1767. Two Oxonians created the Mason-Dixon Line. Mason and Dixon were surveyors (like George Washington himself). They were hired by Cecil Calvert (a Trinity man) in Maryland and William Penn (Christ Church) in Pennsylvania to define the border between the two states. This line would become the border between the Confederate States and the Union during the Civil War. (Maryland, like Virginia, was part of the Confederacy.) https://theoxbridgepursuivant.blogspot.com/2015/10/october-18-two-oxford-alumni-create.html
1776. Why the Southern Colonies rebelled. The southern colonies were settled by many Oxonians including George Washington's great-grandfather, whose father Lawrence Washington was a don at Brasenose College, Oxford. They were largely orthodox Church of England members (Oxford was a path to the ministry), who were given grants of land from the Crown, whereas the Cambridge dissenters settled New England. https://theoxbridgepursuivant.blogspot.com/2015/07/july-4-oxford-cambridge-ties-to.html.
1814. Treaty of Ghent. Oxford and Cambridge alumni were on both sides of the negotiations over a peace treaty between the United States and Britain, after the War of 1812. A major issue was how to draw the border with Canada after Britain's conquests of some U.S. lands. The U.S. negotiators seem to have gotten the best of the negotiations since Britain agreed to go back to the lines prior to the war. The weakness of the British negotiators was that they had to get approval for anything from London, whereas the U.S. team, given the long time it took for ocean travel, was given authority to make decisions for their country. https://theoxbridgepursuivant.blogspot.com/2019/12/treaty-of-ghent-205th-anniversary-and.html.
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