4th of July has nothing to do with kicking the Indians proverbial ass...that mostly came later.

And Dipplayer is correctt, very few nations can point fingers at anyone else.

andorra - dipplayer for one nation
sod the native indians is that what we are all saying is it!!!. its a crying shame. we are celebrating the birth of a country that killed, tortured and punished its native population.

Andorra? LOL
Nice one. Okay, I can't find any history of Andorra that predates the 11th Century. Though tradition holds they got their charter from Charlemagne by fighting the Moors. So, nice try, but no cigar.

We are celebrating our independence from Great Britain. Not our conquest of Native American land. Geez, you sound like my high school history teacher (she was a complete bitch who I caught flat out lying about history on many occasions)

Tradition smitten - tradition means nothing.
I cannot believe they slaughtered whole populations and moved in and set up camp?
anyway i like cigars..... rolled on the thighs of virgins from havana..... not conquered yet by America...... tried but failed.

dipplayer, Iceland.

gunfighter - one thing led to another.....
please i dont have the intelligence of a high school history teacher...
history is full of lies told by the victor....and is subjective on many occasions.

@ Gunfighter - ''We are celebrating our independence from Great Britain.''

Perhaps you might also say that you are celebrating the victory of the Patriots over the Loyalists in the First American Civil War.

Iceland was settled by Vikings, whose name is synonymous with conquest and pillage. And they brought thralls from the British Islands to Iceland with them.

I always here that trite "Canada did it without bloodshed" bullshit. Did you ever think, had we not done it first, Canada might not have been able to do it without the bloodshed? Somebody had to start the ball rolling and it was the good ol' United States. That's right, Canada can thank us for going toe to toe with England and making her realize that it was time for a change and the time of the British Empire was coming to a close. Of course, it took her another 80 odd years to truly realize she was failing in North America and to give it all up, but we started it.

vatican city, palau and naura dipplayer???

There were a few great posts in this thread yeasterday, but I love this one by Thucy!

"Call me indoctrinated but I will forever see America's history as a long quest to fulfill the spirit of our founding principles - freedom and equality.

Lincoln was talking about war dead, but you could just easily extend this to all those who have died in the course of American history, American and non-American:

"we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." "

Let's all remember this come November and vote. I don't care who you vote for, so long as you make your voice heard!

Yeah i agree lets vote tor any politician as they are all crooked and nothing ever gets truly accomplished.
VOTE FOR ANYONE.

@ dub

You're not forgetting the Christianization of Iceland there are you?

Vatican City? You mean Rome hasn't been conquered, ever? or that it isn't a radically different population than initially lived there?

But yeah, if you were sufficiently isolated on an island that nobody could find you until the 20th Century, you might have a point, lol.

Don't forget that it wasn't always Vatican City. It was the Papal States.

Sorry, only the first was directed at dub.

Per Wikipedia, even Palau had a native pygmy population that was supplanted in the 12th century by the present natives.

It's human nature.

The natives wiped themselves out. They didnt need our help. Also how is canada doing on that front. Last i checked they also controlled two coasts.

and naura? come on dipp dont let me down
make something up if you have to.......(like usual!!)

Nope, sorry, I got nothing on Nauru.

And "like usual?" WTF does that mean?

CA, I have read about the Christianization of Iceland in Icelandic. A really great story. I don't count it as an invasion because they voluntarily converted, which is why the books were not burned, which is why we have the Norse mythology in any decent extant form today.

For those unfamiliar, here's the story:
Harald Fair-Hair of Norway took over the country. The rich people decided they didn't like it, so they left to Iceland (Harald Fair-Hair is another favorite story of mine, but for an other time). So understand the culture of Iceland is a rich, literate people.

The Christians sent missionaries and, while converting some people, had little success. Those Icelanders just loved their paganism! Well, one summer, Gizurr the missionary is hanging out at the All-Thing with all the Icelanders and he heckles the law-giver: "I don't mean to blaspheme the gods, but Freyja is a bitch!"

Well, this doesn't set well, so Gizurr is given a three year outlawery (anyone can kill him, no questions asked). Gizurr leaves and comes back the next year to the All-Thing and gathered all his supporters together because the Icelanders were going to prevent him by force from entering the plain where the All-thing was held. So you have the fully armed Christians and sympathizers on one side, the fully armed Pagans on the other. And the law-giver that year, Thorgeirr, says "Now, now, hold on a minute. Let me go think this over." So Thorgeirr goes and takes a nap.

And they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

And the next morning, Thorgeirr comes out of his tent, and he says "Okay, I feel much better. Now, obviously the Christians are here to stay, so we kind of have to work something out. Their forces could overwhelm us if this breaks out into a war, so let's convert peacefully. Here's the deal, three things: you can't have a rune, you can't make sacrifices, and you can't have a horse phallus." (Because apparently the fun thing to do on a Friday night in Iceland was to pass a horse phallus around.)

And that's how Iceland became Christians peacefully!

"Their forces could overwhelm us if this breaks out into a war, so let's convert peacefully. "

I think that's the operant clause though. The decision to abide by Thorgeirr's decision was to avoid a civil war. Also Thorgeirr's as I understand it made the stipulation that pagan worship was still to be permitted in private and infanticide was still to be tolerated (sacrifices?). When the Christians were in power these stipulations were ignored. I didn't say it wasn't peaceful (although it wasn't entirely). I thought we were speaking of people being supplanted. In this case the pagan Icelanders were forced to convert becoming Christian Icelanders due to the threat of civil war. Therefore the pagan establishment was supplanted by a Christian one.

True, I did condense the tale a bit. The original arrangement allowed pagan worship if you didn't get caught (so privately, I suppose). The Christians were not a wholly invading force. Many had converted, and so it really was a near civil war, not an invasion. In this case, dip was talking about a nation being displaced or conquered by another, and Iceland never has. An ideology has come in and changed their social norms, but they have never been conquered nor displaced.

Besides, a civil war would hardly constitute a conquest or displacement of a nation. A nation displaced... itself? A nation conquered... itself? That really collates poorly.

Was there no one in Iceland before the Vikings? Did no one kick out the Vikings' descendants? So the current people of Iceland trace their lineage back to the Vikings?

Yes.

Of course, the wive's tail is that ICeland was named to discourage others from coming there and reenland was named to encourage new settler's. Not historically accurate, but interesting nonetheless when you think about Iceland having never been invaded.

So you people down there in the Excited States celebrate Independence day AND Gay Pride?

Isn't that sort of redundant?

"And that's how Iceland became Christians peacefully!"

And they went from being one of the leading cultural forces of Europe to irrelevance.