History Teacher Reacts to Simpsons History Jokes!

Over 3 decades, the Simpsons have covered basically EVERYTHING. This includes history too! Mr. Terry comments on the history-related jokes The Simpsons have covered across their incredible career!

Links:

[Azraeltheangelofdeath]

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman in 1774 was a reverend and pioneer conservationist who introduced Apple trees into large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Ontario by establishing nurseries from which people could purchase sapplings

[gavinfichter]

Fun fact: In the Salem witch trials no witch was every actually burned. Most of them were hung and some were crushed with huge stones. Burning was a European thing.

[raver]

mr terry: "i apologize on behalf of my ancestors"
as a german, i feel you...

[furbymations]

As far as I know, Paul Bunyan was a real person who was really tall for the time. He wasn't like Godzilla tall, only like a foot taller than the average person. I'm not sure where the ox came from though.

[DarkwolfRedsoul]

His face after the "wood and Trojans" joke...

[vampiregamingyt]

Speaking of troy and Achilles, my theory is that achilles is that the story is that his armor was super strong, that it made him seem invincible, but because of the exposed skin in his sandals, he was able to get killed

[onkelkonkel]

21:04 - In some parts of Swedish folklore, the witches were said to have been riding on a flying cow. The cow being upside down and flying backwards. This came from witnesses who claimed to have seen it with their own eyes. This was part of the Swedish hysteria surrounding witches and the burning there of.

[Tiresias]

14:28 Lord knows I'm not overly in love with the historical anthologies, but Homer's song here cracks me up every time.

[kefkamadman]

You're the type of history teacher that there should be more of in this world. Making history interesting is a challenge in of itself, and you pull it off flawlessly.

[ARCtheCartoonMaster]

19:55 Funnily enough, there's actually a Gilbert & Sullivan opera where, while the witch doesn't escape being burned, she does place a curse on her persecutor's family line so they have to commit daily crime or perish in agony, which sets the conflict for the protagonist who's a descendant of that line.

The opera is called _Ruddigore_, for those curious.

[ChakatNightspark]

Paul Bunyan is a legendary hero and enormous lumberjack in American and Canadian folklore. The figure originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers and was subsequently popularized in a 1916 advertising leaflet for the Red River Lumber Company by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958).
Historians think Bunyan was modeled in part on a real lumberjack: Fabian Fournier, a French-Canadian timberman who traveled south after the Civil War and worked as the foreman of a logging team in Michigan. Fournier's mythology fused with that of another French-Canadian lumberman, Bon Jean, through time. By the early 20th century, both men had become associated with an entire nation of people called Canada who lived in large forests and liked to listen to stories at night.

Bunyan first appeared in print in 1900 in a collection of poems called The Lumberjack. The poet and journalist William Allen White wrote the introduction to this book. It tells the story of Bunyan trying to save his family business from going under. To do this, he goes to work for the largest company in their town, which happens to be owned by his relatives. However, Bunyan soon realizes that working for money is not what matters most in life. It is how you treat others that counts. With no other options left, he decides to go north into the big woods and make his living cutting trees.

Since then, Bunyan has become a popular figure in America. He appears in comic books, television shows, and movies. There are even two national parks named after him. One is in Minnesota and the other in Maine.

[jonathanflinks]

A small correction/addition, most what we associate with the greeks comes from the minoans, one of the early cultures on the island of crete. The mycenians later took oder the minoan land and culture after it was weakened by natural catastrophes.
Overwise fun and informational video as always!

[melllvar]

Fun fact: Godzila's real name is Gordon Zillias, he had his name legally changed after he turned 18 to distance himself from his family who had a bad reputation for causing wonton destruction in the old country. But old habits came back to haunt, and the rest is history.

[daveharrison]

My favorite Simpsons history was when they did Lewis and Clark. I also liked when they did Mozart, and Queen Elizabeth I.

[zerojimmy]

I was told in my witchcraft history class(we cover Britain, Germany/central Europe and Salem) that the stereotypical female witch riding a broom came from because woman cleaned the house back in those days that was the tool commonly associated seeming for male witches because most men did farm work male which is why male witches ride pitch forks.

[SarastistheSerpent]

Some small mistakes, the Sphinx does not predate the pyramids. It’s widely accepted by Egyptologists that the Sphinx was commissioned by the Pharaoh Khafre in the late 25th century BC. That’s after the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built. Khufu was Khafre’s father, and Khafre would not inherit the throne until after the death of his brother and predecessor Djedefre.

Also, the Great Pyramids at Giza are only a few of the many dozens of pyramids built in Saqqara. Many of them are older than both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids. The very first was Djoser’s step pyramid, designed by his grand vizier Imhotep.

The great pyramids also don’t really include any significant nods to Osiris or Isis. They were built using predominantly Heliopolitan cosmology, which held Ra, Atum, Khepri and Khnum in particular esteem. Cults of Osiris and Isis emerged much much later.

Also Egyptian ceremonial writings are hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics.

[rydervang]

Paul Bunyan was a folk tell mostly know in Minnesota (I believe) for “creating” the Great Lakes and the many lakes in Minnesota and the blue Ox was Paul’s friend after Paul freed the Ox from a trap but that’s the most I know from the story

[orcaman]

People accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials were mostly hanged rather then burned at the stake.

[manxgirl]

13:50 - Babe was born during the "blue" snow. So, of course, she's blue. Though, I think I heard somewhere that she was a calf who died from the cold, and while Paul Bunyan was able to revive her, she retained the "blue" color from the cold.

[daveglander]

Just one point I need to mention regarding the 100 years war.

It wasn't necessarily the gunpowder which bought the English to lose the war. The English army had been using cannons for about a 100 years. During the battle of Crecy, the English used their cannons on the battlefield for the first time and used them again in the seige of Halfleur.

The main reasons for England's collapse was firstly because of political infighting within the English nobility, Henry VI was a child at this time and various barons bickered of who would be the King's protector when they should have been concentrating on consolidation. France saw this weakness and banded together behind the Dauphin and of course Joan D'Arc. Not only this, but France recognised by now that Feudal armies were becoming obsolete and started to move towards professional soldiers and mercenaries.

Cannon fire was used by the French against English held castles on a couple of occasions, but by the time the French had took their crown back, Henry was already facing losing his own English crown against members of his own family. ... and we all know what happened after that.

It was ironic that the same thing that caused France's crown to fall to the English was the same reason that England's crown fell to the descendents of the king who started the war in the first place. Is that hubris??? Kinda sounds like hubris.