History Archives - Page 2 of 2

February 6, 2023

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• The article discusses the legacy of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War, and how it is shared by both Russia and Ukraine.
• It recounts the story of three Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who presented the author with a lapel pin from the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan.
• It references the work of Vasily Grossman, a Ukrainian Soviet Jew, and his 1942 book, *The People Immortal*, which chronicles the Red Army’s retreat through Ukraine in the months after the German invasion on June 22, 1941.
• It compares the Nazi military machine to the Russian-invasion force in Ukraine, and discusses the societal sterility associated with fascism in Russia today.
• It draws parallels between the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Grossman, both of whom understand the importance of narrative in war.
• It concludes by suggesting that the title of Grossman’s book, *The People Immortal*, is a reference to the people of Ukraine and Russia, whose blood has been mixed together in life and death.

Published February 6, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Elliot Ackerman’s original post The Two Stalingrads

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It’s So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive [Freddie deBoer, Freddie deBoer’s Substack]

By Spencer Chen

In Freddie deBoer

February 6, 2023

244 views

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• The 90s were a time of optimism and immediacy in experience, with a lack of self-consciousness and a sense of possibility for the new millennium.
• People had places to do things, like record stores, and there was a sense of pretension and principles that has since been replaced by cultural consumerism.
• Gen X were the young people of the 90s, and the turn of the millennium was seen as both a new beginning and potentially the end.
• The 90s had a counterculture, with people standing for something else, and a species of young feminist who was not quite a riot grrrl.
• People had to wait for things, and there was mystery and anticipation, which has been replaced by instant access to all of the most depraved material ever made.
• The youth of today are denied the ability to see things as new, and are experiencing an adolescence without adolescence.
• The article reflects on the experience of being a teenager in the 90s, when the internet was still a novelty and cellphones were not yet ubiquitous.
• Socializing was done in person, often in the school parking lot or at parties at houses on the edge of town.
• People would talk on the phone for hours, and collect calls were used to ask for rides home.
• The author reflects on the fashion, music, and culture of the time, and how it was worse than today in some ways, but also better in others.
• They recall going to shows, smoking weed, and drinking coffee, and how they would drop by each other’s places.
• The author also shares a fantasy version of the 90s, where they and a friend move to Seattle and live in a ratty old house with a bunch of other layabouts.
• They recall going to shows, doing drugs, and driving to Mount Ranier, and how they would listen to NPR for news.
• The article ends with a description of closing the coffee shop at dusk, listening to Mazzy Star, and driving to a house party.

Published February 6, 2023
Visit Freddie deBoer’s Substack to read Freddie deBoer’s original post It’s So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive

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Commemorate history, don’t preserve old buildings [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

By Spencer Chen

In [Slow Boring]

February 6, 2023

299 views

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• Washington D.C. has a grim land use situation near the Cleveland Park Metro station, where a low-rise strip mall is designated for historic preservation.
• This strip mall is an inappropriate use of the land given present-day economics and the existence of the metro station.
• In Chicago, a plaque commemorates the place where Barack and Michelle Obama shared their first kiss after their first date.
• Cities should invest more in telling their stories, such as installing signs in parks to explain who the park is named after and why.
• Mandating that old buildings stay up rather than be replaced as economics shift is very costly.
• It can be inconvenient not to have a level entry to your house, and regulations have benefits as well as costs.
• The city of D.C. has created a series of “neighborhood heritage trail” walking tours that bring you to various informational signs about the history of the neighborhood.
• The author suggests investing in more signage to tell the story of every park and school in every neighborhood of the city.
• The author also suggests redeveloping old buildings to create more subsidized housing units.

Published February 6, 2023
Visit Slow Boring to read Matthew Yglesias’s original post Commemorate history, don’t preserve old buildings

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This Is Not 1943 [George Packer, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen

In [The Atlantic]

February 3, 2023

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• Vladimir Putin visited Stalingrad to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
• Putin’s purpose was to connect the past war to the present one, and to rouse Russian pride and warn his enemies of their coming doom.
• Putin’s actions are compared to those of Adolf Hitler in 1938, when he annexed Austria and the Sudetenland.
• Putin’s lies are compared to Hitler’s, and the article suggests that Putin is using propaganda as projection to immunize himself from having a more plausible charge flung at him.
• The article suggests that Germany’s decision to send tanks to Ukraine is part of their long reckoning with their crimes.

Published February 3, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read George Packer’s original post This Is Not 1943

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February 1, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

By Spencer Chen

In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]

February 2, 2023

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• On February 1, 1862, Julia Ward Howe published her famous poem “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the Atlantic Monthly, which became the anthem of the Union during the Civil War.
• On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Joint Resolution of Congress passing the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.
• On February 1, 1960, four Black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at the F.W. Woolworth Company department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest segregation.
• This sparked a sit-in movement that spread across the South and eventually led to the desegregation of public spaces.
• On February 1, 2023, Tyre Nichols’s family laid their 29-year-old son to rest in Memphis, Tennessee, after he was severely beaten by police officers.
• The College Board also released the official curriculum for a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies, which had been stripped of information about Black feminism, the queer experience, incarceration, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Published February 2, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 1, 2023

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for material redistribution [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

By Spencer Chen

In [Slow Boring]

January 17, 2023

188 views

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• Martin Luther King Jr. is often invoked by conservatives in their campaign against modern-day anti-racism concepts.
• King’s speeches had more lines than just “content of character and not the color of our skin”.
• King wanted a significant redistribution of economic resources to create a society of equals.
• King’s ideas were superior to what is being pushed by both modern-day DEI devotees and their critics.
• King wanted real access to the ballot, not just a requirement that voter suppression measures be facially race-neutral.
• King wanted to generate meaningful economic opportunities, which is why he launched the Poor People’s Campaign.
• Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an introduction to Bayard Rustin’s “Freedom Budget” in 1966, a plan for massive government-led investment to eradicate poverty and generate full employment.
• King’s vision was for improved public services, an enhanced welfare state, and a robust commitment to full employment.
• King argued that the civil rights movement needed to go in the direction of “class struggle” and “redistribution of economic power” in order to achieve true justice.
• King was not advocating for “colorblindness” but rather for solidarity and a powerful doctrine of solidarity.
• King was asking for nothing more or less than what is promised in the nation’s founding documents and celebrated in its monuments.

Published January 16, 2023. Visit Slow Boring to read Matthew Yglesias’s original post [Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for material redistribution]

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There Is No Right Side of History [William Deresiewicz, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen

In [The Free Press]

January 2, 2023

214 views

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• The phrase “the right side of history” is a dangerous myth that assumes an inevitable upward path of human events.
• History does not have sides and does not take sides. It is full of “sides” and disagreement.
• Believing in the progressive view of history can lead to complacency and arrogance.
• Talk of the right side of history is propaganda that attempts to persuade us that the largest issues have already been decided.

Published January 2, 2023. Visit The Free Press to read the original post.

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December 28, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

By Spencer Chen

In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]

December 28, 2022

262 views

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On December 28, 1890, Lakota people surrendered to U.S. soldiers on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, but the soldiers had more troops and guns than necessary.
The next day, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred, killing 250 Lakota men, women, and children.
The author reflects on the tragedy and the potential to change the future.

Click HERE for original. Published December 28, 2022

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December 26, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

By Spencer Chen

In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]

December 26, 2022

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On December 26, 1862, the U.S. government hanged 38 Santee men in the largest mass execution in American history, due to their actions in Minnesota’s Dakota War.
The war was caused by the U.S. government’s failure to provide the food promised to the Santees by treaty, and settlers’ fury at the Santees’ attempt to reclaim their land.
President Abraham Lincoln refused to sign off on the executions of 303 Santees convicted by a military tribunal, pardoning 265 of them, but the 38 convicted of murder or rape against civilians were hanged.
The aftermath of the hangings led to the development of the Lieber Code, which set out rules for wartime, and the Hague Conventions of the turn of the century.

Click HERE for original. Published December 26, 2022

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December 25, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

By Spencer Chen

In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]

December 25, 2022

307 views

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In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, but the British responded with military might.
By December, the Continental Army was demoralized and the Continental Congress had abandoned Philadelphia.
Thomas Paine published a pamphlet urging people to stand by their country and help drive the enemy back.
On Christmas night, Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River and surprised the Hessians at Trenton, restoring confidence in the Revolutionary cause.
The Battles of Trenton and Princeton saved the Revolutionary cause and showed that tyranny could be conquered.

Click HERE for original. Published December 25, 2022

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TagHistory

The Two Stalingrads [Elliot Ackerman, The Atlantic]

It’s So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive [Freddie deBoer, Freddie deBoer’s Substack]

Commemorate history, don’t preserve old buildings [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

This Is Not 1943 [George Packer, The Atlantic]

February 1, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for material redistribution [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

There Is No Right Side of History [William Deresiewicz, The Free Press]

December 28, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

December 26, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

December 25, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

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