A huge chunk of the history of the British empire rests on one man, and specifically the fact that this one man suffered a wound that would not let him wear sunglasses properly

How Did It Start

Barring bouts of drunken Austrian stupidity, the War of Jenkins's Ear is yet another strong case for Britain's stranglehold on the business of stupid wars

There was a British navy captain named Robert Jenkins. Jenkins's ship was boarded by nefarious Spaniards in 1731, and they, for reasons best known to them, felt it an appropriate time to slice off the good captain's ear

Relations between Britain and Spain weren't exactly great at the time, though war had thus far been diverted through the actions of Sir Thomas Walpole, the British Prime Minster, who had settled upon a policy of consummate dullness

By 1739, Britain had become bored of sitting around and not shooting the Spanish, so, to provide a reason to go to war, a Parliamentary hearing was called about Jenkins's de-earing eight years earlier, and he got to parade his severed and probably rather shriveled ear around parliament. Everyone there immediately declared this was a huge insult to the nation and war must begin forthwith

Sadly, history is unclear if when he returned home, Jenkins's wife asked how the hearing was, only for Jenkins to reply "Awful! I'VE GOT NO BLOODY EAR.

What Happened Next

The war continued a bit half-heartedly over the next couple of years, with the two nations bitchslapping one another in the Caribbean and on the South American coast. However, because Europe, at this time, was a mesh of alliances and political intrigue, the War of Jenkins's Ear erupted into the War of Austrian Succession, which became one of those all-continent explosions that Europe so loves to do every now and then

An estimated half a million people died in that war. That war then formed a major cause of the Seven Years War, the first truly global conflict in which approximately one and a quarter million people died, and Britain eventually emerged as the dominant world power

Who Won

The Spanish claim a diplomatic victory for reasons known only to them, but in reality, it was the war equivalent of two elderly women bashing each other with moth-eaten handbags. When the war collapsed into the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War though, we hope that during the decades of death, misery, pounding guns and futile charges, there was an indignant, one-eared captain constantly being told to stop bitching about his ear.