PYF Historical Fun Fact: (USER LOSETH POSTYNG PRIVILYGES FOR FOUR AND TWENTY HOURS)

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Krypt-OOO-Nite!!: Oct 25, 2010

doodlebugs posted:

Yang Kyoungjong was a Korean soldier who fought for the Japanese Army, the Soviet Army and the German Wehrmacht.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Kyoungjong

I thought what a massive oval office before I read it and found out the poor bugger was press-ganged.

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Krypt-OOO-Nite!!: Oct 25, 2010

Gabriel Pope posted:

By the 17th century or so, the English were well on their way towards assimilating the native Celtic cultures of the British Isles. Between physical dominion of the Isles (somewhat unofficial in Scotland's case) and increasing economic hegemony from the nascent industrialization of England, enough English goods and culture were being exported that local traditions were being overwhelmed. Anglicization offered increased material wealth and generally met little resistance, so by the time Scotland and England formally united the Scots were well on their way to becoming English people with funny accents. The only holdouts were a few backwater highland clans that even other Scots looked down on for their backwardness.

This process probably would have continued until native Scottish culture died out entirely, except that things turned political. The highland clans were (unsurprisingly) huge supporters of the royal Scottish House of Stuart, which became a thorn in the monarchy's side when the crown passed over to the House of Hanover. After several uprisings centered in the highlands, Parliament decided that the clans' Scottishness was to blame and passed a series of acts banning kilts and other aspects of highland culture in an attempt to suppress them. This was just too much for a lot of Anglicized Scots, since it completely destroyed the polite fiction that the Union (still less than half a century old) was an equal partnership. The fact that most Scots thought that the kilt-wearing highlanders were a bunch of idiot rednecks and a millstone around their country's neck was beside the point--they were their idiot rednecks and England had no right to gently caress with them. Swept up in the tide of feelings that would later coalesce into the Romantic movement, a lot of intellectuals began quietly wearing kilts, founding Scottish societies, and promoting the Scots language.

By the time that the Acts of Proscription were repealed 40 years later, there were a lot of Scots eager to practice their heritage. Unfortunately their heritage had been illegal for a couple generations and had mostly been forgotten even before then--and even though traditional Scots were no longer legally second class citizens, they were still second class economically and pro-English landowners continued to oppress them pretty heavily. So there was a certain amount of guesswork involved in the Scottish revival. Pick a traditional Scottish folk song: chances are the version of it you know was written by Robert Burns around 225 years ago, maybe as an adaptation of an earlier song, but often an original composition. The Highland Games? Well, the Scottish clans definitely had athletic competitions, which periodically included some of the modern heavy games, but the canonical Highland Games were created in the 19th century. The Celtic harp? The construction and playing of the original were dead arts; Gaelic revivalists created a new design based on the ancient one. Even the kilts that patriotic Scots wore to thumb their noses at England were developed into their modern form in the 1720s--by an Englishman, no less. (Scottish bagpipes and pipe music have a pretty unequivocally authentic and unbroken tradition, though, mostly because it was kept alive in British army regiments.)

I don't have time to get into it right now, but Irish culture follows a very broadly similar pattern--though the assimilation was much less amicable and the suppression was much harsher.

There's a lot wrong with this post that kind of irritates me, You sort of mashing nearly 200 years together with no context.
First off there's the fact that Scotland never really took to being "Anglicized", English influence may have crept into the higher stations during the start of the 17th century due to James the 1st but the average Scot would have been far from Anglicized and honestly things would have have much the same in view of nationality as they had been for the last few hundred years.
Then pretty importantly in the middle of the 17th century there's the war of the three kingdoms.
Basically Charles the 1st comes in and is fairly clueless when it comes to Scotland, this triggers a civil war in Scotland which the Convenanters won with support of Parliament. Which in turn triggered a uprising in Ireland, which then triggered the English civil war.
But the Scottish loving to be contrary threw in with Charles the 2nd instead of Cromwell which resulted in Cromwell invading Scotland.
It's then after 1660 during the restoration that you can make the argument that due to strong trade links with England and the colonies places like Glasgow start to become anglicised when compared to the rest of the country. (ironically Glasgow was one the biggest supporters of the independence campaign last year.)

Fast forward to the end half of the 17th century and you have arguably the period that basically ends Scotland as a "independent" state, you have the William & Mary of Orange take over the throne which increases the religious tensions to pretty much explode between Catholic/Protestant lines (which still exist to a point today and were definitely a thing when I was younger.) due to this the Jacobites appear on the scene.
You then have a massive famine break out which lead to a massive amount of the population leaving mainly for mainly Ireland/America.(fun fact my mothers family pretty much left for Ireland at this time before returning on mass in the 1900's)

You then have what I believe to be the main reason for the Scotland fully joining with England as one Nation.

The Darien Scheme or how Scotland really ballsed up colonisation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme

It's the end of the 17th century and Scotland seeing what a money spinner it is wants to get in on the act of colonisation and a guy called William Paterson one of the founders of the bank of England had a plan he'd wanted to try since he was teen in the Bahamas. His idea was to set up a trading base in the Isthmus of Panama something along the lines of the Panama canal except overland.
Now it seems a solid plan by a very capable guy so they charge in full steam ahead to find the way blocked mainly by the East India company which stops any funding from Dutch or English sources and legally blocks all routes apart from the funds coming from Scotland itself.
the idea catches on and the patriotic Scots think "gently caress yea we should have our own colonies" and people come forward to fund it from every corner in fact it's so popular that a fifth of Scotland's economy ended up tied up in the scheme.
So far so good when five ships and 12,000 people headed out and it almost goes to poo poo from the start, the journey was horrific as most atlantic journeys were those days, at least 40 died and half the crew disliked the other half who were made up of criminals and war criminals but they got there and as they buried their dead they realised they weren't in the paradise they were expecting.

You see Paterson had never actually been to Panama but he had hired a guide who knew it well however this guide was Lionel Wafer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Wafer a former privateer and he knew of Panama from when he had been marooned there. He convinced them that the area was fair weathered and a paradise full of friendly(sexy) locals but when they got there it turned out to a hot damp swamp, the locals wanted nothing to do with them and the Spanish in the area were openly hostile.
By summer 10 a day were dying mainly to malaria, the local natives felt bad and turned up with supplies but the ship crew who'd never left the ships pretty much commandeered them, the supplies they had were improperly stored causing most of it to spoil and nearby England & Dutch colonies refused to send supplies in case it upset the Spanish.
After 8 months the colony was abandoned with only 300 of the 12,000 surviving (six of them choosing to stay.) and the 50 headed home only to blamed and even disowned by there families.
the other 250 headed to New York only to find as they arrived that two supply ships had just left to resupply the (empty)colony.
These two ship turned up with 300 new settlers and supplies just to find a empty colony, as they sat on the bay wondering what to do one of the ships set alight killing all on board after this the other headed to Jamaica.
However the word didn't reach Scotland of the colony's failure and due to the early letters being sent home being let's say hopeful and leaving our cretian details Scotland were under the impression everything was going well and had then sent the second wave of ships with 1000 settlers who arrived to find a burnt out ship on the shore and a overgrown swampy abandoned site.(I can only imagine their disappointment.) by this point the Spanish in the area had had enough and the settles found themselves in a race against time to get the place ready for defense all the while infighting among themselves as to who was to blame.
They put up a good fight against the Spanish but in the end negotiated a peace and left for home.

This total shitshow had spunked over 20% of Scotland's cash and when the the English came knocking with the money to recover the economy in return for Scotland joining officially with England in the act of the union there was very little debate.

I've wrote enough at the moment but maybe next up is the Jacobites, war-criminal Duke of Cumberland and the Act of Proscription.....

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# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 17:52

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