Casting a wide net over the intriguing world of Modern History
The northernmost region of South America, with a coastline along the Caribbean Sea, is known as Guiana – an old indigenous word meaning ‘land of many waters’. For centuries it was home to the Arawok and Carib peoples, who were very similar,…
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This week, the conflict between the Israeli government and Palestinian militants in Gaza, escalated significantly. Hamas militants have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, and the Israeli military has carried out massive airstrikes in response. Several thousand IDF (Israeli Defence Force) reserve troops…
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For the last few decades, the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided into 2 independent regions. Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot majority controls the UN recognised, Republic of Cyprus, whilst the north is under the…
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It was 109 years ago this month that the RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Titanic foundered in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the deaths of 1496 people. To this day, there have been very few peacetime disasters at sea which…
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The resurgence of Christian Nationalism in the USA has, amongst other things, fostered the rise of Donald Trump, and culminated in the attack on the capital by Neo-confederate terrorists on January 6. But this kind of propaganda based lunacy is not limited…
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It’s hardly an original statement, but Brexit should never have gone to a legally binding referendum. A non-binding plebiscite? Sure. But given that the average voter doesn’t work in international trade, nor do they have sufficient knowledge as to how it operates,…
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On the 26th of December, 1991 the Soviet Union officially collapsed and the Cold War was over. The Capitalist democracies in the USA and the West had emerged victorious. Fast forward 30 years, and it’s now the United States in disarray. And…
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Welcome to December, the 12th month of the year. Of course, it used to be the tenth month – hence the “dec” prefix – until about 700 BC, when the Romans added January and February, so that the calendar covered a standard…
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Fans of the 1989 BBC comedy series “Blackadder Goes Forth”, may remember that when asked by Private Baldrick how did the war start, Captain Blackadder explained that it was simply too much effort NOT to have a war. With Remembrance Day (aka…
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Just as a stopped clock is correct twice a day, there is the odd separatist movement that defies the odds and succeeds. In fact, so far this century there have been 3. Though the human and financial cost were significant, in the…
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