Remembering Important Events in History: The Story of James Fell

Kindle Customer: A different story covering most date's of the year throughout history, on each page. Told with humour and a lot of F-bombs. Interesting read. Great to travel with if you want short stories to read here and there while you're waiting for your flight, or on public transport or just relaxing and don't want to commit to an entire novel.

Australia on Sep 21, 2023

Gloria B: Good short stories of history. Told with many cuss words thrown in but it's the language of the younger generation. I'm elderley and it didn't offend me so all's good. Actually my children and their children are enjoying reading history in this book. The short stories are perfect for people on the go.

Canada on Sep 04, 2023

Dan Black: This is a coffee table must-have. The verbiage and style flow naturally, conversationally. It's like getting the straight story from a friend who has actually studied the subject. Somebody probably famous might have said something like the true mark of intelligence is knowing how to simplify complex subjects, and Fell does that amazingly.

United States on Aug 21, 2023

T. Anschutz: Spurred by the author's announcement of striking a deal with a major publishing house, I wanted to try this edition in the hopes that he would get a larger cut of the proceeds. It's a fun way to learn about history in daily chunks, bigger than the bites one might get from a page-a-day calendar or similar, yet smaller than many history books. If I have any complaint about the book, it's that the author's writing style (which is very conversational) can be challenging to read at times -- I think his publishing deal will be beneficial to everyone in that some editing can touch up the flow of the text, and he'll get the publicity and distribution power of a major publishing house.

United States on Jul 27, 2023

Jennifer S.: Short, historical stories with a touch of humour and profanity! Just what I ordered! Great book, and a great way to learn little bits of history in a fun and understandable way!

Canada on Jul 01, 2023

M Odendaal: When watching a tv journalist interview a victim of the latest <insert atrocity here>, do you gasp in horror? Do your hands reflexively raise to your throat, as if to stifle a cry? Was your horror triggered, not by the victims' suffering or the carnage on the screen, but by the expletive the victim let loose in their anguish on live TV?

If so, this book is not for you.

James Fell, the Sweary Historian, is on a mission to tell the truth where and how he finds it, without fear or favour, and without a single (d)uck to give. (You do realize it's never duck, right? Just checking.)

His writing style is especially attractive to ADHD sufferers like myself, offering short, punchy packets of information that flow like good whisky. It's entertaining to read, easy to digest, and utterly addictive to teenagers who've (predictably) lost all interest in the snore-fest that is classical history instruction.

His writing style also attracts absolute metric (tr)uck tons of hate mail from individuals whose feefees were irrevocably injured by learning that nazis, racists, and bigots are bad. Not to mention a whole variety of - um - individuals hiding their frail egos...

United States on May 19, 2023

Amazon Customer: Ever wish you had the "other side" of the story? This book does it and does it better than you'd expect. Why? Because James Fell knows how to take the piss out of a story (while maintaining historical accuracy) and makes you laugh while doing so. I bought this for my 70 year old mother in law, and she loved it.

A new addition will be released in October!

Canada on May 07, 2023

Dances With Cats: I first heard of James Fell on Facebook, where he maintains a quite popular page. On that page, he has shared excerpts from this and his other book, which inspired me to buy "On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down."

The book is filled with short entries--like maybe 2-3 pages at most--about events that happened on certain days of the year. These stories are about events that happened all over the world. All these stories that reflects the idea that maybe colonialism IS bad, and maybe Black and Brown people DID get screwed by white colonists.

I'm more informed about American and world history than most Americans, and even so, I've learned some pretty interesting stuff.

And yes. This book does have swear words in it. And some very creative ways of using those swear words in combinations that have made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. If you buy this book and you're all *gasp* "it has swear words!!!", did it ever occur to you that a book titled "On This Day, 💩 Went Down" is probably not going to be written in toddler-friendly language? No? Then don't come here and give the book one star because you lack the cognitive ability to make guesses about the...

United States on Mar 20, 2023

Lisa: Some reviewers complained about the language. Look at the title. If a book has the word "sh!t" in the title, it's likely to have some salty language. This author is known as "the sweary historian." He uses a wide variety of creative profanity. His accounts of historical events are highly entertaining, and perfectly accurate. He has opinions. He tells you what they are. He generally leans left, and he particularly dislikes Nazis. He likes dogs. He sometimes expresses negative opinions about actions taken by the United States. If this will offend you, then don't buy the book. Or buy it and burn it, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

If you made it through my first paragraph and are still interested, then buy this book. Buy the sequel. Leave them where your kids will find them, but only after you have had a chance to read them. This may be the only history book they will read voluntarily. I had mine for only a few hours when my son claimed it.

The stories are short--one page for one day in history, 366 stories per book. They are great for people who feel they don't have time to read a whole book at once, or who have ADHD, or just like to get information in bite-sized...

United States on Mar 10, 2023

Ashleigh McCulloch: Have you ever had that eccentric teacher at school where you just knew it was going to be a great class? James Fell takes me back to my history teacher who was so cool - asked us to call them by their first name, had a kettle on the classroom so we could make ourselves a coffee and gave us a history discussion rather than a textbook reading - I now find myself making myself a tea before bed and settling in for the "on this day" page before sleep. James' swearing throughout the book is just that added element all of us Australians welcome in our every day life.

As for the history content - James gives a very detailed account of all the events that lead up to that moment and why things happened that way. I also follow James' social media accounts and I'm really looking forward to the second book.

You will not regret this purchase.

Australia on Aug 24, 2022