Hot answers tagged 19th-century
34
Because Russia had been at war with Britain for most of the preceding two decades.
One of Russia's problems in owning Alaska was defending it against it being used as a British route to invade Russia (militarily insane - but that's politics) - remember Canada was British at the time.
By selling it to America they installed one of Britain's adversaries in ...
33
The sale of Louisiana was a FIRE SALE for France, and specifically, its self-appointed ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, for these reasons:
1) France had gotten "burned" with her earlier misadventures in North America. The French and Indian war cost her Canada and all of her other possessions on the east bank of the Mississippi. (She had managed to save ...
25
After President Lincoln's election on the 6th of November 1860, the eleven Confederate states did not secede immediately. South Carolina, and then the remaining six states of the lower south (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas) seceded from the Union between the 20th of November and 1st of February 1861, leaving Arkansas, Tennessee, ...
19
As far as Union states go, this table seems to provide accurate information. However, the info on Confederate army is very incomplete. You can find statements that North Carolina supplied the most soldiers (125,000) to the Confederate army all over the Internet. The original source seems to be a speech from 1904 by Hon. Theodore F. Davidson in Raleigh:
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16
I would date the transition to aircraft carrier domination to the Battle of Midway, in June 1942.
The Japanese fought an old style battle in four ship waves. In the first wave as a carrier task force, plus supporting cruisers and battleships, whose main task was to soften up Midway by air bombardment, and then screen the rest of the Japanese fleet.
In the ...
15
There were actually TWO endings to the War of 1812.
The first, and "official" ending, was the signing of the peace Treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814, which would have made a nice Christmas present. It called for a cessation of hostilities, the exchange of lands and prisoners, and the appointment of a joint commission to study U.S. Canadian boundary issues.
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14
It is unfortunately far easier to prove the presence of seats than their absence. The newspapers worldwide covered the Eiffel Tower in great detail and I decided to check what they wrote about the elevators (which where obviously a particular point of interest). The National Library of New Zealand puts historical newspapers online and makes them searchable, ...
14
The Charter Oath promulgated at the enthronement of Emperor Meiji of Japan on 7 April 1868 includes several parts that identify the reasons for the radical social restructure that followed the Meiji restoration and an indication of the motivations for the dissolution of the warrior class that had been a defining characteristic of Japanese society.
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12
Russia and America (the Union) were allies during the Civil War. The implied enemies were the South (Confederacy) and Great Britain.
Although Russia wanted to "monetize" Alaska, she also wanted it in "friendly" hands. The (re-united) U.S. fit the bill. Great Britain did not, after having allied with France and Turkey in the Crimean war.
11
Gettysburg was pretty much a last ditch effort by Lee and Jefferson Davis to save the Confederacy or at least give it some credibility. There were different objectives that led to the attack in the first place. For one thing, the war in the West was going against the Confederates, and if the West fell, and more importantly access to the Mississippi River, ...
11
The Russo-American Treaty of 1824 established a clear border between American and Russian lands on the West Coast as well as trade. It gave Russian claims south of parallel 54°40′ north to the US.
Russia was inclined to give away this territory, which was in dispute between them, Britain, America and Spain, to insure their undisputed and ongoing ownership ...
10
(A little background for others reading this post) In 1868 Emperor Meiji re-established imperial rule. To move Japan into the modern era, he encouraged his people to explore and learn from the more technologically advanced cultures of the world.
Even in the late 1800s, English was the language of international commerce. Emperor Meiji's push to learn ...
10
The Alpine Mountains were HUGE in the development of Switzerland.
There is a reason that Switzerland contains French, German, and Italian speaking regions. These regions were the main area in each linguistic group that could successfully resist the feudal lords of what later became the "countries" of France, Germany, and Italy. The polyglot members of the ...
10
In 1861, the US issued an announcement that they were looking for designers to submit plans for an ironclad ship. They did this in response to information they were obtaining indicating that the South had already begun building their own ironclad ships. Realizing that there was no way they could defeat an ironclad navy with their own wooden ships, the US ...
10
The problem started with the "flight of the Earls" in 1607. After losing a war to England, the Catholic Ulster nobles Hugh O'Donnell, Hugh O'Neil, and others, fled Ireland for Europe. Meanwhile, England brought in Protestant "settlers" from Scotland to "pacify" Ulster. Thus, the formerly most rebellious province of Ireland became the most pro British.
These ...
10
It seems unlikely that Victorian Era readers of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass would have thought of drugs when reading about the special foods and drinks.
This conclusion is based upon the fact that the First and Second Opium Wars started in 1839 and 1858. So you could argue that recreational drug use was not really on the ...
9
Sea power is not directly about which ship type can beat up which other ship type; it's a matter of being able to run one's merchant ships in an area and preventing the other side from running merchant ships.
In WWII, it was difficult for surface ships to protect a convoy from air attack, as we can see from the 1942 attempts to relieve the siege of Malta. ...
8
Many Italians emigrated to Argentina because many Italians emigrated. Argentina, like Brazil and the United States could offer economic opportunities not to be found in the old country, but equally importantly, had policies that were open to immigration.
Italian Emigration 1876-1926
Many Italians left Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; it ...
7
In the late part of 1858, Count Charles Montalembert of France was put on trial and prosecuted by the French government for writing an article titled "A Debate on India in the English Parliament". The French government took the position that certain passages of this article were "seditious and an outrage upon the existing Government" of France. (This link ...
7
The only remotely related quote I could find was:
A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman.
(Frederick Douglass in the North Star, 1848)
It could be that his words were transformed into the statement ...
7
Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History's Greatest Soldier by
David Chandler is a good source of informations on Napoleon. See pages 749-797, chapter "War Pans and Preparations".
Mostly, the supplies were stored and ran from Poland. However, the army was accompanied by no less than 200,000 animals and 250,000 vehicles. A lot of the supplies ...
7
The first battle occurred at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.
After its seccession, South Carolina demanded that the US withdraw its military presence from Charleston, but instead the Army commander relocated his forces to the island fortress at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. This led to a standoff, and when the fort's supplies grew thin ...
7
Both sets of statements are true: The Cossacks were inferior to other types of cavalry, and the Cossacks were "effective," because they were good enough to do the job.
To take just one example, the cuirassiers were the most heavily trained, heavily armed cavalry around. That means that there were relatively few of them.
The Cossacks were the opposite: They ...
7
According to this inscription on a Pony Express marker only one out of 120 riders was killed in the 19 months. This would mean that the probability of getting killed on this job within a year was 0.5%. Then again - one death isn't anywhere near statistically significant.
I see little reason to doubt these figures that are repeated on many websites. The ...
7
Several historians/economists hold several factors responsible. I know two works that discuss this in great depth:
The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith.
Nation, State and the Industrial Revolution: The Visible Hand, Lars Magnusson.
Personally, I believe the following factors played a crucial role:
Wars: Britain's isolation from continental Europe meant ...
7
Yes. However, I don't think you're are giving Napoleon enough credit here as the driver of events. It appears that the entire point of Ligny was to prevent exactly that. Here's what wikipedia (currently) has to say:
The battle of Ligny is a prime example of a tactical win and a
strategic loss. However, had the left wing of Napoleon´s army
succeeded ...
7
Unlike the Army, where a disproportionate number of officers came from the South, the U.S. navy was pretty much dominated by the North. One evidence of this was the fact that the fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, was scuttled by its sailors to prevent in from falling into the hands of the South. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor
A major reason that the ...
6
Norway shares the so-called "Scandinavian" peninsula with Sweden, and the two are contiguous. Therefore, the latter country was eager to make sure that it was in "friendly" hands.
Apart from that, Sweden had an "eastern" (e.g. Baltic), facing strategy, unlike Denmark, which was more west-facing. As such, Iceland (and Greenland) to the west were not of ...
6
Ironclad (and iron-hulled) warships were just beginning to be built when the American civil war broke out. There was no established design for them, and none had been tested in actual battle. This was the beginning of a period of rapid evolution of designs, which culminated 40 years later in the a somewhat standardized form, the dreadnought or battleship.
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6
... and as Steven I think implies, the power of the samurai continued in the Japanese Army. This was one reason why the army had no problem doing all their evil in the name of the 'Emperor', while actually doing everything they could to ensure his opinion was never allowed to interfere. This reflected previous Japanese history when Emperors were puppets of ...
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