Stranger than Fiction: Real History

I mentioned this film when I was doing (not in depth) research on stereotypes of Southern American accents on screen. I guess the character of Rhett was opposing political correctness without even knowing what political correctness was but later on he changed.
 
The first time the Insurrection Act was invoked was on September 25, 1794, in the Whiskey Rebellion. President George Washington personally led state militia forces into western Pennsylvania to suppress a large revolt sparked by a new federal tax on liquor production.

The Insurrection Act has been invoked a total of 30 times. The president that invoked it the most times was Ulysses Grant – six times in the years following the Civil War.

Read about each invocation here:

 
Politically correct history is a simplified story that caters to modern sensibilities. Complex personalities, situations, and motivations are hard for the politically correct student to grok.

True. Politically correct history is nothing more than a story we tell ourselves that makes us feel good.
 
Well, hey, Hitler had his good points, he loved his niece and his dog, and slept with one of them.
 
According to my History Teacher, Cicero was a nickname of Marcus Tullius, meaning 'Chickpea'. Because according to my teacher, he came from the south where chickpeas were grown and the name Cicero was meant to mock him.

I can't stop laughing about it. Because yes, we must all remember the honorable stateman and philosopher, Chickpea.
 
According to my History Teacher, Cicero was a nickname of Marcus Tullius, meaning 'Chickpea'. Because according to my teacher, he came from the south where chickpeas were grown and the name Cicero was meant to mock him.

I can't stop laughing about it. Because yes, we must all remember the honorable stateman and philosopher, Chickpea.

Yep. And then you take a whole bunch of chickpeas, make them into a little round ball, and deep-fry it. Now you have a ball of falafel. ;)
 
It's the 250th anniversary of the American Continental Army's attempt to take Quebec and make it the 14th state. (It failed.)

In part it was an action against King George giving assent to the Quebec Act of earlier that year, which gave to the Quebec people the right to practice the Catholic religion. Not only did the Act guarantee the freedom of worship, it restored French property rights.

It's remarkable because at that time freedom of worship and civil rights were denied to Catholics in Britain and Ireland.

 
I've read one or two books about the American Revolution, but I don't recall that. Thank you, Louanne. :)

It's an fascinating question, though: if (rhetorically speaking) Quebec became part of the new USA by force ... what then? I can't imagine the Colonies being happy with a largely Catholic state on their northern border. This discussion (on the Alternate History Subreddit) is interesting.
 
Olympe de Gouges (born Marie Gouze) was executed by guillotine on November 3, 1793.

She was a French feminist, playwright, and journalist who published pamphlets during the French revolution demanding equal rights for women.
 
Olympe de Gouges (born Marie Gouze) was executed by guillotine on November 3, 1793.

She was a French feminist, playwright, and journalist who published pamphlets during the French revolution demanding equal rights for women.

Yes, but this does not tell the whole story.

Olympe de Gouge was not executed for being a feminist, but because she supported the moderate Girondin faction when Robespierre's hardline Jacobins were in power, as well as opposing the execution of Louis XVI.

Her scathing pamphlets attacking Robespierre and his radical government were interpreted as sedition, and her opposing the execution of the king was interpreted as treason. Her prominence was a threat to the ruling Montagnard faction, so she had to be "removed".

But the period between the storming of the Bastille and the Rise of Napoleon was stuffed full of radicals unwilling to compromise. A lot of men and women were executed or imprisoned for much less trivial crimes than de Gouge's. There's no denying that the Ancien Régime was bad, but was the Revolution any better, regardless of their cries for liberte? There was certainly no liberation for the tens of thousands that fell under the guillotine, or to the 'Infernal Columns' in the Vendee and Normandy.

And what exactly did the Revolution create that might compensate for all these losses?

No stability, no effective government, no functioning economy, no public security, but violence, want, inflation, corruption, one regime change after the other, and the French nation was sustained only by the plundering of other countries.

Finally it got Napoleon, a dictator ... who was welcome, because by the time of his coup, a majority of the French were thoroughly tired of their violent and inept revolutionaries.

If you are looking for a successful republican revolution, one that actually established a working democracy, a far better case may be USA, despite its many shortcomings.
 
Back
Top