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Post by junius on Jan 5, 2017 18:20:25 GMT
Im not sure there is any problems with Jean-Luc Picard analysis. First I thought, surely America would continue with its established lust for expansion without the louisania purchase, but if you look at map, from Canada to New Orleans was French territory. However, with only 60,000 people (US well over 2 million) I imagine the US would take it sooner or later. I clicked other, as I think the Arab conquests from 600-750CE (personally I'd extend that dating) are perhaps the most important series of wars. I will explain my reasoning. 1. In the first century of war the conquerors invaded over 20 modern countries, making at the time the largest empire, at least 13 million square kilometres. Before the Arab empire fell apart, it stretched from Iberia to India! Also had 62 million people, 29% of the world) 2. They destroyed the Persian empire, whose ancient religion was Zoroastrianism By my estimates if that religion today only controlled Iran, It would be 400 times bigger! Currently around 200,000 people. 2.2 It greatly weakened the Byzantine empire, taking its north-African and Asian provinces, and the Turks, who inherited the conquests though conversion, ended the empire in 1453. Goodbye Rome, and welcome Turkey. 2.3 This war had the greatest impact on Iberia of any war, if you ask me. It ended Visigothic rule in Spain, ruled the region for 800 years, and created the modern day countries. Spain was created by Northern Iberians who survived the initial hammer-blow. Some of its culture and language comes from the Arab invaders. Portugal is first mentioned as terriorty reclaimed from the Arabs, named after a captured port city. Thus I dare you to find a war more important than the one which literally birthed every country there! 2.4 India was progressively invaded starting in these conquests. Not only did it shatter the Empires already there, but it Islamified the North and caused several strong Indo-Muslim empires, such as the Mughals who fought the British. There would be no Pakistan or Bangladesh without these conquests, and arguably a very different India. No Biryani food either, which Napoleon Bonaparte says is very tasty. Invented by Muslims in the medieval ages. Thus I argue that the History of the entire Indian subcontinent was drastically altered, with all three modern countries owing their roots to this war. 2.5 the Middle East and North Africa was arabified, with Arabs previously living mostly within the Arabian peninsula. From Algiers to the gates of Persia, there was a unifiying language and religion. To conclude part 1, Iberia and India and all of Western Asia would look completely different without these conquests, and many cultures and regions ceased to exist. For example, The Coptic Christians, who are 10% of Egypt today, possess the latest form of the Ancient Egyptian language (demotic-Coptic hey?) though like the rest of Egypt they use Arabic outside of Church. LOL, we Zoroastrians would be lucky to be 150k right now. You're absolutely right that the Arab conquest was the death knell. |
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Post by Frederick the Great on Jan 8, 2017 12:40:59 GMT
I believe that this question is impossible to answer. In order to even think about answering this one must consider what makes the most "Important War". Is it that which led to the most casualties and destruction? The ones which led to more scientific and medical advancements? Simply that which had the most profound impact on life today as we know it? Now I imagine the last one would be the one most agreed upon but how do we determine this? The Second World War led to the most direct changes to our life today and the lives of those in other countries particularly in former colonial nations. But World War II would never have happened if it weren't for the First World War and the First World War as we know it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the Francl-Prussian War, German Wars of Unification and Crimean War. These wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the Napoleonic Wars which wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the Frenh Revolutionary Wars which wouldn't happen if it weren't for the American Revolutionary War which wouldn't have happened if off weren't for the Seven Years War and so on and so on.
Rather than pointing to a single war I would say that the wars of Europe were the most important because together they created both directly and indirectly the world as we know it today. Not to trivialise or offend Asia, Africa, the Middle East and other places but European expansion, enlightenment, technological advances and most notably colonialism shaped most of the world as it is today most directly.
I did vote for the Seven Years War as it indirectly led to the American Revolutionary War (or French and Indians War as the Americans who think it was a seperate war call it) which led to the French Revolution and Nalpoleonic Wars. It also made Russia become a bigger player and saw the rise of Prussia and began the long process of the death of the Hapsburg Empire. All these things eventually led to the World Wars and Cold War which on thier own had the biggest impact on the world today....
Wow I wrote way more than I expected. Sorry for the wall of text.
EDIT: Just in case anyone misinterprets what I said about European War been more important, what I meant is they shaped our world more by shaping other continents with thier colonialism. I by no means am implying that Europe or Europeans is superior in way shape or form, I'm mearly talking of history. I know Asia and other continents have thier own rich history that shaped thier areas BUT that is it, they shapped thier areas whereas Europe shapped more than just Europe itself. I hope people can understand what I mean here.
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Post by Yi Sun Sin on Jan 9, 2017 11:46:44 GMT
Frederick the Great , The 7 Years War definitely shaped Europe and later; the world but if we look back, we have the mongol invasions. Ivan Kolev pointed out a lot of reasons why the Mongol Invasions were most significant in shaping our world, but I think the most important thing was the reopening of the silk road. That allowed asian weapons and inventions, most notably gunpowder and the compass to reach Europe. This allowed the Europeans to start building colonies overseas with advanced navigation skills and better weapons until they were on top of Asian civilisation. I guess this made it possible for the Americas to be found and mass killing weapons (e.g. machine/gatling guns.) to be found/invented. This is a bit crazy and don't kill me if I am horribly wrong, but another Chinese invention, paper was passed on to Europen during the Mongol invasions. Would've that had an effect on Christianity, since the Church could've printed bibles out of paper instead of sheep skin? Dunno  Please note that I do not have anything about Europeans or anything. Just stating my opinion.
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Post by Imperial RomeBall on Jan 9, 2017 13:07:21 GMT
Frederick the Great , The 7 Years War definitely shaped Europe and later; the world but if we look back, we have the mongol invasions. Ivan Kolev pointed out a lot of reasons why the Mongol Invasions were most significant in shaping our world, but I think the most important thing was the reopening of the silk road. That allowed asian weapons and inventions, most notably gunpowder and the compass to reach Europe. This allowed the Europeans to start building colonies overseas with advanced navigation skills and better weapons until they were on top of Asian civilisation. I guess this made it possible for the Americas to be found and mass killing weapons (e.g. machine/gatling guns.) to be found/invented. This is a bit crazy and don't kill me if I am horribly wrong, but another Chinese invention, paper was passed on to Europen during the Mongol invasions. Would've that had an effect on Christianity, since the Church could've printed bibles out of paper instead of sheep skin? Dunno Please note that I do not have anything about Europeans or anything. Just stating my opinion. I just searched it. The chinese invented paper, though the Europeans mass-produced it mechanically. Same with the compass-invented in china, changed by Europeans. Im too tired to argue right now for my choice. Funny that the Europeans could have militarily surpassed the Asians without gunpowder, as Asian powers mostly did not use Small-arms. I guess the Asians would have the edge in artillery though, until the europeans learned. I doubt it had a decisive effect on Christianity. Christians had already shown an incredible ability to convert, stopped only by Islam in the south (fact, not hate) I imagine anywhere they went, they did not need paper to spread their beliefs. However, if you mean the liberalization of christianity, with the common man having a bible, and not just the priests. Maybe you are right, though I don't know about that. Maybe it was would have happened anyway. |
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Post by Hezekiah on Jan 15, 2017 23:58:59 GMT
C'mon, the Barbary war is what led to America's trained troops to defeat the English in the Second Revoltionary war. And what led to America's respect from the European countries. Not to mention the Economic growth.
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Post by Imperial RomeBall on Jan 16, 2017 0:38:51 GMT
C'mon, the Barbary war is what led to America's trained troops to defeat the English in the Second Revoltionary war. And what led to America's respect from the European countries. Not to mention the Economic growth. Thanks for the new post, New person. Funny. I'm a Canadian, but when you mentioned the S econd Revolutionary war War of 1812, I was like "Britain fight 2.0, that is hardly a most important event" I agree about the Barbary war being important, though I had the impression that the Second Revolutionary war was what convinced the Americans to transition to a regular army. Also, the Barbary war was one of the less important results of my choice, so respectfully, I would relegate it to a important war, not the most. |
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Post by Desophaeus on Jan 17, 2017 2:22:19 GMT
Yi Sun Sin, actually yes... Parchments were used before paper. While paper made it more cost-effective to produce a copy of the Bible, it still require enormous amount of labor to make one because of the time to write down every page (I believe a rough estimate of 2 to 3 years for one monk to produce a Bible). The Guttenberg printing press was what made mass-produced Bibles truly possible and allows the common man to become enlightened. To be honest... it's not what you invent, it's what you do with it that makes the invention an instrument of influence on humanity. Example: the Romans were brilliant enough to invent a real, live working steam engine (more than a thousand years before the industrial revolution!!). They decided to use it to open or close the doors of a temple. (Yes, Greeks thought of it, but they didn't build a pratical steam engine). But the Romans had a vastly bigger impact on the modern world with their inventions of concrete construction techniques and their asphalt construction techniques which today we don't really diverge from their methods (other than using machines instead of human hands). Look at the Chinese, sure they came up with amazing stuff but they were severely held back by their own culture of being mindless obedient slaves to the bureaucracy that had absolute rule on every aspect of Chinese life. The Chinese may had the knowledge and the opportunity to work on steel production (they had mastered large coal ovens which could led to their own industrial revolution), but they squandered it by dismissing the need to improve and innovate. They thought that as the supreme power of their known universe, they didn't have a need to push forward beyond the Iron age until it was so late it became so obvious that they were seriously falling behind in comparison to the "white devils".
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Post by Frederick the Great on Jan 17, 2017 4:36:56 GMT
C'mon, the Barbary war is what led to America's trained troops to defeat the English in the Second Revoltionary war. And what led to America's respect from the European countries. Not to mention the Economic growth. The American troops didn't really beat the English (who were pretty much just millita at that time in Canada). It was an indecisive war the Amercicans didn't "beat" England. If anyone won the war, I would say it was England as they managed to burn Washington and the Americans had far greater casualties. |
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Post by Mountbatten on Jan 17, 2017 6:25:06 GMT
C'mon, the Barbary war is what led to America's trained troops to defeat the English in the Second Revoltionary war. And what led to America's respect from the European countries. Not to mention the Economic growth. The American troops didn't really beat the English (who were pretty much just millita at that time in Canada). It was an indecisive war the Amercicans didn't "beat" England. If anyone won the war, I would say it was England as they managed to burn Washington and the Americans had far greater casualties. Perhaps, but seeing as how England outnumbered the Americans vastly and had better training and equipment, along with America having about 3 ships you would expect England to easily stamp out the resistance. The fact that they didn't get slaughtered is an American victory by itself. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2017 6:40:05 GMT
The most important war... Interesting question really. Is there an option for all of them? The first ever war to be fought would probably be considered a small skirmish in today's terms. However, every great general learned from another's mistakes or victories. Therefore, every early war is crucial to the next. But, modern warfare has been known to shape cultures, religions, populations, opinions, weaponry, laws, and more, just look at what WWII did to many small countries. So you'd think that a war that would shape an entire country would be more important, although if you look backward again, these modern day wars could only have occurred if the earliest war had. I conclude that no war is more important than another!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2017 6:46:20 GMT
What?! There is no option for John Brown's War?! The War with only one battle and a quick victory from @coolguy14!
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Post by Desophaeus on Jan 17, 2017 6:46:24 GMT
Frederick the Great, "Despite this, the U.S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britain's Native American allies, ending the prospect of an independent Indian confederacy in the Midwest under British sponsorship." -Wikipedia I know it's not the best source but this is a good point about the War of 1812.
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Post by Bismarck Jr on Jan 17, 2017 8:39:27 GMT
Oh definitely the Punic war. It set the stage for the creation of the idea of Trans Continental warfare as we know it and allowed the longest lived empire to grow
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Post by Frederick the Great on Jan 17, 2017 10:56:53 GMT
Frederick the Great , "Despite this, the U.S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britain's Native American allies, ending the prospect of an independent Indian confederacy in the Midwest under British sponsorship." -Wikipedia I know it's not the best source but this is a good point about the War of 1812. I forgot about what happened to the Natives, your right there. It was still a rather pointless and indecisive war and it's my understanding that aside from crushing any hopes of the Native Americans getting their own state it didn't change much. On a side note, I find Wikipedia for the most part to be a convenient and mostly reliable source. It's normally fairly accurate and for informal (in other words most cases) cases I find it to often be the best source. Mountbatten, its my understanding (but I could be wrong) that the Americans outnumber the British troops in Canada which were basically just Canadaian millita for the first part of the war since the British were occupied with Napoleon. I imagine once the British brought in reinforcements you are correct and the Americans would have then been outnumbered. |
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Post by junius on Jan 18, 2017 15:26:17 GMT
Frederick the Great , "Despite this, the U.S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britain's Native American allies, ending the prospect of an independent Indian confederacy in the Midwest under British sponsorship." -Wikipedia I know it's not the best source but this is a good point about the War of 1812. I forgot about what happened to the Natives, your right there. It was still a rather pointless and indecisive war and it's my understanding that aside from crushing any hopes of the Native Americans getting their own state it didn't change much. On a side note, I find Wikipedia for the most part to be a convenient and mostly reliable source. It's normally fairly accurate and for informal (in other words most cases) cases I find it to often be the best source. Mountbatten, its my understanding (but I could be wrong) that the Americans outnumber the British troops in Canada which were basically just Canadaian millita for the first part of the war since the British were occupied with Napoleon. I imagine once the British brought in reinforcements you are correct and the Americans would have then been outnumbered. I love Wikipedia. It just gets spat on too often. |
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