Out they go!
A CLEAN HOUSE is very important.

Here is a special thread introducing our series on “The Making of the Islamic World.” It offers 10 episodes about the transformation of Islamicate societies between the 7th and 17th centuries. You can find the series page here: https://t.co/7mL9eWmMmz

This is Chris Gratien posting. I created this series during Fall 2020 for my students as asynchronous material supported by readings and discussion. This is going to be a long thread, but it will be a great shortcut for those looking to make similar use of these materials.

There are two items worth pointing out: 1. This is an overview of the political, social, and cultural history of Islamicate societies. It does not deal with the origins of Islam or many theological questions. It does discuss Islam’s spread and the transformation of Islamic law.

2. This is the first part of a two-part sequence that takes the history of the Islamic world into the present. It emphasizes developments and themes that have particular relevance for later periods.

This is really a multivocal narrative of Islamic history. We feature over 20 scholars from almost as many institutions. Many of those who worked on it, myself included, study the early modern and modern era but have teaching obligations that take us further back in history.

RANI GAIDINLIU:THE LESSER KNOWN FREEDOM FIGHTER

Rani Gaidinliu joined the freedom struggle at 13 &was sentenced to life imprisonment at 16."We r free people—the White should not rule over us.”Thus calling out to her Zeliangrong tribesmen was the voice of 13yr-old Rani Gaidinliu.

She joined the freedom struggle in the present-day Northeast India. Today, her struggle is lost in history as most of her countrymen wouldn’t even have heard her name. B'coz our history textbooks tell us that only Mahatma Gandhi &Pandit Nehru got India its Independence.

At 16 yrs of age, this valiant girl was sentenced to life imprisonment for leading a movement to drive out the colonial rulers from Manipur and Nagaland. Nevertheless, she was released in 1947 after India’s independence and was given the title ,"Rani of Nagas".

EARLY LIFE AND HERAKA MOVEMENT

Gaidinliu belonged to the Rongmei clan of the Zeliangrong tribe in the Tamenglong district of western Manipur. Born on January 26, 1915, she was fifth among eight children.

Her native village was Nungkao, which is present day Tamenglong distt. Brought up in a specially backward region,she couldn't receive any formal education. However,this didn't stop her from joining the freedom struggle. At the age of 10 she came under the influence of her cousin.

Rhino Barges

One of the dullest, coolest, more bizarre and fascinating pieces of kit used in Normandy.

Which NO ONE REALLY CARES ABOUT.

BUT I DO AND YOU SHOULD TOO.
/1

#WW2 #SWW #History

Planning for Overlord and Neptune had a serious snag, how to get troops from LSTs onto the beach as simply ramming them onto the beaches and dropping the ramp was known to damage the exceptionally vulnerable LSTs and felt to be unsustainable in the mid to long term. /2

LSTs were essential in sustaining Overlord's progress and were a subject of major headaches in the planning phase, and a real subject of friction when it came to launching additional amphibious operations such as Dragoon.

A single LSTs loss represented a capability nick. /3

So, logic dictated, we don't really want these remarkable but rare and highly valuable vessels constantly doing beach landings, we want something to act as a medium between ship to shore, and in came the (mostly) American designed Rhino. /4

I fucking love Rhinos.

Seriously.

Graceful lines of pure industrial pedigree.

Modular.

LOOK AT IT. /5