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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

For those that don't know, "William the Conqueror" is also known as "William the Bastard".

This was not the name used by my school teachers and I just wonder how different history lessons would have been had this name been used.

The Normans were Vikings that 'co-opted' the women in Normandy to become 'Normans'. Not the first empire to expand with rape and pillage, but it is interesting how British history accommodates all of this with that tapestry that makes Harold a weak guy with an arrow in his eye.

The City of London is a tax haven. It is the interface between all those British dependencies where taxation is not normal and everything is a 'holding company'.

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City of London part of Greater London http://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/33/section/2 residents & businesses subject to same laws & taxes as the rest of England.

Page 6 of one of the official exam specifications to be taken at age 16 (GCSEs) specifically mentions William the Bastard.

https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/335133-the-norman-conquest-106...

I must be getting very old!

Thanks for this. Back in my day the 'b-' word was considered unfit for school books.

I remembered it from about 1999. I don't know if it was a requirement back then, or just something the history teacher chose to include.

> The City of London is a tax haven.

Flat out not true.

This is where you quote an article from Nicholas Shaxson wherein he wrote a book on the subject in which he totally failed to prove his assertion. A company in the city of london is subject to all the same laws as anywhere else in the UK.

Stop lying

Shaxson the Zurich based UFO spotter who failed to comprehend the existence of the 32 London Boroughs that along with the City of London make up Greater London. (He apparently thought the Mayor of London ran everything outside of the City.)

Indeed. particularly good proof at how trivial it is to disperse misinformation. I note depending on the bias of that information it seems more likely to become pervasive.

In the French history he’s just William of Normandy.

Mmmm. In French he is known as "Guillaume le conquérant". Never heard of "William of Normandy".

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