Mexico: Miguel Hidalgo

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Lead: In 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo led an uprising against Spanish colonial rule in Mexico. Although he was defeated, he became a symbol of Mexican Independence.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.             

Content: Miguel Hidalgo was born in 1753 in the central highlands of Mexico near Guanajuato. Hidalgo was a “criollo” – born in Mexico but with Spanish ancestry. He studied in Valladolid, now Morelia in central Mexico, at first with the Jesuits, and, after their expulsion, at the College of San Nicolas Obisbo where he earned a degree in theology, philosophy and the liberal arts. He was most certainly influenced by the subversive ideas of the Enlightenment. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1778 he taught as well as doing parish work. Hidalgo was a most complex man, some would say poorly managing his passions. He loved gambling, owned multiple haciendas, and fathered several children, but at the same time combined his spiritual duties with a keen sense of social justice. In 1803 Father Hidalgo moved to Dolores, a town in the Mexican highlands of mostly poor indigenous people. He introduced new farming techniques and helped to develop a brick-making and pottery industry.

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Mexico: The Aztecs: Conquered by the Spanish

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Lead:  In just two years, the Spanish Conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortez, were able to almost completely destroy the Aztecs, one of the most advanced indigenous empires of the Americas. Beware Spaniards bearing disease.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: During the late fifteenth century, the Spanish began to occupy the Caribbean, and in 1519, with relatively few resources, invaded present day Mexico and conquered one of the most war-like civilizations in the Americas. In February of that year, Cortez and approximately five hundred soldiers arrived on the Mexican coast. Cortez either burned or scuttled his ships to discourage his already restless company from any thoughts of turning back. They brought with them things Native Americans had never seen before: guns, cannon and between ten and twenty horses. With these weapons and horses, Cortez was able to instill fear in and defeat the indigenous armies.

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Founding of Georgia – II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: The founding the colony of Georgia in 1732 was the happy coincidence of security needs of British North America and the need to deal with the problem of overcrowded prisons in England.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: James Edward Oglethorpe was a soldier from a family with a fighting tradition. He fought in continental armies, but was prevented from receiving a British Army commission because of his family’s strong support for the old Stuart line of royalty. They were Jacobites. After distinguished service in the army of the Prince of Savoy and a brief stint at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he returned home to manage the family’s business affairs in Surrey. In the early 1720s he stood for Parliament from Haslemere and held the seat until 1754.

 

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Founding of Georgia – I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Founded by charter in 1732, the colony of Georgia served two purposes in its earliest years. The most important of these was to create a land buffer and military outpost between hostile Spanish territory and the rich colony of Carolina.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: From even before the beginning of their colonization of North America, the English looked with foreboding south along the Atlantic seaboard at the well-established and powerful Spanish settlements in Florida and the Caribbean. The success of Virginia and Carolina made them even more vulnerable to attacks from the hostile territory to the South.

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Mexico: The Second Empire- French Rule in Mexico

PermalinkToday's AMIT,

Lead: From 1864 to 1867 Mexico was under French Rule established by Emperor Napoleon III. This infamous, yet brief, period is known in Mexican history as the Second Empire.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The French first arrived in Mexico in 1862. Poorly run national finances meant Mexico had amassed substantial foreign debt with Spain, Great Britain and France. Under a huge economic strain, Mexico, under liberal President Benito, stopped making payments. France’s ruler, Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, sought not only to collect the debts owed to France but to promote French interests by expanding French presence and influence in the markets of Western Hemisphere and, thus, to help recapture the past imperial glory of earlier Napoleonic times. After years of political unrest, violence and revolution in Mexico, a conservative faction in the Mexican ruling class, supported the French intervention and the installation of a monarch, believing it would improve political and economic stability.

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Time Capsule: 1990 – Beginning of the End to Apartheid

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Lead: On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela and other South African black leaders were released from jail. This was the beginning of the end of South Africa’s brutal regime of apartheid.

Intro.: An A Moment in Time Time Capsule with Dan Roberts.

Content: The official system of apartheid, that egregious scheme of oppression and separation forced upon South African blacks by the white dominated minority government, was not implemented until 1948. Yet it reflected the reality of South African life had emerged since the arrival of the first Europeans in the 1600s. From the time the Dutch established a trading outpost on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, white settlers and indigenous Africans had clashed violently. As the riches of the cape colony and attending regions became more and more evident (particularly after the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Transvaal) Africans increasingly lost their independence, land and freedom to move about without documentation.

 

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Battle of Omdurman II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead:  In September 1898, Anglo-Egyptian, effectively British, control of the northeastern African nation of Sudan was secured by force of arms at the Battle of Omdurman.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: During the late nineteenth century, Great Britain and other European nations “scrambled for Africa.” This colonial expansion was motivated by geo-political reasons, religious reasons, but mostly by the economic hunger for trade and the chance to exploit the rich natural resources of Africa. After Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, Anglo-Egyptian forces reached south to absorb the Sudan, but kicked up a nationalist religious revolt that captured the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in 1885.

 

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Battle of Omdurman I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Sudan is located in northeastern Africa. It is the continent’s largest country and in the late nineteenth century, Britain added it to its expanding colonial empire.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In the late 1800s European powers raced to grab Africa. Historians often refer to this as “The Scramble for Africa.” Indigenous peoples were resentful of this absorption. Sometimes there was resistance and on occasion, violence followed.

 

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