In March 1937 General Franco decided to halt his stalling assault on Madrid and redirect his efforts to the Republican-held territory on the Bay of Biscay, containing the city of Bilbao, Spain’s main industrial centre. The Nationalist offensive was led by General Mola and supported by indiscriminate German and Italian... More
In 1895 Spanish colonial authorities suppressed an invasion by Cuban liberationists, but a guerrilla insurgency continued, threatening US business interests in Cuban tobacco and sugar. The USS Maine was sent to Havana Harbour to safeguard American citizens on the island. In February 1898, it sank after a massive explosion. The... More
There are two broad models for the spread of agriculture, or indeed any culture: migration and diffusion. The former implies the conquest or displacement of pre-existing hunter-gatherers, the latter their conversion to the new methods by interaction or emulation. The archaeological evidence suggests a more rapid process occurred in the... More
The spread of early Christianity was not rapid, yet in just a few hundred years it grew from a small, often persecuted sect to the dominant western religion. Widespread preaching from apostles such as Paul (it is said he covered 10,000 miles in 30 years) allowed Christian teachings to be... More
The philosophical framework of Confucianism originates from the teachings of Confucius, known in modern Chinese as Kongzi, who was born in 551 BCE. Confucius established a doctrine based upon morality, ethics and leadership by example. Together with other teachings and works of art, these principles were compiled by Confucius and... More
W.E.B Dubois wrote of the post-Reconstruction South, ‘the slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back toward slavery’. The ‘Redeemer’ Democrats enforced their monopoly of political power with batteries of laws designed to suppress black voting. In Alabama, for instance, the black electoral roll reduced... More
The railroads were the crucible for organized labour in America: before the advent of the automobile, they afforded the only sizeable workforce with the mobility to orchestrate action at a regional or national level. The Great Railroad Strike (1877) resulted in over 100 workers’ deaths through violent suppression by militias... More
In 1754, Britain attempted to occupy French territory west of the thirteen colonies in a desire to expand its colonial settlements to generate more raw materials for trade. This antagonized the French who kept several trading posts there. The French also had colonies in the midwest, Louisiana and eastern Canada.... More
With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, much of the regional water supply sourced from the River Jordan and Lake Tiberias came under dispute, as the large influx of people to Israel massively increased demand for water. The especially high salinity of the Dead Sea, along with... More
The State of Gran Colombia was proclaimed at the Congress of Angostura in 1819 and Símon Bolívar, "The Liberator", was made its President. The ensuing Congress of Cucuta in 1821 promulgated the new state’s constitution. Ten years later, Gran Colombia was dissolved due to the political differences that divided the... More
Establishing a navigable passage from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was an ancient obsession. Attempts to build a linking canal are believed to date back to Pharaoh Senusret I, almost 4,000 years ago. The Persian ruler Darius I is reputed to have succeeded in opening an east-west canal linking... More
The first dynasty to rule what became the Sultanate of Delhi was the Mamluk Dynasty also known as the Slave or Ghulam Dynasty (the word ‘mamluk’ means ‘owned’ and the Mamluks became a powerful military caste in several Muslim societies). In 1206, following the assassination of the childless Sultan of... More