals or pictograms. A few states ban the use of obscenities. Conversely, a few states, such as Kentucky, have no naming laws whatsoever. Courts have interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment as generally supporting the traditional parental right to choose their children's names.

One naming law that some find restrictive is California's ban on diacritical marks, such as in the name José. The Office of Vital Records in the California Department of Public Health requires that names contain only the 26 alphabetical characters of the English language. There is no law restricting the informal use of diacritical marks and many parents do this.[58]

okay so China and Kentucky

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here's Wiki on the subject

Traditionally, the right to name one's child or oneself as one chooses has been upheld by court rulings and is rooted in the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth Amendment and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, but a few restrictions do exist. Restrictions vary by state, but most are for the sake of practicality. For example, several states limit the number of characters that can be used due to the limitations of the software used for official record keeping. For similar reasons, some states ban the use of numerical digits or pictograms. A few states ban the use of obscenity. There are also a few states, Kentucky for instance, that have no naming laws whatsoever.

Edit: Hahahahaha, you beat me to it.

 

[Phrossack]

I was self-named Gori the Grey, as an adult.

Yeah, another country, I want to say Iceland?, banned names that used letters not in their alphabet.

Also because in Icelandic, names must be grammatically declined, which you can do with a good traditional name like Þorbjörn but not with one like "Hayden" or "Keileigh."

 

[Gori the Grey]

It should be. The English Revolution was probably more important than the French Revolution. Getting a good narrative monograph of the English Revolution is on my list of things.

I'd go with Barry Coward's. Kenyon is good on economic matters, though, and you like those. Read them against each other.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It was actually a couple of days ago, I learned on Jeopardy, from a whole category on the subject . . .

. . . that in certain countries giving a child particular specified names is illegal.

Evidently, in France, it is illegal to name a child "fraise," strawberry. Stupid anywhere, but illegal?!

I think many, if not most, nations have regulations on the naming of children. There are even books of approved names you're allowed to choose from.

 

[Yeekim]

English Civil War

I recall being asked "when did English Civil War take place?" in some pop history quiz and feeling slight panic, because afaik there's been like half a dozen.