The British Navy Did A Lot To End Slavery

 

Preventing Our Extinction From Extraterrestrial Impacts Is Now Possible

Humanity finally has the proven technology, not so long ago limited to science fiction movies, to defend Earth from asteroids and comets on collision courses with us. 

We know from archaeology and astrophysics that this could lead to the extinction of our species, like the extraterrestrial impact in the Gulf of Mexico that killed the dinosaurs about 60 million years ago, or still devastating disasters that fall short of that worst case scenario, like the Younger Dryas climate event about fourteen thousand years ago (which was probably caused by an extraterrestrial impact somewhere in what is now Canada), that ended the Clovis culture of North America, led to widespread megafauna extinctions in the Americas, and postponed the Neolithic revolution globally by several thousands years.

This technology can defend us from genuinely existential threats to our species, and to life on Earth more generally.

While no known asteroid poses a threat to Earth for at least the next century, the catalog of near-Earth asteroids is incomplete for objects whose impacts would produce regional devastation. 

Several approaches have been proposed to potentially prevent an asteroid impact with Earth by deflecting or disrupting an asteroid. A test of kinetic impact technology was identified as the highest priority space mission related to asteroid mitigation. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale test of kinetic impact technology. The mission's target asteroid was Dimorphos, the secondary member of the S-type binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos. This binary asteroid system was chosen to enable ground-based telescopes to quantify the asteroid deflection caused by DART's impact. 

While past missions have utilized impactors to investigate the properties of small bodies those earlier missions were not intended to deflect their targets and did not achieve measurable deflections. Here we report the DART spacecraft's autonomous kinetic impact into Dimorphos and reconstruct the impact event, including the timeline leading to impact, the location and nature of the DART impact site, and the size and shape of Dimorphos. The successful impact of the DART spacecraft with Dimorphos and the resulting change in Dimorphos's orbit demonstrates that kinetic impactor technology is a viable technique to potentially defend Earth if necessary.

R. Terik Daly, et al., "Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense" arXiv:2303.02248 (March 3, 2023) (Accepted by Nature).

The other part of planetary defense is locating threats in time to do something about them now that we are capable of taking action. 

Telescope research programs like the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) which will begin in the year 2025, are dramatically improving our database of small solar system objects that can hep us better identify objects that could be existential threats to Earth and require active intervention: 

This multi-band wide-field synoptic survey will transform our view of the solar system, with the discovery and monitoring of over 5 million small bodies. The final survey strategy chosen for LSST has direct implications on the discoverability and characterization of solar system minor planets and passing interstellar objects.

And, when an object and its trajectory are discovered once, our understanding of gravitational dynamics at the solar system scale, and our computational capacity to apply on this knowledge of the relevant laws of physics to calculate the trajectories of these objections, means that we can know almost exactly where that object will be at every moment in time for thousands of years to come.

Another effort to identify solar system objects is using that reality to mine old data in order to leverage the information we already have about these objects.

We haven't yet marshaled the resources to put a full fledge planetary defense system with the capacity to identify all potential threats and neutralize them in place yet, however. And, doing so is pointless if we can't prevent ourself from causing our own extinction with the other main existential threats to the survival of our species in the form of pollution, weapons of mass destruction, and more speculatively, catastrophic missteps in developing biotechnologies or an artificial intelligence singularity.

But, planetary defense shouldn't be controversial, aside from the not small price tag required to address this "Black Swan" risk to humanity's survival. 

Not investing in planetary defense is the species level equivalent of cancelling your health insurance to save money - a pennywise, but pound foolish choice unless you are so poor that you have no other options. 

But, in a classic tragedy of the commons problem, the world's lack of fiscally strong global governmental institutions makes it hard to finance. So far, we are just relying on wealthy nations to foot 100% of the bill to develop it, even though it benefits everyone (even non-human animals and plants) on Earth.

Previous analysis of Planetary Defense issues can be found in this post at this blog.

Random Observations About Alaska

The U.S. bought that land that is now Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867 for $7.2 million. This is equivalent to $138 million in 2022 dollars. 

Almost ninety-two years later, Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, just 63 years ago. It is represented by two U.S. Senators and one member of the U.S. House of Representatives (it has never had more than one representative in the U.S. House of Representatives). 

Alaska is, unhappily to hear its politicians tell the tale, part of the territory of the liberal leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Geography 

Alaska is only about 2.5 miles over water in the Bering Strait (between an Alaskan island and a Russian island) from Russia at its closest point. There are regular diplomatic conflicts between the U.S. and Russia arising from Russian military aircraft intruding into U.S. airspace in Alaska.

Alaska is not contiguous with any of the other 49 U.S. states, or any other U.S. territory outside of a U.S. state. Alaska's only land border is with Canada. 

All of Alaska is further north than any other U.S. state and a substantial part of it is within the Arctic circle, but the vast majority of the Alaskan population, even in rural areas, lives close to a coast. It has always been thinly populated because of the long frigid winters most of the state experiences as a result of its high latitude. This said, global warming is causing temperatures to rise in much of Alaska. Temperatures in Alaska are less harsh on the coasts where ocean currents moderate its natural tendency to be cold due to its high latitude.

Alaska provides the U.S. with an Arctic Ocean coast, in addition to its Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Great Lakes coasts. Alaska has more coastline than any other U.S. state or territory.

Mountains

Denali (f.k.a. Mount McKinley) at 20,310 feet, is the highest altitude point in North America and the only mountain more than 20,000 feet high in North America. All eleven mountains in the United States more than 15,000 feet are in Alaska, as are all fifteen of the tallest mountains in the United States.

The tallest mountain in the United States outside of Alaska is Mount Whitney in California, which is 14,505 feet. The runner up is Mount Elbert in Colorado at 14,400 feet. There are 53 mountains that are more than 14,000 feet, but less than 15,000 feet in the United States. Thirty-six are in Colorado, seven are in Alaska, seven are in California, and three are in Washington State.

Canada has nine mountains taller than 14,000 feet that do not straddle the Alaska-Canada border, all of which are in Canada's Yukon territory. 

Mexico has five mountains taller than 14,000 feet.

Land

Alaska is geographically the largest U.S. state or territory, and has immense land area (about one-fifth of the land area of the lower 48 states) as the "to scale" comparison maps below show:

There are about 375 million acres of land (excluding area covered by water) in Alaska.

About 59% of the land in Alaska (222 million acres) in owned by the U.S. federal government. This includes national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, military reservations and the North Slope National Petroleum Reserve managed by more than a dozen federal agencies.

This includes 48.3 million acres of National Park Service land, 71 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service land, 19.8 million acres of Forest Service land, 77.9 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land, 23.6 million acres of National Petroleum Reserve land, military base land, U.S. Postal Service land, and smaller amounts of land managed by about half a dozen other federal agencies.

The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve via Wikipedia.

The state government originally received about 28% of the land in Alaska (105 million acres), a small portion of which has been transferred to local governments. 

About 8% of the state's land (44 million acres), together with $963 million dollars (equivalent to about $6,442 million dollars adjusted to 2021 for inflation at a time when there were 50,605 Native Alaskans as of the 1970 census), was transferred to native Alaskans in 1971. The cash portion of the settlement was equivalent to about $509,200 per family of four at the time in inflation adjusted 2021 dollars.

Rather than being organized into Indian tribes, Alaska Natives are organized politically into thirteen Alaska Native corporations, twelve of which are regional and own 16 million acres of land, and one of which (based in Seattle, Washington) manages the cash settlement received. Another 26 million acres of native land in Alaska is owned by 224 village corporations with 25 or more residents (an average of 181 square miles each). The remaining 2 million acres of native land consists of historical sites, land already titled in native Alaskans in 1971, and villages with 24 or fewer residents. Alaska Native owned land has a population density of about 1.1 people per square mile.

Less than 1% of the land in Alaska (less than 3.75 million acres) is in private, non-native ownership, which is where about 90% of Alaskan residents reside.

Until October 21, 1986, you could homestead land in Alaska (i.e. reside on federal land and claim it as your own after fairly short period of occupancy).

People

As of 1880, the first census taken in the territory determined that the population of Alaska was 33,426 and this fell to 31,795 in the 1890 census. 

In the 1960 census, shortly after becoming a state, Alaska's population was 226,167. 

The population of Alaska, as of 2022, is estimated to be 720,763 (slightly less than the population of the City and County of Denver proper, which is 732,909 in 2022). About 84% of Alaska's population in urban.

Alaska has a population density of about 1.2 people per square mile, although this is far lower (about 0.2 people per square mile) outside a few cities. Only seven cities or census designated urbanized areas in Alaska have more than 10,000 people; only three (Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks) have more than 20,000 people.

Alaska perceives people living in remote areas as so central to its identity that Alaska has a state constitutional right to participate in most kinds of public meetings remotely.

The population of Alaska grew by 3.3% from 2010 to 2020, compared to population growth for the U.S. as a whole of 17.8%, and its two largest cities in 2010 (Anchorage, and Fairbanks which dropped to third in population in 2020) fell slightly in population from 2010 to 2020. Despite this fact, overall, Alaska's rural population has been growing much more slowly than its urban population.

About 83% of Alaskans live in coastal areas. Many Alaskans live on islands.

Alaska Native People

As of 2020, 22% of Alaskan's are Alaska Natives (with 15% who are Alaska Native only even if from more than one Alaska Native ethnicity, and roughly 7% who are Alaska Native and some other race). Almost of the Native American or Alaska Native people in Alaska are Alaska Natives.

About 44% of Alaska Natives live in urban areas and 56% live in rural areas. More than half of Alaska's rural population, and about 10% of Alaska's urban population is Alaska Native.

Alaska has never been heavily populated, and its pre-European contact population collapse came much later than it did further south in North America (from about 1750 CE in the Aleutian islands to about 1850 CE in the Arctic far north):

University of Alaska at Anchorage anthropology professor Steve Langdon estimates that approximately 80,000 people lived in Alaska by the time of contact with Europeans, which began in the mid-1700s. This population on number was not reached again until World War II. 

The total population loss of Alaska Natives from all causes during the Russian America period is unknown. Estimates are 80 percent of the Aleut and Koniag (Kodiak) populations and 50 percent of the Chugach (Prince William Sound), Tlingit, Haida, and Dena’ina populations.  

Alaska Native Languages And Related Languages

About 2.2% of Alaskans (15,994 speakers, almost all of whom are bilingual and also speak English fluently), i.e., about 10% of Alaskan Natives,  speak an Alaska Native language.

There are currently 22 officially recognized Alaska Native languages in use in Alaska: 7 in the Eskimo-Aleutian language family (15,050 speakers in Alaska, 41,165 speakers in Canada, and 54,000 speakers in Greenland), 13 in the Na-Dene language family (this family has three subfamilies spoken in Alaska with a combined 850 fluent U.S. speakers of these languages: 60 fluent speakers of Tlingit languages in Alaska and 120 in Canada, 789 fluent speakers of Alaskan Athabaskan languages, and 1 non-native but fluent speaker of the Eyak languages in Alaska), the Haida language (with 24 native speakers, all in Alaska), and the Coast Tsimshian language (with 50 native speakers in Alaska and 2,170 in Canada divided between four languages in this language family).

The Na-Dene language family and the Eskimo-Aleutian language family are associated with successive migrations to North America from Northeast Asia at least eight or nine thousand years after the main wave of the original founding population of the Americas arrived via the Bering Straight in the case of the Na-Dene language family, and more recently than that in the chase of the Eskimo-Aleutian family with the archaeological culture known as the Thule. 

The Haida and Tsimshian languages are the only Alaska Native languages associated with the founding population of the Americas, and these two languages combined have only 74 speakers left. While the later population waves both admixed significantly with early Native American populations in Alaska, culturally, they had largely replaced their predecessors already in the period prior to European contact.

In all these 22 languages in these three language families are spoken by 15,974 people in Alaska. Two more Athabaskan languages with 20 speakers are also spoken in Alaska. 

Another 19 Athabaskan languages in the Northern Athabaskan languages, are spoken by a combined 25,137 people in Canada. 

There are also about 179,641 U.S. speakers of seven non-extinct, non-Alaskan languages in the Athabaskan subfamily of the Na-Dene languages in the Southwestern United States (Navajo with 170,000 or more speakers, and four distinct Apache languages with a combined 9,510 speakers) and on the Pacific Coast of the U.S. (one spoken in Oregon with at least one but probably less than 100 revival effort speakers, and one, Hupa with 31 speakers, in California). These languages all have their origins in the Alaskan Na-Dene languages. The Navajo and the Apache languages migrated to what is now the American Southwest from what is now Canada around 1000 CE.

Alaska Native Religion

The pre-European contact Alaskan Native religions have fallen into desuetude with almost no one primarily identifying as an adherent of these traditional belief systems. About one in eight Alaskans are adherents of the Orthodox Church in America (a geographically neutral merger of U.S. denominations in the Orthodox Christian tradition), which in Alaska is a heavily Alaskan Native religious affiliation that has its origins in conversions to the Russian Orthodox Church during the period of Russian claims to Alaska.

European Impacts On Alaska Natives And Reparations

Thus, while some Alaska Native peoples were hard hit by European contact, those in the Alaskan interior were far less impacted, and the extent of European colonial impacts on them were less severe than in much of the Americas. Most Alaska Native tribes were never exiled from their pre-contact homelands and retained very significant good quality landholding as a result of the 1971 settlement reached with them by the U.S. government. Also, the significant monetary reparations settlements paid to them in 1971, are among the most significant of those received by any indigenous populations of the United States.

European Ancestry People In Alaska

Russia made the first attested European contact with Alaska in 1741 and claimed the territory as its own in 1799. But, this claim didn't really correspond to the facts on the ground:

On maps of that time period, Russia was in control of the entire landmass that became Alaska, but in truth their direct control varied from heavy-handed to nonexistent. In the Aleutians, the Unangans were subjugated by force and made to hunt sea otters for the Russian fur trade. Other areas, including the Arctic region and inland rivers areas, saw little if any Russian presence. . . . 

During the entire period of Russian colonization . . . the Russian footprint remained minimal to nonexistent in several areas of Alaska, including much of the arctic and upriver areas of the Yukon Basin.

The first large scale enumeration ordered in 1819 counted 14,019 people in Russian America, 391 of whom were Russian. This count did not include anyone in interior, arctic, or western Alaska north of the Alaska Peninsula. . . . 

Father Ioann Veniaminov, a Russian Orthodox missionary and scholar who later became Bishop Innocent, produced an estimate of 39,813 people for Russian America in 1839. Noticeably higher than other Russian counts and estimates, Veniaminov surmised that beyond those areas known, 17,000 people had not been contacted yet. He estimated 7,000 people lived along the Kuskokwim River and 5,000 Tlingit lived in Southeast, the most populated areas in Alaska. He put the total number of Russians at 706, with 1,295 “Creoles,” or those born of Russian and Native parents. Before the sale of Alaska, Russian-American Company population numbers compiled from 1830 to 1863 show Alaska’s population ranged between 11,022 and 7,224. Though the estimates of Alaska Natives were low, the report also listed the peak Russian population in the territory at 823 in 1839. 

In the 1880 census, only 1.3% of people residing in Alaska (430) were white, of whom 68% (293) lived in Southeast Alaska, mostly in the capital of Sitka (157) and the old fortress town of Wrangell (105). 

In the 1890 census, 13.5% of people residing in Alaska were white, 53% of whom were only living in Alaska temporarily, mostly as canning workers in Southeast Alaska.

There wasn't a really significant population with European ancestry in what is now Alaska until well into the 1890s. This first large scale surge in Alaska's European ancestry population was a direct result of the 1896 gold strike in the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory.

From the 1900 census to the 1940 census, the percentage of the Alaska population that was white hovered just above and just below 50% (breaking 50% for the first time in 1910, dipping below 50% in 1930, and exceeding 50% in all subsequent years).

Alaska is currently about 60% non-Hispanic white, but only about 50% of children born in Alaska are non-Hispanic white. 

Non-Hispanic whites in Alaska are a plurality in the Southeastern part of the state from a little west of Anchorage to the east and a bit to the north up to the Canadian border and along the Pacific coast to the South (i.e. basically in places with higher population densities).

Other Races and Ethnicities In Alaska

About 18% of Alaskans are currently neither non-Hispanic white nor Alaska Native (solely or in connection with other ancestry). 

About 7% are Hispanic (5% of Alaskans are Hispanics who whom identify racially as white, and less than 2% of whom identify as something else racially including Asian or black), about 8% are Asian or Pacific Islander,  about 4% are black, and less than 0.5% have two or more races that are not Alaska Native. 

The subtotals add up to more than 18% due to rounding issues, due to the fact that some Alaska Natives are people with two more more races who are black, Asian, or Pacific Islanders (mostly Filipinos), and because some black, Asian, and Pacific Islander Alaskans are also Hispanic.

In 2010, two-thirds of Asians, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Alaska were Filipino, and as of 2020 at least half are Filipino. 30%-50% of the population (varying by region) of the Aleutian Island region of Alaska. are Asians, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

Fossil Fuel Economics

Alaska has the third highest revenues from fossil fuel production per capita in the United States at about twenty-thousand dollars per capita, behind only number one Wyoming and number two North Dakota. Alaska is heavily dependent upon the oil and gas industry for tax revenues.

Alaska pays every man, woman, and child who resides there full-time $1,114 per year, no strings attached, from the "Alaska Permanent Fund" of banked proceeds from its oil and gas revenues. It also has no personal income tax.

Alaska and Hawaii are the only U.S. states that generate a significant share of their electricity with petroleum.

More of Alaska is roadless than any other U.S. state.

The Current Megadrought In The American West

The last time the American West was so dry, they were starting to build Pueblos at Mesa Verde and Charlemagne was the Emperor of the Carolingian Empire.

The extreme heat and dry conditions of the past few years pushed what was already an epic, decades-long drought in the American West into a historic disaster that bears the unmistakable fingerprints of climate change. The long-running drought, which has persisted since 2000, can now be considered the driest 22-year period of the past 1,200 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Previous work by some of the same authors of the new study had identified the period of 2000 through 2018 as the second-worst megadrought since the year 800 — exceeded only by an especially severe and prolonged drought in the 1500s. But with the past three scorching years added to the picture, the Southwest’s megadrought stands out in the record as the “worst” or driest in more than a millennium. . . .

The authors attribute 19 percent of the severe 2021 drought, and 42 percent of the extended drought since the 21st century began, to human-caused climate change.

From the Washington Post (February 14, 2022).

A 2010 paper in PNAS explores much of the same data.

The Seven Years' War

Europe from 1748-1766

Map of European colonies in North America, c. 1750. Disputes over territorial claims persisted after the end of King George's War in 1748.

Almost all of the material in this post is sourced from Wikipedia, with much of it copied or heavily paraphrased, but significantly culled and rearranged, except the section on casualties which draws its data but not most of its language from Wikipedia.

When Was The Seven Years' War?

The Seven Years War lasted from May 17, 1756 – February 15, 1763 (6 years, 8 months, 4 weeks and 1 day), parts of which were called the French and Indian War in North America, and the Third Carnatic War in India.

What Was The End Result Of The Seven Years War?

* The status quo remained in place in Europe and West Africa (where Britain had attempted to oust France from its colonies in Gorée, Senegal, and Gambia), but with the perceived power of France and the Austrian Hapsburgs diminished, and that of England and Prussia enhanced.

* Diplomatic resolutions changed control of many colonies, some of which had little or no involvement in the conflict itself (e.g. the Philippines).

* Mughal Empire cedes Bengal to Great Britain.

* France and Spain return conquered colonial territory to Great Britain and Portugal.

* France cedes its North American possessions east of the Mississippi River, Canada, the islands of St. Vincent, Tobago, Dominica, and Grenada, and the Northern Circars in India to Great Britain.

* France cedes Louisiana and its North American territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain.

* Spain cedes Florida and Manila to Great Britain.

Where Did The Fighting Take Place?

Mostly in Central Europe, in North America (mostly in the Northeast United States and Eastern Canada), the Caribbean, and in India. There were comparatively minor battles at sea and near coastal areas in the Baltics, Britain, France, Portugal, and French West Africa.

The large-scale conflict that drew in most of the European powers centered on Austria's desire to recover Silesia, which it had lost in 1747, from the Prussians, in which it ultimately failed. In the European theater, seeing the opportunity to curtail Britain's and Prussia's ever-growing power, France and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a coalition of their own. Faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned herself with Prussia; this alliance drew in not only the British king's territories in personal union, including Hanover, and also those of his relatives in the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel.

In India, the Mughal Empire, with the encouragement of the French, tried to crush a British attempt to conquer Bengal. 

In the Americas, the same coalitions prevailed. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers of whom 10,000 were mobilized in a militia, compared with 2 million in the British colonies which fielded 42,000 soldiers. Both sides added a First Nation partner. Abenaki, an Algonquin speaking tribe, joined with the French. The Abenaki, who were also known as "People of the Dawn", lived in, or had been displaced by, English settlers in the Atlantic colonies. The Iroquois, or Five Nations, joined with the British. The Iroquois, who lived predominantly in lands controlled by the French, wrought havoc on the European trade routes and settlements. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the natives.

In the West Indies, the British and Spanish fought for control of key points in the Caribbean trade routes, particularly the Windward Passage and Havana.

What Caused The Seven Years' War?

In Europe, the conflict arose from issues left unresolved by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), over territorial disputes between Prussia and Austria, which wanted to regain Silesia after it was captured by Prussia in the previous war, and Prussia seeking greater dominance. 

Long-standing colonial rivalries pitting Britain against France and Spain in North America and the Caribbean islands were fought on a grand scale with consequential results. 

Austria ended centuries of conflict by allying with France, along with Saxony, Sweden and Russia. Spain aligned formally with France in 1762. Spain unsuccessfully attempted to invade Britain's ally Portugal, attacking with their forces facing British troops in Iberia. Smaller German states either joined the Seven Years' War or supplied mercenaries to the parties involved in the conflict.

Anglo-French conflict over their colonies in North America had begun in 1754 in what became known in the United States as the French and Indian War, a nine-year war that ended France's presence as a land power. Spain entered the war in 1761, joining France in the Third Family Compact between the two Bourbon monarchies. The alliance with France was a disaster for Spain, with the loss to Britain of two major ports, Havana in the Caribbean and Manila in the Philippines, returned in the 1763 Treaty of Paris between France, Spain and Great Britain. 

What Was The Scale Of The Military Conflict?

Several million soldiers and sailors worldwide served in the conflict at some point, although the peak number of combatants at any given point in time was probably under one million.

There were twenty-six major land battles in Europe. The biggest was the Battle of Villinghausen from July 15-16, 1761 in what is now West Germany, in which 60,000 Anglo-Prussian forces (1,600 died) faced 100,000 French-Austrian forces (5,000 died), and the British forces ultimately prevailed. The most deadly battle in the war was the Battle of Kunersdorf in present day Poland on August 12, 1759 in which 18,503 of 49,000 Anglo-Prussian forces died and 15,741 of 98,000 Franco-Austrian troops died leading to a Russo-Austrian victory.

There were eleven major land battles in what would become the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada, with about 13,000 British and Native American casualties and about 18,500 French, Spanish and Native American casualties. The Siege of Fort William Henry near the New York-Quebec border was the most deadly killing 10,716 troops combined on August 3-9, 1757 and resulting in a French victory at a heavy cost in lives. 

There were one major land battle in the Caribbean, the Siege of Havanna from June 6 to August 13, 1762, in addition to some minor ones that involved 31,000 British forces on 31 ships and 160 transports, and 11,670 Spanish forces with 14 ships and 100 merchant ships. On the British side there were 5,366 killed, wounded, captured, missing, sick, or died of disease, and three ships lost. All of the Spanish forces were killed, wounded, captured, missing, sick, or died of disease and all of the Spanish ships were captured.

In India, there were seven major land battles. The British lost the first battle of Calcutta while inflicting disproportionate casualties on the Mughals. The British won to more battles against the Mughals and inflicted disproportionate casualties, despite being vastly outnumbered. The British then won four more battles against French-sepoy forces, against whom they were more equally matched.

How Many Casualties Were There?

About 764,000 people were killed in the Seven Years' War on all sides combined, worldwide, and perhaps another 136,000 were disabled, for about 900,000 serious casualties combined, worldwide.

For comparison purposes, the number of deaths on both sides of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) were about 500,000 with another 350,000 disabled.

About 16,000 of the deaths were in India, about 40,000 were in North America and Caribbean, and the remaining 708,000 were in Europe, with a supermajority of those in Central Europe. 

The European powers involved had a combined population of about 106 million at the time. 

There were about 2.5 million people (British, Spanish, French and Native American) in the area involved in conflict in North America and the Caribbean.

The Moghal Empire in India had a population of about 158 million people at the time.

The area of West Africa involved in the conflict probably had several hundred thousand to a million people at the time.

Casualties Among Europeans and European Colonists

There were 180,000 Prussian soldiers and 33,000 Prussian civilians killed. 

The British had 1,512 battle deaths and 60,000 who died or were discharged as unfit for service (perhaps 50,000 dead and 10,000 disabled), for a combined 20% of soldiers who served in the war.

There were 32,622 Austrians killed in battle, 93,404 Austrians who died of wounds or diseases, and 17,388 Austrians disabled. 

There were 200,000 French soldiers killed, about 20% of French soldiers who served in the war.

There were 28,000 Swedish soldiers killed. 

There were 25,000 killed in other parts of the Holy Roman Empire. 

There were 138,000 Russians and 34,000 Spanish troops were killed, disabled, missing, or captures (based upon the proportions in other forces, perhaps half of them were killed).

Some Portuguese troops were killed in fighting in Iberia in a small number of battles that did not kill a great number of people.

Native American Deaths

Something on the order of 10,000 Native Americans were killed in the North American part of the war (although this estimate is not very precise). The number of Native Americans in British North America at the time was on the order of 52,000 to 100,000, with a probably similar or smaller number of French North America.

The French and Indian War probably killed between 5%-15% of the total Native American population in the region of the conflict, with the participating tribal allies hit harder.

Deaths In India

About 9,000 Mughal troops were killed in India. About one in six of them who fought in the two battles in Calcutta died, and about 1% of those who fought in the Battle of Plassey on June 23, 1757 died. 

Haiti Has Lagged Economically For A Long Time

It is widely known that Haiti is a poor country. It is less widely known that it has been poorer than its neighbors since sometime before the year 1900 CE.

Game Of Thrones Tactics In Haiti

A prosecutor in Haiti is seeking to charge the Prime Minister of Haiti with the murder of its President. CNN has the story:

Haiti's top prosecutor is seeking charges against Prime Minister Ariel Henry in connection with the assassination of the late President Jovenel Moise. He has also barred the Prime Minister from leaving the country. 

Port-au-Prince's chief prosecutor, Bed-Ford Claude, previously invited Henry to testify about the case, citing evidence that a key suspect in the assassination called him in the hours after the murder. Henry was due to testify on Tuesday morning. That suspect, former Haitian Justice Ministry official Joseph Felix Badio, is believed to be on the run. CNN has not been able to reach him for comment.

Claude told CNN that he is discussing possible charges against Henry with the judge.

The late President Moise was brutally killed during an attack on his private residence on July 7. The investigation into his killing is ongoing and has turned up dozens of suspects, including US and Colombian citizens.

Moise's death prompted a weeks-long standoff over succession in the country's leadership between the recently nominated Henry -- a neurologist by training -- and then-acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph, before Henry ultimately took power. . . .

The early months of Henry's tenure have been troubled by continuing intrigue over the assassination, deadly gang violence in capital city Port-au-Prince, and a catastrophic August earthquake in the country's south that left more than 2,100 dead and injured more than 12,200.

A prosecution does seem appropriate in this case. The situation in the meantime is a mess for an already troubled and struggling country.

U.S. Birthrates For Women Under Age 30 Fell To Record Lows In 2019

There has never been a time in U.S. history when women in all age ranges under the age of thirty were less likely to give birth. The birth rate is now highest for women aged 30-34, although this rate too is low by historical standards. The absolute number of births has not been this low since 1985 (despite significant population growth since then).

The decline has been quite dramatic and continues to be particular rapid for teens. While the provisional statistics don't show it, from prior years statistics we can safely predict that the decline has been particularly dramatic for black and Hispanic teens, even though for women in their 20s and early 30s birth rates have been falling faster for white and Asian-American women than for black and Hispanic women.

Meanwhile, birth rates have continued to gradually increase for women aged 35-44. This is partially due to women postponing child bearing to obtain educations and pursue careers, and is partially because fertility treatments have made this possible.

Birth rates have been essentially unchanged for girls aged 10-14 (at a record or near record low reached in 2015), and women aged 45 and older (which are at historically high levels, but still very low).

We can also safely predict that this is due almost entirely to reduced pregnancy rates and not due to increased abortion rates. The abortion rate per pregnancy has remained fairly constant, or has declined, in all recent years, and thus, the U.S. has also approached record low post-Roe v. Wade abortion rates.

To maintain a constant population, the U.S. needs to admit approximately one immigrant per four children born each year.

The provisional number of births for the United States in 2019 was 3,745,540, down 1% from the number in 2018 (3,791,712). This is the fifth year that the number of births has declined after the increase in 2014, down an average of 1% per year, and the lowest number of births since 1985. 

The provisional general fertility rate (GFR) for the United States in 2019 was 58.2 births per 1,000 females aged 15–44, down 2% from the rate in 2018 (59.1), another record low for the nation. From 2014 to 2019, the GFR declined by an average of 2% per year. . . .  

The provisional total fertility rate (TFR) for the United States in 2019 was 1,705.0 births per 1,000 women, down 1% from the rate in 2018 (1,729.5), another record low for the nation. The TFR estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes, based on the age specific birth rate in a given year. The TFR in 2019 was again below replacement—the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself (2,100 births per 1,000 women). The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007.  

… 

The birth rate for teenagers in 2019 was 16.6 births per 1,000 females aged 15–19, down 5% from 2018 (17.4), reaching another record low for this age group. The rate has declined by 60% since 2007 (41.5), the most recent period of continued decline, and 73% since 1991, the most recent peak. The rate had declined an average of 8% annually from 2007 to 2018. . . . The birth rates for teenagers aged 15–17 and 18–19 in 2019 were 6.7 and 31.1 births per 1,000 females, respectively, down by 7% and 4% from 2018, again reaching record lows for both groups. From 2007 to 2018, the rates for teenagers aged 15–17 and 18–19 declined by 10% and 7% per year, respectively. 

The birth rate for females aged 10–14 was 0.2 births per 1,000 in 2019, unchanged since 2015.

The birth rate for women aged 20–24 in 2019 was 66.6 births per 1,000 women, down 2% from 2018 (68.0), reaching yet another record low for this age group. This rate has declined by 37% since 2007. The number of births to women in their early 20s fell by 3% from 2018 to 2019.

The birth rate for women aged 25–29 was 93.7 births per 1,000 women, down 2% from 2018 (95.3), reaching another record low for this age group. The number of births to women in their late 20s declined 2% from 2018 to 2019.

The birth rate for women aged 30–34 in 2018 was 98.3 births per 1,000 women, down 1% from 2018 (99.7). The number of births to women in their early 30s was essentially unchanged from 2018 to 2019. 

The birth rate for women aged 35–39 was 52.7 births per 1,000 women, similar to the 2018 rate of 52.6. The number of births to women in their late 30s increased by 1% from 2018 to 2019.  

The birth rate for women aged 40–44 in 2019 was 12.0 births per 1,000 women, up 2% from 2018 (11.8). The rate for this age group has risen almost continuously since 1985 by an average of 3% per year. The number of births to these women increased by 2% from 2018 to 2019.  

The birth rate for women aged 45–49 (which includes births to women aged 50 and over) was 0.9 births per 1,000 women, unchanged since 2015. The number of births to women in this age group was also essentially unchanged from 2018 to 2019.

From here. 

Historical Birth Rates In North American and the World

Birth rates records are not comprehensive back all of the way to Colonial era, and mostly don't exist at all in Pre-Columbian times.

But, in all of world history prior to the 19th century, birth rates for women aged 15-29 were higher than they are today in virtually all cultures, except for subcultures of nuns and pagan vestal virgin priestesses. The technologies that facilitate reducing births per woman, the economic forces that encourage that approach didn't exist until more recent times, and high child mortality rates made having many children a necessity to prevent population collapse.

There were cultural differences within these parameters, however. With regard to the regional and cultural differences, as I noted in an October 6, 2012 post at this blog:

The differences in adolescent sexuality and family structure we see in "Red State/Blue State" comparisons in the past decade were deeply ingrained already in colonial New England, Pennsylvania, Appalachia and Virginia by the 1770s and have clear British antecedents which have faded to near irrelevance to some extent where they originated. By then, 10% of women in the Delaware Valley (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Northern Maryland), 15% of New England women, 30% of women in Virginia and 40% or more of women in Appalachia (one contemporaneous source put the figure as high as 94% in one county) were pregnant when they married. 

On that wedding day, the average Delaware Valley woman was 24, the average New England woman was 23 years old, the average Virginia woman was 18, and the average Appalachian woman was 19. 

About 33% of the Delaware Valley women were literate, as were 50% of the New England women, 25% of the Virginia women, and a smaller percentage of the Appalachian women.

The average age of women at first marriage in the U.S. today is 28 years old. 

The regional differences between different early American subcultures probable had its roots in differences in child mortality rates historically in those cultures. Child mortality was probably higher in Appalachia and Virginia than it was in the Delaware Valley and New England in the 1770s.

Of course, these averages also conceal a considerable age spread even in the Delaware Valley and New England where the average age of first marriage was relatively high and relatively few women were pregnant when the got married. Far more women would have had children at a young age than do so today, even though teenage marriage and child bearing wasn't as common in pre-modern times as often assumed.

From the U.S. Census Bureau. See also here.

Thus, for a full century of the time period in which we have data, from 1890 to 1980, the median age for women at their first marriage in the U.S. as a whole was between 20 and 22. 

The increase in the age of women at their first marriage since 1950s coincides with increasing percentages of women going to and completing college, and also to graduate and professional schools. Men are also much more likely to go to college (although women are now significantly more likely to be college graduates than men).

The percentage of law school students who were women didn't exceed 4.1% until 1965 when it hit 4.3% and increased steady thereafter (after having been between 2.8% and 4.1% from 1947 to 1964) and has been in excess of 50% since 2016.

The increasing age of marriage is a global trend, worldwide: "The average age of marriage for women increased from 21.8 to 24.7 years from the seventies to the mid 2000s, with the average age for men rising a comparable amount."

The average age gap was about four years in 1890, narrowed slightly during the Great Depression, was back to four years after World War II ended, to about 2.5 years in the 1960s, and has held stead at about two years since 1980. As countries grow richer, the difference in marrying age tends to narrow (the gap is about 5 years in Egypt but only 1.6 years in France and only 1.4 years in Japan); quite a bit of this difference is driven by younger ages of marriage for women ("According to U.N. reports, 39 countries have data showing that 20% of women married by age 18. In twenty countries, a full 10% of women married by age 15. In only 2 countries, however, are 10% of men married before the age of 18.").

The marriage age trends are more consistently higher now than they were in the late colonial era in the U.S., with the state with the lowest average age matching the Delaware Valley high at that time. But, women in New England and the Delaware Valley now marry about three years later than Appalachia (compared to a gap of five to six years in the colonial era), although the gap between these regions and Virginia is now just one or two years, instead of four or five years in the colonial era. 

The U.S. state with the lowest median first marriage age is, unsurprisingly given its predominantly Mormon religious affiliation, Utah at 24.2 years old for women and 26.2 years old for men, with Idaho which is also heavily Mormon as a runner up with 25.1 years old for women and 26.7 years old for men. The oldest average age of first marriage in a U.S. state is in Massachusetts, where the median age of first marriage for women is 29.7 and for men is 30.9 years. The District of Columbia has the highest median age of marriage for women, at about 30, which is also about the median age of first marriage for men (in part, this is because it has the lowest percentage of the population ever married, mostly because a large percentage of the D.C. population is African-American than in any U.S. state or in Puerto Rica, since the African-American marriage rate is much lower than the marriage rate for other races designated by the Census bureau, a trend that has emerged in the post-Civil Rights era).

The District of Columbia is the only place in the U.S. without a significant age gap between median age of first marriage for men and for women. The gap is about two year in most of the U.S. but closer to one year in the Northeast (where median ages at first marriage tend to be on the high side). The age gap is about twice as large (3.0 years v. 1.5 years) in couples where both are foreign born v. those where both were born in the U.S.; there is a similar gap for high school dropouts v. high school graduates (3.1 years v. 1.6 years) some of which is due to non-native born people making up a disproportionate share of high school dropouts.

Data from 2005 to 2009 show basically same regional trends with slightly lower actually ages (Puerto Rico is in the mid-range at 38th oldest):

The U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of when Americans get hitched. Here is the median age at first marriage for women in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. as of 2005-2009: 

1. Idaho: 23.2
2. Utah: 23.3
3. Wyoming: 24.2
4. Arkansas: 24.3
5. Oklahoma: 24.4
6. Kentucky: 24.8
7. West Virginia: 25.0
8. Kansas: 25.0
9. Tennessee: 25.2
10. Texas: 25.2
11. Alaska: 25.2
12. North Dakota: 25.3
13. Alabama: 25.3
14. Iowa: 25.4
15. Nebraska: 25.4
16. Missouri: 25.6
17. Nevada: 25.6
18. South Dakota: 25.6
19. North Carolina: 25.7
20. Montana: 25.7
21. Colorado: 25.7
22. Indiana: 25.7
23. Mississippi: 25.8
24. Arizona: 25.8
25. New Mexico: 25.8
26. Louisiana: 25.9
27. Washington: 25.9
28. Georgia: 25.9
29. Oregon: 26.0
30. Minnesota: 26.3
31. Wisconsin: 26.3
32. Ohio: 26.3
33. Maine: 26.4
34. South Carolina: 26.4
35. Florida: 26.4
36. Michigan: 26.4
37: Virginia: 26.4
38: Puerto Rico: 26.5
39. Delaware: 26.6
40. New Hampshire: 26.8
41. California: 26.8
42. Hawaii: 26.9
43. Vermont: 26.9
44. Illinois: 27.0
45. Pennsylvania: 27.1
46. Maryland: 27.3
47. Connecticut: 27.6
48. New Jersey: 27.7
49. Rhode Island: 28.2
50. New York: 28.4
51. Massachusetts: 28.5
52. District of Columbia: 29.7

Marriages tend to be at a younger age where Mormon (and to a lesser extent Evangelical Christian) religious affiliation is more common, and in rural areas.

The percentage of women enrolled in law school tracks median age of women at first marriage rather closely (although not perfectly):

The methodology used by the Census Bureau to compute marriage ages changed in 1990. 

Historical American Total Fertility Rates

There were high pre-industrial levels of total lifetime fertility for married women (i.e. typically more than six children per lifetime for women who lived for all of their child bearing years) in Colonial and Pre-Columbian times, although this had abated by the time of the Great Depression.

From Statistica.com citing Aaron O'Neill, "Total fertility rate of the United States 1800-2020" (January 22, 2020).

The U.S. total fertility rate fell below the replacement rate briefly around 1940 and again in the early 1970s.

These birth rates exceed those of pre-modern societies discussed below, and gave rise to rapid natural increase (i.e. excess of births over deaths without regard to immigration) in the total population.

We also have decent data on pre-1790 total fertility rates in Europe, where total fertility rates ranged from 4.5 to 6.2, with mean ages at first marriage of 25-26 years old for women (suggesting that women in that era had on average, 2.5 to 4.2 children who died before having children of their own). 

Colonial era American women married earlier than their European counterparts, and population growth was greater in North America (even apart from massive amounts of immigration) than it was in Europe, so Colonial era American women very likely had more children per lifetime than their European counterparts of the same era, with a total fertility rate that was probably more than 7, and birth rates of more than 250 per 1000 women of child bearing age.

Pre-Colombian Birth Rates In North America

Birth rates at a given age were probably as high as they were in 1800 in Colonial populations among Pre-Columbian North Americans, if not higher. At that time, life expectancies for women were lower (about 23 years at birth and about 20 years at age 15), and that reduced the total fertility rate. See, e.g. Pre-Columbian North America can be found in S. Ryan Johansson, "The Demographic History of the Native Peoples of NorthAmerica: A Selective Bibliography", 25 Yearbook Of Physical Anthropology 133-152 (1982).  

Birth rates inversely track child mortality rates, because people have more kids (and generally overcompensate) when there is a significant risk that some of their children will not live to adulthood, and must do so out of mathematical necessity when the total population size is stable.

Another source surveying pre-modern mortality rates globally and in pre-modern history notes that:

Across the entire historical sample the authors found that on average, 26.9% of newborns died in their first year of life and 46.2% died before they reached adulthood. Two estimates that are easy to remember: Around a quarter died in the first year of life. Around half died as children. What is striking about the historical estimates is how similar the mortality rates for children were across this very wide range of 43 historical cultures. Whether in Ancient Rome; Ancient Greece; the pre-Columbian Americas; Medieval Japan or Medieval England; the European Renaissance; or Imperial China: Every fourth newborn died in the first year of life. One out of two died in childhood. . . . 

There is another piece of evidence to consider that suggests the mortality of children was in fact very high in much of humanity’s history: birth rates were high, but population growth was close to zero.

The fertility rate was commonly higher than 6 children per woman on average, as we discuss here. A fertility rate of 4 children per woman would imply a doubling of the population size each generation; a rate of 6 children per woman would imply a tripling from one generation to the next. But instead population barely increased: From 10,000 BCE to 1700 the world population grew by only 0.04% annually. A high number of births without a rapid increase of the population can only be explained by one sad reality: a high share of children died before they could have had children themselves.

Estimates of infant mortality rates in the Pre-Columbian agricultural Inca and Aztec societies (from a chart in the article quoted above) ranged from 27% to 35% of children who were born. Estimates of all deaths before age 15, in those societies, ranged from 48% to 53% of children who were born, well in line with estimates from other pre-modern societies with similar levels of technology.

This implies that a woman who lived long enough to have children had to have at least four children per lifetime, on average, to prevent population decline, and those children had to be squeezed into what was, on average, a shorter than modern reproductive lifespan, because more women died before menopause in pre-modern times. Directly measured total fertility rate data suggests that these child mortality rates were actually underestimates, because total fertility rates were probably higher than four children per woman per lifetime.

The birth rate for women aged 15-35 would have had to be about 200 per 1,000 women in that age range to prevent the population from declining (and we known that, in the long run, ancient populations were stable or increasing). 

This is about double the birth rate of modern American women aged 30-34 who have the highest birth rate of modern American women of any age, and birth rates in the U.S. are higher than those in most other developed countries.

International Comparisons

The U.S. is still far from the bottom in total fertility rate of 1.7. The world average total fertility rate is 2.4 which isn't far above the replacement rate of 2.1, and 90 out of 200 sovereign states and dependencies are below the replacement rate. 

The World Bank estimate of 2018 puts the U.S. at 145th, out of 185 sovereign states and 15 separately listed dependencies (Puerto Rico, however, is in 199th place at 1.0). There are 55 other countries or dependencies have lower total fertility rates. 

Total fertility rates via Wikipedia (the map reflects some rounding).

Today, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Oceania are predominant among countries with high total fertility rates. 

Niger at 6.9 is at the top, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1800. 

Somalia is the runner up at 6.1, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1840. 

Afghanistan at 4.5 is the highest out of Africa, followed by the Solomon Islands at 4.4 which is the highest in Oceania, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1890.

Yemen at 3.8 is the highest in the Middle East, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1900.

Pakistan is the highest in South Asia at 3.5, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1915 and again at the peak of the Baby Boom in the U.S. in 1960.

India is at 2.2 (with immense regional variation within the country), at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the years 1933, 1944 and 1972.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Vietnam and Malaysia are at 2.0, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 1975.

France at 1.9 is the highest in Europe, at about the same total fertility rate as the United States in the year 2015.

China, Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, and the U.K. at 1.7 are about the same as the U.S. today.

Russia, Germand and the Netherlands are at 1.6. 

Thailand, Switzerland and Canada are at 1.5. 

Japan is at 1.4. 

Italy and Spain are at 1.3. 

South Korea at 1.0 is at the bottom.