Louis Beam

Louis Beam

Louis Beam outset came to world attending inwards 1981 during a conflict betwixt white as well as Vietnamese fishermen inwards Galveston Bay, Texas. The Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, led yesteryear Beam, became involved inwards the conflict and, next a courtroom instance inwards which the Klan was instructed to cease harassing the Vietnamese, Beam became increasingly active nationally every bit an advocate of what he described every bit the “Fifth Era Klan.”

The most recent menses of Klan activity, which Beam defined every bit the 4th era, had failed, he argued, because its leaders did non empathize that the alone promise of bringing most racial victory was to abandon the persuasion of a majority motion as well as supply to its roots every bit an armed cloak-and-dagger organization.

Beam’s writings on the subject, which included the outline of a points scheme to live awarded depending on the importance of the private assassinated, raised his profile inside the extreme Right as well as inwards the belatedly 1980s he was amidst those tried unsuccessfully for seditious conspiracy inwards Fort Smith, Arkansas. He continued, however, to wed the demand for political violence as well as inwards 1992, inwards the lastly number of his magazine, The Seditionist, published what would evidence to live his most of import article, “Leaderless Resistance.”


The article argued that the alone agency to defeat the federal authorities was to avoid centralized organizations every bit these were easily infiltrated. Instead militants should supply to the approach pioneered inwards the master copy American Revolution, inwards which the committees of correspondence that had organized resistance to the British had functioned every bit independent cells. H5N1 instant American Revolution would ane time once again demand to possess got upwards leaderless resistance.

Coming every bit it did straight off earlier the killing of Christian Identity believer Vicki Weaver yesteryear an FBI sniper, the article was the plain of written report of give-and-take at a gathering of “Christian men” organized yesteryear Identity leader Pete Peters afterward inwards the year. In 1993, Beam, himself an Identity adherent, was at Waco, Texas, during the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian religious community that culminated inwards the burning to expiry of over 70 adults as well as children. Two subsequent events were to heighten Beam’s profile soundless further.

First, next the emergence of the citizen militias inwards 1994, his article on leaderless resistance began to bask an increased circulation. More importantly, the bombing of a federal edifice inwards Oklahoma the next yr led to the claim that it had been the effect of a conspiracy involving a grouping next Beam’s strategy.

This claim was non alone made yesteryear critics of the militias but likewise circulated amidst sections of the Patriot movement. Beam himself, however, saw the most probable explanation of the Oklahoma bombing inwards the same low-cal every bit did many Patriots, every bit a federal authorities conspiracy intended to shell opposition as well as convey most a constabulary state.

An early on exponent of the notion of a Zionist Occupation Government, Beam told the courtroom during the Fort Smith lawsuit that his writings had been intended to break the conspiracy that controlled the United States. Writing inwards the 1990s, he claimed that multiculturalism was beingness used yesteryear the same bankers who had sponsored the Bolshevik Revolution inwards gild to destroy national identity as well as practise a New World Order.

Despite ill-health as well as suggestions that he has cash inwards one's chips less committed to antisemitism, he has continued to live active, as well as inwards 1999 declared his back upwards for antiglobalization protesters at Seattle. New alliances, he predicted, would shape betwixt those who had described themselves every bit conservatives as well as those who had seen themselves every bit progressives. “The New American Patriot volition live neither left nor right, simply a freeman fighting for liberty.”

The United Nations

The United Nations

The United Nations (UN) has larn a cardinal target of contemporary right-wing conspiracy theories. It was established on 24 Oct 1945 to supplant the League of Nations, which had collapsed next its failure to preclude World War II.

According to its charter, the United Nations has 4 primary purposes: to keep international peace in addition to security; to develop friendly relations amidst nations; to cooperate inwards solving international problems in addition to inwards promoting observe for human rights; in addition to to endure a pump for harmonizing the actions of nations.

The half dozen primary institutions of the United Nations are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic in addition to Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the Secretariat, in addition to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). All of these alongside the exception of the ICJ are based at United Nations headquarters inwards New York. The ICJ is located at The Hague inwards the Netherlands.


Organizations such every bit the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, in addition to the World Health Organization are linked to the United Nations through cooperative agreements. Together alongside the United Nations, these organizations brand upwardly what is known every bit the United Nations system.

One hundred in addition to eighty-nine countries are currently members of the UN. The United Nations does non visit itself to endure a “world government.” It does non brand laws, in addition to each fellow member province remains a sovereign country. The United Nations has, however, been the dependent area of conspiracy theories almost since it was foremost created.

As early on every bit 1951 the antisemitic paper Common Sense expressed concerns close U.S. troops who had issued proclamations inwards the cite of the United Nations during preparation exercises inwards California.

The Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy investigated the beingness of communist plots inside the United Nations during the 1950s, in addition to the far-right John Birch Society, formed yesteryear retired candy manufacturer Robert H. Welch inwards 1958, also saw the United Nations every bit business office of a Communist conspiracy against the United States. The John Birch Society believed that plans were afoot through the United Nations for “the establishment of a one-world Communist tyranny over the population of the whole earth.”

U.S. armed forces would endure turned over to the command of the UN, it was argued, in addition to United Nations troops were actively preparing to direct hold over the country. As a number Birchites campaigned vigorously, every bit they locomote yesteryear away along to do, to “get the U.S. out of the United Nations, in addition to the United Nations out of the United States.”

The Minutemen, a paramilitary arrangement formed inwards 1960 yesteryear Robert DePugh, farther contended that outset inwards 1952 U.S. troops acting nether United Nations command had been making “practice seizures” of U.S. cities every bit business office of a communist plot to confiscate the firearms of U.S. citizens.

Although concerns close the UN’s role inwards the creation of a global authorities direct hold been a staple of far-right politics inwards the U.S. since the 1950s, they were given renewed emphasis yesteryear members of the Patriot in addition to militia movements during the 1990s.

Publications such every bit The Patriot Report, Spotlight, The Free American, Wake-Up Call America, in addition to The Resister, in addition to groups including the Militia of Montana, the Michigan Militia, in addition to Police Against the New World Order all routinely denounced the United Nations for its conspiratorial intent.

Thousands of unusual troops were said to endure preparation inwards the U.S. inwards preparation for a United Nations takeover of the country. Russian in addition to German linguistic communication tanks had been spotted throughout the nation, every bit had numerous unmarked “black helicopters” operating nether United Nations command.

Yellowstone National Park in addition to other national parks were believed to endure nether United Nations control, in addition to clandestine plans were idea to be for the volume disarmament of America’s gun owners. Reflective stickers, it was warned, had been added to the backs of route signs to straight United Nations forces during the takeover in addition to concentration camps had been constructed to household U.S. dissidents.

Many Patriots believed that inwards reply to some variety of national emergency, either existent or deliberately manufactured, the president would declare martial police pull in addition to that this would endure the dot for the United Nations work of the U.S. to begin. Some fifty-fifty took the thought that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the outset of such a strategy.

Members of the Christian Right direct hold also connected the United Nations to a conspiracy against the interests of the United States. One of the best examples of this is provided yesteryear Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, who published a volume called The New World Order inwards 1991.

Tracing the conspiracy dorsum to the Bavarian Illuminati inwards the piece of cake eighteenth century, Robertson argued that sinister forces had been at locomote throughout America’s history to locomote yesteryear away far business office of a “new world order.”

The League of Nations had been formed to aid alongside plans to select close a one-world government, a oneworld army, in addition to a one-world economy, he claimed, in addition to when this failed the United Nations was established to supplant it. For Robertson, this “new world order” was about coming to fruition.

Having noted that the UN’s authority of armed forces activity against Republic of Iraq during the Gulf War inwards 1991 was the foremost fourth dimension that the world’s nations had come upwardly together since the Tower of Babel had been built, he suggested that President George Bush was “unwittingly carrying out the mission ... of a tightly knit cabal whose destination is nil less than a novel gild for the human race nether the domination of Lucifer in addition to his followers.”

Huguenots

Huguenots

Huguenots is the name given to Protestants in France who were severely persecuted for their faith. The origin of their name is unclear, but its roots probably go back to a German word meaning “confederates” or “conspirators,” reflecting public suspicions about the foreign and subversive intentions of the group.

The Reformation spread into France almost as early as it shook and divided Germany. In 1523, two years after Martin Luther’s excommunication from the Catholic Church, Jean Vallière was burned at the stake in Paris for his Protestant beliefs.

John Calvin, an exile from France, began the reformed movement in Switzerland, but his dream was to convert his native land. It was inevitable that his Francophile followers would return on a mission in spite of opposition.


Government measures taken against the Protestants backfired, and by 1555 there was a Calvinist congregation in Paris. In 1559, Protestant deputies from all provinces assembled in Paris and formed the National Evangelical Church. Within two years, the number of churches went from 15 to 2,150.

Their strategy for survival was to find allies among the nobles and obtain their patronage. They organized themselves into military and political units, unified with the church structure. Close-knit, clannish, and theocratic, they were identified by the name Huguenots.

Although the Huguenots won the right to organize, matters took a dark turn in the late 1550s when the French Crown and the noble family of the Guises forcefully countered the Huguenots. The last straw was the Vassy massacre in 1561, and the Huguenot nobles took up arms.

Seven wars were fought over the next period, summed up in the Thirty Years’ War. Many slaughters of Protestants in French cities occurred, most infamously in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day (1572). The next year, the Huguenot Party was formed, insisting on full liberties for their religion.

In the next decade, they formed themselves as a state within a state, and their internal governance was tight and severe. They were so effective at discipline that rival Catholic groups in the Counter-Reformation imitated their organization.

Massacre Of Huguenots

Peace came with the Edict of Nantes in 1598, imposed on the French people by Henry IV, a Huguenot-turned-Catholic. The regime and the public had spent themselves on violence and now foreign interference threatened state sovereignty. In the streets, however, tensions continued to fester, making the edict hold precariously.

The Huguenots meanwhile pushed through their jadwal so that by 1611 they were recognized as a provisional republic within France. This arrangement began to unravel in 1615 when three Protestant provinces temporarily took up arms against the central government, and other signs of dissatisfaction arose over the next 10 years.

Cardinal Richelieu, the master tactician of French federal government, concluded that the edict would only destroy the unity of France. In 1626, he mounted a full-scaled attack on Huguenot strongholds. Within three years, all that the Protestants had left was a guarantee of freedom of conscience.

Under Louis XIV (1661–1715) all Protestant rights were gradually withdrawn. Nantes was officially revoked in 1685, and massive emigration of Huguenots ensued. The loss of the Huguenots dealt a severe blow to France’s efforts to keep up with their rivals during the Industrial Revolution: a generation of entrepreneurs had emigrated. Just before he died, Louis announced that Protestant exercises in France had ceased.

Conquest of Central America

Conquest of Central America

The Spanish conquest of Central America ranks among the most violently destructive processes in world history. The combination of prolonged warfare, forced labor, enslavement, and disease decimated the indigenous population, which nonetheless survived and endured both the conquest and 300 years of colonial rule. The conquest profoundly affected every aspect of life across the isthmus.

After consolidating their conquest of Hispaniola and establishing garrisons along the coast of Cuba in the 1490s, Spanish explorers began probing the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Caribbean coasts of Central and South America.

In 1509, the Spanish Crown granted two concessions for colonization of these unexplored lands. One was christened Nueva Andalusia, covering the territory east of the Gulf of Darién (at the junction of present-day Colombia and Panama).


The second, Castilla de Oro, extended from the Gulf of Darién north to Cabo Gracias a Dios (at the modern Nicaragua-Honduras border). Initial forays along these coastal regions met with stiff native resistance, disease, hardship, and failure.

These early Spanish encounters with the Caribbean littorals of Central and South America implanted virulent European diseases among the native inhabitants that quickly spread north, south, and west. Within a decade, smallpox and other pathogens were decimating the population of both the Andes and the Central American isthmus, years before Spaniards actually set foot in these areas.

Weakening indigenous polities by causing precipitous demographic declines and generating profound cultural and political crises, the rapid spread of these highly contagious pathogens helped to make subsequent conquests possible.

The first Spanish successes in these regions were those of Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a minor nobleman, indebted farmer, and gifted military leader. Invading the Darién region, Balboa subdued numerous polities and accumulated considerable treasure before hacking his way across the Central American isthmus in Panama at the head of 190 Spaniards and numerous Indian porters and guides.

On September 29, 1513, Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, which he dubbed the “South Sea.” By the late 1520s, Panama City, the settlement at the Pacific terminus of the land corridor through Panama, had become an important shipbuilding center and the launching-off point for subsequent expeditions of exploration and conquest, including the conquest of Peru.

Mosaic of Groups

Pre-Columbian Central America was populated by a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups divided politically into scores of kingdoms, city-states, and smaller polities. This political fragmentation was paralleled in subsequent divisions and conflicts among the Spanish, a key feature of the Central American and Peruvian conquests.

These conflicts first erupted in 1519, when the conquistador Pedrarias Dávila executed Balboa after accusing him of treason. Establishing the settlement of Panama City the same year, Pedrarias was supplanted by royal orders by Gil González Dávila, who launched exploratory expeditions north into Costa Rica and Nicaragua, slaughtering and enslaving the native inhabitants.

A key moment in these initial incursions came in 1522 along the shore of Lake Nicaragua, when Dávila convinced the Nicaráo cacique Nicaragua to submit to Spanish suzerainty and embrace Christianity. Soon afterward, the Chorotega cacique Diriangén assaulted and defeated Dávila’s forces, compelling his hasty retreat back to Panama.

To this day, the opposite paths chosen by the caciques Nicaragua and Diriangén in response to Spanish demands—peaceful submission versus armed resistance—serve as symbolic counterpoints in discussions regarding Central America’s relations to more powerful adversaries.

A bitter conflict soon arose between Pedrarias and Dávila, the latter refusing to relinquish his claims on the Nicaraguan territories. In 1524, Pedrarias’s subordinate Francisco Hernández de Córdoba returned to Nicaragua with a stronger force, determined to subjugate the region’s indigenous polities. Meeting initial success, he founded two towns, Granada and León.

The next two years saw a series of civil wars erupt in Nicaragua between the competing conquistadores and their respective allies, as Dávila attacked Hernández and the latter rebelled against Pedrarias, who in turn defeated and executed Hernández.

Meanwhile, with the conquest of Mexico consolidated, Hernán Cortés and his lieutenants turned their attention south. In 1523, Cortés dispatched Pedro de Alvarado south to the Guatemalan highlands. Deftly exploiting the political rupture between the Cakchiquel and Quiché kingdoms, much as Cortés had exploited indigenous divisions in Mexico, Alvarado allied with the Cakchiquel and defeated the Quiché in a series of battles and massacres.

A legendary moment came in the Battle of Quetzaltenango of April 1524, when the combined Spanish-Cakchiquel force slaughtered the much larger Quiché army and Alvarado personally killed the Quiché chieftain Tecún Umán. Alvarado’s Guatemalan campaign was marked by a series of atrocities and outrages that later became memorialized in highland Indian oral and written culture.

Soon after the Battle of Quetzaltenango, Alvarado captured and burned alive a large number of Quiché lords and nobles. Then, after using his Cakchiquel allies to defeat their enemies the Tz’utujils, Alvarado betrayed the Cakchiquels by executing their leaders and committing other atrocities.

Surviving Cakchiquels fled into the mountains, where for four years they engaged in a guerrilla campaign against Alvarado’s forces. Relentlessly pursuing his erstwhile allies, Alvarado’s forces captured many rebel leaders and hanged them in the central plaza of the Cakchiquel capital of Iximché as an object lesson to other potential rebels. Alvarado then destroyed the capital city.

These and related events were later recorded in a native manuscript, the Annals of the Cakchiquels. In the coming years, Alvarado, his lieutenants, and their successors continued their conquest of the highlands, committing many outrages and establishing the kingdom of Guatemala under the jurisdiction of New Spain. Soon after, Alvarado went on to become a leading figure in the conquest of Peru.

The last autonomous polity in Guatemala to be subdued by the Spanish was the kingdom of Tayasal in the jungles of the Petén in 1697. It is estimated that warfare, forced labor, and disease during the first 50 years of the conquest killed more than onethird of Guatemala’s 2 million inhabitants.

Alvarado’s forceful leadership in Guatemala effectively quelled incipient disputes among his men. This was not the case in the rest of Central America, where conflicts among Spaniards frequently erupted into open civil wars.

In 1524, after dispatching a seaborne expedition under Cristóbal de Olid to the Gulf of Honduras, Cortés discovered that Olid had rebelled against his authority and allied with Cortés’s nemesis, Governor Diego Velázquez of Cuba. After sending Francisco de las Casas to relieve Olid, Cortés marched overland hundreds of kilometers through the steamy jungles of Yucatán and the Petén to subdue Olid himself.

The 19-month-long campaign was a disaster. When he finally reached Honduras, his forces thinned and exhausted, Cortés found that Las Casas and González had already vanquished and beheaded Olid. Despite a Mexican tribunal’s sentences of death, Cortés ensured that neither was punished for the act.

Civil Wars

From the 1520s to the 1550s, in short, much of Central America became a vast killing ground. Civil wars between rival conquistadores continued, while divisions and fractures among indigenous polities led the Spanish to adopt a piecemeal strategy, prolonging the process of conquest and the violence that accompanied it.

Frustrated in their efforts to discover large caches of gold and other treasures and repeat the experience of Cortés in Mexico, the Spanish invaders turned to whatever marketable commodities from the region might turn a profit. In the late 1520s, gold was discovered in Nueva Segovia in north-central Nicaragua. The mines soon proved disappointing.

By this time it had become apparent that the region’s most valuable marketable commodity was human labor. The slave trade thus became the most important pillar of Central America’s early colonial economy. Many indigenous peoples fled into the interior, joining other native groups that maintained stiff resistance against determined Spanish efforts to subdue them.

What the Spanish called indios bravos (wild Indians) in the tropical mountains and jungles of eastern Nicaragua and pockets of Honduras, Guatemala, and elsewhere remained outside the orbit of Spanish control throughout the colonial period.

Estimates for the Pre-Columbian population of Central America vary widely. By the best estimates, as many as 5 million people inhabited the isthmus before the Spanish arrival, with well over 1 million in western Nicaragua and southern Honduras. From 1528 to 1550, an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 indigenous inhabitants of this latter region were enslaved.

Many died en route, the survivors shipped primarily to Panama and Peru. A report to the Crown of 1535 estimated that by that time approximately one-third of western Nicaragua’s Indians had been enslaved. The slave trade peaked between 1536 and 1540. In 1550, the practice was banned, by which time it had slowed to a trickle, for the simple reason that there remained few Indians left to enslave.

By this time, warfare, forced labor, the slave trade, and diseases had reduced western Nicaragua’s indigenous population by around 90–95 percent. Following a larger pattern in the Americas—wherein lowland indigenous populations experienced more precipitous declines than highland populations—the highlands of Guatemala saw a lesser decline, but still of enormous magnitude.

As elsewhere in the Americas, the Spanish intended that a spiritual conquest accompany the military conquest. Religious conversion of the natives was meant to be integral to their economic and political subjugation.

In practice, the spiritual conquest was much more partial and incomplete than the military conquest, as many indigenous spiritual beliefs and practices survived for centuries beneath a veneer of Roman Catholicism.

In sum, and by almost any measure, the Spanish conquest of Central America represents one of world history’s most destructive holocausts, one that bequeathed to subsequent generations across the region a legacy and social memory of violence that endure in various forms to the present day.

Identification Cards

Identification Cards

Many people receive got seen the thought of identification (ID) cards every bit a conspiracy against the freedom of individuals; those on the Right receive got unremarkably drawn on biblical prohesies to warn against ID cards, piece those on the Left receive got feared the introduction of increasing regime surveillance in addition to command of workers.

Opponents of mandatory or quasi-mandatory identification cards on the religious Right receive got pointed to the Bible’s alarm against the “sin of David,” whom Satan incited to bear a census in addition to whom God punished for thence “numbering” the people (1 Chronicles 21). Caesar’s all-empire registration that took Joseph in addition to Mary to Bethlehem (Luke 2) has similarly colored the sentiment of many Americans that whatever regime information collection for revenue enhancement purposes is business office of a wider conspiracy.

Likewise, the introduction of a government-assigned number inwards monastic tell to receive got upwardly a task was viewed every bit fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of the “mark of the beast” inwards Revelation 13: “no homo mightiness purchase or sell, salve he that had the mark, or the shout out of the beast, or the number of his name.” The widening job of ID numbers is said to live on mandated yesteryear international organizations such every bit the United Nations (UN) in addition to the European Community, every bit business office of the New World Order predicted inwards Daniel 7:23 in addition to Revelation 13:4–8.

The Social Security Administration’s “Enumeration at Birth” program, inwards which newborns are assigned Social Security Numbers (SSNs), is business office of a “global conception for enumeration,” mandated yesteryear the UN. New identification applied scientific discipline is seen every bit especially worrisome, amongst fears, for example, that bar codes comprise the number 666, the grade of the beast.


On the Left, the assignment of SSNs to workers inwards the 1930s produced concerns, for illustration yesteryear the United Mineworkers, of a potential employers’ “blacklist” of troublemaking laborers. However, much of the opposition to the SSN was fueled yesteryear opposition to President Roosevelt’s New Deal itself, in addition to made job of conspiratorial accusations largely every bit a rhetorical flourish.

Just earlier the 1936 election, Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon asked rhetorically if millions of Americans would at 1 time live on fingerprinted in addition to photographed in addition to “opened for federal snooping.” The Hearst newspapers asked, “Do y'all desire a tag in addition to a number inwards the shout out of simulated security?” in addition to spread the rumor that all workers would live on required to article of apparel Canis familiaris tags displaying the SSN.

Although the fears in addition to conspiracy theories that met the introduction of the SSN tin at 1 time appear farfetched, it is nevertheless the illustration that the numbers receive got give-up the ghost all-purpose identifiers, despite assurances at the time, in addition to fears well-nigh the erosion of freedom in addition to privacy are non unfounded.

However, the U.S.A. does non receive got a national ID carte du jour every bit other countries do. The most-commonly checked regime IDs are the driver’s licenses issued yesteryear the 50 states, but less than xx per centum of the population has a U.S. passport. More than 7,000 dissimilar jurisdictions number all fashion of nascence certificates, which are the “breeder documents” upon which other IDs are based.

Proponents of universal ID cards outset from the observation that the U.S.A. already has a de facto national ID card, inwards the shape of driver’s licenses, in addition to a national ID number, inwards the shape of the SSN. In the wake of the terrorist assail on September 11, for example, advocates for a national ID carte du jour argued that the existing scheme had to live on made to a greater extent than robust yesteryear combining the existing cards into one.

In a similar vein, opponents of national ID cards propose that the electrical current scattered scheme is but the slippery gradient to the introduction of a national ID. These skeptics assert that, because totalitarian systems rely on ID cards (Nazi Germany’s IBMsupplied ID system, the Soviet internal passport, in addition to apartheid South Africa’s locomote yesteryear scheme beingness primal examples), ID cards themselves stand upwardly for the sparse border of the wedge of a Big Brother terra firma apparatus, which could live on introduced yesteryear stealth in addition to inwards a piecemeal fashion, via modest technological improvements in addition to policy changes.

Mainstream civil liberties in addition to privacy advocates such every bit the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in addition to the Privacy Foundation hit non run into whatever conspiracy inwards this, although slippery-slope arguments tin sometimes play the same role every bit conspiracy theory inwards viewing together what would otherwise live on unrelated, disparate events. Sometimes privacy advocates volition employ the hint of conspiracy to simplify the presentation of what is actually an declaration well-nigh incremental, technological determinism.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 rather dissimilar grouping of ID opponents does run into a literal conspiracy. In U.S. history at that spot is a longstanding populist, right-wing fearfulness of the encroachment of “big government” into the life of the average American, in addition to ID cards are often seen every bit business office of a larger conspiracy of the federal regime (and the so-called New World Order) to command the private life of citizens. Members of the Patriot movement, inwards groups such every bit the Militia of Montana in addition to the Posse Comitatus, receive got attempted to rescind or revoke their ain driver’s licenses or SSNs, inwards a procedure called “asseveration.”

For example, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols had at 1 indicate attempted to dorsum out of a $20,000 debt yesteryear attempting to repudiate his U.S. citzenship; he destroyed his driver’s license, passport, in addition to voter registration card. Similar ID-revocation techniques receive got been used inwards attempts to avoid child-support payments, dorsum taxes, gun registration, seatbelt laws, speed limits, in addition to similar infringements on “sovereign” citizens.

These groups depict ID cards every bit business office of a conspiracy to claw citizens into rejecting their “sovereign” status. Even the ZIP code is feared every bit a shape of “adhesion contract” to nullify sovereignty. The thought of ID cards every bit an antisovereign conspiracy is by in addition to large employed every bit business office of a strategy for avoiding taxes or other fiscal burdens, although this sort of revenue enhancement avoidance has been universally unsuccessful.

There is, however, a thriving line of piece of work organisation inwards running seminars on the subject, at which attendees mightiness pay several hundred dollars to instruct the appropriate paperwork, addition the powerfulness to themselves concur similar seminars, forming a sort of multilevel-marketing receive for the anti-ID carte du jour conspiracy theory.

In the U.S.A. “liberty” is often a code give-and-take for guns, in addition to fifty-fifty fairly mainstream opponents of gun registration sometimes run into ID cards every bit business office of a much larger pattern, inwards which “fascist” regime agencies such every bit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, in addition to Firearms (BATF) is targeting gun owners in addition to the “politically incorrect.” The Brady Bill requires that ID such every bit a driver’s license live on shown in addition to checked against a federal database every bit business office of a handgun sale, which has led the gun foyer to equate registration in addition to ID cards amongst gun control.

New forms of applied scientific discipline provoke similar responses from opponents of identification cards. “Smart” cards, which tin ship several megabytes of data, are ofttimes described every bit the adjacent pace inwards bringing well-nigh one-world regime tracking of all persons; the job of such smart cards on armed forces bases has been described every bit a airplane pilot projection to displace the entire civilian population to a trackable, cashless society.

Biometrics such every bit facial recognition, in addition to location tracking via GPS (Global Positioning Satellite), are seen every bit business office of the same plan. The adjacent pace is implantable ID, such every bit the Digital Angel in addition to Verichip products from Applied Digital Solutions. The religious Right banking concern notation that these products inwards business office fulfill the pattern specification of Revelation 13:16 that speaks of “a grade inwards their right hand, or inwards their foreheads.”

Timothy McVeigh, the Oklohoma bomber, spoke of the the world forces implanting a reckoner fighting inwards his buttocks during the Gulf War, but to a greater extent than mainstream commentators at 1 time banking concern notation that such technology is becoming to a greater extent than likely. For the conspiracyminded, high-tech ID systems are seen every bit systems non only for identification, but for heed control.

Pathet Lao

The term Pathet Lao (land of Lao) is generally used to describe the communist movement of Laos that began in 1945 and continued until 1975, when Laos became communist. It was one of three groups active in the politics of Laos, the other two being the Royal Lao Government (RLG) and the neutralists.

Laos became a French protectorate in 1893. During World War II, the Japanese took control of Laos and declared it independent from French colonial rule on March 9, 1945. After Japan’s surrender, an independent Lao Issara (Free Laos) government was proclaimed on September 1, joined by the Pathet Lao, with its strong nationalist leanings.

There was a Lao committee section in the Indochinese Communist Party, and the separate existence of the Lao communist movement was established in 1945. The leader of the Pathet Lao, Prince Souphanuvong, had met the Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh in 1945 and gained control of central Laos with the help of Vietnamese troops.


The prince had nurtured the communist movement and was prepared to fight against the French, who had seized the capital city, Vientiane, in 1946. Laos was soon engulfed in the First Indochina War, and the Pathet Lao fought along with the Vietminh and the Khmer Rouge. The granting of limited independence on July 19, 1949, by the French was not accepted by the communists.

However, Souvanna Phouma joined the new French-sponsored government in February 1950, where Souphanouvong proclaimed the parallel government of Pathet Lao along with its political organ, Neo Lao Issara (Lao Free Front).

The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954, ended its colonial rule in Indochina. The Pathet Lao was recognized as a political party with control over Phong Saly and Sam Neua Provinces and began to consolidate its position.

In December 1959 the military-dominated government of Phoumi Nosavan arrested the Pathet Lao members of the National Assembly, although Souphanouvong escaped. Laos was plunged into civil war. North Vietnam supported the Pathet Lao by sending arms, ammunitions, and troops.

The U.S. government included Laos in its containment strategy defense against North Vietnam and China. Another attempt was made to bring peace to Laos with the Geneva Accords of 1962. But the attempt failed, and Laos was soon embroiled in the Vietnam War.

A three-pronged coalition between the Pathet Lao, the royal government, and the neutralists did not last long, and the United States and Hanoi stepped up economic and military assistance to their respective allies.

War in Laos became a sideshow in the Vietnam War, marked by heavy civilian death toll. The Pathet Lao military advance captured more territory and by 1972 controlled four-fifths of the land and half the population of Laos.

Finally, the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements on Vietnam in 1973 led to accelerated negotiations in Laos. An agreement on Restoring Peace and Achieving National Concord on Laos was signed in the same year. With the United States out of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese conquered the south in 1975.

After the fall of South Vietnam, the Pathet Lao assumed effective control of Laos, and the coalition government in Laos was dissolved. On December 2, 1975, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) was formed with Souphanouvong as president.

Conquest and Colonization of Brazil

Conquest and Colonization of Brazil

The Portuguese conquest of Brazil was a complex, prolonged, and partial process that many scholars argue was never fully realized. Lacking large cities, a centralized political structure, and a common language, the estimated 2 to 3 million precontact indigenous inhabitants of the Brazilian coast and interior were divided into an intricate patchwork of ethnolinguistic groups and clan-based tribes.

The principal coastal groups were Tupi-speaking peoples who had migrated into the area in the preceding centuries, displacing and absorbing existing groups. Seminomadic hunter-gatherers with intimate knowledge of the local environment, Tupi speakers were divided into numerous major branches and hundreds of autonomous bands, often in conflict with each other and other groups, and possessing great skill in the arts of war.

Their principal weapon, often used with deadly effect, was the bow and arrow. Like other ethnolinguistic groups in the Americas, many Tupi-speaking peoples practiced ritual cannibalism in the most general terms, a cultural-religious practice acknowledging the spiritual power of slain enemies.


The Portuguese used reports of ritual cannibalism to justify their invasion, slave raiding, and other excesses of violence, much as the Spanish had used the practice of ritual human sacrifice to justify their subjugation of the Aztecs in the conquest of Mexico.

The first European explorer to sight the Brazilian coast was Portuguese noble Pedro Álvares Cabral, in command of 13 ships headed around the southern tip of Africa to India, on April 22, 1500. Following a brief excursion on the beach, the expedition’s chronicler, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, produced the first written report on the land and its people.

Cabral sent one ship back to Portugal loaded with brazilwood, a red dyewood from which the later colony derived its name, and left behind two convicts to begin the process of mixing with the natives. The following year Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci sailed along Brazil’s southern coast. A number of French and Spanish expeditions followed.

These initial contacts with the natives were largely peaceful, though here as elsewhere they resulted in the spread of European diseases against which native peoples had no biological immunity. These diseases led to rapid population declines in many areas long before Europeans arrived.

The years 1500–30 saw the growth of the brazil-wood trade between Europeans and Brazil’s coastal peoples. Relations between rival French and Portuguese traders soon degenerated into a series of violent clashes, with the French ignoring the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, to which it was not a signatory.

In the early 1520s, the Portuguese established a garrisoned trading station at Pernambuco, where sugar cultivation was introduced in 1526. French-Portuguese hostilities along the coast intensified. In 1530, the Portuguese Crown responded by commissioning Martím Afonso de Sousa to begin the process of settlement and colonization, an expedition that in 1532 established the first permanent colony at São Vicente near modern São Paulo.

As conflicts with the French grew, in the mid-1530s King João III and his advisers devised the donatory system, which divided the coastland into 15 sections or donatories that extended along imaginary boundaries west into the interior, each to be ruled by a captain or hereditary lord.

Entrusting colonization to a handful of private individuals who would exercise full authority within their respective domains, the Crown hoped to secure its claims against its French rivals. Most donatories languished and failed, with São Vicente and Pernambuco seeing the greatest albeit limited success.

Important in this early phase of colonization were a small number of individuals who mixed with the natives and acted as cultural intermediaries between indigenous peoples and the Portuguese. Sailor Diogo Álvares ventured into the interior near Bahia in the early 1500s, married the daughter of the chief of the Tupinambá tribe, learned their language and culture, and changed his name to Caramurú.

By the 1530s, he had become a respected tribal chieftain and from this position of authority worked to facilitate the process of colonization. That the Bahia captaincy failed was due mainly to poor administration and the settlers’ failure to heed Caramurú’s counsel regarding their interactions with the natives.

Farther south, the settlement of São Paulo succeeded in large part by the efforts of Portuguese castaway João Ramalho, who had also married into a local tribe, the Goiana Tupinikin, and served as interpreter and intermediary.

Portuguese colonists generally mixed with the local inhabitants to a greater extent than was true of other European powers, thereby facilitating subsequent cultural and linguistic melding of different ethnic and racial groups.

Sugar Trade

As the brazilwood trade faded, sugar became the colony’s economic backbone. By the mid-1540s, two sugar-producing centers had emerged; one was around Pernambuco in the north, and the other was in São Vicente in the south.

By this time, competition with French, Spanish, and other rivals had sharpened, prompting the Portuguese Crown to intensify colonization efforts. Consequently, the Crown would play a major role in the colony’s economic development.

In 1549, Tomé de Sousa was appointed governor-general of Brazil at the head of a major expedition that included royal officials, artisans, soldiers, and Jesuit missionaries. Sousa established Salvador as the colony’s capital. To the south, the French colony at the Guanabara Bay threatened Portuguese control of the southern littoral.

In 1565–67, the Portuguese defeated and ousted the French colony and established the town São Sebastião de Rio de Janeiro. Sousa’s successor Mem de Sá (governor-general, 1558–74) consolidated royal control over these coastal population centers.

Indigenous resistance to colonization intensified, particularly in consequence of slave-raiding expeditions organized by planters in the rapidly growing sugar industry. Indian counterattacks nearly destroyed the settlements of Bahia, Espirito Santo, and Ilhéus, and killed Brazil’s first bishop, but could not stem the Portuguese tide.

The Jesuits played a key role in this early phase of colonization and in the centralization of royal authority. Though their numbers were never large (110 in all of Brazil in 1574), their economic, social, and cultural impact was huge.

Young and aggressive, the Jesuit order (founded in 1540) was instrumental in establishing the town of São Paulo in 1557, and in facilitating generally peaceful relations between Indians and colonists in the south.

Taking no vow of poverty, Jesuits made their missions (aldeas) self-supporting and profitable through farming, ranching, and related enterprises. They were also crucial to the colony’s educational life. For most of the colonial period, Jesuit colleges in all the major towns served as the colony’s principal schools.

By the mid-1500s, sugar planters considered that labor had become the colony’s principal economic bottleneck. Land was plentiful, but sugar production in their view required a steady and reliable supply of bound labor. Enslaving native peoples was their initial strategy for meeting these rising labor demands.

The period from 1540 to 1600 saw the most extensive use of Indian slave labor in Brazil’s burgeoning sugar industry. By the late 1500s, disease and native resistance combined to make Indian slavery unable to meet sugar growers’ labor demands, leading to conflicts among the Crown, sugar growers, and the Jesuits.

The Crown tended to advocate the integration of Indians into the economy as free wage laborers; sugar growers promoted slavery; and Jesuits worked toward the transformation of Indians into a kind of smallholding or peasant class. Whose vision predominated hinged on a host of local and regional variables.

The transition from Indian to African slave labor was gradual, though by the early 1600s African slave labor dominated the sugar industry. The first Africans came as servants and sailors, while the first large-scale importation of African slaves did not begin until the 1570s. By the 1580s, the labor force on the 66 sugar plantations of Pernambuco is estimated at two-thirds Indian and one-third African slaves.

In later decades, the proportion of African slaves grew, so that by 1600 Brazil’s slave labor force was predominantly African. Over the next 250 years, Brazil became the single largest recipient of African slaves in the Americas, especially the Northeast, the colony’s principal sugar zone.

Brazil’s European population remained overwhelmingly concentrated in coastal areas. All the major cities founded in the 1500s were ports, including Bahia, São Vicente, Olinda (1537), Santos (1545), Salvador (1549), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565). The pattern continued well into the 1600s, especially in the north and along the lower reaches of the Amazon.

The Brazilian population remained heavily concentrated in coastal areas through the colonial period and after. As European coastal populations swelled, migrations of Indian peoples away from the coast intensified, producing a ripple effect throughout the interior.

In 1585, São Paulo colonists officially authorized slave-raiding expeditions, and for the next 150 years the bandeirantes hunted Indian slaves across much of Brazil in the service of Paulista sugar planters. From the 1550s on, a series of epidemics ravaged Indian populations, including those of 1552 around Bahia, 1554 around São Paulo, Espírito Santo in 1559, and continuing through the colonial period.

Further impelling the Portuguese Crown to consolidate its hold on the colony was the Dutch presence in the Northeast, from the 1620s until their expulsion in 1654. The discovery of gold in present-day Minas Gerais in the mid-1690s led to a gold rush in these regions from 1700 to 1760, while discovery of diamonds in the same region in the 1720s further propelled expansion into the interior.

Many escaped African slaves also escaped into the interior, sometimes forming Maroon societies of runaway slaves, called quilombos. The largest and most resilient, Palmares, endured through most of the 1600s. By 1700, the population of the colonized areas was an estimated 300,000, with 100,000 whites, 150,000 mostly African slaves, and 50,000 free blacks, Indians, and mixed-race groups.

Colonial Brazil’s first 250 years set in motion a series of patterns and processes that profoundly shaped the subsequent development of Brazilian society. Especially important in this regard were the formation of an export-oriented economy (most notably brazilwood, sugar, gold, and diamonds); stark divisions of race and class; highly unequal landownership; a substantial degree of racial and ethnic intermingling, particularly among the lower classes; the gradual movement of the frontier of settlement westward; the subordination of Indian and African peoples within a relatively rigid social hierarchy; and the existence of vast unconquered lands beyond the western and northern frontiers.

National Rifle Association

National Rifle Association

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is an organization that promotes the rights as well as interests of gun owners, as well as frequently views whatsoever perceived restriction of those rights as well as interests past times the authorities every bit a conspiracy against the freedom of its members.

It was founded inwards 1871 past times Colonel William C. Church as well as General George W. Wingate. Prompted past times worries over the poor marksmanship of Union soldiers during the Civil War, the NRA’s initial aim was exactly to ameliorate the shooting skills of its members. This emphasis on marksmanship, together amongst sporting as well as other recreational uses of firearms, especially hunting, remained the NRA’s principal focus of activity until the 1960s.

Although the NRA continues to offering a make of services to its exactly about three 1 grand one thousand members, including educational, safety, as well as preparation programs, insurance packages, discounts on gun-related products, as well as fifty-fifty loans, every bit good every bit publishing a number of magazines including the American Rifleman, American Hunter, as well as American Guardian, since the belatedly 1960s it has run increasingly involved inwards the politics of gun ownership.


It is this shift of emphasis that has led to criticisms that the NRA has run conspiratorial both inwards its outlook as well as inwards its attempts to resist the imposition of restrictions on gun ownership inwards the United States.

The origins of the NRA’s greater political involvement tin hold upwards traced to the successful passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968. The moving ridge of political assassinations that took house during the 1960s—most notably those of President John F. Kennedy, his blood brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the African American leaders Malcolm X as well as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.—created a widespread debate nearly the house of guns inwards U.S. lodge as well as this, inwards turn, led to the 1968 legislation. The Gun Control Act was the most substantial congressional rule of firearms since the National Firearms Act of 1934.

Among other things, it prohibited the interstate shipment of firearms as well as ammunition to private individuals; banned the importation of surplus armed forces firearms into the the States except those suitable for sporting purposes; as well as prevented the sale of guns to minors, drug addicts, the mentally ill, as well as convicted felons.

Many NRA members were concerned that the Gun Control Act mightiness hold upwards the starting fourth dimension pace toward to a greater extent than stringent restrictions on gun ownership. Led past times Harlon Carter, these members pushed for to a greater extent than political activity on the part of the organization.

As a result, inwards 1975 the NRA established an Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) to straight its political lobbying activities as well as inwards 1976 created a political activity committee, the NRA Political Victory Fund, to furnish back upwards both for sympathetic officeholders as well as those seeking populace office.

The transformation of the NRA into a much to a greater extent than politically oriented involvement grouping was confirmed at its 1977 convention inwards Cincinnati when, inwards what became known every bit the “Cincinnati Revolt,” Carter as well as his supporters succeeded inwards gaining command of the arrangement from its to a greater extent than traditionally inclined members.

This is non to say that the nature as well as extent of the NRA’s political activities convey been uncontested since the 1970s. On the contrary, the NRA is frequently champaign of written report to internecine conflict nearly the administration of its political activities. During the 1990s, for example, at that topographic point was a long-running dispute betwixt the “purist” approach of Neal Knox as well as the “pragmatist” strategy of Wayne LaPierre.

The dispute climaxed at the annual coming together of the NRA’s board of directors inwards Seattle inwards 1997 when Knox sought to unseat LaPierre every bit the NRA’s executive vice-president past times supporting the candidacy of Donna Dianchi.

However, non solely was Dianchi defeated past times LaPierre, Knox himself lost his topographic point on the organization’s board of directors every bit starting fourth dimension vice-president to longtime NRA fellow member as well as NRA spokesman, the instrumentalist Charlton Heston. Heston became the NRA president inwards 1998.

Despite such internal struggles, the broad approach of the NRA since the 1970s has been characterized every bit 1 of almost consummate as well as unyielding opposition to whatsoever sort of gun command legislation or to whatsoever endeavour to regulate gun ownership, as well as it is this mental attitude that draws criticism that the arrangement has a conspiratorial worldview.

For instance, inwards the mid-1980s the NRA opposed legislation to ban armor-piercing “cop-killer” bullets—opposition that led, inwards part, to a intermission inwards the formerly closed human relationship betwixt law organizations as well as the NRA—and during the 1990s it opposed the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 as well as the “assault weapons ban” inside the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994.

The Brady law was the starting fourth dimension slice of major gun command legislation since the Gun Control Act of 1968. Its primary consequence was to institute a five-day waiting menstruum for handgun purchases. The Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 banned the sale or utilisation of 19 types of semiautomatic onset weapons as well as placed a ten-bullet boundary on gun clips.

The NRA objects to legislation similar the Brady law or the onset weapons ban for 2 primary reasons: first, because it sees them every bit infringements of Americans’ constitutional correct to hold as well as comport arms every bit contained inwards the Second Amendment, as well as second, because it fears that such restrictions dot moves toward the total disarmament of U.S. citizens.

In an article inwards the June 1994 number of the American Rifleman entitled “The Final War Has Begun,” for example, Wayne LaPierre claimed he had hugger-mugger show that “the total scale state of war to ... eliminate private firearms ownership completely as well as forever” was “well underway”. The NRA, he argued, had to employ all its resources to counter these plans.

For opponents of the NRA, such attitudes discover the conspiracism they see every bit underpinning the arrangement as well as they are critical of the frequently apocalyptic linguistic communication the NRA uses inwards its mailings as well as populace statements.

During the 1990s, the NRA was also heavily criticized for the violent antigovernment note of much of its rhetoric. The NRA was peculiarly hostile to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, as well as Firearms because of its role inwards the sieges of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge inwards Idaho inwards 1992 as well as the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, inwards 1993.

H5N1 fund-raising missive of the alphabet sent out past times Wayne LaPierre a few days earlier the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building inwards Oklahoma City on 19 Apr 1995 compared federal authorities agents amongst Nazis, for example.

Former President George Bush, Sr., resigned his life membership inwards the NRA inwards answer to the letter, as well as at that topographic point was much criticism of the apparent overlap betwixt the rhetoric of the NRA as well as that of the militia movement.

This criticism intensified when it was revealed that Tanya Metaksa, the caput of the NRA’s ILA, had met amongst members of the Michigan Militia a few months prior to the Oklahoma bombing. LaPierre subsequently apologized for the letter, but trouble remained that the NRA was taking increasingly extremist positions inwards its efforts to defend the rights of gun owners inwards the United States.

Treaty of San Francisco

The Treaty of San Francisco, signed on November 8, 1951, and implemented on April 28, 1952, restored full sovereignty to Japan after its unconditional surrender at the end of World War II and ended the U.S. occupation.

The negotiations over the treaty revealed differing notions of what had caused World War II and of what Japan’s role in the world should be. Engineered primarily by the United States, the treaty quickly became caught up in the cold war rivalries.

In March 1947 U.S. general Douglas MacArthur, who headed the Allied Occupation Authority in Japan, ignited a heated debate about the proper terms of Japan’s rehabilitation when he publicly stated his preference for a relatively short U.S. occupation, believing that Japan had been democratized and demilitarized and that a long occupation would only create resentment.


This view was countered by those who pushed for massive reparations from Japan as well as its complete demilitarization. This group believed that the lax enforcement of the Versailles Treaty, which had ended World War I and established terms for the German reparations and demilitarization, had created the conditions for World War II.

A different assessment of the Versailles Treaty emerged among those who advocated a "soft" approach to the peace treaty. This group, which eventually included U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson as well as MacArthur, argued that it was the harsh conditions of Versailles that had, by humiliating and isolating Germany, contributed to the rise of Nazism. This group also worried that the United States should be careful not to overextend its military presence in Japan.

The negotiations were complicated by cold war diplomacy. The United States worried about granting Soviet Russia and the newly established communist People’s Republic of China a significant role.

It also wanted to guarantee that Japan would become a U.S.- friendly bulwark against communism in East Asia. In particular, the U.S. military wanted to retain control over Japan for an extended period to guarantee access to its military bases in the area.

The United States eventually adopted a "piecemeal strategy" of granting Japan full sovereignty and disregarding the calls for a longer occupation. It met the concerns of the British Commonwealth of Nations with a U.S.-backed security network that would include Australia and New Zealand.

It satisfied the concerns of the Philippines with promises of aid and security. The United States also decided that neither the Chinese Communist nor the Chinese Nationalist governments would be invited to the treaty conference. This formula won significant bipartisan support in the United States.

The official treaty conference took place in San Francisco in 1951. Fifty-one nations were represented (India chose not to attend). The United States engineered the simpulan result, causing delegates from the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to walk out. Eventually 48 nations signed the treaty.

The simpulan terms of the treaty reflected a victory for the pragmatists who had worried that overly harsh conditions would push Japan away from the West. Although it stripped Japan of all territory gained since 1895 and rejected the pardoning of war criminals, the treaty established immediate sovereignty for Japan and limited reparations it owed to its World War II victim nations. The United States–Japan Security Treaty, signed two hours after the peace treaty, guaranteed a U.S. military presence.

Not all Japanese were happy with the treaty. Many Japanese wanted to see the process of democratization and demilitarization continued. They were surprised by the number of bases the United States maintained in Japan as well as the ban on diplomatic relations and trade with communist China.

In retrospect, the relatively generous terms of the treaty reformed Japan as an important member of the Western camp during the cold war. Japan never again threatened the security interests of the West or of other East Asian nations.

Magyar Invasions

Magyar Invasions

The Magyars, Hungarian ancestors, began raiding into western Europe in 862 against the outposts of the Frankish kingdom in the Danube Valley. Under pressure from the Pechenegs, they moved westward, eventually moving into the Carpathian Basin in 895. Over the next 10 years, they gained control of the entire basin.

From here they continued to raid Europe over the next 55 years, reaching as far west as the Pyrenees mountains. During this time, their raids were successful enough that the Byzantine Empire and several other kingdoms chose to pay off the Magyars to gain relief from invasion.

Their raids were finally brought to an end in 955 at the Battle of Augsburg when King Otto I of Germany defeated the Magyars. The prehistory of the Magyars, because of lack of written record, has been constructed from their language, which is part of the Finno-Ugric language group. Other languages in this group are Finnish and Estonian.


It is believed that the Magyars were originally part of a group of people who lived in western Siberia. Today most of the peoples in this group live in Russia, except the Hungarians and those living in the Baltic region and Finland. The name Magyar is taken to mean “speakers” and is derived from the Finno-Ugrian mon, which means “speak,” and er, which means “man.”

Sometime during the 10th century b.c.e., the Magyars moved south out of western Siberia into the area between the Ural River and the Aral Sea. They lived in this area until sometime during the second century b.c.e. when they moved westward into the Don Basin.

During the first century c.e., the Magyars moved into the region near the Azov Sea and the Black Sea and discovered the use of iron and horses, most likely from their exposure to their neighbors the Scythians and Sarmatians. Interaction with these Iranian peoples can be seen through the incorporation of Iranian words into their language.

They then came under the influence of Turkish peoples. In the sixth century the Magyars joined the Onogurs, a Turkish tribal alliance made up of 10 tribes. (Onogurs means “10 peoples.”) The Onogurs, including the Magyars, were then incorporated into the Turkish empire in 552, but then the Magyars gained their independence again in the early part of the seventh century, only to be incorporated into the Khazar Khanate in 630.

The Magyars gained their independence from the Khazars in 830—at the time settled in the area between the Don and Lower Danube Rivers. In 862 they launched their first raid against a western European kingdom and raided the Frankish tribe. These raids continued over the next several years, sometimes launched alone, and other times while allied with other kingdoms, such as the Turkish Kabars and the Moravians.

In 894 they allied with the Byzantines under Emperor Leo the Wise. The Byzantines were involved in a war with the Bulgars under Czar Simeon. The campaign that year was a success for the Magyars and Byzantines. Unfortunately for the Magyars, they set themselves up for their own defeat. In 894 there was a massive movement of Turkish peoples from the east that pushed the Pechenegs from their homeland.

Fleeing the Turkish invasion, the Pechenegs moved west into Magyar land and signed an alliance with the Bulgars against the Magyars. With the Magyar armies away fighting the Bulgars, the Pechenegs had little trouble overrunning the Magyars, who found themselves caught between the hostile kingdoms of the Bulgars and the Pechenegs. The Magyars had little choice but to flee to the west to avoid their destruction.

Under the leadership of their chieftains Árpád and Kurans, the Magyars moved across the Carpathian Mountains into the middle Danube valley. Over the next 10 years, the Magyars would secure control over the valley, including destroying the Moravian kingdom in 906.

Magyar army

With the death of Kurans, caused by Bavarian intrigue against the Magyars in 904, Árpád became the sole ruler of the Magyars and their tradition of dual rulers ended. Arpad died in 907 and was succeeded by his son. The Magyars finished the conquest of their new homeland and they continued raiding. Their raid into Italy in 899 was at the invitation of the emperor Arnulph of the eastern Frankish kingdom.

Looking for help against his rival King Berengar I of Lombardy (who had a claim on the imperial crown), Arnulph sent 5,000 warriors on a raid into Italy. While the Magyars’ initial attack on Venice was repulsed, the Magyars were able to defeat Berengar in battle at the river Brenta.

With the death of Emperor Arnulph in 899, the Magyars saw their chance to raid the Frankish empire, which was in turmoil because of the emperor’s death. In 900, the Magyars launched their first raid into Bavaria. The raids into Bavaria continued over the next 33 years and became more destructive. In 910 the Magyars defeated the Germans at the Battle of Augsburg, where they led them into an ambush by pretending to flee.

The Magyars, like most of the nomadic peoples from the steppes, were excellent horsemen. They were also very proficient with bow and arrow. They would launch a sudden attack and then pretend to flee from the enemy. They drew their enemy into a trap, where they could encircle the enemy and destroy them with arrows in close combat.

Another part of the success of the Magyars was due to the weakness of the western kingdoms, who were engaged in internal fighting (in Germany and Italy) fending off other external threats (in France the Normans and Saracens). Even the Byzantine Empire found it more useful to submit to the Magyars, using them as an ally against the Bulgars. A standard Magyar strategy was repeatedly to raid an area to compel the ruler to pay the Magyars to leave the area alone.

In 924 the Magyars launched a raid into western Europe. Raiding through Bavaria, Swabia, Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne on the way west, they then crossed the Rhine and raided Franconia before returning home. At this point King Henry the Fowler decided to buy nine years of peace from the Magyars and used this time to reorganize and strengthen the German cavalry better to defend against the Magyars.

In 926 the Magyars launched a raid into northern Italy. Moving through Ventia and Lombardy, they were repulsed in their attempt to cross the Pennine Alps by soldiers from Burgundy and Vienne. They crossed the Maritime Alps and raided into Provence and Septimantia in southern France all the way to the Pyrenees.

Magyar rider

Returning through the Rhone Valley, they fought several inconclusive battles with the troops from Burgundy and Vienne before returning home. When the nine-year truce King Henry had purchased in 924 expired and he refused to renew it, the Magyars turned their attention back to Germany in 933.

The Magyars sent an army into Germany to convince them to continue paying tribute. Meeting the German army near Merseberg, the Magyars suffered a defeat at the hands of the Germans, resulting in the loss of German tribute money. Henry and his son Otto I the Great fortified eastern German to protect it from the Magyars.

The Magyars turned to easier targets to the south of the Carpathian Basin, raiding the Balkans region and the Byzantine Empire. Launching a campaign into this area in 934 and in 942 against the Byzantine Empire, the Magyars began receiving regular tribute from the Byzantines and others in the area.

The Byzantine tribute would continue until 970, when the Magyars allied themselves with the prince of Kiev, who invaded the Balkans and was defeated by the Byzantines. In 951 Prince Henry of Bavaria defeated the Magyar troops in northern Italy and then raided their province of Pannonia. A civil war in Germany (953–955) between Otto I and his son Ludolf allowed the Magyars to raid western Europe again.

With a force of between 50,000 and 100,000 warriors, the Magyars raided through Franconia and Bavaria. Then with help from Conrad, duke of Lorraine, who was allied with Ludolf, the Magyars crossed the Rhine River at Worms and moved into Lorraine, then moving into northeastern France, Rheims, Chalons, and into Burgundy. From there they moved into northern Italy, raided Lombardy, and finally returned home.

In 955 with a force of 50,000, the Magyars moved into Bavaria and laid siege to the city of Augsburg. The Magyars believed that Ludolf and Conrad were still at war with Otto. Instead, the rebels had made peace with Otto and joined him in attacking the Magyars. With a force of about 10,000 heavy cavalry, the Germans moved to attack the Magyars, who lifted their siege and prepared for battle with the Germans.

The battle was fought on August 10, 955. The Magyars were initially successful and captured the German camp. Otto repulsed the Magyar attack and then had his forces attack and drive the Magyars from the field with heavy losses, including the capture of the Magyar camp. During the simpulan attack Conrad was killed.

At the Battle of Augsburg (also known as the Battle of Lechfeld), the Magyar raids into western Europe finally ended. With their defeat at the hands of the Byzantines in 970, the time was ripe for the Magyars to cease their raids. The Magyars turned to farming and became influenced by the Roman Catholic Church.