The Black Death - A History Darker than Darkness

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In October 1347, a few merchant ships from the Far East arrived in the port of Messina on the island of Sicily, in the Mediterranean Sea just south of Italy. Four years later, up to 30 million people in Europe had died or about a tenth of the population of the entire world, a figure which would rise to 100 or even, some say, 200 million throughout the Middle Ages.

The Conquest of Istanbul: the End of the Eastern Roman Empire

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On 29th May 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet rode into Constantinople on his white horse, signalling the end of a thousand years of Byzantine rule of the city and the last day of an empire. Contemporary Greek writers say that the streets ran with blood and, when they heard of the fall of the city, the people of Rome cried openly in public. Everyone would remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news, much like modern readers can recall where they were when Sheikh Mujib was assassinated or 9/11 took place.

Kim Il Sung, Great Leader of North Korea

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In July of 1994, the news broke around the world that the president of North Korea had just died. This was no surprise: he was eighty-two years old. What did surprise people all over the globe were the extraordinary scenes of grief. Already, for outsiders, this was a rare look inside a closed country. Pyongyang, the capital, seemed sterile and unwelcoming with its huge concrete buildings and very wide avenues almost without traffic.

Language Death

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There are about six or seven thousand languages in the world but estimates suggest that 90% of these will be extinct by 2050. Half of these languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers today. But, on the other hand, some languages that were dying are now growing more popular again. Should our governments try to protect endangered languages or is this a waste of time?

Forests – Earth’s Lungs – and Deforestation in Bangladesh

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“A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US President, 1933 - 1945 Forest: anywhere that has a high concentration of trees, any kind of tree. Of course, ‘high concentration’ is a loose term and there is no fixed standard. A wood is usually thought of as smaller than a forest but it all depends where you are. Some areas in Russia, called ‘woods’, would be vast forests in Europe. Then there is rain forest and jungle – both tropical – but the word ‘forest’ includes them all.

Women’s Rights in Bangladesh and Around the Commonwealth

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Bangladesh is notable for having two female prime ministers continuously since 1991, except for a two-year period from the end of October, 2006, when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party resigned, until January, 2009, when the Awami League won the general election. During this twenty-six month hiccup, a caretaker government supported by civil society leaders and the military ruled without the mandate of the people. Yet, in a world where female leaders – in fact, even female lawmakers or CEOs – are rare exceptions, it is remarkable that for nearly thirty years, Bangladesh has been governed by women.

Oxygen & Revolution

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The discovery of oxygen is closely connected with revolution in late eighteenth century France and with two scientists, one British and the other French. They are both sometimes called ‘The Father of Chemistry’. They were Joseph Priestly and Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier.

The Deadly History of Anaesthesia

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We know that in the twelfth century in Europe and Asia, people used the Solanum plant species, mixed with other ingredients including alcohol, to make people fall asleep so that they could have operations without feeling any pain. In Italy in the thirteenth century, for instance, Theodoric Borgognoni used Solanum with opium in surgery. On the other side of the world, native Americans used coca leaves to cause unconsciousness and to clean cuts in operations on the head. They spat the mixture into the patients’ wounds to clean them.

The Indigenous Peoples of Bangladesh

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Over the past decade or even longer, there has been a great deal of progress in making roads, building houses and apartment blocks, improving sanitation and other essentials for healthy living, and providing access to education. Internet provision has increased as well. This has been no easy task as the country has an ever-growing population with ever-greater needs but limited resources.