What are you planning on measuring at the v&a ? I'll have to have a look online as I wouldn't know where to start in person Food history and the Tudors have always been a keen favourite of mine so I think I'll go from there !

Thanks for the advice I've always loved history but it just seems to have escaped me a bit with life

Thanks for reminding me, I'm due for a trip before the Easter throngs. And I need to take a tape measure to the V&A, I wish they'd give exhibits' measurements.

"Fun and creative" seems best done with other people: others will be in the same boat, and you can pool resources. See if there's a group interested in whatever aspects take your fancy? Local would be better, but online's a start, and you can trade ideas and maybe get something going. Maybe arrange group museum visits followed by a discussion?

For updating your knowledge, I recommend starting from some topic of particular interest and then radiating out from there, chronologically, geographically or thematically, or all three: that way you can take it at your own pace rather than biting off too much all at once (which reminds me again, I need to read up on Japan, too long on my "to do" list).

I’ve seen it about a dozen times and would watch it again tonight. Mel Gibson was made of solid gold from 1995-2005

After the start of the High Middle Ages, bastard sons of kings held only as much status as their fathers' felt like granting them. Succession of bastard sons to royal and noble titles was far from uncommon in the early Middle Ages (see: William the Conqueror or Ramiro I of Aragon) but it declined rapidly after the mid-11th century, except in Wales and Scandinavia. A number of French and English medieval kings most often arranged for acknowledged bastard sons to marry heiresses or get high-ranking positions in the church.

Examples of the former are Robert of Gloucester, Philippe Hurepel of Boulogne, William Longespée of Salisbury, and Richard de Chilham and an example of the latter are Geoffrey, Archbishop of York. Some royal bastards, such as Philippe Hurepel; Joan, Lady of Wales; Marguerite de Belleville; and the Beauforts; were legitimated by the Pope, though often with the proviso that they were barred from royal succession.

Sometimes, bastard siblings and their legitimate siblings were close; for instance, the unfortunate legitimate sons of Louis I of Orléans seem to have adored their bastard half-brother, Jean de Dunois, who loved them in return and kept watch of the family possessions while his half-brothers were being held captive in England. On the other hand, relations between Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, and his legitimate half-brothers were sometimes tense, though that's not too surprising since relations between his four legitimate brothers put the fun in dysfunctional.

Thank you for all of these sources and all your help I’m so grateful. I wanted to do this topic because I wanted to learn more. From this thread alone I’ve learned an incredible amount. Thank you again

The Patriot? Kind of.

Yeah I figure, I wanted to be sure. You could also look at how the Showa emperor (Hirohito) was used as a pubic figure after the war. From god like leader of a nation to a nice old man in a suit who liked marine biology when he opened the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964.

For an easy source to use the podcast History of Japan has a lot of episodes/series on the emperor, the US occupation, Nanking, specific politicians, so on. Pretty solid and well research stuff. Easy to use.

The claim was (and still is, by some people) that German was never militarily beaten, it was betrayed by its own politicians (and Jews and socialists, who conspired to ensure the country was defeated). The Dolchstosslegende is a pernicious lie, used and spread by the Nazis in particular.

There isn't really one work or bit of media that is going to catch you up on 'general history'. You might as well start reading a lot of Wikipedia articles or something, seeing as a lot of pop history coverage is, quite frankly, bad. If you need a book, you could try A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bryson, who at least hangs a lot of detail (albeit too much irrelevant minutiae of persons) on his prose, but if you want quality historical knowledge you are going to have to pick a particular part of history and then look for good books covering it.

You might be thinking of Frank Cushing who lived among the Zuni tribe in New Mexico.

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During the times of the Direct Capetians, the official status of younger Capetian sons was no more exalted than whatever title they were granted. This includes such men as Robert of Burgundy, Hugues of Vermandois, Robert of Dreux, Pierre of Courtenay, Robert of Artois, Alphonse of Poitiers, Charles of Anjou (ancestor of the Capetian House of Anjou), Robert of Clermont (ancestor of the Bourbons), Charles of Valois, and Louis of Évreux. In practice, however, being the sons and brothers of kings gave them unofficial levels of clout and often greater wealth than non-royal counts. Charles of Anjou and Charles of Valois, for example, were able to muster the resources try to claim foreign crowns, though only the former succeeded. Charles of Anjou's descendants, who became kings of Naples and Hungary, enjoyed generally close ties with their French cousins: Charles of Valois married his double second cousin, Marguerite of Naples, Countess of Anjou; Louis X's second wife was Clementia of Hungary; and Louis I of Anjou was designated as heir by Jeanne I of Naples, which subsequent Valois, including Louis II of Anjou, Rene of Anjou, Charles VIII of France, and Louis XII of France, became obsessed with making good on.

However, again, this wasn't officially granted precedence. This is best illustrated when Isabelle of France supposedly protested her son, Edward, giving homage to her cousin, Philippe VI of France, because Edward was the son of a king while Philippe was only the son of a count — nevermind that the count had been her own paternal uncle, Charles of Valois.

The accession of the Valois kings, of which the aforementioned Philippe VI was the first, saw the creation of the title prince du sang, though agnatic descendants they wouldn't been given official ranking over all other members of the peerage until 1576.

How the other cadet branches other than Capetian House of Anjou fared differed: the Vermandois went extinct within three generations and the Courtenays' fortunes were ruined by their adventures in Byzantium, after which half of the family that went east took up residence at the court of Charles of Anjou and married into his family and the few that stayed in France declined into genteel poverty and political irrelevance. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Courtenays tried to claim the status of princes du sang, but without success. However, the Dreux and Bourbons did very well for themselves, all things considered: the last member of the House of Dreux was Anne of Bretagne, the twice queen of France, and the Bourbons eventually got to become kings of France and later, Spain and the Two Sicilies.

I'll do bastard sons in another comment.

It gave a very good impression of having done just that: its army was in retreat, the would-be architect of victory Ludendorff had cracked up and run off, its allies were falling in rapid succession (by the last week there weren't any left) and the civilian population was at the end of its tether.

Militarists and nationalists subsequently boasted that the army remained in being, that Germany had not been invaded, and that it had signed an armistice rather than a surrender, and therefore that it wasn't a defeat - the corollary being that in dictating disadvantageous peace terms the allies had somehow abused German magnanimity in calling it a day.

But in reality, by late 1918 the Reich's options were few and unappetising: the big push in the west hadn't achieved the promised victory, and Allied commanders had at last worked out how to overcome the formidable German defences after four years of trial & error, while the US would become an ever more powerful factor in Allied strength.

Germany might have fought on into 1919, but for what? It had lost, and the subsequent treaty was about as just as anything that was likely to emerge from the carnage. The "let's call it a technical draw" take was understandable as a desperate spin by negotiators seeking easier peace terms, but bore little resemblance to reality.

They did. It was called The Patriot, and it was every bit as accurate as what was just described.

I mean in the end it only bastardized British history so nbd

Germany most definitely lost the first world war. And what do you mean by "technically" not losing a war?

I see a lot of servers wearing kilts in "Irish" pubs here. It's weird.

The problem is the widely accepted misconception that the historical moment happened as it is shown in the movie.
Like the joke, It is all fun and games untill people start to talk abou Abu Nazir as a real person.

Hi all So recently took a few visits to museums here in London And it's kinda dawned on me that since leaving education I've lost pretty much all my general history knowledge ( history used to be one of my favourite subjects)

I'd like to re educate myself I guess about general history

Does anyone have any tips or recommendations on fun and creative ways to go about doing so ?

that is interesting but the post was about tartan found in Scotland specifically

Speaking of peat bogs, any other Millenials remember an unusually large part of the high school curriculum being devoted to bog bodies? Or just my school/country (Australia)?

Man, a bag of arsehair is a good evaluation of crazy thanks!

This one is great actually. Italians didn’t even like tomatoes when they were first brought over. They thought they were poisonous.

It wasn’t until the mid 19th century before they really started to catch on.

Apparently the author is a descendent, or at least claims to be. The earlier drafts of the script are much more one-sided and fanboy-esque, to the point where they're approaching "everybody clapped" territory.

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