Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: higher education, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 63
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: higher education in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Teachers, administrators, and school social workers also prepare for a fresh start with new students and ideas to engage in another year of educational and developmental learning. Unfortunately, as the school year progresses, the new beginning and excitement can give way to complacency, frustration, and sometimes hopelessness. The reality for students who are disengaged from school, as well as those who experience significant academic and behavioral issues, is a season of uncertainty, diminished expectations, and possibly serious life outcomes that are just beginning.
Imagine standing at the edge of a precipice. A combination of forces are pushing at your back, biting at your heels and generally forcing you to step into an unknown space. A long thin tightrope without any apparent ending stretches out in front of you and appears to offer your only lifeline. Doing nothing and standing still is not an option. You lift up your left foot and gingerly step out….
One of the greatest challenges faced by schools and universities today is preparing students for an unknown future. Our graduates will likely have multiple careers, work in new and emerging industries, grapple with technologies we can’t even imagine yet. And so we’re asking our staff to equip students with the skills they need to thrive in a potentially very different world to the one we live in now.
Are you taking any philosophy courses as part of your degree this year? Or are you continuing with a second degree in philosophy? Then look no further for the best in philosophy research. We’ve brought together some of our most popular textbooks to help you prepare for the new academic year. From Plato to Descartes, ancient wisdom to modern philosophical issues, this list provides a great first stop for under-graduate and post-graduate students alike.
Sometimes a fragment of a book manages to lodge itself in the back of your mind. An idea, a description, a phrase…just something, and often completely unrelated to the core story, attaches itself to your mind like an intellectual itch you can’t quite scratch.
I have been a lifelong librarian in Myanmar since 1985. It is a great pleasure and honor to share the challenges and success of the e-Library Myanmar Project implemented by EIFL.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) burst into the public consciousness in 2012 after feverish press reports about elite US universities offering free courses, through the Internet, to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) course on Circuits and Electronics that had attracted 155,000 registrations was a typical example. Pundits proclaimed a revolution in higher education and numerous universities, fearful of being left behind, joined a rush to offer MOOCs.
In June 2015, I co-chaired the organising committee of the first international mathematics education conference of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) titled ‘Barriers and Enablers to Learning Maths’ with the University of Glasgow, who also hosted it. The two and a half day conference explored approaches to teaching and learning mathematics and was structured around ten parallel sessions that delegates could choose from, including ‘Addressing mathematics & statistics anxiety’ and ‘Enhancing engagement with mathematics & statistics.’
Policies aimed at fostering economic growth through public expenditure in tertiary education should be better aware of the different contribution of each specific academic discipline. Rather than introducing measures affecting the allocation of resources in the broad spectrum of academic knowledge, policies might instead introduce ad-hoc measures to foster specific disciplines, for example through differentiated enrollment fees for students.
Starting University can be daunting. For most, becoming a University student is the beginning of a new academic challenge and social life. However, with these exciting ventures comes financial responsibility.
College education trends have been changing a lot over the past few decades -- from the cost of education to the enrollment rates to reasons for attending. While it may seem as though today's emerging adults aren't satisfied with today's education trends, 9 out of 10 high schoolers expect to continue their education in some way after graduation, and 84% of college graduates believe their education was a good investment.
Every campus has one, and sometimes more than more: the often unlovely and usually unloved concrete building put up at some point in the 1960s. Generally neglected and occasionally even unfinished, with steel reinforcing rods still poking out of it, the sixties building might be a hall of residence or a laboratory, a library or lecture room. It rarely features in prospectuses and is never – never ever – used to house the vice chancellor’s office.
Philosophers love to complain about bad reasoning. How can those other people commit such silly fallacies? Don’t they see how arbitrary and inconsistent their positions are? Aren’t the counter examples obvious? After complaining, philosophers often turn to humor. Can you believe what they said! Ha, ha, ha. Let’s make fun of those stupid people. I also enjoy complaining and joking, but I worry that this widespread tendency among philosophers puts us out of touch with the rest of society.
The seemingly unassailable rise of the MOOC – the Massive Open On-Line Course – has many universities worried. Offering access to millions of potential students, it seems like the solution to so many of the problems that beset higher education. Fees are low, or even non-existent; anyone can sign up; staff time is strictly limited as even grading is done by peers or automated multiple-choice questionnaires. In an era of ever-rising tuition fees and of concerns about the barriers that stop the less well-off from applying to good universities, the MOOC can seem like a panacea.
What does international law truly mean in the world today? For the publication of Malcom Evans’s International Law, Fourth edition, we asked several leading figures that question. Ralph Zacklin, the former UN Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs, provides his personal perspective on international in the edited essay below. A full version of his essay can be found on the textbook’s Online Resource Centre, along with five other personal perspectives.
By Ralph Zacklin
I have been privileged to work for almost thirty years as an international lawyer in the United Nations and from this vantage point international law is neither the omnipotent solution to the world’s problems nor is it an illusion that only die-hard pacifists cling to. It is, in fact, for the practitioner a very real and pragmatic discipline. That it may be uncertain, incomplete, and difficult to enforce does not lessen the need for the rule of law on the international plane nor does it mean that the efforts to codify the law and develop its institutions should cease or be diminished.
At the core of contemporary international law is the Charter of the United Nations. It is a tribute to its drafters in the San Francisco Conference that this instrument has retained its essential validity as a set of fundamental principles which have guided the community of States for more than fifty years. It is the basis for the development of much of international law as we know it today in such key areas as human rights, the environment, and the law of the sea and outer space, not to mention the vast array of multilateral treaties in numerous technical, economic, and scientific areas.
International law provides a common legal vocabulary within which States and other actors operate. It provides a framework for conceptions of what is ‘legal’ or ‘right’. For the author personally, the most striking lesson of the last thirty years is not the quantitative qualitative development of international law which has been substantial but the degree to which States have come to accept the existence of international law as a standard that must be observed or by which their actions must be justified.
There is another dimension to international law which is sometimes overlooked in an era of globalization. International law, however inchoate it may be, represents the expectations and claims of substantial segments of humanity. It cannot be dismissed merely because of its perceived weakness. This dimension is of particular relevance to the member States of the United Nations, the overwhelming majority of whom rely on international law-making processes in international forums to weave together the fabric of the rule of law.
This accounts for the persistence of the United Nations in the holding of major conferences or summits––much derided in some quarters––which have produced soft law Declarations on the environment, human rights, advancement of women and a panoply of economic and social rights. These fora move from agenda-setting gradually towards normative outcomes and have undeniably altered the international legal landscape over the past twenty-five years.
Law, whether domestic or international, is by nature a conservative discipline. Its evolution is slow, even laborious. International law is not, nor should it be, viewed as an ideal state in which harmony prevails. Like any other system of law, its rules and institutions mature over time. When one compares the international law of today with that of a mere three decades ago, one cannot but marvel at the advances that have been made both normatively and institutionally. The path of advancement is by no means uneventful but it continues.
I have been fortunate in my own career to have had the opportunity to contribute to significant developments in international law, such as the establishment of ad hoc criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda as well as, more recently, the Special Court in Sierra Leone. Over the years I have provided legal advice which has helped to shape much of the contemporary law of UN peace-keeping and, like many of my colleagues, have rejoiced in the completion of UN mandates which have resulted in the independence of countries such as Namibia and Timor-Leste. There have also been tragic failures in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia.
At the outset of my career I was motivated like many young people of the time by an idealistic determination to make the world a safer and a better place. Over the years my idealism has certainly been tested, but I believe that the role and impact of international law has grown, and it continues to grow.
Ralph Zacklin is the former UN Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs. Malcolm Evans is a Professor of Public International Law at the University of Bristol. Malcolm Evans is the editor of International Law, which provides wide-ranging analysis of all the key issues and themes in public international law and brings together an outstanding collection of interesting and diverse writings from the leading scholars in the field.
Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in international law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide. For the latest news, commentary, and insights follow the International Law team on Twitter @OUPIntLaw.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
How do you hear the call of the poet to the Muse that opens every epic poem? The following is extract from Barry B. Powell’s new free verse translation of The Odyssey by Homer. It is accompanied by two recordings: one of the first 105 lines in Ancient Greek, the other of the first 155 lines in the new translation. How does your understanding change in each of the different versions?
Sing to me of the resourceful man, O Muse, who wandered
far after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. He saw
the cities of many men and he learned their minds.
He suffered many pains on the sea in his spirit, seeking
to save his life and the homecoming of his companions.
But even so he could not save his companions, though he wanted to,
for they perished of their own folly—the fools! They ate
the cattle of Helios Hyperion, who took from them the day
of their return. Of these matters, beginning where you want,
O daughter of Zeus, tell to us.
Now all the rest
were at home, as many as had escaped dread destruction,
fleeing from the war and the sea. Odysseus alone
a queenly nymph, Kalypso, a shining one among the goddesses,
held back in her hollow caves, desiring that he become
her husband. But when, as the seasons rolled by, the year came
in which the gods had spun the threads of destiny
that Odysseus return home to Ithaca, not even then
was he free of his trials, even among his own friends.
All the gods pitied him, except for Poseidon.
Poseidon stayed in an unending rage at godlike Odysseus
until he reached his own land. But Poseidon had gone off
to the Aethiopians who live faraway—the Aethiopians
who live split into two groups, the most remote of men—
some where Hyperion sets, and some where he rises.
There Poseidon received a sacrifice of bulls and rams,
sitting there and rejoicing in the feast.
The other gods
were seated in the halls of Zeus on Olympos. Among them
the father of men and gods began to speak, for in his heart
he was thinking of bold Aigisthos, whom far-famed Orestes,
the son of Agamemnon, had killed. Thinking of him,
he spoke these words to the deathless ones: “Only consider,
how mortals blame the gods! They say that from us
comes all evil, but men suffer pains beyond what is fated
through their own folly! See how Aigisthos pursued
the wedded wife of the son of Atreus, and then he killed
Agamemnon when he came home, though he well knew
the end. For we spoke to him beforehand, sending Hermes,
the keen-sighted Argeïphontes, to say that he should not kill
Agamemnon and he should not pursue Agamemnon’s wife.
For vengeance would come from Orestes to the son of Atreus,
once Orestes came of age and wanted to reclaim his family land.
So spoke Hermes, but for all his good intent he did not persuade
Aigisthos’ mind. And now he has paid the price in full.”
Then the goddess, flashing-eyed Athena, answered him:
“O father of us all, son of Kronos, highest of all the lords,
surely that man has fittingly been destroyed. May whoever
else does such things perish as well! But my heart
is torn for the wise Odysseus, that unfortunate man,
who far from his friends suffers pain on an island surrounded
by water, where is the very navel of the sea. It is a wooded
island, and a goddess lives there, the daughter of evil-minded
Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself
holds the pillars that keep the earth and the sky apart.
Kalypso holds back that wretched, sorrowful man.
Ever with soft and wheedling words she enchants him,
so that he forgets about Ithaca. Odysseus, wishing to see
the smoke leaping up from his own land, longs to die. But your
heart pays no attention to it, Olympian! Did not Odysseus
offer you abundant sacrifice beside the ships in broad Troy?
Why do you hate him so, O Zeus?”
Zeus who gathers the clouds
then answered her: “My child, what a word has escaped the barrier
of your teeth! How could I forget about godlike Odysseus,
who is superior to all mortals in wisdom, who more than any other
has sacrificed to the deathless goes who hold the broad heaven?
But Poseidon who holds the earth is perpetually angry with him
because of the Cyclops, whose eye he blinded—godlike
Polyphemos, whose strength is greatest among all the Cyclopes.
The nymph Thoösa bore him, the daughter of Phorkys
who rules over the restless sea, having mingled with Poseidon
in the hollow caves. From that time Poseidon, the earth-shaker,
does not kill Odysseus, but he leads him to wander from
his native land. But come, let us all take thought of his homecoming,
how he will get there. Poseidon will abandon his anger!
He will not be able to go against all the deathless ones alone,
against their will.”
Then flashing-eyed Athena, the goddess,
answered him: “O our father, the son of Kronos, highest
of all the lords, if it be the pleasure of all the blessed gods
that wise Odysseus return to his home, then let us send Hermes
Argeïphontes, the messenger, to the island of Ogygia, so that
he may present our sure counsel to Kalypso with the lovely tresses,
that Odysseus, the steady at heart, need now return home.
And I will journey to Ithaca in order that I may the more
arouse his son and stir strength in his heart to call the Achaeans
with their long hair into an assembly, and give notice to all the suitors,
who devour his flocks of sheep and his cattle with twisted horns,
that walk with shambling gait. I will send him to Sparta and to sandy
Pylos to learn about the homecoming of his father, if perhaps
he might hear something, and so that might earn a noble fame
among men.”
So she spoke, and she bound beneath her feet
her beautiful sandals—immortal, golden!—that bore her
over the water and the limitless land together with the breath
of the wind. She took up her powerful spear, whose point
was of sharp bronze, heavy and huge and strong,
with which she overcomes the ranks of warriors when she is angry
with them, the daughter of a mighty father. She descended
in a rush from the peaks of Olympos and took her stand
in the land of Ithaca in the forecourt of Odysseus, on the threshold
of the court. She held the bronze spear in her hand, taking on
the appearance of a stranger, Mentes, leader of the Taphians.
There she found the proud suitors. They were taking their pleasure,
playing board games in front of the doors, sitting on the skins
of cattle that they themselves had slaughtered. Heralds
and busy assistants mixed wine with water for them
in large bowls, and others wiped the tables with porous sponges
and set them up, while others set out meats to eat in abundance.
Godlike Telemachos was by far the first to notice
her as he sat among the suitors, sad at heart, his noble
father in his mind, wondering if perhaps he might come
and scatter the suitors through the house and win honor
and rule over his own household. Thinking such things,
sitting among the suitors, he saw Athena. He went straight
to the outer door, thinking in his spirit that it was a shameful thing
that a stranger be allowed to remain for long before the doors.
Standing near, he clasped her right hand and took the bronze
spear from her. Addressing her, he spoke words that went
like arrows: “Greetings, stranger! You will be treated kindly
in our house, and once you have tasted food, you will tell us
what you need!”
So speaking he led the way, and Pallas Athena
followed. When they came inside the high-roofed house,
Telemachos carried the spear and placed it against a high column
in a well-polished spear rack where were many other spears
belonging to the steadfast Odysseus. He led her in and sat her
on a chair, spreading a linen cloth beneath—beautiful,
elaborately-decorated—and below was a footstool for her feet.
Beside it he placed an inlaid chair, apart from the others,
so that the stranger might not be put-off by the racket and fail
to enjoy his meal, despite the company of insolent men.
Also, he wished to ask him about his absent father.
A slave girl brought water for their hands in a beautiful golden
vessel, and she set up a polished table beside them.
The modest attendant brought out bread and placed it before them,
and many delicacies, giving freely from her store. A carver
lifted up and set down beside them platters with all kinds
of meats, and set before them golden cups, while a herald
went back and forth pouring out wine for them.
In came the proud suitors, and they sat down in a row
on the seats and chairs, and the heralds poured out water for
their hands, and women slaves heaped bread by them in baskets,
and young men filled the wine-mixing bowls with drink.
The suitors put forth their hands to the good cheer lying before them,
and when they had exhausted their desire for drink and food,
their hearts turned toward other things, to song and dance.
For such things are the proper accompaniment of the feast.
A herald placed the very beautiful lyre in the hands of Phemios,
who was required to sing to the suitors. And he thrummed the strings
as a prelude to song.
Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new free verse translation of The Odyssey was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.His translation of The Iliad was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only classics and archaeology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The political controversies over immigration intensify across Europe. Commonly, the arguments centre around its economic costs and benefits, and they reduce the public perception of immigrants to cheap workforce. Yet, increasingly, these workers are highly skilled professionals, international students, and academics. Their presence transforms not only labour markets but also the production of knowledge and, in the end, it changes the way we all perceive immigrants and immigration.
US American scholars were first to draw attention to how immigrant scholars influence the academic field. The historian of migration Nancy Foner claimed a decade ago that the increasing group of students and faculty who study and work abroad — immigrants to the United States — heavily change the way immigration is perceived in social sciences. Immigrant scholars — according to Herbert J. Gans, a German-born American sociologist — contributed to the paradigm shift in American migration studies, from assimilationist to retentionist approach. They did so, because they were ‘insiders’ to the groups they studied; they were immigrant researchers researching immigrants.
A century ago, public interest (and funds) fueled studies on immigration by sociologists, demographers, economists and historians. The results of their studies were widely spread by journalists, novelists and mass entertainment industries. Now, budget cuts in higher education, and the increase of impact-seeking funding of the European Union, foster the concern about the societal benefits of social sciences. Paradoxically, the public interest in research on immigrants seems to fall, and academics apparently lose their capability of influencing broad publics and the politics in Europe, the boats on Lampedusa being a symbol of this problem.
For scholars who reply to short-term concerns of national public policy, the urgent question is the effectiveness of transfer of knowledge between academic and other systems that is driven by the hope for formulating better policies. Some scholars are yet reluctant to actively participate in public debates because they see their scientific objectivity in danger. The position of those scholars researching immigration who are immigrants themselves is no less ambivalent: they may play the ‘ethnic card’ to secure funding for research and access to people whom they want to study. Financial reasons may compel many to do research in their native country and they also meet the suspicion of fellow academics that tend to suspect they might lack scientific distance and objectivity.
What societal roles are available for immigrant researchers researching immigrants? Too often we look for answers to this question by tracking the processes of policy decision making, by investigating the “big-P”-politics. We are used to thinking of production of ideas and texts as separate from the impact we think they will have. Yet the way that knowledge is being negotiated during the production of texts is a key to understanding the role migration researchers studying immigrants play for the society.
Let us imagine a research situation, an interview, which is undoubtedly the most widely applied technique for conducting systematic social inquiry: a researcher typically asks questions and listens carefully to the stories the respondent tells. While one of them may say less and the other more, they interact. Interviews are interactional, and during this situation, both the researcher and the researched subject negotiate the meaning they assign to norms, values, ideas, other people, their behaviour, etc. Let’s assume both parties in this situation are immigrants. From my personal experience as an interviewer and immigrant, I recall multiple research encounters during which my interview partners prompted me to confirm their views: “you surely know, you are also an immigrant” or “you do understand me, you are also from Poland”. They presume that because of our common origin, we have a lot in common, that being an immigrant might bring us together, foster mutual understanding of problems, or even make us share the same norms and values.
But common origin does not produce ‘common individuals’, and each migration trajectory is different. It matters that I am born in Warsaw in a middle class family, have university education and work as a professor at a German university while my research subjects come from rural areas in Poland, left school early and perform manual jobs in United Kingdom. Each time I ask a question and they answer it, each time I prompt them — seemingly impersonally and in a highly controlled fashion — to continue narrating, my interview partners and I question the latent national and ethnic categories of commonality. Unintentionally, in the course of such research encounter, when confronted with misunderstandings or incomprehension, we revisit our gendered, ethnic, class, or professional identities.
For most researchers, such experiences are common and obvious. But they reflect on them in a self-referential fashion, addressing the issue to colleagues subscribing to journals on methodology of qualitative research. They aim at improving the quality of research but the meaning of this self-reflection is deeper and should be communicated to wider audiences.
It matters that when the researcher is an immigrant herself: it influences the research process, the access to research subjects and funding, and the way results of the studies are interpreted (because the researcher is sympathetic, or empathetic, to particular problems of her respondents). More importantly, immigrant immigration researchers are capable and predisposed to reveal the artificiality of fixed categorisations assigning people to places on the map and positions in social hierarchies. When they do so, they show us a possibility for new, better, modes of societal integration. In countries like Germany that have long been shaped by low-skilled immigration and public discourses around it, there is a minor but growing interest in the perspectives of immigrant researchers. Through stronger engagement in dialogue with wider audiences, the immigrant researchers can accelerate this trend. This much needed change of perspective has a chance of becoming mainstream if immigrant researchers talk about their work and research experiences with more self-confidence.
Migration Studies is an international refereed journal dedicated to advancing scholarly understanding of the determinants, processes and outcomes of human migration in all its manifestations, and gives priority to work presenting methodological, comparative or theoretical advances.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only sociology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Visa application. By VIPDesignUSA, via iStockphoto.
The basic problem for anyone wanting to understand contemporary world politics is the amount of material that is out there. Where on earth would you start if you wanted to explain the most important political processes? How, for example, would you explain the reasons behind 9/11, the War in Iraq, the recent global financial crisis, or the ongoing Syrian Civil War?
Whether you are aware of it or not, whenever you are faced with such issues, you have to resort to theories. A theory is not just a formal model with hypotheses and assumptions, rather, it is a kind of simplifying device that allows you to decide what the most important factors are.
Students often feel that the theoretical side of international relations is daunting, but think of it this way: imagine you own several pairs of sunglasses with different-coloured lenses. Put on the red pair and the world looks red, put on a yellow pair and it looks yellow. The world is not any different, it just looks different. So it is with theories.
In the following video, Professor Sir Steve Smith, author of The Globalization of World Politics, discuss different theories behind the Syrian Civil War, how to interpret them, and how they are important.
Sir Steve Smith is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter. He was President of Universities UK from 2009 to 2011, and President of the International Studies Association for 2003-4. He is Editor of International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (with Tim Dunne and Milja Kurk) and Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (with Tim Dunne and Amelia Hadfield), as well as author of many academic papers and chapters in major international journals and edited collections.
Trusted by over 300,000 students in over 120 countries, The Globalization of World Politics is the most authoritative and complete introduction to international relations available, making it the go-to text for students of international relations. You can view more related videos at the Online Resource Centre.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Poet T.S. Eliot might still be right — the world might end with a whimper. But on April 1, 1948, physicists George Gamow and Ralph Alpher first proposed the now prevailing idea of how the universe began — with a big bang.
Gamow worked closely in the 1930s and 1940s with Edward Teller to understand beta decay — a kind of nuclear decay that results in the loss of electrons — and to understand the makeup of red giant stars.
From this work, Gamow and Alpher — one of his students — developed the idea that the universe was highly compressed until a vast thermonuclear explosion occurred. The explosion released neutrons, protons, and electrons. As the universe cooled, it became possible for neutrons to combine with other neutrons or with protons to form chemical elements.
Time Line of the Universe. Source: NASA/WMAP Science Team.
Gamow and Alpher published their findings in the journal Physical Review on April 1, 1948. The title of the paper — “The Origin of Chemical Elements” — suggests the link between cosmology and particle physics that the big-bang theory represents.
The paper’s authorship showed a bit of Gamow’s whimsy. Thinking it wrong to have a paper on particle physics written by one author whose name began with A (as in positively charged alpha particles) and G (as in gamma rays) without having a B (as in negatively charged beta particles), Gamow asked friend Hans Bethe to add his name to the byline. Bethe agreed, and thereby became part of history.
Just five years later, Gamow made a brilliant addition to a wholly different field. After learning of James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the double helical structure of DNA, Gamow wrote Crick suggesting that the genetic code was made up of three-part segments. Gamow’s suggestion set Watson, Crick, and other researchers to investigate the possibility, which turned out — in essence (though not in the details Gamow had suggested) — to be true.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
Chafing from four centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire and taking advantage of the Ottoman army’s need to suppress a rebellious local official, the Greek organization Filike Etaireia ( “Friendly Brotherhood”) launched revolts across Greece on March 25, 1821. While it took years for the Greeks to win independence, the day the revolt began is still celebrated as Greek Independence Day.
While a rebel Greek army under Alexandros Ipsilantis met an early defeat, other Greek efforts succeeded. By late 1821, the Greeks controlled the Peloponnesian peninsula, and in January of the next year a coalition of rebels formally declared independence. More territory was taken from Ottoman hands in 1822.
Soon, however, infighting among different factions plagued the Greek effort, though the struggle attracted liberals across Europe—including the British noble and poet George Gordon, Lord Byron—who flocked to the Greek cause. By the middle 1820s, the Ottomans had regained control of parts of Greece, and the independence movement was reeling.
In 1826, however, Britain, France, and Russia inserted themselves into the conflict, seeking to restore stability. Their combined fleets defeated an Ottoman and Egyptian force at the battle of Navarino in 1827. The battle was a major victory, though fighting continued until 1832. That year the Ottomans signed a treaty recognizing Greek independence.
Independence was tarnished for some Greeks by the terms of the treaty. The European imposed a constitutional monarchy, placed the German prince Otto of Bavaria on the throne, and insisted on maintaining a protectorate over the new Greek state. Nevertheless, a new Greek state had come into being.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Greeks launch revolt against Turkish rule as of 1/1/1900
On March 23, 1743, composer George Frideric Handel directed the first London performance of his sacred oratorio, Messiah. While the composition has become revered as a magnificent choral work — and a staple of the Christmas holiday season — it met some controversy when it first appeared.
Remarkably, Handel needed only three weeks in the summer of 1741 to write Messiah. As his text, he used a libretto compiled by Charles Jennens from verses of the Bible and from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Jennens was apparently upset that Handel wrote the work in such a short time; he thought the sacred subject needed more time.
He was also annoyed because Handel debuted the work in Dublin in the spring of 1742, not reserving it for a London premiere. Leading Irish clerics (led by Jonathan Swift) insisted that, if their church choirs were to be used to sing the oratorio, ticket sales had to go to charity. That precedent established a longstanding tradition for Messiah.
When Handel finally prepared to present the work in London, more controversy arose. Some people objected to a work on a sacred theme being performed in a secular setting — London’s Covent Garden Theater. The controversy disappeared with the popular acceptance of Handel’s music, however. Even Jennens became reconciled to the composer, in part because Handel rewrote some sections his collaborator considered poor.
Today’s performances do not reflect the scores of these initial performances. Handel revised the piece often, and current productions use one or another of these later versions. The full Messiah tells not only the Christmas story but also of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Groups that perform the oratorio at Christmas generally only perform the first part.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Handel conducts London premiere of Messiah as of 1/1/1900
Nadir Shah enters Delhi and captures the Peacock Throne
On March 21, 1739, Nādir Shāh, leading Persian (modern Iranian) and Turkish forces, completed his conquest of the Mughal Empire by capturing Delhi, India, its capital. He seized vast stores of wealth, and among the prizes he carried away was the fabled Peacock Throne.
Nādir Shāh Afshār. Source: Victoria & Albert Museum.
Born in 1688, Nadr Qoli Beg belonged to a Turkish people loyal to the Safavid rulers of Iran. He became a military leader and helped Shah Tahmasp II regain the throne that had been lost to Afghan invaders. Soon after, however, he was angered by the Shah’s surrender to the Ottoman Turks. In response, he deposed the Shah and placed the Shah’s son on the throne, naming himself regent. That arrangement lasted only a few years; in 1736, he deposed the boy and assumed rule as Nādir Shāh.
The new ruler was bent on conquest. He built a navy and captured Bahrain and Oman before launching himself overland against the Mughals. His conquest of that empire went quickly, giving him the prized throne. Built originally by the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan, it reportedly had silver steps set on golden feet. The back showed two open peacock tails. The whole was studded with precious gems.
The throne became the symbol of the Iranian monarchy, though it only remained in Nādir Shāh’s hands for a short time. He was defeated in battle by the Kurds, who seized the throne and apparently dismantled it. A modern Peacock Throne was made in the early 1800s. That splendid but less spectacular model served as the throne of Iran’s Shahs until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Nādir Shāh did not fare much better than his magnificent throne. He continued his warring ways, building an empire that was plagued by financial problems and frequent revolts against his cruel rule. In 1749, he was killed by members of his own army.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Nadir Shah enters Delhi and captures the Peacock Throne as of 1/1/1900
On March 16, 1521, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, attempting to sail around the world for Spain, reached the Philippine archipelago. Magellan and his expedition were the first Europeans to reach the Philippines, a stop on the first circumnavigation of the globe, though Magellan’s portion of that journey would soon end.
The expedition of five ships and 250 men had left Spain on September 20, 1519. Magellan sought a western route — avoiding the southern tip of Africa, which Portugal controlled — to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) of Southeast Asia. Magellan survived two mutinies before sailing around the southern tip of South America, finding the strait named for him, in November of 1520. Reaching calm waters after a dangerous passage, Magellan named the ocean west of South America “the Pacific Ocean.”
As the ships continued sailing west, supplies dwindled, the crew was forced to eat leather and drink a mixture of salt and freshwater, and men began dying of scurvy. Fortified by provisions secured at island stops along the way, the ships reached the Philippines in March 1521.
Magellan spent more than a month in the area, trading with local leaders and trying to convert them to Christianity. He grew angry at one chief who refused to cooperate, however, and ordered an attack on his village. Wounded in the fighting, Magellan bravely held his ground while the rest of his men escaped back to the ship, but then received more wounds and died on the beach.
It took until September of 1522 for the remains of the expedition, 17 survivors under the command of Juan Sebastián de Elcano, to reach Spain. Though he did not complete this voyage, Magellan is considered the first person to circumnavigate the globe because earlier in his career he had sailed an eastern route from Portugal to Southeast Asia, the same region he had reached on his last, fatal voyage by sailing west.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Magellan reaches the Philippines as of 1/1/1900
Members of the French Academy, the Académie française, after a session, crossing the Pont des Arts from the Institute / A. Castaigne. Source: Library of Congress.
For five years, beginning in 1629, a small group of writers gathered in Paris to discuss literary topics. The group soon came to the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the French throne and a wealthy patron of the arts. He suggested that the body become official, an idea the group grudgingly accepted. On March 13, 1634, they formally constituted themselves as the Académie Française. The Academy has been in operation ever since except for a ten-year hiatus during the French Revolution. The following year they received a charter from the king.
The Academy was formed to act as the official authority on the French language, aiming to keep it pure and free of vulgar usage or foreign influence. That task has become increasingly difficult in recent years. The Academy has decried use of the verb “impacter,” Frenchifying the English verb “impact.” It has blanched when French magazine covers proclaim the presence of “le best of” lists inside. It can do nothing to compel the usage it endorses, however.
As part of its task of maintaining language standards, the Academy was charged with creating a French dictionary. The first edition of that dictionary did not appear until 1694. The most recent edition — the ninth — was published in 1992.
The Academy has a maximum membership of forty. Membership is for life, and those chosen for the honor are called “Immortals.” Many of France’s leading writers over the years have served as members, including Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Voltaire, and Victor Hugo — though the list of those not selected (which includes Molière, Honoré de Balzac, Marcel Proust, and Jean-Paul Sartre) is equally distinguished. The first woman member was admitted in 1980. The current secretary — one of three officers of the Academy — is a woman.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Académie Française forms as of 1/1/1900
Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster Strike Japan
Japan, situated on the Ring of Fire on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, has suffered some major earthquakes over the years. However, nothing before compared to the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: a massive earthquake followed by powerful tsunamis which led to a serious nuclear accident.
The horrors began shortly before three in the afternoon local time with a 9.0-magnitude earthquake. Its epicenter was nearly 20 miles below the floor of the Pacific Ocean about 80 miles east of the Japanese city of Sendai. The quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded, and the strongest to hit this region of Japan.
Map prepared by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration depicting the tsunami wave height model for the Pacific Ocean following the March 11, 2011, earthquake off Sendai, Japan. Source: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research.
The quake unleashed several tsunamis, or tidal waves, that moved as fast as 500 miles an hour in all directions — most destructively to the nearby northeastern coast of Japan’s Honshu island. Waves as high as 33 feet high crashed into towns and cities along the coast, washing away anything in their path. One wave reportedly reached as far inland as 6 miles.
Several nuclear plants are located in northern Honshu. Most shut down automatically when the quake occurred, but the powerful tsunamis damaged the backup power systems at a plant in Fukushima. As a result, cooling systems shut down, and nuclear fuel overheated and later caught fire. The fire released radiation in the air, and the use of seawater to try to cool the reactors led to radiation contaminating the sea. Japanese officials had to ban people from a zone up to 18 miles around the damaged reactors, scene of the second worst nuclear accident in history.
In the end, the triple disaster cost Japan nearly 20,000 dead — mostly from the tsunamis — more than 130,000 forced from their homes, more than $300 billion in damage, and a severe jolt to the economy.
“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
You can subscribe to these posts via RSS or receive them by email.
0 Comments on Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster strike Japan as of 1/1/1900
