http://forums.canadiancontent.net General History ... discuss all the rear view mirror issues here! en Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:10:24 GMT vBulletin 60 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/images/styles/cancon/misc/rss.jpg http://forums.canadiancontent.net http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75664 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:50:27 GMT Okay, since so much of my Paris/Nice trip was focused around museums and old castles and historical architecture, even though I'm not ready to start writing it all out, I wanted to start a thread to show some of the stuff that I saw that I really enjoyed.

Zan and I were discussing sculpture, and this was one that I really liked, child of Aphrodite and Hermes.... Hermaphrodite.



http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

]]> History karrie http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75664 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75519 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:29:17 GMT Who designed it? For what reason? How tall was it originally? Was the intent to tear it down? What has it become as of today? Who designed it?

For what reason?

How tall was it originally?

Was the intent to tear it down?

What has it become as of today?
]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75519 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75518 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:20:07 GMT In a recent poll, the British public voted King George IV as Britain's worst-ever monarch. When his father, George III, was mad in the early 1800s, George IV reigned over the country as Prince Regent before he actually became king, all the time spending too much money and making nasty comments about his wife, Queen Caroline.

The Daily Mail's Andrew Roberts names what he thinks are Britain's ten worst monarchs.

In his list of unpopular English (or British, as they became in later centuries) monarchs, are King Stephen, King James II (who, like his father, Charles I, believed in Absolute Monarchy so it was lucky that he was defeated by his son-in law William III for the Crown), George IV, Mary, Henry VIII, Edward II (who was killed in 1327 by his wife's lover for being a homosexual, by having a red-hot poker shoved up his anus) and Edward VIII.

Who will he choose as the most unpopular monarch?

However, this doesn't mean that Andrew Roberts is republican (a country can have many unpopular presidents) and says that, equally, there have been many great British monarchs, including the current one.....

Our worst monarch? Britain's spoilt for choice...


By Andrew Roberts
16th July 2008
Daily Mail


Morally suspect monarchs: King Stephen (l) was corrupt, Mary Tudor (c) was bigoted (she killed 300 Protestants), and Henry VIII (r) was psychotic



Two more candidates for Britain's Most Useless Monarch: George IV (l) was indolent, while Edward VIII (r) was petulant




Equally, however, there have been many great British monarchs that we can be proud of: (left to right) Elizabeth II, Elizabeth I, Victoria, George III and George V


They include, among their number, the vain, the greedy and the downright corrupt. There are adulterers, swindlers and cowards. Yet this group also shares one thing in common. In their own lifetimes, they were the most powerful individuals in the land.

English Heritage has just conducted a poll to find Britain's Most Useless Monarch and it's a pretty crowded field. The eventual 'winner' has just been announced as George IV. His lazy, spendthrift nature and unpleasantness to his wife Queen Caroline seems to have won him the accolade.

But so terrible have many of our kings and queens been that a closer look at their misrule serves to illustrate just how blessed we are to live in a more enlightened age. So here, in ascending order of uselessness, is my own list of those who have disgraced the throne.

No. 10 is James I (VI of Scotland) the first king of both England AND Scotland, who has been described as a 'foul-mouthed, conceited pacifist without royal dignity'. This was particularly proved when he kissed one of his male favourites full on the lips during his own coronation. It couldn't have been a pleasant experience, because historians report that due to some physiological abnormality the king's tongue was too big for his mouth, and kept lolling out.

It was James who sent the great Elizabethan seafaring hero Sir Walter Raleigh to the scaffold in order to appease the Spanish, and filled his government with Scottish friends he had brought south with him, to the exclusion of better-qualified Englishmen. (Remind you of anyone in power today?) If anyone deserved a Gunpowder Plot against him in 1605, it was James.

But we are often better off with the devil we know. Because coming in at No. 9 is James's grandson, James II, who failed to learn the lesson of the English Civil War - which had cost his father, Charles I, his head - and continued to believe in the Divine Right of Kings.

By trying to force Roman Catholicism on to the British Isles, he deservedly lost his throne in 1688, and in a fit of pique he dropped the Great Seal of England into the River Thames as he fled London for France, idiotically believing that this would somehow prevent his son-in-law and daughter, William III (who defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne) and Mary, from governing successfully.

At least James II did not manage to plunge his country into a particularly long civil war, like No 8 on my list, King John (1167-1216), who fought against his own barons, on one occasion so disastrously that he lost his baggage train in quicksand in the Wash.

'John was a bad character,' writes one chronicler. 'His country had some experience of his selfcentred double-dealing. Nobody with sense trusted him. It followed that his unsanctioned promises were worthless.'

He is best remembered for the Magna Carta, which enshrined many freedoms we still enjoy today but which he had to be forced to sign by his nobles. Yet at least John stayed on the throne, unlike our No. 7, Edward VIII, a profoundly irresponsible monarch who put his love affair with Mrs Simpson before his duty to the Empire.

Knowing that he was going to abdicate the next month, Edward nonetheless outrageously told the unemployed miners of South Wales in November 1936 that: 'Something should be done to get them at work again.' This raised hope among them that the Government might save their jobs, which Edward knew was not the case.

Edward VIII was not a psychopathic murderer, however, unlike No. 6, an appropriate position for Henry VIII as it was also the number of wives he had, most of whom he harried, bullied and generally maltreated. To behead not one but two wives, and to invent the whole concept of divorce in order to get shot of two more, would win Henry a place in any list of rogues.

But it was his cruel, cynical brutality towards everyone who crossed him in life - male as well as female - that makes Henry VIII particularly unpleasant. When he knew he was dying, he had the handsome, intelligent young poet the Earl of Surrey executed beforehand, supposedly for treason, but really because he was jealous of his looks, talent and charm.

Henry was a strong monarch, however, unlike the utterly pathetic bisexual Edward II and Richard II, who tie for fourth place. Edward II scandalised the court and angered his father Edward I by his passionate attachment to the courtier Piers Gaveston, whose greed and arrogance was plain to everyone, except the besotted Edward.

After Gaveston was assassinated by the nobles, Edward became infatuated with another courtier, Hugh Despenser, on to whom he lavished land and riches.

When finally Despenser fell from power in January 1327, Edward II was captured and killed at Berkeley Castle, reputedly by the insertion of a red-hot poker into his rectum, in order to conceal the murder. A nasty way to go, but if anyone deserved it, it was he.

Tying at joint fourth is Richard II, who just like Edward II, fell under the influence of a disastrous favourite, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who historians record was 'a silly, vain, irresponsible man'.

It was in Richard II's time that disastrous foreign adventures bankrupted the government, causing him to try to raise the hated poll tax, which led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

And so we arrive at the finalists in our royal gallery of shame. In third place comes English Heritage's top choice, George IV, whose self-indulgence, hatred of his kindly father, 'mad' George III, swinishness to his (admittedly dreadful) wife Princess Caroline, and appalling over-spending during straitened times, meant that the newspapers openly celebrated his death in 1830.

Indolent and obese (he was nicknamed 'the Prince of Whales'), his scandalous private life - he married his mistress illegally - and his refusal to allow his wife to attend his coronation held up the monarchy to widespread ridicule.

In second place comes Mary Tudor (1516-1558 ), who cruelly burned at the stake no fewer than 300 Protestants - each execution having her personal sanction. A puppet ruler for her hated religious fanatic husband, Philip II of Spain, Bloody Mary was responsible for the burning to death of the saintly Bishop Nicholas Ridley and the preacher Hugh Latimer. For these and other crimes, she deserves the dishonour of being our worst ever queen.

In my opinion, however, the most useless British monarch of all time was someone of whom few have even heard. King Stephen usurped his uncle Henry I's throne in 1135, outmanouevring both his own elder brother Theobald and the rightful heir, Henry's daughter the Empress Matilda.

He seized the Treasury, crowned himself, gave Cumbria to the Scots to buy them off, paid Danegeld to appease the Danes and then plunged Britain into a series of four civil wars between 1138 and 1154. These left the country ravaged, impoverished and weaker than at any other time before or since.

It is a doleful list of cruelty, disaster and failure. But we should remember that monarchy is, by its very nature, something of a lottery. And just as Britain has had the misfortune to endure some very bad rulers, so too have we enjoyed some truly great ones.

Indeed, we are particularly blessed to have a reigning monarch today who undoubtedly stands in the top five, alongside such illustrious predecessors as Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Edward III, George V and George III. Hard-working, devout, dutiful, good-natured and respected throughout the world, the Queen is everything a nation looks for in a head of state.

If she has her mother's longevity - and there is every indication from her state of health that she does - she will beat Queen Victoria's record reign of 63 years, seven months and three days on the throne, on September 16, 2015.

If monarchy's a lottery, our age may just have struck the jackpot.

dailymail.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75518 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75511 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:49:07 GMT On May 2, 1670 something occurred. What? And what historical record does it hold? On May 2, 1670 something occurred. What?

And what historical record does it hold?
]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75511 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75496 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:43:03 GMT Is there a castle of sorts located within these islands? What is it called and why was it built? Is there a castle of sorts located within these islands? What is it called and why was it built? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75496 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75459 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:29:44 GMT What significant event occurred on the outskirts of Bethel, N Y ? ---------------- I was there. What significant event occurred on the outskirts of Bethel, N Y ?



---------------- I was there.
]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75459 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75122 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:05:54 GMT *William Hargood was captain of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Belleisle during the Battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish.* *The ship was... William Hargood was captain of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Belleisle during the Battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish.

The ship was "dismasted" during the battle, and a quarter of the ship's crew were killed.

Ironically, the HMS Belleisle used to be a French ship, until it was captured by the British after they defeated the French at the Battle of Groix in 1795.

Now the log written by Hargood offers some more insight into Nelson's victory....

Battle of Trafalgar log offers insight into Nelson's victory

by Nick Britten
02/07/2008
The Telegraph

New light has been shed on the greatest battle in British naval history after a rare eye-witness account by one of its heroes was uncovered.



The Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, in which the Royal Navy, led by Horatio Nelson, completely overwhelmed the combined French/Spanish fleet


William Hargood was captain of HMS Belleisle, which was at the heart of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 when Admiral Lord Nelsonand the Royal Navy defeated the Franco-Spanish fleet.

Around a quarter of his vessel's men were killed or injured as they staged an often lone fight against the enemy before finally being "dismasted".

Now what is believed to be Hargood's own log of the battle is up for auction after being discovered gathering dust in a loft of a house in Loughborough, Leicestershire.

Describing the scene in the hours ahead of the battle, Hargood noted the fight would take place in "light airs and hazy weather, with heavy swell".

He later wrote: "At daylight we saw the enemy's fleet bearing east nine miles, consisting of 33 sail of the line, five frigates and two sloops.


The Royal Navy ship HMS Belleisle after the Battle of Trafalgar. The ship used to be a French ship, until the British captured it from the French during the Battle of Groix in 1795, which was a British victory


"5.40: Answered the general signal to form the order of sailing. 6.00: Answered the general signal to bear up and sail large and prepare for battle.

"Made all sail, bearing down on the enemy. Answered the general telegraph signal from Lord Nelson that England expected every man to do his duty."

Of the actual battle, he kept his entries brief and clinical.

He wrote: "12.08: commenced fire on the enemy. 12.10: Cut the stern of a Spanish 80-gun ship.

"1.30: Heavy fire on both sides. Our ship became totally unmanageable. Most of the sails and rigging being cut away.

"3.15: One of our ships passed our bow and took the fire of an enemy's ship. 3.25: The Swiftsure passed our stern and cheered us." Describing the end of battle, which claimed 449 British fatalities, including Nelson, he wrote: "The action ceased. People were employed securing the guns, cleaning and pumping ship. Strong gales and squally at the end."

The Belleisle was second into battle, closely following the flagship HMS Royal Sovereign into enemy lines, and in the very thick of the action, at one time firing at the Fougueux and the Santa Ana simultaneously.

Despite capturing the Argonauta, the Belleisle was eventually dismasted with 33 dead and 93 wounded, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until other vessels came to her rescue.

Hargood, the son of a humble purser, survived the battle and was later made an admiral to cap a distinguished naval career.

The log, dated October 21 1805 and verified by the National Manuscripts department at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, will be auctioned later this month and is expected to fetch £800.

telegraph.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75122 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75112 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:39:10 GMT Archaeologists have discovered what is being dubbed as Britain's first "shopping centre" - a Roman street that was lined with shops that is 1800 years old.

The street, discovered near Caerwent, Monmouthshire, was part of a Roman town called Venta Silurum.

Archaeologists discover Britain's first 'shopping centre' in Roman dig


02nd July 2008
Daily Mail



One of Britain's very first shopping centres has been unearthed - a high street that was fashionable 1,800 years ago when togas were still in vogue.

A row of narrow shop buildings uncovered by archaeologists shows that the Romans in Britain had their very own well-heeled fashionistas.

The shop buildings used by the stylish Romans in ancient Britain were uncovered by archaeologists in fields in Monmouthshire.

The site, now occupied only by the rural village of Caerwent near Newport, was formerly Venta Silurum - one of 15 major towns in Britain at the time.



Boudicca's boutique? Archaeologists uncover the outlines of Roman shops at Caerwent

Crucially for archaeologist, unlike most of these 15 towns Venta Silurum did not stay important. Instead it declined - and so escaped the demolition, rebuilding and enlargement that have obliterated early remains elsewhere over the centuries.

Archaeologists say the surviving evidence show it was affluent and fashionable in Roman times, with wealthy villas in the suburbs.

A villa with painted walls and mosaic floors among the other finds also points to the town being home to wealthy Romans in the Third Century AD, when Venta Silurum was booming.

Archaeologist Tom Scott described the 44-acre site as 'beautifully preserved'.

He said: 'Discovering the shop buildings and the villa, it seems as if people lived here in some style.

'The site appealed to us as it is one of the best preserved Roman towns in the UK.

'This was a golden opportunity for us to find out more about it.'

A team of 50 worked on the excavation at the Roman site including members of Wessex Archaeology and volunteers from the local Chepstow Archaeology Society.

Seven trenches were dug at three different locations to uncover more about previously unexcavated parts of the town.

Long thin buildings were also found in several places - believed to be shop buildings on the high street.

Key finds included a penknife hilt of bone depicting two gladiators fighting.

Other artefacts uncovered included coins, glass, ceramics, human and animal bones, lead patches used for repairing, and bits of mosaic.

Mr Scott said: 'This type of town was a "civitas capital" - a civilian town and centre of local Roman government - one of around 15 in the UK.

'Most of these had later towns built on top so you can't see the town walls, but Caerwent is beautifully preserved.'

Archaeologist Jacqueline McKinley said: 'The large villa we found suggests this was a posh part of town.

'We also found animal bones on the site which suggests that at least one of the high street shops was a butchers.

'It looks as if the animal bones belonged to joints of meat that would have been displayed in the shop window.

'It was a very successful dig and filled in some gaps in our knowledge of the ancient town.'

dailymail.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75112 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75079 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:38:27 GMT June 20, 2008 Was the Holocaust Inevitable? ... June 20, 2008 Was the Holocaust Inevitable?
by Patrick J. Buchanan "What Would Winston Do?"
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."
Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The Brits kicked away their empire. Through colossal blunders, Britain twice declared war on a Germany that had not attacked her and did not want war with her, fought for 10 bloody years and lost it all.
Unable to face the truth, Hitchens seeks solace in old myths.
We had to stop Prussian militarism in 1914, says Hitchens. "The Kaiser's policy shows that Germany was looking for a chance for war all over the globe."
Nonsense. If the Kaiser were looking for a war he would have found it. But in 1914, he had been in power for 25 years, was deep into middle age but had never fought a war nor seen a battle.
From Waterloo to World War I, Prussia fought three wars, all in one seven-year period, 1864 to 1871. Out of these wars, she acquired two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, and two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. By 1914, Germany had not fought a war in two generations.
Does that sound like a nation out to conquer the world?
As for the Kaiser's bellicose support for the Boers, his igniting the Agadir crisis in 1905, his building of a great fleet, his seeking of colonies in Africa, he was only aping the British, whose approbation and friendship he desperately sought all his life and was ever denied.
In every crisis the Kaiser blundered into, including his foolish "blank cheque" to Austria after Serb assassins murdered the heir to the Austrian throne, the Kaiser backed down or was trying to back away when war erupted.
Even Churchill, who before 1914 was charging the Kaiser with seeking "the dominion of the world," conceded, "History should ... acquit William II of having plotted and planned the World War."
What of World War II? Surely, it was necessary to declare war to stop Adolf Hitler from conquering the world and conducting the Holocaust.
Yet consider. Before Britain declared war on him, Hitler never demanded return of any lands lost at Versailles to the West. Northern Schleswig had gone to Denmark in 1919, Eupen and Malmedy had gone to Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine to France.
Why did Hitler not demand these lands back? Because he sought an alliance, or at least friendship, with Great Britain and knew any move on France would mean war with Britain -- a war he never wanted.
If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered? Germany had to give up its High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Why did he build his own Maginot Line, the Westwall, in the Rhineland, if he meant all along to invade France?
If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?
That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. Mein Kampf is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.
Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.
That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.
And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.
Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.
"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"
Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.
The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.
Britain went to war with Germany to save Poland. She did not save Poland. She did lose the empire. And Josef Stalin, whose victims outnumbered those of Hitler 1,000 to one as of September 1939, and who joined Hitler in the rape of Poland, wound up with all of Poland, and all the Christian nations from the Urals to the Elbe.
The British Empire fought, bled and died, and made Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. No wonder Winston Churchill was so melancholy in old age. No wonder Christopher rails against the book. As T.S. Eliot observed, "Mankind cannot bear much reality." ]]> History darkbeaver http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75079 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75017 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:46:53 GMT IT'S ALL ONE 'WAR'

PBS SHOW TO ARGUE ALLIES AS BAD AS NAZIS



US Marines led by a tank towards the last strongpoint of the Japanese resistance in WWII.




Last updated: 3:42 am
June 26, 2008
MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory.
Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics practiced by the enemy.
The three-part documentary is a companion to the best-selling book, "The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West" by Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson. The one-hour Part One of the documentary premieres Monday night at 10 on Ch. 13. The other two parts air the following two Mondays. World War II is the focus of Part Two.
His thesis: Instead of looking at the 20th century as having been disrupted by two world wars with periods of relative peace before, between and after them, it is more appropriate to view much of the history of the century as a continuous bloody conflict that was interrupted occasionally for a few short, exhausted catnaps of relative calm.
It is an illuminating viewpoint, and Ferguson does an effective job tying all of the century's mass deportations, enslavements, ethnic cleansings and genocides together so that you can't help being won over to his view that the violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
But it is Ferguson's revisionist view of the tactics applied by the Allies in World War II that is likely to raise the hackles of those who have always believed in the "necessity" of bombing German and Japanese civilians, culminating in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end a war we did not start.
"I think it's very hard for those who have imbibed the idea of a 'great generation' that what the Allies did to defeat the Axis was in some measure to adopt totalitarian tactics," Ferguson says in a Q&A on PBS's Web site.
"The aim of strategic bombing was . . . in large measure to kill German civilians by destroying the most densely populated parts of the country. And it only really worked when the level of destruction reached apocalyptic levels. It behooves us all to stare this reality in the face, by trying to understand what it was like to be on the receiving end of firestorms like the ones that engulfed Hamburg or Dresden."
And once again, it is demonstrated that nothing is sacred - not even World War II. ]]> History sanctus http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75017 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74996 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:36:07 GMT Which renowned viking (http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3293190#) do you think was the greatest, most renowned or feared? *Harald... Which renowned viking do you think was the greatest, most renowned or feared?

Harald Hardraada- feared king of Norway and was killed invading England in 1066?

Canute- Won the English throne in 1016 and an Empire through a series of grim battles, but became quite holy and reigned until 1035? ]]> History ironaxe http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74996 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74945 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:19:05 GMT A British historian has demanded that the French give the Bayeux tapestry back to the British....

It's our tapestry - give it back



It's ours, you sew and sews ... the 'British' version of the Bayeux Tapestry




By ALEX WEST
25th June 2008
The Sun


A TOP historian called on the French yesterday to give back the famous Bayeux Tapestry . . . because it is BRITISH.

France has stitched us up over the medieval embroidery which it displays as its own national treasure, expert Dave Musgrove said.

In fact, the depiction of William the Conqueror’s defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was probably sewn in Canterbury.



Eye-con ...King Harold scenes aren't French


Dr Musgrove declared: “It is an iconic document of English history.

“It relates to French and Norman history as well, but for English history it is really, really important.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing to have it shown in England? The crowds would come flocking.”

The 70-metre tapestry is a big tourist attraction in the Normandy town of Bayeux, where it has been kept since at least 1476.

But Dr Musgrove, editor of BBC History Magazine, said most academics now agree it was created in England, 400 years earlier.

Latin script on the wool and linen work suggests the words were written by someone of Anglo-Saxon origin, he told Radio 4’s Today programme.

And imagery used is similar to that on illuminated manuscripts in the Kent city’s library.

He said: “There is a pretty good academic consensus that it could well have been made in Canterbury.”

Art historian Carola Hicks agreed it “could well” have been made in England. But she urged caution about needling the French by demanding it back.

Referring to Napoleon Bonaparte – who took the tapestry to Paris as a propaganda stunt in 1803 before being defeated at Trafalgar – she said: “Look what happened to him.”

We've added famous British faces to the tapestry. Prince Harry and a beer bottle replace King Harold with an arrow in his eye, far left. Also shown are (left to right) Jordan, Pete Doherty, Wayne and Coleen Rooney, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse, Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall.

thesun.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74945 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74937 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:04:47 GMT *Nell Gwyn is the most famous royal mistress in British history. She was one of the many mistresses of King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685.* ... Nell Gwyn is the most famous royal mistress in British history. She was one of the many mistresses of King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685.

She was originally a fruit-seller, selling oranges in the pit of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

She made it into the big time when she met Charles II, a king who was famous for having many mistresses - he was nicknamed "The Merry Monarch."

Gwyn was born in Coal Yard Alley in London, and when she met the King she became known for her "expenses". She ordered anything that she wanted, no matter the cost. But she was also generous, once giving a beggar sixpence (£5 in today's money).

She was also very popular with the people, too, especially neing a Protestant. Whilst out riding in a coach one day, a mob of people mistook her for the hated Catholic Louise de Keroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was also French. The mob rocked her coach and pelted it with mud, until she stuck her head out and shouted: "'Pray good people, be civil. You are mistaken. I am the Protestant wh*re!'

After 11 years of republican dictatorship (which is one of the reasons why the British are so anti-republic today) until the monarchy was restored in 1660 when Charles II took to the throne, Nell Gwyn lifted the spirit of the nation....

Royal mistress Nell Gwyn's expenses would shame our MPs but she was worth every penny


By Andrew Roberts
24th June 2008
Daily Mail


Nel Gwyn (born 1650, died 1687), mistress of King Charles II



The most famous royal mistress in British history, Nell Gwyn, might have been a shopaholic, but she was a very meticulous one.

It seems she kept a note of every act of extravagance she enjoyed, asking the Treasury to pay them off - and her long sexual liaison with King Charles II always ensured they all were.

With the auction at Sotheby's next month of her shopping bills covering a three-week period in 1675, we can see that her cost to the British taxpayer might shock even today's MPs and MEPs. Unlike them, however, her expenses claims were always filed complete with receipts.

Nell travelled everywhere by sedan chair, ordered a silver bed that cost £1,135 (or over £150,000 at today's values), bought three barrels of oysters a week, ordered children's gloves by the dozen (at a shilling each) and put her rum, brandy, cheese, custard pots and even fruit down to the public exchequer.

There is nothing Nell Gwyn could have learned from today's footballers' WAGs when it comes to extravagance, with even the sixpence (£5 today) that she gave to a beggar at a theatre being charged to her royal lover's account.

Yet I believe that, in stark contrast to many modern-day politicians, Nell Gwyn was worth every penny to the Stuart taxpayer - for she was one of the most attractive characters in British history.

Attractive not just for her looks and figure - which were popularly acknowledged to be stunning even by the high standards of Charles II's mistresses - but also for her charming, self- deprecating, good-natured personality.

The great diarist Samuel Pepys, who always kept a lewd portrait of her by his desk in the Admiralty, called her 'pretty, witty Nell', and certainly after 11 black and humourless years of Puritan dictatorship, Nell lifted the spirits of a nation.

One of the reasons the British people took Nell to their hearts was that, unlike most of Charles's other mistresses, she came from humble beginnings.


King Charles II, reigned 1660-1685

She grew up in Coal Yard Alley, a slum near Drury Lane, where her father, 'a dilapidated ex-soldier', was a fruiterer, and close to where her mother ran a brothel until she fell drunk into the Thames at Millbank and drowned.

Historians are agreed that she worked on occasion for her father selling oranges and lemons, and some think she probably also worked for her mother as a child prostitute, too, though she always denied it.

It was a lover of hers, the actor Charles Hart, who took her from selling oranges in the pit of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in 1665 - aged 15 - to appearing on stage there in a series of Restoration comedies and dramas.

Her beauty, fine figure and expressive self-confidence won the hearts of ever-greater audiences, and the playwright John Dryden wrote risque prologues and epilogues especially for her.

She had to learn these lines by heart after having them read to her, as she was illiterate all her life, signing herself 'E.G.' for Eleanor Gwyn.

Britons had been starved of any play-going during the Puritan tyranny, so they took to Nell's sweet-natured bawdiness with gusto. During the Great Plague she move to Oxford to join the King's acting troupe, and later had an affair with the poet and courtier Lord Buckhurst, taking £100 a year off him in 'expenses'.

But in January 1668, she got her big break, as the King noticed her at the theatre, and soon Pepys was recording 'that the King did send several times for Nelly'. That April, Nell and the King were dining together with the Duke of York and a cousin of the Duck of Buckingham when it turned out that only Nell had money on her to pay the bill.

'Odd's fish,' she joked, mimicking the King, 'but this is the poorest company I was ever in!'

Having been the mistress of Charles Hart and the wealthy Lord Buckhurst, also known as Charles Sackville, she nicknamed her new lover 'Charles the third'. In May 1670, Nell had a baby by the King: his seventh son by five mistresses.

Innocent of politics - if not of much else - the young Nell Gwyn stepped into a highly political court. The King's haughty and well-born French mistress, Louise de Keroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth, was as different from Nell as it was possible to be.

Coming from the sophisticated court of Versailles, Louise despised the jokes and high spirits of the former orangeseller, while Nell nicknamed her rival 'Squintabella' for her (very slight) squint and 'the Weeping Willow' for her way of using tears to get her way with Charles.

Ordinary Britons loved Nell and disliked the foreign, Catholic, haughty Duchess, and when goldsmiths were ordered to make a costly service plate for Portsmouth they cursed her, saying they wished it had been made for Nell.

It was during this period that Nell's coach was mistaken by the Oxford mob for that of the Duchess, and it began to be rocked and pelted with mud.

Showing her inimitable humour as well as some courage, Nell put her head through the window and cried out: 'Pray good people, be civil. You are mistaken. I am the Protestant wh*re.'

She never minded being described as such, telling a coachman of hers who was about to fight for her honour: 'I am a *****. Try to find something else to fight about.'

Nell herself was ready to fight for the rights of her two sons by Charles, and when the King protested that it had been indelicate of her to call the eldest son by the unsubtle name of Charles, she archly remarked: 'Your Majesty has given me no other name to call him by.'

Charles made the boy the Earl of Burford. It was said Nell held the six-year-old out of a window by his legs, threatening to drop him if he were not granted a peerage.

'God save the Earl of Burford!' cried the genuinely worried monarch. Eventually the boy became the Duke of St Albans and his descendant, the 14th Duke, lives today.

Yet, for all these high jinks, Charles and Nell had a genuine love match. The King's last words to his brother and heir, the future James II, as he lay dying in February 1685, were: 'Let not poor Nelly starve.'

The new monarch paid off her tradesmen's debts of £729, 2s and 3d, thereby saving her from Newgate Prison. He also gave her a country estate in Nottingham, which stayed in the St Albans family until World War II.

Nell lived two years longer than Charles, dying after two strokes aged 37. In her will she 'laid out £20 yearly for the releasing of poor debtors from prison', a fate she had escaped only by the generosity of her most famous lover and his brother.

Stuart England was the poorer for the loss of a woman who was praised for her wit by both Dryden and Pepys, and who was a friend of the female playwright Aphra Behn, the wit Lord Rochester, and most of her ex-lovers.

One other great legacy of Nell's still stands; the magnificent Royal Hospital in Chelsea which this ex-serviceman's daughter persuaded Charles II to build to house poor veterans. Today it is the home of the red-coated Chelsea Pensioners.

Extravagant and spendthrift with taxpayers' money she undoubtedly was, but in her charm and high spirits she brightened up the Restoration era. She certainly showed far more character and generosity than our grasping MEPs who plunder the public purse today, with so little to show for it. And she even produced receipts.

dailymail.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74937 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74681 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:42:28 GMT The HMS Ontario, a British warship built in 1780, has been discovered in deep water off the southern shore of Lake Ontario. In the early evening... The HMS Ontario, a British warship built in 1780, has been discovered in deep water off the southern shore of Lake Ontario.

In the early evening hours of October 31, 1780, the British sloop of war HMS Ontario sank with over 120 men, women, children and prisoners on board during a sudden and violent gale. The Ontario had departed earlier in the day from Fort Niagara, near the western end of Lake Ontario, for Oswego and then on to Fort Haldimand located on Carleton Island in the St. Lawrence River. The following day some of the Ontario’s boats, hatchway gratings, binnacle, compasses and several hats and blankets drifted ashore in the area that is known today as Golden Hill State Park, located 30 miles east of Fort Niagara in New York State. Following the reported loss of the Ontario, the British conducted a wide search of the area on land and water. A few days later only the ship’s sails were found adrift in the lake. In late July 1781, six bodies from the Ontario were found approximately 12 miles east of the Niagara River near Wilson, NY. This was the extent of the items ever found from the ship until its recent discovery.
.......

The discovery of the HMS Ontario was made in early June utilizing sophisticated side scan sonar technology. The sonar imagery clearly shows a large sailing ship partially resting on one side, with two masts reaching up more than 70 feet above the lake bottom. The remains of two crow’s nests on each mast provided good confirmation that the sunken ship would be the brig-sloop Ontario. The ship was found between Niagara and Rochester, NY in an area of the lake where the depth extends to more than 500 feet. Due to the depth limitations for diving on this shipwreck, an underwater remote operated vehicle with deep dive capability, developed by Scoville, was utilized to explore and confirm the identity of the ship.
.......

In the deep depth where the Ontario lies there is no visible light to illuminate the ship. A remote operated vehicle with on-board cameras and high intensity lighting was deployed to bring back images of the sunken shipwreck. The schooner was found sitting upright on the bottom leaning over to one side. The masts are still in place rising up over 70 feet from the bottom. A portion of the bowsprit remains and just below it there is a beautifully carved scroll bow stem. Two of the cannons are visible in the bow area but they have come loose from their original positions. Two of the large anchors are clearly visible. One anchor is still secure in its original position and the other has dropped off to the side of the ship. The most characteristic feature of this ship are the quarter galleries that are located on either side of the stern area of the HMS Ontario. A quarter gallery is a kind of balcony with windows that are typically placed on the sides of the stern-castle, a high, tower-like structure at the back of a ship that housed the officers’ quarters. Both quarter galleries are there with some of the window glass still in place. Under the ship’s tiller rests one of the small cannons that had been mounted on the stern deck of the ship. A few deadeyes and pulley blocks can be seen lying about in the wreckage. Many of the belaying pins that were used to secure lines are still located on the rails of the ship. All of the hatch covers and skylights are gone leaving a slight opening to the deck below, however, the ROV was not able to penetrate into the lower deck due to the silt that has been deposited over the years.

More here with pictures:
http://www.shipwreckworld.com/story/...e-ontario.aspx

VIDEO: A segment of the underwater video of the Ontario. ]]> History hermite http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74681 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74665 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:20:59 GMT Which is the largest province? - Saskatchewan - B.C. - Ontario - Quebec Which is the largest province?
- Saskatchewan
- B.C.
- Ontario
- Quebec ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74665 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74663 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:15:04 GMT Who were the first "foreigners" to set foot in what was to become Canada? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74663 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74662 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:12:50 GMT This invasion established what? This invasion established what? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74662 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74661 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:11:20 GMT The invasion was called what, and who won? The invasion was called what, and who won? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74661 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74660 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:09:05 GMT Why did the country invade Canada? Why did the country invade Canada? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74660 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74659 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:07:19 GMT Which was the first and only country to invade Canada? Which was the first and only country to invade Canada? ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74659 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74649 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:01:09 GMT *A British warship which sunk whilst sailing on Lake Ontario in 1780 during a fierce gale has been found.* *The ship, also called Ontario, was a... A British warship which sunk whilst sailing on Lake Ontario in 1780 during a fierce gale has been found.

The ship, also called Ontario, was a 22-gunship and may have had around 130 people onboard, including 30 American prisoners, when it sank....

18th century British warship HMS Ontario found intact in Great Lake

By Patrick Sawer
15/06/2008
Daily Mail

A British warship which sank during the American War of Independence has been found in remarkable condition at the bottom of Lake Ontario.


How the Royal Navy warship HMS Ontario looked, before it was sunk during the American War of Independence



AP
The crows nest and foremast of the sunken 228-year-old British warship HMS Ontario


AP
A cannon is visible on the starboard side of the British warship


AP







The HMS Ontario had long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks and is the oldest shipwreck and only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes.

The 22-gunship was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780.

It was found by shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville using side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible

Historian Arthur Britton Smith, whose book The Legend of the Lake chronicles the history of the HMS Ontario, said: "To have a Revolutionary War vessel that's practically intact is unbelievable. It's an archaeological miracle."

The 80ft sloop of war was found to have been astonishingly well-preserved by the cold, deep waters of the lake.

Kennard and Scoville said they regard it as a war grave and have no plans to raise it or remove any of its artifacts. They said the ship is still considered the property of the British Admiralty.

Although the vessel sits in an area where the water is up to 500ft deep and cannot be reached by anyone but the most experienced divers, Kennard and Scoville refused to give its exact location in a bid to deter scavengers, saying only that it was found off the southern shore.

The sloop was discovered resting partially on its side, with two masts extending more than 70 feet above the lake bottom.

Two crow's nests on each mast - a rare feature - helped identify the ship, as did the carved scroll bow stem. The explorers also found two cannons, two anchors and the ship's bell. The quarter galleries on either side of the stern, which housed the officers' quarters, were beautifully preserved.

Scoville said: "Usually when ships go down in big storms, they get beat up quite a bit. They don't sink nice and square. This went down in a huge storm, and it still managed to stay intact. There are even two windows that aren't broken. Just going down, the pressure difference, can break the windows. It's a beautiful ship."

Smith, who was shown underwater video of the find, said: "If it wasn't for the zebra mussels, she looks like she only sunk last week."

The dark, cold freshwater of Lake Ontario acts as a perfect preservative, Smith said. There is no light and no oxygen at that depth to aid decomposition, and little marine life to feed on the wood.

HMS Ontario went down on October 31, 1780, with a garrison of 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians, and possibly about 30 American war prisoners.

The warship had been launched only five months earlier and was used to ferry troops and supplies along the border of New York state. Although it was the biggest British ship on the Great Lakes at the time, it never saw battle, Smith said.

After the ship disappeared, the British conducted a sweeping search but tried to keep the sinking secret from General George Washington's troops because of the blow to British defences and morale.

Hatchway gratings, the binnacle, compasses and several hats and blankets drifted ashore the next day. A few days later the ship's sails were found adrift in the lake. In 1781, six bodies from the Ontario were found near Wilson, New York.

But for the next two centuries, there were no further traces of the ship.

Explorers had been searching for the Ontario for decades, and there have been numerous false finds over the years, said Eric Bloomquist, interpretative programmes manager at Old Fort Niagara.

Kennard, an electrical engineer who has been diving for nearly 40 years and has found more than 200 wrecks in the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes and in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, began searching for the Ontario 35 years ago, but quit after several frustrating and fruitless years.

He teamed up with Scoville, a diver who developed the remote-controlled submersible with students from the Rochester Institute of Technology, six years ago. The pair have since found seven ships in the lake.

Over the years, Kennard obtained documents from British and Canadian archives on the Ontario, including the ship's design plans. Even then, it took the pair three years of searching more than 200 square miles before they found the vessel earlier this month.

After locating the wreck with the sonar, the explorers used the submersible to confirm their find, chronicling their discovery with more than 80 minutes of underwater video.

Carrie Sowden, archaeological director of the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Centre of the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermillion, Ohio, said: "Certainly it is one of the earliest discovered shipwrecks, if not the earliest. And if it's in the condition they say, it's quite significant."

Kennard said he and his partner have gathered so much video evidence that it will not be necessary to return to the site. He added that they hope to make a documentary about the discovery.

There are an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including about 500 in Lake Ontario alone.

telegraph.co.uk ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74649 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74396 Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:55:49 GMT Today marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Lest we forget those that gave their lives to allow us to do what we do. Note: I have never been in a war... Today marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Lest we forget those that gave their lives to allow us to do what we do.
Note: I have never been in a war situation and cannot imagine what they went through but my gratitude for their sacrifices cannot be great enough.

scratch ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74396 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74338 Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:19:35 GMT Preface: I would like this to work in the same way that Zan's "last one to post wins". Since I will asking the questions and know the answers, therefore the burden of saying who has answered correctly falls upon me. There will be no debating if you please. Some of the questions will be multiple choice but the majority will be answered with a name, a date, a place etc. This thread has its genesis in Themes-sub forum History.
One additional note questions will be from 1605-2005.

Now I have to make a list of questions and it will start this coming Monday.
Any suggestions or ideas on how do make this run smoothly or ways to improve it would be greatly appreciated.
Sincere Regards to All,
scratch
:canada: ]]> History scratch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74338 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74143 Thu, 29 May 2008 17:02:46 GMT For over 100 years, gold letters on the deck of HMS Victory, Nelson's ship which is now in permanent dock in Portsmouth, have told visitors the exact spot where Nelson died after defeating the French and Spanish at Trafalgar in 1805.

But new evidence reveals that this may actually be the wrong location.

Nelson's last words are said to be "Kiss me, Hardy." The Battle of Trafalgar was very much a decisive British victory, mainly thanks to the fact that Britain's sailors were professional and full-time, whereas the French and Spanish sailors were newly-conscripted off the streets. The British sailors could fire cannon rounds much quicker than their French and Spanish enemies. 2,218 French sailors were killed and 1,025 Spanish sailors were killed. Just 449 British were killed. 7000 French and Spanish prisoners were taken by the British, and the British also captured 21 French and Spanish ships.

HMS Victory, Nelson's flagsip during the battle, in still in service with the Royal Navy to this day (though it doesn't actually sail anywhere).


You missed me, Hardy: Or how Nelson really died 25ft from the spot that's a shrine


By Daily Mail Reporter
28th May 2008
Daily Mail



They have come in their thousands to pay homage to Nelson - at the exact spot where he met his end.

'Here Nelson Died', proclaims gold lettering on HMS Victory's orlop deck, in a fitting monument to our greatest naval hero.

Except he didn't.


Curator Peter Goodwin discovered the structural timbers shown in Arthur Devis' famous painting did not match the spot where Nelson was thought to have died


Lord Nelson died 25ft further along the orlop deck after being shot by a sniper at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805

At least, not there. It turns out you need to shuffle a teensy bit to the fore to see where Nelson breathed his last. Well, 25ft in fact.

It's hardly the kind of mistake that England expects. But the Navy has finally been persuaded to do its duty and set the record straight.

The truth was fathomed by Peter Goodwin, the curator of Victory, after studying Arthur Devis's painting The Death of Nelson.

Lord Nelson in full regalia painted by Sir William Beechey



It shows the admiral in his final moments after being shot by a French sniper at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. As he lay dying during the next three hours, he is famously reported to have said to the ship's captain, Thomas Hardy: 'Kiss me, Hardy'.

Mr Goodwin said: 'As soon as Victory returned from Trafalgar, Devis came aboard and spent three weeks making sketches and models so he could paint a tribute to this hero.

'I studied his original sketches and realised the features did not tally with the position marked in the ship.'

Structural timbers in the painting did not match up with the spot where Nelson was believed to have died on the lowest deck.

After examining the painting and reading documents written at the time about how Victory was damaged, Mr Goodwin pinpointed a more accurate position - about 25ft further forward on the same deck.

He added: 'The marking in gold leaf has been there since around 1900, maybe earlier, and that's where people have stood in some sort of reverie, paying tribute to Nelson.

Unfortunately, they should have moved 25ft to their right.' It has taken the curator a decade to persuade the Navy he is correct.

But finally, officials have agreed to a new monument, marking the correct spot on the port side of the ship in Portsmouth Harbour.


Sculptor Philip Chatfield creates the memorial which will mark the spot aboard HMS Victory in Portsmouth, Hampshire where Admiral Lord Nelson died


Mr Goodwin, 57, added: 'History is not always what it appears to be. But the point is to get as close to accuracy as possible.'

The memorial will have a limestone centrepiece-taken from a site 20 miles from Cape Trafalgar in southern Spain.

It will read: 'Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson died of his wounds on this deck 4.30pm Monday 21 October 1805.'


Battle rages: A depiction of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, in which the professional and well-trained British sailors easily defeated the part-time and poorl-trained French and Spanish



A copy of Devis's painting is also on the deck. The original wording will be painted over.

Victory was Nelson's flagship when the British fleet confronted the Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar in the pivotal naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars. ]]> History Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74143 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=73968 Fri, 23 May 2008 06:47:18 GMT The DND is looking to replace our againg fleet of CF-18 Hornets by 2020. The Canadian gov. has invested 150$ million dollars into the F35 JSF program... The DND is looking to replace our againg fleet of CF-18 Hornets by 2020. The Canadian gov. has invested 150$ million dollars into the F35 JSF program and is looking at purchasing 80 of the aircraft for aprox. 3.8$ billion dollars. However the 3.8 doesn't include training, sustainment, and any follow up costs.

Now on Monday, may12, the federal gov. announced a reduction on the purchase from the original 80 to 65. Stating that the new fighters will have significantly greater capacity than our existing ones. But yet, two days later the gov. says that purchasing the F35 is no guarantee. The Canadian gov. is going to keep its options open for the replacement fighters.

So....we get involved with the JSF program, invest 150$ million dollars into it, announcement to buy 80, then reduced to 65, and now feds might not buy any. Exactly what the hell are they doing? ]]> History Starscream http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=73968