ENGLAND- General History - 100 to 500 years ago

100 Years Ago

England rules ¼ of the whole of the earth and about ¼ of it's people.Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa added to existing jewels like India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh)The whole of Africa is split up and ruled by countries in Europe (including England)The English having massacred a fifty million Buffalo in America not to mention many North American natives (Indians) follow these atrocities by killing for "sport" some half a million native Australians (Aborigines) and replacing them with 3 million "white" men, 12 million cattle and 100 million sheep.At home women finally are allowed to vote!The First so called World War

Africa
Some 100 years ago the Europeans who for the last few hundred years had been fighting each other in Europe, then North America and the Far East pounced on Africa. Hardly anybody was left out. The French started with foot holds in Muslim Algeria and the English notably aided by Cecil Rhodes expanded their "shared" foothold in South Africa (Shared with the Afrikaners who were originally Dutch (and French) extreme Protestants called Huguenots who had fled religious persecution at home).

The Belgium's hired English explorer David Livingstone to help them "take" the Congo region.
Of the countries involved (England, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy) it was only Italy who were beaten by the locals. (Abyssinians now Ethiopians in the Horn of Africa)

These European countries held a conference (the scramble for Africa) in Berlin in 1884 on how to split up Africa between them. The Africans were not invited to this meeting!!
France ended up with the most land with England in second place. As far as the English were concerned the French could keep their land as they had ended up with "a huge desert with insignificant minerals occupied by Muslim fundementalsts". Whereas the English largly thanks to the ruthless homosexual Rhodes ruled the beautiful countries in the south of Africa where they found some of the worlds largest deposits of Gold and Diamonds. England also ruled Nigeria on the west coast (full of oil) and Christian/Muslim Arabic Egypt and Sudan in the north.

English victories were made easier by the English inventor Maxim who produced the worlds first machine gun. A convenient tool for annihilating a few local "Blacks" who were not immediately attracted to giving their lands to the English invaders from overseas.

The English ended up by ruling from south to north;
South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes), Zambia, (not Tanzania this went to the Germans), Kenya, Uganda, and the Muslim/Christian areas Sudan and Egypt; plus Nigeria on the west coast.

100 years ago the English, the world conquering nation, were shattered to be beaten in battle by the Afrikaners in the Boer War. (Boar being the Afrikaner word for farmer)

Australia and New Zealand
These territories were discovered and mapped by Europeans notably Englishman James Cook some 250 years ago 1768. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was 100 years ahead of Cook but the Dutch appeared to have no interest in the land. Here was a land of similar size to the USA (USA 3.8 million sq. miles Australia 3.0 m. sq. miles) that was inhabited by humans who had apparently not seen any other humans ever since they arrived some 35,000 years ago. Called Aborigines they were still stone age peoples who had not even invented the wheel. English settlers massacred ¾ of them.

As with America the English initially used Australia as a penal colony (To clear the overflow from London prisons). Free English settlement started about 1850 when gold was discovered. 100 years ago when Australia grew from a colony to a dominion within the British Empire the half a million native Australians were replaced by 3.5 million Europeans, 12 million cattle and 100million sheep.

Australia was given "Dominion" status along with New Zealand Canada and South Africa which permitted local government rather than government from London, the English Queen remained their queen and the English military was in theory available to defend their territories.

Technology 100 years ago
This is really the start of modern day life as it is to day, built round the fruits of technology, the majority at this time were still British inventions although Germany and the USA were also contributing. Some examples;
Transport
With all those sheep in Australia and nobody to eat them locally they needed to be shipped back to England if they were to be worth any thing. England invented steam turbine, propeller driven steel ships some 10 times the size and faster than the wood and sail variety. (Steam Turbines invented by Englishman Charles Parsons). The sheep had to come to England via the Equator so for edible meat they required cooling. Refrigerators were invented by British physicists Lord Kevin and James Joule (cooling by adiabatic expansion).

London was the first city in the world to have an underground railway. (Now called the Tube). Initially powered by coal and steam, about 100 years ago it was converted to clean electric motor power thanks to the fundamental inventions of Englishman Michael Faraday.

Also at this time man first flew in the air. The Wright Brother's plane kept airborne for 45 minutes in 1907.

This period would not be properly described without mentioning German born Jewish physicist Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955). In 1905 working in Switzerland he published four separate papers which were so revolutionary and far ahead of their time that nobody could understand them. His special theory of relativity is probably his most famous work. He created the intellectual environment to develop Nuclear Power and Bombs. With the arrival of Hitler Einstein became domicile in the US.

Also 100 years ago
The Suffragette movement (militant arm of the Women's Social and Political Union) started in England where women campaigned for more equality with men, denied to them since the birth of time. After 20 years of rioting, self inflicted starvation and moving oratory women were finally given the vote in 1918.

The concept of Radio(Wireless) was thought of by Maxwell (1873), demonstrated by Hertz (1888) and finally made a commercial reality by Marconi in 1895.
Television now the most powerful advertising and propaganda medium of all was developed by Britisher John Baird in 1926.

This period also saw the birth of two related industries Recorded Music and Pop (Popular music). This required the development of the Microphone, the gramophone (record player), the amplifier and the loudspeaker. Starting in about 1900 it took almost 30 years for all the pieces to be put in place. Singing to entertain hundreds of people with out a trained operatic voice was possible for the first time creating such legends as Americans Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, both multi millionaires, would probably have been nothing without these inventions.
The major contributors were; Emil Berliner (a German living in America) the gramophone record. Lee de Forest an American invented the triode valve permitting amplification 1928. Americans Rice and Kellogg invented the loudspeaker (moving coil) in 1925. To complete the picture Englishman Alan Dower Blumlein developed the first high quality moving coil microphone as well as two channel stereo sound (1928). The world had for the first time high quality recorded and amplified music.

WORLD WAR 1
100 years ago the great powers of Europe, although they had carved up Africa nicely between them, eyed each other nervously waiting for the first one to make a territorial advance. This nervousness was caused by power shifts in three major European Empires;

The German Empire becoming a world force for the first time.The old Austro-Hungarian Empire, centred in Vienna, loosing its middle European domination.The huge Ottoman Empire centred in Turkey but stretching the from Austrian boarder in the west (Bosnia) across the whole of Arabia, was also beginning to breakdown creating a political vacuum in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans.

Two sides developed:England plus France and Russia (Called the Triple Entente)Germany in support of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire which included Bosnia and Italy, called the Triple Alliance.

In June 1914 a Serbian assassin shot and killed Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on a visit to in Sarajevo Bosnia. Austria then invaded Serbia. Russia who had an alliance with Serbia (and still has) declared war on Austria. Germany, supporting Austria, declared war on Russia. England came into the war when Germany invaded neutral Belgium.
Hence this was not a world war as World War 2 but involved the whole of the world wide British Empire who came to Europe to help the English plus the Americans who also came to help the English.The English lost a million lives in this war, not won by England and her allies until 1918.
The main feature of this war were trenches. That is the main battle line between the Germans on the one side and the English and French on the other were two long parallel trenches stretching over 500 miles from the English channel to Switzerland. This generated a military stalemate. The side that attacked was immediately wiped out by the other side.

Weapons
This stalemate needed one side to think up a new weapon to mow through the opposing trenches. Two inventions finally came on the scene but both too late to make any real difference at the time The aeroplane, nobody thought of using it to drop bombs.
The Tank, invented by Englishman Sir Ernest Swinton. They were deployed first in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 but were not reliable enough to make any difference until about November 1917.

The Submarine. As in World War 2 the Germans developed the submarine and even at this early stage of its development to devastating effect against the English merchant naval fleet carrying food to England. German U boats were one of the main contributors to the Americans coming to support England in this war as the Germans developed a strategy of "if you see it torpedo it" and some US ships got in the way. All parties came to realise that one Sub could sink one Battleship which would have cost some hundred times as much.

Some 10 or so years after the war an arms race developed as to who could build the biggest and fastest Battleships with the biggest guns. Those involved were England and France, who couldn't afford it together with the US and for the first time Japan. The Germans were not allowed to build Battleships so they cheated and built smaller ships but armed like a Battleship. They became known as Pocket Battleships. With both economic considerations and the fact that Battleships were vulnerable to Submarines the Americans tried to bring about an arms(Battleship) limitation treaty. Unfortunately after apparently agreeing the Germans and the Japanese ignored it. (No wonder we have spy planes these days)

150 Years Ago

England the most powerful nation on earth both in military might and economic wealth. Morals highly questionable. Inventions, Inventions, Inventions. The Victorian PeriodThe bright side

150 years ago the English Queen, Victoria was ruling over the biggest empire that has ever existed150 years ago London was the biggest city in the world.150 years ago England was the biggest trading nation in the world150 years ago England had the largest navy in the world.150 years ago England produced more steel than the rest of the world put together.150 years ago cars had not been invented, the main form of transport was still the horse although steam engine driven trains running on steel rails (invented in England) were rapidly taking over long distance travel.

The dark side

150 years ago Charles Dickens wrote about the scenes of the day, perhaps a long way from the vision of England and the British Empire as portrayed in the image of the "Victorian period". His famous book Oliver Twist was in part autobiographical.150 years ago Queen Victoria fled from London (Buckingham Palace) for safety in her home in the Isle of Wight (Osborne) due to a republican uprising (Chartists), quelled by parliament.150 years ago the life expectancy of a Londoner was only 20 years. (London was so dirty diseases were rampant particularly cholera.)150 years ago the English who also ruled Ireland, deliberately caused the death by starvation of some one million people in Ireland and caused another 1 million Irish to emigrate to America. (The potato famine).150 years ago the English were sending men who were in overfull London jails (Convicts) as far away as possible notably to the state of Virginia in America and to Australia.150 years ago Divorce (the legal cessation of marriage) was permitted for the first time largely due to the tireless work of the female writer George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) who was married but lived with her lover and as such was a social outcast.150 years ago a Puritan Christian evangelical movement started as a result of the free sexual behaviour of some of the middle classes who indulged in wife swapping parties and group sex.150 years ago the Camera was invented and was soon used in this period for the production of pornographic pictures for which there was a great demand.

For comparison:

150 years ago many current US state capitals did not exist. Example, Des Moines capital city of the US state of Iowa did not exist indeed it was an Army Fort trying to keep Native Americans (Red Indians) away from the white man's farms. (Certainly taken from the poor Red Indian in the first place)150 years ago notorious gangsters like "Billy the Kid" were on a killing trails. (Billy the Kid in New Mexico USA.) His and other "gun slingers" used the Colt six shooting revolver (actually 5 shot) invented in the US by Samuel Colt (1835)150 years ago was the American Civil War (1861-1865). North versus South. The North won and abolished slavery in the South.

The industrial revolution and scientific inventions
150 years ago the Industrial Revolution, which started in England, and had been going about 100 years and was spreading to Europe and the USA. The industrial Revolution was the name given to the first factory automation initially in the manufacture of Textiles. This brought people from cottage industries in villages into the squalor, filth and disease generated by big cities.

150 years ago the "Steam Train" was invented by Stevenson in the north of England. (1829)
150 years ago the forerunner of the petrol engine was invented. (Germans; Herr Otto and Herr Daimler) (1875)
150 years ago saw a prolific range of inventions around electricity, culminating in the inventions of the electric light bulb and the electric motor.

Inventors in this field at this time were; Frenchmen Volta (1800 the Volt) and then Ampere (the Amp) followed by Oersted, Faraday and Maxwell. (All well known names to Physics pupils at school age.) These inventors in Europe were followed by the American Edison probably the most prolific inventor of all time (1847-1931) who produced the electric light bulb, the first public supply of electricity, the gramophone, the movies and the thermionic valve-later the triode. (The latter was made obsolete by the transistor and the silicon chip).

English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan also independently invented the electric light bulb (1860). He also invented Bromide paper (1879) still used today for photographic prints.

150 years ago telephone technology was invented. Initially the transmission of coded text messages (long on, short on and off) over copper wire between England and France by Morse Code and then in the US Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone to carry voice over the same wires (1875).

Englishman Charles Darwin publishes his theory of "Origin of Species by means of natural selection" (Now of course supported by genetics. Then dangerous and revolutionary thinking flying in the face of the accepted "Creation" in the Bible.)

200 Years Ago

England has lost it's colonies in the USA but develops anew in India Burma and Malaysia.
The English stop trading in slaves, started in earnest some 500 years ago.During this period England was endlessly at war with France as the French perused their concept of European domination and at the same time tried to stop the English with their mission to extent their empire globally. The two French leaders who built up the French army into a European dominating fighting machine were; firstly King Louis the 14th, The Sun King (1638 -1715) and after the French revolution and the guillotine for Louis 16th and his wife Marie Antoinette (1793), Emperor Napoleon (1769-1821). Both were for the expansion of France across Europe. Both were highly successful particularly Napoleon who at one time virtually ruled the whole of continental Europe all the way to the walls of Moscow in Russia.

Napoleon determined to invade the English territories of Egypt and India. He was stopped by the famous English fleet commander Admiral Nelson who first completely destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile (1798) and then the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar at the gateway to the Mediterranean (1805). Napoleon was finally defeated on land by the English Duke of Wellington in Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo.

The Enlightenment
This was a European movement starting in England and France following the new discoveries of the physicists (particularly Sir Isaac Newton) and Chemists of the day who were using logical thought to explain life as opposed to the rigid dogmas of the Church. This movement had started some 150 years previously with Englishman John Locke (1632- 1704). He wrote on subjects like "Essay Concerning the Human Understanding" (1689) and "Some Thoughts Concerning Education".
Other influential papers were; Frenchman Voltaire, Philosophical Letters, Englishman Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the principles of Morals and Legislation.(1789) Englishman Thomas Paine "The Rights of Man" (1791).

There followed;

In 1807 the English Parliament banished Slavery in England following the tireless campaigning of the member of parliament for Hull (a slave port), Mr William Wilberforce and his friend the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.
The adoption of the Union Jack flag across the whole of the British Isles which included Ireland
Income tax was levied for the first time (1799)

England rule in India including present day Pakistan in the west through Bangladesh and Malaya and Burma in the east. England's focus in India and further east was always for trade and raw materials. The vehicle formed (in 1600) to protect England's trade, then political interests in this area was the East India Company based in Bengal now Bangladesh.

The English had to overpower the French trying to establish themselves in the same area for the same purpose. This was achieved some 200 years later as the superior power of the English Navy sank the French ships as they tried to feed the French garrison with food and arms. Plus the fact that France were more focussed on European than World domination.

The English also had to persuade the local Indian rulers and people (more than 30 million people compared with 8 in England) that English rule was best. This was slightly more difficult than walking into North America or Australia because the Indian peoples were numerous and had a sophisticated culture with considerable wealth generated from minerals, farming, manufacture and trade.

The Indus river valley in present day Pakistan rivalled the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in present day Iraq (then Babylon) as one of the origins of civilisation (About 8000 years ago).
There followed invasions and rule by Aryans 3500 years ago who established the Hindu religion. The Mauryan Empire followed 2500 years ago until the arrival of the Muslims 1500 years ago and then an invasion via Afghanistan by a relation of Genghis Khan (Babur) culminating in the highly successful Muslim Mughal Empire in 1526.

Babur's grandson Akbar set up the golden age for India with agricultural prosperity and a buoyant export trade.

The English arrived at this time and a little later the Persians by land, they took Delhi and created the Maratha confederation covering whole of the north and central areas of India.

A Muslim area Mysore became an equally formidable power in the south. The old Mughal Emperor was no more than a Maratha puppet.

The English therefore had three battles to win. The French to eliminate from their settlement in Bengal (Bangladesh), the Maratha in the north and the Mysore in the south.
The English smartly persuaded the weak Mughal emperor to "give" them the whole of prosperous Bengal and then could sustain a local army of over 100,000 men. Military victories followed over both the Maratha and the Mysore and the Mughal emperor then rapidly accepted the protection of the English in 1803. English rule was then widely accepted across the whole of India. By 1843 the English were ruling from Pakistan (then called Sind) in the west to Burma in the east.

250 Years Ago

Other than loosing most of their colonies in North America, England dominated all other countries competing for new land and new trade notably countries in the rest of Europe. Japan and China were not in the race. England led the world with the start of mass production. (The Industrial Revolution)The British Empire
250 years ago must rival 50 years ago which was our "Finest Hour" a phrase coined at the time of the defence of the Empire. Around 250 years ago the English finally saw off their European colonial competitors, the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch, and commenced the consolidation of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

Although the exploration of the globe started some 250 years previously it took this amount of time to develop the English fleet and the naval armies so that the powerful and hated French could be dominated and eventually eliminated as a sea power. The other pieces of the jig saw required to launch England into this position of world domination were the world acceptance of the English Pound (Sterling) as a universal trading currency and England's leading position in the Industrial Revolution.

The industrial revolution and steam powered engines.
250 years ago also saw the start of the Industrial Revolution following from inventions made by early English engineers to automate textile production (wool from English sheep, cotton from America and India) all driven by steam engines designed in England (Watt) powered by English mined coal. The mining process made safer by Watts steam engine driven water extracting pumps. (Circa 1775). Coal was initially moved round the country by canal barge (Bridgewater 1761) then almost 100 years later by steam railway. (Richard Trevithick built the steam locomotive-1804 enabling Stevenson's Stockton to Darlington railway in 1825). By 1885 Britain had 16,000 miles of railway and up to 1860 all railways in the world were British, including those in the US.

This period also saw breakthroughs in road building bridges
Roads were improved so much that the stage coach journey from London to Edinburgh was reduced from 2 weeks in 1745 to 2 days in 1795.
Contributors in this field were;
- Britisher John Macadam the inventor of Tarmac, still used today
- Thomas Telford designer of roads with firm bases (like the Romans), canals, bridges, lighthouses and tunnels. His best known road is the A5 from London to Ireland via Anglesey (1826)

The worlds first cast iron bridge built in 1779 can still be walked across at Coalbrookdale over the river Seven.

Lets start this period 150 years before this.
In 1607 England had only one area in America as a colony, called Virginia on the beautiful and fertile south east Atlantic coast. This was about a 100th of the total land mass. The main benefit was trade, Tobacco.

In 1732 almost the whole of the east coast was under English rule from beautiful Georgia in the south to New Hampshire in the north. At about the same time thanks to the skill and power of the English Navy, the French were ousted from of the massive open lands west of the Mississippi river, ousted from Quebec, so England ruled Canada and about 2/3 of what now is the US.

In the East the English also ousted the French out of India. See the war with France over who was going to be king of Spain. (War of Spanish succession). Also the 7 year war with France, the blockading of all the French Atlantic ports by the English Navy and the famous battles in India ousting the French from the strategically important Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh) in the east.

In 1763 England was now established as the worlds leading colonial power. HOWEVER
By 1776 the English had lost about 50% of the land mass in North America following the American war of independence (1775-83) and the independent United States of America was established. In this battle the French, who particularly hated the English at that time for losing so many key conflicts particularly those resulting in the loss of Louisiana and Quebec, were on the side of the American seperatists under George Washington.

Back again 100 years to Oliver Cromwell
What set the political scene or the climate for such a domination of the world by such a small country? Some of the factors must have been:-
Oliver Cromwell (1650) was a fervent and extreme Protestant, his religious sect were called Puritans who were formed as a result of his disgust of the debaucheries of both the Church of England and the Church of Rome. Oliver Cromwell who is still remembered in Ireland (and Scotland) for ruthlessly quelling the local Roman Catholic (Religious) uprisings involving the mass extermination of local Catholics.

Cromwell became ruler of the English via a military Coup d'Etat. He was the only ruler of England for 1000 years who did not want to be a King. He closed all pubs on Sundays, he made Christmas Day a day of fasting. However he was keen on education of the people and law and order. He proposed that capital punishment (hanging or worse) should only be for crimes as serious as murder. Surprisingly he permitted religious tolerance and even allowed Jews back into England for the first time for 400 years. One of his most important accomplishments was the reform of parliament which after Cromwell "ruled" the country rather than the Kings or Queens.

Hence a new and fairer political basis for running a country as opposed to a dictatorship (a King)
(Note the French revolution was not until some 100 years later Circa 1790)

London is cleaned up and England takes a look at the Arts and Sciences

Following the death of Cromwell, Charles the 2nd was enthusiastically made king (1661 by the army). Parliament however still ran the country. With the recent memories of Cromwell he had to be a good King. He was, he found a new role;-
The new King put money into areas where the nation was weak, the arts and the sciences.

Arts; many buildings result from his patronage. He was lucky in this field as it was in the time of Christopher Wren (Famous for St Paul's Cathedral) Note also the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, two theatre companies in Covent Garden, The Royal Hospital Chelsea plus some 60 London churches. He extended the Royal Aviary, now Bird Cage Walk and he made Constitution Hill as it is now. He improved Windsor Castle (State Apartments painted in the elaborate Baroque style of the day) He gave land in London for the development of fashionable buildings in Soho and St James.Sciences: He formed the Royal Society for the advancement of Natural Sciences and was again lucky enough to have the likes of Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist of the age and Robert Boyle (Boyle's Law!) the great Physicist and Chemist as two of his founder members.

He was however not a devout religious man and could regularly be seen in church "fondling" one of his many mistresses the most famous one being the Covent Garden orange seller Nell GwynnImprovements at home
During this time the country was being run well by Parliament. At home food markets were organised into the now well known names of Smithfield (Meat) Billingsgate (Fish) and Covent Garden (Fruit and Vegetables).

Roads to get the produce to these and similar regional markets were so appalling it eventually led to the birth of the canal systems and then the railways. Parliament also saw to the building of the navy to become the biggest in the world. These perhaps were some of the key elements in the creation of the most powerful nation in the world.

Another round of Bubonic Plague and the Great Fire of London
Also in the reign of Charles 2nd London saw it's second most serious outbreak of the bubonic plague this time being "burnt out" by the Great Fire of London (1666) which destroyed 4/5s of London and left 100,000 people homeless. King Charles decreed that London should be rebuilt from houses made from bricks and stone rather than wood the preferred material up to that date.

Unfortunately the magnificent plans for a new London drawn up by Christopher Wren were not adopted and hence we still have the narrow streets we see in London today. (This can be compared with other cities which were burnt to the ground like Madrid in Spain and Chicago in the US where the opportunity was taken to build wide grand boulevards. So most of the buildings we see in London now are less than 350 years old. A notable exception being of course the Tower of London.

William of Orange (King William 3rd)
King Charles 2nd produced no children so when he died in 1685 he was succeeded by his brother James 2nd who became a Roman Catholic ( the religion of his wife). Parliament and people having got used to the economic and other benefits of the Protestant version of Christianity (under Elisabeth 1st) devised a scheme for getting rid of him and replacing him with Dutch Protestant King William 3rd who was married to Mary daughter of James 2nd.

James could not believe that his own daughter and son in law would attack him but they did and in a final battle in Ireland over the river Boyne, James fled to Roman Catholic France and William and Mary ruled a Protestant England (plus Ireland and Scotland). The so called Protestant Orangemen in Ireland have retained the Dutch Orange title and colours ever since.

Wars with France and Napoleon
From 1713 to 1815 England was continuously at war with French forces in one part of the world or another as both nations fought for world domination. Following the French Revolution in 1789 the French declared war on England (1793). Napoleon become commander of the French army in 1796. 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt and threatens the English quick sea route to the East via the Suez Canal (Built 1869). The English naval fleet under Nelson sinks the French fleet outside the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

Nelson again beats the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Atlantic gateway to the Mediterranean at the battle of Trafalgar.(1805)
1812 Napoleon is defeated by the Russians and the Russian winter and his Empire which at one time stretched from Moscow to the English channel started to collapse. (Hitler obviously did not learn from this)
1815 Napoleon finally defeated by the English army under Wellington at Waterloo in modern day Belgium.

500 Years Ago

- Developments in European culture fuelled by the Renaissance.
- Changes in the Christian religion fuelled by German Martin Luther.
- The race begins between Christian Europeans to find new trade routes to China for silk and Indonesia for spices as the Muslim Ottomans block the Mediterranean sea to all Christian shipping.English and other European Explorers.
500 years ago the English started exploring the world in sailing ships. (This was the first step to England creating a world wide empire.) The catalyst to explore at this time was the blockade of the Mediterranean sea in 1448 by the Islamic Ottoman (Turks) thus closing access to the only known trade route to the east (India and China.)

500 years ago English, Spanish and Portuguese sailing ships reached North and South America for the first time. They rightly thought by sailing west and the world being round that they would come to China in the east, by-passing the Ottomans. Maps at this time did not show the Americas. The milestones in finding these trade routes were as follows:

1487 Vasco de Gamma (Portuguese) was the first to sail down the west coast of Africa and right round the Cape of Good Hope. (In search of another new route to India avoiding the Mediterranean. Actually he came in contact with the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean but being in awe of his large ship they did not attack)1492 The Italian Christopher Columbus,(from Genoa) financed by the Spanish royal family, was the first to sail due west across the Atlantic(from Lisbon in Portugal.) Columbus found the Caribbean islands instead, which he called the West Indies.John Cabot an English sailor also sailed west a few years later (1497)on a similar mission. He found "Newfoundland" No Spices there but lots of fish (Cod), furs and new building timbers.1498 Vasco de Gamma proved to all Europeans that silk and spices could be brought back to Europe with out paying blood money to the Muslim Ottomans. Gamma sailed west across the Atlantic, south to the bottom of South America, round the treacherous Cape Horn, across the Pacific to China, Java (Indonesia) as far as India. He returned the same way with a ship load of silk and spices. Europe had beaten the Ottoman trade blockade.

500 years ago the English invented the Theodolite which is a key navigational instrument allowing sailors to position themselves by latitude in the middle of the ocean.
500 years ago saw the effects of the "Renaissance" come to England. Renaissance, a French word meaning Re-Birth, started in Italy in 1452, following the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans. Many intellectuals fled to Venice, Milan and Florence bringing with them long forgotten books of Greek and Roman culture and art. Henry 7th (1485-1509) invited Italian artists and scholars to England to debate and study these long forgotten ideas. This heralded the end of the "Middle Ages".Elizabeth 1st, her pirates and slave traders.
A few years later (1577) in the reign of Elizabeth 1st Englishman Drake sailed right round the world. Drake became very rich and popular with the queen, mainly from pirating the Spanish ships carrying gold and silver from South America to Spain. In one pirating voyage Drake could net more income for the Queen than a full years tax from her subjects. The Queen "Knighted" Drake for this dubious activity!

English Naval captain "Hawkings" also became rich (1562) from pirating also from buying West African people as slaves and selling them in the Caribbean islands to work in the sugar plantations. (Called the triangular trade. England, Africa, Caribbean) The Spanish and Portuguese were doing the same thing to get cheap slave workers into their sugar plantations particularly the Portuguese in Brazil for their sugar plantations and the Spanish to a lesser extent for their gold and silver mines in Mexico and Peru.

Englishman, Sir Walter Raleigh set up a colony (settlement for English people) on the east coast of America and called it Virginia. 1585 ( After Queen Elizabeth 1st "the virgin queen" ) Sir Walter became very rich from growing Tobacco in the warm climate of Virginia and selling it in England and growing potatoes originally from the same area in his estates in Ireland. Note potatoes were not grown or eaten in England until some 200 years later.

At the same time as the English were making their first steps in North America they were doing the same thing in India setting up the East India company, a private trading company designed to manage the trade between England and India and the Far East. The Dutch where the first into the area, followed by the French, both were doing the same thing at the same time as the English. The Portuguese set up their trading post on the other side of India (Goa) 100 years before this.

Shakespeare, the English Language, Printing and Books
500 years ago the English playwright and actor William Shakespeare wrote plays and poems so beautifully that the Rulers of England saw English as a real alternative to the educated man to the then more cultural but descriptively restrictive Latin and French.

500 years ago printing (books and posters) was started in England by William Caxton allowing religious books now translated from Latin to English and the plays and poems of Shakespeare to be read country wide. (Not too many could read at this time.) The printing process was not available to Chaucer who was the first to write extensively in English some 200 years previously.

Some quality English Kings and Queens
500 years ago England had a succession of good Kings and Queens notably King Henry the 7th , and his son Henry the 8th. Soon after, Queen Elisabeth 1st Henry 8th 's daughter.
- Henry 7th 1485-1509 finished the long civil war in England the "Wars of the Roses" and brought a period of peace and economic stability.
- Henry 8th 1509-1547 is well remembered for his 6 wives, married in a desperate attempt to produce a son to succeed him. Effectively they all failed. Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon (Barcelona area in Spain) was the widow of his elder brother who died young. Princess Catherine was the daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus. Henry 8th should also be remembered for questioning the "official" Roman Christian religion of England where any major changes had to be authorised by the Pope in Rome. Eventually while still remaining Catholic he separated the English Church from Rome.

Christian religious upheaval
The Roman Catholic Church at this time, in Europe and also in England, had become decadent but was very rich. Henry (initially with the approval of the Pope) closed down many of the Catholic monasteries and took their riches for himself and England.
Henry then appointed himself head of the Church of England and separated the Church of England from the Church of Rome. This gave him many huge benefits including.

He could divorce his wife to find a woman who would hopefully bear him a son.He did not have to pay any "taxes" to the Pope in RomeHe did not have to obey orders from Rome telling him for example to fight a particular (and expensive) battle on be half of the Church of Rome.

And very importantly he permitted the business of money lending (early banking) which was forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. Banking had not been seen in England since Roman times and English Kings who needed this service would have to travel to the Jewish ghettos in Amsterdam or Venice or Genoa. In addition he commenced taking the Church of England towards the Protestant version of Christianity aided by his Archbishop Thomas Cramner.On the death of Henry 8th his only son, Edward 6th (by Jane Seymour who died having produced him) became King at the age of only nine. It was during his reign (mainly under his uncle's official guidance, another Edward, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector and aided by Thomas Cramner) that the Church moved further towards the Protestant version of Christianity as preached at that time by Martin Luther in Germany. The "Reformation".

This period also saw the introduction of the "common prayer book" in English rather than Latin which enabled more folk to follow the service. Priests were also no longer forbidden to marry. Edward died when he was only 15 years old and was eventually succeeded by the next in line Mary, daughter of Henry 8th and Catherine of Aragon of Spain. For five years there was a blood bath as the devout Catholic Mary tried to reverse England back to Catholicism. Some 300 Protestants were burnt at the stake (that is burnt alive) including many of Henry the 8th 's right hand men, notably including Thomas Cramner. Mary (nicknamed Bloody Mary) wedded King Philip 2nd of Catholic Spain in Winchester Cathedral to gain a Catholic ally and a sire for a son and heir. She died at 42 years old of cancer of the ovaries. (No connection!)

Elisabeth the 1st 1558- 1603 (Henry 8th daughter by Anne Boleyn) then comes to the throne and finally settles this religious see saw ruthlessly sealing England as a Protestant country.

England's exploration abroad culminating in the British Empire plus this fundamental change of religion owed much to the support of Elisabeth 1st. Elizabeth had a tough and risky reign as the first fully Protestant Monarch. Ireland remained Catholic to the west and Spain and France the then most powerful countries in Europe also remained staunchly Catholic on England's east side. The Pope in Rome placed a death order on Elizabeth which in 1588 was taken up by King Philip 2nd of Spain who sent a huge fleet (130) of huge ships full of solders to England to execute her (The Spanish Armada). One of the most famous stories in English history describes how ex pirates Sir Frances Drake and Sir John Hawkins in charge of a smaller English fleet with smaller but more manoeuvrable ships routed the Spanish fleet in the English Channel.

Education
About this time, 500 years ago with the interest in education fuelled by the Renaissance, schools were beginning to appear generally financed by local benefactors. For example, Oundle school on the west of Peterborough was formed and started teaching Latin and Greek to local boys. It however took another 350 years before schools started teaching science and engineering. Oundle was the first under visionary headmaster Sanderson.

The two most famous schools in England Eton and Harrow were founded in 1440 by King Henry 6th and 1571 respectively. Winchester is England's oldest public school, was founded in 1382 by William of Wykeham.

Emigration commences to North America
During this period the English began the arduous journey across the Atlantic to the new colonies in North America. Some driven by Religious persecution and some by starvation as harvests were poor due to the on set of a mini ice age.

http://www.historyofengland.net/modern-general-history/general-history-100-to-500-years-ago

ENGLAND- General History - 750 years and older

750 Years Ago

Henry 4th circa 1400, was the first English King whose native language was English since the arrival of the Norman's.100 years war with France. Magna Carta, the Kings loose their outright dictatorial rule.First steps to a democratic parliament.The end of over 1000 years of rule by "Foreigners" ?
Magna Carta
750 Years ago (1215) the Magna Carta was signed at Runnymede a tiny island in the Thames a few miles down stream from the Windsor castle. Some say the Magna Carta or Barons Charter as it was initially known was a key milestone in taking away the ultimate dictatorial powers of the Kings plus the first bill of human rights. The then Archbishop of Canterbury, Langton brokered the deal between King John 1199-1215, and his Barons such that certain decisions could not be taken with out the agreement of the Barons.
The Barons had generally been appointed by a king anyway as massive owners of land given to them by the king in return for collecting taxes and supplying knights for the army. The Magna Carta also guaranteed the freedom of the church plus it stated that no freeman can be arrested without a trial. (Nothing was said about Serfs, that is workers virtually slaves to the Barons.)
Universities
750 years ago saw the founding of the first Universities in England. Oxford was the first initially established around the church of St Mary the Virgin with three colleges University, Balliol and Merton. Note the first university in Europe was started in Bologna, Italy some 200 years earlier. (1088) Prior to this, Circa 600 AD, centres of teaching in England were organised by the Catholic Church most notably following the evangelical work in Ireland by Roman Britain St Patrick and his disciples work in Scotland and England. (Yes Patrick was born in England but was Sainted by the Irish)
Teaching at this time would be largely reading, writing and languages on the backs of the arduous task of translating and copying religious books (into books made of dried sheep skin!)
Wales conquered; The English Jews, the financial pundits of the time were expelled.
750 years ago England finally conquered Wales under King Edward 1st (1284). Interesting to note that England ruled Ireland for longer than it has ruled Wales. Edward was said to be a model king of the time but he drummed up some fervent nationalism which culminated in the exiling of all Jews.
Some years later:
- Henry 3rd came to the throne (1327- 1377)
Henry 3rd reign can be divided into two, triumph and then disaster. The English were under attack from the Scots in the north and the French wanted their land back in Aquitane (Bordeaux area) Henry saw off both these aggressors and the English people loved him for it.
When Henry was 34 and had been King for 19 years disaster struck, The Black Death. This plague started in China and was carried to England, indeed the whole of Europe, by fleas on rats in trading ships. Henry saw 30% to 50% of his English subjects die. Perhaps this finished him, for the rest of his reign he was as useless as previously he had been brilliant.
Chaucer was born in 1342 during the periods of the Plague and lived for 58 years. He was the first English writer/poet to use the English language. Up to this time poets would have used Latin or French.
100 years war with France (1337 - 1453)
Not surprisingly the French wanted their land back that had been acquired by England with the amalgamation of the land ruled by the Norman's in France and their conquests in England. In the end the French retook the lot over a period when England was ruled by 5 different Kings. During the early stages England did well notably at the battle of Agincourt, just south of Calais. The English army was supreme, aided by well trained (farmer) soldiers who were devastating with the English Long Bow against the French high born knights. At the end the combination of weak English Kings and the legendary French female military leader of men, Joan of Ark won the day for the French.

1000 Years Ago

The end of the so called Dark Ages and the commencement of the Medieval period or Middle Ages. (1066 to 1485)All the Kings are speaking French and are ruling simultaneously in England, parts of France (and Ireland).
1000 years ago saw an end of rule by Saxon and Viking Kings and the commencement of rule by Normans. Normans came from Normandy in France and spoke French, not English but in essence they were also Vikings who had settled there two hundred years previously, that is at the same time as they started settling in England.
The Norman Kings
William the Conqueror invaded in 1066 a date known to every pupil at school. William ruled through a network of friends (Barons) that he enticed into England from France. Each was recommended to build a castle in a strategic location for his own area and had the vital task of collecting taxes. William himself also built a castle in London now called the Tower of London. English kings were resident in this fortress/palace for almost 500 years. (Until Henry 7th.)
William should also be remembered for the Domesday Book. William being new to England wanted an audit (a count) of the assets he now owned so that he could calculate how much he could raise in taxes from his new subjects. The Domesday book which still exists showed England as 65% farmland and about 15% woodland and listed 13,000 human settlements. William can be remembered for encouraging the financially astute Jews to settle in England from France to help boost the economy. Jews at that time were well ahead with schooling, science and mathematics and most importantly were not forbidden by their religion to lend money to finance a new trade.
There followed a succession of Norman Kings none of them speaking English and all of them also ruling in France. Not all of France as we know today but for example in the reign of Henry 2nd (1154 to 1189) his territory stretched from the southern borders of Cumbria in the north of England down to Tours some 1/3 of the way down modern France.
By 1172 with the help of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine who came from the Bordeaux area and one of his Baron henchmen Strongbow in Ireland, Henry 2nd was ruling land stretching from the borders of Spain in the south all the way up through the fertile west coast of France across to the fertile east coast of Ireland in the west. In Ireland this involved ousting the Vikings whose largest overseas colony Dublin was still in their hands. England ruled Ireland (generally brutally) for the next 850 years (until 1922).
During Henry's time he did not conquer and rule Wales or Cumbria in the north of England and had no chance at all in subduing those superb fighting men in Scotland. The quality of life improved in England during this period through increased trade and as Henry also reconstructed and enforced a new and fairer legal system.
Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest Nottingham
There is no evidence that Robin Hood existed although the legend is so strong that it is thought that somebody like him must have. He features in a series of songs circa 1300. The legend refers to the time of Norman King Richard 1st 1189 - 1199 who during his 10 year reign was hardly ever in England as he preferred wider "Crusading" duties organised by the Pope in Rome, attempting to regain Jerusalem for Christians from the Arab Islamic Egyptian/Syrian rulers notably Saladin. They failed. These Crusades cost a fortune and were financed by taxes collected from ordinary country folk.
Robin Hood was the Gangster Hero who robbed the tax collectors and local Barons and returned the money to the poor. Robin Hood and his followers are depicted as being extraordinarily good with the English Long Bow. This part of the story rings true as the English were supreme with this beautifully produced weapon for more than 250 years. (The Long Bow was a hand crafted laminate of wood from various parts of the Yew tree.)

1500 Years Ago

The birth of ENGLAND
- 500 years of culture and religion destroyed or nearly so.
-Invasion , Invasion, Invasion.The birth of England.
Prior to this time the land we call England was called Britain by the Romans. It was only after the Romans left and the barbaric Angles from northern Germany arrived that the word England was coined out of Angleland or as the French now say Angleterre.
The start of the so called DARK AGES.
Perhaps a better title would be THE AGE OF DESTRUCTION
Just before the beginning of this period the Roman Empire was still ruling lands from their Western Atlantic out posts in England, France and Portugal to their furthest Eastern base in present day Middle East. To the south the Romans ruled across the whole of Mediterranean coast of North Africa with their biggest bases in Alexandria (Egypt) and in present day Tunisia in the town of Carthage. Their northern boarders were the problem. The Romans had never held much land north of the Rhine river in Germany (or the Danube in Eastern Europe).
Then one by one these apparently brutal and warlike peoples living in all of the present day countries north of the Rhine attacked and eventually destroyed the Roman Empire. The rulers had become decadent and their armies were largely manned by mercenaries. (Non Romans)
The order of events was as follows;
A Germanic tribe (the Vandals) attacked and destroyed the mighty Roman empire.In England the Romans who had ruled for 400 years had to leave in a hurry to defend Rome. Alas, perhaps, in vain.England was left defenceless against every warmongering tribe in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.
Invasion - Anglo-Saxons
Saxons were the first to arrive in England. The Saxons came from the coastal areas of present day Germany in the fertile land between the rivers Rhine and Elbe. (AD 440- 650). Saxons settled across the south of England. The Angles came from the present day boarders of Germany and Denmark north of the river Elbe. The Angles settled in present day East "Anglia" and northward across the Pennines towards Manchester (West Anglia). Jutes from present day Denmark (Jutland peninsular) settled in Kent.
Cultural collapse and rebirth
These fighters from the north of the Rhine had never been ruled by the educated Romans who in turn had taken much from Greek culture and the new Christian faith of Jesus. Books and public records were burnt as being no use to people who can't read. Amongst all this chaos one Romanised Britain stands out and rescues much of the Roman classical learning (which included the Roman official religion Christianity) available to him. This is Patricus, or as he is now better known St Patrick. Patrick who loved the Irish fortunately set up home there and preached Christianity and Roman culture to the Irish through a network of monasteries set up for the purpose.
Some 100 years after St Patrick, his followers sailed to the west coast of Scotland and continued to expand these teaching missions. The inhabitants of what we now call Scotland at this time were the tough barbaric Picts that the Romans had kept out of England with the help of Hadrian's Wall. These new Irish settlers were called Scoties,(another word for Ireland) hence Scotland. Inspite of the new barbaric occupants of England from northern Germany, the St Patrick movement moved south into northern England where in Jarrow St Bede (or the Venerable Bede as he is better known) has provided the best written evidence of the time in his "Ecclesiastical History of the English people" (He wrote in Latin, King Alfred translated into English)
Invasion - Vikings
Then 1200 years ago, (that is about 800 AD) the "infamous" Viking invasions commenced. The reason for this particular time in history is perhaps because the Scandinavian territories were under threat from the successful Frankish territorial expansion, economic and cultural advances. A Frankish King of note at this time was of course Charlemagne, headquartered in modern day Aachen in Belgium. The Vikings retaliated with a viciousness perhaps exaggerated by story tellers of that time into both France and England. The Franks eventually solved the problem by giving modern day Normandy to the Vikings from the north (Normandy for "Northmen").
Viking ships were good enough to reach North America via Iceland and Greenland so they had no trouble in also reaching the west coast of France and round Spain and into the Mediterranean. Norwegian Vikings landed and colonised Jarrow in the north east of England and Dublin and Sligo in the west of Ireland. From Dublin they sailed and settled into modern day Liverpool. Danish Vikings settled into many areas of England from London to York. During the latter part of this period the Vikings had brought the whole of England under Viking rule. King Canute (Cnut) ruled England, Norway and Denmark at the same time.

2000 Years Ago

- Roman Britain
- Greek/Roman culture, education, technology and the Christian faith comes to EnglandRoman Britain
2000 years ago, before the Romans invaded Britain, there was already trade between the Celtish tribes in Britain and the Romans who were ruling France (then called Gaul). About 100 BC. Notably woollen clothes and rugs made in Britain were easily sold the Romans in Gaul in exchange for wine. It was also obvious to the Romans that the British Celts had Gold Silver and Bronze so:-
- 2000 years ago Romans decided to have a closer look at England
The one and only Julius Caesar led the first army which arrived in Kent. However, Julius Caesar was beaten back by the local (Kent) Celtish King Cunobelinus. Caesar came back with a fleet of 800 ships and beat our Celtish hero and made a peace deal with him but Caesar had more important things to do in Rome and Roman action in Kent was quiet until:-
England capitulates
The Romans under Emperor Claudius reappeared (AD 43)with a massive army of 40,000 troops, defeated the local Kentish hero Caratacus and marched north and took Colchester in Essex. At this time the Romans were perhaps 1500 years ahead of the world in military power, technology and law and order.
At about this time Jesus was born in modern day Israel which at that time was part of the Roman empire
The Romans divided England into four areas centred at the following towns London, Cirencester, York and Lincoln. The largest uprising against the Romans was by a woman ruler, the now famous Boadicea (Latin name Boudicca). She ruled the Iceni tribe in East Anglia. Before defeat she lost 80,000 warriors.
For those who behaved themselves life improved under the Romans who improved law and order, personal hygiene (regular washing), sewage systems, good roads and introduced and grew many new crops including: roses, apples and wine. Up to this time local women either dressed in dresses made of wool in the winter or linen from local flax in the summer. The Romans introduced silk obtained from Asia and cotton grown in Egypt. But these were only for the rich.
Around 200 AD the Romans started building houses out of stone rather than wood which were much more substantial.
By 300 AD life in Britain was almost on a par with Rome, a visitor from there writing "Britain is a most wealthy island" 100 years later it was all finished as the Roman legions withdrew to defend Rome which was under attack from Germanic north of the Rhine. Britain was left defenceless against attack from similar peoples, the Anglo Saxons.

3000 Years Ago

The late bronze age, the early iron age and the Celts.
3000 years ago, before the iron age, bronze was the only metal that that man could use for manufacturing tools and containers. For example cups for drinking out of and tools like plough tips for tilling the land for farming. Bronze is made from tin and copper heated together.
1300 years ago the established civilisations of the warm Mediterranean and middle eastern areas were running out of tin and this caused people to travel far and wide to look for this vital metal. Tin was found to be plentiful in Britain and this caused the Celts who lived in eastern Europe, north of the centres of civilisation in Mesopotamia (Iraq) to move westward and settle in Britain.
A few hundred years later the same Celts brought the technology of iron smelting to Britain and once again Britain was found to have plenty of the right stuff (Iron Ore). Iron revolutionised life as it made both stronger ploughs and hence more food could be grown, much better axes for chopping down trees for more farm land and of course much better weapons (spears, swords and arrow tips) for killing the enemy!
Celts were generally of darkish complexion with black straight hair. They loved fighting often doing so naked with painted bodies. They would yell and scream to generally frighten the enemy. British Celts lived in family groups or larger family tribes in hilltop camps which they defended to their death as the Romans were later to discover. British Celts could spin both sheep wool and spin and weave linen made from locally grown flax.
Trade
British Celts developed a profitable trade with nearby Europe down as far as Spain. Main products were copper, tin silver and gold as well as animal skins and wool for clothes. In return they received bronze "table ware", tools and ornaments made from bronze and Amber (an attractively coloured resin from fir trees which dries rock hard.

4000 Years Ago

The Bronze age and the age of the BEAKER peopleAround 2500 BC the Beaker people arrived in Britain from Europe, so called as they brought with them the skill of making cups and larger containers from copper and clay (pottery). Watertight vessels enabled the Beaker people to heat liquids and heat solids (metals) until they became liquids. By experimenting with heating copper and tin together, both easily found in Britain, the Beaker people first made Bronze and later iron from iron ores.
They also could spin and weave initially using mainly sheep's wool. So this time also saw the change from people wearing animal skins to wearing woollen clothes fairly similar to the clothes we wear today. The Beaker people also were probably the first peoples in Britain to start riding horses rather than hunting them for meat.
Early towns were being created in the worlds warm fertile river valleys like Babylon in Iraq's Tigris/Euphrates region, Jericho on the Jordan, and cities by the rivers Nile, Indus (Pakistan) and Yellow (China).

10,000 Years - 12 Billion Years Ago

The end of the last major ice age which had seen Britain totally covered in ice as far south as Oxford. With so much water frozen as ice at the poles the sea was not so deep and people and animals could walk from Europe to Britain and across to Ireland. As the ice melted and the land got warmer trees grew and Britain was soon almost totally forest. Mammoths became extinct.

25,000 Years Ago

The beginning of the last major ice age. During this period very few humans would have lived in Britain. Only large animals would have remained like Mammoths and Sabre Toothed Tigers. Both these animals are of course now extinct.

35,000 Years Ago

The modern human arrives in Europe and reaches Britain where he meets another type of earlier human called Neanderthal man. We do not know why Neanderthal man died out.

200,000 Years Ago

The oldest fossil remains of "humans" in Britain

2,000,000 Years Ago

Some where between 2 million and 6 million years ago the first man developed. Probably in southern Africa.

10,000,000 Years Ago

Climate change eliminated many of the forests in Kenya, Africa and many apes died as their tree habitat disappeared. A number of new ape species developed which were better adapted to walking than climbing trees. These apes had hands that learnt to do other things than hold on to branches and thus the brain was stimulated as never before creating the way for the development of man.

35,000,000 Years Ago

A Period when the world was inhabited by huge mammals nearly as big as the biggest Dinosaurs and including a large variety of Apes.

70,000,000 Years Ago

Dinosaur died out.

300,000,000 Years Ago

Early Dinosaurs found. So Dinosaur were around for about 230 million years. Humans have only lived around 2 million so far!

5,000,000,000 Years Ago

5 Billion years ago our Earth was formed from our sun.

7,000,000,000 Years Ago

7 Billion years ago our sun was created.

12,000,000,000 Years Ago

12 Billion years ago the Galaxy was created. The Big Bang.

http://www.historyofengland.net/modern-general-history/general-history-750-years-and-older

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CANADA- New France

France was a colonial power in North America from the early 16th century, the age of European discoveries and fishing expeditions, to the early 19th century, when Napoléon Bonaparte sold Louisiana to the United States. French presence in North America was marked by economic exchanges with Aboriginal peoples, but also by conflicts, as the French attempted to control this vast territory. The French colonial enterprise was also spurred by religious motivation as well as the desire to establish an effective colony in the St. Lawrence Valley.

Indigenous peoples had been living on this territory for millennia. That is, well before the Vikings ventured so far East (see Norse voyages) at the end of the 10^th Century. From the founding of Québec in 1608 to the ceding of Canada to Britain in 1763, France placed its stamp upon the history of the continent, much of whose lands — including Acadia, the vast territory of Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley — lay under its control. The populations it established, especially in the St. Lawrence Valley (see St. Lawrence Lowland), are still full of vitality today.

Founding and Context

France became interested in the North America later than the other Western Christian powers — England, Spain and Portugal — and after the trips made by Christopher Columbus in 1492, John Cabot in 1497 and the Corte-Real brothers (see also Portuguese) in 1501 and 1502. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano followed the eastern shore of America from Florida to Newfoundland. Jacques Cartier then made three voyages of discovery for France. He took possession of the territory in the name of the king of France by planting a cross on the shores of the Gaspé (see Gaspé Peninsula) in 1534. The next year, he sailed up the St. Lawrence River and visited Aboriginal settlements at Stadacona (site of present-day Québec) and Hochelaga (Montréal). He spent the winter at Stadacona, where 25 of his men died of scurvy, and returned to France in 1536.

In 1541–42 he returned, establishing a short-lived colony, which he called "Charlesbourg- Royal," at the mouth of the rivière du Cap-Rouge (see Cap-Rouge) near Stadacona. Religion gave the impetus to his voyages, but economic motives were even more obvious. The hope of finding a Northwest Passage to the Indies and the fabled Kingdom of the Saguenay was constantly stressed. Cartier brought back to France some minerals from this final voyage that he thought were gold and diamonds, but were only iron pyrite and quartz (see Diamonds of Canada). After these initial disappointments, France turned its attention elsewhere and ignored the distant land until the end of the century.

Meanwhile, some French colonists showed sustained interest in the region's fisheries. There are reports of Basque, Breton and Norman fishermen on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks as early as the first decade of the 16th century. Each year more ships — a dozen or so in the decade 1520–30, about 100 by mid-century — made fishing trips. By 1550, fishermen were drying their catch on the shores, making contact with Aboriginal peoples and taking furs back to France. In the 1580s, ship owners were leaving fishing for the fur trade, an activity that drew the French farther into the continent.

In 1608 Samuel de Champlain, considered the founder of New France, erected a habitation (building) at Québec. He continued Cartier's dream of finding an opening to the Indies, pursued the commercial interests of businessmen in France, his sponsors, and followed the king's wishes. The settlement responded to economic demands: go out to the fur-rich areas, forge close contact with suppliers and try to obtain the right of exploitation. The scale of the operation made it necessary to form private companies.

Commercial Administration of the Colony and Missionary Work

The colony's administration, 1608–63, was entrusted commercial companies that were formed by merchants from various cities in France. Succeeding companies promised to settle and develop the French land in America in return for exclusive rights to its resources. The Compagnie des Cent-Associés, created by the great minister of Louis XIII, Cardinal de Richelieu, ran New France 1627–63, either directly or through subsidiary companies. It did not achieve the desired results. In 1663, the population numbered scarcely 3,000 people, 1,250 of them Canadian-born. Less than one per cent of the granted land was being exploited. Of the 5 million livres' worth of possible annual resources enumerated by Champlain in 1618 — e.g., fish, mines, wood, hemp, cloth and fur — only fur yielded an appreciable return, and it was irregular and disappointing.

Nor was evangelization among Indigenous peoples flourishing. During its first half-century, New France experienced an explosion of missionary fervour (see Missions and Missionaries), as demonstrated by the number and zeal of its apostles, inspired by the Catholic Counter-Reformation (see Catholicism). In 1634, the Jesuits renewed the mission of Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons in the western wilds. Ville-Marie, which became Montréal, was the work of mystics and the devoted. But the missionaries managed to convert very few Aboriginal persons.

Various political and military events hindered colonization efforts. The alliances formed by Champlain made enemies of the Iroquois. Québec fell to the freebooting Kirke brothers in 1629. The Iroquois nations grew belligerent as soon as the country was returned to France in 1632. Between 1648 and 1652 they destroyed Huronia, a hub of French commercial and missionary activity. Attacks on the very heart of the colony demonstrated that its survival was in doubt (see Iroquois Wars).

In 1663, Québec was just a commercial branch operation: the fur trade was opposed to agriculture (see History of Agriculture); the French population was small; and the administration of the colony by commercial exploiters was a disaster. The company relinquished control of the colony to the king.

Royal Rule Facilitates Development

Under Louis XIV New France flourished. He made the colony a province of France, giving it a similar hierarchical administrative organization. He watched over its settlement, extended its territory and allowed its enterprises to multiply. However, he had first to guarantee the peace.

Under the marquis de Tracy, the Carignan-Salières Regiment built forts, ravaged Iroquois villages and demonstrated French military power. The Iroquois made peace, and 400 soldiers stayed in the colony as settlers. The king also had 850 young women sent out as brides-to-be, and quick marriages and families were encouraged. When the offspring of these Filles du Roi came of age 20 years later, the demographic situation had changed. In 1663 there had been one woman to every 6 men; now the sexes were roughly equal in number. The colony thereafter replenished 90 per cent of its numbers through childbirth.

Under the authority of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, comptroller general of finances and then navy minister (see Ministère de la Marine), colonial administration was entrusted to a Gouverneur (for military matters and external relations) and an Intendant (for justice, civil administration and finances — i.e., all civil aspects of colonial administration). The Sovereign Council (Superior Council after 1703) acted as a court of appeal and registered the king's edicts.

Exploration and Further Economic Expansion

The imperialism of Louis XIV, the pacification of the Iroquois and the need to rebuild the network of fur-trade treaties led to renewed Explorations into the Great Lakes and Mississippi regions by such exceptional people as François Dollier de Casson, Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette and the Cavelier de La Salle. But the Iroquois Wars started again in 1682 and the colony found new heroes, such as Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. Political, military and missionary activity, combined with economic factors, created a need for furs to be acquired from Aboriginal peoples.

Intendant Jean Talon, with Colbert's solid backing and other favourable circumstances, started a vigorous development program. In addition to watching over agriculture and the fur trade, Talon began ventures such as shipbuilding, trade with the West Indies, commercial crops like flax and hemp, fishing industries and a brewery. But by the time he left in 1672, economic circumstances had changed and virtually nothing remained of these premature initiatives.

It is difficult to identify the major elements of this nascent society. For Acadia, familiar features are the quality of its agricultural establishments, the importance of fishing and the alternating British and French regimes. In the St. Lawrence Valley, farmers, though in the majority, were still clearing the land. Craftsmen no longer had the support of major enterprises. Fur traders were being squeezed by increasingly difficult regulations and economic circumstances, yet they provided the colony's only exports. Military officers, thanks to the introduction of coin currency and the presence of opportunities to flaunt themselves, enjoyed some prestige by entering into business and being in the governor's entourage.

The seigneur had little revenue and took his standing from his title and the exercise of functions entirely unrelated to the land (see Seigneurial System). Social mobility was still possible and caused categories and groups to mingle, but there were two worlds: the city and the country.

End of Expansion and Beginning of Economic Crisis

New France reached its greatest territorial extent at the start of the 18th century. About 250 people lived in a dozen settlements in Newfoundland, and there were about 1,500 in Acadia. Several hundred lived around the mouth of the Mississippi and around the Great Lakes. People from the St Lawrence Valley lived on the shoreline of Labrador as fishermen. The Saguenay River Basin (the King's Domain) had a few trading posts. Canada had about 20,000 inhabitants, most of them farmers scattered along a ribbon of settlement between the two urban centres of Québec and Montréal. In the West, a series of trading posts and forts dotted the communication lines. Finally, in the 1740s, the La Vérendrye family carried the exploration of the continent right to the foothills of the Rockies.

Despite this expansion, New France has been described as a "colossus with feet of clay." The British American colonies were 20 times as populous and felt themselves encircled and at risk. Through the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, France yielded Newfoundland, the Acadian peninsula, Hudson Bay and supremacy in trade over the Iroquois to the English. Furthermore the early 18th century brought a major economic crisis in the colony. Its main export item, fur, was hit by a European sales slump, declining quality and less attractive returns. The many young people who had just come to settle the country had no choice but to fall back on the land.

Peacetime Recovery

Recovery was slow, but the economy experienced an unprecedented boom during the long period of peace, 1713–44. France built an imposing fortress at Louisbourg to protect its fishing zones, land and commercial trade with the colony. After 1720, agricultural surpluses were exported to Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) and the French West Indies. Some 200 seigneurs lived in the territory of Canada. A high birthrate led to a rapid population increase, which in turn led to the creation of parishes. Despite the strictures of mercantilism, two major industries were established: the Forges Saint-Maurice and royal shipbuilding (see Shipbuilding and Ship repair).

In 1735, a road linked Québec City and Montréal for the first time. Yet the fur trade still accounted for 70 per cent of the colony's exports. And peace was being used to prepare for war: 80 per cent of the colony's budgets (which never equalled the sums spent on the king's amusements) went to military expenses. Much more was spent on constructing European-style fortifications than on strengthening alliances with Aboriginal peoples.

Colonial society, influenced by the French elite that led it, modelled itself on the mother country, yet increasingly grew apart from it because of the colony's small population and very different, land-based, economic and geographic circumstances. Nobles, the middle class, military officers, seigneurs, civil administrators and traders formed a high society which was extremely sensitive to the favours of the colonial authorities. Eighty percent of the population lived on and by the land. Each generation produced new pioneers who cleared and settled land, acclimatized themselves, managed some new territory and came to know their neighbours. The acquisition of this territory in America by French descendants was characterized by the importance of the land, of inheritance, of economic independence and of analyzed social relationships.

The Conquest

France felt that New France cost much and yielded little. The expensive but inconclusive War of the Austrian Succession, which ended in 1748, saw the destruction of French overseas trade by Britain. The Seven Years’ War found France on the defensive against England, now an aggressive maritime power. The British colonies, with 1.5 million inhabitants, were pitted against a mere 70,000 French colonists, a sign of the very limited success of French colonization in North America.

After some spectacular military successes, the result of strategy well adapted to the local terrain, France fell back on the defensive. On 13 September 1759, the troops of General James Wolfe defeated those of the Marquis de Montcalm in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Québec City. Montréal fell the next year. France yielded its colony to England in the Treaty of Paris (1763). It was the end, or nearly so, of French political power in America — but not of French presence. France left a great legacy to America: the Canadiens. They refused assimilation and affirmed their existence. Protected by their language, religion and institutions, concentrated in a limited geographic area, difficult to penetrate, they developed a way of life, social customs and attitudes of their own. Having become Québécois, they continued to strive to develop their nationality.

Québec over time

A brief history

Sent on an expedition by Francis I, King of France, Jacques Cartier arrived at Gaspé in 1534, taking possession of lands that had been inhabited for thousands of years by Amerindians and the Inuit. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain made landfall on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River at a spot that the Aboriginals called Kébec. In 1642, Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded a Catholic mission that he named Ville-Marie and which would become Montréal at the end of the 18th century.

Old crown, new crown

New France expanded rapidly between 1660 and 1713. During the Seven Years’ War, the army of General Wolfe laid siege to Québec, and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham culminated in the defeat of the French General Montcalm on September 13, 1759. Four years later, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the King of France ceded to the British crown “Canada and all its dependencies.” This led to significant immigration on the part of English, Irish and Scottish settlers.

In 1791, the Constitutional Act established two provinces in British North America: Upper Canada (Ontario), with an English-speaking majority, and Lower Canada (Québec), which had a French‑speaking majority. The Lower Canada Rebellion, in 1837 and 1838, was put down decisively by the British army. In 1867, the British North America Act established a federation of provinces that became known as Canada.

On the road to modern times

Until the early 20th century, Québec’s economic life was heavily dependent on agriculture and the forest industry. With subsequent rapid industrialization and urbanization, there was a huge migration of people from the countryside to the cities. The 1960s were marked by the advent of the Quiet Revolution, crystallizing a decade later in debates on the predominant role of the French language. In 1976, the Parti Québécois, led by René Lévesque, was swept to power. In referendums held in 1980, and again in 1995, the people of Québec voted against a proposal for sovereignty-association with the rest of Canada.

Living history

Québec’s roads and waterways echo with countless reminders of the often rustic life led by the province’s first settlers: ancestral homes, historic churches and chapels, covered bridges, mills, and lighthouses—all repositories for the collective memories of current and future generations.

The addition of the historic district of Québec City to UNESCO’s World Heritage List recognizes the efforts made to preserve and enhance the value of one of the most remarkable historical sites on Québec soil. This recognition also encourages initiatives that aim to protect an architectural heritage that dates back more than three centuries and is a testimonial to the day-to-day lives of Québecers in North America.

Family trees

Numerous visitors from North America and Europe come to Québec to research branches of their family tree, examining records from both the recent and more remote past. A unique opportunity for family reunions and occasionally surprising discoveries!

http://www.bonjourquebec.com/qc-en/histoire0.html

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Canada

The French and Indian (Seven Years’) War

The French had also been active on the Ohio and had opened a line of communication from Lake Erie to the Forks. The rivals clashed on the Monongahela, and Washington was forced to surrender and retreat. This clash marked the beginning of the Anglo-French war known in America as the French and Indian War (1754–63) and in Europe and Canada as the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).
At the start of the war, the two sides seemed grossly mismatched. The English colonies contained more than 1,000,000 people, compared with the 70,000 of New France, and were prospering, with strong agricultural economies and growing trade ties with the West Indies and Britain. Their location along the Atlantic coast, the size of their population, and the large area they encompassed meant that the best France could hope for in the war was the maintenance of the status quo. New France was economically weak, dependent on France for trade and defense, and strategically vulnerable with but two seaward outlets to its continental empire, New Orleans and Quebec. Nonetheless, the French and the local militia were excellent soldiers, experienced in forest warfare and supported by several thousand Indian allies. They also received military help from France in 1756 in the form of 12 battalions of regular troops (about 7,000 soldiers), a contingent of artillery, and the command of the Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Grozon, marquis de Montcalm, who was an excellent field general.
The conflict was pursued around the globe, with fighting in India, North America, Europe, and elsewhere as well as on the high seas. Britain, which was primarily a sea power, initially did not have the land army resources to overwhelm the French in America, and instead it was forced to rely heavily on the colonial militia. However, the colonies were politically disunited, and their militia forces were neither as well organized nor as well trained as those of New France. Thus, early victories went to the French, who captured Fort Oswego and Fort William Henry in 1757 and sternly repulsed the British at Fort Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) in 1758. Then greater numbers of troops and supplies and more skillful British generalship began to turn the tide. In 1758 the British captured and razed Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, and the following year Sir Jeffrey Amherst began a cautious but irresistible advance from Fort William Henry by way of Fort Carillon to Lake Champlain. Also in 1759 an expedition under General James Wolfe sailed up the St. Lawrence and besieged Quebec, which fell to the British after the celebrated Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Sir William Johnson took Niagara, and John Forbes took the Forks of the Ohio. New France was caught in cruelly closing pincers. In 1760 Amherst closed in on Montreal, and New France capitulated. By the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, all of French North America east of the Mississippi River was ceded to Britain, with the exception of the tiny islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland.
The British victory produced three major results. First, the danger from New France to the American colonies was ended, thus weakening their dependence on Britain. Second, the British (largely Scots with some Americans) took over and expanded the Canadian fur trade. And, third, Britain now possessed a colony populated almost wholly by persons of alien descent and Roman Catholic religion.

Early British rule, 1763–91

The Quebec Act

At first New France was to be governed by the Royal Proclamation (October 7, 1763), which declared the territory between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi to be Indian territory and closed to settlement until the Indians there could be subdued. New France became known as the Province of Quebec, which was to have a royal governor who had the authority to call an assembly. However, the 70,000 French inhabitants of Quebec could neither vote nor sit in the assembly by virtue of their Roman Catholicism.
Few British Americans moved to Quebec (there were perhaps 500 migrants in all), and those who did were attracted primarily by the prospect of taking control of the fur trade. Their bourgeois mentality and repeated demands for the “rights of Englishmen” tended to alienate the conservative British officers who administered the colony. Among the latter was General James Murray, who was appointed the colony’s first governor in 1763. Murray sympathized with the condition and difficulties of the French and ignored the demands of the recently arrived Protestants for an assembly, with the result that an agitation by the Protestants led to his recall. He was replaced in 1766 by General Guy Carleton (later 1st Baron Dorchester), who was expected in Quebec to carry out the policy of the proclamation. However, Carleton soon came to see that the colony was certain to be permanently French. He decided that Britain’s best course was to forge an alliance with the elites of the former French colony—the seigneurs and the Roman Catholic church.
Carleton returned to England in 1770 to press his new policy for Quebec on the government of Lord North. The trouble the imperial government continued to have with the colonies to the south secured official acceptance of Carleton’s policy. The result was the Quebec Act of 1774, which marked a radical departure from the manner by which British colonies in America were governed. It granted permission for Roman Catholics in Quebec to hold public office; stipulated that an appointed council, rather than an elected assembly, would advise the governor; and legitimized French civil law, though English criminal law was to be in force. The Quebec Act also recognized the legitimacy of the French language and the Roman Catholic faith, gave the church power to enforce the collection of tithes, and formalized the authority of the seigneurs to collect cens et rentes. In addition, Quebec’s territory was greatly expanded, its western border henceforth stretching to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Carleton had sought to cement French loyalty to Britain. As the American Revolution would demonstrate, however, the Quebec Act did not do that. Instead, it brought about a virtual revolution in Quebec society. The Quebec Act gave the seigneurs, the church, and the clergy a degree of authority and influence they had never enjoyed even under the French regime. Prior to 1763 many of the clergy’s edicts had been ignored by the larger society, while the political power of the bishop had been inconsequential compared with that of the governor and intendant; the latter two officials often circumscribed church authority in matters such as relations with the Indians. After 1774, however, the bishop and the church reigned supreme in their own sphere, especially since British governing authorities were loath to interfere in religious matters. The Quebec Act also enhanced the status of the seigneurs by giving them unchallenged legal authority to set the terms and conditions of settlement on their lands. Magnifying this important change, some seigneurs sold their holdings to members of the newly arrived English-speaking merchant class. These new seigneurs, with no understanding of the informal habitant-seigneur relationship under French rule, frequently thought of themselves—and acted—as landed gentry in their dealings with the habitants.
Carleton had erred, either misunderstanding or ignoring the underlying realities of the social structure and class relations he found when he arrived in Quebec. He imposed his own vision of what Quebec ought to be, an action that earned the British the support of the church and the seigneurs but the distinct dislike of the habitants, who soon realized just how much their position in society had been eroded. As the years went by, that erosion would have a dramatic impact on their living standards.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91513/Canada/42983/The-French-and-Indian-Seven-Years-War

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Native peoples

An estimated 200,000 Indians (First Nations) and Inuit were living in what is now Canada when Europeans began to settle there in the 16th century. For the next 200 years the native population declined, largely as a result of European territorial encroachment and the diseases that the settlers brought. However, the native population increased dramatically after 1950, with high birth rates and access to improved medical care. Some one million people in Canada now identify themselves as Indian, Métis (of mixed European and Indian ancestry), or Inuit; of this number, more than three-fifths are Indian, nearly one-third Métis, and most of the remainder Inuit. Together they comprise less than 5 percent of Canada’s total population, though aboriginal peoples constitute half of the population of the Northwest Territories and a considerably greater proportion of Nunavut. The largest of the Indian groups is the Cree, which includes some 120,000 people

In Canada the word Indian has a legal definition given in the Indian Act of 1876. People legally defined as Indians are known as status Indians. Indians who have chosen to give up their status rights or who have lost them through intermarriage with those of European ancestry are called nonstatus Indians. (Beginning in 1985, Canadian law has allowed those who lost their status through intermarriage to reclaim it, and marriage no longer triggers an automatic loss of status.) Through treaties with the Canadian government, more than 600 status Indian bands occupy more than 2,250 reserves. The resources of these reserves are quite limited, and the majority of status Indians have a standard of living below the Canadian average. The treaties and agreements about reserves apply to only a portion of the Indian people. Large tracts of land were never taken from the Indians by treaty, and various groups are still negotiating land claims and self-government with the federal and provincial governments. These negotiations made significant progress, and in 1996 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples concluded that Canada needed to protect the distinctive values and lifestyles of its aboriginal peoples.

The Inuit who inhabit the far north do not have any reserves and are not protected by any treaties. Many of them—a number estimated to be more than 40,000—still live in scattered camps and settlements of 25 to 500 people, although larger towns such as Iqaluit in Nunavut are growing rapidly. Since the latter part of the 20th century, mining, oil exploration and pipeline construction, and mammoth hydroelectric developments have greatly affected their traditional way of living off the land. The worldwide decline in demand for furs greatly diminished their income, and the Inuit came to depend increasingly on government social and welfare programs. Education and training programs were instituted to enable them to compete for employment. Perhaps the most decisive step, however, was the creation in 1999 of the territory of Nunavut— carved out of the eastern section of the Northwest Territories—with a largely Inuit population and an advanced form of self-government.

Languages

Canada’s constitution established both English and French as official languages. However, English is dominant throughout most of the country; only one province, New Brunswick, is officially bilingual, and French is the official provincial language only in Quebec, where French is the first language of four-fifths of the population. About three-fifths of Canadians speak English as their first language, while less than one-fourth identify French as their primary tongue. The mother tongue of nearly one-fifth of Canadians is a language other than English or French; most speak another European language (notably Italian and German), but the largest immigrant group speaks Chinese, reflecting the growth in Chinese immigration since the 1980s. Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit, has a number of variations. Cree is the most common of the native languages.

Religion

About seven-eighths of Canada’s population claim affiliation in some degree with an organized religious faith. Most are either Roman Catholic or Protestant; the major Protestant churches are the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Lutheran church. Roman Catholics constitute the largest single religious group, accounting for more than two-fifths of the population. Protestants, the second largest group, make up nearly two-fifths of the population. In Quebec more than four-fifths of the population is at least nominally Roman Catholic, and New Brunswick also has a Roman Catholic majority. Canada’s religious composition reflects the most recent immigration trends; in the last two decades of the 20th century, the numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists rose sharply. The numbers of Jews and adherents of the Eastern Orthodox faith also has risen. About one-eighth of Canadians classify themselves as nonreligious.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91513/Canada/237196/Native-peoples

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The French that is spoken in Québec is very different from all the other varieties of French that exist in the world. Nevertheless, it is still French and not a creole, a dialect or a patois. It is not a regional French either, since this term only applies to a variety of French spoken in a region of France. Québécois French is nothing else than a national French. When the first contacts occur, a French speaker from outside of Québec may have some difficulties with the accent or certain local expressions, but he should get accustomed without great difficulty.

First of all, it is important to specify that we are talking about a Québécois French here, and not a Canadian French. Indeed, there is at least one other French-speaking community in Canada, the Acadien community, and their French is different from ours when it comes to the accent and to the local lexic.

Why is Québécois French so different than the variety spoken in France anyways? The answer, as it is often the case, can be found in the past. Many texts confirm that, towards the end of the 17th century, everyone in New France speaks French. At that time, in France, the patois are still numerous and in great use, and two inhabitants on five are completely unable to understand French. Only one Frenchman on five can understand and speak it fluently. The difference between France and New France is therefore quite incredible. In 1698, the sieur de Bacqueville, who was then controller general of the marine on official visit to Québec, writes « the French spoken here is perfect, and we can find no trace of any provincial French in it. » A navigator was all surprised that everyone here, even the peasants, spoke a French that was comparable to the one spoken in the King's court! As you can see, the use of French was generalised here before it was in France.

This phenomenon is due to two main factors. First of all, the colonists who populated New France came from different regions of France, and each spoke his maternal patois. But once here, they often found themselves with neighbours who spoke a different patois, so the need for a common language became very necessary. The most prestigious one would have been chosen, the King's French. Secondly, we all know the very important role women have played in this process since they are the ones who taught the language to their children. Studies have shown that the vast majority of our ancestresses had, at least, a partial knowledge of French.

And this is how New Fance came to speak the Royal Court's French, and not the variety used by writers and poets. It is in this royal ancestor that modern Québécois French takes many of his particularities, such as the use of « y » instead of « lui » (J'y ai donné l'argent que j'y dois) (I gave HIM the money I owe HIM) or the legendary « assisez-vous » instead of « asseyez-vous » (sit down). It is also from this Royal French that come the very common « moé » et « toé » (you and me). And since most of the colonists came from Normandie, we also find a lot of Normand particularities in Québécois French, such as the « -eux » used at the end of words, like in the words « siffleux, robineux, seineux, têteux, niaiseux, ostineux ou senteux ». (Everyone of them more flattering than the previous!) ;-).

Of course, there is also an interesting contribution made by the Indian languages, especially when it came to name realities, animals or objects that did not exist in Europe (calumet, achigan, ouananiche, masquinongé, carcajou, etc.) We also find a lot of maritime expressions (embarquer, virer, baliser, mouiller), mainly because of the difficult crossing of the Atlantic and the fact the St-Laurent river occupied such an important place in the lives of the founders.

After the British conquest of 1759, Québec finds itself isolated from France. Many travellers will observe that Québécois French is becoming archaic and is being invaded by English words. What we must understand is that since the French Revolution of 1789, France has changed its norm. The King's French has been replaced by Bourgeois French as the most prestigious variety. Of course, this change does not occur here and Royal French continues its normal evolution.

Because language evolves. Our language will go through a phase of anglomania, during which French will be depreciated and humiliated at the profit of English. French will be seen as an old poetic language, a stranger to technological progress (since all new technologies are acquired from England and the United States) and business. Then, in the nineteen-sixties, it will be the other extreme. A group of excessive « purists » will call Québécois French « le joual » (a very derogatory term), and will describe it as a language with no form, popular and full anglicisms. Some will also call it an « absence of language »! These so-called purists, in their crusade to « purify » the language, will declare war on all anglicisms and regionalisms. To this day, Québécois are very self-conscious about the language they speak.

In reaction to this crusade, many will say that our language is unique and is in fact a heritage from our ancestors that we should feel proud of. It is not a shame, but the result of our people's history and soul. Jacques Renaud publishes the first novel written entirely in Québécois French in 1964, the title is « Le cassé », but the most reknown and popular writer who still writes in our national tongue is Michel Tremblay. Many of his plays have been translated and shown worldwide.

Today, Québécois French is written, sang and celebrated. On the right is a picture of Robert Charlebois, on of our most reknown singers. But there are still many people who sadly look down upon Québécois French because too "colonial", and prefer using some sort of snobbish «international French» that has no color and no soul... there is still some educating work to be done.

If you wish to see my little list of Québécois expressions, click here.

To read the legend of the Chasse-Galerie, click here.

Sources:

BARBAUD, Philippe, LE FRANÇAIS SANS FAÇON, Hurtubise HMH, La Salle, 1987.

COUTURE, Patrick, My bachelor's degree in linguistics ;-)

http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/FRANC2.HTM

1. PDF]

The French Language in Québec : 400 Years of History and Life ...

www.cslf.gouv.qc.ca/publications/pubf156ang/introduction.pdf - Cached - Similar

portrait of four hundred years of history and life in French in Québec. ... When they left France, the first Canadians sought to break free from the constraints of the old ..... better understanding of how and why, over the course of time, the French ...

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Exhibition

The exhibition we invite you to explore describes the adventure of New France, from the first voyages of discovery, to the end of the French Regime. It is comprised of 350 archival documents arranged

http://www.champlain2004.org/html/exhibition.html

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BLOGGED:

CANADA MILITARY NEWS- Queen Victoria's Scarves- Pte. Richard R. Thompson of Ottawa awarded Queen Victoria's Scarf 4 gallantry during Boer War- Queen Victgoria's hand Crocheted Knitted scarf awarded only 7 times/William Hall Victoria Cross- Crimean War

http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/05/canada-military-news-queen-victorias.html

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WORDPRESS: Canadians celebrate with Netherlands victory and freedom- if OMAR KHADR is set free – monsters truly shame freedom

https://nova0000scotia.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/canadians-celebrate-with-netherlands-victory-and-freedom-if-omar-khadr-is-set-free-monsters-truly-shame-freedom/

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

CANADA MILITARY NEWS- understanding Canada- we need 2 understand the history of England and France's influence forming r new country Canada /History of Quebec French our glorious Quebec-New France /First Peoples /blogspot links always provided

ENGLAND- General History - 750 years and older

750 Years Ago

1000 Years Ago

1500 Years Ago

2000 Years Ago

3000 Years Ago

4000 Years Ago

10,000 Years - 12 Billion Years Ago

25,000 Years Ago

35,000 Years Ago

200,000 Years Ago

2,000,000 Years Ago

10,000,000 Years Ago

35,000,000 Years Ago

70,000,000 Years Ago

300,000,000 Years Ago

5,000,000,000 Years Ago

7,000,000,000 Years Ago

12,000,000,000 Years Ago

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CANADA- New France

Founding and Context

Commercial Administration of the Colony and Missionary Work

Royal Rule Facilitates Development

Exploration and Further Economic Expansion

End of Expansion and Beginning of Economic Crisis

Peacetime Recovery

The Conquest

Suggested Reading

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Québec over time

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Canada

The French and Indian (Seven Years’) War

Early British rule, 1763–91

The Quebec Act

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Native peoples

Languages

Religion

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Sources: BARBAUD, Philippe, LE FRANÇAIS SANS FAÇON, Hurtubise HMH, La Salle, 1987. COUTURE, Patrick, My bachelor's degree in linguistics ;-)

---------------

Exhibition

The exhibition we invite you to explore describes the adventure of New France, from the first voyages of discovery, to the end of the French Regime. It is comprised of 350 archival documents arranged

----------------

BLOGGED:

CANADA MILITARY NEWS- Queen Victoria's Scarves- Pte. Richard R. Thompson of Ottawa awarded Queen Victoria's Scarf 4 gallantry during Boer War- Queen Victgoria's hand Crocheted Knitted scarf awarded only 7 times/William Hall Victoria Cross- Crimean War

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Sources:

BARBAUD, Philippe, LE FRANÇAIS SANS FAÇON, Hurtubise HMH, La Salle, 1987.

COUTURE, Patrick, My bachelor's degree in linguistics ;-)