Historical fiction can be the a fantastic way to ingrain history events as long as it doesn’t deviate too far from the dry and dusty demands of factual “truthiness”, and in the vein The Second Seal by Dennis Wheatley is an excellent primer for the dabbler who wants to get started in the area World …
Passion and levity have destroyed me. I pay with my life for my sins. Pray for me.–Alfred Redl Colonel Redl had good reason to kill himself in spring of 1913; as the head of the Evidenzbureau (counterintelligence) of Austria-Hungary, he had been selling Austria’s secrets and war plans to Russia for over ten years. …
World War I nearly started in 1909 over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Worried about a changing circumstance in Europe after the Young Turk Revolution and increasingly bothered by the rhetoric from Serbia, Austria-Hungary felt it had to act in order to preserve the integrity of its borders and its empire. On 6 October 1908, they announced …
My Dear Heart: Do not be too sorrowful and upset on account of this letter. God’s will be done. Tomorrow at ten they will cut off my head and your brother’s, too. Today we pardoned each other with all our heart. Therefor I ponder this letter and ask you for everlasting forgiveness. If I have …
First Jelena Branković lost her father. Then before four months could pass, in 1459 at the age of 11, she was married to the son of the King of Bosnia. Stjepan Tomasević had not even met Jelena, but they were married on 1 April 1459. Given that Tomasević had been casting around the Balkans for …
I have many sins and the merciful God will forgive me, but because I killed that woman with my own hand I’m afraid he will never! — Princess Ljubica on her deathbed. At the beginning of the 1800s Serbia began its heaviest push for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Two families dominated the fight on …
I think submission to authority and absolving oneself from blame by saying that one has to obey orders are widespread… I think all medical students should be taught about the research on submissiveness being a key etiological factor in the perpetuation of atrocities. They should be fully familiar with Milgram’s work and reflect on Hannah …
Aminatta Forna tackles trauma, although not in the way that most western readers are used to dealing with trauma’s effects. Her previous book, Happiness, brings a different explanation to how different cultures deal with trauma. The problem, rather than the trauma itself, is societal expectations of trauma. Those who expect a trauma-free life as …
Where everybody is guilty, no one is. — Hannah Arendt The two women in the photo are breathtakingly lovely. Their clear skin and perfect hair frame faces with smiles that reach through their eyes. They are happy women. The two women in the photo, Maja Buždon and Nada Šakić, may have been happy, but it …
King Mary of Hungary did not live a long life. She died at the age of 23 or 24 on 17 May 1395, crushed under a horse in an accident in the Buda Forest. The child she was pregnant with died along with her. But Mary’s death was probably the least interesting thing about her …
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