Wish I had a history class this year. Sucks seeing how the only way to get that class is through advanced placement...

@ Red

Indeed.

France invented the knight....and bayonet? Grenade? Artillery? General? All french in orgin...for good reason.

Until they made the same mistake that everyone made. Invading Russia. During winter.

The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys trope comes from the fact that the french submitted to the German invasion force very quickly during world war 2. the reason for this is that their infrastructure and economy got rocked by the fact that they were one of the major forces during World War 1. Prior to this they were a world superpower for centuries, easily on par with the British empire, and in fact had a fierce rivavlry with them wherein they won easily as many wars as they lost. And that's ignoring all the other wars they were in during those same centuries.

Not to mention the french were still incredibly useful during world war 2. The french rebels successfully forced Germany to station a lot more troops there than they would have otherwise. Even after surrendering, the french were still fighting. Yes, I do not care for that trope.

Honestly, the prevalence of it is America's fault - the British like to poke fun at the french, yeah, but they never do it seriously. The Americans seem to legitimately believe that the french are the worlds biggest cowards.. I'm sorry to the american's here, but your approach to history just bugs me. I've heard about a Canadian who went to Texas to study, and his history professor taught the class that America won world war 2. Like, alone. Because they came in at the last moments and carved a path to Berlin, leaving the rest of the world to clean up their messes.

Yeah...winter always wins.

So...so agree.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:15:43 PM by ApplelightLimited

@Crowlover... Yes, all of them except Sapphire Shores, Spitfire, and Blueblood, actually I just finished Blueblood right now but I think I did something wrong because I don't think he's supposed to look like a douchebag. Since I will have no more room on this sheet of paper the next one will be have Spirfire, Braeburn, Granny Smith, Cheerilee, and whatever I have room left for.

Unless you're the mongal horde. Winter is your friend.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:16:10 PM by latenight

Keg, I'm actually in total agreement with you on this. When I got back to the states for eighth grade, I was a little taken aback at people's belief that France was weak and pitiful.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:20:14 PM by Drenius

@Applelight Exactly why the Windigos are so dangerous...

I think it's probably American movies that are to blame for that.

I remember a statue that my history teacher got REALLY pissed at when she visited america

It was a plaque that honoured those who died in WW 1... according to you americans, that war only went on from 1917 to 1918...

And then there was Poland...who never actually surrendered! They just moved their army to the other side and carried on...in addition to their own resistance movement.

Honestly? I'm sorry...it's Italy who deserve the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey title.

Wait. What!?

edited 4th Apr '12 4:20:28 PM by crowlover

Those years sound wrong but then I took world history and geography for two years and went to international schools for five so my perception is consistently skewed.

Wait, did Italy ever actually do anything? I remember the name Moussolini but All I remember was all the stuff Germany and Japan did.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:23:48 PM by MousaThe14

That's not the only reason. The other reason is that the French, savvy towards the likelihood of another war with Germany, spent the two decades or so between the world wars building up a massive, ridiculously impregnable line of fortresses guarding the entire western side of their country, known as The Maginot Line. Any attempt by the Germans to assault it would have resulted in an overwhelming French victory. Unfortunately for the French, the German army came up with the strategy of simply cutting through neutral Belgium and the Netherlands, bypassing the Line completely and capturing it from behind.

Bit of a history dork, here.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:26:46 PM by Bluespade

That strikes me as simply bizarre, Ginger. My schools always taught us the full history of the war from 1914-1918.

Mousa, you went to International schools too? Whereabouts did you live?

edited 4th Apr '12 4:25:16 PM by Drenius

WW 1 waged from 1914 to 1918, Mousa

And America only fought briefly in 1918.

@Ginger Yeah, someone obviously has some wrong information here. Either your teacher was mistaken, or the memorial was for a specific company/platoon/whatever that served during those years. I've definitely seen plenty of memorials of that nature before.

I thought so, I knew it lasted 4 years but I couldn't remember the specific start and end dates becuase for some reason 1911 and 1913 keep coming to mind which means something important happened during those years prior to the war but not the war itself and I just don't remember.

I was always great at History but Im not exactly a history nerd like the rest of you are.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:27:10 PM by MousaThe14

Dunno what your teacher is smoking Ginger, Ive been out of school for 15+ years now and we were taught the whole thing 1914-1918.

As someone else has said The dates on the plaque were probably for the time the unit served in the war.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:27:38 PM by Turtlebutter

Well my history teacher was British, so we mostly covered the boring parts of the war when noone important was fighting.

The plaque was wrong, not my teacher... in fact she got really REALLY pissed about it

edit: Oh, I think I get it

edited 4th Apr '12 4:28:32 PM by gingerninja666

The assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand.

One of the worst things about WW 1...aside from the pointlessness of it...was that if experts had been paying attention, they could have worked out how it would have ended up.

The American Civil War and The Russio-Japanese war were like WW 1. If they looked at what went wrong...they could have taken steps to stop the bloody and pointless attrition.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:29:40 PM by ApplelightLimited