Understanding the Treatment of Jews during World War II
As early as 1933, the Nazis had been sending people to concentration camps. Initially, these camps were located in Germany (like Dachau and Bergen-Belsen) and were used for [more…]
Debating Who Actually Won the Civil War
Wars are won and lost for thousands of reasons. Civil wars, because of the bitterness and cruelty they entail, often result in long debates about why one side defeated the other. No one is ever satisfied [more…]
World War II Comes to America: Pearl Harbor
Japan's ambassadors delivered the first part of a final Japanese diplomatic note to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull on December 6, 1941. On the morning of December 7, the final portion of the note [more…]
Examining the Leaders of North and South Vietnam
You can get a better understanding of the Vietnam War by taking a look at the leaders of North Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) and South Vietnam (Ngo Dinh Diem). Getting to know more about the two leaders in Vietnam [more…]
Understanding the Origin of the Greek Gods
The most complete version of the Greek creation myths that survives is a poem called the Theogony ("Birth of the Gods") by a poet named Hesiod, who lived in the late eighth or early seventh century B.C [more…]
Exploring How the Civil War Began
Wars have many causes. No one should ever forget that wars are fought for political reasons and objectives. Essentially, people or nations go to war to protect a vital interest, defend territory from an [more…]
Napoleon's Josephine: A Rose by Any Other Name
Napoleon's greatest love would come from the Caribbean island of Martinique. Napoleon never went there, but this woman's father, Joseph Gaspard Tascher de la Pagerie, owned a sugar plantation, complete [more…]
Understanding the Disputed Areas of the Middle East
Disputed areas may be the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East and the world. Disputed areas are, well . . . disputed because, in order to secure peace in the here and now, warring parties decided [more…]
Lewis and Clark: Wooing the Sioux
On their expedition, Lewis and Clark knew from their investigations in St. Louis that support and cooperation from the Sioux bands was vital to the success of American trade with the Missouri River tribes [more…]
Examining Rap's Origins
The rap music of today is an outgrowth of the mid-1970s hip-hop, a brash mixture of rhythm and boastful talking. Out of nowhere, the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight, [more…]
Declaring Independence for America
Starting in 1763, England and her American colonies began to irritate each other almost incessantly. Once blood was spilled at Lexington and Concord, war became inevitable, even though there were some [more…]
Adding Firepower with the Invention of Gunpowder
Between the twelfth and the eighteenth centuries, guns spread from China to western Asia, to Europe, and then around the world. They advanced from primitive experiments to precision technology. Warriors [more…]
Examining the Beginnings of World War II
Officially, World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and the French and English declared war against Germany as a result of that invasion. But the war's beginnings came long [more…]
How Historians View the American Revolution
In the 200 years that historians have written about the American Revolution, four major arguments, or schools of thought,have emerged. Each of them presents a firm argument about what the Revolution really [more…]
The Vietnam War Opposition in America Finds Meaning
Had the Vietnam conflict in 1964 been a brushfire, the war in 1967, by comparison, was a raging inferno. The United States had committed more than 365,000 troops to Vietnam by the beginning of 1967, and [more…]
True Conspiracy: The Ford Pinto Memorandum
The Pinto automobile was marketed by Ford from 1971 to 1980 to try to feed the new American appetite for smaller cars. With its dinkster four-cylinder engine, the Pinto was battling the Volkswagon Beetle [more…]
Waking Up to the Enlightenment
In "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy," an essay included in his 1687 book Principia, Newton wrote:
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their [more…]
Facing Racism and Sexism: Black Women in America
From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, black women were in a difficult position. Between the civil rights and feminist movements, where did they fit in? They had been the backbone of the civil rights movement [more…]
Lewis and Clark: Profiling Meriwether Lewis
President Thomas Jefferson never appeared to waver in his decision to send Meriwether Lewis to lead the Corps of Discovery into the American West. Though he had turned Lewis down to lead a similar trip [more…]
Language, Ethnicity, and Tradition in the Middle East
A great tension exists between different ethnic groups in the Middle East. In South Asia, for example, Pashtuns, Punjabis, Sindhis, Hazaras, Tajiks, and other groups are in constant conflict. In 1988, [more…]
Surviving the Black Death
Europeans in the fourteenth century were looking at the world in a new way, seeing far-off places as desirable, worth finding out about, maybe worth acquiring. Yet before Europeans really got out and started [more…]
Napoleon's Waterloo
Waterloo is a small town a few miles south of Brussels, Belgium. It's an unassuming place, with a church, a few inns, and some homes surrounded by old stone farmhouses and lots of open fields. Those farms [more…]
The Good, the Bad, and the Mortal: The Deities of Norse Mythology
The Norse deities came in two flavors, the Vanir and the Aesir. The Vanir were the older, fertility gods; they included Freyr, Freya, and Njord. The Aesir were more modern, warlike gods, which included [more…]
Diseases Decimate Native American Populations
From the 16th century through the early 20th century, no fewer than 93 confirmed epidemics and pandemics — all of which can be attributed to European contagions — decimated the American Indian population [more…]
Napoleon: Educating a Genius
Napoleon's family was not impoverished, but it was by no means wealthy. During Napoleon's childhood, the Bonapartes owned only a few rooms of a large house [more…]
