“The great Opium War of 1840 and the resulting transfer of Hong Kong Island to Britain. How Jardine and Matheson profited from the illegal trade of opium and convinced England to launch an assault on China. Tea and opium are intrinsically linked and one sixth of Britain’s economy was due to trade in opium, an illegal substance.”
10 Amazing Women Who Led Rebellions
“Male revolutionaries such as Che Guevara have gone down as heroes for leading rebellions against “the Man.” But forgotten by history are the women who took on far greater powers than Fulgencio Batista. Throughout the ages, women have led rebellions and revolutions which took on the might of the Roman Empire and the vast wealth of the British East India Company.”
“…Qin Shi Huang Di made life a little easier for the rest of China. He standardized all the measurments, roads, writing and other stuff so that it wouldn’t be so fucking confusing to travel around the country there. He built some wooden walls which would become the basis for the Great Wall of China, one of the greatest and most balls-out construction projects in human history. Sure, he was oppressive, tyrannical and brutal, but he was also pretty damn efficient and he laid the groundwork for a Chinese national identity that has lasted upwards of two thousand years.
He was also totally paranoid. Early in his reign, some jerk assassin named Jing Ke tried to stab Qin Shi Huang with a fan and even though Qin managed to whip out his sword and kill the shit out of Jing, he was pretty much untrusting of anyone from that point on. His paranoia led him to relocate the leaders of each of the states he conquered to live in the capital of Qin so that he and his men could keep an eye on them. He had royal food tasters try everything before he ate it. He rarely came out in public. He burned scholarly works that disagreed with his philosophy of Legalism and buried Confucian scholars alive so that they wouldn’t fuck with him. While there’s really nothing cool about burning books and executing scholars, you sort of have to respect the fact that Qin Shi Huang was willing to go that extra mile to ensure the longevity of his reign.”
Qin Shi Huang Di
“In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner, portrayed by Michael Fassbender) as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist (Brad Pitt) forever alters his life.”
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These stunning images are early photographs of some of the men who bravely fought for their country in the Revolutionary War some 237 years ago.
Images of Americans who fought in the Revolution are exceptionally rare because few of the Patriots of 1775-1783 lived until the dawn of practical photography in the early 1840s.
These early photographs – known as daguerreotypes – are exceptionally rare camera-original, fully-identified photographs of veterans of the War for Independence – the war that established the United States.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356524/Faces-American-revolution-Amazing-early-photographs-document-heroes-War-Independence-later-years.html#ixzz2hY3kfgeD Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
“Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), was a member of the House of Drăculești, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known by his patronymic name: Dracula. He was posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), and was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe. Vlad III is revered as a hero in Bulgaria as well for his protection of the Bulgarian population both south and north of the Danube. A significant number of Bulgarian common folk and remaining boyars (nobles) moved north of the Danube, recognized his leadership and became part of Wallachia, following his raids on the Ottomans.”
“This is the glorious story of the Hittites – the most powerful people in the Near East of their time. Narrated by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, “The Hittites” brings the fascinating history of this mighty empire to life with expert interviews, stunning cinematography, dramatic reenactments, and visual effects. Highlights include a breathtaking recreation of the controversial battle of Kadesh that decimated the armies of Egypt’s Pharaoh Ramesses II. Based on the actual words of the Hittites, deciphered from ancient clay tablets excavated in the 20th century, their story unfolds as beautifully as it written almost 3500 years earlier. “
“Mankind embraces a groundbreaking way of telling this epic human story. Drawing on a growing global interest in a revelatory field of history, now adopted by universities across the globe. ‘Big history’ focuses on the forces of nature to show how mankind’s path is guided by events that stretch back, not hundreds, but thousands, even millions of years. How the power of science, from geology and astronomy, to physics and biology, combined to shape our shared human journey. Revealing astounding global connections, and an astonishing interconnected story. This is history without limits. Free from boundaries and politics. Our story, like it’s never been told before. Written by History Channel “
Why do some civilizations advance while others remain stagnant?
Diamond argues that Eurasian civilization is not so much a product of ingenuity, but of opportunity and necessity. That is, civilization is not created out of superior intelligence, but is the result of a chain of developments, each made possible by certain preconditions.
The earliest human societies lived as hunter-gatherers. The first step towards civilization is the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, with the domestication and farming of wild crops and animals. Agricultural production leads to food surpluses, which supports sedentary societies, specialization of craft, rapid population growth, and specialization of labor. Large societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which may lead in turn to the organization of nation states and empires”
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THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: The Library
JUDAEA, First Jewish War. 66-70 CE. AR Shekel (22mm, 13.19 g, 12h). Dated year 3 (68/9 CE). “Shekel of Israel,” Omer cup with pearled rim; date above / “Jerusalem the Holy,” sprig of three pomegranates. Meshorer 202; Hendin 662. EF, attractive dark gray toning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“In which John Green teaches you how Russia evolved from a loose amalgamation of medieval principalities known as the Kievan Rus into the thriving democracy we know today. As you can imagine, there were a few bumps along the road. It turns out, our old friends the Mongols had quite a lot to do with unifying Russia. In yet another example of how surprisingly organized nomadic raiders can be, the Mongols brought the Kievan Rus together under a single leadership, and concentrated power in Moscow. This set the stage for the various Ivans (the Great and the Terrible) to throw off the yoke and form a pan-Russian nation ruled by an autocratic leader. More than 500 years later, we still have autocratic leadership in Russia. All this, plus a rundown of some of our favorite atrocities of Ivan the Terrible, and a visit from Putin!”
“Perhaps no other century in human existence experienced the terrible and remarkable contrasts of the 20th Century. The century was heroic and tragic, progressive and reactionary, forward-looking, and frighteningly regressive – a century of contradiction, confusion, and massive change. Faith and Fate focuses on how all these events and occurrences impacted on one specific group of people – a people whose survival has defied the ravages and challenges not only of this century, but of the over 40 centuries that have led up to it. Rabbi Berel Wein will take you on a remarkable journey into Jewish history. Faith and Fate powerfully and emotionally tells the story of how the events of the century impacted on the Jews – and the impact the Jews had on the century.”
“Idi Amin Dada, who became known as the ‘Butcher of Uganda’ for his brutal, despotic rule whilst president of Uganda in the 1970s, is possibly the most notorious of all Africa‘s post-independence dictators. Amin seized power in a military coup in 1971 and ruled over Uganda for 8 years. Estimates for the number of his opponents who were either killed, tortured, or imprisoned vary from 100,000 to half a million. He was ousted in 1979 by Ugandan nationalists, after which he fled into exile.”http://africanhistory.about.com/od/biography/a/bio_amin.htm..
THE TAIPING REBELLION (Tai Ping Tian Guo)
“The Taiping Rebellion referred to as the Tai Ping Tian Guo in Chinese 太平天囯 ( 太 Tai-‘Great’ ,平 Ping – ‘Peace’, 天 Tian-“Heaven’, 囯 Guo-‘Country or Kingdom’ ) the ‘Kingdom of Heavenly Peace’, was one of the bloodiest civil wars in history between the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese ‘Christian’ rebels, led by Hong Xiuquan ( old spelling Hung Hsiu-ch’uan ) who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, chosen by God to establish a heavenly kingdom upon earth and replace the corrupt Manchu Qing dynasty.The conflict, which took place mostly in south China , the Yangtze valley and in the Shanghai and Nanjing area, killed an estimated from 20,000,000 to 100,000,000 people killed (largely due to famine and wholesale slaughter of captured armies and cities which resisted ) . According to the census of 1851 there were 432 million in China. The next census of 1911 shows 375 to 400 million, which shows the staggering impact of the rebellions and natural disasters that beset China . There were other rebellions against the Qing such as the Nian and Muslim rebellions,but the Taiping rebellion was the largest in scale and came closest to toppling the Qing Dynasty”http://taipingrebellion.com/#intro
“Korean War in Color documents war-torn Korea the way the soldiers saw it-in full, shocking color. Many of the images included in the documentary have never been seen by the public before, having been kept top secret for decades by military officials for fear of a public backlash.”
watch now: http://documentarylovers.com/korean-war-color/#ixzz2ecs2qggf
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“Al Jazeera World – Syria The Reckoning Since its independence from France in 1946, Syria has been rocked by periods of political instability. br Syria The Reckoning tells the story of the past and brings it right up to the present to provide deeper historical context to the events of today as war continues to rage in Syria with the unleashing of many of the forces which had been previously repressed. br br As the colonial hold of the great powers began to fade and the region witnessed a wave of Arab nationalism, Syria shifted through a succession of military coup”
“What was the worst month in history? An American might say December, 1941, with the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. To a Japanese, it could be August, 1945, with the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Renaissance writers might have pointed to May, 1453, with the fall of Constantinople, or maybe May, 1527, with the sack of Rome. For sheer barbarity, probably nothing was worse than January 1943, when about 600,000 died at the battle of Stalingrad”.
“American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe the multiple conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America from the time of earliest colonial settlement until approximately 1890. The wars resulted as the arrival of European colonists continuously led to population pressure as settlers expanded their territory, generally pushing indigenous people westward. Many conflicts were local, involving disputes over land use, and some entailed cycles of reprisal. Particularly in later years, conflicts were spurred by ideologies such as Manifest Destiny, which held that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast on the American continent. A main driver of many of these conflicts was the policy of Indian removal, which was a planned, large scale removal of indigenous peoples from the areas where Europeans were settling, either by armed conflict or through sale or exchange of territory through treaties.” Wikipedia
FINDING DULCINEA: Librarian of the Internet
“Our mission is to bring users the best information on the Web for any topic, employing human insight and methodical review.
FindingDulcinea presents only credible, high-quality and trustworthy Web sites, saving time for the novice and the experienced user alike.
Each piece, whether a Web Guide, a Beyond the Headlines story or a Netcetera article, receives the same meticulous research. The Web sites included in each piece are connected through original narrative, providing users with information on each site before they even click on it.”
I Love History...and Research 