It was an era of nation building, and Jackson was a nation builder. Before running for president, he was a soldier, whose exploits changed the map of the United States. Alabama could not become a state until after he crushed the Creek Nation, which owned most of it. Florida belonged to Spain until after he invaded it.
.. Ross wanted the Cherokee Nation to become a territory or state within the Union — which it did, in a way, generations later as part of Oklahoma.
.. A $20 bill with Ross and Jackson would set a pattern for other bills. Each denomination should feature two different people who together tell a story, illustrating our democratic experience.
.. Archaeologists of the future will think we were aggressive and militaristic in who we tend to feature on our currency, which is our best way to represent ourselves to each other and the outside world.
Home Economics
Of all those acquirements, which more particularly belong to the feminine character, there are none which take a higher rank, in our estimation, than such as enter into a knowledge of household duties, for on these are perpetually dependent the happiness, comfort, and well-being of a family.
Early rising is one of the most essential qualities which enter into good household management, as it is not only the parent of health, but of innumerable other advantages. Indeed, when a mistress is an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be orderly and well managed. On the contrary, if she remains in bed till a late hour, then the domestics, who invariably partake somewhat of their mistress’ character, will surely become sluggards.
Great patriotic war, again
To avoid reminding people of the staggering losses, the limbless veterans who once dotted Moscow’s streets were shipped off to a former monastery on an island. Stalin feared victory celebrations would enhance the popularity of Soviet military commanders such as Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who signed Germany’s surrender along with the allies.
..The Soviet leaders who came to power as a result of the coup against Khrushchev used Victory Day to boost their legitimacy. It was the only unifying Soviet holiday that caused no disagreements between the people and their leaders.
.. For much of Ukraine’s post-Soviet history these divides were dormant. But the failure of the Ukrainian government in the past quarter-century to build a nation-state has allowed the Kremlin to use history as a weapon.
Russian state television described the modern pro-European Ukrainians who ousted their corrupt and authoritarian president Viktor Yanukovych as nationalists and Nazi collaborators, planning to annihilate Russians in Crimea. It planted fake stories about Ukrainians crucifying children, while showing a Russian soldier in Crimea holding a small child in his arms—a reference to the giant statue of the Soviet Liberator Soldier erected in Berlin in 1949.
.. Russia’s virtual wargames have real consequences. Alexei Levinson, a sociologist, writes that “under this light moral anaesthetic, the country is getting used to actions which only a short while ago seemed unthinkable and impossible.” Opinion polls show that 90% of Russians are prepared to discuss the possibility of nuclear war. While 57% of older Russians say that such a war cannot have any winners, 40% of younger people are convinced that Russia would defeat America and NATO. As Mr Levinson puts it, “A real war starts to look like a TV show or a computer game in which you have ten lives in reserve.”
India’s Influence in Asia: 4th – 12th Centuries
For it is now increasingly clear that between the fourth and twelfth centuries the influence of India in both Southeast and Central Asia, and to some degree also China, was comparable to the influence of Greece in Aegean Turkey and Rome, and then in the rest of Europe in the early centuries BC. From the empire of the Gupta dynasty in the north and that of the Pallava dynasty in the south, India during this period radiated its philosophies, political ideas, and architectural forms out over an entire continent not by conquest but by sheer cultural sophistication.