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J. Edgar Hoover’s 50-Year Career of Blackmail, Entrapment, and Taking Down Communist Spies
This section has been created to answer some of the most popular and interesting history-related questions our users may ask. In Ask HistoryOnTheNet, we hope to provide many interesting tidbits of information that make history all the more fascinating.
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The Rape of Nanking, also known as the Nanking Massacre happened during the Sino-Japanese war and is said to have been a brutal murder of between 40,000 and 300,000 civilians in China's capital city. The massacre happened over six weeks in December of 1937 and is considered the worst atrocity…
In September 1845, all potato crops in Ireland mysteriously started to turn black and rot due to a potato disease that hit the country. People today believe that this was caused by phytophthora infestans, a airborne fungus that came in the holds of ships from North America. Today, with such…
The Dred Scott decision, also known as the legal case of Dred Scott v. John F.A. Stanford, is considered by historians as the U.S. Supreme Court's single worst decision ever. Background Dred Scott, a slave owned by the Emerson family, moved with the family from Missouri, which was a slave…
Why was the storming of the Bastille important? On 14 July 1789, when the Bastille in Paris, France was stormed it only housed seven old prisoners, none of which were politically important. There were even plans to close down the prison because it was so costly to maintain, for such…
The English folk tales about Robin Hood, a popular figure who robbed the rich to give to the poor along with his merry men have entertained and inspired many throughout the ages, but was this character actually based on a real, historical person? A common Name Although many do think…
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini died on April 28, 1945 at 61 years of age, by tyrannicide in front of a firing squad. This Italian politician used to rule Italy as Prime Minister, obeying the constitution until 1925 when he denied democracy and became a dictator. Mussolini is known as one…
Christopher Columbus, the first European to discover the Americas after the Vikings colonized parts of Newfoundland and Greenland, died not knowing that he had discovered a whole new continent. He also did not die during one of his sea voyage adventures, but fairly comfortable, although miserable, at home in Spain.…
Historians often refer to the Civil War as the first "modern" war because it made use of the most advanced warfare and technology that was available during that time. The Civil War also lead to a couple of military innovations, including the Minie ball, rifling of gun barrels, mass production…
The Oregon Trail (also known as the Oregon-California trial) was a 2,200 mile route stretching from Missouri to Oregon that was traveled by the early Wild West pioneers in the 1800s. The trail was the only way for settlers to reach the West Coast via land and over 500,000 have…
What were the reasons for Westward expansion? Ever since the first pioneers settled in the United States at the East , the country has been expanding westward. When President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana territory from the French government in 1803, it doubled the size of the existing United States.…
