A Short Walk through Our Long History Clayton Mills

Last episode, we looked at the massive flow of people that moved west along the Oregon Trail in the US, and I mentioned that it was part of one of the biggest migrations in history.  Well, part of the reason that there were a lot of people migrating to the west was that there were a lot of people fleeing Europe during 1848.  Why?  Because there were revolutions happening all over Europe, and people were fleeing the tensions and fighting there.  

I’m going to let you in on a bit of a spoiler here:  all the European revolutions of 1848 are going to fail.  In fact, it’s kind of a depressing story.
Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

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This past February, the San Francisco 49ers lost the super bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, and that brings up the inevitable question, ‘What the heck is a 49er?’  Why are they named that?  I will explain shortly.  

You may also have wondered ‘why the heck do so many Mormons live in Salt Lake City, Utah?’  Again, I will explain shortly.  

Before we get to San Francisco, we sort of have to go to Oregon, because, well, it’s just a lot easier to get to than California, especially if you’re in Missouri and planning on going there by foot.    
Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com 

Ok, just to be clear here, I’m talking about the Mexican-American war that happened from 1846 to 1848, not the current battle that is taking place on the US Mexico border.  The US is evidently losing that current battle, which I guess is kind of payback for how easily the US won the war back in the 1840’s.  Evidently the cartels currently have a better strategy than the Republic of Mexico had back in the day.

The Mexican American war, though it was short, does have a big impact on the world, in part because of the huge chunk of territory that America acquires, and in part because it was the beginning of the idea of civil disobedience.    Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com 

Well, we’re back in the United States after talking about Queen Victoria and the British Empire, and honestly, I think I’m going to have to spend more time talking about the British Empire and how it grew during the 63 years of her reign, because the British really did a lot of conquering and colonizing in that era.  But that’s going to have to wait for a bit, because for the next several episodes, I’m going to be looking closely at things going on in the United States.  

We have to take a look at the wild west, and the Oregon Trail, the California Gold Rush, and then we’re going to bog down just a bit on the American Civil War and its aftermath, and I don’t think we’ll come back to jolly old England until after that.  Because in the middle of the 1800’s, until the late 1860’s, there’s just a whole lot of stuff happening in America that does, truly, shape our modern world.  

One of the biggest impacts that America had in the mid 1800’s was on immigration.  People from all over Europe took the giant risk of emigrating to America, lured by the offers of cheap or even free land in the open spaces of the American west.  Between 1800 and 1850, more than 5 million people from Europe emigrated to America.  Granted, that’s only 2 years of immigration under the Biden administration, but back in the 1800’s, it was a huge movement of humanity, something the world hadn’t seen since maybe the massive migrations at the end of the Roman Empire.  It was a lot of people moving to a new place in a short time. 
Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com 

Last year, in 2023, the longest reigning monarch in British history passed away.  That monarch was Queen Elizabeth II, and she reigned for over 70 years.  That, by the way, is the second longest of all the monarchs we have record of, that is, if you don’t count the Sumerian List of Kings, which we mentioned back in Episode 2, which was about the Creation narratives of the ancient world.  The longest reign was of Em-Men-Lu-Ana, who reigned for 43,200 years, according to the Sumerian list.  According to modern history, the longest reign was Louis XIV of France, who reigned 72 years.  But we digress.

Elizabeth II was the longest reigning queen of Great Britain, but the second longest reign belonged to Alexandrina Victoria, who is better known as Queen Victoria.  She reigned for 63 ½ years, from May 1, 1837 - January 22, 1901.
Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com 

Sort of ironic that here we are talking about the time that Texas became an independent from Mexico, and became a republic, right at the same time that there’s a big conflict right on the Texas - Mexico border, and Texas is apparently resisting the US federal government’s efforts to open the border to whatever drug-smuggling and human trafficking invaders want to walk in.  I’ll have to come back to that in a bit.  

Anyway, this episode is about the Republic of Texas.  Texas is not the only state to have been a Republic before it became a state.  Vermont was also a republic, from 1777 to 1791, when it became the 14th state admitted to the Union.  But no other country recognized Vermont as an independent country, however.  Hawaii was also an independent country before it was annexed by the US government in 1898.  Hawaii, by the way, did not want to be annexed.  

But we are talking about Texas.  Texas has a bit of a unique history, and as you may have noticed, Texans are quite proud of it.   So Texas gets its own episode, the only state that gets its own episode.  Well, I guess you could count Athens, which was a city state, which got its own episode back in episode 9, but none of the other US states get their own episode.  Sorry, Oklahoma. 
Website:  shortwalkthroughhistory.com

email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com