Seeing that Unit-731 thread lasted for a while on here, I was wondering if there are any other historical events that you find somewhat interesting or are knowledgable in.

What I'm looking for is somewhat specific answers. Instead of just saying "World War II", perhaps there is an aspect of World War II that you find interesting, and I am curious to know what it is.

This is primarily for the common interest of this board, but your answers would be helpful to me as I am looking for an idea to write a research paper on.

The most significant historical event is clearly the Guyana mass suicide, as it shows the most efficient way for instating a new form of natural selection.

Well, I go to Wikipedia a lot just to look up specific battles. I end up reading the same article the whole way through just because it interests me that much. Battles I tend to read over multiple times include the Battle of the Somme (1916), Battle of Kursk, The Kokoda Track, Battle of Gallipoli, and the Battle of Passchaendale. Somehow World War I intrigues me so much that everyday I look up stuff about it. It was just a totally different war that the world wasn't ready for.

I am very interested in an occult background of WW II. I have read some books and articles on the topic.
Another interesting subject are secret weapons of Nazi Third Empire and flying saucers constructed by German engineers.
According to one theory the Germans landed on Moon allegedly as early as in 1942!

I am a huge history enthusiast, so there's really quite a large number of events that interest me deeply. Lately, however, I've been on a bit of a wild west bender since I started watching Deadwood.

World War 2 in Norway is pretty interesting. The Germans starting pumping up heavy water from a town not far from me called Rjukan (where Jørn Lande is from), and some saboteurs had to enter the factory and blow it up. If they hadn't succeeded, the Nazis could have built an atomic bomb. There's an own map for this on a Battlefield expansion pack as well, pretty cool.

Also, a movie about a Norwegian saboteur from the war named Max Manus was recently released here in Norway, and it's fucking amazing... Norwegian movies in general do suck, but this one is mindblowing. I haven't heard a single complaint about it from anyone yet, I really hope it gets released elsewhere in the world, because it kicks majorly ass. It had a budget of 55 million NOK and it's a bit Hollywood-like, but everything in the movie is true and historically authentic! Except for 2-3 very minor details... Here's a trailer for it, with subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbK4WTQF ... annel_page

I would have to say the European war in WWII, though I also want to look up more things about the African war in WWII, mostly tv programs deal about Europe or Japan.

I also have an extra interest in the futuristic weapons the nazi's had and the hunt between the Russians and Americans/ British for nazi scientists.

This is hard for me, because history is one of my favorite things. Usual I like military history of any time period. I actually just finished reading Waterloo by bernard Cornwell so I'm kind of interested in that right now. Anything will do though.

I've had a growing interest in the Balkans immediately after WW2, especially Tito's rise to power. Unfortunately, a lot of information on the era is skewed either for or against him by rabid propaganda on either side so I'm not so sure that I know much more than I did before. Anyway, my interest stems from trying to pierce through some of the intentional or unintentional propaganda I've been brought up with and an attempt to reach something close to the 'truth'.

I like to read about the history of places that were never covered in history courses I've taken during my lifetime. This is probably the same as my reason for following world news as closely as possible--I like to know as much as I can about the many people I share this planet with.

Also, I used to do a lot of reading on various ancient societies when I was younger but this eventually just frustrates me because so much of history is written by the 'winners', years after events, or is skewed by political objectives of the time. History can be horribly imprecise and frustrating field of study.

The war in Africa is fascinating, I did one of my year 10 SOSE projects on it. Rommel was simply am amazing general.

What books would you recommend concerning this topic. Non-fiction and if possibly also fiction. Sounds interesting.

Agreed, Norway's role in WWII was very interesting to me.

I took a great interest in the extermination camps, Auschwitz was easily one of the most intriguing. Knowing that they could kill over 5,000 in a whole day blew my mind.

I also like learning about the living conditions of the victims of the holocaust for some reason. <.<

I've always had a thing for the small, desperate anti-government resistance movements, especially after catching a glimpse of what the U.S. and U.N. might be up to right now.

And on that subject, there's a new movie coming out about the Jewish resistance: Defiance. looks to be a lot better than the usual crybaby holocaust guilt stuff

I've always been interested in Napoleon's European campaign. Austerlitz, Leipzig, Aspern-Essling, Jena-Auerstedt.

Some stuff like the Somme, Verdun, Bulge, Stalingrad, and Gallipoli.

Then there's the Inquisition, and Crusades. Good stuff.

Getting into the modern stuff, Yugoslavia is probably the most interesting in my opinion.

I'm interested in medieval times myself, mostly. Stuff like the crusades, for example, as far as war history goes. Though my real interest in history is the development of European countries/nations prior to renaissance. But I don't study it seriously, I just read whatever stuff I happen to find on the subject.

I'm mostly interested in the Arab conquests, especially Palestine and Iberia.

I'm mostly interested in longer historical trends rather than specific incidences, though some events do interest me. Pretty much anything related to the Middle East and the various interactions between the region and beyond it, as well as intraregional dynamics (conflict formations are always so much fun from an academic standpoint).


The history of intelligence---espionage, covert warfare, coups, special ops, etc---is another especially large interest of mine. My interest in covert warfare and special ops is obvious in my choices for specific historical events: Jonestown, the Bay of Pigs, the Iranian coup in the mid-1950's, etc.

The Battle of Bannockburn for me, since it's one of the few times the Scots really kick England's ass. All periods of history interest me in some manner: I generally gravitate to pre-gunpowder, but the Ottoman-era Middle East is also very cool.

I also enjoy the more unusual aspects of warfare like war animals, siege engines, and outlandish tactics like flaming pigs & oxen.

In that case, The Battle of the Standard... it's not particularly interesting or whatnot, but it happened just outside of my town and has a shitty pub to commemorate it! Whereas Bannockburn probably just has half a Grave Digger song or something.

I didn't actually realise that you were Scottish, I guess your sig now makes a did more sense contextually.

I've always been fascinated by the Gulag system, Anne Applebaum's book on the subject was a great read. I'm surprised the whole thing hasn't had a film on the subject.

The fall of the European Empires in the 20th century and the rise of the United States and Soviet Union. Is there anything less fascinating?

It started with the Spanish-American War. Since then, the United States began to progressively take away European colonial influence, and the Soviet Union eventually took up the game as well. In the fifty years that followed, the German, French, Austrian, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and British Empires all ceased to exist; the World was in new hands.

Many of the countries that had been colonial powers before the Second World War were occupied by Nazi Germany. Not only was it much more difficult to exert colonial dominance in that situation, but the Europeans started to question the system now that they were the ones being occupied. As a result, most colonies were relinquished peacefully while the few military ventures that were undertaken failed, partly due to influence of the Superpowers.

I think we take for granted how fast the Eorld changes in this day and age. Just compare a world map from 1900 to one of today and you will see what I mean.

I always enjoyed reading about different views of the rape of the sabine women from historians, feminists, philosophers, etc. It's a very interesting event, to say the least, though I think it may just be because I sometimes wish a swarthy Italian man would come take me away!

I know I should probably see a psychiatrist about this.

A lot of stuff I'm interested in historically is based around World War 2 (mostly tactical things, life in Nazi Germany, Soviet occupation and so on), and recently getting into early English history (Anglo-Saxons, etc).

Nah, Bannockburn has a museum near where historians estimate the battle took place. I'm only a few miles away from the "Battle" of Largs (immortalized in "The Dark of the Sun"), which also wasn't particularly interesting since very little action took place. More like Standoff of Largs. Still gave us Vikingar though.



Really? Every other post I make mentions pride in my Scottish heritage. Yes, much like how I imagine black people enjoy Chris Rock's brand of self-depracating humour, I enjoy anti-Scots humour - so long as it's a Scot doing it, mostly because then it's accurate. Hypocritical humour, the sweetest of all.

Question for you Alex, do you or your mates use the word "fudd" or "dos" whether ironically or otherwise?

I've picked up loads of hilarious Scottish slang terms.

I dig several periods of military history, including:





Late Republican and Imperial Rome

Norman conquest of England

The Crusades

Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe

16th century military history, both Europe and Asia--eg., the Italian Wars (Spanish/Hapsburgs & French); the struggle between Christian Europe and the Ottomans; The Wars of Religion (Catholics & Protestants); the Japanese invasion of Korea (the Imjin War); European expansion in Asia (the Portuguese in Macau, the Spanish in the Philippines, etc).

Mid-19th century naval warfare (the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the post-Civil War period--i.e., the rise of the ironclads).

World War I

World War II

The U.S. Navy's role in Vietnam, on the Mekong River (aka, the "Brown Water Navy").

I always liked reading about the slave rebellions in the early U.S., and before the revolution, those stories are always cool. Some of them were a lot more succesful than you would have guessed.

Also, unless someone else already posted it, here's a really interesting event in history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident

I find WW1 + WW2 very interesting. I dont find that much interest in the actual tactics but the conditions of the soldiers during battles interest me a lot such as trenches or POW camps. I also find Spanish Civil War very interesting and like Zythifer, I enjoy stories about almost hopeless but determined resistance movements since they really show the power of human will.

I can tell from your sig.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the Philippine War of 1899-1902 (sometimes called America's "First Vietnam"), and the related Moro War of 1899-1913. These two conflicts happened right after the Spanish-American War, when the United States decided to take over the Philippines. The Filipinos, who had dealt with some 300+years of Spanish occupation, were naturally resentful of this, and decided to fight back. The U.S. servicemen who served in the Philippine Islands were a tough, nasty lot--many of them were veterans of the Indian Wars. Atrocities were committed by both sides, but what is particularly noteworthy is that, in an anti-Imperialist essay that was written by Mark Twain (not published in his lifetime), he quoted an American officer who had served in the field during the Philippine War, and this officer estimated that the U.S. Army and Marines had killed about one-fifth of the population of the Islands, i.e., roughly 1 million people. If that figure is accurate, then that makes the Philippine War the first genocide of the 20th century (with the next one being the Turks' massacre of around 1.5 million Armenians, in 1915).

Many of the Filipinos who fought in the War--both those opposed to American rule, and those who fought as auxiliaries for the U.S. Army (like the Macabebe Scouts), were practitioners of eskrima, the sword, stick, and knife art of the Christianized Filipinos. Quite a few American soldiers were chopped with bolo knives (a type of large jungle knife similar to a machete).

Swords of that sort also figured in the Moro War, where these Muslim warriors used edged weapons like the kampilan and barung. The fanatical Moros were infamous for their sword-wielding charges, and American officers found that their .38 caliber revolvers were not up to the task of dropping a sword-wielding Moro dead in his tracks. As a stop-gap measure, many officers resorted to using old, single-action .44 Colts of Wild West vintage, but the campaign ultimately led to the introduction of the .45 caliber M1911.

During the same period (turn of the century), the Brits had a really rough time in South Africa against the Boers, who were famous for their excellent marksmanship and guerrilla tactics.

It doesn't matter how many died. It's not a 'genocide' unless the Americans were actively trying to exterminate every single Filipino.

Incorrect.


Definition of "Genocide":

Genocide — According to the International Criminal Court, genocide is defined as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (emphasis added)

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.o ... terms.html

For fiction check out "They Used Dark Forces".

I've always liked learning about the secretive Nazi technology. Like all their attempts to make U.F.O.s

Turn of the century (19th-20th) America, particularly the class struggles and labour movements. I find it very interesting, a time when people were actually fighting for a thing as simple as a weekend without work. Particularly the IWW, Molly McGuires, Haymarket Affair, etc.Unfortunately that flair for a conscious working class has been absent in America for quite awhile. The riots in Greece have been quite inspiring, any movement in the streets is inspiring to me (towards and for the right reasons of course).

Some non-fiction books:
Hitler - Demon from Another World by J. Duffack and M.Jensen
Occult Roots of Nazism by N.G. Clark
The Nazic and the Occult by Paul Roland

I've always been interested in the period from 1870 to about 1950. It includes the wars such Franco Prussian war which lead to the formation of Germany leading into the Boer War, WW1 (where I had relations fight and die in both,) British Colonial decline, the Depression and ultimately WW2 (including Spanish Civil War) and the start of the Cold War.

As a historical period it has shown more political changes than I would argue any other period in history (eg monarchies to republics to democracy to fascism to communism,) more social change and more technological change.

The companies during the hundred years war - one of the most excessive examples of how ridiculous managing armies (and waging war in general) was in pre-industrial times.

I love reading about all sorts of history. One of my favourites is ancient America.

I remember whenI was 11 I almost got suspended in school for saying that studing history was waste of time since it turns over man's ambition, and thats why story tends to repeat, there allways be wars but with diferent weapons.... Ironycally I got high notes in that subject

But I do love history and search about ancient battles before or that had nothing to do with gundpowder... this invent limited victory to the ones who have best aim or that just know how and where put bombs... also with technology...

But in the early days there were people who deserve being called warriors, braves and handfull people that fight for gory and die stand not using a bomb or robots

As a master student of history, My thesis deals with Chrushchev's management of the "Missile Crisis in 1962" and its influence to the oposition circles inside the Politburo. (The same people who dethroned him in 1964).