I know they spread into Siberia, but why did they never try to get any of America or Africa, or did they and were just unsuccessful?

I was watching the John Adams mini series last night and noticed that there was some difference in the accents between the Colonists and British characters.

Was there a specific time period that this was recognized? And were there any specific contributing factors other than location?

Winston Churchill is frequently viewed as a hero, specially in America. Nevertheless, before being a historical figure, he (like Hitler and Stalin) was a political figure with a political agenda. Many people, specially holocaust deniers, say that Churchill's political relevance at the time was closely linked to the growing power that financial institutions were starting to have, and that many of his actions during the war were dictated by this relation. Can anybody convince me of this or otherwise?

PS: One of the reasons I am asking this question is that I was arguing with a friend who was trying to convince me that the Holocaust never happened as we are told, and that Churchill, and not Hitler, was the main figure responsible for World War II. While the facts that the Holocaust did happen and that Hitler was a terrible tyrant are very solid in my head, I confess that he changed the way I see Winston Churchill.

Even discounting coins, would it be possible that something equal to the value of certain livestock, could be worth a quarter of that value 50 years later?

Several months ago, I read Greg Malone's provocative Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders: The True Story of Newfoundland's Confederation with Canada. He writes a provocative tale of how Britain ran roughshod over Newfoundland sentiment and rights to first keep the entirely-unrepresentative Commission of Government in place throughout WWII and then, even before the 1948 referendum, promised them to Canada in payment of war debt. Britain unfairly funded the pro-Canada campaign and phrased the options in a biased way on the ballot (the self-government option was phrased as "as in 1932," associating it with the Great Depression). On top of all this, Malone points evidence strongly suggesting literal fraud in the counting of votes.

This's almost the first book on Canadian history I've read, and certainly the first on Newfoundland history. What're other historians' opinions on this? Is Malone off the wall, completely credible, or somewhere in-between? What was going on in the 1948 referendum and before then?

I was reading a link someone passed on to me about a 6th century French Abbey run by nuns in Poiters, France having armed retainers.

Now that many of the nuns were known to be princesses, so it's likely they were more of royal retainers, but I do recall from other readings that some monasteries and abbey's were often the seat of power and authority in an area, and often rivaled the local nobility in that regard.

I also know that these abbeys were often the sites of battles and raids, so violence was not unknown against them.

Could someone tell me more?

Would one be able to create an animated territorial map of the entire European campaign by the day? by the hour?

I imagine that combat-experienced soldiers would have been an advantage on a new front, but I can see how this might be outweighed by the costs of transport as well as the differences in terrain. I'd be interested to hear any info you may want to share. Thanks!

EDIT - I suppose I shouldn't limit the question to just the U.S., so I welcome stories from other countries as well

In the 1970's there was a slew of Triple Crown winners after years of no horse winning, followed by a lack of winners that continues to this day. Is there any reason for the large number of winners in the 1970's other than pure coincidence?

Long story short I've been being pestered by various friends, co-workers, management, etc.... about my failure to take vacations as frequently as they would like me to. I've argued that the idea of working less and taking off time from work is something that is really new just in the past few hundred years. I really doubt that farmers in the 1800s or even early 1900s just picked up and took off for two weeks to go lay on the beach. They worked 365 days a year and were fine. Therefore I argue that humans evolved without taking time off and have spent most of their existence not taking time off and the idea that you need X time off a year is an entirely modern social convention. Furthermore I argued that it's a social convention limited mainly to the first world. Am I completely off my rocker here?

at midway japan lost a massive element of kido butai and thus virtually its only method of force projection across vasts of the Pacific. given the large amount of stalement across large parts of europe for most of ww1 is there a similar battle that was so important?

Perhaps it is 20/20 hindsight, but it seems like an excellent opportunity to spread goodwill and the love of Communism across an Europe that was already teetering in that direction. Was the desire to keep Germany in shambles so strong as to overpower any possible benefits to assisting the rest of Europe?

Both sites claim being the victors in the war.

Many historic accounts of the war (Rabinovich, Herzog, Liebman and others) are describing the events form the Israeli view while relatively few translations of the accounts of Arab historians exist.

(Or so I noticed while looking through the sources on the Wikpedia article).

On the other hand, it sounds convincing that the Egyptian Armed Forces and Sadat were in dire need of claiming victory because another defeat at the hands of Israel after 1967 could destabilize their administration and so they sugarcoated the armistice as a victory.

As it says in the title. ^^