World History – Sharing History

A Monument to Love

June 18, 2024June 22, 2024World HistoryLeave a Comment

On June 17, 1631, Mumtaz Mahal, second wife of Shah Jahān, emperor of India, passed away giving birth to the couple’s 14^th child. It was the loss of the Shah’s greatest love that inspired him to commission the construction of an incredibly large and ornate mausoleum to house her remains. The complex took over 20 years to build and is now the most iconic of India’s monuments: the Taj Mahal.

Prince Khurram (as Shah Jahān was known before he acceded the throne) married Arjumand Banu in 1612. Upon becoming Shah, Jahān gave his wife the title “Mumtāz Mahal,” meaning “Chosen One of the Palace.” She had 14 children, seven of whom lived until adulthood. Mumtāz Mahal died giving birth to her 14^th child. Mahal was the Shah’s favorite wife, so he decided to build a monument to his love for her in the form of the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal complex is made up of five main sections: the gateway, the garden, the mausoleum, the mosque, and a building that mirrors the mosque. Each element was designed in the Mughal style, which married Indian, Persian, and Muslim influences. The most iconic building in the complex, the mausoleum, is made of white marble and features and onion-shaped dome and four minarets surrounding the main building. The Taj Mahal is visited by approximately three million people per year.

Unfortunately, air pollution in the country has caused damage to the marble. In 1998, the India Supreme Court placed some protective measures in place, including banning vehicle traffic in the area and installing pollution reduction measures in nearby factories.

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Summiting Everest

May 29, 2024June 15, 2024World HistoryLeave a Comment

On May 29, 1953 at 11:30 a.m., two men looked out across the earth from its highest point. These men, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, were the first in history to summit Mount Everest. Since then, more than 16,000 people have undertaken the treacherous climb to Everest’s tip 29,000 feet in the air.

Mount Everest, nestled in the Himalayas between Nepal and Tibet, is called Chomo-Lungma by Tibetans, meaning “Mother Goddess of the Land.” The name Everest was granted to the peak by the British after Sir George Everest, a British surveyor who completed the first detailed maps of the area. With its summit at 29,000 feet above sea level, the climb to the top is dangerous due to freezing temperatures and low oxygen levels.

The first British expedition to climb Everest set out in 1921. In 1924, a British climber named Edward Norton reached 28,128 feet, just 900 feet short of summiting. In 1952, a Swiss climber, Raymond Lambert, and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, made it to 28,210 feet. This was so close, that the British launched another expedition the next year, intent on summiting. The expedition was led by Colonel John Hunt. His militaristic, extremely organized approach to the climb was a key factor in its success.

On May 29, 1953, Hunt sent Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander who was a beekeeper by trade, and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa, on a summit attempt. George Band, a member of the Hunt expedition, said, “It had always been Hunt’s intention, if feasible, to include a Sherpa in one of the summit teams, as a way of recognizing their invaluable contribution to the success of these expeditions.” The two men reached the South Summit at 9 a.m. that day. They then took on the most technically difficult section of the climb—a vertical rock face about 40 feet tall. This section is now known as the Hillary Step. Hillary and Norgay reached the summit at 11:30 a.m. Hillary later recounted, “Both Tenzing and I thought that once we’d climbed the mountain, it was unlikely anyone would ever make another attempt. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”

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The Truman Doctrine

May 21, 2024June 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On May 22, 1947, the United States Congress approved a bill appropriating $400 million to the countries of Greece and Turkey. This massive show of financial support, called the Truman Doctrine, was a milestone in U.S. foreign relations. It set the precedent for the U.S. providing financial and military aid to democratic countries believed to be at risk of authoritarian takeover.

Truman speaks to Congress on March 12, 1947

The Truman Doctrine stemmed from an announcement made by the British government in February 1947. Since the end of WWII, the British had been providing economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey in their fight against communist factions. The Greek government was fighting a civil war against the Greek Communist Party, and the Soviet Union was actively trying to gain control of land and waterways in Turkey. Due to their own financial difficulties, the British government no longer felt able to provide support to these two countries.

In March 1947, President Harry Truman appeared before Congress to deliver an impassioned address beseeching them to approve aid for Greece and Turkey. He said:

“To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations. The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.”

He went on to declare, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” He asked Congress to approve $400 million for economic aid to the two countries as well as a contingent of military personnel to supervise the appropriation of those funds. Two months later, the Truman Doctrine was passed by Congress and aid provided to Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine has since been used as precedent for economic and military involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, among others.

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Of Scots and Brits

May 1, 2024May 7, 2024European HistoryLeave a Comment

On May 1, 1707, the Act of Union went into effect, solidifying the union of England and Scotland and creating Great Britain. In voting for this treaty, the parliament of Scotland voted to dismantle their own organization, deciding that the two nations would furthermore be ruled by only one governing body. What would prompt Scotland to voluntarily give up its independence?

In truth, the process of unification between England and Scotland began in 1603, almost one hundred years before the Act of Union came into effect. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died with no heirs. The next in line for the English throne was her cousin, James Stuart, who was the King of Scotland. He took upon himself the mantle of both crowns, uniting the two nations under one monarchy, though both countries maintained their own parliament.

The Stuart line ruled until the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689. During this revolt, King James II was deposed and exiled. King James II, a staunch Catholic was seen as showing favoritism to his Catholic subjects. In addition, he believed that as God’s chosen ruler, his word superseded that of Parliament. In fact, James II dissolved parliament in 1687, planning to replace it with one that might be more disposed to blindly obey. The revolutionaries put James’s daughter, Mary, a protestant, on the throne, and parliament declared any Catholics from the Stuart line would be skipped in the order of succession. It was also written, as Mary and her sister Anne did not have any children, that in the event that the Stuart line end with them, succession would move to the Hanovers, another protestant line. There were those who weren’t happy with the results of the Glorious Revolution and desired to see the Stuart line restored to the throne. These people were referred to as Jacobites.

By 1701, Scotland was struggling financially. Though they shared a monarch, the Scots were excluded from trade with England’s colonies, which they sorely needed. On their part, England was terrified of a Jacobite rebellion. Scotland fed their fears by passing the 1703 Act of Security, which declared that Scotland was not required to support the Hanover succession. In the same session, the Scottish Parliament passed the Act anent Peace and War, which said that following Queen Anne’s death, Scotland would resume control of its own foreign affairs, refusing to continue to fight in England’s wars without receiving any of the resulting financial benefits. In response, English Parliament passed the Alien Act of 1705, making Scottish citizens unable to trade with England. This pushed the Scottish Parliament to acquiesce to a union with England. The Union was passed in January 1707 and went into effect on May 1, 1707.

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The Creation of NATO

April 5, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On April 4, 1949, twelve nations signed a treaty, creating NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The goal of the treaty was to create a united front against the threat of Communist expansion beyond the Soviet Union. Each of the signed nations agreed that an attack on one was an attack on all. Since its inception, the organization has grown to include 32 countries. It is the largest peacetime military alliance in the world.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States leadership became concerned about the rising tide of communism. Besides its strong presence in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, large communist parties were emerging in France and Italy. The U.S. government enacted the Marshall Plan (named after then Secretary of State, George C. Marshall), which was a large-scale aid program for European countries devastated by the war. The U.S. also pledged aid (military and otherwise) to any country fighting against a Soviet takeover. Several Western European countries had already signed the Brussels Treaty, which created a military alliance between them, but the U.S. agreed that the risk was great enough to warrant their first-ever alliance with European countries since the 18^th century.

12 countries worked together to write the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed by the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom on April 4, 1949 in Washington, D.C. It stated, most notably that, “An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” This section of the treaty, Article 5, was used for the first time in 2001, following the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11.

Since the original creation of the organization, 20 countries have joined the pact, including Greece and Turkey (1952); West Germany (1955); Spain (1982); Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); North Macedonia (2020); Finland (2023); and Sweden (2024).

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The Origin of Daylight Savings

March 19, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On March 19, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signed “The Standard Time Act” into law. This act divided the U.S. into five time zones and established daylight savings. The act said that the clock would be advanced one hour on the last Sunday in March and pushed back an hour on the last Sunday in October. The idea of daylight savings came and went several times over the ensuing decades, becoming permanent in most states in 1966.

The idea of daylight savings time actually originated in Europe. Embroiled in World War I, European countries adopted the practice to reduce the amount of fuel needed to illuminate and heat buildings. It was also suggested that adjusting the time would increase productivity and have positive health effects. The U.S. took several years to jump onboard, with Congress finally passing the bill to instate daylight savings time on March 16, 1918. According to a Washington Herald article published on that day, the benefits of the bill for Americans would include: “Saving of one to one and a half million tons of coal per year, according to Fuel Administration estimates. Increased food production by suburban gardeners. Less traffic accidents. Improvement in health of all the people. More fresh air. Women workers will return from work in daylight. Speeding up of freight transportation by giving extra hour at docks and terminals. New York and London Stock Exchanges will be open for one hour together . . . More time for golf, amateur baseball and tennis.” President Wilson signed the act three days later.

The bill that President Wilson signed only enacted daylight savings for a few years. It took Congress several tries to repeal the act because President Wilson kept vetoing it. In 1919, Congress was finally able to override the veto and repeal daylight savings. Another daylight savings act was passed during World War II. It expired in 1945 at the end of the war. Over the next two decades, the observance of daylight savings was a local decision. It meant that one might pass through several different time zones within the same state. It wasn’t until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 that the issue was solved, and daylight savings became a permanent fixture in most states in the union.

Studies have debated the usefulness of daylight savings in our time. Some studies have suggested that daylight savings contributes to a decrease in productivity and an increase in accidents of all sorts. Furthermore, in 2022, a study done by Monmouth University said that 61% of Americans would like to do away with the twice-yearly time change.

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“Beware the Ides of March”

March 15, 2024May 7, 2024European HistoryLeave a Comment

You may have heard the famous phrase penned by William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar: “Beware the ides of March.” What are the ides of March, and why should we be wary of them?

According to the ancient Roman calendar, the ides were the 13-15^th day of each month. The calendar the Romans were using was extremely inconsistent. The calendar was on a four-year cycle with 12 months in the first and third years and 13 months in the second and fourth. The months could have anywhere from 23-31 days in them. To provide some uniformity, the months had three important days: the first day, called kalends, the fifth or seventh day (depending on how many days in the month), called nones, and the thirteenth or fifteenth day, called the ides. It was Julius Caesar himself who adjusted the calendar after coming into power. The Julian calendar he created had 365 days and 12 months.

Now that you know what the ides are, why should you beware them? Shakespeare’s line refers to the fact that Caesar was murdered on the 15 of March 44 BCE. Caesar had risen to power in the government of the Roman Republic over the last 20 years. He made himself prominent as a lawyer and invaluable as a military leader before appointed to the office of consul, the highest in their government. As such he pursued an expansion of the empire and became its dictator. A group of senators conspired to kill Caesar, hoping that they could restore the republic. They attacked Caesar on the ides of March, stabbing 23 times. Unfortunately, the assassination didn’t yield the hoped-for results. Instead, it caused a civil war from which Caesar’s heir apparent, Augustus Caesar, emerged the leader. This was the official beginning of the Roman Empire and the death of the Roman Republic. The ides of March turned out to be unlucky for both Caesar and the Roman Republic. Thus, Shakespeare’s warning against the ides of March.

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The Church of England’s First Female Priests

March 12, 2024May 7, 202420th Century, European HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 12, 1994, The Church of England ordained female priests for the first time. The ordination of these 32 women was so controversial that hundreds of male priests and thousands of church members left the church in protest. Despite the exodus, today, approximately 30% of the clergy of the Church of England are women.

In 1992, the General Synod of the Church of England (their governing body), agreed to ordain women to the priesthood of the church for the first time since the church’s birth in the 16^th century. For some church members, the announcement was met with excitement, gratitude, and relief. Angela Berners-Wilson, the first woman ordained as a priest on March 12, 1994, said, “it [is] the greatest privilege to finally be able to live out my calling . . .” Christine Clarke, another woman ordained that day said, “It’s been a long wait, but now there is a sense of everything coming together. There is a feeling that for this I was born. Now we are walking right into the central structure of the church.” The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, George Carey, was known to have said, “It is the humanity of Christ which is important, not his maleness.” While those who attended the ordination at the Bristol cathedral applauded the 32 women who made such an historic leap, there were thousands who left the church over it.

As a result of this ordination, several bishops and approximately 700 priests left the Church of England in favor of the Catholic Church, which still doesn’t ordain women to their priesthood. Thousands of church members followed them feeling that the ordination of women was, as Reverend Malcolm Widdecombe said, “against the tradition of the church and the teaching of Scripture.” To appease those who were unhappy with the change, the Church of England put several restrictions in place. Women could be ordained priests but not bishops (though this changed in 2015). “Traditionalist” bishops were assigned to each area so that those opposed to the ordination of women could have access to them instead.

There are now approximately 6,000 women ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England. Between over the last decade, almost half of new bishops appointed in the church were women. Despite this, female members of clergy continue to face discrimination from other clergy members and parishioners alike. The Church of England has created a group that studies “how women and men experience ministry differently in a range of contexts.”

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Happy Birthday, Barbie!

March 8, 2024May 7, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 9, 1959, Barbara Millicent Roberts was introduced to the world. Arguably the most iconic children’s toy in history, Barbie was an instant success from the day of her release. To date, over one billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide, and Barbie has been featured in art, film, magazines, and television.

Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler, who owned the Mattel toy company with her husband, Elliott and friend, Harold Matson. Ruth’s own daughter, Barbara, enjoyed playing with baby dolls, but as Ruth observed Barbara playing intently with paper dolls featuring adult women, Ruth felt that little girls needed a three-dimensional doll with which they could act out their future dreams. Thus, Barbie was born and named after Ruth’s daughter.

Barbie’s form has been criticized throughout the years for being an unrealistic and inappropriate representation of the female form. Mattel has addressed those concerns over the years; however, Barbie was, from the beginning, a symbol of female empowerment. Barbie broke the mold created by doll manufacturers; she was a career woman. In fact, she has had over 250 careers, including doctor, teacher, ballerina, astronaut, pilot, architect, renewable energy engineer, presidential candidate, and Olympic athlete. Barbie does not have a husband (though since 1961, she’s had boyfriend Ken, except during their breakup from 2004-2011), nor does she have children. She allowed young girls to imagine their lives outside of the traditional role in the family.

Barbie has never left the zeitgeist in the 60 plus years she’s been around, but she was pushed into the global spotlight yet again in 2023 when the movie Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie was released. Barbie was the top grossing movie of 2023, making over $600 million.

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The Peace Corps: Kennedy’s Legacy of Service

March 1, 2024May 7, 20241960s, 20th CenturyLeave a Comment

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order that established the Peace Corps, an organization of volunteers that work in countries around the world addressing agricultural, economic, environmental, educational, and medical problems. Presented as an idea to university students in an impromptu speech, Kennedy formed the organization that would send over 240,000 Americans around the world as harbingers of peace and cooperation.

About six months before its official establishment, during his campaign for the presidency, then-Senator John F. Kennedy visited the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He arrived late, at 2 a.m., but with 10,000 students waiting to greet him, Kennedy gave a short, improvised speech on the steps of the Michigan Union. In it he said:

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend on the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the efforts must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”

In March of the next year, after winning the election and becoming president, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 and established the peace corps, asking his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver to be its first director. The first group of Peace Corps volunteers left in August 1961, headed to Ghana and Tanganyika (presently Tasmania) to provide service. The service was very popular among recent college graduates, and the program grew to 15,500 volunteers by 1966. Since then, over, 240,000 volunteers have served in 141 countries around the world. Today, around 2,400 volunteers are serving with the Peace Corps.

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