The two great Arab military victories of 636, the Battle of Yarmouk against the Byzantines and the Battle of al-Qadisiyah against the Sasanian Persians, were decisive in both in military and in geopolitical terms. Taken individually, they changed the course of both of the defeated empires—the Byzantines would never again hold significant territory south of Anatolia, and … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Battle of al-Qadisiyah (636)
Tag: history
Today in South Asian history: the Durand Line is drawn (1893)
The Durand Line, AKA "the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," is one of those legacies of colonial times that everybody's still, unfortunately, living with today. Named after the guy who dreamed it up, British Foreign Secretary for India (at the time) Sir Mortimer Durand, it was meant to fix the border between British India and … Continue reading Today in South Asian history: the Durand Line is drawn (1893)
Today in European history: the Battle of Varna (1444)
The Battle of Varna in 1444 was arguably the most important Ottoman victory in Europe prior to their conquest of Constantinople, especially if you consider its effects alongside those of the (second) Battle of Kosovo in 1448. The Ottoman success at Varna shattered a Hungarian-Polish alliance that had been formed to counter the Turkish threat. That alliance … Continue reading Today in European history: the Battle of Varna (1444)
Today in North African history: the Green March begins (1975)
When I think of the Spanish Empire, I think of the vast swathes of the Americas that were Spanish colonies until the independence movement of the early 19th century. But it survived beyond that period, albeit substantially reduced in size. A few other places (Cuba, the Philippines) lingered under Spanish control, but were gradually peeled … Continue reading Today in North African history: the Green March begins (1975)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the Iran Hostage Crisis begins (1979)
When a group of Iranian students from an organization called “Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line,” on their own volition though possibly with the approval of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, stormed the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and took 66 US citizens hostage, I doubt anybody involved fully realized what was about … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Iran Hostage Crisis begins (1979)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the Balfour Declaration (1917)
It was on November 2, 1917, when British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a relatively brief letter to Walter Rothschild that would wind up becoming one of the most consequential letters in modern Middle Eastern history. If you’d read it at the time, you probably wouldn’t have envisioned the importance it would come to … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Balfour Declaration (1917)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the last Ottoman Sultan is deposed (1922)
The removal of the last Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI Vahideddin (d. 1926), is among history's greatest anti-climaxes. The Ottomans had (obviously) lost World War I, which resulted in the dismantling of their empire under the terms of their 1918 armistice and the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. Sèvres not only put the empire's Arab dominions under … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the last Ottoman Sultan is deposed (1922)
Today in European history: the Battle of Río Salado (1340)
Whoever came up with the term Reconquista to describe the Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims deserves an all-time gold star for public relations work. I mean, there were parts of modern Spain that were in Muslim hands for well over seven hundred years, and if there's a statute of limitations on when something stops … Continue reading Today in European history: the Battle of Río Salado (1340)
Today in North African history: the Eighth Crusade ends (1270)
King Louis IX of France (d. 1270, which is a bit of a spoiler), who would later be known as Saint Louis, would probably go somewhere on a list of the 10 greatest Crusaders of all time. He'd be right up there alongside men like Godfrey of Bouillon, the first Christian ruler of Jerusalem, and Richard the … Continue reading Today in North African history: the Eighth Crusade ends (1270)
Cannibalizing the Past
I really don't have much to say about Benjamin Netanyahu's latest kerfuffle, the one where he intimated that (an apparently reluctant) Adolf Hitler was talked into exterminating the Jews (all he wanted to do was expel them from Europe) by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the 1920s and most of the … Continue reading Cannibalizing the Past
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 