The Khmer Rouge (and Pol Pot)
A great deal more is known about the Khmer Rouge than about Cambodia’s Pol Pot. To most history-subjected magazines Pol Pot was just another of those dictators who bumped off a few million of his own...
View ArticleThe Japanese Peace Constitution (1947)
After the horrific end of World War II in the East, the Japanese decided to replace the draconian Meiji Constitution agreed to in 1889. But the new draft was itself not new; it was based on the draft...
View ArticleWar in Vietnam
It is now an independent socialist/communist state bordered to the east by the South China Sea, and to the west by Laos and Cambodia. Dominated by China for many centuries, it was ‘visited’ by the...
View ArticleThe Trans-Siberian Railway
Only six years after the first trans-continental railway (Canadian Pacific q.v.) was opened, Russia followed suit with her very lengthy railroad built between Moscow (actually Chelyabinsk in the Urals)...
View ArticleThe 21 Demands (of Japan)
The 21 Demands (of Japan). In 1915 Japan came up with the odd idea of trying to make the whole of China a protectorate – a protectorate of Japan of course. The Great War started in 1914 and Japan...
View ArticleThe ‘Showa’ Restoration (Japan)
The Showa Restoration . The word showa means ‘Enlightened Peace’ in English. It was chosen as a ‘reign name’ by the Emperor Hirohito. It is hard not to see this as ironic. However, a reliving of the...
View ArticleThe Battle of Leyte Gulf
This little-known sea battle was fought between American and Japanese fleets towards the end of October, 1944. Japanese forces were seeking to stop the US re-conquest of the Philippines, which had...
View ArticleThe War in the Pacific
Officially, this war lasted from December 1941, when the United States entered the Second World War, until 1945. But the Pacific War really started with the Sino-Japanese War which began in 1937, when...
View ArticleThe Two Koreas
The Korean Peninsula is divided into two, the northern part is officially called The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, while the southern part is simply The Republic of Korea. Unofficially, the...
View ArticleWar in the air Part III: the Pacific
The carrier-based Japanese air force began the war in the air over the Pacific Ocean by attacking without prior warning the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. The damage to American capital ships and the...
View ArticleThe Treaty of Nerchinsk
Before the seventeenth century China had been almost a myth; a legendary giant land in the Far East, barely visited by Europeans, a subject for dreams. But in September, 1689, China must have woken up...
View ArticleThe Two Koreas
The Korean Peninsula is divided into two, the northern part is officially called The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, while the southern part is simply The Republic of Korea. Unofficially, the...
View ArticleThe Japanese Peace Constitution (1947)
After the horrific end of World War II in the East, the Japanese decided to replace the draconian Meiji Constitution agreed to in 1889. But the new draft was itself not new; it was based on the draft...
View ArticleWar in Vietnam
It is now an independent socialist/communist state bordered to the east by the South China Sea, and to the west by Laos and Cambodia. Dominated by China for many centuries, it was ‘visited’ by the...
View ArticleThe Trans-Siberian Railway
Only six years after the first trans-continental railway (Canadian Pacific q.v.) was opened, Russia followed suit with her very lengthy railroad built between Moscow (actually Chelyabinsk in the Urals)...
View ArticleThe 21 Demands (of Japan)
The 21 Demands (of Japan). In 1915 Japan came up with the odd idea of trying to make the whole of China a protectorate – a protectorate of Japan of course. The Great War started in 1914 and Japan...
View ArticleThe ‘Showa’ Restoration (Japan)
The Showa Restoration . The word showa means ‘Enlightened Peace’ in English. It was chosen as a ‘reign name’ by the Emperor Hirohito. It is hard not to see this as ironic. However, a reliving of the...
View ArticleThe Battle of Leyte Gulf
This little-known sea battle was fought between American and Japanese fleets towards the end of October, 1944. Japanese forces were seeking to stop the US re-conquest of the Philippines, which had...
View ArticleThe War in the Pacific
Officially, this war lasted from December 1941, when the United States entered the Second World War, until 1945. But the Pacific War really started with the Sino-Japanese War which began in 1937, when...
View ArticleThe Taiping Revolt
This uprising, which started in 1850 and ended fourteen years later, was the greatest peasant rebellion in China in the 19th century. The 18th had seen a rise in China’s population from 150 to 350...
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