by Remi BANET Agence France-Presse ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) – Just blocks from Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, porter Bayram Yildiz waits his turn in a dark alley to heave a huge bale on his back nearly double his bodyweight. A few others linger beside him, picking up textiles from a lorry and lugging them to local shops before sunrise, their heads bowed and their knees bent. “I am half Hercules and half Rambo,” the muscle-bound 40-year-old joked, […]
Tag: history
Original Apple computer built by Jobs and Wozniak sells for $400k
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — An original Apple computer, hand-built by company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 45 years ago, sold for $400,000 at auction in the United States on Tuesday. The functioning Apple-1, the great-great-grandfather of today’s sleek chrome-and-glass Macbooks, had been expected to fetch up to $600,000 when it went under the hammer in California. The so-called “Chaffey College” Apple-1 is one of only 200 made by Jobs and Wozniak at […]
Nagasaki marks atomic bomb anniversary with sombre ceremony
by Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Monday commemorated the 76th anniversary of its destruction by a US atomic bomb, with the mayor calling for the global community to build on a new nuclear ban treaty. Nagasaki was flattened in an atomic inferno that killed 74,000 people, three days after the nuclear bomb that hit Hiroshima. The twin attacks rang in the nuclear age and gave Japan the bleak […]
Int’l webinar ukol sa paggunita sa ika-160 na kaarawan ni Dr. Jose Rizal, isasagawa ng NEU
(Eagle News) – Magsasagawa ng isang international webinar ang New Era University kaunay sa paggunita sa ika-160 na kaarawan ni Dr. Jose Rizal na may premiere ngayon Hunyo 21 hanggang sa Hunyo 22, 2021. Ang nasabing webinar ay isasagawa sa pamamagitan ng YouTube streaming (Hudyat YouTube channel). Ito ay mananatiling uploaded hanggang Hunyo 25, 2021. Ito rin ay accredited ng National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP). Kasama sa mga inimbitahang tagapagsalita ay mga […]
Israel uncovers King David-era fortress in occupied Golan
GOLAN HEIGHTS (AFP) — Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled a fortified structure from the time of the King David on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that sheds light on the borders of a Biblical Israeli ally. The 3,000-year-old fort, found near the Jewish settlement of Hispin ahead of works to build a new neighbourhood, is believed to have belonged to the Geshurites, King David’s allies. Locally quarried basalt boulders form the metre-and-a-half (five-foot) thick walls of the […]
WWII bomb goes off in Poland during defusal op
by Stanislaw WASZAK / Anna Maria JAKUBEK WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — A massive World War II bomb exploded during a delicate operation on Tuesday to defuse the five-tonne device in a channel near the Baltic Sea but no one was harmed, Polish officials said. The device — nicknamed “Tallboy” and also known as an “earthquake bomb” — was dropped by the Royal Air Force in an attack on a Nazi warship in 1945. It was […]
Heavy rains trigger collapse at Yemen’s newly restored museum
TAEZ, Yemen (AFP) — Heavy rains have triggered the collapse of parts of the newly restored National Museum in Yemen’s third city Taez, in the latest loss to the country’s cultural heritage after years of war. Established as an Ottoman palace, then a residence for one of Yemen’s last kings, the building became a museum in 1967 but has since been bombed and its collections pilfered. It was partially restored in 2019, but a recent […]
Japan marks 75th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing
by Philip FONG HIROSHIMA, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Thursday marked 75 years since the world’s first atomic bomb attack, with the coronavirus pandemic forcing a scaling back of ceremonies to remember the victims. Survivors, relatives and a handful of foreign dignitaries attended this year’s main event in Hiroshima to pray for those killed or wounded in the bombing and call for world peace. But the general public was kept away, with the ceremony instead […]
Unspeakable horror’: the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
by Kyoko HASEGAWA Agence France Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan this week marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed over 200,000 people and left many more deeply traumatised and even stigmatised. Here are some facts about the devastating attacks: – The bombs – The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in western Japan on August 6, 1945 by the US bomber Enola Gay. The bomb, […]
Japan court recognizes more Hiroshima bomb survivors
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A Hiroshima court issued a rare ruling Wednesday expanding the designation of atomic bomb survivors to include more people hit by radioactive “black rain”, 75 years after the US nuclear attack on Japan at the end of World War II. The Hiroshima District Court said all 84 plaintiffs, aged from their 70s through 90s, should be granted medical benefits given to the victims of the attack, known locally as “hibakusha”. After […]
Top French historian slams Macron’s statue stance as another is attacked
by Fiachra GIBBONS Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A top French historian slammed President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday for trying to shut down debate on the country’s colonial past as a prominent statue linked to slavery was attacked in Paris. Macron all but ignored the wave of Black Lives Matter protests in a major television address last week except to warn that France would not take down statues of controversial historical figures. “The Republic […]
NASA renames Washington HQ for ‘Hidden Figures’ trailblazer
WASHINGTON D.C., United States (AFP) — NASA said Wednesday that it will rename its Washington headquarters after its first black female engineer, Mary Jackson, whose story was told in the hit film “Hidden Figures.” “Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. “Mary never accepted the status quo, she helped break barriers and […]





