Recent comments in /f/history

BanjoMothman t1_j06u7ow wrote

Reply to The forgotten history of the US' African American coal towns by StationFrosty

I grew up and still live in an area that is dotted everywhere with tiny mining towns that sprang up during booms in different hollers and have now been abandoned and totally forgotten, with no trace save for maybe a cellar here, a stack there, and the red creek water.

Historic mining towns weren't necessarily meant to last, and have been largely forgotten regardless of who primarily worked them. In my area, though, the African American history of these towns has seen a great resurgence, and people have taken specific interest in preserving the history of the African American towns. Unfortunately the same enthusiasm has not caught on for the Hungarian or German communities that were once near me, many of which are not lucky enough to have even a sign in remembrance of where they once worked and died. I've found that these things usually come in cycles.

Luckily, some people like me have been at least working to research and preserve maps and first-hand accounts throughout the 1800's to early 1900's. It's hard for some people to believe that the back road location that they share with two or three other houses once had 16 saloons and a hotel.

Local history is my favorite to research, and with mining towns it's often easier than people think. That being said, we're still suffering under the heavy burden of a lack of infrastructure, the opioid epidemic, and poverty that keeps people focusing on the "now", understandably so. People from outside of Appalachia often bring a stereotypical view or are disrespectful in their approach, which further exacerbates the problem IMO.

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Plaid_Kaleidoscope t1_j06th1s wrote

Reply to The forgotten history of the US' African American coal towns by StationFrosty

"Once the day's mining or railway track laying was over, Irish immigrants would take out their fiddles and sing ballads. African Americans would play the banjo and sing harmonies; miners from Eastern Europe sang folk songs and played brass instruments.

It was into this dynamic environment that music icon Bill Withers was born in 1938. Withers' contribution to the world of music is legendary. The multi-Grammy-winning artist's songs Ain't No Sunshine, Just The Two Of Us and Lean On Me – inspired by his early days in Slab Fork and nearby Beckley – are world-renowned."

That's incredible! I never knew this. I'm from McDowell and spent many years in southern WV. I'd be interested to go on this tour one day. Wonder if it's motorcycle friendly?

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assholetoall t1_j06rob2 wrote

Reply to comment by fArmageddon2 in Hurricanes Reveal 19th-Century Shipwreck Hidden Beneath Florida Beach by That-Situation-4262

IT guy checking in. We frequently get asked for a complex technology based solution to a problem that can be easily solved by manual efforts (often it's a management problem).

My guess is that digging a hole is a novel idea because people expect some hi-tech method. Ground penetrating radar, ancient ocean predators with lasers, computer modeling, etc.

Just carefully dig a hole and look with Mark 1 eyeball systems.

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zamostc t1_j06k8st wrote

Reply to Bookclub Wednesday! by AutoModerator

I strongly recommend The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, which provides a whole new lens for understanding history.

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Ranger176 t1_j06fqwp wrote

Reply to Bookclub Wednesday! by AutoModerator

Welcome to my yearly book review of all the books I’ve read in 2022. This is actually inaccurate, as I won’t be reviewing all the books I read this year. I’ve decided to only write about the books which made the biggest impression on me. This post will focus on the 9/11 related material I’ve been reading.

The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden by Peter Bergen: This look at Al Qaeda’s leader fills in a seeming drought of bin Laden biographies. Peter Bergen uses a trove of documents recovered during the 2011 raid to flesh out his subject’s life. Some will snicker at Bin Laden’s eccentricities, such as putting hair dye in his graying beard. More serious readers will grapple with the central contradiction of his life: That a man humble enough to sacrifice his life for god was also a narcissistic media whore. Many myths about bin Laden (some of which were self-perpetuated) are dispelled. His publicly stated strategic rationale for 9/11, to draw the US into an unwinnable war and bankrupt it, was just glossing over a gross miscalculation. Using the Beirut barracks bombing and Black Hawk Down incidents as models, bin Laden believed a large and dramatic atrocity would cause the United States to pull out of the Middle East altogether. Needless to say, it backfired. Bin Laden’s incompetence as a military leader is well documented but his personal bravery in the Soviet-Afghan war was well covered in Arab media and helped lead to a flood of donations to the mujahadeen.

If this book has a theme it’s the power of delusion. Bin Laden had many delusions but his unassailable belief in them enabled him to shape the course of history. He was not the only one. As bin Laden was escaping Tora Bora, General Tommy Franks was briefing Donald Rumsfeld on the Iraq War plans. One flaw of this book is Bergen’s tendency to lapse into the first person when discussing his encounter with bin Laden as part of CNN in the 90’s. It’s a jarring shift in perspective which makes one feel like you’re reading a different book. A single, dedicated chapter would have sufficed. Neither was I convinced by Bergen’s contention that bin Laden’s father influenced his path to Jihad. Bin Laden claimed that his father had said one of his sons would go on to wage Jihad, yet this was said during one of his many self-aggrandizing interviews in the 90s. Further, according to Bergen’s account the two had no real relationship before the elder bin Laden’s death in a plane crash in 1967. Given his penchant for inventing myths and post facto motives for himself this claim feels suspect. No doubt this and other details will be debated for decades to come but overall this is a great book for those looking for a detailed portrait of 9/11’s mastermind.

FBI 9/11 Operation Encore files: This isn’t a book but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about this. For those who don’t know, the FBI has released thousands of pages of documents about its investigation into Saudi links to 9/11. Most of what’s in them has been known for years but there are some new revelations. In the interest of staying purely historical, I’m going to avoid speculation and stick to what the files do definitively prove. I’m also going to be writing as if you’re already familiar with this topic to save time. Here’s a good primer to catch up.

There are three things these files do prove:

  1. Bayoumi was in fact a Saudi spy. He received a stipend from the Saudi GIP.
  2. Contrary to his assertions, Bayoumi was an extremist. A witness quotes him as saying the Muslim community needed to ”take action” and was ”at Jihad”. He also had connections to other terrorist elements besides the hijackers.
  3. His meeting with the hijackers was not a coincidence. A witness variously named Caisin bin Don/Isamu Dyson/Clayton Morgan says Bayoumi drove to the restaurant, waited by the window for them to arrive, and approached them from such a distance where it would have been impossible for him to have overheard them i.e. it was a planned meeting.

The files go on to say “there’s a 50/50 chance” Bayoumi knew about 9/11 beforehand.

In many ways this is unsatisfying since it still doesn’t definitively answer the big question of if Saudi officials had foreknowledge of 9/11. On the other hand, it only adds to the suspicion and keeps interest in this case alive. I look forward to any new revelations.

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ElleEast t1_j067p1s wrote

Reply to comment by ModSquirtle in An Investigation into Vlad Tepes by MiguelPolimatus

he is, and probably Stoker got the name from a book on Transilvanian history.. what I'm saying is that there's no mention at all in the novel that Dracula is Vlad, he tells a story to Jonathan about his ancesters, and mixes the story of different characters, like Vlad II into Radu, or Radu's history like it was Mircea's

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