England History

50 Years Ago

50 Years Ago War, Devastation, loss of the Empire, Technological developments, Women gain equal writes with men. 50 years ago "was our finest hour" (Quotation from the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the time of The Battle of Britain in 1940) but; The British Empire

• 50 years ago the huge British Empire was finally about to die. So had it lasted about the same time as the Roman Empire? No, only about 200 years compared with the Roman empire of 500 years or more.
• 50 years ago the British Empire stretched from British Columbia in the West of Canada right round the world to Australia and New Zealand in the East. World War Two
• 50 years ago this Empire was simultaneously attacked by Germany who tried to invade the centre of the empire, England it’s self and then by Japan in the East of the empire notably in Burma and Malaya for our rubber plantations and Singapore for our Naval base.
• 50 years ago the Germans exterminated 5 million Jews. (They were safe in England)
• 50 years ago aeroplanes which had only invented 40 years previously (1912) had been developed into formidable fighting machines. Aeroplanes at this time were not jets but were driven by powerful car engines (petrol).
• 50 years ago tanks also only invented 40 years previously had been developed into powerful fighting machines by the English and the Germans. (The French were still relying on the horse!)
• 50 years ago the Atomic Bomb was invented (1946 by the Americans) which was so powerful that one bomb could destroy a whole city and worse no humans could live in that city for many years due to lethal radiation pollution.
• 50 years ago the horse, which for the previous 3000 years had been the main transporter of man was finally outmoded as a means of serious transport other than for recreational purposes. Replaced by planes, cars, trains and trucks. All these new methods of transport produce nasty polluting gasses. (Green house gasses and worse and thence global warming)
• 50 years ago the majority of trains were still powered by steam heated by a coal fire.
• 50 years ago was the (so called) Battle of Britain where the English with only a small Air Force but with brilliant fighter planes (Spitfires and Hurricanes) shot the massive German air force (Luftwaffe) out of the sky. (“This was our finest hour”)
• 50 years ago the Americans had grown to be the most powerful nation in the world taking over from England and after a lot of talking were persuaded to help England to fight the Germans in the West and the Japanese in the East. Their decision was helped by the Japanese making a really stupid mistake when they bombed the American Naval fleet which happened to be at anchor in mid-Pacific (Pearl Harbour, Hawaii) within range of the Japanese Aircraft carriers. This was almost like a wasp stinging an elephant.
• 50 years ago the Germans, with the help of their U boats, (Submarines) came close to starving the English into submission by sinking the majority of the English supply ships in the Atlantic. (One of the reasons for the European Common Agricultural Policy was the develop domestic food production so that individual member states could support themselves) Fortunately Britisher Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt developed Radar and the German U boats, which had to attack on the surface as they were too slow submerged, could be spotted with the newly developed Radar and blown out of the sea with on-ship guns.
• 50 years ago the English, with the help of the Americans and men from the British Empire, finally beat the Germans (1945) and with the help of the Americans and their atomic bomb beat the Japanese (1946). The Atomic bomb which is now produced by many countries has never again been used in battle as everybody knows the world destruction would be incalculable. Perhaps this would be similar in destructive power to the catastrophe which caused the death of all Dinosaurs some 70 million years ago.

TechnologyThis period also saw the start of so many new products and ideas partly fuelled by the huge efforts in America, England, Germany and Japan to build ultimate war weapons.
Jets
The jet engine was invented in England. (Frank Whittle 1941). Now, the skies are full of jets not propeller-driven planes. 50 years ago however more people were travelling to the US by ship than by plane.
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Fission and Nuclear Fusion the basis of city eliminating bombs and Nuclear energy for power stations and submarines. Scientist are still trying to develop Nuclear fusion into the basis of a non polluting energy source for the future.
Computer chips
The transistor and its cousin the silicon chip was invented in America (Bell labs NY 1952). This made the following possible; The computer (PC etc) , the cell phone, the play station and many more.
Man made textiles
50 years ago women were fighting for the new fashion item “Nylons” (Nylon stockings) one of the first items of clothing not created from natural materials like animal firs, cotton or wool but new materials invented by man mainly as a by-product of oil. Men cease to dominate Women
At the same time (the sixties) the life of women was revolutionised by the invention of the "Pill". Which taken daily would allow women to control when they had children. Up to this time women found it difficult to have both a paid working career and bring up young children. Women were seen by their employees and husbands alike as the little woman back home who looks after the kids and prepares the evening meal for the man when he comes home. Now women and men have equal status and earning potential in the work place. Men have not got used to this even now. In England the benefits to the wealth of the nation by doubling the potential work force came faster than in some countries where religion still preaches that women should not work and indeed should not even have access to the Pill. (EG the Roman Catholic Irish and the Islamic Arabs and Asians.) What purpose the Empire? Defence and trade alliances.
50 years ago after the defeat of the Germans and the Japanese, the members of the British Empire (like India, Australia and Canada) began to ask themselves what was the value of being in this British club? After all it was now clear that the English could not defend their Empire with out the help of the Americans. So why not just build an alliance with the US? The best example of this is Australia. 50 years ago the similar thinking was going through the minds of the English. Should England develop even closer ties with old friend America or become more closely tied with old enemy Europe and the new developing “European Kingdom” or "United States of Europe"? The concept of a European political union was promoted after the second world war by General De Gaulle of France as the vehicle for eliminating future debilitating wars between European countries.
This is still both the main political and economic question of the day.

Previous            Next

England History

100 Years Ago

• England rules ¼ of the whole of the earth and about ¼ of it’s people.
• Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa added to existing jewels like India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh)
• The whole of Africa is split up and ruled by countries in Europe (including England)
• The English having massacred a fifty million Buffalo in America not to mention many North American natives (Indians) follow these atrocities by killing for “sport” some half a million native Australians (Aborigines) and replacing them with 3 million “white” men, 12 million cattle and 100 million sheep.
• At home women finally are allowed to vote!
• The First so called World War

Africa
Some 100 years ago the Europeans who for the last few hundred years had been fighting each other in Europe, then North America and the Far East pounced on Africa. Hardly anybody was left out. The French started with foot holds in Muslim Algeria and the English notably aided by Cecil Rhodes expanded their “shared” foothold in South Africa (Shared with the Afrikaners who were originally Dutch (and French) extreme Protestants called Huguenots who had fled religious persecution at home).
The Belgium’s hired English explorer David Livingstone to help them “take” the Congo region.
Of the countries involved (England, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy) it was only Italy who were beaten by the locals. (Abyssinians now Ethiopians in the Horn of Africa)
These European countries held a conference (the scramble for Africa) in Berlin in 1884 on how to split up Africa between them. The Africans were not invited to this meeting!!
France ended up with the most land with England in second place. As far as the English were concerned the French could keep their land as they had ended up with “a huge desert with insignificant minerals occupied by Muslim fundementalsts”. Whereas the English largly thanks to the ruthless homosexual Rhodes ruled the beautiful countries in the south of Africa where they found some of the worlds largest deposits of Gold and Diamonds. England also ruled Nigeria on the west coast (full of oil) and Christian/Muslim Arabic Egypt and Sudan in the north.
English victories were made easier by the English inventor Maxim who produced the worlds first machine gun. A convenient tool for annihilating a few local “Blacks” who were not immediately attracted to giving their lands to the English invaders from overseas.
The English ended up by ruling from south to north;
South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes), Zambia, (not Tanzania this went to the Germans), Kenya, Uganda, and the Muslim/Christian areas Sudan and Egypt; plus Nigeria on the west coast.
100 years ago the English, the world conquering nation, were shattered to be beaten in battle by the Afrikaners in the Boer War. (Boar being the Afrikaner word for farmer)
Australia and New Zealand
These territories were discovered and mapped by Europeans notably Englishman James Cook some 250 years ago 1768. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was 100 years ahead of Cook but the Dutch appeared to have no interest in the land. Here was a land of similar size to the USA (USA 3.8 million sq. miles Australia 3.0 m. sq. miles) that was inhabited by humans who had apparently not seen any other humans ever since they arrived some 35,000 years ago. Called Aborigines they were still stone age peoples who had not even invented the wheel. English settlers massacred ¾ of them.
As with America the English initially used Australia as a penal colony (To clear the overflow from London prisons). Free English settlement started about 1850 when gold was discovered. 100 years ago when Australia grew from a colony to a dominion within the British Empire the half a million native Australians were replaced by 3.5 million Europeans, 12 million cattle and 100million sheep.
Australia was given “Dominion” status along with New Zealand Canada and South Africa which permitted local government rather than government from London, the English Queen remained their queen and the English military was in theory available to defend their territories.
Technology 100 years ago
This is really the start of modern day life as it is to day, built round the fruits of technology, the majority at this time were still British inventions although Germany and the USA were also contributing. Some examples;
Transport
With all those sheep in Australia and nobody to eat them locally they needed to be shipped back to England if they were to be worth any thing. England invented steam turbine, propeller driven steel ships some 10 times the size and faster than the wood and sail variety. (Steam Turbines invented by Englishman Charles Parsons). The sheep had to come to England via the Equator so for edible meat they required cooling. Refrigerators were invented by British physicists Lord Kevin and James Joule (cooling by adiabatic expansion).
London was the first city in the world to have an underground railway. (Now called the Tube). Initially powered by coal and steam, about 100 years ago it was converted to clean electric motor power thanks to the fundamental inventions of Englishman Michael Faraday.
Also at this time man first flew in the air. The Wright Brother's plane kept airborne for 45 minutes in 1907.
This period would not be properly described without mentioning German born Jewish physicist Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955). In 1905 working in Switzerland he published four separate papers which were so revolutionary and far ahead of their time that nobody could understand them. His special theory of relativity is probably his most famous work. He created the intellectual environment to develop Nuclear Power and Bombs. With the arrival of Hitler Einstein became domicile in the US.
Also 100 years ago
The Suffragette movement (militant arm of the Women's Social and Political Union) started in England where women campaigned for more equality with men, denied to them since the birth of time. After 20 years of rioting, self inflicted starvation and moving oratory women were finally given the vote in 1918.
The concept of Radio(Wireless) was thought of by Maxwell (1873), demonstrated by Hertz (1888) and finally made a commercial reality by Marconi in 1895.
Television now the most powerful advertising and propaganda medium of all was developed by Britisher John Baird in 1926.
This period also saw the birth of two related industries Recorded Music and Pop (Popular music). This required the development of the Microphone, the gramophone (record player), the amplifier and the loudspeaker. Starting in about 1900 it took almost 30 years for all the pieces to be put in place. Singing to entertain hundreds of people with out a trained operatic voice was possible for the first time creating such legends as Americans Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, both multi millionaires, would probably have been nothing without these inventions.
The major contributors were; Emil Berliner (a German living in America) the gramophone record. Lee de Forest an American invented the triode valve permitting amplification 1928. Americans Rice and Kellogg invented the loudspeaker (moving coil) in 1925. To complete the picture Englishman Alan Dower Blumlein developed the first high quality moving coil microphone as well as two channel stereo sound (1928). The world had for the first time high quality recorded and amplified music.
WORLD WAR 1
100 years ago the great powers of Europe, although they had carved up Africa nicely between them, eyed each other nervously waiting for the first one to make a territorial advance. This nervousness was caused by power shifts in three major European Empires;

• The German Empire becoming a world force for the first time.
• The old Austro-Hungarian Empire, centred in Vienna, loosing its middle European domination.
• The huge Ottoman Empire centred in Turkey but stretching the from Austrian boarder in the west (Bosnia) across the whole of Arabia, was also beginning to breakdown creating a political vacuum in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans.

Two sides developed:

• England plus France and Russia (Called the Triple Entente)
• Germany in support of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire which included Bosnia and Italy, called the Triple Alliance.

In June 1914 a Serbian assassin shot and killed Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on a visit to in Sarajevo Bosnia. Austria then invaded Serbia. Russia who had an alliance with Serbia (and still has) declared war on Austria. Germany, supporting Austria, declared war on Russia. England came into the war when Germany invaded neutral Belgium.
Hence this was not a world war as World War 2 but involved the whole of the world wide British Empire who came to Europe to help the English plus the Americans who also came to help the English. The English lost a million lives in this war, not won by England and her allies until 1918.
The main feature of this war were trenches. That is the main battle line between the Germans on the one side and the English and French on the other were two long parallel trenches stretching over 500 miles from the English channel to Switzerland. This generated a military stalemate. The side that attacked was immediately wiped out by the other side.
Weapons
This stalemate needed one side to think up a new weapon to mow through the opposing trenches. Two inventions finally came on the scene but both too late to make any real difference at the time The aeroplane, nobody thought of using it to drop bombs.
The Tank, invented by Englishman Sir Ernest Swinton. They were deployed first in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 but were not reliable enough to make any difference until about November 1917.
The Submarine. As in World War 2 the Germans developed the submarine and even at this early stage of its development to devastating effect against the English merchant naval fleet carrying food to England. German U boats were one of the main contributors to the Americans coming to support England in this war as the Germans developed a strategy of “if you see it torpedo it” and some US ships got in the way. All parties came to realise that one Sub could sink one Battleship which would have cost some hundred times as much.
Some 10 or so years after the war an arms race developed as to who could build the biggest and fastest Battleships with the biggest guns. Those involved were England and France, who couldn’t afford it together with the US and for the first time Japan. The Germans were not allowed to build Battleships so they cheated and built smaller ships but armed like a Battleship. They became known as Pocket Battleships. With both economic considerations and the fact that Battleships were vulnerable to Submarines the Americans tried to bring about an arms(Battleship) limitation treaty. Unfortunately after apparently agreeing the Germans and the Japanese ignored it. (No wonder we have spy planes these days)

Previous            Next

England History

Introduction

England is only part of a tiny island shared with Wales and Scotland, with France next door to the east via the English channel, then Ireland to the west via the Irish sea. England is actually smaller than many individual states in the US but is much more crowded. Great Britain includes Wales and Scotland but excludes the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In the UK, which is England, Scotland, Wales plus Northern Ireland, we currently have 59 million people. Compare this with the larger area of the mid west US state of Iowa which has only 3 million people. Yes today England is a little crowded!

HISTORY OF NIGERIA

Historic regions: 5th century BC - 20th century AD
Nigeria contains more historic cultures and empires than any other other nation in Africa. They date back as far as the 5th century BC, when communities living around the southern slopes of the Jos plateau make wonderfully expressive terracotta figures - in a tradition known now as the Nok culture, from the Nigerian village where these sculptures are first unearthed. The Nok people are neolithic tribes who have recently acquired the iron technology spreading southwards through Africa. The Jos plateau is in the centre of Nigeria, but the first extensive kingdoms of the region - more than a millennium after the Nok people - are in the north and northeast, deriving their wealth from trade north through the Sahara and east into the Sudan.
During the 9th century AD a trading empire grows up around Lake Chad. Its original centre is east of the lake, in the Kanem region, but it soon extends to Bornu on the western side. In the 11th century the ruler of Kanem-Bornu converts to Islam. West of Bornu, along the northern frontier of Nigeria, is the land of the Hausa people. Well placed to control trade with the forest regions to the south, the Hausa develop a number of small but stable kingdoms, each ruled from a strong walled city. They are often threatened by larger neighbours (Mali and Gao to the west, Bornu to the east). But the Hausa traders benefit also from being on the route between these empires. By the 14th century they too are Muslim.
In the savanna grasslands and the forest regions west of the Niger, between the Hausa kingdoms and the coast, the Yoruba people are the dominant tribes. Here they establish two powerful states. The first is Ife, on the border between forest and savanna. Famous now for its sculpture, Ife flourishes from the 11th to 15th century. In the 16th century a larger Yoruba empire develops, based slightly further from the forest at Oyo. Using the profits of trade to develop a forceful cavalry, Oyo grows in strength during the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century the rulers of Oyo are controlling a region from the Niger to the west of Dahomey.
Meanwhile, firmly within the forest, the best known of all the Nigerian kingdoms establishes itself in the 15th century (from small beginnings in the 13th). Benin becomes a name internationally known for its cast-metal sculpture, in a tradition inherited from the Ife (see Sculpture of Ife and Benin). In terms of extent Benin is no match for Oyo, its contemporary to the north. In the 15th century the region brought under central control is a mere seventy-miles across (people and places being harder to subdue in the tropical forest than on the savanna), though a century later Benin stretches from the Niger delta in the east to Lagos in the west.
But Benin's fame is based on factors other than power. This is the coastal kingdom which the Portuguese discover when they reach the mouth of the Niger in the 1470s, bringing back to Europe the first news of superb African artefacts and of the ceremonial splendour of Benin's oba or king. The kings of Benin are a story in themselves. In the 19th century they scandalize the west by their use of human sacrifice in court rituals. And they have stamina. At the end of the 20th century the original dynasty is still in place, though without political power. All in all, among Nigeria's many historic kingdoms, Benin has earned its widespread renown.
The Fulani and Sokoto: AD 1804-1903
Living among the Hausa in the northern regions of Nigeria are a tribe, the Fulani, whose leaders in the early 19th century become passionate advocates of strict Islam. From 1804 sheikh Usman dan Fodio and his two sons lead the Fulani in an immensely successful holy war against the lax Muslim rulers of the Hausa kingdoms. The result is the establishment in 1809 of a Fulani capital at Sokoto, from which the centre and north of Nigeria is effectively ruled for the rest of the 19th century. But during this same period there has been steady encroachment on the region by British interests.
British explorers: AD 1806-1830
From the death of Mungo Park near Bussa in 1806 to the end of the century, there is continuing interest in Nigeria on the part of British explorers, anti-slavery activists, missionaries and traders. In 1821 the British government sponsors an expedition south through the Sahara to reach the kingdom of Bornu. Its members become the first Europeans to reach Lake Chad, in 1823. One of the group, Hugh Clapperton, explores further west through Kano and the Hausa territory to reach Sokoto. Clapperton is only back in England for a few months, in 1825, before he sets off again for the Nigerian coast at Lagos.
On this expedition, with his servant Richard Lander, he travels on trade routes north from the coast to Kano and then west again to Sokoto. Here Clapperton dies. But Lander makes his way back to London, where he is commissioned by the government to explore the lower reaches of the Niger. Accompanied in 1830 by his brother John, Lander makes his way north from the coast near Lagos to reach the great river at Bussa - the furthest point of Mungo Park's journey downstream. With considerable difficulty the brothers make a canoe trip downstream, among hostile Ibo tribesmen, to reach the sea at the Niger delta. This region has long been familiar to European traders, but its link to the interior is now charted. All seems set for serious trade.
SS Alburkah: AD 1832-1834
After Lander's second return to England a company is formed by a group of Liverpool merchants, including Macgregor Laird, to trade on the lower Niger. Laird is also a pioneer in the shipping industry. For the present purpose, an expedition to the Niger, he designs an iron paddle-steamer, the 55-ton Alburkah. Laird himself leads the expedition, with Richard Lander as his expert guide.
The Alburkah steams south from Milford Haven in July 1832 with forty-eight on board. She reaches the mouth of the Niger three months later, entering history as the first ocean-going iron ship. After making her way up one of the many streams of the Niger delta, the Alburkah progresses upstream on the main river as far as Lokoja, the junction with the Benue. The expedition demonstrates that the Niger offers a highway into the continent for ocean vessels. And the performance of the iron steamer is a triumph. But medicine is not yet as far advanced as technology. When the Alburkah returns to Liverpool, in 1834, only nine of the original crew of forty-eight are alive. They include a much weakened Macgregor Laird.
Trade and anti-slavery: AD 1841-1900
The next British expedition to the Niger is almost equally disastrous in terms of loss of life. Four ships under naval command are sent out in 1841, with instructions to steam up the Niger and make treaties with local kings to prevent the slave trade. The enterprise is abandoned when 48 of the 145 Europeans in the crews die of fever. Malaria is the cause of the trouble, but major progress is made when a doctor, William Baikie, leads an expedition up the Niger in 1854. He administers quinine to his men and suffers no loss of life. Extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, quinine has long been used in medicine. But its proven efficacy against malaria is a turning point in the European penetration of Africa.
The British anti-slavery policy in the region involves boosting the trade in palm oil (a valuable product which gives the name Oil Rivers to the Niger delta) to replace the dependence on income from the slave trade. It transpires later that this is somewhat counter-productive, causing the upriver chieftains to acquire more slaves to meet the increased demand for palm oil. But it is nevertheless the philanthropic principle behind much of the effort to set up trading stations. At the same time the British navy patrols the coast to liberate captives from slave ships of other nations and to settle them at Freetown in Sierra Leone.
From 1849 the British government accepts a more direct involvement. A consul, based in Fernando Po, is appointed to take responsibility for the Bights of Biafra and Benin. He undertakes direct negotiations with the king of Lagos, the principal port from which slaves are shipped. When these break down, in 1851, Lagos is attacked and captured by a British force. Another member of the Lagos royal family is placed on the throne, after guaranteeing to put an end to the slave trade and to human sacrifice (a feature of this region). When he and his successor fail to fulfil these terms, Lagos is annexed in 1861 as a British colony.
During the remainder of the century the consolidation of British trade and British political control goes hand in hand. In 1879 George Goldie persuades the British trading enterprises on the Niger to merge their interests in a single United African Company, later granted a charter as the Royal Niger Company. In 1893 the delta region is organized as the Niger Coast Protectorate. In 1897 the campaign against unacceptable local practices reaches a climax in Benin - notorious by this time both for slave trading and for human sacrifice. The members of a British delegation to the oba of Benin are massacred in this year. In the reprisals Benin City is partly burnt by British troops.
The difficulty of administering the vast and complex region of Nigeria persuades the government that the upriver territories, thus far entrusted to the Royal Niger Company, also need to be brought under central control. In 1900 the company's charter is revoked. Britain assumes direct responsibility for the region from the coast to Sokoto and Bornu in the north. Given the existing degree of British involvement, this entire area has been readily accepted at the Berlin conference in 1884 as falling to Britain in the scramble for Africa - though in the late 1890s there remains dangerous tension between Britain and France, the colonial power in neighbouring Dahomey, over drawing Nigeria's western boundary.
British colonial rule: AD 1900-1960
The sixty years of Britain's colonial rule in Nigeria are characterized by frequent reclassifying of different regions for administrative purposes. They are symptomatic of the problem of uniting the country as a single state. In the early years the Niger Coast Protectorate is expanded to become Southern Nigeria, with its seat of government at Lagos. At this time the rulers in the north (the emir of Kano and the sultan of Sokoto) are very far from accepting British rule. To deal with the situation Frederick Lugard is appointed high commissioner and commander-in-chief of the protectorate of northern Nigeria.
Lugard has already been much involved in the colony, commanding troops from 1894 on behalf of the Royal Niger Company to oppose French claims on Borgu (a border region, divided in 1898 between Nigeria and Dahomey). Between 1903 and 1906 he subdues Kano and Sokoto and finally puts an end to their rulers' slave-raiding expeditions. Lugard pacifies northern Nigeria by ensuring that in each territory, however small, the throne is won and retained by a chief willing to cooperate. Lugard then allows these client rulers considerable power - in the technique, soon to be known as 'indirect rule', which in Africa is particularly associated with his name (though it has been a familiar aspect of British colonial policy in India).
In 1912 Lugard is appointed governor of both northern and southern Nigeria and is given the task of merging them. He does so by 1914, when the entire region becomes the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The First World War brings a combined British and French invasion of German Cameroon (a campaign not completed until early in 1916). In 1922 the League of Nations grants mandates to the two nations to administer the former German colony. The British mandate consists of two thin strips on the eastern border of Nigeria.
The rival claims of Nigeria's various regions become most evident after World War II when Britain is attempting to find a structure to meet African demands for political power. By 1951 the country has been divided into Northern, Eastern and Western regions, each with its own house of assembly. In addition there is a separate house of chiefs for the Northern province, to reflect the strong tradition there of tribal authority. And there is an overall legislative council for the whole of Nigeria. But even this is not enough to reflect the complexity of the situation. In 1954 a new constitution (the third in eight years) establishes the Federation of Nigeria and adds the Federal Territory of Lagos.
During the later 1950s an African political structure is gradually achieved. From 1957 there is a federal prime minister. In the same year the Western and Eastern regions are granted internal self-government, to be followed by the Northern region in 1959. Full independence follows rapidly, in October 1960. The tensions between the country's communities now become Nigeria's own concern.
Independence and secession: AD 1960-1970
Regional hostilities are a feature of independent Nigeria from the start, partly due to an imbalance of population. More than half the nation's people are in the Fulani and Hausa territories of the Northern region. Northerners therefore control not only their own regional assembly but also the federal government in Lagos. From 1962 to 1964 there is almost continuous anti-northern unrest elsewhere in the nation, coming to a climax in a rebellion in 1966 by officers from the Eastern region, the homeland of the Ibo. They assassinate both the federal prime minister and the premiers of the Northern and Western regions.
In the ensuing chaos many Ibos living in the north are massacred. In July a northern officer, Yakubu Gowon, emerges as the country's leader. His response to Nigeria's warring tribal factions is to subdivide the four regions (the Mid-West has been added in 1963), rearranging them into twelve states. This device further inflames Ibo hostility, for one of the new states cuts their territory off from the sea. The senior Ibo officer, Odumegwu Ojukwu, takes the drastic step in May 1967 of declaring the Eastern region an independent nation, calling it the republic of Biafra.
The result is bitter and intense civil war, with the federal army (increasing during the conflict from 10,000 to 200,000 men) meeting powerful resistance from the secessionist region. The issue splits the west, where it is the first post-independence African war to receive widespread coverage. The US and Britain supply arms to the federal government. France extends the same facilities to Biafra. In any civil war ordinary people suffer most, and in small land-locked Biafra this is even more true than usual. By January 1970 they are starving. Biafra surrenders and ceases to exist. Ojukwu escapes across the border and is granted asylum in the Ivory Coast.
From oil wealth to disaster: AD 1970-1999
General Gowon achieves an impressive degree of reconciliation in the country after the traumas of 1967-70. Nigeria now becomes one of the wealthiest countries in Africa thanks to its large reserves of oil (petroleum now, rather than the palm oil of the previous century). In the mid-1970s the output is more than two million barrels a day, the value of which is boosted by the high prices achieved during the oil crisis of 1973-4. But with this wealth goes corruption, which Gowon fails to control. When he is abroad, in 1975, his government is toppled in a military coup. Gowon retires to Britain.
In the second half of the 1970s oil prices plummet. Nigeria rapidly suffers economic crisis and political disorder. Within a period of five years the average income per head slumps by 75%, from over $1000 a year to a mere $250. Neither brief cilivian governments nor frequent military intervention prove able to rescue the situation. A regular response is to subdivide regional Nigeria into ever smaller parcels. The number of states is increased to nineteen in 1979 and to twenty-nine in 1991. By the end of the century it stands at thirty-six. Meanwhile the nation's foreign debt has been increasing in parallel, to reach $36 billion by 1994.
In 1993 the military ruler (Ibrahim Babangida, in power from 1985) yields to international pressure and holds a presidential election. When it appears to have been conclusively won by Moshood Abiola, a chief of the western Yoruba tribe, Babangida cancels the election by decree. This blatant act prompts Nigeria's first energetic movement for democracy, which comes to international attention when one of its leaders - the playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa - is among a group hanged in 1995 for the alleged murder of four rivals at a political rally in 1994. Saro-Wiwa has also been a campaigner for the rights of his Ogoni people, whose territory is ravaged - to no benefit to themselves - by the international companies extracting Nigeria's oil.
The world-wide outcry at Saro-Wiwa's death, without any pretence of a fair trial, prompts Nigeria's generals to offer new elections in 1999. The presidential election is won by Olusegun Obasanjo, by now a civilian but for three years from 1976 the military ruler of the country - and therefore widely assumed to be the army's preferred candidate. His People's Democratic Party wins a majority of seats in both the house of representatives and the senate. Early reports suggest that under Obasanjo's government a ruthless disregard of civil liberties continues in Nigeria, with outbreaks of minority ethnic protest being brutally suppressed.
The election of Obasanjo, a Christian from the south, brings new tensions. As if in response, in November 1999, the predominantly Muslim northern state of Zamfara introduces strict Islamic law, the sharia. Other northern states discuss similar action. Local Christians take alarm. Violent street battles between the two communities are a feature of the early months of 2000. The future of Nigeria is problematic but of considerable importance to Africa. The nation's potential remains vast. With at least 115 million people (comprising some 200 tribes) it is the continent's most populous country. And as the world's fifth largest oil producer, it has the wherewithal to be one of the richest.

Finland - History

Finland - History
 
FINLAND HAS BEEN THE SITE of human habitation since the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago. When the first Swedish-speaking settlers arrived in the ninth century, the country was home to people speaking languages belonging to the distinctive Finno- Ugric linguistic group, unrelated to the more prevalent Indo- European language family. The first dates in Finnish history are connected with the Swedish crusade of the 1150s that, according to legend, aimed at conquering the "heathen" Finns and converting them to Christianity. There was, however, no Swedish conquest of Finland. The bodies of water that lay between Finland and Sweden, rather than making them enemies or separating them, brought them together. Trade and settlement between the two areas intensified, and a political entity, the dual kingdom of Sweden-Finland, gradually evolved. 

WAFA AGGREGATE LTD RECRUITING COMPANY ACCOUNTANT IN LAGOS Friday 15-Feb-2013 | views 1408| by Latest Job Vacancies in Nigeria | Category: Administrative | Location: Lagos |Recruiting Company:

Wafa Aggregate Ltd recruiting Company Accountant in Lagos

Job Title: Company Accountant

Location: Lagos

Wafa Aggregate Limited has international affiliations with multiple refineries and major oil trading partners have positioned us to be the supplier of choice for PMS, AGO, DPK and ATK in the West African sub-region. With locations in Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt, Wafa Aggregate is poised to deliver white
products to any location within the sub-region as can be attested to by our blue-chip customers such as Total, Mobil, Dangote, MTN and a host of others.

LATEST JOB VACANCIES FOR ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS IN NIGERIA Monday 18-Feb-2013 | views 1408| by Latest Job Vacancies in Nigeria | Category: Administrative | Location: Lagos |Recruiting Company:

Latest Job vacancies for Administrative positions in Nigeria

A Fast growing group of companies with interest in manufacturing, trading and hospitality head quartered in Owerri, Imo state has vacancies for the following posts: