Tag: history

The history of NATO in 80 seconds via BBC. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

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WWI 1914-1918

United Nations along with European Film Gateway published this great three minute video with scenes from World War I.  The fact itself that we are watching 100-year-old footage makes it special, while the tragedy and sadness of the first global war vividly comes through.

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tinytimetravel: “Serb Student Assassinates Archduke and his Duchess”, from the Washington [DC] “Times”, 6/28/1914 [p.1]. And so World War One began 100 years ago today with an assassination in Sarajevo. This account, from an evening edition, is noticeably short on details and incorrect on one important point: the bomb was not thrown by the “Servian student”, but by another would-be assassin earlier in the day. Gavrilo Princip, the young man who actually shot the couple, was the second assassin after the bomb-thrower, and if, later in the day, the Archduke hadn’t decided to visit victims of the bombing, Princip wouldn’t…

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Portraits from Ukraine: A Crimean Tatar’s Story

newyorker: In the first part of a three-part series, Jon Lee Anderson writes about the crisis of identity facing the Crimean Tatars, a community “forced to confront a complete upending of their lives” for the second time in seventy years: http://nyr.kr/1tXU3Td Above: Friday prayer in Bakhchisarai. Photograph by Davide Monteleone.

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todayinhistory: March 15th 1848: Hungarian Revolution begins On this day in 1848, a revolution broke out in Hungary. There had been a growing reform movement which demanded change and provisions for those who had been most affected by the economic downturn after the Napoleonic Wars. Journalist Lajos Kossuth became leader of this movement, and pushed for democracy and civil equality in Hungary. As it stood, the Hungarian elites did not pay tax but only they had the vote – the system was in dire need of change. The Habsburg monarchs tried to suppress the movement by blocking its legislation and…

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eretzyisrael: Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. January 27 marks the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.  In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated this day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD), an annual day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Nazi era. From 1940 to 1945, more than 1.1 million men, women and children were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp. 90% of them were Jews. All were innocent. Today, we remember Never Again.

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First meeting of the United Nations

First meeting of the United Nations This Day in History: 68 years ago today, the first ever General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convened at Westminster Central Hall in London, England.

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9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask I’ve never imagined there could be anything entertaining written about Syria at this point, but this one is the best I’ve read so far. Informative and entertaining at the same time.

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G8 – A Brief History

The annual G8 summit is about to kick off on Monday, so I thought I would do a few educational/informational posts about the G8 in general and about this year’s meeting in particular. So this is the first one in a series, watch out for the rest in the coming days. The G8 summit is held annually to gather eight world leaders in order to discuss current economic and political issues affecting their countries and the world. G8 stands for the Group of 8, that is, the eight most prosperous countries of the world. Almost. To be more specific, G8=G7+1….

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todaysdocument: Normandy Invasion, 1944From the Moving Images Relating to Coast Guard Activities series. See our past D-Day posts, including Eisenhower’s Order of the Day, and his hastily drafted “in case of failure” note, and a detailed sketch of a typical Platoon Leader in full battle dress.

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