In 1919, future President Eisenhower, then a young army officer, joined the Transcontinental Motor Convoy, an expedition designed to highlight the need for improved investment in US roads. The convoy would take two arduous months to travel from Washington to San Francisco. By 1944. Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander of... More
The swift capture of the capital Madrid was key to General Franco’s attempted overthrow of Spain’s Republican government in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). With air support and armoured units supplied by Fascist Italy and Germany, Franco’s Nationalist forces, built around veteran colonial troops and legionnaires, easily routed opposing Republican... More
Native American cultures vary significantly across the North American continent, with many aspects of individual tribal cultures being determined by different environmental conditions and landscapes. North America can be split into ten different cultural areas, although some scholars consider certain regions such the two Eastern Woodlands regions to be one,... More
Between 1783–90, the US government ended the colonial practice of negotiating treaties with the Indians to acquire their land, instead they simply occupied Native American lands and any resistance was met by military force. In 1790, the federal government, alarmed by the violent opposition to their land grabs, revived the... More
In 1500, North America had no cities to match Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, with its estimated population of 200–300,000 when the Spanish explorer, Cortés, arrived. The bulk of the continent was sparsely populated by nomadic hunter-gatherers. In the far north, food, clothing, shelter and tools were derived primarily from seal,... More
Having been ceded western territory under the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the newly independent America doubled in size. It established settlements east of the Mississippi, south of the Great Lakes and into the Gulf coastal plains. This generated competition for land, much of it Native American, and ensured continuing... More
Pre-Columbian North America was filigreed with trading networks stretching to the Eskimo in the Arctic and the urban Mexican civilizations in the south. At key junctions, major trade emporia developed. At the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, Cahokia had a peak population of c. 40,000, flourishing as a transcontinental... More
Egypt’s cardinal resource was the Nile, with its fertile flood plain providing food, and acting as a natural artery of communication and trade. This usually gave surpluses of grain, cotton, and papyrus to utilize in trade. Given the scale of their architectural ambitions, Egypt’s rulers had to large quantities and... More
In early 1915, the western Allied Powers had a dilemma: how could maritime supply lines be opened to Russia, when the German Navy ws blockading the Baltic while the Ottomans controlled entry to the Black Sea? Deciding the Ottomans were the softer adversary, a Franco-British naval task force was sent... More
Bonhomme Richard was one of four ships under the command of Captain Paul Jones’s American squadron. Near Flamborough Head, off Yorkshire, it intercepted a British Baltic Fleet convoy of 41 merchant ships, led by HMS Serapis. At 7.20 pm, to protect its merchant vessels, HMS Serapis opened fire on Bonhomme... More
Napoleon must have wished for sea-legs. Well nigh invincible on land, with the continent under his sway, he remained hemmed in and frustrated by British maritime control. This control kept British shipyards stocked with Baltic timber (and Indian teak), its sailors clothed from Virginian cotton and fired by Jamaican rum.... More
At the height of the Middle Kingdom power and prosperity were cemented by increasing exploitation of the rich resources afforded by the Near East, either through peaceful commerce, the exaction of tribute or military plunder. It is thought that the pyramid at el-Lisht was built by Semite slaves, brought back... More