Questions tagged [great-britain]
Questions related to the history of the island in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of Europe, which includes England, Scotland and Wales.
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Was British support for the Confederacy paradoxical?
It is well known that not only had Great Britain outlawed slavery but even interfered with ships of foreign powers carrying slaves.
However, there are multiple cases of Britain supporting the South. ...
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Why were medium bombers so low in numbers in Allied air forces?
The medium bombers of WWII are numerous. We could mention for the Americans the B-18, B-23, B-10 to which could be added the famous B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder. In the British air force, they were ...
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Why did the British support Zionism during the mandate period?
The question is inspired by reading The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi. While the book provides many interesting insights, its arguments/findings essentially hinge on the claim that the British empire ...
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Which four countries were the Teutonic coalition?
I'm reading the Memoirs of the Second World War and just came across the expression "Teutonic Coalition." Is Sir Winston Churchill referring to the Axis? Who are these members? Here's the ...
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Is the history of relations between Ukraine and Russia similar to what was between Ireland and Uk? [closed]
Ukraine vs Russia:
similar or same language, but cultural distance
national resistance against imperial project, famine
long shared history (neighbors), cultural influence
UK vs Ireland:
native ...
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Has a hereditary peer ever been promoted or demoted to a higher or lower rank?
The hereditary peerage of the United Kingdom consists of dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. The same is more or less true of the peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Great ...
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Did Ramsay Macdonald have a Vietnamese mistress living near Downing Street?
An article from the Guardian
contains this intriguing sentence:
Ramsay MacDonald allegedly had a long relationship with a Vietnamese woman in a house a short walk from Westminster.
However, I cannot ...
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Which British town or city is recorded in this 1890's YouTube video?
I have came across a YouTube video titled "The 1890's ~ Amazing Rare Footage of Cities Around the World". (2 mins)
Now at 2 mins of this video there is footage of people sitting on a ...
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Did a British civilian row across the channel and shoot 6 Luftwaffe pilots?
As we were studying WWII, our history teacher told us a story that, to me at least, seemed apocryphal. But given that she didn't provide any citations, I was unable to confirm our falsify her story. ...
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When and why did blue become the colour of the British Conservative Party?
In Britain at Elections Conservative Party candidates always wear blue rosettes and Conservative posters usually feature the colour blue, so that even if someone does not stop to read the poster they ...
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How did the United Kingdom government come to be responsible for defence of the Channel Islands?
The government of the United Kingdom is responsible for the defence of, and foreign relations of, the Channel Islands.
How did this arrangement come about?
Was there a specific agreement/decision/...
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What was the pound (unit of weight) initially equal to?
Studying history, you can often come across the old non-metric units of measurement. And while usually by a name of a unit one can understand what was taken as its basis, in the case of the pound, ...
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Which general rebuked the King of England over logistics?
I have a bit of a hunt for anyone with a fair bit of trivia knowledge about letters.
Back in a business class during my undergraduate studies, a professor shared a letter from a general to the King in ...
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Was there a tax in the fifties for British citizens traveling abroad?
I have found a dialog in Roberto Rossellini's 1954 film Journey to Italy where the character played by George Sanders says it's expensive to stay abroad too much. That would seem natural, only the ...
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When dubbing a knight why is the right shoulder dubbed first?
There was a question on a radio quiz this morning asking which shoulder is dubbed first when knighting someone. I was quite surprised that the answer was the right one but can find no explanation as ...
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When did Dei gratia/fidi defensor first appear on British coins?
Just as the title says: When did Dei gratia (D.G.) /fidi (fidei) defensor (F.D.) first appear on British coins?
Answering When and how did the British Monarchy stop claiming Divine Right made me ...
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What did it mean to be a Grecian in late-18th Century British schools?
Near the beginning of CS Forester's novel Mr Midshipman Hornblower, which begins in 1793, the titular Hornblower arrives on board his first ship, where the captain asks about his schooling:
"How ...
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Why didn't colonial empires exchange their colonies with others empire to make their territories whole?
The colonial age created some weird territories that separated one country’s territory into terrible shapes, such as Senegal (colonized by France) and Gambia (colonized by Britain). Why didn't France ...
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Is there a British equivalent in architectural history to American cabins?
I've been watching a lot of American horror movies, and a big trope is the characters staying in old, abandoned cabins in the woods. Or if not cabins then lodges, or in Westerns or haberdasheries etc. ...
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Why did Robert Walpole get painted with a crown on his right side?
In this painting of Robert Walpole by John Theodore Heins Robert is painted with a crown on his right. Robert Walpole is according to Wikipedia "a British politician who is generally regarded as ...
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Can you identify these military tunes (17th-century)?
Would anyone happen to know the names of two historic tunes (fifth and drum) in the Revolutionary War? I linked the descriptions below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPbn_uipW10&loop=0&start=...
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Is there a Welsh or Irish equivalent to the Declaration of Arbroath or Magna Carta?
Are there any pre-modern documents (or were there any, if they didn't survive) in Welsh or Irish history, which are broadly equivalent in intention and purpose to the Declaration of Arbroath or the ...
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Is George Louis known to have considered the assumption of a different regnal name in Great Britain?
At the time of George Louis' ascension to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain, neither England, Scotland, nor Great Britain had ever had a king called "George". There were earlier George's in ...
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Was there a contemporary understanding that 1706 was an exceptionally poor year?
This relates to the numerous (British) news items which seem to have overnight turned the present virus-induced economic downturn into a 'historic downturn'. While there are opinion-based aspects that ...
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Was it possible for a young Japanese woman to end up enslaved in Great Britain in the mid-1600s?
I'm inspired to ask this by the horror visual novel The Letter, which chiefly regards a haunted building called the Ermengarde mansion, in the fictional English town of Anslem, near the equally-...
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Based on his service record, where was this soldier deployed in WW2?
I am trying to work out where my grandmother's cousin, Henry Adler, saw action during WW2. Henry was born June 14th 1917 in Glasgow. I have his Soldier's Service and Pay Book as well as his Soldier's ...
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What is a good book with authoritative histories of individual RAF bases?
I write a lot about RAF radar systems. It is common to refer to the base where it was first built, like RAF Bard Hill. However, I find it very difficult to find anything about Bard Hill, what does ...
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How did British aircraft fare against Japanese aircraft during the Second World War? [closed]
It goes without saying that both the Supermarine Spitfire used by the UK and the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero are iconic fighter aircraft of the Second World War. But how did these aircraft fare when they ...
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Were there farms in the early 19th century in England, which only focused on agriculture?
I think back in the day most farms consisted of both agriculture and livestock, but I think, there must have been exceptions.
I'm also especially interested in small-scale family-based farms.
The ...
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How many people died in the British Isles from religious persecution between 1532 and 1791?
The English Reformation was "a series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church". It involved the ...
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Could George I (of Great Britain) speak English?
Web based sources differ wildly in stating how well King George I could speak English. Brittanica says:
Since he could not speak English, he communicated with his ministers in French.
Wikipedia, ...
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When in September 1939 did the British diplomatic mission leave Warsaw?
On September first 1939, at 4:45 in the morning, the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on Danzig/Gdansk. September twenty-second is when German troops completed their encirclement of Warsaw. Somewhere in ...
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Why wasn't Angelica Schuyler in danger in London despite supporting revolution?
I recently became fascinated by the musical "Hamilton". I heard that it's mostly historically accurate, but there's something that doesn't sound right to me. In the musical, it is suggested that King ...
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Why were some Napoleonic battles fought at sea?
'The Royal Navy 1793-1815' is all about the different battles that took place in the water'...my main concern is why the navy was involved at all? why couldn't they just fight in the land ?
Is it ...
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Hugh Dowding v. William Sholto Douglas? [closed]
Would Hugh Dowding have been a better tactician against the London Blitz (night bombing) as compared to William Sholto Douglas?
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How many British people died due to war/trading activity in the East India Company (EIC)
Are there estimates that give an approximation of the total number of casualities per year or at least per decade (e.g. in the way Wrigley and Schofield report outmigration numbers in their Population ...
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Did firing trials of pre-WW1 British dreadnoughts involve actually firing at them?
On the Wikipedia page of HMS Dreadnought it is mentioned that during firing trials against HMS Hero there were some vulnerabilities of its fire control systems revealed: namely, wiring and voice tubes ...
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Was pie crust originally meant for throwing away in England?
I'm trying to find the sources on youtube (last part about the English making a pie crust for throwing away)
Also would that be a sin of gluttony in wasting food?
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Did the average height of men in late Victorian England decline due to poor nutrition?
According an article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The fall in nutritional standards between 1880 and 1900 was so marked
that the generations were ...
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What was the perception of the average British person of the Boston Tea Party?
Do we have any record of the reaction of the average British person to the Boston Tea Party? Would the proverbial man on the street have been aware of the event? If so, what was their perception of it ...
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Why is the heir to the British throne called "Prince of Wales"?
The heir apparent to the British throne (England, then Great Britain, then United Kingdom) is usually conferred the title of Prince of Wales. According to Britannica and Wikipedia, this tradition ...
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How could a black woman be transported directly from Africa to Britain in 1760s?
I am a screenwriter. Currently started developing a screenplay for a feature film with the story happening in Western Africa and Britain in 1770 (+/-).
I know that in Atlantic slave trade scheme ...
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What changed to make British Enclosures more profitable than tenanted subplots?
In school I learned about the British Agricultural Revolution - at the time this was explained as 'increased efficiencies due to crop rotation'. (This now seems a bit simplistic.
We know that in ...
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What were the motivating factors in the Scottish Highland Clearances?
Here we read of the Scottish Highland Clearances:
A young journalist sent by the “Scotsman” to the Highlands exhibited the same racism, writing in 1847 that the Highlanders were “an inferior race ...
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What were levels of insular migration like in pre-Industrial Britain (1650-1780)?
I'm looking into my family history, and I'm gradually working my way through the 19th century. The levels of migration up and down the country during this time, at least in my family and from my ...
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Why was Prince Philip given these specific titles before marrying Princess Elizabeth?
On the Wikipedia page for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, it states:
He married Elizabeth on 20 November 1947. Just before the wedding, he was created Baron Greenwich, Earl of Merioneth and Duke ...
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What were the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra in the War of the Spanish Succession?
After reading another biography of Marlborough, I am annoyed by the fact the authors mention but do not describe the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra. They make it sound (I have read Chandler and Konstam) as if ...
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When did GB acknowledge the USA as sovereign state? [closed]
In which year did Great Britain acknowledge the independence of the USA and threat it like a sovereign country?
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Why did the Allied attack at Gallipoli fail during WWI? [duplicate]
The British Navy was the most powerful in the world at the time. How were the Ottomans able to repel the attacking force?
I've read that the Ottomans mined the Dardanelles strait and successfully ...
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British Warships and Their Crew In Hawaii in the Mid-1800s
I am researching British warships which arrived in the Hawaiian Islands, particularly Hawaii Island a.k.a. The Big Island, in or about 1839. I am unable to find comprehensive lists of ships and crew. ...
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