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Despite common misconception, both Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula were ceded to the United Kingdom in perpetuity, via the Treaty of Nanking and the Convention of Peking, respectively. London was under no legal obligation to return them to China. However, most of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong actually consists of the New Territories. That was ...
59
I can tell you why Spain was neutral. (Sorry, I don't know much about Portugal)
Germany and Italy helped Franco during the Spanish Civil War. When the Second World War started, Germany of 1939 was not very interested in Spain. As you know in May 1940 Italy joined the Axis while France was being conquered. After defeat the Germans prepared themselves to ...
58
They're maintained as a matter of tradition, which is not unusual in monarchies. It's used both for prestige and as a relic of an era when European diplomacy revolved around territorial claims of the monarchs. That said, most titles do have clear geographical or dynastic sources. If you do find one that seems strange, leave a comment and I'll see if I can ...
55
Columbus was not, in fact, the first to cross the Atlantic. There were Norse communities living in Greenland from the 10th Century. They even had some temporary settlements in North America proper. However, the Norse weren't as good at eking out a living in the North Atlantic as the Inuit, and (after 500 years) eventually got wiped out by some combination of ...
51
WW II was primarily a power struggle, and to a lesser degree an ideological struggle.
This means that your assumption about the motivations of WW II are incorrect. If it had been an ideological struggle, the US would not have allied with the Communist Soviet Union. (Read up on the Red Scare in the US: anti-Communist sentiment in the US was significant).
...
35
Q Why does a Star of David appear at a rally with Francisco Franco?
Because the symbol was much more ambiguous at the time, and not a one-to-one signifier of "Jewishness".
Because Franco had his base in Northern Africa, Morocco, and the symbol represents this early power base, just as the other flags show where his support came from.
Most ...
31
I mean if the people felt they were Portuguese how could they accept kings with Asturian origins?
Because they didn't feel they were "Portuguese" until later on.
Firstly, you are taking the modern approach of the nation-state which was absent at the time of the creation of Portugal. At that time, what counted was the relationships of loyalty between the ...
30
I find it interesting that many answers belong to "armchair generals", that point only to the military power, and logistics,¹ but forget to mention the issues that could lead to a war in the first place. Remember, war is the continuation of politics....
First of all, I would point the main issue would be noticing how these issues affect the internal ...
29
Actually, Portugal and England have the longest alliance in the world -- one signed in the Treaty of Windsor (1386). The Portuguese and English agreed that neutrality for Portugal was the most viable stance though Portugal helped the alliance in other ways like evacuating civilians from Gilbraltar to Madeira and allowing later in the war, bases in the Azores....
29
The OP said this in a comment:
technically speaking, Spain was a satellite state. However, the treaty was mainly intended for the countries within the big blocks so I assume it was just ignored.
The second statement, that Spain was overlooked, is flatly not true as will be demonstrated once we look at the text of the agreements and the historical arguing ...
26
Sure, it's possible. Many things are possible. Likely, however, is another question.
The link you posted describes a vague story of sailing west into the Atlantic, finding an island, trading with the locals, and returning home. Could the island be in the New World? It could, but it could just as easily be one of the islands in the Atlantic.
For me to ...
26
Stanley G Payne's Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II is a good study of Spain's relationships with Germany, and secondarily with the UK and USA, during the war.
The Allies never tried to get Spain to join their side, because they saw Franco and his supporters as basically sympathetic to Nazism (and Italian fascism). The Roosevelt ...
24
It is commonly accepted that the Spanish Empire, which rose to the pinnacle of its strength under Charles V/I and Philip II was in decline by early seventeenth century and, in spite (or perhaps because?) of strenuous efforts to arrest and reverse that decline during the early 17th century, it declined and by 1643 or 1659 (not random dates..) it was a shadow ...
24
Got it, is a Spanish M1969 Bayonet, check it here: https://www.preferredarms.com/weapons/daggers.php
23
Short answer: The latest flareup is the most recent of many that have taken place over the centuries.
More details are found in this wiki article on Catalonia. But basically, Catalonia was always the "non-mainstream part of Spain. It formed the heart of the Kingdom of Aragon, which was united to the rest of Spain (Castile) by the marriage of Ferdinand of ...
21
Gibraltar was defensible, but Hong Kong was not. In the 1990s, the distance from the UK would have made Hong Hong impossible to defend. Also, Hong Kong is primarily occupied by Chinese, unlike Gibraltar, which is occupied by UK citizens, many of whom are soldiers. Gibraltar is a fortress, and it is relatively close to the UK and hence easily suppliable.
...
21
Although we can't tell the colours from the OP's photo, and although the dimensions are different, circumstantial evidence suggests this may be the flag of the Khalif of Morocco, the puppet ruler who helped Franco's nationalists (see below).
Image source: Flags of the World
The hexagram flag is almost certainly a reference to Spanish Morocco (with which, ...
20
As mentioned in the comments, the Wikipedia entry on this subject does not adequately describe the situation and causes of the foundation of Portugal.
The creation of Portugal was nothing short of a miracle which was accomplished by a single man, Alfonso Henrique (1109-1185), known as Alfonso Henry in English. His deeds are best known from the massive tomes ...
19
(Note that there are definitively many traces of Germanic influence on Spanish/Portuguese. For example, as @AlbertYago's pointed out, the Iberian vocabulary contains several Germanic imports; Wikipedia even has a section on this subject. Nonetheless, the underlying question is valid: the Germanic influence is obviously way, way weaker in Iberia than it is in ...
17
"The best thing that Euskara could contribute to the humanity is to die out" - Miguel de Unamuno
Euskara, Basque language, is a very interesting subject. It survived on two time levels. First, being an ancient language which is still in use, and now, being a minority language which is still in use in 21st century, where we have to deal with ...
17
This is certainly a question that comes to mind when one reads about the developments under Ferdinand II, and after his marriage to Isabella in 1469, and especially when you see a series of maps showing the transforming landscape of the Iberian peninsula during the course of the reconquista.
I haven't found anything in English which reaches into the mind of ...
16
In "Mein Kampf," Hitler opined, "We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east...If we speak of the soil of Europe today, we can have primarily in mind the soil of Russia and her vassal border states."
He was concerned primarily with conquering Russia and eastern Europe. Fought France and Britain (...
16
It's actually not that unusual for monarchs to claim titles in pretence as a means of increasing their prestige. The Kings of England and Great Britain had famously claimed to also be Kings/Queens of France right up until the Act of Union in 1800, despite the minor detail that England had lost Calais, her sole remaining possession on the European mainland, ...
16
I understand that there are four surviving accounts of de Soto's expedition.
Three of those accounts were written by survivors:
Rodrigo Rangel or Ranjel, who was de Soto’s personal secretary;
Luys Hernández de Biedma, the Spanish King’s representative;
and an individual known as the “Gentleman from Elvas”, who is
believed to be a Portuguese mercenary ...
15
In 1940, Spain changed its time zone from GMT to GMT+1, as Franco thought that it would be a good idea to have the same time as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (his political allies) after Germany occupied France. The United Kingdom modified its time zone too, but reverted its decision in 1945.
In the 80s, the PSOE (political party at government) ...
15
It seems to me that there are a number of variables to this, many of which would vary from beacon to beacon, so getting an 'accurate' transmission time for the information is going to be almost impossible.
We know that the Spanish fleet were sighted by Captain Thomas Flemyng near the Lizard on the 19th July 1588 (State Papers relating to the Defeat of the ...
14
How would it matter if people support war when Spain was not the aggressor? They supported it as it was a defensive war. In these times it was obvious to fight.
I read a Polish book, some years ago, later on the evening (I live in CET zone) I will provide this as a source if someone is interested, but the main idea was that Spanish knew they were about to ...
14
I am not really an expert on history but I can give you a insider view (I am Spanish) from what we study at school and from what my grandfather told me and the general feelings of the population at that moment..
Spanish-American war is known informally in Spain as "The Cuban War". It mainly represents the end of the Spanish Empire as we lost the last colony....
14
The short answer is that Charlemagne didn’t have much choice. Roger Collins, in ‘Early Medieval Europe 300 – 1000' asserts that
The expedition that Charles led into the Ebro valley in 778 was ill-conceived and unnecessary, and the nearest any of his undertakings came to disaster
The disastrous campaign came about when the wali of Barcelona led a revolt ...
14
There are no medieval historic references to "Semites". The word did not exist until the late 18th Century. It was coined by Historian August Ludwig von Schlözer to have a useful word to describe that set of apparently related languages.
The choice of name was derived from Shem, one of the three sons of
Noah in the genealogical accounts of the biblical ...
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