Having lived & worked in Britain for all of my life, still find it amazing a small island managed to rule half the world. Especially given how incompetent much of the army/gov is, having worked for them.
My grandfather was a fisherman in a remote village in Northern Newfoundland. They chose to stay in their village; raised 9 children there. My grandmother was the village midwife. I remember spending summers there long ago, it was so peaceful. The fishing industry is dead now thanks to imposed Canadian government quotas which allow the Russian and Portuguese boats to come in and steal all the fish right at the border of the international waters. There will never be a repopulation as long as that’s tolerated. The Canadian government doesn’t care.
They build a flagship Naval Hospital to care for injured and wounded sailors - pull the other one! Did you see the number of steps in there, there's hundreds. Somehow I just can't envisage Chelsea Pensioners scaling all those steps, can you?
During its empire, Britain wrongfully invaded many countries and KILLED MANY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, then managed to ignore and erase much of its brutal colonial past. The British empire was established and maintained for more than three centuries, through GREED, BLOODSHED, VIOLENCE, BRUTALITY, CONQUEST, WAR AND DOMINATION resulting in MANY MILLIONS OF DEATHS. Not a year went by without the inhabitants of the countries being obliged to suffer for their involuntary participation in the colonial experience. Slavery, famine, prison, battle, murder, extermination - these were their various fates. With absolutely no respect for other cultures and wherever the British sought to plant their flag, they were met with opposition. In almost every country they had to fight their way ashore. Throughout the period of the British empire, the British were for the most part loathed and despised by those they invaded. The British understandably try to forget that their empire was the fruit of military conquest and of brutal wars involving physical and cultural extermination. There remains an ineradicable tendency to view the imperial experience through the rose-tinted spectacles of cultural heritage. With many Scottish and North Irish people wishing to leave the so-called union and join the European Union and Brexit deeply dividing its citizens, the greatest comeuppance in the history of the world will be the breakup of the British isles, going from a island nation that invaded many countries and KILLED MANY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE to a lonely little pariah, an England and (Wales for now) all by itself.
It's pronounced "NOOFUN-land", as anyone from there will tell you, with "land" fully pronounced, not "lund". On the other hand, there's Maryland, not pronounced "Mary Land" but like "Marilyn" with a D at the end.
