The Great Emu War

In one sentence, it is a historical event that took place in Western Australia in 1932.Additional names for the event might be the Emu Plague or the Emu Campaign.
After World War I and during the great depression, Australia gave its war veterans farmland in Western Australia for their effort, and also to stabilize the Australian economy.
Meanwhile, the Emu is a relative of the ostrich - a big, tall, flightless bird located in Australia, and in its breeding season, it tends to move to Western Australia, and as a result the Emus ate a lot of the veterans’ unguarded crops, and also left holes in their farms for rabbits to cause even more damage.
The World War I veterans went to the minister of defense, George Pearce, for help. He agreed to hire three military personnel, the commander being Major Gwyndd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith, armed with two Lewis guns, aka World War I machine guns, and 10,000 rounds of ammunition the veterans decided to give, as it would also help them target practice. The three soldiers went to areas populated with emus, and tried to ambush them, but the method was ineffective, as it took time to shoot an emu until it died, and meanwhile all of the other emus could just run away.
During the first week, the soldiers got to kill just about 12 emus in every ambush in which 1000 emus were located, and the local media negatively covered that. As a result, the Australian House of Representatives decided to withdraw the operation.
The commander, Meredith, compared the emus to the Zulu tribe in South Africa, as both are have a fighting spirit that fights the colonialists, and also both can withstand enemy fire, especially dum-dum bullets, which are bullets that are designed to expand upon impact, and lead in a greater amount of tissue damage.
The emus kept destroying the crops, and as a result the head of the Western Australian government, James Mitchell, decided to bring back the operation, now with the Western Australian military, but still with the same commander, as he was the only one who knew how to use machine gunners. 
The results were much better, as the soldiers killed approximately 100 emus per week, using only 10 ammunition to kill each one. They claim that around 986 emus were killed, and 2,500 others died from injuries. It is important to note that compared with the potential to end the conflict, the operation came to be unsuccessful.
The participants of the event are the Australian Minister of Defence who approved all of this was George Pearce. The commander of both attempts during the emu war was Major Gwyndd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith. The two other soldiers who killed emus in the first attempt were Seregant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O’Halloran. The Premier of Western Australia who revived the operation was James Mitchell. 
The event started on 2/11/1932 and ended on 10/12/1932, which means it took 1 month, 1 week and 1 day, 38 days.
After the event, the famous weekly newspaper in Australia, the Coolgardie Miner, published an article claiming that the Emu War was successful. Nevertheless, all around the world the war is a reminder of the importance of taking a responsible approach to managing ecological problems, as the farmers could’ve just fence their farms better instead of going to unsuccessfully extinct a species that, unlike them, is native to the land of Australia.In conclusion, the Emu War can be best concluded as nowadays absurd, unsuccessful, humorous, pointless and misguided, but at the time it was taken seriously. It highlights the unsuccessful human attempts to control nature.

Historical Re-enactment

In one Sentence, it is a term referring to an activity that is designed to educate through entertainment, in which mainly amateur hobbyists, but also sometimes military personnel or historians, who are called re-enactors, dress in costumes, research on the gear they will carry and use, and follow a plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. 
It has in it the prefix “re-”, that means “again”, then the prefix “en-”, that means in latin “into” and the verb “act”, which is derived from the latin verb “agere”.
The term is too general to have additional names, but there are four types that are explained in this subject. These are Living History, Battle Reenactments, Renaissance Fairs, and Historical Pageants.Battle Reenactments are reenactments of a battle that most of the time takes place near the original battlefield.
Battles in film are not considered as Battle Reenactments, because the filmmakers always need to cut the battle for examining the scene.Jousts are a type of reenactment that is also called tent pegging, and in it two medieval knights ride on horses with a jousting lance, a long pole that they need to use to get the other knight off of the horse, while riding on a horse.Living History is a type of  reenactment of a specific era in a specific place. A kind of fair in which everyone dresses and role plays as people from a specific era, most of the time renaissance era.Tactical Combat are Reenactment events that are not generally open to the public. Are games in which hardcore reenactors, military personnel, or combat historians try to preserve with the best accuracy military tactics that were once used in battles, more to learn these tactics than to provide entertainment for spectators.

The term was originated during the ancient Rome period, in which ancient Romans staged re-creations of battles from the Second Punic War, such as Battle of Cannae and the Battle of Zama, while also featuring the Battle of Actium, in which Octavion defeated Markus Antonius and Cleopatra, all in their amphitheaters as a form of public display.
During the middle ages, “tournaments”, which are mock battles, often reenacted historical themes from Ancient Rome.
In 1638 Lord James Dunn of Coniston and other members of London’s Honourable Artillery Company staged a mock battle between Christians and ‘Saracens’, aka Muslims in the middle ages.
In 1645 a Roundhead, an officer who supported the British parliament in contrast to the British monarchy, wanted to distract the local people from siding with the Royalists during the British Civil War, by reenacting a battle at Blackheath in which the Roundhead actors played the powerful Roundheads and the weak Cavaliers.
In 1674, King Charles II of England made a reenactment in Windsor Castle of the siege of Maastricht, an event that took place in 1673, in which the French army captured the Dutch fortress of Maastricht, and in it Charles II’s illegitimate son, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, commanded a part of the French army. The reenactment was on a big scale, and attracted large crowds from London, including the diarist Samuel Pepys.
The Russian Army reenacted in 1812 the Battle of Borodino, a battle in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia that was won by Russia led by the general Mikhail Kutuzov against France led by Napoleon. The reenactment took place in St Petersburg just a few days after the battle.
During the 19th century there was a Romantic interest in the Middle Ages, as people hated the modern enlightenment and industrial age.
The novel that inspired a lot of reenactments of medieval times was Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”, as it talked about medieval times in a Romantic way.
In 1821 the Duke of Buckingham staged battles from the Napoleonic Wars on the large lake on his estate, and in 1824 a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo, a battle in which Napoleon was defeated by the United Kingdom and Prussia shown to the public at Astley’s Amphitheatre.
The Eglinton Tournament of 1839 was a reenactment of a medieval joust, a game in which two medieval knights try to knock each other while riding on horses, held in Scotland by Archibald Montgomerie, and tickets were free all while everyone had to wear medieval clothes. The event was held in a meadow at a loop in the Lugton Water, a river that flows through southwest Scotland.
In 1877 the survivors from the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army decided to reenact the scene of their defeat in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a battle in which the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes won against them, to take poses for the camera.
In 1895 members of the Gloucestershire Engineer Volunteers, aka Royal Engineers, a part of the British Army, reenacted their famous last stand, a position in which they don’t have that much power and they need to defend their base, at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, an unsuccessful invasion of the Zulu tribe of a colonialist British base. The reenactment was shown to the public at the Cheltenham Winter Gardens.
Veterans of the American Civil War recreated battles as a way to remember their fallen comrades and to teach others what the war was all about.
In 1906 Russians reenacted the Siege of Sevastopol, a military campaign fought during the Crimean War in which British, French and Ottoman forces besieged Sevastopol, a city located in the Crimean Peninsula.
The Bolsheviks made a reenactment for propaganda efforts of the Taking of Azov, a military campaign launched by Russians in 1696 to capture the Ottoman fortress of Azov, won with the lead of Peter the Great.
As part of the Royal Tournament, an annual military event held in London, there was the Aldershot military tattoo, a sub-military event, which held historical displays, like in 1925 how they displayed a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo, and also a re-enactment of the burning in Moscow, while Tchaikovki’s 1812 overture is being played in the background.
They also had a reenactment of the Siege of Namur, a battle in the Nine Years’ War, in which the French Army, led by Marshal de Luxembourg, launched a siege on the city located in today’s Belgium Namur.
In the United States, modern reenacting, reenacting that talks about modern events, began during the 1961-1965 Civil War Centennial commemorations and now is the most popular form of re-enactments.
Re-enactments are most of the time based on Classical, aka Greco-Roman, Dark Ages, Medieval era, Renaissance era, Modern, aka 18th century era, Regency, aka the period in which King George III was ill and a regent had to replace him era, Fur Trade, aka Buckskinning, aka fur trading in the Old West era, Civil War era, Sealed Knot, aka British Civil Wars era, World War I era, World War II era, Korean War era.
People who participate in historical re-enactments. Mostly amateurs who pursue history as a hobby, and sometimes also members of the armed forces and professional historians. American reenactors are divided into categories, based on the level of concern for authenticity.First are the farbs, also called “polyester soldiers”, are reenactors who don’t spend much time and money for achieving authenticity in regards to uniforms, accessory or period behavior.
The origin of the word is unknown, though it appears to date to early American Civil War centennial reenactments in 1960. People say the word means “Far be it from authentic”, “Far be it for me to question”, “feast and researchless buying”, “forget about research baby”. Some people say the word derives from the German Farbe, color, as inauthentic reenactors were over-colorful compared to the real Civil War uniforms. A member from a reenactment group in the early 1960’s called Burton K. Kummerow says that it was first used as a form of fake Germans to describe a reenactor, and was picked up by George Gorman of the 2nd North Carolina at the Centennial Manassas Reenactment in 1961.Then there are the mainstream, which are reenactors that make an effort to appear authentic, but many come out of character when there is no audience. They might wear accurate Civil War uniforms and have their visible stitches sewn in a period correct manner, but they do wear inaccurate underwear and don’t sew correctly hidden stitches. In front of the audience they eat historically accurate food, but between hours they don’t. Lastly there are progressive, also called “hardcore authentic”, “stitch counter”, “stitch nazis”, or “stitch witches”, are reenactors who use thorough research to be as authentic as possible, and also criticize Mainstream Reenactors of inauthenticity. They tend to go to smaller private events in which farbs and mainstreams can’t attend.Armies use historical reenactments, specifically Tactical Combat Reenactments, for military training and to teach these soldiers military strategies from the past in a more teaching and immersive experience.
In the United States, The Army War College uses Tactical Combat Reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In the United States, The U.S. Marine Corps had used Tactical Combat Reenactments of the Battle of Hue, a battle fought in the Vietnam war, as a way to train their soldiers.An imaginary  example for a battle reenactment would be Israeli amateur hobbyists, and maybe historians and military personnel decide to wear clothes of the Haganah and clothes of the British, while also using tools from the time (1940’s) and re-create the night of the bridges, for education through entertainment.
Historians say reenactments encourage presentism. Also African-Americans are extremely underrepresented, as most reenactors are white. In addition, it overemphasizes the role of war in history.In conclusion, historical re-enactments have a long and important history, and it can be explained as authentic, educational, entertaining, informative, realistic and immersive.

Battle of Gettysburg

In one Sentence: A historical event that took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, in 1863 that is the most famous battle to be reenacted by Americans.
Confederate states call it the Battle of Sharpsburg. Other names are the High Water Mark of the Confederacy, and the turning point of the American Civil War.During the American Civil War, the Confederates (southern states) and the Unions (northern states) argued with each other about slavery, and had a war with each other. 
After a few Confederate wins against the Union, the Confederate general Robert E. Lee decided to invade the Union again, in the town of Gettysburg against the Union Army under the command of general Georg G. Meade.
Before the battle was announced, there were skirmishes between the Confederates led by general Henry Heth, and the Unions led by general John Buford a little Western to Gettysburg.
The next day, Confederate forces attacked and pushed back the Union forces back to Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill.
The second day of the battle had the Confederates launch more attacks on the Unions on Little Round Top and the Wheatfield.
The third and final day of the battle was the day in which the confederate general Robert E. Lee ordered a massive assault of the Union line, and this tactic is called Pickett’s Charge. It was a mistake, and the Unions got to damage the Confederates so much that they were forced to retreat, while dying on the way out.The participants of the event are the confederate general who had skirmishes before the battle was general Henry Heth, who was against the union general, general John Buford.
The general that held the military tactic that was unsuccessful, the Pickett’s Charge, was general Robert E. Lee against the general George G. Meade.
The event started on 1/7/1863 and ended on 3/7/1863, which means it took 3 days.
This battle was the point in which the Union forces started to win the civil war, and so got to help shape the American identity nowadays.
In 1913 there was a peaceful reunion of the battle, in which veterans from both sides reenacted the battle to commemorate their friends, and is called the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion.
For the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 2013, it was criticized that only 5 black people participated in the reenactment, although the union side had much more black people in reality.
As part of the curriculum of the  Army War College, soldiers there use Tactical Combat Reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg to learn the military tactics there, especially the analysis of Pickett’s Charge.
In conclusion, the Battle of Gettysburg can be best described as brutal, decisive, strategic, heroic, tragic and a turning point in the American Civil War for the Union side. A one that is the most popular in historical reenactments.

Renaissance Fairs

In one sentence, it is a form of historical reenactment, specifically a living history, in which people dress up in English Renaissance (a period of time in England ruled by Elizabeth I and Henry VIII, 14th century) clothes and role play as people from that time period in a form of fair for entertainment.
It may be called Renaissance faire, or Renaissance festival.Characteristics of renaissance fairs might be costumed entertainers, fair goers, Shakespearean or commedia dell’arte musical and theatrical arts, art and handicrafts for sale, and festival food, like Medieval cuisine and American corn dogs, and camps for people who want to stay in the fair for a few more days can be found there. 
There can also be characters from fantasy, like wizards and elves, and also medieval figures and pirate figures.
There are a lot of games present in these fairs, such as jousts, Dench-a-Wrench and Soak-a-Bloke, games in which people try to hit a target with a ball and drown an employee, and a medieval circus.
During the end of each day, there is a ritual, parade, dance or concert where all employees gather and bid farewell to the patrons.
Fairs work in a way like staff members, or a circuit, as they move around location to establish fairs in different locations.Playtrons: A portmanteau of the words “player” and “patron”, these are visitors who dress up for the renaissance fairs, as people sell a lot of costumes there.
In America after World War II there was interest in medieval and Renaissance culture.
In 1963, around 340 years after the English Renaissance, Phyllis Patterson, a LA school teacher, held a small Renaissance fair as a class activity in her backyard.
Next Spring, Phyllis and her husband created the first “Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California”, which was a one-weekend fundraiser for the radio station KPFK, and was designed by the Living History Center to resemble an authentic market fair from the English Renaissance.
Next fall they decided to have fairs at China Camp State Park and Black Point, which are located in California, and made the practice more common in the United States.
During the 1980’s Renaissance fairs expanded to other countries. The main differences are historical focus, location, food and drink, entertainment and dress code. Here are a few examples:Mittelaltermarkt is a medieval market located in Germany, and it is more medieval themed than Renaissance themed.The Festival of History is a festival in Ireland that is themed around Ireland’s history.The Festival of Maidens is a French festival that is medieval themed.The Himeji Castle Festival is an annual festival in Himej, Japan, that celebrates the history and culture of the samurai period.Dickens Fair is a spin off of the renaissance fair in the United States that is based on Charles Dickens works and it is Christmas themed.Criticisms are that renaissance fairs are not that inaccurate to the era, and are not that educational as Europe’s living history museums, and inside the culture there is a debate on whether these should be more authentic or more entertaining.In conclusion, Renaissance fairs can be best described as entertaining, festive, historical, playful, whimsical, colorful, and also a little educational.