No, but many needed to protect those passengers from bandits and other assorted outlaws.
Comment on "ok, imagine a gun."
Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Not many countries had to arm the person next to the coach driver to fight off natives defending their country against foreign invaders.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 3 days ago
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Fun fact: Joseph Stalin first became known to Lenin when he organized the successful robbery of a bank stagecoach in Russia. The stagecoaches were heavily protected by armed men riding on the outside of the coach as well as riding horses alongside, but Stalin observed that they tended to relax their guard upon reaching a densely-populated city, on the assumption that revolutionaries would not be willing to injure or kill innocent bystanders.
This assumption was very wrong in Stalin’s case. He had his people lob satchel bombs at the coach and riders after they reached the city, killing most of the guards as well as nearly 100 innocent bystanders in the vicinity. They made off with a huge amount of money, and Lenin congratulated Stalin although he had only planned the operation and not participated in it. The importance of delegation!
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Huh, who knew that violent bank robbers who indiscriminately kill bystanders would ~do a bunch of genocide after their violent takeover complete with secret police and gulags~ I mean create the best goverbmont in history, praise USSR or something.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Look, stalin did a lot of things wrong, but robbing banks is pretty cool even with collateral damage.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Bonus fun fact: part of the reason for their success might be that one of the local police informants was … Stalin.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m starting to think this Stalin guy has some red flags.
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m the times coaches like that became common it wasn’t really safe to travel in most parts of the world.
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
Weren’t these coaches a thing in the 19th century US, from which time the term comes? From what i could find quickly, Highway robbery became less of a thing in the UK and mainland Europe by the end of the 18th century.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
This obe didn’t either. Staying home was usually an option.
uienia@lemmy.world 3 days ago
There was once a theory that the reason for the difference in which side a vehicle is driving on the road today, stems from whether a country had many stretches of untamed wilderness with lots of bandits. So if there was a high likelihood that whoever you met on the road was a danger, the horsecart driver preferred passing them on the side of their sword arm (right hand as default), while if you did not have to take that into account, you would pass them on the left hand side.
The theory has now largely been abandonded as spurious, but it does remain a fact that there were dangerous stretches of roads in older times in Europe as well.
Wilco@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
That’s not what it was for. They fired a shotgun before turning onto a road. If two wagons came head to head on a crappy old western road it could cause hours of delay because the horses would have to be hitched to the back of one of the wagons a pull it all the way back to the crossroad.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 3 days ago
What an interesting creative writing exercise
burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 3 days ago
lets not pretend that the US sprouted up out of nothing from nowhere and decide on a whim to slaughter native people. the American continent exists as it does today because of European colonial projects, and the brutal treatment of natives was official policy of the pope
bier@feddit.nl 3 days ago
No, no, no, this is all wrong. When we discuss immigration and the current situation in the US all Americans are European immigrants.
When we talk about the genocide of the natives Americans, it was done by Americans, Europeans had nothing to do with it.
;-)
anzo@programming.dev 2 days ago
Technically 85% correct now, after brexit ;p