Category: History Page 1 of 7

It was after the world war-I has ended America’s new favourite pastime was watching baseball. The Chicago White Sox baseball team was one of the best teams. It was going to play the world series of 1919 against the Cincinnati Red. Everyone was counting and betting on the White Sox to win, but the team lost the series. The baseball insiders sensed that there was something fishy in the games as the team even lost the matches that they could easily win. It was later found that the eight players from the Chicago White Sox were taking money from the gamblers and had rigged the entire series. That’s how the game-fixing came to be known as the “Black Sox Scandal”.

It’s been almost 101 years since the scandal took place, but it is considered as an important event. As it is said that it was after the Black Sox Scandal that “baseball lost its innocence”. It led to diminished confidence in the game among the fans while the nation was still building itself from the blow of war.

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On 24th January 1848 gold was discovered by James W Marshall at Sutter’s Mill located in Coloma, California. It began a gold rush in which people flocked from all over the country in order to get their hands on some. It affected not only the economy of California but also impacted the political and social stature of the state. This article takes you through this historic event and explains what all happened.

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The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, was a revolt carried out by farmers and distillers in Pennsylvania, to protest against the whiskey tax imposed by the national government. This rebellion is characterized with lots of aggression, it being considered as the first major test of the newly formed US government. The huge support which was garnered for farmers, opposing the whiskey tax, worked in favour of Republicans, who overtook Washington’s presidency (Federalist Party) in 1802. 

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Regarded as an intermediary between the human beings and the divine, the king in Ancient Egypt, ruled by a mandate of gods, or in other words, a theocratic monarchy system of government was being followed where the king used to represent the will of the divine through the laws that were passed and the policies that were approved. While the early Egyptian ruler was addressed as ‘King’, it was not until the New Kingdom of Egypt (1570-1069 BCE) when the term ‘Pharaoh’ (originally, the royal palace in ancient Egypt) started to represent the leader of the government.

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Advanced civilisations have long been synonymous with the country of Egypt. Characterised by world-famous pharaohs, the Pyramids, rich culture of music and arts, ahead-of-time science and medicine and the surreal concepts of death and immortality, ancient Egypt is considered to be one of the greatest models of development and civilisation this world has had to offer. Ma’at, the core value of the Egyptian civilisation introduced the idea of harmony and balance in every facet of one’s life. This value, as propagated by the Pharaohs of Egypt, as part of their mediation between Gods and human beings, took the form of astounding symmetry in Egypt’s architecture, artworks, practices of religion and framework of society. As a result, unlike the present-day nations, women of ancient Egypt held an equal status to men, at least to a large extent. 

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World events often move fast but it is hard to match the power and pace of change that occurred during the Cold War but especially in 1989. The Berlin Wall, which had been built at the height of the Cold War, was toppled by people in 1989. Its fall occurred in the exact same dramatic manner in which the wall, one of the most powerful and enduring symbols of the Cold War, was erected. Decades of developments culminated in breaching of this ‘Iron Curtain’ that ran through the heart of Berlin. The story of the fall of the Berlin Wall is one of division and repression but also of yearning for freedom, and the events that led to its collapse are no exception.

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One hundred and fifty-five kilometres long. Twelve feet high. Barbed fences and concrete wall. That was all that was to be seen for twenty-eight years: the Berlin Wall. It was a symbol of the Cold War between the Soviets and the West; a move to stop East Germans from defecting to the West. East Berliners lost their way into a life of freedom, higher-paying jobs and a good standard of living; a life with operas, sports matches and concerts. On the other hand, West Berliners could no longer enjoy the state-subsidised goods in the East. Families and friends stuck on opposite sides of the wall on the morning of August 13, 1961, were separated for almost three decades. The making of the Berlin Wall carried on for years, the initial concrete posts and barbed wires being modified and fortified. It is often thought that the Berlin Wall stood only between East Berlin and West Berlin. However, it went all the way around West Berlin, completely cutting off access to the ‘democratic island’ in the sea of communism. 

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