THE KILLING FIELDS OF CAMBODIA

     After the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge, a communists group and led by SalothSar aka Pol Pot conquered the capital city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia in 1975. After that, they changed the name of country to Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge’s ideas were based on an extreme form of Maoism and they planned to bring the country back to the “Year Zero” by creating an equal society comprised of an agricultural class. They believed Cambodia should become self-sufficient because Cambodia was corrupted due to foreign influences and modern ideas. The genocide in Cambodia which lasted from 1975 to 1979 was started by Khmer Rouge when they  implemented  their plans.

   In 1976, Pol Pot became the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea with the help of the Khmer Rouge. Their purposes were to make Cambodia pure and destroy all things which were  non-Cambodian. Therefore, they tried to save Cambodia from “the evils” of  capitalism. People were killed simply for knowing another language or meeting some foreign friends. If people lived in a city or held a job except farming, they would be tortured in prisons. People in cities were forced to live in villages and work in the fields. Families were killed if they were against the government. As a result, it is estimated that 2 million people died during this period because of the policy of Pol Pot and hunger and diseases which were caused by the collapse of the economic system in the country.

   Neighbouring communist nation Vietnam decided to invade Cambodia so as to put Khmer Rouge to flight and end their reign of terror. In 1979, Vietnamese groups and Cambodian communists who were pro-Vietnam ended the Pol Pot regime and Pol Pot escaped to China and the soldiers of Khmer Rouge had to retreat into the tips of the country. The genocide was finished but guerrilla wars continued until 1998. In 1992, Khmer Rouge and other groups signed an agreement to end the civil war in Paris after Vietnamese groups retreated from the country but Khmer Rouge continued to make trouble to prevent the  implementation of the treaty. When Pol Pot died in 1998, Khmer Rouge dispersed. All members of Khmer Rouge were captured or surrendered after the death of Khieu Samphan, their second leader.

   However, a tragic incident happened in S-21. S-21 was a prison where over 14.000 people were incarcerated. The head of S-21 was Kang Kech Ieu. He was strict and intimidating and known as a Brother Duck. The staff members of the prison were between 15 and 19 years old. Only 7 people could survive in this prison after the genocide. That was 1 out of every 2000 people. Before they were killed, they were documented and photographed by the Khmer Rouge.

   As a consequence, there were 8 million people before the takeover of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Nearly 1.4 million people were exterminated and nearly 600,000 people died as a result of Khmer Rouge methods (diseases and starvation). So 25% of the Cambodian population died as a result of this genocide.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

                    

            The Gunpowder Plot occupies an important place in British history. When James I became King of England in 1603, Catholics in England expected James to be more tolerant of them. However, he fined Catholics for not attending the Church of England services and ordered all Catholic priests to leave England. Therefore, Catholics wanted to kill King James and put his daughter Elizabeth on the throne. Robert Catesby and his fellow conspirators made a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament on the day it opened. This plot would not only kill James, but also everyone who was sitting in the House of Parliament. They rented a house near the Parliament and started tunneling a cellar. They had 36 barrels to blow up Parliament.

            Guy Fawkes was a member of these Catholics and an explosive expert. He was given the job of lighting the fuse, but he was found with 36 barrels and arrested one day before the opening day of the House of Parliament. He was taken to the Tower of London and after four days,he confessed to the plot. When he was going to the block, he jumped from the gallows and broke his neck. The other conspirators had been hiding in a house in the Midlands. Catesby and two other crew members were shot and the remainder were also taken to the Tower of London and after the trial they were hanged.

            Every year on 5^th November, The Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes is remembered. In every part of England, huge bonfires are lift, fireworks are set off and effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned. This is to celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, not a political issue. This kind of important historical event is also the subjectofseveral productions such as V for Vendetta, Sherlock Holmes, even BBC published an article about ‘’What if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded?’’ in 2011.

THE BLACK DEATH

 The Black Death occurred in October 1347. It arrived by sea and killed more than 20 million people in Europe; almost one-third of the continent's population. 12 Genoese trading ships arrived at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea. Most of the sailors aboard these ships were dead, and remainder were very ill. They were suffering from fever and were exhausted. The Sicilian authorities immediately ordered these ships out of the harbor, but it wasn't adequate to prevent deaths. The plague was terrifyingly efficient. When they caught the disease,healthy people could be dead in a few days. Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis. They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air or through the bite of infected fleas and rats. People who remained alive and didn't catch the plague did so many things not to get sick: doctors refused to see patients, shopkeepers closed stores, many people moved away from the cities, nevertheless none of these things could prevent catching the disease because the disease effected people and animals. The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s.

The plague had large scale social and economic effects, many of them are mentioned in the introduction of the Decameron. People were isolated from the world and could not communicate with their family and friends. Funeral rites became cursory. Some believed that the wrath of God was descending upon man, and fought the plague with prayer. Some believed that they should obey the idiom, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die."  Many of the religious dignitaries died and the remainder couldn’t prevent the plague; therefore, people's religious belief declined.

The plague also effected the economy and the  community experienced economic collapse, which caused extreme inflation. It was so difficult to produce goods and trade them; consequently, the prices of goods rose significantly. Workers became more important because of illness and death, accordingly their wages rose. Workers became scarce so the lords wanted to  keep them on their land, they made some changes in workers’ standard of living.

Upper class people spent money on clothing in order to emphasize their social standings. The Aristocracy attempted to resist the changes in the social community so peasants revolted. Besides the plague’s deadly effects, the social and economic structure was changed drastically.