Despite a surprising victory in their War of Independence, the new United States appeared to be unlikely candidates for future continental dominance in 1783. Most of North America was still wilderness, and under claim by the major European powers of the day, Britain, France and Spain. But Europe was soon... More
In 1861, three escaped slaves fled to the Union’s Fort Monroe in Virginia. Under the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), they should have been returned to their Confederate owners. But the fort commander, Benjamin Butler, a qualified attorney, deemed that the Confederacy had seceded and therefore become a foreign – and... More
Muslim invaders stormed Cordoba in 711. It was made a provincial capital in 716 and its Roman bridge was restored shortly afterwards (720). Abd-al-Rahman I (756–88) established the Umayyad Emirate (later Caliphate) of Al-Andalus, with Cordoba its overall capital. Rahman began the construction of the Mezquita, the Great Mosque, in... More
The gulag labour camps and colonies were founded in 1930 and coincided with the Five Year Plans of the Russian leader, Joseph Stalin. These were industrialization and agricultural collectivization programmes designed to increase Russia’s productivity. The gulags were used as corrective labour camps for criminals and political prisoners; this included... More
Lowell, the ‘City of Spindles’ was a purpose-built textile-manufacturing town harnessing the power of the nearby Pawtucket Falls. Founded in 1821, by 1860, 122,000 workers were processing nearly one million bales of cotton annually. Its modus operandi was the Waltham-Lowell System, pioneered by its founding father, with a workforce of... More
World oil production has been steadily increasing since the reduction in demand and OPEC output during the 1980s oil glut. In 2006, Saudi Arabia held the world’s largest known oil reserve, whilst the Middle East in general possessed the lion’s share of the world’s known oil reserves. In a series... More
By Cromwell’s Settlement (1652) the proportion of Irish land in Catholic hands fell from 60 to 8 per cent, confined to inland Connacht. Catholics were also banned from towns and public office. The preceding campaign of conquest has become notorious for its brutality. However, other than the massacres that followed... More
When Cromwell left Ireland in spring 1650, only Scotland remained independent. Fellow Presbyterians, they were presumed allies, whose Covenanter army had captured the Royalist hero Montrose at Carbisdale (1650). Their unexpected declaration for Charles II confounded but did not faze Cromwell; he promptly marched north and routed the Covenanters at... More
French forces were pushed out of Italy in 1799, leaving Massena and his French forces trapped in Genoa by Austrian commander Melas and the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Napoleon, after returning from Egypt, began assembling the French Army of the Reserve ready to cross the Alps and launch a... More
As the Allies consolidated their strength on the eastern side of the Cotentin Peninsula, and the various pockets of paratroopers linked up with infantry forces from Utah beach, attention turned to the heavily fortified city of Cherbourg. German forces in Brittany had been slow to react to the Normandy landings,... More
On 7 March 1945 the Allies seized the only remaining intact bridge across the Rhine at Remagen. This was followed by Operation Lumberjack and Operation Plunder from 22 and 23 March 1945 respectively. The Allied armies – British, Canadian and US 9th in the north, and the US 12th Army... More
The island of Marajo is ‘like a cork in the mouth of the Amazon’ and, in 1000 CE, its Arua inhabitants supported a vibrant urbanized lifestyle from pisciculture, corralling vast catches by damming floodwaters. Across the continent, the Chincha, in coastal Peru, were also fishermen, harvesting anchovy from the sea... More