• Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    3 hours ago

    Not many countries had to arm the person next to the coach driver to fight off natives defending their country against foreign invaders.

    • burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      36 minutes 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

    • uienia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 hours 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.

    • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      3 hours 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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 hours 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.