A History of North America – Page 6

King George’s War & King William’s War

The assault on Cape Breton Island was successful / louisbourghistory.blogspot.com

The War of the Austrian Succession in Europe actually saw a component part in North America, the first time such a thing should happen. Up until 1744 Europeans fought each other in the New World regularly, but not many expected the taking of Louisberg on Cape Breton Island by a combined British Navy/New England force commanded by W. Pepperell in 1745. Thus it was that a British army was able to see for itself what American colonists were capable of. Pepperell’s report is favourable. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-30T08:24:27+00:00 April 30th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, English History, French History, US History, World History|0 Comments

Gunboat diplomacy

It might well have been Lord Palmerston (twice Prime Minister of Britain, 1855- 58, 1859- 65, q.v.) who concreted this term, though gunboat diplomacy in its various forms has been with us for centuries. The term implies diplomacy backed up by the threat of force (a gunboat for example) between countries, one state half-drawing a sword from its scabbard while talking in measured terms with another. It is all about imposing the will, and GD as I will call it was the accepted political force mostly in the nineteenth century.

British myself, I am resigned to the fact that it was Great Britain which used this kind of diplomacy to the greatest effect until the beginning of the First World War, simply because she had a superior navy, which could coerce smaller, weaker nations – sometimes big ones – to bend to her will. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-26T09:37:38+00:00 April 26th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, German History, Greek History, History of China, History of Egypt, History of the Cinema, US History, World History|2 Comments

The Cherokee

The Cherokee, a painting by Nick Freemon / fineartamerica.com

In the story of the Cherokee nation can be found the finest and saddest elements of the early history of the United States of America. The ‘Plains People’ were North American Indian tribes who had inhabited a large region stretching right across modern western Virginia and the Carolinas, parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, and even northern Georgia and Alabama.

They had been there since pre-historical times, constructing the city Etowah in Georgia which became a religious centre for Mississippi cultures. Unfortunately, the Cherokee were visited by the conquistador Hernando de Soto around 1541 – an introduction to European culture which many natives did not survive. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-17T10:51:12+00:00 April 17th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, Philosophy, Scandinavian history, Spanish History, US History, World History|0 Comments

Margaret Thatcher, the ‘Iron Lady’

R.I.P. / guardian.co.uk

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born in 1925 in Lincolnshire, the daughter of the owner of a small grocer’s shop. She was a scholarship girl, brainy and hard-working, who moved rapidly upwards, starting with Magdalen College, Oxford, where she achieved everything she wanted.

She became the leader of the British Conservative Party in 1975, in the teeth of serious opposition from fellow conservatives such as Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine, who could hardly believe that any mere woman might have such targets. In 1979 she became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, and went on to serve the longest in that office in the 20^th century. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-12T18:57:17+00:00 April 12th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, English History, EU History, Russian history, US History, World History|0 Comments

The Virginius incident

Artist’s impression of the sinking of the Virginius / historyofcuba.com

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century piracy and slavery/the slave trade were almost extinguished, partly because governments were not inclined, as they had before, to ‘turn a blind eye’. The slave trade had been abolished in the British West Indies in 1834, and in North America in 1863. Both US warships and the British Navy were kept busy maintaining the Law. While the sixteen and seventeenth centuries had seen ‘gentleman adventurers’ running their own buccaneering ships backed by European kings and governments in the ‘licenced piracy’ industry, the ‘Jolly Roger’ was now frowned upon, especially by Britain and the United States, while superb Dutch, French and Spanish navigators based on the Venezuelan and Brazilian coasts and in the Caribbean were still loath to give up a highly profitable (though risky) business. In the South China Sea there has always been piracy, though half-crazy individuals like Brooke the White Rajah of Sarawak (q.v.) did much to suppress it. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-08T11:38:28+00:00 April 8th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, South American History, Spanish History, US History, World History|1 Comment

The beginnings of the Dominion of Canada

The original inhabitants of the Dominion – the Iroquois /cynthia swope.com

Canada is the second largest country in the world, even if large masses of it are covered in ice. We all know that the cultivated or potentially arable parts of this vast territory were fought over following discovery by the French and the English and other races from Europe who had braved the Atlantic Ocean to start a new life in the New World. But first the world needed to know about the legal and political geography of Canada. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-05T11:27:22+00:00 April 5th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

Popular Myths and the Conspiracy Theory: ‘the stab in the back’ 1918

Friedrich Ebert did not believe in the Allies’ victory / en.wikipedia.org

Learnéd, and sometime not so learnéd people have started myths right down through the centuries almost since the human race was ‘uncivilized’. King Alfred ‘burning the cakes’, ‘Robin Hood and Maid Marian’, Richard III ‘murdering his nephews’, changelings occupying thrones in Europe, what lay behind the sinking of the Titanic, foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor, was the Russian royal family killed in a cellar in Siberia? Plus a long line of etceteras. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-27T11:07:10+00:00 March 27th, 2013|A History of North America, A history of the motor car, British History, English History, German History, Philosophy, Spanish History, The Arab races, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

A brief history of spectator sports

Le Mans 1955: Pierre Levegh lies near his crashed car that killed over 80 spectators /documentingreality.com

Most (but not all) of the sports which are super-popular with the public today were invented, improved and regulated in the independent private schools of Victorian Britain; that is to say, what in England are still called ‘the public schools’, as opposed to state ones. The most popular of all – Soccer – was being played in early medieval England, and has always been an almost entirely working-class game. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-17T19:47:01+00:00 March 17th, 2013|A History of North America, A history of the motor car, British History, English History, French History, German History, Greek History, History of New Zealand, Italian History, Spanish History, Today, World History|0 Comments

The Seven Years War

Most of the eighteenth century featured wars in Europe, as rulers came and went and tried to dominate other rulers. Nearly always the same countries were involved, and the Seven Years War was no exception: Prussia, Britain and Hanover (then a separate state) ranged up against Austria, France, Sweden, Spain and you guessed it – Russia. The date was 1756. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-15T12:44:54+00:00 March 15th, 2013|A History of North America, Austrian history, British History, English History, French History, German History, History of India, Russian history, Spanish History, US History, World History|0 Comments

The Viking Longship

A typical Viking longship / dailygalaxy.com

The Vikings (q.v.) were seafarers, leaving the majestic beauty of their fjords to navigate the freezing waters of the North Sea to assault the northern coasts of Britain and Ireland, sparing no-one. They did the same up and down the Atlantic coast of France and Portugal, penetrating deep into the Mediterranean, or heading west to form colonies in Newfoundland and Iceland. They came from what is now Denmark and Norway, with Sweden invariably looking east towards Russia, while other Scandinavians invaded Britain and Normandy and even settled there. They could not have done any of this without their extraordinary ship, known as ‘the longship’ for good reasons. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-01T12:01:58+00:00 March 1st, 2013|A History of North America, British History, English History, French History, US History|0 Comments