All-history thread

[Mácaman]

Its similar to the story why old Romans called barbarians barbarians. When noble Romans met "wild" germanian tribes, their language sounds like dog barkling to them - "barbarbar" - sou they called them "barbarians"...

[Jamis]

German people in Czech are sometimes not-so-polite referred as "skopčáci" which means "those who comming from hills" - in past, the border mountains of Czech Republic was settled by German people who comes to Czech villages in lowlands.

[Kinro]

In Interwar Poland, in 1937, Julian Tuwim wrote a fascinating poem, called
"Wiersz, w którym autor grzecznie, ale stanowczo, uprasza liczne zastępy bliźnich aby go w dupę pocałowali"
(A poem wherein the author politely but firmly requests numerous hosts of fellow men to kiss his ass)

Couldn't find a Czech translation or even mentioning in media, so I'll post the English translation.

Italic text is what usually gets omitted

Big Bertha's suitors
And coal diggers of Katowice
And oil drillers of Boryslav
And Lodzer Menschen, stunners.
Dandies of Warsaw, gigolos
Huddled with gang of sophisticated hussies
Rapscallions, jesters, bullies
You all kiss me in my arse

Israelite docs,
Seedlings of Vienna, the Jewish Mecca,
Who in Bochnia, Stryi and Cracow
Spread the cultural annoyment/syphilis! (Polish "franca")
Who slurp with "Neue Freie"
Your intellectual soup,
Smart asses, well-read dullards,
You all kiss me in my arse

And those Aryan appraisers,
Farts of the Germanic spirit
When I will check my blood and yours,
Believe me, there will be one gore,
Disciplined squirts and stormtroopers,
Stout-hearted fellows from Maccabi or from PLO,
And record-holders, and sportsmen,
You all kiss me in my arse

Boring and grim Socialists,
Progressive-Democrats, Neo-Catholics
Those who pretend to be people of culture,
Worshipers of radio and physics,
Learned monkeys, scient-wiseasses,
Who watch the world through a magnifier,
And know everything: what, how, when,
You all kiss me in my arse

And that beak of the girls' school,
Who would love to "do" a lot, but cannot,
And this professor Cy... from Vilnius
(You know for what, Mr professor!)

And you, not screwed enough in youth
Gorgon, who has such a nerve,
That you set your puppies on me;
You all kiss me in my arse

And those Palestinian Zionists,
Hechalutz members, who fondly pour
Their Orthodox Jewish brainless tears,
That "spruces make hum in Tel-Aviv",
And those Pan-Slavic dreamers,
Gathered in picturesque troupe,
With a random mystical fool on top,
You all kiss me in my arse

And you the whoreson of fortune,
Perfumed shithead,
Who wear the splendor and spleen of London,
On your forbidden, scary face,
And you, who now live in a mansion,
But used to go to crap behind a cottage,
You, who grew fat of cash on IDL, (Illustrated Daily Courier)
You all kiss me in my arse

And you, grouches and storytellers,
Who drag fat pension from heaven,
Oh, pallbearers of the Luminous Mount,
Holy scabs from Calvary Mountain,
And you, little priest, whose schlong,
Is tied into a knot,
So that it won't romp by chance,
You all kiss me in my arse

And you, about whom I forgot,
Or I ommited you of mercy,
Either because I was afraid,
Or, because there is so plenty of you,
And you, censor, who for this poem,
No doubt will sentence me to pokey,
And so I became the lechers' boss,
You all kiss me in my arse!"

Tuwim was a man of Skamandryci group who were against... well... everything and who fondly used coloquialisms, neologisms and offensive language to express their feelings.

[Kinro]

Though Wagenburg tactic was originally Czech, they were mostly used in Poland, during wars with Teutonic Knights (15th century) and cossacks, Sweden and Russia (17th century)
In that case, Polish though Wagenburgs were Polish (or German, due to its name), and, unfortunately, not many people know it has a Czech origin as a vozová hradba, the rampart made of carts (amirite?)

[Keranis]

The "cart ramparts" or whatever were just one of many improvisations Hussites had to make in order to fight Zikmund's armies. Another popular example are the farm tools they used as weapons. Flails are usualy used to seperate the wheat from the chaff, but who's to say you can't cave in some poor sod's skull with it?


That reminds me: Around that time the first gunpowder weapons were making an appearence in the middle Europe. The long, primitive rifles were called "píšťaly" (whistles), and later the word "pistol" was born from that. The more you know!

[Kinro]

It's been quite a long time since last post, again
Btw. That pistol thing really made me curious.
And, to flails: in Poland we have a sayin' "simple as battle flail's structure" (sometimes "simple like flail")

Now, to the battles:
In 1694, in Hodów, there was a battle, where 400 dismounted hussars won with c.a. 40k Tatars.
When they ran out of pistol balls, they loaded guns with Tatar arrows from the terrain around.

1944, British attack the German bunker.
Then, there was a single shot and whole bunker team gets out and surrender; they shot the German officer when found out Alliance will help to rid off the Germans from their country. (However, then we became dependent (what, is that a word?) ON Soviet Union)

Do you know why tanks are called tanks? Because of keeping them in secret from German spies, and they looked like moving water/fuel tanks.
So, in 1944 one of Polish officers declared "we will call these machines... czołgi (crawlers), because they crawl."

Lastly, when sultane Mehmed IV wanted cossacks to give up, they answered like "fuck you, you are dumb and you can't even kill a hedgehog with your own ass" (mostly like that, I advise to look on the wiki, it's pretty funny tho)

@edit
Oops. Typing while being exhausted is not a good idea.

[Keranis]

"fuck you, you are dumb and you can't even kill a hedgehog with your own ass"

Okay, that's hilarious

And the one with Tatars reminded me:
There is a town close to where I live. It's called Štramberk and it's famous for its local treat, Štramberské uši. It's actually pretty tasty once you get over the morbid legend of its origin

And yep, "dependent" is a word. But it's used in association with "on", not "from"

[Mácaman]

Kinro>

and do you know, that original cover name for tanks was "water carrier"? But the shortcut was "WC", so they decided to call it "tank"

[Kinro]

That's quite interesting thing to notice

Like "what is your profession?" "I drive WC in British army"

[Kinro]

Daa...
I suppose it is history now
It was considered in Polish dubbing to translate pony names to Polish (what a crime to literature)

Różowe Ciasteczko (Pink Pie), Drżypłoszka (I don't even know how to translate it... Fluttershy maybe) and Unikatka (guess) are the three confirmed "beta" names, I don't know if they would name Applejack Jabolka tho (apple-based moonshine or something like that)