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Muhammad Ali (soon Pasha) watches from the Citadel as the remaining Mamluks are massacred by his Albanian mercenaries. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1811, the Massacre of the Citadel took place in Cairo, Egypt. A brutal civil war was underway in the country following Napoleon's failed 1798 invasion, and the power vacuum created by…
An idealized view of one of Columbus' larger expeditions to the Americas, by Russian painter Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1504, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and his party were stranded on Jamaica. Having destroyed his remaining ships through bad navigation and even worse seamanship six months prior, Columbus relied on the…
A Han-era bathing scene in mural form. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 202 BCE, former police officer Liu Bang was crowned emperor of China. Henceforth he was known as Emperor Gaozu, and his accession kicked off the Han Dynasty, which remained in place for over 400 years. The new emperor had served within the…
Women and children gather to protest the arrest of 1,800 Jewish men in "Rosenstraße", a 2003 German film recounting the 1943 protests. (Margarethe von Trotta) On this day in 1943, officials from the Gestapo secret police arrested over 1,800 Jewish men in Berlin. The men had been allowed to remain in Berlin because of their…
Galileo hard at work, presumably after his house arrest. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1616, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was forbidden from defending heliocentrism, or the theory that the earth rotates around the sun. After designing a relatively sophisticated telescope in 1613, Galileo had observed that the earth was not, in fact, the centre…
Soviet Secretary Nikita Khrushchev "thaws out" in a 1962 cartoon by John Frith. (John Frith/The Herald) On this day in 1956, a speech entitled On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences - AKA the Secret Speech - was delivered to Soviet leadership by Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. The speech, which was not made available to…
A German U-Boat (submarine) and an American passenger ship. After February of 1917, U-Boats targeted vessels like this one, leading to America's entry into WWI. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1917, a note was handed to Walter Hines, American Ambassador to the UK. In it was the Zimmerman Telegram, a top-secret communication between German…
A collection of Greek resistance fighters of EAM during the mid 1940s. Like many communist-adjacent militant movements of the 20th century, men and women fought alongside one another. (Pinterest) On this day in 1943, the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (Ενιαία Πανελλαδική Οργάνωση Νέων, or EPON) was formed in Greece to combat Axis occupying forces…
Continue reading ➞ 02/23 – Respect Women or Die: The Amalgamation of the Greek Resistance
George F. Kennan, author of the "Long Telegram" and "X Article". (The Daily Beast) On this day in 1946, American diplomat George F. Kennan (AKA Mr. X) sent the "Long Telegram" to his colleagues in Washington. Wired from his office at the American Embassy in Moscow, Kennan's telegram - which was later published as the…
A scene of revolution in Germany during the 1848 "Springtime of Nations". (Public Domain) On this day in 1848, amidst a series of anti-monarchical revolutions sweeping Europe, The Communist Manifesto was published in London. Commissioned by the Communist League, the manifesto was written by Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In their work, Marx and…
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