If you were paying attention to international affairs before the year 1991, you might have noticed that the name of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of the Ukraine, often referred to as “the Ukraine,” started to be referred to simply as “Ukraine” since then.  The definite article the was dropped from the name at the time, just like it appeared on the map for Hasbro’s Risk board game.  But why did it go?  And why was it there in the first place?  For that matter, why are many media outlets referring to the nation’s capital as Kyiv recently instead of Kiev, which has been the English name for the city for centuries? Hasbro Risk board.  Ukraine is even bigger than the Kievan Rus’ ever was!  Note: no article. Let’s start with the name of the country.  For years in English, the place was referred to as The Ukraine , whether it was under Russian domination, Soviet domination, or independent.  This is not exactly a direct translation out o...

In August 1945, the first (and still only) use of nuclear weapons occurred in Japan, when the United States’ Army Air Corps dropped one atomic bomb each on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Within a week, the Empire of Japan had surrendered, guns fell silent in the Pacific Theater, and peace broke out all over the whole world forever.  Well, maybe not forever, but the United States did stand astride the world like a colossus.  It was a large, resource-rich, industrialized nation, and it had seen remarkably little destruction on its home soil.  While cities in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan and China had seen millions of civilians killed and much infrastructure demolished by bombs, the only significant attack was on the unindustrialized American island of Oahu, in Hawaii, where a good portion of its Pacific Fleet had been stationed when the Japanese attacked it in 1941.  But now, besides enjoying a healthy industrial base and being free o...