History
Deutsche Reichsbahn: Strength through Standardization I
One logical end of the Deutsche Reichsbahn Einheitloks (unified locomotive types) programme of 1923 was the class 52 2-10-0s, first steamed at Borsig works on 12 September 1942 in the presence of Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister for armaments and production. The class 52 Kriegslok (war locomotive) was designed for mass production in factories in Germany and in territories conquered through…
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The Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch, March 13–18, 1920
Walther von LĂĽttwitz The major move by the right to overthrow the revolutionary government of the Soci left and replace it with a military dictatorship came during March 13–18, 1920 at Berlin. This was what has come down in German history as the Kapp Putsch, although his purely civilian part…
The Sicels c. 1000 BC – 450 BC
A 6th century BC Greek hoplite. Some of the hoplites in Gelon’s army would have looked very similar, clad in bronze armour. Artwork by © Angel Garcia Pinto. The map shows the most important archaeological sites of Sicily related to pre-hellenic cultures, as well as the possible extent of the…
THE COMING OF TYRANTSÂ I
General EyadĂ©ma In the first two decades of African independence, there were some forty successful coups and countless attempted coups. In 1967 a 27-year-old Ghanaian army lieutenant, Sam Arthur, finding himself in temporary command of an armoured car unit, decided on an attempt to seize power because, he later confessed,…
THE COMING OF TYRANTSÂ II
Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed emperor of the Central African empire, after crowning himself in 1977. The coronation took place on 4 December 1977 at the Palais des Sports ;, on Bokassa Avenue, next to the UniversitĂ© Jean-Bedel Bokassa. To the strains of Mozart and Beethoven, wearing a twenty-foot-long red-velvet cloak…
THE COMING OF TYRANTSÂ III
Ugandan President Idi Amin (1977) Map of battles of the Uganda–Tanzania War. However cruel, capricious and brutal many of Amin’s actions may have seemed in the West, in much of Africa he was regarded as something of a hero. By expelling the Asian community and attacking Western imperialism, he was…
The Serbian Grand Principality (Kingdom from 1346)
Detail of fresco depicting Serbian Emperor Stefan Dušan. Painted in the mid-14th century. Restorated (coloured). Lesnovo Monastery, Republic of Macedonia. Serbian Empire, 1355 Serbia had the Adriatic Sea to the west, Hungary to the north and Bulgaria to the east. Stefan divided his principality between his five sons when he…