Category: Overseas
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The Old Pope and Papal Prestige
In February 1922, there was a new pope: Pius XI. The man born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti would serve for 17 years and lead Vatican City’s creation as a sovereign state in 1929, separate from Italy. This New York Times Magazine article wrote in February 1922 of the new pope, comparing and contrasting him with […]
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Italy’s Frankenstein and His Monster
A January 1922 New York Times Magazine article described Benito Mussolini as a rising figure in Italy. By October, he would be Prime Minister. Mussolini had helped birth the Italian fascists (Fascismo) who used rough tactics, up to and including extrajudicial killings, in the name of law and order. As the article explains: After the […]
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The Un-Solemn Irish Free State
A new country was created in December 1921: the Irish Free State. This article asked whether it might become “the first demonstration of government with a sense of humor.” Instead, the country was almost immediately plunged into civil war. Whatever the Irish Free State does, it will not be the usual or conventional thing. A […]
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“Jazz ‘er Up!”: Broadway’s Conquest of Europe
Jazz, that uniquely American art form, was beginning to take Europe by storm in 1921. In Paris and a score of other European centres of gayety the words “fox-trot” and “one-step” have become so much a part of the local language that natives have to think twice to remember that the words were originally imported […]
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Playing the King
In 1921, as monarchies in several other nations had recently fallen, a New York Times Sunday Magazine article noted the curiosity that the monarchy in England remained. And it still does. Of the surprises that have followed the war, one of the strangest is the fact that, with the three great Emperors of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia […]
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An Officially Independent Afghanistan
100 years ago, in 1921, Afghanistan gained its independence from Great Britain. A New York Times Magazine article that year portrayed the newly-independent nation as something akin to Atlantis, a land of mystery, as so few Americans had ever set foot there. Not more than one American in ten years has ever gone up the […]
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Gandhi and British India
By 1921, a New York Times Magazine profile article about Gandhi already described him as a living legend: “In point of personal following, he is far and away the greatest man living in the world today.” Though he’s now primarily pictured bald, as in his later years, at the time the 52-year-old had a full head […]
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The Germans of Tomorrow
A 1921 article by Charles J. Rosebault predicted German youth would depart from their “obedience and reverence” of the past and could very well pave the pathway to world peace. Hate to break it to you… The German youth, trained and drilled in obedience and reverence, has finally revolted against the mismanagement of the seignors. As might […]
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How Germany Will Pay
This 1921 article questioned how Germany would ever pay off its World War I debts. The answer: very, very slowly. They only finished paying those debts in 2010. Some day Germany will pay. How much and when are problems still to be decided. Cotinuance of divided councils among the Allies, more particularly within France, may […]
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China Chief Problem in Maintaining World Peace
This 1920 article named China as the country most threatening world peace. As the Chinese-originated COVID-19 disease shuts down life and economies across the globe, that prophecy appears prescient. Indeed, President Trump has increasingly and controversially taken to calling it “the Chinese virus.” However, many medical experts including the World Health Organization have called on him […]
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