History! 5/26

Its been quite a while since the last time I did History! at all you poor people. As such, because I'll be dealing with courtrooms and bailiffs for the remainder of the day and into the night I thought it best to do one early so it didn't seem wasted. So, lets get on with it then shall we?

1293 AD, In Kamakura Japan an earthquake struck. Now this happens a lot, like all the time, however what made this one so special is that it killed 30,000 people! Seriously, the Japanese at he time were living in single story shacks, so the likelihood of them being completely unable to flee outside is slightly incredible. Thus I am forced to to picture the ground literally opening up and swallowing a whole city. When I did a quick google search for 'Japanese Earthquake" this is on the first page! My guess is that the Japanese have a long standing tradition of rescue cats, dating back to this terrible disaster, when bands of cats would roam the rubble looking for survivors and demanding treats until rescuers could arrive.
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1538, Man, John Calvin, founder of Calvinism is just cold hated by everybody. On this day he was kicked out of Geneva and told to go cause dissent someplace else. Naturally he picked Strasbourg, because when I think of places to hide from the Catholic church I think of Strasbourg.

1637, Here is a big one for me, like epic! During the Pequot War in North America, noted douche bag John Mason, Bostonian General of a combined force of puritans and Mohegans attacked the seat of Pequot power in Connecticut. The Pequot had earned the ire of the local puritans and through some shady back room deal the puritans had gotten the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes to assist in a brutal war against the larger Pequot tribe. Well, Mason and the puritans were eager to attack the chief of the Pequot, but after a long days marching they opted instead to attack a nearby Pequot fort. This was also after encouragement from the Mohegans, under their equally douchey chief Uncas, who had found some Pequot on the way and decapitated them, showing the heads to Mason. So today Mason surrounds the fort in the dead of night, with his Mohegan and Narragansett allies (the Narragansett weren't all that bad actually, they were like a Native American Andorra, just cold stuck in the middle of all the big guys) and orders volleys to bie fired into the fort. At this point the Pequot awake and start moaning and shouting so pitifully that the English think for a moment that perhaps they should take pity on their opponants. At this point it is noted that they overcame their Christian charity when they remembered that the Pequot had cruelly slain a dude months before on his houseboat. Oh yeah, that dude that the Pequot killed, that kinda caused this war, he was a wife stealing, smuggler/pirate who had been asked to leave the puritans cities because he was a nuisance, but puritans have extremely short memories and extremely long grudges. Mason orders the group of puritans and indians to enter the fort and fight hand to hand, which then forces him to reconsider and instead he declares boldly, "We must burn them!" So Mason promptly lights a torch and sets a bark house on fire, to the complete shock of the Pequot. The fire is picked up by the wond and the whole fort is completely ablaze within thirty minutes. Now the English (who have suffered two casualties during this) block the two exits and proceed to keep the burning Pequot in the fort, stabbing or shooting anyone who came near, including women and children. Within an hour of the initial fighting close to 700 Pequot are dead. The Mohegan and Narragansett look at each other in complete horror at what they were party to, especially the usually chill Narragansett who had emphatically stated at the beginning that should any forts be captured that the women and children must be spared. As for the puritans, you know, the buckle shoe wearing thanksgiving fuckers, here is how they used the bible to explain why they had to burn every mother fucker in sight, including the women kids and babies.

"Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion? No. When a people is grown to such a height of blood and sin against God and man...there He hath no respect to persons, but harrows them and saws them and puts them to the sword and the most terriblest death that may be." as for the kids? The answer being totally! "Sometimes, the scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."

That one siege effectively marked the end of Pequot resistance. Now long after the Mystic Fort Massacre as it is called a statue was erected on the site of John Mason drawing his sword. Thank heavens there were still some Pequot descendants who pointed out that putting up the statue was the equivalent of putting up a "monument at Auschwitz to Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution." Thus the statue was moved to another site, though it was still met with protests for the fact that the man was hardly a hero. If you would like to know more about how terrible, and sometimes terribly humane the puritans were I recommend Sarah Vowell's 'The Wordy Shipmates'.

1647, ten years after the last blood letting, though the intervening years had plenty of blood shed, the puritans execute their first witch in the New World, Alse Young. Seriously guys, stop it.

1805, Napoleon is crowned king of Italy. You know what, I want to build a huge army, more advanced and better supplied than any other army in history and start conquering places, so I can declare myself 'King' of them. "Have you heard, General Trebaol has conquered the Starbucks on Main st. He is holding a coronation and will be declared 'King of Starbucks and Coffee'."

1830, man this is a bad day for Native Americans. So today the Indian Removal Act is passed by Congress and two days from now Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson signs it into law.


1868, Andrew Johnson narrowly misses getting impeached by a single vote. The reasons are a little complicated and extremely boring.

1894, Nicholas II becomes the Tzar of All Russia's! Did I neglect to point out he will also be the Last Tzar of All Russia's!

1938, The House Un-American Activities Committee has its first meeting, however they really don't become extremely interesting till the fifties so lets leave them there for now.

1940, The battle of Dunkirk! Or rather the important part of the battle, you know the part where against every possible expectation the British manage ti escape the huge Nazi war machine barreling towards them. Literally fishing boats crossed the channel so they could pick up five guys and take them back to England, while being shelled by 'Jerry'.

1983, a frikkin' 7.7 earthquake strikes Japan, but this time the method of execution is tsunami! 103 people are killed by the mammoth fuckin' wave. screw you plate tectonics!

So there is fuckin' that! History for May 26th!

We're going back! To the past? History! 4/3/09?

That's right, because blogs are about demands, as has been explained to me by one of my readers I am now forcefully (lest a petition be created) required to give you "This Day In History!" for April 3rd (the cads birthday!). Naturally you may wonder why we are doing this on April 8th, and the answer is...I don't know, this is just dumb. So on to the incongruous past!

1043, APRIL 3RD! Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England, he is the next to last Saxon King of England. Amusingly he died in 1066, the same year the Normans invaded and conquered the country, but that failure was King Godwinson's fault.

1865, Jesus that's quite the jump, but it's still in the PAST BECAUSE IT DID NOT HAPPEN TODAY, IT HAPPENED ON THE THIRD! Anyway, Richmond is captured by the Union army. Yay!

1882, Jesse James is killed by the coward Robert Ford. Ford becomes famous by depicting his attack on the outlaw, until depressed and alone he is shot in the throat with a shotgun by a drunk. EVERYBODY WINS!

1917, NOT TODAY, A FEW DAYS AGO! Vladimir Lenin arrives in Russia after an extended exile. This marks the beginning of the Bolshevik control over the Russian Revolution. The rule of thumb is that if you have a local Lenin and he's not allowed into the country or town...DON'T LET HIM BACK IN! UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

1922, Fuck all, Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. shortly after this Trotsky gets the fuck out of Dodge, you know, right after he sees that they've been editing him out of photos.

1968, Martin Luther King Jr. gives his "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, he is assassinated the next day. There is nothing funny about this.

1969, We pledge to begin "Vietnamizing" the conflict in Vietnam, namely putting the responsibility of fighting on the South Vietnamese themselves, giving them weapons and training for the task. Naturally this totally works and we win Vietnam.



1982, the United Kingdom sends a naval task force to get the Falkland Islands back. The British probably flipped a coin on whether they would send a bunch of wooden ships to handle the Argentinians or an actual fleet.

1996, Ted "Cool Professor From Berkeley" Kacynzki, Kazinski, Karamazov...whatever, is arrested in his little shack in Montana. This is what happens to people who teach at Berkeley, you've been warned America.

So that's that, this is all the remotely interesting crap that happened on April 3rd. I hope you jackals are happy. BECAUSE IT IS THE 8TH!!!

I would be lying if I said this wasn't HISTORY! 4/6/09

Fuckin' hell, I got a new phone and now I feel compelled to review the times before the "phone" tax was in place. The "phone" tax being the ridiculous amount of money you need to spend to have a phone, but since it is necessary to function in modern society it is not much more than a tax on living. Also I had a cutie, they are either tangerines or some other bizarre genetic mutation of a once normal plant. I had two last week and they were like delicious little oranges, I found two in the office today and discovered that they were like monkey shit and artificial flavoring combined. Fuck you store bought cutie, I need to find the source of last weeks edible fruits.

46 BC, Caesar kicks Scipio and Cato in the face at the battle of Thespus, Scipio and Cato being rivals of Caesar, in the times when Caesar wasn't "lord of everything" and was just "Julius the Politician". there is a strong possibility handling political rivals in this manner is what led to the stabbing a little while later.


1199, Famed "Super Cunt" Richard the Lionheart, dies from an infected arrow wound. You may remember Richard from the third crusade, or that time he was kidnapped, or heck here's one, he was the "Good" King at the end of any story you've seen about Robin Hood. In reality he hated England, was terribly French and had a terrible attitude towards anyone on the wrong side of his sword, thus he was the perfect crusader.

1327, Petrarch sees Laura for the first time and falls in love. Laura is married to a count and so understandably says "No thanks" to Petrarch, who then spends a significant portion of his life writing poems about her, but rather than persuasive poems these are fancy poems that only seek to illuminate the reader to the beauty of Laura. Moral of the story: in the renaissance, when your famous, you may still never get the girl. I'm lookin' at you too Dante.
































What's that? You would like a Revolution? Alright, on this day in 1793 the Committee of Public Safety becomes the executive body of the Republic of France, which means today begins...THE TERROR!




You can find more at http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php

Anyway, 1814, Napoleon abdicates and goes straight to Elba, where he dies from stomach problems. More than likely the stomach problems were the result of eating the shitty food available to him on campaign.

1862, The bloody battle of Shiloh begins between Confederate general Albert "Not Ulysses S. Grant" Johnston and Ulysses S."Don't Fuck With Me" Grant.




1895, Oscar Wilde (Noted Playwright and Man About Town) is arrested outside a hotel, he had just lost his libel case against the 9th Marquess of Queensberry. This is a sad turn of affairs for our first Alien playwright (see Velvet Goldmine).


1917, Woodrow "Ku Klux Klan" Wilson gets his wish and we enter into war with Imperial Germany. Wilson immediately begins setting aside his favorite suits for the eventual peace treaty conferences, he is quoted as saying "It will be great, I'll make sure everyone walks away happy and no one is saddled with all the war debts!"


1984, Cameroon's Republican Guard try to overthrow the government, it is widely suspected they stumbled upon a TV with the power to see the future and witnessed this!




Anything after that day is being saved for next year...oh yeah, and if you don't get the above joke might I recommend Rupaul's Drag Race.

I said I want a Revolution...

Simple as that, I am waiting for the shooting, or the bill getting passed, or the soldiers on street corners, to let me know it's time to grab my clubs and torches and start manning the barricades. Seriously, I am waiting, with nervous energy for the switch to flip and for me and other well mannered people to throw our chairs and crockery through the windows and tear down the state. What the fuck America? Do you have any idea how completely insane it sounds to suggest that four years ago I was otherwise content in the country, albeit looking forward to elections, but that now I am nearly an anarchist? I have seen through the pall of this insidious planets grimy slithering underbelly, I have personally inspected each of the bacteria designed to kill me in its toothy jaws, the whole worlds turned into a god damned Komodo Dragon and all I want to do is bash its head in with an oar!
>

Lets all see if I can get you to the point I'm at, because frankly it's getting lonely for the brick bats to go flying.

First off, lets talk about Airstrip One, or as it was formerly called England. Our friends over the pond have gone completely off the deep end when it comes to powers of the state to monitor and remove you form your rights. England is a country I love more than most people, and to see it in this state is outrageous. For example, the CCTV cameras they have everywhere, they're designed to protect you right? Wrong, stockpiling huge amounts of recorded video footage of you going about your business doesn't make all the thieves and murderers go away, in fact I would guess it probably has made them work harder to avoid detection.

So this constant monitoring of citizens was the first step right? Next step is England's database of DNA. They keep a crime suspects DNA forever, so if I was put in custody of the police for a suspected murder, even if I was innocent, my DNA goes on file to be matched at any point in the future to possible crimes. Further this goes for any infraction, save perhaps for parking tickets or jaywalking, but Christ knows they could find a loophole.

How do we top having everyone's DNA on record, oh I know, lets try and make everyone carry "papers" to identify themselves when traveling around the country. these papers contain RFID chips, which contain all your personal info, like Social Security and stuff like that. They can also be used as trackers, oh yeah and for maybe 200 bucks I can build a device that would allow me to scan the info right off it without you even seeing me, I just have to be nearby. This way when I commit a crime I'll be sure to use your identity.

It never ends does it? NO! FUCK! Besides this there have been attempts to pass laws to make it illegal to photograph police officers, or the cameras watching everyone at all hours. Try going to park and photographing slice of life stuff, you'll get tossed on your ear by the constabulary for being a paedophile. England at this point is so terrified of paedophiles that it has actually pressed charges against photographers for photographing empty swings, as though the essence of a child was there, and the photographing thereof caused the children who had used the swing to be molested from a distance. Madness!

No, THIS IS ENGLAND!!! Lets keep going with England, fuckin' hell I haven't even gotten to America yet! HAHA! Beyond this there's also this crushing paranoia about teenagers. Teens are forming gangs and engaging in Lord of the Flies esque crime sprees. this is an actual problem, so what is England's plan, rather than deal with the roots cause, a problem with the societal structures they're dumped into they instead opt to criminalize youth. Buzzers are placed around shopping centers, emitting a high pitched whistle only teens can here (utter bollocks though as the frequency is quite noticeable to anyone with good ears). To keep them from loitering they've put special stairs in to make it harder to sit on them. They want to put pink lights to enhance the presence of acne on them so they will feel bad about their appearance and go home. They made an ordnance, that was labeled for 16's and under, but which contained descriptive language that broadened the definition of the particular section to mean 'anyone'. The ordnance in question states that if a officer sees you in a group of two or more, and he has reason to suspect that you could be a disturbance, or a nuisance to another person in the area, he can ask you to split up and not return to the area for 24 hours. Sure you could use this on knife wielding lunatic kids, or if some loon with a chip on his shoulder tells the officer you and your girlfriend make him nervous, it states that the officer needs to go and split you two up. Good fuckin' luck England! Guess what, hope you don't try to organize an overnight protest of government in England, once the curfew kicks in your asses are in Black Mariah's headed for the prison ship to Australia, where they'll control all your Internet to protect you from dissent towards the government.

Oh yeah, if you think that because this is happening in England it's not our problem


It's a global problem! The German police are kickin' down doors on alleged 'searches' for child pornographers, you know who they're actually arresting? Political activist bloggers. Ever heard of wikileaks? Wikileaks is a website where whistle blowers from around the world can hand in secret documents that affect the lives of millions but are classified for spurious reasons. National security my ass! Well one of the founders just got taken in by these raids for possessing a list of banned sites from the upcoming Firewall that will descending over Australia shortly. Guess what this list contains lots of sites that have zilch to do with illegal pornography. There's a website for a tour bus company, that happens to have a pick up stop in the same area as an adult book store. This is not mentioned on the tour bus company's site. This means that they are banning this site because they are doing something that is offline and not a crime, because last time I checked, sex shops in Australia weren't outlawed, not that I check that often, but apparently in the world we live in I have to know what my rights are in every god damned shit hole fascist state that's sprung up on this spinning cesspool.

So we've got those fuckers, naturally France wants all sorts of awful things when it comes to the Internet. Realistically if you spin the globe and put your finger down, if the country isn't third world, it's well on its way to a 1984 style mad house.

Now lets get on America's case.

Read The Big Takeover, by Matt Taibbi. It's not a book it's available online from Rolling Stone, here's a link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

If you've finished, I mean really finished, you should be ready to explode with indignation and rage at our whole structure of government, wealth, pretty much everything. In this article Taibbi basically points back to sniveling cocksucker named Joseph Cassano, who worked at AIG and pretty much started the ball rolling on destroying all existence as we understand it.


There's the little prick now, peekin' out around an office building, hoping no one's realized that he is Shiva Destroyer of Worlds. So if you see this guy, punch him, punch his miserable near sighted face for every dollar he fucked away for his tenure at AIG.

So basically, we live in country, where the whole branch of the government that is designed to protect us from the little ghouls, is run by these little fuckin' ghouls! Oh, and guess what, the Fed can do whatever the fuck it wants, and not face any inquiry from anybody, so fuck you government, sorry all the seats here at the fed are filled with ex-Goldman-Sachs employees, who happen to be bailing out all the fuckers they're friends with. Hey motherfuckers, I spent some money less than wisely once, give me a check you pencil necked knuckle dragging corpse fuckers! Jesus Christ, you have to read that article, so you can run on just undiluted rage, it's like drinking rocket fuel for God's sakes, being so angry at the entire civilization you live in that you would willingly burn down everything associated with it if it meant you could get a little change.



Yeah that's right Barry, I knwo you're all about change and hope and crap, but I think we could really use some help right about now. So far you've been nice repealing a few stupid things W. did, but when it comes to this skullfuckery. Where the hell are you on it? Just going to keep agreeing that AIG and every other parasitic ass lancing worm out there needs a handout because they're too big to fail? Come on man, I don't care if you get impeached the next day, you get on the TV and tell the public exactly what's going down and close with a "so do what you think you gotta do." at which point you will be lead off stage and thrown out of the public light forever, but then again 'we the people' would probably rise up within the week anyway, so if the civil war works out I'm sure your act of bravery would get you re-elected. Then again Barry, I'm runnin' out of patience, and slowly but surely people are going to start figuring out what kind of clusterfuck this is, and they are not going to be happy.

Also, seriously with the whole marijuana thing, I'm not even a drug user and I know how retarded the war on drugs is, hope you got a cool shot glass from some dive bar in TJ as a thank you from whatever cartel leader asked you not to stop the good times for him.

So there, I am all raged out, which means I'm going into a coma rage. Read that damned article and get back to me, you don't have to get all of it, you just have to be able to reach the end and be holding enough strings of understanding together to say "We are all fucking doomed!"

Oh yeah, lest I fuckin' forget...

History! March 24th!

Well let me get this out of the way, it's World Tuberculosis Day, so please don't breath on or share any enclosed spaces with me. Now we can get on with the reason we're here, or rather I can continue with what amounts to me plinking away alone in a cave with an electric typewriter, no one hearing my mumbles, or able to read the paper crawling from the machine, as it is too dark.

1603, with Elizabeth I dead England needed a new monarch, fortunately James "Jimmy" Stewart was well informed of the events and was already on his way down to accept his coronation as the first Stewart monarch of England.


Notably it was James I (as his friends and enemies called him) who was one of the targets of that lovable scamp Guy Fawkes.

1765, Britain passes the Quartering Act, a law requiring colonists to house troops. You might remember that this pisses the colonists off so bad that they chuck in a note about it in the 3rd amendment of that document that no longer has any relevance after the last eight years, the Constitution.

1832, Noted jerk Joseph Smith Jr. founder of modern Mormonism, is beaten, tarred and feathered by the good people of Hiram, Ohio. His crime, being Joseph Smith Jr.

1837, Canada beats everyone on the North American continent to the punch by making it legal for black men to vote. Women collectively sigh and are ordered back into the kitchen.

1882, Robert Koch identifies the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, 127 years later and still no cure. The term consumption falls out of favor.

1944, The great escape occurs at Stalag Luft III, Steve McQueen waits patiently for his film career to start.

1958, Elvis joins the Armed Forces, everyone worries if he'll turn the Cold War "hot".

1989, The Exxon Valdez super tanker runs aground spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude and celebrities into the ocean. The celebrities immediately begin scrubbing penguins in front of cameras.

2003, surprise, surprise, the Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of asking the U.S. to "please leave Iraq". 6 years later they're still waiting for us to return the call.

Theoretically I could do a little thing here about observances or holidays in different countries, however I won't. It's primarily because since I started most of the observances have been in honor of some Saint, or Saints, every...damn...day. Catholicism, you have too many Saints.

History! March 20th!

I don't even know why I write these, no one reads them. Except you, which is actually me, simply re reading them later. So today we are going to jump into that slimy swamp called history and pull up some catfish.





1602, we see the founding of the Dutch East India Company. this is where things start falling apart for the world. The DEIC is the first multinational corporation, as well as the first megacorporation. The Company was given a 21 year monopoly over trade in Asia, and was the first company to issue stock. how weird must that stock market be.





"So what's up today?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"What can I buy?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"Anything else?"


"Not till GE is invented."


PARADOX!





Also they had the ability to strike their own coin (make their own currency, ala Disney Bucks) and wage war. We'll see a steady increase in Piracy right after the formation of this and the British version.





1616, Walter Raleigh gets released from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment. Raleigh had spent quite a bit of time wandering around the Tower before. During Queen Elizabeth's reign he had a knack for charming her into not killing him for making mistakes. He was involved in the colonizing of Virginia, and when he got home he promptly married one of Elizabeth's assistants, which is something you don't do without permission, which is exactly what he did. Quite a few people believe Raleigh was involved with the Queen in one way or another, which I tend to support based on his smarmy habit of getting out of trouble by telling Elizabeth how great she was all the time. Anyway, back to the story, Walter gets thrown in jail with his wife for a few years, then get released, he gets bored, starts telling people that there's a city of gold in South America. He keeps an eye on the royal household, which proves pretty bad for him because Elizabeth croaks and James I takes over. James hates Walter, probably because Walter tried his smarm tactic on James and James took offense. So James hurls Walter back into the Tower because he is convinced that in spite of his service to the country in the past he was probably involved with some protestants who wanted to replace him with a Spanish cousin. So on this day in history Walter was released again. His next stop? South America!





1815! Napoleon never liked being imprisoned on Elba, it didn't suit his ideas about what a "Good Time" constituted. So today after his escape and arrival on mainland France he arrives in Paris with a regular force of 140,000 and a volunteer army of 200,000. So begins Napoleon's 100 Days Rule. Across the channel the Duke of Wellington looks out his window and goes into a Dragonball powerup mode. When asked about his level he commented that it was "Over 9,000!"





1852, that bitch ass Harriet Beecher Stowe releases "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Stowe is a "Bitch Ass" because whilst on one hand trying to illuminate people to the plight of enslaved Africans she is also known to have spent time in Scotland and Ireland while writing the book and said that the Scots weren't much more than animals and deserved to be treated as such by their cruel landlords. Fuck you bitch.





















1856, William Walker is routed by Costa Rican forces. I would explain what that means more in depth but instead I will direct you to rent or purchase the film "Walker", staring Ed Harris, with cameo's by Joe Strummer, who also composed the score. Lets just say Walker was "President" of Nicaragua, and he denied a trading contract to a Vanderbilt (19th century equivalent of Bill Gates, only with the desire to see men die) who promptly sent Costa Rican troops and American mercenaries to oust him.



1916, Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity, to quote Bill Murray "Einstein did his best stuff as a patent clerk." SPECIAL CHALLENGE: Post the name of the movie this is from...SPECIAL SPECIAL CHALLENGE: It can't be Nate.



1933, Giuseppe Zangara is executed by electric chair in Florida. His crime? the attempted assassination of FDR. I highly recommend picking up a CD of the musical "Assassins", you learn quite a bit about this thanks to it.



1942, General Douglas "Douchebag" MacArthur lets the Philippines know that "I shall return."



1952, the US finally ratifies a peace treaty with Japan, as though in those intervening years we were worried they would hit a secret button and giant robots would shoot out of every paper house and blow up our carrier fleets.



1956, France finally lets Tunisia go, Vietnam on the other hand...



1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married. I'll say this once, I don't hate her, and I'm glad the Beatles didn't keep going so they could end up like The Rolling Mummies...I mean Stones.



1999, Legoland opens, tumble weeds blow through. A distant coyote yaps at the dusty sky.



2003, We start the bomb droppin', gas guzzlin', American youth killin', Civilian maimin' adventure called the Iraq War...I'm sorry, not war "Enduring Freedom Fries of Democracy Brought to You by Pizza Hut and the Good People from Boeing."



Also, today is the second day of Quinquatria, a roman festival celebrating the birth of Minerva. Today we would have gladiatorial fights.

History! For 3/11/09, The Flagstaff War!

So on this day in history in 1845 we see the beginning of the Flagstaff War, a British affair with the Maori in New Zealand. The whole thing began when Britain (busily sailing around the world putting flags and bodies in things) arrived in what would become New Zealand. Noticing that there was open space with a handful of indigenous people on it the British got revved up and began settling, starting with a document called the Treaty of Waitangi, which was vague on a number of important points. Vague in so much as it convinced the British they could start emigrating, whilst at the same time convincing the Maori they could keep their land and heritage intact, well we all know where this going. New Zealand is annexed in 1840, which irks the Maori, then things start going downhill in the relations between the two "tribes". There were land skirmishes between independent companies in the region and the regular list of crimes to be expected in such an action, eventually one of the original signatories of the treaty, Hone Heke, a tribal leader was notified by the French and Americans that the British flag over the island meant the Maori's were slaves. Naturally Hone believed the other two imperial powers and took matters into his own hands.



Hone requested that a young girl from his tribe, who had been living with a butcher, be returned post haste. She refused, apparently enjoying her new found Englishness, leading Hone to march into town with a few friends and ransack the shop taking the girl back. On his way back he noticed the "slave" flagpole (which was actually a gift from him to the British) and chopped it down. This upset the British to no end, forcing them to send for the 96th regiment to handle the situation. The pole was replaced by Hone after some negotiations, then chopped down again after everyone realized there had been no trial of strength between the Maori and English, moreover there were now more Europeans than expected so things were getting uncomfortably "continental". The 96th arrived replaced the flag, only to find that this one was almost immediately cut down.



Then came this day in history March 11, 1845, the stubborn British replaced this third flagpole with one sheathed in iron and surrounded by guards, no fuckers come onto British soil and chop down the Queen's own flag, fuckers. Well the Maori came back...with a vengeance, incensed that their craftsmanship was not being appreciated they charged up to the guard shack killed the soldiers and chopped down the flagpole again. Meanwhile at a nearby settlement another tribe began burning buildings after a semi orderly evacuation of the premises. They opted to not burn the missions however.



With great jubilation Hone Heke watched as the H.M.S. Hazard departed with a few escorts, loaded with Europeans, headed for Auckland to get away from the flagpole haters.



The war continued naturally, it's not as though the 96th was going to sit idly by and watch British subjects getting evicted by people who didn't wear starched collars. The 96th returned on March 28th and burned a fortified village called a Pa. For whatever reasons however (to almost everyone in attendance's confusion) they burned the village of a Chief who was strongly neutral since the outset of problems and had even made efforts to bring more Europeans in to trade with his village.



The war went surprisingly well for the Maori in the end, in spite of suffering serious losses and a few villages (one of which was designed as a target for the British) the British accepted a ceasefire and left the flagpole down, and minimized their incursions into the Maori lands.