Eyewitness accounts by two centuries of Americans in the Middle East...
1799: French Revolution ends. Rosetta Stone discovered. George Washington and Patrick Henry die.
1800: Napoleon conquers Italy. US federal government moves to Washington DC. Infrared rays discovered. US population is 5,308,483. Alessandro Volta produces electricity.
1899: Spanish-American War ends. Boer War begins between British and descendants of Dutch settlers of South Africa. Cuba liberated. Aspirin and lawn mower patented.
1900: Boxers occupy Beijing. International forces end siege and Boxer Rebellion. Hurricane kills more than 6,000 in Galveston.
1917: US troops arrive in France. World-wide influenza pandemic strikes. Dutch dancer Mata Hari executed as German spy. Romanov's Winter Palace stormed in October Revolution.
1918: Revolutionaries execute czar and family. Russian Civil War between Reds (Bolsheviks) and Whites (anti-Bolsheviks). German Kaiser abdicates. Hostilities cease on Western Front.
1947: Soviet Union rejects US plan for UN atomic-energy control. India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain. Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran. Microwave oven invented. Carbon-14 dating and transistor developed. Chuck Yeager breaks sound barrier. Thor Heyerdahl crosses Pacific in
1948: Gandhi assassinated in New Delhi. Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia. Israel recognized by US and Britain. Berlin Airlift begins. Truman ends segregation in military. "Big Bang" theory introduced. Polaroid camera invented. World Health Organization established.
1967: Biafra secedes from Nigeria. Israel occupies Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and West Bank. Military coup deposes King Constantine II. Thurgood Marshall becomes first black US Supreme Court justice. Astronauts Grissom, White, Chaffee killed in launch pad fire. The Beatles release Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pulsars and quarks discovered. First successful human heart transplant performed in South Africa.
1968: North Korea seizes USS Pueblo. North Vietnamese launch Tet Offensive. 347 My Lai civilians massacred. Russians invade Czechoslovakia. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated. Helen Keller and John Steinbeck die. 60 Minutes airs on CBS. Hair opens on Broadway. Apollo 8 orbits moon.
2000: Concorde crashes near Paris. Intifada sparked by Ariel Sharon's visit to al-Aqsa. Milosvec overthrown in Yugoslavia. USS Cole attacked in Yemen. George Bush becomes president after US Supreme Court ends Florida recount. Charles Schulz dies. Elián González returned to Cuban father.
2001: Sharon becomes prime minister. Bill Clinton pardons Marc Rich. US spy plane and Chinese jet collide. USS Greeneville sinks Japanese boat. Timothy McVeigh executed. Al-Quada terrorists attack New York City and Washington DC. US and Britain occupy Afghanistan. Anthrax kills postal workers. Embryos created to harvest stem cells. Artificial heart successfully implanted. Christiaan Barnard and George Harrison die.
Miscellaneous photographs of Baptist missionaries submitted by Jeannine (Wilmon) Randolph, December 2007.
A fascinating little 1906 religious tract purchased in a Hot Springs, Arkansas antique store (Saturday, September 06, 2008).
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