History Challenge & Journal

[PeteC]

OK, a lighthearted diversion as we await more serious stuff. 50 years ago, where? Pete

hc9.jpg (35.02 KiB) Viewed 697 times

[Big Boy]

Looks like an old photo of Pattaya to me.

[PeteC]

Looks like an old photo of Pattaya to me.

Indeed, looking south to north from Pratamak hill. I posted it before some months back. Beautiful, wasn't it. How times change. Pete

[dtaai-maai]

Pretty, isn't it? Where, what, when?

[Siani]

What happened here.jpg

Pretty, isn't it? Where, what, when?

Is it a fire they had at Hampton Court?

[dtaai-maai]

^^ Fraid not

[Jimbob]

Without resorting to Google, I am inclined to think it is a view on Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire without the round tower in the shot.
otherwise I am 'clueless'.

[dtaai-maai]

OK, clue then - I can take a hint!

Both guesses in the right general part of the right country (where else could it be so green!). A bit further south and you'll be getting warm. It's not a castle or a palace.

[sandman67]

The one and only Sun Tzu, yes. Sandman has all his how to win a war books on his e-reader!

Funnily enough I do.....when you learn Intelligence Analysis you get snowstormed by Sun Tzu quotes from The Art of War. I naffed off a few lecturers by arguing that The Prince by Machiavelli and studies of Elizabethan spymasters like Francis Walsingham were a lot more valuable than a few throwaway quotes from Sun Tzu. The thing with Sun Tzu is it was written for an oriental mindset and so looses some validity in translating it to western application.

If you want to understand socio-politics a good grounding in Late Republican Roman history is priceless.....look at current US politics and you will see what I mean. Tom Holland's "Rubicon" and Gibbons "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" are a good place to start. Go to Guttenburg site and you can download and read the real original stuff by Cicero, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio and well as Greek stuff by Heroditus. (all translated of course)

History, and particularly ancient history, fascinates me as to me it seems we as a race just go through ever repeating cycles of what we do.... which funnily enough is a Buddhist belief. Studying history is also what made me a hardcore atheist....did you know big bits of what Jesus supposedly said is badly plagarised from Akhenaten era Egyptian wall carvings, and the poets and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome like Plato and Virgil? Hmmmmm......now tell me he existed.

I think the biggest fault of our modern education systems is we have turned history into some dry dusty dull as dishwater topic that turns kids off, and so they remain unaware of its possibilities and value, and certainly ignorant of its lessons. All my love of history comes from my own post school learning via documentaries and books...at school it was all causes of WW2 and crap like that. Had my generation been taught about the Crusades properly we may not have repeated the same mistakes in the Middle East that we are making now. Had Americans learned about the proper history of Indochina and particularly its downfall the Vietnam experience would have been totally different. Had Hitler bothered to pay attention to what happened when Napoleon invaded Russia he may have throught twice about Op Barbarossa and timed it a bit better.

I also find the current right wing trend towards historical revisionism horrific as that destroys its value altogether. Mike Huckabee and his ilk are no better than David Irving in my book....scum.

anyway, enough wibbles....back to the fun.



Enthroned Thrice, Abdicated Twice, Deposed Once.
Married five times, widowed three, divorced once.
Imprisoned in three states, named twice, numbered once.
Author, Film Star, Politician and Prince, I left no epitaph...
Who Am I?

[Siani]

OK, clue then - I can take a hint!

Both guesses in the right general part of the right country (where else could it be so green!). A bit further south and you'll be getting warm. It's not a castle or a palace.

Abbey or church? Direct south or south east or west?

[Siani]

What happened here in the UK? Where was this funeral? What year?

[Siani]

What happened here.jpg

Pretty, isn't it? Where, what, when?

Leeds Castle Kent..fire...not sure of date?

[dtaai-maai]

OK, clue then - I can take a hint!

Both guesses in the right general part of the right country (where else could it be so green!). A bit further south and you'll be getting warm. It's not a castle or a palace.

Abbey or church? Direct south or south east or west?

Blimey, you want me to draw a map?? It's not very far from the Sussex coast, and there is an abbey, but that's not the significance of the place at all - what happened there that is commemorated by the abbey?

[dtaai-maai]

Siani, unfortunately the title of your photo gives the game away!

[richard]

OK, clue then - I can take a hint!

Both guesses in the right general part of the right country (where else could it be so green!). A bit further south and you'll be getting warm. It's not a castle or a palace.

Abbey or church? Direct south or south east or west?

Blimey, you want me to draw a map?? It's not very far from the Sussex coast, and there is an abbey, but that's not the significance of the place at all - what happened there that is commemorated by the abbey?

Battle of Hastings?