6 December 1956: The closing moments of an Olympic water polo match. Hungarian Ervin Zádor leaves the pool bleeding due to a punch from Soviet player Valentin Prokopov. The fracas? Evidence of the tensions consequential to a month’s worth of revolt in Hungary against the Soviet regime between 23 October and 10 November 1956. The uprising Continue Reading
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” When Winston Churchill made this speech on 5 May 1946, he was speaking of the metaphorical division between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc, and the tensions that would escalate into the Cold War. By 1961, this Continue Reading
What do a bloody battle outside the gates of an impregnable imperial city, the destruction of the city that once led an Empire and the abdication of a sixteen-year-old Emperor all have in common? These events aligned to produce the downfall of the Western Roman Empire, in tandem with centuries of political disputes and chaos. Continue Reading
Reigning for an impressive sixty-four years, Queen Victoria ruled during a period that witnessed the invention of the telephone, Jack the Ripper roaming the streets and Thomas Hardy dominating book shelves; a period that became renowned in British history. Queen Victoria took to the throne in 1837 aged eighteen and remained there until her death Continue Reading
Since Idi Amin did not write an autobiography, research on his background is limited. Amin was born in 1923 in either Koboko or Kampala. A researcher from Makerere University has stated that Amin was the son of Andreas Nyabire, who converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam and changed his name to Amin Dada. Andreas abandoned Continue Reading
