While in AP European history class today, I was highly amused when my teacher told us about one of the wars of the eighteenth century. It was called The War of Jenkin’s Ear. Jenkin was an English Captain whose ear got cut off by the Spaniards. He preserved the ear in a jar of brandy. Eight years later, when the English wanted an excuse to go to war, they brought out the brandied ear and pronounced the Spaniards barbarous. They used that as an excuse to declare war on them.
So, now that most of us are pretty sure that war with some of the Middle East is imminent, what excuses could they use? (The more ridiculous, the better)
You’re learning about that war in high school? I didn’t hear about it until my first year of college. Just another reason to hate my old high school and curse it for being crummy.
Then you’ll really hate your previous educators when I tell you that I learned about it in grade school.
I was going to say something funny about a slight injury like a hangnail to an American soldier during the previous Gulf War, and going into war as revenge. But then I remembered that people died during the Gulf War, which isn’t so funny.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of it. I was a history undergrad*.
And I didn’t hear of the Soccer Wars in Latin America until last year.
*To be fair, my focus was on medieval European history, not the more recent 18th Century. And a survey of European history was not required, so it just may never have come up in any of the classes I was in. My HS did suck though, so I’m not surprised it never came up there.
Arch-Duke Ferdinand was not murdered. Rather, he slipped in the bath on a bar of Belgian bath soap. Being a vain man, in his dying breath he muttered “Murder” (or the equivalent in his native tongue) thus began the conflagration which came to be known as World War I.
The French and Indian War was *really[/] faught over Hunting Rights in Upstate Maine.
The Hundred Years War is said to have lasted 107 years. Actually, it lasted only about 3 1/2 years, and was caused by a dispute between Cucoo Clock Makers and Calander Printers over Daylight savings Time.
I can’t say that I’m surprised. I was in a different state for middle school and after moving I wasn’t too thrilled to be covering old material when I arrived at my new high school.