How 'Wild' was the Wild West (Short Animated Documentary)
We've all heard the stories of the Wild West. Saloon Brawls, duels at high noon, ladies being tied to Train Tracks by moustachioed gentlemen, Cowboys fighting Indians. But how true is any of this? To put it bluntly. Just how 'Wild' was the Wild West. Find out in this short animated simple history documentary.
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Sources:
"Them's Fighting Words": Violence, Masculinity, and the Texas Cowboy in the Late Nineteenth Century by Jacqueline M. Moore
COMPARATIVE FRONTIER SOCIAL LIFE: WESTERN SALOONS AND ARGENTINE PULPERIAS by RICHARD W. SLATTA
Quantifying the Wild West: The Problematic Statistics of Frontier Violence by Robert R. Dykstra
"This town ain't big enough for the both of us" *makes another town*
Bugs bunny joke
@@ln7929 wtf is a bugs bunny?
@@niensaddestofthesad8151 your comment is a violation of the Geneva convention, as it tortures the civilians who read it.
@@perfectlyfine1675 I think you meant the guy who made the small chungus joke
@@niensaddestofthesad8151 I hope you're being sarcastic.
One thing about cowboys, they did engage in rowdy behaviour in cities, but this was because of the lack of drinking and socializing during the months spent on ranches or drives. In this way they were like sailors in ports.
wonderful analogy! signed, ex-sailor =hic=
Idk what the heck hapens there but your analogy hit me because my brother was a sailor, and he was a jerk when he drink
Right - this is actually a true thing. What's not true (in the movies) is that the townspeople hated them because of that (and the fact that they're low-class).
Which means they wouldn't aim and shoot very well, even if they wanted to.
@@astrofrk They had no guns to shoot with. Almost universally every frontier town had a "No carrying guns inside town limits" rule in place and enforced by the sheriff and deputies. Since what was going on was pretty much plain old bar fights. Just like today. People get drunk, get in argument over stupid stuff and punches fly. Well town leaders wanted it to stay on punches and not in knifes or specially guns. So under town leaderships authority there was local city order banning carrying weapons in town. Since weapons and drunk cowboys blowing of steam is bad for towns business. Weapons usually meaning firearms and also big knifes. Thus actually there was far less guns IN TOWN in west than people think. Towns folks guns were at home and visitors guns deposited at the sheriff or their lodgings. You didn't like these rules..... One could take a hike, since town sheriff would make you either leave town or render guns. Appear to saloon or other business armed, well most likely the word from towns folk quickly got to sheriff about someone not following towns rules. For example OK corral shooting started over cowboys refusing to deposit their guns while in town as was the towns rule.
Also fun fact, Cowboys weren’t “cool” until after the “end” of the Wild West time. They were viewed as rough, dirty low end blue collar workers. Very akin to the stigma an oilfield worker, construction hand, or plumber has today. (Which is funny because those professions make good money)
well, people like the rough-and-rowdy groups. Look at pirates in modern media! It's all about how the stories get spun
doesnt it depend? gladiators could be seen as both kinda low class bruts, but could also be extremely “cool” as well. Things might be a little more multifaceted.
Which is REALLY funny, because I've not once in my entire life heard anybody say ANYTHING about tradesmen in a manner that had something to do with the supposed stigma, EXCEPT from tradesmen themselves claiming it happened... then turn around and spend at least half (and that's not an exaggeration, that's being generous) of their time just shitting all over every profession that isn't blue collar trade work. And yeah, I'm talking first hand experience, I grew up surrounded by tradesmen in my family and most of my friends from high school. Honestly I think the "stigma" about being a tradesman is 98-100% fantasy on the part of the tradesmen who hate their own jobs and developed a work culture that encourages persecution complexes as a result.
@@finnl6887 may I ask… are you a tradesmen yourself?
@@arkad6329 not anymore. Used to do window installation on the side though, and before that accompanied my father to pretty much all his side jobs for a few years (he's a pipefitter mainly, but he did plenty of window installation, HVAC work, house gutting, plumbing e.t.c on the side. Basically almost full time on the months he had off from the fitters). I also used to do theater set construction, light hanging, e.t.c , which some don't count as a trade but considering all the carpenters and electricians that were doing the same work right alongside me as their full time employment I count that. Learned a lot, mostly from the carpenters. Not enough to go into business doing it myself but enough to actually be useful. Why do you ask?
0:37 "Most Saloons had regular doors.." WHAT? There goes my wild west image of the cowboy saloon cherished since childhood. I'm sad 😭
"I have a plan, Arthur, there's this train-" "There's always a goddamn train!'
hm
Also, there's a false belief about chasing a train in open praire - mostly those attacks happened when train was in station. Bandits would prevent train from moving away, cut off local telegraph wires, and steal whatever is possible.
@@Admiral45-10 voice of experience?
@@jacobpeters5458 Meh, just heard it once...
Lmfao fkn legendary
My teacher once told me that the "wild west" wasn't very wild, but that whaling and pirates were where you could really find adventure and crazy stories. But when movies/television became a thing, it was WAY cheaper to make a movie on land than one on sea, so they made a lot more movies about the wild west.
Geez, underrated comment.
That makes a lot of sense
building a entire western town (which they did for western movies) is cheaper then the set that already exist and is free? I got skeptical hippo eyes
@@User-54631 right? the ocean provides an infinite amount of free sailors, boats, ships, sea training and everything else you need and some guy thinks building a town is cheaper?
@@User-54631 Most of those western towns were nothing more than a single wall façade and the indoor scenes were shot in a studio. You really think they built an entire western town with fully functioning buildings for a movie set? On the other hand, you would need fully functioning REAL ships (plural) to be on the water making a movie. The fuel alone would likely cost as much as the fake town made of the cheapest lumber they could find.
I’m pretty sure the “Wild West” wasn’t just NM, AZ, and CA. It should be everything west of the Mississippi. Most of the open range was before the Rockies.
In the 1840 and 1850s, maybe even during the civil war, it would've included the likes of Illinois and Wisconsin too
Oklahoma and Texas were probably the wildest of all. Especially when the Comanches ruled the area.
The wild west its all the territory that used to be from Mexico, since the North American cowboy was born actually from Mexican lands
@@XCodes Montana had a lot of boomtowns due to mining and the precious metals and gems found here (Butte is one of the more enduring ones. Others have become ghost towns). Battle of the Little Bighorn, trappers like Hugh Glass, the Havre Underground... there's definitely some pretty rich stories to be found.
The regions east of the rockies were decently populated by the end of the civil war as far as I can tell, meaning the typical old west most people think about would have occurred west of the rockies. Driving through this region the reason why is obvious, because no one wanted to fucking live in those places.
One other thing that often gets misrepresented in Wild West is that its always portrayed as a hot desert, while in reality it had cold, snowy winters where the temperature could drop up to -20C
Parts of it are desert, a lot is mountains, and most of it is endless grassland plains. There's a lot of variability in the western US biomes
In Arizona?
@@Phil-ui4tm It can get freeze-you-butt-off cold during winter time, especially at night, and especially especially in the northern half of the state.
@@MachineMan-mj4gj there’s different levels of cold. And the southwest desert and valleys are not very cold relative to the rest of the country. Obviously the Rocky Mountains are cold, but I doubt the western settlers would’ve formed homesteads at high altitudes.
@@Phil-ui4tm The record low temperature in Hawley Lake, AZ is -40° F. The average low in January is -14° F. In 1978 it received almost 59 inches of precipitation. Arizona's got wildly differing climates within its borders.
I'm really sad there was no *thud* in this episode
Funny that no one died in this episode about the supposedly lawless time.
That's how non-wild the West was.
The year is 1888 and lots and lots and lots of native Americans.... are dead. *THUD*
Sam Gill me too We are all crying
Sam Gill the thud is just iconic
When the Wild West wasn’t as wild as people thought “Reality is often disappointing”
In addition, his speech was as if in the slow-motion, which made the whole thing even more disappointing (not his commentary, but the reality) :(
Not funny but cringe
"Reality can be whatever i want."
It is interesting to live in a time (or just after) that is actively boosting a mythology, just as prevailing as the knights of the round table or Robin Hood.
BlueBightning makes a movie about the west with insane exaggerations
I've always thought of the Wild West as meaning everything between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean from the Civil War to World War I, thus giving the last days of the Wild West a short but hugely significant overlap with the beginnings of the Hollywood film industry.
I'd argue it existed long before the Civil War especially when considering the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 and the Mexican War of 1846-1848.
Makes sense, Wild Bill Hickok was a show man and Tom Mix both grew up wild west. General Patton wore a pearl handle peacemaker for a reason, it was probably the one he used during 1916 on one of the Pancho Villa hunts. The USA of WW1 was much like modern Australia you had some uncurried characters in the waest like in their outback.
@@watchthe1369 “a pearl handle peacemaker”. Don’t you remember he said that “only a New Orleans pimp had a pearl handled pistol”? His were carved Ivory.
@@samiam619 okay, ivory then. I just knew he was in oon Panjcho vila
@@watchthe1369 And Sitting Bull was appearing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show just nine years after the battle of the Little Bighorn.
Arthur: *finds a chest full of gold bars and 10 thousands dollars* Dutch: WE NEED MORE MONEY
Fun Fact: Mark Twain moved out West right when the Civil War broke out instead of fighting and dying for the Confederacy, and his flare for embellishing the truth landed him newspaper jobs which eventually led to his amazing story-telling career. So some of the tall tales about the Old West can certainly be laid at his feet.
Bible History Science oooh, Florida man, you never stop astonishing us
As I recall, Mark Twain enlisted in the Confederate army, a week later Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Twain did not think it was a coincidence.
@@timbuktu8069, that sounds like something Twain would have said, but he wrote that he and some friends privately formed a militia at the outbreak of the war and basically went camping for two weeks, after which some joined the actual Confederate Army while he and most melted away.
@@biblehistoryscience3530 WAIT!! Are you saying Mark Twain would have said something untrue? I am *shocked*
@@timbuktu8069 Did they twain on your parade ....
History Matters: Tying people to railroad tracks were very rare Me in RDR2 every time I see an NPC: Your going to the railroad Jimbo
Mostly in 1920s movies & Dudley Do-right cartoons, which revived the trope c1960.
I hardly ever tie anyone to railroad tracks anymore.
@@davesy6969 I still do to this day
@@nickbell4984 it’s the little things
@Miles Doyle Bro, who the f-ck would actually read this? This is the comment section, not a place to submit your theology essay. If you want to randomly proselytize, at least make it clear and concise to make it easier for those who want to read that sh-t.
Thank you for showing that man is not inherently evil. We always find a way.
I live in Colorado and a history of a lot of our "wild mining towns" tells a history of dieing more often in work accidents and disease than anything else. In most places the professions most needed were not lawmen, but doctors.
The West: Be Wild. History Matters: How much tho?
Everything
Heh
Heh
"The wild West wasn't even the wild West" - Stallone
So true
Holy Roman Empire wasnt Holy, Roman or an Empire. The Wild West wasnt wild, but at least was West
@Luís Filipe Andrade Anywhere can be west technically.
@Luís Filipe Andrade west is a fixed direction though. If you are facing north, to the left of you is west. If you are facing south, the right is west. If you're facing east, west is behind you.
Demolition Man
I love this channel. You get right to the point and get a lot of information across quickly.
HELL YES! I love these types of videos! Another fun fact is that the majority of people didn't even move out west until AFTER air condition had already been invented. I think the show Adam ruins everything covered that. My personal favorite is that the famous lawman Wyatt Earp, actually helped direct movies in Hollywood so who knows how many of those stories are actually true.
“Alright pinhead, yer time is uuuup” “Who ya callin pinhead?!?”
"I WILL TAKE IT EASY WHEN I AM DEAD"
“Okay, now you can be Dirty Dan. I just want to be Patrick.”
“Patrick run!!”
"Sandy, stay back. I'm warning ya!"
@Jacob Wilson "Uh, I am?"
The Wild West? More like the Mild West
Beat me by 1 second, lol
So yay or nay? Is Red Dead 2 accurate?
RDR2 involves infighting in a “family” group, running from lawmen over petty crimes, lots and lots and lots of mundane travelling and a general sense of despair. Seems about right!
I thought you were going to say "Mild Mest"
Man thought the Wild West was epic, battles between cowboys, Indians, Mexicans, and ex-Confederate soldiers
You're shattering my preconceptions!! ...and I love it
The Cowboy and the Gunfighter are 2 very different things. Author Louis Lamour has a list of over 2,000 documented gunfighters who killed close to 15,000 opposing men in gunfights from 1865-1924
I'd be surprised if the gunfight death total were that high. Is that just for The West, or for the whole USA area? 1924 seems a fairly late date date for the 'Wild West' period to. However, even assuming the figures are accurate, that's still only about 250 deaths per year, on average, over a huge area.
@@Codex7777 Wyatt Earp died in 1929 in Los Angeles. If he was still alive in 1924, so was the "Wild West".
@@tannhauser7584 Wyatt Earp was also one of the few people whose life could be toned down in a movie and people would still call it unrealistic. He's basically the gold standard that the stereotypical "hardened gunslinging lawman" was based on. Fun fact: despite getting into many, many gunfights in his life, Wyatt Earp was never once hit by a bullet, to the point where some claimed he was blessed by God to be so lucky.
That is so freaking awesome
@@camerapasteurize7215 somewhat unrelated but if you like westerns and Wyatt Earp (pseudo) lore, y’all should check out the show Wynonna Earp - ridiculously underrated show, and so, so good.
Cowboys weren't ranchers. Ranchers were ranchers, cowboys were herders, they herded and drove cattle from the ranches to the train depot to be sold as beef.
Pretty much. Kind of an older equivalent to a long haul trucker, getting product to a transport hub. It could be a fairly unpleasant job if the weather was poor.
@@paranoidrodent however i would not be surprised that a lot of incidents happened with gangs of cattle thieves. cattle is worth a lot of money so there is bound to of been a lot of that type of crime going on at the time.
@ Yeah but unlikely it is anywhere as close to as what people make it out to be. Most ranchers and cowboys were armed so it was really dangerous to attempt. Plus stealing cattle isn't easy. So it was probably way less frequent than stories make it seem.
@ Certainly. Heck, the term "cattle rustling" exists for a reason. The cowboys did act as guards in addition to herders but my understanding was that most rustling tended to happen in cattle country rather than during the long cattle drives. The journey itself was fairly harsh though.
Ok, now im no more thinking that a cowboy was a walking thug
Things you would wouldn't want to hear in a Western movie: "Oh, this town's big enough for the two of us." 👍
The West: the polite British gentleman version
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"There's plenty of filth down here, Jeremiah!"
No need for the zoning permits after all
"hell we could add a few more, 'the more the merrier' as they say"
One slight exception: Gold Rush towns. Whenever word would spread about gold in an area, essentially what were small pop up town would suddenly appear in the immediate area, even if they didn't have land rights to actually build anything. Brothels, saloons, and other amenities would pop up wherever there was a concentration of Gold miners and sifters, and then was abandoned as soon as the gold was picked clean. These little settlements could last anywhere from 6 months to a year or two depending how large the gold deposit was, and towns filled with hermits and rough riders with gold fever makes for a hell of a lot of riff raff, including crime and violence.
1:16 I was in Flagstaff a few weeks ago. Can personally confirm I was accosted by local ranchers.
"...about as wild as rural Italy was during this time..." - For those wondering the reasons for the creation of the Spaghetti Western, how the American West could latch on to the imaginations of Italian filmmakers, this is one of them. Another is the fact that for an Italy recovering from a socially-devastating civil war in a politically-charged atmosphere, the post-civil war American West provided an excellent allegory with which to explore contentious topics and themes relevant for contemporary Italian society without having to explicitly confront them. The most well-known reason, however, is because it was dirt cheap to film in Southern Italy and especially Spain and the climate could feasibly pass for the American SW to people who've never actually been there. Additionally, there's an interesting overlap of similar iconography - I mentioned the geography itself earlier but you also have instances like famous Italian historical figure Giuseppe Garibaldi becoming well-known for his overseas exploits and bringing back with him to Italy an appreciation for the serepe, to the point where he was often photographed wearing one. Spaghetti Westerns are an interesting little sub-genre that managed to help reinforce an already-extant trend towards revision of the Western genre and the idealized concept of the 'American West' (or its death, depending on your outlook) completely by accident, but I never really see them come up in long-form analyses of the Western genre and I think that's a bit of a shame, really. There's a surprising amount to unpack there.
Brilliant!
I thought maybe this was a reference to that *other* development from Southern Italy at the time, or rather, Sicily.
Italy was unifying their peninsula into a country after the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century. The USA was unifying the Louisana Purchase, the annexation of Texas, the lands aquired after the Mexican-American war & the Gadsden Purchase, plus the Oregon territory into a new country. Both were building their new nationalities at about the same time.
Spaghetti is more of an American dish
@@sdhubbard Oh, 19th century rural Italy (a-la Balkans in this and the previous century, and the one before that too) was absolutely the fitting comparison even without the organized crime. It was wild and rough with the poverty in the South and the Banditism.
"Stars go here." You guys nailed it.
@Miles Doyle God doesn't exist
@@bivamshukhadka8953 Bold assertion
@@potatoesandducks958 just as bold as saying he does
It's like he's seen our flag before! This guy is good.
Before any of you discuss Jesus Christ, your bla bla bla, or atheism, remember that no one asked.
How much educational content you want in 4 min His Matter : yes
There is an excellent debunking of the “Old West” in Gary Wills’ 1987 book Reagan’s America. He talked about the trope of an entire town cowering in fear because two bad guys have come into town. He talked about the strict gun control in towns like Tombstone and the number of marshals, sheriffs, deputies and policeman. And their most difficult job was not stopping outlaws but preventing vigilantism by townspeople willing to hang anyone that looked suspicious. It was a very interesting.
The Patron's list is getting pretty big.
I miss David Archiologist in the list though - the name was just cool.
@@machtharry Yeah it was one of those people you always exspected to see like james anything. or Sarka Flash
At least James Bisonette's back on top, as God intended. :)
He repeated 3 names, so that helps make the list longer
a man of culture always tickles me
One thing that is missing is that People always seem to confuse cowboys and outlaws, theyre not the same thing. Outlaws were the criminals you often hear about and Cowboys were just ranch workers.
And here I was thinking they invented cowboys just to sell cigarettes!
It's like confusing retail workers with bank robbers
yeah, all the legendary stories we hear are of either outlaws or lawmen. The Cowboys are a gang who fought Wyatt Earp, who often gets conflated with actual honest cowboys.
@@UnitTrace yes correct :)
@@UnitTrace This isn’t really a spoiler but I still appreciate you putting it for the people that don’t know
I love the little details in your videos. 0:44 thanks for the italian lesson, you never know when that phrase might come in handy!
As far as the wildness in towns, it's also noted that in many cases, even in the famous town of tombstone, guns were illegal inside the city.
You're saying Wild Wild West wasn't accurate? There goes my fear of giant spider vehicles.
My goodness that movie was awful, the “hang him” scene at the saloon was funny though
Oh, we had giant spider vehicles back then. We just didn't use 'em much because getting replacement parts was a BITCH. We're talking eBay scalper prices, yo!
@Miles Doyle CHRIST THAT IS LONG
Wait isn't that the guy who slapped the guy at the OSCARS
I liked wild wild West the theater version. The music video for the theme song was one of the best ever made.
In the Wild West you've already yee'd your last haw
True dat.
Dat True
Drue Tat
Reut tad.
dat eurt
As a writer who's been publishing books in this time period as part of a fantasy series, it's amazing when people ask why I out stuff like steam cars and telephones in my books. "Its supposed to be the wild west, they didn't have that stuff." And I have to explain that in the cities, they had these things. The 1800's was the industrial revolution. Telephones were wide spread in cities by 1890. Steam and electric cars were a thing in cities where the roads were paved. Looking up stuff that was invented, light bulbs, printing press, recorded music, actual moving picture films all by 1880. The 1800's was a century that all modern day concepts are built on. So when I'm writing magic and monster stuff in my books, people use both swords a guns because some monsters can't be taken down with a bullet, but a magic infused sword can do the job. But when the Characters are in the big cities, cars, food vendors, electricity are all commonplace. It's not till they get outside into the wild lands that towns still use gas lamps and telegraphs.
Love your short vids , funny and very informative☺
"Why is this guy wanted again, Jeff?" "Because it's obvious, Bill!"
No one with a moustache like that was ever up to any good.
@@ArkadiBolschek mostly because mustache cream is expensive.
"The Pinkertons are coming!"
that was not part of the plan.
I hear Tahiti’s nice
There you are lenny!
I insist...
@@renez9193 How many you had pal?
There's kind of a slight misconception here; cowboys weren't the ones doing the bravado shooting, those were gunfighters, still pretty rare but there's a difference.
@@Man-sp8ns hence the misconception my guy
@Man-sp8ns using the term colloquially... led to cowboys being lumped in with gunfighters... which fostered misconceptions that they are the same profession.
When ppl think of cowboys from the Wild West, most aren’t picturing the ranchers who raised live stock. I think most are referring to the cattle drivers who led the cattle to market across the vast uncontrolled area between the ranch and where the cattle could be sold and then had to come back with the money and without being killed. That’s a completely different job description.
1:54 why are there prussian soldiers?
They were American after the franco prussian war the us was impressed with Prussia and wanted to copy their army
Really? Including the stupid hats? (This come from a german, altough not a prussian)
@@machtharry yes including the stupid hats.......
@@machtharry How dare you mocking the infamous pickelhaupe? Must be a French spy
@@seeyouchump he's probably from the south. South and north Germans don't like each other much
Flagstaff, that's in Arizona. A lot of ghost towns near there
I see you comment on so many videos, and not just on this channel haha - do more people have the same account name as you or are you everywhere? :p
Avery the Cuban-American yes.
Seligman was once a booming town near Flagstaff that grew based on advances in travel, making it a very popular resting stop for people traveling from East to West. Too bad this boom in Seligman didn't happen during the Frontier Period, but was rather due to Route 66 in the Mid-20th Century.
Ave True to Caesar
Ave, true to Caesar.
When I was a college freshman in the state of Kansas, I once asked my American History professor: "Were all those stories about western gunslingers and outlaws true?" He replied :" I assure you, there are more gun play on today's streets of Wichita, KS than there were in the entire West."
Chicago today is more wild west than the wild west
How do you explain Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday etc. ?
@@DB8ed Chicago doesn't have regular public hangings though do they?
@@winnienguyen4420 no but that's all that's left for them to start doing.
@@winnienguyen4420 The fact there are well-known anecdotal examples supports the theory of that sort of stuff being a rarity.
What people think of when they hear "Wild West" are stories that mostly didn't happen in the area you highlighted. The "West" covered basically everything west of the Mississippi, and it included fabled "Wild West" towns like Deadwood in South Dakota and Dodge City in Kansas.
I just went on a vacation to deadwood a day ago lol
It's also worth noting that many towns out west such as Deadwood and Tombstone had a "No firearms policy". If you entered the town you had to turn in any firearms you may have to the local sheriff where they would be kept until you decided to leave.
can you believe it? gun control in the American west?
Which is why criminals could run rampant. Like Chicago today. Gun laws don't work.
Fun Fact the most common hat in the "West" was a bowler hat
I didn't know that! I am from California, and yet, I never thought the bowler hat was the _real_ Wild West hat, and not the famous cowboy hats and ten-gallon hats. Thanks for the info!
That was just the most popular hat around that time tho, right? Although I guess most people would associate that type of hat with the East coast cities and the cowboy hat with the West
@@miguelpereira9859 I saw a vid about the hat history in England for game wardens.
The bowler hat, apparently, is the original safety hat (what we call hard hats today)
Why buy two hats when you can get one that protects you from the sun and looks nice in church?
I remember reading, and find it sort of funny, that the area from the Appalachian mountains to the Mississippi River was once considered the wild west. The college I went to has a late 18th century to early 19th century fort called the quadrangle. Four buildings connected by brick walls making a big square. The wall having slits for muskets and early rifles. The college is in Augusta Georgia and was placed there in case Indians attacked the city. The place is now surrounded by homes, but in the early days was the border between the city and the wild west.
I'm glad you picked a time frame because "the West" was a different place depending. I live in rhea Midwest, and remember being surprised when shows I watched about outlaws and the like discussed significant events, and then said "Nebraska", or something, instead of Arizona, California, or anything we think of as west now. Still, a fun video about a very exaggerated time!
As someone who grew up in a mine town that definitely could classify as "pretty boring" sometimes, two things miners love to do when they have the opportunity are drink and fight. I'm pretty sure that didn't change in the wild west, but it was the 1800s, nobody cared THAT MUCH about a punch-up at the local bar on a Saturday.
In the US it’s tradition to carry on the legacy of the Wild West every 4 years in respect for the people who lived in that time so we can feel the pain like they did. It’s called presidential elections, and it’s already started. It’s only been 2 months and we’ve put a man in a peach and tied 3 candidates to a railroad.
Being put in a peach is better than being put in a pear. Because then you're inpeared.
That must have been one *huge* peach.
@@ArkadiBolschek It was YUGE.
I read that as "tied three Canadians to a railroad."
@@ArkadiBolschek It was the ultra-rare double-peach. Folks say it's a record-breaker!
Your videos are so interesting and informative
i love how the people tied to the tracks have the classic 'im really not pleased with this situation right now, thank you' look on their faces
Iirc, some of the events attributed to the "wild west" actually occurred in the old "northwest" (Kentucky, Illinois, etc.) Also, a lot of the recent "romance of the west" seems, yes, to be derived from dime novels -- as resurrected through popular movies and, later, television. I still remember the late 50s when that seemed to be the majority of evening programming. For some irony, consider that at least some of this was due to German novelists...one result being that during WWII, German pilots referred to Allied fighters as "Indians."
The German idea of the Wild West was heavily based on the tales of fictional writer Karl May who never even went there. Hitler was a big fan of his.
Imho it is easier: We live on more complicated times and people long for more simple times or at the very least depictions of these. That is why Western movies were a thing and that is why nowadays, with the RDR-franchise and a few others (but RDR 2 obviously being the biggest) it still is a thing. Think about it: It is only you and the piece of land you own and the forces of nature against you. No stupid government bureacrats telling you what to do and what not, what forms you have to fill out and so on. And (personal) justice was simple, if one wronged you, e.g. trespassing on your land, you shoot him. That is atleast at the first glance very alluring. One day, with space colonization and such things, we will have a Wild Frontier again probably. Then we'll enjoy "Mars Western" Movies xD
@@MagiconIce Mars is kinda a great setting for a western honestly lol I'm sure it'll happen at some point
Hitler was a big fan of Western Fiction and also ocasionally referred to the Slavs as Indians and redskins
@@MagiconIce Cowboy Bebop is already a thing. And is similarly unrealistic. Space colonization isn't going to be wild at all. It's way too expensive for that.
Now I can't get the image out of my head of some Cowboys playing Poker in a Saloon, having polite discussions about the pros and cons of Dialectical Marxism.
"That there bet is as bullshit as the Great Man theory of history..."
meanwhile in rdr2....
"TROTSKYITE!" (Smashes beer bottle)
@@davesy6969 "REVISIONIST!" (unholsters six-shooter)
@@isaacemanuel152 "RUNNING DOG OF CAPITALISM!" reaches for winchester 73 (made by comrades of winchester repeating arms collective, new haven gulag)
Excellent video - loved it. History is interesting if not amazing when presented well - our education system should take note.
From what I've read, large cities in the East could be VERY wild in this period. A few serious gang fights happened in Dodge City or Tombstone, but places like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were nonstop chaos and violence.
That started during the start of the prohibition. What happened was Italian mafia started coming to sell alcohol for a premium price that people can’t say no to as they had no other options. That said there was local mafias but non of them really had any power and most of them would shoot themselves to death in territory disputes before they could make anything big of themselves. That said both periods are way more wild then what we see nowadays.
*sees pickelhaubes* *hears about Marx being discussed in saloons* *Conclusion: the Wild West was more like Blazing Saddles than originally thought.*
Cue post-Millennial asking, "WTF are blazing saddles?"
I’m a post-millennial who enjoys Blazing Saddles because it’s a parody of romanticism and racism in the Westren genre
69 likes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Pickelhaubes were USA full dress from 1870s-80s. Our Army was one of several that stopped imitating France and started on Germany/Prussia after 1871.
@@tomfrazier1103 if i remember correctly, the pickelhaube wasnt officially a thing just units did that on their own.....
0:01 as an American, I've always thought of ''the Wild West'' as including everything west of the Mississippi
Same here.
Yeah. He totally forgot the cattle drives from Texas to Kansas. I’m watching the Wyatt Earp 1960’s series now on Amazon TV.
I agree. This brit doesn't know jack shit about the midwest, southwest and northwest America during the 1800's.
@Cole Taylor Well and if you go back far enough, states like Illinois, Ohio and such are considered the "Wild West" ;)
I would say West of Missouri (which is already West of the Mississippi). Missouri was somewhat civilized and was the start of the Oregon trail, it was only after leaving Independence (which is in the Western part of the state), you really got into wild territory.
Thanks for my second LOL of the weekend! Jill Bearup gets the first LOL of the weekend... Thanks, History Matters!
I really like your videos, I save things in my Liked list but I've subscribed and I try my best not to skip your ads :)
"How wild was wild west?" "Well like south italy at that time" Me (i lived in south/central italy 25 years) : "Man it's worst now"🤣🤣🤣🤣
"But I like China"--Hayes. Nice reference to President Hayes vetoing the first attempt at the Chinese Exclusion Act
Crash course on the early west!! Not stretching it out like a gd novel. Bravo sir, bravo
Short and to the point. I like it.
2:57 Shout out to Rural Italy
Yeah it surprised me too. I'm Italian and yeah totally in that time period there were "less than civilzed" regions, but it took me by surprise. Like why? Just Just .... OK?
@@RadioKamikandry Post-unity brigandage is my best bet.
I paused the video two times and listened to it again because i thought i misheard it but he did actually say RURAL ITALY😂 As an Italian i was really surprised we got mentioned in a wild west video
@@johanneslela4880 Basilicata = Wild west
Well I mean some Wild West films were filmed in rural Italy. They are affectionately nicknamed "spaghetti westerns" over here in the US, at least.
I laughed so hard when the bottle of whiskey appeared and the label said “Giacomo Daniele”, the Italian equivalent of Jack Daniels LOL why is it in Italian???
Seems like an accurate metaphor for Spaghetti Westerns, tbh.
I was always wondering why HM claimed that "Giacomo Daniele" was "Italian for 'please don't sue us'", when it isn't (if Google Translate is to be believed, it's actually closer to "per favore non citarci in giudizio", but that doesn't sound like a brand)! Now, the real question is what you said: why is it in _Italian,_ of all languages? Is it the Spaghetti Westerns?
@@Hand-in-Shot_Productions I think it’s just a reference to Italian spaghetti western and a joke. As I said in an earlier comment, Giacomo is the Italian equivalent of Jack, and Daniele is the Italian equivalent of Daniel. I think HM went for Italian as a homage to Italian spaghetti western. The thing below is clearly a joke… HM is just saying: I got around using the real brand by “translating it to Italian”, so don’t sue us for copyright infringement as we didn’t really use the Jack Daniel’s brand but a made up Italian version of it. The translation you found on Google Translate is correct, but uncommon. Most Italians would say: “Non fateci causa per favore”
Fascinating content!
Everytime I watch these I can't help but learn things I didn't know I wanted to know and laugh 😆 and laugh. Certainly makes learning fun
This one is very funny.
0:09 that guy tied to the railroad tracks is a whole mood
That's a woman
Video idea (a bit of an unorthodox one perhaps): how about a video about the "revolution year" 1848? I was reading up about it the other day and I found it fascinating how much happend in that one year.
cosign
@@Phil-ui4tm I know what you mean, but I can't stop laughing at the sentence "1848 was when gold was discovered." Before that, the Romans had been trading coins made of tin.
@@Phil-ui4tm he’s talking about the 1848 French Revolution
@@theweirdwolf1877Yes, but in other European countries as well.
Wild Westerner here Most tropes are fiction that we use to cope with how uncool we are thank you for ur patience lmao
Yep, it was worth subscribing. You are the Tim Ferris of history.
West: *Is wild* Sallons: *Dont have real doors* Seems legit
Actually rural Italy was pretty wild at that time, what with all the Italian wars of unification going on
It still wild over there m8
@@matiasfpm no thats southern italy. southern italy is mafia country. northern italy is just full of old people/conservatives and ranchers
True, the war matching Napoleon III and Sardinia's king against Franz Joseph kicked it off, then Garibaldi carried it on by overthrowing Naples and the others. An absolutely wild conflict.
@@eliegbert8121 mafia is everywhere
I have to say this. I love the horses in History Matters.
One of the movie studios had bought an actual train From a railroad on the western routes during the time period, it got used in movies, including the getting run over by train scenes. When the Studio was being torn down Nevada bought the train for the Railroad Museum and you can et rides on it. Knottsberry farm also runs a train from the period.
More likely to hear about Marx in a Saloon? *Soviet West intensifies*
I can certainly see how to upper-crust folk back East groups of workers socializing and talking about 'socializing' and trade unions, etc would be considered "lawless, rowdy behavior" - this becoming romanticized in subsequent retelling and embellishments of the West. The US in the late 19th and early 20th century was not exactly an hospitable environment for the Labor Movement.
The first volume of Das Kapital wasn't even translated into English into 1887. The idea that settlers on the Western Frontier were talking about Marx in saloons is total bullshet, and makes me question everything published on this channel.
Chase Vergari That’s the entire point he was trying to make... you seriously didn’t understand it? It’s amazing how dumb people think they are so smart
Probably not so much discussing Marx, but certainly discussing labor and how to organize for better working conditions. The labor movement in the US was quite big and successful until it was clamped down on by jailing and assassinating labor leaders, strikes being broken up by police and army, and such things which created an atmosphere of fear surrounding organizing activities.
@@chasevergari3669 marx ideas also spread from person to person, and given how many immigrants from Europe came to the US during 1800s it's not that hard to realize that some of their ideas came with them and took root in america.
The last time I was this early, Was literally his last uploaded video
EUIV ETS2 He need more attention he's got to be the best history channel on youtube
This channel is pretty good.
I am from Latin America, I will never forget that a (great) professor from Spain made us see that while Europe was in wars, economic instability and all kinds of problems, the "wild" west was thriving.
Love the tumbleweed at the end.
Coincidentally I was playing Red Dead Redemption 2 when this was uploaded
Cardonk57 coincidentally*
Cardonk57 omg you actually edited your comment; you’ve gained my respect
1:00 these cowboys have impeccable aiming
Love the animation!
Thank you for the video.
not to gripe but the "wild west" stretches much further east than you portray on your map, Kansas and the Dakotas were major hotspots for wildly westernized townships
Dodge City of "Gunsmoke" fame is in Kansas.
Next Video: How Scary was the Red Scare?
Very. A lot of politicians panicked.
Which one? 1919 or post ww2?
@@nb2008nc when people talk about the Red Scare they usually refer to the 50s and the Mccarthy trials
@@makeromaniagreatagain9697 Usually, yes. But the 1st one was freaking people out with radical attacks and bombings of the gov't to the point they allowed J. Edgar Hoover to create the FBI & give it nearly unlimited power to stop the "scare."
"How Unexpected Was the Spanish Inquisition REALLY?"
I think the video does a good job at explaining the general background of the west, but I want to clear some things up. First, with saloon doors, the double swinging doors were popular in the Arizona and South African territories because it allowed ventilation. Also, although there was law and order, towns and cities in the West had larger murder rates than many American cities today. Today, the most violent city in America is St. Louis with a murder rate of 65 for every 100,000 residents. During the Wild West, Dodge City had a murder rate of 165 for every 100,000 residents, and Deadwood had a murder rate of 442. Even cities like San Francisco and Denver had higher murder rates than they do today. Entire states would even have murder rates a hundred times higher than they do today. Also, I want to add more information about cowboys. They weren't allowed to drink or gamble during cattle drives, so when they entered cattle towns, like Dodge City, they would drink and gamble, and this would result in many brawls and gun fights. Lawmen, including Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, would be overwhelmed with the number of fights, killings, and rules broken during the cattle season. One of them attempted to kill the mayor before being chased down by a posse. Although there were soldiers in the west, it was only a peacetime force of 10,000 soldiers. Since the Western United States is made up of around 2 million squared miles, that's one soldier for every 200 squared miles. The video is right about how dime novels romanticized the west and made it the myth that is portrayed by pop culture. However, although the west was different than how it was portrayed today, we still have to remember that it's called the "Wild" West for a reason.
when i think of americas i always think of the history we lost, the relations and tehnology of these countries/tribes is really interesting to me and i cant imagine the things we have done to them
If it's any consolation, even the worst indignities heaped on them by the US Government pales compared to the things they did to each other on occasion
Could you do a video on Tibet next? That's the only idea I got but great video as always!
0:45 I can confirm it's totally true! Always ask for a Giacomo Daniele when someone tries to sue you in Italy
I liked how this video cleared up details. I always like it when people do this. The history of the Wild West is a lot less interesting than Hollywood has led us to believe
I don't know how it on earth it feels so incredibly interesting to learn that something everyone thinks is interesting was actually boring and exactly why and how it was boring
0:56 Oh, Hi Marx
I don't know about you, but I'd really like to know about his sex life.
It's not true i did not hit her i did not
Also, there weren't tumbleweeds. Those were decorative plants from much later that became invasive. They were, however, quite common by the time of early Western movies.
They roll down the street in the industrial park where I work.
Russian thistle
"Stars go here" love it
I live south of Dodge City, KS. It is still pretty wild out here lol