Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 146 i All About History

It’s remarkable how much we continue to learn about the pyramids in Egypt. They’ve stood for thousands of years and been examined and combed over generation after generation, and yet we keep discovering new details about how they were built, who built them, what was inside them and how they were used. If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, you’ll know that hardly a week goes by that we don’t have some new revelation about the ancient Egyptians to share, and frequently that has to do with the pyramids. With that all in mind, it seemed like we needed to take a look at the pyramids in more detail and examine what we know, what we used to know that has been corrected, and what mysteries still remain. These incredible monuments…

Widely considered one of the most secretive and secure establishments in the world, the depository at Fort Knox was first constructed in 1936. At the time the US government was concerned that keeping the country’s gold reserves at their current location of New York might make them vulnerable to coastal attack. The American professor of economics William C Wood stated in a 1994 paper that this gold hoard largely came from “Depression-era gold coins”, “World War II lend-lease arrangements” and “government operations under the gold standard”. The first of these refers to Franklin D Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102, whereby much of the nation’s gold was taken, exchanged for paper money and melted down. The Fort Knox military base in Kentucky was chosen as a suitable location to house the reserves…

What is one of the earliest examples of a financial crisis? We’ve had financial crises since we’ve had markets. One of the best-known examples is the tulip bulb mania of 17th-century Amsterdam, a wild speculative investment bubble in tulips, which at the peak sold for ten times the annual income of skilled artisans. It was the Dutch who created banking institutions as we recognise them today and the first ‘modern’ capitalist society. They invented the stock exchange and the model for a central bank. Following the Wars of Religion, the Dutch were also the first to introduce a very pragmatic version of tolerance – Protestant, Catholic or Jewish, you could do business together. People began to get much more excited about money and what they could do with it. One…

In 1972, Stanley Cohen published his monumental work Folk Devils and Moral Panics. The book is widely credited for defining the latter term, but just what is a ‘moral panic’? Well, chances are you will have lived through several, and may have even unknowingly participated in one. Moral panics are cases of widespread anxiety towards a particular group (be it defined by race, sexuality, gender or religion), art form or attitude. When examining this unique social phenomenon, we can see links between the various examples. There may be some basis for concern, but during moral panics, facts are often distorted and sometimes wholly made up. Frequently, children or young people are claimed to be in either physical danger or under threat of corruption. Finally, examples from the 19th century onward tend…

Stuck in the power politics of the Great War, Italy was enthusiastic to join the German war effort following the defeat of France, believing it would significantly grow its African empire. This aim contradicted the German fanatical and pseudo-scientific war goals and Italy soon became isolated as Germany shifted its army towards Operation Barbarossa in the East. Italy burned with humiliation as its treasured empire fell, Mussolini was ousted and the Wehrmacht took control of Italy. Could aligning with the Allies instead in 1939 have saved the Italian Empire, Mussolini and the Fascist Party? What was Mussolini’s motivation for joining the war on the Axis’ side in June 1940? It wasn’t Nazism that drove Italy, but imperial ambition. It is easy to make coloured shirt and Holocaust parallels between fascist…

8 August 1963 THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY In the early hours of the morning on 8 August 1963, a Royal Mail train travelling from Glasgow to London was stopped and ransacked by a group of 15 men. The robbers attacked the train’s driver and proceeded to steal £2.6 million (approximately £69 million today). At the time, it was the largest robbery in British history. Much of the money was never recovered, but most of the criminals were eventually arrested despite many being on the run for a number of years. 15 August 1998 OMAGH BOMBING In Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, a car bomb inside a Vauxhall Cavalier exploded killing 29 people and injuring over 200 others. The attack was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA)…

One of the earliest examples of coinage in the world, knife money, takes its name from the unusual shape used for this unique currency. Knife money was largely created and used by merchants in China from the 5th to the 1st century BCE. Their shape and design varies depending on the province from which they originate. According to Paul Einzig in Primitive Money, as knife coinage was not issued or sanctioned by the state, it cannot be considered true currency like we have today. However, these fascinating artefacts remain intriguing examples of mankind’s ingenuity when it comes to all things money and to the financial innovations of ancient China. The true reasons for the introduction of knife-shaped currency have been lost to time, but a popular legend states that in…

1 THE BANK OF FINLAND HELSINKI, FINLAND The fourth oldest bank in the world, the Bank of Finland was first established by Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1811, predating Finland’s independence. Although it was originally based in the country’s old capital of Turku, the bank was moved to Helsinki in 1819. For some time the bank was housed in the House of the Senate, but in 1876 a competition was held to design a new and permanent home for the financial institution. The winner was the German architect Ludwig Bohnstedt. His designs proved controversial as, according to Taide Art, the Board of Public buildings cited various concerns regarding issues such as fire safety and protection from thieves. However, a touch of scepticism is advised due to one of the…

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, sport had increasingly become an important pillar of the Soviet Union. Great effort had been made to re-engage with international sporting communities following years of self-imposed exile. In this context, the USSR’s decision to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics being hosted in Los Angeles, California, comes as a bit of a surprise. That the state decided to organise its own competing athletics competition to overlap with the Olympics, even more surprising. THE SECOND COLD WAR Relations between the superpowers of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had been deteriorating in this period. The age of Détente, when the Cold War had cooled even more, was over and a more aggressive foreign policy was being pursued (or at…

STAN & OLLIE Director: Jon S Baird Starring: John C Reilly, Steve Coogan, Nina Arianda Country: UK Year: 2018 A bittersweet story of the twilight years of comedy duo Laurel & Hardy, but does it sacrifice the facts for the funnies? VERDICT: A heartwarming story of two fading stars – just a mostly made-up one.…

1200 BCE SHELLING OUT One of the earliest forms of money is cowrie shells, belonging to molluscs. China is among the first countries to use the shells for trading, with cowries being plentiful in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are also widely used in Africa right into the 20th century. 1717 NEWTON’S GOLD Sir Isaac Newton, working as Master of the Royal Mint for the British state, creates a new mint ratio for gold and silver, creating a de facto gold standard for the UK. He sets the value of gold at £4.25 per fine ounce and a new gold sovereign follows in 1816. 1950 CASH CARD The Diners Club card is introduced as the first multipurpose charge card for making purchases without the need for money on hand.…

Rose Chibambo Malawi, 1928 – 2016 Featured on the 200 kwacha banknote since 2012, Rose Chibambo was a politician in the British Protectorate of Nyasaland before the state became independent Malawi in 1964. As a politician and activist she is credited with organising the women’s movement for independence in Malawi and heading up the Women’s League. She was arrested by British forces in 1959 for her anti-colonial activism just two days after she had given birth to her daughter. In 1964, Malawi became independent, and Chibambo became a minister in the new government. However, clashes with the new president saw her exiled from Malawi. LADI KWALI NIGERIA, 1925 – 1984 Appearing on the Nigerian 20 naira banknote, Ladi Kwali was a potter and ceramicist who worked using a traditional, ancient…

If you go looking for the seven wonders of the ancient world today, you are in for a disappointment. You will search in vain to find more than a few scraps of them. The statues from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus can be found in museums around the globe, but of the wonder itself little remains in the ground. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have so thoroughly crumbled to dust that academics debate whether they really existed at all. The Colossus of Rhodes, a statue of the god Helios that towered over the harbour, was felled by an earthquake less than 60 years after it was erected. Time has left precious little other than their names. Visit Giza however and the Great Pyramid of Khufu still stands. The oldest of the…

Floods, famine, pestilence. For the hard-pressed peasants of Yuan China, ruled over by the domineering descendants of the Mongol conquerors who had established themselves as overlords of the land, the series of natural calamities indicated one thing: their Mongol rulers had lost the Mandate of Heaven. With the Mandate of Heaven withdrawn, rebellion became not just possible but legitimate: Heaven itself asked of them to remove their unjust emperor and replace him with a new ruler. But the Yuan dynasty, descended through Kublai Khan from Genghis Khan himself, was not about to simply shuffle back to Mongolia. There would be 17 years of conflict before a new emperor was able to found a lasting dynasty. The conditions for this long transition had been laid earlier in the political weakness and…

The origins of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) are labyrinthine, complex and easily fill several books. Triggered by the death of Emperor Charles VI, it was essentially a conflict between two coalitions, each supporting a different potential inheritor of the emperor’s throne. The Pragmatic Allies took their name from a proclamation issued by Charles in 1713. This Pragmatic Sanction insisted that a daughter could inherit all his titles, including that of Holy Roman Emperor, which had never previously been held by a woman. Upon his death, his daughter, Maria Theresa, was supported by the Habsburg Empire itself (often referred to as Austria), Britain, the Dutch Republic and Hanover. The Pragmatic Allies were opposed by France, Prussia and Bavaria, who wanted to break the Habsburg’s grip on Charles’ titles.…

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE Guy Ritchie’s entertaining WWII thriller throws light on Operation Postmaster Cert: TBC Director: Guy Ritchie Cast: Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson Released: Out now History is written by the victors, the saying goes, and that’s not incorrect. This is how historical narratives develop, and how myths (sometimes national ones) form in the cultural consciousness. In the realm of all things cinema, movies play a vital part in shaping and promoting national mythology. Screenwriters do tend to embellish, invent, condense and rewrite. As the famous quote, from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) put it, they tend to “print the legend”. The complexities and nuances of how history actually happens can be too complex for a two-hour film. Instead, movies rely on…

Taking its name from the Turkish verb ‘dolmak’, meaning ‘to fill’ or ‘become full’, the dolma’s heritage reaches back further and wider than the Ottoman Empire from which we have some of the earliest recorded recipes. Covering everything from stuffed grape leaves to stuffed fruits, it’s a pretty broad food type and its history appears to go back at least as far as ancient Knossos. The Ottoman Empire itself saw an explosion in cuisine diversity, drawing in influences from every corner of its territory and, likewise, spreading its culture far and wide. Variations of the dolma can still be found in Greek food, but also spread east to India and south into Africa. Dolmas were thought to be particularly common among elite Ottomans, but are now enjoyed by all. In…