Re: CHAT: "have a Canadian day"

Matt Pearson wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
>
> >> > I admit it is a pretty stupid name, how about the North American War?
> >>
> >> Because it wasn't fought in just North America.  What North Americans
> >> call the "War of 1812" was in fact probably more of an extension of the
> >> third worldwar, the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), after the Seven Years' War
> >> (1756-1763) and the War of American Independence (1775-1783), the
> >> first and second worldwars, respectively.
> >>
> >Please explain to me how the War of American Independence is a world
> >war, I'm not aware of any fighting in far off lands.
>
> Presumably it counts as a world war because the antagonists (the British
> + various mercenary groups vs. the colonists + the French) were from both
> sides of the Atlantic.  Same with the Seven Year's War.  I've never heard
> this use of the term "world war", but I guess that these wars were no
> different from the First World War and the Korean War in this respect.
> I suppose the only war that *truly* deserves the designation "world war"
> is World War Two, since this is the only war which was ever fought on
> a truly world-wide scale, with participants from all the major continents,
> and battles throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania--not to mention all
> the major oceans and seas.
>
My sentiments exactly. I wouldn't really consider the War of American
Independance a world war, though, because in the strictest sense it was
an internal affair, Britian preventing the colonists from becoming
independant.  I'm sure other people wouldn't see it that way, as its
taking the concept of internal affairs to the extreme.

--
Robert