Tag: Leipzig University

Rendez-vous with History. Weimar, Germany (4-6 November, 2011)

City hall of Weimar

“Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today I’ll be traveling to Weimar, Germany to participate in the Festival “Rendez-vous de l’histoire”.  The theme of the 3rd. Year of this “Rendez-vous with history” in Weimar is: Human Violence, Human Violence.

AS the website of the conference reads,

‘Violence’ is complex and disturbing. It is a historical, present and future threat. “Violence” in all its forms, including counter-violence and non-violence as a deliberate departure from the traditional and new power relationships will be discussed at the Weimar festival. Human societies as always dream of peace – but at the same time, violence is a constant and seemingly unavoidable part of our personal and political relationships.

Weimar’s international history festival will address not only the cruel dimensions of violence in history, but also ask for their anthropological origins and its liberating potential.

In about 20 panel discussions and lectures be at Weimar history festival tensions between freedom and violence, beauty and violence, explored “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence – the relationship between media and violence, language, literature and violence, violence and reconciliation presented. The spectrum ranges from the Middle Ages to the year 2011, and is not geographically limited. But the focus is primarily on Europe – in particular the countries of the Weimar Triangle – and also to Weimar and Thuringia.
A film series and cultural evenings will complete the program.

Some of the lecturers are:

And many other wonderful lecturers!

I hope to share with you news and insights from this interesting event!

Concorde’s last day in Global History

Video: Concorde’s last flight.

There are moments in history in which the World Order changed and historians are always trying to get them accepted and applauded by their colleagues. Those specific moments in history may be not seen immediately but until enough time has passed to understand the direct and indirect effects that shaped the course of History.

Many of these moments are the product of technological innovations that changed the way humans lived. One of them could be October 24, 2003 when three BA Concordes made the last commercial flights in history: G-BOAG flew from New York to London; G-BOAE made a return flight to Edinburgh; and G-BOAF flew around the Bay of Biscay. All three circled over London before landing within minutes of each other at Heathrow Airport.

The relevance of this event may not yet be so evident. However, we can be certain that the impact that had the catastrophe of a Concorde near Paris in July 2000 is going to determine the future of space flights. Specially after the last flight of Atlantis (the last Space Shuttle of the United States) in July 21, 2011.

The blog The Modern Historian posted a great/short overview of Concorde’s history and here is it:

During the late 1950s, aircraft manufacturers around the world started working on designs for supersonic passenger jets. The costs for such projects were so prohibitive that few of them progressed beyond the design stage. In the early 1960s, the British Aircraft Corporation, which had inherited the Type 223 supersonic transport (SST) project from the Bristol Aeroplane approached the French Sud Aviation, who were working on the Super-Caravelle SST, with an offer to co-operate on a joint project.The result of this co-operation was Concorde, which made its maiden flight in 1969. By this time, Concorde only had one compettitor, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144, but cold war tensions and the crash of a Tu-144 at the 1973 Paris Air show meant that it was Concorde that attracted orders from the major airlines. Nevertheless, the oil crisis of late 1973, environmental concerns about nervousness about sonic booms (the noise the aircraft made as it broke the sound barrier) resulted in the cancellation of all the orders except those from the national airlines of France and the United Kingdom. These orders for ten aircraft each still required substantial government subsidies to keep the project alive.In spite of these setbacks, Air Franceand British Airways (BA) started scheduled flights using Concorde in 1976. Although other airlines occasionally leased the aircraft, the high operation costs meant that supersonic travel was only feasible for the most profitible routes. Nevertheless, to continue running the services required high ticket prices, the continued government funding in the case of Air France and the sale of the British fleet of aircraft to BA at a knock-down price.All this changed following the crash of a Concorde near Paris in July 2000. The year long grounding of all the Concordes contributed to the decision taken by both airlines to withdraw the aircraft. On 27th June 2003, an Air France Concorde flew for the last time and on 24th October that same year three BA Concordes made the last commercial flights by the aircraft: G-BOAG flew from New York to London; G-BOAE made a return flight to Edinburgh; G-BOAF flew around the Bay of Biscay. All three circled over London before landing within minutes of each other at Heathrow Airport.