Collage entitled "Chic Queen Faces the Guillotine" by author. The collage image to the right is a sketch of Marie Antoinette by Jacques David, as she road to her public execution in 1793, not yet 38 years old.

Marie Antoinette was the beautiful Queen of France who became a symbol for the wanton extravagance of the 18th century monarchy,...

In honor of her birthday, I post below a close up of Marie Antoinette from the above portrait of the Queen in blue velvet by Vigee LeBrun in 1788.

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/I...box/1137403608

Below is a further image from that portrait. It was the last portrait of the Queen in life by Vigee LeBrun....

Personally speaking, I have always believed that New Imperialism played a large role in the origins of WWI. It created tensions amongst the European powers that was just shimmer under the surface. Because of this, when looking at the origins of the Great War, it would unwise to neglect new imperialism’s impact

(Disclaimer: this article purely focuses on the political causes of the First World War without mention of the ideological causes such as nationalism)


...

SIPRI Publications :

Read the PDF, it is very informative, would you think you would be surprised by the countries involved ? Especially with Iraq as the data-sets show in the graphs posted below.

SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, Iraq 1973 [wikipedia]

USSR, Warsaw Pact, and China account for more than 80% between 1973 and 1990 (the year the embargo against Iraq started after invading Kuwait on August, 2nd, 1990)


I have generated data from...