Hot answers tagged north-america
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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 ...
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The earliest recorded example of bacteriological warfare seems to be the Hittite plague (1715 BC):
A long-lasting epidemic that plagued the Eastern Mediterranean in the 14th century BC was traced back to a focus in Canaan along the Arwad-Euphrates trading route. The symptoms, mode of infection, and geographical area, identified the agent as Francisella ...
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Here's one example: The dutch colony of New Amsterdam (on Manhattan Island, it's New York now) was captured by four English frigates sailing into its harbour.
The British are on the other side of this one, but the point stands. Here's one out of the time scale but the Battle of Nassau deserves a mention as the US marines' first amphibious landing.
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Australian cultures did not have access to good starter crops. This is explored at depth in an allo-history available here: http://alternatehistory.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=110941 on the topic of what crops could have been good starter crops.
Indigenous Australian cultures were highly developed, including development of aquacultural structures and ...
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If you are talking about the Omelc/Aztec/Maya, at war with the Cree or Inuits, I very much doubt this ever happened, as, 1) They had no quarrel, and so, no reason to go to war. 2) They had no way of marching across the USA, according to my Google Earth measurements, the distance from New York/New Jersey to Honduras, is 4,000 km. An average human can walk 5 ...
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On the topic of the Aztecs, an intriguing book on this subject is Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control, by Ross Hassig.
The Aztecs were an extremely war-like civilization, that were constantly attacking and subjugating their neighbors. Interestingly, though, their style of warfare was quite different from what we are familiar with from ...
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One reason was that the "Anglos" brought their own women with them. For instance, there were women passengers on the Mayflower. And twelve years after the settlement at Jamestown, there was a boatload of women (in 1619), followed by many more.
The Spaniards also had more "multicultural" dealings, as noted in the comments above. The Spanish religious ...
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Overall, the primary reason the "status quo" was maintained was the availability of upward mobility and the level of political and economic freedom. Restrictions placed on these freedoms by the British Crown led to the Revolution.
The thing is that in Colonial America it was easy for a man to own land, thus showing an "interest" in colony and giving them ...
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I think you need to start reading social histories about "mob" studies. Oliver Bringing the Crowd back in, 1985 is an example of crowd studies. Understanding the capacities of the paid and unpaid (slave) American pre-working class, the position of small farmers, and small shop keepers is important. (DOI: 10.1080/03071027808567427 ; DOI: ...
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According to wikipedia, the current title for the earliest documented use would be the Hittites with the bacterial disease Tularemia in the mid second millenium BC. According to the texts, infected people were sent into enemy territory to help spread the plague there.
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Well, it should be pretty clear that the purpose of putting buttons (or whatever you want to call them) on a lower pants leg is to make it easier to put on and remove tall boots.
In turn, tall boots as a garment are much more useful in an era of horse-borne travel and unpaved roads. If you don't make that connection, perhaps the riding crop there in the ...
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Interestingly, when the time zones were established at the International Meridian Conference in 1884, the original idea was to have a single coordinated solar day. This meant that eventually, the hope was to have a single coordinated time throughout the world. The idea of dividing the world into time zones was merely supposed to be a step to getting to ...
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Assuming that Swatch sells their plastic watches also in the U.S., there is their notion of Swatch Internet Time (beat time): The notion has not become popular in Europe or even Switzerland (where the company originates) so far, but insofar as this is a serious, globally acting company, their (marketing-driven) attempt can (perhaps) be counted as a ...
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Nowhere in the USA does that, however there is one place in North America (sorta) that does: Newfoundland.
They happened to be about 3 and a half hours from Greenwich when the time zones were first set up, and being persnickety people, opted to keep their own time rather than join the Atlantic or central Greenland time zones.
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There is the obvious geo-political gain of weakening their British enemies, who had seen such expansion in that theatre during the seven year war. Come the next war (Napoleonic, yes, unfortunately not so much of a gain for the Bourbons) the United states offered both trade to France and co-belligerency (1812 war). However, I get the feeling France expected ...
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For contact between the inhabitants of present-day United States and present-day Mexico, you can also see the Wikipedia article on Chichimeca, the commonly used name for the peoples that lived to the north of the Aztecs. It appears not much is known about them.
The map posted in another answer is beautiful and very informative, but we should remember that ...
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