1783 Volcano fun.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Hello, long time no post (it's so slow these days on a non-Intel Mac!). Dunno if this news has travelled worldwide, but European airspace is currently unusable because of the dust cloud from an Icelandic volcano. If the eruption goes on much longer it's going to cause imported food shortages here and severe hardship for - for example - African farmers who depend on air freight to the European market. Hundreds of skeletons from a medieval mass grave were recently dug up near my friend's workplace in Spitalfields, London, dead from starvation after a volcano caused failed harvests, and I heard discussion of the 1783 eruption today, and found this in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution

Comments

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link :)

I see what you mean, though I do sort of have an issue with the Civil War thing...
The primary reason for the Civil War was actually a lack of Southern representation in national government (it started due to Lincoln's election, because he got less than 40% of the popular vote) and was spurred on by the fact that there was a pretty big North/South economic divide to begin with; with the North having built all their industry on Southern agriculture, while the South as a whole was still economically disadvantaged. The whole thing was about money, and the Union didn't really use slavery as a plank until it was thrown out as a hail-Mary to get other free countries to shut down the South's cotton trade, effectively bankrupting them (not that it was that hard; most southerners actually manufactured their own weaponry). In fact, Robert E. Lee was actually against slavery, though fought for the South. Also, the Confederacy had a very different take on states' rights, with each state behaving almost as a separate country (for lack of a better description) rather than being as subject to federal control. (This isn't to say that there weren't lots of ardent abolitionists around; just that it certainly wasn't the main political reason for the war).

Haha..It's really interesting how differently history is taught in areas that are historically considered 'the bad guys' (er, or 'the losers' I suppose? Kind of synonymous...) :P

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Also, I apologize that every conversation I get involved in seems to take one hell of a left turn! I need to practice staying on topic... :)