Which country was never a colony or under foreign rule in its entire history?

Then roughly at 1810, given Abel died at 27 iirc. Norway is violent :o (then it dicovered oil and tries to act civilized ;) )

Seriousanswer: The change towards a less violent society was much more gradual than that, and came before the oil thing. For example in the early 18th century we had officials whose job entitled them to perform summary executions of criminals in the field, in the 19th century capital sentences were carried out only after a proper trial (increasingly strictly so) and no executions of civilians were actually carried out after 1876; the death penalty for civilian crimes was formally abolished at the beginning of the 20th century and it was abolished for all crimes up to and including wartime treason in 1979. The last actual executions were a couple of dozen Nazis and associates who went up against the wall right after the war, which is still two decades before we knew about the oil.

There's a famous folk song which features a fatal knife fight at a wedding in the "bad old days"; the song is from the 1840s and the "bad old days" in question were over a century in the past then (it actually references a specific event from 1724) so the perception of social violence declining and things being worse a few generations ago has been around for a while.
 
In fairness, the mid-18th century was an atypically violent time in American history.

It was the Ulstermen, y'see. A rough lot. Much given to stabbing.
 
Did they end up with red hands?
 
I just started reading this thread so I may be woefully late -

But when people started talking about Spain never being a colony or conquered -

Uh did we just forget that Muslims from Northern Africa ruled basically all of Spain for 500+ years?
 
That was before Spain.

But France invaded Spain
 
Britain invaded, but didn't control most of Spain, like France did in the peninsular war. Spain was a vassal then and in revolt soon after. It was also the time it lost most of its colonies (revolutionary movements).
 
Also, the Romans. If 'before Spain' works, then a lot of places have better records - the UK has never successfully been invaded since it has been called the UK.
 
Also, the Romans. If 'before Spain' works, then a lot of places have better records - the UK has never successfully been invaded since it has been called the UK.

Well if you consider the Channel Islands, they were invaded in 1940...
 
How are we defining "non-independent territories"? Was Ukraine part of the Russian Empire, or a "non-independent territory"? Feels like you'd get a few different answers to that, depending who you asked.
 
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