Browsing: History versus Hollywood

A Brief History Hi, I am Dr. Zar from History and Headlines.  In addition to making YouTube videos, I teach college history, including to college credit plus students who are still technically also in high school.  I consider Schindler’s List to be a film suitable for viewing by high school and college age students learning about the history of the Holocaust.  In fact, I still remember seeing the movie in the theater when I was 14 years old and later learning more about the Holocaust in high school German and history classes.  The Cynical Historian’s video as part of #ProjectShoah…

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A Brief History On March 30, 1296, King Edward I of England, often better known as Edward Longshanks, sacked the Scottish town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, part of the ongoing war of England trying to maintain suzerainty over Scotland.  (Which means control of the direction and foreign policy of another nation without total ceding of local control.  Or something like that.)  As Scotland chafed under the English thumb, patriots such as William Wallace, a knight of murky origins, arose to fight the English during the struggle for total independence for Scotland. Digging Deeper Why “Longshanks?”  Meaning “Long Legs,” Edward was quite tall…

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A Brief History On December 6, 2019, we reflect back on our marathon movie watching experience of the previous night, namely the 209 minute long epic blockbuster film from Netflix, an historical crime film supposedly based on real events.  Not only is the movie a long one (3 hours and 29 minutes), it is also an expensive one, with a budget of $159 million, an incredible amount for a streaming app film. Digging Deeper Directed by Martin Scorcese, he of such notable films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Cape Fear (remake), The Aviator, Casino, Shutter Island and The Wolf…

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A Brief History On March 9, 2007, the American period action film titled 300 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters in the United States of America.  The movie is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta (r. 489–480 BC), and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I (r. 486–465 BC) during the second Persian invasion of Greece.  As with any part of classic history, certain elements of historical Sparta are fabricated and romanticized.  From older television series to enormous hits like the film 300, the…

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A Brief History On November 25, 1947, the United States was in the glow of having decisively won World War II and stepping up to become the major economic and military power in the world, the only nation with nuclear bombs.  But.  And this is a big “but,” and not the kind I sit on!  The Soviet Union (USSR) had built a gigantic military force during World War II and proved to be a problematic ally after the war by scooping up as much territory and installing as many puppet governments as they could.  The avowed goal of Soviet communists…

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