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Milestones
- Thread starter admihoek
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Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
I also read somewhere that the Viking colony (colonies?) in North America faced formidable opposition from the natives that lead to their abandonment. Once again, "hit and run" raids are a different beast from the capability to maintain a sustained occupation.True :
Silent_Water
Tribune
Just yesterday, I have read this article in the German version of "National Geographic" about several (!) Viking colonies in Canada and the latest archaeological research seems rather to be that the Vikings were usually interested in trading. There are also Viking sagas about clashes with native "Skraelingians" [= "Weaklings", probably Indians who simply fled instead of fighting when the Viking women (!) swung their own swords (!)], but for some time, there seem to have been good trade relations for decades between the Baffin Bay and Labrador with Inuit / Eskimos of the so-called "Dorset-Culture".
The archaeologist Patricia Sutherland mentions in this article that there were found leftovers from the Dorset-Culture with parts of clothes and strings in which (most probably European) wool was involved, but the Dorset-Inuit never weaved or spinned. So, most probably they sold some of their hunting treasures (e.g. "Walrus ivory") to the Vikings and got back things they did not know before, e.g. wool.
Maybe, you find this article "When the Vikings were in America" in an English version:
Als die Wikinger in Amerika waren
Vor 1000 Jahren segelten die Nordmänner in eine neue Welt, man weiß nur wenig darüber.
Silent_Water
Tribune
Just as additional information about the international trade routes and trade "goods" of Vikings, there was a German TV documentary about the international Viking slave trade, based on different sources like this one about the life of "St. Findan" and an Icelandish Viking saga about the life of "Melkorka", an Irish noble girl who came to Iceland as slave of a Viking leader:
If you understand German or French, this might be interesting for you and you can still find this documentary in the German "ZDF Mediathek" for free download.
Via the free program "MediathekView", you can download "some" documentaries and also many movies in German and French, which were broadcast by the TV stations ARTE, FRANCE 2, ARD, ZDF, 3SAT, ORF etc. It is probably one of the biggest free TV archives in Europe, sometimes "only" 40.000 "parts" for free.
www.zdf.de
www.stern.de
If you understand German or French, this might be interesting for you and you can still find this documentary in the German "ZDF Mediathek" for free download.
Via the free program "MediathekView", you can download "some" documentaries and also many movies in German and French, which were broadcast by the TV stations ARTE, FRANCE 2, ARD, ZDF, 3SAT, ORF etc. It is probably one of the biggest free TV archives in Europe, sometimes "only" 40.000 "parts" for free.
Die Sklaven der Wikinger
Die Wikinger sind gefürchtete Plünderer. Doch mit ihren Langschiffen gehen sie auch auf Menschenjagd. Sklaven sind wertvolles Raubgut der Nordmänner.
Wikinger als Menschenhändler – wie ein irischer Adeliger sich aus der Sklaverei befreite
Die Wikinger raubten junge Menschen in ganz Europa. Nur ein einziger Sklave beschrieb sein Schicksal. Der junge Findan geriet in die Fänge der Sklavenhändler, weil er seine Schwester freikaufen wollte.
www.stern.de
Migoz2
Senator
Or, a sketch by the Irish comdian, Dave Allen (which I can't find on YouTube):
Viking #1 (Allen): Rape all the men and kill all the women!
Viking #2: Don't you mean kill all the men and rape all the women?
Viking #1: You pillage your way and I'll pillage mine.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Variant :
Viking #1: Rape all the men and kill all the women in this village!
Viking #2: Don't you mean kill all the men and rape all the women?
Viking #1: Right! That's what I meant!
Gay villager : "Oh no! First said is first done!"
Silent_Water
Tribune
I do not know if I should really post this but I like to because there is a current development, which seems to be new but I think such measures and ideas once were already used in the dark Middle-Ages during the time of the "Great Migration" (or in German: "die Zeit der Völkerwanderung" = "the time of wandering nations / people").
Before the fall of the Roman Empire, there appeared several nomadic people in the East of the Empire, pushing smaller nations to the borders of the Empire (West-Rome as well as East-Rome) and "the Huns" (not identical with the ancestors of todays Hungarians, but possibly old relatives) under their king Attila ...
... used them sometimes as a kind of blackmail against the Romans (again West-Romans as well as East-Romans): "If you pay us in silver and gold, we are peaceful and not attacking these poorer nations. We can also work together with you Romans by fighting together against nations which are even more aggressive than we. How do you want your future?"
So, Attila was rather a great blackmailer than a great commander.
The result was a temporary cooperation and even tribute by some Roman governments to Attila, but in the end, there was war and Attila's army was defeated on the territory of today's France.
Today, there is a development which seems to be similar to me and one should not make predictions but I dare to predict that this will become a winter with terrible scenes at the borders of the European Union similar to the times of "wandering nations", because for the first time after WW II, two modern European governments are really planning flights for 5.000,- each per person, just to bring these persons, usually refugees to the borders of the European Union, intentionally causing pictures which will become more and more cruel because the border guards on the one side do not allow these refugees to enter and the border guards on the other side say: "You wanted to come here in order to go there. We do not take you back again! Go!"
The other border guards: "We do not let you in! Go back!"
Several hundreds of refugees seem to be caught in the no mans land right now between the borders of 3 states of the European Union and the 2 other states. Some of these refugees managed to get through the borders and there are suddenly appearing complete families in the forests of EU member states up to the borders of Germany, surrounded by Eastern European policemen, when they get caught, sometimes not even knowing in which European country they are:
And it is becoming a cold winter very soon. Some of them have already frozen to death in the no mans land between the EU and these two other countries which are now sanctioned by the EU more and more every week, and these two other countries are simply stepping up the number of flights bringing more and more refugees to the Eastern borders of the EU, which is calling this for the first time a "hybrid warfare" while one of the government of the other countries is calling these sanctions the pretext for the "planned 3rd world war" !
And I think, this is really a new "milestone", because never before were there two European countries importing refugees from countries far away via their own travel agencies, airports and airlines just in order to bring them to their borders for causing political-humanitarian pressure against the whole European Union in a really state-run human smuggling and human trafficking.
The coming pictures from our forests in winter might be much more terrible than expected and this map speaks for itself:
Before the fall of the Roman Empire, there appeared several nomadic people in the East of the Empire, pushing smaller nations to the borders of the Empire (West-Rome as well as East-Rome) and "the Huns" (not identical with the ancestors of todays Hungarians, but possibly old relatives) under their king Attila ...
... used them sometimes as a kind of blackmail against the Romans (again West-Romans as well as East-Romans): "If you pay us in silver and gold, we are peaceful and not attacking these poorer nations. We can also work together with you Romans by fighting together against nations which are even more aggressive than we. How do you want your future?"
So, Attila was rather a great blackmailer than a great commander.
The result was a temporary cooperation and even tribute by some Roman governments to Attila, but in the end, there was war and Attila's army was defeated on the territory of today's France.
Today, there is a development which seems to be similar to me and one should not make predictions but I dare to predict that this will become a winter with terrible scenes at the borders of the European Union similar to the times of "wandering nations", because for the first time after WW II, two modern European governments are really planning flights for 5.000,- each per person, just to bring these persons, usually refugees to the borders of the European Union, intentionally causing pictures which will become more and more cruel because the border guards on the one side do not allow these refugees to enter and the border guards on the other side say: "You wanted to come here in order to go there. We do not take you back again! Go!"
The other border guards: "We do not let you in! Go back!"
Several hundreds of refugees seem to be caught in the no mans land right now between the borders of 3 states of the European Union and the 2 other states. Some of these refugees managed to get through the borders and there are suddenly appearing complete families in the forests of EU member states up to the borders of Germany, surrounded by Eastern European policemen, when they get caught, sometimes not even knowing in which European country they are:
And it is becoming a cold winter very soon. Some of them have already frozen to death in the no mans land between the EU and these two other countries which are now sanctioned by the EU more and more every week, and these two other countries are simply stepping up the number of flights bringing more and more refugees to the Eastern borders of the EU, which is calling this for the first time a "hybrid warfare" while one of the government of the other countries is calling these sanctions the pretext for the "planned 3rd world war" !And I think, this is really a new "milestone", because never before were there two European countries importing refugees from countries far away via their own travel agencies, airports and airlines just in order to bring them to their borders for causing political-humanitarian pressure against the whole European Union in a really state-run human smuggling and human trafficking.
The coming pictures from our forests in winter might be much more terrible than expected and this map speaks for itself:
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Frank Petrexa
Tribune
The same thing is occurring at the US/Mexican border. It is not only refugees, however. Some people who found refuge in South American countries (Chile, Colombia) are disappointed in the result and want to immigrate, and show up at the border after traversing the jungle (paying "coyotes" to help them) in the infamous "Darien Gap" in Panama. I am torn by all this. Countries need to have control of who the let in. At the same time, there is sometimes real suffering and one needs to set bureaucracy aside. The United States has a rather extensive process for vetting refugees (I know someone who did it), but it can be overwhelmed by numbers.
Silent_Water
Tribune
This "Darien Gap" has even made its way to our German print media because some German reporters were there and the stories from the people who survived their way through this jungle are more than horrible because there are not only the usual dangers of a jungle but the worst of nightmares: criminals and drug dealers who obviously have lost all of any human feelings, killing someone in a refugee family in the jungle just for intimidation when the family cannot pay any more money to them.
But I am also surprised by some of these stories, because some of them who try to get through this jungle had already "a life in society" in Chile or somewhere else. They came from Haiti (which is almost confirmed as hell on Earth by all the misery with earthquakes etc. there), somehow got to Chile, were for example mechanics there in car repairs, but in spite of this, they tried to get to the USA and risk their and their family's life another time.
This reminded some German readers of the German fairy-tale, in which the wife of a fisherman wants more and more and a better life is never good enough.
In any case, the German reporters came to the conclusion that the people enter this "Darien Gap" as almost normal and hopeful persons, but they all get out mentally broken because almost all lost someone in this jungle or were robbed and violated by mad criminals.
The difference here in Europe to the situation in America is now, that an East-European non-EU-member country is almost officially acting as trafficker-mafia-state, inviting refugees e.g. in Bagdad or Mossul into its travel agencies and promising them to bring them to the borders of the European Union for 5.000,- $, even telling them to destroy their identification papers after having crossed the border, so that the state authorities of EU-member-states cannot deport them any more to their home countries.
Alone in October up to now, 5.000 of these refugees have somehow managed to get through Poland (which has already built up its own border guards, planning new border fortifications to the East, having now make-shift-camps for additional 15.000 of them) to the borders of Germany. And all of them came via airline directly from the Middle-East via the airports of this one East-European state which is said to have the last - and new - real dictatorship in Eastern Europe, constantly claiming that its president wins all elections with more than 80%, which certainly no one believes even in that country.
And all this in Covid-19-times as if we human beings would have no other problems at all.
And Covid-19 is now killing there and in its even more Eastern neighbour state more people than anywhere else in Europe because the people there do not trust their governments and these governments there only care for themselves, not for their people.
In some places of this world, it is a simply a punishment only to be born there by accident !
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Yes, Lukaschenko and Belarus are a problem. (As an aside, the drug dealer Pablo Escobar in Colombia left a private zoo when he died, and he had hippopotami. They are now breeding and populating the rivers, and people are trying to figure out how to rein them in. I don't think that's why there are migrants, though.)
I guess the American economy offers a lot of opportunity for people who are willing to work hard at jobs that Americans won't take but are probably better than what is available elsewhere. (The social safety net is nowhere near as good as it is in Europe, but there are a lot of private entities willing to help.) A lot of migrants already have relatives in the United States and have heard stories and have places to stay if they make it here, but I think a lot of their expectations are unrealistic. If you read about the history of immigration to the United States, though, (Italian, Polish, Irish, Chinese) you see the first generation going through hellish conditions but their kids doing much better.
There is a Pan American highway, but the Darien gap is called "gap" because it is the one place it doesn't go through. Panama used to be part of Colombia, but President Theodore Roosevelt (who was something of an imperialist regardless of the good things he did) fomented a revolt there so he could build the Panama Canal. The Colombian Army tried to cut its way through the gap, but failed. The US Navy blocked the sea route.
The (mostly) Africans who risk their lives to get to Europe on those rickety boats baffle me. That is mostly through Libyan gangsters.
Mexico has an immense drug and gang problem which it just cannot control. The previous president tried, but it turned into an all-out war. "AMLO", the current president, has given up. A lot of the problem is that bribery is rife in the Mexican government. (This is not to say that the United States has no problems of this type, but it is no longer like the 1930's, and there are a lot of professional prosecutors and judges who can count on police protection.) The general who used to run the Mexican defense department was arrested in Los Angeles and accused of drug trafficking. The Mexicans couldn't deny it, but insisted he be returned to Mexico and be tried there. They of course let him off, so his only punishment is that he can't go back to Disneyland. Another problem is that Mexico and the United States are so integrated economically and there is so much American investment in Mexico that there is a lot of political pressure from corporations to keep diplomatic relations cordial. It is no longer possible to just close the border. The border with Canada was "closed" during the pandemic, but there was an exception for commercial trucks and trains.
(Didn't Gunther Gras write a book, "Das Butt", based on your fisherman's wife fairy tale?)
Silent_Water
Tribune
You are very well informed and I really love your humour (your examples in bold type above) !
And yes, "Günter Grass" wrote a big book - not his best, but better than most other German books in those years - based on the idea of this fairy-tale, but the title is "Der Butt" - not to mix with "Das Boot", which is one of the most famous German anti-war movies, based on another book by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, who once really was in a German submarine in WW II.
Obviously, you also read German and so, I have a short review from a German TV station about this book for you and all others who would like to read about it in the original language:
Thank you very much for your interest and your opinion, which is always very interesting for me!
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Yes, I am lazy and not reading as often as I should, so I missed the gender of the article (as Mark Twain said, only in German is a young woman neuter and a turnip feminine). I have to read German slowly, and I never finished "Der Butt". But I did finish "Blechtrommel". I felt bad when Grass was outed as an SS man (when he was 20 or so, toward the end of the war)--but he admitted to it, and acknowledged the offense.
I loved this part of the review.
Wer oder was ist der Butt? Ein Fabelwesen? Eine Allegorie? Ein Symbol? Und wenn ja, ein Symbol wofür? Das lässt sich kaum beantworten, und ich bezweifle, ob der Autor selbst es genau hätte angeben können. So Grass couldn't tell you how he wanted the story to be read and what it meant. It basically says that for all the analysis and "erudition" of literary scholars, the authors mostly write on instinct, what they feel, and don't set out to craft a clear, rigid thesis (like say Karl Marx). I read an essay in the Wall Street Journal (of all places) called "Who Killed the Humanities". The thrust was that people read literature to validate their own experiences, realize they are not alone, but "scholars" make literature into a scientific or mathematical enterprise, where there are deep, hidden meanings and only the scholars have found them and the idiots who read books are unaware of their weighty import.
I saw "Das Boot" years ago in German with English subtitles. I should try to find it on Amazon. It was superb. I especially remember the junior officer telling the captain why he signed up (was Maennliche, keines Weibliche). Supposedly in all the submarine services during the war (the Germans in the Atlantic and the Americans in the Pacific) the casualties were horrendous--north of 25%.
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On the same theme ...
A Viking vessel sweeps into Scarborough Bay, as soon as it beaches the chieftain leaps ashore,
'Slay!' he yells, and his men hurtle up the beach waving their swords.
Soon a second vessels glides into the Bay and beaches alongside, out jumps the chieftain
'Pillage!' he commands, and his men hasten to do his bidding.
Half an hour later, a third boat limps slowly into the Bay and eventually crunches ashore.
Before the chieftain can open his mouth, his exhausted men groan,
'Oh no, not rape again!'
My favourite Viking - Noggin the Nog
Silent_Water
Tribune
Concerning "hidden meanings" in literature, I remember an interview with Umberto Eco ...
... about his worldwide best selling book "The Name of the Rose", which was also made a movie with Sean Connery.
In this interview, he said that some readers thought of almost every sentence in his book to have a hidden meaning, but sometimes his own book surprised also him.
Once, he was asked by an Italian reader about one connection in the Italian version between two similar sentences in different chapters of this book and he thought: "OK, this is a clever thought and it really looks like a hidden meaning but I did not realize that similarity when I was writing it. Sometimes, the hidden meanings are not intended but a result of coincidence and not in the intention of the author."
Sometimes, "Coincidence" develops a hidden meaning of its own and even this can be incredible but true. There is a true story about a letter with a sentence in complicated anagrams with hidden meanings from the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei - who was right to be in fear of the Catholic dogmatic inquisition - to the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, in which Galilei wanted to tell Kepler that he (= Galilei) could prove the planet Venus to show light phases like the moon, thus proving that the sun is in the center of our planetary system, not the Earth, shining on all the planets in the solar system.
Kepler decrypted Galilei's anagram with a completely different meaning but even this wrong decryption was proved right 250 years later:
Kepler thought, Galilei was writing him that he just discovered the planet Mars to have two moons circling around Mars - but they were discovered only two and a half centuries later!
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Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
October 25th is Saint Crispian’s day. So, lots of fighting in history.
On October 25th 732, the army of Charles Martel defeated the Arabs near Poitiers. This was a real turning point, stopping further Arab invasion into Europe. Moreover, Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, established the power of his dynasty in southern France.
On October 25th 1415, Saint Crispian’s day, Henry V and his band of Happy Few defeated the French knights at Agincourt. Lousy tactics of the latter (the retreating English were near starvation, and could have been forced to surrender without fighting), made their charges butchered by English bowmen. With this turn of fortune, Henry V enforced France to accept the Treaty of Troyes, which foresaw a personal union of both kingdoms. Henry would become King of France, after the ruling king of France, Charles VI, would have died. To seal the union, Henry married Charles’ daughter. Henry died however before his old father-in-law. His crown prince, the future Henry VI, still a baby then, would inherit the madness of his grandfather Charles VI. Back in England, there was a York family who still had to settle a bill with the ruling Lancasters, and seized the opportunity. The ensuing instability in England allowed the French to put Charles VII on the throne and take back control of their country.
Saint Crispian was less favourable to the six hundred Happy Few, when, on October 25th 1854, the British Light Brigade charged a line of Russian artillery in the valley of Balaclava, during the Crimean War. Unclear orders, confusion about the target and the eager of the cavalry for action, made the Light Brigade charge the wrong enemy position, because their intended objective was not visible from where they stood. The confusion had also seized Captain Louis Nolan, the officer who had passed the written order to Lord Lucan, commander of the cavalry division. From above, from where Nolan came, the positions had been clear, down in the valley, they were not. As the brigade marched, Nolan suddenly realized that they were heading into the wrong direction. But before he could inform Lord Cardigan, the leader of the brigade, he was killed by shrapnel. With canons on the left, canons on the right and canons in front, the brigade rode into the mouth of death. They reached the Russian lines, but were driven back by Russian cavalry. Actually, the charge was nothing but a skirmish that lasted about fifteen minutes, but the commanders were public figures in Britain, where a debate started about the responsibility for the deadly mishap. The debacle was ultimately turned into a victorious propaganda pamphlet by the poet Alfred Tennyson.
On October 25th 1983, American troops invaded the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean. Something about a ruler they did not like.
On October 25th 732, the army of Charles Martel defeated the Arabs near Poitiers. This was a real turning point, stopping further Arab invasion into Europe. Moreover, Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, established the power of his dynasty in southern France.
On October 25th 1415, Saint Crispian’s day, Henry V and his band of Happy Few defeated the French knights at Agincourt. Lousy tactics of the latter (the retreating English were near starvation, and could have been forced to surrender without fighting), made their charges butchered by English bowmen. With this turn of fortune, Henry V enforced France to accept the Treaty of Troyes, which foresaw a personal union of both kingdoms. Henry would become King of France, after the ruling king of France, Charles VI, would have died. To seal the union, Henry married Charles’ daughter. Henry died however before his old father-in-law. His crown prince, the future Henry VI, still a baby then, would inherit the madness of his grandfather Charles VI. Back in England, there was a York family who still had to settle a bill with the ruling Lancasters, and seized the opportunity. The ensuing instability in England allowed the French to put Charles VII on the throne and take back control of their country.
Saint Crispian was less favourable to the six hundred Happy Few, when, on October 25th 1854, the British Light Brigade charged a line of Russian artillery in the valley of Balaclava, during the Crimean War. Unclear orders, confusion about the target and the eager of the cavalry for action, made the Light Brigade charge the wrong enemy position, because their intended objective was not visible from where they stood. The confusion had also seized Captain Louis Nolan, the officer who had passed the written order to Lord Lucan, commander of the cavalry division. From above, from where Nolan came, the positions had been clear, down in the valley, they were not. As the brigade marched, Nolan suddenly realized that they were heading into the wrong direction. But before he could inform Lord Cardigan, the leader of the brigade, he was killed by shrapnel. With canons on the left, canons on the right and canons in front, the brigade rode into the mouth of death. They reached the Russian lines, but were driven back by Russian cavalry. Actually, the charge was nothing but a skirmish that lasted about fifteen minutes, but the commanders were public figures in Britain, where a debate started about the responsibility for the deadly mishap. The debacle was ultimately turned into a victorious propaganda pamphlet by the poet Alfred Tennyson.
On October 25th 1983, American troops invaded the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean. Something about a ruler they did not like.
M
montycrusto
Guest
Always amused me that the villain was called “Nogbad The Bad”. Yeah, we get it. He’s bad.
It was a small group, in fact, of Black Power enthusiasts of a Marxist bent who'd staged a coup. At least one of them, Bernard Coard, had some reputation as a political activist in UK, though not at all violent. It was using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut - well, a handful of nuts.
Marcius
Tribune
One hundred and forty years ago today, on 25 October 1881, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano (yep, covering all the saints', erm, bases) María de los Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso was born in Málaga.
So, lots of painting and
, too. 
Marcius
Tribune
I think Coard and his friends started with the assassination of the charismatic Castro-like leader, a certain Maurice Bishop, who was shot along with a bunch of notables... including his pregnant partner-cum-minster of education. It was a mess.