History Teacher Reacts to Simpsons History Jokes! 

What was your favorite joke?

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman in 1774 was a reverend and pioneer conservationist who introduced Apple trees into large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Ontario by establishing nurseries from which people could purchase sapplings

Fun fact: In the Salem witch trials no witch was every actually burned. Most of them were hung and some were crushed with huge stones. Burning was a European thing.

mr terry: "i apologize on behalf of my ancestors" as a german, i feel you...

As far as I know, Paul Bunyan was a real person who was really tall for the time. He wasn't like Godzilla tall, only like a foot taller than the average person. I'm not sure where the ox came from though.

21:04 - In some parts of Swedish folklore, the witches were said to have been riding on a flying cow. The cow being upside down and flying backwards. This came from witnesses who claimed to have seen it with their own eyes. This was part of the Swedish hysteria surrounding witches and the burning there of.

His face after the "wood and Trojans" joke...

You should watch through Futurama. One of the running gags is how Fry, a guy from the past who was accidentally frozen and wakes up in the far future, is constantly running across things the future folks get wrong about history. Plus, it's just a hilarious and entertaining show.

Speaking of troy and Achilles, my theory is that achilles is that the story is that his armor was super strong, that it made him seem invincible, but because of the exposed skin in his sandals, he was able to get killed

21:00 the witches riding the broom came from people witnessing some ceremonies where "witches' would get on brooms (made of straw) and jump as high as they could to show the wheat (also straw ... sort of) how tall to grow. then as how most things go, the stories got more and more exaggerated in each retelling, till they were said to be flying (like superman)

BTW, the story with the Trojan Horse is a bit more complicated. First, it had no "wheels". Second, they made a complicate ruse leaving a "disgruntled Greek" behind, who would tell the trojans that if they put the horse inside the city, the city will be protected by the gods. Third, the trojans didn´t buy it. Laokoon, a priest of Apollo (or Poseidon, depends who you read) said loudly "I am sure the belly of that horse is full of warriors" and threw a javelin to the horse, and it sounded hollow. The trojans started gathering wood under it to burn it down. But Laokoon had been passionately hugging some priestess in the temple, and Apollo (or Poseidon) was very pissed. So suddenly two very big snakes came out of the water and ate him and his sons alive. The trojans saw this as a warning of the gods, so they stopped the destruction of the horse and brought it inside. Edited> typos, grammar.

You're the type of history teacher that there should be more of in this world. Making history interesting is a challenge in of itself, and you pull it off flawlessly.

Paul Bunyan is a legendary hero and enormous lumberjack in American and Canadian folklore. The figure originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers and was subsequently popularized in a 1916 advertising leaflet for the Red River Lumber Company by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882-1958). Historians think Bunyan was modeled in part on a real lumberjack: Fabian Fournier, a French-Canadian timberman who traveled south after the Civil War and worked as the foreman of a logging team in Michigan. Fournier's mythology fused with that of another French-Canadian lumberman, Bon Jean, through time. By the early 20th century, both men had become associated with an entire nation of people called Canada who lived in large forests and liked to listen to stories at night. Bunyan first appeared in print in 1900 in a collection of poems called The Lumberjack. The poet and journalist William Allen White wrote the introduction to this book. It tells the story of Bunyan trying to save his family business from going under. To do this, he goes to work for the largest company in their town, which happens to be owned by his relatives. However, Bunyan soon realizes that working for money is not what matters most in life. It is how you treat others that counts. With no other options left, he decides to go north into the big woods and make his living cutting trees. Since then, Bunyan has become a popular figure in America. He appears in comic books, television shows, and movies. There are even two national parks named after him. One is in Minnesota and the other in Maine.

19:55 Funnily enough, there's actually a Gilbert & Sullivan opera where, while the witch doesn't escape being burned, she does place a curse on her persecutor's family line so they have to commit daily crime or perish in agony, which sets the conflict for the protagonist who's a descendant of that line. The opera is called _Ruddigore_ , for those curious.

A small correction/addition, most what we associate with the greeks comes from the minoans, one of the early cultures on the island of crete. The mycenians later took oder the minoan land and culture after it was weakened by natural catastrophes. Overwise fun and informational video as always!

I was told in my witchcraft history class(we cover Britain, Germany/central Europe and Salem) that the stereotypical female witch riding a broom came from because woman cleaned the house back in those days that was the tool commonly associated seeming for male witches because most men did farm work male which is why male witches ride pitch forks.

Some small mistakes, the Sphinx does not predate the pyramids. It’s widely accepted by Egyptologists that the Sphinx was commissioned by the Pharaoh Khafre in the late 25th century BC. That’s after the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built. Khufu was Khafre’s father, and Khafre would not inherit the throne until after the death of his brother and predecessor Djedefre. Also, the Great Pyramids at Giza are only a few of the many dozens of pyramids built in Saqqara. Many of them are older than both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids. The very first was Djoser’s step pyramid, designed by his grand vizier Imhotep. The great pyramids also don’t really include any significant nods to Osiris or Isis. They were built using predominantly Heliopolitan cosmology, which held Ra, Atum, Khepri and Khnum in particular esteem. Cults of Osiris and Isis emerged much much later. Also Egyptian ceremonial writings are hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics.

14:28 Lord knows I'm not overly in love with the historical anthologies, but Homer's song here cracks me up every time.

My favorite Simpsons history was when they did Lewis and Clark. I also liked when they did Mozart, and Queen Elizabeth I.

People accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials were mostly hanged rather then burned at the stake.

The story of Paul Bunyan was one I was curious about as well. Aparently according to some sources (museums, the internet, etc....) Paul Bunyan was largely based off a real lumberjack named Fabian Fournier, a rather large man for his time (6' back then).

Paul Bunyan was a folk tell mostly know in Minnesota (I believe) for “creating” the Great Lakes and the many lakes in Minnesota and the blue Ox was Paul’s friend after Paul freed the Ox from a trap but that’s the most I know from the story

Just one point I need to mention regarding the 100 years war. It wasn't necessarily the gunpowder which bought the English to lose the war. The English army had been using cannons for about a 100 years. During the battle of Crecy, the English used their cannons on the battlefield for the first time and used them again in the seige of Halfleur. The main reasons for England's collapse was firstly because of political infighting within the English nobility, Henry VI was a child at this time and various barons bickered of who would be the King's protector when they should have been concentrating on consolidation. France saw this weakness and banded together behind the Dauphin and of course Joan D'Arc. Not only this, but France recognised by now that Feudal armies were becoming obsolete and started to move towards professional soldiers and mercenaries. Cannon fire was used by the French against English held castles on a couple of occasions, but by the time the French had took their crown back, Henry was already facing losing his own English crown against members of his own family. ... and we all know what happened after that. It was ironic that the same thing that caused France's crown to fall to the English was the same reason that England's crown fell to the descendents of the king who started the war in the first place. Is that hubris??? Kinda sounds like hubris.

Fun fact: Godzila's real name is Gordon Zillias, he had his name legally changed after he turned 18 to distance himself from his family who had a bad reputation for causing wonton destruction in the old country. But old habits came back to haunt, and the rest is history.

If I remember rightly, one theory of why witches are associated with brooms is actually from Germanic beer brewers, but I can't find my source anymore. Shame too, as it was a very well-drawn comic strip

13:50 - Babe was born during the "blue" snow. So, of course, she's blue. Though, I think I heard somewhere that she was a calf who died from the cold, and while Paul Bunyan was able to revive her, she retained the "blue" color from the cold.

Regarding the broom: I once saw a video on that topic. The idea proposed was that witches were just brewing beer to make a nice buck. When others started to enter the buisiness, the easiest way to get rid of them was accusing them of witchcraft. So there you get the kettle. The cat was for hunting mice, since you were likely to get some in that business and the broom was probably just for cleaning and maybe eveh hung above the door to indicate, you could get beer there. If i can find it, I try to post the link.

I dig the way your brain works. You see something unusual and immediately ask where it came from instead of just accepting it like we’ve all been our whole lives. These vids are awesome

5:19 that is incorrect Champillion didnt use the Rosetta stone to decipher the hieroglyphs he used Coptic to work out Demotic and then used Demotic to translate the hieroglyphs . Common misperception though .

I love the cut away's to the history, ancient Egypt has to be one of my favourite subjects

The thing to note about the current hypothesized location of Troy is that the original discoverer didn't even realize what he actually found at the time. For many years, they thought they were just working on an isolated site, but the more that the area around them kept getting dug up by modern workers, the more sites they kept finding. It wasn't until they started finding government structures that they realized that there was an entire city buried under the dirt.

Im not sure if you've seen the show, but I think you would really like Stargate SG1. Its a sci-fi show, but a lot of the stuff they deal with has to do with myths or ancient religions being based in reality, the ancient gods were alien races, and they cover a bunch of other mythology like Atlantis, King Arthur, and more.

2:14 The Sphinx doesn't predate the Pyramids, most historians generally attribute it to Khafre, the son of Khufu (who built the Great Pyramid), who also built the 2nd largest Pyramid at Giza. This is generally assumed because Khafre also build a larger funerary complex around his pyramid, that also connected to the Sphinx, which was probably carved out of the rock that was left during the excavation of the quarry for his pyramid.

Don't feel too bad, Mr. Terry. If I recall correctly, Marge was a witch. So your ancestors were completely justified.

Ok, so as a Swede, I'll have to say. 1. We didn't have horns on our helmets. 2. Most Vikings were actually quite friendly. Swedish Vikings were for the most part farmers, and were developing agriculture as a way of living. Norwegian Vikings were explorers, they were the first people to set foot on Iceland, Greenland (which they later sold to Denmark), and parts of North America, like the east coast of Canada, and partway down to what today is known as Manhattan, they even traded with the local natives. 3. For the most part it was only the Danish Vikings that were rude, they were the most violent ones that conquered parts of England & Scotland, the Faroe Isles, parts of northern France, and raided what today is known as Istanbul.

The Simpsons are so old that the memories from previous episodes could be added to this list :D

Sphinx doesn't pre-date the pyramids. It was built along with Khafre's pyramid -likely uncovered when they were building the causeway and they couldn't move the stone. Today the causeway is crooked and goes around the Sphinx, which is most likely the face of Khafre.

Can someone explain to me the ,,wood and trojans'' joke? I dont get it. Is it some english joke? I dont speak english that well so idk.

the buffalos joining in on the laughter while looking at each other in worry and uncertainty is just wonderful comedy 😂also when homer starts believing that he killed all the buffalo and starts crying in apparent remorse only to then spot two more and shoot them right away, then return to crying in remorse, as if actually worried, can be seen as a pretty deep critique of some aspects of societies and humanity as a whole, in my opinion. the simpsons were really packing a punch back in their heyday.

As far as i am aware, Johnny Appleseed was a actual person. The story I heard goes that the US Govt had so much land after the Louisiana purchase that they were giving it away to anyone that could "tend" to it. So John Chapmann gathered as many apple cores and seeds from cider mills as he could and just threw them everywhere he went on his way west to "Claim" the land as his nursery. The man, as you might expect, was mad as a hatter. But there is a memorial to him at his birth site in Massachusetts.

The Tim Sawyer thing, I thought he was hiding in the rafters at his own funeral.

Would love to see your reaction to Rammsteins "Deutschland" Musicvideo. It goes through german history from the roman empire until today, with many details most viewers dont even get. Seeing a history teachers reaction to it would be so nice!

8:15 "you just destroyed Altantis" 😂😂😂

Another historical fun fact: "Fire!" as a command to archers or catapults didn't exist. This command came up after the invention of early gunpowder powered weapons, and it was telling the shooters to light the fuses, which means that it took a while between the command and the shot.

Have to make the obvious comment that neither the French nor British flags shown in the Hundred Years' War part are accurate to the period! And Joan was captured by the Burgundians, and given to the English.

Man, you'll love Futurama then, they have lots of historic jokes and even, being on year 3000 (and so on) they invent a lot of fake historic events wich some are alamingly possible xD

I love your vibe, Mr. Terry! Can't pinpoint what exactly it is, just the ... motivation you give of. Pretty neat! Thanks for explaining some of those jokes.

21:09 Riding a broom comes from the Slavic folklore. In Slavic language "broom" (miotła) is the same word as "thrower" (miotacz) and "sword" (miecz). And in Slavic folklore ancient kings and gods were flying across world on a long, metal stick throwing flames from the backside. (Polish orthography used for Slavic words) There is a legend about king Samon (Zamo) in 630AD flying on a thrower/broom to meet prophet Mehmed flying on carpet (in Arabic "carpet" and "room" are the same word: "divan"), it suprisingly coincides with a legend about Mayan king Pacal also flying on a broom behind Ocean for some high council. Remember that rocket-engine is much, much, much easier to build and to use than normal piston-engine. Where the tradition sais were landing places for wizzards/wiches, now we build stadiums and actual airports, and it is usually perfectly geodetically in line between "woman" churches (st. Mary, st. Claire) in all the Central and Eastern Europe.

The riding of brooms myth came from an old rural English tradition where on the full moon after the first planting, the townsfolk would go out into the field, stand astride brooms and leap into the air to show the crops how high they wanted them to grow.

The Paul Bunyan story Started in Bangor Maine, when lumber was in big demand, it was also said that Paul was lonely so he found a Ox in the "Blue" Ridge mountains where he would wrestle with the Ox, day Babe (the Ox) threw Paul down and it was said that when Paul got up he had to leverage himself by digging in the ground, giving us the Finger Lakes in New York. One day when Paul and Babe were so tired Paul was dragging his ax on the ground giving us the Grand Canyon. Then he got to old and settled in Washington State 🙄

Rosetta Stoned: when you get so high you start speaking a foreign language

The boat scene reminded me of "The Outlaw Josey Wales." "Well, Mr. Carpetbagger, we got somethin' in this territory called a Missoura boat ride..."

7:27-7:35 I’m sorry, but his instant disappointment was just the best 😂

Working on the pyramids was also a way to pay your taxes during growing season. The skilled workers were well paid because it was their literal job. They were also well organized on-site with decent lodgings(for the time)

one of my favorites was Mr. Burns hitting a Cray computer "you call this a super computer?"

I recall reading somewhere that in parts of Europe, when these women would meet in their covens, they would brew halocins - hence the whole cauldron thing - and then paint the concoction on their bodies with something akin to a broom...hence the broomstick being associated with witches.

It is true that the American Buffalo.. or rather Bison was hunted to near extinction, but I did find this. "As of July 2015, an estimated 4,900 bison lived in Yellowstone National Park, the largest U.S. bison population on public land." (Geremia C, Wallen R, White PJ.) They're not on the endangered species list anymore, but a good chunk of them are hybrids and only 5% (out of 150,000 which is around 7500) are pureblood bison. There's a whole wiki-article about Bison Conservation about this stuff that I can't do justice here.

4:10 "hiero-" means "sacred" Egyptians also had a separate writing system for mundane needs But that one was lost too, lol

Riding the broom came from ancient pre-historic civilizations observing comet activity across the night sky.

14:45 They completely missed the opportunity to make a joke about how Homer could only carry back 100 pounds of the buffalo.

From what I found online both the Paul Bunyan folktale and the John Appleseed folktale are based on real people. Paul Bunyan was based on a real French-Canadian timberman who made his way south and got a job as a foreman of a logging crew in Michigan after the civil war. While Johnny Appleseed was a farmer named John Chapman. He was born in Leominister, Massachusetts in 1774. He had a dream to produce so many apples that no one could ever go hungry.

witches riding broomsticks came from the sale and marketing of ale in the late middle ages. Ale makers and sellers were primarily women selling the excess ale from that week's batch. It was made in/served out of cauldrons, and the women would wear large pointed hats in markets and on the streets to signal that they were currently selling ale. Later, alehouses used bundles of sticks (aka broomsticks) as signage to indicate they sold ale. Cats were also associated with witches, because ale was made of grain, and brewers often kept cats to keep rodents out of their brewing grain.

Yea...no. The Homeric poems originate in the Archaic Greek period (8th century BC) which is a few centuries after the Mycenaean times. I think you meant to say that the Iliad is a story *about* the Mycenaean Greek period.

I instantly see that I will like this guy. This is my first video watch of the channel. I see a Mario mushroom, Fallout mascot, and a Destiny goast. I immediately know I will like this channel. The background decor really displays your personality so that is what I look at first with new youtubers I discover.

Him: “furious Typers, there were no horns on Vikings helmets Me:” there not called buffalo there bison

So, the idea of riding a broom is believed to do with a combination of psychotropic drugs capable of entry through absorption in the body and pagan rituals involving nudity and celebrations. The drugs would be absorbed through entry past the labia majora creating a euphoric sensation believed to be related to flying.

Johnny Appleseed was a real person. Not with that name of course, but there was a young man who travelled across America (probably just the Ohio area) planting apple trees

No one was burnt at the stake during the Salem witch trials. A bunch of people were hung, and this one guy was actually crushed to death in an attempt to coerce a confession, but no one was burnt.

where broom riding comes from: pagan ritual of dancing with poles, or the best nearest pole-like household appliance, the broom. Now only seeing paintings of these dances could be interpreted as flying on the broom. (Cauldron comes from brewing beer btw.)

"The Bush set me up!" was a joke ribbing on Marion Barry.

In Red Dead Redemption, there is an achievement for wiping out the buffalo population. Easily the most messed up achievement I've ever gone for lol

Babe the Ox was blue, because he nearly froze to death, and instead of dying, he just turned blue permanently.

Yay for vault boy on the desks!

Riding a broom came from when women used to use brooms to “pleasure” themselves

Some experts think the Paul Bunyan myths were inspired by an actual lumberjack who was much stronger and physically larger than an average person. And over time he eventually became an actual giant that was used to explain things like the grand canyon.

that german archeologist was heinrich schliemann he found troy in the 1870s

Incredibly funny!😂😂😂 Woman showing ankle in 19th century photo: you calling it "old time immorality".😂😂

11:54: He says "sacrebleu", which no French person has said unironically in the past 200 years. 13:25 It's been hypothesized that Paul Bunyan might have been inspired by French-Canadian workers moving to the USA to find work after various economic crisis in Canada at the time, with "Bunyan" derived from a French-Canadian swear that sounds similar and would mean something like "good grief".

The builders were also given a burial place of Honour beside the pyramids. I remember when they found them, everyone was talking about the discovery in the archaeology community.

Fun fact, the pioneers nearly wiped out BISON not Buffaloes. The words are often used interchangeably but there are no wild buffalo in the United States, there have been wild Bison though!

The earliest known image of witches on brooms dates to 1451, when two illustrations appeared in the French poet Martin Le Franc's manuscript Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies). In the two drawings, one woman soars through the air on a broom; the other flies aboard a plain white stick.

John Chapman, AKA Johnny Appleseed was what we might consider today an orchard consultant. He went through the Ohio valley assisting and sometimes planting and maintaining apple orchards. He is buried in Fort Wayne, IN.

Johnny Appleseed was a real person named John Chapman who planed nurseries for people and would go back to the nurseries to care for them

In the 70's in Chicago, my mom use to give my teachers written permission to hit me. The school finally intervened because the teachers were breaking too many wooden yard sticks.

Opium was available in the US during the 1800's and even earlier, it was used not only for its pain numbing effects but to induce constipation to treat diarrhea and prevent death from dehydration

Paul Bunyan is a legend that comes to the States from Quebcois (French Canadian) immigrants. The same character exists in Quebec " Bon Jean" or in old french bugne. The first reference to him in the States is in Michigan, where many French Canadians settled.

A little suspicious that the common worker for the pyramids was not a satisfied middle class trade worker, but a grunt who got paid enough food to work another day and enough beer to drown his sorrows. Ah, the first wagies.

something that didn't get mentioned: most of the salem witch executions were done via hanging, not burning at the stake. Burning was more common back in europe.

The broom riding is associated with the Women who ran bars, that’s also where the cauldron and large hats also come into witch folklore

As I understand Paul Bunyan is essentially a conglomeration of various lumberjack tall tails that became a mascot for logging

Mr. Terry looks high AF. That or he cried of laughter while making this ;)

I'm not sure if Tom hiding in the rafters was in the written stories, but I do recall that scene from the 1995 movie "Tom & Huck" starring Johnathan Taylor Thomas as Tom Sawyer and Brad Renfro as Huckleberry Finn.

About the broom riding, one theory is drugged up naughty stuff. People ate contaminated grain and suffered from ergotism, which comes with convulsions and mania and, consequently, horniness to the umpteenth degree. So, sometimes you'd see convulsing maniacs speaking in tongues and "misappropriating" broom handles.

Wiggum said fire the catapult, but it isn't a gunpowder weapon so there is no fire.

riding a broom - this is historically accurate to some random tiny degree - comes from the fact broomsticks were occasionally whittled, and when done so by women, could have a certain phallic nature to them which when the mind goes down that rabbit hole, gives a whole new meaning to riding a broom.

your side informations are so interesting! i love it

I actually once heard that the Pyramids we're built by Egypt's finest craftsman of their era, and we're paid greatly for their services, even getting smaller tombs alongside the rulers of Egypt.

Re: longbows vs. crossbows-longbows took a lot of practice (laws in England prescribed how often & penalties), as well as a good diet. Part of the reason the French called the English “rosbifs” aka roast beef.

opium is actually from the middle east and come from a flower called the poppy. (very pretty flower, usually red. my grandma had some in her back yard many years ago.) more specifically you cut the bulb that becomes the flower and harvest the milk like substance that comes out and dry it into a powder. it's been around for a very long time.

I may be wrong on this point, but I'm 99% sure that the whole riding a broom thing came from Wizard Of Oz.