Another day in History or Trafalgar revisited

Every British schoolboy can quote word for word the signal that Nelson sent from his flagship, Victory as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence:
"England expects that every man will do his duty."
It is however not common knowledge that this was not the original message. Nelson apparently originally wanted to say "England CONFIDES that every man will do his duty." It was necessary to send the message in haste and Nelson's signal officer suggested that expects be substituted for confides, since the former word was in the signal book, whereas confides would have to be spelt out letter-by-letter. The admiral obviously agreed to the change.

On the wide appeal of American history (a subject I have studied amongst others, incidentally), I agree except that you might have to exclude Americans. The British film "The Madness of King George" was apparently going to be called, accurately, "The Madness of George III" until someone in the States pointed out that over there, people would think they'd missed the first two instalments - and this was the king against whom Americans revolted to set up their country!

On Trafalgar, all that has been said is true, but it's worth noting just how unconventional Nelson's tactics were, driving on a narrow front at a line of ships presenting their broadsides and thus accepting initially a lot of firing which could not be returned for the sake of hopefully splitting the enemy line.

Nel;son was a brilliant commander but his self-belief was, well, of the highest order. The future Duke of Wellington told the story that when he was a rising young general just making a name for himself in Europe (having learnt his trade in India), he met Nelson waiting to see some official at the War Office. Nelson treated him to a monologue devoted to his own accomplishments, went in, and came out to converse in a totally different manner, engaging with Wellington (or rather Wellesley at that stage) in deep discussion of matters military. Someone had told him who the young general was, and Nelson didn't rate British generals as a class, but had heard well of this one.

"over there, people would think they'd missed the first two instalments"
You don't say!

So what are you Brits trying to hide from us NOW? That there were two other mad Kind Georges?

Look how curious I am about history - British history, even. Me and the rest of my fellow Americans would probably surprise you with our interest in British history if you'd just do a Tower of London reality show where we could see current and former royals voted out of the Tower, or beheaded even.

What a great idea!
How about an American version featuring past and present politicians?
How many could you fit into the State Box in Ford's Theatre in Washington? Instead of voting them off you could simply assassinate them.

The current motley array of Republican Presidential candidates appear to be excellent beheading fodder.
M Sarkozy at amis would also make good candidates, in addition to the profligate bankers and politicians who got us into this awful economic mess we're in.

I would go along with you on that proposal, njrick, if I weren't against the death penalty.

There were two other king Georges before George III and neither was mad. George I was a severely unlovable character and George II a rather admirable and sane, if conventional, little man - the last British monarch to lead his troops on the battlefield. "The madness of George III" does not imply that the other two were mad any more than "the Presidential election of 2008" implies that there was a Presidential election in 2007. However, it has been stated that this title was rejected in America because of confusion with titles like Killer Zombies II and so on.

In one respect Americans are far ahead of us in respect of history. Most Americans, I think, know a fair amount about the American Civil War and as I've seen, the battle sites are lovingly and informatively preserved. Most English people know very little about the equally crucial English Civil War and the Scots and the Irish are similarly il-informed about the parallel events in their countries. We drove a motorway through part of the site of the most important battle of all, Naseby, and when I visited the site of the bloodiest, Marston Moor (admittedly a long while ago) there was a 19th century memorial, and that was all. Opposite the memorial was a rubbish tip.