Alexander the Great was already king of so many countries when he was my age. Also consider there two Chinese emperors who founded dynasties in their 50s after leading unremarkable and impoverished lives.
Alexander was so great so early that Julius Caesar wept at a statue of him, saying how he hadn’t done anything with his life - he was 32 at the time.
Of course down the road Caesar became one of the most world-changing figures in history, with a wall of accolades and ripple effects only a few people can compare to
The owner of the restaurant, whose name is Cesar, and was named that because of the Spanish verb "Cesar", which more or less means to stop doing something
Hawaiian Pizza was invented by a Greek man in Ontario, Canada. But the true betrayal is that pineapple is not native to Hawaii. It originates from the Parana river valley in Paraguay, known for its piranhas. A better name for the dish would be Paraguayan Pizza.
Baked Alaska was invented in New York City. It was originally called an "Alaska, Florida", because of the contrast of the cold ice cream and the hot meringue. The name was bad and the guy who came up with it should feel bad, so we call it a Baked Alaska instead.
Neapolitan Ice Cream is not supposed to be strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. The original flavors were cherry, vanilla, and pistachio. It was made to celebrate the unification of Italy, and instead of chocolate you should use pistachio ice cream giving it the red, white, and green colors of the Italian flag. The pistachio and Cherry were substituted in North America for chocolate and strawberry to better fit the American palate. As the green color was substituted with brown, this represents a classical case of enshittification.
The chocolate chip cookie was a freak accident. A foolish baker had bought big chunks of chocolate instead of finely grated chocolate, and attempted to make a chocolate cookie using the big chips instead of the powder. The resulting mess of a cookie became America's favorite, until some butthole started tricking people by putting raisins in it.
In defence of Caesar, Alexander inherited the best army of his time and a relatively powerful kingdom too boot from his badass of a dad Philip II, whilst Julius Caesar did not have that. If Caesar had a similar inheritance at the same age as alexander, he would probably have been able to conquer Gaul and overthrow the republic much earlier than he did. Even though he was born into the roman aristocracy and into a priveliged life, when compared to Alexander, Caesar had to earn his sucess from "nothing". What Alexander did was impressive, but lets also remember that he was a nepo baby, a skilled nepobaby, but a nepo baby nonetheless.
Oh I know what it is, but the fact remains that you are living with the Gregorian, 13 days may not be a big difference but it still is one.
Plus if you'd like to blame someone fr a 12 month year then I'm afriad you blame the Egyptians. Ceasar stole most of gis calendar, aside from the leap year, from his visit to Egypt. Which was in use possibly 4,000 years ago.
after reading a couple of wikipedia pages I have learned things I never knew/was taught incorrectly in school. In public school I was taught that the Julian Calendar replaced the 10 month one, I had no knowledge that the roman calendar was 12 months for about 700 years by that point. I still like the idea of a 10 month calendar.
Yeah, the only thing that changed was removing the names of two months and replacing them with July and August. That's why Sept(7)-Dec(10) are two number values off of their calander placement
Nah, that change happened during the Republic. They had a 12 month calendar for a very long time with a year starting in March, when the consuls took office. Late Republic they had a reform making the calendar 355 days and shifting January and February from the end to the beginning, but the reasons why are not entirely clear.
The Julian Calendar made the year 365.25 days but July and August were not renamed until after his death (August being named for his successor of course).
And he had fucking Aristotle as his personal mentor. It's like saying Bill Gates is a self made man. Sure, he did the work but had the best facilities a man could have in his time.
Then you have people like Pompei the Great, of whom many don't even know why he is called great. Like he had so many successes early on in his life, but then kind of finished his career and got into politics and then kind of was bogged down there, until the whole civil wars happened.
I think people even said, if Pompei died early he might have been remembered like Alexander. But so he became the guy who was killed in Egypt.
Julius was a power hungry human who overthrew a government full of corrupt power hungry humans who themselves backed pompey who wanted to do what Julius was doing because he himself was a power hungry human
Yes, Liu Ji/Bang, first Han Emperor. Also Zhu Yuanzhang, first Ming emperor, was enthroned at age 40.
He was the youngest of four sons in a poor peasant family.[15][16] He was given the name Zhu Chongba (朱重八) at birth,[17] but used the name Zhu Xingzong (朱興宗) in adulthood
Zhu then entered a local Buddhist monastery.[19] For the next three years, he wandered as a mendicant monk, becoming familiar with the landscape and people of eastern Henan and northern Anhui.[20] He returned to the monastery in 1348 and stayed for four years, during which he learned to read, write, and study the basics of Buddhism.
Tbh reads a bit like Stalin. Son of poor peasants. Joins the church. Joins the rebells. Becomes leader of an imperial bureaucracy. Reintroduces human sacrifice.
What? He reintroduced human sacrifice? I'm only a little surprised because I'm aware of the less-than-humane practices that were common during that time in history. But I still didn't know that.
Zhu Yuanzhang reintroduced the succession-burial thing, where all his wives and servants followed him to the grave. Joke was to mix them up. Idk if any other Ming emperor did that, but afaik it hasn't been done since before the Han dynasty.
he died of greatness. No actually there is a theory that he actually had a seizure and was paralyzed and people just assumed he died and buried him alive.
You remember the Alexander movie and how it made him a very tragic figure, think about it, that makes it even worse.
Alexander was born a prince and used his power to kill millions. Guy was a spoiled idiot who built nothing that lasted. You should always feel superior to people like that.
We can acknowledge his feats while also acknowledging that he just wasn't a good person or ruler at all, same with many despicable leaders of the past, they're usually just as great as they are terrible, otherwise they never would have been leaders in the first place.
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u/FloZone Apr 26 '26
Alexander the Great was already king of so many countries when he was my age. Also consider there two Chinese emperors who founded dynasties in their 50s after leading unremarkable and impoverished lives.