How did the Suez Crisis mark the end of British power? Britain was forced to withdraw and, for the first time, realized that it could no long act unilaterally. It was a humiliating defeat for Britain and is sometimes said to be the actual end of the British Empire. The Suez Canal was opened in […]
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Who built the Smithsonian? The first of the Smithsonian’s many museums was built by the US government and was designed by an architect called James Renwick Jr. However, the idea for the institution and the money came from a British scientist called James Smithson, who lived from 1765 to 1829. The Smithsonian is the world’s
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What is the difference between an earl, a duke, a lord, and a knight? They are all ranks of the aristocracy, conferred upon a person by the monarch of the UK, but they have different levels and privileges. The ranks of nobility obviously only exist in countries that have a nobility, and they vary in
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Why were India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh split? India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were split at the end of British rule in 1947, and they were split along religious grounds. Although, it was not a simple process and it has caused numerous problems. India became a colony of Britain in 1857. Queen Victoria I was proclaimed Empress
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Did the Treaty of Versailles cause World War 2? The Treaty of Versailles didn’t directly cause World War 2, but it did put in place some of the contributing factors. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919. It was the peace treaty that brought World War 1 to an official end. The
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Why are Stradivarius instruments good? Stradivarius instruments might be good because of their age, because of their craftmanship, because of the materials they are made of, because of the person playing them, or simply just because of their name. On the other hand, they might not be as good as we think they are. Most
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Why did the Royal Society begin? The Royal Society was formed in 1660 and it was started to bring like-minded scientists together and encourage research and discussion. The Royal Society in Britain is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world, but it is not the earliest. That is the Accademia dei Lincei in
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What is a Ponzi scheme? It is a type of fraud where you use money invested by new people to pay profits to the people who are already invested. It was named after Charles Ponzi who certainly didn’t invent the scheme but who made it famous. (Incidentally, Ponzi scheme, scam, and con are all relatively
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Why do we work Monday to Friday? We work Monday to Friday with Saturday and Sunday off because of trade unions and because of Henry Ford, but he was improving on systems that had started earlier in the previous century. The idea of having Saturday and Sunday as a holiday is a relatively recent invention.
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Why did the samurai class end? The samurai class were eliminated during the Meiji Restoration when Japan modernized in a very short period of time. Although, most of them just changed roles, rather than disappearing. The samurai came out of a military class that had been formed in the Heian Period, 710 to 1185. Heian
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