This Week in History
HISTORY, 20 Nov 2023
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
20-26 November 2023
Video of the Week:
Let There Be Peace on Earth – Wintley Phipps
———————-
20 November
1940 World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
[1] Hungary as One of the Axis Powers:
- “Nazi Germany ‘s influence in Hungary has led some historians to conclude that the country increasingly became a client state after 1938. The Kingdom of Hungary was an Axis Power during World War II…”
- Hungary in World War II
[2] Hungary During WWII:
[3] Hungary and the Holocaust:
1945 Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
[1] Nuremberg Trials:
- Nuremberg Trials Begin
- Text of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal
- War Crimes on Trial: The Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials
[2] Victor’s Justice:
- Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent for Victor’s Justice
- (PDF) Is Victor’s Justice in Nuremberg Trial Justified or not
- Victor’s Justice, Selfish Justice
- Victor’s Justice: Selecting “Situations” at the International Criminal Court
- Beyond Victor’s Justice? The Challenge of Prosecuting the Winners at the International Criminal Trib
[3] Development of International Criminal Law Since Nuremberg:
- “From the Nuremberg Charter to the Rome Statute: Defining the Elements “
- Applying the Principles of Nuremberg in the ICC
- NUREMBERG AND THE CRIME AGAINST PEACE
- Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950
- The Absolute Clarity of International Legal Practice’s Rejection of Immunity Before International Criminal Courts
1958 The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
- History of child rights | UNICEF
- Declaration of the Rights of the Child
- Children’s Rights: What is the UNCRC?
[2] The Convention of the Rights of the Child:
- The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The children’s version | UNICEF
- Committee on the Rights of the Child | OHCHR
- Children and the law
[3] Children in the Military:
- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict
- Children recruited by armed forces or armed groups
- Child soldiers | How does law protect in war?
- Child Recruitment and Use – Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
- International Peacekeeping and Child Soldiers
1969 Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
[1] My Lai Massacre:
- My Lai Massacre: Vietnam War & Colin Powell
- My Lai Massacre | Facts, Map, & Photos
- What Caused American Soldiers to Commit Atrocities in Vietnam?
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1979 Grand Mosque seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising. → Mosque of Makkah: The Attack, Seizure on Masjid Al Haram (Part 1)
1989 Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
[1] Velvet Revolution:
- Czechoslovakia 1918-1993
- History of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992)
- 1989 Twenty Years On: The End of Communism and the Fate of Eastern Europe
- Velvet Revolution: The Prospects | Timothy Garton Ash
- Why was it called the Velvet Revolution?
- Velvet Revolution: Prague’s ghosts of communism
- HAVEL CONVERSATION: Lou Reed, Vaclav Havel, and the Velvet Revolution
- How the US embassy in Prague aided Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution
- Armenia’s Velvet Revolution: Lessons from the Caucasus
[2] CIA and Color Revolutions in the World:
- Colour revolution
- Democratisation, NGOs and “colour revolutions”
- New report unveils how CIA schemes color revolutions around the world
- Color Revolutions are Not About Color
- CIA Staged ‘Color Revolutions,’ Hacker Attacks Around Globe
- Report reveals CIA behind ‘color revolutions’ – Opinion
- Oliver Stone Says Ukraine’s Revolution Was Actually A CIA Plot
1994 The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.
1998 A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden “a man without a sin” in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
———————-
21 November
1905 Albert Einstein‘s paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.
[Einstein – Annalen der Physik]
- Annus mirabilis papers
- On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies : A. Einstein : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming
- Albert Einstein Autographs and Signed Documents For Sale
1920 Irish War of Independence: On “Bloody Sunday” in Dublin, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassinated a group of British Intelligence agents, and British forces killed 14 civilians at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park.
1962 The Chinese People’s Liberation Army declares a unilateral ceasefire in the Sino-Indian War.
1964 Second Vatican Council: The third session of the Roman Catholic Church‘s ecumenical council closes.
[1] Vatican II: Its Significance and Summary:
- What Is The Second Vatican Council? And, Why Did It Create Controversy?
- Library : A Summary and Guide to the Documents of the Second Vatican Council
[2] Vatican II in the Cold War Era:
- Religion and the Cold War
- The Vatican, Italy and the Cold War
- DISPLACED PERSONS AND THE VATICAN. A COLD WAR HISTORY
[3] Vatican II and Communism:
- The Vatican-Moscow Treaty and Vatican II
- Vatican II’s Unpublished Condemnations of Communism:
- Why Did Vatican II Ignore Communism?
- Vatican II’s lost condemnations of communism revealed to public for first time
- The Catholic Case for Communism
- The Communist Infiltration of the Catholic Church
[4] CIA Behind the Church and the Vatican II:
- The CIA Plan for the Destruction of the Church, June 29, 1953.
- How the CIA ideologically outmaneuvered the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council
- Vatican II and CIA Propaganda with David A. Wemhoff – YouTube
- What the CIA targeted for destruction at Vatican II
- Doctrinal Warfare, the CIA, and the Colonizing of the Catholic Mind
- Vatican 2, Geopolitics, the CIA & the Jesuits
[5] CIA, Sister Lucy and Vatican II:
- THE VATICAN’S TOP SECRET: The substitution of Sr. Lucy at the Request of the CIA
- Sister Lucy Truth answers Church Militant: Was the true Fatima Seer replaced with an Impostor?
- The 1992–1993 Interviews – Sister Lucy Truth
- Explosive: Major TV Network to air Documentary on Vatican’s “Sister Lucy” Imposture
- The Vatican’s Top Secret: The Disappearance and Replacement of Sister Lucia of Fatima
- Lucy of Fatima and the Woman who Replaced Her: The ‘Sister Lucy Truth’ Project Explained
- New Evidence: Two Sister Lucys of Fatima
- The Murder and Replacement of Sister Lucia
[6] Vatican II, CIA, Liberation Theology, and KGB:
- Liberation Theology and Vatican II – Shalom/Salaam/Peace
- How the KGB created Liberation Theology
- LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A PRODUCT OF THE COLD WAR
- Liberation Theology: Soviet Plant or Native Weed, It’s Poisonous
- Communist Defector Says KGB Created “Liberation Theology”
- Former Soviet spy: We created Liberation Theology
- LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND THE SOVIET UNION
1969 U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. The U.S. retains rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.
[1] The Nuclear Secret Behind the Nuclear-Free Agreement of Okinawa:
- Okinawa Confidential, 1969
- S. Veterans Reveal 1962 Nuclear Close Call Dodged in Okinawa
- Japan Confirms Secret Nuclear Pacts With U.S.
- The Nuclear Vault: Nuclear Noh Drama – Tokyo, Washington and the Case of the Missing Nuclear Agreements
- Nuclear Weapons on Okinawa Declassified December 2015
- NEW DOCUMENTS ON OKINAWA REVERSION
- Six Decades of US-Japanese Government Collusion in Bringing Nuclear Weapons to Japan.
[2] The Emperor Hirohito, Okinawa, and Discrimination:
- Okinawan Perspectives on Japan’s Imperial Institution
- “ Hidenari Terasaki…conveying to me the Emperor’s ideas..stated that the Emperor hopes that the United States will continue the military occupation of Okinawa and other islands of the Ryukyus.”
- Hidenari Terasaki (1900 – 1951)
- Japan signs land lease to U.S. military
- The Dangerous Illusion of Japan’s Unconditional Surrender During World War II
- 1971: U.S. Pledges to Return Okinawa to Japan
- Why the U.S. Has So Many Bases on Okinawa
- OKINAWA ISLANDS RETURNED BY U.S. TO JAPANESE RULE
1970 Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast: A joint United States Air Force and Army team raids the Sơn Tây prisoner-of-war camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there.
1971 Indian troops, partly aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas), defeat the Pakistan army in the Battle of Garibpur.
1995 The Dayton Agreement is initialed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, ending three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
[The U.S. Foreign Policy in the Balkans and the Dayton Agreement]
- Dayton peace (dis)agreement, 25 years on
- Dayton Accords: Serbs threaten to disband the federation
- Dayton, WPS and the entrenched “manliness” of ethnic power-sharing peace agreements
- How Diplomacy Forged The Dayton Accords
- Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process
2002 NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.
[1] Enlargement of NATO:
- Timeline of NATO expansion since 1949
- Enlarging NATO: A Questionable Idea Whose Time Has Come
- The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO: How, When, Why, and What Next?
[2] Russia and the Enlargement of NATO:
- How America’s NATO expansion obsession plays into the Russia-Ukraine crisis
- A look at the debate over NATO expansion eastward that’s at the heart of conflict now
- Ukraine war follows decades of warnings that NATO expansion into Eastern Europe could provoke Russia
[3] Gorbachev, G. H. Bush, G.W. Bush, NATO and the Ukraine Crisis:
- Did NATO ‘betray’ Russia by expanding to the East?
- W. Bush Admits US Broke Promise on NATO Expansion; Says Ukraine Should ‘Destroy as Many Russian Troops’ as Possible
- New Documents: US Promised Not to Expand NATO Eastward
- Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Told NATO Wouldn’t Move Past East German Border
- James A. Baker III’s Words on NATO Loom in Ukraine Standoff
- “Document Number 119 of the Gorbachev Foundation archives contains a detailed transcript of the discussion…This document shows that James Baker repeatedly assured Gorbachev that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would not expand.”
- Soviet and U.S. transcripts of highest-level meetings that ended the Cold War | National Security Archive
2004 The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, giving rise to massive protests and controversy over the election’s integrity.
———————
22 November
1943 World War II: Cairo Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese Premier Chiang Kai-shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.
1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.
——————–
23 November
1934 An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, well within Ethiopian territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.
1944 World War II: The Lotta Svärd Movement is disbanded under the terms of the armistice treaty in Finland after the Continuation War
1946 French naval bombardment of Hai Phong, Vietnam, kills thousands of civilians.
1981 Iran–Contra affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17)…to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
[1] Iran-Contra Affair:
- Iran-Contra Affair Timeline
- A timeline of U.S.-Iran relations
- The contra war in Nicaragua – Noam Chomsky
- Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs – The Iran-Contra Affairs
- Iran-Contra Affair | Definition, History, Oliver North, Importance, & Facts
- The Iran-Contra Scandal – Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training
- CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking
[2] The U.S./CIA, Iran and Nicaragua:
- President Reagan gives CIA authority to establish the Contras
- THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION’S BATTLE FOR CONTRA AID
- The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack
- CIA-Contra Connection | Recent Central American History
- The US-Iran conflict: A timeline of how we got here
- How The CIA Overthrew Iran’s Democracy In 4 Days
- CIA admits 1953 Iranian coup it backed was undemocratic
- 64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup
- “It’s Always About Oil”: CIA & MI6 Staged Coup in Iran 70 Years Ago,
[4] The U.S./CIA and Nicaragua/Latin America:
- Helping the Contras: The Effectiveness of U.S. Support for Foreign Rebels During the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979–1990)
- Document exposes new US plot to overthrow Nicaragua’s elected socialist gov’t
- The Psyops Manual The CIA Gave To Nicaragua’s Contras Is Totally Bonkers
- How USAID created Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista media apparatus, now under money laundering investigation
- Cocaine politics : drugs, armies, and the CIA in Central America
- “For three years Enrique “Ric” Prado was the “tip of the spear” of the CIA’s efforts in the battle for Nicaragua.”
- Special Reports – Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories And The Cia In Central America | Drug Wars
- Fleeing a hell the US helped create: why Central Americans journey north
- United States involvement in regime change in Latin America
1992 The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2001 The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
2011 Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity
——————–
24 November
1940 World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
1989 After a week of mass protests against the Communist regime known as the Velvet Revolution, Miloš Jakeš and the entire Politburo of the Czechoslovak Communist Party resign from office. This brings an effective end to Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
2013 Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions.
[1] Iran Nuclear Deal:
- A comprehensive timeline of the Iran nuclear deal
- World powers reach nuclear deal with Iran to freeze its nuclear program
- Iran nuclear deal framework
- The Iran nuclear deal: full text
- Security Council, Adopting Resolution 2231 (2015), Endorses Joint Comprehensive Agreement on Iran’s Nuclear Programme
- Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
- Nuclear facilities in Iran
- Iran is seeking Russia’s help to bolster its nuclear program,
- Iran has enough enriched uraniam to build ‘several’ nuclear weapons,
- An Iranian nuclear facility is so deep underground that US airstrikes likely couldn’t reach it
[3] Iran and Venezuela:
- Venezuela’s Troubling Nuclear Ties | Council on Foreign Relations
- ‘Iran is a main destination for uranium smuggling from Venezuela’
- Venezuelan leader, Iranian president sign 20-year agreement
2016 The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army sign a revised peace deal, bringing an end to the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war.
——————-
25 November
1915 Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
1917 World War I: German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1,200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania.
1918 Vojvodina, formerly Austro-Hungarian crown land, proclaims its secession from Austria-Hungary to join the Kingdom of Serbia.
1943 World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina is re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1947 Red Scare: The “Hollywood Ten” are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
1975 Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.
1981 Pope John Paul II appoints Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
1986 Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. → Iran-Contra Affairs Timeline
1992 The Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with effect from January 1, 1993.
——————
26 November
1778 In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
- Hawaii’s History: From Polynesian Settlement to Modern Day
- International Court Recognizes The Hawaiian Kingdom as a State
- United Nations Acknowledges the Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom
- Hawaii’s Legal Case Against the United States
- Legal status of Hawaii
- How the US Stole Hawaii – YouTube
- The Struggle For Hawaiian Sovereignty – Introduction
- How Native Hawaiians have been pushed out of Hawai’i – YouTube
1941 World War II: The Hull note is given to the Japanese ambassador, demanding that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina, in return for which the United States would lift economic sanctions. On the same day, Japan’s 1st Air Fleet departs Hitokappu Bay for Hawaii.
[1] The Hull Note: The Final Piece Leading to War:
- The Road to Pearl Harbor: The Short Fuse
- Full Text of the Hull Note or Hull Note – “The World and Japan” Database
- Cordell Hull papers,
[2] The Political Environment Around the U.S.-Japan Relations in 1941:
- Was There an Ultimatum Before Pearl Harbor?
- Intelligence Warnings of the Pearl Harbor Attack Before Dec. 7, 1941
- The US-Japan War Talks as seen in official documents
- How Roosevelt Attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor
- How FDR’s ‘Day of Infamy’ Speech Came to Be and Landed in the History Books
- Soviet Mole Harry White’s Efforts to Trigger the Pearl Harbor Attack
- Operation Snow: How A Soviet Mole in FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
- The translation mistake that led to Pearl Harbor
1942 World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
1942 Casablanca, the movie, premieres in New York City.
[The Movie “Casablanca” and the World War II in 1942]
- Casablanca | An Unlikely Classic: Behind The Scenes – YouTube
- Casablanca (1942): As Time Goes By. Sinatra sings – YouTube
- ‘Casablanca’ and the Politics of Sacrifice
- ‘Casablanca’ Ending Explained: Fighting Fascism Requires Sacrifice
- Why Casablanca is the ultimate film about refugees
- “Casablanca is more than just a love story. It is a film about, and stocked with, the waves of refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during wartime.”
1944 World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s shop in London, United Kingdom, killing 168 people. Germany V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
1950 Korean War: People’s Volunteer Army troops from the People’s Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
1986 The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of committing war crimes as a guard at the Nazi Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.
2003 The Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.
2011 NATO attack in Pakistan: NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani check post in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others.
[1] NATO Forces Attack in Pakistan:
- Nato air attack on Pakistani troops was self-defence, says senior western official
- Tensions High After NATO Air Strikes Kill Pakistani Soldiers
- Pakistan orders closure of key US airbase after ISAF troops conduct cross-border attack
- 2011: New low for US-Pakistan relations
- Pakistan Rages After Strike, While U.S. and Afghanistan Worry
- Taliban may have lured Nato forces to attack Pakistani outpost – US
- Pakistan in the war on terror
- Major non-NATO ally
- Pakistan–United States military relations
- Operation Geronimo and the Future of US-Pakistan Relations
- Pakistan’s Role in the Afghanistan War’s Outcome
[3] Pakistan and CIA:
- S-Pakistan Military Intelligence Ties Are a Dangerous Spiral
- UNITED STATES/PAKISTAN : ISI and CIA cooperate again under Pakistani army chief of staff Qamar Javed Bajwa
- How the U.S., U.K. and Pakistan Teamed Up To Stop Another 9/11
- Analysis: Is CIA behind ‘regime change’ in Pakistan?
- CIA secret regime change plan to topple PM Imran Khan government in Pakistan?
______________________________________________
Satoshi Ashikaga is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. Having worked as researcher, development program/project officer, legal protection/humanitarian assistance officer, human rights monitor-negotiator, managing-editor, and more, he prefers a peaceful and prudent life. His previous work experiences, including those in war zones and war-torn zones, constantly remind him of the invaluableness of peace.
Disclaimer: The author and TMS take no responsibility for–and do not necessarily subscribe to–contents of websites hyperlinked as sources.
Tags: History
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 20 Nov 2023.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: This Week in History, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
Join the discussion!
We welcome debate and dissent, but personal — ad hominem — attacks (on authors, other users or any individual), abuse and defamatory language will not be tolerated. Nor will we tolerate attempts to deliberately disrupt discussions. We aim to maintain an inviting space to focus on intelligent interactions and debates.