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| Spanish Armada: In May 1588, King Philip II of Spain launched his "Invincible Armada", a fleet of about 130 ships and 30,000 men, upon what would become a fateful mission: nothing less than the invasion of England and the capture of Queen Elizabeth's throne. Three days after its initial engagement with the British fleet in the English Channel, the Spanish Armada, outmaneuvered by English seamanship, outmanned by Dutch reinforcements, buffeted by storms, went reeling back toward Spain. Only half that fleet reached home. The defeat of the Spanish Armada represent one of those stunning and decisive events that mark the shift of power on a world scale. It meant the end of Spain as a dominant nation and the ascendency of England as a world power. |
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| South Sea Bubble: In 1710, Sir John Blunt, a British Lawyer, with a flair for the outre, offered to buy up Britain's national debt in exchange for control of trade in the South Sea and South America. Spain refused to surrender any of its trading facilities to Sir John. Not a whit daunted, Sir John and his operatives used the money they had received from potential investors to rig the stock market. To begin with, the venture seemed to grow and prosper, at times rivaling in size the Bank of England, founded in 1694. As with so many "best-laid schemes", Sir John's failed. The speculative mania triggered by inflated stocks contributed to England's great crash in 1720. Thousands of investors were ruined in the ensuing debacle. A "South Sea Bubble" is any glamorous-sounding,get rich quick scheme that bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction. ~Facts on File Dictionary of Cultural and Historical Allusions |