Not that empire! In a new (hopefully) series of episodes, I’m going to be taking you through a period of history, since we all know that our knowledge from high school is about as valuable as GCSE French. In today’s episode, I talk about the beginnings of the British Empire, starting in 1497, where we start the old British tradition of continually fucking things up. From voyages to the Americas to England versus Spain, let me guide you horribly through a period in history that saw the beginnings of England deciding it was a good idea to impose their presence on every other piece of land they could navigate to! Also discussed: Henry VIII and his fantastic choices, including creating the Church of England and the monarch tradition of pissing off Ireland Philip 2nd of Spain, protector of Catholicism and King of several places…and his quest to truly stick it to England Elizabeth 1st and her use of Dutch Privateers, hatred of Catholicism and general dislike of Spain (and love for stealing their silver) The beginnings of Colonialism and slavery (briefly)   It’s a quick tour, but I’m certain it’s more valuable than GCSE History…but perhaps less valuable than a Horrible History book. Oh well!   A great video resource (and channel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQktE-YKlJg   Lucky you, you’ve landed on Just Don’t Get Me Started, the podcast that is taking on society one rant at a time. Laugh at or with host, Grace Hall, as she attempts to battle through Salford’s intense background noise, her own procrastination and her tendency to pick up new hobbies and drop them immediately to entertain you (a little). Just Don’t Get Me Started is sometimes informed, always humorous, and is centred around bringing entertainment through topics that matter. If you want to receive a very loving message to your inbox, please do forward the podcast on social media, subscribe on whichever platform it is you love to listen on or just shout from the rooftops about it, because your neighbours should be as annoyed with you as you are with them.   Harass me on social media: My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grace_r_hall/ Just Don’t Get Me Started’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justdontgetmestarted/ My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-r-hall/   Intro and outro music: Hall of the Mountain King Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 2.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0