Niners lost the Super Bowl again, Jimbo. How you feeling?

The booby traps worked! I knew that the homemade Bluetooth-enabled fireworks I rigged up in the Shanahan kid’s office would do the trick to destroy only the fun parts of the playbook.

Yeah, Jed York was pretty pissed about the damage to the locker room. There’s a reason for lying low in college ball, I see.

If only it were that simple, Johnny. That’s the thing. Your offence, as great as it was throughout the year, still needs to be more explosive. There’s a reason I love building my own pyrotechnics, you know – and it’s not only because I’m a deranged lunatic.

Jim, my quarterback just won MVP and we had the league’s top ground game all year long. How the hell could I get more explosive than that?

Well, when it comes to explosions, let’s make a visit this week to a place where there’s tons of highly flammable stuff just lying there, out in the open, waiting for someone to take it.

THE CHINCHA ISLANDS WAR

Combatant 1: Spain

Combatant 2: Peru & Chile

Location of Conflict: Chincha Islands, west coast of South America

Reason for Conflict: Someone wanted to harvest a lot of bird shit.

What happened? In the early 19th century, South America was going through a series of revolutions, as all of Spain’s former colonies declared their independence, one after the other. Chile became an independent nation in 1818, while Peru followed suit in 1821. Both nations fought long, protracted wars for their independence; however, Peru, unlike Chile, was not recognized as an independent state after the conclusion of formal hostilities. As Spain lost control of its former colonies, it sought for ways to assert itself elsewhere; it had some colonial adventures later on in the Philippines, Morocco, and in the Dominican Republic. Despite no longer controlling Peru and Chile, they still hung around. For decades.

In 1863, the Spanish fleet was moored off the coast of Peru when a minor incident took place between Peruvian locals and Spanish sailors; one Spaniard died, and the Spanish government was outraged. The Spanish, while still refusing to recognize Peruvian independence, demanded the Peruvians pay an indemnity for all the costs of their war of independence from forty years previously; the Peruvians, naturally, refused this demand. In retaliation, in April 1864, the Spanish fleet occupied the Chincha islands, a tiny archipelago off the coast of the town of Pisco, in southwest Peru, home to about four million seabirds of all kinds. The islands were renowned predominantly for their deposits of guano, which was highly valued in this era for its properties in both agricultural fertilizers and in explosives. Yes, the Spanish wanted bird shit all to themselves. And there was a literal shitload of it – in some places, the guano was said to have built up in deposits up to 200 feet deep.

Outraged at the seizure of their beautiful, marvelous guano (which produced 60% of the Peruvian government’s annual revenue), Peru delayed on deciding what to do – the government ousted two successive prime ministers who refused to go to war with Spain, and replaced them with one who finally agreed to the congress’ demands. When Chile refused to sell coal the Spanish fleet due to not wanting to arm a belligerent nation, the Spanish turned around and declared war on the Chileans as well. After Peru and Chile signed a formal alliance in late 1865, Ecuador and Bolivia joined the fight in early 1866, determined to drive their former rulers out of South America once and for all.

The Aftermath: Leave it to South America to have all the craziest wars. In the naval battle of Papudo, the Chileans captured the Spanish schooner Covadonga and took all its crew hostage; they also captured the personal correspondence of Spanish admiral Juan Manuel Pareja, who was so embarrassed by the crushing defeat that he committed suicide onboard the ship a few days later. The battle of Papudo kicked off a war marked by fierce pride, which came to an end in May 1866; the Spanish, while decimating the Chilean navy and badly damaging the town and port of Valparaiso, were ultimately forced to retreat from South America due to the superior numbers of forces mustered from all four countries. While Spain remained a wealthy nation, the fleet they sent to try and restore their former prestige in South America was small and vastly undermanned, meaning that land invasions were entirely out of the question. With every port in western South America closed to their navy, the Spaniards could not refuel or re-provision effectively, and they were forced to return to Spain by way of the Philippines in 1866. Peru regained control of the Chincha islands, and didn’t pay the indemnity for their war of independence. In total, about 1000 people died in the cause – around 300 Spanish forces and about 700 Chilean and Peruvian forces. As for the islands themselves, they mostly ran out of guano in 1874, after harvesting over 12 million tons. Considering that collection had been going on for thousands of years by indigenous people before the Peruvians began their harvesting in 1840, I can’t say I’m shocked that Western influence meant the rapid depletion of what might have initially seemed like an infinite resource.

Jim, you smell like ass.

I lost my sense of smell years ago. It’s actually an advantage out there – I don’t need to smell my enemies’ fear, because I can just tell from the look on their faces what they’re afraid of.

It’s 4:30 AM, Jim. You don’t need to be wearing eyeblack right now.

Yeah, that ain’t eyeblack, John. You’ve known that all along.

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Information for this article taken from here, here, here, here and here. Banner image by The Maestro.