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Full-Text Articles in History

Blood, Meth, And Tears: The Super Soldiers Of World War Ii, Nicholas Racine Jun 2019

Blood, Meth, And Tears: The Super Soldiers Of World War Ii, Nicholas Racine

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Day and night, soldiers in World War II were physically and mentally strained by fatigue and psychiatric distress. Consequently, many soldiers were left exhausted and demoralized. War efforts hinged on soldiers succeeding in missions, thus a fast-acting solution was needed. Development of the psychostimulant drugs Benzedrine and Pervitin in the 1920s and 30s spurred enthusiasm among scientists, the media, the public, and various governments. Potent and powerful, these drugs exert effects that promote wakefulness, elevated mood, and improved field performance. Governments quickly began researching use of stimulants to improve their war efforts. By the early 40s, both drugs had millions …


A War Of Frustration: Saddam Hussein’S Use Of Nerve Gas On Civilians At Halabja (1988) And The American Response, Christopher Huber May 2019

A War Of Frustration: Saddam Hussein’S Use Of Nerve Gas On Civilians At Halabja (1988) And The American Response, Christopher Huber

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The large-scale use of chemical weapons in conflict dates to World War I, but international regulations kept its use in check until Saddam Hussein’s decision to implement it throughout the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. The consistent use of poison gas and repeated lack of international intervention allowed Saddam to murder thousands of Kurdish citizens in Halabja on March 16, 1988. This paper admits Saddam Hussein committed heinous acts of human rights violations and war crimes, but argues he was forced to make these horrific decisions by an unyielding adversary in the Ayatollah Khomeini, abandoned by an ineffective United Nations …


The Private Navy Of The United States: The Effects Of Privateers On The War Of 1812, Anthony Green May 2019

The Private Navy Of The United States: The Effects Of Privateers On The War Of 1812, Anthony Green

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The declaration of war in June of 1812 brought more questions than it did answers for the United States. Economically, the government was not prepared to fund a war with multiple fronts. To make matters worse, the government’s primary source of income was through import duties, which they expected to decrease drastically as the war progressed. Militaristically, the United States Navy was too small to offer the protection that was needed from Britain, who possessed the world’s strongest navy at the time. Luckily for the United States, Congress in conjunction with President James Madison authorized privately owned ships to participate …


Casualties Of War? Refining The Civilian-Military Dichotomy In World War I, Eric Grube Apr 2019

Casualties Of War? Refining The Civilian-Military Dichotomy In World War I, Eric Grube

Madison Historical Review

Throughout the First World War, newspapers around the world mocked the British state for its lavish spending on captured German officers kept at Donington Hall, a refurbished English estate. Why was this camp such a controversial space of perceived decadence? I argue that its comforts seemed to linger from an earlier era, one in which military men exuded genteel civility as integral to their supposedly heroic service. The British state essentially enabled such treatment, and the public decried this space for sustaining the anachronism of aristocratic privilege in the face of a globalized total war. However, the German inmates expected …