Historical
Instrumentalising Horror
Introduction On April 14 1990, fifty years after the event, Mikhail Gorbachev officially accepted the Soviet Union's responsibility for the Katyn Massacre. Although this admission had a profound political significance, it did not contain any surprising historical revelations. It merely confirmed what international leaders had known for almost five decades - that in April 1940, the NKVD had carried out systematic mass executions of 22,000 Polish officers and members of the Polish intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest. The discrepancy between the Soviet official narrative and the historical evidence of the massacre illustrates the limits of conventional historiography and its principle aim to understand how the past creates the present. Although historical methodology is theoretically predicated on archival sources as evidence and disinterested analysis, in practice, historiography is inevitably shaped by subjective interpretation and personal perception. These mercurial properties inherent in all historiography makes history itself vulnerable to exploitation and instrumentalisation.
By T.P Schofield4 years ago in FYI
Malayan Emergency 1948–1960-brief overview
The Malaysian Emergency (1948-1960) was a terrorist war in the then Malaysian Federation (now Malaysia) fought by Communist and independent Malaysian National Liberation Army (MNLA) (armed forces of the Malaysian Communist Party (MCP) against the British Commonwealth). The Malaysian Communist Party, a party made up mainly of Chinese members representing Malaysia's independent Communist Party, launched a coup d'état on June 18, 1948, after the government declared a state of emergency. 18, the British declared a "critical situation" everywhere.
By Tsunami Karki4 years ago in FYI
Who invented the telephone? – A Brief History
Who invented the telephone? So, who invented the telephone? It might surprise you but the answer are from simple. Was it Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci, Robert Hooke, maybe Innocenzo Manzetti or even, Johann Philipp Reis?
By siva rathour 4 years ago in FYI
Stick a Pin In It
It’s 1849 and inventor Walter Hunt is sitting in his New York workshop, worrying about how to pay off a $15 debt he owed a friend. While he racks his brain for a solution to his money woes, he mindlessly twists a piece of metal wire around his fingers. Suddenly, he realizes he’s done something. After twisting the wire a few times and folding it in upon itself, Walter notices that the wire held enough tension to clasp together and enough spring to open and close over and over. While distracted by financial problems, he had redesigned an item that hadn’t been changed in literally thousands of years. Walter Hunt had accidentally invented the Safety Pin. He spent the rest of the night making a prototype and sketching designs for the tool, had them patented on April 10th of the same year, and then went on to sell the patten for $400 to the very man he owed $15.
By Chelsea Adler4 years ago in FYI
Imperial China's Dynasties
Chinese archaeologists recently unearthed what may be evidence supporting the existence of one of the Chinese empire’s 4,000-year-old creation myths. The Xia dynasty was the first of many ancient Chinese ruling houses, thought to exist from around 2070 B.C.E. until 1600 B.C.E. Yet the actual existence of this dynasty and culture has been debated. Many researchers have seen the Xia dynasty as a semi-mythical period of rule, invented by the later Zhou dynasty to justify their overthrow of the Shang dynasty, who allegedly overthrew the Xia dynasty.
By praveen kumar 4 years ago in FYI
