>...
>>>>>And let's not forget the tragic part Canadian troops played in "assessing" German response to invasion, in the form of their abortive Dieppe Raid in 1942. I must admit to only having first heard of this last summer, when visiting Newhaven Fort, near Brighton, the nearest UK port to Dieppe.
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>>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid
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>>>>The Dieppe Raid is an important and ingrained part of Canadian culture. Something that Canadians know well, but the rest of the world doesn't.
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>>>I imagined so, given the short history of the country, where there isn't a hell of a lot more to learn. I was drawing the rest of the world's attention to it.
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>>Actually, Canada has a very colourful (though admittedly short) history. It's just that Canada hasn't a lot of global history. Unfortunately, Canadians don't generally think of their own history as very interesting - mostly because they know so little about it, but it is.
>
>Yes I know. I greatly enjoyed reading two large tomes (like Boys' Own encyclopaediae - you may know them) called something like "Fair Dominion" or something like that, both different titles, charting the entire history of Canada, when I stayed at my cousin's farm some years ago (t'ain't that much else to do of a night). Very interesting and adventureful, but there weren't so many neolithic encampments, invasions by Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans, French etc., etc., only a handful of monarchs (and Queen Vic made up a good propn. of the Canadian list); teh "dominion" came practically with a set of laws and rights, etc., that hadn't been fought over and mooted over the, not centuries, but millenia. Get my drift?
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>What I mean is we've got Sooo much history here, it's easy to gloss over or totally miss a LOT of it. Why, just at the moment there is a debate as to what sections of history to cover in secondary school.

Oh, certainly. I knew what you were getting at. I just wanted to get on record that, while Canada doesn't have a long history, what there is is really populated by some very colourful characters. I guess I wish more Canadians were willing to pay a bit more attention to it.

I have to admit that I've always been interested by English history. At least up until about 1400. After 1400 or so, my interest drops off precipitously. At home I have a copy of the 1st 4 volumes of 'The English Historical Documents' put out by Oxford press. Volume 5 is beyond where my interest lies. I got them probably 25 or 30 years ago and had to send away to England to get them. I assume they've been revised somewhat since then, but it is fascinating to read the actual documents, letters etc from that time.

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>>>Britain has so much of it we tend to forget, or not even learn, some of the important struff. Take the Battle of Fulford 1066. Happened only days before the Battle of Stanford Bridge, and the Battle Hastings;. Yet, were if not for this battle, or if Harold had got up there sooner to reinforce the local saxon troops, his army wouldn't have been as depleted as it was at Stanford, then at Hastings, plus he would have had the addition of the otherwise defeated Fulford troops, and William probably wouldn't have won, aind oi'd bee wraighting een an foe reign lewking hand.
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>>>Yet I bet not a lot of Brits have even heard of this battle - I only heard last year when I happened to catch a TV prog about the Fulford project where people are also making a Bayou-type tapestry of the events.
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>>>Similarly, the Dieppe raid (I've popped over to Dieppe many times too and heard nowt about it there) was big news to me. I found out a lot in 2006!
>>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fulford
>>>http://www.britainexpress.com/History/battles/Fulford.htm