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“No Irish Need Apply” – an Irish Immigrants Welcome

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No Irish Need Apply sign common on 19th century America

Given this century’sMiddle Eastern wars and refugee crises, it’s not hard to fathom the intense bigotry experienced by Irish immigrants of the mid 1800’s. The great Irish Potato Famine lasted from 1845 to 1855 and brought massive numbers of starving Irish refugees to America’s eastern shores. Ireland’s strict landlords evicted poor tenant farmers who could no longer pay rent with their blighted crops. So, faced with starvation or death, hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrated across the Atlantic Ocean to the US, a nation which boasted freedom, liberty and opportunity above all else.

To say these immigrants were not welcomed by the American public is a vast understatement.

Bigotry against the Irish in the U.S. included many different stereotypes like the belligerent Irish drunkards, thieving criminals, dangerous drunken hooligans, certainly not to ever be trusted. Newspaper cartoons of the day depicted a prehistoric species to bolster claims the Irish were an inferior, servant race compared to white Protestant, Anglo-Saxons of English decent. The common derogatory terms tossed about loudly were ‘Micks, Paddies or Biddies,’ based on common Irish first or last family names. Irish Catholic laws and customs were particularly open to ridicule by the wealthy, protestants, politicians, and the press alike.

Irish immigrant refugees were subjected to distortions of their Catholic religion and ostracized simply because of their faith. Catholics were labeled as barbaric pagans, papists, not being ‘real Christians.’ Some Protestant ministers forbid association with the heathen Catholics. Intermarriage was strictly forbidden. Many Protestants distrusted a religion that in their eyes was highly suspicious with its rosary beads for the Virgin Mary and Latin prayers to long dead Saints. The sheer number of families coming across the Atlantic Ocean caused wide spread fear and even led to attacks on U.S. Catholic churches, some being burned to the ground.

Many poor Irish came ashore with few skills besides farming, but just enough for the women to be low paid servants and the men factory workers. The Industrial Revolution was still running strong in the 1800’s. The poor Irish monopolized the lowest-paying jobs, creating growing resentment amongst established citizens as they were seen by the public as taking work away from ‘Real Americans.’ It became common practice for those with Irish names or brogue accents to be barred from voting, entering public buildings, and employment opportunities.

“NO IRISH NEED APPLY” signs were common in the windows of U.S. businesses and even newspaper advertisements for work.

It was felt in the mid 1800’s that the Irish immigrants hated America’s patriotism and its ‘purer’ form of Christianity. Irish were considered illiterate, hot-tempered, tended to congregate suspiciously by themselves, and perhaps most shockingly bred like rabbits, having far more children than was common back then. The ‘pure’ or ‘real’ Americans felt that this ‘reckless, slothful, and superstitious race‘ was overtaking them. They certainly had no place in the U.S. society and should all be packed on ships and deported back to where they came! Sound familiar?

Typical Help Wanted As excluding Irish immigrants — Typical 19th century ‘Help Wanted’ Ad excluding Irish Immigrants

During the Civil War, the Irish immigrants found some bit of respect of sorts. As willing Yankee soldiers, they could help outnumber the Southern Confederacy and win major military battles. Many Irish Americans fought at the fierce battles of Gettysburg and Antietam. However, after the war, that camaraderie did not change the opinion of most Americans for decades. By the 1880’s, many Irish still occupied the poorest slums of major U.S. cities like Boston, New York and Chicago. Time was on their side however, as future generations took their rightful place.

Of course, we know today that the Irish immigrants were eventually embraced by the U.S. and in fact became a vibrant, healthy part of America’s melting pot culture. Just imagine a March without St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Irish Americans eventually became a force to be reckoned with in the police departments, labor unions and local politics. President John F. Kennedy was of Irish decent, as was the actor John Wayne and car maker Henry Ford. One could say the same for European, Mexican and Asian immigrants. Just imagine the U.S. without its beloved pizza, beer, nachos or egg rolls!

Unfortunately, the same foul treatment was true for those subsequent waves of immigrants who arrived after the Irish. Whether from Eastern Europe, China, or India, they brought their own strange languages, religions and customs to our shores. Each wave, like the Irish before them, faced decades of bigotry and racism at the hands of the established Americans, including ironically, Irish Americans. That is until their descendants too were ultimately, and often reluctantly, considered Americans. I make no mention here of African American slaves or their descendants here. That is the topic for another blog. Their plight and journey before and after slavery was far worse.

And the human cycle continues today with the latest waves of immigrants and refugees arriving in the United States and Western Europe from places like Mexico, Central America, the Middle East, Africa and southeast Asia. The struggles and rejection they face today sounds oddly familiar given the lens of history.

I leave you with this line from Emma Lazarus’ 1883 stirring poem, The New Colossus. It is etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York City harbor, right next to Ellis Island:

BRING US YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BREATH FREE. THE WRETCHED REFUSE OF YOUR TEAMING SHORES. SEND THESE, THE TEMPEST TOST TO ME. I LIFT MY LAMP BESIDE THE GOLDEN DOOR.
Statue of Liberty poem, 1883

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is as Big as Texas

The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is just what its sounds like. Not one, but two immense clusters of man-made trash concentrated in the North Pacific Ocean. One is off the east coast of Japan, the other between Hawaii and California, often described as being as being ‘as large as Texas!’

The name may lead you to imagine floating islands of garbage, full of plastic bags visible from an airplane. But the reality is far more insidious. Most of the debris is made of much smaller pieces. They range in size, from large, discarded fishing nets to tiny micro-plastics, chunks smaller than 5 mm (0.2 in.). They look more like dirty snowflakes swirling in a cloudy ocean soup than something you can grab off the water with your hand. It’s possible to sail through the Garbage Patches and see only the small pieces and little large debris on the surface.

The amount of waste in the two Patches accumulates over time because most is not biodegradable. In the ocean, the sun breaks down plastics into tinier pieces in a process called photodegradation. The garbage is constantly being churned by wind and waves, causing it to be spread not just at the surface, but deep down through the water, sometimes to the ocean floor. The sea floor beneath the Patches probably looks like acres of underwater trash dumps. Think of that the next time you enjoy a Pacific lobster at your favorite seafood restaurant.

It’s difficult to estimate the size of the Garbage Patches because the edges are constantly changing with the ocean currents. They’re formed by whirlpool-like, rotating currents called “gyres,” sucking fresh debris in like magnets. The gyres are formed where the warm waters of the South Pacific meet the cold waters of the Arctic.

Because of those ocean currents, the two Pacific Garbage Patches actually trade trash!

There are two gyres in the North Pacific Ocean. The most famous is located between Hawaii and California, far out in the middle of the ocean. It was discovered by a yacht captain named Charles Moore over 20 years ago in 1997. He was sailing from Hawaii to California after a yachting race. While crossing the eastern Gyre, his crew noticed millions of pieces of plastic surrounding his ship. The patch was later named by Seattle oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer, a known expert in tracking ocean currents.

About 80% of the trash comes from North America and Asia. The remaining 20% comes from cargo ships, fishing trawlers and offshore oil rigs that routinely dump their waste directly into the ocean. Garbage from one side of the Pacific takes only about 1 year to travel to the other side. About 80,000 tons is discarded fishing nets and traps alone. More unusual stuff is everything you can imagine: sneakers, styrofoam, harder bottle caps, and even plastic Legos.

Because of their remoteness, the two Garbage Patches are hard to study. But we definitely know their impacts. Fish and other sea life are caught, injured, and killed by lost fishing nets. They are called “ghost nets” because they continue “ghost fishing,” even after being discarded by man. Plastic debris with loops, like six pack straps, and plastic bag handles also get caught on sea life.

Fish, seabirds and whales mistakenly eat the micro-plastics, causing choking and starvation.

These indigestible items clog their stomachs, making the animals feel full, and stopping them from eating. Sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jelly fish, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of ruptured organs. Seals, walruses, and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in ghost nets and drown, unable to reach the surface to breath.

If algae and plankton are threatened, the entire food chain is screwed. Animals that eat them, like fish and turtles, will have less food. If their population decrease, there’ll be less food for their predators like tuna, dolphins, sharks, and whales. An estimated 100,000 marine animals are strangled, suffocated, or injured by plastics every year. Eventually, seafood will become rarer and as a result, more expensive for you and me.

Why should we care about something so far away? Well, humans are exposed to those microplastics from seafood, sea water, and sea salt. Scientists are exploring what this does to us humans over the long haul, but all agree it’s not good. As photodegradation breaks down plastics, they leach out harmful petrochemical pollutants and chemicals. To make matters worse, floating plastics absorb the other pollutants we dump in the oceans. These chemicals then enter the food chain and eventually us, when eat our favorite fish and seafood.

If we do nothing but shrug it off, the sizes of the Garbage Patches will continue to grow and grow.

This growth will worsen the impacts on our environment, fishing, navigation, the economy, and all our health. So what do we do about it? It may not be possible to entirely clean up the Garbage Patches. Man-made materials take a very long time to break down naturally and the plastics may never fully go away. Larger debris can be removed by man, but the micro debris is spread from the surface to the ocean floor.

Recent studies predict that unless a major response is mounted, the patches will increase exponentially and could TRIPLE by 2050. Cleaning up the debris is not that easy. Any net small enough to capture microplastics would also capture small marine life as well. Truth is, the sheer size of the Patches makes clean up almost too big to consider. The US NOAA’s Marine Debris Program estimates it would take 67 ships 1 year to clean up just 1 percent of 1 patch. It would be very difficult and expensive to remove it all.

Prevention is obviously key to stopping it at its source.

Trash enters our streams, rivers, bays and oceans in ways like poor waste management, dumping, littering, and storm water runoff. Because the patches are in international waters, far from any nation’s coastline, no countries are taking responsibility or providing funds to clean it up. Scientists agree that eliminating our dependence on disposable plastics and switching to biodegradable materials is the best way by transitioning from toxic, disposable plastics to reusable materials.

Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor 001c leaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — Ocean Cleanup’s Interceptor 001 cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Thankfully, a few international organizations are dedicated to preventing our ocean’s Garbage Patches from growing. The Patches are now the target of a $32 million cleanup campaign. It was launched in 2014 by a young Dutch millennial, Boyan Slat, CEO of the nonprofit, Ocean Cleanup. Through investment money, his company developed floating boom collection systems dubbed the Interceptor.
Their goal is to clean up 90% of floating ocean and river plastic by 2040.

But everyone, including governments, industries, and WE the people of the Earth, the simple citizens of this planet, will have to change our ways and limit out use of plastics. We caused this problem, and now we will have to fix it for the next generation.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The 10 Most Successful Vaccines in History

Norman Rockwell's famous painting of childhood vaccination — Norman Rockwell’s famous painting of childhood vaccination

We used to take vaccines for granted. After all, they’ve been around for decades, some given to our grandparents and even great-grandparents. So much so, we were shocked by a modern pandemic in 2020, due in part to the lack of a ready COVID vaccine. How could that be?

Anti-vaxxers likewise have been with us since the beginning of vaccinations, all the way back to Smallpox. They often questioned their safety or efficacy, or not trusting “big pharma” or “big government.” But more often, they are objecting to the infringement on their Rights when it becomes mandated, even if for the overall public good, they don’t like being told what to do. So how did we get here?

Here’s a quick history of the top 10 vaccines and immunization campaigns over the last 225 years.

That’s right, the world has had vaccines since the 18th century.

1) SMALLPOX 1796 – It all started here. British doctor Edward Jenner speculated that protection from the dreaded Pox could be obtained through inoculation with a related cowpox virus. He boldly tested his theory by inoculating the arm of 8 year-old James Phipps with cowpox pustule liquid, taken from the arm of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes. And it worked! Today smallpox has been all but eradicated globally.

2) RABIES 1885 – The first attenuated (weakened) live viral vaccine was developed by none other than Louis Pasteur, using desiccated rabbit brain tissue, inactivated with formaldehyde. Crude yes, but effective. A 9 year old boy in France, mauled by a rabid dog, was the first to receive the injections from Pasteur himself.

3) PERTUSSIS (Whooping Cough) 1914 – The vaccine, a suspension of whole cell, inactive Bordetella pertussis bacteria was first developed by American pediatrician Leila Denmark. Inactivated vaccines were prepared with a virus that had been killed, again usually with a strong chemical like formaldehyde.

The “Spanish Flu” Pandemic of 1918 – killed over 50 million people worldwide. This unusual influenza virus spread quickly around the globe after World War I AND was deadly among the young and healthy adults. About 1/3 of the world was infected over its 2 year scourge.

4) DIPTHERIA (AKA the Strangler) 1924 – Diphtheria toxoid was prepared from inactivated bacterial toxin, that lost its toxicity when heated, but kept its antitoxin and immunogenic properties. French doctor Gaston Ramon discovered the diphtheria toxoid at none other than the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

5) TUBERCULOSIS (AKA Consumption) 1927 – the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine (live but attenuated Mycobacterium bovis bacteria) became the most widely administered of all vaccines in the WHO’s arsenal. Tested in cattle, it was first given to a French newborn baby in Paris, whose mother had Tuberculosis.

6) YELLOW FEVER 1935 – Epidemics spread by mosquitos in swamps attacked the men building the Panama Canal in 1912. A live vaccine was developed by Max Theiler, who famously used chicken eggs for culturing the vaccine on a large scale. It was used widely on troops in World War II in the Pacific theater against the Japanese Empire.

7) INFUENZA 1942 – The first flu vaccine was introduced to the Armed Forces first during World War II, also mass produced in chicken eggs. The vaccine was licensed for public use in 1945 and, following the war, was used on civilians. Today’s annual flu vaccines offer immunization against multiple flu strains at once, though never with 100% effectiveness.

Discovery of Penicillin in 1943 – not a vaccine, but just as important for treating diseases. This medical miracle was first discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, then mass produced for the war. It played a vital role in treating the infected wounds of soldiers during World War II.

8) DPT 1948 – The first ever combination child vaccine was licensed for Diphtheria, Pertussis and also Tetanus in a single shot to the buttocks. It was revolutionary and praised by pediatricians and parents alike. No more coaxing frightened young children into 3 needle injections. Booster shots are typically given 10 years later.

9) POLIO 1955 – People sent dimes to the White House to help find a vaccine for the dreaded Infantile Paralysis, which famously attacked President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The inactivated polio vaccine was licensed in 1955 and its inventor, American Dr. Jonas Salk, became an overnight global hero. In 1961, an oral polio vaccine was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin, grown in monkey kidney cells and licensed for use in the US.

10) MMR 1971 – The second famous combination childhood vaccine was for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. The first live measles vaccine was licensed in 1963. A live Mumps vaccine was developed in 1967 by Maurice Hilleman, who isolated the virus from his daughter Jeryl, as she was recovering from mumps. A Rubella (German Measles) vaccine was licensed in 1969, grown in dog, duck or rabbit kidney cell cultures.

*Americans lined up to receive the new polio vaccine in 1957.*

By the 1980s, 7 vaccines were available for children: Because 6 were combined into two shots (DTP and MMR), and one, the oral polio vaccine, was given by mouth, kids received only five shots from their pediatricians, (including boosters) by the time they were 2, and never more than one shot per visit.

Since then, more modern vaccines have been developed in recent times for other aggressive diseases:

Hepatitis B, 1981 – First a blood plasma-based vaccine, and later in 1986, the first ever recombinant DNA vaccine, produced in yeast cells. Hep B has been virtually eliminated in children under 18 in the US.
HIB (Haemophilus influenzae type b) pneumonia, 1985 – The bacterial polysaccharide vaccine is routinely recommended for children at age 2. More effective vaccines were developed for pneumonia in the 1990s
Varicella (Chickenpox), 1996 – made from live but attenuated virus. A vaccine for its infamous cousin Shingles was licensed for adults in 2006. Varicella was added to the childhood MMR Vaccine in 2005.

So, are we giving our children too many shots with too many vaccines? Are they SAFE (from serious side effects), both immediately and in the long run? Are they EFFECTIVE (do they confer lasting immunity) immediately and in the long run? Do parents have a right to Refuse inoculating their children for whatever personal or religious reasons? Do governments have a right to Mandate vaccinations in the interest of public safety?

All Excellent Questions. History, and the overwhelming evidence generated since, has shown us that all the above vaccines are both safe and effective over time. Our great-grandparent received the smallpox vaccine, our grandparents the tuberculosis vaccine, and our parents the polio vaccine. We have all likely received the ‘triples’ DPT and MMR shots as kids, as well as annual flu shots as adults, often free from our employers.

So, with all the vaccines available now, let history be your judge.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The Mysterious Disappearance of Author Agatha Christie

On a cold winter’s night in 1926, 36-year-old mystery novelist Agatha Christie vanished from her English estate in Berkshire without a trace. Around 9.30 p.m. on December 3^rd, Christie kissed her 7 year-old daughter Rosalind goodnight and went back downstairs. Instead of retiring herself, she climbed into her Morris Cowley automobile and drove off into the dark countryside. She would not be seen again for 11 days.

Agatha Christie was already one of the most famous mystery writers in all the world. So her disappearance sparked one of the largest manhunts in English history. Her car was found empty on a steep slope at the edge of a caulk quarry, not far from her home. Its hood was up and lights still on. Inside was Christie’s fur coat and driver’s license. But there was no sign of Agatha herself, and no evidence of an accident.

British authorities suspected foul play, maybe even murder!

News of the famous novelist’s disappearance spread quickly, and a massive manhunt was organized. A thousand police officers and 15,000 volunteers combed the English countryside. Dredge teams scoured the surrounding lakes, ponds and rivers. Biplanes searched from the air – the first ever in England’s history for a missing person. Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks pressured police to solve the case, and a London newspaper offered a £100 reward.

Even fellow mystery writers contributed to the hunt. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries was an avid occultist. He gave one of Christie’s hand gloves to a London medium in hopes that the “Spirit World” might provide a clue to his fellow author’s disappearance. Alas, it did not.

By the end of the week, Christie’s disappearance was making headlines around the world. Newspapers had a field day, inventing lurid theories as to what might have happened. After all, it was the perfect story, with all the elements of one of her own mysteries. Suicide seemed unlikely for her career was as lucrative as ever. Doubters proclaimed the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate publicity stunt, a clever ploy to sell more of her novels. Others hinted at a far more sinister plot …

Who could have abducted the Queen of Mystery?

Suspicions fell upon Christie’s older husband, Colonel Archie Christie, a former World War I pilot. It seemed the retired Colonel had struck up a public affair with a much younger woman by the name of Nancy Neele. The philanderer made no attempt to hide his affair from his wife, or anyone else for that matter. On the day of Agatha’s disappearance, the Christie’s had quarreled after Archie announced he planned to spend the weekend with his mistress rather than his wife! Did that argument lead to murder?

Agatha Christie remained missing for 11 days. Then suddenly, on December 14th, she was finally found – not in a roadside ditch but safe and well, hiding away at the elegant Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, England. She was eventually recognized by one of the hotel’s musicians, who alerted the local police. They quickly informed her husband. Colonel Christie came to collect Agatha, but she was in no hurry to leave. She kept her husband waiting at the bar while she changed into a travelling dress. The next day, Christie left with her daughter for her sister’s home in Cheadle.

It seemed Agatha had registered under the name Theresa Neele from Cape Town, South Africa, using the last name of her husband’s mistress, Nancy Neele. The circumstances raised more questions than answers. Christie herself was unable or unwilling to provide any clues. She claimed she remembered nothing of the night she disappeared. It was left to the police to piece together what might have happened. They concluded that Agatha Christie had abandoned her malfunctioning car and boarded a train to Harrogate. Upon arrival, she checked into the Swan under an assumed name with almost no luggage.

This particular plot twist shocked the public.

Some suggested darker motives – suicidal depression or a clever scheme to publicly spotlight Archie as a murder suspect. Others surmised an upset Christie merely sought to turn the tables and shame her cheating husband for once. Agatha Christie never spoke publicly about those missing days. Her husband said she’d suffered total memory loss as a result of a car crash. Psychiatrists suggested she been in a ‘fugue’ state or trance, brought on by the trauma or depression of her husband’s affair. She never discussed the matter in interviews and the incident does not appear in her own autobiography.

In the days after her return, the author blamed her vanishing on a “mysterious state,” in which she took on an entirely new identity:

“For 24 hours I wandered in a dream, and then found myself in Harrogate as a well-contented and perfectly happy woman who believed she had just come in from South Africa.”
Agatha Christie

Christie made a full recovery and soon took to her typewriter once again. But she would no longer tolerate her husband’s philandering. Agatha divorced the Colonel in 1928. She later remarried a young archeologist named Max Mallowan two years later and they remained happily married for the rest of her life.

Agatha Christie went on to have a long and distinguished career writing 66 detective novels. Interestingly, her autobiography makes no reference at all to the mysterious disappearance. She died peacefully in 1976 at the age of 85 with her daughter Rosalind inheriting her estate. Her novels have been adapted into countless movies over the years, and still are, most recently by actor Kenneth Branagh. Today, the only person who truly knows what happened in those lost eleven days is long gone. Alas, Agatha Christie left us a mystery even her famous detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple would find unsolvable.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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How did Roman Christianity go from Executions to Adoption?

**Statue of Roman Emperor Constantine outside York Cathedral**

For first 300 years following the death of Jesus, Christianity grew, but Christians suffered persecution under the cruel Roman Empire. How did it then grow to become a dominant, global religion? What was the miraculous turning point for Christianity? The Ancient Romans worshipped a collection of gods, most borrowed from the Ancient Greeks – Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, etc. Rome was full of pagan temples where the favor of the gods was sought through various rituals and festivals.

As Rome grew throughout the Mediterranean, it encountered new religions – tolerating a few, and persecuting most. Jews were victimized after the Roman conquest of Judea. Christianity was therefore born in the Roman Empire after Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in Jerusalem. His disciples, Peter and Paul in particular, then spread his new religion into the towns and villages of the vast Roman Empire.

At first, Romans ignored these ‘Christians’ as there were not that many. Over the next two hundred years though, Christianity grew and spread across the Mediterranean. When Germanic barbarians began to attack the empire from the north, many Romans blamed the Christians, saying they angered the gods by not worshiping them.

Roman emperors became increasingly intolerant of Christianity.

They saw the new religion as a threat to the Empire and took steps to stop its spread. Christians refused to serve in the Roman Army and worship the Emperor as a god. So Christians were arrested, beaten, and killed. Those willing to die rather than give up their beliefs became martyrs of the faith. Despite these persecutions, Christianity continued to grow.

The first empire-wide persecution was by the infamous Emperor Nero. Nero was already unpopular by the time of the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. He supposedly had the fire started to make room for a new palace, then fiddled while Rome burned. Rumors spread that the Emperor was behind the fire, so Nero blamed the Christians! He had them arrested, tortured and executed. The terrible image comes to mind of Christians being fed to the lions in Rome’s Colosseum. Nero also had the Apostle Peter executed in Rome, crucifying him upside down on a cross.

Over the next 200 years, subsequent Roman Emperors attempted, yet failed, to destroy the growing Christian religion. So when and how did the winds change in favor of Christianity?

It began with the arrival of the Constantinian Dynasty. In 306 AD, Constantine I rose to ‘Emperor in the West’ upon the death of his father Constantius. At this time, the Roman Empire was split into Western and Eastern halves with ‘co-emperors.’ Constantine and his brother-in-law, Maxentius were bitter rivals for control and war eventually broke out. Before the two met in a fateful battle in 312 AD, Constantine is said to have had a vision of Christ in a dream the night before.

According to the priest Eusebius, Jesus appeared to the Emperor with a flaming cross in the sky.

He instructed Constantine to place this heavenly sign on his army’s battle standards. A vertical spear with a crossbar to form the shape of the cross, along with the chi-rho labaran, an early symbol of Christ’s name, the letter rho intersecting by chi at the center. Included on the banner were the words: In hoc signo vinces [In this sign, thou shalt conquer]. The next day, he had his soldiers paint a cross on all their shields. Armed with these holy symbols, Constantine crushed Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge in northern Rome, securing his place as sole western Emperor. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber River.

After his army won, Constantine believed that it was the Christian God who had helped him! Though previously a worshipper of Sol Invictus, the Sun God, he now zealously supported Jesus and Christianity. He declared that his victory was owed to the Christian God and changed imperial policy to advance the religion.

He gave money and land to the Christians and founded new churches throughout the Empire. He wrote to Christian bishops, telling them that he owed his success to their faith. Constantine eventually converted to the faith, becoming a Christian himself. He was baptized just before his death, as was the custom of the early Christians. To be ‘cleansed’ of sins just prior to death, rather than at birth.

At a meeting of bishops in Milan in 313 AD, Constantine issued the EDICT OF MILAN which granted legal status for Christianity and tolerance to all religions. This allowed Romans of all faiths to have religious freedom. Christians were now freely allowed to take part in Roman civic life. The Catholic Popes, then Pope Sylvester I, exiled by prior Emperors, were allowed back in Rome.

The Emperor of the East, Licinius, maintained support for traditional pagan customs, upholding the backing of his non-Christian majority. By 324 AD, this conflict and rivalry came to a head with another war. Constantine defeated the Emperor Licinius in at the Battle of Chrysopolis (in modern Istanbul). Licinius was captured and Constantine had him hanged.

With Constantine’s victory, he became the sole Roman Emperor and advanced Christianity.

He let Christians serve in the military and work in the government. Money was granted from the Imperial treasury for construction. New churches were built around the empire. This included a new Basilica in Rome, carefully built on Vaticanus Hill, on the site of Nero’s circus, where the Apostle Peter had been martyred by the Emperor.

When Constantine moved the Western Roman capital to Byzantium, he built the first Christian churches there. The Hagia Eirene and Hagia Sophia, were built on the sites of former pagan temples. Greek Byzantium was renamed Constantinople. His mother, Helena, embarked on a pilgrimage to Palestine. There she helped establish the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem and Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. For this and other deeds she was later canonized a Saint.

Chi Rho - In This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer — **The Chi Rho – “In This Sign, Thou Shalt Conquer”**

In 325 AD, Constantine called the COUNCIL OF NICAEA, a gathering of 300 Christian bishops from across the empire. They met (in present day Turkey) to determine the formal—or orthodox—beliefs of Christianity. The result was the so called Nicene Creed, which laid out the agreed upon beliefs of Christianity. The Council of Nicaea discussed the state of the Christian church and developed important doctrines to counter pagan ‘heretical‘ ideas.

After Constantine’s death in 337 AD, his heirs mostly continued the advance of Christianity, with the Popes in Rome now allowed to head the church. During their reigns, many anti-Pagan laws were put into place, dealing with dissent often in a brutal Roman fashion. While Christianity grew naturally in popularity, it was also forcibly expanded upon the Empire’s population across the Mediterranean and west into what would become France, Spain and Britain.

ln 380 AD, Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

An ardent Christian, he recognizing the amazing growth and power of the still young faith. Theodosius’ EDICT OF THESSALONICA was the final word on any controversies in the early church. For example, it set in stone the orthodoxy of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Those ‘madmen’ of the old pagan religions, who didn’t accept this were suppressed and of course, persecuted. Most other Christian sects were deemed heretical, lost their legal status, or were outlawed and had their properties confiscated.

So there you have it. By the beginning of the 5th century, after just 400 years, Christianity grew from a fledgling, persecuted religion into a power, on near equal terms with the Roman Emperors. All due to the legacies of Jesus of Nazareth, his fervent disciples, and Constantine the Great. The Roman Empire would soon decline, but the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches [which separated in 1054] would only rise from there. Christianity would slowly come to dominate the entire western world. It would spread across kingdoms in Europe and Russia, and into the American and African colonies of the Spanish, French, Dutch and British. Today it globally surpasses Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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What Caused Russia’s 1908 Tunguska Blast?

On 30 June 1908, at 7:00am in the morning, a massive explosion ripped through the quiet air above a remote Siberian forest at the Tunguska River. A fireball erupted 100 meters wide, destroying 2,000 sq km of the taiga forest, flattening about 80 Million trees as if they were twigs! The earth trembled and windows shattered in villages over 100 km distant. Locals were blown off their feet, the intense heat felt like their clothes were on fire. The ear piercing sound that followed was described as a thousand artillery guns firing.

The Tunguska area of central Siberia was sparsely populated, so no eye witnesses were near ground zero. No reports of human casualties were ever recorded, though hundreds of charred reindeer carcasses were discovered by shocked locals. Whatever the so called “Tunguska Event” was, it produced about 200 times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Seismic rumbles were detected as far away as London, England and the Dutch East Indies!

Map of Tunguska location in Russia — Map of Tunguska blast in Russia

The Tunguska region is a remote area of Siberian taiga, about a thousand miles north of Mongolia, with long harsh winters and short summers, when the ground thaws into a deep swampy bog. So even after the event, nobody rushed to venture to the site to investigate. There was nothing mentioned in the St. Petersburg or Moscow press of 1908, only in the local Sibir newpaper: “On the morning of the 17th of June (Russian calendar), the village of Karelinski observed an unusual natural occurrence.”

Over a century later, researchers are still asking the question:

What actually happened at Tunguska?

Many are convinced it was an asteroid or comet. But very few traces of such a large object have ever been found, fueling many more crazier theories. It was only in 1927, that a Russian team lead by mineralogist Leonid Kulilk finally ventured to remote Siberia. When they arrived, the damage was still apparent, almost 20 years later. They found a 50 km area of flattened trees in a strange Butterfly shape. The leader proposed a meteor had exploded in the atmosphere above the forest. It puzzled them however, that there was no impact crater like in Arizona, or any meteor fragments. They theorized the swampy ground was too soft to preserve whatever had hit it.

Russian researchers later declared it was a comet, not a meteor. As comets are largely made of ice, the absence of fragments or a crater would make more sense. But that was not the end of the debate. Bizarre alternative theories soon began to pop up like alien mushrooms. One suggested the cause was matter and antimatter somehow colliding over Siberia. Another that a Russian nuclear explosion caused the blast, though the atomic bomb had yet to be invented. Still another felt it was somehow linked to Nikola Tesla’s Death Ray experiments a half a world away in the US.

A 1973 a paper suggesting that a Black Hole had collided into Earth! Locals thought it was a thunderous visitation of their Siberian god Ogdy. And of course where would we be without a conspiracy theory of an alien spaceship crash like at Roswell, New Mexico. We may never know if the Tunguska Event was a meteor, comet or something more exotic.

A 1958 Expedition discovered remnants high in Nickel, a known element in Meteors.

Site of the Siberian Tunguska Blast today

In 2013, researchers analyzed rocks collected from a layer of peat dating back to 1908. They determined the rocks did indeed have a meteoric origin. So today the consensus is that the Tunguska Event was likely caused by an asteroid or comet, colliding with Earth’s atmosphere. Our atmosphere is highly efficient at protecting our planet. It breaks apart the vast majority of meteors. The process is similar to a chemical explosion where the energy is transformed into heat. In other words, any remnants were instantly turned into cosmic dust. This would explain the lack of large meteor chunks or a huge impact crater.

To create a blast with the energy of Tunguska, the object would have needed to be 10 times the size of the RMS Titanic!

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The Last Deadly Days of the Knights Templar

Red Cross of the Knights Templar — Red cross symbol of the Knights Templar

For almost 200 years, the famous Knights Templar had considerable power, wealth, and influence across Europe and the Mediterranean. But it all came to an abrupt and bloody end in 1314. The Knights were originally founded as a Christian monastic-military order, devoted to protecting pilgrims traveling to and from the Holy Land following the First Crusade.

If a “monastic-military” order sounds a bit odd, you’re right. Thanks to huge donations from Kings and Cardinals across Europe, the Knights Templar became one of the richest and most powerful orders in the Middle Ages. By start of the 1300’s, the Templars had established a system of churches, castles, and even banks throughout western Europe. It was an unusual mix – their Christian work, military skills, and financial know-how. And it was all that wealth and power that ultimately lead to their quick and deadly downfall.

During the First Crusade, Christian armies from throughout western Europe banded together and captured Jerusalem from Muslim control in 1099. Arabs had controlled the holy city since taking it from the Byzantine Roman Empire in 638 AD. Groups of Christian pilgrims from across Europe then started visiting Palestine. Many however, were robbed and killed as they journeyed across dangerous Muslim-controlled territories.

Around 1118, a French knight named Hugues de Payens saw their plight. He created a military order along with eight other French knights, calling it The Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. That was quite a mouthful, so they became known over time simply as the Knights of the Temple, or Knights Templar.

With the support of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, they set up headquarters in the palace on the sacred Temple Mount. They then pledged to protect Christian visitors to the Holy Land. Like monks, they took a vow of poverty, chastity and prayer; and were forbidden from drinking, gambling or swearing. As knights, they readily killed to defend Christian pilgrims. The order wore white surcoats with a large blood red cross, signifying their willingness to die as martyrs.

In 1129, the Order received formal endorsement from the Catholic Church in Rome, which helped bolster their reputation and membership. In 1139, Pope Innocent II issued a Papal Bull. It allowed the Knights Templar special rights, including exemption from taxes and placing them under the Pope’s sole authority. Though sworn to poverty, suddenly the Knights received vast amounts of gold, land, and even the sons of nobility to grow their order.

They served bravely in the Second and Third Crusades, gaining a reputation as fierce, fearless warriors who never retreated.

As the Knights Templar grew, they established new chapters throughout western Europe and the Mediterranean. They even set up a network of banks. It, allowed religious pilgrims and noblemen to deposit assets in their home kingdoms, and withdraw funds in Palestine. The Templars would also go on to own a sizable fleet of sailing ships, and even the Mediterranean island of Cyprus!

In the late 12th century, during the Second Crusade, Muslim armies under Sultan Saladin retook Jerusalem following the infamous Battle of Hattin near the Sea of Galilee. This forced the Knights Templar to retreat to the Mediterranean coast. European support of the Crusades began to erode over the decades that followed. Many of the nobility and religious leaders became jealous and critical of the Templars’ failures, huge wealth and powerful influence. The Knights were accountable only to the Pope himself, which meant unlimited power and freedom. But as it turned out, this influence could not save them from the power of one ruthless King.

By 1303, the Knights Templar lost Cyprus to the Egyptians, and their key foothold in the Muslim world. They established a base of operations back in Paris, where they unfortunately fell under French King Philip IV. Philip despised the Templars as they had denied the debt-ridden monarch numerous loans. King Philip, AKA the ‘Plague of France,’ had led his kingdom into bankruptcy with endless wars. Heavily in debt, he took any source of money that presented itself.

First, he turned to the Catholic Church, having two Popes assassinated, before making sure Pope Clement V was next. This gave him enough influence and power to have the papacy moved from Rome to Avignon in France. His next target was the Jews. He had them all arrested on a single day, confiscated all their money and property, and banished them from the kingdom. But this was nothing compared to what he had in store for the Templars.

As with any medieval Order, the Knights Templar had secret initiation ceremonies surrounding their religious activities, which served the devious King well. Philip sent secret documents by couriers throughout the courts of France. The papers included lurid lies about the Templars including whispers of black magic, devil worship and scandalous homosexual rituals. He invited the current Templar Grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, to his sister-in-law’s funeral to make sure that he was in close proximity.

In the early morning of Friday, October 13, 1307, he ordered scores of French Templars arrested, including the order’s Grandmaster.

On what grounds? Heresy. The arrest warrants contained the words: “God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in our kingdom.” In the weeks that followed, more than 600 Templars were arrested. He had them all imprisoned. The Knights were kept in isolation and fed meager rations of bread and water. Most of the Knights were brutally tortured until they confessed to the King’s long list of false charges, which included heresy, homosexuality, sodomy, financial corruption, fraud, worshipping Baphomet, spitting on the crucifix, and denying Christ.

Common torture practices of medieval inquisitors included the Strappado, the infamous Rack, or having their feet slowly dipped in boiling oil. The despicable inventions would be used for centuries, up through the Catholic Inquisitions. Given those ruthless conditions, it’s not surprising that within weeks, hundreds of Templars confessed to blasphemy and worse, including Grandmaster Jacques de Molay.

Pope Clement V was horrified. The Templars were still extremely popular with the people. King Philip made sure the allegations against them were so horrific, including graphic details of their supposed heresy, that it would be impossible for the Church to look the other way. The Knight’s coerced “confessions” forced the Pope’s hands. Clement issued a papal bull ordering the other Christian kings to arrest their Templars as well. Their lands and money were confiscated and officially dispersed to other religious orders and also royal coffers.

The pitiful Templars lingered in their dungeon cells for two more years. King Philip declared 54 of them guilty and burned them at the stake in 1310.

Under continued pressure from the French King, Pope Clement V reluctantly dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312. The group’s property and monetary assets were given to a rival order, the Knights Hospitallers, as well as King Philip of France and King Edward of England.

Pope Clement interviewed de Molay himself. The Grandmaster denied the confessions he gave under torture, and begged the Pope to save the remaining Knights. Clement had him acquitted. But he wasn’t released, as King Philip still wanted him to reveal where the all the hidden treasure of the Templars was stored. Given his refusal to do so, and his previous confessions, the King sentenced him to death again, as a heretic.

Knight Templar Jacques de Molay burned at the stake, 1314

Jacques de Molay and several other remaining Templars, were slowly burned at the stake in the plaza in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on a Friday the 13th in the spring of 1314. Legend has it his last words were a curse: “God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Calamity will occur to those who have condemned us.” Interestingly that appears to have worked. Pope Clement died of cancer a month later, and King Philip died of a stroke during a hunting trip that same year.

The Catholic Church has since acknowledged that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was grossly unjustified. The church claims that Pope Clement was pressured by various jealous and greedy Kings and Cardinals to destroy the order and confiscate their vast wealth. While most agree the Knights Templar fully collapsed over 700 years ago, some groups, like the Freemasons, adopted several of the Knights’ symbols and rituals as their own. And of course, there are some today who believe the Order secretly went underground and remains secretly active behind the scenes to this day. Regardless, the lingering shadow of that infamous Friday the 13^th cannot be denied.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Was Count Saint Germain a real life Dr. Who?

BBC's first Dr. Who portrayed by William Hartnell — BBC’s first Dr. Who, portrayed by William Hartnell

They called him The Deathless One, The Immortal Count and The Man Who Would Not Die. Those who knew him intimately swore he never aged. Count Saint Germain appeared exactly the same near the start of the 1700’s as he did near the century’s end, a span of over eighty years. But how is that possible? He was always described as a handsome, charismatic gentleman, between 30-40 years of age, of medium height and a fit build. Those, however, were the only ordinary attributes of a truly extraordinary man. Ladies beat their fans in his presence, saying he possessed ‘a rare perfection of form’ and ‘soft, penetrating eyes.’ Gentlemen admired his wealth, ‘intellectual countenance’ and ‘princely liberality.’

He was independently wealthy, though no one could ascertain from where it came. He never divulged his true name, his date of birth, or his country of origin. Many tried and failed to uncover his carefully guarded secrets, assuming he’d lived for centuries. European courts hailed him as a learned Alchemist, a musical savant, a trusted Mason, and an astute diplomat. His enemies were far less flattering, denouncing him as a common charlatan, a devious rogue, or even an enemy spy, worthy of arrest and execution.

Estimates of his age range from a hundred to over a thousand years!

The secret of his longevity was coveted by many and scoffed at by others. Was he a Time Traveler? A Vampyre? A Wizard? Regardless of the truth, the Count was somehow able to, by either natural or unnatural means, slow the human clock and extend his lifespan. The Fountain of Youth, Philosopher’s Stone, or the Elixir of Eternal Youth – all means were both suspected and coveted. If we consider, just for a moment that it was somehow true, did such an amazing feat ultimately become a blessing … or a Curse? Image everyone you knew, every family member, every friend, every lover, growing old and dying while you watched and lived on.

We hear accounts of Saint-Germain’s adventures across continents and centuries. In London, he composed operas and spied for the Scottish Rebellion. In Calcutta, he helped the British East India Company defeat the Mughal Empire. For French King Louis XV, he performed alchemy in the fabulous Chateau Chambord. For Catherine the Great, he plotted her successful coup d’etat in St. Petersburg against husband, the despised Tzar Peter III. In between these grand adventures, he vanishes from sight, sometimes for a decade or more, leaving only mystery in his wake. His last known sighting was in the streets of Paris during the bloody French Revolution in 1789.

Portrait of Count Saint Germain in 1783 for the Marquis d'Urfe — Portrait of Count Saint Germain in 1783 for the Marquis d’Urfe

The Count’s contemporaries documented his escapades in their memoirs and letters: colorful figures like the philosopher Voltaire, Madame Pompadour and Marie Antoinette. Through these rare accounts, we raise the veil of mystery and witness the enigmatic Count in action. We hear of him entertaining the French court with his violin at Versailles, or performing alchemy in the cellars of Chateau Chambord. A year later, he is at the Hague in the Netherlands negotiating peace treaties for France to end the Seven Years War. Blink again and he narrowly escapes imprisonment as a Scottish Jacobite spy in London. It may all sound like a Masterpiece Theater program, but it is not.

Le Comte de Saint Germain is not fiction

He was (is?) a true historical adventurer with exploits that spanned both the globe and the 18th century. Unfortunately, like footprints on a beach, most records of the Count have been washed from history. The unknowns regarding this enigma of a man far eclipse the knowns. A dossier of Saint-Germain, kept by a wary French court, was mysteriously destroyed in a suspicious fire in Paris’ Hotel de Ville.

Saint-Germain was, by no stretch of the imagination, a real-life Count of Monte Cristo. In the 19th Century, the Count’s legend lived on thanks to the infamous mystic Madame Helena Blavatsky. Even today, the international Theosophical Society, the I AM Activity, and the Summit Lighthouse Church refer to him as The Violet Flame. They count him among their revered “Ascended Masters,” living on in another astral plane, still attainable through their religion.

In other blogposts, are detailed the research behind a historical novel on the Count, THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE. It traces his adventures across 18th century Europe and the Far East. Somewhere buried within all the many anecdotes and tales, lies a trail of truth behind the mysterious Count Saint-Germain. They allow us to pull back the curtain, if only for a moment, and see him for who he truly was.

Click here for the Count Saint Germain historical novel: The Man Who Would Not Die.

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Podcast: Japan’s Minamata Disease was a Man-made Tragedy

Minamata Disease is a sobering reminder of the dangers of unregulated industries in modern times, a purely human-created disease. It was first seen in 1956 in the children living in Minamata City on the coast of Japan’s southern island of Kyūshū. Medically, it’s a severe neurological syndrome with symptoms including loss of muscle control, loss of feeling in hands and feet, tunnel vision, deafness, and speech abnormalities. Within a few weeks of onset, extreme cases tragically end with paralysis, convulsions, coma and eventually death. In pregnant women, it can also lead to horrible birth defects. But what exactly did humans do to create such a terrible disease?

Mother comforts child with Minamata Disease — Japanese mother comforts child with Minamata Disease

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The Legacy of Russia’s Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986, after the Reactor 4 explosion, 1986

The greatest nuclear disaster the Earth has ever known, was worse than Three Mile Island, worse than Japan’s Fukushima. It began innocently enough in the early hours of Saturday 26 April 1986 in northern Ukraine’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, then part of the Soviet Union.

Prior to a routine shutdown of Reactor #4, the crew disabled automatic shutdown mechanisms, leaving the reactor in an extremely unstable condition. Because of a serious design flaw, when the graphite control rods began to be inserted into the nuclear fuel, a dramatic energy surge occurred. The contact of the hot fuel with its surrounding cooling waters lead to a dramatic increase in steam in the reactor chamber. The intense pressure quickly built up and at 1:23am in the morning a massive explosion occurred, blowing the roof off the reactor containment building, and releasing radioactive particles and gases into the local atmosphere.

Three seconds later, a second even larger explosion blew out radioactive graphite fragments of the reactor core.

Two workers died instantly in the explosions. They were the lucky ones. Thirty one deaths are attributed to the two explosions and the subsequent attempts to put out the resulting fire. The casualties included the brave local firefighters who came and fought the fires, standing on the roof of the turbine building, and would succumb to terrible radiation poisoning in the weeks to come. At first, plant managers were in denial that the core itself had exploded and reported to Moscow that radiation levels were negligible.

Most of the radioactivity was deposited within a few kilometers of Chernobyl as dust and debris. But the radioactive plume went on to drift over large parts of the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Eastern Europe. Ukraine was still a part of Communist Soviet Union at the time. Only after drifting radiation set off alarms in Sweden 2 days later, over 1000 km away, did the Communist government of the Soviet Union finally publicly admit that an accident had occurred. Only after evacuating the nearby city of Pripyat, was a warning message read on Soviet state TV two days later.

Pripyat was built in 1970, just 4 short km away, to house the employees of Chernobyl and their families. It had grown over the years to a population of 50,000, complete with a football (soccer) stadium and amusement park. The city however was not immediately evacuated after the explosion. The majority of its citizens were unaware of the disaster and went about their usual business. Children played outside, gardeners worked on their gardens, men fished in the river. The black smoke rising from the Power Plant was explained away as a routine steam discharge. Curious residents gathered on rooftops to watch the burning reactor and unknowingly exposed themselves to fatal doses of radiation.

Within hours of the explosion, scores of people began to fall ill, reporting headaches, nausea, coughing and vomiting. By Sunday morning, 1200 buses began arriving in Pripyat in preparation for a full evacuation. The order was finally announced at Noon, over a day and a half later. Residents were asked to carry with them only what would be needed for 2-3 days away from home, some food and a change of clothing. Employees’ dosimeters were all confiscated. By nightfall, the city was empty. No one would live in Pripyat ever again. It now lies within a broad Exclusion Zone and remains eerily abandoned to this day.

The Chernobyl disaster caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release ever recorded.

Large quantities of radioactive materials were released into the air for the next 10 days. The core’s fire was finally gotten under control by dropping tons of sand mixed with boron from army helicopters. Chunks of radioactive graphite had to be removed from the turbine roof by hand using shovels. Each man was allowed only 90 seconds before their exposure would be fatal. The unsuspecting pilots and all the brave firefighters from Pripyat would suffer from radiation poisoning, many of them dying.

A massive concrete and metal shell, known as the Chernobyl Sarcophagus, was hastily constructed to encase the remains of Unit 4, both as a means to halt the release of radiation and to allow continuing operation of the other 3 functioning reactors. About 200 tons of highly radioactive material still remain buried within.

The Chernobyl Sarcophagus over Reactor 4, 1986

The “Chernobyl Nuclear Zone of Alienation” is the officially designated exclusion area around the site. Established by the Russian military, it covers the areas worst affected by contamination, an area of 30 km radius evacuated and placed under military control. By May, 116,000 people had been evacuated from the zone. In 1987, the Deputy Chief Engineer on duty that night was found guilty “of criminal mismanagement of potentially explosive enterprises” and sentenced to only 10 years in prison. All of the staff on duty that night died prematurely of radiation poisoning, or later of cancer. The Alienation Zone remains in place to this day.

The effort to contain the contamination and repair the site eventually involved over 500,000 conscripted workers, known as ‘the Liquidators‘ and cost 18 billion Rubles. Unit 2 was shut down in 1991, when Ukraine achieved its independence from Russia, and Unit 1 in 1997. Energy shortages in the Ukraine necessitated the continued operation of Unit 3 until 2000. Almost 6000 people continued to work at the contaminated plant every day till then. The original concrete sarcophagus has since deteriorated and leaked, requiring the construction of an even LARGER megastructure around it. The ‘New Safe Confinement‘ structure resembles a zeppelin hanger and was completed in 2016 at a cost on 2.5 billion euros.

A Russian publication concluded that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred across Europe and Asia between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl. To this day, nearly 5 million people, including more than 1 million children, still live near dangerous levels of radioactive contamination in Belarus and Ukraine. The Exclusion Zone remains one of the most radioactively contaminated areas on planet Earth. Illegal poaching, logging and metal scavenging remain a problem. Other Chernobyl-style RBMK nuclear reactors throughout Russia were grudgingly repaired by the Soviets.

The Pripyat ghost town oddly draws an increased tourist crowd, due to the popularity of a recent and well-made HBO mini-series, entitled Chernobyl. It lies only 63 miles north of the Ukraine capital of Kyiv and there were several licensed tour guides. Up until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, daring visitors were allowed limited tours of the deserted town. Now of course, with the ongoing war, the future of Chernobyl is once again up in the air.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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