Explanation: Shortly before WW2, a German publisher contacted Tolkien and expressed interest in translating The Hobbit into German. However, they also attempted to verify his “Aryan” descent, so as to suit Nazi Germany’s norms for authors.

He drafted a reply as folllows:

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

Explanation: Shortly before WW2, a German publisher contacted Tolkien and expressed interest in translating The Hobbit into German. However, they also attempted to verify his “Aryan” descent, so as to suit Nazi Germany’s norms for authors.

He drafted a reply as folllows:

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

If by some miracle the SDP pulled off a surprise victory and righted the floundering ship that was the German Weimar Republic, we’d probably discuss evil in terms of colonialist or Soviet atrocities.

Fascism is a very easy target for condemning authoritarians, though - if you ever read the Doctrine of Fascism, it’s really quite open about crushing the individual in service to a singular will in control of the fascist state. We’d probably still be calling people fascists for being authoritarian shitheads - we’d just probably use a broader term than ‘Nazi’ (‘genocidaire’ is my vote, but it’s also a bit of a mouthful) when casually referring to immense evil.

Mainstream Zionism was controversial precisely because Palestine was basically always the goal, which many secular Jews who dominated discussion in the European diaspora did not find appealing.

Israel was created because the British Empire in WW1 felt their domestic support was flagging, and needed to ‘shore up’ war fervor by appealing to the Jewish minority that had been left ‘untapped’, so to speak, by prior efforts. By painting themselves as a ‘defender’ of a ‘Jewish homeland’, they could argue to the British Jewish minority that the Entente was the alliance of great powers ‘on the side of’ Jews, unlike the dastardly CENTRAL POWERS (and, to be fair, the Central Powers did have a somewhat greater antisemitism problem than France and Britain did).

Not only that, but they were already planning for the post-war situation - carving up the Ottoman Empire could not be done entirely directly, as international norms had shifted away from normalizing direct colonies - ‘mandates’ for eventually independent states were the norm in this case. A Pan-Arab polity, a dream of many at the time, would have been a major power which Britain would then need to ‘compete’ with on the international stage. So what is one to do? Support a vulnerable minority regime with a history of being unfairly persecuted (all great PR points for when you need to ‘justify’ it to your own population) right in the most inconvenient place for a Pan-Arab polity - where Egypt and North Africa connect to the rest of the Middle East. This, the British estimated, would also get them a convenient ally (as Israel, in this thinking, would be dependent on British aid) which would help them retain control of the Suez Canal in Egypt if things started to get dicey there.

They also used this strategy when creating Syria (filled with ethnic minorities) and Iraq (split by religious lines) in the hopes of never having to deal with the pan-Arab polity they pinky-promised the Arab Revolt would TOTALLY be able to establish if they helped the Brits against the Ottoman Empire in WW1.

The post-WW2 establishment of Israel was little more than de jure recognizing what had de facto become the case by ~25 years of Jewish immigration - there was a large Jewish population in Palestine, and they didn’t get along with the Palestinians.

Ah, if only rules were impartially enforced once enacted. Having every self-proclaimed Zionist banned for hate speech would be hilarious.

We only hate tankies here, with Marx and Kropotkin both being (positively) recommended reading in the sidebar of the comm.

If you associate with the hammer-and-sickle but don’t consider yourself a supporter of that kind of tankie Soviet throwback nonsense, sorry for catching you in the crossfire, but symbols often end up with multiple ‘shorthand’ meanings.

I think this might just be your masterpiece

Some claim it was foundational or even that the US system was based on the Iroquois Confederacy, but both positions are difficult to reconcile with the history of the development of US political thought in the years leading up to the American Revolution, and the extremely heavy influence of (European) Enlightenment writers and Old World political systems on the US. Furthermore, there aren’t many structural similarities between the two systems.

Its influence, such as it was, should be seen as more in the form of cultural diffusion, assisting the normalization of consensus-government as an alternative to majority-government, and reinforcing pre-existing beliefs about decentralized polities being viable.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sword_bronze_age_(2nd_version).jpg

Explanation: During the years of ‘Bleeding Kansas’, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces fought a series of vigilante actions against one another as part of a broader struggle over slavery in the pre-Civil War USA. One major antislavery figure - John Brown - committed a particularly famous (or infamous) killing of supporters of the fraudulent pro-slavery state government after ambushing them in their homes late at night, and then hacking them to bits with broadswords.

He would later go on to even greater fame in leading a (sadly failed) attempt at sparking a slave uprising just before the US Civil War, which inflamed tensions with the pro-slavery South and made him a martyr to the anti-slavery North.

Explanation: During the years of ‘Bleeding Kansas’, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces fought a series of vigilante actions against one another as part of a broader struggle over slavery in the pre-Civil War USA. One major antislavery figure - John Brown - committed a particularly famous (or infamous) killing of supporters of the fraudulent pro-slavery state government after ambushing them in their homes late at night, and then hacking them to bits with broadswords.

He would later go on to even greater fame in leading a (sadly failed) attempt at sparking a slave uprising just before the US Civil War, which inflamed tensions with the pro-slavery South and made him a martyr to the anti-slavery North.

I still feel that one tho

In terms of the Russo-Ukrainian War, NATO has eyes-in-the-sky basically all the time, both for intel support to Ukraine and to monitor the war itself for future warfighting lessons.

Separately, troops from several countries have been confirmed to have been in Ukrainian territory during the war in a training capacity. Unironically, they probably are there in a non-combat capacity simply because the gain of a few NATO troops isn’t worth the risk of exposing them to combat, but I expect that the information stream there goes both ways.

NATO brass has also confirmed numerous discussions with the Ukrainian brass on the course of the war, and I would have to imagine that includes the technology and tactics developing and not just the position of the front lines.

Funny enough, there were several attempts at Crusader-Mongol alliances

Never worked out, in part because, surprise surprise, religiously intolerant fanatics insist on everyone converting to their religion, which the Mongols were not keen on, but it’s a funny thought.

Explanation: During the late 19th century, Europe haphazardly colonized most of the African continent, which is a vast and diverse place.

In the 1950s, decolonization began as the empty promises made during WW1 began to catch up to the declining strength of European empires. The Euros, in releasing each newly independent country from their control, did so with pre-existing institutions and borders which were largely constructed either according to the arbitrary divisions Euros made amongst themselves (“This is MY square, and that is BELGIUM’S square”) or with conscious intent to ‘divide and rule’, playing different ethnic groups against each other. While the European empires may not have intended to keep that sense of division after releasing the resulting states, they sure as shit did nothing to resolve it, suggesting, at best, callous apathy towards the future of these countries they insisted they had colonized for ‘humanitarian’ reasons.

For this reason, many African countries have struggled to forge cohesive national identities since independence, lacking longstanding ethnic ties (and often having multiple significant cross-border ethnic ties, making any internal conflict quickly escalate), uniting civic traditions, or even, in some cases, common economic interests.

Explanation From Original OP:

Being Brazilian, I studied the 1835 Malê Revolt in middle school, and knew some rebels were deported from Brazil and it led to a crackdown on the Muslim community, which at the time was mostly slaves and some freedmen. What I did not know until reading A África e os Africanos na História e nos Mitos was that some of the defeated rebels referred to a the uprising as a jihad, nor that they and some of their descendants used it as a badge of pride.

Ah, the good ol’ days! /s

We’re just so used to them 😭

Also, decimeter needs to be more normalized, describing everyone as “1 point whatever” meters tall is lame

Rope and cloth were common uses of hemp. Most strains of hemp simply don’t contain enough of the active chemical in smoked marijuana to be useful. You’d have to inhale a LOT for even a little buzz, assuming all the other waste product from the burning doesn’t knock you out cold or kill you. It was a legitimately valuable cash crop for industrial purposes.

I don’t remember Lincoln ever being a smoker, though I think that was around the time when non-industrial hemp (ie smokable weed) started to make (medical) inroads in the USA.