Things that look like alternate history, but aren't

[d32123]

Petike: for fear of derailing the thread, I won't type out a long response but let's just say that I agree that human beings should be viewed as separate than the states they served.

[Petike]

Originally Posted by d32123

Petike: for fear of derailing the thread, I won't type out a long response but let's just say that I agree that human beings should be viewed as separate than the states they served.

I know you do.

I just dislike it when people often demonize the CSA as some kind of evil empire, instead of simply citing it as an example of an incompetent authoritarian state run by stubborn racists. Yet, at the same time, they make it look like the Union was always anti-slavery (an absolutely laughable notion) and that it never suffered from apologetism towards extremely jingoistic, uncalled for behaviour. Even everyone's beloved super-Teddy screwed over the Philippinos pretty harshly.

[d32123]

Originally Posted by Petike

I know you do.

I just dislike it when people often demonize the CSA as some kind of evil empire, instead of simply citing it as an example of an incompetent authoritarian state run by stubborn racists. Yet, at the same time, they make it look like the Union was always anti-slavery (an absolutely laughable notion) and that it never suffered from apologetism towards extremely jingoistic, uncalled for behaviour. Even everyone's beloved super-Teddy screwed over the Philippinos pretty harshly.

Brother, I agree 100%, but this isn't the thread for this discussion.

[Petike]

Originally Posted by d32123

Brother, I agree 100%, but this isn't the thread for this discussion.

Therefore, let's post something weird and wonderful !

Like the tramways of...



Barbados ?!

[catboy637]

Don't the horses just completely defeat the whole point of the tram part?

[Tocomocho]

Originally Posted by metastasis_d

Well now... I did a Google search for "nazis in south pacific" and it came up with several Amazon results for Nazis Australia and South Pacific Travel Guides.

If that doesn't look like alternate history, I don't know what does.

Finally found something:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Western Samoa

In the 1930s the former German colony of Western Samoa was under New Zealand Administration. On January 15, 1934, Mr. Alfred Matthes and E.W. Bohle were authorized to establish a short-lived branch of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Western Samoa. Following this, they began to receive literature and printed propaganda from the Auslands Abteilung (Foreign Branch) of the Nazi Party in Hamburg.
On January 20, 1937, Matthes and Gerhard Stoeicht returned to Apia from the Nazi Party’s World Congress organized in Hamburg, Germany. In the same year the German consul in Wellington visited the Nazi HQ in Apia. During the Sudeten crisis in 1938 the local Nazis became active again and apparently planned to seize some key government institutions. Later, Matthes went broke and Berlin dissolved the Samoan Nazi Party in April 1939.
Some documents that were found in Germany after the war proved that twelve Western Samoans had an official NSDAP membership cards. Ten of them emigrated to New Zealand after the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign...#Western_Samoa

The bit about the Australian Nazi Party is also interesting.

[Dom Jao II]

Originally Posted by catboy637

Don't the horses just completely defeat the whole point of the tram part?

Before Locomotives were invented, horses were the mode of Transit for Tramways.

[catboy637]

Originally Posted by Dom Jao II

Before Locomotives were invented, horses were the mode of Transit for Tramways.

Huh. I learned something today, thanks.

[Color-Copycat]

These are actually from 1917, much to my initial surprise.

[oshron]

Originally Posted by Color-Copycat

These are actually from 1917, much to my initial surprise.

what does the one on the left translate to?

[Klisz]

Originally Posted by oshron

what does the one on the left translate to?

I don't know about the whole thing, but I think "ТОВАРИЩИ-ДЕМОКРАТЫ" is "comrade democracy".

[Falecius]

Originally Posted by Thande

Here's a good one I just found.

Map of the Solar System...from 1830.

Internationally, astronomers hadn't agreed on the names Uranus and Neptune yet. And the newly discovered asteroids were still classed as planets. And, of course, Pluto wouldn't be discovered for another century.

Maybe it goes against some rule of the forum signalling this now, and if so, I am sorry. But this map cannot be from 1830. Leverrier, Galle and Adams only discovered Neptune more than fifteen years later. Indeed, a planetary map showing Astraea (discovered in 1845 ), Neptune (discovered in 1846) and not Hebe (discovered in 1847) can be fairly easily dated...

[Falecius]

Originally Posted by Klisz

I don't know about the whole thing, but I think "ТОВАРИЩИ-ДЕМОКРАТЫ" is "comrade democracy".

It should be "democratic comrades" AFAIK.

[Klisz]

Originally Posted by Falecius

It should be "democratic comrades" AFAIK.

Eh, close enough. I'm still proud of myself for understanding that much without using a translator (or even a transliterator) and having never even briefly studied Russian.

[Incognito]

Originally Posted by Klisz

I don't know about the whole thing, but I think ";ТОВАРИЩИ-ДЕМОКРАТЫ"; is "comrade democracy".

"Comrades Democrats" actually.

[oshron]

Originally Posted by Incognito

"Comrades Democrats" actually.

which, fully translated into english, would properly read "democratic comrades", i imagine

[Incognito]

Originally Posted by oshron

which, fully translated into english, would properly read "democratic comrades", i imagine

Text reads, top to bottom:
"Freedom"

"Comrades Democrats (or Democratic Comrades, whichever you prefer)
Ivan and Uncle Sam (that rimes in Russian BTW) "

"Brotherhood of allies: America welcomes Russia"

[Petike]

Originally Posted by catboy637

Huh. I learned something today, thanks.

Horse tramways do seem a little ineffective, but if there wasn't much electrification on the island at the time, nor a need for a big motorized tram vehicle, then I think they were a logical enough choice. In the first half of the 19th century, before steam locomotives became really effective traction vehicles, long-distance horse-drawn trains were actually the norm in many European countries. The very first railway in my country, built between Bratislava and Sereď in the 1820s, was originally a purely horse-drawn one. The first locomotives arrived and replaced the horsies during the late 1830s and early 1840s. The building of the horse era railway station is still preserved in the capital. A similar early railway has been partially preserved in Austria, on a part of the former Linz-České Budějovice line.

[Cuāuhtemōc]

The American Red Army marching through Middle America?



These are New Jersey state police. Their uniforms were based off the uniforms of Tsarist and Prussian officials, as it was official policy adopted in the Gilded Age in the hope it would make recent arrivals from eastern Europe to have a greater respect for the police.

[d32123]

Something that silly and ridiculous could only be thought of during the Gilded Age.