History hunt

Another session of chemo. Another 3 hours of sitting there bored while the Fox strolled the streets of Lancaster, equally bored. So far all seems to be going well, though Monday does seem a very tiring day. That’s all I propose to say about the treatment for today.

Yesterday I also finished a jigsaw, an old map of the world. It doesn’t say on the box what the vintage of the map is, so I set off on a bit of historical research.

One of the first things that struck me when doing the jigsaw was the modern state of Alaska was called “Russian America”. I was confident that Alaska became a state after the World War II. I now discover it was bought by America from Russia in 1867 though it didn’t become a state in its own right until 1959.

The next extreme - I was aware that Sydney was on the map, so clearly Australia had been discovered. Sydney was founded in 1788. Brisbane, also on the map, began in 1824. As for Perth, on the map, that was founded in 1829. So clearly the map must have dated after that.

Then I suddenly realised modern day Greece was labelled “Turkey” & so realised it must have still been part of the Ottoman Empire. (Modern day Turkey was labelled “Asia Minor”.) The Greek war of Independence went from 1821 until 1829.

Clearly some news hadn’t reached the map makers. Either Greece was independent or Perth can’t have been built. It would certainly suggest the map must have dated from around 1829. I suspect news of a part of the British Empire, like Perth would have probably registered in this country before the idea of Greece separating form the Ottoman Empire. That's assuming the map makers were British. Certainly the names of places were in English. Or maybe it’s a case of Perth starting construction before the Greek War of Independent concluded.

It sometimes amazes me where these jigsaws can send me, whether through memories, as with Annecy, or curiosity as in this instance.