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For a few months now, reports have been intensifying warning of the possibility of a more or less generalized war in Europe. But a look at the past shows that war is not good business, except for some.
The unthinkable. World War II was terrible, but what could have come after would have been worse. Churchill, convinced that confrontation with the USSR was inevitable, designed Operation Unthinkable to unleash hostilities just the day after the German surrender. The plan did not work because the United States did not support it and when, a few years later, Stalin obtained the nuclear bomb, it became, effectively, unthinkable.
David and Goliat. Wars are fought in the sphere of diplomacy and in the halls of high command, but also on the ground and that is where surprises occur. Like that of the F-117 Nighthawk, the jewel in the US crown, known for being almost invisible to enemy radars. However, one of them was shot down by the much inferior Yugoslav forces in the Kosovo war (1999). What happened?
Spanish Wars. Although it sounds very distant today, there was a time when Spain was continually bleeding to death in wars. The 19th century began with the Napoleonic invasion and continued with the colonial and Carlist wars to end with the loss of Cuba. In the 20th century, the Moroccan conflict took place (where Luis de Oteyza conducted a controversial interview with Abd el-Krim) and the Civil War. In the latter, George Orwell learned a lesson against totalitarianism.
The tragedy of Bernadotte. The disasters of war affect everyone, as demonstrated by the current Israeli offensive on Gaza. In 1948 the shock waves of the Middle East conflict even ended the life of the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, a man committed for years to peace, to the point that he had saved the lives of 7,000 Jews in the Second World War. He was assassinated by Israeli terrorists while mediating between the warring parties.
Last days of communist Berlin. The former East Germany celebrated the 40th anniversary of its creation on October 7, 1989. It was the last time, because just a month later the wall that divided the city fell. The British ITV has posted a raw video on YouTube with the images of that day that reflect both the pomp of the communist regime and the tension that was experienced in the streets.
How will they remember us? A perhaps theoretical but interesting reflection. What will our time be called in the future? Today we talk, for example, about the Middle Ages, which is a Renaissance invention to differentiate itself from that time; or Antiquity, which covers a disproportionate 3,500 years compared to the two and a half centuries of the Contemporary Age. A debate that says a lot about our way of relating to past and present. Read in the Spanish version of The Conversation.
New schedule. The time change next Sunday (two at night will become three o'clock) deserves to enter through the front door into the pantheon of déjà vu. In recent decades, moving the clock forward or back has become a routine gesture that takes place twice a year, to adopt summer time and later winter time. Only in recent times has this measure, which is due to energy saving reasons, been questioned.
But in the past moving the hands of the clock was not at all routine and there were even occasions when it rose to the level of an event. The pioneers in adopting this measure were the great powers contending in the First World War, a decision followed by Spain in 1918. The change was carried out discontinuously until in 1940 the Franco regime made a decision of great importance by advancing one hour in March but do not delay it in autumn. In practice, this meant that Spain changed time zones. As argued in the BOE, it was necessary “for the national time to be in accordance with those of other European countries” (that is, Nazi Germany). The change has never been reversed.
After the 1940s, there were no more time changes until 1974. The oil crisis unleashed in 1973 as a consequence of the Yom Kippur War caused Western countries, for the first time in decades, to face the need to control spending. energetic. The Avant-garde of the time certifies the novelty that a measure of this type represented at that time. On April 12, the day before the time advance, the newspaper reported extensively on the change and even interviewed the 84-year-old person in charge of moving the hands at Puerta del Sol, who claimed to be in charge of another 500 clocks in the city. .
Since then, 50 consecutive years of time changes. Now, however, the routine may be coming to an end as a result of the intense debate over whether to maintain it that is developing in Europe. However, for now the end will not occur until at least 2026.
