There are a couple of things that need to be made clear. President Polk had a strategic vision for the future of the US. He believed that the key to America's future was Asia trade. Europe was the past. The key to this future was the deepwater ports of what is now Seattle, San Francisco, and San...
I have seen an interesting description of what Reynolds actual orders were. Meade didn't know where Lee's forces were and didn't have good maps of the area. Reynolds was to take his wing of the army and post it in position to force Lee to concentrate in response. There is a specific term for...
Ford didn't invent the assembly line/mass production. He applied an existing technique to the automobile industry. His more radical but subtle innovation was increasing his workers' pay enough so that they could buy their own cars.
Different reasons. The basic reason is most colonies were not really self-sufficient and were dependent on the empire for protection. Jamaica is an example of this. Quebec didn't join the rebellion for various reasons. A lot of Loyalists were settled in Canada after the end of the war. Australia...
The critical point is that Henry V died before the King of France died. That part of the HYW is actually a French Civil War. The two factions, Armangac and Burgundy, hated each other so much that each faction preferred Henry to be king instead of the other faction. If Henry lives a normal span...
Britain was great at building an empire and bad at keeping it. America, Ireland, and India all rebelled for similar reasons. Britain viewed colonies as sources of revenue to be exploited for domestic interests instead of assets to be cultivated.
The premise of the post is Britain mishandling the Settlement. Britain has a history of bungling these situations. This is a very different situation the Post Civil War America. Britain is a great power in competition with peers larger than it. Its North American Empire has gone from a source of...
Funny thing about the American Revolution is the best outcome for France was a British victory. If Britain crushes the rebellion, it has to manage a continent with a substantially hostile population. Instead of a revenue producing asset, America is an expense in both money and manpower.
You want to look at the difference between Washington and Jefferson. Washington gave up being a planter and became a farmer. He stopped growing tobacco and diversified. He grew grain, built a distillery, and looked at other crops that didn't deplete the soil. Jefferson stayed a planter and died...
Thomas Jefferson was born among the wealthiest men in America and died a debtor.
If you look at Plantation economics of the time, the planters were under control of their English factors. The factors set the price planters received for tobacco. They also sold the planters goods, setting the...
If you are using Thomas Jefferson as your guide for economics, you have a problem. Jefferson was born wealthy, the beneficiary of the slave plantation system. He was hostile to trade and industry. Hamilton was born poor. He understood that trade and industry provided opportunity. He also...