History Accounts

Send us Fan Mail By June 1789, what was initially convened as the Estates General had recast itself as the National Assembly.   The King tried to prevent the Assembly Deputies  from meeting.  They defied the attempt and met in the King's Tennis Court.   There they all took the Tennis Court Oath vowing to continue and never disperse.   In July 1789, a Paris mob stormed and took the Bastille. T...

Send us Fan Mail It is difficult to pin down the moment or event the French Revolution began.  It may had been the King’s edict to convene the Estates General in May 1789.  Once the Estates General convened, it may had been the failure of that body to come to a consensus of how it would count votes on measures before it.  Nonetheless, the august Estates General finally convened to consider the cro...

Send us Fan Mail Assisting the Americans in the War of Independence proved a costly decision for France.  The nation’s failure to adequately address the desperate and worsening financial situation led it to near bankruptcy.  The King reluctantly agreed to convene the Estates General to approve a sweeping tax proposal to raise revenues.  Following in the heels of the disastrous Great Leap Forward,...

Send us Fan Mail I begin telling the stories of the two revolutions.  All revolutions need a spark to begin. For France, the spark was the crushing poverty and starvation.  Mismanagement plunged France toward bankruptcy.  For China, the spark was the disaster of the Great Leap Forward.  China’s leader was troubled by the nation’s political and social direction. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail This new series is a parallel study of both the Chinese Culture Revolution and the French Revolution.  Both revolutions are presented side by side without comparison.  The revolutions’ chronological timelines are synchronized with the other.  This is something different and unique.  An entertaining way to learn about each of these two enormous historical events.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What began as a largely sectarian movement in northern China in the 1330s, became the massive, diverse, eventually violent and destructive Red Turban Rebellions.  Zhu Yuanzhang emerged as the central leader and chased the Mongols out of China in 1368, and ending the Yuan Dynasty.  Zhu Yuanzhang became the first emperor (Hongwu) of the Ming Dynasty.  The Yuan Emperor fled China. He...

Send us Fan Mail The history chronology continues.  The thirteen year old Toghon Temur is enthroned (in 1333) as Emperor Huizong of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty.  His reign the last and the longest of any of the Yuan emperors.  The Mongols faced many pressures in China.   His reign is noted for the local fiefdoms asserting themselves throughout China.  While the emperor had capable advisors, the fisca...

Send us Fan Mail The Yuan government and society was a unique experience for China.  The Mongols always promoted trade and continued to do so as the rulers of China.  China population estimates during the Yuan Dynasty are not firm.  The available numbers, however, if true, point to serious population declines during the dynasty.  The reasons for those declines raise speculation.   Finally, the Mon...

Send us Fan Mail The War of Restoration concludes.  Before it was over, one emperor disappeared, never heard from again, and another was assassinated.   The Mid Yuan period of the Yuan Dynasty also concludes with the ascension of the last emperor, Toghon Temur.  All told, nine emperors came and went during the thirty-nine year Mid Yuan period.  Six of the nine emperors came to power only after vio...

Send us Fan Mail As the history moves into the middle of the 14th century, the Dynasty enters into a volatile and dramatic period.  Before this episode is finished four Great Khans/Chinese Emperors come to power in a little over eight years.  This era is filled with regicide, coups d’état, betrayals, violent family clashes, and retribution. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Temur Khan died without an heir and did not designate one. A violent succession conflict resulted among the royal princes.  Eventually one of his nephews emerged from the conflict to take the throne of the Mongolian Empire and the Chinese Yuan Dynasty.  He became Emperor Wuzong (or Kulug Khan).    He made a pact with his younger brother, Ayurbarwada Buyantu, to succeed him.  He be...

Send us Fan Mail Kubilai Khan's death without an heir to the Khanate and the Chinese Dynasty once again caused uncertainty  over the regime, and fighting among his grandson's over the succession.  Kubilai Khan's grandson, Temur, eventually ascended to the throne.  The next thirty-nine years brought a rapid succession of nine emperors. Temur was a capable ruler. He made peace with th...

Send us Fan Mail The Chinese Yuan Dynasty begins.  Kubilai Khan and the Mongols reunite China for the first time in nearly four centuries.  China became the biggest prize for the Mongolian Empire.  Kubilai Khan brilliantly wove together Mongolian traditions and institutions with those of the Chinese.  Despite the severe fiscal problems he caused, and his failures trying to subjugate Japan, he was...

Send us Fan Mail Kubilai Khan is perhaps the most known Mongol leader after his grandfather, Genghis Khan.  He is known for the direction and building of a magnificent estate in Inner Mongolia intended to be a summer capital or palace.  The estate is also known as Xanadu in western parlance.   Kubilai is also notable for his final conquest over the Southern Sung Dynasty in China. The eleven-year s...

Send us Fan Mail The Tangut and Jin Dynasties permanently fall to the Mongols.  By then, Genghis Khan's son, Ogodei, led the Mongol Empire.  The Mongol warriors and their military commanders struck fear and terror everywhere they went.   Subutai Ba' Dur stands out as one of the most ablest and successful Mongol military commanders. Ogodie Kahn's death caused a major division over hi...

Send us Fan Mail Seemingly out of nowhere the small landlocked nation on the Eastern Asian Steppes, inhabited mostly by animal shepherds and nomads, challenged established Asian kingdoms and empires.  Due primarily to the vision of one person, Genghis Khan. He would unite his people and create an empire over much of Asia.  The Mongols sudden epic rise  is only matched by their sudden epic decline....

Send us Fan Mail This season tells the story of the Mongolian conquest of China.  We are all familiar with Genghis Khan and his grandson, Kubilai Khan.  How many people, however, are aware the Mongols were rulers of China (Yuan Dynasty)? I will bring to you this fascinating story.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The death of the Meiji Emperor, Mutsuhito, in 1912, officially ended the Meiji Era.  His long reign oversaw Japan overthrow the Shogunate form of government, cast off the feudal system, and fend off foreign aggressors.  Then began Japan's incredible, impressive, and quick rise to a world power with major implications in the first half of the 20th century. Japan's relatio...

Send us Fan Mail Japan licked her wounds after the humiliation of the Triple Intervention.   She channeled her energies into a massive industrial and military expansion.   She turned that against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904/05.  Japan declared war against Russia over the Korea and Manchuria, China issues.  Japan had an ally this time:  England.  This alliance kept the remaining Europe...

Send us Fan Mail Japan’s relationship with China had been deteriorating for some years.  One particular reason was both nations’ claims to Korea.   Russia had an interest in Manchuria that neighbored the Korean peninsula.  A religious revolt in Korea touched off a chain of events that eventually led to the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894.  Japan overwhelmed China and the Treaty of Shimonoseki (189...

Send us Fan Mail The statistical evidence from Japan for the 1870 to 1890 period bears out the extent of her modernization.  By any measure, railroad trackage, coal production or use, or miles of telegraph or telephone wires installed, Japan had vastly grown. In February 1889, the Meiji Emperor presented to the Japanese people its written constitution.  It enshrined the Emperor's sovereignty...

Send us Fan Mail Korea continued to be a major focus for Japan.  The Treaty of Kanghwa between Japan and Korea in 1876, ruffled China’s feathers.  In 1885, Japan and China agreed to their own treaty (Treaty of Tientsin) each promising to remove their armies from the Korean Peninsula and to stay out of the region.  At best it would buy only a few years of peace between these two nations.  By the 18...

Send us Fan Mail By the late 1870s, the new government faced enormous financial pressures.  It dealt with yen depreciation and price inflation.   The former Samurais  suffered greatly because of the conditions.  For that, and other reasons, some of them revolted in early 1877.  This caused the Seinan or Samurai War.  The Meiji Emperor was able to defeat the former Samurais after eight months. The...

Send us Fan Mail The new Meiji Government replaced the Shogunate. Gone were the Shogun and Samurai.  Now replaced with young, forward thinking leaders desperately wanting to overcome the treaty humiliations caused by the previous government.   To do this they planned and executed an aggressive, comprehensive plan to modernize and westernize Japan.  They wanted the new nation to be taken seriously...

Send us Fan Mail The last fifteen years of the Edo Era is known as the Bakumatsu.  All the pressures on Japan came together ending the Era and the Tokugawa Shogunate. Japan was warned the foreign nations were coming.  To her credit she began to modernize and westernize long before the Shogunate was toppled in the 1860s.   The Boshin War (Japanese Civil War) ended the Shogunate and allowed the youn...