With the recent vote in Scotland on whether to separate from the United Kingdom, I'm sure many of you are filled with questions about the history of national referendums. In fact, I know you are because we have gotten many of them in the past 24 hours, and had to remove them due to our rules about scope. But given the popularity of the topic, we thought it best to give everyone a space for those questions!
So please, feel free to ask any questions you want about the history of national referendums on independence and such. Or get the ball rolling with a quality write up of one that happened in the past. Given that a few notable ones have occurred within the past 20 years, we are somewhat relaxing the 20 year rule to allow discussion of more recent occurrences, but we will still be vigorously enforcing our rules concerning political debates and soapboxing, so please keep any discussion non-partisan!
Scotland and England joined through agreement, so in a way UK was a partnership. How has both "nations" benefited from being part of the UK throughout the centuries? Has the benefits been onesided(like Scots or English benefiting more than the other) or would history say both has benefited?
One claim that I've seen floating around on social media sites is the importance of Scotland in the cultural, imperial, economic, territorial, etc. acheivements of the British Empire in the two centuries following unification.
How did the Act of Union in 1707 contribute to the shaping of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries; ideologically, economically, culturally, etc. (you know, besides the obvious, "you need united kingdoms to be a United Kingdom")?
What role did Scotland or its people play in the achievements of the Empire over the following two centuries? I realize this is relatively broad, so maybe, what Scottish achievements could be read as 'crucial' to the creation of a wider British Empire?
I keep seeing people say that Scotland considers itself a Scandinavian country. As a Scandinavian I'm a bit surprised by this since this is something I've never heard before. What's the background behind Scots considering themselves Scandinavian? Is this a recent phenomenon?
Over the course of the great empire how much tax revenue was gained, then lost as chunk after chunk of the empire came and went?
One other thing I have heard repeated is that Scotland would be the twentieth richest economy in the world if it gained independence. Not only that but it contributes more then any other country to England's tax base. With the way that England's tax base is set up, it gets really confusing fast.
http://i.imgur.com/Yna4aIV.png
Are any of the claims truthful?
Is the idea of Scottish nationalism a recent development? Was the idea not in fashion previous eras?
One thing I've seen going around is that this was the first (only) vote where a group denied itself independence. I'm skeptical of a claim like that, but can't think of any examples to the contrary, so I'm posting it here.
Slightly offtopic, I have seen many sources (not serious historical sources, but news articles and wikipedia) mention that the Scottish Highlands (population today about 250.000) were most more highly populated certuries ago. How many people are we talking about and how did they subsist in greater numbers in a mountainous, rocky, boggy region?
What's the earliest example of two states separating for mutual benefit?
