Hey there continuity freaks. Does history interest you?

[Christopher]

As regards Pearl Harbor, while certainly the stated purpose was a pre-emptive strike to "get America out of the way", to me with further investigation it makes precious little sense. America was going through one of our periodic isolationist periods and there was a massive push not to involve ourselves in what was seen as the problems of "other" countries. Attacking us to keep us out of the war is a bit like punching someone to try and keep a fight from starting.

What you're overlooking, though, is that the regions Japan wanted to invade and occupy included the Philippines, which were a US territory at the time. That meant that it was inevitable that the US Pacific Fleet would respond to their attempt to expand into Southeast Asia, and thus they had to get that fleet out of the way. The Pearl Harbor attack was meant to cripple the fleet and diminish our ability to wage war effectively.

So yes, it was about punching us to keep us out of the fight -- punching us hard enough that we'd be too badly injured to fight back effectively. We just got lucky that they overestimated the damage they'd be able to inflict in one blow.

Now as for the Ancient West. While I am a History Geek, what I am not is a professional historian. Neither are any of the characters in the episode in which the term appears.

I don't see what that has to do with it. I found the episode's use of "Ancient West" to be silly and contrived long before I took history in college. Even a casual familiarity with history is enough to know that the word "ancient" usually implies something more like thousands of years than hundreds.