Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 September 2

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September 2

Proposed national capital transfers that were never carried out

I know about the successful transfer of national capitals--for instance, Kazakhstan's decision to move its capital from Almaty to Astana. However, what proposals have there been to move national capitals that were never actually carried out? Futurist110 (talk) 02:34, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Do you want to include rejected candidate cities when one was finally chosen? Hayttom (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I do. Futurist110 (talk) 06:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Dalgety in Australia was chosen as the site for the new nation's capital in 1903, two years after the nation was created. It currently has a population of 205, and doesn't ever seem to have had much more. For details of how it missed out, see Canberra#Decisions to start and locate a capital. HiLo48 (talk) 07:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Frankfurt was originally going to be the first capital of West Germany in 1949. They even built a parliament building there. Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea, proposed to move the national capital to South Chungcheong Province, but that attempt seems to have stalled. Still in Korea, in the 7th century king Sinmun of Silla failed to move his country's capital to Daegu. --Antiquary (talk) 09:24, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Viedma, Karakorum, virtually empty Ngerulmud, Ciudad Libertad in Venezuela, to name a few. I guess every country had such proposals. Шурбур (talk) 09:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

There were a number of other candidates for the US capital, in addition to NY and Philadelphia, (the temporary capitals). There was some sentiment for moving the capital after it was burned by the British in the War of 1812 but it didn't go anywhere. Plainly.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

There were several suggestions for a capital of Canada, and Ottawa was chosen as it was in between the centres of power in English (Toronto, Kingston) and French (Montreal, Quebec) Canada. Apparently it was also chosen because it would be more difficult for Americans to invade as it was further from the border. I don't think we have an article about the various different capitals prior to Confederation, but there's a lot about this in History of Ottawa. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Ottawa was also chosen for being exactly on the river that forms the border of Quebec and Ontario (except near Montreal, the far north and New York). I think a canal was built so they could move from Ottawa to Toronto without being right on the border (The Welland Canal of course has to be built if Canadians want to sail to Lake Erie in their own country but it also has the advantage of not being in a river shared with America. Maybe they even built a canal between Lake Erie and Huron? In the end everything done after 1815 was a waste of money but no one could be sure of that till much later. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Huron and Ontario you mean? There is a series of canals there, yeah - the Trent-Severn Waterway. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Right, Huron. As an aside I envy the 6 million Torontonians for being so close to a coast of high naturalness (NE Lake Huron). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

We are kind of in limbo. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/parliament-sets-up-feasibility-study-to-look-into-move-to-pretoria-20180523 196.213.35.147 (talk) 08:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• While not a national capital, the attempted move of Alaska's capital may be of interest. In 1974, the voters of Alaska voted to move the capital from Juneau to a new location, with the specific location to be selected in a later election. In 1976, the voters chose Willow over two other sites as the new capital. However, in 1978, the voters voted not to issue bonds to fund moving the capital, and in 1982 they voted against spending the $2.8 billion needed to relocate the state capital. The failure of the latter vote also meant that the plan to move the capital was repealed. [1] --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Some communist leaders of Poland touted Łódź as the new national capital just after World War II. After two failed uprisings (in 1943 and 1944) Warsaw was completely destroyed and depopulated. Łódź, on the other hand, had been pre-war Poland's second largest city and survived the war relatively unscathed. It was centrally located within Poland's new post-war borders, it had a largely left-leaning worker population (in contrast to Kraków, the ancient capital, with its conservative bourgeoisie) and lots of apartments vacated, for different reasons, by Jews and Germans. Eventually, the plan didn't work out. People started moving back to Warsaw and rebuilding it brick by brick, and Stalin himself told Polish communists that they should rebuild the city and keep the capital there. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I haven't read it, but you may find this book interesting: Vadim Rossman, Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of Development and Relocation. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

...which also mentions that after the fall of communism in Poland, the idea to move the capital back to Kraków was floated, as "some leaders of new Poland saw Warsaw as a conduit of Russian domination and communist influence"; however, it never got anywhere. (There was a song written against this idea, called Nie przenoście nam stolicy do Krakowa "Don't move the capital to Kraków".) Also from the book: in the 1920s Kazys Pakštas supported moving the Lithuanian capital to Klaipėda (then Lithuania's only port and second-largest city), bringing it in line with the other Baltics whose capitals were port cities and strengthening Lithuanian's position in the Baltic Sea; this was connected to the Baltoscandia idea that he did development on. (When talking about this we have to bear in mind that Kaunas was then the temporary capital while Vilnius was then Polish Wilno, and Klaipėda was joined to Lithuania after the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923 but still had a German majority). That also did not happen. Double sharp (talk) 03:18, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

This has periodically been an issue in Liberia. His article doesn't mention it, but President William R. Tolbert (the last before revolution and civil war destroyed the economy and reduced the country to least-developed-nation status) for a time was hoping to move the capital to Bensonville, his native city. Apparently the capital-location issue came up again rather recently — this 2014 story from the Liberian Observer notes that there was talk of moving the capital to a tiny place in Nimba County (we have no article on this place, Zekepa), but the project seems to have died along with its proponent, Willis Knuckles (although the article doesn't mention the incident that removed Knuckles from political influence). Nyttend (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC) PS, per the comment from Wehwalt — for one example, see Metropolis, Illinois#History. Due to the failure of the proposal, the town is not known as the home of the President of the United States, but it is known as the home of Superman (see story), which attracts some tourists. Nyttend (talk) 00:06, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

South Sudan is another case, the move seems to be postponed permanently. --Soman (talk) 17:31, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Differences between Lutheranism and Anglicanism

What are the main differences between Lutheranism and Anglicanism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.207.202 (talk) 19:28, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

You could start by reading and comparing the "Doctrine" sections of Lutheranism and Anglicanism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

See also this Quora reply which seems to be on the money and has a list of references. Alansplodge (talk) 12:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

What happened to Baldwin's statue?

In our article on his home, Astley Hall, we read "There is a monument to Stanley Baldwin just below Astley Hall, directly on the Stourport to Worcester road. After his death, a national appeal failed to raise sufficient money for this memorial. Winston Churchill personally made up the shortfall and attended the dedication. The monument originally consisted of an inscribed base topped with a statue; the statue has since disappeared." I would like to know who was the sculptor, is there a picture of the statue, when did it disappear, and do we know why or how? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:54, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if the people currently campaigning for a statue in his memory have any answers for you? https://stanleybaldwincampaign.webs.com/contact-us --TammyMoet (talk) 18:28, 3 September 2018 (UTC)