Tag: American

Revisiting the “Knickerbocker” Origin Story of Santa Claus

Revisiting the “Knickerbocker” Origin Story of Santa Claus

by | Dec 16, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
In December 1953, Dr. Charles W. Jones, a University of California professor hailed as one of the world’s foremost scholars on St. Nicholas of Myra, gave a speech to the New-York Historical Society that was published the following year in the society’s quarterly under the title “Knickerbocker Santa Claus.” The premise of Jones’ speech was that author Washington Irving invented Santa Claus in an 1809 satire, A History of New York, that was purportedly written by a completely fictional Dutch historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker. “Without Irving there would be no Santa Claus,” Jones wrote. “Santa Claus was a parasitic germ until the Knickerbocker History in 1809; after 1809 Santa Claus spread like a plague which has yet to reach its peak.”

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The Worst Predictions Throughout History

The Worst Predictions Throughout History

by | Nov 27, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 9 minutes
It’s often said that predicting the future is like betting against God.

Despite this, humans have always loved to try and predict the future -whether it’s dismissing new technology or predicting the end of the world, throughout history there have been some interesting predictions made.

Some have been correct. Most have not.

And then there are those predictions that are so spectacularly wrong they make you laugh. Collating some of the worst predictions throughout history, here’s the most interesting, the most incorrect, and the most ironic.

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The enduring lessons of the Iraq War

The enduring lessons of the Iraq War

by | Nov 18, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
The US-led overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq marked the beginning of a series of events that reshaped the strategic environment of the Middle East. It also had enduring consequences for Iraqi society, and for Arab societies and Arab governments beyond its borders. There was no reason to doubt that the military defeat of Iraq could be achieved. But there were larger questions involved—including what a successor regime should look like; whether such a regime, initially established and maintained under US protection, would prove sustainable; and if not, what the consequences would be.

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Where are All the Medals? Racial Bias in Military Bravery Awards

Where are All the Medals? Racial Bias in Military Bravery Awards

by | Sep 26, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
For service or for gallantry, almost all modern militaries – especially Western militaries, have issued war medals for a very long time.
But who decides who gets these medals and awards, and how?

Recent examination has brought to light a distinct lack of minority soldiers within Western militaries winning bravery awards, across many different countries, all throughout the 20th century and beyond.

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David Grann’s The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea

David Grann’s The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea

by | Sep 16, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
In 1740, a modest squadron of ships from Britain’s Royal Navy departed Portsmouth in pursuit of an immoderate treasure. Commodore George Anson, who led the flotilla, was tasked with sailing south and west across the Atlantic Ocean, rounding Cape Horn, and interfering in imperial Spain’s lucrative trans-Pacific trade. But even before the mission got underway, its prospects of success appeared dubious. A sizeable proportion of the roughly 2,000 sailors and non-seamen under Anson’s command lacked suitable experience. Worse still was the fact that so many of them took up their posts already in a parlous state of health. It is little surprise, therefore, that Anson’s “famous” voyage around the world proved to be, for most of the men who undertook it, a journey of no return.

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The first photograph of the entire globe: 50 years on, Blue Marble still inspires

The first photograph of the entire globe: 50 years on, Blue Marble still inspires

by | Aug 26, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
December 7 marks the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualised our planet forever. Taken with a Hasselblad film camera, it was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and is believed to be the most reproduced image of all time. Up until this point, our view of ourselves had been disconnected and fragmented: there was no way to visualise the planet in its entirety.

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Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the ‘great dying’ of the 16th century

Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the ‘great dying’ of the 16th century

by | Aug 13, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
We’ve made enough concrete to cover the entire surface of the Earth in a layer two millimetres thick. Enough plastic has been manufactured to clingfilm it as well. We annually produce 4.8 billion tonnes of our top five crops and 4.8 billion livestock animals. There are 1.4 billion motor vehicles, 2 billion personal computers, and more mobile phones than the 7.8 billion people on Earth.

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‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-Australia military alliance

‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-Australia military alliance

by | Jun 5, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership is not. As Australians reflect on the sacrifices of their soldiers on ANZAC Day, it’s worth remembering the first time Australian and American troops joined forces in battle – in northern France, in the final year of the first world war.

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