Note: The key icon
indicates member-only content.
Learn more about membership.
Rosemary Mahoney (11/08)
Some people categorize Rosemary Mahoney as a travel writer, but she is much
more than that label suggests. Her intellectual curiosity, fearlessness, and
ability to craft beautiful prose, along with her uncanny knack for being in the
right place at the right time, have led to her success.
Her first adventure occurred when she was ...
A Short History of Mongolia (11/08)
Mongolia (
map)
is located in Northern Asia between China and Russia. It should not be
confused with the Mongol autonomous region of the People's Republic of China
(known as Inner Mongolia), which is located in the north of China, bordering
southern Mongolia.
The name 'Mongol' was first recorded by the Chinese during the Tang ...
A Short History of Darts (11/08)
The origin of the game of darts is lost in the mists of time. The game is
known to have been played since at least the Middle Ages in England, but it
seems likely that bored soldiers lounging around the campsite have probably been
throwing arrows at targets for much longer. In fact, it doesn't take much
imagination to trace the ...
A Short History of Afghanistan (11/08)
Afghanistan lies on the historically important trading routes between the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. As a result of numerous invasions and migrations it is made up of many different ethnic groups including Baluch, Chahar Aimak, Turkmen, Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Nuristani, Arab, Kirghiz, Pashai and Persian.
Historically...
About The Dreamtime (11/08)
In
Lost Paradise, Nooteboom introduces us to Alma and Almut, best friends barely
out of teenagehood, as they leave their childhood homes in Sao Paulo, Brazil for
Australia. They're on a rather listless quest in search of The Dreamtime, an
Aboriginal concept of creation and spiritual existence with which the two best
friends have ...
Belief in Ghosts (10/08)
- A recent survey, cited by Boylan, reveals that 48% of people say they believe in ghosts, with women more
likely to say so (56%) than men (38%); overall, more than 1 in 5
Americans say they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost. Having said that, other
polls have put the general figures between 37%-65%, which does make ...
Little Known Facts About Stalin (10/08)
- Born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili in 1878, Stalin had as many as forty names, nicknames,
bylines and aliases throughout his life. He did not start to use the name
Stalin, meaning man of steel, until
1912.
- Stalin began writing poetry while at school (mainly in a
romantic-pastoral style that was the convention for ...
The Era of Witchhunts (10/08)
The period of the 'Great European Witch-hunt's' started around 1450. There are many theories as to why the witch-hunts started in the first place (which are neatly outlined at this
website - which, should be noted, belongs to a Catholic College); but the flames were certainly fed by Pope Innocent VIII's 1484 papal bull, in which he ...
The story of Chess (10/08)
Chess is thought to have originated in northern India or Afghanistan. The earliest written references are from around 600 AD but there is some evidence that the game could have existed as early as 100 AD. Interest in chess spread along the trade routes from India, with different
variations found in different countries, such as Shogi in ...
The Linking Threads of God and Gold (10/08)
As you might expect with a book about history such as
God and Gold, there's plenty of interesting points to highlight and even more for readers to birddog; but Mead is so polyhistoric in his knowledge and so profligate with his references, moving easily from Matthew Arnold to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it's hard to choose where to begin. Do we...
The Lost Empire of Khazaria (10/08)
Khazaria (
map) was an empire founded by semi-nomadic Turks in the 7th century. Khazaria was a strong ally of the Byzantine Empire and enemies of the Crimean Goths. By the time of its decline in the 10th century, Khazaria covered much of what is now southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the ...
A Short History of Saudi Arabia (09/08)
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers an area about the third of the size of
the USA, and occupies most of the Arabian peninsula (
map),
most of which is desert.
Its population is about 27 million, of which 5 million are foreigners
(technicians, merchants, diplomats and soldiers). 90% of citizens are
Arabs and all are Muslims (...
Janusz Korczak (09/08)
Tucked into
The Zookeeper's Wife is the equally myth-like
story of Janusz Korczak (
photo). A friend of the Zabinksis', Korczak was a Polish writer and pediatrician who founded a progressive orphanage for boys and girls in Warsaw in 1912. He had a popular radio show, enjoyed by both children and adults, and his children's book,
King ...
A Short History of Haiti (09/08)
The Republic of Haiti occupies about one-third of the island of Hispaniola (the second largest island in the Carribean;
map); the remainder being the Dominican Republic (Hayti means
mountainous land in the native Arawak* language).
In 1697, the French colonized the island and imported African slaves to work the lush coffee and sugar ...
A Short History of the Dominican Republic (09/08)
The Dominican Republic occupies two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti (
map). Claimed by Christopher Columbus in 1492, Hispaniola became a springboard for Spanish conquest of the Caribbean and the American mainland. In 1697, Spain recognized French dominion over the western third of the island, which became ...
Laos and the Hmong (09/08)
A Brief History of Laos
The Lao People's Democratic Republic, commonly known as Laos (sounds like
'louse') is located in South-East Asia where it is sandwiched by Vietnam on
the East and Thailand on the West. It shares its northern border with
China and Burma/Myanmar, and its southern border with Cambodia (
map).
It's population...
A Short History of Jamaica (09/08)
The island nation of
Jamaica is in the Greater Antilles about 385 northeast of the Central American mainland, and about 90 miles south of Cuba. Within a century of Columbus sailing the ocean blue and the subsequent Spanish occupation of the island in 1494, the native Arawaks (who called the island Xaymaca) had effectively died out, due to ...
eddie Chapman and the de Havilland Mosquito (09/08)
- After the war, Chapman dumped his various girlfriends and went back to pre-war lover Betty Farmer, who he last saw as he hurriedly extricated himself from dinner with her in order to escape the Jersey police in 1938. Their daughter, Suzanne, was born in 1954, and the Chapmans set up a health farm at Shenley Lodge in Hertfordshire (south ...
The Republic of Sierra Leone (08/08)
The Republic of Sierra Leone is a small country with a population of about 5.3 million on the west coast of Africa bordered by Guinea and Liberia. The life expectancy of men is 39 years and women 42 years. The name is an adaptation of the Portuguese, 'serra leoa' (lion mountains). During the 18th century it was an important center for the...
Ichthyology (08/08)
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology that studies fish. This includes skeletal fish, cartilaginous fish and jawless fish.
There are at least 25,000 fish species in existence. Each year, about 250 new species are discovered and described.
The largest species of fish known is the
Whale Shark, which can grow to up to 50 feet in length and can ...
Rankin Inlet & The Inuit (08/08)
Rankin Inlet (
picture)
has a population of about 2,200.
It is located on the 63rd
parallel on the west shore of
Hudson Bay (
map)
approximately 1,100 miles north
of Winnipeg in the recently
formed territory of Nunavut,
which was ...
A Short History of Lebanon (08/08)
The area now known as Lebanon (
map) was settled by the seafaring Phoenicians (also known as Caananites) around 3,500 BCE. They established city states such as Beirut, Tyre and Sidon. Over the next five millennia the area would come under the control of numerous empires including the Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and ...
A Short History of al-Qaeda (07/08)
The history of the Sunni-Muslim organization al-Qaeda ('The Base') can be traced
to the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Osama
bin Laden, a young, wealthy Islamic idealist from Saudi Arabia, felt compelled
to assist his fellow Muslims in their struggle against these 'infidels.' He
moved his factories to Afghanistan, and ...
Selected Events from the early 1960s (from a British perspective) (07/08)
1960: Penguin Books put on trial under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act for publishingLady Chatterley's Lover (30 years after it had first been published in Italy). They are found not guilty and the prosecution is widely ridiculed as being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor asks if it were the kind of book ...
Shopping Malls (07/08)
A shopping mall is defined as a collection of shops usually in one main building
or close series of buildings. It would seem that shopping malls date back to at
least the 10th century when it is said that
Isfahan's Grand Bazaar in Iran was founded (the current buildings date to
the 17th century).
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, ...
Yiddish Theatre in America (07/08)
More than 200 Yiddish theatre troupes performed in the United States between 1890 and 1940 (
photo of a theater group in 1909). In their heyday in the 1920s, twelve troupes resided in New York City alone, with 22 Yiddish theatres on the Lower East Side, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. Their repertoires spanned a variety of genres including ...
Poliomyelitis (07/08)
Poliomyelitis, more commonly known as Polio, is a viral disease that has plagued humans since ancient times. It is transmitted primarily through direct fecal-oral contact. However, it can also be transmitted by indirect contact with infectious saliva or feces or by contaminated sewage or water.
In over 90% of cases there are no symptoms ...
All About Cheese (07/08)
Cheese can be made from the the milk of any mammal capable of being milked. Simply put, cheese making is the process of removing water from milk. The simplest method is to add an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar directly to the milk; an alternative method uses bacteria to create an acid in the milk; the bacteria also provides flavor ...
Silk, and The Silk Road (07/08)
The Silk Road (
map) starts at the western gate of old Changan in
Xian which, in the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), was the greatest city in the world. The Xian municipality commissioned a red sandstone sculpture of twice life-size camels in commemoration, but the site is now engulfed by a supermarket - so the camels have been relocated to a ...
A Short Guide to Notable Historic Barriers (06/08)
Hadrian's Wall was built in AD 122. It measures 80 Roman miles (73.5 miles/117 km). It was the second of three stone and turf fortifications the Romans built across Britain to prevent military raids by the Picts (who inhabited what is now Scotland) but is best known as it is the best preserved. The lesser known walls are
Gask Ridge, built ...
Mental Health in the 19th and 20th Centuries (06/08)
- The events in The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox are based on a
real British policy which deinstitutionalized thousands of psychiatric
patients beginning in 1990. Margaret Thatcher's Care in the Community
program sought to end outmoded, Victorian-era mental institutions by
releasing such patients back into their homes, their ...
A Short History of Social Security in the USA (06/08)
- The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935.
- In the 1960s the age when men were eligible for retirement benefits was lowered to 62 and health coverage was extended to Social Security beneficiaries aged 65 or older.
- One in six Americans (45 million) receives a Social Security benefit, almost 1 in 3 ...
Nocturnal Climbing at Cambridge University (06/08)
Cambridge, the second oldest university in the English-speaking world, is located in the East of England. It is said that it was established by a group of scholars in the early 13th century who left Oxford (which was established in the 11th century) after two of their number were accused of murdering a local and hung by town authorities. ...
US Military Recruitment (06/08)
After several bad years, all branches of the military met their 2006 & 2007 recruitment targets (figures below are 2007 stats rounded to the nearest 1000):
- Army: 80,000
- Navy: 37,000
- Marines: 36,000
- Air Force: 28,000
This was a relief for the military, as the ongoing war in Iraq has made recruitment increasingly difficult. It is rare to try to ...
Shah Abbas I and the founding of modern Iran (06/08)
Evidence of settled communities in Iran date back to at least the 5th millennium BC (as evidenced by 7,000 year-old
wine jars that have been excavated in the Zagros Mountains).
Cyrus the Great is credited with establishing the first unified empire during his 21 year reign beginning in 550 BCE. He is also remembered for the
Cyrus Cylinder (...
Background (06/08)
Mark Mills is a novelist
and screenwriter whose credits
include the screenplay for
The Reckoning, which he
adapted from Barry Unsworth's
novel
Morality Play. His
first novel,
Amagansett,
set in the small
Long Island...
Some of the CIA's Biggest Blunders (06/08)
The Central Intelligence Agency has been riven by turf battles, political infighting, and the lack of qualified agents and analysts. But just as frequently, the CIA has been brought to its knees by thoroughly avoidable blunders…
from the (somewhat) droll…
In 1994, the station chief in Guatemala accused the American Ambassador, ...
Did you know? The US food supply chain factoids. (05/08)
- The average supermarket food item has traveled 1500 miles to reach our kitchens - that's further than most families go on vacation.
- If every US citizen ate just one meal a week from locally grown meat and roduce we would save 1.1 million barrels of oil every week!
- Six companies now ...
A Short History of Norway (05/08)
Norway is one of the three kingdoms in the geographical region known as Scandinavia (
map); the others being Denmark and Sweden. Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes described as Scandinavian because of their close geographical and historic connections with Scandinavia, although technically speaking these countries belong ...
Jewish Homelands (05/08)
Over the years a number of different plans for a Jewish homeland have been proposed. A 1903 British proposal offered 5,000 square miles of the Mau Plateau (in what is now Kenya) to the Jewish people as a homeland. This offer, presented at the sixth Zionist Congress in Basel, was in response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia. The ...
Uranium and Nuclear Power (05/08)
According to the
Uranium Information Center:- Over half of the world's production of uranium is from mines in Australia and Canada.
- 8 mining companies account for almost 80% of production.
- Nuclear energy supplies over 16% of the world's electricity.
- 31 countries use nuclear energy to generate electricity.
- 80% of France's electricity is from ...
Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (05/08)
Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (spelled Cixi in Pinyin; pronouced Tsoo Shee) had a bad reputation while she lived and after she died. However, in recent decades the tide of historical opinion has been shifting. Much of the West's view of Cixi comes from the writings of
Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944) who claimed to have had close contact with the ...
The Indian Caste System (05/08)
Without his violent act Balram Halwai, the hero of
The White Tiger, would have had trouble accessing upward social mobility because of the strict caste system in India. Many Westerners believe, because India is officially a democracy and the Indian constitution of 1949 banned it, that the caste system is a thing of the past, but in many ...
A short history of the French Resistance (05/08)
France capitulated to Germany on June 25 1940 and was divided into three key zones: A German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and unoccupied collaborationist 'Vichy France' in the south (
map). The French Army was disbanded except for a small force to keep domestic peace, and the ...
Background (05/08)
Vanora Bennett became a
journalist by accident; having
learned Russian and been hired
out of university by Reuters she
was catapulted into the
adrenaline charged realm of
conflict reporting. She has
reported from Paris, Cambodia,
...
Argentina: The Jewish community and the "Dirty War" (04/08)
Jews in Argentina
After being expelled from Spain in 1492, a number of Jews settled in Argentina where they assimilated into the general population, so by the mid 1800s there were few overt Jews in Argentina. When Argentina gained its independence from Spain in 1810, the first president officially abolished the Inquisition and encouraged ...
Fishing Facts (04/08)
Did you know:
- Today, the British know
the North Sea as muddy and
cold. It's always been cold,
but evidence suggests that
it wasn't always muddy. Just
100 years ago there were
vast oyster beds up to 120
miles...
A Short History of Czechoslovakia (04/08)
The lands now known as The Czech Republic and Slovakia were ruled by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for about 300 years until the end of World War I and the collapse of the empire. In 1918, a union was proclaimed between the Czech lands and Slovakia to form the Czechoslovakian state, an idea that had been advocated by Czech and Slovak ...
A Short History of Colombia (04/08)
About twice the size of Texas with a population of 44 million, Colombia is
located just south of Panama (
map).
ith a per capita GDP of $8,400, 49% of the population live below the poverty
line. From 1510 the area that is now Colombia was part of the Spanish empire until a nine year uprising led by Simon Bolivar resulted in the...
