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A Scotsman is credited as being the “Father of Australia.” Another Scotsman consolidated the modern state of India. A Scottish explorer was the first European to cross what is now Canada from sea to sea. A few decades later, another Scotsman was the first to put a railway across it.

Scots thrived in the colonies of the British Empire — which makes it all the more ironic that the main reason they entered a 300-year union with England in the first place was because their own attempt at a colony had been such an unbelievable failure.

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“Trade will increase, and money will beget money, and the trading world shall need no more want work for their hands, but will rather want hands for their work,” read the infamous 1695 words of Scottish financier William Paterson as he dazzled his countrymen with tales of New World riches.

By the dawn of the 18th century, much of Central America was already speaking Spanish, New France stretched from Quebec to Louisiana, and thousands of English settlers were busy carving out what would eventually become the United States.