If history textbooks were more like this Instagram account, maybe more kids would open them. Or at least try to.

History Memes Explained is a social media project with a simple mission: to collect and dissect the best memes about our past.

From famous figures and funny maps to cold-hearted betrayals and memorable battles, History Memes Explained has a little something for everyone, and the pictures are as amusing as the explanations are educational.

Continue scrolling and check out some of its most popular posts.

More info: Instagram

#1

In 1998, a North Korean submarine became entangled in a fishing net in South Korean waters. A South Korean fishing boat observed the crew trying to untangle the submarine from the fishing net. The fishing boat notified the South Korean Navy, who towed the submarine with the crew still inside to a nearby navy base. The submarine sank as it was being towed into port, it was unclear if this was as a result of damage or a deliberate scuttling by the crew. On 25 June the submarine was salvaged from a depth of approximately 100 feet and the bodies of 9 crewmen were recovered, 5 sailors had apparently been murdered while 4 agents had apparently committed suicide. The presence of South Korean drinks suggested that the crew had completed an espionage mission. Log books found in the submarine showed that it had infiltrated South Korean waters on a number of previous occasions.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#2

If one believes in omens, there were a number of reasons for Caesar not to attend the Senate meeting that day. First, Caesar’s horses that were grazing on the banks of the Rubicon were seen to weep. Next, a bird flew into the Theater of Pompey with a sprig of laurel but was quickly devoured by a larger bird. Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia had a dream of him bleeding to death in her arms. And lastly, a soothsayer named Spurinna warned him to beware of danger no later than the Ides of March. Unfortunately, Caesar put little faith in omens. A large crowd accompanied Caesar on his way to the Senate. Just as he entered the theater a man named Artemidorus tried to warn him of eminent danger by thrusting a small scroll into his hand, but Caesar ignored it. The dictator entered and sat on his throne. Cimber approached the unsuspecting Caesar and handed him a petition on behalf of his exiled brother; Caesar, of course, did not rise to greet him. Cimber grabbed at Caesar’s toga and pulled it back. Caesar reportedly said, “Why, this is violence?” Casca dealt the first blow with his knife; Caesar immediately tried to defend himself by raising his hands to cover his face. The remaining conspirators surrounded the shocked Caesar - Cassius struck him in the face, Decimus to the ribs. Caesar collapsed, dead, ironically at the foot of a statue of his old enemy Pompey. In all there were twenty-three blows. Despite the beautiful words of William Shakespeare Caesar did not say “E tu, Brute!” (You, too, Brutus!) as Brutus plunged his dagger into the dying dictator but “You, too, my child!”

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#3

Slavery in ancient Rome differed from its modern forms in that it was not based on race. But like modern slavery, it was an abusive and degrading institution. Cruelty was commonplace. Slavery had a long history in the ancient world and was practiced in Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as Rome. Slaves in Rome might include prisoners of war, sailors captured and sold by pirates, or slaves bought outside Roman territory. In hard times, it was not uncommon for desperate Roman citizens to raise money by selling their children into slavery. All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. Although Romans accepted slavery as the norm, some people - like the poet and philosopher, Seneca - argued that slaves should at least be treated fairly.

Slaves worked everywhere - in private households, in mines and factories, and on farms. They also worked for city governments on engineering projects such as roads, aqueducts and buildings. As a result, they merged easily into the population. In fact, slaves looked so similar to Roman citizens that the Senate once considered a plan to make them wear special clothing so that they could be identified at a glance. The idea was rejected because the Senate feared that, if slaves saw how many of them were working in Rome, they might be tempted to join forces and rebel. Another difference between Roman slavery and its more modern variety was manumission - the ability of slaves to be freed. Roman owners freed their slaves in considerable numbers: some freed them outright, while others allowed them to buy their own freedom.

The prospect of possible freedom through manumission encouraged most slaves to be obedient and hard working. Formal manumission was performed by a magistrate and gave freed men full Roman citizenship. The one exception was that they were not allowed to hold office. However, the law gave any children born to freedmen, after formal manumission, full rights of citizenship, including the right to hold office. Informal manumission gave fewer rights. Slaves freed informally did not become citizens and any property or wealth they accumulated reverted to their former owners when they died. Once freed, former slaves could work in the same jobs as plebeians - as craftsmen, midwives or traders. Some even became wealthy. However, Rome's rigid society attached importance to social status and even successful freedmen usually found the stigma of slavery hard to overcome - the degradation lasted well beyond the slavery itself.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#4

Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. For nearly three weeks, the protesters kept up daily vigils, and marched and chanted. Western reporters captured much of the drama for television and newspaper audiences in the United States and Europe.

Turmoil ensued, as tens of thousands of the young students tried to escape the rampaging Chinese forces. Other protesters fought back, stoning the attacking troops and overturning and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats on the scene estimated that at least 300, and perhaps thousands, of the protesters had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested. The savagery of the Chinese government's attack shocked both its allies and Cold War enemies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared that he was saddened by the events in China. In the United States, editorialists and members of Congress denounced the Tiananmen Square massacre and pressed for President George Bush to punish the Chinese government. A little more than three weeks later, the U.S. Congress voted to impose economic sanctions against the People’s Republic of China in response to the brutal violation of human rights.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#5

On September 1, 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air. World War II had begun. The invasion of Poland was a primer on how Germany intended to wage war-—what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. Germany's blitzkrieg approach was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks and artillery. This proved highly effective against the Poles, who's military has much less mechanized vehicles and tanks when compared to the Germans and were unable to counter the rapidly maneuvering forces.

After the German forces had plowed their way through, devastating a swath of territory, infantry moved in, picking off any remaining resistance. The Polish army made several severe strategic miscalculations early on. Although 1 million strong, the Polish forces were severely under-equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on, rather than falling back to more natural defensive positions. The outmoded thinking of the Polish commanders coupled with the antiquated state of its military were simply no match for the overwhelming and modern-mechanized German forces. And, of course, any hope the Poles might have had of a Soviet counter-response was dashed with the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Nonaggression Pact. Great Britain would respond with bombing raids over Germany three days later.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#6

During the Eisenhower era, Americans achieved a level of prosperity they'd never known before. While other parts of the world struggled to rebuild from the devastation of World War II, citizens of the United States saw their standard of living surpass what previous generations had only dreamed about.

Eisenhower himself deserves a good deal of credit for this economic growth. He found the right combination of low taxes, balanced budgets, and public spending that allowed the economy to prosper.

The economy also benefitted from steady growth in spending on new homes and consumer goods as citizens began to buy on credit. The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower's efforts to balance the federal budget.

Unemployment remained low, about 4.5%. Many factors came together to produce the '50s boom. The GI Bill gave veterans an affordable college education, providing a pool of highly-educated employees to the work force. Cheap oil from U.S. wells fueled industry. Advances in science and technology improved productivity, while competitors in Europe and Asia were still recovering from World War II. One of the factors that fueled the prosperity of the '50s was the increase in consumer spending. Americans enjoyed a standard of living that no other country could approach.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#7

The Scramble for Africa began with the Berlin Conference (1884-85) and ended by the early twentieth century. During this period, European colonizers partitioned Africa into spheres of influence, colonies, and various segments. They partitioned land from European capitals, with limited knowledge of the geography, history, and ethnic composition of Africa. In many African countries, a significant portion of their population belongs to groups split by colonial partitions.

European powers completed cartographic surveys of territories through boundary commissions from 1900-1930, which allowed total control of colonies. However, these focused solely on land control and disregarded the impacts of partitioning on ethnic groups. Artificial borders split many closely related ethnic groups into different colonial regions. In the Horn of Africa, for instance, they split Somalis into French Somaliland, British Somalia, Italian Somalia, Ethiopian Somalia, and the Somali region of northern Kenya. Such colonial borders have massive effects on Somali people who share a common culture, a similar way of life, and the same religion, but live as separate citizens of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya. Similarly, the Afar people of Ethiopia were split amongst Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, and the Anyuaa and Nuer were split between Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Following artificial border designs, African communities could not move freely in their daily activities and nomadic practices, which inflicted economic hardship and social inconvenience. Changing the lifestyle and structural systems of African communities negatively affected their traditional life, administrative structures, and economic well-being. This deprived African borderland communities of economic opportunity by hindering their movements, and forcing them to live differently than their traditional life. For example, many Africans are pastoralist and nomadic people that need vast land for grazing and water. However, artificial borders limited borderland people to herding on limited land and forced them into resource competition and confrontation due to limited mobility with other borderland peoples.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#8

On Oct. 13, 1943, one month after Italy surrendered to Allied forces, it declared war on Nazi Germany, its onetime Axis powers partner. Italy was led into the war by Benito Mussolini, the fascist prime minister who had formed an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1936. In the summer of 1943, as Allied forces landed in Sicily, public support for the war and for Mussolini diminished. Mussolini was ousted on July 25 and his replacement, Gen. Pietro Badoglio, sought peace with the Allies, and reached an armistice on Sept. 3. Germany, which had troops stationed throughout Italy, proceeded with an occupation of the country, and seized strongholds from a disorganized Italian military.

In the Oct. 14 New York Times, the correspondent Milton Bracker noted that the Allied leadership believed that the Italian military would be of use in driving out the Germans: “Italian hatred of the Germans unquestionably grew as the fighting spirit waned, and episodes between German and Italian soldiers and civilians before and after the armistice have shown pretty clearly a complete and incontrovertible end of all sympathy between the former Axis partners. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to take advantage of the Italians’ willingness, even eagerness, to pin their hopes of a better role in the peace settlement to the status of co-belligerency now.” Allied forces advanced slowly and arduously north through the Italian peninsula before finally defeating Nazi forces in May 1945. Mussolini, who was rescued by the Nazis from an Italian prison and made the leader of a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, in parts of Italy not occupied by Allied forces, was captured and executed by members of the Italian Partisan Resistance.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#9

At the outbreak of World War 1, the French Army retained the colourful traditional uniforms of the nineteenth century for active service wear. These included conspicuous features such as blue coats and red trousers for the infantry and cavalry. The French cuirassiers wore plumed helmets and breastplates almost unchanged from the Napoleonic period.

From 1903 on several attempts had been made to introduce a more practical field dress but these had been opposed by conservative opinion both within the army and amongst the public at large. In particular, the red trousers worn by the infantry became a political debating point.

Adolphe Messimy who was briefly Minister of War in 1911-1912 stated that "This stupid blind attachment to the most visible of colours will have cruel consequences"; however, in the following year, one of his successors, Eugène Étienne, declared "Abolish red trousers? Never!" The very heavy French losses during the Battle of the Frontiers can be attributed in part to the high visibility of the French uniforms, combined with peacetime training which placed emphasis on attacking in massed formations.

The shortcomings of the uniforms were quickly realized and during the first quarter of 1915 general distribution of horizon-blue clothing in simplified patterns had been undertaken.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#10

The Emu War was a military operation undertaken in Australia over the latter part of 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be running amok in the Campion district of Western Australia. The unsuccessful attempts to curb the population of emus, a large flightless bird indigenous to Australia, employed soldiers armed with Lewis guns—leading the media to adopt the name "Emu War" when referring to the incident. While a number of the birds were killed, the emu population persisted and continued to cause crop destruction.

The 'war' was conducted under the command of Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery, with Meredith commanding soldiers Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O'Hallora, armed with two Lewis guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.The operation was delayed, however, by a period of rainfall that caused the emus to scatter over a wider area.The rain ceased by 2 November 1932, at which point the troops were deployed with orders to assist the farmers. However, a series of technical problems, combined with the Emu's superior maneuverability and ability to sustain multiple bullets, meant that the efforts were largely unsuccessful, and no significant impact was made on the population of the birds. Meredith would go on to state that "Emus can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop."

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#11

Writing in his book Creativity Inc, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull recalled that in the winter of 1998, a year out from the release of Toy Story 2, somebody (he never reveals who in the book) entered a computer command on the drives where the film's files were kept. The object of said command is to remove everything from a given location, and to remove it quickly. It did its job. "First, Woody's hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely," recalls Catmull. "Whole sequences—poof!—were deleted from the drive." One of the film's technical directors, Oren Jacobs, watched it all happen in real time. His call to systems support started with him telling them to “pull out the plug on the Toy Story 2 master machine." When asked why by the person on the other end of the phone (a not-unreasonable question), Jacobs screamed “Please, God, just pull it out as fast as you can.”

The plug was pulled, but not in time—90% of the film was gone, erased "in a matter of seconds." And it got worse. A plan was quickly hatched to restore the data from a regular backup, which meant that only half a day of work would have been lost. But the backup system had failed. Pixar, incredibly, did not have a copy of the Toy Story 2 files on its servers. "To reassemble the film would have taken thirty people a solid year," Catmull recalled. Toy Story 2 looked doomed. Yet it was saved by something akin to blind luck. Galyn Susman was Toy Story 2's supervising technical director, and after she'd given birth to her second child, she'd been working from home. As such, once a week, she'd taken an entire copy of the film home with her.

A minute later, she was zooming home. Her computer was wrapped in blankets and put on the backseat of her car ("carefully"). In Oren's words, the computer was then "carried into Pixar like an Egyptian pharaoh." While work had been lost, Susman's backup files limited the damage significantly. Furthermore, given the size of Pixar at the time—which was still years away from being the company big enough to merge with Disney—her computer may just have saved the firm (at least in the form that we know it). Unsurprisingly, Pixar put into place processes that stopped this ever happening again. And, crucially, Toy Story 2 just about made its deadline.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#12

During World War Il, the attitudes towards medics and the wounded depended on the theater and the combatants. In North Africa and Western Europe, most soldiers of both sides were generally willing to forebear targeting medical personnel and arrange local truces to allow medical treatment and evacuation of wounded. If one side deliberately targeted medics in a particular incident, the other side might retaliate. There was an advantage to both sides to observe the niceties because the soldiers of both sides knew that they might be wounded and in need of medical attention and respect for the rules of war could benefit them. In the Pacific, there were no such niceties.

In the Pacific, at times both sides considered medical personnel legitimate targets. That being said, US medics would try to take care of Japanese wounded (if it did not entail too much risk), but there is not a lot of evidence of that Japanese soldiers reciprocated. The intense hostility of the Pacific theater is described in this personal account from US Marine E.B. Sledge, who served in Okinawa:

“Toward the end of the Okinawa campaign, we found this emaciated Japanese in the the bunk of what may have been a field hospital. We were on a patrol. There had been torrential rains for two weeks. The foxholes were filled with water. Pitiful. This buddy of mine picked him up and carried him out. Laid him out in the mud. There was no other place to put him... We were sittin’ on our helmets waitin' for the medical corpsman to check him out. He was very docile. We figured he couldn't get up. Suddenly he pulled a Japanese grenade out of his G-string. He jerked the pin out and hit on his fist to pop open the cap. He was gonna make hamburger of me and by buddy and himself. I yelled, "Look out!" So my buddy said, "You son of a b*tch. If that's how you feel about it-" He pulled out his .45 and shot him right between the eyes.”

- E.B. Sledge, Marine Rifleman

Needless to say, the ferocity and intensity of the war in the Pacific was pretty horrific.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#13

In the early Middle Ages, the most important calculation, and thus one of the main motivations for the European study of mathematics, was the problem of when to celebrate Easter. The First Council of Nicaea, in A.D. 325, had decided that Easter would fall on the Sunday following the full moon that follows the spring equinox. Computus (Latin for computation) was the procedure for calculating this most important date, and the computations were set forth in documents known as Easter tables. It was on one such table that, in A.D. 525, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor introduced the A.D. system, counting the years since the birth of Christ. "A.D." stands for anno domini, Latin for “in the year of the lord,” and refers specifically to the birth of Jesus Christ. "B.C." stands for "before Christ." In English, it is common for "A.D." to precede the year, so that the translation of "A.D. 2014" would read "in the year of our lord 2014." The addition of the B.C. component happened two centuries after Dionysius, when the Venerable Bede of Northumbria published his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" in 731. Up until this point, Dionysius’ system had been widely used. Bede’s work not only brought the A.D. system to the attention of other scholars, but also expanded the system to include years before A.D. 1. Prior years were numbered to count backward to indicate the number of years an event had occurred “before Christ” or “B.C.”

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#14

On October 28, 1940, Mussolini's army, already occupying Albania, invades Greece in what will prove to be a disastrous military campaign for Italy's forces. Mussolini surprised everyone with this move against Greece; even his ally, Adolf Hitler, was caught off- guard, especially since the Italian leader had led Hitler to believe he had no such intention. Hitler denounced the move as a major strategic blunder. According to Hitler, Mussolini should have concentrated on North Africa, continuing the advance into Egypt. Even Mussolini's own chief of army staff found out about the invasion only after the fact.

Despite being warned off an invasion of Greece by his own generals, despite the lack of preparedness on the part of his military, Mussolini moved ahead out of sheer hubris, convinced he could defeat the Greeks in a matter of days. He also knew a secret, that millions of lire had been put aside to bribe Greek politicians and generals not to resist the Italian invasion. Whether the money ever made it past the Italian fascist agents delegated with the responsibility is unclear; if it did, it clearly made no difference whatsoever-the Greeks succeeded in pushing the Italian invaders back into Albania after just one week, and the Axis power spent the next three months fighting for its life in a defensive battle. To make matters worse, virtually half the Italian fleet at Taranto had been crippled by a British carrier-based attack. Mussolini had been humiliated.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#15

Charles V (1500-1558) likely chose these specific languages for these reasons:

• Spanish as the language of religion, due to the Spanish Inquisition from 1478, intented to maintain Catholic orthodoxy.

• Italian as the language of love (self-explanatory).

• French as the language of diplomacy and of many Royal courts (there were few women engaged in diplomacy at the time).

• German as the language of The Holy Roman Empire, which represented strength, conquest and This alluded to the fact that his horse is a warhorse.

Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, as well as the King of Spain. As he was head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century, his dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy, and a unified Spain with its southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Furthermore, his reign encompassed both the long- lasting Spanish and the short-lived German colonizations of the Americas. The union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the Sun never sets".

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#16

The death and destruction of World War | was so horrible that it was called “the war to end all wars.” Yet, the agreement to end World War | did not resolve the problems of the world and, according to some historians, lead directly to the next catastrophe: World War II. The major causes of World War II were numerous. They include the impact of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI, the worldwide economic depression, failure of appeasement, the rise of militarism in Germany and Japan, and the failure of the League of Nations.

The whole world was hit by an economic depression in the late 1920s. In a depression, economies shrink, trade is re- duced, businesses close, prices fall, banks fail, and unemployment rises. Sometimes during a depression, people look for a strong political leader to resolve their problems. In 1933, Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany by promising to restore German wealth and power. Hitler immediately began secretly building up Germany's army and weapons. Although Britain and France knew of Hitler's actions, they thought a stronger Germany would stop the spread of Communism from Russia. In 1936 Hitler ordered German troops to enter the German-speaking areas of the Rhineland (France), Austria, and Czechoslovakia. At this point neither France nor Britain was prepared to go to war. In 1936, Hitler made alliances with Italy and Japan. The military alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan was called the Axis Powers.

Appeasement meant agreeing to the demands of another nation in order to avoid conflict. During the 1930s, politicians in Britain and France began to believe that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to Germany and that Hitler's actions were understandable and justifiable. This belief, adopted by Britain, was the Policy of Appeasement. An example of appeasement was the Munich Agreement of September 1938. In the Agreement, Britain and France allowed Germany to annex areas in Czechoslovakia where German-speakers lived. Germany agreed not to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia or any other country. In March 1939, Germany broke its promise and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Neither Britain nor France was prepared to take military action. Then, on September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland. Britain and France immediately declared war on Germany. World War II had begun in Europe.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#17

Lasting approximately four hours, the German ground campaign against Denmark was one of the shortest military operations of the Second World War. Denmark's military forces were inferior in numbers and equipment (some units were even equipped with bicycles for transportation), and after a short battle were forced to surrender. After fewer than two hours of struggle, the Danish Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning stopped the opposition to the German attack, for fear that the Germans would bomb Copenhagen, as they had done with Warsaw during the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Due to communication difficulties, some Danish forces continued to fight, but after a further two hours, all opposition had stopped.

Denmark's strategic importance for Germany was limited. The invasion's primary purpose was to use Denmark as a staging ground for operations against Norway, and to secure supply lines to the forces about to be deployed there. An extensive network of radar systems was built in Denmark to detect British bombers bound for Germany. The attack on Denmark was a breach of the non- aggression pact Denmark had signed with Germany less than a year earlier. The initial plan was to push Denmark to accept that German land, naval and air forces could use Danish bases, but Adolf Hitler subsequently demanded that both Norway and Denmark be invaded.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#18

Beginning in February 2007, Zimbabwe went through a period of massive hyperinflation. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government stopped filing official inflation statistics. The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid- November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month. This resulted in 1 U.S. dollar becoming equivalent to 2,621,984,228 Zimbabwe dollars. In April 2009, Zimbabwe stopped printing its currency, with currencies from other countries being used. In mid-2015, Zimbabwe announced plans to have completely switched to the United States dollar by the end of that year.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#19

Countries are calling on the British Museum to return looted items like the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and 4,000 bronze sculptures from the Kingdom of Benin. What happens when a large portion of your country’s archaeological treasures are “owned” by another country that stole them? That's the position several nations around the world find themselves in, with most of their cultural heritage residing in museums in other countries—but especially London's British Museum. Take Nigeria, for example. In 1897, British troops stole some 4,000 sculptures after invading the Kingdom of Benin (now southwestern Nigeria). Over a century later, surviving bronzes are on display at museums around the world, but not in Nigeria, their country of origin.

Nigeria has been asking the U.K. to return its Benin bronzes for decades, and in late 2018, the countries struck a deal in which the British Museum will send some bronzes to Nigeria for the Royal Museum the country plans to open in 2021. But crucially, the British Museum says it is only loaning the sculptures —it still expects Nigeria to return the goods that Britain stole. Also notable is the Gwaegal shield, which the British stole from Aboriginal Australians in the late 18th century. Similarly to the Benin bronzes, the British Museum refused to repatriate the Gwaegal shield to Australia for a 2016 museum exhibit. Instead, the British Museum loaned the shield and reclaimed it afterward. The list of stolen artifacts the British Museum refuses to give up goes on and on. Egypt wants its Rosetta Stone back and Easter Island has asked the museum to return its Moai head statue.

Even Greece, a fellow member of the E.U., wants the museum to return some Parthenon marbles that are often called the “Elgin marbles” after the Scottish nobleman who took them. Of all the European countries with stolen artifacts, France has been the most responsive to calls for repatriation. The Quai Branly Museum in Paris will return 26 stolen objects to the country of Benin (not to be confused with Nigeria's former Kingdom of Benin). He has also said he wants to change French law so that France must return stolen objects whenever a country asks for them back. In contrast, the British Museum has specifically said that it has no plans to repatriate stolen artifacts. In response to the Quai Branly Museum's return of 26 items, British Museum Director Hartwig Fischer told The New York Times that “the collections have to be preserved as whole.” The pressure to return them, however, will likely continue.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#20

The Christmas Truce occurred on and around Christmas Day 1914, when the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding faded in a number of places along the Western Front during World War | in favor of holiday celebrations. During the unofficial ceasefire, soldiers on both sides of the conflict emerged from the trenches and shared gestures of goodwill. Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops fighting in World War | sang Christmas carols to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.

At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man’‘s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. Some Germans lit Christmas trees around their trenches, and there was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good- natured game of soccer. Some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task: the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no- man’s land between the lines.

The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of war in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers’ essential humanity endured. During World War I, the soldiers on the Western Front did not expect to celebrate on the battlefield, but even a world war could not destroy the Christmas spirit.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#21

Luxembourg was a founding member of the United Nations, being signatory to the original 1942 declaration, so they certainly felt some level of obligation to participate in the United Nations military mission to Korea. There was a drive to increase the military abilities of the smaller member nations, and Korea presented a strong opportunity for that, resulting in most nations contributing to the UN military mission. However, being a very tiny country, with an equally tiny military - even with universal conscription - they weren't able to send over a contingent capable of anything approaching self-sufficiency, so their small contingent (smallest of any country in Korea) was folded into the ~900 man Belgian military contribution to the conflict.

Attaching themselves to the Belgians not without precedence as Luxembourgian soldiers has been similarly attached during World War II, as part of the Free Belgian forces. Although originally outfitted with British surplus, the Belgian/Luxembourg force fell under the command of the US. Being within the US military umbrella they were reequipped with US hardware. It is hard to say whether they made a difference as that is a tough thing to evaluate, but we can say that they did their part, seeing action in a number of engagements, both big and small, and earning multiple US Presidential Unit Citations. The unit stayed in the war until 1953. Throughout the course of the conflict, it suffered two men killed in action, with 17 wounded.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#22

Kamikaze were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units who initiated suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II. About 3,800 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks.

Kamikaze aircraft were essentially pilot-guided explosive missiles, purpose-built or converted from conventional aircraft. Pilots would attempt to crash their aircraft into enemy ships in what was called a "body attack" in planes laden with some combination of explosives, bombs, and torpedoes. Accuracy was much higher than that of conventional attacks, and the payload and explosion larger; about 19% of kamikaze attacks were successful. A kamikaze could sustain damage that would disable a conventional attacker and still achieve its objective. The goal of crippling or destroying large numbers of Allied ships, particularly aircraft carriers, was considered by the Empire of Japan to be a just reason for sacrificing pilots and aircraft.

These attacks, which began in October 1944, followed several critical military defeats for the Japanese. They had long since lost aerial dominance as a result of having outdated aircraft and enduring the loss of experienced pilots. Japan suffered from a diminishing capacity for war and a rapidly declining industrial capacity relative to that of the Allies. Japan was also losing pilots faster than it could train their replacements. These combined factors, along with Japan's unwillingness to surrender, led to the use of kamikaze tactics as Allied forces advanced towards the Japanese home islands.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#23

On July 28, 1914, one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, effectively beginning the First World War. Threatened by Serbian ambition in the tumultuous Balkans region of Europe, Austria-Hungary determined that the proper response to the assassinations was to prepare for a possible military invasion of Serbia. After securing the unconditional support of its powerful ally, Germany, Austria- Hungary presented Serbia with a rigid ultimatum on July 23, 1914, demanding, among other things, that all anti-Austrian propaganda within Serbia be suppressed, and that Austria-Hungary be allowed to conduct its own investigation into the archduke's killing.

Meanwhile, alerted to the impending crisis, Russia— Serbia's own mighty supporter in the Balkans— began its own initial steps towards military mobilization against Austria. In the days following the Austrian break in relations with Serbia, the rest of Europe, including Russia's allies, Britain and France, looked on with trepidation, fearing the imminent outbreak of a Balkans conflict that, if entered into by Russia, threatened to explode into a general European war. The British Foreign Office lobbied its counterparts in Berlin, Paris and Rome with the idea of an international convention aimed at moderating the conflict; the German government, however, was set against this notion, and advised Vienna to go ahead with its plans.

On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. In response, Russia formally ordered mobilization. That night, Austrian artillery divisions initiated a brief, ineffectual bombardment of Belgrade across the Danube River. On August 1, after its demands for Russia to halt mobilization met with defiance, Germany declared war on Russia. Russia’s ally, France, ordered its own general mobilization that same day, and on August 3, France and Germany declared war on each other. The German army's planned invasion of neutral Belgium, announced on August 4, prompted Britain to declare war on Germany. Thus, in the summer of 1914, the major powers in the Western world—with the exception of the United States and Italy, both of which declared their neutrality, at least for the time being—flung themselves headlong into the First World War.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#24

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug trafficker who eventually controlled over 80 percent of the cocaine shipped to the U.S., earning him the rank of one of Forbes Magazine's 10 wealthiest people in the world. It wasn’t by chance that Colombia came to dominate the cocaine trade. Beginning in the early 1970s, the country became a prime smuggling ground for marijuana. Escobar moved quickly to grab control of the cocaine trade. In 1975, drug trafficker Fabio Restrepo from the city of Medellin, Colombia, was murdered. His killing, it’s believed, came at the orders of Escobar, who immediately seized power and expanded Restrepo’s operation into something the world had never seen.

As a young man, Escobar told friends and family that he wanted to become president of Colombia. He continued to have political ambitions in adulthood. In 1982 Escobar was elected as an alternate member of Colombia's Congress. But the reasons for his wealth could not stay hidden, and two years after his election he was forced to resign. The justice minister who revealed Escobar's notorious background was later slain. Escobar was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including politicians, civil servants, journalists and ordinary citizens. Escobar was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including politicians, civil servants, journalists and ordinary citizens. Colombian law enforcement finally caught up to the fugitive Escobar on December 2, 1993. A firefight ensued and as Escobar tried to escape across a series of rooftops, he were shot and killed.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#25

For centuries, the tiny Alpine nation of Switzerland has adhered to a policy of armed neutrality in global affairs. How did it earn its unique place in world politics? The earliest moves toward Swiss neutrality date to 1515, when the Swiss Confederacy suffered a devastating loss to the French at the Battle of Marignano. It was the Napoleonic Wars, however, that truly sealed Switzerland’s place as a neutral nation. Switzerland was invaded by France in 1798 and later made a satellite of Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire, forcing it to compromise its neutrality. But after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the major European powers concluded that a neutral Switzerland would serve as a valuable buffer zone between France and Austria and contribute to stability in the region. During 1815’s Congress of Vienna, they signed a declaration affirming Switzerland’s “perpetual neutrality” within the international community. A more significant challenge to Swiss neutrality came during World War II, when the country found itself encircled by the Axis powers. While Switzerland maintained its independence by promising retaliation in the event of an invasion, it continued to trade with Nazi Germany, a decision that later proved controversial after the war ended.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#26

"The audience exploded into applause. Every person in the room jumped up and began to wildly clap, as if racing each other to see who could get to their feet the fastest. The applause was all to honor the dictator Joseph Stalin at a 1937 conference of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. But the big question soon became: Who would have the nerve to be the first person to stop clapping in honor of Comrade Stalin? No one had the courage, so the clapping went on...and on...and on.” You might be wondering why in the world anyone would be afraid to stop clapping for any leader. To understand this, you need to know Joseph Stalin. Stalin was a ruthless dictator who ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952. Although no one knows the precise number of political prisoners he executed, estimates usually reach well over a million.

So when people were afraid to stop clapping for Stalin, they had good reason. Here is how the Nobel Prize-winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the surreal scene in his great book, The Gulag Archipelago: “The applause went on—six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn't stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly...Nine minutes! Ten!...Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers.”

At last, after eleven minutes of non-stop clapping, the director of a paper factory finally decided enough was enough. He stopped clapping and sat down—a miracle! “To aman, everyone else stopped dead and sat down,” Solzhenitsyn says. That same night, the director of the paper factory was arrested and sent to prison for ten years. Authorities came up with some official reason for his sentence, but during his interrogation, he was told: “Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!" Solzhenitsysn himself was a victim of Stalin's because he was sent to the Gulag labor camps for eight years for criticizing Stalin in a letter toa friend.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#27

US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin had a weird relationship. There was the time the Russian president gave the U.S. president a pair of hockey jerseys that said “Yeltsin 96" and “Clinton 96.” There was also the time Clinton doubled over laughing when Yeltsin called the U.S. press “a disaster” at a press conference. But perhaps the weirdest incident in their professional relationship was when Yeltsin got drunk and wandered into the street in his underwear, trying to get a pizza. The incident happened during Yeltsin and Clinton's first meeting in Washington in September 1994.

Although there were glancing media reports about it over the years, it wasn’t widely reported on until 2009, when author Taylor Branch published his book The Clinton Tapes, based on his interviews with the president. “Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi," Branch wrote in his book. “Yeltsin slurred his words in a loud argument with the baffled agents. He did not want to go back into Blair House, where he was staying. He wanted a taxi to go out for pizza.” When Branch asked Clinton how the situation ended, the president shrugged and said, “Well, he got his pizza.” Yeltsin was carefully escorted back to Blair House, the traditional residence for visiting heads of state in Washington, by the Secret Service.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#28

If you ask people to name the victorious Allied Powers in World War II, Mexico isn't usually a name that comes to mind. But after declaring war against the Axis in mid-1942, Mexico did contribute to the Allied victory in important ways. Despite long standing tensions with the United States, Mexico would become a valuable ally to its northern neighbor, ramping up its industrial production and contributing vital resources to the Allied war effort. In addition, thousands of Mexican nationals living in the United States registered for military service during World War II. Mexico's own elite air squadron, known as the Aztec Eagles, flew dozens of missions alongside the U.S. Air Force during the liberation of the Philippines in 1945.

The Aztec Eagles (including 33 pilots and more than 270 support personnel) arrived in Manila Bay in the Philippines on April 30, 1945. Over the next few months, they flew 795 combat sorties and logged almost 2,000 hours of flying time, including conducting bombing missions over Luzon and Formosa and providing support for U.S. airmen. Seven pilots from Squadron 201 died in the conflict; the surviving members returned to a heroes’ welcome in Mexico after Japan’s surrender. The squadron played an important symbolic role, inspiring national and cultural pride among Mexicans at home and helping to keep them invested in the war effort.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#29

The Polish-Austrian army that defeated the Ottoman army and lifted the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 discovered several sacks of dry, dark brown beans among the booty left behind by the retreating enemy. Unaware of their purpose or value, Polish king Jan III Sobieski gave the sacks of useless beans to an officer named Jerzy Kulczycki. Kulczycki was well aware of just how valuable the beans were, having learned about coffee during time spent in Turkish captivity. Kulczycki is often credited with adapting coffee to European tastes by adding milk and sugar to the strong, bitter Turkish drink. At any rate, the first recognized coffee house in Europe was opened by Johannes Theodat in 1685, just two years later!

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#30

In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Although it was crushed after a week of fighting, the Easter Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence. In the December 1918 election, the republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. On 21 January 1919 they formed a breakaway government (Dail Eireann) and declared Irish independence. That day, two Royal Irish Constabulary officers were shot dead in the Soloheadbeg ambush by IRA (the paramilitary wing of the Irish republican movement) volunteers acting on their own initiative. The conflict developed gradually. For much of 1919, IRA activity involved capturing weaponry and freeing republican prisoners, while the Dail set about building a state.

In September, the British government outlawed the Dail and Sinn Féin and the conflict intensified. The IRA began ambushing RIC and British Army patrols, attacking their barracks and forcing isolated barracks to be abandoned. The British government bolstered the RIC with recruits from Britain—the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for ill-discipline and reprisal attacks on civilians, some of which were authorised by the British government. Thus the conflict is sometimes called the Black and Tan War. The conflict also involved civil disobedience, notably the refusal of Irish railwaymen to transport British forces or military supplies. In mid-1920, republicans won control of most county councils, and British authority collapsed in most of the south and west, forcing the British government to introduce emergency powers. About 300 people had been killed by late 1920, but the conflict escalated in November.

Violence continued to escalate over the next seven months, when 1,000 people were killed and 4,500 republicans were interned. Much of the fighting took place in Munster (particularly County Cork), Dublin and Belfast, which together saw over 75 percent of the conflict deaths. The conflict in north-east Ulster had a sectarian aspect. While the Catholic minority there mostly backed Irish independence, the Protestant majority were mostly unionist/loyalist. In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act, which created Northern Ireland. Both sides agreed to a ceasefire (or 'truce') on 11 July 1921. The post-ceasefire talks led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921. This ended British rule in most of Ireland and, after a ten-month transitional period overseen by a provisional government, the Irish Free State was created as a self-governing Dominion on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom. After the ceasefire, violence in Belfast and fighting in border areas of Northern Ireland continued, and the IRA launched a failed Northern offensive in May 1922.

Image credits: historymemes_explained

#31

Thanks to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's ability to produce revenue-generating coal and iron ore decreased. As war debts and reparations drained its coffers, the German government was unable to pay its debts. Some of the former World War I Allies didn’t buy Germany's claim that it couldn't afford to pay. Ina blatant League of Nations breach, French and Belgian troops occupied Germany's main industrial area, the Ruhr, determined to get their reparation payments.

The Weimar government ordered German workers to passively resist the occupation and go on strike, shutting down the coal mines and iron factories. As a result, Germany's economy quickly tanked. In response, the Weimar government simply printed more money. The effort backfired, h