Social History Archives | Page 3 of 193 | HistoryNet

Photo of defused UXO outside a house in Xieng Khouang. Over 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos by the US failed to explode - leaving literally millions of items of ordinance (many of them tiny mine bomblets from cluster bombs) sitting in villages, buried in rice padddies, and scattered over the hillsides. Casualties from UXO are estimated at 12,000 since 1973. A substantial industry in scrap metal has arisen from the abundance of recoverable (but still fused) bombs, both due to its relative lucrativeness (compared with growning rice), and also out of desperation, as thousands of hectares of land has been rendered unfarmable until cleared of UXO. Once defused, much of this war scrap is also put to practical use; cluster bomb casings are used as planters and house stilts, bomb cases for fencing and jettisoned fuel tanks converted into fishing boats.

A Look at the Damage from the ‘Secret’ War in Laos

by Zita Ballinger Fletcher3/2/20236/28/2023

Immerse Yourself in the Chaos of Battle at Gettysburg’s New Museum

by Melissa A. Winn3/2/20233/2/2023

Parisians reading newspapers

The American Civil War Through the Eyes of the French

by Gary W. Gallagher2/16/20232/1/2023

ypres-battered-forest

War is Hell…on the Environment

by Zita Ballinger Fletcher2/14/20232/14/2023

Famed Confederate Diarist’s Home Up For Sale for $950,000

by Dana B. Shoaf2/9/20232/13/2023

The Day Miss America Almost Got Shot Down Over Vietnam

by Laurel Schaefer-Bozoukoff2/6/20232/7/2023

Thousands of Hmong Fighters Died Fighting for the US in the Vietnam War. A New Memorial Will Honor Them.

by Larry Porges2/2/20232/2/2023

border-ruffians

Was ‘Bleeding Kansas’ Really That Violent?

by Jerry D. Morelock2/1/20232/1/2023

Photo of a flag outside the NAACP office with "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" on it.

This Journalist Risked His Life to Reveal the Horrors of Lynching in the South

by Peter Carlson1/31/20232/26/2024

Draft riots in New York

American History is Full of Controversial Drafts. The Union Civil War Draft Was No Exception.

by A. James Fuller1/19/202311/7/2022