by Aseem Gupta | Jan 18, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
On January 17, 1920, the United States began enforcing one of the most ambitious social experiments in its history. Less than an hour after the national ban on the alcohol trade took effect, armed men reportedly robbed a Chicago freight train and escaped with...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 17, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The Russian Revolution was not one event. It was not just angry workers storming a palace. It was not simply Lenin returning from exile and taking power. It was not caused by Rasputin, or one bad Tsar, or one disastrous war. It was a long collapse. For decades, the...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 15, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The American Civil War was the moment the United States could no longer avoid the contradiction at the heart of its founding. A country that had declared that “all men are created equal” had also allowed millions of people to be enslaved. For decades, politicians...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 14, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The War of the Bucket sounds like the kind of story history invents when it gets bored. Two proud Italian cities. One stolen wooden bucket. Thousands of soldiers. A medieval battlefield. A war so petty that it feels less like politics and more like a neighborhood...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 13, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
France did not enter the French Revolution as a poor, backward, collapsing country. It was one of Europe’s great powers: wealthy, cultured, admired, feared, and deeply unequal. Its monarchy projected splendor from Versailles. Its aristocracy lived inside a world of...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 12, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
Introduction: The Civil War That Became a Legend China’s Three Kingdoms period is remembered as one of the most dramatic eras in world history. It had everything: collapsing empires, child emperors, corrupt court factions, peasant uprisings, military geniuses,...
