Category Archives: history

La Pasionaria – from the History Archive

Posted on April 3, 2022 by toritto

Dolores Ibarurri – 1895-1989 La Pasionaria bidding farewell to the International Brigades in Barcelona – 10/17/1938 before 13,000 foreign volunteers. “It is very difficult to say a few words in farewell to the heroes of the International Brigades, because of what they … Continue reading →

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Kronstadt and the End of the Revolution – from the History Archive

Posted on March 19, 2022 by toritto

A Re-Post from March 2015 It was the first weeks of March, 1921 in the new Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Kronstadt was and still is a naval fortress on an island in the Gulf of Finland. It served … Continue reading →

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Alessandro de Medici – “Il Moro” – from the History Archive

Posted on March 3, 2022 by toritto

Do you like fairy tales? Have you heard the one about the black slave girl living in the great house of a noble lord as a helper to his great lady? Of how she slept with his younger 17 year … Continue reading →

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Strange Fruit – from the History Archive

Posted on February 24, 2022 by toritto

Abel Meeropol and his sons Robert and Michael play with a train set. Once upon a time, when I was a young teen, the public high schools of New York City were the crown jewels of public education in America.  … Continue reading →

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France Before the Revolution – For Bastille Day

Posted on July 10, 2020 by toritto

The Queen’s Chamber at Versailles What was it like to be a common man, a member of the Third Estate in the time just before the French Revolution, which was to change the course of European history?  How bad did … Continue reading →

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George Washington Williams, the Congo Genocide and “Crimes Against Humanity”

Posted on June 26, 2020 by toritto

Political cartoon from 1906 showing King Leopold of Belgium entangling the Congolese in rubber coils   So who coined the phrase “Crimes Against Humanity?”  Was it first defined at Nuremberg by the victorious allies?  Or was it used by someone … Continue reading →

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Suicide of a Senator – From the Archives – October 2015

Posted on May 28, 2020 by toritto

For those of you who think right wing politics has never been so dirty. Senator Lester Hunt – Democrat – Wyoming This morning while enjoying a second cup of coffee and the company of song birds out on the lanai … Continue reading →

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Italy, Libya and Eritrea -From the History Archive

Posted on May 15, 2020 by toritto

A poster from the Fascist era advertising the Tripoli Grand Prix in Italian Libya on   March 7, 1933 -Year eleven of the Fascist dictatorship.  Cost of a ticket?   Lira 12 Muammar Gaddafi  is dead since 2011 and Libya … Continue reading →

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Fascist Italy, Adowa and the Conquest of Abyssinia

Posted on May 14, 2020 by toritto

From the History Archives – 2015 Most folks know of fascist Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia in the 1930’s. The conquering of Abyssinia was greeted in Rome with wild celebration culminating in Il Duce’s famous balcony speech from the Palazzo Venezia … Continue reading →

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Fifty Years Ago – May 4 – Kent and Jackson State

Posted on May 2, 2020 by toritto

  This Monday, May 4, marks the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings involving the killing of 4 unarmed university students by the Ohio National Guard.  It was a time when armed soldiers of the state shot down unarmed … Continue reading →

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