Portal:History
The History of the World is the history of humanity from the earliest times to the present, in all places on Earth. Or in short, it's all about stuff that happened while there was someone around smart enough to notice that stuff was happening. At first they were iletterite, and passed their memories on using oral tradition, which disappointingly does not relate to the transference of information via oral sex.
Finally someone worked out how to read, and someone else worked out how to write, and recorded history was then born. History can also come from other sources such as archaeology, which involves digging stuff up and making up stories about it. Despite this being a recognised field of science, it is not suggested that you dig up deceased relatives and give them personalities created from your own psychosis.
Human history starts back with the early Stone Age–or the Paleolithic–known as such as that was the time mankind started using stone tools, not because they were regularly stoned. That had to wait until the Neolithic Era and the invention of agriculture (and beer!), thence the invention of animal husbandry. (See more...)
An old Spanish mission near San Antonio swelters in the swooning Texas heat, surrounded on all sides by over 2,000 Mexican troops under the command of the charismatic devil-spawn known as General Antonio López de Santa Anna. Inside the mission, 260 soldiers of the Republic of Texas know that there is no hope for survival. Their defeat is imminent. Death stares at them, unblinking. But the brave soldiers hold their ground, steadfast in the face of an enemy that crushingly outnumbers them.
They carry with them a fighting spirit that will later lead their fellow countrymen to brilliant victory at the Battle of San Jacinto. Though this battle will last only thirteen days, its legacy will resound through the months to come, rallying the Texan Revolutionaries to fight ever-stronger for their cherished ideals of justice, freedom of religion, freedom of expression... and the right to beat an African slave within an inch of his goddamned life. This is not merely a siege where one side is pelted with canon and musket fire until they are worn down, dehydrated, starved, infected with typhoid fever, used as piñatas for Día de los Muertos festivities and then thrown to the dogs—this is the Battle of the Alamo.
| “ | History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided. | ” |
— Konrad Adenauer
| ||
What follows is a true story about a man of pure Red–who was powerful and feared, but couldn't keep the Ukrainians fed. Old Joe. Georgian steel. Crushed the Nazis under his heel. Saved the world from Orwellian oppression, while doing a little oppression of his own. Draper of the iron curtains, conqueror of mighty Poland and, uh, Hungary. Carried Lenin's legacy and kept him in formaldehyde. Guardian of the gulags, champion of the Cheka. Turned a repressive feudal backwater, into a repressive superpower. He is Joseph ☭Stalin☭, and we should all be grateful.
To understand Stalin you have to recognise that he started out in life as Ioseb (Joseph) Besarionis dze Jughashvili, born in a backwater's backwater in 1878 in Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire. He spoke Georgian, a language so tough for outsiders to understand and write (as they had their own alphabet too) that Joseph took years trying to downplay his obvious outsider status. Stalin only started to learn Russian when he was 12 and it was a language he was never fully at ease with. He kept his native language only for his most immediate cronies if they came from Georgia but otherwise Stalin had nothing but contempt for his native tongue.
- ... that Humphrey Bogart was known for playing "hard-boiled" detectives, known for their milky white skin and round, corpulent figures?
- ... that in response to rumors that Hitler has only got one ball, Nazi Germany released a song called, "Hitler has two, perhaps three, very large testes"?
- ... that the great Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to many opportunities for great photography of homeless people and farmers covered in dust the following years?
- ... that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made love inside every room at Buckingham Palace? It is said one can still hear their romps echoing through the royal halls...
- ... that Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prarie books, attempted to assassinate Franklin D. Roosevelt via a poisoned turnip?
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