5 Historical Figures vs. Chuck Norris in Grappling Fight

Anyone who has been within 30 yards of a middle-school aged boy[1] can tell you that there is a growing consensus of who is the greatest fighter in human history: Charles Ray Norris.  Through a series of hyperbolic jokes, he is now perceived to be a demigod to the internet goers of today.

            And I am here to tell you… that there are plenty of great fighters from throughout the history of the world who deserve just as much, if not more, adulation as a fighter as Chuck Norris.  So I’ve chosen 5 of history’s most resilient and aggressive warriors to challenge Chuck Norris to 10 wrestling matches each.  I will be testing their grappling abilities on the following criteria:

1.      Do they have more, less or equal experience in grappling?

2.      Do they come from a culture where wrestling is of great significance?

3.      What is their physique, and how would that contribute to the match?

4.      What personal feats of strength or endurance have they accomplished?

5.      How does their style of wrestling play into the match?

5) Dan Gable Undefeated U.S. Wrestler

            Dan Gable may not be the most famous wrestler outside the Hawkeye State (wrestled at Iowa State, coached at University of Iowa), he is arguably the best to ever wrestle in the Olympics.  In his collegiate career, he had a record of 181 wins, one loss and no ties.  He only participated in one Olympic Games in 1972, where he won the Gold medal.  But it doesn’t stop there.  At that same Olympic Games, he didn’t surrender any points whatsoever.  He shut everyone out.  That means that he was never taken down, he never allowed a downed wrestler to recover to their feet and committed no penalties.  And he did all of that against the world’s best wrestlers of 1972, a time where the Soviet Union fielded one hell of a wrestling team every year.

            It goes without saying that Dan Gable has far more experience in grappling than Norris.  Both Gable and Norris come from the same wrestling culture of the U.S., which I believe influenced them equally.  Dan Gable was slightly smaller (5’8”, 150 lbs.) than Norris (5’8”, 170 pounds), which would allow both wrestlers to fight against opponents of similar size, with Norris having a weight advantage.  Both are extremely accomplished fighters.  However, most of Norris’ biggest martial arts victories were achieved in Karate tournaments.  Norris was more than competent in grappling (Black Belts in Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu as well as his self-invented martial art “Chun Kuk Do”, which involves grappling).  However, Olympic athletes are probably all “black belts” by several degrees in each of their respective sports.  Not only does Gable belong to that elite group, but he completely shutout all of his Olympic opposition in 1972.  One could consider him a “tenth-degree black belt” in freestyle wrestling.  Therefore, I believe that Dan Gable would win 8 out of 10 wrestling matches with Chuck Norris.  Given the fact that Dan Gable has lost 6 matches in his entire life, Norris should feel honored that he managed to put such a dent in that column.

                        Record: 8-2 vs. Chuck Norris

4) Khutulun Mongol Wrestler

            While Dan Gable managed to have only 6 losses in his entire life and Chuck Norris lost 10 karate matches in his life time, there is one lady warrior one upped them both.  Her name was Khutulun, a female descendent of Genghis Khan who never lost a match.  Never.  Ever.  EVER[2].  As she was from an important family, her family had every intention of marrying her off.  Khutulun agreed, but on one condition: if Khutulun beat her suitor in a wrestling match, her suitor would have to give her 100(sources say the horse amount varied per suitor) horses, if the suitor won, she would marry him.  She wrestled and fought for almost her entire life, and by the end of her life, she had well over 10,000 horses.  As she grew close to being past the time to marry, her parents pleaded with her to marry.  Eventually she relented, but under two conditions: she would not wrestle the man she married, and she would be allowed to make the decision entirely for herself.  So she married a man in her father’s bodyguard, who was presumably the man she loved.  Khutulun had died young, but by the end of her life, she had an undefeated career of well over 100 wins, earned herself a sizable army’s worth of horses and got to marry exactly the man she wanted by effectively proposing to him.  I can’t think of a fuller life than that, personally.

            Without question, Khutulun was one of the best wrestlers in history.  She would have a far greater amount of grappling experience than Norris.  She came from a very martial culture in Mongolia, one that greatly valued the ability to wrestle.  While historical records obviously do not tell us her physical build, we do know that the average height and weight of a Mongolian female is 5’5” and 132 pounds.  I think given her success against so many wrestlers (Mongolian wrestling does not use weight classes), we could say that she was at least slightly above average weight and height.  So I’d say she’d be 5’8” and 170 pounds, given her implicitly muscular build.  Khutulun’s credentials of a completely undefeated career easily surpass even Norris’ impressive resume.  Mongolian wrestling yields many positives and negatives against Norris.  The main weakness is that Mongolian wrestling involves more charging, sumo-like pushing than ground work.  As soon as any part of your body but your foot touches the ground (unless it’s in the course of a takedown), you lose.  Against a Judo practitioner, redirection of force would be a huge concern.  However, given the fact that no man has ever forced her off her feet simply shows how unmovable she is.  I think Norris would win the first battle, perhaps one in the middle matches, due to his skill at redirecting force and groundwork.  However, Khutulun would simply be able to bury Norris in points for every takedown she would get, and as she did nothing but that throughout her career, it’s easy to say she could do this to even someone as competent as Chuck Norris.

                        Record: 8-2 vs. Chuck Norris

3) Alexander the Great

            If you were to think of the greatest general in world history, who would you pick?[3]  Well, even if you didn’t pick Alexander the Great, the guy you just picked has a 90% chance of being inspired, studied by, or modeled after Alexander the Great.  The Elvis of generals[4], if you will.  Given the fact that Alexander the Great lived his entire life as a military man, it’s safe to say that Alexander was very familiar with Greco-Roman style wrestling and an even more sinister Ancient Greek martial art: Pankration.  Pankration had two rules: No biting and no gouging.  And that’s it.  Striking, purposeful bone breaking, choking, and arm barring were all legal[5].  However, its main focus was to stay on one’s feet.  Alexander the Great also fought people from the following countries: Sparta, Macedonia, Persia, Babylon, Egypt, India and Afghanistan.  So Alexander the Great has about as much experience fighting other cultures and combat styles as Norris.  While Alexander lacked any restraint from his Pankration, the lack of rules will also permit greater creativity on his part.  His height and weight were 5’7” and 155 lbs, quite similar to Norris.  However, Alexander’s expertise was not unarmed combat, where as Norris dedicated his life to martial arts, even if most of said martial arts applied to striking over grappling.  Alexander, on the other hand, probably focused all of his martial arts training on grappling.  All of this said, I think both Norris and Alexander would’ve won 5 fights each.  While Norris has more years’ experience, Alexander spent nearly every moment of his life fighting and telling everyone else to fight.

                        Record: 5-5 vs. Chuck Norris

2) Kano Gigoro, the inventor of Judo

            While very few people have heard of Kano Gigoro, everyone has heard of the Japanese grappling art of Judo.  Gigoro was the inventor of one of today’s most pervasive and effective martial arts[6].  But before he invented an entirely new martial art, he gained expertise in the much older Japanese art of Jujutsu.  Jujutsu was designed by the opponents of samurai, including ninjas, who discovered that direct striking did not work well against armored opponents.  Samurai where also much more muscular, bulky and tall than most non-samurai, and since most non-samurai didn’t have the weapons to compete with the samurai, Jujutsu was designed to grapple, restrain and manipulate opponents using their own movement and momentum.  Kano achieved mastery of Jujutsu in his early 30s, which is extremely young for a black belt of multiple degrees.  Once he began to beat his master with consistency, he realized that the only martial arts mountains left to climb were one’s he would make himself.  So he set out to create “The Way of Harmony[7]”, or Judo.  Judo was quickly adopted by Imperial Japanese schools as one of their go-to martial arts (being less “striking” oriented), and in 1960, Judo was adopted as an official event at the Summer Olympics.

                        Record: 9-1 vs. Chuck Norris

1) Harold Hardraada, 6’6” Viking King of Norway

            Truth be told, one of the guys on this list has held a significant edge in physicality over Chuck Norris yet.  Chuck Norris is small for a fighter, but then again, so is Gigoro, Alexander, Khutulun and Gable.  As Chuck Norris has prove time and time again, small fighters can be just as good as the big fighters. 

            But let’s be real, being Hagrid-sized isn’t going to hurt either.

            Such is the case for the last true Viking king of Norway.  Historians say the Viking Age started with the raid at Lindisfarne in 793 and ended with King Harold’s death in 1066[8].  According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Harold Hardraada was as tall as “seven feet of English ground”, which translates to 6’6” in modern measurements.  Given the fact that this was the enemy’s records on Harold, we can assume that this wasn’t too much of an exaggeration.  Harold Hardraada, much like Khutulun and Alexander, fought pretty much his whole life and fought against many different cultures, including the Byzantines, Kievans, Danes and Sicilians.  Even more impressive, he fought with most of the above forces as well as against them.  Normally, experience against other cultures is counted in these fights, but Harold likely learned just as much fighting besides other cultures as he did fighting against them.  I would expect him to adjust fairly quickly against Norris.  As for his style of wrestling, he likely practiced something close to modern folk wrestling, and probably was familiar with Greco-Roman wrestling from his time amongst the Byzantines[9].  While many claim that Eastern forms of grappling such as Judo are superior, Kano Gigoro claimed that Judo is, in many ways, a fusion of Western wrestling and Jiujitsu.  So it would be unreasonable to say that this would count against Harold.

            Given his superior weight, size, length of experience and exposure to other fighting styles, I believe that Chuck Norris, one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived, would only defeat Harold Hardrodda one time out of 10.

                        Record: 9-1 vs. Chuck Norris

            Just as a note of clarification, none of this is to say that Chuck Norris is a bad fighter.  I’d never say that[10].  This article merely exists to point out that great martial artists have existed across time and across continents other than Asia and modern North America.  If we want to see other countries in the Olympics compete in wrestling or judo, it is important to break down the stereotype that only Asian countries and America can compete in these events.  I feel that pointing out that all countries across history have borne equally devastating unarmed fighters is a good way of emphasizing that point.

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[1] But seriously, just TRY to get them to tell a different joke.  They won’t.

[2] NEVER EVER EVER FOR NEVER EVER EVER!!!

[3] No seriously.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

[4] Which I guess makes Genghis Khan the Beatles?  Attila the Hun is AC/DC?  Jeez, that’s a whole other article idea right there.

[5] An ancient Greek walked into a bar.  Since the bar was an arm bar by a Pankration wrestler, the bar started hitting him back.  Like, a lot.

[6] So I think that would mean he’s a black belt?  10^th degree for inventing it?

[7] Practitioners of Judo understand the idea of “way of harmony” much better than the non-Judo masters who tend to end up face first in a bamboo-plank floor.

[8] If an age in history ends with your death, then you know you’ve made an impact.

[9] Freestyle wrestling is essentially the set of rules that allows both Greco-Roman wrestling and Folk wrestling, making his skill set similar to Dan Gable

[10] If I had, Chuck Norris would’ve killed me before I even finished this sentenc

Top 5 Crazy yet Successful War Strategies

            Everyone has a favorite TV show or movie where the hero comes up with this idea so crazy that it can’t help but succeed.  And lo and behold, the villain is shocked by the strategy, feeling cheated as he scrambles on his back away from the approaching hero.  From Aragorn’s Ghost Army to Odysseus’ Trojan Horse, these are legendary across fiction.

            But I gotta say… the real life crazy strategies are much crazier. 

            This list is dedicated to all of the mad genius generals who won through weirdness and triumphed through trickery.  Candidates will be judged by how unconventional the strategies were, how intentional the craziness was and whether or not the event actually happened.  So… sorry.  No Trojan Horse.

            5). USSR General Gregori Zhukov’s “Operation Uranus”

            In perhaps the most important battle of the Second World War, the Soviet Union found itself fighting for their lives against the German Wehrmacht in the city of Stalingrad.  As this city was the namesake of the USSR’s leader, Hitler demanded that the city be taken to damage Soviet morale.  Upon hearing that Hitler went all in on Stalingrad, Stalin did the same and declared that the Soviet Union would never leave the city.  “Not one step back” became both a rallying cry and a military policy (if you tried to run away from the fighting, you’d be shot).  So the moral of that story is… never name a city after you if you’re in charge of a country I guess.

            However, one guy was not paying attention to the “not one step back” mantra.  Luckily, he was the guy in charge.  He was a military genius.  He had the cojones to contradict Stalin on military concerns.  And his name was Gregori Zhukov.  In fact, his whole strategy revolved around “stepping back”… in moderation.  He knew that the Nazi command wanted to capture center of the city, and very badly too.

            So he gave it to them.  But he kept the north and east portions of the city.  But soon after, he also took the poorly secured south and west portions of the city in a quick flurry of attacks called “Operation Uranus”.  Before this strategy, the Soviet Union was under siege.  11 Days later, the Nazis were under siege in the very city they were trying to capture.  The Nazis tried to airdrop supplies, but to no avail.  Over the next few months, the Nazis slowly lost all of their provisions, and with no bullets in their guns and no food in their stomachs, Zhukov had forced the first surrender of a German Fieldmarshall in World History.

            4). Hannibal Crosses the Alps with Elephants

            This one’s pretty difficult to forget, but given our modern perspective, it’s also pretty difficult to appreciate.  With cars, railroads, explosives to clear rock, and airplanes, crossing the Alps now a days isn’t a very big deal anymore.  But around 2000 years ago, everyone appreciated the difficulty of crossing the Alps.

            And that’s why this strategy worked so well.

            Carthage (in modern Tunisia) and Rome (in modern Rome) had been at war with each other over dominance of the Mediterranean on and off for a while.  During the second of three “Punic Wars” between the two giants, a general named “Hannibal” had come to lead the Carthaginian Army.  He had grown up being taught to hate the Romans more than anything, by his father who was a general in the First Punic War.  Hannibal had the military genius to attack and beat the Romans, and he sure as hell had the confidence.  Having War Elephants will give you confidence.  But there was one problem.

            It’s hard to ship elephants from Africa to Italy in the middle of a naval war.  So if Hannibal ever wanted to see his living, breathing, eating tanks literally stomp Roman Legions to a pulp, he’d have to take the long way around.  Again, it all sounds so simple to cross the Alps now.  But what if I told you that he crossed the Alps with a full Carthaginian Army complete with War Elephants after fighting battles through Spain (which arguably increased his forces when Hannibal recruited Spanish mercenaries)?  At one point, Hannibal had to go down a sheer cliff.  He solved the problem by cracking the rock with large amounts of the soldiers’ wine provisions and lots of fire.  The chemical reaction between wine and fire somehow did well at turning solid rock into gravel pretty quickly.  Upon adding in a few chisels, Hannibal had constructed a rock ramp down the cliff rather quickly.

            After turning the Italian Alps into a tasty red wine vinaigrette salad, he marched his men and elephants into the Italian peninsula and defeated the surprised Romans in the next three battles.  If it weren’t for a decisive Roman victory at Zama (just outside Carthage), Hannibal would’ve marched his tusked tanks right to the gates of Rome itself.  And perhaps providing Italy with the first of many wine-related crises.

            3) Inflatable Tanks Accompanied by a Very Non-Inflatable Gen. Patton.

            Unlike the above two strategies, this strategy wasn’t deployed in a direct battle.  Rather, it was perhaps World History’s biggest, most ridiculous, yet most successful bluff.  Prior to D-Day, or Operation Overlord, one of the largest amphibious assaults in human history, everyone believed that if the U.K. and U.S. decided to invade Nazi-held Western Europe, they would land at Calais.  Calais had been a French city that was historically controlled by the British for the explicit purpose of invading France.  You know, just in case the mood struck them just right.  Aside from historical reasons, Calais was simply the closest point between France and the U.K.  Logistically and strategically, it made the most sense.  So Allied Command saw fit to fill the British towns across from Calais with tanks, tents, cannons and even had George Patton himself stay at the camp.  German planes saw the army and got ready to fight it out at Calais.

            But for whatever reason, inflatable tanks and cannons don’t look so fake from the sky.  Aside from Patton, everything in the camp was fake.  The artillery, the armor, the Allies even made a newspaper for the camp under the hopes that German spies would read them and think of it as solid proof of the location of the camp.

            The bluff paid off.  While the entire coastline between Britain, France and Germany had been fortified, most of the really heavy defenses were concentrated around Calais.  Even when German troops began sending off distress signals of the Allied landings in Normandy, German High command was so certain that the real invasion was coming to Calais, that they did not move their tanks to help contain the invasion at Normandy until it was far too late.  France was soon liberated, Hitler was sweating bullets and British children everywhere had some unusual looking bouncy houses at their 12 year old birthday parties.

            2) Giving Egypt a Taste of Their Own Catnip

            If you were to ask anyone what they know about Egyptian Mythology, you would hear “they worshipped cats” 99.9% of the time someone answered.  The Egyptians actually worshipped a broad range of animals, including dogs, jackals and ibises.  However, the “they worshipped cats” stereotype isn’t just an example of typical modern ignorance of history.  That stereotype is as old as Egyptian Mythology itself, and apparently the Persians took the stereotype very seriously.  Luckily for Persia, this was one of the few times adhering to stereotypes actually worked.

            When Persia invaded Egypt around 545 B.C., (you know, because Egypt was there) they had a secret weapon in mind.  Much like Hannibal would, they would have this animal charge before them to frighten and intimidate the enemy.  Unlike Hannibal’s War Elephants, the Persians deployed kittens.  The Persians painted cats on their shields and marched cats before them into battle.  The Egyptian soldiers, so afraid of accidentally harming their sacred animals, retreated and were slaughtered in the retreat.  Some accounts claimed the Persians even threw the felines at the Egyptians!  Either way, these killer kittens won the day for an army that, quite honestly, probably didn’t need their help beating an Egyptian army anyways.  But kudos for creativity nonetheless!

            1). Vikings lighting birds on fire!

            THIS.  BIRD IS ON FIREEEEEEEEEE!!!
            Okay, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I probably have to put that nonsense in context.  Vikings were known for raiding all across Europe, not just the British Isles.  In fact, they once managed to get as far south as Sicily.  Harold Hardraada, the Viking most well-known for losing his life at Stamford Bridge shortly before the iconic Battle of Hastings, had come upon a castle in Sicily.  The walls were too risky to scale and there were no readily available catapults or siege engines to knock down the walls.  However, Harold was a crafty one.  Harold noticed that the roofs of all the buildings in the castle were all thatched, and therefore, very flammable.  He also noticed that the small birds of the city had made their nests in said thatched roofs.  So, issuing one of the strangest “Alive” bounties in Sicilian history, he ordered his Viking warriors to capture as many of the small birds as they could alive.  When the time of day came where the birds would go back to their nests, the Vikings released the birds back into the city… with flaming twigs and kindling tied to the birds.  The birds lit their nests, the nests lit the roofs, and the roofs lit the Sicilians on fire.  After literally smoking the Sicilians out of their castle, the Vikings forced a surrender from the Sicilians.  The city was taken without a fight, and in the process, they took the title for the “Craziest combat win in World History”.

Top 5 Overrated Historical Weapons: Why They Really Don't Matter That Much

            The following article will cover the historical significance of the weapon, not its effectiveness in battle or its aesthetic value.  I will not cover a weapon simply because it is uninfluential; I will make this list up of weapons that are perceived to be history changing, when their influence was, in fact, average or inconsequential.

            5) AK-47

            The AK-47 assault rifle is nothing short of iconic.  Not just of the era that it belongs to, but to this day, it is a symbol of resistance, defiance and especially recently, terrorism.  The creator of the weapon, Mikhail Kalishnikov, once said that he wished he “had invented a lawnmower”.  I will not dispute that this weapons does have quite an impact on recent history.

            Just... not as much as entertainment has lead everyone to believe.  This one I can’t be bitter or angry about.  Part of the reason why I say this is because this weapon has such an impact on popular culture and entertainment.  Just google “most influential weapons in history” and you will find that the entire internet disagrees with me.  And I understand why.

            However, I think there are a few important questions that reduce it to an “average impact” weapon.  Does this weapon change the way wars are fought?  In a way.  It allows a relatively cheap yet effective assault rifle for any resistance/terrorist groups.  However, there were other weapons available that they could’ve used en masse.  Did the AK-47 deeply affect any of the wars it was used in?  Again, somewhat.  The AK-47’s robust design allowed it to be used well by Vietnamese fighters.  However, most would say that the Vietnamese simply made better use of terrain, logistics and information than the U.S did.  The AK-47 was also the main small arm for both sides of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.  While it’s hard to judge the effectiveness of a weapon against itself, we do know that the AK-47 was not the most important weapon of that war.  The Stinger Missile Launcher was, for its portable capability to down Helicopters.  Honestly, most weapons don’t make THE difference in a war.  Organization, training and leadership are all vastly more important.  Such was especially the case with guerilla wars, were the AK-47 is chiefly featured.

            4) The Battleship

            Again, I really can’t say that the battleship was “uninfluential”.  It was.  But I think there a few big reasons why its overrated.  The battleship was quickly eclipsed by the aircraft carrier as the premier naval war platform.  The Pacific Theatre more or less proves my point.  At the naval battle of Midway, the Japanese lost four (FOUR!) of their aircraft carriers in that one battle.  How many did they bring to Midway?  Four, which was a sizable chunk of Japan’s aircraft carriers.  For the remainder of the war, the U.S. would dominate naval warfare.  This was mostly because Japan never managed to catch up in their carrier fleet.  Instead, they focused on building a lot of Destroyers, which were ironically destroyed in droves by aircraft carriers.  Add that to the fact that most battleship engagements were with other battleships.  Just like wooden warships really only engaged wooden warships.  When a weapon is constantly fighting itself, it’s hard to say that it’s historically groundbreaking, especially since battleship engagements are pretty similar in form to wooden warship engagements.

            3) Civil War Ironclad Warship

            This is a hard one to argue.  Not because it’s influential (It’s not), but because every kid who has gone through American public education has been taught that the Civil War Ironclad was the first of its kind, completely impervious and proof of America’s military ingenuity.  First of all, the Civil War was not the first war that involved substantial Ironclad naval platforms.  The Koreans first deployed the geobukseon, or “Turtle Ship”, in the late 1500s to resist the attempted conquest of Korea by Japan.  The results of the geobukseon were astonishing.  At the Battle of Sacheon, one geobukseon charged straight into a line of 13 Japanese war ships.  Who won?  The one geobukseon.  It did have a lot of support from non-ironclads, but they didn’t charge the line singlehandedly, so the geobukseon deserves primary credit. 
            In the American Civil War, there was a short period of time where the Confederate “Merrimack” Ironclad was the bane of the Union fleet.  However, only a few months later, the Union “Monitor” "defeated" it (when the Merrimack ran aground), leaving the Union with a monopoly over ironclads.  While these ironclads did play important roles in other Civil War campaigns, the North already had naval superiority since the beginning of the war.  In short, it was far from game-changing.

            2) Poison Gas

            I really, really don’t get the emphasis on this WWI weapon.  I just don’t.  Before poison gas shells, the Western Front revolved around trench warfare.  After a reasonable amount of poison gas was used… the Western Front revolved around trench warfare.  Even at the first battle it was featured at in large quantities (2^nd Ypres), the Germans only gained a small amount of trench land, and while they achieved tactical victory, 2^nd Ypres, like any other battle in the war, had no long term effect on the outcome of World War One. 

            I plan on being a history teacher one day, and I have to say, this weapon is barely worth a mention.  I don’t remember any of my history teachers talking extensively about it, and now I see why.  It really didn’t change anything.  At all.

            1) The Katana

            Please.  Internet.  Stop it.  I know you like Anime, but please stop.  Please.  Now that you’ve heard me plea to the cold, unhearing, uncaring void that is internet forums, allow me to talk a little bit about Japanese Feudal Warfare.

            Common myth portrays the samurai as a spiritual master of the sword who wore heavy armor and cut apart droves of whatever was in his way because his magic katana sword could cut through anything.  Firstly, the katana was not the samurai’s first weapon, or for that matter, even his second.  The first weapon a samurai would’ve used was the umi bow, which was considered just as much of an art as the art of Japanese sword play.  This makes a lot of sense; open a battle with a long range weapon, then move to a close range weapon as the enemy closes.  The second weapon a samurai would use would be the Japanese polearm, the “naginata”, which was basically a shorter katana on a long wooden stick.  While they weren’t quite as useful on the ground, they could be used to great effect while on horseback.  Finally, if things really got close quarters, a katana would be the appropriate option, given its reasonable length and greater flexibility of a polearm.  So a samurai was responsible for knowing how to wield much more than a katana.  In fact, it was probably better to know archery and horseback/naginata use than katana swordplay.

            Like all the other overrated weapons above, the katana was also of minimal impact.  Japan didn’t permanently conquer any countries until long after the katana was a significant weapon.  But to that, most katana fans would point out its superiority to every other sword in existence.  I know that the katana has plenty of upsides, but I feel the best way to debunk the infallibility of this weapon is to point out its drawbacks:

a)      The katana was NOT lighter than other swords.  The katana weighed in at around two and a quarter pounds (just over a kilogram) and was around two to two and a half feet long.  That all sounds very impressive, but not as much when a sword that preceded it by around 500 years did better.  The Viking Sword was around two pounds and was around three feet long.  And I probably don’t need to mention that there were plenty of other swords that outperform the katana in the category of weight and length.

b)      The katana has only one side.  Once again drawing a comparison to the Viking Sword, swords that have two sides, while not necessarily better than sabres or katanas, do have more options.  Imagine playing ping pong where your opponent is not allowed to use a backhand.  Now imagine you are sword fighting someone with only one side to their sword.  There’s probably a lot you know you can do, and you know there are certain strikes that your opponent won’t be able to do.  This alone doesn’t make the katana worthless, but if the katana really is the “ultimate” weapon, then shouldn’t it be able to incorporate every, or at least most combat options?

c)      The katana was a difficult to use weapon.  If you’ve never picked up a katana before (I did… once…), then I wouldn’t suggest using it in case of a break-in, zombie apocalypse, anime convention gone horrible wrong, etc.  The katana is supposed to draw its speed and cutting potential from a lever-like action used on the sword’s grip.  The swordsman starts with his top hand back and his bottom hand forward.  As he swings and guides the blade, he snaps his top hand forward and his bottom hand back.  Much like one would cast a fishing rod.  In short, the weapon becomes effective based on torque power, not muscle power.  Which is exactly what everyone imagines the weapon to be.  Everyone imagines, that since katanas are harder than diamond, (pfft.) you can just hack away at anything with reckless abandon and whatever is in your way will slowly slide to the side as it is separated from whatever it is it just cut.  In short, a trained swordsman needed to practice, practice and practice with this weapon before it became effective.  I’ve found that the easier to use a weapon is, the more influential it is.

            Thanks for reading!
                        Cameron Pribyl

Top 5 Overrated “What Ifs” of History

By Cameron Pribyl

            I’ve always felt one of the more entertaining aspects of history as a school subject is how easy it is for historical discussions to become really goofy, really quick.  Many of our most beloved historical figures were absolute nut jobs, many of our most glorified moments in history happened for weird reasons and so many ridiculous commodities were sought after by the masses (Dutch logic: Your tulip petals = the deed to my house!)  So when you get into these weird moments in history, it often makes one wonder, what if Hitler wasn’t completely nuts?  What if Robert E. Lee didn’t say “if practicable”?  What if bodyguards actually guarded bodies?  This is generally how “what if” discussions and debates come up between history buffs.  However, as fun as these articles can get, many people can get a little carried away (like my 9^th grade English paper where I argued that if the Japanese won at Noryang Point in 1598, Japan would’ve conquered the world.  That’s right.  The WHOLE FRIGGIN WORLD) and make horrifyingly farfetched conclusions.  And that is what this article is dedicated to.  This is for everyone out there who thinks that we’d all be speaking German and worshipping Jupiter the Sky God if only a few things hadn’t gone differently… Like 9^th grade me.  I’m going to rank these one through five based on how frequently come up, how ridiculous the conclusion typically is and how little things would’ve actually changed if the “What If” in question actually came to pass.

#5.  Pontius Pilate Spares Jesus

            The extreme predictions:  Christianity never exists, everyone adopts some other weird religion depending on the region and, without the 1000 years of scientific repression, we’d all be riding hover boards while robot minions do our day to day work for us.  And Meg ends up being hot.  (That’s right.  Even Family Guy gets in on the sick game that is “What if”-ing)

            My prediction:  There are a few reasons why this one’s on the bottom of the list.  First of all, I don’t see this one THAT often.  Second of all, there’s a wider spectrum of predictions than the extreme prediction I gave above.  Finally, I think there are some really interesting implications as to what would’ve happened if Jesus lived a full life.

            I’ll start off by saying that Christianity would’ve still existed if Jesus wasn’t martyred.  Why do I think this?  Because most major religions of the world today do not have their main prophet or teacher being martyred.  Buddha, Lao Tzu, Mohammed, Confucius, and all of their equivalents never ended up dying like Jesus did.  So it stands to reason that Jesus’ teachings could’ve still spread without him needing to die as he did.  That said, the concept of martyrdom was (and arguably still is) VITAL to almost every early and medieval interpretation of Christianity.  Early Christians defined their faith, in large part, as something in opposition to the Roman State, or “the State” in general.  In fact, when the Christian faith was made the state religion of the Roman Empire, it created something of a crisis for many Christians, who still felt attached the concept of martyrdom and proceeded to search for ways to figuratively sacrifice themselves.

            And that’s just one concept of Christianity that would’ve changed.  Jesus, as any man would, most likely would’ve changed a few tenets of Christianity as he grew older.  Remember that Jesus was in his early thirties when he was crucified.  Is it really feasible to believe that he never would’ve changed his mind over the next twenty to thirty years of his life?

#4.  Napoleon Wins at Waterloo

The extreme prediction: Without Lord Wellington to defend Britain, Napoleon expands across the continent and manages to restore most of his pre-Moscow empire, leaving America as the only English speaking country left on the face of the earth.

My prediction: I tend to go a bit easier on this one because people tend to be more measured with their predictions on this one.  While there is still an unbearable amount of people who say we’d all be speaking French if Wellington didn’t save the world, there is a significantly larger number of people who say that France would’ve prospered more under Napoleon, who would’ve stopped fighting after Waterloo and restrained from trying to expand again.

Not so fast.

The reason why this one makes the list is because I really don’t see much of a difference between Napoleon winning and Napoleon losing. Why?  Because Napoleon was egomaniacal and ambitious in the extreme.  While Napoleon had his reasons for invading and conquering other places, his main reason for challenging Russia, who at the time had little interest in fighting a general who had already beaten Kutuzov (severely underrated general, probably the only guy in Europe besides Wellington who could’ve beaten Napoleon) many times over, was that he was bored and thought he could do it.  That’s right.  He invaded the world’s largest country because he got bored.  So I hope you understand why I think that, even if Napoleon would’ve accepted a British/Prussian surrender after Waterloo, he wouldn’t have been able to help invading some other hapless neighbor.  He knew he could do it, so he would’ve tried.  But even if it wouldn’t have happened at Waterloo, he still would’ve eventually been bested somewhere else.  By 1815, France was already exhausted from constant war, and didn’t have the resources, men and will to do what Napoleon inevitably would’ve tried to make them do again.  So, as measured as the common prediction above is, I think the difference would be even less pronounced.  Now if Napoleon won at Waterloo AND the Duke of Wellington was killed by a stray bullet in that same battle… now then there might be some more interesting implications.


#3.  Lincoln isn’t Assassinated/serves his second term.

The extreme prediction:  Lincoln’s Jesus-like godliness makes friends with all of the reconciling Southern politicians, making Reconstruction a breeze and North, South, Black and White spend the next 100 years singing “Kumbaya” around a campfire. 

My prediction:  I’m not going to pretend that this wouldn’t have effected Reconstruction.  Lincoln was a very good negotiator, and most Southern politicians and leaders thought of him as the best person to negotiate with following the war (voters were another story; there’s a reason why Democrats held the South every election for the next hundred years or so).  He also understood, as many members of his party did not, the importance of not punishing the South for the war.  If he lived longer, Reconstruction would’ve been viewed much less as an occupation by Southerners.

            BUT

            Lincoln’s survival alone would not have been enough to calm the many humiliated Southerners down.  This is because the only thing that could’ve calmed them down would be reinstituting slavery, which was simply not an option for Lincoln.  The humiliation that many Southerners felt went beyond humiliation as a result of losing the war and being occupied by Northern troops.  Most of the humiliation was a result of their perception that Blacks, their former social inferiors were becoming their social superiors.  This was obviously wrong on every level, but the sense of cataclysm was still pervasive enough that many Southern people would resist and obstruct any attempt to give freed slaves any new rights.  In fact, one important event often omitted from textbooks was the so-called “Revolution of 1876”.  While this wasn’t another revolt against the government, several Radical Republican “carpetbaggers” in South Carolina were driven out of their homes under threat of violence (quite often these threats were fulfilled) and were replaced by ultra-conservative Democrats.  Not only did the “Revolution of 1876” end reconstruction, but it set a precedent of using violence and corrupt politics to suppress the vote.  While I know a lot of people nowadays consider Lincoln a racist (everyone in that day and age was) there’s no denying he was a man ahead of his time on many issues, including racial issues.  But the problem with being a man ahead of your time is, as soon as you leave the stage, the world goes right back to its time period.

#2.  The Wehrmacht wins at Stalingrad

The extreme prediction:  HITLER TAKES OVER THE WORLD AND THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN IN GERMAN!!!

My prediction:  Ugh… I made a point of trying to disregard WWII as a subject for potential “What ifs”.  Why?  Because they are everywhere.  EV-ER-Y-WHERE.  (In my follow up “Underrated “What ifs””, I will make a point of including absolutely NO WWII “What ifs”) Reading through websites about these, WWII “What ifs” are so dominant, I tried to not include them in this article.  In fact, overly focusing on WWII battles is a real problem in teaching history in general, one that I quite frankly don’t have the time or will to talk about.   But I still had to mention this one because it’s just everywhere.  Everyone thinks that if Hitler took Stalingrad, it would be over for the Allies, when in reality, the city of Stalingrad was only important because Hitler said it was.  If the Soviets lost this battle, they’d have just retreated further back and kept fighting.  And sure, people argue for the psychological effect that would be inflicted on the Russian people once the city bearing their leader’s name fell.  But take a look at what the people of the Soviet Union psychologically endured over the course of the war.  WWII claimed the lives of 40 million people.  22 million of them were Soviet, when you combine military and civilian casualties.  Those who survived might have been captured and worked to near death, or had to leave behind their homes and flee to the Urals to work in factories.  Those who stayed in their towns to help fight off the Wehrmacht had to watch their world be bombed, torn apart by one of the most formidable armies in the world and then watch familiar places fill up with the corpses of their dead friends and family, as well as the countless nameless German, Italian and Hungarian dead.  To say that the people of the Soviet Union would’ve lost the will to fight on after Stalingrad falling is not only utterly wrong, but borderline insulting to what these people endured and prevailed against.  Add that to the material lack of importance to Stalingrad, and I see no reason to believe that losing Stalingrad to the Wehrmacht would’ve in any way changed the outcome of the war.

#1.  CSA wins at Gettysburg

            The extreme prediction:  The southern half of this country remains Confederate and slavery persists to this day.

            My prediction:  This one is number one because not only because the reality is so far removed from the prediction, not only is this one extremely overdone and not only would the war still have ended in the Union’s favor, but because this “What if” is often used to illustrate “how close the Civil War was”.  The truth of the matter is, it wasn’t a close war.  True, Lee consistently won battles in Northern Virginia, and stymied the Union advance on Richmond for four years.  However, when one looks at the Western Theatre (Shiloh, for example), it wasn’t even remotely close.  The first significant Confederate victory in the Western Theatre was at Chickamauga in fall of 1863, more than half way through the war.  By this point, the Union had already conquered all of the Mississippi River, most of Louisiana and roughly 95 % of Tennessee.  Chickamauga was then followed immediately by Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, where a Union army under Sherman burned everything in between Chattanooga and Savannah (both of these cities were spared), including the state capital Atlanta.  This cut the Confederacy in half.  Again.  So the idea that the Civil War was close is far from reality.

            But let’s focus on the Battle of Gettysburg itself.  The argument here is that if the Union Army of the Potomac was driven off by General Lee, there would be nothing stopping him from marching on Washington D.C. capturing the capital and forcing Lincoln to surrender.  This argument not only ignores the fact that Washington DC had around 60 to 70 armed military forts, not only ignores the industrial irrelevance of Washington DC, not only ignores the possibility of the routed Union Army regrouping and pursuing Lee again, but it ignores the fact that Lincoln and the rest of the Federal Government could’ve still run the country from somewhere else.  I would even argue a Union defeat at Gettysburg would hasten the end of the war.  Forced to take the war even more seriously, Lincoln would’ve called for even more troops, put Grant in charge of the Army of the Potomac after firing Meade and encouraged strategies that even Grant would’ve felt were too aggressive. The Union completely eclipsed the Confederacy in manpower, industrial power, communications, transportation, raw materials and fortifications, and even then, many historians believe the Union was not fighting at the same level of effort that the Confederacy gave.  A loss on Union soil would’ve forced the Union to bring their full might to bear, which would’ve doomed the Confederacy in mere months.

            And no, no European powers would’ve done anything beyond economically assist the South.  Most European observers to the war were watching in a mix of awe and fear.  They saw mobilization of troops on a mass scale, combined with new tactics and frighteningly effective new weapons, especially the ironclad.  Were they incapable of competing with American arms?  Not necessarily, but given what they were observing, you can be sure that they had no desire to take part in this new, frightening form of war.  Like Stalingrad, Gettysburg was important because the Union won it, not because Meade and the Army of the Potomac were all that stood between Lincoln and General Lee.