Which country is Minsk the capital of?

Where is Belarus? I conducted an informal survey asking this question: the result was that not one person got more than one of the country's five bordering countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland and Russia) correct. Some people even thought it was a city! Not many people seem to know anything about this small country which currently holds an important role in international relations Although Belarus has a history that dates back over 100 000 years, has its own language that dates back to the 10th century (despite not being widely spoken due to the Russification campaigns of the late 19th century and under Stalin), and was one of the most devastated areas in WWII, most people do not know much about it. This is largely caused by the fact that the country has had a history of being "added" to other countries, from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , to the Russian Empire, to Poland.

Yet, this country is likely to hold a place in history as being 21rst century Europe's last communist-style regime, with a state-led economy, a state hold on the media, and a large secret (although not so secret) policing network.

The EU has imposed sanctions on Belarus because of its unjust regime for 5 years and is currently in the process of lifting them. Why? Because the president, Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed "Europe's last dictator" and Europe's longest serving leader, has pardoned six political prisoners.

The sanctions were originally placed on Belarus after the 2010 'elections' which were clearly undemocratic: not only were opposition candidates and activists  jailed, but also the following protests in Minsk were violently suppressed by the government. The EU should be fighting for human rights, and, of course, these were violated during this election. But, if the EU is going to impose sanctions because of the lack of freedom of speech and brutality of the regime in the first place, why lift them now, when the regime is clearly not going to change?

The head of the OSCE mission, Kent Harstedt, stated that 'Belarus still has a long way to go towards fulfilling its democratic commitments'. The way the elections were carried out greatly indicate corruption: people were able to vote early from the 6th to the 10th of October, facilitating the manipulation of electoral outcome, and Lukashenko did not hold rallies, answer questions, or go out of his way to meet voters. If this doesn't already essentially prove corruption from the government, the results undoubtedly do: according to the Belarusian government the overall turnout was 87.22% and Lukashenko won a landslide majority with 83.47% of the vote.

The underlying objective of the EU's lifting of the sanctions is undeniably it's wish to use Lukashenko as "contact man" with Russia and partner to Ukraine, a peacemaker that he has recently- through, among other things, hosting multiple talks involving both Putin and Poroshenko in Minsk. However, the EU has to be more decisive with its position: if it decides to fight an unfair regime, it should pursue that aim, not change it depending on the relations of countries surrounding the regime. If not, it sends signals to other countries. The lifting of sanctions simply for elections taking place without mass arrest and the release of the opposition candidates in the 2010 elections from prison undermines the principle of sanctions. Russia, Egypt or many other countries can now see this as evidence that the sanctions imposed on them will eventually be lifted too, without a necessary change in their policy.

Moreover, it does not seem that the dictatorship-like leadership in Belarus is going to change any time soon. Lukashenko has made it clear that he wishes his 11-year old son, popularly known as "Kolya", who has already attended meetings with Putin and Pope Benedict XVI and accompanied his father in the Independence Day Parade, to become his successor. 

My list of great history books

MY LIST OF MUST-READ HISTORY BOOKS:




From Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra


A People's Trajedy by Frank Dikotter


Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter


A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes


Lenin by Robert Service


In Defence of History by Richard J. Evans

GREAT BOOK: A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1996/oct/06/featuresreview.review


AMAZING BOOK
looks at the story of individuals during the Russian Revolution


Although a heavy and thick book, it captures you and takes you from Nicholas II's reign to the Russian Civil War. Absolutely worth reading!

John F. Kennedy

I was interested in this individual when I watched 'The Butler'; he was shot whilst fighting for the rights of black people.
What would have happened if he hadn't been shot? is the main question that comes to mind: tell me what you think!!

A Life in Brief

John F. Kennedy was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics. He and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged childhood of elite private schools, sailboats, servants, and summer homes. During his childhood and youth, "Jack" Kennedy suffered frequent serious illnesses. Nevertheless, he strove to make his own way, writing a best-selling book while still in college at Harvard and volunteering for hazardous combat duty in the Pacific during World War II. Kennedy's wartime service made him a hero. After a short stint as a journalist, Kennedy entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1961.
Kennedy was the youngest person elected U.S. President and the first Roman Catholic to serve in that office. For many observers, his presidency came to represent the ascendance of youthful idealism in the aftermath of World War II. The promise of this energetic and telegenic leader was not to be fulfilled, as he was assassinated near the end of his third year in office. For many Americans, the public murder of President Kennedy remains one of the most traumatic events in memory—countless Americans can remember exactly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. His shocking death stood at the forefront of a period of political and social instability in the country and the world.

A key individual : Otto Von Bismarck

Bismarck was responsible for transforming a collection of small German states into the German empire, and was its first chancellor.

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born into an aristocratic family at Schönhausen, northwest of Berlin, on 1 April 1815. He attended a prestigious school in Berlin followed by the University of Göttingen. He then entered the Prussian civil service but was bored by his job and in 1838 resigned. For nearly a decade, he helped his father manage the family estates.

In 1847, Bismarck married Johanna von Puttkamer, who provided him with stability. It was a year of significant change in his life, when he also embraced the Christian tradition of Lutheranism, and began his political career in the Prussian legislature, where he gained a reputation as an ultra-conservative royalist. In 1851, King Frederick Wilhelm IV appointed Bismarck as Prussian representative to the German Confederation. He then served as ambassador to Russia and France. In 1862, he returned to Prussia and was appointed prime minister by the new king, Wilhelm I.

Bismarck was now determined to unite the German states into a single empire, with Prussia at its core. With Austrian support, he used the expanded Prussian army to capture the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. He then escalated a quarrel with Austria and its German allies over the administration of these provinces into a war, in which Prussia was the victor. Prussia then annexed further territory in Germany.

Unable to persuade the southern German states to join with his North German Confederation, he provoked hostilities with France as a way of uniting the German states together. The German victory in the Franco-Prussian War won over the southern German states, and in 1871 they agreed to join a German empire. Wilhelm I of Prussia became emperor.

As 'chancellor' of the new Germany, Bismarck concentrated on building a powerful state with a unified national identity. One of his targets was the Catholic Church, which he believed had too much influence, particularly in southern Germany. He also worked to prevent the spread of socialism, partly by introducing health insurance and pensions.

Abroad, Bismarck aimed to make the German empire the most powerful in Europe. In 1879, he negotiated an alliance with Austria-Hungary to counteract France and Russia. Italy later joined the alliance. To avoid alienating Britain, Bismarck arranged the two Mediterranean Agreements of 1887, designed to preserve the status quo against a Russian threat.

In 1890, Bismarck resigned after disagreeing with the new emperor, Wilhelm II. He retired to his estate near Hamburg and died there on 30 July 1898.

After Bismarck, Calvini became Chancellor, and, by disagreeing to re-negotiate the "reinsurance" treaty with Russia, and many more errors from the government, Germany became isolated: by 1905, France and Russia had an alliance; so did Britain and Japan and Britain and France had made a pact not to fight with each other. Although Germany had Austria and Italy as allies, Austria was weak and Italy was untrustworthy.

Great Book on this: Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg!

Tactic of World War II: Bat Bombs

On December 7, 1941, a Pennsylvania dentist named Lytle S. Adams was on vacation in the southwest at the famed Carlsbad Caverns, home to excellent spelunking and about a million bats. Adams had been particularly impressed with the bats during his time in New Mexico. So when he turned on the radio that infamous day and heard the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, he began plotting a very unusual form of revenge on our World War II enemies.

Less than a month later, on January 12, 1942, he sent the White House his plan: We could demolish Japanese cities by strapping tiny incendiary bombs to bats, which they would carry into the all the nooks and crannies of the cities on the island. "Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped," he later recalled. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life."
Now, as luck would have it, Adams happened to know Eleanor Roosevelt. He'd flown her in his plane to see a previous scheme he'd cooked up: an airmail system where the plane doesn't have to land to pick up cargo. So, when he finished his preliminary investigations, he appears to have managed to get a high-level audience, despite the rather eccentric nature of his idea.
His proposal was taken up by the National Research Defense Committee, which was in charge of coordinating and investigating research into war-applicable ideas. They forwarded the proposal to one Donald Griffin, who had conducted groundbreaking work on bats' echolocation strategies, as related by Patrick Drumm and Christopher Ovre in this month's American Psychological Association Journal. Griffin, who later became a renowned psychologist who argued that non-human animals also possess consciousness, was quite enthusiastic about the idea.
"This proposal seems bizarre and visionary at first glance," he wrote in April 1942, "but extensive experience with experimental biology convinces the writer that if executed competently it would have every chance of success."
The President's men followed Griffin's lead. "This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but is worth looking into," a Presidential memorandum concluded. And so, just like that, a dentist's crazy idea about bats had become a U.S. government research project.
After the team settled on using the Mexican free-tailed bat, Adams took a few to Washington for a demonstration of them carrying a dummy bomb. His superiors were sufficiently impressed that the U.S. Air Force gave authority for investigations to begin in earnest. It was March of 1943. The subject of the letter was, "Test of Method to Scatter Incendiaries." The purpose of the test was listed as, "Determine the feasibility of using bats to carry small incendiary bombs into enemy targets." The scheme became known as Project X-Ray.
After being transferred to the Army, thousands of bats were captured with nets at caverns around the southwest. Tiny bombs were designed for them. Appreciate, for a moment, the incendiary bomb that they came up with:

But this was a complex system that was being engineered. The researchers needed to figure out how to transport and deploy the little guys. So they did. First, the bats had to be kept in a hibernating mode while they were shipped. To accomplish this, they were stuck in ice cube trays and cooled. Second, they had to figure out how to release them in midair. A cardboard container was supposed to automatically open and release the bats. This was a real effort that cost science and engineering effort. Unfortunately, real tests did not go as planned. There were all kinds of things that needed to be fine-tuned. For example, at one point, a few of the loaded incendiary bats were accidentally released, whereupon a hangar and general's car were burned (as you can see in the photo below).
Eventually the Marine Corps took over the program and conducted tests beginning in December 1943. After 30 demonstrations and $2 million spent, the project was canceled. Most people believe it's because the U.S. realized that all resources should be concentrated on the development of a far more powerful weapon: the atomic bomb.
Adams, for his part, went on to a variety of crazy schemes. Right after, he advocated bombing the prairies with seed packets, and patented that scheme. And finally, after moving to Washington state, he tried to garner interest in a fried chicken vending machine. Truly Adams was a man with some ideas of his own making.

1. Lytle Adams loading bats into containers. 2. The bat containers being airdropped in a test. 3. The fire that accidentally released bats started at an Air Force facility. Images: U.S. Air Forc

Psychological History

A new type of History has emerged throughout the past twenty years or so: the type of history that psychologically analyses why crucial historical individuals did certain actions they did.


http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/17/science/insane-or-just-evil-a-psychiatrist-takes-a-new-look-at-hitler.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
This article is one of the most common examples of this history: Why did Hitler do what he did?


My questions about this
Can one actually justify someone's actions by something that happened in his/her childhood or his/her past? If so to what extent?
Doesn't it depend as different things affect different people in different ways?
Surely one cannot make an analysis on the precise reasons of someone's actions based on some knowledge of their childhood?


Nevertheless, I feel that to some extent some things happened in the past because an individual made a decision that was heavily influenced by their childhood.


Some interesting examples
Louis XIV's distrust in his court, owing to the revolts throughout the nobility when he was only 9 that tried to overthrow him, maybe hindered France from becoming as powerful as it may have been, as he did not take anybody's advice.


Alexander III's extremely conservative reign after his father's assassination in 1881.


The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 because of Nicholas II's hatred for the Japanese because of the Otsu incident. This was an attempt of assassination on the Tsarevich in 1891 by a Japanese when he was touring the world.