THE disastrous Darien scheme, a Scottish colony in Panama in the late 1690s whose failure almost crashed Scotland’s economy, played an important role in bringing about the Act of Union in 1707.
SCOTS played an outsized role in the British Empire, in the Caribbean, India and Middle East. They filled the ranks of the administrators, soldiers, and merchant classes in Britain’s colonies.
MANY Scots went to the British Empire’s territories in Asia in the 19th century, particularly India and Hong Kong, as soldiers, administrators, and merchants. But less known are the stories of Scots in parts of East Asia that lay outside the British Empire.
SCOTLAND has produced many travellers and explorers, the best-known living during the period of the British Empire.
SCOTLAND has a long military history, whether in its centuries of conflict with England, or later in its outsized contribution to the British Army. It can even boast the oldest infantry regiment in the British Army, the Royal Scots, raised in 1633 and now part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
IMMIGRATION to Scotland and the rest of the UK is often presented as a recent phenomenon, only becoming common after 1945 and then increasing after joining the European Union.
THOUSANDS of Scottish students will begin attending university for the first time this month, part of a tradition stretching back to 1410, when Scotland’s first university, St Andrews, was founded.
OVERLOOKING the Forth, in the small Fife village of Culross – made famous as a filming location for the TV series Outlander – is a bronze bust of a man in the uniform of a 19th-century naval officer.
MEDIEVAL Scotland is often remembered only for the Wars of Independence, William Wallace, or Robert the Bruce. Any connection with the rest of Europe seem to go solely through England and, sometimes, France.
