Anniversaries

This month sees the anniversary of the dropping of A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The focus on these horrific events is timely given the breakdown of agreements regarding nuclear weapons. As this article from The Economist points out:

Globally, non-proliferation efforts are faltering. In January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock, a subjective measure of humanity’s proximity to self-annihilation, closer to midnight than at any time since its establishment in 1947.

Survivors of the A-bombs are known in Japan as hibakusha and their stories are key for reminding the world of the horrors of nuclear weapons. This article from the BBC to remember the dropping of the A bombs has interviews from women hibakusha:

Invasion of South Korea by North Korea

June saw the the 70^th anniversary of the invasion of South Korea by North Korea.

Historian David Reynolds has written an excellent article in the New Statesman to highlight the significance of this conflict in terms of both the development of the Cold War and its impact on events today.

As Reynolds writes ‘The decisions taken by Truman and his advisers over the next six months redefined the Cold War. That story is less familiar than some of the European dramas of the time, such as the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift. Yet the Korean War of 1950-53 left legacies with which the world is still wrestling today. The 70th anniversary of that momentous weekend is a good reason to re-examine what happened in 1950’.

https://www.newstatesman.com/writers/320610

We have now added this article to the ATL on the Korean War on this page:

The Srebrenica Massacre

The 25^th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre took place in July and again this event has led to a wide range of articles about the event itself and how it has been remembered:

Site update

We have continued to update and to add new resources to the site:

• Content and ATL have been added to Paper 3, American region, Topic 14

• In addition, an extra section on the role of Hirohito in the growth of militarism in Japan has been added to Paper 3, Asia region, Topic 11

• Graded student exemplars have been added on the following topics:

Cambodia: 8. Cold War conflicts in Asia: Graded student examples 

India: 9. Nationalism and independence in India: Graded student essays 

• We have also added a student checklist for the IA: 2. IA: Getting the question right 

• And in the Spanish resources section we have added pages and a graded exemplar for the IA:

What next on the InThinking site?

At the end of August we will be uploading the following:

• Paper 2, Topic 10:   Nasser
• Paper 2, Topic 11:   The Algerian War
• Spanish resources:  The Core: Extended Essay

Meanwhile we plan to develop the following topics from September:

Paper 2: Topic 4 Societies in Transition, and Topic 8 Independence movements

Paper 3: Americas region, Section 5 Slavery and the New World

History in the news

Can we learn from history on how to deal with Covid 19?

There are several articles on this in the news at the moment which could provoke some interesting TOK discussions.

In this article historian Margaret Macmillan argues that 'knowledge of history gives us the capacity to ask questions and to imagine alternative courses of action’