City Where It Happened #3

no such thing as bad publicity

Versailles is a city just outside of Paris

You may be thinking of the Louvre which is in Paris.

It is a city in every way. Not a particularly intersting, or progressive, or genetically diverse one, but very much a city, very much distinct from Paris, and if you go there from Paris, you will have to drive through actual forests.

Lous XIV moved his court to Versailles because it was outside of and separate from Paris, making it easier for him to control the nobles who were required to be in attendance there. Wars between competing noble claimants to the throne had torn France apart in the previous century and highly placed nobles had rebelled against Louis XIV's authority in the first years of his reign.

Granted it was not all that far from Paris--close enough for thousands of Parisians to march to it during the early days of the Revolution and force Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to return to Paris--but it was nonetheless distinct enough to make a critical difference. The growth of Paris in the last three centuries does not change that fact.

But why hold the formal signing of the treaty that ended WWI in Versailles, rather than Paris? Probably because it was in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors where the Prussians announced the creation of the German Empire after the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War.

I was going to suggest that a different circle (the seventh circle, which contains false counselors) might be appropriate, but I didn't want to risk being sent to hell by our Quizmaster.

An example from which many of the rest of us could learn.

Objective view of the war? Japan is kind of infamous for heavily whitewashing their own actions in the war. Just ask a Japanese person what they think about the Rape of Nanjing, or whether Japan's intentions in Asia were mostly benevolent. Japan's reluctance to accept proper responsibility for its actions in the war is a huge reason why pretty much all countries in the region are still extremely bitter towards Japan.

Those would be "air strikes". The word "raid" carries with it a sense of many combatants/participants making an incursion, like "raiding barbarians" or "police raid".