Most of the northern colonies were established by Puritans or Dissenters, and the Puritan movement and Dissenter movement were both strongest in the south of England.
If I had one euro for each foreigner I’ve met who thought Catalonia, the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands were separate countries (an attitude favoured by the Catalan government but not by the other ones)… I could go to the movies and have dinner two or three times, depending on how posh the restaurant was.
Delaware.
I sort of know some of the big ones, and broadly know the groupings (west coast, New England, southern States, the deserty wild west ones) but I know less about the US States than I do about the geographical arrangement of European countries, which is to say, bugger all for both.
But then, I lived next to Australia for the first thirty years of my life and didn’t really know a damn thing about its geography and culture in all that time.
Curiously, anyone of my age remembers Delaware. Long long ago, when the world was young, there was a song in the charts using the names of the States. The first verse was -
“What did Delaware, boys, what did Delaware? … She wore a brand New Jersey …”
So everyone remembered Delaware when I was a kid. The delay was in getting states like Nebraska, Wyoming and Wisconsin. Nice places, but foreigners don’t have a reason to remember them.
Ah yes. How it all comes back. “Where has Oregon … If you want Alaska, I’ll ask her where she’s gone. She’s gone to pay her Texas …”
In fairness, European countries are harder, because so many new ones appeared with the death of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Ask people to name all the EU countries. And all the independent 'stans and Caucasian countries.
I’d like to check that out. (I’ve already seen every episode of QI on youtube.) Is it anything like Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me?
Send him this link. He’ll thank you, for the music if nothing else.
What is this, some kind of demented Aaron Spelling/George Lucas mashup?
Personally, I always explain it as “New York bison New York bison bully bully New York bison.” Or, in a more expanded form, “New York bison whom other New York bison bully also bully New York bison.” Apparently I had the slightly wrong connotation to the verb. I think I might go with “baffle” or “bamboozle” now.
:raises hand: But I studied in Tokyo.
Because it was its own colony at the time Confederation occurred. In this, it was no different than New Brunswick or Nova Scotia; or for that matter, New York or Massachusetts roughly a hundred years earlier. They were all individual colonies that became political subdivisions (provinces or states) when their respective countries federated.
At any rate, in 1867, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario joined together to create Canada. PEI didn’t like the terms of this Confederation, so it stayed out. Eventually, it entered in 1873; and like the other colonies that entered, it became its own province.
This is a very simplistic overview but a more in-depth answer would take more space than a brief hijack would allow. But I hope it is suitable to answer your question.
The Northwest Territories used to be divided into districts, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. What you probably mean is that you can name all three Canadian territories.
I’ve checked the government of Catalonia on Wikipedia, and the current one doesn’t seem to be in favour of independence. Am I incorrect?
The same reason Delaware is its own state.
There were originally four Districts: Ungava, the mainland north of Lower Canada*; Keewatin, the mainland north of Manitoba (except the Boothia Peninsula) along with islands in Hudson and James Bays; Mackenzie, the mainland north of Saskatchewan and Alberta and east of the Continental Divide; and Franklin, the Arctic Archipelago, including Baffin Island, and the Boothia Peninsula. Ungava early on was included in Quebec. When Nunavut was created in 1999, it included all of Keewatin, all of Franklin except the western parts of 3 large islands and all of about 6 smaller ones nearby, and most of the coastal plain of Mackenzie. So the districts were abolished, and what had been Mackenzie (less the coast ceded to Nunavut) plus the handful of western islands left out of Nunavut, were just consolidated into one government, at the territorial capital.
- Using the old term to mean the land along the St. Lawrence and running 75-100 miles or so inland that was the original “Quebec”
Uhh… actually, I was totally bluffing. I’ve always read “NW Terr.” on the map, but not once with any reference to what those “Territories” might be. I assumed the answer was hopelessly obscure or lost in the mists of time. I guess not.
Also interesting that I’m from the middle of America, have travelled to almost all of the states, and am over-educated, BUT I’d probably do better on a quiz of European countries. Guess I consider them more “important” than mere states.
There seems to have been more than four districts in the Northwest Territories. If the Wikipedia article is to be trusted (and it agrees with what I’ve heard), the District of Keewatin was the first (in 1876, and at times administered as a separate territory), but a bunch of others were created in 1896 and gradually disappeared as new provinces were created or their territory was annexed to other provinces.
The party currently in government is PSC, which is sort’a but not quite the local branch of the socialist party. They are not as independentist as ERC (neither is CiU), but they still do spend a lot of time banging on the “Catalonia is a nation” and “Spain steals from us” keys of the piano. There is currently a lot of arguing over the new version of the Estatut (think “State Constitution”), which has (finally, for some reason the judges couldn’t agree on an acceptable version of the decision) been partially rejected by the Constitutional Tribunal, specifically over the definition of Catalonia as a nation and their unilateral assumption of certain rights which belong either to the Spanish Government or to the Government of other Regions.
They’re not in favour of independence in that they know it’s not economically viable unless they can get as much money from Brussels as they are getting from Madrid, and unless they can get independence without pissing off the rest of Spain, but the rethoric is very heavily anti-Spain.
You’re right – in focusing on Nunavut and the abolition of Districts, I forgot that the Prairie Provinces were all formerly assembled from an array of NWT Districts. Sorry!
That sounds more regionalist and nationalist than independentist. But in a unitary country like Spain, that didn’t recognize any nationality or cultural group other than “Spanish” until recently, I guess one may seem the same as the other.
You’re much more knowledgeable about this than I, but claiming that Catalonia is a nation isn’t on its surface anti-Spain sentiment. There’s a difference between “we’re not the same as you” and “we hate you”. But as I remember, you are a Spanish person of very recent Catalan ancestry. I can see why you may not like being forced to “choose”.
No problem, and I was partly wrong as well. Some of the NWT districts were created in 1882, not all in 1896 as I said.
To the best of my knowledge, at the time Nunavut was created, there were no “district governments” in the NWT to consolidate. There might have been some administrative functions that were divided by district, but I don’t think they had their own councils or the like.