Explain the AH Quote

A line from a play written in 1989, about Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. Specifically, two soldiers (sort of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the play) having an argument about minutiae. At the end of the play, they are among the only surviving characters, as most of the rest of their unit died in the crossing.

Napoleon has landed on Mars, and French forces are advancing across Syria Planum
 
Napoleon has landed on Mars, and French forces are advancing across Syria Planum

A phrase printed out by an early word processing algorithm produced by IBM in the 1970s. It was one of the attempts to simulate basic speech through a construction of a basic sentence.

"In 1965, a team of Stalinist hunters captured Lavrentiy Beria, a high-ranking NKVD official, hiding in Cuba."
 
"In 1965, a team of Stalinist hunters captured Lavrentiy Beria, a high-ranking NKVD official, hiding in Cuba."
Line of dialogue from a documentary discussing the history of the Ukrainian Secret Service, formed in 1973 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. They would go on to lead a series of special ops missions across the planet, targeting former soviet politicians and their conspirators.

"I am afraid to announce that Sir Robert Plant(yes, THAT Robert Plant) is among the various casualties in the recent attack on the British Naval base in Alexandria." - Sir Robin Day 1993.
 
"I am afraid to announce that Sir Robert Plant(yes, THAT Robert Plant) is among the various casualties in the recent attack on the British Naval base in Alexandria." - Sir Robin Day 1993.
The status and allegiance of Egypt has been a major source of conflict between Britain and Persia for centuries. The attack in Alexandria, even if the culprits were never identified, marked the beginning of yet another heated phase.

"Perfidious Albion, why have you forsaken us in our hour of need!"
 
"Perfidious Albion, why have you forsaken us in our hour of need!"
Words spoken by Col. Michael John Higgins (played by Jason Statham) in the EBC miniseries Three Years in Tropical Hell, which reconstructed the hardships of the English and Australian PoWs in Singapore right after its fall to the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942.

Acepté la propuesta del Fray de la Casas de traer mujeres moriscas a nuestras colonias para casarse con los índios. Pero Majestad, ¿Usted no temías por las almas de los índios y sus futuras familias? Porque ellas las moriscas, aunque afirmaban su conversión a la fe católica, sigueiron secretamente sus herejías .
(You already accepted the proposal of Fray de la Casas of bringing Moorish women to our colonies to marry with the Indians. But Your Majesty, don't you should worry on the souls of the Indians and their future families? Because those women, although they afirmed their conversion to Roman Catholic faith, have still secretly followed their heresies.)
 
Acepté la propuesta del Fray de la Casas de traer mujeres moriscas a nuestras colonias para casarse con los índios. Pero Majestad, ¿Usted no temías por las almas de los índios y sus futuras familias? Porque ellas las moriscas, aunque afirmaban su conversión a la fe católica, sigueiron secretamente sus herejías .
(You already accepted the proposal of Fray de la Casas of bringing Moorish women to our colonies to marry with the Indians. But Your Majesty, don't you should worry on the souls of the Indians and their future families? Because those women, although they afirmed their conversion to Roman Catholic faith, have still secretly followed their heresies.)
Noted colonialist and philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda to King Charles V of Spain, on regards to the scheme of Bartolomé de las Casasto import African women to be bred with Native American slaves to produce sturdier offspring. In the end, the scheme would find success in few places, primarily in what is now the Republic of the Yucatan in the Federal Republics of Central America.

"I say this: the American nation, after years of war fought to stop this same sort of horrific, unjustifiable colonialism, cannot in good conscience support the return of the French to Indochina without provisions that they will establish free and fair representation for its people."
 
"I say this: the American nation, after years of war fought to stop this same sort of horrific, unjustifiable colonialism, cannot in good conscience support the return of the French to Indochina without provisions that they will establish free and fair representation for its people."
President Henry Wallace in 1947, after Japan surrendered in late 1946 (ending WWII). American Marines, alongside local resistance fighters, had liberated former French Indochina to tax Japanese resources, in 1945, to avoid needing to use the Atomic Bombs (which Wallace was horrified by). It didn't work, and Hiroshima was nuked, leading to Japan's surrender. Wallace outright refused to let the French assert control over Indochina, even when the British tried to ally with them over it.

This helped to alienate France and Britain from the US (contributing to the Atlantic Divorce in 1955) but worked, and Indochina achieved independence as the Indochinese Federation (a somewhat unhappy marriage for all involved, but American backing has kept it alive as a state that runs on principles of Social Democracy, but with consistent, if low-burn, ethnic andpolitical tensions).

I come bearing greetings, King George III, from the Emperor of Mars, who offers his aid against your rebellious territories in North America.
 
I come bearing greetings, King George III, from the Emperor of Mars, who offers his aid against your rebellious territories in North America.
A diplomat from the Empire of Mars, a state founded by Greco-Roman exiles in India founded on the worship of the god Mars. This Empire was famous for vastly overestimating it's own power, but King George III accepted their proposal as they were nominal allies at the time. This small "legion" the Empire sent actually won quite a few small battles, but were kept very far from the front lines after their "destructive" behavior when they took Philadelphia, looting and pillaging, and started a fire that burned 90% of the city. Eventually they were sent to garrison New England, and were killed almost to a man by the Green Mountain Boys.

"Mein Kaiser, with all due respect, should a man of your age really be fighting on the front lines?"
 
Question posed by an exasperated German general to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf the Chivalrous in 1930, on the outskirts of Paris. The Emperor had just personally led a bayonet charge against the French lines, although he himself famously wielded a longsword. Rudolf was 71 at the time, and like many of his subjects caught up in the "Third Romanticist Wave", obsessed with medievael romance. At the time, he was the ruler of the most powerful state in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, restored by the Hapsburg monarchy in 1855 after a landmark treaty with the Kingdom of Prussia. Leading a warmachine second only to the Franco-British Red Army, Rudolf was the sort of romanticist extremist that only the Central Powers of the Great European War could produce; he insisted that tanks not be called "Panzers" but "Eisenpferde" (Iron Horses) and once challenged a Russian colonel to a one-tank-versus-one-tank duel, for Christ's sake!

Say what? Manchurian paratroopers have landed in Lima?
 
Say what? Manchurian paratroopers have landed in Lima?
Presidetn Franklin Roosevelt regarding the suprise attack against Peru by Japanese forces in 1942. The initial attack was perpetrated by Manchu soldiers using stolen Russian weapons, but it took little time to realize the true culprit of this attack. This would drag Much of South America into the war, but American and British indifference to their contributions and Soviet commentary largely criticizing the efforts of these nations would result in the Latin American nations forming their own block during the Cold War.

"You claim to not belong to any world? Boy let me tell you a story. My father was a half-Manchu, half-German Lutheran minister from Kiautschou Bay, my mother was a half-Armenian, half-Kurdish Druze from Ottoman Libya. I was born a month after Libya became an Italian colony, and I spent my early life living in Sicily before moving to Cuba at the age of 6. At the age of 16, I moved to Nicaragua and smuggled weapons to the rebels on behalf of the Mexican government. At 22 that war ended and I moved to California, spent some time working on the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. I then spent the rest of that year smuggling Mexican made booze across the border. When that ended with the repeal of prohibition I spent a few years hopping around the country. When the Japanese invaded China in 37, I joined an American volunteer corp that took part in multiple battles. I was captured by the Japanese, only to escape after a month of imprisonment, during which time I stowed away on a boat bound for Australia. From there I went to Portugal, and that's when I met your mother."
 
"You claim to not belong to any world? Boy let me tell you a story. My father was a half-Manchu, half-German Lutheran minister from Kiautschou Bay, my mother was a half-Armenian, half-Kurdish Druze from Ottoman Libya. I was born a month after Libya became an Italian colony, and I spent my early life living in Sicily before moving to Cuba at the age of 6. At the age of 16, I moved to Nicaragua and smuggled weapons to the rebels on behalf of the Mexican government. At 22 that war ended and I moved to California, spent some time working on the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. I then spent the rest of that year smuggling Mexican made booze across the border. When that ended with the repeal of prohibition I spent a few years hopping around the country. When the Japanese invaded China in 37, I joined an American volunteer corp that took part in multiple battles. I was captured by the Japanese, only to escape after a month of imprisonment, during which time I stowed away on a boat bound for Australia. From there I went to Portugal, and that's when I met your mother."

A rant spoken by David Sulu upon being confronted about his dealings by the FBI. He speaks about his life story and how he met his wife back to his officer son.

"Lazar Kaganovich. As a witness and perpetrator of crimes against committed by Stalinists, what did your collaborator, Lavrentiy Beria, do to the girls abducted from territories occupied by the Soviet Union? Explain to us why there is a mass grave under the cellar of Beria's residence. And what is the purpose of the bedrooms nearby?"
 
A rant spoken by David Sulu upon being confronted about his dealings by the FBI. He speaks about his life story and how he met his wife back to his officer son.

"Lazar Kaganovich. As a witness and perpetrator of crimes against committed by Stalinists, what did your collaborator, Lavrentiy Beria, do to the girls abducted from territories occupied by the Soviet Union? Explain to us why there is a mass grave under the cellar of Beria's residence. And what is the purpose of the bedrooms nearby?"
An extract from the so-called "Minsk-Trials", which were held after the defeat of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The victory was hard fought, and cost millions of lives on all sides, with a few nations on the side of the "Common Front" (the countries fighting the soviets) collapsing from internal pressures caused by the high costs in manpower.

the trials were an almost direct copy of the Nürnberg trials, and they included similar levels of hypocrisy, as Common Front soldiers comitted many warcrimes themselves during the conflict

"Seargant, we need to take out that machinegun-nest, and he snipers in behind us...do what you can, and die honourably!"
 
"Seargant, we need to take out that machinegun-nest, and he snipers in behind us...do what you can, and die honourably!"

Orders given to Sergeant Adolf Hitler in 1916 by Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel. Hitler's actions managed to not only take out the nest, but in doing so, crack open the French lines around Verdun - while it was hardly a decisive crack, it allowed Rommel's superiors to move their forces closer to the fortress in several key places and as a result of that strategic repositioning, Verdun fell a month later, which ultimately led to France suing for peace in late 1917, after the October Revolution. Rommel's words to Hitler were immortalized in Rommel's best-selling memoirs of the war, published in 1919, and Hitler is now remembered as one of many national heroes from the Great War.

Under normal circumstances, Mr. Hitler, a prisoner attempting to committ suicide would be put under careful evaluation to determine if they need mental care. But in your case, nothing you do will prevent you from standing trial for your offenses, many and sundry as they are.
 
Under normal circumstances, Mr. Hitler, a prisoner attempting to committ suicide would be put under careful evaluation to determine if they need mental care. But in your case, nothing you do will prevent you from standing trial for your offenses, many and sundry as they are.
Spoken to Alois Hitler II, then-CEO of Sharon Steel under investigation. The suicide refers not just to literal suicide, but trying to cover his tracks of bad investments and coruuption by the poison pill strategy.

"So you're a small town of 290 in Iowa suffering from two things: economic malaise and a recent shooting that has killed five and hurt at least eighteen motivated by right-wing nutcases. Do you:
A: Hold a funeral before investing in infrastructure and police ensuring this couldn't happen again?
B: Invest in tourism?
C: Appeal to neo-nazis, klansmen, and any other right-wing twit to get their money from them coming into town and pretty much worshipping the perps who killed those five people, turning your town into a Nazi Mecca?"
 
"So you're a small town of 290 in Iowa suffering from two things: economic malaise and a recent shooting that has killed five and hurt at least eighteen motivated by right-wing nutcases. Do you:
A: Hold a funeral before investing in infrastructure and police ensuring this couldn't happen again?
B: Invest in tourism?
C: Appeal to neo-nazis, klansmen, and any other right-wing twit to get their money from them coming into town and pretty much worshipping the perps who killed those five people, turning your town into a Nazi Mecca?"

A question from a quiz given to people who apply for positions within the Iowa Republican Party in 2058, after the center-right wing of the party broke from the Republicans in 2031 and formed the American Conservative Party, pushing the GOP to the fringes of American political life.

The correct answer, in the eyes of the Iowa GOP, is C.

"Mr. President, I'm afraid that the news reports are correct. There is... what can only be called a portal to hell where Washington D.C. used to be. And... something is coming through."
 
"So you're a small town of 290 in Iowa suffering from two things: economic malaise and a recent shooting that has killed five and hurt at least eighteen motivated by right-wing nutcases. Do you:
A: Hold a funeral before investing in infrastructure and police ensuring this couldn't happen again?
B: Invest in tourism?
C: Appeal to neo-nazis, klansmen, and any other right-wing twit to get their money from them coming into town and pretty much worshipping the perps who killed those five people, turning your town into a Nazi Mecca?"
Part of a social commentary about small Midwestern cities and towns. In this case, Lester, Iowa after a church shooting. The commentary on said city continued by saying that the city government of Lester, IA came up with a weird fusion of all of the above. A funeral was held, and tourism was invested on, but it came from notorious right-wing resources.

"Mr. President, I'm afraid that the news reports are correct. There is... what can only be called a portal to hell where Washington D.C. used to be. And... something is coming through."

Part of an exchange in Ring of Fire, a horror film about portals to hell suddenly manifesting across the world.

"Do those idiots have any idea why we couldn't expand into California like we wanted?"
"But we did."
"We're limited by the Mokelumne River. We got literally nothing other than the Texan claims, plus the territories north of the 38th parallel. Useless land, I say! Useless!"
 
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"Do those idiots have any idea why we couldn't expand into California like we wanted?"
"But we did."
"We're limited by the Mokelumne River. We got literally nothing other than the Texan claims, plus the territories north of the 38th parallel. Useless land, I say! Useless!"
A quote from a play mocking Lord Palmerston for his opposition to annexing California, set weeks before the discovery of gold there.

Steam, Mr. Watson. Steam will reveal to us the truth.
 
Steam, Mr. Watson. Steam will reveal to us the truth.

British scientist Sherlock Moriarty to his assistant John Watson, minutes before the explosion that destroyed half of the Royal British Research Institute, killing a hundred people. This episode put an end to research on steam powered engines.

"Come on, you have to be joking! A little girl can't possibly have done all this by herself!"
 
"Come on, you have to be joking! A little girl can't possibly have done all this by herself!"
A prosecuting attorney when told that a 5-year old girl murdered her parents, 3 older siblings and baby brother on the Luna Colony in 2137. The girl was practically born with deep psychosis due to the experimental prenatal drugs used on the mother (without her knowledge), which led to a major investigation of the company that developed it, the drug approval agencies, the doctor that birthed her and a number of other involved persons and organizations.

"The enemy is at the gates, Your majesty. But for the low, low, low price of $14.99 once a month for twelve months, you can make them leave."
 
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