The Darien Scheme

[vinnyglennon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme

[arethuza]

Interesting bit of trivia - the organisation set up to distribute the English "bailout" eventually evolved into what became the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which was then itself bailed out with vast amounts of taxpayers money in the 2007/2008 financial crisis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Bank_of_Scotland

[Symmetry]

It's hard to overstate how much of an effect the introduction of malaria to the Americas had on the course of history.

[jbattle]

Sounds like the causes of failure of the colony were heavily influenced by politics, but also that's a tough place for "outsiders" to live.

c.f. the Darien Gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap

[HeyLaughingBoy]

A mildly interesting anecdote: I used to work in Darien, CT which I was told was so named by a mariner because it sat between the large "oceans" of Stamford and Norwalk.

No idea how true that is...

[welcome_dragon → HeyLaughingBoy]

... and I used to live in Darien, IL which was named after Darien, CT

[tshanmu]

thought that this was a long forgotten Scheme dialect, only to be schooled on historical monpolistic anti-trust protectionist events :D