What is the most interesting historical event in your country?

Myself living in America, I find the American Civil War to be fascinating.  As with any civil war, fighting is between friends, relatives, and neighbors.  People like Robert E. Lee, who was (perhaps) both personally in favor of the Union's cause and anti-slavery while maintaining his position as General of the Confederate Army, epitomize the ambivalence felt during such a conflict.  A great number of books pay tribute to how complex an individual Abraham Lincoln was, and how great an emotional toll the war had on him, to say nothing of his dramatic assassination.
 
What part of your country's history do you find most interesting?

It's always been the Cold War for me. All the spying and the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR! It was crazy!

I guess either the dismissal of Whitlam, the only dismissal of a Commonwealth Prime Minister (at least in the modern era), or the Eureka Stockade. Australian history is not hugely interesting.

that time when americans killed a whole shitload of native americans for land

interesting is similar to disgusting and disturbing right?

Canada. Smooth sailing. Calm seas.

Titanic was built here. Yeah... sorry about that.

@Inkerman: What about that time when Mel Gibson drove that tanker across the desert to get away from The Humongous? Those movies were documentaries, right?

I don't think I could pick just one. Aside from the prehistory (which is always fun to speculate on) it would probably be the Great Hunger or the War for Independence. The first Boycott is probably my favourite, if we're being really specific.

All a bit weird, since I'm such an Anglophile.

Apollo 11.

@MooseyMcMan said:

What about that time when Mel Gibson drove that tanker across the desert to get away from The Humongous? Those movies were documentaries, right?

Yeah but that's just a mild day in the outback, they replaced all the animals with crazed post-Apocalyptic bikies because having real Australian animals was too scary.

@Inkerman said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

What about that time when Mel Gibson drove that tanker across the desert to get away from The Humongous? Those movies were documentaries, right?

Yeah but that's just a mild day in the outback, they replaced all the animals with crazed post-Apocalyptic bikies because having real Australian animals was too scary.

I know, I used to watch Crocodile Hunter back in the day before Steve Irwin died.

Our (Scottish) Wars of Independence culminating in the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath

@Animasta said:

that time when americans killed a whole shitload of native americans for land

interesting is similar to disgusting and disturbing right?

Yeah... us Natives don't like it when people mention it so off-handedly... just saying in case you meet any Natives so you don't accidently piss them off.

Vikings I guess. The drama between the Scandinavian royal families at the time is quite interesting actually.

@Spoonman671: Unless JFK could lift a submarine with HIS MIND (or magnet powers), I agree with you.

Brad leaving Jennifer for Angelina.

When Mel Gibson fought off the English for our freedom.

Landing on the moon was pretty cool.

Although it was not limited to Britain, I'd say the Protestant Reformation.

@Animasta said:

that time when americans killed a whole shitload of native americans for land

interesting is similar to disgusting and disturbing right?

Well they weren't really using it as cool as they could be...

I guess it was kind of fun when Sweden got Scania from Denmark. But I cant think of anything specific right now.

The War of 1812 or the French separatist movement.

Animasta just offended a minority? I don't know what's real anymore.

When My Country decided to become a Country.

I gess it would be the war of 1812 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812), not a lot of country’s can say that they repelled a USA invasion.

I have mix feelings about that war, as a French Canadian I think that the declaration of war from the USA was justified (Britain trying to stop America from trading with France basically).

That one time we burned down the White House was pretty interesting.

Were do you start? Scotland has had such a huge amount of things happen. I live near Falkirk so two battles of Falkirk. The latter one being the one that William Wallace lost and was hung drawn and quartered for.

Robert De Bruce stormed by after to fight the English.

The Jacobite Charles (AKA Bonnie Prince Charlie) cut a swath down to England...then...did a U turn just at the last push....good thing too. Wouldnt have been good have that crazy idealist in charge.

Battle of Bannockburn not far.

The siege of Stirling Castle.

The battle at Stirling Bridge.

Highland Clearances.

Most of the world famous British and American ships were built in Glasgow. Clyde dockyards.

The Germans when told to surrender their ships in world war 2. Was told to sail north of Scotland and dock at Scappa Flow. Instead the Germans decided to no hand of their advanced warships and scuttled them off the coast. The wrecks arnt all that deep. A diving company scuba dive to them regular.

There was also the Romans storming around Britain. I live 20 minutes the Antonine wall... and the most intact part of the wall Rough Castle. just there is a manmade canal in the way. Antonine wall was a wall and series of forts built into the wall that stretched coast to coast. To keep the pics out of Roman territory. They gave up on that wall and then built the Hadrians walls further south.

Hell I can go into a field dig around find everything from roman coins to carved bone and pottery.

We have so much history per square foot we dont need to preserve it all.

While America's, Native Americans archeology was perishable and nomadic, then you have the civil war and war for independence. Americans sift every little bit of dirt of all the minute things.

Ontop of that You have WWI AND WW2.

@Spoonman671 said:

Myself living in America, I find the American Civil War to be fascinating. As with any civil war, fighting is between friends, relatives, and neighbors. People like Robert E. Lee, who was (perhaps) both personally in favor of the Union's cause and anti-slavery while maintaining his position as General of the Confederate Army, epitomize the ambivalence felt during such a conflict. A great number of books pay tribute to how complex an individual Abraham Lincoln was, and how great an emotional toll the war had on him, to say nothing of his dramatic assassination. What part of your country's history do you find most interesting?

Oh have you read "Grant and Lee: A study in Contrasts"? It's an essay I had to read for school that was pretty awesome. I think it's pretty easy to make Lee out to be a monster because he went to war for a despicable cause, but after reading that essay it really made me think about different perspectives, and it made me wonder how peoples modern beliefs might be different had the war gone the other way. Definitely an interesting read.

The entire life of Theodore Roosevelt.

Personally for me...

The ongoing saga of Scottish Devolution...yes, it's a bit modern to be considered historical (especially in the context of those talking about the War of 1812 and such in here) but I take great interest in its evolution into an inevitable form of full Independence for our country.

@Mamb219 said:

The entire life of Theodore Roosevelt.

Elephant, Mustard, (...) or Dracula.

@JerichoBlyth said:

Personally for me...

The ongoing saga of Scottish Devolution...yes, it's a bit modern to be considered historical (especially in the context of those talking about the War of 1812 and such in here) but I take great interest in its evolution into an inevitable form of full Independence for our country.

Its a good idea and I like it to a point. However full independence is not possible. We will have to go to war if we did separate. Since the main resource Scotland has is the North Sea oil fields and the only thing that could sustain us economically (which isn't reliable) . Do you think England would just let us claim it. England as Britain has it. If we separate we would have to start from scratch on EVERYTHING. Diplomacy is started scratch, trade is started from scratch. Then England wants what we have so they fight us and yeah.....not fun.

Given enough time this all has a high chance of happening. And thusly...we would be back under English rule and not as free as before.

Still fascinating none the less.

I'll add my vote to the American Civil War. Its so complex you could spend your entire life just reading about 1861-1865.

I dunno. I'm not really fond of American history. It basically gets classed into: The time we killed all the natives, the time we killed the Brits and ourselves and everything after that the rest of the world thinks we're pricks, basically regardless of what happens.

Soooooo... I just kinda' stick to art history on this one.

Well, being Portuguese, I obviously like the Discoveries period: bending the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, getting to India by sea, successfully fully making it around the globe on a freaking caravel, etc etc.
Also, I guess the way how we were always able to repel all kinds of invaders over the course of our long history (Portugal was founded in the year 868!) -- turns out we were few, but very tough xD

The time my country almost became another country. That was crazy. I'll let you guys figure it out.

I don't know. But the coolest one, mostly for it's name, are the Cod Wars. Iceland brutally defeated their British opponents in these gruesome bloody encounters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars

I'm also from USA and it's either the American Revolution or the Civil War.

I'd probably give the edge to the American Revolution just do to the amazing collection of people in it. Plus it's a revolution that succeeded whereas the Civil War was a revolution that failed.

The most interesting thing to happen to Australia was the arrival of either Captain Cook who claimed it for the British or when the first fleet arrived in 1788.

Some people would say the Eureka rebellion was interesting, as someone who comes from the town where that happened I feel I know a bit about it and can say it really wasn't all that exciting. The miners acted in a way that was unnecessary and violent and the entire thing was put down in a few hours.

Don't know about most interesting but WW2 was kinda like a big deal ...and our fault ...sort of.

Not too sure we've actually done something "interesting".

Oh! We made Spec Ops: The Line .... :D

I'm from Germany, so....

... Ikea -_-

I'm from Denmark, so the Vikings go in as a clear winner - nothing else of particular interest happened here - at one point we ruled over all of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, northern Germany, England and Faeroe at the same time.

Since then it went all downhill, and these days even some of the most southern parts of Denmark, actually belong to Germany, all though a majority of the population there consider themselves Danes and speak Danish in everyday life and not German...

At least we still (kinda) got Greenland and the Faeroe Islands...

EDIT: Oh and I guess you can thank us for both Bacon and LEGO, so that ain't too shabby.

The War of 1812 or the French separatist movement.

Irish so I'd say either the Easter Rising, Famine/Genocide, or Guinness being invented

Well, so much United States has already happened, so I'll try and think of something from Utah. Uh... Ken Jennings?

How money puts things into motion and influence our entire history is one of the most unique aspects in any country, the United States in particular for me though.

The American Civil War, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. As a North Dakota resident, Teddy is almost a required historical interest. It helps that he was a complete badass.