Memes about history. Memes about historians. Memes using historical artwork...
...But this is still /r/AskHistorians, which means after your link your meme or memes, you have to explain the joke. Let’s all laugh together.
Obviously, rules about civility, no bigotry, and nothing within the past 20 years/no comparisons with modern politics all apply.
Next time: We return in 2019 by looking at what it was like to be your era’s version of a historian and/or scientist, whatever form that took!
The Joke: The meme itself is so utterly inaccurate it's kind of hilarious in its own right. (Hope this counts.)
First of all, as Gavin Menzies' 1837 conclusively proves, Jesus's middle name was clearly Zheng He. /s
Obvious jokes aside, there's a lot to break down here, so let's go from top to bottom. Firstly, there's a bit of a typographical/nominal error here, as Hong was the family name and should be in bigger text than Xiuquan if we follow the Jesus H. Christ example.
OK, don't worry, this will be the last bit of simple pedantry, I promise.
The first major issue is the surtitle: 'Like 30 Million Died'.
Put simply the actual death toll of the Taiping Civil War is pretty much impossible to ascertain. The only two surviving major censuses date to 1851 and 1911, which show populations of just over and under 450 million, respectively, a singularly unhelpful pair of figures because it's basically impossible to estimate the population drop preceded the recovery up to 1911. The standard estimate of 20 million deaths is derived mainly from a contemporary American observer, whose source is... um... hm. More importantly, reducing the effect of the Taiping Civil War to just a demographic change in this way does an immense disservice to the general understanding of the period (similar to /u/mikedash's issue with the 'Gavrilo Princip eating a sandwich' story here). The Taiping War had immense ramifications in numerous areas. At the domestic political level it set the stage for warlordism by necessatitating the establishment of private provincial armies, at the international level it kicked off a more cooperative phase in Qing-Western relations that remained strong until the early 1880s as a result of the Anglo-French military intervention against the Taiping, and at the social level it both strengthened local elites due to the erosion of central government authority and the creation of elite-controlled transport taxes, and may have had a major role in bringing about the growth of nationalism in China.
The second issue is the title: 'Step Brothers'.
Hong and Jesus were not supposed to be stepbrothers, or half-brothers, but full-on brothers with the same divine parentage. I explain this in more depth here, but to be comparatively brief the Taiping conception of Christian divinity cannot be seen through the Judeo-Christian framework that most Redditors as of writing hold. The Taiping God was a distinctly radically unitarian one, and neither Hong or Jesus claimed actual divine characteristics, only divine descent. This is a significant distinction to make, as while they were special among humanity due to their closer connection to God, they were still nonetheless on some degree equal (although one must also account for their technically being more incarnations of transcendent beings, but that's treading into some really complicated territory that is probably better expressed in graphical form.)
Finally, the concluding statement: 'From the Guys who Brought You the Opium Wars'.
This is something that I actually covered over on /r/badhistory a couple days ago here, but to summarise my main points from there:
To expand on 5 a bit, Britain's actual role in sparking the Taiping Civil War has been horrendously overstated, and the popular narrative has not changed since the 1860s – Britain goes to war in the 1840s, causes chaos, Taiping emerge, Britain cleans up its mess. But this has a couple of massively problematic implications. The first, obvious one is the overstatement of the actual effect of the First Opium War (as pointed out by Joseph Fletcher in The Cambridge History of China 10:1 pp. 351-408, the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing were basically a rehash of those of a treaty with Kokand in 1835 anyway, and thus by no means unprecedented or even that inherently shocking). The second point is that it kind of makes the British intervention against the Taiping justifiable almost as an act of penance, when in reality it was what it was – meddling in another country's civil conflict for economic and imperialistic gain.
Explanation- In June 1945, two months after VE Day (Victory In Europe Day), and before the victory against Japan, Britain held a general election in which Churchill and the Conservatives managed to lose. The joke in this picture is that this is how Churchill must have felt after saving the entire country from Nazi occupation.
I used this in my class on Athenian democracy: Good Guy Thrasyboulos
The Athenian democracy was overthrown twice at the end of the 5th century BC. It is a simplification, but not entirely unfair, to say that it was saved both times by the same guy.
The first time, in 411 BC, an oligarchic council known as the Four Hundred seized power in an attempt to make peace with Sparta and end the Peloponnesian War. The Athenian fleet refused to accept the end of democracy and decided to mutiny against its new government. Asserting that the legitimate democracy of Athens now rested in the fleet, they elected their own commanders to lead the resistance - most important of which was Thrasyboulos. He commanded the fleet, determined its policy, and helped it acquire the help of Alkibiades. His competent leadership was one of the factors that totally delegitimized the regime of the Four Hundred, and it was soon overthrown.
The second time democracy was overthrown was in 403 BC, at the instigation of the victorious Spartans. They installed an oligarchic regime known as the Thirty, which soon became brutally oppressive. Thousands of Athenians had their possessions confiscated, themselves and their families sent into exile or killed. A Spartan garrison enforced the regime, and the democrats at Athens had no friends left in the world. But who led a band of just 70 exiles to take Athens back for democracy? Thrasyboulos, of course. And he won.
It is a strange injustice that modern audiences are familiar with the names of many Athenian oligarchs, tyrants and traitors, but do not know the name of the man we may call the democracy's foremost defender. No one else could claim to have led the resistance against oligarchy, not once, but twice - and to have succeeded both times.
I love /r/historymemes but there is a lot of bad history going on there. The community however is very appreciative of anyone who takes time to correct any mistakes.
I'm sure there is lots of overlap between the subs, but I invite anyone interested to come over and "ruin the joke", we really do appreciate it.
Explanation: The meme refers to the Donation of Pepin, which took place in 756 AD. Prior to this point, the papacy, headquartered in Rome, had been allied/affiliated with the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire (represented by the gold coin in the meme). In the eighth century, the few remaining possessions of the empire in Italy began to be conquered by the Lombards. When the Byzantines didn't come to Rome's defense, Pope Stephen II (the guy on the right) asked for the assistance of the Frankish King Pepin the Short (on the left). Pepin reconquered the territories the Lombards had captured, and placed them directly under the rule of the pope - the titular Donation. In return, Stephen anointed Pepin as king. This marked a transition from the papacy's affiliation with the Eastern Roman Empire to its affiliation with the Franks, which set the stage for Pepin's son Charlemagne to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor with the pope's support.
Do inaccurate memes get deleted?
the meme
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/477300156941860875/525354906350125067/image0.jpg
the explanation: the various leaders of the Roman armies were basically used to coming in and kicking ass, they had their supply chain, tactics, and dirty fighting down pat. they also tended to link their success to their roman style manhood and be quite sure no other cultures really measured up. however when crassus turned his eye towards persia he ended up with a bit of a surprise, the parthian empire didn't necessarily fit Roman ideas of raw military power, and had an awful lot of effort devoted to poetry and such, so crassus got a little cocky, however the parthians had one thing that was a real surprise to the romans: horse archers, with armor even on the horses. they had the mobility to totally knock crassus for a loop for a while, until he managed to regroup and press on and get them to flee. he then followed the fleeing army thinking it was an easy target for a dirty blow from behind, and he got surprise, the archers turning around like fricking owl's heads and shooting at them as they were retreating. today aka the "parthian shot".
although tbh, terry jones explains it better and more humorously in this video about 14 min in
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x42uyeu
my explanation is all tangled up and it sucks.
Explanation: The Sons of Liberty were a major Patriot faction pushing for American Independence before and during the American Revolution. This organization counted many influential Bostonians in its mix such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere. However, the Sons of Liberty also appealed to the lower classes of Boston's society due to the presence of British soldiers in the city because of the Quartering Act of 1765.
These British soldiers were viewed as outsiders that took up odd jobs which came in direct economical competition with the poorer classes in Bostonian society, and tensions flared.
This all peaked during the Boston Massacre in 1770 when a riot broke out between British soldiers and the Sons of Liberty and 5 people were killed.
Later, in 1773, the Sons of Liberty protested further British taxation and "tyranny" by dumping tea from the East India Trading Company into the Boston harbor. The now famous "Boston Tea Party". For many in the more moderate political spectrums, this constituted a lawless mob and destruction of private property. Even colonial sympathizers in Parliament were shocked which prompted Massachusetts Royal Governor to plead Prime Minister Lord North and King George III to take immediate action and make an example of it.
Lord North promptly agreed stating that ""Whatever may be the consequence, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.", so he closed down Boston Harbor and helped push for the Intolerable Acts.
