this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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A Comm for Historymemes

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Hold on, hold on, don't lump Ireland in with the colonists, they were over here taking what didn't belong to them long before they made it to India...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because the Irish definitely didn't go out to be colonists....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, good point! The sun never set on the... Irish empire? And all those countries around the world that celebrate independence from Ireland. And gaelige, that worldwide language, spoken in all the former colonies. The Irish museums, full of antiquities rescued from the locals around the world.

They're really just a shower of bastards with good PR!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Well at least a good few of them went off to colonize America. And didn't give that one back, either, unlike India and friends.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You could say the same for Wales and Scotland too

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Basically it's all on the French. Us lowly Anglo-Saxons wouldn't have gone taking over someone else's country

...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

And uh, how did the Angles and Saxons get here when the Celts were already living here? It's probably all the Roman's fault for setting a precedent

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Explanation: Britain, at one point, managed to leverage itself into a position of control over all of India. In part, this was because the India-based Mughal Empire, one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries on the face of the earth, chose to fall apart at a very inopportune time, splitting India into a hundred different opposing states just as the Brits started sniffing around for colonial concessions.

The other reason is that the Brits REALLY wanted that newfangled tea - first by routing trade from China through the British East India Company, and then by growing tea directly in India itself in the 19th century.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago

Actually it started with spices, like black pepper.

Then they came with guns and did the "divide and rule" thing, by letting the kings fight each other.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Were there a billion people in India at the time of British colonization?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

It highlights the entire subcontinent, but I think even considering that, you're right, the population was considerably less.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is a very timely post as I've been listening to The Steam House by Jules Vern on LibriVox and it takes place in mid-19th century India having been written in the late-19th century and has entire chapters and passages devoted to the history of Indian colonization to give context. It's also neat because the book imagines RVs long before RVs were invented and characters correctly predict future technological advances that were still 30-50 years off at the time the book was published

[–] Grandwolf319 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Desire for leaf juice can be very strong when what you have is British cuisine.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

There's three reasons the British conquered half the world:

  • British food
  • British women
  • British weather
[–] snugglesthefalse 5 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Look, I know it can be hard when the history of your country only goes back 200 years, but we didn’t invade India for the tea. There wasn’t any in India when we got there.

We started growing it there to reduce our dependency on Chinese tea, and in return we gave China a crippling opium addiction. And they gave us Hong Kong until 1999, or something.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I mean obviously not india as it is now, but there were and had been kingdoms there for well over 1500 years.

And also you went there because of the massive trade that we had. At one point almost all the gold in Europe came from India. You also wanted cinnamon and other spices. There was more wealth leaving the west coast of India than most of Europe had experienced

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The other reason is that the Brits REALLY wanted that newfangled tea - first by routing trade from China through the British East India Company, and then by growing tea directly in India itself in the 19th century.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Are you suggesting I should actually read the comments rather than just looking at the pretty pictures before posting? Crazy talk.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I know, wild, I'll try to restrain myself in the future

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

As a fellow commenter who doesn’t read the other comments before commenting, i salute this comment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Without this invasion the world wouldn't have IPA I guess...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

I, I am gonna win! Viva Ragusa!