About a thousand years ago a French Guy invaded England and proclaimed himself King and that is why WWII (as in World War two, not, ahem, eleven) happened.
For the next few centuries the king of England and the King of France fought over territory, over money, and over who would be king of France. Several English monarchs in these years could not even speak English, only French. In fairness, I cannot understand Old English either.
Things grew so bitter, the French and English fought a war that lasted one hundred and sixteen years, but that conflict goes by the nickname The Hundred Years War, I suppose because some dorky historian believed it flowed off the tongue easier. Ultimately, the French kept the French throne and the English the English throne, and British monarchs then spent their time fighting their relatives, the Welsh, Irish, and Scots, the Dutch, and the Spanish and anyone else that irritated them. Basically the English were soccer hooligans before World Cup soccer was invented.
Then the Spanish started bringing boatloads of gold back from the New World and both the British and the French wanted in on some of that sweet "exploit the natives" action.
In North America the French went for trapping and trading furs and the British started sending over malcontents, criminals, and religious fanatics to colonize the wilderness. Everybody was making money, if you were a Royal or their buddy.
Things were going great until like a couple of selfish kids France and England started fighting over what would later be described as "red states" and the old animosities raised their ugly head. "Mine" "No. Mon" brought the two kings back to war and this time they only went at it for about seven years. Clever historians called this conflict the Seven Years War.
The French lost. Their nation's collective psyche didn't take it well.
More in the next episode as we examine how Newton's Third Law of Motion applies equally to history.
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