Anniversaries

60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis

''For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of nuclear weapons if in fact things continue down the path they are going.”
Joe Biden

Sixty years ago, humanity was lucky. Today, we can’t afford to keep relying on our good luck.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

This month sees the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. By a grim coincidence, now in October 2022, we once again have a situation where risk of the use of nuclear weapons is fast increasing.

Thus the Cuban Missile Crisis anniversary is producing much discussion on what factors led to the resolution of the 1962 crisis. Political commentators are asking if any lessons can be learned from history on how the crisis was resolved - or if in fact, the situation today with regard to Russia and the US is so different as to make any lessons from this historical event irrelevant.

This article by Nuclear Threat Initiative looks at the lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis and how they can be applied to today’s tense situation.

Here, Richard F. Keevey revisits the key reasons why nuclear war was avoided and highlights again the elements of luck that played a significant part.

This article argues that any comparisons with 1962 and today are misleading and unhelpful:

To commemorate the anniversary, the British journalist and historian, Max Hastings has written a book on the crisis 'from the viewpoints of national leaders, Russian officers, Cuban peasants, American pilots and British disarmers.'

'The author’s painfully insightful conclusion credits Kennedy with brilliant statesmanship but adds that most successors would have chosen war.

The definitive account of a brief yet frightening period in global history.' (Kirkus)

100th Anniversary of Mussolini’s Blackshirts marching on Rome

This month, October 28th 1922, also sees the 100th anniversary of Mussolini’s march on Rome. Again, there are parallels to be drawn with events in Italy today following the election of Giorgia Meloni and the far right party Brothers of Italy Party.

Site Update

We have now completed Topic 15, Developments in South Africa, 1890 to 1994 for Paper 3, Africa and Middle East region:

In addition, we have added West Germany to the Leaders and Nations theme of Topic 12, The Cold War for Paper 2:

IGCSE History site

We are also delighted to announce a new site for IGCSE History which is out in Beta and currently free

http://www.thinkigcse.net/history

As with this DP IB site, once you have subscribed, your students will also be able to access the site which includes an e-textbook for 20th Century history covering both core and depth studies, activities to develop student knowledge and examination skills, interactive quizzes, assessment help, and lots more.

We hope that this will be useful for those of you looking for 20th Century content and activities suitable for Pre-DP IB/A level years.

And Finally..

If you can access BBC iplayer, we would strongly recommend Adam Curtis' documentary ' Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone: What It Felt Like to Live Through the Collapse of Communism and Democracy'. It is made up previously unseen BBC footage from BBC crews who travelled through Russia from the mid 1980s. It records the lives and experiences of Russians at every level of society to create a vivid record of everyday life in a collapsing empire - the impact of which we are seeing now. 

In the words of Adam Curtis: “This project is an immersive history that takes you through Russian society as it lived through a cataclysm that wrecked the lives of millions of people and tore apart the foundations of the whole society. Because what the Russians lived through in the 1990s was not just the end of communism, but the failure of democracy too. They experienced the collapse of the two great ideologies of our time in a period of less than ten years.

By 1999 the word democracy was used as a curse. A curse against your enemies.

To understand Russia now – and what might happen in the future – you have to understand what happened back then. For it is out of that rage, the violence, the desperation and the overwhelming corruption that Vladimir Putin emerged.”