The History thread

@henrik: WW2 increased tech exponentially.

@henrik: Not to mention the middle east would be better.

@edamame: That's actually a good question:

Was Mussolini a fool or just a victim of bad luck? He was forced into a war he wasn't ready for and didn't know was coming.

@pyrogram: Beating GB was still easier than Russia. GB was closer to Germany and Italy, and the weather was not a factor.

If GB would have been captured, the war will have ended in Europe because there will be nothing left to oppose the Axis. Prior that point, Russia had a deal with Germany to maintain neutral, Spain didd't even entered the war and even if, they would have been allies to Axis.

@perethorn: I don't think you understand. If they focused in GB (which defeating their Navy would probably be the hardest thing in the entire war) what would they have done when Russia pressed onto the other side? See? You cannot focus on the British Navy and forget about the Russian dominance.

@pyrogram: Russia would not have been a problem because of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact.

@pyrogram: Even though i wouldn't call him a fool, he still did some stupid-a$$ decisions such as:

Mucking up the Battle of Britian

Wasting troops in africa...and then not supplying them

Not having Spain on his side.

Not updating the navy.

And countless others.

@consolemaster001: He still managed to get a whole country behind him and turned a broken-down Germany into an economic powerhouse. Not to mention easily toppling most of Europe in a few years, including France.

@edamame: Yes but Vichy France is usually referred to as a separate entity from normal France, which means when you refer to the French resistance, you are correct. They helped a lot in the setting up of D-Day.

@edamame: "American industrial power" was not as good as you're giving it credit. The British Navy was probably the best of that era.

@edamame: People always forget. But Britain bombed Germany as much as Germany bombed Britain in WW2. That's always forgotten in the history books.

@edamame: As for Italy, they were no match for the British. By the time the Americans came, it was mainly Germany warring in North Africa.

Ireland was a neutral republic during WW2, it wasn't involved with Britain. It was recovering after a civil war and was concentrating on "the emergency", which was basically building up supplies and rationing in case the war came.

We built a hundred and three carriers before the war ended. Something like ninety six were built in just two years. You guys had five.. or was it two ;-)

@amaranth_strix: We owned the world with our Navy at one point :P

@pyrogram: Yeah, at one point the sun never set on the British empire.

@amaranth_strix: All Empires fall sadly enough. That's how the world works lol

@edamame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Air_Forces#World_War_II

@edamame: Don't think the I.R.A really became dangerous until the 50s, after the fall of Nelson's pillar.

@amaranth_strix:

Well american's specialization was carriers :P Bit unfair to compare that.

Are we talking about the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire? By the time frame, I'm guessing the HRE?

Weren't they not Roman at all?

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It ended around then. It was still the Roman empire. ...just read about that.

I say that Roman Empire was more powerful, Mongol one may have been much bigger, but let's not forget that Mongol Empire structure was more fragile due to the fact that it was bonded to Genghis Khan destiny. Rome by the other hand was built to endure by generations.

Also, Rome brought a lot of innovations to the world. Some of them are still used today. Roman Law is a good example. It's still used by the majority of countries today,.

The Roman empire was far better at maintaining the lands it conquered and lasted much longer. However the Mongol Empire at its height dwarfed the Roman Empire in size and population.

Spartans vs Romans. Who would win?

@edamame: Romans

@supernategames: Again romans :D

@supernategames: Romans won that fight before, so yeah Romans.

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_659_19-real-sinister-conspiracies-that-actually-happened/

Wow...

America is the new Roman Empire

I always hated history

@yokergeist: 36 more alts and we'll see....

@kgb725: Why ?

@jnr6lil: Its influence still isn't as much as Roman, Greek, Mongol or British yet.

I visited the Petropolis Cathedral on a college trip recently, where our Emperor Peter II and his wife Tereza are emtombed

@edamame: You could say the same about most major countries with music, films, media etc. In fact Prooof!!! Bollywood has a larger audience and produces more films than Hollywood. The largest news corporation is also BBC, whose influence is felt in a much wider area than other U.S media conglomerate (even in remote places in Africa, you can still listen to BBC easily.) As for music in fact the two biggest companies are actually French and Japanese.

The US dollar is currently shifting away from being the reserve currency. Though they have have a lot of bases abroad, so did Spain during 18th/19th century, yet Britain was still more powerful.

Technically speaking did the Muslims win the crusades ?

If you mean the ones directed at the Holy Land, I think so. The Europeans didn't have enough resources and manpower to travel thousands of leagues from their homes to keep a single piece of land within Saracen territory (which was vast at the East). However not all Crusades were directed at taking the Holy Land, there were the Baltic Crusades directed at Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that had a larger deal of success than in the Middle East, as well the Crusades against the Byzantine Empire I believe.

My body is ready... for history

Sorry for necroing a slightly old thread, but I had a question and I might as well bump this while I'm at it. Anyone know of any good scholarly/good book on ancient central-southern American civilisations, such Aztecs, Mayans and Incas, preferably?

They're civilisations I actually know little about, compared to others, and there's less books released about them compared to most other eras/civilisations seemingly.