Peter the Great of Russia

Fig.1: The greatest thing about Peter the Great is that 
Johnny Depp could easily play him in a bio-pic.

Every country has a polarizing figure who transforms a nation's fortunes by saying, "And now for something completely different!" In Russia, that figure would be Peter the Great (fig.1). In some ways, he continued Russia's normal routine of expanding their landmass at the expense of ethnic groups who had at least forty different words for "snow." He even waged war against the powers of Sweden and Ottoman Turkey for seaports that weren't clogged with ice all the time, something all Russian sailors and synchronized swimmers could get behind. But Peter becomes controversial because he often looked to that dastardly West for inspiration on how to rule and, even more alarmingly, how his people should act. His obsession for the ways and customs of places like England, France, and Germany frightened his stoically conservative citizens who had been wearing their babushkas the same way forever! While Peter is still considered "Great," many Russians can't help but say that word in the same manner as, "Great, my frostbitten picky toe needs to be amputated!"

The Darien Scheme

In the 17th century, colonialism was the cool thing to do. Everybody in Europe was getting in on it: the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the English, and even those crafty Swedes! It was like Pokémon Cards or Beanie Babies, only more bloody and with an extra dose of religious fanaticism. If you didn't have a colony to exploit and call your own, you were a loserface. And that's what Scotland was during this time: nothing but a pimple-skinned, four-eyed, mouth-breathing, booger-picking loserface. Sure they tried to get their foot in the New World ground with lame-brain attempts like Nova Scotia in Canada (translated from "New Scotland" in Latin) and Perth Amboy, New Jersey (translated from "The Toxic Runoff from Staten Island Settles Here" in Algonquian), but neither of those remained in Scottish hands for longer than a decade. The men of the highlands needed to get a little ambitious in order to stop the bullying and constant wedgies from the other European nations, and hatched a plan (or scheme, if you will) to become masters of two oceans by taking a crucial point in Central America called the Darien.

Fig.1: William III of England was 
only known as William II in 
Scotland, just to low-ball him a 
little bit.

Scotland's urge to become better economically was really based on its relationship with England. While still two separate countries, Scotland and England shared the same monarch, so they were en route to becoming the cluster that is the United Kingdom. The king in the 1690s, William III (fig.1) didn't much care for the Scottish part of his realm, and only allowed England's overseas exploits to prosper and be adapted into adventure novels. Like a good redheaded Celtic stepchild, Scotland still tried to win their monarch's affection, and presented a plan to build a colony in the Darien (present-day Panama). It would be the perfect spot for a trading post in the Caribbean, especially if some sort of canal was eventually constructed in this Panama region that linked the Atlantic and Pacific. I'd call it a long shot of that ever happening, but that's just me.