Free Republic

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a high-profile meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orbán, in Budapest. Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, has called Orbán his “comrade in this fight for the ideas of freedom,” and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni is Orbán’s “Christian sister.” Last year, Donald Trump hosted the Hungarian leader three times at Mar-a-Lago. How did this one country in Europe become a beacon for right-wing ideas—and leaders—around the world? Once upon a time, Hungary was the poster child of “regime change”—the peaceful transition from communism to democracy. The process was indeed peaceful. But was it...

“The Quran gained a popular readership among Protestants both in England and in North America largely out of curiosity,” says Denise A. Spellberg, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Thomas Jefferson’s Qu'ran: Islam and the Founders. “But also because people thought of the book as a book of law and a way to understand Muslims with whom they were interacting already pretty consistently, in the Ottoman Empire and in North Africa.” When Jefferson bought his Quran as a law student in 1765, it was probably because of his interest in understanding Ottoman law....

Abdala Rada Ramel has close ties to Salman Raouf Salman, who has been also accused of an important role in the AMIA bombing attack The "clans" consist of groups of Lebanese origin who exert control over given territories in South America - and enable Hezbollah All three clans are strategically positioned close to the most important ports of Venezuela, from which they doubtless oversee the trade and handling of goods that in turn allows Hezbollah to profit Assad Ahmad Barakat is accused of having been involved in the AMIA bomb attack and operating call centers and shell companies on behalf...

Thousands gathered across Australia and New Zealand on Friday for Anzac Day, a public holiday commemorating military service members who fought and died during wartime. Anzac Day originally marked the nations' role in an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey during World War One, which resulted in 130,000 deaths on both sides of the conflict. In a key episode on April 25, 1915, thousands of troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) took part in an ill-fated amphibious invasion by British Empire forces on the area's narrow beaches. "It is now a century...

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding...

On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding Fathers drew inspiration from Greek philosophers and statesmen to form the...

The Balkan Peninsula... by the early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was in steep decline. This decline fueled nationalist movements in the Balkans, where various ethnic groups sought independence or territorial expansion. Countries like Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, which had gained independence or autonomy in the previous century, aspired to expand their territories further, often at the expense of their neighbors and the Ottoman Empire. These aspirations were driven by both nationalistic fervor and the desire to control strategic territories like Macedonia, a region with a highly diverse population. In response to these growing tensions, the Balkan League—a coalition...

Born 300 years ago, the legendary libertine had a utilitarian relationship to faithAccording to Margarethe Weissenstein, the Vienna-born Jewish author of The Power of the Charlatan, Casanova — who was born 300 years ago in 1725 — was an itinerant charlatan who manipulated credulous nobles and other moneyed clients through 18th century Europe with promises about numerology, supposedly derived from the Kabbalah. Historian Pawel Maciejko notes that Casanova studied some Hebrew, encountered European Jews although sometimes unhappily, and at age 16 defended a doctoral dissertation on the subject Whether the Hebrews can build new synagogues. He was also an aspiring...

Shukairy narrowly escaped capture by Israeli forces in Jerusalem and many of his "Liberation Army" are now prisoners of the Israelis. "We will wipe Israel off the face of the map and no Jew will survive," Shukairy declared two days before the war broke out June 5. He vowed to lead the vanguard of his troops into the Israeli sector of Jerusalem and set up a "purely Arab government" there for all of Palestine. The 60-year-old former lawyer was seen briefly in Amman and Damascus in the last stages of the fighting wearing a khaki battle uniform. Persons who saw...

Erdoğan’s speech at the 7th Religious Council in Ankara vilified the West’s progress as built on blood and exploitation, while championing the rise of a so-called divine Islamic civilization—a bitter irony given the Islamic Caliphate’s own legacy of conquest, subjugation, and brutality etched into history. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the 7th Religious Council in Ankara, delivering a speech on the state of Islamic civilization while highlighting the event’s focus on integrating artificial intelligence and digitalization into religious practices. ... Erdoğan sharply criticized the foundations of Western development ... Historical Context For centuries, Turkey was the seat of the...

“I smell cigarette smoke,” one of my travel companions noted. That was the moment I knew that we should not linger any longer. We had been warned twice on the way up the hillside not to come here. In one instance, it was claimed that two treasure hunters had been arrested by the police a week or two earlier. In the other case, we were told that if the military or police caught us there, we would be arrested. Such is the experience of interrupting the destruction of Armenian cultural sites in Turkey. There are few photographs of the monastery...

Under the direction of the Anatolian Civilizations Museum and the Culture and Tourism Ministry, the excavation team discovered a bathhouse from the early Ottoman period and a tannery located in front of it. The structure, featuring symmetrically arranged cold, warm and hot rooms and a cistern that supplies water to the bath, will be restored and incorporated into Ankara's cultural life as part of a project scheduled for completion by 2026.Umut Alagöz, the deputy director of the Anatolian Civilizations Museum, stated that all sections of the Ottoman bath were uncovered this year. "This area was a significant center throughout the...

It’s confirmed! Mel Gibson set to produce epic TV series on the Great Siege of 1565 filmed in Malta We knew he was in Malta for a good reason! Hollywood star Mel Gibson has announced plans to produce a limited television series about the Great Siege of 1565, which will be filmed in Malta. After a recent visit to the island to scout locations for his ‘Passion of the Christ’ sequel, the famous actor was captivated by Malta's rich history and impressive fortifications, confirming that the series will be shot on location, in the very fortresses where the siege took...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Siege_of_Malta The number of casualties is in as much dispute as the number of invaders. Balbi gives 35,000 Turkish deaths,[4] Bosio 30,000 casualties (including sailors).[5] Several other sources give about 25,000.[43] The knights lost a third of their number, and Malta lost a third of its inhabitants. Birgu and Senglea were essentially leveled. Still, 6,000 defenders had managed to withstand a siege of more than four months in the hot summer, despite enduring a bombardment of some 130,000 cannonballs. Jean de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, had a key influence in the victory against the Ottomans with...

In Plovdiv, in southern Bulgaria, archaeologists have discovered over 500 ancient coins and a gold template for making jewelry from different periods.The coins were found during salvage excavations at the foot of the Old Town, in the Philipopol-Trimontium-Plovdiv historical zone, which is a group cultural monument. It is located next to the Eastern Gate of Philippopolis, BTA reports.Plovdiv is an ancient city built around 7 hills, in southern Bulgaria. It has been recognized as one of the oldest settlements in Europe, with evidence of habitation reaching as far back as the 6th millennium BC. Until relatively recently in its history,...

Much of human history has been defined by the actions of around 50 to 70 empires that once ruled large swathes of people across vast chunks of the globe. Each of these empires, whether large or small, for ill or for good, has influenced world history. It’s hard to say which has had the greatest impact on society — it is, after all, somewhat subjective and hard to measure — but some have undeniably shaped the course of human history, forever and irrevocably. Here are six such empires, from the mighty Persians to the globe-spanning British. Persian EmpireAround 550 BCE,...

Description: Known across the world by many names such as: "Gypsies", "Roma", "Romani", "Sinti", etc... ; the Gypsies played a crucial role in the development of the Balkans & the history of many of the countries that inhabit the region today such as: Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, and many others outside of the region. Yet, when talking about history, very rarely are the Roma mentioned or talked about. In this video we go over the origin of the Roma in India, their migration across the Silk Road and into the Balkans, their life in the Balkans...

On this date in 1711, a Janissary captain in Ottoman Egypt was beheaded in Cairo as the “Great Insurrection” gave way to the last gasp of Mamluk power in Egypt. Mamluks (or Mameluks) — enslaved soldiers who had evolved into a military caste — had ruled Egypt from 1250 until absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Now nominally under the power of the sultan, Mamluks remained as beys (district governors) and were drawn into a labyrinthine political environment that boiled down to a contest for rent collection from the lucrative country. The relative power in Egypt of the Ottoman...

The Armenian Genocide, the systematic mass murder and expulsion of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians carried out in Turkey and adjoining regions by the Ottoman government between 1914 and 1923, is commemorated on April 24th every year. The Armenian Genocide was an atrocity that occurred within the context of a wider religious cleansing across Asia Minor that lasted 10 years and included Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians. They were all Christians who were also subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The religious cleansing was actually the first in modern times, and it fit the pattern of genocides that would follow in the century...

US actor’s family was deported from Jaffa to Egypt in 1914 bataween | Posted on 15 February 2023 | No Comments The celebrity US actor David Duchovny has just discovered something about his family he never knew: his grandfather Moshe was deported from Jaffa to Port Said in Egypt by the Turkish authorities at the start of World War I. Duchovny learned about his family’s migration from their place of birth, Berdichev in the Russian empire, to Palestine (then under Ottoman rule), thence to Egypt. They ended up taking a boat from Greece to the US, where Moshe acquired American...