Secret HistoryS


Chalkboard

Mathematical secrets of ancient Babylonian tablet unlocked

Maev Kennedy
The Guardian
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 18:34 UTC
Dating from 1,000 years before Pythagoras's theorem, the Babylonian clay tablet is a trigonometric table more accurate than any today, say researchers.
Plimpton 322 tablet
© UNSW/Andrew KellyMathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield with the Plimpton 322 tablet.
At least 1,000 years before the Greek mathematician Pythagoras looked at a right angled triangle and worked out that the square of the longest side is always equal to the sum of the squares of the other two, an unknown Babylonian genius took a clay tablet and a reed pen and marked out not just the same theorem, but a series of trigonometry tables which scientists claim are more accurate than any available today.

The 3,700-year-old broken clay tablet survives in the collections of Columbia University, and scientists now believe they have cracked its secrets.

The team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney believe that the four columns and 15 rows of cuneiform - wedge shaped indentations made in the wet clay - represent the world's oldest and most accurate working trigonometric table, a working tool which could have been used in surveying, and in calculating how to construct temples, palaces and pyramids.

The fabled sophistication of Babylonian architecture and engineering is borne out by excavation. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, believed by some archaeologists to have been a planted step pyramid with a complex artificial watering system, was written of by Greek historians as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Comment: Details of the hypothesis can be found in:
Plimpton 322 is Babylonian exact sexagesimal trigonometry, Historia Mathematica, 2017

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Info

Paul Craig Roberts: The so-called Civil War was not fought over slavery

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 16:00 UTC
american civil war
When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo's article the question that leapt to mind was, "How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn't fighting against slavery?"

Two days before Lincoln's inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying "I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.

Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.

If the South's real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, for the South also the issue was not slavery.
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Eagle

The 64th Anniversary of the West's Coup in Iran is Not Forgotten by the World

Andre Vltchek
Dissident Voice
Sat, 19 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC
Iran coup
After WWII, the West had one huge 'problem' on its hands: all three most populous Muslim countries on Earth - Egypt, Iran and Indonesia - were clearly moving in one similar direction, joining a group of patriotic, peaceful and tolerant nations. They were deeply concerned about the welfare of their citizens, and by no means were they willing to allow foreign colonialist powers to plunder their resources, or enslave their people.

In the 1950's, the world was rapidly changing, and there was suddenly hope that the countries which were oppressed and pillaged for decades and centuries by first the European and then North American geopolitical and business interests, would finally break their shackles and stand proudly on their own feet.

Several Communist countries in Eastern Europe, but also newly liberated China, were actively helping with a rapid de-colonizing process in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world.

Those developments were exactly what the West in general and both the U.K. and the U.S. in particular, were not ready or willing to accept. 'Ancient' belief in some sort of 'inherited right' to colonize, to loot and to control entire the non-white world, was deeply engraved in the psyche of the rulers in both Europe and North America.
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USA

'We are all Americans': Native Americans fought for both Union and Confederacy during US Civil War


alexandriava.gov
Mon, 17 Apr 2017 18:52 UTC
cherokee confederates
Evil black slave-owning racists? Cherokee confederates (Thomas' Legion) at the U.C.V reunion in New Orleans, 1903.
At a time when fear of removal from tribal homelands permeated Native American communities, many native people served in the military during the Civil War. These courageous men fought with distinction, knowing they might jeopardize their freedom, unique cultures, and ancestral lands if they ended up on the losing side of the white man's war. Read this intriguing account of Native American contributions to the war effort for a fuller understanding of what the conflict meant to "all Americans."

Allegiance to the Federal Government

Approximately 20,000 Native Americans served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in Federal assaults on Petersburg. By fighting with the white man, Native Americans hoped to gain favor with the prevailing government by supporting the war effort. They also saw war service as a means to end discrimination and relocation from ancestral lands to western territories. Instead, the Civil War proved to be the Native American's last effort to stop the tidal wave of American expansion. While the war raged and African Americans were proclaimed free, the U.S. government continued its policies of pacification and removal of Native Americans.


Comment: ...that'd be the Union US govt.

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Rose

Letter comes to light from Queen Elizabeth about Princess Diana's death

Carolyn Durand
ABC News
Sun, 13 Aug 2017 17:49 UTC
Princess Diana
© Anwar Hussein/Getty ImagesPrince William arrives with Diana, Princess of Wales and Prince Harry for his first day at Eton College on September 16, 1995 in Windsor, England.
A letter by Queen Elizabeth six days after Princess Diana's death has come to light.

The letter from Queen Elizabeth to one of her closest aides, Lady Henriette Abel Smith, a lady in waiting, gives a rare glimpse into the depth of emotion that enveloped the royal family in the wake of Princess Diana's death.

"It was indeed dreadfully sad, and she is a huge loss to the country. But the public reaction to her death, and the service in the Abbey, seem to have united people round the world in a rather inspiring way. William and Harry have been so brave and I am very proud of them," Queen Elizabeth wrote in the letter.
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Heart

New Princess Diana documentary reveals Queen tried to shield William and Harry from public hysteria after Diana's death


RT
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:50 UTC
princess diana
© Ian Waldie / Reuters
The Queen hid newspapers at Balmoral after Princess Diana died to stop her grandsons William and Harry from seeing the hysteria that swept Britain, a new documentary has revealed.

The BBC's 'Diana, 7 Days,' details the week of the death of the Princess of Wales and the outpouring of grief that followed. It includes interviews with her sons and siblings, as well as former members of the royal household and ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Queen was criticized for not returning from Balmoral to London quickly enough to acknowledge the national outpouring of grief. But Prince William appears to defend her decision, saying they were kept away from public view, knowing nothing of the extraordinary response throughout the country.

"At the time, you know, my grandmother wanted to protect her two grandsons and my father as well," William said.

"Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers and things like that, so there was nothing in the house at all, so we didn't know what was going on. We had the privacy to mourn and kind of collect our thoughts and to try and have that space away from everybody."
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Bad Guys

70th Anniversary of India-Pakistan Partition: Tragic Lessons for Humanity

Shane LaChance
Sott.net
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 14:34 UTC
India Pakistan Partition
© ROYSTON LEONARD / MEDIADRUMWORLD
India and Pakistan recently marked the 70th anniversary of their independence from Great Britain, an event also known as the Great Partition, when the British empire withdrew from southern Asia. At midnight on August 15th, 1947, India gained independence after 200 years under the British Raj. Instead of marking a time of celebration, the event is scarred with one of modern history's bloodiest upheavals.

WWII's atrocities are recognized and studied across the Western world. However, what isn't highlighted is that fallout from that war continued to ravage south Asia as the British Empire declined. We know that Ghandi's non-violent civil disobedience was the seed that freed India from British imperialism, but the outcome of this revolution is barely a footnote in Westernized history.

War, political discord, economic depression and calamitous weather brought famine to British India and Gandhi's 'Quit India Movement' to break free from British rule. After fighting two world wars trying to sustain the British Empire, the Anglos were finally broke and unable to sustain control over their vast empire. Decolonization began in India, but not without the British firing 'a parting shot':
In the middle of World War II, with the United States pressuring Britain to loosen its colonial grip on India, Winston Churchill issued a bitter prophecy. "Take India if that was what you want! Take it, by all means!" the British prime minister raged to a U.S. diplomat in Washington. But, he argued, only British rule kept the subcontinent's Hindus and Muslims from each other's throats: "I warn you that if I open the door a crack, there will be the greatest bloodbath in all history; yes, bloodbath in all history."
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Magnify

The Lincoln Myth: Ideological cornerstone of the America Empire

Thomas DiLorenzo
Institute for Political Economy
Mon, 21 Aug 2017 17:06 UTC
Abraham Lincoln
© Wikimedia Commons
"Lincoln is theology, not historiology. He is a faith, he is a church, he is a religion, and he has his own priests and acolytes, most of whom . . . are passionately opposed to anybody telling the truth about him . . . with rare exceptions, you can't believe what any major Lincoln scholar tells you about Abraham Lincoln and race."
-Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory, p. 114
The author of the above quotation, Lerone Bennett, Jr., was the executive editor of Ebony magazine for several decades, beginning in 1958. He is a distinguished African-American author of numerous books, including a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. He spent twenty years researching and writing his book, Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, from which he drew the above conclusion about the so-called Lincoln scholars and how they have lied about Lincoln for generations. For obvious reasons, Mr. Bennett is incensed over how so many lies have been told about Lincoln and race.
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Rose

Secret tape of Princess Diana's close friendship with George Michael during troubled marriage

Laura Armstong
The Sun
Sun, 20 Aug 2017 15:53 UTC
Princess Diana George Michael
© All ActionPrincess Diana and her confidant George Michael
Princess Diana shared the agony of her 'grim' divorce from Prince Charles with George Michael - and blasted the royals as 'not very loving' in secret phone chat. A recording made in 1996 reveals for the first time how the pop icon was Diana's closest confidante during bitter split

Princess Diana shared the agony of her marr­iage split in a secret tape of a call with George Michael. She told the pop superstar the break-up was "grim" and the Royal Family was "not very loving".The phone chat was recorded during her divorce battle with Prince Charles but has only now emerged. Listen here.

As well as complaining about the pain of her bitter divorce battle with Prince Charles, she joined George in taking the mickey out of flamboyant pop idol Sir Elton John. The Princess of Wales took a potshot at the royals and swapped cheeky gossip during an intimate phone chat with George Michael.

A previously unheard tape of the call reveals her joking about the Careless Whisper singer "playing gooseberry" during a visit to Elton and his partner David Furnish. And she is heard likening pal Sir Elton's enormous shoe collection to that of footwear-mad former Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos after it was featured on a TV show.

Diana spoke with George in July 1996 after he rang to wish her happy birthday.
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Boat

Wreckage of WWII warship USS Indianapolis found in the Philippine Sea

Lisa Rein
Washington Post
Sat, 19 Aug 2017 15:10 UTC
USS Indianapolis
© APThis is cruiser USS Indianapolis which was sunk month before end of World War II.
Naval researchers announced Saturday that they have found the wreckage of the lost World War II cruiser USS Indianapolis on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, 72 years after the vessel sank in minutes after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

The ship was found almost 3 1/2 miles below the surface of the Philippine Sea, said a tweet from Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, who led a team of civilian researchers that made the discovery.

Historians and architects from the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, District of Columbia, had joined forces with Allen last year to revisit the tragedy.

The ship sank in 15 minutes on July 30, 1945, in the war's final days, and it took the Navy four days to realize that the vessel was missing.
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