“You don’t understand! That famous person was technically born in the land that is now my country, so the person is a national citizen of my country! Who cares if the country came officially into existence many centuries later?” (Meme source and credits: @unknown_h1story)



    by SatoruGojo232

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    46 Comments

    1. Cara_Rose1 on

      By this logic, we’re all technically citizens of Pangea. Checkmate, nationalists.

    2. Ok_Awareness3014 on

      France existed from a long time , that settle the question for us

    3. Parzival_2k7 on

      It’s even funnier when the concept of their country didn’t even exist yet like, China claiming Sun Tzu or Cao Cao makes sense on a fundamental level but places like Pakistan claiming the IVC or Porus (the guy Alexander last fought with) is just insane

    4. KittyGirll3 on

      Ancestry.com must be wild in that part of the world, just 1,000 years of ‘It’s complicated’.

    5. SHTF_yesitdid on

      Breaking News – Nation states are a relatively recent phenomenon.

    6. dirtybird131 on

      Without that, Italians would literally have nothing but Mussolini and the Axis

    7. sweetbunsmcgee on

      Two of the funniest threads I’ve seen on reddit are the different countries claiming Charlemagne and Nikola Tesla as their own. I wish reddit would allow us to see more than 1,000 of our saved items because that was from like 12 years ago.

    8. DrolligerDorftrottel on

      Trust me.

      Niklas Kopernigk [localized from ‘Köpernik’] was Polish. And Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst was Russian.

    9. International-Tree19 on

      Half of Spain and italy claiming Christopher Columbus as their own…the other half wanting nothing to do with him

    10. jahathebrn on

      Some of my fellow countrymen when it comes to St George, famously of Greek extraction and adopted as a patron saint by several other countries.

    11. I feel like people here are acting dumb

      no one gives a shit about “countries” or “nations”

      yeah it’s called “nationalism” but most nationalists actually care about the ethnicity / culture, not nationality

      like I’ve rarely met a nationalist who actually cares about the country or the government that much, it’s almost always a people group

      but bcs of the US where nationalism is very closely linked to the government institutions everyone just uses the word nationalism and thinks those people care about the nation

      like even many nationless minorities are “nationalistic” because what it actually is, is being proud of your culture or/and ethnicity, rarely it’s about the nation itself

    12. jhonnytheyank on

      ” alexander wasn’t greek , he was macedonian ” 

      ” indus valley civilization is pakistani heritage ” 

    13. OberonDiver on

      I’m not sure 200 years is many centuries. Is this a settled history maven question?

    14. Lost_Paladin89 on

      Nah man. Try this. Claiming that because the figure lived in a country, their ethnic group can’t claim them, because they obviously belonged to that country or culture.

      *Seriously Nur Musalha, Maimonides isn’t an Islamic figure*

    15. prolificimpregnator on

      Yes, it’s a weird behavior, but not for the reasons cited in the caption. The fact that the state might have come into existence much later does not negate the fact that the person could have been from the same culture. But it’s still weird as a validation-seeking psychological behavior. Like when Croats pretend that Nikola Tesla was Croatian 😬

      (No, I’m not Serbian btw. Not even something close. Just saying.)

    16. undreamedgore on

      While you’re all doing this, I’ll ascend to true power:

      If America existed during the Riegn of Alxander the Great, he’d have immigrated. Thus he’s American. Same for admiral Yu, Confucius, Mahatma Buda, and Jesus.

      Stay mad, America wins again.

      (Just in case people take this seriously, /s)

    17. Spainiswhite on

      white folks in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Canada and the US trying to claim that the land is theirs

    18. Never mind the fact that they might not even speak the same language, or if they do it might not be that mutually intelligible

    19. Historyp91 on

      Famous American hero Snorri Thorfinnsson (we’ll get to claim him after Trump invades Canada)

    20. Willing_Yak7271 on

      This goes hard for iran, safavids and afsharids are turkic dynasties who ruled in there with their nomads and theres strong proof for both of them that they were turkish but persian nationalists keep saying “he borned in persian lands so that makes them persian”

    21. Massive_Tradition733 on

      “Yeah bro Genghis Khan was Türkic!, wdym mongols are an entirely different ethno-linguistic group?”

    22. Cowboywizard12 on

      Like how every American or Canadian Immigrant inventor gets claimed by the country they come from as well as the U.S and Canada (or in Basketballs case Canada and rhe U.S though The Inventor was a citizen of both countries though the game invented here in Western Mass, so i guess we both can claim him)

      Even when none of the inventing was done in the country they came from

    23. Background_MilkGlass on

      Funniest part is when multiple Nations have fought for that land so at a certain point you have to ask which nation would have killed them if he was from there the wrong Nation

    24. Diligent-Property491 on

      Also nationality in the modern sense wasn’t really a thing until the 1800s.

    25. lil_literalist on

      It makes sense, for the most part. In school, when you learn about the history of your country, you don’t just start when your country was founded. You learn about the people who are there before, and any governments or societies that they had as well. because you are country did not just pop into existence. And if someone had a big effect on the history of your country, and you are learning about them in the class about the history of your nation, then it often makes sense to claim them as a national hero.

    26. Klutzy_Discussion293 on

      Ok but we all agree that Santa Claus is actually Turkish right?

    27. DeliciousGoose1002 on

      “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.” – Albert Einstein

    28. -ThePatientZed- on

      Reminds me of how the “founder of Portugal” was a French (fine, *Frankish*) landless second son of the Duke of Burgundy who came to rule over visigoths and moors.

    29. BasedAustralhungary on

      This has always makes me laugh in cases where those people had their own national identity that contradicts the claim. This usually happens between 1789 and 1918. If I have to chose, the case that always make me laugh is Nikola Tesla. Croatians get very mad when you say he was Serbian, because while he was born in a region that today is in Croatia he thought himself as a Serbian and always presented himself like that.

    30. Bionic_Ferir on

      **laughts in Australian** The famous people ALIVE NOW weren’t even born in my country.

    31. Zealousideal_Cry_460 on

      İ think its more that these people identify through a mix of genetics AND ethnicity rather than just identity.

      Yes technically speaking Turkey has nothing to do with the Hittites or Hatti people but just because our main half of our ethnic identity comes from Siberia doesnt mean we have to absolutely reject the genetic half of our heritage. We can identify as a mix of both, hence why we call ourselves “anatolian Turks” when talking about our own ethnicity. (There no distinction between Turkish and Turkic in Turkish language)

    32. Grzechoooo on

      >That famous person was technically born in the land that is now my country, so the person is a national citizen of my country!

      You are completely misunderstanding them. They’re not saying the person was a citizen of their country, but a part of their nation. States representing nations is a very recent thing. But Slovaks existed for hundreds of years regardless of whether they had a state or not. Like how Kurds exist today and aren’t Turks despite living in Turkey.

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