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Honestly I'll admit I do believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, but I also firmly believe that Oswald was the lone gunman involved
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Mar 29, 2018 09:41
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Thing is that a lone gunman is the BEST way to assassinate a public figure. The thing about conspiracies is that they leave trails, people who have the motive and means are usually already on the government's radar. A lone nut with irrational motives and no co-conspirators or witnesses is absolutely the type who'd get through the President's lines of protection, one way or another. Nowadays all the crazy people never shut the hell up on the internet so the Secret Service can track them easily.
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Mar 29, 2018 10:22
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YMInescapable Duck posted:Nowadays all the crazy people never shut the hell up on these dead gay forums so the Secret Service can track them easily. HTH
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Mar 29, 2018 16:40
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Inescapable Duck posted:Thing is that a lone gunman is the BEST way to assassinate a public figure. The thing about conspiracies is that they leave trails, people who have the motive and means are usually already on the government's radar. A lone nut with irrational motives and no co-conspirators or witnesses is absolutely the type who'd get through the President's lines of protection, one way or another. RIP LF
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Mar 29, 2018 17:11
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drrockso20 posted:Honestly I'll admit I do believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, but I also firmly believe that Oswald was the lone gunman involved Personally, I think aliens orchestrated the assassination. Everything just adds up to well for it not to be a Martian plot to throw off US space exploration, you know?
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Mar 29, 2018 18:34
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Maybe they'd stop taking away our bikes if we stopped threatening to throw nuclear rocks at each other.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:18
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The Bophutswana Crisis was pretty trippy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Bophuthatswana_crisis Under apartheid, South Africa was trying to keep justifying not letting blacks vote, so they formed a number of black "homelands" ("bantustans") and claimed that they were independent countries within SA, and black people of assorted tribes weren't unrepresented because they were actually citizens of their "homeland" and not SA. In 1994, the President of Bophutswana, a bantustan, was facing riots from protestors who wanted the "government" dissolved so they could participate in upcoming multiracial national elections for SA. President Mangope ended up having to flee his country to SA proper due to unrest, and asked for help from the Volksfront, a white separatist Afrikaner militia who agreed with him that Bophutswana should remain "independent" and not get involved in voting in SA. The Volksfront was already kind of iffy but not seen as blatantly anti-black, but an even fringier group called the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging) showed up to "help out" despite the objections of Mangope and the Bophutswana military (who was okayish with the Volksfront presence given the chaos in the country). The AWB troops were told that if they were to stay, they had to remove their AWB insignia and serve under the Volksfront, but they got pissy about that and peeled out of the military base, and as they departed started to shoot at looters and even protestors. One allegedly made the comment "Ons is op 'n kafferskiet piekniek" ('We are on a kaffir-shooting picnic'). One carfull of AWB officers were driving along shooting at crowds and houses when they were confronted by the Bophutswana Defense Force, which shot up the car, severely injuring several of them. One got out of the car brandishing a pistol, but nearby people shouted to him to drop it before he got killed, so he handed the gun over to a nearby Bophutswana officer. One of the local troops was really drat upset about this whole thing, so walked up to the car of now unarmed and/or incapacitated AWB, shouted "Who do you think you are? What are you doing in my country?" and shot them all at point-blank range. Another local cop tried to fire at journalists who were filming this, but his rifle jammed and was taken from him by his colleagues. Clearly the AWB were not good people, but even in actual wartime you can't shoot people that are surrendering or incapacitated, so the trooper Menyatsoe was in theory in a fair bit of trouble. However, South Africa held a Truth and Reconciliation commission that ended up giving amnesty to a lot of people on both sides for crimes which were political rather than personal, and accepted Menyatsoe's explanation that he was acting within a total breakdown of order. So he ended up getting complete amnesty for the shooting.
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Mar 31, 2018 05:02
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When scientists analyzed bones from nubians that were buried between 250 a.d. and 500 a.d. they discovered that they were saturated with tetracycline which is an antibiotic. It turned out that the beer they drank was contaminated with a soil bacteria called streptomyces to brew beer, this bacteria produces tetracycline. Because they drank antibiotic beer the nubians were therefor less likely to get infected.
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Apr 13, 2018 18:09
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Another fun fact about Nubians: their hyperdrive cores are pretty unique, and even among well-versed junk dealers you won't find many with experience in repairing them (especially if it's a high-end model, like the T-14).
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Apr 13, 2018 18:25
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Wasn't enough to save their nation in the finno-Korean hyperwar though
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Apr 13, 2018 18:28
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RIP Fingols 
Queen_Combat has a new favorite as of 18:32 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 18:29
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Alhazred posted:When scientists analyzed bones from nubians that were buried between 250 a.d. and 500 a.d. they discovered that they were saturated with tetracycline which is an antibiotic. It turned out that the beer they drank was contaminated with a soil bacteria called streptomyces to brew beer, this bacteria produces tetracycline. Because they drank antibiotic beer the nubians were therefor less likely to get infected. Making beer contaminated with streptomyces? They truly were Noobians.
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Apr 13, 2018 19:00
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What's a Nubian?
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Apr 14, 2018 08:08
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Peeny Cheez posted:What's a Nubian? Not much, what's a-Nubian with you?
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Apr 14, 2018 08:28
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Peeny Cheez posted:What's a Nubian? Not much. E:  !
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Apr 14, 2018 08:28
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okay fine I'll give the proper response to the callPeeny Cheez posted:What's a Nubian? Shut the gently caress up!
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Apr 14, 2018 12:57
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https://twitter.com/SocialHistoryOx/status/988752697456250880
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Apr 24, 2018 15:36
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The tale of Abu Hasan and the fart.
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Apr 24, 2018 21:03
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A roman jeweler sold false jewels to the emperor Galienus' wife Salonina he sentenced the jeweler to be eaten by lions in the arena. The jeweler was forced into the arena where he heard the lions roaring and then the doors was opened.....and out came a tiny chicken. Galienus then proclaimed “He practiced deceit, and has had it practiced on him” and let the jeweler go.
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May 9, 2018 17:33
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Alhazred posted:A roman jeweler sold false jewels to the emperor Galienus' wife Salonina he sentenced the jeweler to be eaten by lions in the arena. The jeweler was forced into the arena where he heard the lions roaring and then the doors was opened.....and out came a tiny chicken. Galienus then proclaimed “He practiced deceit, and has had it practiced on him” and let the jeweler go. I was expecting this to go in a different direction. May the three of them be remembered for a sick rear end joke.
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May 9, 2018 17:37
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Alhazred posted:A roman jeweler sold false jewels to the emperor Galienus' wife Salonina he sentenced the jeweler to be eaten by lions in the arena. The jeweler was forced into the arena where he heard the lions roaring and then the doors was opened.....and out came a tiny chicken. Galienus then proclaimed “He practiced deceit, and has had it practiced on him” and let the jeweler go. Is it possible that Gallienus was also making a pun on his own name? - Gallus = cockerel in latin That would be amazing.
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May 12, 2018 08:39
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So, let's talk about the last war Liechtenstein ever participated in. Liechtenstein is a tiny microstate wedged in between Switzerland and Austria. It is ruled by the eponymous House of Liechtenstein and numbers only ~38,000 inhabitants spread over 62 square miles. Back in 1866, when Liechtenstein would last go to war, its prince Johann II "the Good" was still living in his palace in Vienna, as all of his family had done since they had purchased the small territory that would later adopt the name of their new ruling family more than one and a half centuries before. It's a small wonder then that Liechtenstein was closely allied to its vastly more powerful neighbour, the Empire of Austria. In 1866, Austria was in trouble. The Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck had determined that the future of Prussia must lie in a united Germany under the leadership of the Hohenzollerns. This would have necessarily excluded Austria, which would never had accepted its submission to Berlin. Prussia declared war on Austria and arranged for the young state of Italy (which had only formed six years earlier) to attack Austria as well, which back at the time still held significant territory in the north and north-east of the Italian peninsula.. Austria on the other hand arranged for the German Federation to declare war on Prussia. Prince Johann didn't want to send his soldiers into war against Prussia, so he ordered them to assist Austrian troops at the Italian front instead - a move that drew a lot of ire amongst the Liechtensteiners, who would have preferred to not go to war at all or, if they had to, at least following a federal decision and not because Austria had gotten in trouble again. Johann didn't budge, however, and on July 26th Liechtenstein's army of 80 men left the country for South Tyrol - a full 1,3% of the population, which only numbered about 6,000 people at the time!  Joseph Beck, one of 80 Liechtensteiners who "fought" in their country's last war. Luckily for the men, they didn't have to fire a single shot. On August 10th, they were able to observe Italian troops from their observation post in what is today the municipality Torre di Santa Maria and prepared for fighting the next day, but the weather grew cold and wet overnight and the Italians fell back instead. On August 12th, the war officially ended, and the small army began their way back home. In letters and later memories the soldiers would recount how much fun the whole adventure was and how they would stay up boozing every night.  Andreas Kieber (1844-1939), Liechtenstein's last surviving veteran of the 1866 war (and indeed, last surviving veteran full stop). The photograph was taken in 1935. Even though the soldiers had all in all a good time, the whole enterprise turned out to be a pretty costly affair for the tiny principality. Prince Johann took this into consideration and abolished the military altogether in 1868. Liechtenstein's protection was now fully the responsibility of Austria-Hungary. After World War I, this duty passed on to the Swiss, who apparently just can't stop themselves from invading Liechtenstein by accident. Two stories about Liechtenstein's involvement in the 1866 war still go around. One of them is that Liechtenstein was never mentioned in the peace treaty with Prussia and theoretically was therefore in war with them until Prussia's eventual dissolution in 1947. Seeing as they never actually fought with each other, this is probably untrue and was decried as early as in 1900 by the Prussian government. The other is that the Liechtenstein soldiers didn't go back home alone. That is true - they were accompanied by the Austrian officer Radinger, who had been posted with the Liechtensteiners by his command to assist them and had struck up a friendship with them. And therefore one can truly say that https://twitter.com/DapperHistorian/status/998629415125946369
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May 22, 2018 14:27
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I love this.
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May 22, 2018 14:38
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I had a sensible chuckle.
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May 22, 2018 18:22
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What a wholesome tale of war 
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May 24, 2018 17:51
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Thump! posted:What a wholesome tale of war I'm amazed it never got a Disney adaptation, it would be perfect for them
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May 24, 2018 21:47
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Let's follow with an extremely unwholesome tale of war! There are very few military commanders who can claim an undefeated record, down to the battle. The first we have reasonable records of is likely Alexander the Great. One of the very first to claim the honor after Alexander however, was Bai Qi, who served the state of Qin in the Warring States period, about 50 years before it would unify the surrounding states into what we think of as Imperial China, and about 50 years after the death of Alexander the Great. Due to sheer age little is known about the man personally. He was not a far-ranging conqueror, like Alexander. He was born and died in what is now Shaanxi province, in nearly the center of modern China, and he never fought farther than a a few hundred miles from home. In his career he took 73 cities and fought for some 30 undefeated years. But that's not why he's remembered in China. He's remembered for his nickname. "Ren Tu," or, in English, "Butcher of Humans." Bai Qi is credited with the deaths of between 890,000 and 2,000,000 enemy soldiers, depending on who is doing the estimate. For context, at the low end, he exceeds the total deaths of the American Civil War. At the high end, he exceeds the deaths of all American wars combined. Between a half and a quarter of those bodies were created in a single battle; the Battle of Changping. With Bai Qi at the head, the Qin army of about a half million people prepared to clash with the army of Zhao, fielding equivalent strength. For again, some historical context, about 50 years after this time on the other side of the world Hannibal would ravage the Romans at Cannae; the loss of 50,000 soldiers was the effective destruction of the raised Roman army. Each side of the conflict at Changping was fielding 10 times that. Even if you believe (as I do) that the number may have been exaggerated somewhat, the scale of this battle is still truly astounding. I bring Cannae up partially because in a way Changping was very similar. The Qin forces feigned retreat and drew in the Zhao center before flanking and encircling the Zhao army in a small valley, cutting off its supplies and effectively laying the army to siege. Unlike Cannae, it was not a quick defeat; killing a half million people takes a lot of effort. Rather than expend his strength trying to annihilate the Zhao army, Bai Qi set up and waited, attacking only to keep Zhao pinned in. For 46 days. After 46 days, what supplies they had utterly exhausted, reinforcements clearly not coming, and their commander, Zhao Ke, slain during a desperate breakout attempt the day before, the remainder of the Zhao army surrendered. Depending on who you ask, this was between 200,000 and 400,000 starving, broken survivors. What do you do with that many prisoners? Bai Qi probably thought, well, I certainly can't afford to feed them, or guard them. Releasing them wasn't any good either- they'd be back next year, fighting him again. So he had all but 240 killed. Some claim he had them all buried alive; others that he had them slaughtered in the night using a system of white headbands to differentiate prisoner from Qin soldier. Regardless of method, the field in which this occurred still turns up human remains to this day. Thus did he earn the nickname Ren Tu. The last 240 were sent home, to Zhao, minus a hand and a foot, to bring the news, and let Zhao know of the terror of opposing the power of Qin. Bai Qi would command for another 5 years after Changping, eventually retiring due to illness. Eventually, he was forced to commit suicide after refusing to retake the helm of the state's military operations for what he knew was a losing campaign. About 50 years later, during the collapse of the Qin Dynasty, Xiang Yu would bury alive 200,000 Qin soldiers at the Battle of Julu. What goes around, comes around. K Prime has a new favorite as of 00:14 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 00:07
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https://twitter.com/tinyredbook/status/999294427305775106?s=21
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May 25, 2018 02:04
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How do you bury alive 200 000 people? I mean, seriously, the logistics of it. How do you dig enough holes to fit in an entire city, put the people in (who at that point, I suppose, would offer resistance, even if disarmed and defeated), and fill them up? 
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May 25, 2018 04:18
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Well, I’m no war criminal, but I believe the prescribed method was to tell the prisoners they needed to dig a trench or some other task of that nature, then fill them in.
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May 25, 2018 04:35
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You also need to trust that the army sizes haven't been exaggerated, which is a constant thing with premodern records.
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May 25, 2018 05:36
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C.M. Kruger posted:You also need to trust that the army sizes haven't been exaggerated, which is a constant thing with premodern records. Or that it even happened at all. Commanders committing insane penalties on opponents is a lie that is common for both sides of a conflict
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May 25, 2018 05:44
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Look no further than the Finno-Korean Hyperwar.
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May 25, 2018 07:04
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Biplane posted:Look no further than the Finno-Korean Hyperwar. Still shuddering at the death of 40 million Korean soldiers on the frozen steppes at the hands of the vicious Finns
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May 30, 2018 03:43
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Did you know that one of the responses to the formation of the Soviet Union was a Hyper-Monarchist trying to reform the Mongolian empire? Now you do.
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May 30, 2018 07:09
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I recently read about how one of the less well-known features of the First Indochina War was how many colonial soldiers were deployed by the French government in Vietnam, the result being that future presidents of Benin, Togo, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Chad, Algeria and other African countries previously controlled by France all served in the French army in South East Asia at the same time.
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May 30, 2018 10:30
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In 1932, Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was ambushed by eleven junior Naval officers (most around 20 years old) who gunned him down at his residence in Tokyo, effectively ending civilian control of the Japanese government until after World War II. The crazy thing is that the group also planned to assassinate Charlie Chaplin, who was visiting Japan as a guest of the PM, hoping that his murder could provoke the US into war. However, they missed their chance because at the time of the attack, Chaplain was out watching a sumo match with the PM's son.
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May 31, 2018 22:39
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wasn't charlie chaplin english
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Jun 1, 2018 02:45
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bewbies posted:wasn't charlie chaplin english
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Jun 1, 2018 04:02
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:In 1932, Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was ambushed by eleven junior Naval officers (most around 20 years old) who gunned him down at his residence in Tokyo, effectively ending civilian control of the Japanese government until after World War II. Japanese right-wingers have a long history of just flat out murdering leftists, I think one leader of the communist party there was literally killed with a katana.
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Jun 1, 2018 10:21
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