Love your videos, man. I've been watching you since early 2014, almost 10 years now Ever since I was 12😅 you've been one of my favorite content creators, and you've come a long way, man
Beretta M9 is the finest engineering of a handgun I have ever seen. Gladly own one. A 9mm in it's heavy duty, chrome shining, ass-kicking glory. Truly a gun to own!
It's how we teach history in school that is to blame also as an American after the revolution war it all become America centric until ww2 where you get some oversimplified stuff about the world it suck tbh
It also interesting how this era(1500s to 1600s) was practically a mini apocalypse for many places. Japan warring states, the 30 years for western/central european, the fall of the ming dynasty, times of trouble for russia, little ice age, west africa warring state due to the demand of slaves, Mughal conquest of india and even the major population collapse and change of the americans.
@@USSAnimeNCC- This shit isn't just America only though. The one time I had Roman history, my teacher just talked about the Teutoburg forest and how "we" beat the Romans. Cool I guess?
I’m Polish, I can vouch the 1500 to 1700 period is the most talked about era in Polish history class. Learning about the socio-political dynamics of Polish Lithuania that lead to the partitions (hello 1792) is like our version of the fall of Rome, with all the literary romanticisation that comes with it.
@@leonardomarquesbellini That is pretty much the case for all of Europe, since it was during this Era that the modern nation states as we know them were largely established. One of the reasons why it's the "Early Modern" period.
So what you're saying is that Poland needs to create a modern version of the Hussars with Air Cav and Light Tanks and create the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth by first marching south to swallow Belarus and then North into Kalingrad while Russia is distracted. Then a merger with Lithuania and bam.. You can go right back to terrorizing the Russians like you really want to.
@profezzordarke4362 true, but not many European nations can claim they went from superpower to almost irrelevance in just 100 years like Poland. It's almost like God jad it out for them during the 1600s.
What I love about this period is how quickly the lance fell out of fashion after the pistol became common. There was barely any transition period, they basically instantly dropped the lances the instant they could get pistols.
@@rodrigorincongarcia771 wrong, very very wrong, first of all, lancers were never dropped in the 1st place like in the napoleonic wars, yes they waned in popularity but that was only because countries thought that lancers were too unwieldy and wouldnt perform well in close range combat, but when napoleon started using polish lancers, everyone shat their pants and started making lancer regiments of their own. contrary to popular belief, lancers were specialized against infantry and squares, they are NOT specialized to fight cavalry, they can fight cavalry, but theyre not made for that
It blows my mind that Hollywood hasn’t focused more on this era. You’ve got massive hand cannons that would look imposing on the screen, incredibly detailed outfits with extravagant colors, massive walled city sieges. It really is almost a perfect era for Hollywood but they ignore it completely.
There is an interesting movie set in the 1500s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profession_of_Arms_(2001_film) It's slow-paced and authorial, so not really a blockbuster, but I like how they recreated the spirit of the time. It's also interesting because they focus on the introduction of rifles and artillery as such an advancement that it was perceived as inhuman and cruel by the contemporaries, leading to a ban of such weapons by the Church.
You’ve sold it to me, the moment I realized the peak of Caribbean Piracy, the Ottoman Empire, and the Spanish Empire were in the same time period, I fell in love with this era
@@swissarmyknight4306it’s 2023… I’m not sure what we’re counting from or to but it’s 2023 and you know why that is 😂 Jesus Christ is real bro 😂 you’re entire year to year calendar is predicated on that. And before you go talking about saturnalia and Roman paganism you can stop right there and just appreciate that every time you acknowledge the year you’re acknowledging the life and death of Jesus Christ
@@UGNAvalon a regular dood? He’s just a regular dood that lived 2000 years ago that every keeps talking about. 😂 if he was a regular dood then why are we talking about him? Obviously he wasn’t just a regular dood 😂 you think anyone is going to be talking about 2000 years after you die? You think anyone will remember you 100 years after you die? Go read clown
In the Netherlands we learn a lot about this era because for us it was the Dutch Golden Age. We were at the peak of our power and were one of the biggest powers in Europe at the time. It's unfortunate that it is not mentioned even though there is a lot of Dutch artwork in the video.
Yup Dutch/Spanish (thanks Habsburgs) VOE was the modern footprint for the mercantile triangle and imperial trade network that would come to dominate the next 400 years. Very slept on and is partly why the Netherlands is still considered one of the wealthiest nations on earth.
Yup, as the era went on, generals and armchair strategists determined that more firepower in the form of proportionally more musket men was better, but there were only so many you could have before your pikes couldn't defend against cavalry or effectively attack infantry. The Swedes and the Dutch figured out a balance, which is why they dominated late in this period. Then someone figured out the plug bayonet, and pikes could pretty much be abandoned, since now everybody could be a musket man *and* a pikeman at the same time. The problem was plug bayonets went *into* the muzzle of the firelock, and thus you couldn't shoot (safely) with it in, and it required a special tool to extract it. Not long after, the socket bayonet was invented, and was used from (likely) the 1720s/30s until the 1850s, when the ring bayonet modified the design with a locking ring, but really didn't change anything else. So you could even say the design lasted until the 1870s if the locking ring is solely regarded as a modification of the existing design, which is reasonable. The decline of this design was largely due to the thought that, due to new breech-loading rifles, bayonets would become largely useless. However, military men are nothing if not traditionalist, and didn't want to get rid of the bayonet altogether. This resulted in the predecessors to the combat knife bayonets that were largely used in the World Wars. It's ironic in hindsight, but the powers of the world thought that bayonets were on the decline before World War One. (If you couldn't tell, I like this bit of history and tracing how it affected weapons ever thereafter.)
they stopped using pike man not because of gun powder but because of trench warfare. the thing most people don't realize is that trench warfare was made to combat polish hussars by the Sweden. as it was better to arm all you're troops with a musket and dig in behind a wall of spikes then have a portion of you're army dedicated to just trying to hold something faster back.
There's a Shogun 2 mod about the Pike and shot named well the Pike and shot that showcased the warfare at the Surprisingly the pike and shot period is also when samurai warfare reached its heights
@generaldave7710 they kinda did in Warhammer but I get what you mena But yeah Total war nowadays has no big competition so the content nowadays is lackluster Here's hopping they add Nippon to warhammer 3 because seeign samurais vs demons would be awesome 😁
It's sad to see this era of pikemen and musketeers so often overlooked, especially in America. It was such an eventful period, especially for nations like Spain and Poland-Lithuania
Yeah the 30 years was practically the beginning of the end of ancient and medieval Europe(and thinking) where it was slow death until it was wiped out in WW1.
It's easy to understand them focusing on the founding of their country, especially given they could easily have just died out(There's a reason it's thanksgiving; if it wasn't for native help, they'e have all died off)/
Yeah it's also far more eventful for Asia aka the centre of the world before colonisation. The Mughals, the Qing,etc all rose in the era, so did happened events which changed destiny of the whole world like Mughal-Maratha war which crippled the Mughal Empire which led to eventual indian colonisation.
Yeah, On our end, the most you guys get is a general overview unless we're specifically covering Europe or we're looking at immigrant populations. Sometimes, we even skim over our involvement in wider wars
England: Heh look at our religious exiles, they made a colony in America! Anyway, Germany how are you holding up? Germany: Help! EVERYTHING IS DYING! The horror, the horror!!!!!!! England: He'll be fine
Yeah, my ancestors came to the US from Germany and I never knew ANY of this until I started reading a scifi book about a West Virginia town which gets dropped near Jenna in 1631. Its vaguely terrifying to see what Bavaria, where my ancestors originated, was like at this time.
@@KellAnderson that series really pissed me off after the second book because it gets worse and worse when it comes to the topics having been researched. But as a general note, yeah, this whole era is covered pretty well in German history classes, although most emphasis is placed on Reformation, 30YW and then Prussian emergence. Funny thing, the big topic in England in the year 1776 was not that some colonies revolted. Nope. It was the bigamy scandal of a fat noblewoman, the newspapers printed 16 page special editions.
Here’s an interesting factoid. About half the male population in America (obviously only referring to pilgrim/colonists here) left to go fight abroad against the royalists when the English civil war broke out. The Puritan movement in England was pretty short lived, but it lived on in America and had a giant impact on its early history.
It’s so odd learning about the English civil war and going to castles hearing about one army attacking the castle with pikes and swords whilst the other army inside the castle is shooting at them with muskets and a canon mounted at the top of the roof. It’s so interesting.
at that time theres a alot of jobs can be sign: - Farmer - Pirates - Explorer - Merchant - Soldier of Pikes - Soldier of Musket - Soldier of Archery - Knights - Priest - Witch - Mercenaries - Spy - Artillery Crew - Noble Government - Printing Crew
at this time in history the French were hated only in Europe. were as on the rest of planet earth, the "Knights with guns" would've been applicable to the Portuguese maritime empire and their ruthless war machine that spanned almost half the globe, from North Africa to South America to the Far East and almost everything in between.
You mean the part where the people were pissed with the Prime minister for failing to stop the French from invading their country that they killed him and his brother and ate their body?
Tulip speculation... and ohhhh yeah, the 80 years war that we even mostly skip over in German history classes, just because the whole era is chock full of events. o.O
Wish EU4 was as fun during this time period and less on early game. The problem is that it doesn’t really show internal strife, rebellion, and civil wars well. Also snowballing is a huge issue, countries never really collapse-especially if you are the player. If you are successful early game, you’ll be successful throughout.
I read your comment and I quickly thought up of this: Play a nation for a few decades, however long you decide, then either go into observer mode for a few years, or even play as your original nations main rival. Then after a few more decades go back to your original nation or even swap to another country. (I will say I've never played EU4 but I've played HOI4 and Viccy 2 alot)
Yep. France becoming a Napoleonic-esque superpower by 1500 is rather annoying. I always play in Europe simply to stop that snowballing. Asia usually stays pretty disunited so I'm less worried about them. I usually have a mod that removes most natives (exceptions being Mexican and Peruvian natives) that way colonization isn't completely stopped by massive united native nations. That way the AI focuses more on colonizing than conquering in Europe.
@@Sodom_and_Gomorrah For the last year, my brother and I have been playing different nations every new age/era. So, we start with any nations during the Age of Discovery say England and Papal States, then once the new age starts (Age of Reformation), we select new nations. This repeats every new age. It definitely spices up the game. We usually select smaller/medium nations to play as.
I think that’s a problem with every paradox game, they are simply too easy and too broad There isn’t enough detail, I think HOI4 is the worst in that with the complete lack of any economic systems beyond vague focuses that affect your PP gain and construction speed that have no actual affect on “civilians” (manpower stockpiles)
10:13 Cossacks (Kozaki , from polish) were a kinda like tatars at the time, but a lot cooler i could say. They would quite regualrly organise raids on ottomans trought black sea, that they crossed with just small boats. Once with these small boats, when they arrived at some big city, they absolutley obliterated its entire fleet, witch was surely well paid and professional. They were really famous in europe for battles like these. After that, they looted city and burned some of it. They very often looted trade boats going trought river Dnieper. There was a few kilometers long section of river that was very rocky, and sheeps going trought it were very vournelable for attacks. When traders got to that section, they would, i think, get the boat out of water, and like in ancient times would get the boat to other side of this section on land. Thats when cossacks would strike and loot entire ship + probably kill anyone near it. It was said that when these traders heard cossacs, they would litearly run with this boat on land , pulling ropes and running as fast as they possibly could. Also, polish goverment really didnt have control over them, it was like a state inside a state. Thats why polish people for "chads" started saying "kozaki" (cossacs). I think its nowdays used just sometimes, but i feel like its a lot cooler to call someone "kozak" than "chad" for example
As an Italian who loves very much the Netherlands, this is one of my favorite eras, particularly the 16th and 17th century. To me it evocates the same vibes as the Late Antiquity.
Early Netherlands history: -fight Spanish for thirty years -make money -kill the Prince of Orange -fight the Spanish for twenty years -fight the French for ten years -exile the House of Orange -make money Repeat until 1710.
This era is super interesting in Asia too - you had the Gunpowder Empires (Ottomans, Safavid Persia, Mughal India), the massive catastrophe of the Ming-Qing transition in China, an early and short-lived Meiji-ish era in Japan which saw them adopt firearms and attempt to conquer Korea and China, the Russian expansion into Siberia, and the Portuguese and Spanish shenanigans in the East Indies.
The Spanish really didnt do much in the East Indies compared to the West Indies. Portugal, netherlands and England seem far active in the east indies/Asia.
There was also some cool Far East piracy going on I believe. Even some equal opportunity ventures, where the wife or mistress took over the operations. History Time and Voices of the Past, brothers, have some incredibly well done videos on this period.
@@Draregkoeliekalie I'm counting the Philippines as part of the East Indies. The Spanish were also in Micronesia, and did some early voyages around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
Isn't it weird that the video doesn't go into the fact that the Netherlands of all places became a global superpower who became so rich it made the largest company in history and was so threatening to their rivals France and Britain that in 1672 they were invaded by the full British fleet, 200,000 French soldiers along with two German states. This is why I personally like this era. As a Dutch I'm biased, obviously, but it is an interesting enigma in history, especially as the Dutch laid the foundation of modern capitalism by starting the first stock market.
And what's even more funny is that Spain, whom the Dutch fought for 80 years, became your ally. The Netherlands' independence and rise to power mirrors USA's so much it's crazy..
As a Brit I do find it irritating that people forget we weren't the only colonialists carving places up. Hell, I didn't even know how Indonesia came to exist until recently!
yet you were beat down by the true powers of the world, the dutch are no more a global power than the ottomans, just another relic of a vain attempt to match more important nations :)
@@7411y As an Indonesian, your comment hurts. From my experiences living abroad it's pretty obvious that despite being the 4th most populous country Indonesia is still pretty much unknown in general (until I say it's where Bali is), but it still hurts lol.
17th century history is DEFINITELY underrated in more than just military. The fashions, the culture, the politics, everything is just HAM. I just finished a great book on political informers in post glorious revolution England and it was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve ever had! (I’ve also been reading the 1632/ring of fire series and enjoying it too)
Meanwhile on tik tok "why men think about rome" I'm sorry but men who have an obsession with rome where they think rome is just awesome are probably extremely dumb men who don't know a thing about rome or questionable guy who still happy vote republican
The three musketeers were basically knights with guns, in the books they even had armour when they went to war. Unfortunately non of the movies gave them proper steel armour. Anyways, today I'm gonna see the newest french adaptation, I heard it's an excellent depiction of the era.
@@concept5631 I personally loved it, it was such an old-school swashbuckler movie spiced with some crime-thriller. It had beautiful cinematography, three dimensional characters portrayed by the best french actors, subtle humor, well-crafted action scenes and the whole world was created with a lot of passion, it really takes you back 400 years in time. They didn't wear armour in this one, but the siege of La Rochelle will be in the second part of the movie wich I haven't seen yet.
You’re not alone. I’ve been obsessed with 17th century century history for two years now and I’m always wondering why no one else seems to care for it. It feels so lonely being a 17th century enthusiast.
Same. I love Pike and Shot. Anything from the Burgundian Wars to the Great Northern War could fit under this period. The little ice age and the climatic struggles during it are just so underrated.
As an AP European History Teacher, this speaks to my soul. The first 3 units of the class focuses on this period...and my students struggle with it on a deep and painful level as they have ZERO CONTEXT for it. It is sad.
I took AP European History and passed and I totally forgot this era existed until this video 🤦♂. Focusing more on the "knights with guns" part would definitely make it more interesting to learn (that's why I clicked on the video...it sounded cool lol).
Honestly I didn't really learn much about this period until I took a class in college about European history from the 1400s to modern times . Also sabaton ironically enough really got me into the period
@@mzaa6787 I plan on emphasizing this more next year, because despite having taught this class for a few years now, it only just occurred to me how wickedly cool this is thanks to this video.
@@henrylandcaster1022 Indeed. My students do usually remember the Defenestrations of Prague (or rather the third defenestration that started the 30 Years' War). It's one of my favorite things to talk about. Ya yeet!
Richard Harris Alec Guinness Timothy Dalton in Cromwell? Slitherine games has a turned based strategy called Pike and shot it’s this period fought on a turned based board
The blender of new and old weapons and tactics also applies to the science and culture of the time - you had. Enlightenment philosophy, Newtonian mechanics, chemistry and exploration still blended in with insane alchemy and religious mysticism
Thank God to see i'm not a lone wolf. Early modern period have always been my favorite as well. I've never been that much into antiquity or medieval age at all. But there is something about that era from the Discovery Age to roughly the Napoleonic Wars that really draws me in, for some reason
The one era i always point to as "The most underrated when it comes to basing fantasy stuff there" is Meiji Restoration Japan. The one time in history that pretty much everything was existing side-by-side: Major cities look like industrial revolution cities, rural towns are pretty much medeival, Samurai are running around weilding Katana in one hand and Revolver in the other, boys who were trained from 5 years of age to be a warrior in the Shogan's army grew up to be accountants who go to work on the train. It's a wild fucking period where a society was forced to leap 300 years of development in 10 years and frankly, they hadn't had time to sift through all of the idea's, so they did a bit of everything.
If I recall correctly, one particular Samurai-in-training even got moved into a High Admiral position and led a decisive victory against Tsarist Russia in the Battle of Tsushima Strait - the one of the largest sea battle where battleships really clashed against each other (unlike that glancing blow that was the Battle of Jutland a decade later) before Submarines and Aircraft Carriers did all the naval heavy lifting. So yes, talk about a massive career shift in this period.
The Boshin War has probably one of the greatest strategy games of all time, Total War: Fall of the Samurai. The actual game involves a lot more deaths than the real war for gameplay reasons though.
There's also the Dogs of War who I'd argue are even more this as they were the actual pike faction. Though if you're focusing more on the knights with guns aspect then yes that's totally an Empire unit.
@@stryke-jn3kv TEB's southern realms mods for total war: Warhammer 2/3 absolutely slap, adding in the Dogs of War and a fuck ton of true Tercio-like units
@@Nomadith wasn't a fan of it myself, but it is certainly really impressive for a mod. Assuming the game survives long enough, and that's a big assumption currently, we will get them as an official army pack as lords like Borgio have been data mined so hopefully I'll like that better
A slight correction at 4:40. Guns were pretty often used already in the late 1400s and even in the late 1300s in the form of hand cannons. Most of the guns were definetly not too heavy to be used with two hands and there are many depictions from the late 15th century depicting that. Amazing video oterwise.
To be more accurate, in the late medieval period, arquebuses were lighter guns and weren't very heavy, while muskets were heavier guns that required stands to aim in exchange for heavier firepower
As a World History teacher, I agree this is underrated and I put a lot of focus on this era. I even brought in a Europe Risk board to help them understand the France vs Habsburg conflict.
As a Protestant the 30yrs. war is actually a super fascinating era of Church history and Western history to study. Thanks for the great video as always, Cody!
it's about as fascinating as the difference between the sunni and shi'ah for muslims... bunch of fools killing each other over a magical sky daddy that is "the one true magical sky daddy™" and then on top of that the christians killing the jews and muslims over the same magical sky daddy not realizing they just named him differently... all three of you are a bunch of fools...
That era also saw the rise to power of the Presbyterian Reformed church in Scotland, who were a bit like the Taliban except they insisted people should be able to read their bibles. That led to a big increase in middle and upper class literacy and the Scottish Enlightenment a hundred years later. And helped kick off the English Civil war when Charlie I and Bishop Laud managed to upset the Edinburgh mob with the book of common prayer.
Ironically enough this is probably my favorite time in history. The time that sorta felt relatable the closer you get to its end but in reverse it also feels much more unrelatable in the farther away you get. It’s a nice middle ground which is why it’s so interesting to me.
@@artoriuscasca424 Dude the late Middle Ages were so Intense so much happened. And the age of discovery is an era I wish I was in. Exploring a brand new continent just sounds so fun.
Interestingly, I think this is the most romanticized time in Spain. We haven't had any real golden age since then, but that golden age, that peak Spanish Empire, that's epic. We were probably the most powerful nation in Europe and the world, discovered America, conquered it with the Conquistadors, end of the Reconquista, unification of the crowns, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Velázquez. Undoubtedly the most grandiose era pf Spanish history.
@@unflushablepoo8243 inflation didn't really affect the empire, sure, there were times in which it did but the collapse of the empire had nothing to do with inflation
The 1632 Ring of Fire books and the Empire from Warhammer Fantasy made me fell in love with this era. The asthestics and wacky technology are beautiful. Especially when both the Empire and Ottomans have literal tanks.
I'm 2 minutes in, this being the first time stumbling onto your channel...that I know of. You earned yourself a sub, mister! I can tell this will be golden, I love this period of history, and all of it to be honest. Keep putting out gems brotha, I'm here for it!
When I started playing EU4, I very much fell in love with this era. It's just so fascinating to me how different of a world it was between when it began and when it ended.
When you really think about it every story you've ever heard about monsters, men, dragons and factions from 40k to lord of the rings to star wars theryre all based off of really old written fictional stories which are all roughly based off of real events from this time period. This truly is an era so rich in history not enough stories can tell.
Alatriste, the movie shown in most of these clips, is an amazing film because it does a great job answering the famous historical question "What if Aragorn had a gun?"
Eh...not really. Now in looks and feel the movie is fine but the makers didn't know if they could get to make more Alatriste movies (It is based on a series of books.), so they just made one movie that spans the entire length of the series. Imagine if Lord of the Rings had been condensed into one two hour movie.
As a german it was interesting to see this american perspective. The 30 years war from 1618 to 1648, its beginning and aftermath was extensively covered in school, I didnt even think how that might be different in other cultures.
I find it suprising that we don't learn much if at all about it in Poland despite how important role country played during conflict - from beeing literally the center of european diplomacy due to neutrality, proximity and religious tolerance as well as despite not beeing offically participant having some conflicts with other 30y war participants that impacted the conflict especially on the beginning. It can also be due to the fact that it fell directly between polish occupation of Russia and Cossacs Khmelnitski uprising latter of witch dragged PLC into series of conflicts that devastated country as bad as 30y war devastated Germany if not even more (in absolute terms the value of destruction is estimated to be compared one of WW2)
Kinda crazy if true for university people... Because Westphalia literally created the modern international relations regime... (French here, we did cover the 30 years war extensively)
@@jangroberde2822I think you can't generalize that. I did it reasonably well, siblings in the same school only did it in one lesson. Literally only 2 pages in their book.
I just found your channel a couple of days ago and this has been some of the funniest shit I’ve watched in a while! As a history buff, I’ve been incredibly humbled as you’ve taken me through the passage of time these past few days. Got to say, I haven’t quite found a channel this quality and this funny in a long time. It’s been perfect timing too because the past few days have been kinda ass and you’ve really helped me get through it. You’ve got a new loyal follower. Thanks so much for what you do. Know that you make a difference and have put a lot of positivity and laughter in my life these past few days. 😊
Great that you mentioned the Ukrainan region. It was really the european wild west, or more like "wild east". Even it's name mean "the borderland" or "Land at the end of country". Cossacks are really interesting characters and they can be compared to cowboys/outlaws
@@Game_Herosurprisingly after some digging cossacks a re a pretty broad term There are Polish, Ukranian, Russian, Belarusian There are even some tatar ones Those guys would made it as far east as Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia and even alaska
My uncle has a cossack sword that was passed down through the family (russian side) Not sure the story behind it but I can't imagine the thing hasn't seen blood
@@comradekenobi6908 I honestly don't remember, it used to be on the wall at my grandparents house but i havent seen it for years at this point. Why do you ask?
I wholeheartedly agree about this period of history being underrated especially when it comes to the power of the Hapsburgs. Most people I've ever talked to about the Habsburgs just mention their jawline.
I personally know three historians specialized in them. You cannot stop them talking about Habsburg for hours on end, and the jawline will never even come up. It really gets old soon. In my teens I read a lot about Charles V, but these people are on a wholly different level.
or the collapse of spanish dominance in europe. if the war for spanish succession never happened its possible they would have reformed their government and held the colonies longer. not to mention fought the french much better in the war with napoleon.
I come from the Czech republic and actually here in our schools we learn about this period quite a lot as it was the time when we became subjects to the the giga-chin Habsburgs
To be honest late medieval and early modern periods are the only ones when Bohemia was important in global events. You basically invented European religious wars (to became one of the most faithless countries in Europe). :D So it is nothing weird you may overemphasize this part of history. :P
@@Hadar1991 I wouldn't say that we overemphasize this part of our history I'd just say that its kinda like the main subject when it comes to our history, kinda how american history classes mainly focus on the revolutionary war, we focus on this period of Habsburg rule, but I pretty much agree, I mean we literally invented the word defenestration aka the fancy word for yeeting someone out of a window :)
It's similar in Hungary, as it's a period where at the start we were arguably at the height of our power then in a few decades the Habsburgs and the Ottomans did a splitsies and then fought for a 150 years. It was definitely eventful
@@ondrejhons704 And you already yeeted an important politician in Prague of out the windows at least four time starting at least two major, multi-decade wars. That is an interesting CV. :D
Yo dawg imma let you finish, but I believe the word you were looking for when you kept talking about horsemen is *cavalry.* Calvary (what you said over and over instead) is the name of a place important in Christianity.
The 16 and 17th centuries are my favorite periods of history. You have the peak of Spain and Portugal,The Age of Exploration,The Italian Wars,The French Wars of Religion,The Thirty Years War,The Ottoman-Habsburg Wars,The Polish-Lithunian Commonwealth,Loius XIV. So many interesting events and historical figures.
As a European, really didn't expect this period with such a title. :P This period may be underrated in America, but while it certainly didn't get the most attention, it was probably one of those that got the most attention in school. Definitely some well known historical figures from that era in my country.
I think it really depends on what classes your school offers. I’m from the US and last year I took a European history class. A lot of time was spent on the early modern period for us. It was funny though going from that to US history this year, and ignoring all the chaos that was going on in Europe
In general history classes in the USA, this whole era we focus for the most part on American History and the founding of America. It makes sense, but I will definitely say that the ongoings of Europe during this period did become a fascination of mine in my adulthood because of the lack of education on what was happening across the pond in those centuries. Like we focus a lot on the piracy in the Caribbean and the colonial empires of France, Britain, and Spain because those directly correlate with our founding and history but if you ask most Americans or Canadians about the French and Indian War ( The Seven Years War), we tend to mostly only think of the North American theater of it and pay no mind to Austria or Prussia in that conflict.
I'm from germany, and I we didn't really talked about this period that much in school. Just for reference, my time in school ended in 2017, and I took as much history as possible. I can't say it with certainty, but it was like 2 to 4 hours for the 30 years war, and this was the thing we talked about most considering this whole period in Europe, means pretty much nothing else was covered. But we talked about the discovery, colonialism and the settlement of the new world. So not that different from what is described in the video (maybe minus the pilgrim stuff, that was only covered briefly). I'm gonna use this comment for a recommendation, because why not. Check out 1632 by Eric Flint, if you wanna have a good and funny read of fiction set in this period (as you can guess by the title, lol). It's about a west-virginian mining town which gets thrown into the midst of thuringia in the 30 years war, and features the battle of Breitenfeld, Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein and much more. And it might sound silly (which it kind of is as a concept tbh), but its actually a very good read.
The Siege of La Rochelle is my favourite historical painting or all time. The religious undertones, the bright red contrasting with the dark blue. It’s so amazing and beautiful.
This painting has a sad history in fact. The french catholic government besieged La Rochelle because it was a protestant city and friends with the english . The red character on the painting is " Le cardinal de Richelieu " a powerful politic and religious personnality, he's the one who commanded the siege. During the siege , more than 85% of the population starved to death and La Rochelle was one of the biggest cities of France . As someone from La Rochelle , it's always cool to see this painting in totally unrelated videos
@picavant I don't see how this is sad. Sure, the civilians suffered, but that can be said of any and every war. On the other hand, La Rochelle was an almost-ennemy state in the state. A major port city befriending a primarily maritime power who also happens to be an ennemy of the state is never a good thing. The siege was entirely justified and even necessary.
I love that you made this video. The 17th century in general and the English Civil War in particular is my Roman Empire. I think about Oliver Cromwell multiple times a week.
Spain and the Ottomans were THE factions during this period. Both at the height of the power, each with a thousand reasons to fight eachother. Spain was the most dominant in pike and shot warfare, their lines barely ever broke formation even under heavy cannon and musket fire. Its a shame Tercios weren't mentioned in this video. In fact, most of the action pike and shot scenes you see in this video, are from a spanish movie starring Viggo Mortensen called Alatriste, based on a book saga of the same name set during the 30yrs war and Spain's slow but steady decline.
Portugal is just as important. First global superpower defeating the turks in the battle of Diu in the early 1500s. Portugal is such an underrated nation.
Yes, Ottomans were gunpowered. Although my national (Serbian) epic poetry sings about sabres and shields, it was all GUNS very shortly after Ottomans entered Europe (15-16. century).
Pike and shot is such an underrated period of time. Really needs a total war game with this setting, is one of the last times that different countries had really tactics (spanish tercio vs dutch brigades vs swedish batallions) and differences in dsicipline could make or break a battle (like in the english civil war). It was also when sieges were revolutionized, first becoming really easy for the attackers due to cannons, then becoming really difficult due to the star fortress.
I'm not confident the Total War warscape engine can handle pike and shot, even though Shogun 2 mods had it. It's been decades since Total War has been properly able to simulate pike formations being able to keep enemies at a distance.
The closest game to pike and shot is ironically probably shogun 2 which doesn't even take place in europe. That combination of guns that can be good, but also complete trash compared to some conventional tactics, is super interesting and I would love to a return to it if they ever made a game in this era.
@@Michaelonyoutub That game however is really bad at modeling pikes. Everything has to trigger a 1v1 fight animation which makes it impossible for pikes to actually provide cover for the teppo troops. Troops will easily just phase through all the pikes and engage in sword melee and the AI for the teppo troops is going to prioritize trying to fight in melee and breaking formation instead of trying to keep as many guns firing as possible.
@@Michaelonyoutub and Shogun 2 shows that TW engine need very huge overhaul if pike and shut would ever work. Hell, they never actually got even Roman legionnaire tactics right in Rome 1 and 2. If they want to make it theý need to fix that god damn problem with units being stuck or blub up when they try to pass through each other.
I've never been so validated by a video, It's honestly such a shame we aren't getting more creative works set in this era. If anyone is looking for a recommendation, The Captain Alatriste book series by Spanish Author Arturo Pérez-Reverte is one is set within the early modern period. Some of the clips of the movie adaptation were featured in this video. The series itself showcases the adventures of the titular character Alatriste, a professional soldier and sword for hire along with Inigo, his squire, surrogate son and narrator of the story. The author does an excellent job relating Alatriste's escapades with broader political and social developments of early 17th century Spain and Europe and illustrates the various perspectives that those living then may have had. The author's reason for writing the series was partly inspired by the notable lack of any works set during the Spanish Golden Age, which coincides with this overlooked period of history. If you like cloak and dagger conspiracies, early modern warfare, pirates and romance, this series might just be what you're looking for.
In Brazil, we talked a lot about this period, especially because of this was the time of the colonization of our territory. Many things were different back then, like the Northeast was the economical and political center of Brazil, São Paulo didn't had much economical importance, the French and Dutch invasions, the discovery of gold that tripled the colony's population and three attempts of independence in three different provinces.
So true; that period felt so empty and underdeveloped in school, but then when you study European history / history in higher education, you realize that that’s only because America literally was underdeveloped compared to the incredible advancements and complexities of the 17th century elsewhere
to be even more fair, it was like 3 shitty ass english colonies, not america. 1 of which was roanoke, 1 of which was virginia which was famously garbage for like 50 years and the other was basically boston which has sucked for 400 years straight
As an Argentinian it is curious that our history classes at school are similar, you start with Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, the feudal era, Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, the Spanish arrive and a jump to the French revolution and the American revolutions
"Your Eminence! Those Protestants don't pay their tithes!" "What?! HOLY WAAAAARRRR!" 30 years later... "Your Eminence! Those Protestants don't pay their tithes!" "Sigh. Just leave them be. I am tired of this shit" Hopefully, next time around we will be smarter. Else it will go like this: "Mr. President! Those others, I hate them!" "Me too! SELF-RIGHTEOUS WAAAAAARRRR!" 15 minutes later... "..."
In the uk (or at least England), we put a lot of emphasis on this period. Quite a lot of English history happened here, like the end of the wars of the roses in 1495, the whole reign of Henry VIII and the protestant reformation and the tudors more broadly, the entire Stuart era, with the union of the crowns and later Parliaments of England and Scotland, as well as the civil war/war of the three kingdoms. We do also briefly talk about how this was the beginning of the empire, but that's not really a huge concern. Anyway if you can find it the british kids show horrible histories has quite a lot of stuff on this period, as well as british history more broadly (obviously it's not just british but thats the main focus). Even though it's aimed at kids the comedy's funny for all ages, and I'd say to start, listen to the king of bling song
Was it caused by the little ice age? Probably. My old man was from Chicago, moved to the desert as soon as he was on his own, and his one and only contribution to sociology was the following: “Cold makes people mean”. It’s simple but it really explains A LOT.
@@CarrotConsumer Mostly Europeans apparently. I doubt it comes up often in the Middle East. And we Americans are a special kind of crazy- why march there when you can splash across a freezing river instead of have Christmas Dinner.
In the Netherlands (and I feel like in most of Europe) this part of history is far from overlooked. In that time our nation got created and was a superpower for decades. It was an interesting period. Thanks for covering this.
Just as an FYI, you can mail order a blunderbuss pretty much anywhere in the US for about $400-500. They are totally unregulated and relatively cheap. You will probably want to find powder locally -- hazmat fees are a killer for small quantities.
If your into science fiction you should check out warhammer 40k it's basically Sci fi nights woth guns to the point their is a faction based on the teutonic order
Even in the Americas in this period things were a violent mess. It wasn’t just pilgrams, it was pilgrams and natives waging the (per capita) bloodiest war in American history. Atun Shei has a great series of videos on King Philips War.
The Americans were the ones writing the modern abridged version that this period in the Renaissance full of bloody conflicts were forgotten or vague by the rest of the world.
Transitional eras that offer a weird mix of old and new tech (for their time) are always fascinating. It’s why I find the Late 1880s-1914 to be so interesting. It’s this weird mix of old and new. In 1880 a cutting edge warship was an iron hulled sailing vessel with a steam engine. A large cannon for and aft that could pivot and smaller broadside guns. In 1890 it was a pre dreadnaught battleship. You had this weird overlap where a country could have a single shot black power rifle or a bolt action smokeless powder rifle. You had machineguns but people didn’t know how to use them. Oh yeah and in the late 1890s-1900s you could have a gun battle in the American west between a single action army colt revolver and a freaking 10 shot semi automatic C96. Plus cowboys and cars! Kinda a similar type vibe to this. Just a weird mix of old and new.
Id like to see more episodes like this. Doesn't have to do with alternate history but just conversation and analysis on some interesting time period, country, etc. One topic I think would be neat is the development of New Spain which lasted in North America before Canada, the US, and Mexico became established or reach that far out
PancreasNoWork and Sandrhoman are underrated, they are the best channels to watch while doing busy stuff, along with Majorkill and Adeptus Rediculous for Warhammer, and Kings&Generals and Jack Rackham for historical shenanigans
I think the overall conquest and subjugation of the Americas is far overlooked and underrated. Like you always hear all these people “the Indians had their land stolen from them” and “disease wiped out and maimed most their populace alongside what the Europeans were already doing” but dude it’s all 100% truly fucked up and it’s all that has been on my mind lately. That’s a lot to process. A whole new world full of fresh perspectives and different ideas of life, governing - society as a whole - stripped away over the course of hundreds of years.
I love this period as well, cause it’s such a chaotic transitional era where you have all these elements of medieval and early enlightenment vibes clashing. The fashions of the day were probably the most extravagant in European history, and is the setting of a lot of classic fairytales like the brothers’ Grimm, particularly in Germany. It’s a great era for high fantasy/dnd inspiration, the warfare makes it more interesting than vanilla “high medieval”.
My favorite era of history is between the 1870s and the 1900s. There is so much innovation and obscure details to cover within that period but this "early modern" era has now made it onto my top 10 list as well.
It's one of my favourite eras too. One thing that's usually overlooked is how amazing the armour from this era is. Most surviving pieces of armour, whether helmets or cuirasses, are of an amazing quality. I think armour making reached its apex during the 16th-17th centuries. The armour of black cuirassier heavy cavalrymen is an amazing mix of Medieval & Renaissance aesthetic. The society and culture is fascinating too. So much art, fashion, music, architecture. The beginning of the Scientific Revolution coinciding with continuing vestiges of ancient superstition, such as widespread belief in esoterica, magic-thinking and superstition. This was the great age of the Witch hunts after all, as well as the religious strife that arose from the Reformation. The contrast between these two extremes makes it such a fascinating era.
it actually isn't overlooked, it is just such an unfocused and complex era, that whenever it is featured in Media, you've got to focus on a very small part of it. Every Swashbuckling Story plays in that Era, Almost every Fairy Tale adaptation plays in it, everything about "historical" monster hunting features it... It is there, it is featured, but we lack a concise picture of it because it is so much. Which is really silly, sinde it's only 2 centuries compared to the 10 that was the "dark" and medieval ages of which we often have a much more coherent picture, since the general style of society and warfare and culture developed with a much easier to understand direction. Rome falls, land is ungoverned, Feudalism erupts, the last heathens convert, mail armour and heavy swords, first knights, frankis empire evolve trough the crusades and the islam ruling of iberia bringing in clear oriental influences to central europe and the british isles and the HRE towards the Renaissance when we get the glory that is Full Plate Suits of Armour, Fencing books for the Long Sword and the increasing influence of the Guilds. Whereas the Early Modern Period is as you described, a big mumbo-jumbo of cultural identities forming, nation states being established, all while science and religion clash with each other and one of the most devastating wars ever utterly destroys central europe.
I am so happy you brought attention to the 1600s, it is without doubt one of my favorite periods in history that NOBODY talks about. There is so much going on during this century that it is surprising just how ignored it is. Yes the wars are something to look into but my interests lie in the fashions, the art (I love Baroque), everything. I mean pirates and cowboys are happening at the same time! (Although at this time cowboys go by the name highway men). It is by far one of the most interesting centuries.
Cowboys we’re not 19th century highway men. The cowboy mythos is an indelible part of the American cultural experience unique to America. The whole idea about the West and freedom and the cowboy who by proxy stood for American restlessness and liberty came about during the 1890’s with the rise of the Hollywood film industry, the settling of the West and Fredrick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis”.
@Person0fColor ok I never said cowboys were real, I simply said they were 17th century cowboys. Real cowboys were ranchers, what we think of cowboys would've been outlaws and bandits... similar (not the same) to highway men. Yes I'm aware that the concept of the cowboy is entirely false and propagated around the time of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and then further got exaggerated by Hollywood wanting to do a "good Ole days" and other pro american propaganda. And yes I'm also aware that the true wild west was a lawless land that supported many of the country's outcasts from women to queers to trans to poc, not to mention people who commited actual crimes, oh, and don't forget prostitutes, they built them cities. So yes, I'm aware of the falsehood that is the Cowboy, but I'm also defensible enough in saying Highwaymen are 17th century cowboys. Especially because certain highwaymen in the time were both romanticized and feared by the people of the time and after.
@@uniquely.mediocre1865 no real cowboys weren’t ranchers those would be the cattle barons. The real cowboys drove the cattle heard to market there was actually lots of violence between a those that drove the cattle beards to market, the cowboys, and those who raised the beef on the land the ranchers. Cowboys despised the advent of the fence in the west as the ranchers were literally putting up fences that were impeding on the cowboys ability to drive their beards to market and lots of fighting broke out between cattle Baron and cowboy… wrong again.
@@uniquely.mediocre1865 trans and queers 😂😂😂😂 Dood you don’t know anything about the cowboys, America heritage and for that matter the film industry. Hollywood didn’t propagate the notion of the “cowboy” it was Fredrick Jackson Turner and his “Frontier Thesis”. That paper coincided with the last settling of the west in the early 1890’s You are trying to grasp a straws to sound intelligent and it’s just coming off as ridiculous I can tell you don’t read about cowboys or that part of history your just grasping to find anything to fit into your narrative. I mean for Christ sake you don’t even know who Fredrick Jackson Turner is a what he actually did, he more than any other man set the Frontier myth front and center of the American Epic. Go read some more please you sound childish Trans and queer and POC 🤣🤣🤣🤣
As a Swede, this is a time period we learn about pretty extensively pretty early on in school since a lot of kings and major historical events happened during it Also Gustav II Adolf and Karl XII are some of my favourite kings Edit: i did not expert this kind of response both in likes and comments (And yes, Axel Oxenstierna was great)
Getting shot is kinda cringe. The superior pick is obviously King Adolf Fredrik who knew nothing about leading an army, even less about running a state and who went out in style, eating pastries. To this day you can't say "Semla" without thinking about this absolute legend.
@@apotato6278 Axel Oxenstierna is the slightly unsung part of that. The man who would build up a somewhat modern buerocracy that was more than a travelling sphere of control around the person of the monarch.
@@SusCalvinAbsolutely. Sweden as it is today could not exist without the brilliant statesmanship of Axel Oxenstierna. As for the reason I'm so fond of Adolf Fredrik is because he's hilariously mediocre. He gets into power through a bizarre chain of events that sees him essentially selling a young (exceedingly stupid) child to the Romanovs. This gets him Russia's backing in becoming King of Sweden. As King he creates political gridlock because he's so passive. His wife Lovisa Ulrika, Frederik the Great's little sister, tries to expand the power of the king but to no avail since Fredrik prefers woodworking to actually ruling the nation. Eventually he agrees to expand royal power and goes on a tour of the country to garner support. This fails miserably and the Riksdag essentially threatens to behead him if he doesn't behave, after which he becomes so inefficient that they introduce a royal stamp because he can't be bothered to sign paperwork. Finally he does something incredible, something which would define his legacy, and he eats 14 large servings of pastries and suffers a stroke. He dies on the spot and is forever remembered as "that king who died while eating pastries" (few actually know his name).
I get why... but I am always a bit saddened when history is just boiled down to WAR. My favorite part about history when I can trace folk songs back to an era like this. Shoutout to one of my favorite german children songs "Maikäfer flieg" originating from those times, a song about the horrors of war (ah its about war again) and how children deal with it. A few short lines and the song nearly makes me sob. We often think about war and not what it does to a people. What 30 years of war and destruction changes in people, culture, and the small ways they act. Culinary stuff is another thing like that... wildly interesting.
War is the skeleton of history that you build the flesh and skin onto. War has defined dates, whereas social/religious shifts often don't. It is also often a clear point for social and economic shifts that may occur, as well as the motivation for political acts and their consequences. It's hard to get away from i guess
I know right? There’s so much interesting history that’s not related to war: Mansa Musa’s travels to Mecca, the absolute cluster fuck that was the south sea bubble, the voyages of Zheng He.
Another great song with a big history: "Stille Nacht" / "Silent Night" was composed in 1817/18 right after the year without summer. ... It's the haunting music of pious people close to starvation in the cold, adoring a sleeping child. It always drives me to tears.
@@1415Agincourt1415 I think that's a good point, although I would say the unfortunate side effect of this is that war is prioritized in history classes and among the population's general knowledge of history, to the detriment of cultural, economic and political history (although political history is often included with wars for context so it's less overlooked)
I thought I was the only one. I'm actually writing a fantasy novel at the moment which is set in a early modern period type setting. But mostly due to the exploration time that came with it. Brave men finding new and alien lands, and the natives seeing these human aliens come upon them.
Sounds pretty good. I wonder if it’ll be in the format of a journal of some type. Then it could be something like: “The Wondrous and Terrible Journal of a mediocre sailor.” Or something along those lines.
@snakey934Snakeybakey youve typed "riding" twice. I hope english isn't your first language or id be concerned how your "novel" comes out. Hope you got someone else proofreading it
The pike and shot era is OBJECTIVELY the most underrated in history. But the good news is that it's a hidden gem for the history buff who thinks he's seen it all!
Doubt. That cake goes to basically all of African history except Ancient Egypt, basically all of Mesoamerican history, basically all of Indian history, some good portions of Chinese and Japanese histories, basically all of Korean history, basically all of Polynesian history...
@@AtHEEstorybasically the “non white places” 😂 Does that include the Pontic steppe? You do realize all of Europeans share the same ancestors as Asian? It’s not a race or a context dood. When Iin Rome do as the Roman’s do. When somewhere else, do as they do elsewhere. What do you expect you expect?. white Protestant Anglo Saxons to teach their children about Chinese history? Or the history or Paraguay? 😂 The funny thing is you probably have a surface level understanding of all that historical perspective and somewhere out there is a white guy that knows way more about all that than you 😂
@@Person0fColor So what? You're acting obnoxious. OP was claiming pike and shot was *objectively* the most underrated era of history. It may be from a white American Anglo-Saxon perspective. It isn't from a white European Anglo-Saxon, or any other white European perspective. Pike and shot is a style of warfare, first and foremost, and not an era; in any case, 1450-1700 is one of the most saturated eras in European education, fiction and non-fiction writing because that's when most of our relevant history began to happen. It's not "objectively" underrated at all. Not outside of the USA, anyhow. I've given you a bunch of historical settings that are much more "objectively" underrated because hardly any people *on the Planet* know anything about them. That includes myself and most other white Europeans and Americans but also Latin Americans for Mesoamerican history, Africans for some African history (admittedly mostly due to the effects of colonisation on culture and a lack of thorough education in much of rural Africa), Asians for some Asian history etc. There's more to the history of Japan than the Sengoku and Edo periods; there's more to the history of South Africa than the Anglo-Zulu war. Most people barely recognise that. And finally, you're the only one here who ever brought up race. All we did was list historical periods and settings, what colour of skin was had there was entirely immaterial. Until you brought it up in your white-ass butt-hurt whining. Which tells us nothing of me or OP, and a whole lot about you. Chiefly that you're an asshole, if you didn't get the gist yet.
It's a pretty popular era in history of Poland, our Golden Age, with winged hussars, great military leaders, growing economy etc. But also, because of many mistakes, the beginning of the end, since around 1650, with one exception - battle of Vienna.
It's the same here in Sweden, largely thanks to our wars against you guys. It's too bad we didn't become a part of the Commonwealth under King Sigismund/Zygmunt III. Imagine what an absolute monstrosity the Polish-Swedish-Lithuanian-Finnish Commonwealth would have been. It would have stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea and contained enough ethnic minorities to make a Habsburg Emperor blush. Oh well... guess it was never meant to be.
@@apotato6278 Yes, the combination of Swedish infantry plus artillery and Polish hussars would have been unbeatable in the 17th century. But due to religious issues, such an alliance was impossible at that time. In hindsight, it's a pity.
I think one of the reasons this period of History isn’t really taught well in the US, is that there was almost constant warfare and border changes. I was 10 during the Fall of the USSR and reunification of Germany. I can’t for the life of me pin down in my mind where Serbia, Slovakia, the Chek Republic, Croatia, all the Stans, Bella Rus, etc. are. I can read a map just fine, I just don’t have an internal feel for this geography, because I moved on to learning other stuff. So knowing where the borders of these now ancient countries were and their conflicts, just doesn’t make sense since the borders of most of these countries are now mostly stable. Also, the US aristocracy doesn’t really want well-educated thinkers.
It’s crazy to think I’ve been watching your videos for almost a decade now. Just such a constant source of enjoyment for me that I sometimes take it for granted. But I want to let you know that I appreciate you, Cody. You’re a good dude
The dominance of the Spanish Tercios in the Pike and Shot era is severely underrated. Also, Tlaxcallan troops from New Spain (Mexico) were involved in battles of the Spanish conquest of the Phillipines, and against Japanese Walk raiders :v
They were the New Spanish army, almost everyone involved in the Military of the Crown, they were often Mexican, either fully indigenous or mixed. Headquarters and training were done in New Spain (Mexico).
As a Filipino, I didn't know that Tlaxcalan troops were present during the conquest of the Philippines, but I knew that the majority of the Spaniards (Kastila) which settled in my country have Mexican origins.
I was introduced to this era by the late Eric Flint in his sci-fi novel 1632. That turned into a massive collection of work that spanned less than a decade (I think it was from 1631 to 1637) and started with a small West Virginia mining town in the Holy Roman Empire in the middle of the 30 years war. The timelines split right away, but a lot of how the world worked and was organized comes through before the American's start messing about.
I’m a history major. We never even learned much after the Mayflower in HS. I only learned about stuff like King Phillip’s War last year. It really is a big blind spot in education
Might just be because I'm Dutch, but I find the early modern era very interesting. Essentially because of everything you said, but also because we were trying to figure out politics. There were full monarchies, elective monarchies, elective emperors, dynastic emperors, constitutional monarchies, oligarchic republics, slightly less oligarchic republics, honestly, even the Dutch republic was quite limited, but impressive at the time. Anyways, there was a lot going on, politically speaking, is what I'm trying to say. It's pretty f'ing cool.
Kinga & Generals is a really good history channel in general but they have a series on the 30 years war I highly recommend! The 1500s-1800s is deeply interesting for so many reasons - the development of technologies, exploration, wars, strategy and battlefield tactics, the arts & culture, politics ... Sweden being a great power 😅🥰 I love it - it's definitely underrated!
i watched Kings and generals about the Ottoman- Portuguese wars in the Indian ocean region and it was quite a disappointment ,as it was slanted so much in favor of the Turks experience, when in fact the Portuguese were the ones who came out victorious and achieved their objectives. .
Pike & Shot is such a fascinating era of warfare (among many other things). Which is why I really love how Warhammer leans into it heavily especially with the Empire of Sigmar.
The Mercenary system in Europe in this period was fascinating. Italy was infamous for their use of Mercenary companies to fight low intensity wars for years against one another. Plenty were only loyal to their paycheck and would defect or just abandon their post if defeat looked possible. But then you had the All-Star Mercenaries who charged a premium and were there to *win.* If you were faced with these groups, you knew you were in for a bad time
*Western history
Wow
Love your videos, man. I've been watching you since early 2014, almost 10 years now
Ever since I was 12😅 you've been one of my favorite content creators, and you've come a long way, man
Make a video about Finno Korean Hyper war
The best history
Edit: 50 likes, damn🗿
War of the League of Augsburg bros, where you at?
Keep in mind, Beretta was founded in this era. Yes, the company that made the first hand cannons, also made the M9 handgun used by Army officers.
Beretta is almost a 500 year old company
Beretta M9 is the finest engineering of a handgun I have ever seen.
Gladly own one.
A 9mm in it's heavy duty, chrome shining, ass-kicking glory.
Truly a gun to own!
And possibly the first SMG in history
@@Germanica1871it does look much better than the polymer furniture guns that would follow it.
@@Germanica1871have you ever heard of the Laugo Arms Alien, old man?
It's so crazy to realize that Pirates, Knights and Pilgrims weren't actually a thousand years apart from each other
It's how we teach history in school that is to blame also as an American after the revolution war it all become America centric until ww2 where you get some oversimplified stuff about the world it suck tbh
It also interesting how this era(1500s to 1600s) was practically a mini apocalypse for many places. Japan warring states, the 30 years for western/central european, the fall of the ming dynasty, times of trouble for russia, little ice age, west africa warring state due to the demand of slaves, Mughal conquest of india and even the major population collapse and change of the americans.
True
@@USSAnimeNCC- This shit isn't just America only though. The one time I had Roman history, my teacher just talked about the Teutoburg forest and how "we" beat the Romans. Cool I guess?
Also samurai. Those 4 existed at the same time.
I’m Polish, I can vouch the 1500 to 1700 period is the most talked about era in Polish history class. Learning about the socio-political dynamics of Polish Lithuania that lead to the partitions (hello 1792) is like our version of the fall of Rome, with all the literary romanticisation that comes with it.
I mean, the 17th century was basically the defining century for what Poland would have to go through all the way to WW2.
@@leonardomarquesbellini That is pretty much the case for all of Europe, since it was during this Era that the modern nation states as we know them were largely established. One of the reasons why it's the "Early Modern" period.
So what you're saying is that Poland needs to create a modern version of the Hussars with Air Cav and Light Tanks and create the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth by first marching south to swallow Belarus and then North into Kalingrad while Russia is distracted. Then a merger with Lithuania and bam.. You can go right back to terrorizing the Russians like you really want to.
@profezzordarke4362 true, but not many European nations can claim they went from superpower to almost irrelevance in just 100 years like Poland. It's almost like God jad it out for them during the 1600s.
THEN THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!
What I love about this period is how quickly the lance fell out of fashion after the pistol became common. There was barely any transition period, they basically instantly dropped the lances the instant they could get pistols.
Winged Hussars:
Actually, the reason to drop the lances was the bayonet and the development of more efficient muskests and better tactics to use them.
What about lancers in napoleonic era
@@rodrigorincongarcia771 wrong, very very wrong, first of all, lancers were never dropped in the 1st place like in the napoleonic wars, yes they waned in popularity but that was only because countries thought that lancers were too unwieldy and wouldnt perform well in close range combat, but when napoleon started using polish lancers, everyone shat their pants and started making lancer regiments of their own. contrary to popular belief, lancers were specialized against infantry and squares, they are NOT specialized to fight cavalry, they can fight cavalry, but theyre not made for that
@@cyrusrosales3127my mistake. I was thinking of pikemen
It blows my mind that Hollywood hasn’t focused more on this era. You’ve got massive hand cannons that would look imposing on the screen, incredibly detailed outfits with extravagant colors, massive walled city sieges. It really is almost a perfect era for Hollywood but they ignore it completely.
Because it goes against protestant propaganda
There is an interesting movie set in the 1500s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profession_of_Arms_(2001_film)
It's slow-paced and authorial, so not really a blockbuster, but I like how they recreated the spirit of the time. It's also interesting because they focus on the introduction of rifles and artillery as such an advancement that it was perceived as inhuman and cruel by the contemporaries, leading to a ban of such weapons by the Church.
Yeah. It goes against republican propaganda to show pre-revolutions eras as anything but a dark age or monarchy as a functionning regime.
Everyone is white. Hollywood won't touch it.
It's not the Anglocentric era
You’ve sold it to me, the moment I realized the peak of Caribbean Piracy, the Ottoman Empire, and the Spanish Empire were in the same time period, I fell in love with this era
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 Sir, this is "Alternate History" not "Fantasy".
@@swissarmyknight4306it’s 2023…
I’m not sure what we’re counting from or to but it’s 2023 and you know why that is 😂
Jesus Christ is real bro
😂 you’re entire year to year calendar is predicated on that. And before you go talking about saturnalia and Roman paganism you can stop right there and just appreciate that every time you acknowledge the year you’re acknowledging the life and death of Jesus Christ
Man history right!😂
@Person0fColor I think the point here is “Jesus was just a regular dude, not a god you need to repent to.”
@@UGNAvalon a regular dood?
He’s just a regular dood that lived 2000 years ago that every keeps talking about. 😂 if he was a regular dood then why are we talking about him? Obviously he wasn’t just a regular dood 😂 you think anyone is going to be talking about 2000 years after you die? You think anyone will remember you 100 years after you die?
Go read clown
In the Netherlands we learn a lot about this era because for us it was the Dutch Golden Age. We were at the peak of our power and were one of the biggest powers in Europe at the time. It's unfortunate that it is not mentioned even though there is a lot of Dutch artwork in the video.
Damn heretics
Yup Dutch/Spanish (thanks Habsburgs) VOE was the modern footprint for the mercantile triangle and imperial trade network that would come to dominate the next 400 years. Very slept on and is partly why the Netherlands is still considered one of the wealthiest nations on earth.
yeah good times where you exploited millions.
Austrians aren't proud of the Habsburg monarchy or the 2 world wars btw it's just a partt of history
@@Traxxler based
Fun fact, pike and shot was not phased out for a very long time, they just put the pikes on the guns in the form of bayonets.
So it’s now called shot and shot? Because no dedicated pikemen?
Yup, as the era went on, generals and armchair strategists determined that more firepower in the form of proportionally more musket men was better, but there were only so many you could have before your pikes couldn't defend against cavalry or effectively attack infantry. The Swedes and the Dutch figured out a balance, which is why they dominated late in this period.
Then someone figured out the plug bayonet, and pikes could pretty much be abandoned, since now everybody could be a musket man *and* a pikeman at the same time. The problem was plug bayonets went *into* the muzzle of the firelock, and thus you couldn't shoot (safely) with it in, and it required a special tool to extract it. Not long after, the socket bayonet was invented, and was used from (likely) the 1720s/30s until the 1850s, when the ring bayonet modified the design with a locking ring, but really didn't change anything else.
So you could even say the design lasted until the 1870s if the locking ring is solely regarded as a modification of the existing design, which is reasonable. The decline of this design was largely due to the thought that, due to new breech-loading rifles, bayonets would become largely useless. However, military men are nothing if not traditionalist, and didn't want to get rid of the bayonet altogether. This resulted in the predecessors to the combat knife bayonets that were largely used in the World Wars.
It's ironic in hindsight, but the powers of the world thought that bayonets were on the decline before World War One.
(If you couldn't tell, I like this bit of history and tracing how it affected weapons ever thereafter.)
Well, cavalry begun to be armed with gunpowder as well to a higher degree, so there was less reason to use spears, because there was no charge.
they stopped using pike man not because of gun powder but because of trench warfare. the thing most people don't realize is that trench warfare was made to combat polish hussars by the Sweden. as it was better to arm all you're troops with a musket and dig in behind a wall of spikes then have a portion of you're army dedicated to just trying to hold something faster back.
@@butspan7618 And yet, the Karoliner were some of the last in Europe to use pikes in their regular forces...
The Pike & Shot Era is so underrated, thank you for appreciating it.
There's a Shogun 2 mod about the Pike and shot named well the Pike and shot that showcased the warfare at the
Surprisingly the pike and shot period is also when samurai warfare reached its heights
@@comradekenobi6908 I tried it out, it’s so good! How has Total War never maid a 30 Years War game, it would be so fresh.
@generaldave7710 they kinda did in Warhammer but I get what you mena
But yeah Total war nowadays has no big competition so the content nowadays is lackluster
Here's hopping they add Nippon to warhammer 3 because seeign samurais vs demons would be awesome 😁
Shotte*
I was introduced to this era thanks to the Eric Flint alt-history novel "1632" and sequels - very entertaining story with a fun premise.
It's sad to see this era of pikemen and musketeers so often overlooked, especially in America. It was such an eventful period, especially for nations like Spain and Poland-Lithuania
Which is sad because the Great War of the day, the 30 Year’s War, actually outdoes WW1 in some aspects.
Yeah the 30 years was practically the beginning of the end of ancient and medieval Europe(and thinking) where it was slow death until it was wiped out in WW1.
It's easy to understand them focusing on the founding of their country, especially given they could easily have just died out(There's a reason it's thanksgiving; if it wasn't for native help, they'e have all died off)/
Yes
Yeah it's also far more eventful for Asia aka the centre of the world before colonisation. The Mughals, the Qing,etc all rose in the era, so did happened events which changed destiny of the whole world like Mughal-Maratha war which crippled the Mughal Empire which led to eventual indian colonisation.
This is actually why I adore Warhammer fantasy so much, as the Empire is in the Early Modern Period with pike & shot armies being their main tactic
They also have steam tanks and one of if not the best character in all of warhammer: Balthazar gelt
SUMMON THE ELECTOR-COUNTS
He talked about them in the video at 5:54 though.
This is so hilarious to watch as a German, because pilgrims are literally the least of our worries during history class.
Yeah,
On our end, the most you guys get is a general overview unless we're specifically covering Europe or we're looking at immigrant populations. Sometimes, we even skim over our involvement in wider wars
England: Heh look at our religious exiles, they made a colony in America! Anyway, Germany how are you holding up?
Germany: Help! EVERYTHING IS DYING! The horror, the horror!!!!!!!
England: He'll be fine
Yeah, my ancestors came to the US from Germany and I never knew ANY of this until I started reading a scifi book about a West Virginia town which gets dropped near Jenna in 1631.
Its vaguely terrifying to see what Bavaria, where my ancestors originated, was like at this time.
@Mysteri0usChannel Not just for Germans. Anyone from Europe.
@@KellAnderson that series really pissed me off after the second book because it gets worse and worse when it comes to the topics having been researched.
But as a general note, yeah, this whole era is covered pretty well in German history classes, although most emphasis is placed on Reformation, 30YW and then Prussian emergence.
Funny thing, the big topic in England in the year 1776 was not that some colonies revolted. Nope. It was the bigamy scandal of a fat noblewoman, the newspapers printed 16 page special editions.
As a Brit this perspective is so interesting because in our public school history we hear a lot about this era, Tudors, Stuart's, cival war etc.
And vice versa, very little about pilgrims. The most we hear of them is “what we did with all the religious zealots after the civil war”
Here’s an interesting factoid. About half the male population in America (obviously only referring to pilgrim/colonists here) left to go fight abroad against the royalists when the English civil war broke out. The Puritan movement in England was pretty short lived, but it lived on in America and had a giant impact on its early history.
@@p0rq tbh thats kinda what the pilgrims were, just what england did with the religious zealots after the instability of the civila war
@@basedchango2172 no. . No h up 5 l be loud l
Also for the Dutch, we call it the Golden age and it's basically the foundation of our "nation"
It’s so odd learning about the English civil war and going to castles hearing about one army attacking the castle with pikes and swords whilst the other army inside the castle is shooting at them with muskets and a canon mounted at the top of the roof. It’s so interesting.
I know dood history
at that time theres a alot of jobs can be sign:
- Farmer
- Pirates
- Explorer
- Merchant
- Soldier of Pikes
- Soldier of Musket
- Soldier of Archery
- Knights
- Priest
- Witch
- Mercenaries
- Spy
- Artillery Crew
- Noble Government
- Printing Crew
"Everyone hated France" is a pretty good summary of European geopolitics in this era.
Or any other era for that matter.
Just history
@@Itcouldbebunniesfor real 😂
@@Totallynotabird90 Just life*
at this time in history the French were hated only in Europe.
were as on the rest of planet earth, the "Knights with guns" would've been applicable to the Portuguese maritime empire and their ruthless war machine that spanned almost half the globe, from North Africa to South America to the Far East and almost everything in between.
The fact you didn’t include all the wild stuff that was going on in Holland shows how crazy this era actually was
You mean the part where the people were pissed with the Prime minister for failing to stop the French from invading their country that they killed him and his brother and ate their body?
Tulip speculation... and ohhhh yeah, the 80 years war that we even mostly skip over in German history classes, just because the whole era is chock full of events. o.O
Yeah a prime minister was eaten by the public. A little side note.
@Chicken_Gas an American, we did not learn about that on history at all.
If you mean like how the ate their prime minister well then yeah......
Wish EU4 was as fun during this time period and less on early game. The problem is that it doesn’t really show internal strife, rebellion, and civil wars well. Also snowballing is a huge issue, countries never really collapse-especially if you are the player. If you are successful early game, you’ll be successful throughout.
There also just an insane amount of dlcs lol
I read your comment and I quickly thought up of this:
Play a nation for a few decades, however long you decide, then either go into observer mode for a few years, or even play as your original nations main rival. Then after a few more decades go back to your original nation or even swap to another country.
(I will say I've never played EU4 but I've played HOI4 and Viccy 2 alot)
Yep. France becoming a Napoleonic-esque superpower by 1500 is rather annoying. I always play in Europe simply to stop that snowballing. Asia usually stays pretty disunited so I'm less worried about them. I usually have a mod that removes most natives (exceptions being Mexican and Peruvian natives) that way colonization isn't completely stopped by massive united native nations. That way the AI focuses more on colonizing than conquering in Europe.
@@Sodom_and_Gomorrah For the last year, my brother and I have been playing different nations every new age/era. So, we start with any nations during the Age of Discovery say England and Papal States, then once the new age starts (Age of Reformation), we select new nations. This repeats every new age. It definitely spices up the game. We usually select smaller/medium nations to play as.
I think that’s a problem with every paradox game, they are simply too easy and too broad
There isn’t enough detail, I think HOI4 is the worst in that with the complete lack of any economic systems beyond vague focuses that affect your PP gain and construction speed that have no actual affect on “civilians” (manpower stockpiles)
10:13 Cossacks (Kozaki , from polish) were a kinda like tatars at the time, but a lot cooler i could say. They would quite regualrly organise raids on ottomans trought black sea, that they crossed with just small boats. Once with these small boats, when they arrived at some big city, they absolutley obliterated its entire fleet, witch was surely well paid and professional. They were really famous in europe for battles like these. After that, they looted city and burned some of it.
They very often looted trade boats going trought river Dnieper. There was a few kilometers long section of river that was very rocky, and sheeps going trought it were very vournelable for attacks. When traders got to that section, they would, i think, get the boat out of water, and like in ancient times would get the boat to other side of this section on land. Thats when cossacks would strike and loot entire ship + probably kill anyone near it. It was said that when these traders heard cossacs, they would litearly run with this boat on land , pulling ropes and running as fast as they possibly could. Also, polish goverment really didnt have control over them, it was like a state inside a state.
Thats why polish people for "chads" started saying "kozaki" (cossacs). I think its nowdays used just sometimes, but i feel like its a lot cooler to call someone "kozak" than "chad" for example
As an Italian who loves very much the Netherlands, this is one of my favorite eras, particularly the 16th and 17th century. To me it evocates the same vibes as the Late Antiquity.
Early Netherlands history:
-fight Spanish for thirty years
-make money
-kill the Prince of Orange
-fight the Spanish for twenty years
-fight the French for ten years
-exile the House of Orange
-make money
Repeat until 1710.
Yup
@@warlordofbritanniaDutch golden age baby!!!!!
We control the trade
Praticamente in Italia lo conosciamo per i Promessi sposi
as someone who lives in Antwerp; this is my favourite era in architecture, art and music.
This era is super interesting in Asia too - you had the Gunpowder Empires (Ottomans, Safavid Persia, Mughal India), the massive catastrophe of the Ming-Qing transition in China, an early and short-lived Meiji-ish era in Japan which saw them adopt firearms and attempt to conquer Korea and China, the Russian expansion into Siberia, and the Portuguese and Spanish shenanigans in the East Indies.
The Spanish really didnt do much in the East Indies compared to the West Indies. Portugal, netherlands and England seem far active in the east indies/Asia.
@@RandomAnon333 i know
There was also some cool Far East piracy going on I believe. Even some equal opportunity ventures, where the wife or mistress took over the operations. History Time and Voices of the Past, brothers, have some incredibly well done videos on this period.
@@Draregkoeliekalie I'm counting the Philippines as part of the East Indies. The Spanish were also in Micronesia, and did some early voyages around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
And the Sengoku period. Japan has a LOT of works about it.
Isn't it weird that the video doesn't go into the fact that the Netherlands of all places became a global superpower who became so rich it made the largest company in history and was so threatening to their rivals France and Britain that in 1672 they were invaded by the full British fleet, 200,000 French soldiers along with two German states.
This is why I personally like this era. As a Dutch I'm biased, obviously, but it is an interesting enigma in history, especially as the Dutch laid the foundation of modern capitalism by starting the first stock market.
And what's even more funny is that Spain, whom the Dutch fought for 80 years, became your ally.
The Netherlands' independence and rise to power mirrors USA's so much it's crazy..
The Netherlands did symbolize what made the Pre-Modern period modern so....
As a Brit I do find it irritating that people forget we weren't the only colonialists carving places up. Hell, I didn't even know how Indonesia came to exist until recently!
yet you were beat down by the true powers of the world, the dutch are no more a global power than the ottomans, just another relic of a vain attempt to match more important nations :)
@@7411y As an Indonesian, your comment hurts. From my experiences living abroad it's pretty obvious that despite being the 4th most populous country Indonesia is still pretty much unknown in general (until I say it's where Bali is), but it still hurts lol.
17th century history is DEFINITELY underrated in more than just military. The fashions, the culture, the politics, everything is just HAM. I just finished a great book on political informers in post glorious revolution England and it was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve ever had! (I’ve also been reading the 1632/ring of fire series and enjoying it too)
The age of Pike and shot. I love all of history. Because history is a mirror of the many facets of humanity that effect us still to this day.
And yet at the same time you had vvitch trials, religious wars, and humor medical theory.
Such an intriguingly transitional period
@@warlordofbritannia Ying and Yang my friend. With every good there’ll be evil. While with every evil, there’ll be good. Makes sense?
@@Butter_Warrior99
That’s kinda what I mean-it’s almost a mishmash of two distinctly different eras, the medieval and the modern
@@warlordofbritannia Glad we agree. Hard to find that with digital discourse.
Meanwhile on tik tok "why men think about rome" I'm sorry but men who have an obsession with rome where they think rome is just awesome are probably extremely dumb men who don't know a thing about rome or questionable guy who still happy vote republican
The three musketeers were basically knights with guns, in the books they even had armour when they went to war. Unfortunately non of the movies gave them proper steel armour.
Anyways, today I'm gonna see the newest french adaptation, I heard it's an excellent depiction of the era.
Was it good?
@@concept5631 I personally loved it, it was such an old-school swashbuckler movie spiced with some crime-thriller. It had beautiful cinematography, three dimensional characters portrayed by the best french actors, subtle humor, well-crafted action scenes and the whole world was created with a lot of passion, it really takes you back 400 years in time.
They didn't wear armour in this one, but the siege of La Rochelle will be in the second part of the movie wich I haven't seen yet.
@@marton_dobo Nice
Name of the adaptation?
@@mrcopycat2355 The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan (2021)
You’re not alone. I’ve been obsessed with 17th century century history for two years now and I’m always wondering why no one else seems to care for it. It feels so lonely being a 17th century enthusiast.
Too late to adopt gunpowder, too early for automatic gunfire. Born to shoot forced, to muzzle load.
@qwopiretyu Born just in time to be a peasant in Japan defeating Takeda clan feared for its cavalry by using matchlocks
Same. I love Pike and Shot. Anything from the Burgundian Wars to the Great Northern War could fit under this period. The little ice age and the climatic struggles during it are just so underrated.
Now, imagine how lonely I feel being obsessed with 1500s and 1600s South America
Your not alone I love the early modern period
Great video and I think it’s a very interesting period in history,
public schools are slacking and missing out on so much history
As an AP European History Teacher, this speaks to my soul. The first 3 units of the class focuses on this period...and my students struggle with it on a deep and painful level as they have ZERO CONTEXT for it. It is sad.
But defenestration
I took AP European History and passed and I totally forgot this era existed until this video 🤦♂. Focusing more on the "knights with guns" part would definitely make it more interesting to learn (that's why I clicked on the video...it sounded cool lol).
Honestly I didn't really learn much about this period until I took a class in college about European history from the 1400s to modern times . Also sabaton ironically enough really got me into the period
@@mzaa6787 I plan on emphasizing this more next year, because despite having taught this class for a few years now, it only just occurred to me how wickedly cool this is thanks to this video.
@@henrylandcaster1022 Indeed. My students do usually remember the Defenestrations of Prague (or rather the third defenestration that started the 30 Years' War). It's one of my favorite things to talk about.
Ya yeet!
My first exposure to this era was "Mount & Blade - With Fire and Sword". Exactly like you described, knights with guns got me interested.
Richard Harris Alec Guinness Timothy Dalton in Cromwell?
Slitherine games has a turned based strategy called Pike and shot it’s this period fought on a turned based board
Same lol good to see another Man of Culture. Classic game🤌🏽
Love Mount and blade
Fire and Swords was awesome, luv me dragoons
The blender of new and old weapons and tactics also applies to the science and culture of the time - you had. Enlightenment philosophy, Newtonian mechanics, chemistry and exploration still blended in with insane alchemy and religious mysticism
How does the gravitational pull of the earth influence Satan’s minions on earth, aka vvitches and Papists?
@@warlordofbritannia-your average English puritan
@@warlordofbritannia Why are you spelling it “vvitches” instead of “witches”?
@@syrialak101
For funsies
@@lordofdarkness4204 That was also probably Newton himself, he was very religious.
Thank God to see i'm not a lone wolf. Early modern period have always been my favorite as well. I've never been that much into antiquity or medieval age at all. But there is something about that era from the Discovery Age to roughly the Napoleonic Wars that really draws me in, for some reason
The one era i always point to as "The most underrated when it comes to basing fantasy stuff there" is Meiji Restoration Japan. The one time in history that pretty much everything was existing side-by-side: Major cities look like industrial revolution cities, rural towns are pretty much medeival, Samurai are running around weilding Katana in one hand and Revolver in the other, boys who were trained from 5 years of age to be a warrior in the Shogan's army grew up to be accountants who go to work on the train. It's a wild fucking period where a society was forced to leap 300 years of development in 10 years and frankly, they hadn't had time to sift through all of the idea's, so they did a bit of everything.
If I recall correctly, one particular Samurai-in-training even got moved into a High Admiral position and led a decisive victory against Tsarist Russia in the Battle of Tsushima Strait - the one of the largest sea battle where battleships really clashed against each other (unlike that glancing blow that was the Battle of Jutland a decade later) before Submarines and Aircraft Carriers did all the naval heavy lifting.
So yes, talk about a massive career shift in this period.
The Boshin War has probably one of the greatest strategy games of all time, Total War: Fall of the Samurai. The actual game involves a lot more deaths than the real war for gameplay reasons though.
Ngl, This era can be called as "The Medieval Fantasy genre, but Magic Spells are replaced with Gunpowder."
little buddy forgot to watch last samurai
Plus the drip on that era
Gotta respect the fact AlternateHistory went back in time to educate us about most peaceful glorious times
You are in every corner of the internet somehow
U are NOT from braking bad
How the fuq dude!!!!!!
Bro I see you everywhere
This is why I love the Empire from Warhammer fantasy. They're this, but with fantastical elements added in.
Knight with gun following King on griffin
SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS!!! FOR FRANZ!
There's also the Dogs of War who I'd argue are even more this as they were the actual pike faction. Though if you're focusing more on the knights with guns aspect then yes that's totally an Empire unit.
@@stryke-jn3kv TEB's southern realms mods for total war: Warhammer 2/3 absolutely slap, adding in the Dogs of War and a fuck ton of true Tercio-like units
@@Nomadith wasn't a fan of it myself, but it is certainly really impressive for a mod. Assuming the game survives long enough, and that's a big assumption currently, we will get them as an official army pack as lords like Borgio have been data mined so hopefully I'll like that better
A slight correction at 4:40.
Guns were pretty often used already in the late 1400s and even in the late 1300s in the form of hand cannons. Most of the guns were definetly not too heavy to be used with two hands and there are many depictions from the late 15th century depicting that. Amazing video oterwise.
To be more accurate, in the late medieval period, arquebuses were lighter guns and weren't very heavy, while muskets were heavier guns that required stands to aim in exchange for heavier firepower
As a World History teacher, I agree this is underrated and I put a lot of focus on this era. I even brought in a Europe Risk board to help them understand the France vs Habsburg conflict.
And it's that dedication to topics seen as niche is why people like you got me into history
Thanks mate
Thank you for being an awesome history teacher.
Hansburg? Apparently a typo . France vs Habsburg .
A world history teacher likes I wanna be the guy? That's omega based.
As a Protestant the 30yrs. war is actually a super fascinating era of Church history and Western history to study. Thanks for the great video as always, Cody!
it's about as fascinating as the difference between the sunni and shi'ah for muslims... bunch of fools killing each other over a magical sky daddy that is "the one true magical sky daddy™" and then on top of that the christians killing the jews and muslims over the same magical sky daddy not realizing they just named him differently... all three of you are a bunch of fools...
Nice finding out that your religion was the catalyst for 30 years and more of utter atrocity and complete wastelanding of central europe. /jk
It's such a weird thing started religious war then like 10 years later it turned into a full on political drama of a secretarial war
That era also saw the rise to power of the Presbyterian Reformed church in Scotland, who were a bit like the Taliban except they insisted people should be able to read their bibles. That led to a big increase in middle and upper class literacy and the Scottish Enlightenment a hundred years later. And helped kick off the English Civil war when Charlie I and Bishop Laud managed to upset the Edinburgh mob with the book of common prayer.
As a Catholic, I concur.
Ironically enough this is probably my favorite time in history. The time that sorta felt relatable the closer you get to its end but in reverse it also feels much more unrelatable in the farther away you get. It’s a nice middle ground which is why it’s so interesting to me.
Same. Theres a reason the end of the 30 years war is considered the "Modern Era"
Same I’m a big fan of the late Middle Ages and age of discovery era where pike and shot was used
@@fatherceltics2379 Honestly man the Germans have always been interesting to me especially Brandenburg-Prussia.
@@artoriuscasca424 Dude the late Middle Ages were so Intense so much happened. And the age of discovery is an era I wish I was in. Exploring a brand new continent just sounds so fun.
I came here from a PancreasNoWork video! I haven't seen your videos in my sub feed for months!
Interestingly, I think this is the most romanticized time in Spain. We haven't had any real golden age since then, but that golden age, that peak Spanish Empire, that's epic. We were probably the most powerful nation in Europe and the world, discovered America, conquered it with the Conquistadors, end of the Reconquista, unification of the crowns, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Velázquez. Undoubtedly the most grandiose era pf Spanish history.
And then incest happened
@@somehistorynerd Haha incest-chin goes brrrrr
And inflation
@@somehistorynerd all the kings at the time had incest, wdym
@@unflushablepoo8243 inflation didn't really affect the empire, sure, there were times in which it did but the collapse of the empire had nothing to do with inflation
The 1632 Ring of Fire books and the Empire from Warhammer Fantasy made me fell in love with this era. The asthestics and wacky technology are beautiful. Especially when both the Empire and Ottomans have literal tanks.
HAve you ever read Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper?
Based Ring of Fire enjoyer. I love that book series.
Based Fantasy enjoyer, summon the elector counts
Exactly the same here
It's corny, but the Ring of Fire series is just good old fashioned fun alt history
Ring of fire is what got me so hooked on this era of western history, a shame the author died recently :(
I absolutely love how Cody is both a historian and a Catholic and yet somehow cannot understand the difference between Calvary and cavalry.
They're the same thing?
@@michael2636 cavalry is horses, calvary is crucifixions
@@banjoe05 Specifically Calvary is the hill upon which Jesus was crucified.
I kept waiting for him to pronounce it right, but...
Calgary?
I'm 2 minutes in, this being the first time stumbling onto your channel...that I know of. You earned yourself a sub, mister! I can tell this will be golden, I love this period of history, and all of it to be honest. Keep putting out gems brotha, I'm here for it!
When I started playing EU4, I very much fell in love with this era. It's just so fascinating to me how different of a world it was between when it began and when it ended.
Same! Made me interested in taking college history courses and things like that too
So you should check out medieval 2 Orient & Okzident mod and the tsardom mod
When you really think about it every story you've ever heard about monsters, men, dragons and factions from 40k to lord of the rings to star wars theryre all based off of really old written fictional stories which are all roughly based off of real events from this time period. This truly is an era so rich in history not enough stories can tell.
Same for me, probably is my third favorite era after Ancient times and Feudal Japan.
Alatriste, the movie shown in most of these clips, is an amazing film because it does a great job answering the famous historical question "What if Aragorn had a gun?"
Ah! I saw Viggo mortsen and I was wondering what that was
What movie?
Eh...not really. Now in looks and feel the movie is fine but the makers didn't know if they could get to make more Alatriste movies (It is based on a series of books.), so they just made one movie that spans the entire length of the series. Imagine if Lord of the Rings had been condensed into one two hour movie.
@@Pikkabuu so basically Weinstein brothers version of Lord of the rings before Peter Jackson moved to Newlinescinema.
@@PikkabuuSo it’s the Anti-Hobbit trilogy in that there’s too much content that wouldn’t fit in a single movie.
As a german it was interesting to see this american perspective. The 30 years war from 1618 to 1648, its beginning and aftermath was extensively covered in school, I didnt even think how that might be different in other cultures.
I find it suprising that we don't learn much if at all about it in Poland despite how important role country played during conflict - from beeing literally the center of european diplomacy due to neutrality, proximity and religious tolerance as well as despite not beeing offically participant having some conflicts with other 30y war participants that impacted the conflict especially on the beginning. It can also be due to the fact that it fell directly between polish occupation of Russia and Cossacs Khmelnitski uprising latter of witch dragged PLC into series of conflicts that devastated country as bad as 30y war devastated Germany if not even more (in absolute terms the value of destruction is estimated to be compared one of WW2)
Kurtzgesagt, the 17th Century Germany was one of the worst times and places to start your Civilization game.
Kinda crazy if true for university people... Because Westphalia literally created the modern international relations regime... (French here, we did cover the 30 years war extensively)
Really? Which state are you from, we learned nearly nothing about it.
@@jangroberde2822I think you can't generalize that.
I did it reasonably well, siblings in the same school only did it in one lesson. Literally only 2 pages in their book.
I just found your channel a couple of days ago and this has been some of the funniest shit I’ve watched in a while!
As a history buff, I’ve been incredibly humbled as you’ve taken me through the passage of time these past few days.
Got to say, I haven’t quite found a channel this quality and this funny in a long time. It’s been perfect timing too because the past few days have been kinda ass and you’ve really helped me get through it.
You’ve got a new loyal follower. Thanks so much for what you do. Know that you make a difference and have put a lot of positivity and laughter in my life these past few days. 😊
Great that you mentioned the Ukrainan region. It was really the european wild west, or more like "wild east". Even it's name mean "the borderland" or "Land at the end of country". Cossacks are really interesting characters and they can be compared to cowboys/outlaws
Glory to Ukraine, land of the cossacks
@@Game_Herosurprisingly after some digging cossacks a re a pretty broad term
There are Polish, Ukranian, Russian, Belarusian
There are even some tatar ones
Those guys would made it as far east as Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia and even alaska
My uncle has a cossack sword that was passed down through the family (russian side) Not sure the story behind it but I can't imagine the thing hasn't seen blood
@@nuckels188 does the sword have no guard?
@@comradekenobi6908 I honestly don't remember, it used to be on the wall at my grandparents house but i havent seen it for years at this point. Why do you ask?
I wholeheartedly agree about this period of history being underrated especially when it comes to the power of the Hapsburgs. Most people I've ever talked to about the Habsburgs just mention their jawline.
I personally know three historians specialized in them. You cannot stop them talking about Habsburg for hours on end, and the jawline will never even come up. It really gets old soon.
In my teens I read a lot about Charles V, but these people are on a wholly different level.
or the collapse of spanish dominance in europe. if the war for spanish succession never happened its possible they would have reformed their government and held the colonies longer. not to mention fought the french much better in the war with napoleon.
I come from the Czech republic and actually here in our schools we learn about this period quite a lot as it was the time when we became subjects to the the giga-chin Habsburgs
To be honest late medieval and early modern periods are the only ones when Bohemia was important in global events. You basically invented European religious wars (to became one of the most faithless countries in Europe). :D So it is nothing weird you may overemphasize this part of history. :P
@@Hadar1991 I wouldn't say that we overemphasize this part of our history I'd just say that its kinda like the main subject when it comes to our history, kinda how american history classes mainly focus on the revolutionary war, we focus on this period of Habsburg rule, but I pretty much agree, I mean we literally invented the word defenestration aka the fancy word for yeeting someone out of a window :)
It's similar in Hungary, as it's a period where at the start we were arguably at the height of our power then in a few decades the Habsburgs and the Ottomans did a splitsies and then fought for a 150 years. It was definitely eventful
@@ondrejhons704 And you already yeeted an important politician in Prague of out the windows at least four time starting at least two major, multi-decade wars. That is an interesting CV. :D
Defenestration is now my favorite word thanks to y'all.
Yo dawg imma let you finish, but I believe the word you were looking for when you kept talking about horsemen is *cavalry.*
Calvary (what you said over and over instead) is the name of a place important in Christianity.
The 16 and 17th centuries are my favorite periods of history.
You have the peak of Spain and Portugal,The Age of Exploration,The Italian Wars,The French Wars of Religion,The Thirty Years War,The Ottoman-Habsburg Wars,The Polish-Lithunian Commonwealth,Loius XIV. So many interesting events and historical figures.
And The Age of Pirates 🏴☠️
I don't think Louis IX was present in the 16th-17th century. You must mean his descendant Louis XIV, the Sun King.
@@Arbelot My mistake.
As a European, really didn't expect this period with such a title. :P This period may be underrated in America, but while it certainly didn't get the most attention, it was probably one of those that got the most attention in school. Definitely some well known historical figures from that era in my country.
For sure this seems like a cultural difference between the US and Europe as in the U.K. we cover this era a decent amount.
I think it really depends on what classes your school offers. I’m from the US and last year I took a European history class. A lot of time was spent on the early modern period for us. It was funny though going from that to US history this year, and ignoring all the chaos that was going on in Europe
In general history classes in the USA, this whole era we focus for the most part on American History and the founding of America. It makes sense, but I will definitely say that the ongoings of Europe during this period did become a fascination of mine in my adulthood because of the lack of education on what was happening across the pond in those centuries. Like we focus a lot on the piracy in the Caribbean and the colonial empires of France, Britain, and Spain because those directly correlate with our founding and history but if you ask most Americans or Canadians about the French and Indian War ( The Seven Years War), we tend to mostly only think of the North American theater of it and pay no mind to Austria or Prussia in that conflict.
Which country are you from?
I'm from germany, and I we didn't really talked about this period that much in school. Just for reference, my time in school ended in 2017, and I took as much history as possible. I can't say it with certainty, but it was like 2 to 4 hours for the 30 years war, and this was the thing we talked about most considering this whole period in Europe, means pretty much nothing else was covered. But we talked about the discovery, colonialism and the settlement of the new world. So not that different from what is described in the video (maybe minus the pilgrim stuff, that was only covered briefly).
I'm gonna use this comment for a recommendation, because why not. Check out 1632 by Eric Flint, if you wanna have a good and funny read of fiction set in this period (as you can guess by the title, lol). It's about a west-virginian mining town which gets thrown into the midst of thuringia in the 30 years war, and features the battle of Breitenfeld, Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein and much more. And it might sound silly (which it kind of is as a concept tbh), but its actually a very good read.
The Siege of La Rochelle is my favourite historical painting or all time. The religious undertones, the bright red contrasting with the dark blue. It’s so amazing and beautiful.
By which painter when?
This painting has a sad history in fact. The french catholic government besieged La Rochelle because it was a protestant city and friends with the english . The red character on the painting is " Le cardinal de Richelieu " a powerful politic and religious personnality, he's the one who commanded the siege. During the siege , more than 85% of the population starved to death and La Rochelle was one of the biggest cities of France . As someone from La Rochelle , it's always cool to see this painting in totally unrelated videos
@@Nukecorp3bro was simping without knowledge
@picavant I don't see how this is sad.
Sure, the civilians suffered, but that can be said of any and every war.
On the other hand, La Rochelle was an almost-ennemy state in the state. A major port city befriending a primarily maritime power who also happens to be an ennemy of the state is never a good thing.
The siege was entirely justified and even necessary.
Even from the southern french protestant point of view , la Rochelle was a traitor city
I love that you made this video. The 17th century in general and the English Civil War in particular is my Roman Empire. I think about Oliver Cromwell multiple times a week.
Spain and the Ottomans were THE factions during this period. Both at the height of the power, each with a thousand reasons to fight eachother.
Spain was the most dominant in pike and shot warfare, their lines barely ever broke formation even under heavy cannon and musket fire. Its a shame Tercios weren't mentioned in this video.
In fact, most of the action pike and shot scenes you see in this video, are from a spanish movie starring Viggo Mortensen called Alatriste, based on a book saga of the same name set during the 30yrs war and Spain's slow but steady decline.
best comment
Thank you! I was about to write a comment asking what movie that was.
Portugal is just as important. First global superpower defeating the turks in the battle of Diu in the early 1500s.
Portugal is such an underrated nation.
@@anotheraccount444 Yes, Portugal is underrated in that period. But it’s not as important as the Spanish or the Ottomans.
Yes, Ottomans were gunpowered. Although my national (Serbian) epic poetry sings about sabres and shields, it was all GUNS very shortly after Ottomans entered Europe (15-16. century).
Pike and shot is such an underrated period of time. Really needs a total war game with this setting, is one of the last times that different countries had really tactics (spanish tercio vs dutch brigades vs swedish batallions) and differences in dsicipline could make or break a battle (like in the english civil war). It was also when sieges were revolutionized, first becoming really easy for the attackers due to cannons, then becoming really difficult due to the star fortress.
I'm not confident the Total War warscape engine can handle pike and shot, even though Shogun 2 mods had it. It's been decades since Total War has been properly able to simulate pike formations being able to keep enemies at a distance.
The closest game to pike and shot is ironically probably shogun 2 which doesn't even take place in europe. That combination of guns that can be good, but also complete trash compared to some conventional tactics, is super interesting and I would love to a return to it if they ever made a game in this era.
@@Michaelonyoutub That game however is really bad at modeling pikes. Everything has to trigger a 1v1 fight animation which makes it impossible for pikes to actually provide cover for the teppo troops. Troops will easily just phase through all the pikes and engage in sword melee and the AI for the teppo troops is going to prioritize trying to fight in melee and breaking formation instead of trying to keep as many guns firing as possible.
@@Michaelonyoutub and Shogun 2 shows that TW engine need very huge overhaul if pike and shut would ever work. Hell, they never actually got even Roman legionnaire tactics right in Rome 1 and 2. If they want to make it theý need to fix that god damn problem with units being stuck or blub up when they try to pass through each other.
It's not a strategy game but Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword takes place in mid 1600s Eastern Europe. It's good
I've never been so validated by a video, It's honestly such a shame we aren't getting more creative works set in this era. If anyone is looking for a recommendation, The Captain Alatriste book series by Spanish Author Arturo Pérez-Reverte is one is set within the early modern period. Some of the clips of the movie adaptation were featured in this video. The series itself showcases the adventures of the titular character Alatriste, a professional soldier and sword for hire along with Inigo, his squire, surrogate son and narrator of the story. The author does an excellent job relating Alatriste's escapades with broader political and social developments of early 17th century Spain and Europe and illustrates the various perspectives that those living then may have had. The author's reason for writing the series was partly inspired by the notable lack of any works set during the Spanish Golden Age, which coincides with this overlooked period of history. If you like cloak and dagger conspiracies, early modern warfare, pirates and romance, this series might just be what you're looking for.
We really only ride "The Three Musketeers" to death...
@@profezzordarke4362 Now we have Puss'n Boots. Pussin n' bussin
Most important time for the dutch, got our independence, got the richest country in the world, got extremely innovative.
In Brazil, we talked a lot about this period, especially because of this was the time of the colonization of our territory. Many things were different back then, like the Northeast was the economical and political center of Brazil, São Paulo didn't had much economical importance, the French and Dutch invasions, the discovery of gold that tripled the colony's population and three attempts of independence in three different provinces.
is there alot of racial tension like the united states? between colonizer/native/slaves?
south american history in the XVII century is crazyyyy!
@@trevorcole6360 yes and not at all, people would rather ridiculize you for being from some state, city or being fan of a team
id rather that than listen to the " yuou owe us this and you owe us that bullshit"
@@uppervolta6680
So true; that period felt so empty and underdeveloped in school, but then when you study European history / history in higher education, you realize that that’s only because America literally was underdeveloped compared to the incredible advancements and complexities of the 17th century elsewhere
To be fair, it was also barely populated and starting from scratch
to be even more fair, it was like 3 shitty ass english colonies, not america. 1 of which was roanoke, 1 of which was virginia which was famously garbage for like 50 years and the other was basically boston which has sucked for 400 years straight
Its ok dude noone meant offense@@trumanbadra8003
As an Argentinian it is curious that our history classes at school are similar, you start with Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, the feudal era, Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, the Spanish arrive and a jump to the French revolution and the American revolutions
En colombia es igual solo te dicen los españoles mataron aztecas y se llevaron el oro y de ahí un salto a la revolución francesa
@@williamdaviddiazcuchimaque7511 Si, una prueba mas de q sois colonias gringas.
For us it's mostly about empires of indian subcontinent and how the British f*%ked us over with a little bit of western industrial revolution.
Pues menuda vergüenza
The sheer relentless grimdark of the Thirty Years War is what got me. Probably the most confusing war in history.
"Your Eminence! Those Protestants don't pay their tithes!"
"What?! HOLY WAAAAARRRR!"
30 years later...
"Your Eminence! Those Protestants don't pay their tithes!"
"Sigh. Just leave them be. I am tired of this shit"
Hopefully, next time around we will be smarter. Else it will go like this:
"Mr. President! Those others, I hate them!"
"Me too! SELF-RIGHTEOUS WAAAAAARRRR!"
15 minutes later...
"..."
I've always thought that the Thirty Years War was an inspiration for Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
In the uk (or at least England), we put a lot of emphasis on this period. Quite a lot of English history happened here, like the end of the wars of the roses in 1495, the whole reign of Henry VIII and the protestant reformation and the tudors more broadly, the entire Stuart era, with the union of the crowns and later Parliaments of England and Scotland, as well as the civil war/war of the three kingdoms. We do also briefly talk about how this was the beginning of the empire, but that's not really a huge concern. Anyway if you can find it the british kids show horrible histories has quite a lot of stuff on this period, as well as british history more broadly (obviously it's not just british but thats the main focus). Even though it's aimed at kids the comedy's funny for all ages, and I'd say to start, listen to the king of bling song
Was it caused by the little ice age? Probably. My old man was from Chicago, moved to the desert as soon as he was on his own, and his one and only contribution to sociology was the following: “Cold makes people mean”. It’s simple but it really explains A LOT.
Sure, but who wants to march 1000 kilometers and fight a battle in the cold?
@@CarrotConsumer Mostly Europeans apparently. I doubt it comes up often in the Middle East. And we Americans are a special kind of crazy- why march there when you can splash across a freezing river instead of have Christmas Dinner.
In the Netherlands (and I feel like in most of Europe) this part of history is far from overlooked. In that time our nation got created and was a superpower for decades. It was an interesting period. Thanks for covering this.
Fr, we're taught this time period in Europe probably because all of our nations were doing important things, especially the countries with empires
Gekoloniseerd
It's quite typical of western countries
@@AverageWagie2024*gekoloniseerd, my guy
danko jan van riebeeck
Just as an FYI, you can mail order a blunderbuss pretty much anywhere in the US for about $400-500. They are totally unregulated and relatively cheap. You will probably want to find powder locally -- hazmat fees are a killer for small quantities.
Just as the founding fathers intended
FINALLY someone is talking about this era! I've been obsessed with 1600's knights/heavy calvary for years. Knights with guns is perfection.
If your into science fiction you should check out warhammer 40k it's basically Sci fi nights woth guns to the point their is a faction based on the teutonic order
Even in the Americas in this period things were a violent mess. It wasn’t just pilgrams, it was pilgrams and natives waging the (per capita) bloodiest war in American history.
Atun Shei has a great series of videos on King Philips War.
The Americans were the ones writing the modern abridged version that this period in the Renaissance full of bloody conflicts were forgotten or vague by the rest of the world.
Transitional eras that offer a weird mix of old and new tech (for their time) are always fascinating. It’s why I find the Late 1880s-1914 to be so interesting. It’s this weird mix of old and new. In 1880 a cutting edge warship was an iron hulled sailing vessel with a steam engine. A large cannon for and aft that could pivot and smaller broadside guns. In 1890 it was a pre dreadnaught battleship. You had this weird overlap where a country could have a single shot black power rifle or a bolt action smokeless powder rifle. You had machineguns but people didn’t know how to use them. Oh yeah and in the late 1890s-1900s you could have a gun battle in the American west between a single action army colt revolver and a freaking 10 shot semi automatic C96. Plus cowboys and cars! Kinda a similar type vibe to this. Just a weird mix of old and new.
You should look the Saltpeter War of 1879 and 1882 between Chile, Bolivia and Perú.
Shit was wild as all fuck
@@sirnikkel6746 I will!
You might want to look up gunpowder warfare - you might be surprised on how not entirely new concept it was during your selected period.
I love the Early Modern Period. There is so much about this period that is utterly fascinating
Id like to see more episodes like this. Doesn't have to do with alternate history but just conversation and analysis on some interesting time period, country, etc.
One topic I think would be neat is the development of New Spain which lasted in North America before Canada, the US, and Mexico became established or reach that far out
PancreasNoWork and Sandrhoman are underrated, they are the best channels to watch while doing busy stuff, along with Majorkill and Adeptus Rediculous for Warhammer, and Kings&Generals and Jack Rackham for historical shenanigans
Absolutely! All of the above are great!
I think the overall conquest and subjugation of the Americas is far overlooked and underrated. Like you always hear all these people “the Indians had their land stolen from them” and “disease wiped out and maimed most their populace alongside what the Europeans were already doing” but dude it’s all 100% truly fucked up and it’s all that has been on my mind lately. That’s a lot to process. A whole new world full of fresh perspectives and different ideas of life, governing - society as a whole - stripped away over the course of hundreds of years.
I love this period as well, cause it’s such a chaotic transitional era where you have all these elements of medieval and early enlightenment vibes clashing. The fashions of the day were probably the most extravagant in European history, and is the setting of a lot of classic fairytales like the brothers’ Grimm, particularly in Germany. It’s a great era for high fantasy/dnd inspiration, the warfare makes it more interesting than vanilla “high medieval”.
The beginnings of the Old World mindset that ran society for like 4000 years was slowly going away. Middle World time babyyyyyy
There is a great dnd clone called "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" which by default is set during Thirty ears war
My favorite era of history is between the 1870s and the 1900s. There is so much innovation and obscure details to cover within that period but this "early modern" era has now made it onto my top 10 list as well.
It's one of my favourite eras too. One thing that's usually overlooked is how amazing the armour from this era is. Most surviving pieces of armour, whether helmets or cuirasses, are of an amazing quality. I think armour making reached its apex during the 16th-17th centuries. The armour of black cuirassier heavy cavalrymen is an amazing mix of Medieval & Renaissance aesthetic.
The society and culture is fascinating too. So much art, fashion, music, architecture. The beginning of the Scientific Revolution coinciding with continuing vestiges of ancient superstition, such as widespread belief in esoterica, magic-thinking and superstition. This was the great age of the Witch hunts after all, as well as the religious strife that arose from the Reformation. The contrast between these two extremes makes it such a fascinating era.
it actually isn't overlooked, it is just such an unfocused and complex era, that whenever it is featured in Media, you've got to focus on a very small part of it. Every Swashbuckling Story plays in that Era, Almost every Fairy Tale adaptation plays in it, everything about "historical" monster hunting features it... It is there, it is featured, but we lack a concise picture of it because it is so much.
Which is really silly, sinde it's only 2 centuries compared to the 10 that was the "dark" and medieval ages of which we often have a much more coherent picture, since the general style of society and warfare and culture developed with a much easier to understand direction.
Rome falls, land is ungoverned, Feudalism erupts, the last heathens convert, mail armour and heavy swords, first knights, frankis empire evolve trough the crusades and the islam ruling of iberia bringing in clear oriental influences to central europe and the british isles and the HRE towards the Renaissance when we get the glory that is Full Plate Suits of Armour, Fencing books for the Long Sword and the increasing influence of the Guilds.
Whereas the Early Modern Period is as you described, a big mumbo-jumbo of cultural identities forming, nation states being established, all while science and religion clash with each other and one of the most devastating wars ever utterly destroys central europe.
2:39 this is so true 😂
My history teacher basically completely glossed over the French revolution and the napoleonic wars in history class.
I am so happy you brought attention to the 1600s, it is without doubt one of my favorite periods in history that NOBODY talks about. There is so much going on during this century that it is surprising just how ignored it is. Yes the wars are something to look into but my interests lie in the fashions, the art (I love Baroque), everything. I mean pirates and cowboys are happening at the same time! (Although at this time cowboys go by the name highway men). It is by far one of the most interesting centuries.
Cowboys we’re not 19th century highway men. The cowboy mythos is an indelible part of the American cultural experience unique to America. The whole idea about the West and freedom and the cowboy who by proxy stood for American restlessness and liberty came about during the 1890’s with the rise of the Hollywood film industry, the settling of the West and Fredrick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis”.
@Person0fColor ok I never said cowboys were real, I simply said they were 17th century cowboys. Real cowboys were ranchers, what we think of cowboys would've been outlaws and bandits... similar (not the same) to highway men. Yes I'm aware that the concept of the cowboy is entirely false and propagated around the time of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and then further got exaggerated by Hollywood wanting to do a "good Ole days" and other pro american propaganda. And yes I'm also aware that the true wild west was a lawless land that supported many of the country's outcasts from women to queers to trans to poc, not to mention people who commited actual crimes, oh, and don't forget prostitutes, they built them cities. So yes, I'm aware of the falsehood that is the Cowboy, but I'm also defensible enough in saying Highwaymen are 17th century cowboys. Especially because certain highwaymen in the time were both romanticized and feared by the people of the time and after.
@@uniquely.mediocre1865 no real cowboys weren’t ranchers those would be the cattle barons. The real cowboys drove the cattle heard to market there was actually lots of violence between a those that drove the cattle beards to market, the cowboys, and those who raised the beef on the land the ranchers. Cowboys despised the advent of the fence in the west as the ranchers were literally putting up fences that were impeding on the cowboys ability to drive their beards to market and lots of fighting broke out between cattle Baron and cowboy… wrong again.
@@uniquely.mediocre1865 trans and queers 😂😂😂😂
Dood you don’t know anything about the cowboys, America heritage and for that matter the film industry.
Hollywood didn’t propagate the notion of the “cowboy” it was Fredrick Jackson Turner and his “Frontier Thesis”. That paper coincided with the last settling of the west in the early 1890’s
You are trying to grasp a straws to sound intelligent and it’s just coming off as ridiculous I can tell you don’t read about cowboys or that part of history your just grasping to find anything to fit into your narrative.
I mean for Christ sake you don’t even know who Fredrick Jackson Turner is a what he actually did, he more than any other man set the Frontier myth front and center of the American Epic.
Go read some more please you sound childish
Trans and queer and POC 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@uniquely.mediocre1865 what does robbing people on the highway in 17th England have to do with driving cattle to market?
🤣🤣🤣🤣
As a Swede, this is a time period we learn about pretty extensively pretty early on in school since a lot of kings and major historical events happened during it
Also Gustav II Adolf and Karl XII are some of my favourite kings
Edit: i did not expert this kind of response both in likes and comments
(And yes, Axel Oxenstierna was great)
Getting shot is kinda cringe. The superior pick is obviously King Adolf Fredrik who knew nothing about leading an army, even less about running a state and who went out in style, eating pastries.
To this day you can't say "Semla" without thinking about this absolute legend.
@@apotato6278 Axel Oxenstierna is the slightly unsung part of that. The man who would build up a somewhat modern buerocracy that was more than a travelling sphere of control around the person of the monarch.
Gustavus Adolphus was a very interesting warrior king
@@SusCalvinAbsolutely. Sweden as it is today could not exist without the brilliant statesmanship of Axel Oxenstierna. As for the reason I'm so fond of Adolf Fredrik is because he's hilariously mediocre. He gets into power through a bizarre chain of events that sees him essentially selling a young (exceedingly stupid) child to the Romanovs. This gets him Russia's backing in becoming King of Sweden.
As King he creates political gridlock because he's so passive. His wife Lovisa Ulrika, Frederik the Great's little sister, tries to expand the power of the king but to no avail since Fredrik prefers woodworking to actually ruling the nation. Eventually he agrees to expand royal power and goes on a tour of the country to garner support. This fails miserably and the Riksdag essentially threatens to behead him if he doesn't behave, after which he becomes so inefficient that they introduce a royal stamp because he can't be bothered to sign paperwork.
Finally he does something incredible, something which would define his legacy, and he eats 14 large servings of pastries and suffers a stroke. He dies on the spot and is forever remembered as "that king who died while eating pastries" (few actually know his name).
Karl X Gustav är min personliga favorit.
I get why... but I am always a bit saddened when history is just boiled down to WAR.
My favorite part about history when I can trace folk songs back to an era like this. Shoutout to one of my favorite german children songs "Maikäfer flieg" originating from those times, a song about the horrors of war (ah its about war again) and how children deal with it. A few short lines and the song nearly makes me sob.
We often think about war and not what it does to a people. What 30 years of war and destruction changes in people, culture, and the small ways they act.
Culinary stuff is another thing like that... wildly interesting.
War is the skeleton of history that you build the flesh and skin onto. War has defined dates, whereas social/religious shifts often don't. It is also often a clear point for social and economic shifts that may occur, as well as the motivation for political acts and their consequences. It's hard to get away from i guess
I know right? There’s so much interesting history that’s not related to war: Mansa Musa’s travels to Mecca, the absolute cluster fuck that was the south sea bubble, the voyages of Zheng He.
Another great song with a big history: "Stille Nacht" / "Silent Night" was composed in 1817/18 right after the year without summer.
... It's the haunting music of pious people close to starvation in the cold, adoring a sleeping child. It always drives me to tears.
@@1415Agincourt1415 I think that's a good point, although I would say the unfortunate side effect of this is that war is prioritized in history classes and among the population's general knowledge of history, to the detriment of cultural, economic and political history (although political history is often included with wars for context so it's less overlooked)
@@1415Agincourt1415 I like your thinking.
Take a shot every time Cody says “Calvary”
I thought I was the only one. I'm actually writing a fantasy novel at the moment which is set in a early modern period type setting. But mostly due to the exploration time that came with it. Brave men finding new and alien lands, and the natives seeing these human aliens come upon them.
What is the novel? I would love to read it
@@foreignroads oh man, I'm not sure what I'll call it yet, but I plan on riding it under the penname "John Briggs"
Sounds pretty good.
I wonder if it’ll be in the format of a journal of some type.
Then it could be something like:
“The Wondrous and Terrible Journal of a mediocre sailor.”
Or something along those lines.
@snakey934Snakeybakey youve typed "riding" twice. I hope english isn't your first language or id be concerned how your "novel" comes out. Hope you got someone else proofreading it
@@ghostyboi9186 English is not my first language. also, that typo is probably from the fact that I often do voice-to-text when commenting.
The pike and shot era is OBJECTIVELY the most underrated in history.
But the good news is that it's a hidden gem for the history buff who thinks he's seen it all!
Doubt. That cake goes to basically all of African history except Ancient Egypt, basically all of Mesoamerican history, basically all of Indian history, some good portions of Chinese and Japanese histories, basically all of Korean history, basically all of Polynesian history...
@@AtHEEstorybasically the “non white places” 😂
Does that include the Pontic steppe? You do realize all of Europeans share the same ancestors as Asian?
It’s not a race or a context dood.
When Iin Rome do as the Roman’s do. When somewhere else, do as they do elsewhere.
What do you expect you expect?. white Protestant Anglo Saxons to teach their children about Chinese history? Or the history or Paraguay? 😂
The funny thing is you probably have a surface level understanding of all that historical perspective and somewhere out there is a white guy that knows way more about all that than you 😂
@@Person0fColor So what? You're acting obnoxious.
OP was claiming pike and shot was *objectively* the most underrated era of history. It may be from a white American Anglo-Saxon perspective. It isn't from a white European Anglo-Saxon, or any other white European perspective. Pike and shot is a style of warfare, first and foremost, and not an era; in any case, 1450-1700 is one of the most saturated eras in European education, fiction and non-fiction writing because that's when most of our relevant history began to happen. It's not "objectively" underrated at all. Not outside of the USA, anyhow.
I've given you a bunch of historical settings that are much more "objectively" underrated because hardly any people *on the Planet* know anything about them. That includes myself and most other white Europeans and Americans but also Latin Americans for Mesoamerican history, Africans for some African history (admittedly mostly due to the effects of colonisation on culture and a lack of thorough education in much of rural Africa), Asians for some Asian history etc. There's more to the history of Japan than the Sengoku and Edo periods; there's more to the history of South Africa than the Anglo-Zulu war. Most people barely recognise that.
And finally, you're the only one here who ever brought up race. All we did was list historical periods and settings, what colour of skin was had there was entirely immaterial. Until you brought it up in your white-ass butt-hurt whining. Which tells us nothing of me or OP, and a whole lot about you. Chiefly that you're an asshole, if you didn't get the gist yet.
@@AtHEEstorycringe
The Thirty years war is the most important war nobody talks about.
It's a pretty popular era in history of Poland, our Golden Age, with winged hussars, great military leaders, growing economy etc. But also, because of many mistakes, the beginning of the end, since around 1650, with one exception - battle of Vienna.
It's the same here in Sweden, largely thanks to our wars against you guys. It's too bad we didn't become a part of the Commonwealth under King Sigismund/Zygmunt III. Imagine what an absolute monstrosity the Polish-Swedish-Lithuanian-Finnish Commonwealth would have been. It would have stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea and contained enough ethnic minorities to make a Habsburg Emperor blush. Oh well... guess it was never meant to be.
@@apotato6278 Yes, the combination of Swedish infantry plus artillery and Polish hussars would have been unbeatable in the 17th century. But due to religious issues, such an alliance was impossible at that time. In hindsight, it's a pity.
If only the PLC wasn't hindered by its own bureaucracy and the "liberum veto"
I think one of the reasons this period of History isn’t really taught well in the US, is that there was almost constant warfare and border changes. I was 10 during the Fall of the USSR and reunification of Germany. I can’t for the life of me pin down in my mind where Serbia, Slovakia, the Chek Republic, Croatia, all the Stans, Bella Rus, etc. are. I can read a map just fine, I just don’t have an internal feel for this geography, because I moved on to learning other stuff. So knowing where the borders of these now ancient countries were and their conflicts, just doesn’t make sense since the borders of most of these countries are now mostly stable. Also, the US aristocracy doesn’t really want well-educated thinkers.
It’s crazy to think I’ve been watching your videos for almost a decade now. Just such a constant source of enjoyment for me that I sometimes take it for granted. But I want to let you know that I appreciate you, Cody. You’re a good dude
The dominance of the Spanish Tercios in the Pike and Shot era is severely underrated. Also, Tlaxcallan troops from New Spain (Mexico) were involved in battles of the Spanish conquest of the Phillipines, and against Japanese Walk raiders :v
They were the New Spanish army, almost everyone involved in the Military of the Crown, they were often Mexican, either fully indigenous or mixed. Headquarters and training were done in New Spain (Mexico).
@@TuWearnot true, majority were Spaniards
As a Filipino, I didn't know that Tlaxcalan troops were present during the conquest of the Philippines, but I knew that the majority of the Spaniards (Kastila) which settled in my country have Mexican origins.
@@wtfurlookingat1514 He's talking about Tlaxcalan troops.
I was introduced to this era by the late Eric Flint in his sci-fi novel 1632. That turned into a massive collection of work that spanned less than a decade (I think it was from 1631 to 1637) and started with a small West Virginia mining town in the Holy Roman Empire in the middle of the 30 years war.
The timelines split right away, but a lot of how the world worked and was organized comes through before the American's start messing about.
1632 series is great
Yeah, that book and the first few sequels are the only reason I don't find this era in history confusing.
I’m a history major. We never even learned much after the Mayflower in HS. I only learned about stuff like King Phillip’s War last year. It really is a big blind spot in education
Might just be because I'm Dutch, but I find the early modern era very interesting. Essentially because of everything you said, but also because we were trying to figure out politics. There were full monarchies, elective monarchies, elective emperors, dynastic emperors, constitutional monarchies, oligarchic republics, slightly less oligarchic republics, honestly, even the Dutch republic was quite limited, but impressive at the time. Anyways, there was a lot going on, politically speaking, is what I'm trying to say. It's pretty f'ing cool.
The English Civil War, 30 years war, and generally apocalyptic vibes of the Little Ice Age are all fascinating to me.
The Pike and Shotte era is my personal favorite. It was such a massive jump in technology that fire arms and warfare changed massively multiple times.
6:50 is that.....Trogdor the Burninator above his fireplace?
Kinga & Generals is a really good history channel in general but they have a series on the 30 years war I highly recommend! The 1500s-1800s is deeply interesting for so many reasons - the development of technologies, exploration, wars, strategy and battlefield tactics, the arts & culture, politics ... Sweden being a great power 😅🥰 I love it - it's definitely underrated!
i watched Kings and generals about the Ottoman- Portuguese wars in the Indian ocean region and it was quite a disappointment ,as it was slanted so much in favor of the Turks experience, when in fact the Portuguese were the ones who came out victorious and achieved their objectives. .
@@bconni2I think it’s because it was mainly just about continuing the Ottoman series
Pike & Shot is such a fascinating era of warfare (among many other things). Which is why I really love how Warhammer leans into it heavily especially with the Empire of Sigmar.
Try De Bellis Renationis (usually just DBR) - way more historical, and is definitely easy to learn but hard to master.
@@draco84oz But De Bellis Renationis doesn't have wizards and elves tho.
@@cleeiii357 That's what Hordes of the Things is for...
The Mercenary system in Europe in this period was fascinating. Italy was infamous for their use of Mercenary companies to fight low intensity wars for years against one another.
Plenty were only loyal to their paycheck and would defect or just abandon their post if defeat looked possible. But then you had the All-Star Mercenaries who charged a premium and were there to *win.* If you were faced with these groups, you knew you were in for a bad time
Italy didnt exist It was controlled mainly by Spain and the papal states and many independent cities like venice
THANK YOU FOR THE BEST TAKE ON WARHAMMER.