US History – Page 14 – General History

Important American Moneybags: Astor, Mellon & Vanderbilt

Astor / en.wikipedia.org

JOHN JACOB ASTOR was born a century before our other subjects in this series ((1763). He emigrated from Germany in 1779 when he was sixteen, to work with his brother in London making musical instruments, but in 1783 (at twenty) he sailed for America to make his fortune.

Straightaway he got into the flourishing fur trade, and by 1800 he had established the beginnings of a commercial empire. He chartered the ships that carried precious furs across the Pacific and the Atlantic. He founded the American Fur Company in 1808, and dominated trade on the plains and in the mountains within ten years. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-08-05T09:30:12+00:00 August 5th, 2012|US History|0 Comments

Important American Moneybags: Andrew Carnegie & Henry Ford

Carnegie / andrew.cmu.edu

Carnegie was born in 1835, the son of a Scots weaving hand-loom operator. The family left Scotland and emigrated to the United States of America in 1848. Young Andrew worked first at a cotton mill, then as a telephone operator, and then on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Quite soon he was Superintendent. As only seems to happen in America, he got himself into the iron manufacturing business, moved to steel, and became a millionaire. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-08-04T09:21:32+00:00 August 4th, 2012|Scottish history, US History|1 Comment

Important American Moneybags: John P. Morgan & J.D. Rockefeller

Rockefeller / exito-motivacionysuperacionpersonal.com

The 19th and 20th centuries were the twenty decades during which men (and some women) astonished the world by making uncountable fortunes in the vast territories of the United States. Many of these fortunes remained and remain even in the over-taxed 21^st century. Here we deal with financiers; but some of those colossal, Croesus-like money boxes came from meat-packing, cotton, the invention of the canning industry, timber, building and builder’s materials, manufacturing of paint, motor cars and the railway,, glass and glassware; even buttons and ink.

John P. Morgan was a scion of an already rich banking family. John made his first million or so by investing heavily in railroads after the American Civil War (q.v.) and the crushing of dangerous Native American tribes. He was able to found his own investment banking house in 1895 when he was forty-eight. He named it J.P. Morgan and Co. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-08-03T10:55:32+00:00 August 3rd, 2012|US History, World History|0 Comments

The Fall of France: “for you, the war (of 42 days) is over!”

France´s surrender / learning.blogs.nytimes.com

For many, if not all, of our seasoned history-lovers, the fact that the Second World War might have been over by the middle of 1940 is unknown. But for the dogged determination of certain European nations, Hitler’s Germany could have been the military victor of the War, not just, as has indeed happened, the political and economic leader it has become. The United States need never have entered the War at the end of 1941. Russia could have stayed Russia instead of being under the Soviet yoke until the fall of the Berlin Wall. German could have been the obligatory second language in all European schools. Berlin might have been the capital of a different kind of European Union. To find the reasons why this did not happen we must look at France. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-30T08:45:58+00:00 July 30th, 2012|English History, French History, German History, History of the Cinema, US History, World History|0 Comments

Hiroshima and later

Hiroshima after the atmoic bomb / taringa.net

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb / taringa.net

Hiroshima had a population of roughly 300,000 in 1945. It was a military base, port, and popular seaside resort in the western part of Honshu Island, Japan. The Potsdam Declaration on 26 July was the last of the conferences attended by the leaders of Russia, The United States, and Great Britain – those countries whose empires were considered to have been the victors at the end of the Second World War. Previous conferences, at Yalta and Casablanca had been attended by Winston Churchill (Britain) and Roosevelt (USA), but the latter was dead, and Churchill had been defeated in a General Election. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-24T10:46:11+00:00 July 24th, 2012|French History, German History, Philosophy, Russian history, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

What is Isolationism?

Well, very soon we will know what it is. And I might add it is a great pity there is not more of it around. Loss of it caused the Korean and Vietnam wars; too much of the opposite caused Britain, France and Israel the opportunity to deal practically with the Middle Eastern Question. Far too much of the lack of it allowed the United States to enter, and encourage others to enter, an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. But these are merely examples. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-21T11:09:47+00:00 July 21st, 2012|English History, French History, German History, History of Korea, Italian History, Jewish History, Philosophy, South American History, Spanish History, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

Evelyn Waugh’s ear-trumpet

Evelyn Waugh with ear trumpet and rare moustache / oxfordtime.co.uk

I am sure there are Waugh-fans, or, better, Waugh-wolves who can answer a simple question: In their respective biographies of Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Sykes (Evelyn Waugh: a biography) and Selina Hastings (same title) tell the story of the ageing master of English prose appearing at an Ann Fleming dinner party with a huge, old-fashioned ear-trumpet. He claimed to be deaf, but was actually using the trumpet as a weapon in conversations. Sykes and Hastings have Ann Fleming giving the instrument a sound thwack with a table implement when Waugh turned it toward her. We are also told that Lady Diana Cooper poured champagne down it. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-17T07:00:36+00:00 July 17th, 2012|English History, English Language, Humour, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

The Vichy Government (Vichy France)

The irony of a Vichy gendarme saluting a Nazi official before the Arc de Triomphe / es-wikipedia-org

Three-fifths of France fell to Nazi Germany soon after World War II was declared, though the French army and navy were larger than those of the aggressive Germans. The government moved to a spa town in unoccupied France called Vichy, and on the 10 July, 1940 the National Assembly authorized (by a vote of 569 to 80) the assumption of full powers by the elected Prime Minister, a hero of the First War called Marshal Pétain, pending promulgation of a new constitution. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-06T10:02:48+00:00 July 6th, 2012|Austrian history, French History, German History, Jewish History, US History, World History|2 Comments

The Confederate States of America

In a recent post on the General-History blogsite, mention is made of these confederate states. Their importance in history, especially American history, is that they were a direct cause (with others) of the Civil War that ravaged the nation in the mid-1860s. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-03T10:25:53+00:00 July 3rd, 2012|US History, World History|0 Comments

Virginia & the Virginia Campaigns

At one time a British colony, Virginia is a state in North America that consists of ‘tide-water’ land in the central-Atlantic coastal plain of the United States of America. The waters drain into Chesapeake Bay and Piedmont on the eastern side of the Allegheny Mountains.

Jamestown was the first permanent British colony, settled in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London, a company given that name by Sir Walter Ralegh in honour of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen. The colonists survived and became prosperous through the growing, sale and shipment of tobacco. ‘White’ tobacco all round the world is still called ‘Virginia’, as opposed to the blackish product originating from Turkey and the Middle East. The name ‘White’ probably comes from the fact that the plant was originally grown and tended by white servants on the farms, but this did not last long. After 1690 tobacco was cultivated (but not owned) by black slaves. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2012-07-01T13:31:53+00:00 July 1st, 2012|English History, English Language, History of the Cinema, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments