Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[luzula]

Oh, hmm, this must be the Marquess of Argyll who was foster-father to Ewen Cameron of Lochiel. I'd forgotten he was beheaded!

Also, the group of Scottish nobles who plotted leading up to the 1708 Jacobite almost-rebellion were called the Juncto.

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[selenak]

Hm, would that work, date wise? I mean, if your Ewen Cameron is an 18th century character, because that Argyll died shortly after the Restoration, which was in 1660. Isn't it more likely Ewen Cameron's foster father was the Argyll who rebelled together with Monmouth against James II?

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[luzula]

I meant this guy!

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[selenak]

Ah, okay then. Yes, that one's Argyll was the top Scot during the Civil War.

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[mildred_of_midgard]

There was also the Whig Junto in the 1690s and first decade of the 1700s, which comes up a lot if you read about the War of the Spanish Succession, which I have.

Wikipedia also tells me about another Junto:

In North America, the Whig Junto was the inspiration for Benjamin Franklin's Junto in 1727 Philadelphia upon his return from London.

It concludes:

The term "Junto" is derived from "Junta", a Hispano-Portuguese term for a civil deliberative or administrative council, which in 18th-century English had not yet gained its present association with the governments of a military dictatorship.

Which is why when Selena wrote "the English Junto (yes, Junto, not Junta, and yes, they were called that)" it took me a minute to figure out why that would be noteworthy at all. I'm just too used to seeing Juntos in this period, it's my primary association. ;)

Not my first time and won't be my last of being more familiar with the 18th century than the modern day; I still remember arguing with a modern map about the German/Polish border as a teenager, only to belatedly realize that my mental map owed a lot to Fritz. :'D

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[mildred_of_midgard]

My wife tells me that in Portuguese, "junta" still just means sth like committee or board, nothing to do with dictatorships.