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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...
2) Greco-Roman Technology: The History of Inventions and Improvements Made by the Ancient Greeks and
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In virtually all fields of human endeavor Athens was so much at the forefront of dynamism and innovation that the products of its most brilliant minds remain not only influential but entirely relevant to this day. In the field of medicine, the great physician Hippocrates not only advanced the practical knowledge of human anatomy and care-giving but changed the entire face of the medical profession. The great philosophers of Athens, men like Aristotle,...
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When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians.
The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old...
4) Western Democracy: The History and Legacy of Representative Governments in the West from the Anci
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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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In September 2012, on a chilly morning, a Russian kid named Yevgeny Zhenya and his dogs were walking to school, when an awful smell made them stop. The 11-year-old wanted to find out what smelled so bad, and with the help of his furry friends, he went to explore the land. They stumbled upon a giant pair of heels that were covered in an immense pile of snow! What could such a giant thing be?
The creature he found turned out to be a 16-year-old mammoth...
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To many, the mention of maritime merchants evokes an imagery of growling pirates donned in their stereotypical hats and a colorful parrot perched upon their shoulders. These nautical rascals wander the high seas in search of treasure and adventure. Though that imagery may be inaccurate, the real life companies that once dominated international waters operated on a similar thirst for conquest and riches.
Perhaps the most famous—or as many would...
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As Earth entered the Cambrian Period, there was a relatively sudden increase in life form diversity throughout the oceans. Completely new forms of life, more complex and more diverse than anything that had been seen before, began to spread. This acceleration in the evolution of new forms of life was so dramatic that this has come to be known as the "Cambrian explosion."
Although new species in the Cambrian explosion developed almost entirely in the...
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One September day, New York City suffered a devastating act of domestic terrorism, but that day was not the 11th, and the attack took place over 80 years before the most notorious terrorist attack on America. In 1920, an explosion in the Financial District of New York City killed 38 people, injured hundreds more, and caused damage that is still visible on some of Wall Street's most famous buildings today. Although the attack has largely been forgotten,...
9) The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: The History and Legacy of the Protests Across America Over Wag
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When trains were introduced as a popular means of transportation, some of the first tracks laid terminated in New York, and the expansion of railroads led to the birth of train stations across the country. In general, these were small buildings where passenger could buy tickets and wait for their trains to arrive, and according an article written by Samuel Dunn around the turn of the 20th century, "The first Manhattan terminal was opened in 1832 at...
10) Janissaries and Sipahi: The History of the Elite Infantry and Cavalry that Fueled the Ottoman Empire
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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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"They have soldiers. We only have arguments." — French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé Near the end of the 19th century, Otto von Bismarck, 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 as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa....
12) The Chisholm Trail: The History and Legacy of 19th Century America's Most Famous Cattle Drive Route
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Around the time that the Civil War ended in 1865, the open ranges of south Texas were full of the cattle, known as longhorns. Hundreds of thousands of the distinctive steer, with their horns spanning as much as seven feet from tip to tip, roamed free on the range, so cattle ranchers took advantage of the bounty and claimed the wild longhorns as their own. With a beef shortage on the East Coast, the demand for cattle was high, so the ranchers just...
13) The Gutians: The History and Legacy of the Asian Nomads Who Spread across the Near East in Antiq
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The ancient Gutians are probably not one of the groups that come to most people's minds when they think of barbarian hordes, but they were among the most important in the Bronze Age Near East. Little is known about the Gutians before they entered the historical record around 2200 BCE. in Mesopotamia, and even after that point, the contemporary records are open to interpretation because they are “obviously” biased against the outsiders.
Since...
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The Netherlands has had a complex and turbulent history involving the interplay of multiple political entities, ethnicities, and languages. The term "Netherlands" (Nederland in Dutch, Pay-Bas in French) refers to the low-lying topography of the region and today is used specifically to describe the country bordering Germany and Belgium, but historically it referred to the entire region occupied by Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. In English, the...
15) The Amorites: The History and Legacy of the Nomads Who Conquered Mesopotamia and Established the
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Animal and plant domestication first began during the Neolithic Period around 12000 BCE in the swath of land known as the Fertile Crescent, which included all of Mesopotamia and then arched in northern Mesopotamia/Assyria, before covering most of the Levant, which is roughly equivalent with the modern nation-states of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The process from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary, agriculture-based societies...
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The Mongols were pushed out of the region by the Poles and Lithuanians, who then occupied state territories in the 14th century. Poland seized areas in the west, known as Galicia, while Lithuania occupied a northern area called Volynia. The Mongol-Tatars, however, retained control of the Crimean Peninsula, using it as a base for trade, including that of slaves, with the Ottoman Empire. The Tatars would actually strengthen their grip on the Crimea...
17) The California Trail: The History and Legacy of the 19th Century Routes that Led Americans to the
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The westward movement of Americans in the 19th century was one of the largest and most consequential migrations in history, and among the paths that blazed west, the California Trail was one of the most well-known. The trail was not a single road but a network of paths that began at several "jumping off" points. As it so happened, the paths were being formalized and coming into use right around the time gold was discovered in the lands that became...
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Most Americans have heard of the Little Bighorn, the 1876 battle in which a band of Lakota Sioux and their allies wiped out most of the 7th US Cavalry under the command of George Armstrong Custer. The movie images are of fierce warriors in long eagle feather headdresses flowing behind them as they gallop across the plains on nimble Indian ponies. In fact, many Americans know the names of the commanders who beat Custer, most notably Sitting Bull and...
19) Ottoman Empire's Greatest Victories: The History and Legacy of the Most Important Battles Won by the
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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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During the 17th century, the Netherlands, despite having only 1.5 million people in 1600, became a global maritime and trading power. By contrast, France at the time had 20 million people, Spain had 8 million, and England had 5 million. Nevertheless, Amsterdam became one of the most important urban centers in the world and the location of the world's first stock market, and Dutch merchant ships and pirates plied the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean,...
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