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🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it’s Sunday, January 18. Today we're diving into the Nika riots, James Cook's voyage to Hawaii, the Second German Empire, the Coen brothers' first movie, and much more—don't miss out on this electrifying journey through history!
Don't miss today’s Strange Times story about War for Bird Poop (No, Seriously)
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— Fatih Taskiran, Editor
🚀 Time Machine
-532
The Nika riots in Constantinople fail, 30,000 killed by Emperor Justinian I's troops in the Hippodrome.
-1591
King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra at an elephant duel.
-1778
James Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands when he sailed past Oahu.
-1788
The First Fleet, carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia, lands at Botany Bay to start a penal colony.
-1817
General José de San Martín leads a revolutionary army over the Andes to attack Spanish royalists in Chile.
-1871
Kaiser Wilhelm I and Otto von Bismarck proclaimed the Second German Empire.
-1919
Some of the world's most powerful people meet in Paris to begin negotiations that would officially end the First World War.
-1950
China formally recognized the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and agreed to provide it with military assistance.
-1980
Pink Floyd's double album "The Wall" reached #1.
-1984
Blood Simple, the hard-boiled, often gruesome black comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, hits theaters.
-2016
The world's 62 richest people are now wealthier than half the population, according to Oxfam.
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📸 Snapshot
Two girls posing in front of a fire in San Francisco, caused by an earthquake, 1906
🗨️ Last Words
“You may go home, the show is over.”
🤯 Strange Times
War for Bird Poop (No, Seriously)
In the late 1800s, fertilizer was strategic gold: Peru’s guano piles and Chile’s nitrate beds could feed continents—and treasuries. Chile called foul on Bolivia when it tried to slap a 10-centavo export tax on a Chilean saltpeter firm in 1878, and the War of the Pacific started. A secret alliance pulled in Peru; Chile’s navy and logistics did the rest—translation: a resource war with the world’s least glamorous resource.
The finish: Chile got Tarapacá (saltpeter jackpot), while Bolivia's coast was lost forever—later formalized in 1904 (cue Arica-La Paz railway as consolation. After a century, Bolivia still notices the absence of guano; chemistry outpaced seabirds, but not before proving that nations will fight over...droppings.