![]() ![]() Whatever triumphs could be parsed from the war, it was now accepted that none reached the Indian Confederation under Tecumseh. The tragic consequences of 1812 for the native nations also began to receive proper attention. ![]() During the 20th century, historians recast the war in national terms: as a precondition for the entrenchment of Southern slavery, the jumping-off point for the goal of Manifest Destiny and the opening salvos in the race for industrial-capitalist supremacy. But even this note could not be sustained, and by the end of the century, the historian Henry Adams was depicting the war as an aimless exercise in blunder, arrogance and human folly. ![]() In the immediate aftermath of the war, American commentators painted the battles of 1812-15 as part of a glorious “second war for independence.” As the 19th century progressed, this view changed into a more general story about the “birth of American freedom” and the founding of the Union. Moreover, among Americans, the chief actors in the drama, there are multiple variations of the versions, leading to widespread disagreement about the causes, the meaning and even the outcome of the war. In my defense, I suspect I’m not the only one to make this mistake.įor people like me, who have got their flags and wars mixed up, I think it should be pointed out that there may have been only one War of 1812, but there are four distinct versions of it-the American, the British, the Canadian and the Native American. During that brief sea voyage, pirates attacked his ship, captured him and made him a slave.As we look forward to celebrating the bicentennial of the “Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key, I have to admit, with deep shame and embarrassment, that until I left England and went to college in the U.S., I assumed the words referred to the War of Independence. As miserable an end to his story as that sounds, it actually got worse. Queen Henrietta had to dismiss him from her court and send him by ship to England. It also ended poorly for Hudson because duels were illegal (that’s why Crofts hadn’t taken the idea seriously). Hudson, on the other hand, carried a regular gun and very easily shot him dead. He didn’t take the duel seriously, however, and when he showed up on horseback at the scheduled time, he held a squirt gun. Hudson challenged him to a duel, and Crofts accepted.Ĭrofts said he accepted, anyway. ![]() We don’t have a record of this insult, but we’re guessing it had something to do with his being a dwarf. A man named Crofts, brother to the Baron William Crofts, insulted Hudson in some manner. In 1644, he and the Queen were living in France, her home country, which she considered a safer place than England thanks to the English Civil War. Plus, Lanka had demanded that everything appear in a single paper, but Bardens had had to find multiple papers that each proved an individual fact, since that’s how papers work. Lanka had demanded the diameter of the virus, and the papers showed a range beyond what he considered acceptable. For starters, he’d demanded proof of the isolated virus, and the papers Bardens had submitted instead showed the virus in “transport vesicles” of cells (because viruses can’t exist independently of cells or vesicles). He hadn’t merely said “prove measles” he’d laid out specific criteria. Lanka appealed, using the reliable read-the-fine-print defense. Whispyhistory/Wiki Commons The biggest measles victory since the MMR vaccine!Įnd of story, right? Eh, not so fast. So, Bardens took him to court, which ruled that Bardens had been able to prove the existence of this long-established pathogen, and Lanka had to pay him. Another German scientist, David Bardens, knew well that measles really is a virus, and he answered the challenge by collecting half a dozen papers on the subject. He said the symptoms exist, but they're psychosomatic, caused by trauma, much like how stress might give you a rash. He denied that HIV is real, and in November 2011, he offered €100,000 to anyone who could prove the measles virus exists. One German anti-vaxxer, Stefan Lanka, didn’t just question vaccines - he disputed the very existence of several famous viruses. Which is more than we can say for the children of these anti-vaxxers, who kept catching preventable diseases, but the movement’s disciples stayed strong. 4 A Measles Skeptic Offered €100,000 If You Could Prove Measles Is RealĪ decade before vaccines for this latest plague were getting rejected by skeptics, the anti-vax movement was already alive and well. It’s crazy that two people would ever agree to one, because one - or both - of them is bound to get screwed. But challenges like these offer all kinds of pitfalls. That may not sound like the most entertaining resolution to that story. A man walks into a lawyer’s office and says, “I’ll bet you $200 that I can bite my own eye.” The lawyer replies, “That challenge is absurd. ![]()
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