Featured stories about History
Stories about History
10 December 2019
A 1990s Macedonian film set in 2019 foreshadows a xenophobic future
Like other sci-fi before it, it imagined the present year as a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
5 December 2019
Encounters with devils, angels and saints on the streets of the Czech Republic
On the evening of December 5, streets and squares of the Czech Republic fill with unusual characters: devils, angels and saints wearing tall hats.
Parody song remembers Eastern European fighters in WWII's Battle of Britain
Historians say that, without the help of Eastern European soldiers, Britain would not have beaten Nazi Germany.
4 December 2019
Tears with truth: The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission
President Barrow’s triumph at the polls set the stage for "righting the wrongs" of the past. For Gambians, this interim leadership provided a reset button for transitional justice, following years of brutality.
28 November 2019
The Gambia confronts the nightmare of witch hunts under former regime
In The Gambia, alleged witches were held for up to five days in secret locations and made to drink ‘Kubehjaro’, a hallucinogenic substance, and then forced to confess to witchcraft.
26 November 2019
An interview with ‘Siamese Intellectual’ Sulak Sivaraksa on the future of Thailand's democracy and monarchy
"The monarchy must introduce some transparency into its workings if it wants to remain. It must be open to criticism."
Will the upcoming Taiwanese presidential election bring an end to the death penalty?
Taiwan has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that calls for the abolition of capital punishment, yet it has applied death penalty in 34 cases since.
Why is Central Europe leaning towards illiberal democracy? Interview with Czech author Radka Denemarková
"My biggest hope was that we would adopt the Western democratic values. Yet what we took from the West after 1989 was a model of consumerism and not a democratic...
22 November 2019
In Ethiopia’s disinformation epidemic, the crumbling ruling coalition is the elephant in the room
As acts of communal violence that took place in Oromia in October subsided, a new battle began online over interpretations of the violence — and who was to blame.
18 November 2019
Tashkent theatre offers window into Japanese internment after World War II
Of all the Japanese interned for forced labour by the Soviet Union after the end of the war, about 25,000 were taken to Uzbekistan.
17 November 2019
Antigua & Barbuda wants Harvard Law School to ‘make amends’ for the gains it enjoyed from slavery
"Admitting that Harvard benefited greatly from the backs of slaves in Antigua and making a few token changes to [...] a shield does nothing to correct the grave injustice."
14 November 2019
University of the Philippines unveils new subject on the Marcos dictatorship to counter historical revisionism
The new subject can be a platform for the “conscientization” of young Filipinos on the importance of human rights, social justice and the continuing struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.
13 November 2019
‘Brazil might not be a dictatorship, but it's not a democracy either,’ says Brazilian journalist
Mário Magalhães wrote a book about 2018, the year that changed Brazil forever.
9 November 2019
What the door knockers in Colombia's Cartagena de Indias tell us about the city's history
Add beautiful door knockers to your list of reasons to visit Cartagena de Indias in Colombia.
6 November 2019
Quichua, a language that sets us free
"Quichua was for me a language with which I cohabited, but I didn’t really know."
3 November 2019
Will collective farming by artists save one of Manila's remaining urban fields?
"As peasant advocates aiming at promoting agroecology, we want to participate in agricultural production."
2 November 2019
For the first time ever, a doctoral dissertation was defended in the Quechua language in Peru
"In 468 years, no one had defended a doctoral dissertation in any indigenous language in our country. Roxana Quispe did it this year. She wants promote Quechua in academia."
26 October 2019
One of the few certainties of the Chilean crisis is the shadow of the past
In the midst of the turmoil in Chile, there's one point on which both the radical right and radical left concur: that this moment has overtones of the 1973 coup...
Yugoslavia wasn't a Soviet ally—so why does that misconception persist in Western media?
The Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia's independence from both the Eastern and the Western blocs was a key feature of its national identity.
