Mohandas Gandhi and Subash Chandra Bose: Two Indian Freedom Fighters with Different Approaches to Achieving Independence

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Mahatma Gandhi is one of the best-loved men in all history. Although he worked all his life for Indians, his belief in fighting against wrong without using guns, knives or bombs has changed the world. His ideas were important for Martin Luther King, for example, in his fight for Afro-American rights in the U.S. In India, he is called ‘Bapu’ and many Indians see him as the father of their country.

The Language Martyrs

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On 21st February, 1952, Pakistani soldiers fired at a peaceful procession around Dhaka University, called to protest Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s decree, reiterated by the new governor-general, Khawaja Nazimuddin, that Urdu – and only Urdu – would be the national language of Pakistan, East and West. Five protesters, most of them students, were shot dead and at another rally the next day to mourn the murdered martyrs, others died, including a nine-year-old boy, called Ohiullah.

The Ford Motor Company & the Modern Production Line

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Between 1899 and 1903, Henry Ford began three companies. The first, the Detroit Automobile Company, failed less than two years after it began business. He resigned from the second, Ford and Malcomson Limited, because of difficulties with his partner. But, in 1903, he opened the Ford Motor Company. Fifteen years later, half the cars in the USA came from his factories.

Genghis Khan - Feared Warrior and Empire Builder

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Every day on Polish radio, there is a recording of a trumpeter warning a city of an attack. It stops suddenly and unexpectedly. This is in commemoration of the man who sounded the alarm in Poland’s then capital city, Krakow, when he saw the advancing Mongol army on the horizon. It stops in mid-phrase because an arrow hit him in the throat.

The Development of Western Alphabets

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The word ‘alphabet’ comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. The Greeks invented an alphabet in which every sign represented a sound. Much of it was taken from the Phoenicians, who lived on the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East, and the lands they conquered as far west as Morocco. Their alphabet, dating from about 1200 B.C.,

Telling the Time – A History of Calendars

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People have tried to count time for about ten thousand years. The Abbasid scholar, Abu Raihan Mohammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni, wrote in the year 1000 a history of the calendars used by different religious groups and people. Many of these calendars used the moon as a way of telling the time. Of course, we all understand why. The moon was more important before we had electricity than it is nowadays and it made a great difference to people’s lives if there was a new moon or a full one. Other calendars used the stars.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, The Man who made Modern Turkey

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Every year on 10th November at five past nine in the morning, people in Turkey stop what they are doing and stand still for a minute or two to honour the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Auschwitz - the Nazi Death Camp where Humanity Died

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Many people in South Asia admire Adolf Hitler to this day as a strong leader with a clear vision. His book, ‘My Struggle’, continues to be a bestseller, for instance, in India. In fact, the Führer (or ‘Leader’), as he called himself, was an extremist mass murderer, responsible for some of the most horrible crimes in human history. The story of Auschwitz is evidence of this, but, as you listen or read, you should remember that it was just one camp among many across Eastern Europe: the list of them is too long to include here.

The History of the Samurai

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Over the course of their long history, the samurai had many roles: they were traditionally warriors but also made important contributions to the Japanese arts of ceramics, poetry, calligraphy and flower arranging as well as developing the tea ceremony; they were civil servants for centuries; they used the sword as a weapon and a symbol; and they both resisted western influence and championed it.