Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸

Every generation thinks it's the end. History says otherwise. I ask the history questions you'd ask & dig up real answers. No boring dissertations. 3 essays/wk.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

Julius Caesar surrounded 80,000 men at Alesia in 52 BC.

Then he learned he was the one surrounded.

Vercingetorix retreated into the hilltop town with his army.

Caesar didn't storm it.

He starved it, cutting an 11-mile ring of trenches and stakes around the base so nothing could get in or out.

Then scouts reported a Gallic relief force marching to break the siege.

Some estimates put it near 250,000 men.

So Caesar built a second wall. Thirteen miles, facing outward, trapping his own legions between two enemy armies at once.

That's the detail that blew me away....the man doing the surrounding was also the one surrounded.

Caesar held both fronts, broke the relief force with a cavalry charge he led himself, and won.

Vercingetorix surrendered. Gaul stayed Roman for 500 years.

This is the type of history I cover at Past Passport: things you thought you knew, the questions you'd ask.

I write clear explanations, no boring dissertations around here. Subscribe for $5 a month for more.

Our recent Caesar article on crossing the Rubicon: https://t.co/4csscY9K9Z

Follow me on X @pastpassport
Subscribe on Substack https://t.co/kGKdHJth7w

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@Dinkeldash Had trouble w this ai. Ill try to update it.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

Rome's ships were too small to ram them.

Too short to board them.

Too weak to sink them.

At the Battle of Morbihan, 56 BC, Julius Caesar's fleet faced 220 Veneti warships- solid oak, riding high above the water, built for the open Atlantic.

Rome sent roughly 60 lighter galleys against them.

On paper, it wasn't close.

So Rome stopped fighting the ships and started fighting the ropes.

Long poles fitted with hooks reached up into the rigging and cut the lines holding the sails.

One by one, the sails dropped.

The wind died soon after. The most powerful navy in Gaul sat frozen on open water, unable to run, unable to fight back.

Only then did Rome board.

The Veneti had the better ships. Rome just made sure it never had to fight them as ships.

More Caesar battles are coming to Past Passport in September.

If you like Caesar battles, here's our most recent paid article: https://t.co/bAQ1skm6r6

This is the type of history I cover at Past Passport: things you thought you knew, the questions you'd ask.

I write clear explanations, no boring dissertations around here. Subscribe for $5 a month for more.

Follow me on X: @Pastpassport
Subscribe on Substack: https://t.co/kGKdHJtOX4

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@josafadebrito Will try to update the ai agsin . Had some trouble with this one getting it right.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@Dinkeldash No.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@Ameribantu666 Indeed

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@TimelessTrvlr Much better.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

You think 300 Spartans held Thermopylae.

Wrong.

7,000 did, until a Greek man named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks.

He sold Xerxes a mountain path for a reward he never lived to collect.

Herodotus wrote down all 7,000 names 2,500 years ago.

History erased 700 of them anyway.

Archaeologists found the arrowheads in 1939, right where the last of them died.

The betrayal, the 700 names history cut, and why "300" became the number we remember. Live now on Past Passport.

Full free article: https://t.co/fLeqsnC2Ak

We covered 7 Greek and Roman battles this month for subscribers. More added weekly. Subscribe for $5 a month if you want to read history like this.
Follow me on X: @Pastpassport.
Subscribe on Substack: https://t.co/kGKdHJth7w

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@YorchTorchGames Indeed. Great point.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@TimelessTrvlr 🫡 thank you sir

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@WrkClsHero I did do a video a while back of that. I don't remember which battle it was. But where they yeah, the boarding device that they used. I've about to go back and I wanted to redo that, anyway, I put a video it's in my media section about a month ago

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@SnapPeasGarcia If you like roman battle stuff, this is a good free article I did recently. https://t.co/LdOv4TDtLF

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@SnapPeasGarcia Thanks perri appreciate it

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@WrkClsHero Brilliant yes? I'll be honest I did not know about that. I only learned about it doing some research this week.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@Bodhichristos 7300?

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@desilva_frank Thanks. May do an article on this one.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@NeuralBuffalo @MADkurious On all of my history, newsletters, and my ex posts I check the facts, and I always check it when it sounds absolutely positive about some fact. Because i've learned that it is too certain sometimes

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

It's incredible for detailed research and yeah, you do need to check some of its facts and it'll have a high degree of certainty. Sometimes when the truth is more mixed. So you really need to be aware of that. But overall, yeah. It can do a massive amount of research in seconds that would take me many hours

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@NeuralBuffalo @MADkurious It's just weird how sometimes it's the young people that are fighting a I and i'm the old guy and i'm the one that's supposed to be fighting it. And I have taken it up aggressively this year, you gotta be crazy to fight it

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@NeuralBuffalo @MADkurious Same here. Fighting technology is truly pissing into the wind.

[Joseph Pickett 🇺🇸 @Pastpassport]

@SirYacht_ this is a 3 win year. They will get a top QB next year. probably screw that up tho.