The Greatest History Never Told: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Time Periods are roughly organized into the following:

 

Just some notes:

* If a wiki page exists for the time period, please link it in.

 

[[Creator Provincialism]] can result in a specific time period having a lot of coverage in the media of a particular region and being virtually unknown outside that area.

 

 

Contrast [[Hollywood History]], [[Did Not Do the Research]], [[They Just Didn't Care]], and many others. Not to be confused with [[The Greatest Story Never Told]].

 

{{examples}}

* After the dinosaurs died out, but before the ice ages and way before humans began migrating. The entire span between the dinosaur extinction and the ice age (a span of some 63 million years full of many prehistoric animals) do not show up in fiction that often, whether magical-based, time-travel, science-based, etc.

* Although the Mesozoic period as a whole is rather well-represented, the Triassic period is left mostly forgotten. The mid-Jurassic and the late-Cretaceous are where most [[Stock Dinosaurs]] come from.

* You don't get much Prehistory '''before the dinosaurs''', either. You'll never see an eccentric billionaire extracting fossil DNA from coal deposits to create Carboniferous Park.

*** The Nontolma, an undersea-dwelling precursor race from ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'', seem to take the form of ''Anomalocaris'', an arthropod from the Cambrian period.

* '''The Ice Age''' itself is pretty thin as well.

**** ''[[Ice Age]]'', of course.

 

 

* The Grecian city-states, primarily Athens and Sparta

* Egypt

 

 

Pretty much any civilisation predating Classical Greece:

* The Minoans

* The Phoenicians were at one point one of the richest, most powerful seafaring civilisations in Europe. Yet until they settle down in Carthage and start fighting the [[Punic Wars]] against Rome, who's ever mentioned them?

* Urartu and Ancient Armenia

* '''Sumer'''

*** The [[Ancient Astronauts|aliens]] in ''[[The Fourth Kind]]'' ''speak'' Sumerian.

*** Important in ''[[Snow Crash]]'', though it doesn't actually take place then.

*** ''[[The Scorpion King]]'' kinda-sorta vaguely takes place here, albeit with plenty of [[Anachronism Stew]].

*** [[Robert Silverberg]]'s ''Gilgamesh the King'' is a [[Demythtification]] of ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]'', set in Mesopotamia around 2500 BCE.

There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia." }}

*** ''[[Pharaoh]]'', being a game set during the rise of Egypt, has the Hittites and Hyksos as recurring [[The Usual Adversaries|enemies]], and a few Middle-Eastern cities as potential trading partners.

 

 

* Outside of a few offhand references, there isn't a whole lot of mention of the Aztec civilization; or them actually being conquered. (Naturally, you can bet they'd all forget that if Cortes actually had his way, the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans would have been treated as Spanish Nobility). See [[Mayincatec]] for examples, of various levels of historical accuracy.

** Even better, when there ''[http://www.philipcoppens.com/egyptiancanyon.html are]'' some, they ''must be'' from ancient Egypt. Because according to [[Hollywood History]] everyone else only sucked their thumbs and waited for the Europeans' arrival.

*** ''[[Brother Bear]]''

* God(s) bless your heart if you somehow find a story about Mesoamerican or South American civilizations besides the Aztec, or even about the Aztecs prior to the Conquest. So we don't see much about the Incas, and specially not from civilizations that predate the Post-Classical Mesoamerican Period like the Toltec, Mixtec, Classic Maya, Zapotec, or Monte Alban. Likewise, a long list of lowland and pre-Inca South American civilizations are routinely ignored.

** ''[[Apocalypto]]'' is about the Maya and it is terribly inaccurate, but does have dialogue ''entirely in Mayan''. For starters, the Mayans are portrayed in warrior-like terms closer to the Aztec and the end has serious Unfortunate Implications, but ah well.

** ''[[Aztec]]'' is one of the most notable examples of a novel about the Aztec before Cortez, even if he appears at the end.

 

The Indus Valley civilization flourished for some 600 years from 2500-1900 BCE, but their writing is still undeciphered, limiting what archaeologists can learn. As early as 2000 BCE many regions of South Asia entered the "Iron Age." A great many cultural and scientific achievements originated in South Asia, and yet very little is depicted about its history.

 

 

Even with Rome, it seems that all stories are set in the late Republic or early-to-mid Empire. You hardly see;

* The Pyrrhic War

 

 

* Pre-Qin Dynasty China rarely shows up unless regarding Confucius (The "Spring and Autumn" era)

* The Hellenistic world is a fascinating era of scientific advances, syncretic cultures, the beginnings of the non-theistic model of the universe, war on a massive scale, treachery, debauchery, terror, beauty, the first massive clash of monotheism and polytheism, and, unless you count ''[[Rome Total War]]'', a complete media blackout.

** While famous for 'Gates of Fire' (Thermopylae), Steven Pressfield has also written a couple of books about Alexander the Great. Special mention goes to 'The Afghan Campaign', for being set entirely in Central Asia and for making an excellent read alongside the then-current Afghan War.

** Christian Cameron has written the Tyrant series, dealing with the latter part of Alexander's reign and the subsequent Successor conflicts. Even the first book, set while Alexander is still alive, is mostly set on the Black Sea coast and deals with the politics of Greek colonies, Macedonian expansion and the Scythian tribes who live there.

* Ancient Africa, other than Egypt, didn't exist as far as entertainment media believes.

** And this is despite Africa having had great civilizations, such as the Ethiopian empire. (little known fact: Andromeda of [[Greek Mythology]], despite her frequent [[Race Lift]], was Ethiopian; likewise, the Egyptian [[Egyptian Mythology|Hathor]] may have originated there too.)

*** Except for [[Harry Turtledove]].

*** And the ''[[Belisarius Series]]''.

* '''The Great Persian War''' (AD 602-628). An epic 26-year struggle between Persia and the Roman Empire that started when Shah Khosrau II declared war on Rome to avenge the assassination of his benefactor Emperor Maurice by the tyrannical usurper Phocas. Emperor Heraclius rises up and overthrows Phocas and leads a massive campaign to drive out the Persians, who have conquered half of the Roman Empire. Why is this ignored? Perhaps, in addition to the general ignorance on the Byzantine Romans and the Sassanid Persians, is the futility of the entire war, as just a few years after the end of the war, the Arab Caliphate shows up and conquers Persia and most of the Roman Empire.

*** [[Asterix]] the Gaul is probably the most prominent.

*** Fiction about [[King Arthur]] (such as the 2004 movie), when set in the right time period, will cover this.

 

 

== Middle Ages (500 - 1500 A.D.) ==

* The Carolingian period of the [[Holy Roman Empire]]

* The Ottonian period of the [[Holy Roman Empire]]

* And poor old Central Asia only began to exist in 2006 when [[Borat|a hairy man donned a mankini]]. Well, prior to this they were ruled by the mighty [[Genghis Khan]] for many hundreds of years, up until becoming the stock "screwed up place run by warlords to provide some necessary tension between the US and Soviets/Russians for the initiation of ass-kicking" if Berlin, the Middle East or some ultra secretly secret new technology was already booked out.

** There is ''Genghis Khan'', of course, and the ''[[Conqueror]]'' series. The real ghost period is ''after'' [[Genghis Khan]] - the only reason for Borat being set in Kazakhstan is its current status as [[The Unpronounceable]] (if you don't try very hard) [[Throwaway Country]] no-one knows anything about.

* And the Indian sub-continent definitely didn't exist prior to the arrival of the British.

** For that matter you only get a look at Euro-Indian matters once "the Raj" was an established fact. You never get to see the early part of Anglo/Indian relations and it's never mentioned that the Portuguese and French were there for quite some time before there was a British presence at all.

*** ''[[The Royal Diaries|Jahanara, Princess of Princesses]]'', a fictionalized diary of the real princess Jahanara (daughter of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal) takes place in 1627, around the time the British are first exploring India.

* South East Asia doesn't exist prior to the Vietnam War or, if you are very very lucky, the arrival of European traders. "Asia" then means feudal China, samurais, ninjas and kung fu. Not a lot of Hollywood movies are set "now" in SE Asia either (at least ones that don't think the whole area is mired down in some form of guerrilla war), though countries in the region do have fairly active local film industries.

** There are a few involving western backpackers; ''[[The Beach]]'' springs to mind.

* '''The Islamic Golden Age''' of the 9th to 13th centuries doesn't get much play outside of the Crusades. Successive Persian empires are largely absent also.

*** [[Louis L'Amour]] did write one book (intended to be the first of a series, but unfortunately he died before completing any others) taking place in the 12th century. The protagonist lives in an old Roman house in Brittany, travels through the Moorish Empire (including Cadiz and Cordoba), Paris (where he remarks on how backwards its inhabitants seem compared to the Moors, especially with their lack of books), the Russian steppe (where the merchant caravan he is traveling with is attacked by Pechenegs, a tribe of Slavic nomads that was renowned for their fierce fighting at that time), and Constantinople, ending in modern-day Iran and the Fortess of Alamut (home of the original assassins). At the end of the book, he plans to travel even farther east to modern-day India. All in all, the book is a fascinating look at civilizations and a time period rarely even mentioned by other authors (or, for that matter, in a world history class).

* '''The Hundred Years War'''

*** There's ''[[A Knight's Tale]]'' - however, it's such a shameless [[Anachronism Stew]] that this doesn't have much bearing on anything.

*** ''[[Timeline]]''

*** Bernard Cornwell visits the earlier portion of the period in his ''The Grail Quest'' trilogy, around the time of the Battle of Crécy, and again, around sixty years later, in ''Azincourt'', which focuses on the eponymous Battle of Agincourt.

**** Both Edward III and the Black Prince appear in the aforementioned ''Grail Quest'' series.

*** ''[[World Without End]]''

*** The Hundred Years War is partially dealt with in Shakespeare's History plays, especially ''[[Henry VI]] Part I''

**** And of course [[Henry V]].

*** Eric Flint's ''Ring of Fire'' series.

* Most stories set in '''Tudor times''' take place under the reigns of Elizabeth I or Henry VIII, while Henry VII, Queen Mary I, and Edward VI are rarely touched upon.

** Mary's reign is sometimes touched on, but usually to establish the social, religious, and political background of an Elizabethan piece, rather than as the focus in and of themselves.

*** ''Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey'' by Ann Rinaldi is about the 9 day reign of Lady Jane Grey, the cousin of Edward VI. She reigned between Edward VI and Mary I.

*** As well, of course, as Shakespeare's ''[[Richard III]]''

*** There's the ''[[Sienkiewicz Trilogy]]'', a three-book epic set in 17th Century Poland and Lithuania. Of course, its author was Polish.

**** Poland-Lithuania deserves special mention, as it was ahead of its time politically (it influenced the American Founding Fathers) and its history is filled with wars, invasions, and generally having the odds stacked against it.

 

 

*** [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[The Baroque Cycle|Baroque Cycle]]'' covers this in extreme detail.

*** James Clavell's works, especially ''Shogun''.

 

 

 

 

* The United States post-revolution and pre-Civil War is rarely covered in the media.

 

 

The problem with World War I is that World War II has Nazis, which makes it a straight Good vs Evil fight and therefore more popular with writers. And even within World War I, most media concentrate on the British Sector of the Western Front and, occasionally, Gallipoli, and ignore everything else entirely. You'd almost be forgiven for wondering why they called it a "world war" at all, since it was apparently just Brits fighting Germans in France...

 

* One will never hear of '''Indian and [[Nepali With Nasty Knives|Nepalese soldiers]]''', and '''Russia''' disappears between 1914 to 1917, when it is mentioned they surrendered. Oh, and '''Arabia''' doesn't get much coverage. Arabs and oil, what's that? And everyone forgets that the countries all owned colonies, leading to fights in various parts of Africa.

** ''Rilla of Ingleside'' is a unique case in that it is the only Canadian novel written from a women's perspective about the First World War by a contemporary.

* You'll ''occasionally'' get some inkling that the '''French armed forces''' may have been involved in some capacity...

*** ''The Boy Allies'' discusses some American teenagers fighting for the French before the US entry.

*** Also not to be forgotten, ''All Quiet on the Western Front''.

* Also ignored is the '''Spanish Flu''', one of the worst Pandemics in human history.

*** Prominently featured in an episode of ''[[Downton Abbey]]'' - only ''one'' episode, mind, but the series tends to [[Time Skip]] several months between each one. Used for a [[Tonight Someone Dies]] plot, as several major characters contract it.

* Also ignored is the entire '''Middle Eastern front''' against the Ottoman Empire. Then again, that very front was actually relatively lively when compared to the Western Front and wouldn't make a good material for a [[War Is Hell]] theme so prevalent when it comes to World War I. Of course, one problem is some of the controversy surrounding this time in the Ottoman Empire, and that modern Turkey [[Would Be Rude to Say Genocide|really doesn't like talking about certain things too much detail]], namely the fate of its Christian minorities. So writers usually won't touch it.

*** ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'' would beg to differ.

*** And ''[[The Lighthorsemen]]''.

*** ''[[Ararat]]'''s [[Show Within a Show|Movie Within A Movie]] covers the Siege of Van in Ottoman Turkey.

*** ''The Lark Farm'' (''La Masseria Delle Allodole''), an Italian-made film about the deportation of Armenians at the time of the war.

*** ''The Forty Days of Musa Dagh'' by Franz Werfel.

* Rumor has it there was also a front between '''Austria and Italy'''.

* Nobody yet mentioned the conflict with which this war ''began in the first place'': between '''Austria and Serbia'''. Or the event which triggered it: the assassination of the Austrian crown prince.

*** A little-known [[Made for TV]] Disney Original Movie, ''Principal Takes a Holiday'', which briefly mentions the assassination in one scene. The same movie also mentions the American economic recession in the 80s. For a Disney Original, it was surprisingly intelligent.

*** [[The Last Express]] presented all the political complexities of the war's beginning, in particular the conflict between Austria and Serbia. Unfortunately, due to tragic circumstances of marketing,[[What Could Have Been|almost nobody has played the game.]]

 

 

=== [[World War Two]] ===

Although World War II is done to death in pop culture, a number of fronts are rarely ever mentioned.

** ''[[Men Behind the Sun]]''

* The Polish-Soviet War and Polish September Campaign also deserve better coverage than they get.

* Same about the fall of Western Europe in spring 1940. It is rarely depicted besides some French TV films, and these tend to focus on the exodus only (defeat announced on the radio, people fleeing massively on the roads as far as they can while some German planes are shooting at them). It always seems like the French and British forces didn't fight at all, which is entirely false.

** The major exception is the Battle Of Britain.

* The '''North African front'''. It seems to have everything one can desire what with exotic cities, no pesky civilians wandering around the battlefield except for Bedouin who can take care of themselves, and even a climate that is more fun to contemplate (Libyan desert dust sounds less unpleasant to fight in than French mud). And lots of potential [[Scenery Porn]]. And even some [[Real Life]] [[Badass]] characters who might have been made by a movie. Plus a [[Worthy Opponent]] [[Foe Yay]] kind of spirit that is a throwback to [[Ye Goode Olde Days]].

*** ''Raid on Rommel''

*** And ''The Desert Fox''. North Africa is actually pretty heavily covered.

* '''Burma''', which earned the nickname 'The Forgotten War' even while fighting was still going on.

*** ''Objective: Burma!'', in which American troops parachute in to destroy a Japanese base, then face a difficult journey to safety. A particular exemplar of this trope (and [[America Wins the War]]) for downplaying British involvement in a mostly British and Australian campaign. Released in the UK in 1945, it was withdrawn a week later after anger from veterans, the military and (it was said) [[Winston Churchill]] himself.

** More prominent in recent generations of Britons than in older ones; for some those generations, it is Burma, rather than Vietnam or the Pacific Theatre, which constitutes the archetypal "jungle war".

*** A comic called 'D-Day Dodgers' is set during this period, and references how the whole campaign became just a sideshow.

*** It's not all that uncommon: ''[[The English Patient]]'' and ''[[Life Is Beautiful]].'' Although none of these movies focus on the combat, suggesting that [[Latin Lover|other]] [[Scenery Porn|aspects]] of Italy are what appeal to filmmakers.

*** ''[[A Thread of Grace]]'' is set primarily during the eighteen months between Italy's surrender and V-E Day, covering various factions in the former Nazi-allied, now Nazi-occupied nation.

*** It does feature in a few of the ''[[Call of Duty]]'' games, however, usually depicting the notorious Battle of Monte Cassino.

* The fact that some seven million Slavs (mostly Poles, Czechs, Russian P.O.W.s and other), Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally handicapped people and political dissidents as well as six million Jews died in the '''Holocaust''' is hardly ever mentioned.

*** One exception to this is the 70s miniseries ''Holocaust'' in which these groups (and the identifying badges they were forced to wear) are all mentioned and Gypsies are briefly shown in one camp scene.

* Any coverage of the battles in '''Crete and Greece'''?

*** There's ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]''.

*** Some of Alistair MacLean's other books also take place in Greece or other parts of Eastern Europe.

*** ''Captain Correlli's Mandolin'' by Louis de Bernières (and its film adaptation).

* '''The Russo-Finnish War''' (both of them) might have gotten more play if the Finns hadn't been on the side of the Nazis. Otherwise, it seems made for TV, especially the Winter War which easily lends itself to a [[David Versus Goliath]] story.

*** There are a number of Finnish films, as well as Russian ones such as ''The Cuckoo'', where one Finnish and one Russian soldier argue over the hospitality of a Sami woman.

* The '''Russian Front''' of World War II has the same disadvantage as the Thirty Years War. The main contenders were [[Evil Versus Evil]], everyone else was just trodden on and so on. Whereas in the West it doesn't quite feel that way to contemplate it.

*** ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die''.

*** ''[[Come and See]]'' by Klimov.

*** There are a number of films about Stalingrad, particularly, erm, ''Stalingrad'' or ''Enemy at the Gates''.

**** '[http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/64470 Stalingrado]' by a spanish band Híbrido, bizarrely enough.

*** ''Force 10 from Navarone'' is set in wartime Yugoslavia.

* Many people forget the [[wikipedia:History of Greenland during World War II|German presence in Greenland]], where a group of 15 Greenlanders were able to fend off the Germans [[Rock Beats Laser|on dogsled.]]

* Also forgotten is the fact that over 130,000 Japanese in America and Canada were persecuted and put into concentration camps because it was feared they were spies for the Japanese government after Pearl Harbor.

*** ''[[Come See The Paradise]]''

*** Touched upon in ''[[The Karate Kid]]'', as Mr. Miyagi's wife and newborn son died in one of these camps.

*** ''Obasan'' by Joy Kogawa.

*** ''Under the Blood-Red Sun'' and ''Eyes of the Emperor'' by Graham Salisbury

*** ''Weedflower'' by Cynthia Kadohata

*** ''The Moon Bridge" by Marcia Savin

** Masaki Kobayashi's ''Ningen no joken/The human condition'' trilogy: the protagonist winds up in a Soviet POW camp after being captured during this conflict.

 

 

=== Other ===

* The first half of the Eighteenth Century

* The French and Indian War.

** In fact, the whole French colonization of North America.

*** ''[[Dear America|Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau]]'' is about a French slave girl and her owner who go to Canada at the beginning of the French and Indian War.

*** The "Paul Gallant" series by Victor Suthren is a short series of [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]] stories about a '''French''' marine officer in the mid-to-late 1740s, originally sailing from the colony that became Nova Scotia once the English conquered it.

*** ''[[Snow By Night]]'', sorta. It's a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]], but Aradie is basically colonial Quebec.

* The Scottish Second Wars of Independence, the ''Armee Ecosse'' of the 15th century (pretty much the entire Scottish army is hired by the King of France) the Scots who fought in the Wars of the Roses, the battle of Flodden.... For some reason, there seems to be this belief that Scottish history goes straight from Bannockburn (1314) to the battle of Culloden (1746), which misses out the intervening 432 years)

** ''The Prague Cemetery'' by [[Umberto Eco]] covers it extensively, albeit through an [[Unreliable Narrator]].

* There is disappointingly little on the Boxer Rebellion, given every great power in the world put aside their differences and united to save Europeans and Chinese Christians from persecution.

** The Chinese film "The Warlords"

* There was the Quasi War, between the United States and the Republic of France. Seems Hollywood doesn't see a market for a movie where the [[U Sof A]] gets to go beat up the French. Overshadowed by the French Revolutionary Wars.

* Speaking of pirates, no love for the War of 1812? Not even the Battle of New Orleans? Pirates, Choctaws, Arkansas flatboat men and Tennessee Davy Crockett types curb-stomping the best army in the world despite being outnumbered nearly 3:1. Yet, other than Eric Flint's ''Rivers of War'', not a lot.

* '''The Opium Wars'''

*** A lot of kung fu movies take place during this period in China, though outside of that it's virtually unknown.

*** It is mentioned in the [[Biopic]] ''Nicholas and Alexandra'', which covers the reign of Czar Nicholas II, and includes some of the outrage on Russia's home-front at their loss in the war.

*** The only big attempt to describe it on Russian was ''Tsushima'' by Novikov-Priboi, released in Soviet times and mostly telling about how crappy was the Empire Before.

**** Oh, and there's also ''Rasplata'' by former imperial russian captain Semyonov, which managed to be [[Up to Eleven|even more]] obnoxious in painting the exact opposite picture.

*** Why, there are also several novels by Valentin Pikul, such as ''Wealth'' and ''Cruisers''. Pikul's novel ''Wealth'' is this trope squared, since it describes the most obscure front of that war, namely Kamchatkan guerrilla resistance against Japanese landings.

*** The Russo-Japanese war was done by ''Sidney Reily Ace of Spies''. It was a "nice little war" from the days when everyone considered each other a [[Worthy Opponent]]. It just got overlooked.

** Remember the Alamo! (Technically part of the 1836 Texan War of Independence from Mexico, but still counts as an example since most people don't know anything about the entire period).

*** ''The Blue and the Gray'' had some coverage of this war.

* '''America's Old Northwest'''

*** The Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, which include a little story called ''Last of the Mohicans'', cover this setting (which was a main contributor to the French and Indian War as well).

* Also, the '''1910s in Britain'''. No longer Victorian, but not yet World War One.

*** One exception to this is the film ''[[Mary Poppins]]'', which takes place in 1910.

*** ''[[Titanic]]''

*** The Children's Book, by A. S. Byatt, covers this decade, as well as the two preceding it.

*** ''[[The Secret Garden]]''

**** Its [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Downton Abbey]]'''s first series spans from the sinking of the Titanic to the outbreak of the War.

*** ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' actually covered this period.

*** Robert B. Parker's detective ''Spenser'' was stated to be a Korean War vet in some of the earlier novels.

*** Jim Rockford of ''[[The Rockford Files]]'' served in the Korean War

*** Covered in [[Mad Men]], since this is where Dick Whittman became Don Draper

*** ''[[Sabre Ace Conflict Over Korea|Sabre Ace: Conflict Over Korea]]'', a 1997 flight sim.

* While the Japanese have numerous stories about the '''Sengoku and Bakumatsu''' eras, those periods of history are not well known outside the country. (''[[The Last Samurai]]'' does not fit in either category and [[You Fail History Forever|is not very historical anyway]].

*** Also, the James Clavell novel ''Shogun''.

*** Some video games, such as ''Inindo'' and the ''Nobunaga's Ambition'' series take place during the Sengoku period.

* The '''Spanish Empire'''. You can even have entire book or movie sagas about pirates of the ''Spanish'' Main with no Spanish showing up ever.

*** Spain plays a big role in the ''Uncharted Waters'' video game series.

*** Spain is also a playable civilization in the ''[[Civilization]]'' series for Civ4 and later.

*** ''[[Zorro]]'' anyone? (not to mention the numerous TV and film adaptations)

* '''The Barbary Wars'''. You'd think people might be interested in a movie about the US Navy and [[Semper Fi|Marine Corps]] fighting pirates, especially since it's the ''first war ever fought by the newly independent US''. Overshadowed by the Napoleonic Wars.

*** There is also ''Tripoli'' (1950) with John Payne and [[Maureen O'Hara]] as the Comtesse D'Arneau in the inevitable yashmak. Rather a dull affair.

*** They do get a mention in one of the [[Horatio Hornblower]] books, ''Hornblower and the Hotspur'', where the ''Hotspur'' is moored in a harbor not far from the USS ''Constitution'', which is on her way to deal with the Corsairs in Tripoli.

* '''The Boer War'''. Are there even any British or South African movies that cover it?

*** ''Breaker Morant'' is an Australian one.

*** In the 1960 version of ''[[The Time Machine]]'', which is set in 1899, George (the time-traveler) is told that he should be coming up with inventions to help Britain in the Boer War, but he doesn't like the idea of creating machines which contribute to death and destruction. Obviously, it's a metaphor for the [[Cold War]] arms race.

*** The war figures prominently into the [[Backstory|backstories]] of some ''[[Downton Abbey]]'' characters.

** Doubly obnoxious because Kane was significantly based on William Randolph Hearst, who is sometimes credited for ''instigating'' the Spanish-American War. In fact, Kane is given a line ("you provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war"), which is quite similar to a line allegedly spoken by Hearst about the same war ("you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war"). Oddly, Hearst is mentioned at a different point in the film, indicating that he still exists as himself in the Kaneverse.

*** It was briefly mentioned in [[Mad Men]] with an old veteran proclaiming he was a [[Theodore Roosevelt|Rough Rider]]

* Also highly glossed-over is the '''The Philippine–American War''', which was a direct result of the Spanish-American War.

*** ''[[Space Cowboys]]'' starring Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Billy Bob Thornton, and Donald Sutherland as four over-the-hill 1960's test pilots<ref>and probable Korean War veterans, to address another forgotten era</ref> recruited for a sensitive Space Shuttle mission.

* Let's just say Latin American history and save a lot of space. But if we must go for details:

** Colonial rule of Spain over the biggest part of the continent. This is even obscure in Latin America, as most countries just jump from colonization to independance war.

** That little ordeal with a certain Simon Bolivar. I heard some wars were fought around there in the south.

** The Cuban Revolution. Who was that t-shirt dude again? Also the Cuban Independance from Spain, which happened until the beginning of the last century.

** The dictatorial regimes in most of Latin America during the Cold War. There is barely any country where nothing interesting happened. The Salvador Allende coup d'etat in Chile, the Tlaltelolco Massacre in Mexico, the Sendero Luminoso terrorist attacks in Peru, the opressive dictadure in Argentina (and Uruguay, and Brazil and several other countries) and the extremely bloody conflicts in Central America, such as the genocides in Guatemala under Lucas and Rios Montt, El Salvador and Nicaragua. A lot of this are just recently starting to be studied on their home countries. Though the thing is, the main villain in a lot of this stories is often regarded to [[Eagle Land|actually be the US itself]] as they are blamed for helping regimes and savotaging ellections [[Red Scare|when the countries ellected communist sympathizers]] which makes it all [[Gray and Grey Morality|more morally confusing]] if we are keeping the civil terms. So maybe Hollywood is not really interested.

[[Category:Hollywood History]]

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:The Greatest History Never Told]]