modern-history

Historians worthy of their craft must portray the past and present honestly, as accurately as possible, and ideally be unbiased. They should verify the truth of each subject to eliminate inaccuracies and establish the correct facts, or, at worst, as close to them as possible if no further research material is available. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as there can be too many inconsis…

The Pacific War (1941-45) was the theatre of the Second World War that saw Imperial Japan and the United States, with its allies, fight for control of various island archipelagos from the Solomon Islands in the south to the Ryukyu Islands in the north. In this article, the experiences of those directly involved in the air, land, and sea battles are presented.

The Election of 1860 was one of the most consequential elections in US history. It came at a time when the nation was deeply polarized, divided over the issue of slavery; indeed, the election was seen by many as a referendum on the future of slavery itself. Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the antislavery Republican Party, seemed a beacon of hope to abolitionists and the enslaved, but he was dee…

When the Australian military declared war on emus in 1932, they didn't expect to lose.

Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line by Rory Cormac brings Britain’s shadowy Information Research Department into the light. In 1977 David Owen, then foreign secretary, closed the Information Research Department (IRD). He wanted, he said, to ‘end the grey area, which for far too long escaped proper scrutiny, falling neither in the open area of diplo…

_ФИЛОСОФИЯ НАУКИ_. forthcomingThis review essay examines Christoph Mick's "Lemberg, Lwów, L'viv, 1914–1947: Violence and Ethnicity in a Contested City" (Purdue University Press, 2015), a study of how a city that in 1914 was half Roman Catholic, 28 percent Jewish and 18 percent Greek Catholic had become an almost homogeneously Ukrainian city by 1947, with some 80 percent of its inhabitants arrivin…

Tl;dr — A fantastic read with a novel perspective through the stories of a diverse westerners in the 19th century. A must read for history lovers, and those interested in fresh perspectives on US history. There is a simple history of American western expansion, one that permeates national history and K12 history lessons. It’s one of manifest destiny, wherein Americans courageously marched westwar…

For a generation of college students, 9/11 is history rather than memory. As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, most of today's college students were not yet born when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. At Florida State University, Professor of History Paul Renfro is helping students understan…

Africa held an important place in the Cold War. Hardly had the nations there freed themselves from colonial bondage than they were suddenly made into a battlefield. It was here that the United States and Russia, who did not dare fight on a Europe that had already shed so much blood, fought for supremacy. The Soviet Union tried to appeal to Africans as fellow revolutionaries and paraded capitalism…

Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general from North Carolina, who led the Army of Tennessee in the American Civil War. A strict disciplinarian with a prickly temper, he was despised by his men - indeed, Private Sam Watkins once wrote that "not a single soldier in the army ever loved or respected him". He was also hated by his subordinate generals and corps commanders, who often tried to get him fi…

The largest hoard of its kind ever found may mark the moment an epidemic swept through town.

How does a ruler implement state-building at the local level? This paper examines state-building in late 16th-century Japan by focusing on Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s land surveys, which were crucial for establishing a centralized regime. We argue that Hideyoshi strengthened control over the locality via land surveys as a strategic response to the perceived threats emanating from Catholic missionaries. …

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - New research by Dr Christopher Moore, a Research Fellow and former PhD student at the University of Kent, revealed evidence indicating that stone from Henry VIII’s long-lost Sandown Castle was reused in the Victorian extension at Constable’s Gate, Dover Castle. Dover Castle, Kent, UK. Constable's Gate. Image credit: Michael Coppins - […]

A new book consids how assumptions about race, sexuality, and Indigeneity have historically been part of the question of citizenship.

The Battle of Guam, in the Mariana Islands, took place in July and August 1944 during the Pacific War of the Second World War (1939-45). Guam had been US territory prior to the conflict but was occupied by the Japanese military in 1941. A massive US naval bombardment and amphibious assault eventually cleared the island of the Japanese occupiers but at the cost of around 1,700 US lives. Guam becam…

Ever since watching the movie The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, Jeb Smith has admired and been fascinated by feudal Japan and the samurai. The movie, based on various historical figures and events from 19th-century Japan, portrays the contrast between traditionalism and modernity. Here Jeb looks at the samurai in the context of the book The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori …

Interest in historical hoaxes involving credible public figures has remained consistent among readers of popular history, particularly cases documented across a long enough timeline to trace both the deception and its eventual unravelling. The Cottingley Fairies photographs represent one of the most thoroughly documented such cases, spanning from their creation in 1917 to a confession that did no…

A team of historians, archaeologists and forensic anthropologists is trying to identify 15 German soldiers who were unceremoniously dumped in a ditch after trying to help the British capture Philadelphia.