Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today we can discuss historical distortions; events or people who are commonly misrepresented. We’ve talked a lot about things like the American Founding Fathers and the Lost Cause in this thread before, feel free … Continue reading The Defeated History Thread
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! It’s the anniversary of one of the most decisive battles of the Brazilian Independence War, the fall of Salvador after a 16 month siege, and I wish I knew more about the subject so … Continue reading The Shortest Weekly History Thread Yet
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today is the anniversary of (among other things) George Custer’s defeat by the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a classic case of tactical ineptitude that became celebrated, for many … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread’s Last Stand
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: June 18, 1940 saw two of the most famous speeches of the Second World War. With France virtually overrun by Nazi Germany and the British military in humiliating retreat, Winston Churchill gave … Continue reading The Appealing Weekly History Thread
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: On June 11, 1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolated himself in Saigon. Quang Duc was a legendary figure in Vietnamese Buddhism, having spent decades building the Mahayana faith across Indochina and … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Protests
Note: I toyed with the idea of making this a “How We Got Here” post, but there was too much impressionistic and personal material to really separate from the strictly historical paragraphs on the Highland Clearances. Nevertheless, tagging it as … Continue reading Caledonian Flaneurade: Scotland Report, 2019
A couple of years ago, my dad finally pulled the trigger on a lifelong wish to take the family—he, his fifth wife, his four sons (two of us from his first wife and another two from his third), and my … Continue reading The Smoke: London Report, 2019
Of all of Richard Nixon’s men, Tom Charles Huston remains the most elusive. The lanky, bespectacled ideologue from Logansport, Indiana entered politics at an early age. At age 24, he chaired America’s largest conservative organization; at age 28, he became … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Education of Tom Charles Huston
Uh…so…I don’t really know what to do here. So…today is the 30th Anniversary of the Massacre. From what I gather, Chinese people are still not allowed to talk about it…even though few of them seem to care about it … Continue reading The History Thread Calls It the 35th of May
Welcome to this week’s History Thread. This week’s topic: What subject do you want to learn more about? We all have gaps in our historical knowledge. Use this space to ask for information or reading/documentary/podcast recommendations on historical subjects you’d … Continue reading The History Thread Crosses the T
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! I don’t have much to say today, except that it’s the release date for Brenda Wineapple’s The Impeachers, a new book on Andrew Johnson that I’ve been looking forward to for ages. The New … Continue reading The Impeachable History Thread
Part Five in a series: see parts one, two, three and four. On March 7, 1949 the biggest trial of the Red Scare began. Four hundred New York City policemen formed a barricade around the Foley Square courthouse, where eleven … Continue reading How We Got Here: Blacklisting Was Our Business
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: Today is the 71st anniversary of Israeli independence. After a prolonged political and insurgent struggle with Great Britain, Israel was granted independence, becoming the modern world’s first Jewish state under the leadership … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread
On the 3rd of September, 1939, the United Kingdom and France officially declared war on Germany, prompted by the German invasion of Poland two days prior. For many in the UK and Western Europe, this is traditionally seen as the … Continue reading Life on the Home Front: UK Civilian Life During World War II – Part 1
Part Three in a series; see parts one and two. Robert Stripling was concerned. HUAC’s chief investigator didn’t trust Whittaker Chambers, their star witness in the case against Alger Hiss, feeling that even now he’d withheld some crucial evidence, for … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Fall of Alger Hiss
So last time in this series of nonsensical ramblings, I reviewed some of the lovely castles we have on this fair isle that we call the US of K. Well in this next instalment, we’ll be looking at a different … Continue reading Doctuar’s Bridge Review
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Apologies for last week, I was too deep in research to start a thread. We will have an open discussion this week, so feel free to discuss any and all history-related topics. Today is … Continue reading The Fall of the Weekly History Thread
Part two in a series on McCarthyism and the Red Scare; part one here. Ironically, the House Committee on Un-American Activities owed its existence to a congressman who spent years on the Soviet payroll. Samuel Dickstein, known to the NKVD … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Passion of Whittaker Chambers
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Sadly, real-world events inspired this week’s topic: Lost historical treasures. Over the millennia places of incalculable worth to history have been lost to the sands of time, whether through deliberate destruction, carelessness or natural … Continue reading The Lost History Thread
In August 1945, a nondescript thirty-seven year old woman entered the FBI office in New Haven, Connecticut. It was, or should have been, a momentous occasion. The Second World War was finally ending, with Germany obliterated and occupied and Imperial … Continue reading How We Got Here: Elizabeth Bentley, Queen of the Red Scare
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! It’s the anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway, and a variety of other historical events. I will declare this another open thread so feel free to discuss … Continue reading The History Thread Surrenders
