Charles River Editors
1) Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion: The History and Legacy of Early America's Domestic In
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Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government. Besides hampering the Continental Army, the inability of the national government...
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Spanish accounts and Mesoamerican ruins have ensured that 500 years later, people remain fascinated by civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, as well as sites such as Chichen Itza and Tikal. What is often overlooked is that the Maya and Aztec established kingdoms on lands that had been inhabited for millennia before them, and ancient cultures had not only left ruins but also influenced the civilizations that came after them. Thus, while sites like...
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The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production.
When...
4) The Diadochi: The History of Alexander the Great's Successors and the Wars that Divided His Empire
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On his deathbed, some historians claim that when he was pressed to name a successor, Alexander muttered that his empire should go "to the strongest". Other sources claim that he passed his signet ring to his general Perdiccas, thereby naming him successor, but whatever his choices were or may have been, they were ignored. Alexander's generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious...
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Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history nearly as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely...
6) Argentina and Peronism: The History and Legacy of Argentina's Transition from Juan Perón to Democ
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Until the 1930s, nationalism had always tended to be a phenomenon of the right-wing or the immigrant anarchists and Bolsheviks. Now, however, the emphasis shifted to the middle ground, and ironically, one of the issues driving Argentine nationalism was the outsized British presence in Argentine affairs, stoked recently by the preferential trade agreement. Perhaps most importantly, the seizure by the British in 1833 of the Islas Malvinas (or as the...
7) Colonies of British South Africa, The: The History and Legacy of British Imperialism in Modern So
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The Napoleonic Wars radically altered the old, established European power dynamics, and in 1795, the British, now emerging as the globe's naval superpower, assumed control of the Cape as part of the spoils of war. In doing so, they recognized the enormous strategic value of the Cape as global shipping routes were developing and expanding. Possession passed back and forth once or twice, but more or less from that point onwards, the British established...
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In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire...
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A white seabird with a teal beak dappled with pink and orange colors and a set of apple-red webbed feet hops from one branch to another with all the grace of a toddler learning to take his first steps. Not far from this charming bird, the red-footed booby, a majestic lizard the size of a plump house cat with coral-pink scales and black stripes, scuttles across the earth and ducks underneath a shrub for some much-needed shade. Feet away from the aptly-named...
10) The English Sweating Sickness: The History and Legacy of the Mysterious Disease that Plagued Med
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The plague, for all its horrors, became a known quantity that moved through a predictable progression, so by the 15th century, citizens learned to go on with their lives resigned to the fact that these curses seemed inescapable. However, in the mid-15th century, a new “febrile” disease of an entirely unknown cause struck again in Britain in a series of erratically paced and lethal outbreaks between 1485 and 1551. Confined almost entirely to England,...
11) Famous Dirigibles: The History and Legacy of Lighter than Air Vehicles from the Renaissance to Today
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Aircraft appeared in the skies over the battlefields of World War I, but they did not represent a complete novelty in warfare either, at least not during the early months of World War I. While airplanes had never before appeared above the field of war, other aerial vehicles had already been in use for decades, and balloons had carried soldiers above the landscape for centuries to provide a high observation point superior to most geological features....
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Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz died almost 200 years ago, yet he remains one of the most important and influential of all military thinkers. His teachings combined strategy with military knowledge to produce a dialectic approach to the philosophy of warfare, and his work is still widely taught in military academies around the world. There are few senior military leaders anywhere who are not familiar with his seminal book, On War.
In fact,...
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Although the ancient world was for the most part a patriarchal place, more than a few women rose to prominence and were able to exert political power. Hatshepsut (ruled 1479-1458 BCE) was ruler of Egypt's mighty New Kingdom, and nearly 1,500 years later the more famous Cleopatra VII (reigned 51-30 BCE) was the regent of the Nile Valley. Many other women in Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and Rome played significant roles as regents for their young sons...
14) War of the Keys: The History and Legacy of the Military Conflict Between the Holy Roman Empire and
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It has been famously pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, but it was also not an empire in the sense people expect when hearing the term. In theory, the emperor was the highest prince in Christendom, and his dominion extended the length and breadth of Western Europe. The empire had been created by the papacy when Pope Leo III famously crowned the supposedly unwitting Charlemagne in Saint Peter's Basilica, intending to...
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Few cities epitomize the best and worst of the United States like Detroit, which started as a remote trading post and grew into an industrious town before exploding into a bustling city. That city then fell, leaving a legacy of anger and despair only recently beginning to turn things around. At the same time, the same mighty city that proved capable of arming a nation at war found itself seething with social conflict. The massive labor force fought...
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The KGB is one of the most famous abbreviations of the 20th century, and it has become synonymous with the shadowy and often violent actions of the Soviet Union's secret police and internal security agencies. In fact, it is often used to refer to the Soviet state security agencies throughout its history, from the inception of the inception of the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission) in 1917 to the official elimination of the KGB in 1992. Whether it's...
17) Rise of Islam in the Balkans: The History of the Ottoman Empire's Islamization Efforts in Eastern E
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In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Naturally, the Ottoman Empire would also use Constantinople as the capital...
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On March 25, 1957, Italy signed the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), a forerunner of the European Union (EU) that was promoted as a guarantor of future peace in Europe. For the soldiers on both sides of World War II fighting each other 13 years earlier in the mountains around Monte Cassino, south of Rome, this would have seemed a highly improbable outcome. Despite British diplomatic efforts, Italy had joined...
19) Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt: The History and Legacy of the Egyptians' Concepts of Justice
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In ancient Egypt, the underpinning concept in law, in theory, was that rich and poor citizens should be treated equally, but this was an aspiration that was rarely fulfilled in practice. At the same time, the types of treatment delivered to those deemed guilty could also be harsh-common punishments included confiscation of property, slavery, beatings, and mutilation. During both the Old Kingdom (c. 2700 BCE—2200 BCE) and Middle Kingdom (c. 2030...
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In the late 18th century, as political unrest stirred in the heart of Paris, local residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the city's urban cemeteries faced a pressing crisis: the putrefying stink of rotting corpses, many of which were likely friends and family members, crept into every house and business due to overflowing burial grounds. The city's population had long since outgrown its centuries-old cemeteries, and mass graves packed tightly...