BobRingReflections

       First Peoples to the Dominion of Canada This Part 1 article is about the history of Canada, starting from indigenous peoples, then covering first contact and exploration by Europeans, French rule, and British rule through the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.   Part 2 of Canadian history, covering the period from the creation of the Dominion of Canada to the present, will be posted in a future blog. French explorer Samuel de Champlain and his map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The article is a follow-on to my recent blogs on the history of Spain and Mexico in North America, and the territorial evolution of the United States. Natural Landscape Canada is the second largest country (counting its waters) in the world after Russia, with a total area of 3,855,100 square miles (about 25% larger than the contiguous United States) and has the world’s largest proportion (8.92%) of fresh water lakes.   Canada’s Arctic islands, Baffin Island, Victori...

This article is about the history of Mexico, from just before the country secured its independence from Spain in 1821, through today, presented in timeline fashion.   The article is a follow-on to my recent blog posts on Mesoamerican Ancient History, the Spanish Conquest, Spanish Expansion to the North, and Territorial Evolution of the United States.   My principle source and starting point for the article is “The History of Mexico” at history.com, from which I steal liberally, supplemented by many other online sources. The setting:   Spain started the conquest of Mexico in 1521 with the defeat of the indigenous Aztec civilization and began their North American colony that they called New Spain, ruled by a Viceroy from their new capital in Mexico City.   Almost 300 years later, by the early 1800s, they had conquered and colonized lands that reached south to Central America and north to the western United States . Independence Era 1808 Napoleon Bonaparte...