The Mexican government’s recent actions suggest the ruling party yearns for the days when it governed unchallenged through cronyism. But order comes at a price.
Tag: history
With ISIS terror reigning in Palmyra, where treasured Roman ruins are at risk, reflections on a fascinating if less ancient part of its history: the Zenobia Cham Palace Hotel.
What were once quaint and distinguishable summer beach towns have become Disneyfied versions of themselves, identical places to buy knockoff brands and chain store coffee.
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Far From The War
The fishermen of Nazaré and their wives seemed far away from the turmoil their country was experiencing: A mere eight months before we visited the remote seaside village, the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence between Portugal and its colony broke out — an 11-year-long war during which thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides would […]
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So Long Sarajevo
This one is for the History books: Sarajevo would be almost entirely destroyed during the Bosnian war some 20 years after I took this picture.
Governments around the world — democracies and dictatorships alike — often change school textbooks and courses to fit their own agendas. From US history to Syrian schoolchildren, here are some textbook controversies in the news recently: EGYPT: TEXTBOOK REVOLUTION Egyptian news site Mada Masr reports that the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and […]
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Historical Stopover
Driving from what was then a peaceful Syria, we stopped in Jerash, in northern Jordan, to enjoy the view of the well-preserved ruins of the Greco-Roman city Gerasa.
The toppling of two Christopher Columbus statues in Buenos Aires suggests the president’s sympathies with the continent’s indigenous movements. It’s another of the government’s “confused” reinterpre
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Treacherous Trail
Driving on the “good side” of the fence, in a then-divided Germany, I was able to take a look at the infamous Iron Curtain. The sand below the fence wasn’t there to make landings easier for those fleeing from East to West Germany. No, it made it easier for border patrols to track them down.
Over the past two years, so-called “Female Virtues classes” have become popular across China, particularly among the less-educated. The classes mainly promote antiquated ideas about how women should be submissive. It’s obviously a shrewd businessmen’s way of cashing in — but the fact that flocks of women attend them also demonstrates a certain deep-seated ethical […]
Bags, pouches and purses are among the world’s oldest fashion items, used through the ages for carrying seeds, weapons and eyeliner. A history of this most indispensable adornment.
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Rebuilding Berlin
The monumental Karl-Marx Allee avenue in East Berlin, was a flagship project of the reconstruction program in East Germany after World War II.
The Armenian-Canadian newspaper Horizon Weekly featured a man kneeling before the eternal flame of Yerevan’s Armenian Genocide memorial complex, as ceremonies are being held in the Armenian capital in remembrance of the Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks, which began 100 years ago today. ABOUT THE SOURCE: Horizon Weekly is an Armenian-Canadian publication and is the […]
TEL AVIV — One day, six years ago, while working on a documentary for Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, television producer Ronnie Sarnat came across a strange story. “I sent a crew to film testimonies of Holocaust survivors and the crew came back deeply distraught,” she says. “One of the survivors came out to them, crying […]
The Nobel laureate, who died this week, helped Germany find its voice after the horrors of World War II. But his life ultimately embodied his nation’s struggles to come to terms with its past.
Kurds, persecuted by the Turkish state, are only now beginning to face the role they played in the mass execution of Armenians a century ago.
ROUEN — Coming out of the train station, the rue Jeanne d’Arc, a wide street along the river Seine in this northern French city, leads us straight to the Jeanne d’Arc bridge. And between the two, we pass many signs evoking the young warrior’s name: a cafe named “Jeanne d’Arc,” a church, of course, even […]
Lies and mistrust are spreading throughout society, destroying the relationships between people and states. How could it come this far? And what can be done about it?
Hundreds of thousands have left Spain, until recently a land of plenty with a booming real estate sector, to seek work abroad. American countries are favored destinations, even if recession is now raising its ugly head there.
The European Union was built atop the rubble of so much bad history, meant to build democracy and keep peace among neighbors. But something came undone, and the union itself is now in mortal peril.
Victor Gregg, a 95-year-old World War II veteran and the only Briton who was on Dresden soil during the Allied bombings on the German city, believes Churchill “should have been shot.”
What should be done with the house where Adolf Hitler was born? It’s a difficult question facing the Austrian city of Braunau as the 500-year-old building slowly falls apart.
In 1794, German immigrants brought a petition to the U.S. House asking for all legislation to be published in German and English. It narrowly failed, leading to the Muhlenberg urban legend.
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Deafening Rip
The theater of Epidaurus is famous for its incredible acoustics. In the center of the picture, our guide is tearing up a piece of paper to prove it: Sitting midway to the top of the rows as we were, we heard it perfectly well.
Where the French Revolution took place, religious terror now haunts the streets. Today’s voices of free speech must turn to state authority to feel secure. What we need to do now.
PARIS — The brazen terrorist attack against the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo that left at least 12 dead Wednesday has shocked the nation and the world. But it doesn’t come in a vacuum, following a series of attacks in the past few years that have no parallel in any other Western country. There […]
JERUSALEM — I was walking down Via Dolorosa — the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem. In front of me were three young Germans. They found the whole thing laughable, and kept confirming this to each other by pointing out all the stupid details. “Here, look, we’re at the next station. What does it say […]
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On This Day
Your 57-second shot of history.
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The Twisted Legend Of The Italian Lover
Where have you gone, Casanova? A new book surveys the dark side to the myth of the Italian male’s seductive gifts, from ribald ancient Rome to Berlusconi’s bunga bunga. But don’t give up on him yet.
-OpEd- BOGOTA — Mexico bleeds as criminal gangs kill the innocent and not-so-innocent, before the gaze of an impotent — or is it indifferent? — state apparatus. The latest victims were 43 student activists who disappeared in late September and, many believe, were shot dead and cut up by gangsters and policemen collaborating in the […]
-OpEd- PARIS — As Germany celebrates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Sunday, we mark the passage of time. Historically speaking, time is a variable. Much can happen in a quarter century, or very little. Twenty-five years was how long military service used to last for peasants in Tsarist Russia. […]
How about a selfie instead?
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In Emperors’ Footsteps
Not far from Beijing lie the Ming tombs — a collection of imperial mausoleums built during the Chinese Ming dynasty. To visit them, you must first walk down the Spirit Way, or Avenue of the Animals, where imposing animals carved out of single pieces of stone watch tourists come and go, as they did with […]
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Once Upon A Time, In A Peaceful Middle East
Though Petra is awe-inspiring, I’m not sure I’d go back today. A trip to Jordan must be very different now than it was 18 years ago. The colors on this shot of the Ad Deir monastery shows well why the archeological site is nicknamed “the Rose city.”
Bring your togas and laurel wreaths, just watch out where you snap your ancient selfie.
ISTANBUL — In our divided existences, everyone lives their own reality, with their own priorities. Right now, the demand that this city’s Hagia Sophia museum be transformed into a mosque has suddenly become the singular issue for a certain segment of the Turkish population. The Anatolia Youth Association announced a gathering at the iconic location […]
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They Name Horses, Don’t They?
Let me introduce Bébert, my uncle and godfather, back from plowing his field in my ancestors’ village of Chaignay — just north of Dijon in eastern France. Let me also introduce Bayard and Marceau, the two draft horses. Back then, it was customary to name horses after legendary figures such as Napoleonic commanders Kléber or […]
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Ghosts Of Winter Past
Were these the ghosts of relatives of Catherine the Great, chatting in front of Saint Petersburg’s Winter Palace? Probably more likely employees of the city’s visitor center, as the residence of the Russian Tsars and emperors is now home to one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, the Hermitage.
Protesters from the political far-right denounced the funeral honors bestowed on the last Polish communist dictator, General Jaruzelski. But with him gone, their cause may disappear too.
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Who Watches The Watchmen?
These two watchmen, with their lamps and bludgeons, were on their way to their day jobs at Den Gamle By (“the Old Town“), an open-air historic musem and major touristic attraction in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city.