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| Thread: General History |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 16, 2013 06:16 PM |
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It's been a long time since I read this, so I wont be able to give you any names or locations. I vaguely remember it was an Ommayyad Sultan but I can be wrong. All you have to know is, it's a true story. Now, this Sultan is extremely obsessed with astrology and prophecies, he has this court astrologer he consults in every decision. Naturally, things start to go downhill when you base your decision making on the stars. One day, the sultan asks him, how long will he live and the astrologer replies "I'm afraid not longer than 6 months, your highness." The sultan is frustrated, he asks "what about you my dear friend?" That's when the royal astrologer makes the mistake of answering "I see many long years ahead of me, your highness." The vizier, who was probably waiting for such an opportunity, draws his sword instantly and decapitates him, right there. He then turns to the sultan and says:
- Do not worry my king. How could this charlatan who couldn't even predict his own future, possibly predict yours!
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted October 16, 2013 07:11 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 19:12, 16 Oct 2013.
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artu said:
"Do not worry my king. How could this charlatan who couldn't even predict his own future, possibly predict yours!"
Thank you Artu. Long years ago, I would have been skeptical about such a tale but not now.
On a related note, I can remember something very similar happening in Europe when an Englishman and his accomplice were receiving large sums of money from various thrones for info on "making gold". iirc it was during the late 16th century that these 2 men were bold enough to sham Monarchs but I'm not certain about the timeline. Regardless, it was a sort of off-shoot of long-held expectations surrounding finding the "Sorcerer's-Stone" and also partly derived from the practiced-art of alchemy that spanned centuries.
Even as late as the start of the 20th century Russia, we had another of these guys in Rasputin. I suppose they're still around today. iirc, R. Reagan's wife Nancy...consulted the stars. I'm very fuzzy on this but maybe even a tale about the attempt on his life being in a reading?...I can't recall, I might be way off base.
TY for participating and I hope to hear more about your part of the World.
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"Do your own research"
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted October 19, 2013 01:34 PM |
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@ Artu and all that might be interested.
Here's a link to a Movie/Doc on the Hittites.
link
Heads-up. It needs to be "movie-time for you when you view; the running time is movie length.
It is very well done and has J. Irons doing the narration. I normally don't care for this sort of history telling method but <imo> this was a very fine retelling.
Recently I had bumped into these guys by listening to M. Wood the British historian,(he did a good one too) and a couple of others and I can verify that from the other accounts this complete overview is very accurate according to recent examination.
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"Do your own research"
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 19, 2013 02:31 PM |
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I've seen this already (unless there are two Hittites docs narrated by Jeremy Irons) but thanks. The guy playing the king is very big in Turkey. He also plays in some supporting roles in Hollywood projects. (Last I saw him in The International which is a very underrated spy film btw).
The link is blocked by CBS in my country due to copyrights anyway.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted October 19, 2013 02:34 PM |
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Ok, I figured you probably had but maybe others will be able to view it.
Have you been to any of the sites? like the capitol ruins?
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"Do your own research"
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 19, 2013 02:42 PM |
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As a kid. But I prefer to learn about that stuff through archeology books. I dont think seeing a few coloumns or some half ruined wall personally makes much of a difference. Sites that are worth seeing in person are relatively new stuff like Aghia Sophia or bigger things that are well preserved like the Pyramids.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted October 19, 2013 11:25 PM |
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artu said:
I dont think seeing a few coloumns or some half ruined wall personally makes much of a difference.
We differ there, I'd enjoy the site a lot and if I ever had the chance I'd trek on down to Troy too. But I'm a little more of a dreamer than you are, you like your feet on the ground. Not me, I'm jumpin all the time. Ok it's my bones that are and not by choice. 
What about some other Historical stuff from your area? Any recent finds etc.?
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted October 20, 2013 06:21 AM |
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Thanks, mark. That was a nice watch.
It also reminded me of one of the best history knowledge sources I've ever had, the orinal age of empires. Those mission briefings, victory reports and history sections took almost more time to read than beating the campaigns itself. 
And they had really nice maps of the estimated empire spreads event by event.
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markkur
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posted October 20, 2013 03:20 PM |
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JoonasTo said:
...reminded me of one of the best history knowledge sources I've ever had, the orinal age of empires. Those mission briefings, victory reports and history sections took almost more time to read than beating the campaigns itself.
And they had really nice maps of the estimated empire spreads event by event.
Thanks Man. Was this the follow-up to Age of Kings? If so, I enjoyed both of them very much. And I agree, I took the time to read all of it. It's just my opinion but I think this series and series like this i.e. early Civ. made the 1st step towards the incredible Mod-work you shared.
Apparently there are quite a few of us that want to play a game but also want some history behind our dilemmas and decisions. Sort of the old program; "you were there"<L>
What about up your way, any hook-ups to recent Viking history or other stuff?
Btw, we discussed coasts a little in the other thread, if you've not seen it, try to find Mega-Quake...about recent Japan. It's a Doc that has an incredible amount of footage of the 9.0 quake and the resulting tidal waves. I had no idea how bad that total-event was. I read about the reactor scare but little on the bigger picture
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 20, 2013 05:31 PM |
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Age of Kings was the follow-up. Age of Empires was the first game.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted October 20, 2013 06:33 PM |
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That's right TY and there was a "Conquest?" one that was pretty good too. iirc The history in each release was done well.
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted October 22, 2013 01:13 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 13:15, 22 Oct 2013.
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Something for all admirals on board to admire:
World of Warships
The game is a spin-off of World of Tanks which holds a “largest multiplayer game”-record and it looks very promising. It’s not finished yet but it seems like some kind of testing is going to start relatively soon and there’s already much discussion in the history section of their forum. My cousin showed me the Tanks last week, it’s well made and historical accuracy (oh no another pun ) seems to be an important part of the game. Another plus is that it’s for free unless you want some shortcuts, but according to my cousin that’s 100 % unnecessary. So I’ll probably try even if I become seasick (sorry  ) when playing too much 3D games. There’s also another spin-off called World of Warplanes, it’s a pity that they decided to develop that game before the battleship version.
artu said:
- Do not worry my king. How could this charlatan who couldn't even predict his own future, possibly predict yours!
Good story. Has there ever been a case where an equivalent to one of those “Born under this comet, he’s the people’s only hope and will see greatness”-prophecies one reads about actually were coincidentally “fulfilled” in the real world? If (almost…) all court astrologists predict nice things there should be some cases, and many more prophecies that were “not fulfiiled” since everyone can’t be the Chosen One.JoonasTo said:
Thanks, mark. That was a nice watch.
It also reminded me of one of the best history knowledge sources I've ever had, the orinal age of empires. Those mission briefings, victory reports and history sections took almost more time to read than beating the campaigns itself.
And they had really nice maps of the estimated empire spreads event by event.
Same here, but I had Age of Kings. The middle ages are among of my favourite epochs, they were far from as dark as they’re said to be.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 22, 2013 04:11 PM |
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Edited by artu at 16:46, 22 Oct 2013.
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Locksley said:
Good story. Has there ever been a case where an equivalent to one of those “Born under this comet, he’s the people’s only hope and will see greatness”-prophecies one reads about actually were coincidentally “fulfilled” in the real world? If (almost…) all court astrologists predict nice things there should be some cases, and many more prophecies that were “not fulfilled” since everyone can’t be the Chosen One.
Well, greatness is a very stretchable definition open to any kind of interpretation. As long as the king doesn't ruin the country completely and go bankrupt, you can always cherry-pick his actions and say they come from his greatness. And even when things go really bad, you can put the blame on Satan or worshipers of Satan and witchcraft etc etc. Who's to say you're not great when you have a treasury, army, castles and the common belief is that kings are kings because God chose them to be. It's very easy to call something great, great is not something specific. And that's the way astrology works in general, it's called the Forer effect.
Forer, famously hands out to his students this little horoscope:
You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.
Now, the trick is, all of the students think they are given a paper written particularly describing themselves, while in fact they all got the same one. When asked how accurate the description is, the class average is 4.26 over 5. Imagine having this test among blue bloods who believed they were born to rule. If we added, "you have greatness in you" how many of them would have objected? Basically, all of those prophicies functioned as a propaganda tool just like today's advertisements or posters.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted October 22, 2013 09:41 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 23:30, 01 Nov 2013.
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@Locksley
Went and looked at the screens of World of Warships and I noticed something I'd never thought of before. On Turret design, (from the pictures) say the warship is running right to left; then the forward-turrets would turn in an arc, shaped like a "C"; the rear-guns would move in a "reverse C".
In the pics both groups of turrets are very near "stacks" and it appears that if the guns could move into the missing part of the arc then, ofc... they would crash into the stack.
Ok, now with that said, I wonder why they designed in that fashion? It "must" be that it was a design precaution to avoid mistaken fire resulting in hitting the opposite turrets (or stacks) to make the guns idiot-proof. (as the saying about design goes)
Anyway, a result of this safety was a blind-spot, in that. the guns fired only on the C or rev-C rotation. What this meant is that I can see the position of an "appearing" enemy ship could be in a spot where (since the guns could not travel 360) the time necessary to bring the "guns to bear" would be much greater than if the "precaution" had not been a part of the design.
i.e. My ship is from east to west and a ship comes into line of sight at the forward-guns extreme ENE; it turns out to be a destoyer. But a enemy Battleship comes up on the forward-guns extreme ESE los; then, the forwards-turrets must turn the entire "C" (in reverse movment) to target the BB at the opposite side of the Arc.
Now I know that all this time your ship has it's rear-guns and they are not impeded. However, what's interesting to me, is that this scenario could be repeated for the same effect on the rear-guns if the battle situation was reversed and to the extreme WNW and WSW.
In short, in either case, if the turrents could move in a full circle then, reaction time would be greatly shortened by a small movement of the guns from say, ENE to ESE. Hopefully all this made some sense.
What all this consideration did for me was to help me realize how complicated it could be for a Captain of a WWII warship to bring the most firepower to bear. Futhermore, the tension etc. that would be involved in having multiple enemy ships to consider, the emerging line of battle along with commanding the position & navigation of one's own ship, makes for some scary stuff. Now I see another reason why so many successful Captains have spoke so much about "luck" and even more reason for the modern advancement of the "fire-control-room", to get the actions of many working together instead of relying only on the Captain.
btw, here's one episode of what I think a great history program on tank-battles.
GTB
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted November 04, 2013 05:29 PM |
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Rewriting History
One of the reasons that I keep an open mind and try to not get intense about subjects is because I have witnessed the accepted historical record on a topic be rewritten. i.e. The Bible mentioned the Hittites a couple of times but supplied little info on this powerful player in the Middle-East and the nation was quickly dismissed as invention; not until recently has it been veryified that they indeed existed and were another important power in the region. Another is Homer's Troy, again, it was thought to be imagined and only a part of good story-telling; then Troy was found. Atm, there are those that think Atlantis has been discovered and can be proven by recent archeology. i.e. Ruins have been found on Crete that have multi-storied building with sewers, that have been dated to 1,000 years before that tech in Greece.
During my life there has been several records that had to be modified, when it was discovered that what had been taught about a period/event was either incorrect or incomplete.
Recently another event has surfaced that has required a re-write and that's some of the accounts of the eastern-front in Russia during the Second World War. Ever since that war, it was believed that Stalin had brilliantly ordered his field generals to use the same tactic that Tsar Alexander did when Napoleon invaded; "retreat and burn, and let the Russian winter do its damage". However, recent documents from the German 6th Army and also de-classified Russian documents have surfaced that tell a different story.
I always wondered why, if the Russian armies in the South had been given "Stalin's retreat and buy-time orders", how did 2 armies become surrounded to then surrender?; iirc, something near 1 million troops.
Well, it turns out what the documents revealed answers my question; the armies were given the same order as the Stalingrad-defenders; "not one step back." So, it turns out that Stalin was just as interferring as Hitler, in overriding the strategies of his Generals in the field.
The accounts of the Eastern front have always contained some examples of Stalin's decisions gone wrong; the best known was his ignoring his intelligence officers and foreign diplomats about the coming attack and then killing his commanding general for the disatrous results but overall, the big picture of Stalin's directives looked a little better than what has now been revealed.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted September 13, 2014 04:52 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 16:59, 13 Sep 2014.
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As per my last post, info about the famous circle has been rapidly changing.
One cool thing happened for me. Recently I was doing a bit of research using a 1902 Ord. Survey had came across a place called Durrington Walls on the map. This caught my mind as I could see it was near Sonehenge but moreover it was near several important early British sites. i.e. Wayland's Smithy, Woodhenge, Long Barrow and many others. At that time it looked to me like the whole freaking area had connections and now about a year later, the latest tech is unraveling the story.
Stonehenge
Btw, Something of note for JRRT fans. The professor and his youngest son liked to ride bikes to this area and they would pass two places on their ride down from Oxford...Buckland and Bucklebury. 
PS To a different sort of history; For those that know about the 9th-10th century Epic poem Beowulf, someone made a animated short that's not too bad.
movie
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted March 19, 2019 11:38 AM |
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by The History Guy
We've seen a few others and some are very humorous in hindsight...i.e. "The Fishguard Invasion" is a must see.
Georg Gärtner, the last German POW in America
link 1
Taffy Holden, the Accidental Lightning Pilot
link2
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by History Time
I think this young man, doing these programs, is headed a for great career.
The Channel's web-site
site
Btw, a series I've enjoyed. Well done.
series
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by Dip In Video
Simple presentation but well presented.
Picts: History and Heritage
link
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ajalex
Bad-mannered
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 13, 2019 05:33 AM |
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