#history
The Sydney Ducks were a gang of criminal immigrants from Australia in mid-19th century San Francisco, blamed for rampant crime and the devastating 1849 fire.
Harry Dexter White (1892–1948) was a senior official in the U.S. Treasury Department who played a significant role in shaping American financial policy towards the Allies during World War II.
The Soviet Union lacked internal legitimacy due to unfulfilled promises of communism’s material abundance, leading them to seek external validation as a superpower to bolster domestic support.
Manufacturing jobs have shifted from the Rust Belt to Southern states like Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, resulting in a reversal of manufacturing exports since 1970.
Blue Willow china is a classic tableware pattern featuring a transfer-printed design inspired by Chinese art, depicting a serene outdoor setting with consistent elements across various porcelain items.
Savitri Devi Mukherji (1905–1982) was a French-born Greek-Italian writer, Nazi sympathiser, and spy who worked for the Axis powers in India during World War II.
Over the past eight years, major biennials have focused on identity, rejecting Western perspectives, and reclaiming precolonial knowledge such as indigenous thought and magic.
Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration, treats migration as a technocratic solution to counter population ageing due to declining fertility in Australia.
Hitler considered Nazism a form of socialism rooted in ancient Germanic traditions, emphasising national unity and race solidarity while rejecting Marxist internationalism.
The Bretton Woods system established fixed exchange rates by pegging currencies to the US dollar, which was convertible to gold at $35 per ounce.
The study finds that present-day German regions formerly under Roman rule exhibit more adaptive personality traits (higher extraversion, lower neuroticism) and better health and well-being outcomes than regions not occupied by the Romans.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan rapidly industrialised and built a strong military, relying heavily on imported raw materials due to scarce natural resources.
Samuel B. Griffith II (1906–1983) was a brigadier general in the US Marine Corps who served in the Pacific during World War II, earning the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross for heroism at Guadalcanal and New Georgia.
Reading about Franco and Salazar revealed that right-wing authoritarian rule in 1930s Iberia, with conservative dictators suppressing liberals, eventually led to national stagnation.
In the early to mid-1970s, David Bowie made controversial statements expressing apparent support for fascism, including referring to Adolf Hitler as “one of the first rock stars” in interviews.
After a long journey, the author meets the Mali people in Papua New Guinea, who live in small villages using traditional building methods and sell crops like coffee and copra for money to buy tools and donate in temple rituals.
Realpolitik is resurging globally, with countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea practising it, and Trump’s approach focusing on deals that benefit the US narrowly, marking a shift from ideological engagement to national interests.
In 2023, the author interviewed historian Richard Rhodes about the unexpected success of nuclear non-proliferation, noting that predictions in the 1960s foresaw many more nuclear-armed states.
Chairman Mao promoted Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for political reasons, despite not believing in its effectiveness or using it personally.
Protestant evangelicals—particularly Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals—are rapidly growing in Brazil and are expected to outnumber Catholics by 2036.
Harry Haft (1925–2007) was a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was forced to box fellow inmates to survive.
America embraced Art Deco, a style combining classical elements, Modernism, and diverse cultural influences, leading to architectural masterpieces in the 20th century.
Modern houses differ significantly from historical ones due to increased wealth and investment in housing.
Estimates of the total agricultural land area – which is the combination of cropland and grazing land – per person.
The Black Death in the mid-14th century devastated Europe, the Near East, and North Africa, causing unprecedented mortality; one quarter to one third of Europe’s population perished, with similar losses elsewhere.