109
An attempt to pay down the National Debt provoked a frenzy of financial speculation.
… In 1711, a new joint stock company called the South Sea Company was announced, akin to the successful East India Company (1600) and Hudson’s Bay Company (1670) …
In 1711, a new joint stock company called the South Sea Company was announced, akin to the successful East India Company (1600) and Hudson’s Bay Company (1670). In 1719, it was awarded the job of paying off the national debt, promising investors eye-catching returns for upwards of £1000 per share, and sparking a frenzied optimism among investors that copycat companies were happy to share in.
Posted October 6 2019
110
When Porus, the Indian king, surrendered to Alexander the Great at Jhelum, he had only one request to make of him.
… Alexander the Great’s Indian expedition (327-325 Bc) pushed the boundaries of his vast empire into much of what is now Pakistan and into India’s Punjab …
Alexander the Great’s Indian expedition (327-325 BC) pushed the boundaries of his vast empire into much of what is now Pakistan and into India’s Punjab. The most serious resistance came from Porus, King of Paurava, in a fierce battle in May 326 BC at the Hydaspes or River Jhelum in the Punjab, during which Alexander demonstrated once again that he was a prince as well as a general.
Posted June 25 2022
111
A quick overview of the Kings and Queens of England from Victoria in 1837 to Elizabeth II in 1952.
… Below is a brief overview of the Kings of England from Queen Victoria in 1837, Empress of India and the first ruler of a truly modern …
Below is a brief overview of the Kings of England from Queen Victoria in 1837, Empress of India and the first ruler of a truly modern, industrialised Britain, to Elizabeth II in 1952, Queen regnant of a sovereign nation weary of its European neighbours’ thirst for superpower.
Posted August 31 2016
112
A Wolf finds a series of reasons for making a meal of a little Lamb, but it turns out he did not really need them.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, appealed to this Fable as an illustration of the way that stronger nations bully weaker ones. Like the Wolf, they justify gobbling up their neighbours by saying they are simply defending themselves and their interests, but it is superior military and economic power, not right and wrong, that decides the outcome.
Posted June 4 2021
113
The Dutch explorer ran across two islands in the Pacific of which Europeans knew nothing, but his chief desire was to get past them.
New Zealand came under British control with the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840; James Cook had charted its coasts in the 1770s, but Dutch explorer Abel Tasman had set the first European eyes on the islands, over a century before. As William Reeves notes, however, he was interested only in getting past them.
Posted December 28 2018
114
In 1775, London’s high-handed exploitation of her colonies for tax revenue began to look like a very expensive mistake.
… Throughout the eighteenth century, London had confined her thirteen American colonies within a trade zone, taxing trade and regulating markets in a bid to pay down the National Debt and boost the struggling East India Company … Emboldened by the humiliation at Saratoga, Louis Xvi, who coveted London’s possessions in India and the West Indies … France’s threat in the West Indies ended with the Battle of the Saintes on April 12th, 1782, and Hyder Ali’s Paris-backed rebellion in Mysore, India …
The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) saw thirteen British colonies in North America win independence as the United States of America. For too long, they had sweated in a wretched trade zone created to fill London’s Treasury with gold and line the pockets of her cronies, and it was time for it to stop.
Posted March 31 2019