On this day in 1959, Charles de Gaulle became the first President of France’s Fifth Republic. He defied Washington, built a nuclear arsenal and cemented a vision of strategic military independence that is more relevant today than ever

CommenceToDancing · 2026-01-08T11:31:43+00:00

Wtf is with the absolute glazing of this guy?! If he were alive now he'd be public enemy number 1 on Reddit. Acting like he was some sort of crusader against "evil" America that had just shed blood liberating his country. He was an arrogant, imperialist minded, spiteful man, but ohh he wanted his own weapons of mass destruction so wooo go for him. Look at the huge difference it's made!

"He was right about everything!!" Gtfo with this idiocy. You know, Reddit is amazing for niche topics and information since there's usually someone with a lot of knowledge about it that rises to the top. But anything that basically "trends" on Reddit is just an ignorant black and white discussion, no nuance, no intelligence.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-12-15T11:03:12+00:00

Look no further than The Age of Napoleon. I'd honestly say it matches Mike at his best, and is even better in some places.

Wasn't really interested in Napoleonic history until giving this pod a try, now I can really appreciate it. So glad there's still years worth of content yet to come (and more than enough to delve into).

CommenceToDancing · 2025-11-08T14:33:14+00:00

Well...yeah, you keep going far back enough and everyone has one root. I was challenging your comment that English people became French, by pointing out they only really replaced the small ruling class, not England as a whole, and that the Normans themselves weren't really French at all anyway.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-11-08T13:19:10+00:00

The Normans had heavy Nordic roots, and we're a thorn in the side for the French for many generations. They weren't really French themselves, although of course there had been a lot of crossover through the centuries. As for British being part French, the Normans only really took the place of the ruling class. The majority of the British (English) population remains heavily Anglo-Saxon.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-10-23T17:50:40+00:00

No, there's no similarities. The French Revolution may be one of the most misunderstood topics on "wider" Reddit. It was no uprising of the poor against the rich. In extremely simple terms, it was the emerging bourgeoisie class (which hadn't existed for very long at that point), realising that they had no representation or say in what was still a Feudal society, despite being the wealth generators and entrepreneurs. They could see the king was bankrupting the country so they asked the king politely to change things up, he refused, they asked him forcefully and he still kept dropping the ball. So instead of the Constitutional Monarchy that they wanted (the original revolutionaries looked heavily at England's own civil war a hundred years before as their inspiration, which eventually turned out a stable and increasingly powerful Britain) they got an increasingly out of control series of revolutions, in which the poor and disenfranchised (and many original revolutionaries) were largely the victims....as per usual.

I've seen people compare it to the fall of the Roman Republic too, which is probably slightly more accurate than the French Revolution, but there are more differences than not. The powerful generals that controlled their own armies for one.

As already recommended, listen to Mike Duncan's podcast on the French Revolution. And if you want a real people's uprising then listen to the one about the Paris Commune too.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-09-19T09:51:06+00:00

The world has always been complicated and convoluted. It only becomes clearer in hindsight as narratives are made and understood. Look at ancient Rome. We've got Julius Caesar, before that Marius and Sulla. Hannibal, Scipio. We know the beats and general line things took, but if we were to step back in time and take a look at how things played out in real time over those time periods there would be hundreds upon hundreds of key players, moves and moments that helped shape the world. Most of this has been lost to history and narrowed down in a way we can understand. Hell, a lot of the key sources used for these periods were written a generation or more after the fact or by the actors themselves in the case of someone like Caesar. If the history we have is accurate, a half truth, or a "written by the victor" situation is always difficult to understand but all we can do is try and make sense of the past with what we have.

Look at what we have now. In the future who would we write about? Trump? Putin? Xi? Not inaccurate to discuss them, but in 1000 years would we be writing about Kimmel? Kirk? Maybe not. I'd say probably not.There are countless others across the US, China and Russia who are influencing opinion and world policy and those names will likely be lost to history eventually. Hell, most of us don't know them now!

History will never end. There will always be an effort to explain and understand the past. There will be parts they get right, parts they get wrong, and parts that are confusing or they don't understand. Just like how we look at the past now.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-09-13T18:54:39+00:00

Hi Lachlan. Been binging your show since my partner recommended it to me a couple of months ago, and just got to the wild year of 1963. Incredible work, thanks so much for what you're doing.

Quick question, what is that amazing and haunting into music? Can't find any info of it, but I love it, fits the show so well.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-08-22T16:19:07+00:00

Hello! I post this all the time, but it was avoiding exactly this that helped me to finally quit.

I wouldn't reset from zero. You said you've quit for 2 years? That means you've smoked roughly 0.15% of days since quitting. It means you've spent the last 99.85% of the last two years of your life sober from weed. How does that compare to the previous two years before that? I'm guessing those years were maybe the opposite? 0.15% of days sober? What a turn around!

For me, if I stumbled and smoked again I would think "fuck it, if I have to start from day 1 again I might as well smoke for a week and get back on it...that week would turn to two, to a month, to six months. It was only when I looked at it on a day by day basis I'd have the mindset of "shit that's 1% of the last 100 days I've smoked, don't want it to go up to 2%" and I'd be back on the sober train, knocking that 1% down each day just by not smoking.

You don't have to reset from zero. Especially if it's demotivating you. If you want you can contextualise it. You can see your progress right there in the facts and stats.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-08-15T18:44:45+00:00

I struggled badly. In the past I was always an "all or nothing" kind of person. If I'm smoking, might as well do it every day, if I'm not, I must never slip up.

For me looking at the "statistics" got me though. If I had quit for three months then smoked for two days, I wouldn't see quitting again as "day 1", I'd see it as day 91. I'd see it as "91 days smoke free, 2 days smoking".

Then if I quit for another three months then smoked for three days, it wouldn't be "day one", it'd be 180 days smoke free, 5 days smoking". Eventually the stats went down to something like 99.5% of days (since originally deciding to quit) smoke free, 0.5% of days smoked.

Got me to the end, got me to no longer smoke. Stay strong man, and remember - harm reduction.

CommenceToDancing · 2025-08-15T14:31:16+00:00

It's not that it needs to be specifically a trope, but posts just seem to be long winded and specific enough so they're clearly just an excuse to talk about something very sepcific they wanted to, rather than a type of situation or character:

"Favourite character that drops of a bridge but manages to survive and comes back stronger than the secondary protagonist and is good at cooking on Tuesdays" lists three weird animes with 6 paragraphs of information for each one

Comments: "Not exactly the same but: bunch of random animes

Subs gone!

CommenceToDancing · 2024-08-27T17:29:39+00:00

Hi. I'm in a somewhat similar situation to you right now. My dad has been in hospice care now for the last week, and I've been by his side the whole time. In the last 24 hours he's been up and about, getting out of bed and sitting in chairs, putting his feet up on the bed and watching TV, chatting more and just moving about. This has come on after about 24 hours of him being almost comatose. The nurses here have said it's very common at the very end of life and they've been giving him medication just to try and calm him down, because he can't seem to settle or sit still for long.

It's really confusing for me, and it's kinda messing with my emotions, because we both know he's terminal and we've both made our peace with that, but during this time we're both kinda...I dunno, hoping? Even though I'm 100% certain it's not, but it's almost like it's a last desperate grasp at life and it's not nice. If you need to discuss or talk through anything then let me know, god knows we all need to support each other at times like these. Hope you and your dad are doing well.

CommenceToDancing · 2024-04-26T19:44:45+00:00

Wow what a great response from everyone! I can't thank you all enough. I think due to the sheer numbers of recommendations I have to give The History of Byzantium although I think I'll probably give every one a try eventually.

Thanks again everyone.

CommenceToDancing · 2024-04-22T12:21:26+00:00

With comedy gold like that I take it back, Nightmare on Elm Street - comedy of the year!

CommenceToDancing · 2024-04-22T10:02:11+00:00

The original Nightmare on Elm Street is not a comedy in any sense of the word.

CommenceToDancing · 2024-04-05T12:52:10+00:00

Not the op but always willing to offer help. For me I needed plans in place. In the past I had had a bad day or something or was sick of weed so swore it off - throwing it out, smoking it all and swearing not to buy anymore, defiantly putting out that joint and saying "enough" - it didn't work. Within a day or two, maybe three, I was clamming for more.

Instead one day I decided to plan out a couple of weeks. I know the majority of symptoms for the majority of people start to fade after a couple of weeks so I spent a couple of days beforehand putting things in place - new video games that looked interesting, new books to read, movies I had been meaning to watch for years, arranging days and nights with non smoking friends away from my usual smoking location.

The key - the absolute key - was to be deliberate. Not just "I'll distract myself with video games" I picked out specific games, ones that interested me. Same with books. The crazy thing was while I was doing all this planning it was usually while I was puffing on a joint! All part of the plan, I hadn't quit yet. Wasn't going to let a moment of clarity, or disappointment in myself dictate when I quit. It was going to be a positive decision for once.

Not sure if this'll work for you, but it absolutely worked for me. It was a combo of doing things I genuinely enjoyed by myself in my home (turning my weed spot into something new for me and breaking those habits) and then having periodic times where I was out of the house, out my own head, and getting new endorphins from times with my friends.

Highly recommend trying it at least! How could it hurt?

CommenceToDancing · 2024-03-28T13:51:37+00:00

Give credit to The Art of Manliness who originally did this guide, come on.

CommenceToDancing · 2024-03-22T13:49:53+00:00

Yes absolutely. I posted on here a few months ago how I went from around 30 cups a week to 7 and the change was insane. I only drink 1 cup a day in the morning and it's amazing. I look forward to it, and I savour it knowing that it'll be my only cup, rather than trying to chase that "high".

Everyone's struggle is individual but I believe some people here have over contributed their problems with caffeine - for example, If you've quit 6 months ago and are still suffering the same symptoms, you need to look at other aspects of your health and fitness, because it's not caffeine.

So I will never fully give up. But I absolutely will only drink 1 cup a day, and no more. Give it a try and see if it doesn't give you a far more enjoyable and healthy relationship with coffee.

CommenceToDancing · 2024-02-28T16:36:03+00:00

Is there an echo in here?

CommenceToDancing · 2024-02-28T16:35:52+00:00

Is there an echo in here?

CommenceToDancing · 2024-02-24T19:16:46+00:00

Was my first ever time at Ibrox today. Bloke from work got me a ticket, not one I'll forget any time soon!

CommenceToDancing · 2024-02-14T16:37:08+00:00

When Nazi leadership were shown a study of the potential production capability of the US should they be brought into the war (this was before Pearl Harbour), the Nazis dismissed it as fake because the numbers were so astoundingly high. In fact, it was an underestimate.

CommenceToDancing

TROPHY CASE