Posts by Pamela
The World’s First Aviator?
‘Abbas Ibn Firnas is not well known in the west but he’s a hero to little boys and aviation buffs throughout the Arab-speaking world. The Andalusian scientist was court poet and astronomer to Abd al-Rahman III in the days when Cordoba was the wealthiest and most civilized city in Europe. Like many Muslim scientists of…
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The Zimmermann Telegram-Part 2: What Did Mexico Do?
In my last post, I wrote about the Zimmermann Telegram and the role it played in convincing the United States to enter World War I. A couple of days later as I talked to a friend about the subject, I realized I had no idea how Mexico responded. It had never occurred to me…
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The Zimmermann Telegram, or How A Campaign Promise Lost Its Punch*
Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in the 1916 presidential campaign on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” He won by the thinnest of margins because of the implicit promise that he would continue to keep American out of the war that had ravage Europe for two years. The United States was neutral, isolationist,…
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