The methods that Russia has used to deal with the break-away Republic of Chechnya has caught the eye of the world media, and not without good cause. This dynamic portion of the former Soviet Union is seen as a predecessor of things to come from other pieces of the dead communist giant. So many diffe...

It has been a 'splendid little war' wrote John Hay to Theodore Roosevelt after the fall of Santiago. Little, the Spanish-American War was; it was over in barely four months. Splendid? Maybe for those at home, reading the headline about its lucky victories. But for those men who fo...

Cuban Missile Crisis In 1960, as tensions grew between the Soviet Union and the United States, the premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, began planning to secretly supply Cuba with nuclear missiles. Not until 1962 did the United States gain knowledge of these actions and begin to take...

1. Catherine II (the Great). The successor of the sickly Peter III, Catherine II was his wife until his suspected murder and she took the throne in 1762. Although she made no great reforms in Russian society, she gathered many friends by her death in 1796. Catherine had to keep the nobility ple...

The Chechens always despised being ruled by the Russians, likewise, Russia loathed them ranked them among the most ruthless and severe criminals of the former Soviet Union (Roskin 285). Stalin deported the Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944, claiming they were "German collaborators". When the remai...