The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States of America, which unilaterally declared a separation from Britain, and was adopted by the Continental Congress on 4th July, 1776. (more…)
The Iron Duke, from the painting by Goya / 100swallows.wordpress.com
History embraces an Iron Chancellor (von Bismarck) and an Iron Duke (Wellington). Their descendents are still around, in the luscious form of Gunilla, and rotund form of the present Duke, formerly Marquess of Duero. (more…)
British Empire 1920s
The Empire was established over three centuries, and came about because of commercial and political motives. Enemies of colonial empires will disagree; they will shout that the motives were greed and expansionism. Whatever, the Empire was at its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries comprising about one quarter of the world’s area and population. (more…)
Capt. Bligh and his few loyal men set adrift in an open boat / en.wikipedia.org
Hollywood has attempted, once rather expensively, to tell us what happened on His Majesty’s warship Bounty in 1789. History books have joined Hollywood enthusiastically, making of Captain Bligh a kind of sea-monster – perfect casting for Mr Charles Laughton, who looked like one. Laughton’s Bligh (and Dirk Bogarde’s First Lieutenant in the movie HMS Defiant) are enough to stop all British naval recruitment dead in its tracks. (more…)
Pompey / general-history.com
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was that rare combination – a general and a politician. Good sense, courage and sense of planning are not always to be found in those who choose to promote themselves as politicians, whereas one needs all three virtues (plus good fortune) to become a general, unless one is a third world colonel winning a successful coup.
Pompey’s early career as a soldier was, as they say today, ballistic. In fact it was brilliant. The Roman Senate empowered him to combat Lepidus, who had not very quietly raised his own private army while he was proconsul. Virtually at the same time as he was dealing with Lepidus, Pompey was also fighting Sertorius, busy backing the Lusitani rebellion in Spain. (more…)
Octavian, later Caesar Augustus, first Emperor / blog.iese.edu
This phrase signifies the period when the Roman state and those overseas provinces it had formed were under the rule of an emperor. The first ‘Emperor’ was Augustus (27 BC), and the empire as such existed but not always flourished for nearly five centuries, until 476 AD.
The immediate predecessor of Hitler’s ‘1000-year Reich’ lasted from 1919 to 1933. It was formed in Germany after the end of the First World War, but still had to face the revenge of France and even the United States (who only joined the Allies in 1917) embodied in the Versailles Peace Settlement. The Weimar Republic was proclaimed on 9 November. Its first boss was a socialist (not always the best bet) called Friedrich Ebert. (more…)
Historians are not sure of the date of birth of Hamilcar Barca, general from Carthage, and father of Hannibal and Hasdrubal. We know that he commanded the Carthaginian armies in the ultimate part of the First Punic Wars, and that it was Hamilcar Barca who negotiated the peace of 241 B.C. (more…)
Views over Central Park, Manhattan, New York / worldbeautifulplaces.blogspot.com
This extraordinary town has been, and still is, called a number of different things. For some it was Albany, while for others it was New Amsterdam. For a hundred years or so it has borne the odd nickname of the Big Apple. There is a State, and a City. The state borders Canada in the north-eastern section of the United States, and the city is mainly built on an island called Manhattan. (more…)
Norway, a small rich country of some six million inhabitants, was among the worst sufferers of Nazi invasion and subsequent occupation during the Second World War. Larger, more populous northern states like Finland, Sweden and Denmark are, or were, more newsworthy because the Norwegians simply got on with their lives, worked and played hard, enjoyed their capital city (a brilliant gem set among other brilliants called Oslo), enjoyed a mild Protestantism, and minded their own business. (more…)