History Bits is where you will find articles of historical fact and significance, accounts of major wars, and other items of interest to the historically-minded.
The NPC wants to so its part in educating the public. Keep checking it and keep up with the past.
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Beheaded in 1792, `witch' exonerated
BERN–The last person to be executed as a witch
in Europe has been exonerated more than 200 years after her death.
Anna Goeldi was beheaded by Swiss executioners in 1792 after she was accused
of causing a girl to spit pins and convulse.
The decision to clear Goeldi's name was announced yesterday after long
debate in the eastern Swiss state of Glarus, and was taken in consultation
with the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.
Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between
the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.
Yet Goeldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis took place when
witch trials had largely disappeared from Europe. The Glarus government has
said that historical investigators have found the woman was executed even
though those who put her to death were enlightened people who knew the
alleged crime was "neither doable nor possible" and that they had no legal
basis for their harsh verdict.
Goeldi was a maidservant in the house of a prominent burgher, Johann Jakob
Tschudi. Tschudi, a doctor and magistrate, allegedly had an affair with
Goeldi, according to a book published last year by local journalist Walter
Hauser.
Last year, the canton's executive branch and the Protestant Church council
both rejected considering an exoneration. The government said then it saw no
need to make a "celebratory apology for injustice 225 years ago."
Now, the Glarus government has said the Protestant Church council, which
conducted the trial, had no legal authority to do so and had decided in
advance Goeldi was guilty. She was executed even though the law then did not
impose the death penalty for her alleged crime. Goeldi's execution was even
more incomprehensible as it happened in the Age of Enlightenment when "those
who made the judgment regarded themselves as educated people," the
government said.
"In spite of that they tortured an innocent person and had her executed,
although it was known to them that the alleged
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Archaeologists unearth ancient tribe members sacrificed 1,300 years ago
Piercing blue eyes undimmed by the passing of
1,300 years, this is the Lady of the Mask – a mummy whose discovery could
reveal the secrets of a lost culture.
She was found by archaeologists excavating a pyramid in Peru’s capital city
Lima,
alongside two other adult mummies and the sacrificial remains of a child.
It is the first time a tomb from the region’s Wari culture has been
discovered intact and gives historians the chance to pin down exactly how
the pre-Incas buried their dead.
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Tunnels show Hitler's megalomaniac vision
BERLIN (Reuters) - Three vast tunnels were
opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's
megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi
Germany.
The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an
underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings
designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall
the world had ever seen.
The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included
boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de
Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000
people.
Hitler called the concept, a symbol of the power of the Third Reich, "Berlin
-- the capital of the world" but in recent times it has come to be known as
"Germania."
The tunnels, between 90 and 220 meters long lying beneath the Tiergarten
park, would have accommodated roads and a railway line.
"The tunnels -- which are in surprisingly good condition -- were part of
Speer's grand plans, what we now call 'Germania'," historian Dietmar Arnold,
head of the Berlin Underground Association and bunker tour guide, told
Reuters.
Last week, Arnold -- who runs an exhibition of Hitler's plans -- took
journalists on a rare visit into the dank tunnels.
They are closed to the public most of the time because of safety concerns,
but visits can be arranged.
"The acoustics are incredible," said Arnold, who likes singing a note and
hearing it reverberate around him.
After the war, British forces in divided Berlin closed the tunnels. They
were rediscovered in 1969 but have remained shut. In 1990, a year after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, they were handed to the city of Berlin.
The Berlin Underground Association, set up in 1997, has seen a surge in
interest in tours of Berlin's remaining bunkers.
Although most were destroyed, some of the maze of 1,000 World War Two
bunkers are intact and serve as a reminder of the city's violent history.
Propaganda posters and escape instructions on the walls convey a sense of
the past. In one bunker, suitcases, helmets, and uniforms from various sites
are on show.
"Interest is constantly growing -- we have about 150,000 visitors a year to
the bunkers," said Arnold. "That is partly why we want the bunkers to be
protected -- they are an important part of the history of Berlin."
By the end of the war, Germany's most heavily bombed city could protect up
to 800,000 people in its bunkers.
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Huge statue of Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, found
Parts of a giant, exquisitely carved marble
sculpture depicting the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius have been found at an
archaeological site in Turkey.
Fragments of the statue were unearthed at the ancient city of Sagalassos.
So far the statue's head, right arm and lower legs have been discovered,
high in the mountains of southern Turkey.
Marcus Aurelius was portrayed by Richard Harris in the Oscar-winning 2000
film Gladiator and was one of the so-called "Five Good Emperors".
He reigned from 161AD until his death in 180AD.
In addition to his deeds as emperor, Marcus Aurelius is remembered for his
writings, and is considered one of the foremost Stoic philosophers.
The partial statue was unearthed in the largest room at Sagalassos's Roman
baths.
The cross-shaped room measures 1,250 sq m (13,500 sq ft), is covered in
mosaics and was probably used as a frigidarium - a room with a cold pool
which Romans could sink into after a hot bath.
It was partially destroyed in an earthquake between 540AD and 620AD, filling
the room with rubble. Archaeologists have been excavating the frigidarium
for the past 12 years.
The dig is part of wider excavations at the ruined city, which was once an
important regional center. [
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Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico?
National Geographic - A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater — have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week.
The discovery has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex — or vice versa.
According to Maya myth, the souls of the dead had to follow a dog with night vision on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife.
In one of the recently found caves, researchers discovered a nearly 300-foot (90-meter) concrete road that ends at a column standing in front of a body of water.
"We have this pattern now of finding temples close to the water—or under the water, in this most recent case," said Guillermo de Anda, lead investigator at the research sites.
"These were probably made as part of a very elaborate ritual," de Anda said. "Everything is related to death, life, and human sacrifice."
Stretching south from southern Mexico, through Guatemala, and into northern Belize, the Maya culture had its heyday from about A.D. 250 to 900, when the civilization mysteriously collapsed. [ More ]
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The Last Samurai and Europe's First Suicide
Between Roppongi and Akasaka – the two fanciest precints in Tokyo -- there lies a somnolent spot, curiously underutilized for this, among the most expensive acres of land anywhere in the world. It’s the residence of a long-dead Japanese soldier, crouching under a shroud of weeping cherry trees in the shadow of Japan’s tallest and most fabulous building, the Midtown Project.
The opulent Midtown Project has a motto: “Introducing Japan’s newest significance to the world.” But right next to it, in this austere, smallish house built in 1902 with a red-brick stable and a compact garden, Japan’s oldest significance to the world may be found.
For Tom Cruise was not the last samurai. General Maresuke Nogi was. [ More ]
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Roman Expansion in Ancient France & Germania
Julius Caesar invoked the threat of Germanic attacks as one justification for his annexation of Gaul ( modern France ) to Rome.
As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire.
The Germanic tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania.
The peoples of the Germania were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well.
The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns was to protect Trans-Alpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe. [ More ]
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War of 1812 shipwreck discovered, diver says
A Lake Ontario shipwreck hunter claims to have discovered a legendary vessel from the War of 1812 -- the 32-metre sloop HMS Wolfe, the star of one of the most dramatic naval battles on the Great Lakes at the height of the U. S. invasion of Canada.
The ship, which was renamed HMS Montreal later in the war, was the Canadianmade flagship of commodore James Yeo, commander of the inland British fleet during the crucial struggle against the Americans for control of the lakes.
In a famous 1813 engagement known as the Burlington Races, a damaged Wolfe was under intense fire near present-day Toronto, but just managed to escape the enemy assault by retreating rapidly westward to a gun-protected shore near Burlington Bay.
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British Museum exhibition looks at Roman Emperor Hadrian
He led a global superpower, bought popularity with tax cuts and faced a divisive war in Iraq.
In many ways, the Roman Emperor Hadrian and his 2,000-year-old world sound familiar.
A new exhibition at the British Museum aims to show that Hadrian, best remembered for building a 117-kilometre wall to separate England and Scotland, is a leader whose achievements and contradictions helped forge our times.
"Hadrian is one of the great Roman emperors," exhibition curator Thorsten Opper said Tuesday. "He takes over the empire at a time of acute military crisis, he stabilizes that empire and he assures its survival.
"In a sense, he made the world we still live in today." [ More ]
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Research rules out Inuit ancestors as having forced Vikings to leave
National Post - New research has helped narrow the field of suspects in the oldest whodunit in Canadian history, conclusively ruling out the Thule-- ancestors of the modern-day Inuit -- as the aboriginal group that attacked would-be Viking colonists that arrived in Newfoundland and Labrador almost 1,000 years ago and forced them out of the New World. A scientific re-dating of the eastward migration of the Thule has pegged their push across Canada's polar frontier to no earlier than 1200 AD, at least 150 years after Norse voyagers from Greenland are believed to have abandoned their short-lived, 11th-century settlement at the northern tip of Newfoundland following hostile encounters with native inhabitants they called Skraelings. An earlier paleo-Eskimo people, the Dorset, and Indian nations such as Newfoundland's extinct Beothuks and the Innu of Labrador, remain leading suspects in this coldest of Canadian cold cases.
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Captain Cook's boomerang expected to fetch £60,000 at London auction
An Aboriginal boomerang collected by Britain's Captain James Cook on his first trip to New Holland -- now Australia -- in 1770 but lost to public sight ever since goes on sale next month. The boomerang, pictured, which is expected to fetch up to £60,000 ($118,500), comes from the collection of the navigator's widow, Elizabeth, and was passed on to the current owner as an inheritance. Its rarity lies in the fact that it is from the first contacts between Aborigines and Europeans. Auction house Christie's in London said Cook was unaware of the function of the boomerang because often the Aborigines ran away from his men when they came ashore. [ More ]
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Dubcek's doomed experiment
Where were you on the last evening of the Prague Spring? (Disregard this question if you're under 40.) I remember where I was very well. By then the Prague Spring wasn't spring at all but a rather pleasant late-summer evening -- a Tuesday, as I recall. The Hungarian émigré poet George Faludy, then about 58, and I were strolling along a quiet residential street in North Toronto. [ More ]
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1,000 died of cholera in 1800s
When Cholera swept through Toronto in 1832 and again in 1834. Pandemic timeline The first cholera pandemic in recorded history began in India in 1816. The second pandemic, begun in 1829, reached Europe in 1832. About 100,000 died in France. How the second pandemic reached Toronto Irish immigrants who were fleeing the potato famine carried the disease from Europe to North America. In the summer of 1832, 1,220 people in Montreal died from the illness. [ More ]
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Polish Investigators Tie Partisans to Massacre
As Paramount Pictures gears up its ad campaign for a new movie about a band of Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis, some in Poland are suggesting that the partisans in question may also have been murderers.
In anticipation of the December release of “Defiance,” — starring Daniel Craig, the actor best-known as the latest incarnation of James Bond — the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza ran an article headlined, “A Hollywood Movie About Heroes or Murderers?” The article contrasts the film’s portrayal of Tuvia Bielski as a Moses figure leading frightened women and children through the forest with a recently released report from a Polish government investigative body. The government report suggests that Bielski and his followers may have participated in a massacre of civilians in the eastern Polish town of Naliboki.
The tarnishing of the Bielski partisans has infuriated a number of people close to the memory of the group. Some of those people have also been involved with the production of the movie, directed by Ed Zwick (“Legends of the Fall,” “The Last Samurai”). Nechama Tec, who wrote the historical account of the Bielski partisans on which the film is based, told the Forward that allegations connecting the partisans to the massacre were “total lies.”
Those allegations “underline the anti-Semitic tendencies of the writers and the distortion of history,” Tec said.
The controversy comes on the heels of a Lithuanian government investigation into allegations that Jewish partisans committed war crimes during World War II. That investigation has been met with dismay on the part of Jewish communal leaders inside and outside Lithuania, who note that only three Lithuanians have ever been prosecuted for wartime crimes against Jews. [ More ]
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The Russian Civil War
Unless people have an intimate knowledge and association of a people, it is almost impossible to understand them and their actions as for example most Americans will immediately ascribe to someone in Kenya, Iran or Georgia the American "feelings" of how an American would react so this is how the other nation should react.
It is this dichotomy shrouded in an enigma and wrapped in a riddle to butcher a phrase which Russia is. It will surprise most people to know that Russians are one of the most effeminate people in this world. For those who have seen the way the Russian men beat, sex and abandon women, it would seem the Russian was a masculine society, but it is exactly the opposite. [ More ]
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Louisbourg and French Savagery
National Post - The first time Louisbourg was captured, it was by militias from New England in June 1745, though it was returned to France under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle in 1748. What the National Post's Father Raymond de Souza spoke of in a recent column is really the second conquest of Fortress Louisbourg of June 26, 1758.
What hastened the conquest of Quebec by the British was the ruthlessness of the French, their Métis militia and their North America Indian allies. When Louis-Jospeh Montcalm ordered the attack on Fort Oswego, he did so with brutality and savagery. The fort's defenders were given no quarter and most died after their capture by the French. Montcalm also ordered that Fort Oswego be destroyed stone by stone to show the power of France.
Then came Montcalm's siege of Fort William Henry in Northern New York, which surrendered to him on August 9, 1758. Montcalm gave a guarantee of safe conduct as part of the surrender terms but but the moment the men, women and children left the fort they were captured by Indian allies of the French and the Canadian militia of New France, raped, scalped and murdered. Fort William Henry was ordered razed to the ground.
The second capture of Fortress Louisbourg became necessary for the British because it was a grave threat to her New England colonies. It was the savagery of the French in their attempt to conquer Britain's North American colonies that made Britain decide that it must conquer Louisbourg, and follow it up with the conquest of Quebec.
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Indians Lose North Carolina, Join Six Nations
Tuscarora War (1711-1712): The Tuscarora Indians occupied the eastern portion of present day North Carolina when the English settled there in the mid-seventeenth century. Seizure of Tuscarora lands and other depredations by the Whites increased the Indians' hostility until they raided an English settlement in 1711 and killed 200 colonists.
The English retaliated, and with superior weapons defeated the Tuscrora and drove them from North Carolina. The Indians went north and were incorporated into the Iroquois Confederacy, which consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes, as the sixth tribal nation. The Tuscarora's departure opened up North Carolina to further colonization in the West.
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The Prophecies of Columbus
You probably learned a bit about Christopher Columbus at school, but one documented historical fact that you probably overlooked is that Columbus believed his discovery of the New World was necessary in order to fulfil an ancient prophecy.
What exactly did Christopher Columbus mean when, circa 1500 AD, he wrote about America in one of his famous letters: "God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St John after having spoken of it through the mouth of Isaiah; and he showed me the spot where to find it." [ More ]
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Archaeologists find footings of theatre where Shakespeare staged plays
Reuters - Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a London theatre where William Shakespeare's early plays, including Romeo and Juliet, were first performed. The bard himself also appeared at The Theatre in Shoreditch, east London, as an actor with a troupe called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice are among the other Shakespeare plays likely to have premiered at the theatre, says the Museum of London, whose team made the discovery. After a tenancy dispute in 1599, the owners of The Theatre dismantled it overnight and used its timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, by the Thames, Shakespeare's new home. Now Museum of London archaeologists have rediscovered the original footings or groundwork of the octagonal structure -- ironically on a site being prepared for the construction of a new theatre. "It's a theatre that's been known about for a long time but no remains have ever been found," said a museum spokesman.
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Early American "Gun Control"
We approach the 21st Century saddled with a federal government that has evolved from an institution intended to protect its citizens' lives and property into one whose primary function is redistributing wealth via middle-class welfare programs. (To avoid embarrassing anyone they are called "entitlements".) Statist politicians in both major parties view the minority of people who actually produce wealth as nothing more than a source of tax revenue. Promises of more and better benefits for an increasingly dependent constituency is how statists win reelection. Making good on those promises requires the federal government, over time, to appropriate a greater percentage of whatever wealth is produced in the private sector. [ More ]
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How the West (Except for the U.S.) Ended Slavery
When Jim Powell wrote an article for the Web site "History News Network" (HNN) regarding his new book, Greatest Emancipations: How the West Ended Slavery, he was immediately denounced by some of the commentators on the site. One Lewis Bernstein said he was sick and tired of "those like Jim Powell" distorting history and taking it "out of context." John Edward Phillips accused Powell, a senior fellow of the CATO Institute, of being a liar: "You think you can lie . . . and get away with it," he snarled. "Maybe you can at the Cato Institute . . . but not here on HNN." "Does the Cato Institute endorse it [the book]?, he asked in disbelief. [ More ]
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Britain Smacks The Dutch
Dutch War of 1780: The American Revolution made the British an enemy of most European nations as Britain refused to recognize in the war and seized ships indiscriminately. A League of Armed Neutrality was formed and threatened war against Britain if it did not stop its practices, but only Holland actually suffered.
The British declared war against Holland in 1780 for supplying arms to the American rebels, and captured and sank a number of Dutch vessels, inflicting damage on Dutch trade. There were no navel or land battles. In 1874, Britain apologized for its actions, pleading wartime necessity, when it concluded the Treaty of Paris.
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The Great Fire of 1904
Toronto Star
A little over 100 years ago on a bitterly cold and windy spring night, a fire swept through the downtown destroying a huge swath of the city's commercial heart.
Although the property damage was huge, miraculously nobody died. But the post-mortem that followed led to significant changes in building codes, better water pressure in hydrants and the removal of telephone poles from downtown streets.
The Great Fire of 1904 started on the evening of April 19 and just nine hours later had levelled 100 buildings on both sides of Bay St. from south of Front to Melinda St. In terms of today's cityscape, the GO Bus station on the east side of Bay as well as the GO Transit train station on the west side would be gone. So would the Royal Bank tower and the entire block that has BCE Place, the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Marché restaurant. And half the block on either side of Bay, north of Wellington. [ More ]
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Canada to embark on its biggest search for fabled British shipwrecks
National Post
The Canadian government is set to embark on the biggest search ever for the fabled British shipwrecks Erebus and Terror, which were lost in the Canadian Arctic in the 1840s during the ill-fated Franklin Expedition and are today ranked among the world's greatest undiscovered prizes of marine archeology. Canwest News Service has learned that a Parks Canada led search is scheduled to begin this month in waters off King William Island, where the two ships under the command of legendary Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, pictured, became locked in heavy ice that eventually doomed the entire crew of more than 120 men. The disappearance caused a sensation around the world at the time, and rescue ships were dispatched from Britain throughout the 1840s and 1850s.
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Stalin, rebranded
National Post
The Russian foreign ministry recently issued an indignant statement that takes issue with President Bush for equating communism with Hitlerism. "In the 20th century," a proclamation issued by Bush said, "the evils of Soviet communism and Nazi fascism were defeated and freedom spread around the world as new democracies emerged." This patently accurate statement was denounced as rewriting history. [ More ]
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In Korea's `crying' cave, 100s died in US attack
The war refugees, frigid, laden with baggage, trudged down a mountain road on a winter's day in 1951, toward the safety of U.S. Army lines. But they were turned back at gunpoint, to return home to a fiery doom.
Within days, hundreds of the displaced villagers, crowding into a narrow cave, came under napalm attack from waves of U.S. Air Force planes. More than 300 died, mostly women and children, most trapped in the smoke and flames, some strafed when they fled, survivors say.
"People moaned and screamed and shouted in the darkness," recalled Cho Byung-woo, who escaped the inferno as a boy. "It was hell. How could they not tell civilians from North Korean troops?"
"They wouldn't have died like that if they had allowed the refugees to pass through their lines," he added.
After a two-year investigation, the story of Gokgyegul, the "Cave of the Crying Stream," was confirmed on May 20 by the South Korean government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was one of the first inquiries completed among dozens of such cases of alleged mass killing of South Korean civilians by American forces in 1950-51.
"The U.S. military hardly took into consideration a risk that its massive bombing and incineration operations could take heavy tolls on civilians," the commission concluded, calling the attack indiscriminate and saying the U.S. had failed, with the roadblock, to meet its responsibility to safeguard refugees.
It urged the South Korean government to seek victims' compensation from Washington. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul says it has not yet been approached on the compensation issue.
The Gokgyegul attack occurred in January 1951, as retreating U.S. and South Korean forces struggled to stop the North Koreans, massively reinforced by Chinese troops, from penetrating deeper into South Korea.
Declassified U.S. military records show that the Americans, on guard against possible enemy disguised as refugees, were blocking South Korean civilians fleeing the fighting. Air Force pilots were told to view "people in white" — the color most civilians wore — as potential enemy.
Ordered to evacuate south by local officials, the villagers one early January day left this secluded hamlet, among snowy, humpbacked hills 120 miles southeast of Seoul, but were stopped just 3 miles away at Hyangsan by U.S. 7th Infantry Division troops.
"Across a stream there were U.S. soldiers with a tank. They blocked us," said Cho Tae-won, 85, another resident of this village, which is dominated by a Cho clan. A declassified U.S. regimental document confirms a roadblock was established there.
Cho and his younger brother, Cho Kook-won, were finally allowed to pass, after pleading that as government employees they would be targeted by the North Koreans. But the rest of his family and other refugees had to turn back.
"My feelings were indescribable because not all of us could go," said the white-haired, frail Cho Tae-won.
In the following days, fearing bombings, the Yeongchun villagers left their homes again and moved into the nearby 85-yard-long cave, named for the "crying" sound of its intermittent stream. Outside, they tethered cows and stacked household goods.
"People thought they'd be safe inside," said Cho Tae-won. But on Jan. 20, at 9:50 a.m., two or three Air Force F-51 Mustangs struck, the U.S. record shows.
"They dropped oil drums" — gasoline-gel napalm bombs — "and then the fire incinerated everything and spread into the cave," Cho Byung-woo, 66, told Associated Press reporters visiting the site, today a quiet place of chirping birds and fluttering Confucian prayer flags.
His father saved the 9-year-old boy, but from a ditch outside, young Cho witnessed more carnage as U.S. jets strafed fleeing villagers with .50-caliber machine guns. He saw a bullet slit open a young friend's belly.
"His bowels spilled out. His mother fell down and cried over his body in the shower of bullets."
The absent Cho brothers lost their father, a teenage sister and brother, and Cho Tae-won's 2-year-old son in the attack, they said. Survivors say there were no North Koreans near the cave and surveillance pilots who flew overhead for days should have known that. American pilots claimed in after-mission reports to have killed "troops" and "pack animals." But six days later a U.S. ground patrol reported finding 75 refugee bodies instead.
The truth commission concluded "well over 200" civilians were killed.
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New theory on Mary Rose sinking
VANCOUVER–New forensic evidence uncovered by a B.C. criminologist suggests the crew aboard King Henry VIII's favorite warship sank in 1545 because the mostly Spanish crew didn't understand the captain's orders.
Lynne Bell, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University, said yesterday she examined bones and teeth from a sample of human remains at a museum in England to determine the dietary habits of those who died aboard the HMS Mary Rose.
Bell said she was shocked when her research revealed the mariners and soldiers who had perished off Portsmouth, England, were not from that country as always believed but from a more southern part of Europe.
"I had assumed, as had everyone else, that the men on board were all British," she said. "Nobody had considered a naval vessel would have a huge foreign component to it, which is a little shocking." [ More ]
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Queen Victoria's underwear fetches $9,000
Barbara Rusch is the proud owner of one of Victoria's secrets – Queen Victoria, that is.
The Toronto commercial property manager yesterday bought a pair of the legendary British monarch's bloomers – with a 50-inch waist – for the royal sum of about $9,000 at an auction in Derby, England.
The handmade knickers, dating back to the 1890s, are open-crotch style, with separate legs joined by a drawstring at the waist – popular in the late Victorian era.
"This is a wonderful, wonderful find for me today and a great acquisition, a great treasure to add to my collection," Rusch said in Toronto. [ More ]
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What killed 19th century composer Frederic Chopin?
WARSAW — It looks as though they're never going to get to the heart of the matter of what caused the death of Frederic Chopin.
Poland has rejected a request to carry out a DNA test on the 19th-century composer's heart to determine whether he suffered from cystic fibrosis, a culture ministry spokesman said yesterday. "Currently there is no justification, or legal possibility to carry out such tests," said Piotr Szymanski.
The relic is preserved inside a crystal urn in Warsaw's Church of the Holy Cross. The heart was brought to Chopin's native Warsaw in 1849, as per his dying wish, by his elder sister Ludwika from Paris, where his remains are buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery.
The Polish-French pianist and composer died at 39 of what is thought to be tuberculosis. But believing his symptoms were more typical of cystic fibrosis, Polish medical experts requested permission to run DNA tests on his heart - preserved in alcohol - aimed at isolating the CFTR gene marking the disease. [ More ]
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Bulgaria's Beginnings
The Asen brothers, John and Peter, led a large uprising of Bulgars and Vlachs against Byzantine rule in 1185, They proclaimed independence for Bulgaria, and John was crowned ruler as John Asen I in Turnovo. A Byzantine army under Emperor Isaac II Angelus crushed the Bulgarians in 1186. The Asens regrouped their forces, obtained help from the Kumans (a nomadic Turkic people) and led many devastating raids against the Byzantines in Thrace and Macedonia. After the Byzantines were defeated at the Battle of Berrhoe in 1189, Isaac II Angelus accepted a truce with the Asens. acknowledging the formation of a new Bulgarian state between the Balkan mountains and the Danube.
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Alexandria: following in the steps of Cleopatra
A bronze coin in the Alexandria Museum depicts Cleopatra in masterful profile. The most important woman in ancient history, she took the two greatest Romans of her day – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony – as lovers.
Had the ancient world had soap operas, writers could have found all the material they needed in the Egyptian queen's story and her capital, Alexandria. Ambition, assassination, seduction, betrayal, suicide and excess – Alexandria and Cleopatra had them all.
Although the city she knew has mostly vanished, enough remains to conjure her turbulent world. Founded near a fishing village on the Mediterranean by Alexander the Great, Alexandria was by Cleopatra's time a populous, clamorous, glamorous city. Even then, it attracted visitors eager to inspect its boulevards, sphinxes and brilliantly decorated temples. [ More ]
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Archaeologists Track Down Site of Ancient Cheating
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY - ATHENS–German archaeologists using radar technology believe they may have discovered the ancient horse-racetrack at Olympia where Roman Emperor Nero bribed his way to Olympic laurels.
The whereabouts of the racetrack is one of the last remaining mysteries of Olympia, where the ancient Greeks founded the Olympic Games in the 8th century BC.
The one-kilometer course, the largest structure of ancient Olympia, has been lost for more than 1,600 years since the Christian emperor Theodosius abolished the Games because of their pagan past.
"By means of geomagnetic investigation ... the first clear indications of the localization of the Hippodrome were found," said a statement sent to Reuters by Norbert Muller of Johannes Gutenburg University Mainz, which helped fund the search.
German archaeological teams have been continuously excavating at Olympia since 1875, but the racetrack has remained hidden by several meters of silt piled up on the floodplain of the Alfeios River. [ More ]
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How to ruin the ruins of Pompeii
POMPEII, ITALY–Nearly 2,000 years after it was buried and preserved under a volcanic eruption, the ancient Roman town of Pompeii is being steadily worn away by modern woes.
Decades of neglect, millions of trampling visitors and the ravages of sunlight and rain are threatening to wipe out for good one of the world's most famous archaeological sites and Italy's top tourist attraction.
Archaeologists and art historians have long complained about the poor upkeep of the Pompeii treasures, warning that its fading frescoes, leaky roofs and crumbling walls would not survive the test of time.
The 66-hectare site, of which two thirds have been uncovered since excavations began 250 years ago, offers a unique glimpse into everyday life in an ancient Roman town, frozen in time by the Mount Vesuvius eruption of AD 79. [ More ]
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Sir John A., Canada's greatest PM
First-time leaders of new nations matter.
Just think of the difference it has made to their respective countries having Nelson Mandela as South African president, while neighboring Zimbabwe had to endure Robert Mugabe. Among Canada's manifold blessings, one of the most significant (and underappreciated) is that Sir John A. Macdonald was our first prime minister.
Macdonald had as many accomplishments as William Gladstone and was as interesting as Benjamin Disraeli. His contemporary, Abraham Lincoln, preserved a nation, but Sir John A. Macdonald created one. As Richard Gwyn argues in his splendid new biography, Macdonald was "the man who made us." [ More ]
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Censored: Bosnia’s Nazi Past (with pix)
Bosnia’s Nazi past and role in the genocide of Bosnian and Krajina Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II has long been censored and covered-up in the U.S. and the so-called West. Film footage exists, however, of the Bosnian Muslim Nazi SS troops and Imams in the Handschar and Kama Nazi SS Divisions. [ More ]
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Ghosts of Vesuvius
On a ravishing afternoon in early May, Museum Victoria director Patrick Greene picked his way along the fire-scorched stones of the city where on August 24, AD79, time stopped dead.
The British archeologist made his first visit to Pompeii, a 44,000sqm slice of lost time that has only recently begun to show its age, in a spirit of professional homage. But he returned in May as something of a power in the archeological world, for next year Greene will bring Pompeii, or at least a good slice of it, to Melbourne.
Italian authorities, pledging to repair degraded buildings and improve tourist facilities, this month declared a state of emergency at the UNESCO World Heritage site, located near Naples, raising the possibility that Pompeii the touring show will be a marked improvement on Pompeii the tourist destination. [ More ]
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The Arab Uprising in German East Africa (1888-90)
The German East Africa Company governed the territory known as German East Africa (Tanzania). In 1888, Arabs in the coastal region rose up against the German administrators, whose conduct was resented. Joined by Black Africans, the Arabs fought the Germans (who were aided by the British) for over two years. In 1891, the German government, which had aided in suppressing the uprising, took over the territory, naming it a protectorate, and sent German East Africa Company founder Carl Peters to govern it as Imperial High Commissioner.
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Dig at Historic Cathedral Yields Treasures from 1700s
NEW ORLEANS — The first archaeological dig at one of the nation's oldest cathedrals has turned up a mix of new finds in the heart of the French Quarter. Discoveries behind St. Louis Cathedral include a small silver crucifix from the 1770s or 1780s and traces of previously unknown buildings dating back to around the city's founding in 1718.
The crucifix might have belonged to Pere Antoine, a Capuchin monk who was rector of the cathedral which dominates Jackson Square, lead archaeologist Shannon Lee Dawdy told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Pere Antoine came to New Orleans under the Spanish Inquisition as the Rev. Antonio de Sedella and lived in a hut behind the cathedral, where he was rector from the late 1700s until his death in 1829. [ More ]
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Nazi photos reveal devastation of WWII Allied bombing raids on Germany
Telegraph
The aerial photos, which show Germany before and during the bombing campaign, have been described as the most comprehensive record yet of the damage caused to the country's pre-war cultural splendor.
The pictures, which have only recently come to light, were commissioned by the Nazis to help with plans to reconstruct cities after the war.
Pictures of Dresden show the spectacular baroque Church of Our Lady before it was destroyed by controversial allied fire bombing, which killed up to 40,000 people. The church was recently reconstructed as a symbol of reconciliation between former warring enemies. [ More ]
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Iconic she-wolf nurtures a Roman archaeological mystery
Toronto Star
ROME–She suckled Rome's legendary twin founders and fed Benito Mussolini's ambitious dreams of renewed imperial glory.
For centuries, Lupa – "She-wolf" in Latin and Italian – has been a powerful Roman symbol. But some now contend that Lupa, a supposedly Etruscan bronze, the star of a city museum on Capitoline Hill, might be centuries younger.
"It's decisively medieval," says Anna Maria Carruba, a researcher who first studied Lupa when she worked on its restoration a decade ago.
"As I went ahead with my research, I was ever more sure."
The Etruscan period ran from the 11th to 1st century BC; medieval times ran from AD 500 to 1500.
If Carruba is correct, the statue could be more than 1,000 years younger than previously thought. The Capitoline Museums' website says Lupa is from the 5th century BC and was Pope Sixtus IV's gift to the museum in 1471.
Added separately, in the early 1500s, were the bronze figures of Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome who legend says were abandoned on the bank of the Tiber River and survived only because a she-wolf nursed them.
The almost metre-tall bronze is the centerpiece of a museum room named for it. Postcards and T-shirts of Lupa are popular Roman souvenirs. Mussolini used the image in Fascist propaganda to push for a return to ancient Roman glory.
In a front-page La Repubblica article this week, Adriano La Regina, who for decades led the national archaeological office for Rome, suggested Capitoline Museums is reluctant to release test results indicating the bronze is medieval.
"The new information about the epoch of the Capitoline bronze has been held back for about a year now from the public and experts," La Regina wrote.
Claudio Parisi Presicce, director of the city-run museums, insisted his institution is not trying to hide data that could subtract centuries from the she-wolf's provenance.
Data "aren't definitive yet, and we hope we can succeed in giving a definitive date" to the statue through carbon dating later this year, Parisi Presicce told news agency ANSA.
Carruba said carbon dating of bits of dirt and clay indicate Lupa was cast in 7th or 8th century AD using techniques for casting bronze developed in medieval times.
But some experts are skeptical. Alessandro Naso, an Etruscan expert at the University of Molise, said Carruba's conclusion "that it isn't ancient is based on indirect proof ... arguments for the medieval are weak."
Archaeologist Nicoletta Pagliardi said Lupa's origins "are really uncertain." With the statue "manhandled'' over many centuries, she said, carbon dating might be testing substances that contaminated the bronze long after its creation.
Parisi Presicce, the Capitoline Museums ' director, said that in medieval times, Rome's symbol was considered to be a lion, weakening arguments that Lupa was made during that period.
Carruba said her theory that Lupa isn't Etruscan does not diminish its mystique. "It's an amazing, fascinating, majestic sculpture."
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It's all one 'war'
NY Post
Members of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory.
Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics practiced by the enemy.
The three-part documentary is a companion to the best-selling book, "The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West" by Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson. The one-hour Part One of the documentary premieres Monday night at 10 on Ch. 13. The other two parts air the following two Mondays. World War II is the focus of Part Two.
His thesis: Instead of looking at the 20th century as having been disrupted by two world wars with periods of relative peace before, between and after them, it is more appropriate to view much of the history of the century as a continuous bloody conflict that was interrupted occasionally for a few short, exhausted catnaps of relative calm.
It is an illuminating viewpoint, and Ferguson does an effective job tying all of the century's mass deportations, enslavements, ethnic cleansings and genocides together so that you can't help being won over to his view that the violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
But it is Ferguson's revisionist view of the tactics applied by the Allies in World War II that is likely to raise the hackles of those who have always believed in the "necessity" of bombing German and Japanese civilians, culminating in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end a war we did not start.
"I think it's very hard for those who have imbibed the idea of a 'great generation' that what the Allies did to defeat the Axis was in some measure to adopt totalitarian tactics," Ferguson says in a Q&A on PBS's Web site.
"The aim of strategic bombing was . . . in large measure to kill German civilians by destroying the most densely populated parts of the country. And it only really worked when the level of destruction reached apocalyptic levels. It behooves us all to stare this reality in the face, by trying to understand what it was like to be on the receiving end of firestorms like the ones that engulfed Hamburg or Dresden."
And once again, it is demonstrated that nothing is sacred - not even World War II.
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How The CIA Saves Castro
The Bay of Pigs Invasion: The 1959 takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro and his followers prompted the exodus of many Cubans to the United States. When Castro's regime confiscated private property and established close ties to the Soviet Union, the USA placed trade embargoes on Cuba and anti-Castro Cuban exiles demanded the USA back an invasion of their homeland to topple the government. The CIA trained an exile army in Guatemala and on April 16, 1961 about 1,400 Cuban exiles invaded the Bay of Pigs, but were defeated by the Cuban army by April 20th. Most invaders were killed or taken prisoner.
Critics of the failure blamed it on the last-minute withdrawal of naval air support by President John F. Kennedy, but closer investigation disclosed that the CIA scheme was poorly planned, based on faulty intelligence and poorly executed. The invasion increased US/Cuban hostilities and required an expenditure of $53 million in food and medicine to secure the release of the 1.113 invaders captured by Castro's government.
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Peru discovers 'noble tomb'
Al Jazeera
Archaeologists have discovered an intact tomb near Peru's northern coast of a pre-Incan leader who lived 1,600 years ago, the group's lead scientist has aid.
The well-preserved tomb, which contained human remains, ceramics and jewelry, could help solve mysteries about Peru's ancient Moche Indian culture.
The findings were dug up in the province of Lambayeque, about 770 km north of Lima, where the Moche culture thrived between 100 BC and AD 600.
Archaeologists said the tomb, called Huaca del Pueblo, may be related to other important Moche ruins in the area, including the famed Lords of Sipan tomb that was discovered in the same area of Peru two decades ago.
Both sites include tombs built for prominent figures of the Moche civilization, which is characterized by complex construction techniques and works of art.
The team's findings include a body wearing gold-colored copper funeral masks and wrapped in reed, as well as gold-colored copper crowns, earrings, nose rings, necklaces of silver, seashells and technologically sophisticated objects made from copper.
The researchers also found remains of a young man nearby and animals thought to be alpacas or llamas.
The remains most likely belonged to nobility, Walter Alva, famed Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the Sipan site, said.
"Some elements like scepters and crowns of gold are those that identify people of the highest hierarchical level," he said.
Alva said part of the excavation is going to conclude in July, but the team hopes to resume work in December.
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Under Frederick II, the first rebirth of Roman culture
RIMINI, Italy: In December 1231, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II passed through Rimini. An inscription commemorates the event, noting that his entourage included "elephants, camels and other monstrous beasts." Other contemporary sources describe his peripatetic court traveling with lions, leopards, lynxes and panthers, with their Saracen keepers; apes, giraffes and bears; and ostriches, peacocks, Syrian doves and all kinds of birds of prey.
Accompanied by scholars, poets, musicians, artists, craftsmen and his Muslim mercenary bodyguards, Frederick - called "stupor mundi," the astonishment of the world - moved around his domains, which at their peak stretched from Jerusalem, through Sicily and Italy to Germany beyond the Alps. [ More ]
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The Children's Crusade of 1212
The crusading fever that swept Europe in the 1200's even infected children. A French peasant boy, Stephen of Vendome, recruited thousands of boys and girls, mostly under the age of 12, and led them to Marseilles. They sailed to Palestine to free the Holy Land, hoping to succeed where their elders had failed; the children were shipwrecked or sold as slaves by unscrupulous skippers.
Another group of thousands of German children led by a boy named Nicholas went to Italy, but was turned back. Many died of hunger, disease and exposure.
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Doubt over date for Brit invasion
Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain in 55BC could not have occurred on the dates stated in most history books, a team of astronomers has claimed.
The traditional view is that Caesar landed in Britain on 26-27 August, but researchers from Texas State University say this cannot be right.
Dr Donald Olson, an expert on tides, says that the English Channel was flowing the wrong way on these dates.
An invasion of the south coast at Deal on August 22-23 is favored instead. [ More ]
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English Canadians' Only Revolt
The Mackenzie Rebellion (1837): Canadian journalist William Lyon Mackenzie, strongly advocating a republican form of government for Upper Canada (Ontario), called for the
overthrow of the British-dominated Family Compact. About 800 followers of Mackenzie tried and failed to establish a provisional form of government at Toronto and were forced to flee to navy island on the Niagara River. There Mackenzie proclaimed a government. After Canadians loyal to the Upper Canada government crossed the river and burned the US steamship Caroline, which carried supplies to Mackenzie's rebels, Mackenzie, he abandoned Navy Island and fled to America. where he was imprisoned for 11 months for violating the neutrality laws. Later, under a general amnesty, he returned to Canada in 1849.
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Africa: History Can Be Cruel for Eritrea, Ethiopia
A decade ago Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki launched a border war in the Horn of Africa that killed 80,000 people.
As I left meetings with their top advisors in Asmara and Addis Ababa a few weeks ago, I could not help feeling that neither side seemed willing to admit that they once again have set in motion forces that could lead to another bloody battle in one of Africa's poorest and most conflict-ridden regions.
Month by month since last November Ethiopia and Eritrea have inched closer to war, each deploying more troops almost face-to-face across their common border, supporting opposition forces in the other country, and offering sanctuary to rival proxy forces in Somalia.
After five years of Ethiopia's refusal to accept physical border demarcation, the internationally recognized Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC) said, "enough. "It folded its tents last November and issued its final report, a set of map coordinates that designated the exact border between the two countries, a so-called "virtual" demarcation.
Not to be outdone in dangerous decisions, Eritrea essentially expelled the United Nations peacekeeping force that had physically occupied a buffer "Temporary Security Zone" (TSZ) along the border since 2000. Both sides now have reinforced their forces on the border with heavy weapons. Eritrea pushed its forces right through the TSZ to the border, arguing it was simply moving its troops onto its legal territory, as blessed by the EEBC. [ More ]
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Letter from Hitler, 1919
(September 16, 1919)
Dear Herr Gemlich,
If the threat with which Jewry faces our people has given rise to undeniable hostility on the part of a large section of our people, the cause of this hostility must be sought in the clear recognition that Jewry as such is deliberately or unwittingly having a pernicious effect on our nation, but mostly in personal intercourse, in the poor impression the Jew makes as an individual. As a result, anti-Semitism far too readily assumes a purely emotional character. But this is not the correct response. Anti-Semitism as a political movement may not and cannot be molded by emotional factors but only by recognition of the facts. Now the facts are these: [ More ]
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How the Saudis Got Their Start
The Egyptian War Against the Wahabis: During the 1730s, Arab theologian Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahab preached a reformed Islam, declaring that all doctrinal or ritual accretions made after the prophet's death were spurious and unorthodox. This primitive Islam, sometimes labeled puritan, swept Arabia after its adoption in 1744 by the Saudi family. Wahabbism remains today the official orthodoxy of South Arabia.
In the early 1800s, the Wahabi Saudis interfered, through piracy with the Indian Ocean trade of Ottoman Egypt's chief ally and benefactor, Great Britain. Muhammad Ali, pasha of Egypt, determined with the consent of the Ottomans, that the Wahabis be put down.
By 1811, the Wahabis, operating from their capital Riyadh, had gained control of Mecca, Medina and Jidda, and threatened. prompting the start of Muhammad Ali's campaign them in Arabia, normally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. The Egyptian invading forces under Muhamamd Ali and his son Ibrahim, fought bloody battles against the Wahabis in the desert and elsewhere for seven years. In 1818, the Egyptians had recovered the Muslim holy cities thanks to successful naval actions, and had control of the eastern coast of the Red Sea.
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Australia's White Nationalist Past
The Lambing Flat Riots: The severe Australian laws that prompted the Eureka Stockade Miners Rebellion were finally modified in 1854. Struggles over trade unionism revived in 1855; however, the Conservatives, whom the miners had termed "the real aborigines," were never really defeated by liberal movements. Strikes occurred during high periods of unemployment, especially against imported Chinese labor.
The settlement of Lambing Flat in New South Wales saw the worst of the riots against the Chinese, who were robbed beaten and killed by White miners who wished to force them from the gold fields in the area. Some rioters were arrested; others fought battles with the police, who restored order in mid-1861.
Alarmed by the protests, the effective passive resistance of the Chinese, along with the spread of racism that included the Australian aborigines, older Australian colonists who formed the legislative bodies restricted the Chinese to certain areas, and to discourage immigration by others, imposed a residence tax.
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Taste of History: Games Reenacted
Athletes and spectators have been re-living history in the ancient Greek stadium of Nemea, with a re-enactment of what they say are the 'true' Games. [ Video ]
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4,000-Year Old Egyptian Rope Found in Cave
The ancient Egyptian's secret to making the strongest of all rigging ropes lies in a tangle of cord coils in a cave at the Red Sea coast, according to preliminary study results presented at the recent congress of Egyptologists in Rhodes.
Discovered three years ago by archaeologists Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, the ropes offer an unprecedented look at seafaring activities in ancient Egypt.
"No ropes on this scale and this old have been so well preserved in their original context -- in Egypt or elsewhere," Bard told Discovery News.
Carefully wrapped in coils by ancient Egyptian sailors almost 4,000 years ago, the ropes were found in a hand-hewn cave at the ancient Red Sea port of Marsa Gawasis, 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of Safaga.
"The cave is really spectacular. Over 30 coils of ropes lie on the ground as if they had just been left there. Amazingly, these ropes were stored in the same way as nowadays sailors store their shipping cords -- just coiling and tighting them in the middle," archaeologist and rope analyst Andre Veldmeijer told Discovery News.
Most of the coils were recovered from the back of the cave. There are at least two layers of ropes. In their report, Veldmeijer and colleague Chiara Zazzaro of the University of Naples, estimated that more than 60 complete coils of cords are stored in the long, deep cave.
"Each cord is about 30 meters (98 feet) long and is very thick. No doubt these ropes were made for strong, heavy duties, Veldmeijer said. "Basically, they were hauling truss components. They ran above the deck, secured at the bow and at the stern, to produce structural cohesion for the ship,"
The theory is supported by the fact that the estimated length of the Egyptian ships is about 10 meters (33 feet) shorter than the ropes' lengths. This shows that sailors had five meters (16 feet) at both ends to tie the ropes.
The researchers are still puzzling over the material the ancient Egyptians used to make such a strong cordage.
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Christianity Wiped Out of Japan
The Shimabara Revolt -- 1637-38: Catholicism had been introduced to Japan by a Portuguese priest in 1549; he was followed by numerous missionaries who converted large numbers of Japanese to their faith. The Tokugawa shoguns (military ruler) frequently expelled the missionaries and forbade the Japanese to practice Christianity. In 1623 the new shogun re-issued all the old anti-Christian decrees and foreign and Japanese Christians were ruthlessly persecuted, especially on the southern island of Kyushu and on the nearby Amakusa Islands where the people had come into contact with the Portuguese and the Spanish. Christianity had taken root very early on the Shimabara peninsula east of Nagasaki on Kyushu and on the Amakusa Islands. Many Christians had been executed there.
At the end of 1637, thousands of Christian militants rose in open revolt against the oppressive religious, agrarian and taxation practices of the Tokugawa regime. About 37,000 rebels withdrew to the abandoned castle of Hara on Shimabara's coast early in 1638. and for three months withstood a besieging Tokugawa army of 100,000 troops. A Dutch warship, called in by the Japanese government, bombarded the rebel stronghold. Starving and lacking musket ammunition, the defenders could no longer hold the ramparts; the castle was stormed and captured and most of those within who were still alive were quickly put to the sword; only 105 were taken alive. The collapse of the revolt spelled an end to Christianity as an organized religion in Japan.
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The Long Life of the Frontier Mullah
Late one evening in March, I sat in Haandi, a Pakistani restaurant on Lexington Avenue, and watched the swearing in of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, Yousaf Raza Gillani. Gillani is a loyalist of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which since its founding in 1967 has been led by the Bhutto clan. The general election in February was held seven weeks after the PPP's chair, Benazir Bhutto, was killed by a bomb blast and a bullet to the head at an election rally in Rawalpindi, and in an acrid climate of grief, anger and bewilderment, the PPP ended up trouncing President Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League. A television suspended from the ceiling at Haandi showed Pakistan's new prime minister discussing the restoration of democratic institutions and then announcing the release of the sixty-two judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been living under house arrest since President Musharraf imposed martial law on November 3. Soon after Gillani's announcement, the television showed Chaudhry on the balcony of his house in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. Crowds of supporters danced about and showered him with rose petals.
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Jews Attacked in Old France
The Maillotin Uprising: The Hundred Years' War had devastated France financially, and the French people who bore most of the taxation the conflict made necessary, showed their displeasure in several aborted uprising, especially in 1380 and 1382. The Maillot Uprising in Paris was named for the lead maillots (mauls) carried by insurrectionists. Beginning as a riot over tax, it became a large-scale uprising in which Jews and tax-farmers were hunted down to be beaten and killed, houses were pillaged and the prisons of the Chalaet were stormed and opened. France's King Charles VI was only 14 in 1382, but he, his Council of Twelve and other officials attempted to negotiate with the rebels. The uprisings did not end until its leaders were arrested; most were put to death.
The hated tax was abolished but a secondary effect occurred: court interest in support of the Parisian municipal government ceased for 150 years, to be revived only because King Francis showed some concern.
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Hungarians Roast a Rebel
Dozsa's Rebellion (The Hungarian Peasant Revolt of 1514): Hungary's ambitious cardinal primate preached a crusade against the Turks, gathering an army of 100,000 peasants and appointing Gyorgy Dozsa to lead it. When the crusade was suddenly suspended the peasants refused to disband, deciding to march against their landlords who had cruelly oppressed and exploited them in the past.
The rebels ravaged the country, burning castles and killing nobles and their families until the lords' forces. led by John Zapolya (pictured) , governor of Transylvania and later king of Hungary, defeated them at Temesvar. Dozsa was captured and executed (he was roasted alive).
The Hungarian diet of 1514 severely punished the surviving peasants, increasing their taxes and obligations, forcing them to pay for the damages caused by the revolt, and sentencing them to perpetual servitude.
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The Basques' Long Struggle for Independence:
Charlemagne's Invasion of Northern Spain (777-801 AD): Apparently feeling secure in Saxony, and seeing Spain torn by internal strife, Charlemagne led a large Frankish army in 777-78 southward across the Pyrenees to the city of Saragossa, Spain. where the Ummayyads were resisting another Muslim dynasty, the Abbasids, His army was not admitted to Saragossa and proceeded to ravage several towns. Called home because of problems in Saxony, Charlemagne mistook Pamplona for a Moorish city. His forced razed it, angering the Christian Basques of Navarre. who together with Muslims, ambushed and massacred Charlemagne's army's rear guard, led by his nephew Roland, in Roncesvalles on August 15, 778. The Battle of the Pyrenees became the basis for "The Song of Roland," a famous epic poem that made a hero out of him.
Charlemagne never again entered Spain, but the people of Aquitaine continued to skirmish with the Moors. The Franks managed to subdue the Basques and forced the Moors south of the Ebro River in Spain. The city of Barcelona fell to the Franks after a long siege (800-801 AD) and was included in the Spanish March, a Frankish province in northeastern Spain, set up to contain the Moors.
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What Caused the Irish Potato Famine
[This article originally appeared in The Free Market, April 1998; Volume 16, Number 4.]
Daniel MacDonald (1821-53)British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized for doing "too little" in response to the Irish Potato Famine of the 19th century that killed one million people and brought about the emigration of millions more. But in fact, the English government was guilty of doing too much.
Blair's statement draws attention to the question of what caused the famine. Up to now, the popular theory is that the Irish were promiscuous, slothful, and excessively dependent on the potato. As a result they died by the hundreds of thousands when a blight appeared and ruined their food source, in the midst of one of the fastest economic growth periods in human history.
Was the Potato Famine an ecological accident, as historians usually say? Like most famines, it had little to do with declines in food production as such. Adam Smith was right that "bad seasons" cause "dearth," but "the violence of well-intentioned governments" can convert "dearth into famine."
In fact, the most glaring cause of the famine was not a plant disease, but England's long-running political hegemony over Ireland. The English conquered Ireland, several times, and took ownership of vast agricultural territory. Large chunks of land were given to Englishmen. [ More ]
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Was cave Christian church?
AMMAN, Jordan -- Archeologists in Jordan have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches and say it may have been an even more ancient site of Christian worship. But outside experts expressed caution about the claim.
Archeologist Abdel-Qader al-Housan, of the Rihab Centre for Archeological Studies, said this week that the cave was unearthed in the northern city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.
The cave is under St. George's Church, which some believe was built in the year 230, though the date is widely disputed. That would make it one of the oldest churches in the world, along with one unearthed in the Jordanian southern port of Aqaba in 1998 and another in Israel discovered in 2005.
Al-Housan said there was evidence that the underground cave was used as a church by 70 disciples of Jesus in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.
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King Solomon’s Temple: The Basis of Freemasonry
The Middle Eastern conflict and Freemasonry are uniquely tied together, it all evolves around and is correlated to King Solomon (1024-967 B.C.E), the son of King David (1107-1007 B.C.E), the Holy City of Jerusalem, and the Temple at Mount Moriah. Thus, over seventy-five (75) percent of the Freemasonic worldview and philosophy is constructed on the building of King Solomon's Temple. But the historical accuracy of the Masonic Solomon’s Temple does not totally lineup with secular history or biblical history as recorded by each school of thought, from the Masonic point of view part of this historical legend is based on mere allegory, symbolism, simile, metaphor, prototype, etc. However, King Solomon's Temple still remains as one of the most marvelous and fascinating topics of antiquity and in contemporary thought; and is perhaps one of the most talked about edifices in the world and throughout human history. [ More ]
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Fountain of Youth Seeker Massacres Indians
In 1508, Juan Ponce de Leon led a Spanish exploring expedition to Boriquen (Puerto Rico), where the Spaniards were at first well treated by the Arawak Indian inhabitants. Relations with them, deteriorated when they were forced to mine gold for the Spanish. Minot uprisings occurred until 1511, when the chief Agueybana planned an island-wide revolt. Informed of the plan, Ponce de Leon gathered 120 Spaniards. advanced through the forest and attacked Agueybana and his men. while asleep, killing hundreds of them.
Agueybana and others escaped and attacked the Spanish but were defeated, with the chief dying in battle. The remaining Indians fell back. Some made peace with Ponce de Leon, while others fled to neighboring islands to join with their former enemies, the Caribs, in struggles against the Spanish.
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Christians Wipe Out Dissenters
Paulician War, 867-72 A.D. The Paulicians, a dualist Christian sect that developed in Armenia in the mid-600s, established a Paulician state at Tephrike (Divrigu, Turkey) in the Byzantine Empire. Persecuted as heretics by the Byzantines, they nonetheless survived and spread their teachings, siding with the Muslims against the Byzantines. In 867 Byzantine Emperor Basil I began a military campaign to end the power of thr Paulician state and by 872, Byzantine troops took over Tephrike. killed the Paulician leader Chrysocheir and many others, forcing the remaining Paulicians to flee to Armenia and Syria.
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Cossacks Conquer Siberia
The Cossack Yermak Timofeyevich, leader of a gang of thieves who plundered the Russian countryside, was pursued for murder by government troops, fled up the Volga River and hired by the Stroganov merchants to protect their western Siberian holding threatened by the Tartars. With about 850 Cossacks, he set out on September 1, 1581, advancing up rivers, across the Ural Mountains and to the Tartar Khanate of Sibir by the spring of 1582. The Cossacks, using guns and cannons, triumphed over the numerically-superior Tartars, armed with bows and arrows. and seized their capital, Kashlyk in Western Siberia. Tsar Ivan IV (The Terrible) , at first opposed to involvement in Siberia, was later excited by Yermak's success. He gave Yermak a pardon and welcomed his Cossack envoys in Moscow. Troops sent by the czar aided Yermak, but the Tartar leader sent forces from the south that attacked and annihilated Yermak and and a band of Cossack in August 1854.
Yermak is alleged to have drowned in the Irtysh River while swimming across in flight, weighted down by a coat of armor, a gift from the czar. In 1586 Russian forces secured control of the Sibir Khanate, but the Tartars persisted in raiding into Russian territory and were not subdued in the khanate (Siberia) until 1598
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Americans Bite Off More Than They Can Chew
Mexican War (1846-7) Relations between the United States and Mexico turned hostile when Mexico refused to accept the U.S, annexation of Texas in 1845. Mexico also rejected the American claim that the Rio Grande was the Southern border of Texas, stating that it was farther north at the Nueces River. In1845 President James Polk sent John Slidell to negotiate the boundary question and purchase California and New Mexico; Mexico refused to negotiate. On April 25, 1846 Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor. The U.S. Congress, at Polk's request, declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. A U.S. army under Taylor crossed the Rio Grande, defeated Mexican forces and captured Monterrey on May 24.
On February 22-23, 1847. Taylor's army won The Battle of Buena Vista against a Mexican army led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. US troops under Gen. Stephen Kearny seized Santa Fe, New Mexico, then proceeded to California, where American settlers under Captain John Fremont had already declared independence from Mexico. U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott, took Vera Cruz, and advanced inland to defeat the Mexicans at Cerro Gordos, Contreras, and Chapultepec, and captured Mexico City on September 14, 1847. The Mexican leaders capitulated.
By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848, Mexico ceded to the United States what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and California; the U.S. government assumed the claims of its citizens against Mexico.
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Shroud of Turin will be on display again in 2010, Pope Benedict says
The Shroud of Turin, the mysterious yellowing linen which some Christians believe was Christ's burial cloth and others think is a medieval fake, will go on display again in 2010, Pope Benedict said yesterday. The Pope, who is by tradition the owner of the cloth, said he hoped to be able to visit the shroud in the northern Italian city where it is kept rolled up in an ornate silver box, "if the Lord grants me life and health." The cloth, which measures 4.4 by 1.2 meters, bears the inexplicable image -- eerily reversed like a photographic negative--of a crucified man. In 1988, carbon dating tests indicated that the shroud dates from between 1260 and 1390 -- implying it was a fake. But scientists are at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.
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"Romance" Destroys Irish Nationalist
Emmet's Insurrection (1803): Robert Emmet is highly regarded by Irish nationalists as the martyred leader of an aborted insurrection against the British, an uprising whose objective was to establish a republic based on French principles in accord with aims of Wolfe Tone, founder of the United Irishmen and Emmet's idol. With the leaders of that organization Emmet had spent from 1800- 1802 in France developing plans for the uprising, to be aided by the French. An accidental explosion at one of Emmet's secret arms caches made early action necessary in July 1803, but confusion ruined the insurrection: one contingent of rebels never arrived, a second went home thinking the uprising was postponed and a third waited vainly for a signal someone forgot to give.
Emmet and about 100 followers rashly and unsuccessfully stormed Dublin Castle. he then fled and hid in the mountains of Wicklow. Returning to be near his fiancee, he was captured, tried for treason and hanged on September 20, 1803.
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Brantford Ontario's Nasty Namesake
The CHERRY VALLEY MASSACRE (1778): During the American Revolution, two Iroquois villages on the New York frontier were destroyed by American colonial troops trying to put pressure on Britain's Iroquois allies . In retaliation, some 500 Iroquois under Chief Joseph Brant accompanied by 200 loyalist troops under Captain Walter Butler attacked the fortified town of Cherry Valley, NY on November 11, 1778. Every building in the town was burned in the town and about 50 defenders were massacred, including 20 soldiers and Col. Ichabod Alden, who was stationed at Cherry Valley with 200 men of the Seventh Massachusetts Continentals. Another 70 townspeople were wounded or captured before the attackers left.
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Vietnam and China: Longtime Enemies
The Trung Sisters Rebellion (39-43 AD): In north Vietnam, Trung Trac and her sister Trung Nhi became leaders of an aristocratic independence movement after the former's husband was murdered by a Chinese official for conspiring with other lords to overthrow their Chinese Han rulers, whose bureaucratic control threatened the indigenous Vietnamese feudal ways. The sisters led a rebellion and within a year seized about 65 strongholds, forcing the Chinese commanders to flee. They set themselves up as queens of a large independent state (north Vietnam) and after receiving no peasant support, their untrained troops were overthrown by invading Chinese led by General Ma Yuan.
After suffering a defeat at Hanoi, the sisters withdrew to Hat Mon and were decisively defeated there. Feeling disgraced, they drowned themselves at the confluence of the Red and Day Rivers; China took control of the region.
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Ukrainian famine was not a genocide
Globe and Mail
From as far back as 1917, we Soviet citizens had to hear and obediently swallow all sorts of shameless, not to say meaningless, lies. That the All-Russian Constituent Assembly was not an attempt at democracy but a counter-revolutionary scheme (and was therefore disbanded). Or that the October coup d'etat (this was Trotsky's brilliant maneuver) was not even an uprising, but self-defense from the aggressive Provisional Government (composed of the most intelligent cadets).
But people in Western countries never became aware of these monstrous distortions of historical events - neither at the time nor later. So they had no chance to immunize themselves to the sheer impudence and scale of these lies. [ More ]
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Montenegro's Valiant Independence
FIRST TURKO-MONTENEGRIN WAR (1852-3): Montenegro was a small Balkan tributary state the Ottoman Turks were never able to subdue completely; fighting the Turks was a perpetual occupation of the Montenegrins. It's movement toward Independence began when its prince bishop Danilo II separated the offices of prince and bishop in 1851 and made the throne hereditary. These actions exceeded his authority since he was a vassal of the Porte(Ottoman government), which sent troops in 1852 to Montenegro. The Montenegrins forced the Turks to retreat after several victories. The was had interested Austria, whose emperor moved troops to the border of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and ordered the Omar Pasha to withdraw from Montenegro, which the Turks did in 1853 when Russian pressure was added. No formal treaty was concluded.
THE SECOND TURK-MONTENEGRIN WAR (1861-62) Disorder and rebellion after the death of Danilo II caused the Ottomans to dispatch a large expedition under Omar Pasha to Montenegro. Turkish forces invested Cetinje, Montenegro's historic capital failed to subdue it but overran the small country. The convention of Scutari left affairs