You may be surprise to know that...

[Serutan]

At the time of the American War of Independence Britain was far more interested in preserving its Caribbean holdings than it was in the 'low yeild' North American regions.

And also India. If Britain had been *really* serious
about the American Revlolution, their top-flight military
talent would have been sent there, rather than second
stringers like the Howe brothers....


Another lesser know fact:

One of the unknown aspects of the Trent crisis
at the beginning of the American Civil War was that
the Union was wholly dependent on saltpeter imported
from British India. The fact that British government
halted all shipments of saltpeter to the North helped
speed the resolution of that issue.

 

[Verbose]

At the time of the American War of Independence Britain was far more interested in preserving its Caribbean holdings than it was in the 'low yeild' North American regions.

They did it for the same reasons France let their colonies in N. America go. The Carribean suger islands were major cash cows in the 18th c. The king of France was happy to hold on to Martinique, Guadeloupe etc. with its slave labour, and the English could have all those Frenchmen up in Quebec.

 

[Rambuchan]

As for concentration camps, some could argue that the Spanish had them in the Philippines (Spanish colonization is well known for their brutality). In 1896, they were used to hold suspected supporters of the revolutionaries. They were often underground prisons, and would run out of air.

I've acknowledged the Spanish camps in smaller fonted footnote.

How about mine:

"You may be suprised to know that..."

Soon after 1783, the American commercial fleet became the second largest in the world.

See now that I didn't know.

 

[Boutte]

Adolph Hitler wasn't German (born Ausrtia)
Joseph Stalin wasn't Russian (Georgian)
Napolean was'nt French (Corsican)

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Most surprising:
Mozart was no Austrian. Salzburg didn't belong to Austria at that time, and even his family originates to Bavaria (his father Leopold was born and raised in Augsburg).

Unrelated:
Hitler was not only born in Braunau am Inn, he also was granted the German citizenship in the city of Braunschweig (Brunswick - and 'braun'/'brown' is not a common part of location names in German). Everyone knows which color the SA uniforms had, and which color was the symbol of his party. And, he of course married an Eva Braun.
Coincidence? A sound plan? Scatology?

 

[thetrooper]

Definitely scatology.

I knew all these facts except for the Braunschweig = Brunswick.
In Norwegian: brun = braun.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The Braunschweig part is really the oddest one. 'Braun' is a quite common surname, and the uniform colors...not that many choices; red/black/grey/blue were out (red is obvious, black was taken by Mussolini, grey was the German Army, and blue symbolic for the Erbfeind France).

But that city...Hitler lived in Munich for years already. And Brunswick isn't anywhere near.

 

[thetrooper]

I'll see Der Untergang sometime soon. Good to pick up a few talking points beforehand.

I've seen Bruno Ganz in Der Himmel über Berlin so I know that the cast should be good.