What caused the Black Death in the Middle Ages?

Bacteria carried by fleas on rats

What was one effect of the Black Death on European society?

Strengthening of the feudal system

The black death in the middle ages

MYTH The British helped the Jews displace the native Arab population of Palestine. FACT Herbert Samuel, a British Jew who served as the first High Commissioner of Palestine, placed restrictions on Jewish immigration “in the ‘interests of the present population’ and the ‘absorptive capacity’ of the country.”1 The influx of Jewish settlers was said to force the Arab fellahin (native peasants) from their land. This was when less than a million people lived in an area that now supports more than nine million. The British limited the absorptive capacity of Palestine when, in 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill severed nearly four-fifths of Palestine—some thirty-five thousand square miles—to create a new Arab entity, Transjordan. As a consolation prize for the Hejaz and Arabia (which are both now Saudi Arabia) going to the Saud family, Churchill rewarded Sharif Hussein’s son Abdullah for his contribution to the war against Turkey by installing him as Transjordan’s emir. The British went further and placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in what remained of Palestine. By 1949, the British had allotted 87,500 acres of the 187,500 acres of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 acres to Jews. This contradicted Article 6 of the Mandate which stated that “the Administration of Palestine…shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes.”2 Ultimately, the British admitted that the argument about the country’s absorptive capacity was specious. The Peel Commission said, “The heavy immigration in the years 1933–36 would seem to show that the Jews have been able to enlarge the absorptive capacity of the country for Jews.”3 MYTH The British allowed Jews to flood Palestine while Arab immigration was tightly controlled. FACT The British response to Jewish immigration set a precedent of appeasing the Arabs, which was followed for the duration of the Mandate. The British restricted Jewish immigration while allowing Arabs to enter the country freely. Apparently, London did not feel that a flood of Arab immigrants would affect the country’s “absorptive capacity.” During World War I, the Jewish population in Palestine declined because of the war, famine, disease, and expulsion by the Turks. In 1915, approximately 83,000 Jews lived in Palestine among 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs. According to the 1922 census, the Jewish population was 83,000, while the Arabs numbered 643,000.4 Thus, the Arab population grew exponentially while that of the Jews stagnated. In the mid-1920s, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased primarily because of anti-Jewish economic legislation in Poland and Washington’s imposition of restrictive quotas.5 The record number of immigrants in 1935 (see table) was a response to the growing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The British administration considered this number too large, however, so the Jewish Agency was informed that less than one-third of the quota it asked for would be approved in 1936.6 The British gave in further to Arab demands by announcing in the 1939 White Paper that an independent Arab state would be created within ten years and that Jewish immigration was to be limited to 75,000 for the next five years, after which it was to cease altogether. It also forbade land sales to Jews in 95% of the territory of Palestine. The Arabs, nevertheless, rejected the proposal. Jewish Immigration to Palestine7 1919 1,806 1931 4,075 1920 8,223 1932 12,533 1921 8,294 1933 37,337 1922 8,685 1934 45,267 1923 8,175 1935 66,472 1924 13,892 1936 29,595 1925 34,386 1937 10,629 1926 13,855 1938 14,675 1927 3,034 1939 31,195 1928 2,178 1940 10,643 1929 5,249 1941 4,592 1930 4,944 By contrast, throughout the Mandatory period, Arab immigration was unrestricted. In 1930, the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots, said the British practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan, and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants.8 The British governor of the Sinai from 1922 to 1936 observed, “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.”9 The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is…due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.”10 MYTH The British changed their policy to allow Holocaust survivors to settle in Palestine. FACT The gates of Palestine remained closed for the duration of the war, stranding hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe, many of whom became victims of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” After the war, the British refused to allow the survivors of the Nazi nightmare to find sanctuary in Palestine. On June 6, 1946, President Truman urged the British government to relieve the suffering of the Jews confined to displaced persons camps in Europe by immediately accepting 100,000 Jewish immigrants. Britain’s foreign minister Ernest Bevin replied sarcastically that the United States wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine “because they did not want too many of them in New York.”11 Some Jews reached Palestine, many smuggled in on dilapidated ships organized by the Haganah. Between August 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, sixty-five “illegal” immigrant ships, carrying 69,878 people, arrived from European shores. In August 1946, however, the British began to intern those they caught in camps on Cyprus. Approximately 50,000 people were detained in the camps, and 28,000 remained imprisoned when Israel declared independence.12 MYTH As the Jewish population grew, the plight of the Palestinian Arabs worsened. FACT In July 1921, Hasan Shukri, the mayor of Haifa and president of the Muslim National Associations, sent a telegram to the British government in reaction to a delegation of Palestinians that went to London to try to stop the implementation of the Balfour Declaration. Shukri wrote: We are certain that without Jewish immigration and financial assistance there will be no future development of our country as may be judged from the fact that the towns inhabited in part by Jews such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias are making steady progress while Nablus, Acre, and Nazareth where no Jews reside are steadily declining.13 The Jewish population increased by 470,000 between World War I and World War II, while the non-Jewish population rose by 588,000.14 The permanent Arab population increased by 120% between 1922 and 1947.15 This rapid growth of the Arab population was a result of several factors. One was immigration from neighboring states—constituting 37% of the total immigration to pre-state Israel—by Arabs who wanted to take advantage of the higher standard of living the Jews had made possible.16 The Arab population also grew because of the improved living conditions created by the Jews as they drained malarial swamps and brought improved sanitation and health care to the region. Thus, for example, the Muslim infant mortality rate fell from 201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945, and life expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943.17 The Arab population increased the most in cities where large Jewish populations had created new economic opportunities. From 1922–1947, the non-Jewish population increased by 290% in Haifa, 131% in Jerusalem, and 158% in Jaffa. The growth in Arab towns was more modest: 42% in Nablus, 78% in Jenin, and 37% in Bethlehem.18 MYTH Jews stole Arab land. FACT Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. From the beginning of World War I, however, part of Palestine’s land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus, and Beirut. About 80% of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads, and Bedouins.19 Jews went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap, and—most important—without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as “the most important asset of the native population.” He insisted that “under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them.” Instead, he advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. “Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement,” Ben-Gurion added, “should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.”20 Jews only began to purchase cultivated land after buying all the uncultivated territory. Many Arabs were willing to sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.21 When John Hope Simpson arrived in Palestine in May 1930, he observed, “They [the Jews] paid high prices for the land and, in addition, they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay.”22 In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness for the British government and offered new plots to any Arabs who had been “dispossessed.” British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80% were ruled invalid by the government’s legal adviser because the applicants were not landless Arabs. This left only about 600 landless Arabs, 100 of whom accepted the government land offer.23 In April 1936, a new outbreak of Arab attacks on Jews was instigated by local Palestinian leaders who were later joined by Arab volunteers led by a Syrian guerrilla named Fawzi al-Qawuqji, the commander of the Arab Liberation Army. By November, when the British finally sent a new commission headed by Lord Peel to investigate, 89 Jews had been killed and more than 300 wounded.24 The Peel Commission’s report found that Arab complaints about Jewish land acquisition were baseless. It pointed out that “much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased…There was at the time of the earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the land.”25 Moreover, the Commission found the shortage was “due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.” The report concluded that the presence of Jews in Palestine, along with the work of the British administration, had resulted in higher wages, an improved standard of living, and ample employment opportunities.26 It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping (emphasis in the original). —Transjordan’s king Abdullah27 Even at the height of the Arab revolt in 1938 (which began in April 1936 with the murder of two Jews by Arabs and the subsequent murder of two Arab workers by members of the Jewish underground28), the British high commissioner to Palestine believed the Arab landowners were complaining about sales to Jews to drive up prices for lands they wished to sell. Many Arab landowners had been so terrorized by Arab rebels they decided to leave Palestine and sell their property to the Jews.29 The Jews paid exorbitant prices to wealthy landowners for small tracts of arid land. “In 1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semiarid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre.”30 By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 were acquired from the mandatory government, 30,000 were bought from various churches, and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73% of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin.31 Many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme Council, and the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem, and s sold land to the Jews. As’ad el-Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. Even King Abdullah leased land to the Jews.32 MYTH The British helped the Palestinians to live peacefully with the Jews. FACT In 1921, Haj Amin el-Husseini first began to organize fedayeen (“one who sacrifices himself”) to terrorize Jews. El-Husseini hoped to duplicate the success of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey by driving the Jews out of Palestine just as Kemal had driven the invading Greeks from his country.33 Arab radicals gained influence because the British administration was unwilling to take effective action against them until they began a revolt against British rule. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, former head of British military intelligence in Cairo, and later chief political officer for Palestine and Syria, wrote in his diary that British officials “incline towards the exclusion of Zionism in Palestine.” The British encouraged the Palestinians to attack the Jews. According to Meinertzhagen, Col. Bertie Harry Waters-Taylor (financial adviser to the military administration in Palestine 1919–23) met with el-Husseini in 1920, a few days before Easter, and told him that “he had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world…that Zionism was unpopular not only with the Palestine administration but in Whitehall.” He added that “if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, both General [Louis] Bols [chief administrator in Palestine, 1919–20] and General [Edmund] Allenby [commander of the Egyptian force, 1917–19, then high commissioner of Egypt] would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish Home. Waters-Taylor explained that freedom could only be attained through violence.”34 El-Husseini took the colonel’s advice and instigated a riot. The British withdrew their troops and the Jewish police from Jerusalem, allowing the Arab mob to attack Jews and loot their shops. Because of el-Husseini’s overt role in instigating the pogrom, the British decided to arrest him. He escaped, however, and was sentenced to ten years in absentia. A year later, some British Arabists convinced High Commissioner Herbert Samuel to pardon el-Husseini and to appoint him Mufti (a cleric in charge of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places). By contrast, Vladimir Jabotinsky and several followers, who had formed a Jewish defense organization during the unrest, were sentenced to 15 years. They were released a few months later.35 Samuel met with el-Husseini on April 11, 1921, and was assured “that the influences of his family and himself would be devoted to tranquility.” Three weeks later, riots in Jaffa and elsewhere left forty-three Jews dead.36 El-Husseini consolidated his power and took control of all Muslim religious funds in Palestine. He used his authority to gain control over the mosques, the schools, and the courts. No Arab could reach an influential position without being loyal to the Mufti. His power was so absolute that “no Muslim in Palestine could be born or die without being beholden to Haj Amin.”37 The Mufti’s henchmen also ensured he would have no opposition by systematically killing Palestinians who discussed cooperation with the Jews from rival clans. As the spokesman for Palestinian Arabs, el-Husseini did not ask that Britain grant them independence. On the contrary, in a letter to Churchill in 1921, he demanded that Palestine be reunited with Syria and Transjordan.38 The Arabs found rioting an effective political tool because of the lax British response toward violence against Jews. In handling each riot, the British prevented Jews from protecting themselves but made little effort to prevent the Arabs from attacking them. After each outbreak, a British commission of inquiry would try to establish the cause of the violence. The conclusion was always the same: The Arabs feared being displaced by the Jews. To stop the rioting, the commissions would recommend that restrictions be placed on Jewish immigration. Thus, the Arabs learned they could always stop the influx of Jews by staging riots. This cycle began after a series of riots in May 1921. After failing to protect the Jewish community from Arab mobs, the British appointed the Haycraft Commission to investigate the cause of the violence. Although the panel concluded the Arabs had been the aggressors, it rationalized the cause of the attack: “The fundamental cause of the riots was a feeling among the Arabs of discontent with, and hostility to, the Jews, due to political and economic causes, and connected with Jewish immigration, and with their conception of Zionist policy.”39 One consequence of the violence was the institution of a temporary ban on Jewish immigration. The Arab fear of being “displaced” or “dominated” was an excuse for their attacks on Jewish settlers. Note, too, that these riots were not inspired by nationalistic fervor—nationalists would have rebelled against their British overlords—they were motivated by economics, the radical Islamic views of the Mufti, and misunderstanding. In 1929, Arab provocateurs convinced the masses that the Jews had designs on the Temple Mount (a tactic still used today to incite violence). A Jewish religious observance at the Western Wall, which forms a part of the Temple Mount, served as a pretext for rioting by Arabs against Jews, which spilled out of Jerusalem into other villages and towns, including Safed and Hebron. Again, the British administration made no effort to prevent the violence, and, after it began, the British did nothing to protect the Jewish population. After six days of mayhem, the British finally brought troops in to quell the disturbance. By this time, most of Hebron’s Jews had fled or been killed. In all, 133 Jews were killed and 399 wounded in the pogroms.40 After the riots, the British ordered an investigation, resulting in the Passfield White Paper. It said the “immigration, land purchase and settlement policies of the Zionist Organization were already or were likely to become, prejudicial to Arab interests. It understood the mandatory government’s obligation to the non-Jewish community to mean that Palestine’s resources must be primarily reserved for the growing Arab economy.”41 This meant it was necessary to restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases. MYTH The Mufti was not a Nazi collaborator. FACT In 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, fled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, and other Nazi leaders. He wanted to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world. The Mufti sent Hitler fifteen drafts of declarations he wanted Germany and Italy to make concerning the Middle East. One called on the two countries to declare the illegality of the Jewish home in Palestine. He also asked the Axis powers to “accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the interest of the Arabs, and by the same method that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”42 In November 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti’s requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right. The Mufti offered Hitler his “thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches.” He added, “The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely…the Jews.” Hitler told the Mufti he opposed the creation of a Jewish state and that Germany’s objective was destroying the Jewish element in the Arab sphere.43 In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting twenty thousand Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped French detention in 1946, however, and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut where he died in 1974. MYTH The bombing of the King David Hotel was part of a deliberate terror campaign against civilians. FACT British troops seized the Jewish Agency compound on June 29, 1946, and confiscated large quantities of documents. At about the same time, more than 2,500 Jews from all over Palestine were arrested. A week later, news of a massacre of 40 Jews in a pogrom in Poland reminded the Jews of Palestine how Britain’s restrictive immigration policy had condemned thousands to death. In response to the British provocations, and a desire to demonstrate that the Jews’ spirit could not be broken, the United Resistance Movement planned to bomb the King David Hotel, which housed the British military command and the Criminal Investigation Division in addition to hotel guests. The Haganah pulled out of the plot and left it up to the Irgun. Irgun leader Menachem Begin stressed his desire to avoid civilian casualties and the plan was to warn the British so they would evacuate the building before it was blown up. Three telephone calls were placed on July 22, 1946, one to the hotel, another to the French Consulate, and a third to the Palestine Post warning that explosives in the King David Hotel would soon be detonated. The call to the hotel was received and ignored. Begin quotes one British official who supposedly refused to evacuate the building, saying, “We don’t take orders from the Jews.”44 As a result, when the bombs exploded, the casualty toll was high: 91 killed and 45 injured. Among the casualties were 15 Jews. Few people in the main part of the hotel were injured.45 For decades, the British denied they had been warned. In 1979, however, a member of the British Parliament provided the testimony of a British officer who heard other officers in the King David Hotel bar joking about a Zionist threat to the headquarters. The officer who overheard the conversation immediately left the hotel and survived.46 In contrast to Arab attacks against Jews, which Arab leaders hailed as heroic actions, the Jewish National Council denounced the bombing of the King David.47 1 Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, (NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), p. 172

When Europeans met American Indians in the late 15th century, the people of two continents exchanged many beneficial customs and goods. Europeans received New World crops such as potatoes and corn. American Indians acquired cloth and horses. However, besides the beneficial exchanges, Europeans and American Indians often traded deadly germs–bacteria and viruses–for which they had no immunity. Smallpox and Indians Image 1: Smallpox epidemics helped Europeans conquer the Aztec and Incan Empires of Mexico and South America. North American Indians quickly concluded that contact with Europeans often resulted in devastating diseases that caused widespread death. This drawing, made in the 1500s in Mexico, shows how the disease was passed from a European to an American Indian through simple contact. Many of the diseases that were common in Europe were entirely new to the peoples of North America. Diseases such as tuberculosis and measles could be fatal, but Europeans had developed resistance to the disease, so many people survived. However, when European diseases infected American Indians with no previous exposure, the people suffered terribly. The most devastating of these diseases was smallpox which is caused by a virus (Variola major). Smallpox, like many other diseases, had a latent period of about one week between the time the person was exposed to the disease and the time when signs of the disease became apparent. During this time, the sick person might begin a journey and carry the germs along with him. Anyone the person met would be exposed to smallpox. Anything the victim touched including clothing, bedding, or unwashed dishes carried living germs of smallpox. Cotton Mather Image 2: Cotton Mather was a Boston minister. When smallpox threatened Boston, he remembered reading about how the Turks inoculated people with dried material from smallpox blisters. The inoculation usually gave the person a mild case of the disease and future immunity. The procedure was highly controversial, but it helped save the lives of 274 people who were inoculated during the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721. Symptoms of the disease began with fever, chills, and aches. The fever might raise a person’s temperature from the normal 98.6o to a dangerous 106o. After four days of misery, the victim entered the second stage when large pustules (fluid-filled bumps) appeared on the body. The rash made the person feel as if their skin were on fire. After suffering with the rash for nine days, the victim entered a new stage-if he or she had survived this long. The pustules opened and dried up. Each pustule formed a scab that turned into a scar that marked the person’s face for the rest of his or her life. Complications of smallpox for those who survived might include loss of vision or damage to the lungs, heart, or liver. Waterhouse Image 3: Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of Harvard University brought Jenner’s smallpox preventative to the United States. It was called vaccination and used cowpox as the infective material. This much milder form of pox gave immunity to smallpox with fewer complications. Dr. Waterhouse encouraged President-elect Thomas Jefferson to promote vaccination. Jefferson responded, “Every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery, by which one evil more is withdrawn from the condition of man.” (T. Jefferson 12/25/1800 to Benjamin Waterhouse, December 25, 1800) Historians have found evidence of smallpox as far back as 1157 B.C. when the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses V apparently died of smallpox. From Egypt, where scientists believe smallpox began, the disease spread to Asia. Europeans began to experience periodic epidemics of smallpox in the14th century when Crusaders returning from the Middle East brought smallpox to Europe. People who survived the disease were immune and could not get smallpox again. This fact explains why epidemics struck periodically and the disease was not a constant threat to European societies. Smallpox Vaccination 1803 Image 4: Dr. Edward Jenner’s new smallpox vaccination (from cowpox) was widely accepted. This medical image was published by a Spanish physician to teach colonial doctors how to apply the vaccine to native Mexicans. The scratches were supposed to go through several stages of development as evidence that the vaccine had given the patient immunity. Vaccination was very effective in preventing smallpox epidemics among those who received the vaccine. In 1520, while Cortés was trying to conquer the Aztecs, smallpox broke out among the Spaniards and was transferred to the Aztecs. By 1527, the disease had migrated through Central America to Peru where it helped Pizarro conquer the Incas. (See Image 1.) In 1633, smallpox infected American Indians living near the English colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The disease traveled very quickly to tribes living far inland from the English colonies. In 1721, a smallpox epidemic threatened the English colonists of Boston. (See Image 2.) Cotton Mather, a Boston minister, wanted to inoculate people against the disease. He knew that Turkish healers took material from a dried smallpox scab and injected it into the body of a healthy person by scratching the surface of the skin. The patients developed a mild form of the disease from which they recovered. The procedure was highly controversial in Boston where about 280 Bostonians accepted inoculation. The epidemic infected more than half of the people living in Boston at the time. About 15% of those who got sick died of the disease. Among those who were inoculated, only six (2%) died of smallpox. The practice of inoculation spread to other English colonies, but not to the American Indian tribes living near the colonies. Late in the 18th century, British doctor Edward Jenner recognized that people who milked cows never came down with smallpox. They had already been infected with cowpox, a similar, but much milder disease that gave them immunity to smallpox. In 1796, Jenner inoculated a young man with cowpox virus he had collected from a milkmaid. The young man had a mild infection for less than 24 hours and recovered. Jenner’s efforts resulted in a widespread acceptance of vaccination (vaccine comes from Latin words meaning “taken from a cow”). By 1800, many Americans were receiving smallpox vaccinations. (See Image 3.) President Thomas Jefferson supported and encouraged the vaccination program in major American cities. (See Image 4.) By the middle of the 19th century, smallpox was under control, but broke out from time to time among unvaccinated people. Bismarck, Dakota Territory, experienced a small outbreak of smallpox in 1882. American Indians, however, were still subject to the disease in its most dangerous form.

She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of "beauty" and "twilight" and cloaked herself in it. She made her living selling words. She journeyed through the country from the high cold mountains to the burning coasts, stopping at fairs and in markets where she set up four poles covered by a canvas awning under which she took refuge from the sun and rain to minister to her customers. She did not have to peddle her merchandise because from having wandered far and near, everyone knew who she was. Some people waited for her from one year to the next, and when she appeared in the village with her bundle beneath her arm, they would form a line in front of her stall. Her prices were fair. For five centavos she delivered verses from memory, for seven she improved the quality of dreams, for nine she wrote love letters, for twelve she invented insults for irreconcilable enemies. She also sold stories, not fantasies but long, true stories she recited at one telling, never skipping a word. This is how she carried news from one town to another. People paid her to add a line or two: our son was born, so-and-so died, our children got married, the crops burned in the field. Wherever she went a small crowd gathered around to listen as she began to speak, and that was how they learned about each others' doings, about distant relatives, about what was going on in the civil war. To anyone who paid her fifty centavos in trade, she gave the gift of a secret word to drive away melancholy. It was not the same word for everyone, naturally, because that would have been collective dece it. Each person received his or her own word, with the assurance that no one else would use it that way in this universe or the Beyond. Belisa Crepusculario had been born into a family so poor they did not even have names to give their children. She came into the world and grew up in an inhospitable land where some years the rains became avalanches of water that bore everything away before them and others when not a drop fell from the sky and the sun swelled to fill the horizon and the world became a desert. Until she was twelve, Belisa had no occupation or virtue other than having withstood hunger and the exhaustion of centuries. During one interminable drought, it fell to her to bury four younger brothers and sisters, when she realized that her turn was next, she decided to set out across the 2 plains in the direction of the sea, in hopes that she might trick death along the way. The land was eroded, split with deep cracks, strewn with rocks, fossils of trees and thorny bushes, and skeletons of animals bleached by the sun. From time to time she ran into families who, like her, were heading south, following the mirage of water. Some had begun the march carrying their belongings on their back or in small carts, but they could barely move their own bones, and after a while they had to abandon their possessions. They dragged themselves along painfully, their skin turned to lizard hide and their eyes burned by the reverberating glare. Belisa greeted them with a wave as she passed, but she did not stop, because she had no strength to waste in acts of compassion. Many people fell by the wayside, but she was so stubborn that she survived to cross through that hell and at long last reach the first trickles of water, fine, almost invisible threads that fed spindly vegetation and farther down widened into small streams and marshes. Belisa Crepusculario saved her life and in the process accidentally discovered writing. In a village near the coast, the wind blew a page of newspaper at her feet. She picked up the brittle yellow paper and stood a long while looking at it, unable to determine its purpose, until curiosity overcame her shyness. She walked over to a man who was washing his horse in the muddy pool where she had quenched her thirst. "What is this?" she asked. "The sports page of the newspaper," the man replied, concealing his surprise at her ignorance. The answer astounded the girl, but she did not want to seem rude, so she merely inquired about the significance of the fly tracks scattered across the page. "Those are words, child. Here it says that Fulgencio Barba knocked out El Negro Tiznao in the third round." That was the day Belisa Crepusculario found out that words make their way in the world without a master, and that anyone with a little cleverness can appropriate them and do business with them. She made a quick assessment of her situation and concluded that aside from becoming a prostitute or working as a servant in the kitchens of the rich there were few occupations she was qualified for. It seemed to her that selling words would be an honorable alternative. From that moment on, she worked at that profession, and was never tempted by any other. At the beginning, she offered her merchandise unaware that words could be written outside of newspapers. When she learned otherwise, she calculated the infinite possibilities of her trade and with her savings paid a priest twenty pesos to teach her to read and write, with her three 3 remaining coins she bought a dictionary. She poured over it from A to Z and then threw it into the sea, because it was not her intention to defraud her customers with packaged words. One August morning several years later, Belisa Crepusculario was sitting in her tent in the middle of a plaza, surrounded by the uproar of market day, selling legal arguments to an old man who had been trying for sixteen years to get his pension. Suddenly she heard yelling and thudding hoofbeats. She looked up from her writing and saw, first, a cloud of dust, and then a band of horsemen come galloping into the plaza. They were the Colonel's men, sent under orders of El Mulato, a giant known throughout the land for the speed of his knife and his loyalty to his chief. Both the Colonel and El Mulato had spent their lives fighting in the civil war, and their names were ineradicably linked to devastation and calamity. The rebels swept into town like a stampeding herd, wrapped in noise, bathed in sweat, and leaving a hurricane of fear in their trail. Chickens took wing, dogs ran for their lives, women and children scurried out of sight, until the only living soul left in the market was Belisa Crepusculario. She had never seen El Mulato and was surprised to see him walking toward her. "I'm looking for you," he shouted, pointing his coiled whip at her, even before the words were out, two men rushed her -- knocking over her canopy and shattering her inkwell -- bound her hand and foot, and threw her like a sea bag across the rump of El Mulato's mount. Then they thundered off toward the hills. Hours later, just as Belisa Crepusculario was near death, her heart ground to sand by the pounding of the horse, they stopped, and four strong hands set her down. She tried to stand on her feet and hold her head high, but her strength failed her and she slumped to the ground, sinking into a confused dream. She awakened several hours later to the murmur of night in the camp, but before she had time to sort out the sounds, she opened her eyes and found herself staring into the impatient glare of El Mulato, kneeling beside her. "Well, woman, at last you've come to," he said. To speed her to her senses, he tipped his canteen and offered her a sip of liquor laced with gunpowder. She demanded to know the reason for such rough treatment, and El Mulato explained that the Colonel needed her services. He allowed her to splash water on her face, and then led her to the far end of the camp where the most feared man in all the land was lazing in a hammock strung between two trees. She could not see his face, because he lay in the deceptive shadow of the leaves and the indelible shadow of all his years as a bandit, but she imagined from the way his 4 gigantic aide addressed him with such humility that he must have a very menacing expression. She was surprised by the Colonel's voice, as soft and well-modulated as a professor's. "Are you the woman who sells words?" he asked. "At your service," she stammered, peering into the dark and trying to see him better. The Colonel stood up, and turned straight toward her. She saw dark skin and the eyes of a ferocious puma, and she knew immediately that she was standing before the loneliest man in the world. "I want to be President," he announced. The Colonel was weary of riding across that godforsaken land, waging useless wars and suffering defeats that no subterfuge could transform into victories. For years he had been sleeping in the open air, bitten by mosquitoes, eating iguanas and snake soup, but those minor inconveniences were not why he wanted to change his destiny. What truly troubled him was the terror he saw in people's eyes. He longed to ride into a town beneath a triumphal arch with bright flags and flowers everywhere, he wanted to be cheered, and be given newly laid eggs and freshly baked bread. Men fled at the sight of him, children trembled, and women miscarried from fright, he had had enough, and so he had decided to become President. El Mulato had suggested that they ride to the capital, gallop up to the Palace, and take over the government, the way they had taken so many other things without anyone's permission. The Colonel, however, did not want to be just another tyrant, there had been enough of those before him and, besides, if he did that, he would never win people's hearts. It was his aspiration to win the popular vote in the December elections. "To do that, I have to talk like a candidate. Can you sell me the words for a speech?" the Colonel asked Belisa Crepusculario. She had accepted many assignments, but none like this. She did not dare refuse, fearing that El Mulato would shoot her between the eyes, or worse still, that the Colonel would burst into tears. There was more to it than that, however, she felt the urge to help him because she felt a throbbing warmth beneath her skin, a powerful desire to touch that man, to fondle him, to clasp him in her arms. All night and a good part of the following day, Belisa Crepusculario searched her repertory for words adequate for a presidential speech, closely watched by El Mulato, who could not take his eyes from her firm wanderer's legs and virginal breasts. She discarded harsh, cold words, words 5 that were too flowery, words worn from abuse, words that offered improbable promises, untruthful and confusing words, until all she had left were words sure to touch the minds of men and women's intuition. Calling upon the knowledge she had purchased from the priest for twenty pesos, she wrote the speech on a sheet of paper and then signaled El Mulato to untie the rope that bound her ankles to a tree. He led her once more to the Colonel, and again she felt the throbbing anxiety that had seized her when she first saw him. She handed him the paper and waited while he looked at it, holding it gingerly between thumbs and fingertips. "What the shit does this say," he asked finally. "Don't you know how to read?" "War's what I know," he replied. She read the speech aloud. She read it three times, so her client could engrave it on his memory. When she finished, she saw the emotion in the faces of the soldiers who had gathered round to listen, and saw that the Colonel's eyes glittered with enthusiasm, convinced that with those words the presidential chair would be his. "If after they've heard it three times, the boys are still standing there with their mouths hanging open, it must mean the thing's damn good, Colonel" was El Mulato's approval. "All right, woman. How much do I owe you?" the leader asked. "One peso, Colonel." "That's not much," he said, opening the pouch he wore at his belt, heavy with proceeds from the last foray. "The peso entitles you to a bonus. I'm going to give you two secret words," said Belisa Crepusculario. "What for?" She explained that for every fifty centavos a client paid, she gave him the gift of a word for his exclusive use. The Colonel shrugged. He had no interest at all in her offer, but he did not want to be impolite to someone who had served him so well. She walked slowly to the leather stool where he was sitting, and bent down to give him her gift. The man smelled the scent of a mountain cat issuing from the woman, a fiery heat radiating from her hips, he heard the terrible whisper of her hair, and a breath of sweetmint murmured into his ear the two secret words that were his alone. "They are yours, Colonel," she said as she stepped back. "You may use them as much as you 6 please." El Mulato accompanied Belisa to the roadside, his eyes as entreating as a stray dog's, but when he reached out to touch her, he was stopped by an avalanche of words he had never heard before; believing them to be an irrevocable curse, the flame of his desire was extinguished. During the months of September, October, and November the Colonel delivered his speech so many times that had it not been crafted from glowing and durable words it would have turned to ash as he spoke. He travelled up and down and across the country, riding into cities with a triumphal air, stopping in even the most forgotten villages where only the dump heap betrayed a human presence, to convince his fellow citizens to vote for him. While he spoke from a platform erected in the middle of the plaza, El Mulato and his men handed out sweets and painted his name on all the walls in gold frost. No one paid the least attention to those advertising ploys; they were dazzled by the clarity of the Colonel's proposals and the poetic lucidity of his arguments, infected by his powerful wish to right the wrongs of history, happy for the first time in their lives. When the Candidate had finished his speech, his soldiers would fire their pistols into the air and set off firecrackers, and when finally they rode off, they left behind a wake of hope that lingered for days on the air, like the splendid memory of a comet's tail. Soon the Colonel was the favorite. No one had ever witnessed such a phenomenon: a man who surfaced from the civil war, covered with scars and speaking like a professor, a man whose fame spread to every corner of the land and captured the nation's heart. The press focused their attention on him. Newspapermen came from far away to interview him and repeat his phrases, and the number of his followers and enemies continued to grow. "We're doing great, Colonel," said El Mulato, after twelve successful weeks of campaigning. But the Candidate did not hear. He was repeating his secret words, as he did more and more obsessively. He said them when he was mellow with nostalgia; he murmured them in his sleep; he carried them with him on horseback; he thought them before delivering his famous speech; and he caught himself savoring them in his leisure time. And every time he thought of those two words, he thought of Belisa Crepusculario, and his senses were inflamed with the memory of her feral scent, her fiery heat, the whisper of her hair, and her sweetmint breath in his ear, until he began to go around like a sleepwalker, and his men realized that he might die before he ever sat in the presidential chair. "What's got hold of you, Colonel," El Mulato asked so often that finally one day his chief broke 7 down and told him the source of his befuddlement: those two words that were buried like two daggers in his gut. "Tell me what they are and maybe they'll lose their magic," his faithful aide suggested. "I can't tell them, they're for me alone," the Colonel replied. Saddened by watching his chief decline like a man with a death sentence on his head, El Mulato slung his rifle over his shoulder and set out to find Belisa Crepusculario. He followed her trail through all that vast country, until he found her in a village in the far south, sitting under her tent reciting her rosary of news. He planted himself, spraddle-legged, before her, weapon in hand. "You! You're coming with me," he ordered. She had been waiting. She picked up her inkwell, folded the canvas of her small stall, arranged her shawl around her shoulders, and without a word took her place behind El Mulato's saddle. They did not exchange so much as a word in all the trip; El Mulato's desire for her had turned into rage, and only his fear of her tongue prevented his cutting her to shreds with his whip. Nor was he inclined to tell her that the Colonel was in a fog, and that a spell whispered into his ear had done what years of battle had not been able to do. Three days later they arrived at the encampment, and immediately, in view of all the troops, El Mulato led his prisoner before the Candidate. "I brought this witch here so you can give her back her words, Colonel," El Mulato said, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the woman's head. "And then she can give you back your manhood." The Colonel and Belisa Crepusculario stared at each other, measuring one another from a distance. The men knew then that their leader would never undo the witchcraft of those accursed words, because the whole world could see the voracious-puma eyes soften as the woman walked to him and took his hand in hers. Copyright © 1989 by Isabel Allende From The Stories of Eva Luna, Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden

Soggy Stepsisters Ada and Rachel were fighting again. Ever since Ada's mom married Rachel's dad, it seemed as though they couldn't stop. "Are you going to wear that?" Ada asked, pointing to Rachel's old pants. "I know we're on vacation, but this is taking it too far." "Yes," Rachel said. "We're going outside. But if you want to break an ankle in those shoes, go ahead." Ada sighed. "I think I'll be bored to death long before that." "Dad and I come to this cabin every year," Rachel snapped. "We love it." Ada laughed. "I guess you have nothing better to do." "Great!" Rachel said. "Now we're going to hear about New York again." "Girls!" said their dad. "Stop arguing. I'll make a deal with you. Get through this morning without fighting, and you can do whatever you want this afternoon." The girls looked at each other. "All right," they said. "Let's go out in the canoe," Rachel suggested. "Ugh," Ada said and then looked at her stepdad. "I guess." Rachel showed Ada how to paddle. "We need to work together," Rachel said. "This is dumb," Ada complained. "These life jackets are hot, and they look silly." Rachel said nothing as the canoe moved slowly out into the lake. "Paddle harder, Ada," Rachel called. Ada rolled her eyes and pretended not to hear. When they made it to the middle of the lake, Ada felt a gust of wind. She looked up. Dark clouds filled the sky. Rachel said, "We'd better turn around." The wind blew harder. "Why aren't we moving?" Ada yelled. "Paddle with me," Rachel yelled back. "One... two..." Ada was wild with fear. "Help!" she screamed. She stood up and waved her arms. "Ada, no!" Rachel yelled. "Sit down!" It was too late. The canoe rocked and flipped over. "What do we do?" Ada yelled, spitting out water. "Grab the canoe," Rachel told her. "We're going to have to swim it back to shore." "Can't we climb back in?" Ada gasped. "This is safer and easier," said Rachel. "It's not far, and we have life jackets on. Let's go!" They swam. Ada was scared, but Rachel helped her. "You're doing great," Rachel said over and over. Their parents came running as they got to shore. "What happened? Are you all right?" asked their mom. We're fine-thanks to Rachel," Ada said. "I guess it's good that you come to the cabin every year." She looked at her stepsister. "Thank you." Rachel smiled as she said, "Let's go change. You can help me pick out what to wear."

Tobruk, a small town on the Libyan coast, was central to much of the fighting that took place in the Western Desert during the Second World War. It had originally been developed by the Italians during their colonisation of eastern Libya during the early decades of the 20th century. With a sheltered deep water harbour it became a key naval outpost. It was fortified during the 1930s with both coastal defence batteries and a 50 kilometre-long perimeter of reinforced concrete platoon posts, and other supporting infrastructure such as gun positions, headquarters bunkers, underground supply dumps, and observation towers. When British and Commonwealth forces advanced out of Egypt and into Libya in January 1941, Tobruk was their second objective. The Italian defence perimeter was attacked by the 6th Australian Division on the morning of 22 January and the town fell the next morning. The operation resulted in approximately 27,000 Italian prisoners and the capture of over 200 artillery pieces, but cost 49 Australian lives. The 6th Division's advance pressed on beyond Tobruk and eventually they were withdrawn from Libya to be deployed to Greece.The 9th Australian Division was moved in to Libya in February 1941 to garrison the territory captured by the 6th. By this time, however, German troops had arrived in Libya to reinforce their Italian allies and they launched an offensive that the British Commonwealth forces were ill-disposed to hold back. A retreat towards Egypt commenced. The 9th Division was ordered to fall back upon Tobruk, hold it in order deny its port facilities to the Germans, and delay their advance so as to provide time for defences on the Egyptian frontier to be prepared. Tobruk and the 9th Division were subsequently encircled, beginning what became known as "the siege of Tobruk". Reinforced by the 18th Brigade of the 7th Australian Division and other British and Commonwealth troops, and resupplied by the sea, the 9th Division held Tobruk from April to September 1941. During this period it repelled two major German attacks. In September and October the 9th Division, its condition steadily declining, was relieved by the British 70th Division, which continued to defend Tobruk until the siege was finally lifted by Operation Crusader in December. The defence of Tobruk resulted in 749 Australian deaths, and another 604 became prisoners of war. Tobruk was the scene of further heavy fighting in June 1942 when the fortunes of war again saw a British Commonwealth force seeking to deny the port to the enemy. The Axis forces, however, were in no mood for another siege and launched a massive attack to capture it on 20 June. It remained in their hands until their final retreat from Libya in November 1942.John Hurst Edmondson (1914-1941), soldier, was born on 8 October 1914 at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, only child of native-born parents Joseph William Edmondson, farmer, and his wife Maude Elizabeth, née Hurst. The family moved to a farm near Liverpool when Jack was a child. Educated at Hurlstone Agricultural High School, he worked with his father and became a champion rifle-shooter. He was a council-member of the Liverpool Agricultural Society and acted as a steward at its shows. Having served (from March 1939) in the 4th Battalion, Militia, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 20 May 1940 and was posted to the 2nd/17th Battalion. Later that month he was promoted acting corporal (substantive in November). Well built and about 5 ft 9 ins (175 cm) tall, Edmondson settled easily into army life and was known as a quiet but efficient soldier. His battalion embarked for the Middle East in October and trained in Palestine. In March 1941 the 2nd/17th moved with other components of the 9th Division to Libya and reached Marsa Brega before an Axis counter-attack forced them to retreat to Tobruk. The siege of the fortress began on 11 April. Two days later the Germans probed the perimeter, targeting a section of the line west of the El Adem Road near Post R33. This strong-point was garrisoned by the 2nd/17th's No.16 Platoon in which Edmondson was a section leader. The enemy intended to clear the post as a bridgehead for an armoured assault on Tobruk.Under cover of darkness thirty Germans infiltrated the barbed wire defences, bringing machine-guns, mortars and two light field-guns. Lieutenant Austin Mackell, commanding No.16 Platoon, led Edmondson's five-man section in an attempt to repel the intruders. Armed with rifles, fixed bayonets and grenades, the party of seven tried to outflank the Germans, but were spotted by the enemy who turned their machine-guns on them. Unknown to his mates, Edmondson was severely wounded in the neck and stomach. Covering fire from R33 ceased at the pre-arranged time of 11.45 p.m. and Mackell ordered his men to charge. Despite his wounds, Edmondson accounted for several enemy soldiers and saved Mackell's life. When the remaining Germans fled, the Australians returned to their lines. Although Edmondson was treated for his wounds, he died before dawn on 14 April 1941. The Germans' armoured attack that morning was thwarted, partly due to the earlier disruption of their plans. Edmondson was buried in Tobruk war cemetery. He had not married. His Victoria Cross, gazetted on 4 July, was the first awarded to a member of Australia's armed forces in World War II. In April 1960 Mrs Edmondson gave her son's medals to the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, where they are displayed alongside his portrait (1958) by Joshua Smith. At Liverpool a public clock commemorates Edmondson, as do the clubrooms used by the sub-branch of the Returned Services League of Australia.Perhaps my nerves will be more under control when I am by myself. There were no entries in the diary until Friday April 18 when she wrote: Fighting terrific in Greece and North Africa…. I dread the casualty list also the heaviest air raid over London to date. Account …. of heavy fighting and much use of bayonet at Tobruk. Also gives an account of a charge in which a Lieutenant and a Corporal took prominent parts on Easter Sunday night. Of course, no names. When I read it …. I was sure the Corporal was Jack…. It said no casualties but …. I know … that all is not well with Jack. ….. (and) Stuffy ….has not come home yet. On Wednesday April 23 she received a letter from Jack dated March 30 and for the first time he said the conditions were bad. The food short, water one bottle for 48 hours. It worried me terribly so I posted a parcel (of) milk tablets, chocolate milk, biscuits (and) cigarettes.Tuesday April 15 I was feeling afraid of something while I was working and packing the cake (and) had a couple of brandys to (keep going).April 26 Received the following telegram in the mail, the bus man brought it in. “It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that Corporal John Hurst Edmondson was killed in action on the 14th April and desire to convey the profound sympathy of the Ministry for the Army and the Military Board.”Her final entry

The impact of the Black Death in Europe

John Adams the first Vice President and second President of the United States James Armistead black slave who served in the colonial army as a spy General Edward Braddock commander of all British forces in North America during the French and Indian War Nathan Hale "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Patrick Henry Virginian who said, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" New York City our nation's first capital Battle of Bunker Hill the first major battle in the War for Independence judicial the branch of government that interprets the law executive the branch of government that enforces the law legislative the branch of government that makes the law Articles of Confederation the first plan of government that the United States had agreed upon Bill of Rights lists the rights or freedoms the Constitution gives to Americans; written in the form of ten amendments Constitution of the U.S. plan of government our country still follows today Declaration of Independence document written by Jefferson declaring the independence of the colonies from England First Amendment gives Americans the following freedoms: religion, speech, press, and assembly Treaty of Paris document signed by England giving up the American colonies and making them officially free and independent Inauguration Day The day the President takes his oath of office Valley Forge Washington's army spent the harsh winter of 1777-1778 Second Continental Congress The decision to organize the Continental Army was made at the ??? in 1775. constitutional republic The form of government in which the people and their elected representatives are limited by a constitution patriots Those who wanted America to be free from Britain's control

YouGov found 44 per cent were proud of Britain's history of colonialism, with 21 per cent regretting it happened and 23 per cent holding neither view. The same poll also found 43 per cent believed the British Empire was a good thing, 19 per cent said it was bad and 25 per cent said it was "neither". At its height in 1922, the British empire governed a fifth of the world's population and a quarter of the world's total land area. Although the proponents of Empire say it brought various economic developments to parts of the world it controlled, critics point to massacres, famines and the use of concentration camps by the British Empire. 1. Boer concentration camps During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the British rounded up around a sixth of the Boer population - mainly women and children - and detained them in camps, which were overcrowded and prone to outbreaks of disease, with scant food rations. Of the 107,000 people interned in the camps, 27,927 Boers died, along with an unknown number of black Africans. 2. Amritsar massacre When peaceful protesters defied a government order and demonstrated against British colonial rule in Amritsar, India, on 13 April 1919, they were blocked inside the walled Jallianwala Gardens and fired upon by Gurkha soldiers. The soldiers, under the orders of Brigadier Reginald Dyer, kept firing until they ran out of ammunition, killing between 379 and 1,000 protesters and injuring another 1,100 within 10 minutes. Brigadier Dyer was later lauded a hero by the British public, who raised £26,000 for him as a thank you. 3. Partitioning of India In 1947, Cyril Radcliffe was tasked with drawing the border between India and the newly created state of Pakistan over the course of a single lunch. After Cyril Radcliffe split the subcontinent along religious lines, uprooting over 10 million people, Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India were forced to escape their homes as Some estimates suggest up to one million people lost their lives in sectarian killings. 4. Mau Mau Uprising Thousands of elderly Kenyans, who claim British colonial forces mistreated, raped and tortured them during the Mau Mau Uprising (1951-1960), have launched a £200m damages claim against the UK Government. Members of the Kikuyu tribe were detained in camps, since described as "Britain's gulags" or concentration camps, where they allege they were systematically tortured and suffered serious sexual assault. Estimates of the deaths vary widely: historian David Anderson estimates there were 20,000, whereas Caroline Elkins believes up to 100,000 could have died. 5. Famines in India Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation while it was under the control of the British Empire, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India. In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Winston Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal. Talking about the Bengal famine in 1943, Churchill said: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

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