Historian Reacts - What Are The Worst Unknown Facts Of History? (r/AskReddit)

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#History #askreddit

[derekfnord]

Chris, you have to know that one huge reason (undoubtedly the biggest reason) for the civility of this community is YOUR civility. You set the tone, and everyone quickly sees that this is not a place for just flinging ad hominem and straw man fallacies around. 🙂

[thecynicaloptimist]

Fun fact about the Gladiator fact: Ridley Scott's movie _Gladiator_ was supposed to have a scene with a gladiator endorsing a brand of olive oil, but it was cut from the movie, because the producers didn't think the audience would actually accept that things like this took place.

[Alexs.]

We can all agree to disagree on certain topics in a civil manner. No need to be mean spirited about it. We're all here for our love of history. This channel has a very collegial positive vibe to it. Let's keep it that way.

[SoupSultan]

This has easily become my favorite history channel because when you react to stuff you let it play and really take it in. At the same time, when you do pause it, its to add meaningful information on. Theres no mindless filler, and thats important because I watch this channel to learn more about these things I'm interested in. It's funny because I watched both this and the gaming channel and didn't realize it was the same person for the longest time haha.

[annayosh]

The reason Tutankhamen's tomb was undisturbed by tomb raiders is that it had not been found by them before Howard Carter found it in 1922. And that in turn came because pharaoh Horemheb worked to remove as much as possible all traces of his three predecessors Akhenaten, Tutankhamon and Ay, and as part of that he destroyed and hid the entrance to Tutankhamen's tomb - apparently doing a very good job of that.

[Unhinged_Pegasus]

Here a historic fact for you; during the evacuation of Dunkirk in WWII, a man and his son overloaded their boat with over 120 soldiers, dodged a bomb, sustained no damage, and unloaded everyone off safely without injury.

Decades earlier in WWI, the same man was a member of the Royal Navy, and during the war, he warded of a German zeppelin, and after being given command of his own ship, destroyed a German U-Boat.

The man’s name; Charles Lightoller.

He is most well known, however, for being the Second Officer of the RMS Titanic, he was the most senior-ranking Officer to survive the sinking of the famous ocean liner in 1912.

This means that all his superiors died during the disaster, and he outranked the survivors.

[sonofhawaii]

To each, his own is what I say. That’s what I love about this channel and community. I appreciate you being so open about your beliefs as well as your personal struggles. Much respect to you brother! Aloha 🤙🏼

[kylianvanhoorn]

Love your videos, absolutely one of my favorite channels
Looking forward to watching this one
And I'm also really excited for this weekend since i'm going to see the waterloo reenactment in Belgium on Sunday.
Greetings from the Netherlands

[stephenparker]

Hi, Chris, your comments made that absolutely fascinating. I like the way you check things at the time to confirm they are correct. If the Hitler story is completely true imagine how much it changed the world. The quality of your work is always so good.

[Crytica.]

About the comments. Tho it says a lot about us, your viewers, it also says a lot about how you handle these topics. It's not the first time that you dipped your toes into hot water and managed to take them out with actual positive feedback from your community. I think we appreciate someone who is honest and certainly not extreme, and that's also what kind of folk you mostly then attract.
So yeah, it does go both ways. We are respectful towards you on these hot topics and you are respectful towards us with your way of describing and explaining things to us.

[richeybaumann]

34:20 LBJ also had a convertible which he had adapted to be amphibious. He would drive guests around his Texas ranch without telling them about it, then he would pretend the brakes had failed and drive it into the lake.

[OliverRPendle]

As far as I am aware, Poles were the only group actually specifically banned from joining the SS. So I don't think there were any Poles, however, there is every chance that a Polish speaking Galician, Ukrainian, Belarussian formally part of Poland, was in the SS and then switched to Polish when they were captured and suddenly called themselves "Polish" despite probably joining the SS in order to kill Poles they considered to be occupying their home nation. They could also be German minority from Poland at that time, and the idea of what is Polish was a lot more complicated then.

There were plenty of Poles who were forced into the Wehrmacht though.

Love your stuff!

[Tomikchomik]

14:00 Poland is only occupied country who dont create Waffen SS unit. Poles was on Wehrmaht, from Silesian teritory, but they was recruited by force (like my grandfather).

[HastDuWasSuchen]

14:03
About the Waffen SS: While it is well known that many of the most terrible war crimes committed by the Nazis were done by the Waffen SS, a general statement like "none of the Waffen SS were ethical" doesn't hold up to the individual realities of the people involved. At the beginning, the Waffen SS was made up of volunteers but throughout the war that changed so there were also conscripts transfered to Waffen SS divisions. Just one example, my dad is a doctor and he told me about a former patient of his who was conscripted at the age of 17, right before the end of the war into the Waffen SS. The guy was captured by the Russians and had health problems due to a beating ever since. Just one example to show that not each and single Waffen SS soldier had shown unethical behaviour. Again, obviously many did cruel crimes though, so this is no defense of crimes, simply a correction about statements that are inaccurate.

On another note, non-ethnic Germans Waffen SS divisions were drawn up around 1940 already. Basically every occupied country had collaborators and many had special Waffen SS divisions. These were usually then deployed in regions away from their homeland so that they wouldn't sympathise with the local people. These foreign Waffen SS divisions would often rely on Aryan ideology in countries like Norway, Denmark, Netherlands or Belgium but also on anti-Bolshevism and of course antisemitism. Sometimes POWs were forced into these battalions but there were also many volunteers even from countries you wouldn't expect like France, Russia or India. In the Balkans there were Muslim Waffen SS soldiers from Bosnia and also Croat Waffen SS soldiers etc. and especially in the Balkans these Waffen SS soldiers led an endless civil conflict within former Yugoslavia. Overall, there were 910.200 people who served in the Waffen SS. Out of these 310.000 were "Volksdeutsche", so Germans living in other countries of Europe, especially Hungary and Romania, and 200.000 were non-ethnic Germans.
Himmler basically wanted to create like a brotherhood of Europe against Bolshevism so yes, there could have been Poles in the Waffen SS, even though unlike other occupied countries, they didn't have a division of their own and served in other units like the SS divisions Nordland and Galicia.

[angusyang]

I would also like to add that King Tut's dad Akhenaten suffered a massive damnatio memoriae (long story short, he placed emphasis on what Egyptian god or god's hat, over the others, angering the priesthood), where his successors tried to erase him and his family from Egyptian history, making King Tut even more obscure than he already was.

[wiseone]

The quality of the comment section is to a large extent due to the tone set by Chris himself. I find his approach to life, politics and those with differing views to be a breath of fresh air in an increasingly polarizing environment where a misguided orthodoxy holds sway. Much respect from far away.

[stevenmillsap]

I've listened to your podcasts... you and Simon whistler are my favorite story tellers

[pixelllama]

37:38 It was actually just between the Nordic branches of both of the clubs. American bikers really had nothing to do with the hits and they were committed mainly by local members.

[meloveoasis]

I was happy to see you dive into some more modern stuff. It's typically people who understand history have a more nuanced take compared to those who don't.

I would love to see a video on your take on Confederate statues in the modern day for example.

[Drogmir]

That was a fun one. There's always so many weird little events that happen in history it's hard to parse out what's an exaggerate myth, real, and completely made up at times.

My favorite random weird unknown history facts is that in the 17th century in Siam (modern day Thailand). There was a random Greek merchant named Constantine Phaulkon who managed to ingratiate himself with King Narai and from all account was apparently a very quick study. And he basically became Prime Minister (Officially Prime Counsellor) of Siam and led foreign policy regarding the French and the British East India company.

Long story short he basically got caught up in court politics and lost the "game of thrones" sort of speak.