On this day in 1879 came the Battle of Angamos in what is called the War of the Pacific. That’s the high-tone name for the war. The War of the Pacific broke out that year between Chile on one side and Bolivia and Peru on the other over vital resources. Nothing unusual about that…but the unusual part comes in over what those resources were. They were bird shit. The war was fought over huge deposits of Guano and the Saltpeter rich Atacama Desert. Guano and Saltpeter were in high demand around the world as fertilizers and essential components of gunpowder and explosives. The battle of Angamos was a huge sea battle in which the Chilean Navy defeated Peru, killing Peru’s admiral Miguel Grau. The war moved to a more land based conflict as time went on, and a battered Peru dropped out in 1883 with a peace treaty with Chile. Bolivia battled on for nearly another year before calling it quits in 1884. Chile mostly won what is also historically referred to as the Guano War, and Bolivia, in the process lost its coastline, which is why there isn’t much of a Bolivian Navy today…and why Bolivia and Chile still aren’t particularly cordial National neighbors…and it was all over bird shit. It’s Sigourney Weaver’s Birthday.
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Album Notes: Grateful Acknowledgments to Mike Koenig, and Drum 8. Some Musical Motifs Written and Performed by Kevin McLeod, Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ and used here by permission, and with appreciation and thanks. Some audio may be used under the Fair Use Doctrine.
