The Hama massacre marked the end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s uprising, a movement which began in 1976. Thousands of people in the town of Hama were murdered after the Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad decided to put and end to hostilities once and for all. On the Between the Covers podcast Molly Crabapple describes a conversation […]
The theory behind the genetic basis of the culture of honor has to do with the types of people who immmigrated to the different regions of the U.S. The North was populated by people of agricultural heritage and the South by people of herding heritage. Those with the agricultural heritage were used to relying on the law […]
Francisco Goya created a series of plates known as The Disasters of War between 1810 and 1820. The etchings, done on copper plates, depict the horrors of war: the violence of individual conflict, the punishment/murder of civilians, and the atrocitites committed agaisnt women. Goya sketched his drafts at the battle sites and later made the […]
The incident occurred in Cincinnati in 1884. A young man named William Berner was brought to trial for the murder of his boss, a prominent stable owner. Seven witnesses testified against Berner but, instead of being found guilty of murder, he was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Two days later an angry […]
Called the Tall Poppy Syndrome, it's presence in Australian culture makes sure that no Australian deems themselves above any of the others. The term refers to multiple lessons from ancient sages who would cut off the tallest plants in a cluster in order to level the field. Followers of the concept understand that some of them will […]
Called the First National Service School, it held camps 2-3 weeks long in order to train women in various aspects of military life. One of it’s graduates was Grace Lockwood. She went on to marry Archie Roosevelt, one of Theodore Roosevelt’s four sons. This is amazing for two reasons. One, Chevy Chase is right near […]
Wilson's Fourteen Points laid out the principles he deemed necessary for peace to end WWI. For his efforts, in 1919, he was the third American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A Marconi station was an early radio station named after the nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi. He won the prize for physics for his work in wireless […]
In 1916 A German U-boat, U-53, surfaced outside of Newport, Rhode Island. The ship was intercepted by an American submarine and, after the Germans requested permission to enter the harbor, followed them into the port. The German commander was taken ashore and for the next three hours he proceeded to give tours of his superior […]
Called Rio Roosevelt, the river flows through the heart of Brazil. It feeds into the Madeira River which in turn feeds into the Amazon. After his presidency, Roosevelt took what was supposed to be a speaking trip to South America. He soon found himself on an expedition to discern whether or not the ominous sounding […]
The Aymara people of Bolivia are unique in their belief about the spatial conceptualization of time. In their language, the word for front is understood to mean the past and the word for back is a understood to mean the future. Even their gestures indicate this belief, with speakers of the language gesturing further ahead […]
