On February 21, 1848, a slim political pamphlet appeared in London that would reverberate across continents and centuries. Titled The Communist Manifesto, it was authored by two German intellectuals in exile—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—and commissioned by a small revolutionary organization known as the…
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On February 16, 1959, Fidel Castro formally assumed the office of Prime Minister of Cuba, six weeks after the flight of Fulgencio Batista ended his military-backed regime. Batista had ruled Cuba as an elected president in the early 1940s. But after seizing power in…
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On this day in history, February 10, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a cautionary warning against direct U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. At the time, the French were struggling to maintain their colonial control over Indochina, facing fierce resistance from the communist Viet…
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On November 12, 1927, Leon Trotsky, a towering figure of the Russian Revolution and a former close ally of Vladimir Lenin, was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party. This moment marked a pivotal shift in Soviet politics, consolidating Joseph Stalin’s undisputed control over the…
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Leon Trotsky’s expulsion from the Soviet Union marked a pivotal moment in the tumultuous history of the early 20th century. A prominent Marxist revolutionary and one of the key figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917, Trotsky played a crucial role in the establishment…
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On October 25, 1924, just four days before Britain’s general election, The Daily Mail published a sensational document that would become one of the most infamous political forgeries in modern history—the so-called Zinoviev Letter. Purporting to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, head of…
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On October 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched its infamous investigation into Communist infiltration of the Hollywood film industry, marking a pivotal moment in the early stages of the Cold War. This event became one of the most dramatic and controversial…
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On August 25, 1945—just ten days after Japan announced its surrender and brought the Second World War to a close—an American intelligence officer named John Birch was killed in China under circumstances that soon became freighted with political meaning. To his comrades, he was…
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On August 6, 1960, the revolutionary government of Cuba, led by Fidel Castro, took a dramatic step that would deepen the rift between the island nation and the United States. In a sweeping decree, Castro’s regime nationalized all American and other foreign-owned property in…
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On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro launched the attack that marked the start of the Cuban revolution and reshaped the power structure of the Western Hemisphere. The July 26 Movement was named after the attack on the Moncada Barracks on that date in Santiago…
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