Sublime

much of the assistance that the Yishuv needed came in the form of support from Diaspora Jews. Key among these philanthropists was Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Soon known as “The Benefactor,” the baron poured part of his fortune into providing the settlements with everything from housing to equipment to livestock. By the turn of the century, his mone

in terror, and they were being cruelly cut down. San Francisco General Hospital opened the first dedicated AIDS ward in the United States in 1983. Within days, it was

Had the siege of Bataan pitted Japan against the United States, it would have been dramatic enough. But three-quarters of MacArthur’s men there were Filipino. The siege thus layered political questions atop military ones. Would the Filipinos fight for their empire? And would their empire fight for them? Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated his position

Back in France, Lafayette showered Washington with gifts, including seven hounds sent in the custody of John Quincy Adams. He also sent along French pheasants and nightingales, which Washington had never seen before. All the while, Lafayette perfected his manumission scheme and acted on it the next year with breathtaking speed. He bought a large su

The Bahamas took a distinctly different course in relationship to the history of money-making than much of the region. African Americans who fought for the British in the Revolutionary War settled there to be free. Many of them came from the Low Country. In 1818, Great Britain declared that all enslaved Africans who set foot in the Bahamas would be

Hookworm disease in the South was reduced substantially, with enduring economic effects, mainly due to children staying in school longer. So encouraging were the results that the Rockefeller Foundation took on a more ambitious project: combating hookworm throughout the tropics—history’s first global health campaign.

The U.S. Army’s judge advocate general recorded a steep increase in incidents of rape once Allied soldiers entered German territory: “We were members of a conquering army, and we came as conquerors,” declared his postwar report.