Blog - LOST IN HISTORY

The Armenian Genocide – the Tragic, Forgotten Holocaust

**Armenian Genocide: children on a Death March into the Syrian Desert, 1915**

Most know of the Jewish Holocaust, committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. But many are oblivious to Armenian Genocide, the 1st modern atrocity of the 20^th century. It occurred 30 years earlier during World War I. In 1915, leaders of the Ottoman Empire began the systemic expulsion and extermination of Armenian Christians living in what is today eastern Turkey. Somewhere near 2 million Armenians (10% of the Empire) were forcibly deported from their homeland, resulting in 1.5 MILLION Deaths.

Call it a holocaust, genocide or ethnic cleansing – it was an attempt to exterminate an entire people.

Armenians have been in the Caucasus mountains of the northern Middle East for millennia. Armenia was an independent kingdom in the 4th century and became the first nation to make Christianity its national religion. Ruled at various times by Persians, Romans, Arabs and Mongols, it was eventually absorbed into the mammoth Ottoman Empire in the 16^th century. At its peak, the vast Ottoman Empire included much of southeastern Europe, ALL of the Middle East, and North Africa.

While the Sultans permitted Armenian Christians to maintain autonomy, they also treated them as infidels, with few rights. In spite of this, Armenians tended to be wealthier & better educated than Turks: businessmen, lawyers, and doctors, educated in Europe. The Ottoman Sultans, however, resented their success.

By contrast, the majority of Muslim Turks were poor and illiterate. The Sultans had placed little worth on education, valuing blind obedience instead. Layered on this were long held suspicions that Armenians were more loyal to Christian nations, like their nearby enemy Russia. They shared a disputed border with the Russian Empire, including Crimea on the Black Sea.

By the beginning of the 20^th century, nationalist reformers called “Young Turks” overthrew Sultan Hamid and established a modern constitutional government. Unfortunately, 3 Pashas within the Young Turks soon assumed dictatorial control, just like the Sultans had. They promised a pure Muslim state, and again viewed Armenian Christians as a threat. Anti-Armenian demonstrations were staged in Istanbul, often leading to violence.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered WWI on the side of Germany and Austro-Hungary.

The Eastern Front eventually included the disputed border with Russia. Since Christian Russia was now the enemy, the 3 Pashas argued that Armenians were traitors who could not to be trusted and would if fact fight for the Allies. This led the dictators to push for the complete removal of Armenians from the Empire. About 40,000 Armenian men were serving in the Ottoman Army in the war. However they were quickly disarmed and switched to labor battalions, building roads or carrying supplies.

In April 1915, the government executed 300 Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. Next came mass arrests of Armenian men for treason throughout the country. The 3 Pashas created a ‘Special Organization’ which organized ‘Killing Squads’ to deal with deported Armenians. Men were taken to the outskirts of their towns and shot. Armenian women, children, and the elderly were ordered to leave their homes and villages for ‘relocation’ to non-military zones for their own safety. Ottoman families quickly moved into the homes of deported Armenians and seized their property.

The Armenians were actually being taken on what became Death Marches, walking hundreds of miles into the scorching Syrian desert. When food or water ran out, they were given nothing more by their guards. Some were stripped naked and forced to walk under the desert sun until they dropped from dehydration. Any who stumbled from exhaustion were beaten or shot. Gendarmes pushed them off cliffs, or burned them alive. Soon, the Empire’s roadsides to the south were littered with unburied corpses, shocking foreign diplomats at the time. Young girls were raped, killed or forced to become sex slaves in harems. Children were made to denounce Christianity and forcibly converted to Islam.

**Armenians being marched to execution at Turkish gunpoint in Kharput**

By the end of WWI, there were only 390,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire, 75% of them had been killed. Newspapers like the New York Times published reports with shocking headlines like: “Armenians Are Sent to Perish in the Desert – Turks Accused of Plan to Exterminate Whole Population” (18 August 1915). The Ottoman government in Istanbul denied there was an Armenian Genocide, but rather the killing of an enemy force within their borders during wartime.

World War I ended in 1918 with the defeat of Germany and the Ottoman Empire.

The 3 Pashas fled to Germany where they were offered asylum. Turkey’s new, post-war government asked Berlin to extradite the Pashas. But all requests were turned down. A separate Armenian nation was briefly created after the war. Then Turkey’s new nationalist leader refused to accept the post WWI treaty. He instead re-occupied Armenian lands in 1920. Sadly, no Allied powers came to aid the fledgling republic.

Two years later, Armenia was absorbed into the Soviet Union. Armenian activists took matters into their own hands, located 2 of the Pashas responsible for the Armenian genocide living lavishly in Germany and assassinated them both with a bullet to the head. The third was killed by the Russian military in 1922.

The half-hearted reaction of the world’s major powers, including Britain and the U.S., to the Armenian Genocide was duly noted by none other than a young Adolf Hitler as he dreamt up the Jewish Holocaust. After becoming Germany’s Fuhrer in 1934, Hitler told his Nazi generals:

“I have sent to the East my Death’s Head Units with the orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Jewish blood. Only in such a way will we win what we need.

After all, who still talks of the Armenians?” – Adolf Hitler

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Mother Jones, the Mother of Labor Unions

You may know the name Mother Jones from the progressive news magazine & website. But its namesake, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was a fearless fighter for the working class and a tireless labor activist. Her opponents in industry and congress labeled her “The most dangerous woman in America!” Jones combined radical organizing methods and energetic speeches to mobilize thousands of lower-class workers into unions between 1872 and 1924. She literally shaped the way civil disobedience could be used to fight for economic justice.

The fiery Mary Harris Jones actually started her life quite humbly. She was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1837. Her family was one of the starving thousands that fled the Irish Potato Famine and emigrated across the Atlantic. They landed first in Canada, where her father worked laying railroad tracks, and eventually settled in the United States. She went to school in Toronto, then moved to the US to begin a career as a simple dressmaker in Tennessee.

Young Mary Harris experienced far too many tragedies in her early life. In Memphis, she married George Jones in 1861, an iron worker and active member of the Iron Molders’ Union. He fought for workers’ rights at a time when unions were still in their infancy. In rapid succession, they had four young children together. But a devastating yellow fever epidemic in 1867 killed her husband and ALL FOUR children. She was only 30.

“One by one, my four little children sickened and died. . . I sat alone through nights of grief. No one came to help me.”

In shock and heart-broken, Mary moved to Chicago and opened a seamstress shop, sewing clothes for the wealthy residents of the North Side. It has here, watching workers slave away in factories, that Mary’s resentment for economic inequality began to bubble. But then suddenly, tragedy struck again. She lost both her home and shop in The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (see related blog post).

With all her possessions in ashes, Mary sought shelter with the Knights of Labor. There, she slowly began to see the labor movement as her new family, and started working as an activist. She would commit the rest of her life to the struggle for humane wages and working conditions.

Mary found her voice and began giving inspirational speeches to encourage workers to unionize. She traveled to numerous strikes, helping coal miners in Pennsylvania in 1873 and railroad workers in 1877. From 1880 onward, Jones participated in hundreds of strikes across the country. The way in which she genuinely cared for any and all workers earned her the well-deserved nickname “Mother” Jones.

They also called her the “Miner’s Angel,” but rejected that label, saying bluntly, “I’m no angel.” Mother Jones became an active campaigner for the United Mine Workers Union in West Virginia. In the 1890s, she mobilized miners’ wives to march with brooms and mops in order to block company strikebreakers from entering the mines.

She once proudly said of herself, “I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hell-raiser!”

Her movement assisted both the United Mine Workers and the American Railway Unions, which launched major strikes for living wages in 1894. For Jones, it was about more than just a fair union contract. She argued that miners should be able to direct their own economic destinies, a radical idea at the time.

Mother Jones even encouraged militant action when warranted. While the militias and the strikes were often brutally crushed, they helped perfect Jones’ methods for mobilizing struggling communities. She emerged from these skirmishes undeterred, inspired by the new labor and socialist movement.

She was considered by the authorities (both corporate and political) to be a dangerous radical. Five-feet tall, now with snow-white hair, and in an all-black dress, Jones was indeed a confrontational presence. When she was mocked as the “grandmother of all agitators,”

Mother Jones replied that she would someday be known as “the great-grandmother of all agitators!”

She believed in organizing at the community level to demonstrate to workers their capacity to manage their own destiny. Wherever she went, she entered into the lives of the toilers and truly became a part of them. She put women and children at the center of struggles, making it a family-based movement.

One of Jones’ key contributions was building unions that bridged racial and ethnic divides. She believed that unskilled immigrants and blacks should be included as well. She condemned white supremacy and argued that black and immigrant workers were some of the best union members.

Oddly, Mother Jones opposed Women’s Suffrage. She feared that focusing on the vote was diverting working-class women from more important economic justice. She saw the suffrage movement as only a rich women’s distraction. “You don’t need a Vote to raise Hell!” she proclaimed.

A political progressive, she was a founder of the Social Democratic Party in 1898. Jones also helped establish the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, and published numerous articles in the International Socialist Review.

When asked where she lived, Mother Jones replied that her home was “wherever there was a fight.”

Jones insisted that the government address social injustice as well. Demanding child labor laws, she organized children textile workers to march on President Theodore Roosevelt’s Oyster Bay home in 1903. In 1914, the Colorado militia massacred 20 women and children in a miners’ tent colony. Jones persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to intervene and negotiate a truce.

Mother Jones with President Calvin Coolidge, 1924 — **Mother Jones with President Calvin Coolidge**, **1924**

At other times, the authorities were not so tolerant of Mother Jones. When violence broke out during a 1912 miners strike in West Virginia, the court convicted her, at age 82, to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. Nationwide rallies and protests led the governor to quickly commute her sentence. Undeterred, she returned to organizing workers. Nothing it seemed could dissuade Mother Jones from her work.

Mary was also a global organizer who believed in a world-wide labor revolution. By 1910, she was fighting for Mexican labor rights against the country’s dictatorship and its US supporters. When she finally traveled to Mexico City in 1921, workers showered her with red carnations and blue violets, calling her “Madre Juanita.”

Newspapers of the day called her a “Folk Hero” or “the most well-known woman in America.”

Mother Jones lived her last years with friends in Silver Spring, MD. In 1930, her life was celebrated with special labor events across the country. She even gave her last speech for an Edison moving picture camera. She died in November of that year at age 93. A friend of laborers to the end, she asked to be buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Illinois, next to victims of an 1898 mine riot. Her funeral was attended by thousands.

Mother Jones was truly an inspirational folk hero to generations of American laborers for over six decades. Many of her dreams were not realized in her lifetime, but they did in fact come to pass after World War II, when our grandfathers returned home as GIs. They took jobs in countless factories and mills scattered across the U.S. and, yes, joined countless labor unions. These unions ensured fare pay, benefits, and pensions to millions of American men and women of the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History

Krakatoa Volcano: the Eruption that Shook the Globe

**Depiction of Krakatoa volcano eruption, 1883**

The eruption of Krakatoa island in August 1883 was THE most deadly volcanic explosion in modern history. More than 36,000 people in over 300 coastal villages perished in the most ghastly ways imaginable. Many died of burns and suffocation from the super-heated pyroclastic blasts that blew the peaks off the island. Thousands more drowned from the 4 tsunamis that followed when the volcano collapsed into the sea.

The Indonesian island of Krakatau (Krakatoa) sits in the narrow Sunda Straits between Sumatra to the north and Java to the south. Before the 1883 eruption, the uninhabited tropical island had no less than 3 volcanic peaks: Perboewatan the most active, Danan in the middle, and Rakata the tallest. Krakatau and its two nearby islands were remnants of a previous eruption that left an undersea caldera simmering beneath the sea.

Our story however starts 3 months before. Early in the morning of 20 May 1883, an 11 kilometer high cloud of ash and pumice plumed above the normally silent Krakatau, the first eruption in over 2 centuries. Over the next 2 months, it would deliver similar spectacles, all of which brought churning clouds of incandescent ash high into the hot tropical skies. People living in the nearby Dutch colonies on Java & Sumatra actually held parties celebrating nature’s spectacular fireworks. These awe-inspiring displays however were a prelude of far worse things to come.

Celebrations would come to a tragic halt in late August.

At 12:53 pm on Sunday 26 August, the eruption’s first major blast sent a cloud of hot gas, ash and pumice 24 km into the afternoon sky! Debris from the smaller summer eruptions had plugged the neck of the cone, allowing pressure to build in the magma chamber. This initial blast generated an eardrum-rupturing barrage accompanied by a black churning cloud that quickly turned daytime into night. Villagers and Dutch colonists covered their mouths and fled into houses and huts to escape the raining storm of hot ash and pumice. This was but the opening salvo to a climactic eruption the next day.

The first of 4 stupendous eruptions began at 5:30 am Monday morning, climaxing in a colossal blast at 10am that literally blew Krakatau Island apart. The noise was heard over 4600 km away, throughout the Indian Ocean – from Sri Lanka in the west, to Australia in the east. TWO-THIRDS of the island collapsed beneath the sea, into the now vacated magma chamber. 23 square kilometers of the island, including all of Perboewatan and Danan, fell into a caldera 6 kilometers across.

The explosive force was estimated at 200 megatons of TNT. By comparison, the 1945 atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima was a mere 20 kilotons. When the northern half of the island dropped beneath the ocean, it generating a series of devastating pyroclastic ash flows at sea level. Black clouds blasted across the waters of the Sundra Straits at speeds up 100 kph. Dazed villagers had barely enough time to take in the destruction of Krakatoa. Blistering pyroclastic flows struck southern Sumatra and western Java with a vengeance, hot enough to incinerate entire villages.

1000 alone died in the Sumatra town of Ketimbang, over 40 kilometers away. Dutch Controller Willem Beijerinck lived and worked in Ketimbang with his wife Johanna and their three children. He seriously contemplated killing his wife and children to spare them the hideous death of suffocation by hot ash. The family managed to survive by heading to high ground early in the eruption.

Still Krakatau was not finished, as the worst was yet to come.

The collapse of the island into the sea generated immense tsunamis that ravaged the coastlines on both sides of the strait. Thousands that survived burns from the hot ash were now killed by a tidal wave 120 feet tall. Completely unprepared, survivors scrambled fanatically for higher ground. Most of the closest islands, after first being overwhelmed by the hot ash, were totally submerged, stripping away of all vegetation, washing helpless people out to sea, and removing all signs of human occupation.

The steamship Berouw was carried a mile inland on Sumatra and beached in a river bed; all 28 crew members died. The Loudon was anchored in Lampong Bay, near the village of Telok Betong when the first wave approached. The ship’s captain Lindemann raised anchor and turned its bow to face the tsunami. The ship somehow managed to ride over the steep crest. The wave continued past them and the shocked crew watched as the waters consumed the town until nothing remained but the open sea.

All told, the explosions hurled 45 cubic kilometers of debris into the atmosphere darkening skies 440 km away. The sun was not seen over Sumatra and Java for three days. The shock wave was recorded around the globe as far away as London, and circled the planet seven times. Within 13 days, a layer of volcanic gas had circled the Earth, making for spectacular sunsets over Europe and the Americas. Average GLOBAL temperatures were up to 1.2 degrees C COOLER for the next FIVE years! Mother Nature had indeed put on one of her better shows.

Nobody knows how many souls were washed out to sea by the tsunamis.

For months, the Sunda Straits were clogged with so much debris that it looked like solid ground, peppered with decaying corpses. Relief ships were unable to reach devastated coastal communities like Telok Betong for weeks. The official number of dead, calculated by the Dutch East India Company was 36,417, 90 percent of which were directly killed by the tsunamis. Truer estimates including native populations and the aftermath are over 100,000 dead.

In 1927, fishermen in the strait were shocked when a column of steam began spewing from the old collapsed caldera. Krakatau had awakened after 44 years of silent slumber. Within weeks, a small, new cone appeared above sea level. Within a year, it grew into a small island, named appropriately Anak Krakatau, Child of Krakatau. The new peak continues to grows on average 7 meters every year. Krakatoa Jr. is up to its old tricks yet again, and erupted as recently as 2020, spewing ash and lava into the air and causing a 5 meter tsunami. Let us hope that is the worst it has to offer the South Pacific.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History Menu

The Cuban Missile Crisis – the Day Russia Blinked

Kennedy, Castro and Khrushchev — **President John F. Kennedy, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev**

For 13 nerve-wracking days in October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the earth close to a nuclear WORLD WAR III. It was a direct confrontation between 2 major superpowers, United States and USSR (Soviet Union) during the so called Cold War. It was the worst clash since the construction of the Berlin Wall a year earlier in 1961.

The US Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 spectacularly failed to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. So in 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reached a secret agreement with Castro. The Soviets would place nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island to deter any future invasion. The Soviet Union also disliked the number of nuclear weapons pointing at them from Western Europe’s NATO. They saw missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field.

So the secret construction of Soviet missile sites on Cuba began.

In September, President John F. Kennedy issued a public warning against the introduction of any offensive Soviet weapons into Cuba. Despite this, in October, a U–2 spy plane took aerial photos. It clearly showing construction of a medium-range ballistic nuclear missile site in Cuba. The Pentagon rushed these images to the White House on October 16th, beginning what would be called the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuba was a mere 90 miles from Key West, Florida and the range of these missiles included Washington DC!

Kennedy quickly summoned his security advisers to the West Wing, a group called the Ex Com (Executive Committee) to consider options and a course of action. The Joint Chiefs of Staff argued for an immediate air strike, followed by a U.S. invasion of Cuba! Non-military advisers recommended only stern warnings and sanctions to the Soviet Union. Kennedy and ExCom all agreed that the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba was unacceptable. The challenge was to get them removed without triggering a nuclear world war.

In tense deliberations that stretched for nearly a week, they came up with a variety of options, including diplomacy, a bombing attack, and a full-scale invasion of Cuba. In the end, President Kennedy decided upon a middle of the road course. On Monday, October 22nd, he ordered a US Naval “quarantine” of Cuba. Calling it a “quarantine” technically meant this was not a “blockade,” which assumed a State of War existed.

That same day, President Kennedy sent a strong letter to Premier Khrushchev.

In it he declared the U.S. would not permit offensive weapons of any kind in Cuba. He demanded the Soviets dismantle the missile bases under construction, AND return all offensive weapons to the Soviet Union. President Kennedy then went on national TV that night and informed America and the world of the threat to national security these Cuban missiles represented. He explained the naval quarantine he had ordered, and the global military consequences if the crisis escalated. His stern message was clear:

“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba anywhere in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
President John F. Kennedy

The Joint Chiefs of Staff moved the USA to DEFCON 3 as naval ships began to surround Cuba, preparing for a military strike. People around the globe nervously worried and waited. WHAT WOULD THE SOVIET RESPONSE BE? Many feared the earth was finally at the brink of nuclear annihilation and looked for the nearest bomb shelter.

Believing their country was on the brink of nuclear war, Americans began hoarding food and gas in their basements.

cuban missile crisis headline 1962 — **Cuban Missile Crisis Headline, October 1962**

In schools around the country, teachers ran daily Duck and Cover drills in their classrooms. In duck and cover, students drop quickly to the floor and scramble under their desks. Then they lie curled up in a ball, face down, and cover their head with their hands. The goal being to protect against a nuclear blast where the force of the explosion could shatter glass windows and create an immense blast of heat.

On Wednesday, October 24th, Khrushchev responded with his own statement. He said the US “blockade” was an “Act of Aggression” and that Soviet ships would proceed. The crisis had reached a superpower stalemate. A crucial moment arrived later that day, when Soviet ships neared the line of US Navy vessels enforcing the quarantine outside Cuba. Any attempt to breach the blockade would spark a military confrontation that could escalate to a nuclear exchange. But the Soviet ships stopped short of the blockade!

Meanwhile, US spy planes showed the Soviet missile sites were nearly operational. The Pentagon placed military forces at DEFCON 2—meaning war was imminent. Kennedy and the ExCom prepared for an attack on Cuba. On October 26th, Kennedy told his advisers it appeared that only a US attack on Cuba would remove the Soviet missiles, but he insisted on giving diplomacy a one last chance.

“I thought it was the last day I would ever see.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

That afternoon, the crisis took a strange turn. ABC News told the White House they’d been approached by a Russian agent. He suggested the Soviet Union would remove their missiles from Cuba, IF the US would not to invade the island. While the Pentagon scrambled to validate this “back-channel” offer, Khrushchev sent Kennedy a communication in the middle of the night, October 26th. It was an emotional message raising the specter of nuclear holocaust, and proposed a resolution that matched what ABC had heard!

“If there is no intention to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot. We are ready for this.”
Kremlin message to the White House

The next day, Saturday, October 27th, Khrushchev sent a second message, indicating that any proposed deal must include the removal of US missiles from Turkey. That same day, a U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba. 35-year-old pilot Major Rudy Anderson was killed. Kennedy decided to ignore the 2nd message and respond only to the 1st. That night, he sent a communication to Khrushchev proposing the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba under supervision of the United Nations, and a guarantee that the US would NOT invade Cuba.

It was a risky to ignore the 2nd Khrushchev message. So Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the president’s younger brother) met with Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, in Washington. He said the U.S. was planning to remove the missiles from Turkey anyway, and that it would do so soon, but this could not be part of any public statement. The next morning, October 28th, Nikita Khrushchev issued a statement that Soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba!!

The planet and its anxious population took a collective sigh of relief.

By the end of November 1962, the U.S. was satisfied with the removal of Soviet missiles and ended its naval quarantine of Cuba. U.S. quietly removed their Jupiter missiles from Turkey the next year, in 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis strengthened President Kennedy’s image both in the U.S. and internationally. It also helped turn the negative world opinion surrounding his failed Bay of Pigs Invasion a year earlier.

In an effort to prevent this from ever happening again, a direct telephone link between the White House and Moscow’s Kremlin was established in 1963, known as the famous red “HOTLINE” phone. So a direct verbal conversation could take place between the U.S. President and Soviet Premier when needed, and avert World War III.

The tense Cold War between the East and West was far from over though. It would last another 29 YEARS, until the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Of course the world’s nuclear arsenals, though greatly diminished by treaties, still contains thousands of warheads, and remains under the control of the U.S., Russia Federation, Britain, France, and many other countries, including China, Israel, India and Pakistan. Let us hope another such nuclear crisis does not evolve between any of them.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History Menu

The Deadly 1900 Galveston Hurricane

**The 1900 Galveston Hurricane Memorial**, **Galveston, TX**

For an audio Podcast, Click Here

If you approached Galveston, Texas from the gulf in 1900, it looked like an American Venice. Barely 8 feet above sea level – hotels, mansions, and church steeples rose from the placid waters as if it were Atlantis itself. Its long harbor and numerous warehouses made it a more important port than its inland cousin, Houston. Over 1,000 steam ships docked at the harbor every year. Its busy business district was dubbed the ‘Wall Street of the West.’ Over 37,000 souls crowded into the picturesque barrier island, linked to the mainland by no less than 3 railroad bridges. The popular, flat beachfront boasted numerous hotels, restaurants and shops along its famous Midway. All that changed when the 1900 Storm, a Category 4 hurricane, arrived.

As far back as locals could remember, Galveston had been spared the arrival of any major hurricane, or ‘Cyclones’ as they called them back then. Only two tropical storms had hit Texas in recent memory, but much farther south. Galvestonians considered them freak incidents and that a major hurricane would NEVER breach the Florida Straits, let alone hit Texas. Why even the U.S. Weather Bureau agreed the shallow Gulf waters made it virtually immune to hurricanes.

Talks of building a sea wall were discussed by city leaders, then tossed aside as sheer folly. Why bother? In the meantime, the bustling city continued to fill up and grow. The protective dunes were destroyed and their sand used to fill in wetlands for new construction and even more souls on the island.

Saturday, September 8th, 1900 began with few hints of impending doom.

The U.S. Weather Bureau knew a tropical storm had passed Cuba two day earlier, but thought it turned to the north and was heading for Florida. In the days before satellites, eye witnesses and telegraphs had to suffice … and they were not enough. Isaac Cline, Galveston’s chief meteorologist, went to the beach that morning and reported partly cloudy skies with only “unusually high swells in the gulf.” There was not the brick-red dawn usually associated with foul weather. Other than the raising of a storm warning flag atop the weather bureau building downtown, there would be no call for evacuation. By that time, it was too late anyway.

By the lunch hour, dark clouds had brought heavy rains. They were fed by an unusually high tide, flooding all streets nearest the beach hip-deep in seawater. Fierce, crashing waves destroyed the beloved Midway and trolley tracks that ran parallel to the beach. Some families began to pack their wagons with valuables and head to the center of the island. Others, believing it was just a bad storm, stayed put and moved to the upper floor of their homes.

By four o’clock, winds were blowing at hurricane strength, flipping slate shingles off roof tops, sending them flying through the air like scimitars. Rising waters were already chest-deep in the streets. Store front windows downtown were shattered by the winds. Families realized they had but two options now, risk wading downtown to slightly higher ground (a mere 8 feet above sea level), or ride out the storm in the upper floors of their wooden homes. Isaac Cline had watched his barometer drop all day to a record low and waded home to his own family. Schools, convents and hospitals became emergency shelters.

By 6 o’clock that night, what we today call a Category 4 Hurricane hit an unsuspecting Galveston.

A 15 FOOT STORM SURGE rose in a matter of minutes, flooding the island from beach to bay. All the bridges leaving the island were destroyed. Two hours later, the Eye itself plowed over the city, punching it with 140 mile per hour winds. In the dark of night, street after street of houses were crushed by the massive storm surge. Broken homes were lifted off their foundations. They crashed into the next street, only to repeat the cycle of destruction. Residents who were not killed instantly were quite literally thrown into the heart of the cyclone’s dark swirling waters, to either survive clinging to wreckage, or die.

St. Mary's Orphan Asylum, Galveston, TX, 1900 — **St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, Galveston, TX, 1900**

St. Mary’s Orphanage sat on prime property, directly on the Gulf, just outside the city limits. The Sisters of Charity gathered the terrified children into the upper floors to escape the rising storm surge. They sang Mary, Queen of the Waves to pray and calm the orphans. The sisters even tied themselves to the children with ropes so they’d not be separated if blown out into the storm. Its two dormitories eventually collapsed with 90 young children and 10 nuns inside … only three teenage boys managed to survive.

By dawn, the killer storm has passed. The dazed and lucky survivors crawled from the wreckage to find half their city flattened to rubble and littered with corpses. Due to the large number of bodies washed out to sea, it will never be known exactly how many truly died in the Galveston Hurricane. 3,600 buildings were completely destroyed and up to 8,000 lives lost. Isaac Cline managed to save his 3 daughters when their home collapsed, but lost his wife. The bodies of the dead were first loaded onto barges and dumped in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Gulf dumped them back on the beach the next day. Funeral pyres became the only way to dispose of so many dead.

Galveston learned its lesson, oh yes, it certainly did.

In the years folllowing, the Gulf of Mexico sand was dredged and the entire city raised up 17 FEET. Then a massive, curved concrete seawall was constructed. Galveston has since been hit many more times by tropical storms, most recently directs hits by Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Though given ample days to evacuate from Ike, over 100,000 residents chose to stay on the skinny barrier island and ride out the storm … just like their ancestors a hundred years earlier. Given the uncertainty around global climate change, we can only assume Hurricane Ike will not be the last cyclone to attack the vulnerable Texas coast.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Source: https://www.1900storm.com/

LOST IN HISTORY

Bhopal India was the World’s Worst Industrial Disaster

**Union Carbide plant, Bhopal, India after explosion**

How soon we forgot. Over 30 years ago, on the night of December 3, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released 30 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air. Primarily into the poor slums surrounding the factory, exposing more than half a million souls to the deadly cloud.

The thick, heavy gas stayed low to the ground, causing victims throats and eyes to burn, inducing vomiting, internal bleeding, and death. Estimates of the death toll vary from as few as 3,800 in the early days to as many as 16,000 over the years.

How could this have happened in today’s modern age?

In the 1970s, the Indian government lured Union Carbide (UC) to build a pesticide plant in Bhopal in central India. The government itself would keep a 22% stake in the company’s Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited. The plant would produce the pesticide carbaryl using methyl isocyanate (MIC). The densely populated Bhopal site was unfortunately not zoned for such a hazardous industry.

In 1984, the factory operated with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in the US’s West Virginia. The local government was aware of the safety issues. But they were unwilling to burden the owners with pollution regulations for fear of the economic impact and the loss of such a large regional employer.

At 11 pm on 2 December 1984, a million Bhopal resident slept in the nearby slums. An operator at Plant C noticed a leak of methyl isocyanate gas and growing pressure inside storage tank #610. A faulty valve allowed water meant for cleaning pipes to mix with 40 tons of MIC. The vent-gas scrubber, which neutralized toxic emissions, had been turned off 3 weeks earlier. A refrigeration unit that cooled the storage tank had been drained of coolant for use elsewhere. The gas flare tower was out of action for 3 months. Pressure and heat from the MIC + water exothermic reaction continued to build for 2 hours.

Finally, at 1 am, December 3, a loud explosion rumbled through the plant as a safety valve blew away, sending a plume of methyl isocyanate gas into the night air. Within minutes, a toxic gas cloud flooded the surrounding streets of Bhopal. Within hours, those same streets were littered with human corpses and the carcasses of cows, dogs and birds. An estimated 3,800 people died that night, mostly in the poor slums adjacent to the plant. As a cool morning breeze picked up, it carried the poisonous yellow gas to the rest of the city, killing even more.

The Union Carbide plant’s alarm system was not triggered for hours. The factory managers raised no alarm to the city. Suddenly, thousands of people awoke choking. Those that could, started running to Bhopal’s 2 local hospitals. They were soon overwhelmed, a crisis exacerbated since doctors didn’t know what gas was causing the odd symptoms they were seeing. Victims were coughing up blood, unable to breathe, fainting from dizziness, suffered blistering skin rashes, and sudden blindness. Bhopal’s doctors had no experience in dealing with an industrial disaster.

“I woke up suffocating! It felt like someone had thrown hot coals in my eyes.”
Quote from Bhopal victim

In the neighborhoods closest to the plant, the gas caused internal hemorrhaging, pneumonia and death, leaving bodies in the streets as they tried to flee their homes. The government later estimated over 3,000 people died within a few hours. The two hospitals treated over 50,000 patients in the first 2 days.

Methyl isocyanate is extremely toxic and, if its air concentration reaches 21ppm (parts per million), it causes death within minutes. Near the Bhopal plant, the level was several times higher! Bhopal had a population of about 8,500,000 souls that night. Approximately a half a million people were immediately exposed.

Overwhelmed with the dead, mass burials and cremations began within days.

Officially, the government stated the gas leak was contained in 8 hours. It’s estimated that about 40 tons of methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide factory. Estimates of the dead in the first few days run as high as 10,000, with 20,000 premature deaths reported in the subsequent 20 years.

Immediately after the disaster, UC began to distance itself from responsibility, shifting blame to its Indian subsidiary. It also spread sabotage theories that it was perpetuated by Sikh extremists, but no evidence existed to substantiate that. At every turn, Union Carbide attempted to manipulate and withhold data. To this date, the company has never stated exactly what was in the deadly cloud that enveloped the city that December night.

The toxic plume had barely cleared when the first multi-billion dollar lawsuit was filed in a U.S. court. This was the beginning of years of litigation in which the affects of the tragedy on Bhopal’s poor were largely ignored.

The Indian government sued Union Carbide in a civil case.

In a 1989 settlement agreed by the Indian Supreme Court, UC finally agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government, to be distributed to Bhopal victims as a final settlement. The figure was based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people died and 100,000 suffered permanent disabilities. The Indian government, notorious for its corruption, has yet to distribute all of the settlement. Had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that victims were awarded in US, the liability would have been greater than $10 billion!

By 2003, over 500,000 people were awarded compensation. The average amount to families of the victims was between only $550 to $2,200, which could not pay for the chronic lung ailments, life-long eye problems, and birth defects survivors developed.

Victims Wall in Bhopal, India, 1984 — Victims Wall Of the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, 1984

As a final insult, Union Carbide closed its Bhopal plant and failed to completely clean up what was now a hazardous waste site. Today, the rusting, deserted complex continues to leak toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the soil and aquifers of Bhopal. Thousands of tons of hazardous waste remain buried underground. In 1999, Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide for $9 billion in stock. In 2009, the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment monitoring lab reported that pesticide groundwater contamination was still detectable 3 km from the factory.

As its legacy, the Bhopal tragedy became the worst chemical catastrophe in global history to date. The name ‘Union Carbide‘ is today synonymous with industrial mismanagement, disaster, and death. In 2023, Netflix released a mini-series on the heroes of the Bhopal disaster entitled, “The Railway Men.“

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Japan’s Horrific Minamata Disease was a Man-made Disaster

**Japanese mother comforting son with Minamata Disease**

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 and weakness, loss of feeling in hands and feet, tunnel vision, loss of hearing, and speech abnormalities. Within a few weeks of onset, extreme cases tragically end with paralysis, insanity, convulsions and eventually death. In pregnant women, it can also lead to birth defects.

But what exactly did humans do to create such a terrible disease?

We have to go back over century to 1908 when the Japanese Chisso Corporation opened a factory in Minamata. First manufacturing fertilizers, the company saw more profit in the chemical industry. So in 1932, Chisso started producing acetaldehyde at its Minamata plant. By 1951, production was up to a whopping 6,000 tons a year. The process unfortunately lead to the production of highly toxic methyl mercury as a waste product. As is the case in such large-scale plants, they produced large quantities of chemical wastewater. Chisso’s solution was to simply dump the wastes, untreated, directly into the surrounding Minamata Bay. They did this for decades until 1968!

The poisonous methyl mercury slowly bioaccumulated in the fish and shellfish living in Minamata Bay and the surrounding Shiranui Sea. Inevitably, Chisso’s pollutants had an environmental impact. Fisheries were damaged with reduced catches. In response to lawsuits, Chisso reached a compensation agreement with the fishery cooperative in 1943. While that was good, the population of Minamata still relied heavily on the bay for a substantial part of their diet. So when fished and eaten by the locals over the years, it resulted in mercury poisoning.

The first case of what would be called Minamata Disease was recorded in 1956. A 5 year-old girl was brought to the Chisso factory hospital. The doctors there were puzzled by her odd symptoms which included convulsions, difficulty walking and slurred speech. Two days later, her younger sister also began exhibiting the same symptoms and was hospitalized as well. The girls’ mother then told the doctors that her neighbor’s daughter was also sick!

After the city conducted a house-to-house check, 8 more patients were found and hospitalized. By May, the hospital’s director officially reported an epidemic of an unknown illness of the central nervous system, calling it Minamata Disease.

Because the disease was confined to Minamata, they suspected it was contagious, quarantining all the patients.

Unfortunately, this only led to the fear and stigma towards the victim’s families from their own community. As the investigation continued, the doctors heard alarming stories of the strange behavior of animals as well. For several years, cats had been convulsing, ‘going mad’ and dying. Locals called it the “dancing cat disease” due to their odd seizures. Crows often fell from the sky and died, seaweed no longer grew in the bay, and hundreds of fish routinely floated dead on the surface of the Shiranui Sea every day.

Researchers from the Kumamoto School of Medicine flocked to Minamata to investigate. Slowly, a more complete picture of the disease was revealed. It began with severe headaches and a loss of sensation and numbness in patient’s hands and feet. They became unable to grasp cups or simply fasten buttons. Then they could not walk without stumbling, their voices changed to an odd pitch. Finally they had difficulties seeing, hearing, tasting and even swallowing. The symptoms quickly worsened and were ultimately followed by severe convulsions, coma and eventual death.

By the end of 1956, 40 people had been hospitalized, 14 of whom eventually died: a shocking mortality rate of 37%. Researchers then began to focus on what could be the cause of the strange disease. Epidemiologists realized that the victims were all clustered in fishing districts along the shores of Minamata Bay. The staple food of those families was mainly fish and shellfish caught from the sea. The local cats and dogs tended to eat scraps from family tables and died with symptoms similar to humans.

This led the researchers to deduce the outbreak was caused by heavy metal food poisoning.

The Chisso plant’s wastewater was immediately suspected as the source. The company’s own data showed that its wastewater contained heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic in high enough concentrations to cause serious environmental damage. Throughout the next 2 years, many theories were proposed, until a British neurologist Douglas McAlpine realized that Minamata Disease closely resembled mercury poisoning.

In 1959, the mercury in Minamata Bay was finally measured. The results shocked the researchers – 2 kg mercury per ton of sediment. Large quantities of mercury were detected in fish, shellfish and the sediment from the bottom of the bay. The highest concentrations centered near the point where the Chisso wastewater canal entered the bay, clearly identifying the factory as the source.

Now, Chisso had always been a boon to the local economy. Over half of Minamata’s tax revenue came from Chisso and its employees. And the company was responsible for supplying over a quarter of all jobs in the city. This fact, combined with the lack of other industries in the area, meant that Chisso had great power and influence in Minamata’s city government. One plant director had even been mayor.

Even after Chisso was identified as the culprit, it did not stop production or dumping for 9 more years, until 1968.

Researchers collected hair samples from the victims and the general Minamata population. In patients, the average mercury level recorded was 705 ppm (parts per million), indicating heavy exposure. In healthy residents, the level was 191 ppm, compared to an average “safe” level of 4 ppm for the rest of Japan.

In 1959, the Ministry of Health and Welfare published its results: Minamata disease is a poisoning disease that affects the central nervous system, caused by the consumption of fish and shellfish living in Minamata Bay and its surrounding sea, the causative agent being organic mercury. The disease is not contagious or transmitted genetically. There is no cure.

The contaminated sludge in Minamata Bay was dealt with partly by land reclamation and partly by dredging at a cost of 49 billion yen over the next 14 years. Ironically, Chisso set up a subsidiary to reclaim the mercury recovered from the sludge and sell it on the open market! Minamata Disease broke out again in 1965, along the banks of the Agano River in Niigata. The polluting factory this time was owned by Showa Denko.

Minamata Disease Map of Outbreaks — Japan’s Minamata Disease Map of Two Outbreaks

2,265 victims have been officially recognized in Minimata. In 1971, American photojournalist Eugene Smith spent 2 years documenting the effects of Minamata disease in a book, bringing worldwide attention to the tragedy. Finally in 1973, over 17,000 Minamata residents finally received financial compensation from Chisso amounting to 86 million (in US dollars).

The Governor of Kumamoto declared Minamata Bay safe in 1997, allowing fishing again. In 2004, 48 years later, Chisso was finally ordered by the Japanese government to pay for the clean up of its contamination. As you can imagine, additional lawsuits and compensation claims continue to this day.

In 2016, Japan ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty to reduce mercury emissions. Those children who survived the disease are now in their sixties, continuing to receive regular treatment to this day. All along, their greatest wish was simply to not be ostracized by their own community. Even after it was determined that mercury was the cause, and the disease was not contagious, victims were still reviled as threats to Chisso and thus their economic way of life in Minamata.

A movie titled, Minamata, was released in 2021, starring actor Johnny Depp as photojournalist Eugene Smith.

So what were the hard lessons of Minamata and Chisso? Harder lessons were still to be learned in further industrial disasters like Bhopal, India in 1984 and Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986. But for one, it teaches us that we human beings, in our endless quest for profit above people and all else, can be both the victims and the perpetrators of its consequences.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History

Podcast : An Irish Immigrants Welcome – No Irish Need Apply

Given this centuries massive migrant refugee crises around the world, it’s not hard to fathom the intense Irish immigrant bigotry of the mid-1800’s. The great Irish Potato Famine lasted nearly a decade and brought massive numbers of Irish refugees to America, Canada and England. Faced with eviction and starvation, hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrated across the Atlantic to the U.S. and Canada. To say these Irish immigrants were not welcomed by Americans is a vast understatement. They were in fact treated like unwanted criminals.

No Irish Need Apply sign in business window — Common “No Irish Need Apply” sign in business window

To Read the Blog version: Click Here

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The Lusitania Sank in Just 18 Minutes, Beating Titanic!

RMS Lusitania sinking off the Irish coast, 1915

The ocean liner Lusitania was struck by a German torpedo in 1915 and sunk within sight of the Irish coast in just 18 Minutes! Compare that to the rather luxurious sinking of the Titanic three years earlier in 1912 that lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes. We have all seen the popular movie, so just imagine our protagonists Rose and Jack having just 18 minutes to escape the sinking ship.

In 1915, World War I was not even a year old in Europe. In response to Great Britain’s naval blockade, Germany announced that it would begin ‘UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE.’ In other words, U-boats would torpedo ANY ship in the Atlantic war zone. Brits and Americans boarding the Lusitania in New York City saw advertisements in city newspapers, posted by the German embassy, warning them of that risk:

Vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her Allies, are liable to destruction in the war zone, and travelers sailing on such ships DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK!
German Embassy newspaper advertisement

Passengers ignored the warning since surely Germany would not target a civilian ocean liner. Also, they were told by the Cunard line that, with a top speed of 21 knots, far faster than any submarine, the Lusitania could easily outrun any German U-boat. Dubbed the “Greyhound of the Seas,” she had won the Blue Ribbon for the fastest Atlantic crossing.

With 1,257 passengers and 702 crew aboard, the RMS Lusitania left New York City harbor on 1 May 1915 bound for Liverpool, England. Unknown to her passengers, she also carried a large, secret cargo of munitions and contraband destined for the British war effort.

Tensions finally grew onboard Lusitania once the Atlantic crossing neared its end and they entered British waters on 7 May 1915. They had good reason to be worried. German submarines had already sunk 2 steamers off the coast of Ireland that week. Nevertheless, the British Admiralty never sent a destroyer to escort Lusitania! Instead, they instructed Captain William Turner to avoid the Irish coast at top speed and in a zigzag pattern, making it difficult for a U-boat to score a torpedo hit.

But with visibility obscured by thick coastal fog and wanting to save coal, Captain Turner reduced speed to only 15 knots. He sailed Lusitania in a straight line, just 11 miles off the south Irish coast, within sight of Old Head Lighthouse. Turner was ignoring every one of the Admiralty’s directives. Whether or not the Captain’s decision was justified, it doomed his ship, passengers and crew.

Lurking beneath the Irish waters was U-20, led by Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger.

U-20 had already sank a few smaller vessels and now, at 2 o’clock in the early afternoon, he spotted a four stack ocean liner through his periscope. What a prize for the Kaiser! he thought. Knowing full well it contained hundreds of civilians, at 2:09 pm in the afternoon, Schwieger gave the command to load and fire a single torpedo at the ship. He then watched anxiously through his periscope.

At 2:10 p.m., Lusitania’s lookouts spotted a torpedo streaking rapidly towards them, a white, frothy line in its wake. “Torpedo off the starboard bow!” they told the bridge. By that time, it was too late for the large ship to avoid. The captain barked out orders “Hard to Starboard!” The German torpedo struck the Lusitania on the starboard side between mid-ship and the bow.

The detonation sent a low rumble through the ship. Passengers reacted with mild concern. After all, it could just be trouble with the ship’s large steam engine. They continued their reading or conversations. 30 seconds later however, a 2nd, much large explosion erupted from deep within the vessel’s belly, sending out clouds of black smoke. The Lusitania immediately began a tilt to starboard.

It was not a 2nd torpedo, however. Captain Schwieger always maintained that he fired only one. The source of the 2^nd explosion is Lusitania’s greatest mystery. What had caused it? The bridge crew discovered the Lusitania no longer responded to the ship’s wheel. The captain ordered an immediate wireless SOS sent out and to reverse all engines. When the engine room could not comply to his orders, he knew they were finished. The ship‘s tilt to starboard continued to worsen. He immediately ordered all passengers to life boats.

At 2:14 pm, electricity failed and the interior of the ship plunged into darkness.

Unlike the Titanic, the Lusitania had enough lifeboats for all. However, with the decks tilting wildly, a manic chaos set in, with passengers racing to find life jackets and then life boats. One survivor described it as a swarm of mad bees without the queen. Parents were separated from children in the rush of bodies. The electric lifts stopped working, trapping people between decks! Water began rapidly flooding the lower decks faster than people could escape them. The hallways and staircases became jammed with humanity.

Within 5 minutes, the Lusitania’s list was already 15 degrees to starboard, then 20, then 25! by 2:25 pm. Crewmembers attempted to launch the lifeboats, but the tilt of the sinking ship made this near impossible. On the port side, many boats swung back over the deck rather than the sea. Those that were released over the railing splintered against the riveted hull on their way down, or capsized completely on the way down, killing all those inside.

Things were no better on the starboard side. Those lifeboats that were released, swung out far away from the railing, too far for people to board. Those that reached the water overturned or went in nose first because of the sinking bow. Some flipped over, either in the air, or when they hit the water, dumping screaming passengers into the frigid Irish sea.

When it became apparent the lifeboats were failing, passengers jumped into the ocean.

On the starboard side, they began sliding down the steep decks into the churning water. Once in the sea, they fought to hold onto any piece of floating wreckage they could find. Most never had a chance. The ship’s massive propellers at the stern rose out of the water as the pointed bow sank beneath the sea. Once the bow went under, the sinking accelerated. Further explosions blew below decks as cold seawater hit the red-hot boilers.

On submarine U-20, Captain Schwieger watched through his periscope and noted the result in his log, “The ship stops immediately and heals over to starboard quickly, immersing at the bow. Great confusion is rife on board; the boats are made ready and some lowered into the water. In connection therewith, great panic reigns; some boats, full to capacity are rushed from above, touch the water with either stem or stern first and founder immediately.”

Onboard the Lusitania, Captain Turner ordered his men to abandon ship as well and remained on the bridge until it too was submerged beneath him. He was somehow washed clear of the bow as the ship sank. He survived after spending 3 hours in the cold water, atop a deck chair. He was pulled from the sea unconscious.

At 2:28 pm, within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea.

It left a bubbling, swirling, frothy whirlpool in its wake. 1,198 of the 1,924 aboard died, including 128 Americans, 59 children and 35 infants. Lusitania sank in a mere 90 meters (300 feet) of water. Kapitänleutnant Schwieger lowered his periscope and ordered his submarine back out to sea. He was lauded as a war hero in Germany, and later died in 1917 when his U-boat hit a mine off the British coast.

Rescue ships were dispatched from the Irish port of Queenstown and arrived within 2 hours. They managed to pick up only 761 survivors. Some were in such a state of shock their hair began to turn grey and fall out. Local authorities set up makeshift morgues to handle the hundreds of floating corpses being collected on the sea. Mass burials were made onshore in the days to come.

The killing of U.S. citizens enraged Americans. President Woodrow Wilson protested loudly, and public opinion in the U.S. began to turn against Germany. It would still be another 2 years however, 1917, before the U.S. finally joined the Allies in the trenches of France. At a Board of Trade Inquiry, Captain Turner, the Cunard Company, and the Royal Navy were all absolved of any negligence. All blame was placed on the German government.

So what had caused the mysterious 2nd explosion?

Lusitania had been carrying 173 tons of ammunition. The Germans maintained this made her a legitimate target and caused the 2^nd explosion. The British continued to deny it. Robert Ballard, discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic, explored the Lusitania in 1993, hoping to finally solve the mystery. The sad wreck lies in just 295 feet of water on her starboard side, obscuring the area where the torpedo hit.

Conspiracy theorists claim the Brits deliberately sank the ship to hasten America’s entry into the war. Ballard found no evidence of this. Nor was there any evidence of an explosion in the hold where munitions were stowed. No boiler room explosion was reported by the surviving crew at the time the torpedo hit. Ballard concluded the torpedo ripped open a coal bunker, causing the huge 2nd explosion. The blast ripped open a much larger hole and doomed the ship to its rapid death.

So ended the life of the once proud Lusitania, grand rival of the Titanic in both size, luxury and tragedy. It sits today on the bottom of the murky cold sea, within tantalizing sight of the coast of Ireland.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Middle East Peace- the Egypt-Israeli Camp David Accords

Egypt's Anwar Sadat, America's Jimmy Carter and Israel's Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords 1978 — Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, America’s Jimmy Carter and Israel’s Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords 1978

Middle East peace seems like a utopian fantasy. But there are true examples of lasting success. The best by far is the Camp David Accords signed at the White House in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and US President Jimmy Carter. It laid the groundwork, after 3 decades of wars, for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that lasts to this day. The largely forgotten accords, were fleshed out during 13 days of intensive negotiations lead by President Carter at the Camp David Presidential Retreat in Maryland. The final peace agreement – the first ever between Israel and an Arab neighbor – was then signed at the White House.

This seems unimaginable today given the powder keg that is the Middle East. A state of war had basically existed between Israel and Egypt since Israel’s formation in 1948. Jews had achieved an independent homeland, but the Arab world claimed that same land for a Palestinian state. Three wars followed – the 1948 Arab Israeli War, 1967 Six Day War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In them, Israel successfully defended itself and in fact expanded its territory by occupying the Sinai Peninsula.

By the late 1970’s, Anwar Sadat had enough of wars and wanted to finally make peace AND recover the Sinai. But after Israel’s victories in the wars, they had little reason to include Sinai in any peace terms. Menachem Begin, the new conservative Israeli Prime Minister appeared immovable on the very idea of exchanging land for peace.

By 1977, Sadat, frustrated by the lack of movement made a dramatic announcement. He said that he would be willing to go to Jerusalem! Begin complied, inviting Sadat to visit Israel, where he historically spoke before the Israeli Knesset – the 1^st time ever for an Arab leader! Sadat then invited Begin, who reciprocated with a trip to Cairo. These 2 visits led to direct talks, but unfortunately, not much came of them.

Then along came U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

From the start of his presidency, Carter pursued intensive negotiations with both Egypt and Israeli to achieve peace once and for all. During the summer of 1978, Carter attempted to find common ground. He realized that without direct U.S. mediation, the 2 sides would simply go on arguing, blaming each other for failure. Carter ignored advice to stay out of the Middle East mess and chose instead to commit the US to trilateral negotiations.

Jimmy Carter decided the solution was to call for a Summit, but not just any summit. He invited Begin and Sadat to the Presidential Retreat at Camp David. This meeting would bring Sadat, Begin, and Carter himself together at the secluded retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. They both agreed.

It was a huge risk and daring act for Carter to stick himself into the hornet’s nest of the Middle East. He placed both his presidential capital and political future on the line for a summit that might very well fail. Carter decided it would be best, win or lose, to go all out, in an all-or-nothing gamble on peace.

So in September 1978, Jimmy Carter welcomed Sadat and Begin to the forested retreat in the middle of nowhere, away from the public’s and press’s eyes. Here peace accords would be hammered out under the direction of President Carter himself. He preferred informal diplomacy and felt it best to shield them all from public and media scrutiny, to allow a more relaxed atmosphere for negotiations.

The Camp David Summit, lasted 13 days from September 5–17th, 1978.

Rarely had a U.S. President devoted as much attention to a single foreign policy issue as Carter did. The core issues centered around Egypt demanding the Sinai back and the creation of an independent Palestinian homeland on the West Bank. In turn, Israel insisted Egypt remove its troops from its border and allow for access to the Suez Canal.

As the first 3 days ran on, the talks melted down, especially when both leaders sat in the same room. The debates were often heated between Begin and Sadat, breaking down into shouting matches while Carter played the role of mediator. The two leaders did not like each other on a personal level, let alone a political one.

So instead, Carter and his Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, decided to meet with each delegation separately over the course of the next 10 days, acting as go-betweens. This was exhausting, but Carter was tireless, and with his perpetual optimism, shuttled back and forth between the 2 delegations. He often rode a bicycle between the cabins of the 2 heads of state.

Each leader threatened to walk out on numerous occasions.

President Carter played the role of strategist, mediator, ally and even therapist. He effectively used the promise of American aid as leverage to induce flexibility and accept concessions. For 13 days, Carter did something unprecedented, he set aside his other presidential duties to work exclusively on Middle East peace. And it worked!

Carter wisely separated the Sinai issue from the Palestinian issue, resulting in 2 agreements. The first was ‘A Framework for Peace in the Middle East Agreed at Camp David.’ It stated that Israel would evacuate the Sinai in exchange for full access to the Suez Canal. In exchange, Egypt would greatly limit its military activities on the Israeli border.

The second agreement was the ‘Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel.’ This one was to discuss the future of the West Bank and Gaza, and the creation of a future Palestinian state. The CAMP DAVID ACCORDS were signed in the East Room of the White House on national TV on September 17, 1978.

Sadat, Carter and Begin sign the Egypt-Israeli Middle East Peace Treaty, 1978

The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty was formally signed 6 months later on March 1979 on the South Lawn of the White House . Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. The treaty ended the state of war between the two countries and established full diplomatic and commercial relations that lasts to this day!

Peace between Egypt and Israel was a truly historic accomplishment that wouldn’t have been achieved without the tireless efforts of U.S. President Carter. Jimmy Carter. He accomplished something that had eluded the Middle East for 3 decades and the decades since. He himself received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. The sustainable Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty has remained unmatched by subsequent administrations around the world ever since. Sadly, there has not been similar Middle East peace ever since. Wars routinely erupt today between Israel, Palestinian Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and various Islamic extremist groups.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History