Let's try and get 1,000,000 replies to this post

So all the gifts are laid out, house is clean, just waiting for the kids in the morn.  I am wondering what it says about my parenting techniques, when I purchase my 10 year old daughter Monsters vs. Aliens, yet know that she really would have preferred Benders Game instead..... ?
 
Bender's Game isn't for 10 year olds. You don't just smack a pre-teen over the head with Titanius Anglesmith.
Groteskfull said:
Isn't that the point, though... so that this generation wouldn't need to sacrifice anything?


[edited for grammar]
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No, the point was that there were a very lot of Americans who were very isolationist until Pearl Harbor, and then basically the entire United States realized at once that they had a global responsibility, hiked up their trousers, and got to work kicking ass. Then the generation came back, had a fuckton of babies, invented computers, put men on the moon, and did all sorts of other awesome stuff.
 
Well, yeah.... I held myself off, and didn't get it for her.  (I still haven't seen it yet  :().

I did, however, get my son the Family Guy 2 disc set of the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back spoofs!
 
LooseCannon said:
No, the point was that there were a very lot of Americans who were very isolationist until Pearl Harbor, and then basically the entire United States realized at once that they had a global responsibility, hiked up their trousers, and got to work kicking ass. Then the generation came back, had a fuckton of babies, invented computers, put men on the moon, and did all sorts of other awesome stuff.
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And they grew up during the Great Depression before all that. They did their share of sacrificing.
 
Yes!  I have been trying to explain that to people recently.  Too much talk about how this 'recession' has been the worst since the Great Depression.  Never misunderstand, I know there are many unemployed, and many losing their houses, but how much do you want to bet that most of the unemployed and many that lost their house still have their cell phones? 
 
Forostar said:
I have always had the idea that it seems foreign to Anglocentric people what others did (in both positive and negative sense) during WWII.
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Well, you'd be wrong, most of us know a lot about what happened. The difference is that unlike the Europeans and Russians, the Americans really didn't have to get involved, at least in Europe.
 
Forostar said:
[...] the average American has been drilled to think of 1941, not 1939, as the date to remember [...]
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I don't see anything wrong with that, for me the WWII brings automatically the date 1940 to mind!
This could apply to some Dutch people as well. It's normal, everyone projects the history of his nation first.
 
I have a question:  At what point did it become a 'World War', and not a 'European War'?  I should know this, but honestly, I'm not so sure. 
 
Forostar said:
It depends what you exactly mean with 1940. If you say that 1940 is the start of WWII then it's a wrong statement.
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I don't say, I think. Subconsciously WWII is 1940 for me, if I was American I guess that would be 1941

Wasted CLV said:
I have a question:  At what point did it become a 'World War', and not a 'European War'?  I should know this, but honestly, I'm not so sure.  
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Too many countries involved not just European, even if the main battlefield was in Europe
 
Thanks for the info, Foro!  I had always known that 1939 was the first main movement of Germany, but had always thought it was called 'the European War' at that point.

In other news, its the day after Christmas here, nice and relaxing day around here (rock band is kinda fun to play!). 
 
Oh boy, 3 days with the family and it feels like my head is about to explode...
 
I hope that's because of the alcohol.  :P  I am in Krakow (Poland) with Marta's family.
Looking forward to New Year's eve already.

You're welcome Wasted.
 
No, unfortunately it's not because of the alcohol... rather because "oooh, Perun darling how are you doing? Can you carry that box alone? Come here, I'll help you!" and all that jazz...
 
That sucks-- family or friends?

It's been pretty quiet here-- have around half a foot of snow on the ground; I was splitting fire wood yesterday.
 
Wasted CLV said:
That sucks-- family or friends?
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Both, in a way. You go out and want to have a great evening, which by all indications it would become, and then you're forced to make a decision that turns you into a huge arsehole either way, and you only have to choose whose feelings you want/have to hurt.
 
Wasted CLV said:
I have a question:  At what point did it become a 'World War', and not a 'European War'?  I should know this, but honestly, I'm not so sure. 
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I'd say 1941.

Now I'm not one of the WWII experts here, though being on this forum - and doing the research to understand some of the threads here - has taught me quite a bit. So I might be wrong, but here's how I see it:

Before 1941, there was the Japanese war, and there was the European war. Separate wars.
In 1941, they were united into one war because one major player (the US) went to war in both theaters.

But if my understanding is correct:
It was really only a World War for the US, since the other participants stuck to their own theaters (Pacific or European).
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
Before 1941, there was the Japanese war, and there was the European war. Separate wars.
In 1941, they were united into one war because one major player (the US) went to war in both theaters.

But if my understanding is correct:
It was really only a World War for the US, since the other participants stuck to their own theaters (Pacific or European).
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The British played an important role in the Pacific Theatre as well. There was some heavy fighting in Burma to prevent the Japanese from taking over India and to maintain support routes for the Chinese. Not to mention there was some fighting around Malaya.

Another thing that changed in 1941 was the thinking. Both Axis and Allied leaders started to think globally. For instance, Hitler started drawing the Japanese into his strategy, hoping they would attack the Soviet Union if he in return declared war on the US.

That is not to say that the US weren't the most important connection between the two theatres, and that their involvement didn't ultimately turn the two wars into one global one- but they weren't the only one.
 
OK, well, this is what wiki says:

The start of the war is generally held to be September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland; Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Other dates for the beginning of war include the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on September 13, 1931;[5] the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, 1937;[6][7] or one of several other events. Others follow A. J. P. Taylor, who holds that there was a simultaneous Sino-Japanese War in East Asia, and a Second European War in Europe and her colonies. Neither war became a global conflict until they merged in 1941, at which point the war continued until 1945. This article uses the conventional dating.[8] Other important events that happened at the dawn of the war include the Second Italo-Abyssinian War between Ethiopia and Italy on October 1935 that led to the collapse of the League of Nations.[9] The exact date of the war's end is not universally agreed upon. It has been suggested that the war ended at the armistice of August 14, 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan (September 2, 1945); in some European histories, it ended on V-E Day (May 8, 1945). The Treaty of Peace with Japan was not signed until 1951.[10]

So, it appears that, depending on your point of view, the war started as early as 1931, but (like SMX said) didn't go 'global' until 1941.
 
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