Casting a wide net over the intriguing world of Modern History
By the late 19th Century, the scramble for Africa by the European Empires had begun. Germany was a little late to the party, focusing instead on consuming its central European neighbours. Eventually, in an effort to compete with Britain and France, they…
read more
When the Empires of Europe bought their slaves from Africa, they put many of them to work on the lush plantations in the Caribbean colonies. The British had Jamaica, Barbados, the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands. The Spanish had Cuba, Puerto…
read more
Our story begins at the Berlin Conference in 1884, where a group of World Leaders (which actually means European Leaders) met with the purpose of dividing up their new colonial enterprise called Africa. The Empires of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and the…
read more
Our story begins in the The Kingdom of Benin which, just to be confusing, is located in the southwest of present day Nigeria and not the nation of Benin, which is just a few kilometres west. Today, the old Benin Kingdom is…
read more
For over 600 years, the Ottoman Empire occupied the gateway between the East and the West. At its zenith in 1522, the Empire lead by Sulieman the Magnificent, controlled a quarter of Europe (south east), in addition to the Anatolian Peninsula, the…
read more
If you were to do a Google search on the West African nation of Mauritania, you’ll more than likely be confronted with some depressing reports about the horrors of slavery, poverty, violence and terrorism which currently plague this otherwise enthralling country. BACKGROUND…
read more
Welcome to December, the 12th month of the year. Of course, it used to be the tenth month – hence the “dec” prefix – until about 700 BC, when the Romans added January and February, so that the calendar covered a standard…
read more
Fans of the 1989 BBC comedy series “Blackadder Goes Forth”, may remember that when asked by Private Baldrick how did the war start, Captain Blackadder explained that it was simply too much effort NOT to have a war. With Remembrance Day (aka…
read more
Just as a stopped clock is correct twice a day, there is the odd separatist movement that defies the odds and succeeds. In fact, so far this century there have been 3. Though the human and financial cost were significant, in the…
read more
It’s not just in the visually spectacular, but poorly dialogued, Star Wars prequels where politically motivated shadow groups formulate plans to break away from a larger sovereign body. They exist all over our world as well. At the time of writing, there…
read more