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Talking about World War 1 and it's semi-forgotten history


Hanes
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Just to add a little something from the experience of a teacher:

Chilean school history books are full of biased information, like, every word was written by someone with harsh opinions about all Europeans. I know that history is written subjectively but there's no reason to teach that way to children.

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History is written subjectively, yeah, and most of that history, and the most common teachings of it involve the rest of the planet being shit on by Western Europe, and being expected to be appreciative of the fact. History classes just feel like fuckin Anglo-Saxon highlight reels sometimes, man

If only for the change of pace, I don't see that big a deal with critizing europeans (or at least, western Europe I guess) for what they've done

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Agh I had a big wall of text and it vanished due to an accident damn it.

@LJwalhout In summary, I wish I could visit europe to see the WW1 destinations and I do think the treaty was a bit unfair. Also changing the tile lol.

@1% Critical Hit Yeah it's dumb Mexico does that too, probably every latin american nation manipulates history.

@ChefGuevara You mean just Africa? because literally every other "Genocide" is America and India both of which was more good than without Wst Europe and not even a genocide. Africa is the worst episode of Wst Europe aaand that's it "For what they've done" a bit dramatic if you ask me. Also most US history book writters are leftists and they push the "Wst Europe bad" agenda so most books try to crap on Wst Europe already.

Yeah I don't want to write a wall of text again. Oops. Anyway Walhout did you read the coment already?

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5 hours ago, 1% Critical Hit said:

Chilean school history books are full of biased information, like, every word was written by someone with harsh opinions about all Europeans. I know that history is written subjectively but there's no reason to teach that way to children.

Could you give some examples? Because I'm curious on how history is teached in other countries. And tbh Europe did go around conquering the entirety of America while killing the local residents and probably also had wars there when they tried to be independent so there is a reason.

It's actually really tragic how this comes, since teachers feel that it's only important to use the history from your own country which results in only getting information from your own country which is very likely to be subjective. 

You also have the fact that European history is well recorded so it's easy to find faults.

4 hours ago, Critical Sniper said:

Anyway Walhout did you read the comment already?

What do you exactly mean? When I wrote my last post it was 3 A.M. and I just finished doing something for school so I didn't have the best concentration (still don't). I don't know which comment you mean. 

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@LJwalhout When I finished school, my dad burned all of the history books so I barely remember some parts. There's one part that it's foggy but it's there, that they blamed the United Kingdom and most of the for the economic crisis in 1970, causing the coup d'état in 1973. It was shown in documentaries and more accurate books, that it was because of mismanagement of the country's budget before 1970 that made the military forces to take the country, which was also a biiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake. That coup d'état was the worst thing in this country.

I had one teacher who knew all about this and ignored the coursebooks to teach history like how really it was, using PPTs and didactic materials. One time he made us a map with all the military movements from WW1 and WW2 all detailed.

@Critical Sniper I thought this was a doing from Chile only. Huh...

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8 hours ago, LJwalhout said:

What do you exactly mean?

In one of my previous replies I put a link that would send you to a youtube vid and also detailed the cooment on the hid I wanted you to check.

 

Edit @LJwalhout History in Mexico before vicente fox was taught all to be patriotic at Mexico but sfterwards we got the truth. Here is an example 

What my grandma was taught Miguel Hidalgo (The founding father)  said: "Long live thr independence! Down with Spain!"

What he actually said: Long live Fernand VII, down with tje bad government (The napoleons on Spain).

Thats just one example.but practically all I was taught in elementary was that Miguel Hidalgo existed and that spain sucked, they never said anything other than that. Until middle school i didnt know anything about history.

 

 

llets get back to ww1 before Ms Eclipse shadows us out xd

Edited by Critical Sniper
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16 hours ago, Critical Sniper said:

Agh I had a big wall of text and it vanished due to an accident damn it.

@LJwalhout In summary, I wish I could visit europe to see the WW1 destinations and I do think the treaty was a bit unfair. Also changing the tile lol.

@1% Critical Hit Yeah it's dumb Mexico does that too, probably every latin american nation manipulates history.

@ChefGuevara You mean just Africa? because literally every other "Genocide" is America and India both of which was more good than without Wst Europe and not even a genocide. Africa is the worst episode of Wst Europe aaand that's it "For what they've done" a bit dramatic if you ask me. Also most US history book writters are leftists and they push the "Wst Europe bad" agenda so most books try to crap on Wst Europe already.

Yeah I don't want to write a wall of text again. Oops. Anyway Walhout did you read the coment already?

I mean I totally include the US and austrailia under that umbrella 

switch Western Europe with "Anglo-saxons", I guess

and uh...the Spanish and Portuguese empires weren't just doing imperialist shit in Africa, either 

and as for US history teachers being leftists...there are huge swathes of the country where the US civil war is taught incorrectly deliberately to defend the confederacy, so that's not exactly true either, meng 

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27 minutes ago, ChefGuevara said:

and uh...the Spanish and Portuguese empires weren't just doing imperialist shit in Africa, either 

and as for US history teachers being leftists...there are huge swathes of the country where the US civil war is taught incorrectly deliberately to defend the confederacy, so that's not exactly true either, meng 

Yeah I forgot the slave trade damn it.

Mostly just the south though. And I meant most of the country which is the 80% 

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14 hours ago, Critical Sniper said:

In one of my previous replies I put a link that would send you to a youtube vid and also detailed the cooment on the hid I wanted you to check.

Oh, I didn't notice it because it was put later on. Now I've gone to the video but I couldn't find the username (I used Ctr-f), so I just typed Austria and found several interesting comments (one about the zimmermann telegram). I also saw the video you linked in the beginning which just shows me how we only talked about the war in Europe during the lessons.

@Critical Sniper  @1% Critical Hit Shows how people manipulate history to make it it fit their desires. In the Netherlands we where thought how Spain sucks and that the watergeuzen (I don't know if there is a translation) were heroes while in reality they were mostly criminals that murdered catholic people. I also recently learned how Holland in actually basically conquered Limburg  and North Brabant and forced them to join their republic.

15 hours ago, Critical Sniper said:

lets get back to ww1 before Ms Eclipse shadows us out xd

Hmmm, maybe I should create a general History thread. 

In my last year of school I had to make a paper about a subject related to the courses I followed. The subject I chose was propaganda in ww1 & ww2, the similarities & differences. I learned things I had never heard of (Japan was allied with Brittain?) and could watch videos and when my parents asked why I wasn't learning I could say 'I'm studying. It's propaganda'. I also read just how ridiculous propaganda was in ww1. In England there was this story that the Germans used corpses to create soap. Prior to the war, some of the most popular post cards were cards with children in uniform. Japan & Russia barely had propaganda (Russia because most of it was likely destroyed after the octobre-revolution, Japan because the war wasn't that big for them). Belgium was the primary subject in propaganda in the U.S.A. I also remember a german poster that was about how France & England brought horrible monsters out of Africa to fight for them.

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1 hour ago, LJwalhout said:

In England there was this story that the Germans used corpses to create soap

Interesting thing, that; much of the Entente propaganda about Germany in WWI would in fact be done by the Nazis in WWII; for example, they did indeed make human soap. In fact when the Holocaust was first discovered many Brits were skeptical, dismissing it as just more wartime propaganda.

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I don't know how its like in the States but WWI seems to be getting a bit of revival in Europe due to its big anniversary. It not being a very ''popular'' conflict probably has to do with how grey it is. America can't really depict itself as the hero as much as in WWII and neither the Germans or the Russians were yet as cartoonishly evil as they would one day become. 

On 13-12-2018 at 5:42 AM, ChefGuevara said:

History is written subjectively, yeah, and most of that history, and the most common teachings of it involve the rest of the planet being shit on by Western Europe, and being expected to be appreciative of the fact. History classes just feel like fuckin Anglo-Saxon highlight reels sometimes, man

If only for the change of pace, I don't see that big a deal with critizing europeans (or at least, western Europe I guess) for what they've done

Most common teaching should involve more of the rest of the world. The Mongol empire was the largest and most quickly created empire the world had seen at that point yet its mostly ignored in western history book and China is never entirely given its due as the superpower of most periods either. 

That said I don't really believe in the much harsher tone European history is given these days. I can understand where the sentiment comes from but its important to remember that you need to take things in the context of their time and that Europeans empires merely did as empires had always done. 

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Yeah, WWI is mostly overlooked in Japan too, aside from some economic gains they gained for trading with the Entente, and also for taking over the South Pacific Islands and Qingdao from the German Empire. I only knew recently that the only time Japan actually fought against US, UK, France etc was WWII. 

On 12/13/2018 at 3:42 PM, ChefGuevara said:

History is written subjectively, yeah, and most of that history, and the most common teachings of it involve the rest of the planet being shit on by Western Europe, and being expected to be appreciative of the fact. History classes just feel like fuckin Anglo-Saxon highlight reels sometimes, man

If only for the change of pace, I don't see that big a deal with critizing europeans (or at least, western Europe I guess) for what they've done

It could be much worse. At least, I found that the American (Californian) history textbooks from my old elementary school in San Fran, and the Australian Year 12 Modern History textbook are lot better at acknowledging their own shortcomings in the events leading up to WW2 than recent Japanese history textbooks are. The former wrote extensively about the Japanese-American internments (this was in the 90s), and the latter admitted that the White Australia Policy (including then-Premier Billy Hughes vetoing the Japanese delegation advocating a racial equality clause at Versailles) at least contributed to Japanese antagonism. You will not (or at least no longer) get the same level of self-reflection from Japanese textbooks - being more and more whitewashed (or more prone in playing the victim card) in recent years.

Edited by henrymidfields
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1 hour ago, blah the Prussian said:

Interesting thing, that; much of the Entente propaganda about Germany in WWI would in fact be done by the Nazis in WWII; for example, they did indeed make human soap. In fact when the Holocaust was first discovered many Brits were skeptical, dismissing it as just more wartime propaganda.

When I wrote that paper it was very noticeable how much less 'horror' propaganda was used by Brittany. It could also be because they were mostly on the defensive so there were other priorities like keeping moral high. It was also well known that many of the horror propaganda was fake news and the government knew this. Also there was this fancy new thing called radio which became the primary form of spreading propaganda.

44 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Most common teaching should involve more of the rest of the world. The Mongol empire was the largest and most quickly created empire the world had seen at that point yet its mostly ignored in western history book and China is never entirely given its due as the superpower of most periods either. 

I remember that we learned that the Roman empire was split in two but we never heard anything about the eastern empire (it was called the Byzantine empire). Then a couple lessons later we learn that the Ottoman empire is on the place were the eastern roman empire used to be. 

A huge problem with having history from different places is that it often isn't considered important. For how big the Mongol & Ottoman empire were, they where never majorly involved in the history of our own countries. While I like history it is very well known that not that many people share this sentiment, so teaching them even more will often only make it harder since nobody will remember the lessons. Also some people think that history is pointless (they're wrong) and teaching children about facts that don't have a major influence on their country will only strenghten that argument. 

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4 hours ago, LJwalhout said:

I remember that we learned that the Roman empire was split in two but we never heard anything about the eastern empire (it was called the Byzantine empire). Then a couple lessons later we learn that the Ottoman empire is on the place were the eastern roman empire used to be. 

A huge problem with having history from different places is that it often isn't considered important. For how big the Mongol & Ottoman empire were, they where never majorly involved in the history of our own countries. While I like history it is very well known that not that many people share this sentiment, so teaching them even more will often only make it harder since nobody will remember the lessons. Also some people think that history is pointless (they're wrong) and teaching children about facts that don't have a major influence on their country will only strenghten that argument. 

Actually it was never called that during its own life and only had later historians name it as Byzantine because it was convenient for them. 

Its a common view that what happened far away isn't as important but it also quite wrong. The Mongols might seem like an Asian thing but they were rampaging across eastern Europe so successfully that big names in western Europe got freaked out and they may or may not have been responsible for the black death by expanding trade between east in west. Surprisingly some Mongols were also Christian long before they went to sack eastern Europe, albeit a different branch than the Europeans. 

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14 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Actually it was never called that during its own life and only had later historians name it as Byzantine because it was convenient for them. 

Do you know what the official name was during their existence ? 

14 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Its a common view that what happened far away isn't as important but it also quite wrong. The Mongols might seem like an Asian thing but they were rampaging across eastern Europe so successfully that big names in western Europe got freaked out and they may or may not have been responsible for the black death by expanding trade between east in west. Surprisingly some Mongols were also Christian long before they went to sack eastern Europe, albeit a different branch than the Europeans. 

 

12 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

The Mongols also were hugely important for relations between the Christian and Islamic worlds, and should be studied for that alone. I mean, they ended the last objectively legitimate Caliphate.

I certainly agree. Like I said earlier in this thread history is constantly linked to each other and if I was a history teacher I would certainly try to teach my students about the Mongol empire because they are a very important link in the puzzle that we call history. But I would also change how history is teached since many people I know dislike the way in which it is teached. I would try to use more objects and visual ways of teaching or try to make it a story instead of just teaching facts. 

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5 hours ago, LJwalhout said:

Do you know what the official name was during their existence ? 

The Roman empire. The Byzantine empire considered itself not to be a successor state of Rome but the actual continuation since unlike the west they never fell. The Eastern Roman Empire in the middle ages was the very same entity as the one that emerged after the Roman empire split in two. Dynasties came and went, and governmental structures changed over time but to the ones living in the empire Rome never fell because they themselves never did. 

Western Europeans generally called them ''Greeks'' though which is kinda fair too since ethnically most of them were. 

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7 hours ago, LJwalhout said:

I would try to use more objects and visual ways of teaching or try to make it a story instead of just teaching facts. 

The problem is you would either have to make them like history from the start of their childhood so they don't think of it as just learning facts but then again in 1st grade you can't teach much history and if you teach in a higher level everyone thinks it's just "Learning dates" I don't really know any way to tell people why I like history, it's a hard question.

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On 12/14/2018 at 4:30 AM, LJwalhout said:

Oh, I didn't notice it because it was put later on. Now I've gone to the video but I couldn't find the username (I used Ctr-f), so I just typed Austria and found several interesting comments (one about the zimmermann telegram). I also saw the video you linked in the beginning which just shows me how we only talked about the war in Europe during the lessons.

Also, no I said CTRL + F and type Martin Koves, that guy made a coment I wanted you to read, obviously you weren't going to find the thing I wanted you to find if you only typed Austria because everyone talks about it.

EDIT: OOps double-post

Edited by Critical Sniper
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On 15-12-2018 at 6:24 PM, Critical Sniper said:

The problem is you would either have to make them like history from the start of their childhood so they don't think of it as just learning facts but then again in 1st grade you can't teach much history and if you teach in a higher level everyone thinks it's just "Learning dates" I don't really know any way to tell people why I like history, it's a hard question.

My whole interest in history came from reading books (or being read aloud) that where based on historic events and the fact that my parents took me to museums at a very young age. Because of that I got clues about those time periods in an entertaining way and I almost never considered history as learning. I also have a friend who never did such things and he dislikes history. So when you teach history to young children it shouldn't be lessons but stories (although take my opinion with a grain of salt. The only knowledge I have about school are my own experiences).

The reason why I like history is because it is mostly based on the deeds of people and how they influenced the world (for better or for worse) and how you can sometimes find their influences back in real life. Because Holland decided to trade with the Ottoman empire, we where able to import tulips which is now one of the primary things asociated with Holland. Because of the horrible injuries that ww1 caused we began to perform plastic surgery which is a big commercial thing nowadays. Things like Math, Biology, Economics and geography are more like rules and don't have any personality to me, they just are that way because they are that way while history is influenced mostly by humans. It's like a interwoven-neverending-story.

18 hours ago, Critical Sniper said:

Also, no I said CTRL + F and type Martin Koves, that guy made a coment I wanted you to read, obviously you weren't going to find the thing I wanted you to find if you only typed Austria because everyone talks about it.

That's the problem, I couldn't find the name Martin Koves so I just looked up Austria and filtered the ones that seemed interesting.  

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1 hour ago, LJwalhout said:

That's the problem, I couldn't find the name Martin Koves so I just looked up Austria and filtered the ones that seemed interesting.

Try to scroll down and then type Martin Koves in the CTRL+F space.

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