Not bad, I don't think. Of course no film will be 100% accurate. But the overall events did happen.
History questions not worth their own thread II
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Not bad, I don't think. Of course no film will be 100% accurate. But the overall events did happen.
You could always check the assembled poetry of the WWI poets, such as Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen etc. Dulce et decorum est mentions mustard gas especially.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Mr. Wells certainly had a knack for anticipating warfare tactics. Anyone who has ever read The Land Ironclads gets the feeling he might have written The Time Machine after personal experiences...
Xanikk999
History junkie
Why did portugal develop as an independent entity and eventually empire from spain with a distinctive culture, language, and identity.
It seems to me that portugal should of been culturally and linguistically similar to spain and thus absorbed into spanish territory sometime during the middle ages due to a lack of geographical barriar and relevent military strengths.
To sum it up why did portugal persist as being an independent strip of land in iberia and not absorbed by spain during the last 1000 years.
It seems to me that portugal should of been culturally and linguistically similar to spain and thus absorbed into spanish territory sometime during the middle ages due to a lack of geographical barriar and relevent military strengths.
To sum it up why did portugal persist as being an independent strip of land in iberia and not absorbed by spain during the last 1000 years.
It was part of Spain for a bit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_Union
Portugal has been allied with England/Britain since the 14th Century, which is when Spain and Portugal were occupied with the Moors, and Spain wouldn't have a good chance of conquering (and keeping) Portugal once it was allied to England. The one time when they came together after Portuguese independence in the 12th Century was through marital ties, and the lack of a Portuguese heir to the throne.
I recall hearing about cattle infected with Mad Cow Disease, or possibly some other disease making them useless for human consumption, being shipped out and used to clear landmines by walking through the minfields.
Does anyone know if this is true or not or have a reference?
Does anyone know if this is true or not or have a reference?
privatehudson
The Ultimate Badass
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That sounds like the kind of thing the Sun* would suggest, it likes those kind of "common sense" solutions to the nation's problems.
*A British newspaper whose highlights include "GOTCHA!" when the Belgrano was sunk, supporting the Poll Tax, making stories up, being hypocritical and showing topless photos of women on Page 3.
Between them, The Mirror declaring football war on Germany's Euro 96 squad with calls of "Achtung Surrender", the Express' obsession with Diana conspiracy theories and the Mail's obsession with house prices, Nazis and the disintegration of British society its hard to find a decent paper here...
*A British newspaper whose highlights include "GOTCHA!" when the Belgrano was sunk, supporting the Poll Tax, making stories up, being hypocritical and showing topless photos of women on Page 3.
Between them, The Mirror declaring football war on Germany's Euro 96 squad with calls of "Achtung Surrender", the Express' obsession with Diana conspiracy theories and the Mail's obsession with house prices, Nazis and the disintegration of British society its hard to find a decent paper here...
On the plus side, you'll never be out of toilet paper.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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What?
It wasn't for lack of trying. But instead of asking why Portugal wasn't "absorbed", you would do better to ask why that dysfunctional little empire called Spain still exists. Several portuguese kings (notable, Ferdinand and Afonso IV) tried to invade and annex Castile to their domains and failed, Likewise, several kings of Castile (notable John I) tried to invade and annex Portugal and failed. All these happened in the context of disputes as to who was the legitimate heir to the throne. And in all cases, the foreign king had (legally) a better claim. Even during these middle ages wars there was already a possibly "nationalist" reaction against such attempts at union: on either side, it was common for most nobles to support the invaders and most townsfolk to support a national pretender.
Then there were the purely dynastic attempts at alliance and eventual union, Hapsburg style: by John I of Portugal through his son and the daughter of the catholic kings (he ended up either accidentally dead or murdered), and by Manuel I of Portugal through marriage with another heir of the spanish throne (dead without issue, and a very bad deal in any case). And finally, the stroke of luck which placed Philip II as heir to the portuguese throne and did allow a dynastic union. That one went through, but not without war: again, the nobility mostly supported the legitimate but foreign pretender, the people was not so enthusiastic. But the merchants expected advantages from the union of the two empires, and the military power of Hapsburg "Spain" was simply to great to resist at the time.
Why did that personal union fail? Several reasons:
- contrary to the expectation of the merchants, Philip never moved his capital to Lisbon, choosing instead to rule the two sea empire from a landlocked city;
- the deal turned out to be bad for the portuguese, as its new spanish kings had a penchant for collecting enemies. This caused discontentment.
- the kingdoms already had distinct cultures. There was sometimes a strong castilan influence at the portuguese court during some periods (kind of like french being used in the english court) but it did not extend to the people.
- the kingdoms and their empires were kept separate (it was only a personal union through the same king), as a condition to the union, facilitating a split when sufficient discontentment accumulated.
- Hapsburg power started declining sharply by the early 17th century. This provided the opportunity for kicking out the king's government.
Of all these, I suppose that the really important one was the separation of the kingdoms and their empires. Portugal had realistic alternatives to the union with Spain. When a union is going wrong and people have alternatives, they'll drop out (a lesson which Angela Merkel and her pet french dwarf might do well to keep in mind). Other regions absorbed into the large iberian state, not so much.
For example, many of the conditions above were also true for the union between Aragon and Castile. Those two kingdoms united partly on the reasoning that the enlarged kingdom would have a greater capacity to resist french greed and further its own of keeping an eastern Mediterranean empire. After Hapsburg defeats, the loss of common interests, and the new taxation and attempt at suppressing the separation between the kingdoms, Catalonia also tried rebellion, but by that time its native nobility had already been absorbed into the spanish court and they lacked both competent leaders and the size to succeed. Oh, and made the mistake of counting on promises of help from the ever-treacherous french.
But despite this and other failures several regions of Spain retain a distinct identity. They were just too weak (really too weak, militarily) to free themselves from Castile/Madrid. And generally lacking in local leadership interested in independence, arguably. Imperial collapse usually happens due to that more than to spontaneous popular revolts.
This is very true, although England did support Braganza to an extent, and this was one of the causes of the Spanish Armada, and one of the ostensible causes of Drake's successful raid on Seville.
All in all, Castile and Aragon were only united anyway by a marriage. Portugal just revolted successfully when the Spanish Empire in Europe started to collapse in the 1640s, but Aragon completely failed in its revolt in the 1640s. After that, Spain was too powerless to do much and Portugal had too much of an independent identity. The independent identity of Portugal was reinforced by the Portuguese colonies in Asia and Brazil; in Brazil, the Spanish left the Portuguese to fight off the Dutch themselves without any Spanish assistance, and in Asia, the Spanish, IIRC, used their fleet to guard the Philippines alone and even encouraged Dutch attacks on Portuguese colonies in preference to Spanish ones. Also, Portugal had a credible line of pretenders that Aragon didn't have because the union of the Aragonese and Castilian Crowns was obvious and beyond serious dispute, and the semi-Republicanism of the Catalans meant that their revolts never got far. In fact, it might well be said that the Spanish state, by the middle of the 17th Century, was extremely weak, and in no position to resist any serious revolt with decent leadership, which was the sole thing going for the Portuguese, which the Catalans just didn't have.
How much of an actual "conspiracy" was the Newburgh Conspiracy? From reading, it seems to have been more just some general unrest and a few officers musing of somehow forcing Congress to give them their pay. Was there really any organized conspiracy to revolt or march on Congress and did Horatio Gates actually know of it (or actively support it)?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The formation of the Kingdom of Italy was essentially compromise between between the Kingdom of Piedmont–Sardinia and Garibaldi's Italian nationalists. The latter had strong republican tendencies, and, although Garibaldi shared them, he realised that the successful unification of Italy depended upon Piedmontese support, while Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour realised that their royalist regime lacked the popularity needed to retain the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. As such, they chose to compromise on a liberal monarchy, the combination of the Italian tricolour and the Savoyard emblem serving to placate the supporters of both factions.
What flag did the monarchy really want? Does anybody know?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Actually, I just realised, I'm getting my time-scale all muddled there. The Sardinians first adopted the defaced flag during the 1848 Revolutions and the First Italian War of Independence, as an attempt to win nationalist support- the Venetian, Roman and Sicilian Republics had similarly derived flags- and kept it around in an attempt to present themselves as a the standard bearers of Italian unification. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies actually attempted the same thing, using the Habsburg-Lorraine and Bourbon arms, respectively, but ultimately lost out to Garibaldi and his Sardinian allies, leaving the Savoyard-defaced flag as the emblem of a united Italy. (And, in the Tuscan case, the effect was altogether ruined by the presence of the flag of Austria, a staunch opponent of Italian unification, in the Hapsburg-Lorraine arms.)
But, if they hadn't adopted the tricolour flag, I'd assume that the Savoyard monarchy would simply have maintained the pre-1848 flag.
(Ugh, I really shouldn't expect my memory to work properly at this time of night.
)Actually, I just realised, I'm getting my time-scale all muddled there. The Sardinians first adopted the defaced flag during the 1848 Revolutions and the First Italian War of Independence, as an attempt to win nationalist support- the Venetian, Roman and Sicilian Republics had similarly derived flags- and kept it around in an attempt to present themselves as a the standard bearers of Italian unification. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies actually attempted the same thing, using the Habsburg-Lorraine and Bourbon arms, respectively, but ultimately lost out to Garibaldi and his Sardinian allies, leaving the Savoyard-defaced flag as the emblem of a united Italy. (And, in the Tuscan case, the effect was altogether ruined by the presence of the flag of Austria, a staunch opponent of Italian unification, in the Hapsburg-Lorraine arms.)
But, if they hadn't adopted the tricolour flag, I'd assume that the Savoyard monarchy would simply have maintained the pre-1848 flag.
(Ugh, I really shouldn't expect my memory to work properly at this time of night.
I fixed the date in the beginning of your post
. Anyway, what you said makes sense, thanks 
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