The Middle Eastern front in World War II often merits only a brief mention before you move on to Pearl Harbor, the Pacific campaign, and so forth. So Operation Exporter, or the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, doesn’t get that much attention. Indeed, even during the war news about the campaign was downplayed or outright suppressed in Britain, … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Operation Exporter begins (1941)
Category: history
Today in Middle Eastern history: the Lebanon War begins (1982)
The 1982-85 Lebanon War can also be treated as the third phase of the 1975-90 Lebanese Civil War, following its first (the Lebanese National Movement and the PLO against the Christian Phalanges) and second (the Phalanges against the intervening Syrian army and the PLO against Israel) phases. But as it does involve a discrete event—the invasion … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Lebanon War begins (1982)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the 15 Khordad Movement (1963)
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran on January 16, 1979, in the face of a revolution that had reached its zenith. But the seeds of the Iranian revolution were planted decades earlier, as is usually the case in these situations, and you can make a pretty good case that they first sprouted in 1963, during … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the 15 Khordad Movement (1963)
Today in European history: the Battle of the Kalka River (1223)
The Mongols’ 1240 siege of Kyiv, an event we’ve also discussed here, occurred on their second incursion into the eastern European steppe. The Mongols’ first European invasion, which gives us today’s anniversary, was more a raid than an invasion, since there was no consideration given to actually conquering territory. But it stands as perhaps the most … Continue reading Today in European history: the Battle of the Kalka River (1223)
Today in Caucasian history: the Battles of Karakilisa, Sardarabad, and Abaran (1918)
It goes without saying that the 1917 Russian Revolution had a considerable impact on the course of World War I. It eliminated the Russian threat on the eastern front, for example, which is the part everybody learns about in history class. But it's biggest impact may actually have been on the Caucasian front. This is … Continue reading Today in Caucasian history: the Battles of Karakilisa, Sardarabad, and Abaran (1918)
Today in Chinese history: the Siege of Kaifeng ends (1233)
The 1232-1233 Mongolian siege of Kaifeng provides some of the most detailed early accounts of the use of gunpowder weapons in combat.
Islamic History, part 30: the early Islamic military (7th-9th centuries CE)
Islamic History Series I feel pretty certain that nowadays we would point to the advent of Islam as the most important development of the movement that Muhammad began in Mecca and Medina in the first part of the 7th century. However, to contemporary observers in the period immediately following his death, it must have seemed … Continue reading Islamic History, part 30: the early Islamic military (7th-9th centuries CE)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the Turkish War of Independence begins (1919)
There’s a kind of symmetry in the fact that the Turkish War of Independence began around three years to the date after Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot agreement on how to divide up the Arab world. Sykes-Picot, for better or worse, has become the symbol for all of the plans the Allies had for … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Turkish War of Independence begins (1919)
Today in Middle Eastern history: a bad day for the Crusades
May 18 was a really bad day for the Crusades. There are no fewer than three Crusades-related events we can talk about today that either involve Crusader crimes against humanity or major Crusader losses. Let’s go in chronological order. This is just a placeholder. If you’d like to read the rest please check out my … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: a bad day for the Crusades
Today in Middle Eastern history: Sykes-Picot is signed (1916)
Today is the anniversary of ISIS’s least-favorite arbitrarily-drawn line on a map, the Iraq-Syria boundary delineated by the Sykes-Picot agreement. Al-Jazeera has a pretty handy explainer on the agreement, though I think the headline oversells the content a little bit. Here’s another explainer over at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment that is pretty good. Or you can read my long-ago look … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Sykes-Picot is signed (1916)
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 