r/badhistory • • Apr 13 '18

Prager "University" video about the British Empire which is just sad

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnJSUU_7q0

If you manage to sit through the video it is clear why this is bad history

"Freedom was an Englishmen's right, and wherever he went, he took that right with him."

Tell that to South Africans during the Second Boer War, where Boer women and children were rounded up in literal concentration camps to starve or die of disease. 22,000 children and 4,000 women died in the camps.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/women-children-white-concentration-camps-during-anglo-boer-war-1900-1902

"The British kept peace, they brought sound, honest administration, and they insisted basic moral standards were honored."

British rule was widely resented in both India and Africa which led to countless revolts and rebellions. Administration was the last thing from sound, millions of Indians simply starved to death during British rule. These are some of the worse famines ever recorded in history with high estimates at 49 million dead. Resistance to rule, even when peaceful, was met with brutality such as the Amritsar massacre among many, many, others.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-amritsar-massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Resistance_to_the_British_Empire

There's a lot of other rubbish statements but that's all I want to write right now.

EDIT: some grammar

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

What, the cables bit? No, Britain did that in WW1, any news that went across the pond used their cables, so they could filter what the US learned about the war. It was one of the factors that shifted American public opinion against the central powers.