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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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England has more often been faced with the claims of competing kings and queens than with a period of no monarch at all. The major exception to that rule came in the 11 years between 1649 and 1660, when England was a republic. Following the disastrous reign of Charles I and the civil wars that led to his execution, Parliament and the army ruled England. England's republican experiment started out as a work of collaboration and compromise; lords, army...
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People associate the story of ancient Jericho with walls, and for those who are Biblically inclined, they think of the walls that God brought tumbling down to the sound of trumpets.
For historians who are more archaeologically oriented, it may suggest the prehistoric walls uncovered by Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger between 1907 and 1911.
To modern societies, walls suggest the division between people and defenses erected out of hatred and mistrust....
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Shaped like an uneven triangle, Catalonia is comprised of four provinces that occupy an area of 12,390 square miles: Girona, Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida. Catalonia also has a variety of different kinds of communities surrounding it, as its northern neighbors include the powerful country of France and the tiny nation of Andorra. To the south it has the autonomous community of Valencia, to the west is the autonomous community of Aragon, and on the...
5) Modern Democracy: The History and Legacy of the World's Democratic Institutions Since the America
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In today's modern world every political regime, even the most authoritarian or repressive, describes itself as democracy or a Democratic People's Republic. The concept of rule by the people, on behalf of the people, has come to be accepted as the norm, and very few would overtly espouse the cause of dictatorship, absolute monarchy or oligarchy as the most desirable political system upon which to base the government of any country.
It is also generally...
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The technology that culminated in the Transcontinental Railroad's completion changed the life of every resident in America by connecting the two coasts, not only in the mind, but by the clock. In tandem with that, a new tide of powerful American industrialists had their way, to the benefit and consternation of the general public, and while decrying the avarice of steel and railroad giants, well-to-do politicians, and titans of the banking system back...
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The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together, to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event-known...
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For a period of just under 100 years, the city of Mari in northern Mesopotamia-eastern Syria was one of the most, if not the most, important cities in the Near East. Mari was ruled by a dynasty of powerful Amorite kings who were not afraid to use their military power to keep subordinate provinces in line and their enemies at bay, but more often, they relied upon a combination of diplomacy and trade to establish their dominance. Founded by semi-nomadic...
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"The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for." — Willy Cuppy, 19th century American humorist and literary critic
At one point or another, just about everyone has heard of the dodo bird, which is almost universally described as a cuddly, whimsical creature renowned for its alleged stupidity. This prehistoric avian had been known for hundreds of years before...
10) The Mercy Brown Incident: The Controversial History of the Search for Vampires in 19th Century Rh
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Today the Salem Witch Trials are often remembered as being a relic of a superstitious past, and Salem has transformed itself into a tourist haven and Halloween destination by capitalizing off the trials, which remain well known across America. However, most people have forgotten that New England had a "vampire" scare in the 19th century, when superstitious New Englanders looked to lore to explain tuberculosis, a devastating illness for which they...
11) Operation Mockingbird: The Controversial History of the CIA's Efforts to Manipulate American Medi
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Freedom of the press isn't just a fundamental right in America but a key part of the democratic process. When the United States secured its independence against Britain in the War of Independence in 1783, there was no certainty about what the new country would look like in terms of national governance. In 1787, delegates from the various states convened in Philadelphia to draft a constitution that would define this.
Freedom of the press became one...
12) The Battle of Breitenfeld: The History and Legacy of the First Major Protestant Victory of the Thir
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The Thirty Years' War was one of the most horrific conflicts in history, and though it is widely viewed as a religious struggle, that was only part of the complicated war. Calvinists and Lutherans did not get along, and both persecuted some of the more radical Anabaptist sects. At the same time, one major motivation behind the war was Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II's determination to rule all of the empire and not be just a figurehead. There were...
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On October 21, 1600, two massive Japanese armies, totaling an estimated 200,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with swords, yari (spears), arrows, muskets and cannons, faced off on a battlefield near the town of Sekigahara. A bitter fight to the death ensued, and the results would determine the course of Japanese history for the next 250 years. On the battlefield was the warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa, a man desiring domain over the entire island of Japan,...
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Water covers the vast majority of the planet, and people have looked upon the oceans for thousands of years with a mixture of awe and fear. The world's water offers transportation, connections with distant lands, food, and beauty. Furthermore, the deep seas and oceans remain largely unexplored, especially farther below. All of these factors have led to centuries worth of mysteries and stories. Countless people have ventured out on those vast expanses...
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A history of Burgundy could more accurately be described as the "history of the Burgundies," because at different points between 406 and 1795, there were at least 10 distinct entities known as "Burgundy." One of the least known of these was the Kingdom of the Burgundians, which lasted from 406-534. This early dominion developed into the Kingdom of Burgundy under the Merovingians and was finally subsumed into the next Kingdom of Burgundy, often known...
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By the mid-17th century, the existence of a land in the south referred to as Terra Australis was generally known and understood by the Europeans, and incrementally, its shores were observed and mapped. Van Diemen's Land, an island off the south coast of Australia now called Tasmania, was identified in 1642 by Dutch mariner Abel Tasman, and a few months later, the intrepid Dutchman would add New Zealand to the map of the known world. Taking into account...
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In addition to being ubiquitous parts of daily life, Egyptian religion and mythology were also complex, and while Egyptian society was polytheistic like other ancient civilizations, that's where the comparisons end. Religion was so pervasive that it heavily influenced funerary practices and the belief in an afterlife, and deities like Osiris and Isis (who are still well known today) had become so firmly ingrained that even the Ptolemaic pharaohs,...
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At the forefront of the Three Kingdoms was one of ancient China's most famous battles, fought in late 208 CE. An area of the Yangtze River located near modern Chibi City in the central Chinese province of Hubei was filled with ships as far as the eye could see. They were swift wooden vessels, built for speed and filled with hard faced men, arrows strung on their backs, ready to be released on the enemy. Massive warships with imposing war towers piled...
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For the most part, the Uighurs are based in East Turkestan, more commonly referred to as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. This prodigious plot of land boasts a total land area of over 1. 665 million km², or 640,000 mi², and is, as China puts it, the largest administrative division in the country. The pro-independence inhabitants of East Turkestan, on the other hand, have been fighting for decades to regain...
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At the start of the 1840s, the Oregon Country had no political boundaries or effective government. The only administrative organization in the territory was the Hudson's Bay Company, which applied only to British subjects, and aside from natives, the region was populated by a handful of independent traders, hunters, and prospectors, as well as those employed in the various company depots.
The first to begin showing up in large numbers were missionaries....
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