Today – Page 7 – General History

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

From private soldier to King of Sweden: Bernadotte

Bernadotte the French Marshal who became King of Sweden / unofficialroyalty.com

Born into a French middle-class family in 1763, Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte got into the royal army as a private soldier in 1780 when he was seventeen; as he was apparently a terrific supporter of the French Revolution (q.v.) he got rapid promotion, becoming a general in 1793 when he was thirty. It had taken thirteen years to move upwards from private to cadet to colonel to general. This could only have happened in France, amid the insane atmosphere of the Revolution. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-02T09:25:25+00:00 April 2nd, 2013|French History, Scandinavian history, Today, World History|0 Comments

The US Supreme Court and homosexual marriage

Alexander, 3 state marriages and one lifetime lover he could not marry /alexanderhephaistion.com

Just now the US Supreme Court is busy debating the rights and wrongs of legalizing in federal terms the joining together in sacred or civil marriage of two people, both of the male sex, or the female. Several, thirteen I believe American States have already made homosexual marriage legal, while several more are not sure, and over thirty of the remaining states have turned the idea down again and again. Meanwhile, powerful lobbies, social platforms, societies and even violently inclined bands are hard at work across the world explaining the urgent need for matrimony between members of the same sex. They will brook no argument. You are with us or against us. You are a decent, compassionate supporter of gay rights including marriage, or you are a homophobe, a queer-basher and, worst of all, ancient and old-fashioned. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-28T09:52:34+00:00 March 28th, 2013|English Language, Philosophy, Today, US 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

John of Gaunt

John of Gaunt – Duke of Lancaster

The man who would be king – though not of England

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster was a son of an English king. He was the father of an Englishman who was also a father and grandfather of English kings. Through his third and last wife he even engendered the first of the Tudors, for which haters of this dynasty cannot forgive him. But Gaunt never wished to be king of England, though he fought most of his life to be king of Castilla – in Spain.

He was the third surviving son (and actual fourth son) of Edward III (q.v.) and his queen, Philippa of Hainault; born at Ghent in 1340 – his birthplace supplies his name. He was tall, athletically built, appropriately gaunt of visage, clever and ambitious. His father Edward married him to Blanche, daughter and heiress of Henry, Earl and Duke of Lancaster, who was richer than the king. When Henry, who had served the monarchy dutifully died in 1362, John became Duke of Lancaster. He also became very rich indeed because of the marriage laws of that period. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2017-07-21T13:50:09+00:00 March 13th, 2013|British History, English History, French History, Spanish History, Today, World History|0 Comments

The time when there were THREE Popes

At this very moment the cardinals gathered in the Vatican are arguing about who shall be the next Pope, following Benedict XVI’s resignation on grounds of health. While the octogenarian Ratzinger rests ( and he certainly deserves to) in Castelgandolfo, dozens of seniors of the Catholic Church will shortly approach the moment when they must vote for the new Pontiff, and we will see white (or possibly) black smoke puffing from the famous chimney, installed again only two days ago. But many Catholic co-religionists do not even know that at the time of the Great Schism in the fourteenth century, there were at one time three popes! (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-11T11:09:59+00:00 March 11th, 2013|Church history, French History, History of Rome, Italian History, Today, World History|4 Comments

The first European Community (failed)

Edward III / fanpop.cpm

The EEC as we know it today bears no resemblance to this first attempt, but at least enough initiative was shown by its inventors to make it last for a few years, changing the name occasionally. The basic idea is sound, but the firm proposition thought up by the German and the French is now out of control, divided into Commissions, Committees, Parliament, Court of Justice etc. which lead of course to chaos and desperate over-spending.

In 1337 Edward III of England sent a special group to what was then called the Low Countries. The group’s aim was to make friends with the Counts of Flanders and Hainault, along with many other European princes of the blood, in order to be prepared for yet another impending war with France, but Edward’s diplomatic strategy (he preferred battles) was only faintly discernible. In fact the embassy was a disaster, humiliating Edward before his own courtiers as well as his enemies, and leaving him with a near-bankrupt England. The King was semi-reluctantly drawn into his favourite strategy – war. He was very good at that. A lot of wars then took place, which rescued him from his worst mistake in a long reign. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-04T16:51:01+00:00 March 4th, 2013|English History, EU History, French History, History of the Low Countries, Today, World History|0 Comments

Saturday Spoofs; early April Fool’s Day biographies

Pilloch, N.G., Baron Pilloch of Bedwetty was born one day during the Second World War. He became a Socialist after losing his temper with a nanny who possesed patrician accents. This lady was fired by Pilloch’s Socialist parents, to encourage the child’s Labour tendencies. In no time at all he became Labour MP and Leader of the Opposition. In the Seventies he was made a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party but managed things so loosely the Labour Party kept losing office. Finally he led the Opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s second and third administrations; it was to no avail because Mrs Thatcher could never remember his name and could not see him on the Opposition benches. After more electoral defeats in the Eighties he resigned as Labour’s leader and joined the other failures at the European Commission, much to the relief of the British Labour Party. His life peerage came in 2005 but he never became Prime Minister, though he had nastily promised his nanny that he would. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-02T12:45:50+00:00 March 2nd, 2013|British History, English History, English Language, Humour, Today|0 Comments

Sturdy Beggars

Whipping a beggar throughj the streets / aworldelsewhere-finn.blogspot.com

In the so-called ‘developed’ societies since the end of the Second World War many children are brought up by unthinking parents to believe that work is something other people get. The idea of actually finding some work that pays rarely enters the mind of these children as they grown into adulthood. They have brought up in ‘The Welfare State’. In this demi-paradise they learn that the world owes them a living; they have their rights; ‘what do we pay our taxes for?’; ‘who needs education anyway?’ ‘who wants a job anyway?’ etcetera.

It may come as a surprise to know that in the English Poor Law of 1531, barely five hundred years ago, able-bodied persons who chose not to work were classed as ‘sturdy beggars’. Cynics today may pronounce these two words naughtily reversing the ‘u’ and the ‘e’, but that is not my province. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-02-20T10:14:26+00:00 February 20th, 2013|English History, English Language, Humour, Philosophy, Today, US History|2 Comments