Why did the Soviets lose in Afghanistan? | Defeat of soviet union in Afghanistan

 Soviet Union and Afghanistan

 Starting in the 1950s the USSR began giving aid to Afghanistan. The Soviets build roads irrigation and even some oil pipelines before the arrival of the Soviet troops in this country. The Communist Party took power after 1978 Kunur Muhammad Taraki became president. 

The party initiated a series of radical modernisation reforms through the country. But these new reforms turned out to be very unlike by the more traditional ruler, Muslim population and for the traditional power structures. The people sole and distribution and women's rights has a very strange to the traditional.

 

Islamic culture the new regime suppressed a positional executing, thousands of political prisoners and ordering massacres against unarmed civilians. This led to the rise of anti-government armed groups and by April 1979 large parts of this country were in open rebellion. The government itself experienced in party rivalry and in September 1979 Turkey was murdered under the orders of one of his rivals Hafiz Allah Ameen maskull, wanted to help the new regime and to expand their influence.

One more communist country in the region could have been a good thing for the Russians plus the fact that his Soviets wanted to protect their interest in Afghanistan, eventually the Soviet government. Under the leader Leonid Brezhnev decided to deploy the 40 army at the end of 1979 arriving in the capital Kabul. 

They staged a coup killing President Amin and installing the Soviet lowest Babrak Karmal from a rival faction. The deployment had been variously told an invasion by others. 100,000 soldiers secured Kabul quickly after USSR - control of the Afghan capital.

Detroit following decade to gain control over the whole country. Resistance fighters called Mujaheddin, so the Christians and artists Soviets controlling Afghanistan as an insult of Islam as well as of their traditional culture proclaiming a jihad, a holy war they gained the support of Islamic world and the US which gave them weapons and money. 

So this was the main enemy for the Soviets but their failure to expand their influence to the whole country happened due to some reasons. One of the principal ones is the country itself and its terrain. Afghanistan a place larger than Ukraine with a harsh soil full of deserts mountains caves cliffs and with a very traditional Muslim people. 

Some of them Muslim fanatics having a place to fight but these details was a real struggle for the Soviets. The Mujaheddin employed guerrilla tactics against the Soviet forces. They would attack and write quickly causing great destruction. 

The Soviet Army used armoured formations  and this was notably ineffective against small scale guerrilla groups using hit and run. Tactics in the rough terrain of Afghanistan large offensives were made against the Mujaheddin strongholds but their enemy was dispersed and the Soviets withdrew once their operation was completed. So with wasn't like a clear front-line to fight and maintain on after years of fighting in 1989, Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan.

 

15,000 Soviet soldiers and countless Afghans had been killed in the decade. Long war billions of dollars had been spent each year to support troops in Afghanistan. But unable to defeat the Mujaheddin and pressed by world opinion to leave Afghanistan. Gorbachev the Soviet leader decided that the USSR had to get out also with the introduction of other powerful weapons in the the Mujaheddin managed to destroy valuable pieces of armoured helicopters and planes. 

Increasing the monetary costs being a very costly war for years with pressure from outside and inside and with no big progress. The USSR forces left as it was presented. It wasn't a classical war the Soviets managed to create some achievements but due to the harsh terrain and fighting against an enemy who hit Iran backed by other countries including USA, they dropped their case in 1989. 

The Afghan communist regime fell in 1992. There is so much more to talk about in this proxy war of the Cold War but we wanted to present some details about this topic as short as possible.

World War II history

How did world War 2 started? 

 It is the biggest furnished clash that humankind has known. A dangerous conflict that included huge number of contenders all throughout the planet. We should remember on a guide, a synopsis of the headliners of World War II. Toward the finish of World War I, Germany and its partners are crushed and considered exclusively liable for the conflict. With weighty assents forced upon them, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman realms are destroyed, while Germany needs to reimburse what many think about an irrational obligation. Its states and a portion of its domains are surrendered to the victors, and to Poland which is reproduced. These assents are viewed as embarrassment by the German public.

The German economy is debilitated by exorbitant obligation and endures excessive inflation. Public mints attempt to address this by printing banknotes, causing a debasement of its cash. Among 1914 and November 1923, the worth of the imprint developed by 1,000 billion. The next year, revolutionary measures are taken to end swelling and settle and resuscitate the economy. However, in 1929 the Wall Street crash in New York causes the most exceedingly terrible monetary emergency of the twentieth century. Its effect is felt around the world, with Germany not saved either, making the joblessness rate detonate. Seriously debilitated, Germany sees an ascent of patriotism in 1933 that permits the ascent to force of the Nazi party with Adolf Hitler at its rudder.

In spite of the severe conditions forced upon Germany after WWI, the new extremist system resets the nation and reestablishes military assistance. The nation likewise starts a forceful international strategy with the fantasy about joining all German-talking individuals. Italy, notwithstanding its triumph with the Allies, is disappointed by the measure of an area it acquired after WWI. Since 1922, the nation is managed by the oppressive extremist party of Benito Mussolini. Italy starts a provincial strategy by holding onto Ethiopia and readies an intrusion of Albania.

In Spain, starts three years of common conflict contradicting the Republican government who're upheld by the USSR and the International Brigades, and the patriot camp drove by Francisco Franco, and supported by Italy and Germany. The two nations made a move to test their militarise and to draw nearer carefully. In Asia, Japan proceeds with its expansionist arrangement. The nation exploits the common conflict in China to attack new domains. The Japanese armed force utilises compound and organic weapons and submits slaughters of populaces, Germany is currently incredible enough to dispatch its regional extension.

It originally attached Austria with help from the neighbourhood Nazi party. Then, the west of Czechoslovakia was attacked. The Slovak Republic turns into a German satellite state while Hungary develops nearer strategically. After the control of a piece of Lithuania, Germany signs with the USSR a peace agreement and an arrangement to cut up Europe. It then, at that point, assaults Poland, which incites the United Kingdom and France to announce war, denoting the start of World War II.

Albeit the German powers are moved in the East, the Allied soldiers don't step up in the West. Instead, France and the United Kingdom try to cut the strategic iron ore route that passes through Norway and supplies the German military industry. Germany reacts by invading Denmark and Norway. Within days, the country captures Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium.         

Hitler’s new military strategy is called Blitzkrieg, which surprises opposition defences with rapid, high-intensity attacks in a concentrated area. British forces retreat in the face of this German military prowess, and the German army bears down on Paris. The French army is defeated and an armistice is signed. Germany occupies the north and west of France, leaving its other territory and colonies under the control of the new government.

Germany thus has indirect control of French colonies without having to send an army there. However, parts of the French colonies and the Belgian Congo chooses to stay in the camp of the Allies. In London, which already hosts several governments in exile, General Charles de Gaulle creates Free France which continues to fight Nazi Germany. Brazzaville is named as its capital. 

Pursuant to agreements signed with Germany, the Soviet Union seizes the Baltic states and a part of Roumania. Germany, Italy and Japan combine to form the Axis Powers. All dominions and British colonies, with the exception of Ireland, enter the war. In Africa, fighting begins between Italian colonies and Allied forces. 

While in Europe, despite the massive aerial bombing of British cities, Germany fails to take over the country. Hitler then changes his plans: he now wants to invade the USSR. But the plan is delayed by Italy, that fails to invade Greece and is forced to retreat by Allied forces. After the accession of Hungary, Roumania and Bulgaria to the Axis forces, the German armies head south to invade Yugoslavia and Greece. Everywhere in Europe, the resistance is organised in different forms. Sometimes, people organise strikes, demonstrations or protect wanted persons. Some groups spy for the Allies, conduct sabotage or print resistance newspapers. In Eastern Europe, guerrilla forces undermine the Axis armies. 

In Yugoslavia and Greece, resistant communists and royalist groups confront each other. Germany isn’t spared the anti-Nazi resistance, with some attempts to assassinate Hitler … which fail. On June 22, Axis forces launched - on some counts - the largest military operation in history to attack USSR, which now passes de facto into the camp of Allied forces. The bulk of the German troops, well equipped and motorised, rush to the east. To support the Soviets, Allies occupy Iran which then opens up a supply route through the Caucasus. German armies arrive in Leningrad and begin a siege of the city that would last 872 days and cause more than 1 million civilian deaths. 

Further south, German troops were stopped at the gates of Moscow, where they suffer a harsh and deadly winter. Behind the front lines, the SS massacre Slavic and Jewish populations. In Asia, Japan occupies French Indochina. To counter its expansionist policy, the United States imposes upon it an embargo on oil and steel. In response, the Japanese conduct a surprise attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. A massive aerial bombing damages a large part of the US naval fleet. The United States enters the war on the Allied side. At first, they concentrate their forces on the Pacific front. The country also provides supplies to the USSR, which continues resisting the German advance. Japan, for its part, conquers new territories in the Pacific. In addition to the massacres, Japan sends 10 million Chinese civilians into forced labour camps.

In Indonesia, millions of prisoners suffer the same fate on the island of Java. In Burma and Thailand, Allied prisoners are exhausted in the construction of a railway line. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of women are forcibly recruited into prostitution for the Japanese army. In Europe, concentration and extermination camps are built to massacre, among others, Jews, resistance fighters, political opponents, gypsies, homosexuals and people with disabilities. Fearing a second front in Europe, Hitler built the Atlantic Wall, a series of military installations protecting the coast from invasion. But the Allies first landed in Morocco and Algeria. 

Italian Libya finds itself caught between two fronts. Having lost control of its colonies, Vichy France is invaded. In the East, Axis forces try to cut the supply route of the Caucasus. But for the first time, the German offensive undergoes a major military setback. The Soviets take the initiative and counterattack. Africa is now entirely controlled by Allies who organise a landing in Sicily. The new Italian government requests an armistice, causing the Germans to invade. The USSR advances rapidly westward, forcing the German army to concentrate on that front. 

On June 6, 1944, the Allies land in Normandy. Their armies quickly take over and liberate Paris. In the West, as in the East, countries are liberated or switch camps. With victory in sight, Allied powers announce the creation of the United Nations. Countries that declared war on Germany and Japan would be admitted at its founding conference. This triggers a wave of declarations of war but without major consequence. 

On April 30, Hitler commits suicide in his bunker just before the arrival of the Soviets. Eight days later, the country surrenders. The United States and USSR join forces to overcome the Empire of Japan. The Soviets began a military invasion via Manchuria while the US drops two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, Japan surrenders, marking the end of World War II. After 6 years of war, the human toll is heavy with at least 60 million dead, mostly civilians. 

Many cities are completely destroyed. Europe and the USSR subject millions of German prisoners of war to bonded labour, many of whom would die. Germany and Austria are carved up among the Victor's. The old guard of European powers are left exhausted and ruined by war. The United States and USSR emerge as the remaining global superpowers.Despite the role of the UN, which aims to maintain peace and international security, both sides would eventually engage in indirect confrontations around the world.         

History of 1900 | What was life in 1900?

What was life in 1900?

what was life in 1900?

If we miraculously bring the most intelligent people from 1900 into today's world, they will be amazed to see that we have largely found solutions to the problems that have plagued mankind for centuries. has taken.

Only a hundred years ago, people did not know how inheritance is passed on to the next generation or how a single cell divides and becomes a living thing.

Didn't they know that the atom also has an internal structure? However, the word atom itself means 'indivisible'. They did not know how big the universe was.

Today we see the world largely on an electronic screen. Computers are a source of knowledge in various forms, but they are also determining how we interact with the rest of the world and other human beings.

One of the most common things today is the smartphone, thanks to many basic discoveries. The computer inside it works with the help of integrated chip. The integrated chip itself is made up of transistors, which could not have been discovered without an understanding of quantum mechanics.

The GPS inside the phone works on Einstein's theory of relativity to understand the concept of time. However, at one time people thought that this ideology would not have any effect on ordinary life.

Science is the quest to know about ourselves and the world around us. The same quest has changed our perceptions of the world and our lives. Today our age is double that of 1900 and our standard of living is better than ever.

But the use of science and technology has not only affected scientists. They depend on cultural, economic and political factors. Science is the triumph of human knowledge, and understanding and applying it can help us make far-reaching decisions.

When solar and lunar eclipses can be predicted with the help of science.

And from air-planes to mobile loudspeakers. Car electricity Everything else is due to science. We use them and how can it be complicated.

World War I history

World War 1

100 years ago ended a war whose intensity and scale the world had never before seen. A war that involved more than 60 million soldiers around the globe. In this article , we retrace the origins, events and consequences of World War I. To understand the origins of World War I, we start in 1871 at the end of the Franco-German war between the French Empire and the Confederation of North Germany, allied with the German states of the South. 

After 6 months of fighting, France is defeated and the victors unite to form the German Empire. Alsace and Moselle are annexed to the new empire, frustrating the French side. In the following years, Germany would greatly advance its industry and economy. The country also builds alliances, first with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then with Italy, which is frustrated by France colonising Tunisia. The three form the Trip-lice or Triple Alliance. Growing in power and status, Germany begins colonising African territories. For its part, France allies with the Russian Empire and signs a secret pact of non-aggression with Italy, thus avoiding a second front in case of war.

The British Empire fears the rise of the German army, more specifically of its navy. Britain comes out of isolation, moves closer to France, and then to Russia. Together, they form the Triple Entente. In the Balkans, the Austro-Hungarian Empire annex Bosnia and Herzegovina, much to the displeasure of neighbouring Serbia which dreamed of one day uniting the South Slav people. 

This project appeals to Russia, which diplomatically allies itself with Serbia. On June 29, 1914, a young Serbian nationalist from Bosnia murders the heir to the throne of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary accuses Serbia of having organised the attack and despite Russian threats declares war the following month. In a few days, the conflict spreads between the countries of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. Only Italy remains neutral for the moment. 

The German plan is to overcome the French army, concentrated in the East, by planning an attack from the north. To achieve this, Germany invades Luxembourg and Belgium, in violation of their neutrality in the conflicts. The French, British and Belgian armies are forced to retreat. Fearing the capture of Paris, the French government moves to Bordeaux. But the German army turns away from the city to continue surrounding the French army. They are then attacked on the flanks by the army of Paris which forces them to retreat further north, marking the failure of the Schrieffer plan. 

The new German objective is to takeover the strategic ports of Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne to cut British supplies. The inferior Belgian army cannot resist the German advance. In the plain of Yser, the choice is then made to open lock gates to flood the polders. With the German army stopped in their tracks, the front-line is etched out with the construction of 700 km of trenches, stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland. 

With the war front-lines stabilised in the west, Germany sends its troops to the east to fight against a Russian offensive, which puts pressure on Austria-Hungary. After some hesitation, the Ottoman Empire decides to support Germany in the war. This creates several new fronts: one in the Caucasus, another in the Sinai against the British protectorate in Egypt with the goal of controlling the Suez Canal; and finally a third front in the British protectorate of Kuwait over the issue of oil resources. To weaken the Ottoman Empire, Britain supports an Arab rebellion by promising them independence in liberated lands. Finally, Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary with the hope of gaining new territory.

In Asia, Japan went to war against Germany and seized its colonies in the Pacific and China. In Africa, German colonies are stormed by French, British and Belgian forces. Many people from colonised territories are enlisted in European armies. France mobilises nearly 800,000 people, a large proportion of whom are sent to Europe. The British Empire, for its part, enlists 2.7 million men from its dominions and colonies. More than half come from British India. In the Balkans, Bulgaria goes back to war alongside the Central Empire's. 

The country has a great territorial appetite and wants to expand in all directions. Serbia is attacked on two fronts and is quickly invaded. In the West, Germany continues with military innovations. It becomes the first to organise aerial bombardments carried out by zeppelin airships. London and Paris are regularly attacked. The air force is initially used for tracking and reconnaissance, but planes are quickly fitted out with machine guns, resulting in the first aerial battles. 

In another first, Germany launches submarine wars in British territorial waters, sinking ships it encounters. Finally, in the trenches, both sides use toxic gases that cause many casualties. Despite some attempts to find breakthroughs, the front-line of war remains fixed, at great human cost. In the trenches, soldiers who survived the fighting are forced to live in harsh conditions.

Mud, vermin, rats and the smell of decaying corpses put their nerves to the test. In the spring, the French side begins mutinies that would be suppressed. Germany also tires of the stalemate. The country is now focused on war on the economic front and sends its submarines to the Atlantic to sink all kinds of ships, even commercial ones, heading to the United Kingdom. Exhausted by war, Russia suffers more than 1.7 million military casualties. 

Morale is at its lowest point on the front lines and among the public. Then takes place a short revolution that brings down the regime of the Tsars. At the same time, the United States of America finds itself becoming a victim of the commercial blockade in the Atlantic. They decide to go to war alongside the Allies. In Russia, a second revolution allows the Bolsheviks to come to power, who immediately sign a ceasefire with the Central Empire's. 

With the Russian front under control, Germany concentrates its troops on the west. The country succeeds in a breakthrough in the trenches and approaches Paris, which it bombard. But the German army moves too fast to the south. The French army counterattacks and disintegrates German defences. In panic, German soldiers retreat to the north. From this moment, the Allies lead on all fronts. 

In Germany, mutinies and a revolutionary wave forced the emperor to abdicate and allows the signing of the Armistice, marking the end of the “Great War” that kills more than 18 million people. On June 28, 1919, a peace treaty is signed at Versailles. German representatives are not invited and the country is forced to accept all demands of the Victor's. Germany and its allies are held solely responsible for war damages and must pay heavy compensation. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empires are dismantled, making way for new countries or colonies. 

Germany, meanwhile, finds itself humiliated and indebted. Its army is disbanded and colonies shared among the Allies. The country cedes roughly 15 percent of its territory to France, Belgium, Denmark and Poland, which is recreated. The only consolation is Germany remains largely intact due to no fighting on its territory, and its industry is still standing. The humiliation imposed upon Germany already leaves it with a desire for revenge.         

Epidemic and Pandemic history

 Epidemic and Pandemic

Around the year 9000 BC, man gradually evolves from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a relatively more sedentary one. In Mesopotamia, initially, man begins to develop agriculture and livestock. This new proximity between animals and man facilitates the transmission of diseases to the latter. Food production increases; communities, villages and cities grow; trade routes appear; and the first wars take place. All this contributes to the spread of new contagious diseases. 

Although there aren’t enough historical traces or documentation, the first epidemics probably take place at this time and perhaps even the first pandemics, i.e. the spread of an epidemic among different people over large geographical areas. Some religious texts and Egyptian papyri recount the first outbreaks. The development of writing allows a Greek historian to document a pandemic around 430 BC. 

Known as the Plague of Athens, it is a disease that remains unidentified to this day. According to the story, and thus the Greek point of view, the illness emerges in Ethiopia, spreads in Egypt, Libya, and then throughout the Mediterranean basin. Athens is at war with Sparta and its allies. 

The city hosts many refugees and is under siege. Too densely populated and in poor hygienic conditions, the Plague of Athens worsens and kills 25-30% of the population, which facilitates Spartan victory. Around the year 165, when the Mediterranean basin is dominated by the Roman Empire, the Antoine Plague appears, which is probably a smallpox pandemic. It starts in Mesopotamia and spreads rapidly westward following military travel patterns. The disease kills 5 million people out of the then global population of 200 to 250 million people. 

The Roman Empire is hit hard. Other epidemics further weaken it over the following centuries, probably influencing the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In 541 begins the first known pandemic of bubonic plague, linked to a bacteria infecting small mammals, mainly rats, and their fleas. In some cases, the rat fleas bite humans and transmit bacteria to them. Once the infection reaches the lungs, it becomes highly contagious between humans. According to recent studies, the Plague of Justinian started in Central Asia and spread via land and sea trade routes to the Byzantine Empire. 

The capital Constantinople is badly affected. As it lies on a commercial crossroad, the disease spreads throughout the Mediterranean basin. Byzantine military troops engaged in the West are contaminated, which halts the expansion of the empire. In Rome, Pope Pelagius II succumbs to the disease. In Mesopotamia, the Byzantine and Sassanian empires, already severely affected by the pandemic, lose steam in war. This benefits the Arabs who start their Muslim conquests. The Sassanian Empire collapses while the Byzantine Empire is greatly reduced. 

The Plague of Justinian claims between 30 and 100 million victims over two centuries. Leprosy is a bacterial disease mentioned in texts dating back to Antiquity. Probably native to East Africa according to recent studies, it spreads through Egypt to Asia and Europe following trade routes. As Europe’s population gets denser, it is likely that crusades to Jerusalem accelerated the spread of leprosy on the continent. Bad hygiene, lack of sewers and poorly ventilated homes fosters transmission of this disease, which is otherwise not very contagious. 

The poor are the worst affected. Exclusion measures are taken against the sick. Lepers are considered already dead by the Catholic religion. They are isolated in leper colonies, which can be anything from a simple hut on the edge of a village or leprosaria - sickroom facilities - in cities. Lepers end their lives in such confinements, completely isolated from the outside world. 

The Black Death is considered the second pandemic of bubonic plague. It originates in the steppes of Central Asia, and spreads across the continent. On the shores of the Black Sea, warriors of the Golden Horde besiege the Genoese city of Caffa. Weakened by the plague, they catapult their dead into the city to spread the disease. Rats also likely further contaminate the city. 

After the siege fails, Genoese sailors resume trade across Europe, spreading the plague in port cities. The disease then spreads inland. Only regions of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary are spared. The plague manifests strongly in densely populated areas and disproportionately affects the poor, the malnourished and those living in unsanitary conditions. Doctors are overwhelmed. In a few years, the disease kills 200 million people worldwide, a little less than half the European population. The continent would take two centuries to recover its pre-pandemic demography. 

The Black Death is endemic, that is, it would locally resurface several times over the following centuries. Preventive measures are taken, especially in Venice where ships have to wait 40 days before being able to enter the port. These are the first quarantines quadrant being the Italian word for the number 40.

In Europe, the construction of new, more efficient vessels allows the Spanish and Portuguese to broaden exploration. With Christopher Columbus landing in America, and Vasco da Gama opening a sea route to India through the African coasts, exchanges rapidly increase between people previously isolated from each other and with different immunity systems. 

People from the Old World import along with them a dozen diseases still unknown in the New World. Smallpox proves particularly devastating for Native Americans. Epidemics decimate entire populations even before the arrival of European settlers. Conversely, a form of virulent syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection, is imported from America to Europe. Furthermore, tropical diseases such as yellow fever and malaria, caused by parasites, spread around the world via carrier mosquitoes that accompany ships. Meanwhile, medicine continues to evolve in the face of multiple disease outbreaks. 

In 1768, an English apothecary named John Fewster finds that people infected with cowpox, a disease dangerous to bovines but not humans, are protected from the smallpox virus. A few years later, the cowpox vaccine is injected into populations to counter smallpox: resulting in the first form of vaccine. The treatment would evolve and the smallpox disease would be eradicated over two centuries. Cholera is a bacterial infection that only affects the human species through the ingestion of contaminated food or water. 

The disease causes severe diarrhoea resulting in life-threatening dehydration. Without treatment, half of those infected die within a few hours or days. The disease spreads more rapidly in densely populated areas with poor hygienic conditions. The first cholera pandemic begins in 1817 in the vicinity of Bengal and spreads in Asia, Africa and to the gates of Europe.

Five other cholera pandemics would break out over the following century and affect the entire world. In 1855, in the west of Yunnan, China, begins the third and last pandemic of bubonic plague. It spreads slowly to the port city of Hong Kong from where, in a few years, it spreads from ships in ports around the whole world. But this time, French biologists and doctors discover the bacteria responsible for the disease and how rat fleas propagate it. 

A serum is created and rat extermination measures are taken on vessels which limits numbers, mainly in developed countries. British India is still badly affected with around 10 million deaths, while China has 2 million victims. Influenza is an infectious disease that is difficult to contain because it is caused by four different strains of viruses that can quickly mutate and generate new epidemics. The first major flu pandemic, called the Russian flu, raged in 1889 and 1890 from the Eurasian steppes to the European and American continents. 

But it’s the second major influenza outbreak, known as the Spanish flu, which proves to be the most devastating flu pandemic. Its origins still unknown, it appears during World War I. In the United States, the virus mutates and becomes virulent. Transported by soldiers to Europe, the disease spreads through the globe as soon as World War I ends. A third of the world's population is infected, and about 50 million people die from it. 

There would be 2 further flu pandemics causing approximately 1 million deaths each: the so-called Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong pandemic in 1968. Originally from central Africa, the AIDS virus spreads from chimpanzees to man due to hunting some 60 years earlier. The virus slowly reaches Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo from where it spreads across river routes and railways all around the country, and then across the continent.

In 1964, the return of contaminated Haitian workers takes the disease to North America, especially in the United States from 1970. In 1983, in Paris, the Pasteur Institute identifies the HIV virus that causes AIDs, the disease that weakens the immune system and therefore facilitates the development of other infections. AIDS then infects people worldwide to qualify as a pandemic in 2005. 

Prevention, treatment and contraceptives help curb the disease, but still results in about 30 million victims in 30 years. Today, some 40 million people live with HIV. At the end of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is probably transmitted from animals to humans and is first observed in Wuhan, China. With high levels of globalisation, the new disease COVID-19 spreads rapidly around the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declares it a pandemic. Furthermore, despite major advances in medicine, other diseases still claim many victims. 

Plague is still rampant and reappears regularly, the last epidemic in 2017 hitting Madagascar and Seychelles. A seventh cholera pandemic has been underway since 1961 and still causes 100,000 global victims each year, according to WHO. There are under 3 million leprosy patients worldwide, while seasonal flu kills about 500,000 people annually. Malaria claims as many victims each year, the vast majority being young children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poor and remote populations remain the main victims of these epidemics and pandemics.         

Russian Republic History

 Russian History

 

We were looking at the physical geography of Russia and the former soviet republics. In this article we're going to look at the history of the region that has helped shape the people today. Now right off we get to talk about the movement theme of geography as we explore how humans settled the region. 

 

 

It is largely the belief that the human species originated in Africa and then moved out of Africa to spread to the rest of the world. This brought them through the Middle East and from there some moved into the Caucasus and then into central Asia. For example in western Kazakhstan the remains of what anthropologists called? The ust issue man were discovered and his bone actually goes back to 45000 years ago and is believed that mankind has been in the region ever since. 

 

 

Now for the next 40000 years humans would continue to migrate across Eurasia including those who would go across. The Bering Strait into what is today the America's? The region around Transcaucasia and what is now eastern Russia would become home to a series of nomadic Slavic tribes who would later be influenced by the ancient Greeks and other dramatic tribes such as the Goths, but it would be the Vikings that would set into motion the events that created. 

 

 

The Russia of today and its former republics in the 9th century the Scandinavians moved down from the Baltic Sea in the north to the black and Caspian seas by boat and took control of the Slavic tribes establishing their capital where Ukraine is today. The name of their empire would come from the Nordic word rus which means the men that row and the kievan roost empire was born. 

 

 

By the way it is the kievan rus where we get the name Russia today. Now the kievan Roosevelt wealth has kiev's relocation and Ukraine allowed the empire to control the trade between Scandinavia and the byzantine empire for various different goods including furs and slaves. 

 

 

This connection with the Byzantine Empire not only brought wealth but it also intrudes several cultural aspects to the region. For example when saint sorrell a byzantine missionary began to translate Christian texts into the Slavic languages of the kievan rus he used his own Greek alphabet and then added 19 additional letters for sounds specific to the Slavic languages. 

 

 

The result is this Cyrillic alphabet named after him which is used by many of the region's languages to include Russian Ukrainian and most of the primary languages of central Asia such as kaza, luzbek, Turkmenistan and many of the others. It wasn't only the alphabet that Russia and its republics got from the byzantine; it was also religion in 987 A.D Vladimir the great sent emissaries to the three great religions of the time. 

 

 

This was Islam, Judaism and Christianity. In order to pick the religion that would be best for the empire. Vladimir automatically dismissed Islam because of its prohibition on drinking alcohol remarking that drinking was the joy of other roofs. Judaism was discounted due to their believers being expelled from Jerusalem. Vladimir believed that this was a sign of god's displeasure with the Jews, so didn't want to pick Judaism as the religion. 

 

 

This left orthodox Christianity of the Byzantines to become the religion of the land. The preacher Sulavera in kiev also known as the monastery of the caves was founded in 1051. Soon after the Orthodox Church became the religion of the land and the lava has been an important site of eastern orthodox religion ever since now. 

 

 

Unfortunately for the kievan rus in 1223 the golden horde of the Mangols swept the cross and captured the empire. The 240 years of Mangol control caused several changes within the land. The Mangol influences are seen in the Russian languages in art and even in the church. The Orthodox Church which was largely left alone by the Mangols, actually grew in power among the people and ultimately became a source of resistance to the Mangols. Some historians point to more troubling influences however the Mangols constricted hundreds of thousands of slaves and concubines into the Mangol army. 

 

 

The tributes this is money that was demanded by the Mangols prevented the region from really developing any wealth skilled labour such as artists, masons and carpenters were moved from Russia cities to Mangol areas depriving the cities of their expertise and additionally the Mangol influence in Russia left most European states to cut ties off from Russia. 

 

 

This isolation of Russia from the rest of Europe has been cited, by many historians have to have lessened the impact of the renaissance of the art and sciences within Russia, moreover with the fall of the kievan rus. The importance of the city of Kiev declined in the city of Moscow grew in importance interestingly is also the Mangol's trade routes that others have pointed as the reason why the bubonic plague came from Asia to the Crimean peninsula from there. It spread into the rest of the Europe as the Black Death. Now the 240 year rule of the Mangols ended with Ivan the great, who would defeat the Mangols in 1480. 

 

 

At this point the Russian empire came back to power and with his capital in Moscow it would begin to spread through the sparsely populated areas to the east and to the south by the 1700s. All of today's Russia was under the empire's control other areas such as Ukraine would become under the empire before the end of the 18th century and Transcaucasia fell to the Russians by the mid-1800s. As would most of today's Kazakhstan it would be the southern central republics upon which the great game between Britain and Russia would be played previously. 

 

 

The southern central republic such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan where the pathway of the silk road the silk road was the network of trade routes stretching over four thousand miles from china to Constantinople and went right through central Asia cities such as Bukhara sparkling and Tashkent were major trading hubs of the silk road. The central republics became the crossroads of the world. As merchants moved in through and out to do trade. 

 

 

This is also the reason why there are so many ethnicities in central Asia. These are the descendants of the merchants who would come around the world and ultimately would settle there but in the 1800s, central Asia was another type of crossroads one that the British felt would bring the Russians down into British India between 1813 and 1907. 

 

 

Britain and Russia was in an economic and military competition to win over the people of central Asia. Their great game, Russia was planned this great game to secure territory in central Asia and the British were planned to keep the Russians from interfering into their lands and territories of British India. The game concluded in 1907 when the Russians allowed the British to draw the borders of Afghanistan and create Afghanistan as a buffer between Russian-controlled. 

 

Central Asia and British India by this time Russia occupied a vast empire. However the Russians realised the very size of their empire would be difficult control. This is an effect of distance decay. We've talked about distance decay before this is the idea that when you have larger distances, you have less influence or control between two different peoples. 

 

Now one of the policies that Russia and then later the Soviet Union used in order to have control was justification. Ramification was the policy in which the Russians imposed the Russian culture upon the peoples of Transcaucasia. In central Asia the idea is these peoples adopted the Russian language Russian orthodox Christianity and the Russian government policies then the people will have no reason to want to separate from Russia another way that the soviet leader Joseph Stalin attempted to keep control was through forced population resettlement such as what happened to the kulaks since the soviet union was a communist country. 

 

It was decreed that all property should belong to the state and the process of bringing that property into the state is known as nationalisation or collectivisation. This put the soviet government in a collision course with the kulaks. The kulaks were relatively wealthy farmers who owned large farms in 1930. Stalin ordered the kulaks to be categorised into three different categories. 

 

 

The first category was those who would be evicted from their farms and forced to work in labor colonies. The second category would be those who would be imprisoned or just shot and the third category were those who would be sent to Siberia. 

 

The northern Urals or Kazakhstan after having their farm seized by the state the result was nearly 2 million kulaks who were moved on top of the 600000 people who died during the period. One soviet historian estimates that the number who died may have been as many as 5 million people. Stalin also used resettlement during World War II fearing that the Chechens of the Indus populations.

 

These are the people who live on the Russian side of the Caucus Mountains. They fear that they would side with Nazi Germany; therefore Stalin called for operation lentil between February and March 1944. Between 500 to 600000 in goose and chickens were deported to central Asia. Another 200 to 400000 may have died due to starvation during this period that is because another tool of control used by Stalin was controlling food. The Ukrainians felt the brunt of this during the halo do more between 1932 and 1933. 

 

In 1932 the Soviet Union imposed high quotas on how much food the farms. Now under government control would have to give to the state however the quotas imposed were far higher than what the farmers could supply leaving very little to survive on or even to use a seed to plant for the next year. The result was that while the soviets were selling the food raised by the Ukrainian food sold for export for money at least 3 million people starved to death. 

 

Many historians suggest that the reason for this soviet indifference in the Ukrainian people was that Ukraine had been an independent country between 1917 and 1922 and Stalin was using food as a weapon to crush European independence movements. Now not all the genocides in the region were committed by the Russians of the soviets however after the 1915 world war one battle of sarcomas between the Russian and ottoman empires the ottomans believed the Armenians that lived in west turkey. 

 

 

Today had conspired with Russia to win the battle in retribution the ottomans killed nearly 1 million Armenians who were living in west. Today turkey argues that this was not a crime but a necessary operation of war however over a hundred years later in 2019. The United States congress and senate voted to recognize this act as genocide. 

 

Now to get back to the Soviet Union the Soviet Union along with its republics and Trans Caucasian in central Asia would continue on until the communist economy began to crash down and finally in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. Each of these republics would find their own independence and are independent countries.