Extracted Claims

Of great concern to many unionists in these years was the banning of an annual Orange parade at Drumcree, Portadown, which they believed had been held every year since 1807.

In fact, this parade had been cancelled on a number of occasions over the years (such as during the Second World War), but historical myths about uninterrupted traditions were allowed to colour contemporary concerns about parading.

During the period from the late 1980s until the early 2000s, more than 200 books on local history were produced by local publishers in Northern Ireland, such as Blackstaff Press, Friar's Bush Press and the Institute of Irish Studies.

In schools in Northern Ireland, teaching of Irish history had increased since the 1960s.

This was given impetus with the introduction in 1989 of a new common history curriculum, with textbooks looking at Irish history from a range of perspectives.

Branch club numbers on parade at the August commemorations increased to thirty-one in 1924, fifty-one in 1930, and eighty in 1936.

By the late 1960s, the number of Protestants/unionists in Northern Ireland who still identified themselves as Irish as well as British had fallen to about 20 per cent; by the late 1970s this had collapsed to 8 per cent.

The Party Processions Act banned Orange parades in 1850–71, but not these commemorations, which were regarded as civic rather than political events, and this increased their popularity.

In 1970 and 1971 a ban was imposed on Apprentice Boys' parades in the city, although services continued in the cathedral.

From 1972 to 1974 the August procession was restricted to the Waterside.

In 1975 the parade was allowed into the walled city during the August commemoration, but it was confined to the upper part of the city and marches around the walls continued to be banned; only from 1995 have parent clubs been allowed to march around the city walls again.

In the new Irish Free State, St Patrick's Day quickly took on special significance.

In 1922 it was made a general holiday and from 1925, thanks to the Irish Free State Licensing Act, all public houses were closed on that day.

From the early 1970s, reflecting the new divisions in republicanism, the two wings of Sinn Féin marked the event separately.

Sinn Féin (Gardner Place) paraded on the same occasion as the army and Fianna Fáil while Sinn Féin (Kevin Street) paraded on the Sunday before the main commemoration.

In 1999 the speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, John Alderdice, organised the first official reception on St Patrick's Day at the assembly buildings at Stormont, and this has continued annually (although cancelled in 2010, so that the speaker could attend the St Patrick's Day celebrations in the White House).

The emergence of unionist/nationalist confrontation in the 1870s and 1880s gave a new relevance to the story of the siege, especially for Derry Protestants.

On these occasions speakers selected from Tone's life and writings according to their own political agendas.

Republicans frequently quoted Tone's objective of breaking the connection with England and often attacked the British and Irish governments.

More than ten million terrified Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs fled their ancestral homes that August, one million of whom died before reaching safe havens.

At that time, three-quarters of British India's some 400 million people were Hindus, most of the remaining quarter being Muslims, plus six million Sikhs and a million or so Parsis, Christians, and Jews.

On 3 January 1948, then, India brought charges of Pakistan's aggression to the UN Security Council, calling upon it to "take immediate and effective action" to stop Pakistan.

By the end of January 1948, the Security Council decided to appoint a UN Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP), which was to visit South Asia as early as possible to investigate the facts and difficulties on the ground.

By 1954, the Cold War played a role in exacerbating the Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir.

Pakistan—which joined the United States and Great Britain in the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), military alliances designed to contain Soviet expansion—received substantial military support.

India, which was much closer to the Soviet Union thanks to Nehru's socialism and early visit to Moscow, refused to join any of Washington's Cold War alliances.

A year later, Mirza abrogated Pakistan's constitution and appointed Ayub Khan chief martial law administrator.

That was Pakistan's first military coup.

Pakistan's first national elections were held on 7 December 1970, in the wake of a hurricane tidal wave that drowned a quarter of a million of East Pakistan's poorest people in the low-lying Delta of Bengal and left millions without food or shelter.

Most West Pakistanis voted for Zulfi Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, but there were ten million fewer voters in the West than in the East, so the Awami League won 160 seats, all but two of the contests in the East, while the PPP could claim only 81 seats in the West.

During his eleven years in power, Zia armed and funded those four million Afghan refugees, who lived under tents in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and were regularly sent back to Afghanistan to shoot down Soviet helicopters and blow up tanks and trucks.

Just as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan little more than a decade earlier had, with massive infusions of U.S. aid, saved Zia's regime from collapsing of its own ineptitude, Pervez Musharraf's decision to join the U.S. "war" against terror, in response to Secretary of State Colin Powell's warning not to hesitate, saved his regime from bankruptcy, bringing a fresh influx of $10 billion in new weapons to America's revived front-line ally.

On Pakistan Day, 25 March 1969, Ayub surrendered his marshal's baton, handing it down to General Aga Mohammad Yahya Khan, a much smaller Pathan, and a heavier drinker.

Yahya was a boon companion of Bhutto's, often visiting the latter's huge ancestral estate in Sind's Larkana, where they hunted wild boar together and drank all night.

Yahya, therefore, agreed to preside over the transfer of power to elected representatives of the people as swiftly as possible.

He insisted that he had no ambition to retain power, but in addition to his new title of chief martial law administrator, he took Ayub's title of president and remained Pakistan's top general.

Had Nawaz and Benazir only been able to work together, trying to reconcile their personal differences and deep suspicions of each other, Pakistan might have been saved its prolonged return to military rule.

But neither leader trusted the other, leaving both vulnerable to easy removal by the army.

Nawaz believed Benazir to be India's tool on the question of Kashmir and was more reluctant himself to consider the idea of agreeing to treat the Line of Control as the Indo-Pakistani border.

In the earliest years after the October Revolution, the government was conducted not through the party machinery, but through the Soviet state institutions, with the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovet Narodnykh Kommissarov (abbreviated to Sovnarkom) at the apex.

In fact, the earliest years of Lenin's government were a fluid period of improvisation, experimentation and negotiation of the nature of power and legitimacy during which the Soviet leaders believed that they were constructing a novel and superior democratic system, but were unsure of the particular organizational and structural forms that this new government should take.

The convocation of a Constituent Assembly, a representative body, elected on the basis of universal male suffrage was one of the earliest and most popular demands to emerge from the February Revolution.

The Provisional Government postponed elections until 12 November by which time it had been overthrown.

In the elections the various factions of the SRs received approximately half of the 42 million votes cast, the Bolsheviks polled about ten million (24 per cent) including roughly half of the soldiers' vote, the Kadets received two million (5 per cent), and the remaining 8 million votes went to other non-Socialist Parties, the Mensheviks, and parties representing national minorities.

After the final ratification of the treaty by the VTsIK, the Left SR People's Commissars withdrew from Sovnarkom on 18 March.

They maintained a limited cooperation with the Bolsheviks, retaining their positions on the collegia of commissariats as well as their membership in the VTsIK and the local Soviets.

Programmatic differences with the Bolsheviks quickly widened after the Left SR departure from Sovnarkom and any moderating influence in regards to use of terror or relations with the countryside quickly dissipated.

In May 1919, when the Soviet Republic was on the verge of collapse, further urgent measures were taken.

Lenin's government had to make concessions to the engineers and technicians with material incentives to bring their skills to bear to restore the Soviet economy.

This concession constituted a specialist wage of six to one, given that the average skilled wage at this time was 500 roubles.

From November 1917 to March 1919 the main duties of the Sovnarkom were directing the activities of the commissariats and discussing reports on their work, resolving differences among commissariats, appointing commissars and other staff of state bodies, discussing and implementing general administrative measures, reviewing departmental budgets and allocation of finance, drafting and issuing decrees, preparing other decrees for confirmation by the VTsIK, and examining and confirming treaties and agreements with foreign states.

Until the onset of his illness in 1921, Lenin chaired almost every sitting of Sovnarkom, a heavy task which required all of his energy, at the expense of party work, where he never held a formal administrative role.

The need arose to devolve minor matters from Sovnarkom and the Little Sovnarkom (Malyi Sovet Narodnykh Kommissarov or MSNK) emerged in late 1917 to deal with routine business.

The range of minor matters, 'not raising issues of principle', considered by MSNK in its first months were wide ranging.

In solving these questions, the MSNK either made a decision there and then and instructed the corresponding commissariat to implement it, or, if a unanimous decision was not achieved or if they judged it to be an issue of importance, transferred it to the full Sovnarkom.

The Left SRs, like the Bolsheviks, accepted the sovereignty of the Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' deputies as the basis for a legitimate revolutionary government, although they had preferred to include representatives of the bourgeoisie in order to quell the social struggle this exclusion would incur.

This shared platform for the legitimacy of Soviet power as an expression of popular will was the basis for collaboration of the two parties from December 1917 and for their joint dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918.

After the final ratification of the treaty by the VTsIK, the Left SR People's Commissars withdrew from Sovnarkom on 18 March.

It is clear that that there was only one reason for the Left SR party's withdrawal from the central Sovnarkom: the Fourth Congress of Soviets had adopted a resolution, the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, that the Left SRs were convinced had undermined the October Revolution.

The Left SRs, if they allowed their representatives to participate in Sovnarkom, would be collaborating in policies they were sure would lead to the smothering of the revolution.

Thus, while one tenet of the totalitarian school was that the Party Central Committee operated as the supreme decision-making body of the early Soviet government from the birth of the regime, archival records confirm that in no way could the Party Central Committee be viewed as the effective government of the nascent Soviet regime.

Instead, it is clear that Sovnarkom occupied this position.

In fact, during the first months after the revolution, the Party Central Committee continued instead to manage internal party affairs.

From December 1917 to March 1918 Soviet power meant a dual-party coalition composed of Bolsheviks, the self-declared party of the proletariat, and Left SRs, the radical wing of the neo-populist party of the peasantry and increasingly of poor urban workers.

During its four-month existence the Bolshevik-Left SR coalition government functioned more successfully than has previously been acknowledged.

In areas where the programmes and ideals of the two parties overlapped, fruitful collaboration strengthened the Soviet government's functioning.

Despite the almost daily sittings during the early months, the workload of Sovnarkom tended to be heavy.

In the hectic weeks of late November 1917 agenda items averaged 14, sometimes exceeding 20.

The length of agenda decreased over the following couple of months, with December 1917 averaging 11 items per sitting, January 1918, 9 and February 1918, 8.

The draft decision on 'Salaries for Specialists' was proposed by the Sovnarkom on 23 May 1919 and the decision was grudgingly taken to allow, under a very tight reign, specialist salaries of 3000 roubles.

This concession constituted a specialist wage of six to one, given that the average skilled wage at this time was 500 roubles.

Still, by this time the North Koreans were badly outnumbered. MacArthur had succeeded in committing most of the battle-ready divisions in the entire American armed forces to the Korean fighting; by September 8 all available combat-trained army units had been dispatched to Korea except for the 82nd Airborne Division. Although many of these units were with the impending Inchon amphibious operation, some 83,000 American soldiers and another 57,000 South Korean and British faced the North Koreans along the front.

The decision was embodied in NSC document number 81, written mostly by Dean Rusk, which authorized MacArthur to move into North Korea if there were no Soviet or Chinese threats to intervene. It explicitly called for "a roll-back" of the North Korean regime; war dispatches routinely referred to the "liberated areas" in the North. At first he was told to use only Korean units in operations near the Chinese border, but soon the JCS told MacArthur to feel unhindered. MacArthur was correct in telling senators in 1951 that the crossing of the parallel "had the most complete and absolute approval of every section of the American government," if we grant him the license of mild exaggeration owed to a person who had been badly blindsided by Truman-aligned reconstructions of history. [...] In other words, NSC 81, the rollback strategy itself, caused the Chinese intervention, and not the subsequent arrival of American troops at the Yalu River.

On the night of June 24 (Washington time), Acheson decided to take the Korean question to the UN, before he had notified President Truman of the fighting; he then told Truman there was no need to have him back in Washington until the next day. At emergency White House meetings on the evening of June 25, Acheson argued for increased military aid to the ROK, U.S. Air Force cover for the evacuation of Americans, and the interposition of the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and the China mainland—thus obviating a Communist invasion of the island, dividing China and leaving Taiwan governed by the Republic of China even today. On the afternoon of June 26 Acheson labored alone on the fundamental decisions committing American air and naval power to the Korean War, which were approved by the White House that evening. Thus the decision to intervene in force was Acheson's decision, supported by the president but taken before United Nations, Pentagon, or congressional approval.

Japanese historians had written about the sexual slavery system for decades, but were told time and again by the authorities that no archival documents existed on it. In 1992 the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi walked into a military library and found many such documents just sitting on the shelf.

Various encyclopedias state that the countries involved in the three-year conflict suffered a total of more than 4 million casualties, of which at least 2 million were civilians—a higher percentage than in World War II or Vietnam.

Among House members, 51 Democrats (20% of all Democrats) sent supportive mentions of BLM, while only 4 Republican members (4% of all Republicans) sent supportive mentions.

Seven Republicans sent anti-BLM messages.

These results show that the incumbent House members who publicly communicated support of BLM to their constituents won a higher share of the vote than members who stayed quiet or communicated something negative even after taking other variables into account.

As can be seen in the first row of data in the table, incumbents who communicated at least one statement of Black Lives Matter won 1.7% more votes than incumbents who communicated a negative statement or no statement at all.

They find the greatest predictors of voters’ plan to abandon Trump were positive attitudes about BLM.

They find the greatest predictors of voters’ plan to abandon Trump were positive attitudes about BLM.

While living near BLM events decreased voters’ likelihood to choose Trump, their proximity to police intervention in BLM events increase their likelihood to vote for Trump in the 2020 election.

Using geo-coded protest data and district lines from 2016 to 2020, they analyze demographic differences in districts and if BLM events and their proximity impacted change in Republican vote share.

In 2020, African American women scored major election victories and political appointments to local, state, and federal positions.

The certification and swearing-in of Vice-President Kamala Harris was a victory for most women of color and of African descent after a long bitter history of exclusion from electoral participation for decades after the ratification of the 19th amendment.

By 2020 identity politics was at the forefront of the divisive national election that resulted in the first African American woman voted in as Vice-President of the United States, a spotlight on social movements from Black Lives Matter to #Metoo, and a Rainbow Wave in congressional candidates.

The Club movement spearheaded the recruitment and mobilization of African American women in the suffrage movement, as well as convincing African American males who were able to vote in some areas, to support the movement.

From the late nineteenth to the twentieth century, African American women’s clubs were the primary vehicles for socializing and creating a tier of activist African American women.

Pearl K. Ford Dowe’s (2020) groundbreaking theory asserts that African American women’s political ambitions are driven by three factors—marginalization, ambition, and radical imagination.

For proponents, the theory of “political ambition” is predicated on the assumption that all office seekers and political actors have political ambitions.

Since the late 1930s, when Gallup began asking if Americans would vote for a female president (if she were qualified), the proportion who said they would vote for a woman increased from just over 30% to more than 90%.

Schaffner and Green’s (2019) survey experiment early in the 2020 contest found that when asked about an ideal candidate, more Democratic voters had a baseline preference for a female candidate.

However, when asked which one might be able to beat Trump, that trend was reversed.