Caesar Augustus, aka Octavian. The first Roman Emperor.

>George Washington didn't want any standing fighting force after the Revolution and we can debate as to why, personally I think he saw a standing military as a threat that potentially could overthrow him.

This isn't remotely true. Washington's anger at militia forces is well documented. He hated their lack of discipline, saw them as little better than a mob, and was disgusted with their cowardice.

It's not hard to find sources for this.

George Washington was not a big writer, and still managed to turn out this long letter, probably one of his longest, just about problems with militia forces. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0305

Imperialism doesn't always require the actual taking or claiming of land. US Imperialism can include things like McDonalds and Starbucks on every street (cultural imperialism). It can include things like bringing a region of countries under your political control so they'll be more likely to support your wider positions in things like the UN (think the Cold War and the First and Second World countries). Throwing your weight around to expand your own personal power in the global world falls under this.

Of course this can absolutely be achieved directly through expansionism, colonialism, invasion, coups, etc. So there are wavelengths where these things do match up in some sort of evil Venn Diagram, but there are still distinct factors which can separate the concepts to keep them from being one-to-one synonyms.

If I were to put it as briefly as possible: Expansionism is the means, Imperialism is the effect that is had on the affected people, the culture, etc. and the benefits given to the driving-power after the fact.

The basic answer is no. Colonial powers were never thinking about how to get the consent and agreement of the local peoples, unless it was to legitimize a land grab, how to co-rule, etc.

However, a lot of the conversation around colonialism that goes on is cartoonish in the way it portrays colonialism. It wasn't the same process from decade to decade. Over time goals changed as technologies changed and economies changed, or as political theory changed.

Another issue is often what was though as benevolent wasn't. During the 19th century when political theory had changed enough that colonial powers did feel they had responsibilities to the people they colonized, their idea of benevolence was to send in missionaries, to destroy cultures, to separate families, etc. Under the treaty of Tordesillas, the Spanish and Portuguese thought they were being benevolent in bringing Christianity and saving pagan souls, but in reality they brought one of the largest, if not the largest, genocide in world history. The British may or may not have believed their own story about being benevolent by enslaving Africans to Christianize and civilize them, and thereby conducting the other main contender for the world's largest genocide.

Often things the colonial powers for their own benefit had actual benevolent outcomes. The British didn't build railways in India for the sake of Indians, but it turned out to reduce the impact of famines, to help the colony form a national idea, to put thinkers in touch with each other through the mail, and later through telegraphs, to build a national independence movement of a unified India. It was actually the complete opposite of what the British wanted, but achieved a huge benefit to Indian nationalists that they're loathe to admit, even today. Hong Kong is probably the best example of this. There's no question British rule was racist and discriminatory, but it helped Hong Kong build a lot of the institutions that allowed China as a whole to modernize their economy on Mao's death. That was never British intention, but that's what happened.

The other issue is the areas that were colonized may have been seen as homogenous by the colonizers, but they rarely were. Cortez didn't differentiate against the peoples of Mexico, but they sure did. And those differences allowed huge groups of peoples to fight off Mexica control of their lands. They thought it would be a benefit to them to align with Cortez against the Mexica, and it was for a short time. Cortez was a greedy, selfish, liar. He's almost cartoonishly self interested. But, to his indigenous allies he was seen as providing benevolent assistance in overthrowing the hated Mexica, until a combination of political decentralization, pandemic disease, and ruthless and blood thirsty Spanish control left them in just as poor shape as the Mexica.

Considering it's job, is there any proof that someone was having fun with the naming of the revenue cutter Surprise?

You may find Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy by Lesly and Roy Adkins interesting. It's an interesting look at the life aboard British Naval ships during the Napoleonic era and focuses on the regular seamen instead of the officers.

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Onion hat = Suleiman the Magnificent in my mind. Hope it’s what you’re looking for!

what is the name of that warrior with the onion hat?

The other thing probably to mention is that the military is constantly coming up with plans for reorganization. A lot of these plans are really about attempts to take some part of the military's budget from one branch to give to another. The Army and Navy do this constantly. Probably about 1% of any of these plans ever come to any kind of fruition. The army constantly is saying the Marines are redundant and should be phased out or switched over to the Army, along with their budget. This probably happens every single year during intraservice budget planning. There is probably some plan to do away with the marines by the army, or the naval airforce (world's 2nd largest airforce after the USAF) by the USAF, or something similar every year. These plans are rarely taken seriously or get farther than an op ed in some trade journal or a working paper that's circulated.

Just googling "Should the USMC be merged into the US Army" gets 3.5 million hits. It's a discussion topic that gets endlessly debated but never goes anywhere.

Since the formation of this nation the United States Marine Corps has had a few people throughout the history of the United States who have tried to either disband them completely or roll them and their mission into the Army. George Washington didn't want any standing fighting force after the Revolution and we can debate as to why, personally I think he saw a standing military as a threat that potentially could overthrow him. To that end he did disband the Navy, sent sailors home, transferred the officers and ships to the Army. Then he was trying to disband the Army when he was convinced that shrinking it and keeping its mission limited was a better idea which he agreed and did and also tried to disband the Marines. The Marines saved themselves by becoming the military force specifically tasked with protecting the Nation's Capital in so much that they also had to police the streets and assist fire brigades if a fire broke out, all in the name of protecting the Capital.

What is imperialism? What is expansionism? How are they different? When westward expansion was happening in the US, did Americans use imperialism or expansionism?

Mohammed or Jesus, depending on what level of historicity do you put on Jesus name.

Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad Dracula and his brother Radu were imprisoned with their father Vald Dracul by the Ottoman Sultan, within a year Vlad Dracul was released but he supported the Hungarian King (a Catholic) during the Varna Crusades, Vlad Dracula and Radu were kept as prisoners to secure that Vlad Dracul didn't go too far in his Christian support. Eventually the boys were released Radu stayed and coverted to Islam, and Vlad Dracula went back to Wallachia and stayed an Orthodox Christian who had both Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic allies.

Well problem is that its very complicated. Slovakia used to be part of Great Moravia and then it was conquered by Hungarians and was part of Hungary for more than 1000 years before it became part of independent Czechoslovakia. I would recommend to read through Slovakian National Revival, where true Slovakian national identity was born.

JFK is a good example of this. He was constantly putting his larger plans and hopes at risk for hook ups.

The Logevall biography gets at a specific instance during WWII. JFK was having an affair with a journalist, I think she was Dutch, who had had significant contacts with major Nazis before the war. The FBI was monitoring her. She doesn't seem to actually have been a spy but there were serious concerns at the time. While this was all going on JFK had an important post in naval intelligence and would have been an excellent source.

He was transferred to the PT boats partially b/c he was high profile and some serious backers wanted to highlight the boat and his stature would raise the boats profile, partially b/c it was seen as a good recruitment tool for the Navy to have Joe Kennedy's son serving in the Pacific on these boats, and partially b/c the Navy was sketched out by JFK's inability to keep it in his pants.

The name of the nobleman escapes me but there was once a Prince-Bishop who as a Catholic Cleric was committed to Clerical Celibacy but as he was in charge of some small minor German speaking state (this was well before Lutheranism) but when his I believe father died he became the ruler of the Principality and due to heredity and maintaining the power of that position the Pope actually released him from Bishop duites and allowed him to marry so that he could rule his state, marry and produce an heir which he did. Technically he didn't jeopardize his position in so much that fate forced him into the position of being a ruling Prince. If memory serves me he wasn't the original ruling Prince's first son I believe he was the third son which is why he originally chose a career in the Church.

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Basque people in France and Spain still use a language that " is the last remaining descendant of one of the pre-Indo-European languages of Prehistoric Europe" (wikipedia)

What single historical individual has had the biggest impact on the world we live in today?

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I think Caligula from Rome takes the cake. This guys was like "fuck you and your accusations of debauchery!" While he married his sister to a horse before the Senate. Clinton just tried to claim "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

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