Interesting Historical Trivia!

[Järnblomma]

Come on, every historian carries some interesting trivia they just want to get off their chest, am I right? I start with:

Sweden colonized Delaware. Philadelphia is built on old Fort Christina.

Sweden and Denmark has fought more wars against each other than any other two states.

Sir James Brooke, gentleman adventurer, managed to get himself crowned Rajah of Sarawak in Malaysia. Thorugh cunning and strategic sex he became a completly independant white ruler, known as the "White Rajah of Sarawak".

 

[unmerged(195591)]

thorugh cunning and strategic sex

The best kind, I'm told.

 

[Finnish Dragon]

Sweden and Denmark has fought more wars against each other than any other two states.

I am not certain about that. I think there have been more wars between England and France than between Sweden and Denmark even if we exclude all the wars after 1707 when the Great Britain was officially formed.

 

[Järnblomma]

I am not certain about that. I think there have been more wars between England and France than between Sweden and Denmark even if we exclude all the wars after 1707 when the Great Britain was officially formed.

It's a close call, certainly. Sweden and Denmark has fought at least 15 wars though, which is slightly more than Englands and Frances.

Of course, that depends on how you count. The wars against Napoleon were technically several different, but they were always the same conflict. Same with the Hundred Years War. They were always directly related to each other and the same issue.

But yes, it's a matter of technicality.

 

[DarthJF]

Drinking tea became fashionable among Japanese samurai after early 1200's, when Shogun Minamoto-no-Sanetomo discovered it helped his hangovers after overnight sake parties.

 

[Finnish Dragon]

It's a close call, certainly. Sweden and Denmark has fought at least 15 wars though, which is slightly more than Englands and Frances.

Of course, that depends on how you count. The wars against Napoleon were technically several different, but they were always the same conflict. Same with the Hundred Years War. They were always directly related to each other and the same issue.

But yes, it's a matter of technicality.

True. I want to address the issue that how many years did England and France (1066-1707), and Denmark and Sweden fought against each other.

England and France fought against each other about 117 years. Without the Hundred Years War that would be 35 years so HYW with four phases really increased that figure.

Sweden and Denmark fought against each other 66 years of war. Usually, the wars between Sweden and Denmark were pretty short and they ended after couple of years of war. That includes wars between Sweden and Denmark from 1434 to 1815.

I took these figures from Wikipedia and I think they are very rough. However, that statistic emphasizes the role of the Hundred Years War. That also indicates that the burden that people in the war zone had especially during pro-longed wars like HYW or the Great Northern War.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Courland had an African colony.

 

[Jolt]

The second Portuguese Vice-Roy of India, Afonso de Albuquerque, in order to destroy the power of the Mameluks, Albuquerque is said to have entertained the idea of diverting the course of the Nile River and so rendering the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Prophet Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.

That's how badass we were.

 

[Jos de trol]

Belgian congo (and rwanda and burundi) wasn't the only colony belgium had, only the most successful and longest lasting possession. Other lower profile projects included Santo Tomás, where the Belgian government tried to lure unsuspecting members of the Belgian poorer classes with fake testimonial letters and pamphlets being read and distributed on the marketplaces, ending up with these people either dying of tropical disease or running for their lives away from the area. Then there was a perpetual lease in Tianjin and a temporary lease in the Sudan for the duration of Leopold II's life (ironically the latter lasted longer than the former).

Of course there's also the colonisation of the New York area, but that happened under the flag of the netherlands.

 

[unmerged(18239)]

Dutch farmers invested their hard-earned money in Confederate States government bonds.

Venetians were a bunch of bastards and "sold" to both the Mongols and Tamerlane acces to Europe in exchange for trading rights and colonies in the Crimea

 

[Finnish Dragon]

Dutch farmers invested their hard-earned money in Confederate States government bonds.

There is a research paper on Confederate bonds on Amsterdam Stock Exchange during US Civil war. It is quite interesting to see it´s value dropping from more than 47 gold dollars to zero.

One should also focus on the fact that the article speaks nothing about telegraphs while the first successful telegraph cable across Atlantic was installed in 1858 and it worked for one month. The next one was installed after US Civil War. In practice, it meant that all news from the US Civil War to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange traveled on ships and it took several weeks to travel from US to the Netherlands.

 

[Järnblomma]

Venetians were a bunch of bastards and "sold" to both the Mongols and Tamerlane acces to Europe in exchange for trading rights and colonies in the Crimea

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the Genoans?

 

[Anony1200]

Scotland tried to colonize Panama (I believe in what was later to become the Balboa region in the Main RTS line), then left believing that there was no financial or strategic interest in holding it.

Yup. Nothing economically or strategically good ended up in Panama, right?

 

[Narwhal]

Rio de Janeiro, under another name ("Henriville"), was first colonized... by the French. French colonies in Brasil belonged to what was called "France Antarctique".

 

[Slaxl]

Scotland tried to colonize Panama (I believe in what was later to become the Balboa region in the Main RTS line), then left believing that there was no financial or strategic interest in holding it.

Yup. Nothing economically or strategically good ended up in Panama, right?

The Scottish interest in Panama around 1698/99 is more significant than that. They poured such a vast amount of money into it, from the wealthiest merchants and aristocrats down to the poorest farmers in the highlands that when it failed, and the colonists died the country was so bankrupt that the English graciously assumed all their debts in return for an end to the resistance to the union of the crowns, and as such it was formalised in 1707 in the act of union.

 

[Krayt]

The first Finnish operations against Germans in Lapland War almost ended badly after a regiment attacking Tornio captured the German supply depot, with considerable stockpiles of booze, and half the regiment got wasted. Similar incidents already took place during the Continuation War.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

The first vibrators were developed to cure women from the terrible psychosexual disorder of hysteria.

Prior to this, the required treatment had to be administered manually by the skilled hands of midwives and physicians (who would often engage in heated disputes over which of them had the best-suited training for such a procedure).

 

[chepaeff]

The first Finnish operations against Germans in Lapland War almost ended badly after a regiment attacking Tornio captured the German supply depot, with considerable stockpiles of booze, and half the regiment got wasted. Similar incidents already took place during the Continuation War.

I've seen one documentary where German veteran whose unit was surrounded by Finns said they thought they were doomed but then they heard Finnish troops signing songs and getting wasted so Germans managed to break out

 

[Tamerlan]

Courland had an African colony.

And an American one.

Brandeburg had an African colony... and for some time an island in the Caribbeans (or so say wikipedia :| ).

 

[Krayt]

I've seen one documentary where German veteran whose unit was surrounded by Finns said they thought they were doomed but then they heard Finnish troops signing songs and getting wasted so Germans managed to break out

My granduncle's regiment briefly mutinied in 1942, after
1) The division marched ~400km from Lapland front to Kajaani, to await transportation to Karelia
2) During the march a rumor spread that the Germans had promised everyone a generous amount of cognac upon arrival at Kajaani
3) This was denied by the officers, as a rumor and because the division wasn't anymore under German control, anyway
4) The local liquor store was prohibited from selling booze to any soldiers except officers, who gloated about it to the rank and file
5) The new commander of the division held a chastising speech about lack of discipline during the march, and about how there would be much bloody fighting ahead in the south
So, pissed off and without booze, someone in my granduncle's regiment got a bright idea: "Let's rob the liquor store!"
-> the liquor store got ransacked (there were guards posted, but they joined the looting), the regiment got wasted, a few of the men got arrested by the police but were swiftly freed by their comrades, drunk soldiers shooting at chimneys and even firing a mortar at random
Not sure how many people were court martialed, but relatively few.