#global history

[cavalierzee]

The Lavon Affair

The Lavon affair was a failed Israeli covert operation, codenamed Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the summer of 1954.

As part of a false flag operation, a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to plant bombs inside Egyptian-, American-, and British-owned civilian targets: cinemas, libraries, and American educational centers.

The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian communists, “unspecified malcontents”, or “local nationalists” with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt’s Suez Canal zone.

The operation resulted in the deaths of four operatives.

The overseer of the operation allegedly informed the Egyptians, after which 11 suspected operatives were arrested. Two committed suicide after being captured, two were executed by the Egyptian authorities, two of them were acquitted at trial, and the remaining five received prison terms ranging from 7 years to life in prison.

Source: Wikipedia

[nerdby]

Oh, she has absolutely no common fucking sense.

Like she really should have read the fine fucking print before throwing this temper tantrum.

Does Rowling even realize how quickly she just outted herself with this shit? She blatantly admitted she was purposely being abusive and creating a hate filled environment by spouting her eugenicist bullshit, and this is only weeks after being called out for engaging in Holocaust denial. Like, please, project harder. You're only making yourself look worse🤣

[claraameliapond]

Historical context of Britain's role in the imperialist occupation of Palestine : taking land that wasn't theirs for their own interests and following their previously used models of two faced colonisation, messing everything up and creating intentional instability amongst a once stable region : aka the beginnings of this whole situation

[bringbackmaes14]

Using internet speak to help me understand my school stuff is the funniest thing ever I think. I just wrote in my notebook "Woodrow Wilson's 14 Point Plan post-WW1 was just him having an 'i can fix him' mindset about Europe" and I'm gonna think about it forever now and definitely remember it for my midterm tomorrow.

[ahb-writes]

"[T]he concentration of power in the hands of a single leader at the top all but guarantees low-quality decision making, and over time will produce truly catastrophic consequences."

Francis Fukuyama ("More Proof That This Really Is the End of History," The Atlantic)

[depressedhangrybitch]

I feel like we don't really talk about Thomas Midgely Jr.

The man who is single-handedly responsible for creating the 2 most destructive chemicals of the 20 century. Chemicals that should have never been created.

So I am here to change that.

While Thomas Midgely died in November 1944. At the time of his death, the public sang his praises and his contributions to the automobile industry and coolant industries. Today, however, he is effectively canceled. If you ever Google him you won't find any positive on him.

Thomas started his career at the National registered company or NCR in Ohio where another one of his colleagues started his path to fame Charles Kettering, who was also relatively famous because of his contributions to the automobile industry.

He was famous for creating the first electric cashier register and electric ignition system which changed the locomotive industry.

Which brings us to what his inventions actually were.

Deadly Invention #1

Leaded gasoline:

Kettering was originally the one who tasked Midgely to solve the pesky and horrible problem of engine knocking. Engine knocking wasn't just any sound, it was a sensation that was felt by people throughout their driving in the cars of that time. This knocking also sometimes suddenly stopped the power flow to the engine which was quite problematic as a car just suddenly stopping anywhere could both be dangerous and unpredictable.

Midgely soon realized that this was not an engineering problem but a chemistry problem, and while Midgely was passionate about chemistry he wasn't a chemist. So to start his research he took the basis of chemistry as his starting point.

The periodic table.

Midgley tested 33000 compounds and finally came to a solution.

LURIUM.

The engine knocking was dissipated by lurium however, lurium left a 'satanic garlic smell' in its wake which was not a solution Midgeley was looking for.

Midgely however soon concluded that, the heavier the element that is added to petrol, the more the knocking dissipated. Which was finally what turned him to lead. He tested this by adding a spoonful of lead to the engine and BOOM!! as if by magic the knocking completely dissipated.

This virtually overturned the automobile industry overnight. The limitations that first made people reluctant to buy a car were gone and thus registered car users in the US tripled exponentially.

However, this had dire consequences. Today, it is suspected that over 40000 - 80000 people especially children died every year of lead poisoning between the first usage of leaded gasoline to its ban.

But how did we find out about lead poisoning?

Enter Dr. Clair Patterson, he initially had the plan to measure the age of the earth by dating the oldest rocks known to mankind, however, he soon realized that he cannot truly get rid of lead from his lab which is a crucial thing to do in the dating process. He soon noticed that lead was everywhere due to emissions. In the blood of a human, in the hair of a human body, rocks that are far away from inhabited towns.

Dr. Clair Patterson, the man who suffered for his accomplishments.

Due to his efforts, gasoline was finally banned in the US but people still suffer through its consequences. But why did it take so long and such hardships to ban leaded gasoline?

The main reason is that lead poisoning is very subtle until the very end. When lead enters the bloodstream the RBCs confuse it with other minerals that the cells actually need that are zinc, iron, etc.. Since lead mimics other viral minerals so well cells absorb them and this began their dance of death. Slowly they self-destruct and since there is no communication the brain fails to understand what is happening with the body as lead blocks neurotransmitters amongst the cells.

Perhaps I will explain more about Dr. Patterson's journey to ban leaded gasoline in a later post.

Now we are finally at

Deadly Invention #2

CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons

It was an age-old problem, i.e. to actually reverse the effect of heat on food items and to actually make a machine that emitted cold instead of warmth. which was when Midgley had another stroke of genius; CFCs.

Before the invention of CFC, companies used coolants such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and methyl chloride. But ammonia was notorious after the disastrous catastrophe in an ice manufacturing plant that got destroyed because ammonia in that building caught on fire. sulphur dioxide and methyl chloride on the other hand were toxic gases and caused deaths all around the country.

The situation genuinely got so bad that the government almost passed a law that banned the usage of home fridges.

Midgley was once again tasked with another problem to solve. Find a coolant that was actually both safe and effective in its job.

Once again Midgley knew the answer will come from his passion, chemistry. He narrowed down the elements in the periodic table that were gaseous at low temperatures. finally, there was one element that caught his eye; fluorine.

Now, fluorine was highly toxic on its own, however, Midgley was hoping to combine it with another element that will together make a stable compound and render fluorine non-toxic.

In just a few hours, Midgley and his team came up with a compound in which they combine fluorine, chlorine, and carbon. a new class of compounds called chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs.

Kettering finally concluded that this compound was non-toxic, non-flammable, and essentially safe for both humans and animals. He quickly partnered with DuPont to commercially start the sale of this compound in bulk after a successful previous partnership with the company over leaded gasoline. CFC was finally ready for commercial sale under the catchy name 'Freon'.

In 1932, it finally made its debut. The timing was near perfect, 15 more people were killed by methyl chloride leak. Just like leaded gasoline, it was an overnight sensation and by 1939 DuPont sold 8 million fridges.

Soon other companies used this compound to create a new AC cabinet. It was not actually the freon that caused environmental damages but actually when freon was repurposed into a handheld product that will be catastrophic for the environment and whose price we are still paying today.

By the 1970s, freon was used in almost everything, from ACs to hair sprays.

It was around the time when 2 scientists created the aerosol version of freon to be used as an insecticide mist which gave birth to the aerosol industry that one scientist found out the disastrous consequences of CFCs.

Enter James Lovelock, the scientist who found out the environmental effects of freon in a most unexpected way.

i mean look at that face. so happy and cute. that is the face of the man whose passion and wife is science.

Lovelock actually began this drastic discovery when one day he decided to know whether the haze in front of his house was actually natural mist or chemical compounds from the urban cities. In order to measure this he created a device that will help him accurately measure the synthetic compounds in the air with an accuracy never seen before. In order to measure this, he went on a grand sea voyage from England to Antarctica and just like Dr. Patterson he found out that high concentrations of CFC's emissions were everywhere.

Lovelock presented his findings at a scientific conference in 1976, his findings intrigued 2 chemists who decided to research further on this issue. They found out that unlike other chemicals CFCs had no natural sinks in the earth where they can be naturally dissolved.

Since there were no natural sinks the gas went upwards and accumulated in the upper atmosphere. while roaming in the upper atmosphere the sun's UV rays will ultimately break it down. This chemical reaction will release chlorine from CFCs and thus begins the process of destruction of the ozone layer.

CHEMICAL REACTIONS TO UNDERSTAND BETTER.

Chlorine singlehandedly was responsible for the ozone hole in the atmosphere of Antarctica. this caused an immediate alarm amongst the scientific community because as we all know ozone layer provides a protective layer against the sun's UV rays and prevents us from catching numerous fatal health conditions, most common being skin cancer.

If the emission of CFCs continues at this rate then half of the earth's ozone layer will be gone by 2050. What's more is that in places like DC or Paris, just being outside for 5 minutes will cause severe sunburns. Skin cancer rate will skyrocket and by 2065 plant life will be affected. There will be a decrease in co2 absorption during photosynthesis in plants.

After the Montreal Protocol and international collaboration, CFC was finally banned in 1982. However, the ozone layer destroyed by Midgeley's compound since its use from the 1920s to 1970s is not expected to recover till 2050.

and this is the story of Dr. Thomas Midgely Jr.

next will be perhaps Dr. Clair Patterson.

[sarcastic-salem]

“Its his cleverness that will kill him.” -Pollyanna Shelby, Peaky Blinders (2014)

[maea-ak]

進撃の巨人 × History

[userblog2637839]

do narrative mappings of major events in a city in arabia, say bethlehem, like the islamic conquest of the levant (and the inquisition) and ethnic tensions breeding with religious tensions. focus on how the circumstances “justify” injustices against the minority, and the conditions leading to that kind of ideology. the emergent/reactionary idea of the nation-state.

[gael-garcia]

They Do Not Exist (1974) by Mustafa Abu Ali (watch)

from PalestineCinema.com:

Salvaged from the ruins of Beirut after 1982, Abu Ali's early film has only recently been made available. Shooting under extraordinary conditions, the director, who worked with Godard on his Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere), and founded the PLO's film division, covers conditions in Lebanon's refugee camps, the effects of Israeli bombardments, and the lives of guerrillas in training camps. They Do Not Exist is a stylistically unique work which demonstrates the intersection between the political and the aesthetic. Now recognised as a cornerstone in the development of Palestinian cinema, the film only received its Palestine premiere in 2003, when a group of Palestinian artists "smuggled" the director to a makeshift cinema in his hometown of Jerusalem (into which Israel bars his entry). Abu Ali, who saw his film for the first time in 20 years at this clandestine event noted: "We used to say 'Art for the Struggle', now it's 'Struggle for the Art'"

[cavalierzee]

"I Would Never Sign An Agreement With Israel"

Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion:

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel.

It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs.

There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault?

They see but one thing: We have come and we have stolen their country.

Why would they accept that?”

[nerdby]

It makes me so sad to realize how many people don't realize TJ Klune's House In The Cerulean Sea is about Canada's Native American internment ca-- I mean, residential schools. And, yes, Klune has admitted this.

House In The Cerulean Sea is just a knock-off of Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children that romanticizes cultural genocide.

Happy Native American Heritage Month❣️

[claraameliapond]

Barack Obama 10 years ago on Palestine

There's only one thing he said that isn't true : that 'Israel has a right to build a state of their own in their homeland.'

Israelis did not build a state in their homeland. They built a state in someone else's homeland.

That's what colonialism is. And this has always been brutal colonialism; literally illegal invasion and settlement, illegal expansion, with added constant harassment and acts of terror against the indigenous population, aided by wealthy countries, especially Britain and the USA - centrally, and other countries too scared to oppose them.

Look at the UN vote for an immediate ceasefire : the countries that voted no, or abstained from voting are all the ones too scared to oppose the US - they're either helped by the US, and don't want to anger them, or they have hard won but still always on tenterhooks trade or other relationships with them.

America is only a champion of peace when it suits them, and even then everyone else just agrees that they're too hot headed and unpredictably changeable to properly call them out and reveal to them that they don't actually have a democracy. Their idea of it isn't what that actually is. Real equality? They don't know her.

[epochhistorymagazine]

The Mughal Siege of British Bombay

'The year is 1689. The Mughal Empire, led by Emperor Aurungzeb, is the master of all India and is protected by one of the finest military forces in the world.' - Siddhant Joshi

[theluwalhati]

01.06.24 & 01.07.24 𔓘౨ৎ⋆˚｡⋆

Productive Day 3 & 4/100!

bullet form because it's getting pretty late by the time i'm posting this:

yesterday:

first thing i did was a quick meditation (3 mins)! super worth it and i was able to incorporate meditation later on in the afternoon

figured out how i'm going to take notes now!

took notes for global history! i read bruce mazlish's comparing global history to world history. definitely a necessary read for this course.

did it in 3 hours!

spent the night kind of emotionally charged, didnt rlly get to do my night routine

today:

went to my grandma's house!!

did the groceries afterwards <33

and that was all! today was a sunday, so i try to indulge more in life. tonight, i'll be watching saltburn and then finally incorporating my night routine.

see you tomorrow!

[depressedhangrybitch]

the queen of yelling

When I say badass women are not talked about enough, this is what I am talking about.

This is Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, that name is SO hard to pronounce and spell. I cut and paste it...anyways.. she is the sole reason for the rescue of more than 10000 Jewish children from the holocaust.

Being childless and unable to have one, she devoted herself to social work and saving children that weren't hers, which she is remembered for now. During world war 2 when Europe was going through crises and Nazi Germany occupying almost half of it, she was responsible for rescuing Jewish children from German-occupied territories where she was sent to negotiate with the architect of the holocaust himself!!! aka Adolf Eichmann himself.

That is where the yelling comes in.. she is reportedly said to have yelled at the man mentioned above so much that after meeting her, he said;

'she was so purely aerient but so crazy"

That's how immovable I aspire to be...

Eichmann agreed to release 600 children and post-war she became the mother to 10000 children

And this is how she rescued almost 10000 Jewish children and became their saving mother

Until we meet again

Till then Gremlins....

Jaane