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just found out in medieval france, having a lion on your coat of arms was so prevalent that there was literally a colloquial proverb to clown on knights for being basic and not having a real coat of arms. the hate game was so strong back then. imagine medieval hate anons

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the european union has just unanimously voted to make latvia and lithuania swap places

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burger pope?

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Foxes disguised as monks. On the left from Japan and on the right from Denmark.

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treating "historians" not only as this unified group but also as a coherent socio-political entity w unified ideas, ideals, goals and methods is actually the reddest possible flag. thats a tell-tale sign that this person doesnt know what the fuck theyre talking about. capital h Historians arent lying to u. capital h Historians arent hiding stuff from u, they dont want u to believe anything, bc Historians isnt an organization or a political affiliation. u know the old saying, 2 jews, 3 opinions? historians r like that too

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thinkig about when the 2000s olympics was in sydney and these two comedians introduced an unofficial mascot called fatso the fat arsed wombat which looked like this

and everybody in australia just started acting like he was the official olympic mascot to the point where ppl were winning gold medals and bringing a plushie of him up to the podium

and the olympic committee got so mad about it they had to implement all these bans to try and preserve the integrity of the games or whatever but literally nobody else gave a shit so he just kept . showing up everywhere

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There's lots of problems with USA public education but also a lot of you were just drawing Naruto characters kissing while your history teacher tried to tell you about the Scramble for Africa

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Reflections on the Ides of March

After all the excitement yesterday about the assassination of Julius Caesar, I think it's worth mentioning that Julius Caesar's death being celebrated as the common man's answer to tyranny is a little like celebrating the Mayflower Pilgrims for being on the side of religious tolerance.

Like, the Mayflower Pilgrims emigrated from England because England wasn't religiously controlling enough for them. They wanted more religious tyranny and were upset that the government was too moderate for their liking in allowing other ways of life.

In a bit of a distant parallel (bear with me, ADHD connection brain go brrrr) Julius Caesar first made enemies among the aristocrats who eventually murdered him by being a populist endeavoring to solve Rome's growing inequality issues by bringing land reform to Rome specifically targeted at redistributing land that had been gobbled up by the rich and powerful to give it back to its people.

It's a little complicated because, yes, Caesar's move to dub himself dictator for life was absolutely an authoritarian move. In addition, Augustus and subsequent European authoritarians/monarchs (I believe we should use the term more interchangeably tbh) used "Caesar" as a title and justified their reign going back to him via Augustus's eventual ascendence as his heir after a bitter power struggle and killing off all his other rivals who could claim that title, and thus brought an end to the (already tottering) Roman Republic. This puts Caesar as a step on the path to a reduction of a form of non-authoritarian rule.

But tyrant, as Caesar was referred to by those who assassinated him, in the ancient sense had a subtly different meaning. A tyrant was usually a figure who gained popularity among the masses by becoming their advocate against the rich and powerful and who ascended to power usually on the wave of a cult of personality and promises of egalitarian reform. They rarely established dynasties because the skills needed to reach their position of power rarely appeared in their biological heirs and without the structure of a monarchy to pass that mantle of authority onto their sons and heirs, the power structure of that tyrant usually fell apart upon their death.

Basically, one really magnetic person would occasionally rise up when the rich and powerful had gone too far in the societal imbalance. Rich aristocrats hated that. The enemy of most classical tyrants were the rich and powerful. Tyrants were populist leaders who usually took power for life (often, a rather short one if they couldn't keep the reins of power well in hand). This is a part of the rather complex political history of "rule by the people" and how it wasn't always a straight line from "rule by one" straight to democracy, sometimes a single authoritarian dictator/tyrant actually was the representative of the common man in confrontation against the accumulation of power by oligarchs.

So, Julius Caesar is a bit of a complicated figure here, because he rose to power by being a champion of the common man, in a tradition in Rome going back to the ill-fated Gracchi. By taking "dictator for life" powers, he was feared to be setting himself up as a king, or rather as a tyrant by Roman Senators, all wealthy aristocrats and by today's standards, oligarchs. Rome originally became a Republic, historically, when a Brutus family member assassinated the then-Etruscan tyrant so Rome could rule itself (or rather, could be ruled by its own oligarchs, which was much more democratic before it exploded into an empire by Caesar's time).

But the material damage the Roman Senators feared from Caear was just as much that he would take their land and money from them with that dictatorial power in order to repair the desperately crumbling "middle class" (term used loosely as it does not directly translate) which had been picked clean and robbed blind by the aristocrats over the past century or so in Rome since the Punic Wars. Caesar was championing anti-poverty measure that was looking out for the actual common citizens of Rome, something the Roman Senators did not want Caesar to do because it would bite into their wealth.

This makes it rather bitterly ironic that the common people today celebrate Caesar's death when, at the time, one of the reasons he was murdered was for being the champion of the common man. However, it is an understandable irony given how Caesar's legacy would be used by authoritarians after his death, up to and including in modern times.

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Home lessons in massage.

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“In 1404, King Taejong fell from his horse during a hunting expedition. Embarrassed, looking to his left and right, he commanded, “Do not let the historian find out about this.” To his disappointment, the historian accompanying the hunting party included these words in the annals, in addition to a description of the king’s fall.“

LMFAOOOOOO rip to that guy

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Sometimes I see some variety of North American Little Guy (opossum, raccoon, etc. ) and I’m like “okay”

BUT THEN I start thinking about how excited somebody from not-North-America would be to see this Guy. Like, would an Australian be excited to see the only marsupial not from their country? Are there raccoons in zoos on the other side of the world that are regarded as unique and exotic creatures? Idk but it’s made me more excited to see Guys in my area.