USA

The Oregon Trail

Most famous of the three chief routes that led to the promised lands of the Far West was the so-called Oregon Trail. By the middle forties, writes Gerald Rawling, the popular American interest in Oregon had become a fever.

Custer's Last Stand

Like other Indian nations before them, the Sioux in 1876 took up arms to defend their traditional way of life and “sold their land dearly.” During this hopeless conflict, a gallant but showy American cavalry officer fought his last battle.

The Monroe Doctrine

George Washington had warned the American people against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence.” President Monroe, writes Arnold Whitridge, further developed “the thesis of non-entanglement.”

The Mormons in America: The Story of a Frontier

When Mark Twain said of the Mormons, 'Their religion is singular but their wives are plural' he expressed the sum of what is generally known about them. Yet the Mormon story deserves to be better known. It illuminates one side of the development of a pioneer society, and forms a commentary upon many of the main themes of American history.

The Spanish-American War

During a short-lived phase of expansionism the United States wrested Cuba and the Philippines from their Spanish rulers. 

The War of 1812 in Canada

While Britain was engrossed in the struggle with Napoleon, writes J. Mackay Hitsman, a defensive war with the United States was fought along the frontiers of Upper and Lower Canada.

Southern Women and Slavery, Part II

From all the evidence, writes Sudie Duncan Sides, it is abundantly clear that it was harder to be a slave than a plantation mistress; but the memoirs of the time do not admit this.