It Happened in History
Welcome back to school Gryphons! A new semester has started and the summer is now ancient History, as they say! Speaking of History…
It’s so easy to view History as a discipline, as a subject filled with research and quantitative information, almost scientific, if you will. But that doesn’t mean History can’t be fun! In fact, when you really think about History at its core – the story of the interactions between people, the environment and themselves – you start to understand that History is in itself one big, everlasting drama! As a History student myself, I can find it hard to make sense of some of my lectures. So, if I find myself getting lost when listening to my professor discuss the past, I simply imagine that they are “spilling the tea” from hundreds of years ago! It makes it so much easier to follow and remember!
So why don’t we take a look at some juicy gossip from the past few years to help others understand that History isn’t as scary, overwhelming or boring as it may seem.
John A. MacDonald vs. George Brown: A Classic Enemies to Frenemies
Did you all hear how in the 1860s, Canada East and Canada West were total enemies? Both had different political parties vying for their hand. The West was liberal and was besties with the French Canadians, whereas the East was more conservative and had beef with the Francophones. George Brown was the leader of the Reform party and John A. MacDonald led the Conservatives. So naturally, they had beef with each other. George wanted to say goodbye to the two separate majorities and just make one big happy family with multiple provinces under one leader… aka federalism. John did not care one bit for George’s idea and it wasn’t like it was going to affect him and his peeps anyway; he had friends in both Canada East and West, so he was set.
No one could agree and no one would budge on what they thought was right… they were at a stalemate! George tried to get everyone to talk it out but John brought in his new bestie, George-Etienne Cartier, and they were like: no. But George Brown’s friends stood up and they got the job done. George literally locked 17 grown men who hated each other’s guts in a room to talk about Canada’s future. And after this, John lost his power and was kicked out! Talk about a crazy few months!
George decided to take the highway and reach out to John as friends and the two of them actually got a lot done! George was reluctant to join his “enemies,” but in the end, he did what was best for the nation. This paved the way for the Charlottetown Conference and Confederation! Just goes to show how teaming up and putting aside our differences can actually go a long way!
(The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2024)
Taking the Blame: Germany Didn’t Actually Start WW1?
You’ve most likely heard that Germany takes the blame for the events of World War I and has to pay a whole bunch of money they don’t have for their crimes, right? What if I told you they didn’t actually start it?
It’s 1914 and Austria-Hungary decides it wants Serbia and other surrounding nations to become a part of them… the other nations don’t take it too well. Serbia is quite mad and took out the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, which in turn made Austria-Hungary really mad. After some failed negotiating, Serbia gets scared, so it calls up its friend Russia to help it out. Russia called for backup from its friend, France, and now Serbia was feeling better.
Austria-Hungary was now the scared one. Without anyone else to turn to, they asked their friend Germany for backup. Now, Germany couldn’t say no. They had the equivalent of a very binding pinky promise with Austria-Hungary, so no matter the fact that it wasn’t the one to make Russia and France mad, they still had to fight them. But, to fight France, they first had to get through tiny Belgium, which they thought would be no problem… spoiler, it was a problem!
Germany definitely underestimated Belgium and Belgium fought back, also calling their bestie for some help. And who was their bestie, you might ask? Great Britain. So now, despite not being the one to start the drama, Germany had to fight Russia, France, Belgium and Great Britain. And the one who started it all, Austria-Hungary, was little help.
So next time you think about the drama that came with the start of the First World War, remember that Austria-Hungary played a messier role than anyone else!