World History – Page 4 – Sharing History

On This Day: The Last Entry

August 1, 2023August 1, 202320th Century, European HistoryLeave a Comment

To date, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, has sold over 30 million copies in 67 languages and is believed to be one of the most widely read books. Anne Frank’s diary gives readers an intimate look into what life was like for a young Jewish girl at the peak of the Nazi reign of terror. Heart-wrenching and inspiring, Frank’s diary should be required reading for everyone.

Many of us are familiar with the story of Anne Frank. The Nazis were on a crusade against Jewish people, and they didn’t intend to stop in Germany. In 1940, they invaded Poland and the Netherlands, where Anne and her family lived. By 1942, the persecution was so great, Anne’s parents feared for their family, and they went into hiding. Anne was only 13 years old.

Anne and her family lived in a secret attic space for two years, moving minimally and trying to be as silent as possible. To pass the time, Anne wrote in a small, red-checkered journal. On August 1, 1944, Anne wrote the last entry in her journal. The entry speaks of an internal struggle common to many teenagers: deciding who one wants to be and who they could be. Anne writes:

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-colour joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer.

. . . As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy.

. . . I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my hear inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.

Three days later, Anne’s family was discovered, arrested, and sent to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Months later, both sisters died from typhus. Anne’s father, Otto, was the only member of the family to survive. He was the one who found, edited, and published the contents of his daughter’s diary. Thanks to Anne’s courage and her father’s determination, generations of people around the world have access to Anne’s words and the opportunity to reflect on how to prevent such an atrocity from happening again.

Learn more here:

Order your copy of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl using our affiliate link here: https://amzn.to/47cNaoV

On This Day: Blériot XI

July 25, 2023July 31, 2023European HistoryLeave a Comment

On July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot completed the first flight across the English Channel—from France to Great Britain. In doing so, he won not only the London Daily Mail’s £1,000 prize but also instant notoriety. He became a designer and manufacturer of planes and wielded an influence that got the aviation industry where it is today.

Blériot was a manufacturer of car headlights when he became interested in flight. He worked through several models of planes, some towed by boats along the Seine and some powered by engines. His Blériot XI, the plane that transported him across the English Channel was the result of all this experimenting.

On July 25, 1909, Blériot flew his monoplane 22 miles from Calais, France, to Dover, England. The flight took about 36 minutes. In a New York Times article written by Blériot and published the day after his famous flight, he recounted that at one point during the flight, “I turn my head to see whether I am proceeding in the right direction. I am amazed. There is nothing to be seen—neither the torpedo boat destroyer nor France nor England. I am alone; I can see nothing at all. For ten minutes I am lost; it is a strange position to be in—alone, guided without a compass in the air over the middle of the Channel.” Upon his descent into Dover, Blériot lost both his wheels and his propeller, but in the end, he was able to land successfully. He was received by thousands of fans in both London and Paris.

In the following years, the Blériot factory produced hundreds of Blériot XI monoplanes and sold them the world over. Several nations, such as Great Britain and France, used Blériot XIs to equip their fledgling air force programs. He became a leader in the aviation industry and eventually became involved in producing biplanes used during WWI. Even after the war, he never stopped looking for ways to improve aircraft and make them more accessible.

Learn more here:

On This Day: Of the Lost Generation

July 21, 2023July 31, 202320th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A world-famous writer who championed a minimalistic writing style, he created a body of work that continues to inspire generations of readers.

Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

After Hemingway graduated from high school, he longed for adventure. He took a position as a reporter in Kansas City as he repeatedly tried to enlist in the US Army. Eventually, he became an ambulance driver in World War I. This experience greatly affected his world view and his writing. It was also the inspiration for his famous novel, The Sun Also Rises.

After being discharged from the Army, Hemingway took a job as a foreign correspondent in France. There, he met a group of American expatriates often referred to as the Lost Generation. This group included Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Lost Generation, or those who were young adults at the end of WWI, were considered lost because they found themselves in a post-war society in which the values and teaching of their parents no longer made sense for their own situations. They struggled to advance in life, felt the weight of materialism, and were emotionally beaten down by their experiences. This life and attitude greatly influenced Hemingway’s works. He explored themes of war, masculinity, love, and the meaning of life. He wrote novels such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. He also penned short stories like “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Hills Like White Elephants.” He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

While his personal life was not without its struggles, including bouts of depression, his art with its pursuit of meaning and frank exploration of the human experience has resonated strongly with readers for the last 100 years. It’s possible that his work is even more relevant now among Millennials, a group who identify strongly with the Lost Generation. Are Millennials the new Lost Generation? What would Hemingway have to say about their sense of disenfranchisement? Pick up a Farewell to Arms and find out.

Learn more here:

Order Hemingway’s works from an independent bookstore, like this one: https://www.strandbooks.com/search-results?page=1&ernest%20hemingway&searchVal=ernest%20hemingway&type=product

On This Day: Vive le 14 juillet!

July 14, 2023July 31, 2023European HistoryLeave a Comment

July 14, 1789 is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. While civil unrest had been building since earlier in the year, the Fall of the Bastille on July 14 was the first victory of the French people over the monarchy. In 1880, the day was declared a national holiday and has been celebrated ever since.

The French Revolution was a class war. The Bourbon monarchy, who had ruled France since the 16^th century, was being led in 1789 by King Louis XVI. His government spent money excessively, leading to economic recession. The average person in France couldn’t afford to feed their family while the bourgeoisie dripped with extravagant wealth. While the common people made up 98% of the country’s population, they had only a minority representation in the government, leaving them unable to make any changes.

The French people became more and more outraged at their position until, on July 14, a mob moved toward the Bastille, a prison that held political dissidents. It was known that a stash of weapons and gunpowder was stored in the prison, and the mob determined to gain possession of it. The attackers fought off the guards and occupied the prison, releasing anyone who was held there. The French people eventually took the Bastille down to the ground, crushing what was seen as a symbol of the bourgeoisie’s oppression.

Today, the 14^th of July is la fête nationale and is celebrated much like the US’s 4^th of July. There are parades, fireworks, and festivals throughout the country as the people of France celebrate their historic fight for liberté, égalité, and fraternité.

Learn more here:

Yellowstone/1923: Did Pres. Coolidge Really Have a Bear as a White House Pet?

July 5, 2023July 5, 202320th Century, US History, World HistoryLeave a Comment

It’s official, we are all obsessed with Yellowstone and all of the spin-offs including 1923. One scene in particular caught my eye, it’s when young Jack Dutton (Darren Mann) is reading the newspaper and shares a news item with his uncle, Jake Dutton (Harrison Ford) about Calvin Coolidge having a bear as a pet in the White House.

I assumed it was true, but wanted to verify, so I searched this particular event on The New York Times “TimesMachine” and confirmed that indeed, President Coolidge had a brown bear as a pet.

On Tuesday, October 23rd, according to the article, R.B. Pearson drove up to the White House with two brown bears in a cage from Chihuahua, Mexico. Mr. Pearson told President Coolidge that the larger of the two bears had been captured while it was in the process of killing a horse.

The description of Mr. Pearson is particularly entertaining, “(he)…wore his hair very long. He had on leather breeches tucked into top booths. His head was surmounted by a broad-brimmed sombrero.”

The bears were evidently a gift to Coolidge who agreed to accept only one (likely the smaller one), while the other bear was to be taken to the Bronx Zoo in New York. According to the article, Pearson captured the bears in the Mexican Sierras with his lariat (lasso) and had no regular home having “spent most of his life on the old Oregon Trail.”

I wish Jack Dutton would have read that portion of the article as he could have made a great comment about his grandparents also following the Oregon Trail (1883).

Coincidentally, Coolidge also had a famous pet raccoon named Rebecca. The Coolidge family received the raccoon to be cooked for Thanksgiving Dinner (yuck!) in 1926, but decided to keep it as a pet instead.

So, the bear story is true and we have added a raccoon, what other historical facts should we verify from the Yellowstone franchise?

https://www.nytimes.com/1923/10/23/archives/coolidge-has-bear-as-white-house-pet-old-plainsman-motors-3500.html?searchResultPosition=1

June History Hits: The United Nations Charter

June 27, 2023June 30, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, the United Nations Charter was signed. In the aftermath of the devastation caused by World War II, world leaders came together to establish an international organization committed to keeping the peace and protecting human rights.

After the second World War had ended, the leaders of countries around the world realized that the existing system of international relations was inadequate to prevent such catastrophic conflicts from taking place again. The world had witnessed horrors during the wars, including genocide and the use of nuclear weapons, which compelled nations to seek a new way to ensure that collective security would be prioritized over individual national interests.

Representatives from 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to draft and sign the United Nations Charter. The Charter established an organization that would serve as a forum for nations to resolve disputes peacefully. The United Nations Charter created several principles to guide the organization’s work.

The central goal is to maintain peace and security. The Charter encourages conflicts to be resolved peacefully and prohibits the use of force except in cases of self-defense or collective action authorized by the Security Council. The Charter upholds the sovereign equality of all member nations, but it recognizes the collective responsibility of nations to protect human rights. The Charter recognizes the worth of the individual and emphasizes social progress, equality, and the improvement of living conditions. The Charter also stresses the importance of international cooperation to address poverty, hunger, disease, and climate change.

According to the New York Times articles published on June 26, 1945 about the meeting, when the final text of the charter was approved, “an audience of more than 3,000 in the War Memorial Opera House jumped to its feet to cheer and applaud for a full minute” (Times Machine).

Over the years, the United Nations has addressed conflicts, including deploying peacekeeping missions to maintain stability worldwide, developing international human rights standards, creating Sustainable Development Goals to tackle pressing global issues such as poverty and inequality, and developing international law, including the prohibition of chemical weapons and the protection of the environment.

Despite its achievements, the United Nations faces ongoing challenges. Geopolitical tensions, resource constraints, and complex global issues demand renewed efforts to strengthen its effectiveness and adapt to evolving realities. Addressing climate change, gender equality, and socioeconomic inequality are among some of the most important tasks being addressed today.

Learn more here:

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/united-nations-charter’

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/06/26/88249150.html?pageNumber=1

June History Hits: The Father of Existentialism

June 20, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 21, 1905, Jean-Paul Sartre, a towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy and literature, was born. His insights into human existence, freedom, and responsibility continue to challenge readers and thinkers to this day.

As a child, Sartre excelled academically and earned scholarships to prestigious institutions, the education from which allowed him to cultivate passions for philosophy and writing and be introduced to phenomenology, or the study of the consciousness as experienced from a first-person point of view. This shaped his philosophical perspective, leading him to reject the idea of predestination and assert that individuals create their own fate through their choices and actions.

One of Sartre’s most famous concepts is the idea of radical freedom. According to Sartre, humans are condemned to be free, meaning that we are fully responsible for our choices and their subsequent consequences. This type of freedom is both exhilarating and daunting, as it demands that individuals confront the weight of their decisions without the comfort of predetermined values or moral absolutes. Sartre’s existentialism also delves into what we call anguish, existential dread, or ennui, which arises from the realization of our freedom and attendant responsibility. Essentially, these are caused by the fear of making the wrong choices. However, Sartre also argued that embracing this feeling is key to living an authentic life.

Beyond his philosophy, Sartre was a prolific writer who penned plays, novels, and essays that explored his existential themes as they worked among human relationships. One of his most renowned works is the play “Huis clos” or “No Exit,” where he famously declared that “hell is other people.” In this play, Sartre addresses the complexities of human interactions and the consequences of our actions on others. Sartre was also a political advocate committed to social justice. He believed that intellectuals had a moral obligation to participate in public life and actively challenge oppressive structures.

Learn more here:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/No-Exit-play-by-Sartre

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Paul-Sartre

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0621.html

Tereshkova and Ride: Pioneers in Space

June 16, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 16, 1963 and June 18, 1983 respectively, Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride became the first woman and first American woman to enter space. Taking the leap into the cosmos 20 years apart, these two women left a profound impact on the history of space exploration.

Valentina Tereshkova hailed from a humble background and worked in a textile factory and was an amateur parachutist before her historic mission. Selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants, Tereshkova was chosen for her space mission for her physical fitness, technical aptitude, and unwavering determination. During her three-day Vostok 6 mission, Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times. Her journey shattered the notion that space travel was a male domain. She paved the way for future generations of female astronauts and inspired women to pursue careers in science and space exploration.

Two decades later, Sally Ride embarked on her own journey to the stars. Ride possessed an exceptional intellect and a passion for science. In 1978, she was among the first six women selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps. On June 18, 1983, aboard the Challenger space shuttle, Sally Ride became the first American woman to venture into space. Over the course of her missions, Ride spent 343 hours in space, contributed to vital scientific research, and demonstrated the capabilities of women in the demanding environment of space.

Both Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride dedicated their lives to advancing science and education and promoting gender equality. Tereshkova became a prominent figure in Soviet politics who championed women’s rights, supporting initiatives for gender equality in the workforce and advocating for increased opportunities for women in science and technology. After leaving NASA, Ride became a professor of physics and founded the organization Sally Ride Science, which aimed to inspire young girls and other underrepresented communities to pursue careers in STEM.

As Gloria Steinem said, these women allowed “millions of little girls [to] sit by their television sets and see they can be astronauts, heroes, explorers, and scientists.”

Learn more here:

https://airandspace.si.edu/people/historical-figure/valentina-tereshkova

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/17/89536619.html?pageNumber=8

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/ride_anniversary.html

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/06/19/242461.html?pageNumber=1

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/06/19/242904.html?pageNumber=20

June History Hits: Country for Lease

June 9, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

The lease of Hong Kong began in 1842, following the First Opium War between China and Britain. As part of the Treaty of Nanking, China ceded Hong. Kong Island to Britain. Later, on June 9, 1898, the New Territories, a larger area encompassing the mainland territories, were leased to Britain for 99 years.

Under British administration, Hong Kong was given a new rule of law, legal system, and governance structure. They also introduced a comprehensive education system and healthcare reforms. The British encouraged international trade, contributing to Hong Kong’s emergence as a vital trading port.

The British lease generated challenges and controversies, specifically the governance structure that was heavily weighted toward British interests, limiting local participation in the decision-making process. The lack of democratic representation was a significant source of discontent among Hong Kong residents. This imbalance led to social tensions and demands for greater autonomy, which intensified as the lease approached its end.

In 1997, the lease of Hong Kong expired, and the territory was handed back to China. The handover marked a pivotal moment for Hong Kong as it transitioned from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region of China. Hong Kong was, at this point, promised a high degree of autonomy. However, concerns have arisen about the erosion of these freedoms.

Britain’s lease of Hong Kong plays a large part in the ongoing struggle of Hong Kong and its residents to define and defend their identity and values.

Learn more about Hong Kong’s history and present here:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Hong-Kong/Postwar-Hong-Kong

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/specials/hongkong/archive/

June History Hits: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor

June 2, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Few love stories have captivated the world’s attention like that of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson. Their marriage, which took place on June 3, 1937 rocked the British monarchy and changed the course of history.

Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, ascended to the British throne in 1936. His reign lasted only 11 months as the Duke fell in love with American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. Drawn in by her wit and charm, the Duke and Wallis sparked a passionate romance that transcended social norms.

The relationship between the Duke and Wallis faced numerous obstacles, not least of which was the fact that Wallis was twice-divorced. In a time when divorce was heavily stigmatized and frowned upon, the prospect of the King marrying a woman with a scandalous past sent shockwaves through the British Empire.

Faced with the choice between love and duty, Edward VIII made a historic decision, abdicating his position as King of England, declaring, “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love” (1).

Following what was termed the “Abdication Crisis,” the couple embarked upon a life of self-imposed exile. Their relationship endured scrutiny and criticism but the two remained devoted to each other. Their love story reverberated throughout history, leaving a mark on the British monarchy and highlighting the importance of personal happiness over rigid societal expectations.

Learn more about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor:

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/05/28/91332197.html?pageNumber=38

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/05/29/80790682.html?pageNumber=6

https://www.biography.com/celebrities/wallis-simpson