Friday, June 24, 2011

Wikipedia History Lesson

In history class you probably learned a little about a bit of Colonial American nastiness called the French and Indian War. You know the one. George Washington saw combat for the first time in that one. The novel The Last of the Mohicans centers around a battle that took place on Lake George in New York. You've heard of it.

But, did you know that that wasn't the only French and Indian War? There were actually three others that happened leading up to the one we learn about in school. Thanks to wikipedia.org, you can learn a little about those too!

There was King William's War (1689–97), Queen Anne's War (1702–1713), and King George's War (1744–1748), before we finally got to the French and Indian War (1754-1763). That war, of course, lead to the American Revolution.

Isn't wikipedia awesome?

Want to hear something else? There was another war that took place before any of those. It was called King Philip's War (1675–1676) and it was fought between an alliance of Native American tribes, and English Colonists in New England, along with their own Native American allies. In that piece of ugliness, many New England towns were attacked. Including places that I go to every day, like Andover and Chelmsford. Learning that makes me want to find out if those towns have any memorials, or preserved historical sites or anything like that. Maybe there's a box of paper in a town hall basement or something that documents the events.

Stuff like this is interesting to me.

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