Descartes March 24, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, French History, Intellectual History, Science History Lead: Considered by many to be the seminal modern thinker, René Descartes remains an integral part of the philosophical canon. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Born in 1596, the year of the Declaration of Nantes with which French King Henry IV laid the foundation of religious toleration in Europe, Descartes’ work came to symbolize a philosophical break with the way in which people fundamentally organized intelligence and considered the universe. Download [70.80 KB]
Guernica II March 16, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Military History, Spanish History Lead: In April 1937 the town of Guernica in the Basque region of Spain was virtually leveled by German bombers in a brutal act of terror bombing. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: The Spanish Civil War pitted the Nationalist rebels under General Franco against the Republican Army, but it revealed many of the divisions in Spanish society. The fighting was brutal and atrocities were committed by both sides. Thousands died during the three-year conflict and many more were executed in its aftermath. What made the war especially harsh was outside participation. Download [6.96 KB]
Guernica I March 15, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Military History, Spanish History Lead: It was not the first terror bombing in the twentieth century, nor the last, nor the worst, but that day in Guernica in 1937 remains a lasting symbol of brutality. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Civil wars are not very civil. Somehow the struggle of neighbor against neighbor, brother against sister, friend against friend, ratchets up the intensity of a conflict. The presence of common ancestry, religion, language, and ethnicity aggravate the normal emotions present when people make war on one another. Download [69.04 KB]
Voyage of Magellan IV March 11, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Exploration, Technology Lead: Seeking a passage through the American land mass as a short cut to the rich spice islands of East Asia, Ferdinand Magellan and a crew sailed south along the coast of South America in the early months of 1520, looking for strait to take them through. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: While wintering in San Julian, a harbor in present day southern Argentina, three of his captains led a mutiny that threatened the expedition, but Magellan ruthlessly suppressed it, killing one leader, beheading another and leaving the third stranded on the beach. The rest of the mutineers Magellan wisely pardoned. Read more →
Voyage of Magellan III March 10, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Exploration, Technology Lead: Commissioned by King Charles I of Spain to find a short cut through the Americas to the islands of southeast Asia, Ferdinand Magellan in command of five ships left the Spanish port of Seville in August, 1519. Thus began one of history's greatest voyages of exploration. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Prior to the voyages of Columbus beginning in 1492 and the systematic exploration of Africa by the Portuguese in the 1480s and 90s, Europeans had little accurate information about the earth's size. Their knowledge was based on the theories of the second century Greek writer Ptolomy who underestimated it. Because of this geographers were convinced that Japan and China lay only a few thousand miles west of Europe. Columbus's trips proved those estimates to be wrong. With the first accounts of Vasco de Balboa who reported finding a new Pacific Ocean on the other side of the new world in 1513, it appeared that the earth was quite large indeed. Read more →
Voyage of Magellan II March 9, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Exploration, Technology Lead: In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan sailed from the port of Seville in Spain. Three years later one of his ships returned, having circumnavigated the globe. Such a voyage was possible because of a revolution in the technology of exploration. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: That Europeans should increasingly find themselves on shores far from home came about as a result of advances in the design of ships, expansion in the understanding of navigation and a sea change, as it were, in the way overseas exploration was financed. Read more →
Voyage of Magellan I March 8, 2020PermalinkNancy WaldoToday's AMITEuropean History, Exploration, Technology Lead: On August 10, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailing master of noble upbringing in service to the King of Spain, set sail on one of history's greatest voyages of discovery. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: In 1400 Europeans knew little more than the Romans about the rest of the world. The tantalizing stories brought back by exploring merchant traders such as Marco Polo told of an advanced civilization in the Far East. This served to stimulate the European imagination but did little to expand contacts with a much wider world. Read more →
Battle of the Java Sea March 4, 2020PermalinkSandy CreedToday's AMITEuropean History Lead: Melancholy gripped the Allies in December, 1941. Japanese forces were everywhere victorious in Southeast Asia. It was time to take a stand. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Thailand, Malaya, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Manila, each were attacked by the Japanese and each fell just as quickly. On the 3rd of January, Churchill and Roosevelt formed a joint command with the Dutch and Australians, the purpose of which was to slow down the Japanese assault. The aim was to stop the enemy at the so-called Malay Barrier, an imaginary line stretching from Singapore at the base of the Malayan Peninsula down along the archipelago that is today known as Indonesia to the west coast of New Guinea. Read more →
