Secret Service in Elizabeth's times?

On April 14, 1856 President Abraham Lincoln inaugurated the "Secret Service" (Curiously, the same day that he was killed) which main function was related to prevent and investigate financial crimes but "after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the President of the United States" (Secret Service Official Webpage) Nowadays, this agency is responsible of "the protection of the president of the USA, the vice president, the president-elect, the vice president-elect and their immediate families" among other duties.

Great Britain has not lagged far behind in protecting its state leaders since it has an organism which fulfills this duty: the "Protection Command". This is part of the Metropolitan Police and it's divided into 3 branches

-SO1 Specialist Protection
-SO6 Diplomatic Protection Group
-SO14 Royalty Protection

SO14 is in charge of the "personal protection for the Royal Family, both nationally and internationally, protecting Royal residences in London, Windsor and Scotland, protecting members of the public who visit Royal residences" (Metropolitan Police Webpage) This organism is not as popular as the American Secret Service but both have the same function: providing protection for their state leaders.

Even though these organizations are relatively "new", providing protection for government leaders is a very important concern even from old times. In fact, the Queen Elizabeth I of England had her own network of spies whose responsibility was safeguard her life. This was coordinated by Francis Walsingham, her most loyal minister. He discovered a series of plots against the queen and that allowed her to be safe and sound even until she died in 1603.

The importance of having this network lies in considering the facts surrounded Elizabeth's times: She was protestant and became queen in 1558 after Mary I whose sobriquet was “Bloody Mary” because she spearheaded the persecution against Protestants which leaded to kill hundreds, exile many others and imprison some others, even her own half- sister Elizabeth. The bigotry and persecution continued after Mary’s death, this time, directly from European countries influenced by Catholic Church such as Spain and France (which was very "famous" by that time because the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (LINK) which took place in 1572 in Paris where thousands of French Protestants called "Huguenots" were assassinated)

Walsingham wasn’t chosen at random: he had studied as a lawyer and was an intelligent, serious, quick-witted, ruthless and disciplined person. This "master spy" held strong Protestant beliefs; indeed, he had been living in exile in France during Mary I’s reign. His loyalty to Elizabeth and determination to protect the country's Protestant faith were absolute.

As part of his strategies, Walsingham established a spy school in order to train people in cracking and using different types of codes. He also posted spies in foreign countries and inside England so he was able to figure out the different lines of communication between Catholics in the Island and those in the rest of Europe. The life of a spy was something difficult to deal with but they must be professionals in any situation: Mistakes were unthinkable.

One of his most important achievements was to dig up a conspiracy planned by Mary Queen of Scots who was Elizabeth’s cousin and at the same time her most important enemy inside England. This betrayal was known as “The Babington plot” (LINK) Walsingham got enough evidence, including the name of the conspirators, by intercepting Mary's personal mail and breaking its code. All of them were arrested and executed, even Mary.

There are more things related to the world of spies in those times such as how they were rewarded, what their services implied or the real confidence between Elizabeth and Walsingham… Do you want to know more about this? Just click here!

Here some questions before leaving: Is it really possible to trust in somebody when you are occupying such an important position? Have the conspirations and betrayals finished among the politicians? Feel free to comment!

New York: Two sides of the same coin

One month ago, I had the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams: visiting the well-known city of New York! As I worked in Salt Lake City during my Summer/Winter vacation, I took advantage of that to go to this city for 3 days before coming back to school. Maybe I didn't know many specific things about it and I would be alone there, like Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) in "Home Alone II" but it wasn't an excuse to lose this chance! (Even though my mother consider those reasons enough excuse to go straight home)


I have some friends that had the opportunity to go there and they warned me saying “3 days aren’t enough to get around the whole city”…and they were right: there, you have the opportunity to visit as many attractions and landmarks as you could imagine...or maybe more! I realized why this place is called “the Capital of the World” and why Frank Sinatra sings in his famous song about this Capital “I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn't sleep and find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap” ("New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra)

Walking around the "Big Apple”, I just realized this city is divided into five areas:

-The Bronx, which includes the well-known neighborhood called “Harlem”

-Brooklyn, with its famous bridge.
-Queens, where "Spider-Man" lives and my hotel was located.

-Staten Island, mmm...no idea what happens there…
-Manhattan which is definitely, the most AMAZING place that I’ve ever been!


During my second day there, I found some information in my guide about a huge cathedral called “Saint John the Divine” and I decided to go there. Thanks to my super map I could get to the 112st with Malcolm X Boulevard but I had to walk down along this street until Amsterdam Avenue to go to the cathedral.

While I was walking along the streets, I noticed that all the pageantry seen before had just disappeared: the area looked like those movies related to poor cities in the States; even people seemed very different from those in Time Square or the 5th Avenue! I felt happy since I involuntary had the opportunity to meet that area and to see “the other side of the coin”

I hadn’t noticed where I was so far, when I suddenly realized that the “unknown” place was Harlem. My previous happiness run away quickly and I tried to get out of that place as soon as possible since I remembered another warning given by my friends: “don’t go to Harlem!” Fortunately, I didn't have any problem I could go back home safe and sound (Even I would go to Harlem next day by mistake again!)

This experience taught me some lessons: if you don't know the route to a certain place, don't go, to get a better map beforehand, to be prepared to deal with unexpected situations (Especially in a foreign country) and, the most important thing, how lifestyle may change from one place to another which is just 20 meters far away. I experienced a similar feeling when I visited Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, as a LDS Missionary. This city is very famous because its beaches, landmarks and buildings from the Spanish Colonization which are part of the heritage area but when you go outside this area and take a look around the "real" city, you'll be surprised: many poor areas in which people live in miserable conditions. Unemployment is part of their daily lives and new thieves and pickpockets appear in the streets.

My point is that culture involves more that landmarks, street food or good places to go shopping: it’s about people, the way they lead their daily lives and what we could get from that experience. Sometimes it’s hard to know that since they live in dangerous places like Bronx or Plaza Echaurren, (if someone comes to Valparaiso, for instance) or maybe we think that information is relevant for those that study sociology but the more we can learn the essential part of a culture, the more we learn from them and, at the same time, you learn more about your own culture.

As I lived in Queens, I had to commute a long way to Manhattan so I could see more than "beautiful places" from New York. That allowed me to make a contrast between them and the people from Utah. Obviously, I realized that they are very different so I could see that there isn’t an “American stereotype” but many different cultures. That makes me feel exciting about studying English since you have the opportunity to find out several information concerning not just American culture but the whole world.

Before leaving...here some questions! What do you think about our country? Where could we find that contrast? Is it positive or negative?

Finally, I leave with you the immortal Frank Sinatra and his popular song on this link. Thanks for reading this post and enjoy the video!

Winners don't use drugs.

Have you seen the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age? In this movie you can see a clear hero-villain fight based on historic events that actually are pretty inaccurate, you can check a lot of facts in this page http://www.elizabethfiles.com/ and compare it to the movie. BUT that’s not my point though, let’s think that the movie magically is fixed and filmed again with the historic events more “accurate” according to English history. Even there the story was narrated by the winners.

The stereotyped character that represented Philip II (king of Spain) in the movie is actually a pretty accepted point of view in the Anglo world, and sometimes even worst representing him as fanatic, despotic, criminal, imperialist and genocidal.

So here comes a question I had:

How the story would be if Spain had won the War?

Logically the story would be radically different, but I can only look the real history, I will show you leaders of the nations involved in the war in the "winner perspective" to prove a point:

Elizabeth won, and his image is like this (according to England):

Elizabeth the Queen of England, was also called the “Virgin Queen” because of her pure image, and the fact she never married. She was Protestant and fought against the Catholic Church who was pressing to kill her and gain control again on England.

She was known for being a wise and strong woman who was “married” to England. She sacrificed his personal life for England.

In her reign we have one of the most important literature images, William Shakespeare, being the maximum exponent in poetry of this country.

If Philip II had won, I think all the world would know him like this (Spanish vision):

Philip II, the king of Spain was also called Philip the Prudent because of his “prudent” actions that he took when he started reigning Spain, which was in a very hard situation. In his years as a king Spain was finally unified, and he separated the nobility from the state decisions.

He was known as a cold person, but it was an image he wanted to make public, this made him not having much friends actually. He sacrificed his social life and his happiness for his empire.

In his period of reign we have a big advance in literature with Lope de Vega one of the biggest figures in theatre, even nowadays. We have more figures including Miguel de Cervantes who doesn’t actually need presentation, his name immediately remind us Don Quixote.

My conclusion is that everyone can be a hero when you are writing the History!

"The sun never sets on the British Empire"

  

As we know, the British Empire is known as the largest and powerful empire of all times. It has influence over almost a quarter of the world. The territories dominated for Britain includes India, Australia, Canada, Palestine, South Africa and New Zealand to name some of them. So, its power was huge. At the peak of the empire, the phrase "The sun never sets on British Empire" was often used to refer to it.

But, what does this actually mean?

As I said before, British Empire was so big and at the peak of its power, it had at least one territory occuped on each continent of the world. So, that's why doesn't matter the time of the day: As the earth rotated the Sun continually shone on British territory. 

As the image show us, the sun is always shining in at least one of the British territories. 

Just like an interesting fact: The phrase became popular in the 19th century (especially during the Victorian era) to apply it to the British Empire a time when British world maps showed the empire in red or pink to  highlight  the British imperial power spanning the world. 

Belize, the territory that Spain never conquered

After the presentations about the geography of the British Empire, I started to have a lot of interesting about how Belize was added to the empire.

The British Empire conquers a lot of territories in the entire world and one of them was Belize. I investigated a little bit about it and I found that this area of Central America was the territory that Spain never could conquer, and even more, it was another historical problem between Spain and Britain.

The Spanish were the first that explored Belize but they never colonized it because of the hard resistance of the native people. If we think that Spain was conquering most of the territory in the “New World” at that time, it must have been a big shock for the empire. Later, it became worst when the British Empire was successful where the Spanish failed.

This situation was bad for Spain because Belize was used by pirates as a strategic settlement to attack Spanish ships. Spain fought with Britain for a long time, more than a century, but the Spanish failed in their goal of defeat the British.

This was the most important battle between Spain and Britain

This make me think: If Spain and Britain were enemies, why the British Empire didn’t start to expand his territory in Central America when the Spanish forces were weak? Well, I don’t really know why, but in my little investigation I found that it could be because they were respecting the Treaty of London that said that Spain can retain his colonies.

I thought that this was an interesting topic so: ENJOY! :B

SOURCES: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/belize/3284020044.html
                      http://www.lonelyplanet.com/belize/history
                      http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/britishhonduras.htm

What were the positive effects of the British Empire in India?

When we talk about an Empire that colonized a whole nation, we must think that nothing gave a benefit to nation that was controlled by an outside regime, but we can see a positive cultural influence left by the foreign land.

When the British Empire took the power of India, it did all those industrial developments for its interests only, killing people, exploiting persons and stealing territories, but at the same time, it helped to development of this country.

They brought new ways of byproducts that weren’t intended to help India but it helped with their development anyways.

We have, for example, that British started the infrastructure, they started building bridges, cities and introduced the railways to India, they introduced the law through different kinds of rules. It was the same for everyone, no matter what religion or caste you were, you had to enforce rules and it helped to build an order in India.

Since the colonization, Indians have been following the British Legal System that makes easier to do business with international industries.

The British gave them the English language. English is one of the most important languages of the world and about 80% of the Indian population can speak it. English is taught in schools in India.

Those changes brought by the British Empire, gave job opportunities for Indians. They could join the military service, work as servants or drivers for the British. Educated Indians could join to the civil service. It helped to create a stronger military base to protect India from the attack of other invaders and enemies as the Afghans and Persians.

They introduced a new sport, cricket, and now it is one of the main sports of India, being the national Indian cricket team one of the best in the world.

As we can see, after all negative ideas we have about the imperialism of British Empire, we can get some beneficial points as the education system, a new order and administration, a new “fate”, new opportunities, and the idea to have a democratic system in the future.

The Spanish Armada.

As the movie Elizabeth, The Golden Age shows us, the Spanish navy was really powerful, almost invincible but why does it loses against England’s ships? I decided to investigate this a bit more.

I found out that the battle of the armadas was ONE battle of the War between The British Empire and Spain (1585-1604). The bad climatic conditions helped Britain to destroy and damage more than 40 Spanish navies.  Another interesting fact is that the British seemed to know what was the plan of the Spanish, so they fought at distant to not to have a direct battle with the soldiers in the ships.

paiting by: Nicholas Hilliard (who fought in the battle)

Another important point was the extreme faith that Felipe II (King of Spain in those times) had on their victory. He thought that the Protestants were a not organized minority as he thought that the Catholics were a majority. He had too much confidence in his armada but he didn’t know that The British Empire wasn’t afraid of it.

Although this was an important event, as I said before, this was one battle of the war and for everyone’s curiosity … The British Empire didn’t won the War. This war ended with a Peace Agreement favorable to Spain, signed by Elizabeth’s successor James I.

"AFRICA AND DECOLONIZATION"

The historical process that put an end to the colonial system in the world, during which attained their political independence the colonies that had been under the imperialist domination of the European powers in Africa has been called "decolonization". "Decolonization is the process of settlement of the colonial system in the world and the creation of CIS in former dependent territories.

The most important stages of African decolonization met between 1956 and 1962; These few years they were enough to put an end to a form of domination that was established during a century.

The lack of large groups of homogeneous population in race, culture, religion, etc, has caused tribal clashes and, in a large number of new countries, personal dictatorships, faced with the impossibility of that work a liberal system. The effects of colonization - lack of culture, economic and social backwardness--became evident in the independent countries.

Africa is still depending on structures and ideas of others to it, not by an inability to generate its own governance mechanisms, but once again by the imposition of the white domain. Economic dependence on EE.UU and Europe did not permit new States, to solve the problems caused by the colonization.

Currently Africa, increasingly populated, overcrowded cities, the difficulty of access to drinking water, have favoured the spread of multiple epidemics. Ill family members may not continue working and thus do not transmit the knowledge of culture to the next generation. The vicious cycle continues.
In this context of misery, the deterioration of the family structure is such that we found cases of parents who sell their children. It is ironic to know that, in the West, there are countless organizations that try to stop parents selling their children, the communities continue to disintegrate and that hunger causes thousands of deaths.

According to my opinion the Western economic policies profit from the life of an entire continent. Provides an example the privatization of a well of necessities like water, making it impossible to get it much of the population. In Mozambique, 660,000 people are apart from this resource.

Africa dreamed of freedom from the colonial powers, the movements of liberation fought by any means, to decide and manage their future. Years later the exploitation is so brutal that question is fellow, was there really a decolonization?.