Oh wait, that's only meaningful in the USA. The day we had enough of being a colony...

Wonder if they have July 4th in England? ...

Wonder if they have July 4th in England?

Ya never know with the Poms. I'd imagine they'd have a few 'independence days' being such an old country.

Queen Boudicca's conquest of the Roman invasion, albeit short lived.
King Charles II rising to the Throne after taking England back for the Monarchy and executing the treacherous Oliver Cromwell.
Numerous victories over the French, Spanish and the Vikings.
Repelling Hitler during the middle of the last century.

The Ol' Mother Country is all guts and all glory.

Down here it's just another day as we've passed our national day which is the 26th January. The political map of Australia looked a little different in 1788. The eastern half was called New South Wales and the western half was called New Holland. The powers that be spent the next 150-odd years shifting colonial, and later, state and territory borders around before settling on what exists today.

Anyway - enjoy the day off!

I believe the next similar, not us holiday, of a similar occurrence and a national holiday, is France. They will celebrate Bastille Day (14th July) a time when Sire found the peasants to be revolting, but they tossed out the Monarchy.

Quick correction Brad. Cromwell died of kidney infection or malaria. Later he was dug up and his remains were executed posthumously. So there!
Baz

Later he was dug up and his remains were executed posthumously.

Ahhh well, as long as it happened.

QUOTE: Later he was dug up and his remains were executed posthumously.

I hope so, although this discussion reminds me of those rare times people have gone to the gallows here back in the days of the death sentence and were ultimately pardoned because their execution failed on three attempts, where the villain's weight was incorrectly calculated or the rope broke, etc. There was generally an unwritten rule here that if you were that lucky to get strung up three times and survive you deserved to be set free with His/Her Majesty's blessing.

Of course if they hanged people with a bit of style like the Royal Navy did and just hoist the villain into the air and wait for him to stop twitching the success rate would have been a bit higher.

July 4th celebrates events that contributed to why we in Australia speak English (in our own way) and not French.

The British colonies in America won their independence with the very substantial military support of the French. The French monarchy went bankrupt as a result, and the resulting French Revolution put a stop to French imperial adventures for a while. Meanwhile the British sent Captain Cook and others to plant the flag everywhere they could in the Pacific. Including Hawaii.

Having lost most of its American colonies (they kept Canada and the West Indies), Britain put more effort into colonising Australia. The French under a restored monarchy got wind of this and decided to compete for possession of the Pacific, including Australia. The French, great believers in democracy and republicanism, still claim that the Pacific islands of Noumea are not really colonies, but integral states of the Republic of France!

Australia's first official fleet of British "settlers" (mostly convicts) arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 just a couple of days before two French ships under Captain La Perouse arrived with the intention of claiming possession of Australia. The officers of the two fleets had a gentlemanly dinner together, then the French sailed away never to be seen again.

C'est la vie!

Maven

And to make sure of it (and to stop the Russians, who they feared might have a crack at an invasion too) Captain Philip and his successors set up the mighty gun batteries at Dawes Point, Pinchgut Island, Botany Bay, South Head and Bare Island. As far as I know however, not one of these guns was ever fired at an enemy.

So, did he stay dead? Smile

Well, his body was divided up and bits hung all over the country, so he probably was.