BBC News has reported that a “first edition of one of the most important works of the man who inspired the Protestant Reformation has been discovered in a library in France. The publication by German theologian Martin Luther, called On the Freedom of a Christian, dates back to 1520. This was a year before he was…
70th Anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day
May 8th marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of Germany’s unconditional surrender in 1945. In the wake of Adolf Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz was appointed President of the Third Reich in the final 20 days before surrender. Provisionally signed in Reims, France on May 7th, Germany’s full unconditional…
The Battle (and rape) of Berlin 1945
This year we will mark 70 years since the end of World War II. It is difficult ethically to weigh loses in one battle over loses in another in a means to declare which conflict was more brutal and severe. However, symbolically the battle for Berlin, which ended on May 2, 1945, was the zenith…
The Fall of Saigon 1975
It has been 40 years since the fall of Saigon to communist forces near the end of the Vietnam War. It is hard to imagine, but the Vietnam War was fought over a period of 20 years, between 1954-55 and April of 1975. The conflict pitted the communist North, backed by China and Russia, against an…
Commemorating the Armenian Genocide
Yesterday, April 24, 2015 marked 100 years since the official beginning of the Armenian genocide. While this date symbolizes the beginning of a horrific period of mass murder, it is by no means meant to imply that acts of violence against Armenians did not occur before or after this date. It is merely a date…
Marking 150 Years Since the Surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox
This past week marked 150 years since General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. The American Civil War was an event of paramount importance to the formation of the modern United States, with remnants of social and racial division still present in relations between African Americans and Caucasians to…
Assyria and the Great Library of Ashurbanipal
BBC News ran a wonderful article earlier this week entitled “The men who uncovered Assyria“. The wanton destruction and barbaric inhumanity that Islamic State (IS) has demonstrated in Iraq, Syria and beyond has brought attention to not only the many innocent lives that have been lost, but indeed monuments, historic sites and invaluable treasures of…
Remembering the bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945
While I wish not to harp on the aspect of bombing since my last post on Dresden, the bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 is certainly worthy of remembrance. In a relatively recent article by Henry I. Miller with Forbes in 2012, Mr. Miller noted: “The nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo on March 9–10, 1945,…
The Bombing of Dresden in February of 1945
“On the evening of February 13 the catastrophe overtook Dresden: the bombs fell, the houses collapsed, the phosphorus flowed, the burning beams crashed…” – Viktor Klemperer, diary 1945 It is ironic that a German city would come to symbolize a war of such brutality and inhumanity. Dresden was an architectural and cultural prize representing a…
Russia: Forever a Time of Troubles
Westerners often consider Russia through the prism of the Soviet Union and the Second World War. But we must look further back if we wish to understand the modern nation’s fears, aims and motivations. Russia almost didn’t survive the beginning of the 17th century. Convulsed by civil wars, peasant uprisings, foreign invasions, mass famine and…
Maps that shaped the world
Bursting with information and often incredibly beautiful – maps do more than just showing you where you are, or where you might be going. The recently published Times History of the World in Maps features documents from ancient civilizations, through the medieval period, to some of the key events of the 20th Century. Click here for…
Michelangelo’s bronze panther-riders revealed after ‘Renaissance whodunnit’
Two handsome, virile naked men riding triumphantly on ferocious panthers will be unveiled as, probably, the only surviving bronze sculptures by the Renaissance giant Michelangelo. In art history terms, the attribution is sensational. Academics in Cambridge will suggest that a pair of mysterious metre-high sculptures known as the Rothschild Bronzes are by the master himself,…
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