|
|
------------------------
Empire in the Pre-Industrial
World
A lecture on the History of
Empire by Richard Evans at Gresham College
Uploaded in 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0KYI8DQQb0
------------
Formal and
Informal Empire in the 19th Century
A lecture on the History
of Empire by Richard Evans at Gresham College
Uploaded in 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7di4zMGlZY8
-------------
Exploitation
and Resistance
A lecture on the History
of Empire by Richard Evans at Gresham College
Uploaded in 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4IggacLdCQ
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N5trkIcjY8
----------------
Conquest and Control
A lecture on the History of Empire by Richard Evans at Gresham College
Uploaded 2012
-------------
The following section, End of Empire, can be ordered
in different ways:
By the colonizing country and the independence
of its colonies, i. e. Britain and its colonies, the USA and its territories and protectorates, France and its colonies, Portugal
and its colonies, etc.
By region, i. e.. the independence of colonies in
Asia, colonies in Africa, colonies and territories in South America and the Caribbean, colonies and territories in the
South Pacific.
And by regions into sub-regions, i. e.: Southeast
Asia, North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, etc.
By chronological order world-wide, i. e. the
first colony to achieve independence, then the second colony to achieve independence, third
colony, etc.
Combinations of the above
The
End of Empire
The world at the end of WW2
The
above map omits Portuguese possessions.
1945 Source:
Wikipedia
In the 54
years following the war, from 1945 to 1999, the Americans, Belgians, British, Danes, Dutch, French, Portuguese and Spanish
gave up their overseas possessions.
Decolonization
and Nationalism Triumphant
Crash Course World History #
40
----------------------
Decolonisation
The End of Empire?
Lecture by Richard Evans, Gresham College, England
Uploaded in 2013
--------------------------
Decolonisation
A History of Failure
Lecture by John Darwin
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., 12 June 2011
Lecture begins at the 10:45 mark after a long series
of announcements
----------------------------
10 Empires that came the Closest to World Domination
Part 1.
Part 2.
----------------------------
The Spanish Empire
Map by Nagibuin
Map of the Spanish Empire
in 1790
Map of the Spanish Empire in 1880
Spanish possessions in the Pacific in 1880
---------------------------
The Philippines
Modern map of Southeast Asia with the Philippines in the centre
Magellan
Ferdinand
Magellan plants the cross in the Philippines in 1521
Magellan's
expedition circumnavigates the world
The Coming of Magellan
Philippine History
Filipino documentary film short in English
Statue of Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island
Lapu-Lapu
1955 Filipino movie in English
8 clips
Start here:
Lapu-Lapu
2002 Filipino movie about the Lapu-Lapu and the Battle of Mactan (1521) (02:00:00)
or
In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos (c. 1500
- 1544) named the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Spanish East Indies Las Islas Filipinas to honor Felipe,
Prince of Asturias, later Felipe II (King Philip II of Spain).
Filipino
Revolt against Spanish Rule 1896
The Philippine
Revolution
Andres Bonifacio and Emillio Aguinaldo
Blog
The Spanish-American War
1898
Episode from the documentary series Crucible of Empire
The Spanish-American
War (1898)
Lecture by David Silby
Wheaten, Illinois
March 25, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMF7a8nsNTs
Battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898
The U. S. Asiatic Fleet commanded by Commodore George Dewey sank the Spanish
flotilla in Manila Bay
By its defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War the U. S. took Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines
and Guam from Spain.
The U. S. granted Cuba independence in 1902. The Philippines were granted independence in 1946.
Guam and Puerto Rico remain territories of the U. S.
Spanish-American
War in the Philippines
Documentary
5 clips
A War of Empire and Frontier
The Philippine-American War, 1899 - 1902
Lecture by David Silbey at the US Army Heritage and Education Center,
Carlisle, Pennsylvania on 18 June 2008
Mentoned in the lecture:
Back to Bataan
Hollywood movie (1945) Preview
and
The Philippine Insurrection
Short documentary
The Filipino-American War
1899 - 1902
Film footage
Castillian Memoirs
Film about Manila from the Port 'O Call travel documentary series
1930s
First President of Philippine Commonwealth
1935
British Pathe newsreel
Manila
1938 Trevel movie by Andre De La Varre
Japanese Invasion of the Philippines
December 1941
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, second from
left, and Sergio Osmena, President of the Philippines,
left, wade ashore on Leyte Island on October 20, 1944
MacArthur Liberates Manila!
Castle Films
Battle
of Manila 1945
Episode from US Army documentary series The Big Picture (1959) (28:48)
Pearl of the Orient
Short film about the Philippines (1945)
Postwar Rehabilitation of the Philippines 1946
The End of American Imperialism
U. S. hands independence back to
the Philippines
July 4, 1946
American flag is lowered for the last time in the Philippines as the Filipino flag replaces it in Manila on July 4, 1946.
President
of the Philippines Manuel Roxas and U. S. General Douglas MacArthur at the ceremony of the independence of the Philippines
on July 4, 1946 - the last day of the American protectorate and
the first day of Republic of the Philippines, July 4, 1946.
Philippine Independence
Proclaimed
July 4, 1946
Newsreel
British Pathe
newsreel
A Nation is Born
Documentary
Philippines
Elections
1946
117th Philippine Independence Day Celebration
6/12/2015
Independence from Spain in 1898
----------
Puerto Rico
Puerto
Rico was inhabited by Taino Indians when Christopher Columbus claimed the island for Spain in 1493.
Puerto
Rico remained a Spanish colony until Spain’s defeat by the United States in the Spanish-American War (1898). Spain gave
up the island to the U. S. in 1898.
The
U. S. has kept Puerto Rico as a territory.
--------
Guam and the Mariana Islands
Magellan claimed the Mariana Islands, which were inhabited
by Chamorros, for Spain in 1521.
The island of Guam was claimed by Spain in 1565.
Guam and Marianas were colonised by Spain in 1667 and 1668.
After its defeat by the U. S. in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain gave up Guam
and the southern Mariana Islands to the U. S.
In 1899, Spain sold the northern Mariana Islands to Germany.
In 1914, Japan claimed all German possessions in the Pacific, including the northern
Mariana Islands.
In 1944, the U. S. took the northern Marianas from Japan.
Guam and the Mariana Islands remain a U. S.
territory.
-------
Marshall Islands
From the mid-1500s, the Spanish considered the
islands, inhabited by Micronesians, part of the Spanish Empire.
Spain gave up the Marshall Islands to Germany in
1885.
After defeating the German navy on the China coast in 1914, the Japanese claimed the
Marshall Islands.
The U. S. took over the Marshall Islands from the Japanese in 1944 and have held them
as a territory of the U. S.
The Marshall Islands became a recognised self-governing nation in 1979, "in free association
with the U. S." in 1986, and officially fully independent from the U. S. in 1990.
Paradise
Lost
With Lijon Eknilang (13:37)
--------
The British Empire
British Empire, 1919
List of British colonies and dates of independence
goes here
The
British Empire
Discussion
on the weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted by with Melvyn Bragg
8
November 2001
The
British Empire in the 20th Century
From its height
to its end
Documentary
The
Fall of the British Empire
3-part
documentary
The British Empire's Legacy
Discussion
on In Our Time on BBC with Melvyn Bragg, December 31, 1998
End
of Empire
Ep. # 1 of the 1985 14-episode British documentary series End of Empire
(51:06)
--------------------------
INDIA
The Delhi Sultanate
1206 – 1526
Source: Wikipedia
- Mamluk
Sultanate of Delhi
- Khilji Dynasty
- Tughlaq Dynasty
- Sayyid Dynasty
- Lodi Dynasty
Delhi Sultanate, Vijayanagar Empire & Regional Kingdoms
(1100s - 1500s)
Lecture by R. Dutta at the International Summer School, India
28 June 2013 (1 hr. 21 min.)
History of Indian Civilization
Lectures by Vinay Lal at UCLA (2012 and 2013)
Lectures 17 to 19
Lec 17 of 17 February 2012
- Mahmud of Ghazni (born 971 - died 1030)
- account of India by Alberuni (born 973 - died 1048)
- Meenakshi temple complex at Madurai
- Muhammad Ghori (born 1149 - died 1206)
- the resistance of Prithviraj Chauhan (born 1149 - died 1192)
- emergence of the Delhi Sultanate (1206 - 1526) and importance of Delhi
henceforth
- reign of Razia Sultan (ruled 1236 - 1240)
- succession of the Khaljis/Khiljis and the importance of Allaudin Khilji
(ruled 1296 to 1316)
- repulsion of the Mongols (1296 - 1308)
Lecture 18 of 22 February 2012
- Delhi Sultanate; Allauddin Khilji (ruled 1296 to 1316)
- succession of the Lodis (1451 to 1526)
- the ascendancy of the Cholas in south India
- empires in south India
- Bahmani Sultanate in south India (1347 - 1527)
- Vijaynagar and the reign of Krishna Deva-Raya (1509 - 1529)
- the coming of the Portuguese (1498)
- the significance of the Europeans
- Vasco da Gama and the Zamorin
- death of Krishna Devaraya (1529)
Lec 19 of 24 February 2012
- Guru Nanak (1469 - 1539) and the founding of Sikhism (late 1400s)
----------------
The Moghul Empire
1526 - 1857
Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame, conquered Central Asia and
northern India
The Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum in the
city of Agra, commissioned by
the Mughal
emperor
Shah Jahan (reigned 1628 – 1658)
for the tomb of
his favorite wife in 1632 and
completed in 1653.
The Age
of Empire
Episode 11 of 13 of the 1999
documentary series India Inverted
The Mughul empire and rulers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBhVpBw5py4
History of Indian Civilization
Lectures
by Vinay Lal at UCLA (2012 and 2013)
Lectures 20 to 23
Lec
20 of 27 February 2012
-
emergence of the Mughal Empire (from 1526 onwards)
-
Guru Nanak (1469 - 1539) , Mirabai (1500s) and Tukaram (1600s)
-
the origins and impact of the Mughal empire (1526 - 1857)
-
defeat of Ibrahim Lodi by Babur in 1526
-
the pillars of Mughal rule
-
Mughal-Rajput alliance
-
cult of the emperor
-
absorption of the enemy
-
system of forts
-
mansabdari system
-
the practice of darsan
-
Indianization of the Mughals
-
succession among the Mughals
Lec
21 of 1 March 2012
-
The Mughals in India - from Humayun onwards, with emphasis on Akbar
-
Akbar's rule (1556 - 1605)
-
Shah Jahan (ruled 1628 - 1658)
-
the Sikh faith after the death of the Sikh Gurus
-
Guru Arjun Dev (born 1563 - died 1606)
-
Guru Gobind Singh (1666 - 1708); martyrdom of Sikh Gurus, like Guru Tegh Bahadur (1675), by Mughal Emperors
-
the Guru Granth Sahib and the Khalsa (Brotherhood of the Pure): role of the Panj Pyare (The Five Beloved) and symbols of faith
-
the Mughals
-
Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal (1648 - ) and homage to Mumtah Mahal
Lec
22 of 1 March 2013
-
the Qutab Minar
-
Red Fort of Delhi
-
Diwan-i-Am and Diwan-i-Khas
-
Golden Temple (Amritsar)
-
the decline of the Mughal Empire
-
Aurangzeb (born 1618 - died 1707)
Lec
23 of 5 March 2013
-
Aurangzeb (born 1618 - died 1707)
-
death of Aurangzeb (1707) and fragmentation of the Mughal Empire
-
resistance to Aurangzeb by Shivaji, leader of the Marathas
-
the coming of the British and the East India Company (created 1600 - dissolved 1874)
-
significance of the Europeans in India
-
British rule in India (1612 - 1947)
------
The British Raj
Colonial Encounters
Episode 12 of 13 of the 1999 documentary series India Invented
History of Indian Civilization
Lectures
by Vinay Lal at UCLA (2012 and 2013)
Lectures 24 to 25
Lec 24 of 7 March 2013
- the East India Company to 1757
- the East India Company after 1757
- Battle of Plassey (1757)
- Mir Jafar, Clive (1725 - 1774), Mir Kasam and Siraj-ud-daulah
- Clive of India (1935 movie)
or
- Warren Hastings (1732 - 1818) and the expansion of British rule in
India
- the defeat of Tipu Sultan (1799)
- the British improvement, elimination of Sati
- the Permanent Settlement under Cornwallis (1793)
- the Marathas, Ranjit Singh and the annexation of the Punjab
- British governance in India
- migrations overseas of Indian indentured laborers
- India under colonial rule
- material and moral improvement of Indians
Lec 25 of 9 March 2012
- Indian indentured migration to the Caribbean, Mauritius, South Africa
and elsewhere
- the Opium Trade and the relationship of Britain, China and India
- the Opium Wars (1839 - 1860)
- the annexation of Awadh
- the rebellion of 1857 - 1858
- repression of the rebellion
- end of East India Company rule
- end of India as a Crown Colony
- emergence of Indian nationalism and the founding of the Indian National
Congress in 1885
- nationalist leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal
- the partition of Bengal in 1905
----------------
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), famous
Bengali poet,
Nobel Prize laureate, knighted
by King
George V of England, "Father of
Modern India"
Rabindranath
Tagore
1961 documentary by Satyajit Ray
The Voice of Rabindranath
Documentary
Indian National Anthem
Composed by Rabindranath
Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore reciting the National Anthem of India
Tagore
Discussion on the
weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg and his guests
May 7, 2015
---------------
Indian and Nepalese soldiers during World War I
World War 1
Special Edition of Guns and Glory
The Forgotten Volunteers World War II
Episode from the documentary series Timewatch
---------------------
Independence and Partition
British India in 1946, before Partition and Independence
Source: ebay (July 2010)
India after Partition and Independence in 1947
Source: Chicago Sun Times
THE NEW INDIA - Britain this week turned over the reins of government in India to two independent dominions in ceremonies
in Karachi (1), capital of Moslem Pakistan, and at New Delhi (2), seat of Hindu India. But independence brougnt no end to
bitter Hindu-Moslem fighting, centering at Lahore (3). Most of the princely states have joined Hindu India. Of the few which
remain undecided (white areas), Kashmir, Hyderabad and the Northwest Frontier states are the largest. Others are Indore (A),
Bhopal (B), Khairpur (C), and Bahawalpur (D). Kalat State in Baluchistan (black area) has voted to remain independent.
Independence:
Pakistan - August 14, 1947
India - August 15, 1947
India - The Brightest
Jewel
Episode from the 1977 BBC documentary series 20th Century History
How the British quit India
End of Empire
Three episodes from the 1985 14-episode British documentary series
Ep. 2. India, Engine of War
(55:07)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBU3z-dPW2g
Ep. 3. India, The Muslim Card (55:24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0GjtAcnrDQ
Ep. 4. Divide and Quit (55:35)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmSyg-47Srw
A
Tryst with Destiny
Part 1 of 3 of the 2002 British
documentary The British Empire in Colour
(49:01)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhKYg641K3c
The Partition
of India
The
Economist
November 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rmUiLwy7kI
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzI34ltZdWg
Mountbatten
Great Britain’s
Last Viceroy of India and India’s
first Governor-General, Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1947
Life Magazine, August 18, 1947
Mountbatten
sworn in as last viceroy of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugVvlOQU6xw
Considering Partition, from
right: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muslim League leader; Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten
and his
chief of staff, Lord Hastings Ismay; and Jawaharlal
Nehru, Congress Party leader; New
Delhi, June 7, 1947
Mountbatten and Nehru discussing Partition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJCXTYz8oc
British
Governor-General of India Lord Louis Mountbatten, Lady Edwina Mountbatten and Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru watch
the hoisting of the Indian flag in Delhi on the first day of India's independence, August 15, 1947.
Mountbatten
proclaims India’s independence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prpoxSndz8o&feature=related
Lord Mountbatten, The Last Viceroy
1986
TV series with 6 episodes
Opening
and ending scenes of last and sixth episode:
1. Kashmir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpCt18I9pkM
Ending: Farewell scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SUo4rbE8HI
The
Last Days of the Raj
2007
documentary
(1:56:58)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I367erjPqI
Mountbatten
returns to England from India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEg1k4hmeS0&feature=relmfu
Pamela
Mountbatten
CNN IBN 2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzfo-4qAVG8
-----------
Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(Mahatma ) (Bapu) (1869 – 1948),
lawyer, Indian nationalist, advocate
of non-violence, one of
the Indian
leaders for Indian independence
Mahatma
Life of Gandhi
Documentary
Gandhi
The Road to Freedom
BBC documentary
6 clips
Interview with Mahatma Gandhi
Fox Movietone News (1931)
Gandhi
1982
movie on the life Mahatma Gandhi by Richard Attenborough
History of Indian Civilization
Lectures
by Vinay Lal at UCLA (2012 and 2013)
Lec 26 of 12 March 2012
- Mohandas ("Mahatma") Gandhi (1869 - 1948) and the emergence of the
masses
- Gandhi in South Africa and his idea of satyagraha: truth (satya)
and force (graha)
- mass non-violent resistance
- Amritsar massacre (1919)
- nationalist movement
- the non-cooperation movement of 1920 - 1922 and the Salt Satyagraha
of 1930
- Quit India movement of 1942
- growing rifts between Muslims and Hindus and the phenomenon of 'communalism'
- the growth of the Muslim League and the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah
- partition the independence of India and the creation of Pakistan (1947)
- the assassination of Gandhi in January 1948
---------------
Pandit Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 – 1964);
leader of
the Indian indpendence
movement; president
of the
Congress Party;
first Prime Minister
of India (1946
- 1964)
The Life of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
Our Prime Minister
A Film Compliation
Indian film (1957)
Mountbatten's tribute to Nehru
Nehru's
funeral (1964)
The Dynasty
The
Nehru-Gandhi Story (1:23:44)
------------------
Muhammad Ali
Jinnah
Great Leader
Father of the Nation
Lawyer, politician, All-India
Muslim League
leader, founder of Pakistan, Pakistan's
first Governor-General
India-Pakistan Partition (1947)
BBC documentary
With independence came partition of India into two separate countries
along religious lines - one country, India, for the Hindus, and another country, Pakistan (East and West), for the Muslims
Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Making of
Pakistan
Balochistan
Politial map of Pakistan with
Balochistan
in maroon
Balochistan
Al-Jazeera documentary (2016)
------------------
Bangladesh (East Pakistan)
Indo-Pakistan War results in the creation
of an independent East Pakistan, renamed
Bangladesh, 1971.
Jinnah
1997 documentary film about Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Partition of
East and West Pakistan (48:48)
1971 Indo-Pakistan War
Episodes 1 and 2 of the Indian documentary series
Guns and Glory
on Headlines Today
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
(1910 -
1975), Father
of Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Story
3-part 1989 documentary about East Pakistan/Bangladesh (1 hr. 17 min.)
Part 1. Under Three Flags
Part 2. The Mujib Years
Part 3. (The) Military Rules
Bangladesh
Episode from the series Geography Now!
Uploaded 2015
-----------
The Princely States
Of 565 princely states 552 joined India in 1947 and 1948. Thirteen joined Pakistan.
Mountbatten, Nehru and the Princely States
Kashmir
Coronation Sir Hari
Singh as Maharajah of Kashmir in 1926
Kashmir today
Source: The Economist
Kashmir today
Source: CIA
Un Cachemire, trois
nations
Le Dessous des Cartes
1947 Indo-Pakistan War
1999 Indo-Pakistan War in Kargil
-------------
Hyderabad
Operation Polo
Hyderabad into the Indian Fold
Newsreel
-------------
Janagadh
Junagadh in Gujarat
-------------
Portuguese Colony of Goa
A Portuguese colony since 1510.
Invaded by India and annexed in 1961.
Goa
March of Dimes 1953 documentary
Shooting on the Border
Newsreel (1961)
India Takes Goa
Newsreel
Goa Take-Over
Newsreel
Goa Falls
India Takes Over Tiny Territory
Newsreel
Indian General Kaul on the Indian invasion of the Portuguese
colony of Goa
Interview
India's Forgotten War of Freedom
About Goa
Goa
A Post-Colonial Society between Cultures
Yale U.
2013
------------
Hindus, Muslims and the Babri Masjid mosque
The Babri Masjid mosque in the city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar
Pradesh, built by the invading Muslim Mugals in 1528 on a spot called Ram Janmabhoomi, believed by
Hindus to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama.
In 1992,
Hindus demolished the mosque.
Babri demolition: 20 years later
2012 TV broadcast
and
--------------
The Himalayas
The British, Tibet, India and China
The British forced Tibet to open to limited British commerce
in the early 1900s.
The British Invasion of Tibet
The Younghusband Expedition
Colonel Francis Younghusband
(1863 - 1942) led the 1903-1904
British military campaign in Tibet.
TIBET
Why did the British invade Tibet?
Nomadic Professor
See also the Tibet page for this site:
1909
Map of the British Indian Empire from the Imperial Gazetteer
of India in 1909
1913 - 1914 Simla Convention and the McMahon Line
Britain, Tibet and China
Line drawn by the British foreign minister McMahon and agreed
by Britain and Tibet in Simla in 1914 indicating the boundaries of Inner and Outer Tibet with China and India. China did not agree and withdrew from the conference.
Assam and the North East Frontier Agency 1914
map goes here
--------
India-China War
October - November
1962
Areas taken by China
in 1962
Note: Bangladesh was called East Pakistan until 1971
1962 Indo-Sino War
Episode 4 of the Indian documentary series
Guns and Glory
Bertil Lindner has a new book
China's India War
Inteerview with Swedish journalist Bertil Lindner on Wide Angle
(2017) (23:43)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjF95JkL8HY
China's India War
Lecture by Bertil Lindner
Book launch
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi
December 6, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_k-qkv1ro
Sino-India War
50 Years Later
Discussion in India (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bd5qwEGnxI
JFK's Forgotten Crisis
Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War
Book review (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEdksJB9iM
Interview at JFK
Library (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyd-kQsPhKg
Areas dispiuted by India and Pakiston and India and China
The situation today (2013)
Map shows points of potential dispute (zoom in to see)
The northeast of India today
The northeast of India today
China invades Ladakh again - 2014
Ladakh on map of northwest India
Chinese boats invade
India's side of the Pangong Lake in Ladakh
Uploaded
by Headlines Today, August 2014
China's Territorial Disputes
The Economist
February 2010
or
Chinese and Indian troops clash on border Galwan
Valley June 2020
-----------
History of British India
20 lectures by Vinay Lal
Upper-division undergraduate course at UCLA in the Fall Quarter of 2013
-----------------
The Global Indian Diaspora
20 lectures by Vinay Lal at UCLA (2013)
Start here and all 20 lectures follow in order:
-----------------------
India After Independence
19 lectures from a course by Vinay Lal
UCLA
Fall 2014
Start here and all lectures follow automatically in chronological order
------------------------
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Discussion on the weekly BBC radio program In Our Time with
Melvyn Bragg and his guests, October 16, 2014
or
Jungle Book
1942 Hollywood movie based on the book
-----------------
Passage to India
1984 movie adaptation of the E. M. Forster novel
In English without sub-titles (02:43:57)
In English with English sub-titles (02:43:42)
------------------
The Great Indian Railways
National Geographic documentary
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway
BBC documentary
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
BBC documentary
----------------
Bhutan
Bhutan, shown in the above map, has always been an independent
kingdom with close relations with India and, during the Raj, Great Britain.
Bhutan became a democratic country with a constitutional monarchy
and an elected bicameral parliament in 2008.
Prime Minister Visits Bhutan
Indian newsreel follows Indian Prime Minister Nehru on his
first visit to Bhutan in September 1958 (44:29)
Or in 3 parts
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Bhutan
Land of the Thunder Dragon
Episode from the documentary series Asia's Monarchies
Where Earth meets Sky
The Mysterious Country of Bhutan
Episode 108 of Arirang Prime
Bhutan Airlines
Promotional Video
Bhutan
Episode from the series Geography Now!
--------------
Sikkim
Sikkim was a small Himalayan kingdom over which the British established
a protectorate in 1890. Sikkim became a protectorate of India in 1950 and was annexed by India as a state in 1975.
Sikkim in 1940
Footage from
home movies
Prince Weds U. S. Girl
British Pathe newsreel (1963)
Universal-International News (1963)
Sikkim
Documentary (1964)
The
Queen from New York
Newsreel
Maharani
Brings Home the Baby
1964
Interview with the King
1965
Sikkim
Sikkim government documentary (1971)
or
Hope Cooke
Interview
Yale U.
Crown Prince Benzing of Sikkim
Press conference in Delhi
14 April 1973
Beneath the Himalayas
The Story of Sikkim
Kieran Pendergast interviews author Andrew Duff at the Beyond Borders
International Festival in Scotland; interview and Q & A.
View of Kangchenjunga from Darjeeling.
Until 1856 Kangchenjunga was believed to be the hughest mountain
on earth.
Kangchenjunga is actually the third highest mountain,
after Mount Everest and K2 (Mount Godwin Austen), at an
altitude of 8,586 metres (28,169 feet). (K2 is only twenty metres higher.) The mountain is on the border of Nepal and Sikkim.
The summit was first reached by British climbers in 1955.
----------------
Mount Everest
The
North Face of Everest
View of Mount Everest from the north, in the
Rongbuk Valley in Tibet. To the right of the mountain summit is the West Ridge. To the left of the summit is the Northeast
Ridge. Below the Northeast Ridge is the North Face. Nepal is on the other side of the West Ridge.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain
in the world at the generally agreed height of 8,848 metres (29,029 feet) altitude
above sea level.
The mountain is on the border of Nepal and Tibet. The north side of the mountain is in Tibet.
The south side is in Nepal. To climb the mountain one must approach it from Tibet in the north or from Nepal in the south.
The mountain is called Chomolungma in Tibetan, which means Holy Mother or Mother Goddess
of Snows.
The
mountain in called Sagarmatha in Nepali, which means Mother of
the Universe.
The
mountain was first registered in 1841 by Colonel George Everest, the British Surveyor-General
of India from 1830 to 1843. The mountain was listed as Peak XV.
The
mountain was declared the tallest in the world by a British surveyor, Andrew Waugh, in 1856.
Waugh
gave the mountain its official name, Everest, in honour of Sir George Everest,
in 1865.
Tibet
Nepal was a "forbidden kingdom", closed to most
foreigners, and would not allow foreign expeditions until the late 1940s.
The British invaded Tibet with a military campaign led by Col. Francis
Younghusband. British troops marched to Lhasa in
1903 and 1904.
Tibet was forced to open to the British and expeditions to Mount
Everest could approach from Tibet.
Tibet could allow only
British expeditions.
British plans to climb
Mount Everest in 1913, 1914, and 1915 were delayed by the Great War (1914 - 1918).
There were seven British
expeditions to Everest after the war - in 1921, 1922, 1924, 1933, 1935, 1936 and 1938.
The expeditions started out from Darjeeling in northern
India (close to Bhutan, western Nepal and Sikkim) and approached Everest from the north, in Tibet.
The first British expedition to Everest, in 1921, and the fifth expedition,
in 1935, were reconnaissance expeditions.
Attempts to climb to the summit were made in 1922,
1924, 1933, 1936 and 1938.
The 1922, 1924 and 1933 expeditions attempted
final assaults on the summit.
Three attempts were made
in 1922. Only the second attempt made a final assault on the summit. Climbers turned back about half-way
up.
Seven Tibetan Sherpas,
high-altitude porters, perished in an avalanche on the third attempt. They were the first to die on Everest.
The 1924 and 1933 expeditions climbed close to the summit before turning back.
Three attempts to climb to the sunmmit were made in 1924.
One climber, Edward Norton, came close to the summit pyramid on the second attempt.
Two climbers, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, perished on the third attempt. They were the first Europeans
to die on Everest.
Three attempts to reach the summit were made by the fourth expedition, nine years
later, in 1933.
The first attempt was forced to retreat from the mountain before making its final assault.
On the second attempt, two climbers, Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris, following Norton's route, reached
Norton's high point.
A third climber, Frank Smythe, following the same route, reached Norton's high-point on the third summit
attempt.
The sixth and seventh expeditions, in 1936 and 1938,
were unable to launch a final assault on the summit.
Plans for later British expeditions were set
aside during the Second World War (1939 - 1945).
The British planned to lead expeditions after the war
but there was no response from Tibet and thus no official British expeditions to Tibet.
The Chinese communists,
under Mao Tse-tung, gradually took over China from 1946 to 1950.
China always claimed Tibet but could not occupy it.
In October 1950 the Chinese communists invaded Tibet and occupied the capital, Lhasa, by 1951. The Chinese closed
the country to British expeditions.
Nepal
Nepal opened to foreigners
in the late 1940s and allowed mountain expeditions in 1949.
Nepal allowed a British reconnaissance expedition
to Everest in 1951.
Expeditions assembled and set out from Kathmandu, capital of Nepal.
Nepal allowed two climbing expeditions to Everest in
1952, both by the Swiss. The expeditions were the first with the objective of reaching the summit since the British
in 1938. The Swiss made the first attempt to climb to the summit since the British in 1933.
Two climbers, Raymond Lambert of Geneva and
Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Nepal, climbed higher and closer to the summit than anyone before.
Nepal allowed a British expedition to Everest
the following year, 1953, and the summit was finally reached, by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay.
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This section is to be moved to Page 22,
Inter-War Years, and edited into the First Expeditions to Mount Everest section.
Tibet
The first expedition to Mount Everest, a reconnaissaince
expedition in 1921, was led by Charles Howard-Bury.
Attempts to climb to the summit were made by the second and third expeditions,
in 1922 and 1924.
The leader of the 1922 expedition was Charles Bruce.
Three attempts to reach the summit were made in 1922.
Charles Bruce led the 1924
expedition but fell ill with malaria on the trek from Darjeeling through Tibet and the deputy leader, Edward Norton, assumed leadership.
Three attempts to climb to the summit were
made in 1924.
The First Expedition
Reconnaissance
1921
Photo taken in 1922 of the
north side of Mount Everest from Rongbuk Monastery in the Rongbuk Valley in Tibet. The monastery, founded in 1902, is at an
altitude of about 5,000 metres (16,500 ft.).
Expeditions to Everest from Tibet establish their Base Camp
about one kilometre beyond the monastery.
1922 photo of the
head of the East Rongbuk Glacier at the Chang La Pass. Chang means north in Tibetan and La means
hill. The British called it the North Col. On the left of the pass is the Northeast Ridge of Everest.
The 1921 expedition determined that the best way to the summit was from
Chang La, a steep, almost vertical, 1,000-foot ice wall that the expedition called the North Col.
Chang La separates the West (Main) Rongbuk Glacier from the East Rongbuk
Glacier.
On the east side of the ice
wall is the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier. On the west side of the ice wall is the head of the West Rongbuk Glacier.
Chang
La is at the bottom of the North Ridge of Everest, on the left in the photo above, and is the low point of a ridge that connects
Everest to a smaller mountain to the north, Changste (North Peak), on the right in the above photo.
The North Col seemed easier to climb from the head of the East Rongbuk
Glacier.
Setting out from Base Camp, expeditions marched up the East Rongbuk Glacier to its head at
the ice wall of Chang La.
The North Col was climbed by three members of the 1921 expedition
- Oliver Wheeler, a Canadian, and two British climbers, George Mallory. the lead climber, and Guy Bullock. They
were the first men to set foot on Everest.
The
North Col is at an altitude of 7,000 metres (23,000 ft.).
Reaching the top of the ice wall, climbers could pitch a small camp
- a bivouac - somewhere at the top, some distance away from the North Ridge of Everest. This would
be Camp IV. It is also called the North Col Camp.
The North Ridge goes up the middle of the North Face to the Northeast Shoulder at the middle of the Northeast
Ridge.
The Northeast Shoulder appears as the high point in the photo above. The summit of Everest is beyond it.
The North Face
Recent photo of the North Col, foreground, and the North
Ridge.
The North Ridge leads up to the Northeast Ridge at the Northeast
Shoulder. The North Face is mostly in shadow in the photo. The near-vertical "west wall" of the Grand Couloir, on the right
in the photo, is is sunlight. The west wall of the Grand Couloir is actually the east wall of the huge pyramidal rock wall
that stretches from the West Rongbuk Glacier up to the summit pyramid.
To the left of the North Col and below it is the East Rongbuk Glacier.
To the right of the North Col and
below it is the West Rongbuk Glacier, often considered the Main Rongbuk Glacier.
The 1921 reconnaissance expedition determined that the quickest way to the
summit was from the North Col, up the North Ridge to the Northeast Shoulder,
and then west up the Northeast Ridge to the summit.
The biggest obstacles on the Northeast
Ridge are three big rock steps, known as the First Step, Second Step and Third Step. The three steps must be climbed to reach
the summit pyramid from the ridge.
The biggest and most difficult
of the three steps to climb is the Second Step. Observed though a telescopic lens, it seemed unclimbable.
It would not be necessary to
climb all the way up the North Ridge to the Northeast Shoulder to reach the Northeast Ridge.
From
the highest camp, Camp VI, high up on the North Ridge and below the Northeast Shoulder, climbers could climb up and diagonally
across the North Face directly to the Northeast Ridge.
The
Second Expedition
1922
On
the first attempt to climb to the summit in 1922 four climbers - George Mallory, Edward Norton, Howard
Somervell and Henry Moreshead - set out from
Camp IV on the North Col and climbed up the North Ridge. They were the first to climb up on Mount Everest. They pitched
camp about half-way up the North Ridge to the Northeast Shoulder. This was Camp V.
The
following day, Mallory, Norton and Somervell climbed from Camp V farther
up the North Ridge to search for a spot to pitch the highest camp, Camp VI, below the Northeast Shoulder.
About 150 metres below the Northeast Shoulder they were turned back by snowing
and returned to Camp
V.
Mallory,
Norton and Somervell climbed without oxygen.
Thus, the next assault was launched
from Camp V, a point about half-way up the North Ridge,
From
Camp V, the climbers would traverse westward, all the way up and across the North Face, to a 50-foot-wide gully of snow
called the Grand Couloir on the east side of the huge pyramidal rock wall that strectches from the Main (West) Rongbuk
Glacies up to the summit pyramid.
The
Grand Couloir led all the way up to the Third Step on the Northeast Ridge and the summit pyramid.
On the second attempt to reach the summit, two climbers - Geoffrey Bruce and George
Finch, an Australian who was considered the best snow and ice climber of the day - set out from Camp
V to climb diagonally up and across the North Face
to the Grand Couloir.
This
was the first actual summit assault on Everest.
Finch,
the lead climber, and Bruce climbed with oxygen, the first time oxygen was tried by climbers on a summit assault on Everest.
They were turned back about
half-way to the Grand Couloir at the Yellow Band, the 100-metre stratum of limestone and marble below the Northeast Ridge,
after Bruce's oxygen set malfunctioned and Bruce became ill.
On the third attempt to climb to the summit, seven Sherpa porters were killed in an avalanche on the climb
from the East Rongbuk Glacier up to the North Col. They were the first climbers to die on Everest.
For an account of the 1922 expedition by Charles Bruce, George Mallory, George Finch et al, with an introduction by Sir Francis
Younghusband, see The Assualt on Everest 1922, published in 1923:
https://archive.org/stream/assaultonmountev00bruc/assaultonmountev00bruc_djvu.txt
1924
The Third
Expedition
The third British expedition to Everest,
in 1924.
In the photo, standing, from left to right, are Andrew ("Sandy") Irvine, George Leigh Mallory, Edward
("Teddy") Norton and Noel Odell. (Note: Leigh is pronounced Lee.)
Seated, second from left, is Geoffrey Bruce, a cousin of the expedition's original
leader, Charles Bruce. Beside him, immediately
to the right in the photo, is Howard Somervell.
Photo taken on 29 April 1924.
Norton took over leadership of the expedition when Bruce
was incapacitated by malaria on the expedition's march from Darjeeling through Tibet.
Three attempts were made to climb to the summit by the third expedition, in 1924.
The first attempt, on 1 June,
led by George Mallory and Geoffrey Bruce, failed to pitch the highest camp, Camp VI, on the North Ridge below the Northeast
Shoulder. Mallory and Bruce climbed without oxygen.
Norton
Edward Felix Norton (1884 - 1954), British army colonel, leader of the 1924 expedition, led
the first actual assault of the expedition on the summit of Everest.
On
the second summit attempt, led by Edward Norton, the lead climber, and Howard Somervell, the highest camp, Camp VI, was finally
pitched, about 300 metres below the Northeast Ridge, on 3 June.
The
Northeast Ridge can be treacherous. It is very narrow in places. It can be extremely cold. Sudden strong winds can
blow a climber off the mountain. One can slip on loose rocks or step through the snow and fall down the mountain.
Norton and Somervell preferred not
to take the Northeast Ridge route, with its fierce
winds and three big rock steps, but to try to reach the summit pyramid by the Grand Couloir.
At 6:40 a. m. on 4 June, Norton and Somervell set out from Camp VI and climbed diagonally up and across the
North Face, across the Yellow Band, and
traversed along the top of the Yellow Band to the Grand Couloir.
At noon, Somervell became ill
and was unable continue all the way to the Grand Couloir. He waited at the top of the Yellow Band below and slightly west
of the First Step as Norton continued alone.
Loose rocks and loose surface snow and ice would make a
climb all the way up the snow gully of the Grand Couloir to the Northeast Ridge or summit pyramid impossible.
Norton
crossed the 50-ft.-wide snow gully of the Grand Couloir and scaled its steep near-vertical "west wall" in an attempt to reach
the summit pyramid.
At about 1:00 p. m., Norton was forced to turn back
by the snow and ice, the cold, lack of oxygen at the high altitude, and lack of time.
Norton
came to within 200 feet of the north face of the summit pyramid and 280 metres of the summit. Norton reached an altitude
of 8,570 metres (28,120 ft), a record not surpassed by climbers for another 28 years, until 1952.
The Grand Couloir was subsequently known as the Norton Couloir.
The Grand or Great Couloir or Norton Couloir
Norton found two ways
of climbing up the west wall of the Grand Couloir. The first way was along the left, or east side, of the snow gully. He did
not try this route. The second way was on the other side, the right side, or west side of the snow gully, up the side
of the big rock wall, called the west wall of the couloir. Norton climbed the west wall.
Norton found another couloir,
leading up and over the top of the west wall and onto the north face of the big pyramidal rock wall under the summit pyramid.
This path, which leads up to the summit pyramid, was subsequently called the Subsidiary Couloir.
In
the photo above, the Subsidiary Couloir is indicated by the long thin streak of snow leading up and to the right from the
Grand Couloir, up and onto the north face of the big pyramidal rock wall, and up to the summit pyramid.
But reaching the Subsidiary Couloir would be an extremely difficult task, requiring climbing over-hanging
rock. An attempt to reach it from another point, if possible, lower down in the couloir, would have to be made.
Howard Somervell's photo of Edward Norton (in the red box)
on his way to the Grand Couloir. Norton has stopped to catch his breath.
To note the highest point reached by Norton, draw a straight
horizontal line from the top of the red box across the photo. Sixth-tenths of the way to the right margin is the point.
Note the snows to the right of Norton's high
point. This is another path. If it could be reached and climbed it might offer another way up to the summit pyramid.
This path was called the Subsidiary Couloir.
The Subsidiary Couloir, indicated in blue on the right in the above photo, leads out of the
Norton Couloir and up to the summit pyramid. The other route, marked in red, zig-zags up the Norton Couloir to the Third
Step.
Norton and Somervell climbed without oxygen. The use of oxygen was spurned by many climbers
as an unnatural aid. Oxygen was rather new at the time and considered unreliable. It was also a heavy load at high altitude.
Norton and Somervell were experienced climbers and not roped together
much of the time.
Norton rejoined Somervell, who was waiting for him at
the top of the Yellow Band, below the First Step, and, at 2:00 p. m., they began their descent to Camp VI by the
same route they had followed up.
Shortly after setting out on their return, Somervell dropped his ice axe. It "cartwheeled" down the North Face
a long way and out of view.
They continued down to Camp V and reached Camp IV on the
North Col after dark, at 9:30 p. m..
Norton, who had climbed much of the time without his dark goggles, was
struck by snow blindness during the night.
Two days later he had to be carried by Sherpa porters down from
the North
Col to the lower camp, Camp III, on the East Rongbuk Glacier.
Mallory and Irvine
The third and last attempt of the 1924 expedition to reach
the summit was led by George Leigh Mallory with his partner Andrew Comyn (Sandy) Irvine on 8 June 1924.
Mallory and Irvine perished in their attempt.
George Leigh Mallory
(1996 - 1924)
Andrew Comyn (Sandy) Irvine (1902 - 1924)
Andrew Irvine, on the left
in the photo, and George Mallory at Base Camp in the Rongbuk Valley in Tibet in 1924.
Mallory,
age 38, was a graduate of Cambridge, a
school teacher and headmaster in England, and considered
the best rock climber of the day. Mallory
was the only climber on all of the first three British expeditions to Everest - in 1921, 1922 and 1924. Mallory
was the lead climber. Mallory had the most experience on Everest. Mallory left a wife and three young children in England.
Irvine
(pronounced Er' - vin), age 22, was a chemistry student and oarsman at Oxford.
Mallory planned to climb up to the Northeast Ridge
and follow it to
the summit pyramid. The route and camps are shown in the photo above.
The Northeast Ridge route to the summit
is shown in the photo above.
Mallory intended to climb from
the highest camp, Camp VI, on the North Ridge, up and across the North Face to the Northeast Ridge at a point well before
the First Step and follow the ridge over the three rock steps to the summit pyramid.
If conditions on the Northeast Ridge route were too harsh and if the obstacles along the route took
up too much time, Mallory could descend to the top of the Yellow Band, traverse to the Grand Couloir and try to reach the
ridge or the summit pyramid from the Grand Couloir - either by climbing along the east side of the snow gully or its west wall. He would climb up to the Third Step
on the Northeast Ridge or to the summit pyramid.
Or Mallory could try to reach the Subsidiary Couloir on the west side of the snow gully of the Grand Couloir and
climb up onto the north face of the great rock wall below the pyramid.
Before setting out, Mallory advised the expedition's film-maker, John Noel, to focus his telescopic lens on
the summit pyramid.
Later,
in a note from the highest camp, Camp VI, carried down by Sherpa porters, to Noel, camped
below the North Col, Mallory wrote:
We'll
probably start early to-morrow (8th) in order to have clear weather.
It
won't be too early to start looking out for us either crossing the rockband under the pyramid or going up skyline at 8 p.m.
Mallory meant 8 a. m.
"Pyramid" meant the summit pyramid.
Many assumed Mallory meant he would be near the summit pyramid by 8:00 a. m.
"Rockband" meant the 100-metre-thick yellow-brown stratum of limestone and marble called the Yellow Band high up the mountain
and below the Northeast Ridge and summit pyramid.
Immediately below the the three rocks steps on the ridge and above the Yellow Band is a stratum of dark rock slabs
called the Black Band.
Many have wondered about the precise meaning of Mallory's note.
By "rockband" Mallory meant the climbers could be seen be climbing up the Yellow Band.
By "skyline" Mallory meant the climbers could be seen traversing along the crest (ridgeline) of the Northeast Ridge.
Many have wondered if Mallory meant he would approach the summit pyramid either by a traverse along
the ridge or a climb up from the rockbands directly below it.
A traverse along the ridge would require climbing the three big rock steps.
A climb up from below the summit pyramid would require passing below the first two of the three
big rock steps and scaling up the Grand Couloir to the Third Step or to the summit pyramid or climbing up the Subsidiary
Couloir to the summit pyramid.
Many have wondered if "rockband" indicated a traverse by the Yellow Band to the Grand Couloir and a climb up the
Grand Couloir to the summit pyramid. This would be a horizontal traverse at the top of the Yellow Band and the bottom
of the Black Band above it - following Norton's route.
Some
wondered if "skyline" actually meant the crest of the Northeast Ridge or if it meant the north ridge of the summit pyramid.
Mallory discussed the Yellow Band, the Grand Couloir and the Subsidiary Couloir with Norton the night before setting out from
the North Col.
Some believe Mallory planned to examine the ridge route. If it took up too much time he would try the Grand Couloir.
Mallory
and Irvine were to attempt the final assault on the summit with oxygen, the first to do so since Finch and Bruce in 1922.
The last photo of Mallory and
Irvine, as they set out from camp on the North Col on 6 June 1924.
They carried oxygen bottles,
the only time oxygen was used in a summit attempt in 1924.
In
another note, to another climber, Noel Odell, on the North Col, carried down by Sherpa porters, Mallory wrote that he and
Irvine would climb with probably two oxygen bottles each.
Two bottles of oxygen would
be a heavy load for a climber at high altitude and would not last to the summit and back. The apparatus, with two bottles,
weighed twenty to thirty pounds. It is possible that Mallory intended to use the oxygen
sparingly, when most needed.
The oxygen system could
malfunction, especially at higher altitudes. A malfunction above 8,000 metres could be difficult to repair and have a
severe effect on a climber.
To avoid
the frequent fierce mid-afternoon storms on the mountain and return to camp before dark, Mallory and Irvine would
have to start early in the morning, at sunrise or before, and begin
their descent by the mid-afternoon.
Mallory and Irvine set out from the highest camp, Camp VI, on the
North Ridge, on the
morning of 8 June 1924. The exact time is not known. At the earliest, they could have set out after sunrise, between
5:00 and 6:00 a. m.
John Noel watched the summit pyramid
hrough
the
telescopic lens of his film camera but did not spot the climbers.
Noel Odell climbed through a heavy mist from Camp V on the North Ridge up to the high camp, Camp VI, to wait for
Mallory and Irvine to
return.
On his way up the North Ridge, about half-way between the two camps, during a ten-minute clearing in the mist, Odell saw Mallory and
Irvine on the Northeast Ridge.
It was 12:50 p. m.
Odell believed Mallory and Irvine were climbing one of the three rock steps. Initially, he was not
certain where on the Northeast Ridge they were. Later, he decided they were climbing the Second Step. Later still, he changed his mind. It was the First Step. Eventually, he maintained that it was the Second Step. But
he was never entirely certain where on the ridge he saw them.
Mallory and Irvine were the first men
to set foot on the Northeast Ridge.
The
North Face and Northeast Ridge of Mount Everest in Tibet (1924 photo?). The notes indicate Noel Odell's sighting of Mallory and Irvine on
the Second Step.
Odell's sighting has long been questioned and the exact position of Mallory and
Irvine on the ridge when Odell saw them has been the subject of much discussion. His description of his sighting fits
the First Step and the Third Step best. Most believe Odell saw them at the First Step.
Odell was concerned that the two climbers were several hours behind schedule. By 12:50
they should have been on the summit pyramid.
At Camp VI,
Odell found possible signs of difficulties with
the oxygen sets.
Odell found also flares and a torch, perhaps a spare, indicating that the climbers set out in
daylight.
Odell waited for Mallory and Irvine at Camp VI. He climbed up some distance. He was
caught in a snow squall from 2:00 to 4:00 p. m. and had to take shelter behind a small boulder for an hour.
To leave the two-man tent to the two climbers, Odell headed back to Camp IV on the North Col at 4:30 p. m.
There was no sign of Mallory and Irvine that day or the next, 9 June.
Odell climbed back up to Camp V in the afternoon of 9 June and up to Camp VI on 10
June. He climbed some distance farther up and saw no trace of the climbers. He returned to the North Col.
The next day, the expedition headed for Base Camp.
----------------
The Fight for Everest 1924
The official account of the 1924
expedition by Edward Norton, leader of the expedition, and Noel Odell, published in 1925.
Download free in various formats.
http://pahar.in/wpfb-file/1925-the-fight-for-everest-1924-by-norton-s-missing-map-pdf/
----------------
The Epic of Mount Everest
by Sir Francis Younghusband
Published in 1926
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.231186
----------------
Wings Over Everest
1981 documentary about the first flights over Everest, by British airmen, in April 1933.
Filmed by John Noel and M. S. Bonnet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zK4WblHxkI
----------------
1933 British Everest Expedition
The next British expedition to Everest, the fourth, nine years
later, in 1933, was led by Hugh Rutledge.
High camp, Camp VI, was pitched high up on the North Face, 250
to 300 feet below the Northeast Ridge.
After pitching the highest camp, Camp VI, one British climber,
Jack Longland, and a team of Sherpa porters descended. They were blinded
by a snow fall and could not see the route down. So Longland followed the Northeast Ridge to the Northeast Shoulder and
followed the North Ridge down to Camp V. This route today is known as the Longland Route.
Two attempts to reach the summit were made, both from high
camp.
Three climbers - Percy Wyn Harris, Lawrence Wager and Frank Smythe
- reached Edward Norton's high point on the west wall of the Grand Couloir.
On the first assault, a Swiss ice axe from the 1924 expedition, belonging to George Mallory or Andrew
Irvine, was recovered by Wyn-Harris sixty feet below the ridgeline.
1933 British Everest Expedition
Silent documentary film
Excerpt - Darjeeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXgu4PvjF4
The climb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiqAbyCLOI
Photo of the North Face
of Everest with notes indicating the routes and key points of the 1933 expedition and related points of Mallory's and Irvine's
climb in 1924. (Zoom in to view.)
First Attempt
(First Assault)
Wyn-Harris
and Wager
Wyn-Harris and Wager on Mount Everest in 1933.
Percy Wyn-Harris
(1903 - 1979)
Lawrence Wager (1904 - 1965)
At
5:40 a. m. on 30 May 1933, Percy Wyn-Harris and Lawrence Wager set out from their camp, the high camp, Camp VI.
This camp was not on the North Ridge, like the 1924 high camp, but to the west, out on the North Face. It was 600 feet higher than the 1924 high camp and about 250 to 300 feet below the Northeast Ridge. It was about 400 yards east of the First Step.
Wyn-Harris and Wager climbed up towards the Northeast Ridge.
About one hour after setting out, on their traverse along the ridge, Wyn-Harris, the lead climber, came
upon one of several Swiss ice axes used by the 1924 expedition. The ice axe lay about 60 feet below the crest
of the ridge, (See below.)
Continuing their traverse along the ridge, Wyn-Harris and Wager reached the First Step at 7:00
a. m.
Looking
beyond the First Step at the Second Step, Wyn-Harris and Wager decided to search for a way around the Second Step by traversing
below it.
Wyn-Harris
and Wager descended from the ridge to the top of the Yellow Band and traversed below the First Step to the Second Step. Finding
the Second Step unclimbable, or requring too long an effort for the time available, they continued their traverse below the
Second Step.
But
they could not regain the ridge beyond the Second Step.
Wyn-Harris
and Wager continued to traverse along Norton's 1924 route to the Grand Couloir and crossed the 50-ft.-wide gully of snow
to the west wall of the couloir.
Wyn-Harris
and Wager climbed up the west wall of the Grand Couloir before turning back
at about Norton's high point at 12:30 p. m.
Wyn-Harris
and Wager decided to re-examine the possibility of climbing the Second Step. But once there they were too
exhausted
to try it.
On the way
back to Camp VI, Wyn-Harris retrieved the 1924 expedition's ice axe. He left his own in its place. (See below.)
Wager
climbed up to the crest of the Northeast Ridge for a look down the opposite side, the steep 3,350-metre (11,000 ft.) Kangshung Face
of Everest, sometimes called the South Face or East Face.
Second Attempt
(Second Assault)
Smythe
Frank Smythe
Wyn-Harris
and Wager returned to their high camp, Camp VI, where they met Frank Smythe and Eric Shipton, who had climbed up to make the
next summit attempt.
Smythe
and Shipton were concerned about the approaching monsoon. After receiving an account from Wyn-Harris and Wager of their climb,
they decided not to attempt the Northeast Ridge but to head directly to the Grand Couloir.
Smythe
and Shipton set out two days later, on 1 June 1933, at 7:30 a. m., and climbed up towards the ridge and
traversed along it (slightly below it), following the route of Wyn-Haris and Wager, to the Grand Couloir.
Shipton
was ill and stopped below the First Step at the top of the Yellow Band and returned to Camp VI.
Smythe
scaled up the west wall of the Grand Couloir, reaching the same high point as Wyn-Harris and Wager before turning back between 10:00 and 11:00 a. m.
Smythe met Shipton at Camp VI. An hour later, Shipton headed down to Camp V alone.
Smythe
rested at Camp VI and the next day thought of re-examining the Second Step. But the monsoon
had arrived and Smythe had to descend the mountain.
Descending the North Face from Camp VI alone Smythe was almost blown off his feet by
strong winds several times but managed to steady himself with his ice axe.
Wyn-Harris, Wager, Smythe and Shipton climbed without oxygen.
The small black "X" in
the photo, taken by Frank Smythe later, in 1938, marks the highest point on the west wall of the Grand Couloir reached by Norton in 1924 and Wyn-Harris, Wager
and Smythe in 1933. It is about half-way up (or down) the photo and about one-third
of the way across from the right margin.
The
Subsidiary Couloir is covered with snow and to the right in the photo. A climber has to reach it to climb up onto the great
pyramidal rock wall that leads up to the summit pyramid.
For
accounts of the 1933 expedition by its leader, Hugh Rutledge, see:
The
Himalayan Journal
https://www.himalayanclub.org/hj/06/2/the-mount-everest-expedition-of-1933/
Alpine Journal
https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1933_files/AJ45%201933%20216-231%20Ruttledge%20Everest%201933.pdf
Mallory
and Irvine
The Ice Axe
About one hour after Wyn-Harris and Wager set out from high camp,
Camp VI, for the Northeast Ridge, Wyn-Harris, the lead climber, came upon one of the 1924 expedition's Swiss ice axes.
The axe was about 60 feet below
the crest of the Northeast Ridge and about 230 metres before the First Step, on
a flat and almost level spot along the 30-degree slope.
In the above photo of the North Face in 1933, this spot is just
below the Northeast Ridge and about half-way between the site of the 1933 Camp VI and the First Step.
The Swiss ice axe, made by Willisch Täsch
in the Zermatt Valley of Switzerland, lay atop a rock, as shown in the photo above, as if it had been deliberately
set down.
The
ice axe was in perfect condition.
Because no one had been to that point since 1924,
the ice axe could only have been Mallory's or Irvine's. But it was not known to which climber it belonged.
The ice axe indicated that Mallory and Irvine reached the Northeast Ridge and were traversing along it.
Later, it was noticed that there were three straight long notches across one side of the wooden handle of the ice axe. Because Irvine cut
notches on his
walking stick it was assumed the ice axe was his.
In a interview with the Sunday Times in 1971, Wyn-Harris
recalled that he found the ice axe without notches and instructed his personal Sherpa assistant, Kusang Pugla, to cut three
notches on the
handle to
distinguish it from the other axes.
How the ice axe wound up there has long been a subject of discussion.
It was assumed that the ice axe marked the point of an accident - a fall.
Was it dropped on the ascent or the descent?
The ice axe was the only sign of Mallory and Irvine on the North Face or along the Northeast Ridge.
It was thought more likely that the axe was dropped on the ascent. Climbers
returning to camp from the ridge could take the same route back down. But it was assumed that Mallory and Irvine would have descended from a point higher up along the ridge, closer to the First Step, and traversed farther below the ridge.
On the way back down to Camp VI from the Grand Couloir, Wyn-Harris
retrieved the 1924 expedition's ice axe. He left his own in its place.
Some have wondered if the ice axe recovered by Wyn-Harris was Howard Somervell's. Somervell dropped his ice axe shortly after
beginning the descent to Camp VI with Norton, when Norton returned from the Grand Couloir. This point was on the Yellow Band
and below and slightly west of the First Step. Norton and Somervell descended through the Yellow Band and well below the Northeast Ridge.
Norton recalled that Somervell's ice axe "cartwheeled" noisily a long way
down the steep slopes of the North Face and out of view.
Did Frank
Smythe see a body in 1936?
Below is an excerpt
from a letter in September 1937 by Frank Smythe, who was a member of the British expeditions to Everest in 1933, 1936
and 1938, to Edward Norton, leader of he 1924 expedition.
In wrting to Norton about the 1936 expedition, Smythe mentioned the 1924 ice axe recovered by Wyn-Harris in
1933.
. . . I feel convinced that it marks the scene of an accident to Mallory and
Irvine. There is something else, which I mention with reserve – it’s not to be written about, as the press would
make an unpleasant sensation.
I was scanning the face from base camp through a high-powered telescope last
year when I saw something queer in a gully below the scree shelf. Of course it was a long way away and very small, but I’ve
a six/six eyesight and do not believe it was a rock. This object was at precisely the point where Mallory and Irvine would
have fallen had they rolled on over the scree slopes.
The letter was
made public in 2013. It was actually a copy of the letter, written in pencil at the back of a diary.
Smythe thought
he had seen the body of Mallory or Irvine through a high-powered telescopic lens in 1936.
The spot indicated
by Smythe is uncertain. But some believe it is about 300 metres directly below the spot where the ice axe was found and at
the bottom of the snow field.
--------------
British
Expeditions of 1935, 1936 and 1938
The next British expedition to Everest, in 1935,
was a reconnaissance expedition led by Eric Shipton.
The
1936 expedition was led by Hugh Rutledge. Early snowfalls prevented the expedition from going farther than the North Col.
The
1938 expedition was led by William Tilman. Conditions prevented the expedition from climbing much beyond the highest camp,
Camp VI, on the North Ridge. Climbers did not reach the Northeast Ridge (See below.)
Plans
for further British expeditions were set aside during the Second World War (1939 - 1945).
Tibet
did not respond to British proposals for expeditions after the war.
--------------------
Nepal
Chinese rulers have always claimed Tibet. The
Manchus and, more recently, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, claimed Tibet as part of China. But Chinese presence
and influence in Tibet was very limited. The Chinese could never control Tibet and never tried to occupy it.
The Chinese communists, led by Mao Tse-tung, gradually took over China from 1946 to 1950. In
October 1950 the Chinese communists invaded Tibet and occupied the capital, Lhasa, by 1951. China closed Tibet to British
expeditions.
Nepal opened to foreigners in the late 1940s and allowed mountain
expeditions in 1949.
Annapurna
In 1950, French
mountain climbers Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal reached the summit of Annapurna 1 in Nepal (8,091 metres/
25,545 feet
altitude).
They were the
first to climb a mountain over 8,000 metres in altitude, three years before another peak over 8,000 metres -
Mount
Everest - was summitted by climbers from New Zealand and Nepal in 1953.
There are fourteen mountains over 8,000 metres high, all in the Himalayas.
 --------------
1950 Trekking Party
In 1950, a small British trekking party led by William
Tillman, with an American climber, Charles Houston, reached
the Khumbu Icefall and looked at possible routes to the
summit of Mount Everest. They found an area suitable on the Khumbu Glacier for a base camp.
The 1951 British Reconnaissance Expedition
Eric Shipton
A British expedition led by Eric Shipton the next year, in 1951,
searched for the best way to the summit from the Nepalese side.
The expedition decided that the best route to the summit was by the Khumbu Icefall, the
Western Cwm and the South Col.
On the expedition was a climber from New Zealand, Edmund Hillary.
The Yeti
Footprint photographed by Eric Shipton during the British reconnaissance
expedition to Mount Everest in 1951.
Photo by Shipton in 1951 of footprints
left in
the snow by an enormous animal
on the Menlung Glacier, near
a mountain,
Imja Tse, named
Island Peak by Shipton.
National Geographic
The Yeti is believed to be the
Himalayan or Tibetan Blue Bear
or Brown Bear
---------------
The Swiss Everest Expeditions
1952
Tenzing Norgay,
a Nepalese Sherpa from Darjeeling, was a high altitude porter with three British expeditions to Everest in Tibet
- in 1935, 1936 and 1938.
By 1938, Tenzing was considered one of the
best, if not the best, of the high-altitude Sherpa climbers. Sherpas led climbs twice on the 1938 expedition. Tenzing led
one of the climbs.
By 1950,
Tenzing was regarded as the best high altitude climber in the world. He had the most experience on Mount Everest.
In 1952, the first
expedition to Mount Everest to attempt the summit since the 1938 British expedition was led by Swiss climbers, all from
Geneva, climbing from the south side of the mountain, in Nepal.
The Swiss led two
expeditions in 1952.
On the first expedition,
two climbers, Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and Raymond Lambert of Geneva, made an attempt to reach the summit. They followed the
route discovered by the 1951 British expedition. They climbed higher and closer to the peak than anyone before. They came to within 250 metres (800 feet) of the summit before conditions forced
them back.
The path they made
up the mountain toward the summit was followed by later expeditions.
On the second Swiss
expedition, later in the year, after the monsoons, Lambert, Tenzing and other climbers were turned back again.
 Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, a resident of Darjeeling in northern India, and
Raymond Lambert of Geneva, Switzerland
Man Against Everest
Castle Films documentary film short
Mount Everest 1952
Historische Filme der Condor Films Zürich
Excerpt:
In 2002, Tashi Tenzing, a grandson of Tenzing Norgay, and Yves
Lambert, son of Raymond Lambert, were members of a Swiss climbing
expediton to the summit of Mount Everest, retracing the route taken
by Tenzing Norgay and Raymond Lambert in 1952.
Le Rêve Achevé
Swiss documentary of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the 1952 Swiss Everest expedition
(2002)
1ère partie (30:30)
2ème partie (30:00)
1952 British Expedition
to Cho Oyu
Eric Shipton led an expedition in 1952 to Cho Oyu, a mountain 30
kilometres northwest of Mount Everest, in preparation for an expedition to Everest in 1953.
On the 1952 expedition were Edmund Hillary and George Lowe of New
Zealamd. Hillary and Lowe and several Sherpas clmbed
into Tibet without being detected and reached the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier. They attempted to climb to the summit
of Changste by its east ridge but were turned back by the loose snow.
-------------
Soviet Expedition in 1952?
There were reports of a Soviet expedition to Everest from Tibet in late 1952.
Six Russian climbers were reported to have reached 8,200 metres (approximate
height of the 1924 high camp) before they disappeared. It was believed that they were killed in an avalanche.
Prolonged searches by Russian climbers in 1952 and 1953 failed to find the bodies
of the missing six.
To date, however, no factual evidence of this expedition has surfaced.
---------------
The
Conquest of Everest
29 May 1953
Tenzing Norgay
(or Norkay), a Nepalese Sherpa, on the summit of Mount Everest in the late morning of 29 May 1953, photographed by his
climbing partner, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand
View from the south of the
Nepalese side of Mount Everest, or Chomolungma in Tibetan and Sagarmatha in Nepali.
The summit was climbed from the south side of the mountain, in Nepal.
Mount Everest
indicated on a map of the Indian subcontinent.
Expeditions
to Everest set out from Kathmandu, capital of Nepal. The route of Hillary and Tenzing to the summit of Everest from Nepal.
The
route of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to the summit of Mount Everest from its south
side in Nepal.
Edmund
Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbing Mount Everest.
Hillary
and Tenzing on their descent from the summit.
Hillary and Tenzing on Mount Everest. The summit is the taller peak on the
left.
Newcastle Journal (British daily newspaper published in Newcastle
upon Tyne in North East England), 2 June 1953
The Conquest of Everest
Documentary film of the 1953 expedition
to the summit (1:12:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUBBTepUdto
Conquest of Everest Premiere
1953
British Pathé
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Climb Everest
Newsreel
Everest Heroes Home
British Pathé
The expedition arrives in England at London Airport in June 1953. The leader of the
expedition, John Hunt, waves the flag.
Edmund Hillary, Tezing Norgay and expedition leader John Hunt arrive at
Safdarjang Airport in Delhi, 1 July 1953.
Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary in motorcade procession through Temple Square in Bhangoan,
India on 13 July 1953.
Hillary Returns
The New Zealand National Film Unit
1953
Hillary on his return home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7FC9L56nmU
Sir Edmund Hillary on Omnibus
1954
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2r7-WSyyts
Histoire de la conquête de l'Everest
French
version of The Conquest of Everest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgl2SN-RvrM
The Race for Everest
Tribute
to Edmund Hillary
BBC documentary film recounts the 1953 expedition (58:55)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDbE00gV20k
Hillary
and Tenzing
Everest
and After
BBC documentary (1997) (57:48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ixhZlyX0lA
Beyond
the Edge
New Zealand documentary (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-AHTsS7teQ
Hillary and
Tenzng with model of Everest
Tensing Norgay
Interview
British Movietone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYD7LE5DTGc
Tenzing Norgay (1914 - 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi
in Khumbu, Nepal to Sherpa parents from Tibet who settled in Nepal.
Tenzing Norgay and wife
Sir Edmund Hillary (1919 - 2008)
Sir Edmund and Lady Louise Hillary in 1954
Return to Everest
National Geographic Documentary (c.
1984) (53:24)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8HmY8mt7w
Recalling Sir Edmund Hillary
BBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98iQOEw9RXA&feature=related
50th Anniversary Commemoration
Peter Hillary, son of Edmund Hillary, and Jamling Norgay, son of Tenzing Norgay, climb Mount
Everest in 2002.
National Geographic Documentary
9 clips:
Start here:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90sdQFQfhrw
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhY_N-OP-KY
.
. . . . . .
The
Swiss were the next to reach the summit of Everest, with four climbers, three years later, in 1956.
For
more about Mount Everest, Hillary and Tenzing see Page 22, Inter-War Years, and Page 30, Averting Nuclear
War.
------------------------
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
June 2, 1953
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinborough
Princess Elizabeth proclaimed Queen
Elizabeth
II devient Reine d'Angleterre
6
février 1952
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Newsreel
THE CORONATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II
(Colour) 02/06/1953
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Documentary
Long
to Reign Over Us
Film by John Wakehurst about the death of King George VI and The Queen's Accession and Coronation
1. The King's
Death
2. The Queen's
Accession
3. The
Coronation
The Queen's Coronation
Behind Palace Doors
Documentary
------------
Pakistan
The Savage Mountain
K2
Italian climbers reach summit
July 31, 1954
South side of K2 or Mount Godwin-Austen or Chhogori
(Balti and Urdu)
Second highest mountain in the world at 8,611 metres (28,251 feet) above sea level in the Korakoram Range, on the Sinkiang (China) - Baltistan (Pakistan) border.
the summit of K2
----------------
This
section is to be moved to Page 22, Inter-War Years, and edited into the First Expeditions to Mount Everest section.
Note
that this site was created in Internet Explorer and for some unknown reason the latest revision might appear differently
on Google Chrome.
Mallory and Irvine
Two British climbers, George Leigh Mallory (1886 - 1924), left in the above photo,
and Andrew Comyn (Sandy) Irvine (1902 - 1924), on the right, members of the 1924 British Expedition to Mount Everest in Tibet, perished
on their attempt to climb to the summit on 8 June 1924.
The photo above was taken on board ship from England to India in 1924.
Tibet
Mallory and Irvine were last seen by another climber with the 1924 expedition, Noel Odell, on the Northeast
Ridge. Although never entirely certain, Odell believed they were climbing one of the three rock steps on the Northeast Ridge
in the early afternoon of 8 June 1924.
Nine years later, a climber on the 1933 expedition, Percy Wyn-Harris, found one of the 1924 expedition's Swiss ice axes about one hour after setting out from the
high camp, Camp VI, on the traverse along the Northeast Ridge, about 60 feet below the ridgeline
and about 230 metres before the First Step.
Because
no one had been to that point since 1924, the ice axe could only have been Mallory's
or Irvine's. The axe was assumed to be Irvine's because there were three notches on the wooden handle and Irvine cut notches
on his walking stick.
No
other trace of Mallory and Irvine was found.
Everest
Mountain of Dreams - Mountain of Doom
The Quest
1997 documentary
Intro, Mallory, Hillary and Tenzing
Part 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgAxulU8xOU
-----------
Chinese climbers find Mallory and Irvine
Irvine,
1960 - Mallory, 1975
Xu Jing (1927 - 2011), deputy leader of the 1960 and 1975
Chinese Everest expedition climbing teams. The summit was reached by both expeditions, climbing from the north side in Tibet,
by the Northeast Ridge. Members of both expeditions found the bodies of English climbers.
- In 1965, at a gathering of climbers in Moscow, the deputy leader of the 1960 Chinese
expedition climbing team, Xu Jing, recalled finding the body of an English climber wearing braces (suspenders) about ten minutes
from the expedition's high camp in 1960. Irvine wore braces. Mallory did not. Later, Xu Jing remarked that the body
lay on its back.
The 1960 Chinese high camp was at an altitude of 8,500 metres (27,887 ft.), several metres below the crest of the Northeast
Ridge and 200 yards east of the First Step.
-
In 1975, a Chinese climber with a Chinese expedition to Everest, Zhang Junyan, reported that his tentmate, Wang Hongbao,
told him that he had just found the body of an European climber near their
camp, the Chinese high camp on the North Face.
Wang
Hongbao recounted his discovery several times before he was killed by
an avalanche on Everest in 1979.
The 1975 Chinese high camp was on the North Face, far west of the North Ridge, and at the east edge of the bottom
of the large snow field, at an approximate altitude of 8,170 metres (26,800 ft.).
The 1975 high camp was 300 metres lower than the site of the 1960 high camp.
There
were other reports, less well-known, from Chinese climbers of finding an old body of an European climber on the North Face.
(See below.)
-------------
- In 1991, an American climber spotted an old oxygen bottle several (?) metres below the crest of the Northeast Ridge
and 200 yards before the First Step, at an approximate altitude of 8,480 metres (27,820 ft.) -
a bit higher up the ascent (about 50 metres) than the ice axe found in 1933.
The bottle was recovered by a later expedition, in 1999. The bottle was one of Mallory's
and Irvine's oxygen bottles, No. 9.
The oxygen bottle indicated that Mallory and Irvine traversed alomg the Northeast Ridge
and were closer to the First Step than the spot where the ice axe was found in 1933. It could indicate also that the ice axe
was dropped on the descent rather than the ascent.
However, some questioned if the bottle spotted in 1991 and the bottle recovered in 1999 were
one and the same. Some pointed out also that the oxygen bottle could have been picked up at one spot and moved to another by climbers of previous expeditions.
The site of the 1960 Chinese high camp was several metres from the point where the 1924 No.
9 oxygen bottle was recovered in 1999.
---------
- On 1 May 1999, climbers with an American-British-German expedition searching the snow field
high on the North Face for Mallory and Irvine came upon
Mallory's body, lying face down, arms outstretched over
his head, hands gripping the surface, 300 metres below the Northeast Ridge, near the site of the 1975 Chinese high camp,
Camp VI, which was found two years later, in 2001.
An American climber, Conrad Anker, with the American-British-German expedition team searching
for Mallory and Irvine, finds the body of George Mallory on 1 May 1999 near the site of the 1975 Chinese high camp.
Mallory's body is on a ledge at the bottom of a vast snow
field on the North Face.
The view is from above, in the middle of the snow field,
looking down the North Face.
In the distance beyond, to the north, is Changste. Below Everest and Changste is Chang La,
the North Col.
George Mallory, on the North Face of Everest, on 1 May 1999.
Above Mallory are the Northeast Ridge and the summit pyramid.
Beyond Mallory are the North Face and the big pyramidal rock wall that streches
from the West Rongbuk Glacier up to the summit pyramid.
Mallory's body was mummified and bleached white by the sun. Goraks
(Himalayan ravens) had pecked a large hole in each buttock and the right leg and eaten most of his entrails.
Mallory had several broken ribs; a split right thumb; a broken or dislocated right elbow; and cuts and
bruises up the right side.
Mallory had a 1.7 inch (43 cm) hole in his
forehead above the left eye with two small protruding bone fragments.
Mallory's right ankle had snapped and twisted. Otherwise,
his body was intact and his injuries limited, indicating a short fall.
For an account in the New York Times of the 1999 siting, see Lost on Everest,
Finding Mallory on Mount Everest (1999):
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/anker-lost.html?scp=113&sq=everest&st=Search
------------
Indicated on the above
photo are the locations of
- a 1924 ice axe (found
in 1933);
- Mallory's and Irvine's
No. 9 oxygen bottle (spotted in 1991 and recovered in 1999);
- Mallory's body (found
in 1975 and 1999);
- Mallory's and Irvine's
highest camp, Camp VI (found in 2001);
- the 1975 Chinese high
camp, Camp VI (found in 2001); and
- an early 1920s Sherpa's
mitten (also found in 2001).
According to the notes
on the above photo, Mallory's body is well below the Northeast Ridge, well below the Yellow Band, and at the bottom of
- or just below - the large snow field. This point is about 300 metres below the Northeast
Ridge. It is not far from the 1975 Chinese high camp.
Different
maps and notes on photos place Mallory's body in different locations, hundreds of metres apart horizontally and vertically.
Source: Mark Horrell - website: Footsteps Up
the Mountain
According to the notes on the above photo, Mallory's body (indicated by an "X" in the Yellow Band
of marble and limestone) was found about 100 metres below the Northeast Ridge and less than one-third of the way down the
Yellow Band, almost directly below the First Step, The indication is incorrect.
--------
Did George Mallory reach the summit of Everest in 1924?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=0nBH6NeyFpw&feature=endscreen
Mallory and Irvine
Episode from the documentary series Vanishings! (21:18)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI60RAmi9gw
Removed
from You Tube
In Spanish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc27PtUce1U
Lost on Everest
The Search for Mallory & Irvine
BBC documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quj0FEt3U-U
Or in 5 clips:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7KyVKop3sc
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlRJjWycCWs&feature=relmfu
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhgpOMY6LeU&feature=relmfu
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ3SrO2cbHM&feature=relmfu
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S85AmIyGgEQ&feature=relmfu
The Wildest
Dream
Conquest of Everest
2010
movie about
the search for Mallory and Irvine (94 min.)
With Conrad
Anker and Leo Houlding
Includes a free-climb
of the Second Step
Ad for the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vvTPeQSEl8
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyR8WdYIceg&feature=plcp
First half of the movie (45:12)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3daqgd
Second half of movie (48:23)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3db1hm
---------------
Sketch of the
North Face of Everest with the key points and routes of the 1922 and 1924 expeditions. The "known Mallory/Irvine high point"
is the oxygen bottle spotted in 1991 and recovered in 1999.
One can only
speculate about what happened to Mallory and Irvine. Various scenarios have been proposed in attempts to account for their
last hours.
Mallory
is often described as a man driven by an obsession to conquer Everest, willing to sacrifice
anything and everything in a last desperate bid to reach the summit.
Indeed,
that is the impression many of Mallory's climbing companions had of him. In the
accounts of the first three expeditions to Everest, Mallory
is the relentless driving force behind the attempt to reach the summit. But
he is, for the most part, a typically cautious climber, placing the safety of his climbing partners before his own. He
does not take undue risks.
Mallory was
determined to reach the summit. He knew the odds were very much against success. He would give
it a go. He would give it his best. But not at any cost. He knew when to call it a day.
Many like to believe
that Mallory and Irvine reached the summit. But many climbers with experience on the North Face and Northeast Ridge of Everest
doubt that anyone, however fit and experienced, could have reached the summit in 1924.
Climbers did not have the required climbing equipment in 1924. Clothing available did not guard sufficiently against the extreme
cold of high Himalayan peaks. Above all, the hobnail boot worn in those days is considered inadequate for climbing high Himalayan
peaks. The hobnail boot was not an all-around shoe for different conditions. The hobnail boot is generally considered unsuitable
for vertical snow and ice climbing.
Mallory and
Irvine were last seen climbing the Northeast Ridge. This sighting was disputed.
During a ten-minute clearing in a mist, on his way
up from Camp V to Camp VI, Noel Odell saw Mallory and Irvine on the Northeast Ridge. He beleived they were climbing one
of the three rock steps. He was never entirely certain which step. Eventually, he maintained that it was the Second Step
- "the big rock-step", "the last step but one", "the final pyramid".
Many believe
that Odell's description of his sighting fits the First Step or the Third Step rather than the Second Step. It fits best the
Third Step. Exactly where on the ridge Odell saw Mallory and Irvine has long been questioned. Many believe the First Step is the most likely
possibility.
Some questioned if Odell mistook dark rocks or Goraks (black Himalayan ravens) for climbers. But a ten-minute sighting
is a long one.
From a similar vantage point nine years later, Symthe and Shipton
mistook rocks for Wyn-Harris and Wager. It was not until they reached their high camp that they realised they had been
looking at rocks instead of climbers.
The ice axe
found 60 feet below the crest of the Northeast Ridge in 1933 could indicate that Mallory and Irvine reached the Northeast
Ridge and were traversing along it.
The oxygen bottle found farther
up the ridge route and several (?) metres below the ridgeline in 1991 could indicate that Mallory and Irvine were traversing
along the ridgeline closer to the First Step.
If the oxygen bottle was
recovered in its original position, then it would appear that the 1924 ice axe was dropped on the way down back
to camp rather than on the way up from camp.
Long the central issue in the question of whether or
not Mallory and Irvine could have reached the summit is the Second Step, the most difficult of the three rock steps on the Northeast Ridge.
It is the biggest obstacle to the summit. It must be climbed to continue up the Northeast Ridge.
There is little
doubt that Mallory and Irvine could climb the First Step and the Third Step.
Mallory had
the ability to climb the Second Step. But the extreme cold,
high altitude and inadequate clothing would make the Second Step more difficult to climb, even with oxygen.
Recent photo of the
Second Step viewed from the northeast and below the Northeast Ridge. Only the Second Step is visible in the photo.
The Second Step is approached
from its north side. It is forty metres high. The last five metres are almost vertical.
As far as is known - and unless Mallory and Irvine tried it
- no one attempted to climb the Second Step before 1960.
The Second Step has been climbed,
as Mallory and Irvine would have had to climb it in 1924, by modern climbers only four times.
In 1960, four members of a Chinese expedition
to Everest, including a Tibetan climber, were the first to successfully confront the Second Step.
They took five hours, from noon to 5:00 p. m., to climb it. They required three hours to climb the last five metres.
One climber, standing in bare socks on the shoulders of another, was able to fix ice picks and ropes at the top of the step.
His feet suffered frostbite and his three climbing companions had to continue without him. Their claim of climbing the
Second Step was disputed because they did not provide photographic evidence.
The next Chinese expedition, in
1975, installed a metal ladder over the last five metres up the Second Step. Later expeditions fixed guide-ropes up the entire step.
A Spanish climber soloed up the Second Step in 1985
without use of the installed artificial climbing aids. (This is called free-climbing.)
An Austrian climber soloed up the
Second Step without prior first-hand
knowledge of it, without use of the artificial climbing aids and without climbing gear in 2001. He took about an hour to do
it.
An American climber free-climbed
the Second Step and belayed his British partner up in 2007. They took about an hour to climb it.
Descending the Second Step can be more dangerous
than ascending it.
Doubts that Mallory climbed the
Second Step appear to be based largely on his hobnail boots, which many feel are inadequate for the task.
However, Edward Norton scaled the steep and nearly vertical
rock west wall of the Grand Couloir, which is very difficult, in hobnail boots.
Mallory
and Irvine were the first on the Northeast Ridge and the route to the summit by the ridge was not known. Mallory studied the
mountain from many points over three expeditions. He studied it through a telescopic lens. He climbed close to the ridge.
Before his summit attempt, he discussed the ridge, the Yellow Band and the Grand Couloir with Norton, who had just tried to
reach the summit by the Grand Couloir.
Before setting
out, Mallory asked John Noel, the expedition's film-maker, to train his telescopic lens on the summit pyramid.
In a note
to Noel later, from Camp VI, Mallory added that
he would be climbing the "rockband under the pyramid" or "going up
skyline" by 8:00 a. m.
Many have
assumed Mallory meant that he expected to be at the base of the summit pyramid or close to it by 8:00 a. m.
According to Mallory's schedule, as many have understood it, he and Irvine should have been on the summit pyramid when Odell sighted
them on the Northeast Ridge at 12:50 p. m. They were thus at least six hours
late.
To
be at the base of the summit pyramid by 8:00 a. m. by the ridge route in
the most favourable conditions in 1924, it is known today that Mallory would
have to set out from his high camp, Camp VI, on the North Ridge, 300 metres below the Northeast
Ridge, by 2:00 a. m.
Today,
a modern climbing expedition can cover the known route - Mallory's high camp to the base of the
summit pyramid - in the best conditions, with experienced professional guides and with the use of
the installed climbing aids - in four to five hours.
Due
to the extreme cold at night and their primitve clothing, climbers did not start before sunrise in those days. If Mallory
and Irvine set out from their high camp between 5:30 and 7:00 a. m. they could be on or near the summit pyramid
between 11:30 a. m. and 1:00 p. m.
Some have suggested that Odell saw the climbers descending the mountain rather
than ascending. They were on their way back to camp. But Odell saw them climbing upwards, not downwards. So they were ascending,
not descending.
At
best, by 8:00 a. m., Mallory and Irvine could have been climbing up the Yellow Band on their way to the Northeast Ridge or
traversing along the Northeast Ridge on their way towards the First
Step or at the First Step.
If
Mallory and Irvine set out at 5:30 a. m. they might reach the
First Step by 8:15 a. m. If they set out at 7:00 a. m. they might reach the First Step by 9:45 a. m.
At
best, if Odell spotted Mallory and Irvine on the Third Step at 12:50 p. m., this would indicate that
they left camp around 7:00 a. m.
at the latest or encountered delays along the way.
Did
Mallory and Irvine actually keep to the ridge route?
Some
do not believe that Mallory and Irvine attempted to continue the climb by the ridge route beyond the First Step. Instead they
descended to the Yellow Band and traversed to the Grand Couloir.
To
try to accout for the late schedule, some have suggested that Odell saw
Mallory and Irvine on the ridge on their return
- after an examination of the Second Step from the top of the Black Band, or after an examination of the
Second Step and Third Step from the top of the Yellow Band and an exploration of the Grand Couloir.
Wyn-Harris and Wager did that nine years later, in 1933.
Reaching the First Step, Wyn-Harris and Wager decided to look for a way around the Second Step.
They descended to the top of the Yellow Band to examine the possibility of climbing the Second Step or regaining the ridge further on, beyond
the Second Step or below the Third Step. They might climb up from the top of the Yellow Band, up over the Black Band of loose
rock slabs, to the base of the rock steps or to the ridge.
As this turned out to be impossible, they continued to traverse to the Grand Couloir, crossed
it and scaled its west wall to Norton's high point.
Unable to go higher, they reconsidered the possibility of climbing the Second Step.
A climber might try to climb the Second Step or the west wall of the
Grand Couloir but not both on the same day.
Wyn-Harris and Wager returned to camp.
Could Mallory and Irvine, even with oxygen, have done otherwise?
Did Mallory and Irvine go directly from their high camp to the First Step? Or did they go first
to the Grand Couloir?
Did they try to reach the Second Step from the First Step, by traversing along the ridge,
with its dangerous sections on the steep North Face?
Or did they consider reaching the Second Step from the top of the Yellow Band below it?
Some have
suggested that Mallory and Irvine were returning to camp from the Grand Couloir and stopped
on the way to climb the First Step to take photos. So, they were actually on the descent when Odell saw them. But this
would require an excess of energy.
Perhaps they
were examining the possibility of traversing along the ridge from the First Step to the Second Step.
If Mallory and Irvine climbed the First Step on the ascent at 12:50 p. m. they still had a long
way to go. It was late. Eventually, they would run out of oxygen. The usual afternoon storms could break soon. If they continued they would have to descend at night. Most climbers today believe that Mallory would decide to return to camp.
It has been pointed out that if Mallory and Irvine climbed the Second Step at 12:50 p. m., they
were about three hours from the summit. They could reach the summit by 4:00 p. m. However, this is the amount of time required by modern climbers
to cover a known route, with guides and the use of the fixed guide-ropes in the best conditions. To Mallory and
Irvine the entire way was unknown.
With their inadequate clothing,
once beyond the Second Step, to continue, even in good weather, Mallory and Irvine would require a warm and unobscured sun
and they would have to keep pushing on. Otherwise, they could freeze.
The long descent to camp would be without oxygen. The last hour or so in darkness. Storms
were always a possibility.
Would Mallory decide to push on or return to camp?
The search team that
found Mallory in 1999 believe the condition of his body ruled out a long fall. His right ankle had twisted and snapped but
his body was intact. The bodies of climbers who fell 300 metres from the Northeast Ridge are in much worse shape
- mangled, twisted and broken.
The location of Mallory's body has led some to suggest that he fell on the
route back to Camp VI from a point on the North Face low on the Yellow Band or, lower down, high on the snow field, and slid
some 100 to 150 metres to the bottom of the snow field.
Some believe that Mallory slid a much shorter surface, over a thick snow surface, from a point
far lower on the snow field.
Unless the North Face was covered with a thick layer of fresh snow and ice it is difficult
to imagine how Mallory could have slid to his location, which is surrounded by several large sharp-edged rocks, without sustaining more serious injuries.
Some have suggested that Mallory fell higher up on the snow field and sustained his injuries in a short fall,
as he slid over a short stretch of uncovered scree. With the aid of his ice axe he managed to limp some distance towards camp before he collapsed, lay down and died.
The location and condition of Mallory's body could indicate that Mallory intended to traverse
from the bottom of the snow field, far out on the North Face, eastward and horizontally back to the high camp, Camp VI.
In 1924, the way down from the Northeast
Ridge to the lower camp, Camp V, was by Camp VI and down the North Ridge.
Odell was caught in a snow squall about Camp
VI from 2:00 p. m. to 4:00 p. m.
Could the mid-afternoon snow squall about Camp VI
have compelled Mallory to avoid the North Ridge by descending far to the west on the North Face, down the snow field?
Did Mallory decide to by-pass Camp VI?
In 1933, there was a route that led up from Camp V on the North Ridge to
Camp VI, which was 250 to 300 feet below the Northeast Ridge, and passed far to the west of the site of the 1924 Camp VI - well onto the North Face and close to the snow field.
Mallory may have headed back to Camp V, or to Camp VI. by a similar route. This could explain the location of his body, which appears to have fallen a short distance.
There may be another
explanation for the location and condition of Mallory's body.
Mallory's body was
found near a route taken by two climbers of the previous British expedition to Everest, George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce, in
1922. This route led from the lower camp, Camp V, on the North Ridge, diagonally up and across the North Face towards the
Grand Couloir. Finch and Bruce reached the Yellow Band before turning back.
This
could indicate that Mallory was returning from
the Grand Couloir and descending by the Finch and Bruce route to Camp V or Camp VI.
How then to explain the ice axe on the ridge?
It has been suggested that Mallory intended to go all the way
to Camp IV on the North Col. Norton and Somervell returned
to the North Col on the same day of their climb, stopping at Camp VI and Camp V on the way.
The slopes of Everest shift over time. Objects drift. A rock forming a ledge in one
spot one year might be several feet lower the next. Did Mallory die higher up on the snow field and drift downward over
many decades? The climbers who found Mallory in 1999 believe he died where they
found him. The snows and shifting rock surface did not move his body over time.
The
search team remarked that Mallory's rib cage had been compressed. This could indicate a severe pull on the climbing rope
about his waist.
This could mean that Mallory was roped to Irvine when one or the other fell.
It could mean also that Mallory slipped while belaying himself
down. (This is called abseiling or rappeling.)
Mallory's thin braided cotton rope was frayed
at the front end, which extended about ten feet, indicating that it had been cut.
The compressed rib cage and the frayed rope end
could indicate that the rope was tied about a rock when Mallory slipped while rappeling and, as he hung by the rope, it was cut by a sharp edge of the rock.
The cut could indicate also that the rope was caught by a rock and cut as the two climbers slid down the snow field together.
Mallory's dark goggles
were found in a trouser pocket. Some assumed this indicated that Mallory was descending at night. But Mallory was known to
carry two pairs of dark goggles.
Climbers complain
that goggles are useless during a storm. They ice up and obscure
vision. This could indicate that Mallory was caught in the mid-afternoon snow squall that Odell encountered at Camp VI.
There is little doubt
that Mallory's body was spotted several times before 1999.
Mallory's
ice axe was not in the area. The Chinese climber who found Mallory in 1975, Wang Hongbao, took Mallory's ice axe for
a souvenir.
A Chinese
climber might have cut off a sample of the rope.
There were
no oxygen bottles. No trace of the oxygen apparatus carrying frame. Only the connecting
straps and clip to the oxygen mask were found.
John Noel, the 1924 expedition
film maker, gave each member of the expedition a camera. Mallory forgot his camera
before setting out on his last summit attempt. Howard Somervell lent him his camera. But the camera was not with Mallory when
he was found in 1999.
Mallory
came to rest on a ledge, some twenty metres from the edge of a steep drop of 7,000 feet to the (Main) (West) Rongbuk Glacier.
He lay conscious or unconscious a while and died.
Though
it is believed that Mallory has remained in one spot since 1924 some wonder if he will not drift over the ledge and drop
to the West Rongbuk Glacier. The climbers who found Mallory in 1999 buried him with
rocks. Some reasoned that this would prevent him from drifting over the ledge.
-----------
What of
Irvine's fate?
Many believe that, in
all likelihood, Irvine fell all the way down the mountain to the (Main) (West) Rongbuk Glacier.
Others maintain that Irvine
should not be too far from Mallory.
A
Chinese climber, Wang Hongbao, reported finding the body of an English climber not far from the 1975 Chinese high
camp. The 1924 ice axe found near the Northeast Ridge in 1933 was assumed to be Irvine's. Thus, the 1999 American-British-German
team searching in the vicinity west of the 1975 Chinese high camp, the location of which was not yet certain, thought
they might find Irvine rather than Mallory.
The search
team followed the Chinese reports of a body ten to twenty minutes from the 1975 Chinese high camp and eventually found Mallory.
Mallory
and Irvine may have been roped together and they may have fallen some distance together.
Some question if Wang
Hongbao did not find Irvine instead of Mallory near the Chinese high camp in 1975. This may be due in part
to a limited translation of
Wang Hongbao's recollection of finding the body in 1975 to a Japanese climber
in 1979.
According to the Japanese
climber, Wang Hongbao said he had found the old body of a dead climber lying on his left side and with a hole in his right
cheek pecked by Goraks.
Mallory was found in 1999
lying face down with a hole in his forehead above the left eye.
If the Japanese climber's
understanding of Wang Hongbao's recollection of his discovery was accurate, then it
was not Mallory who Wang Hongbao saw.
If that is so, Irvine
too should be somewhere near the 1975 Chinese high camp.
But reports and translations
are seldom fully accurate. Wang Hongbao probably saw Mallory.
Several times over the years, the deputy leader of the 1960 and 1975 Chinese Everest expedition
climbing teams, Xu Jing, recalled that members of the 1960 expedition found the body of an European climber near the
Chinese high camp on the North Face.
The 1960
and 1975 Chinese high camps were in different locations and about 300 metres (1,000 ft.) apart vertically.
The Chinese
high camp in 1960 was at an altitude of 8,500 metres (27,887 ft.), several metres below the crest of the Northeast Ridge
and 200 yards east of the First Step.
The 1975
Chinese high camp was 300 metres (1,000 ft.) lower on the North Face, at an altitude of 8,170 metres (26,800 ft.), well to
the west of the North Ridge and by the eastern edge of the bottom of the big snow field. Mallory's body was found near
the 1975 high camp.
The 1960
Chinese high camp was actually several (?) metres from the spot where
the 1924 No. 9 oxygen bottle was recovered in 1999. The body of a climber spotted nearby by Chinese
climbers could not have been that of Mallory. It could only have been Irvine.
More specifically, Xu
Jing indicated later that in 1960 the body was found near the site of the 1933 British high camp, Camp VI, which was 200 yards
to the east of the 1960 Chinese high camp and 250 to 300 feet below the Northeast Ridge.
Another
indication that the Chinese found Irvine's body in 1960 was Xu JIng's
recollection, in 1965, that the dead climber wore braces (suspenders).
Irvine wore braces. Mallory did not.
Another indication is Xu Jing's recollection that the body lay on
its back. Mallory was found face down.
Thus, it appears that the Chinese found two bodies, one in 1960 near the 1933
British high camp and the other in 1975 near the 1975 Chinese high camp.
It is possible
that Irvine's body is no longer where the Chinese found him in 1960. In recent decades, dead bodies have been
pushed off the mountain.
The Chinese
climber who found Mallory in 1975, Wang Hongbao, also took Mallory's ice axe as a souvenir. If so, the ice axe found
sixty feet below the crest of the Northeast Ridge in 1933 was indeed Irvine's.
It is not
clear if another report of an ice axe taken from the body of an English climber was the same or applied to 1960. If an
ice axe was taken in 1960 it was Irvine's.
If ice axes were taken from both bodies by the Chinese, one in 1960
and one in 1975, what then of the ice axe recovered by Wyn-Harris 60 feet below the ridge in 1933? Did the Chinese find the ice axe Wyn-Harris left in its place?
As far as is known no one reached the Northeast Ridge after Wyn-Harris and Wager
on the 1933 expedition until the 1960 Chinese expedition.
What of Somervell's ice axe? Somervell dropped his ice axe on his
way back down to high camp, from the top of the Yellow Band at a point below the First Step. Norton and Somervell returned to camp by a traverse through the Yellow Band, well
below the Northeast Ridge - the same way they came up - and Norton recalled
that the ice axe spun a long way down the North Face and out of view.
Could the Chinese have found Somervell's ice axe?
Unfortunately, most of the 1960 Chinese expedition's documentation
was destroyed by the radical Red Guards, who condemned mountain climbing as a
degenerate activity, during the Cultural Revolution in China (1966 - 1969/76).
There were rumours from
the 1930s to the 1950s of Soviet expeditions to Everest through Tibet. It was assumed the Soviets would try to climb
Everest.
There were reports of
Soviet expeditions to Everest in 1952 and 1958.
Six Russian climbers on
the late 1952 expedition were said to have reached 8,200 metres (approximate height of the 1924 high camp) before they disappeared, probably
in an avalanche. Prolonged searches by Russian climbers in 1952 and 1953 failed to find them.
Some have questioned if
Xu Jing saw the body of a Russian climber from the 1952 expedition instead of a British climber.
There was a joint Sino-Soviet
reconnaissance expedition to Everest in 1958 in preparation for a joint expedition in 1959. But the 1958 expedition did
not climb Everest. The Sino-Soviet political split compelled the Soviets to withdraw from the 1959 expedition. The Chinese
went on their own in 1960.
It has
been suggested that Mallory could have continued the summit attempt at some point without his partner, as did Norton in 1924
and Smythe in 1933.
Norton’s
partner, Somervell, was too ill to continue and waited two hours for him at the top of the Yellow Band, below the First Step.
Smythe’s
partner, Shipton, was too ill to continue and turned back on the Yellow Band below the First Step. He returned to Camp VI
and, later, descended to Camp V alone.
If a climbing party is roped together and one climber falls he
can pull the others down with him. Thus, climbers are often unroped. Finch and Bruce, Norton and Somervell, Wyn-Harris and
Wager, and Smythe and Shipton were not roped together most of the time.
Climbers, especially inexperienced ones, should be roped to their partners over the more dangerous parts of a climb.
It is believed that Irvine, an inexperienced climber, would have been roped to Mallory all or much of the way and certainly
over the more dangerous parts of the climb. However, Finch, an experienced climber, and Bruce, an inexperienced climber, were
not roped together throughout most of their climb in 1922.
Climbers in Mallory's
day claimed the hemp
and cotton ropes then in use offered a false sense of security. They cut too
easily. Sturdier nylon rope was produced in the 1940s.
Irvine
was a strong athlete and demonstrated his ability on the expedition, but if roped to Mallory he might delay the climb. Mallory might have a better chance going alone.
It has been suggested that Irvine could have waited at some point, perhaps
below the First Step, or headed back to camp as Mallory traversed along the ridge between the First and Second Steps
or climbed up the west wall of the Grand Couloir.
The weather and snow and ice conditions permitting, the way back down to Camp VI might not be all that difficult, even
for an inexperienced lone climber.
Noel Odell
recruited Irvine for the expedition. Mallory was to have made the last summit attempt of the expedition with Odell but
he chose Irvine as his partner instead because Irvine was particularly
adept with the oxygen sets.
Mallory
and Irvine were to carry two oxygen bottles each. This would not be enough to reach the summit and return to camp.
Indications
are that Mallory and Irvine could have carried five bottles between them. Some have suggested that Irvine carried a third
bottle or that both carried three bottles on the day of their summit assault.
It has
been suggested that when their first oxygen bottles ran out, perhaps on the way up to the Northeast Ridge or on a traverse along
it, Irvine could have given Mallory his last bottle and returned to camp as Mallory continued the summit attempt alone.
This is
not an uncommon practice among climbers. When the oxygen supply is too low for two climbers to reach the summit together,
the strongest and most capable is given the remaining oxygen supply by
the other.
Mallory
was not known to leave another climber alone on a mountain. He was most unlikely to leave an inexperienced climber alone,
especially at high altitude without oxygen.
On
a previous summit attempt, in 1922, George Finch set out with Geoffrey Bruce, who, like Irvine, was inexperienced at
high altitude. When Bruce's oxygen set failed and he became ill at the Yellow Band, Finch aborted the climb and returned with
Bruce to Camp V. Mallory would have done the same.
It
has been pointed out by many climbers that a climber is most unlikley to fall from the spot where the 1924 ice axe was found
in 1933. The area is flat and almost level. For a climber to fall from that spot he would have to be blown off by a very strong
wind or pulled off by a falling partner to whom he is roped.
Indeed,
it appeared that ice axe had been deliberately set down.
This
could indicate that one climber descended alone, without the other, perhaps after an accident.
It
has been pointed out also that a climber disoriented by the lack of oxygen at high altitude could discard his indispensable
ice axe. (He could discard a mitten too.)
There were no British
expeditions to Everest after the 1924 expedition until the fourth expedition nine years later in 1933. There is a
possibility - though a remote one - that Nepalese and Tibetans explored the
mountain with western adventurers. It is highly unlikely, but they may have reached the Northeast Ridge. That is the only
other possible explanation for a 1924 ice axe on the ridge in 1933. Someone picked it up somewhere and, for some reason or
other, left it there.
There were some known adventures later. The best-known are of a British aviator who
died on the East Rongbuk Glacier near Chang La in 1934; a Canadian who tried to climb to the North Col with the Nepalese Sherpa,
Tenzing Norgay, in 1947; and the grandson of American president Woodrow Wilson, who climbed part of the way up the North Ridge
in 1962. (He walked away from a 200-metre fall.)
---------
For Mallory and Irvine, their summit attempt would
be also the first exploration of the Northeast Ridge and the first experiment with oxygen sets at the very highest climbing
altitudes.
To reach the summit pyramid, Mallory and Irvine would
have to climb the Second Step on the Northeast Ridge or climb up the Grand Couloir or reach the Subsidiary Couloir. Also,
the weather and surface snow and ice conditions would have to be favourable. At some point, on the
ascent or descent, they would have to climb without oxygen.
Many climbers with experience on Everest do not believe that Mallory
and Irvine could have reached the summit. It is unlikely that they climbed the Second Step. It is unlikely that they reached the Subsidiary
Couloir. It is unlikely that anyone
could have climbed farther up the mountain with the equipment available in 1924.
The Second
Step was climbed for the first time in 1960 (disputed) or 1975 (confirmed), by Chinese and Tibetans. The
1960 climb may have been the first attempt.
The summit
was reached by the Northeast Ridge for the first time in 1960 (disputed) or 1975 (confirmed), by Chinese and Tibetan climbers.
The 1960 summit was the first successful assault from Tibet (disputed).
The summit
was reached from the Grand Couloir for the first time in 1980, by an Italian climber, Reinhold
Messner. After the 1933 British expedition no one tried it until Messner in 1980.
Reinhold
Messner
Interviewed
by Wade Davis
Canada
(2000)
Messner and
an Austrian climbing partner, Peter Habeler, both from the Tyrolean Alps, were the first to climb to the summit of Everest
without oxygen, in 1978. They climbed from the Nepalese side.
Messner was
also the first to climb to the summit of Everest solo, in 1980. Messner climbed without oxygen and thus the first to
climb to the summit solo without oxygen.
Messner climbed
to the summit from Tibet - from the North Ridge, across the North Face, up a long section of the Grand
(Norton) Couloir, up the Subsidiary Couloir, up to the summit pyramid and to the summit.
Messner was
the first to reach the summit by the Grand (Norton) Couloir and the Subsidiary Couloir.
By this
feat - climbing solo and without oxygen to the summit by the Grand Couloir -
Messner accomplished what Norton in 1924 and Smythe in 1933 set out to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIDuS4FNvko
1984
Australian Expedition
A small Australian expedition climbed
to the summit of Everest from the (Main) (West) Rongbuk Glacier all the way up the Grand (Norton) Couloir in 1984, the
first to do so.
The entire
climb was made without oxygen.
Two climbers
reached the summit in early October.
Documentary
(1:12:26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPa10_uuSjE
Winds
of Everest
Documentary
(1984) (57 min)
Repeats at end
As the Australians climbed, an American expedition
attempted a similar route - from the (Main) (West) Rongbuk Glacier by the North Face and the
Grand (Norton) Couloir.
One climber, using oxygen, made it to the summit
in late October.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z79MK1eQnEU
1938 British high camp; Mallory's
and Irvine's most likely route to the First Step
2004
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLhHO4_6-Q
1960 and 1975 Chinese gear dump at the First Step; Mallory's and Irvine's possible route to the First Step
2004
A gear
dump at the First Step contained Chinese equipment from 1960 and 1975. The dump site is on the north side of the First
Step and one-third of the way up it.
It is possible
that at least one of the Chinese reports of an old body near the Chinese high camp in 1960 applies to this gear dump
site at the First Step rather than to the 1960 Chinese high camp, which was 200 yards to the east of the First Step.
If so,
could Irvine's body be within a ten to twenty-minute traverse of this Chinese
gear dump site?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3auMLZZ2KU
Climbing the Yellow Band; 1933 Camp VI to the N. E. Ridge; Norton's 1924 Traverse from
the Great Couloir; Jack Longland's 1933 Descent from the N. E. Ridge to the N. E. Shoulder
2004
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXPMjWtst8
For an account
of Soviet Everest expeditions see:
Mount Everest
and the Russians 1952 and 1958
https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1994_files/AJ%201994%20109-115%20Gippenreiter%20Everest.pdf
-----------------
Memorial to
George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in the Rongbuk Valley.
Into the
Silence
Three lectures by Wade Davis
National Geographic Live
13 December 2011 (27:39)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naXQQ6YTy8A
The Great War, Mallory
and the Conquest of Everest
2012 (1:05:48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIhpBbnrEg
February 2012 (1:31:47)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3m5dh-vak
For more about
Mallory and Irvine, see Page 22. Inter-War Years.
----------------
1953
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Niorgay reached the summit of Everest, the first to do so.
1956
Four
Swiss climbers reached the summit, also from Nepal. Two reached it on one day and two more on the next.
1960
Two
Chinese and one Tibetan climber reached the summit from Tibet, the first to do so from Tibet. (Disputed.)
The
next expedition to reach the summit was American in 1963.
The First Americans on the Summit
1963
In 1963 the first American
expedition to Everest reached the summit twice.
Two climbers reached the
summit, the first time, following the Swiss and British routes in Nepal. The climbers were Jim Whittaker and Nawang Gombu,
a Nepalese Sherpa and a nephew of Tenzing Norgay.
Ten years earlier, Nawang Gombu
accompanied his uncle on the 1953 British Everest expedition.
Jim Whittaker (1929 -
) and Nawang Gombu (1936 - 2011)
The summit was reached the second time
three weeks later by four American climbers.
Two climbed up from Nepal.
Two
climbed up from the Tibetan side, starting out from Nepal, up the West Ridge,
and up to the summit by a couloir on the North Face, on the west side of the giant rock wall below the summit pyramid.
This
couloir was subsequently named the Hornbein Couloir after the climber who led the climb up it, Thomas Hornbein.
The
four climbers descended together by the Nepalese side.
Route of the 1963 American expedition and the Hornbein Couloir
Americans on Everest
National Geographic documentary (1963)
Narrated
by Orson Welles
In 4
parts
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO2AG2qXdkI
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMWu4hmPzI
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B79qnikXUfI
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-rfC-40NC0
Two years later, in 1965, the summit was reached by an Indian expedition, from Nepal. Nawang
Gombu reached the summit again, with eight climbers. Nawang Gombu was the first to climb to the summit twice.
Tenzing Norgay and nephew Nawang Gombu in the 1980s.
Nawang Gombu
Heart of a Tiger
Documentary
(2012) (46:29)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQRl2HORk6o
---------------------
pic
Note the brown layer below the summit of Everest.
This is a layer of limestone and marble called the Yellow Band.
Mt. Everest
How it was made
Episode,
with geologist Mike Searle, from the documentary series How the Earth was Made
----------------------
Nepal
Gateway to the Himalayas
1955 Castle Films documentary
The Sherpas
The True Heroes of Everest
Documentary (1:34:52)
The Sherpa's Story
Climbing Mount Everest with a Mountain on My Back
BBC documentary (2013)
Land of the Gurkhas
1960 BBC documentary with film footage by Christoph von
Furer-Haimdendorf and commentary by David Attenborough (30
min.)
The Gurkhas
1995 BBC documentary (59
min.)
or
or
---------------
Boris of Kathmandu
Boris, on the right in the photo,
with his wife, hunting tigers in Nepal
Boris Lissanevitch Interview
Kathmandu, Nepal (mid-1960s)
---------------
Massacre of the Royal Family
June 1, 2001
Was this Man really the Murderer?
Reality Bites (NDTV, 2001)
First half available on You Tube:
A
Royal Massacre
Episode from the 2006 British and Canadian documentary series
Zero Hour
Murder Most Royal
Documentary
(5 clips)
The first democratic elections for parliament were held in 1959. The Nepali
Congress Party dominated elections and parliament. The king dissolved parliament and dismissed the government in 1960.
Parliamentary democracy was established in 1990. The Nepali Congress Pary dominated elections and parliament.
Absolute rule was ended and Nepal became a constitutional monarchy in 1990.
The king dismissed the government in 2005 but restored it in 2006.
In 2007 the government decided to abolish the monarchy. The monarchy
was abolished in 2008.
Hinduism was the state religion until 2008 when Nepal became a secular state.
The communists have led the Nepalese government for ten of the past 24 years,
since 1994. The communists were junior partners of coalition
governments for six of the past 24 years.
The communists have led the government
since 2011.
The Nepalese parliament elected a communist president in 2015.
The Communist Insurgency
Monarchy, Politics and Maoist Insurgency
November 2001 Australian documentary
Raising the Red Flag
2003 documentary
Between Two States
2006 documentary
End of a Dynasty
Australian documentary (2008)
Why communism took over the government
A talk
2017
------------
--------------------------
Mustang:
A Kingdom on the Edge
----------------
Health in Nepal
Nepal
In the Mountain's Shadow
Canadian documentary
------------------------------
Nagaland
The Men Who Hunted Heads
Film footage in Nagaland and Arunchal Pradesh by Christoph
von Furer-Haimendorf in 1970
BBC broadcast
A
documentary on the Konyak-Nagas in the 1960s
Silent
film footage by Christoph Von Furer- Haimendorf (music has been added)
India, Zemi Nagas, Assam
ca. 1971
Silent
16-mm. colour film footage from the Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf Film Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, London,
England
Naga
policewomen on duty at the Commonwealth Games
Special episode of Walk the Talk with Shekhar Gupta, Editor in Chief of Indian Express
-
-------------
Burma
Source: Ei Tun, Eastern College
Source: Operation
World
Source: Thang
Za Dal
Aung San
Statue of Aung San (1915 - 1947) in Burma
Htein Lin ('Aung San') (1915 - 1947) was a Burman, the
ethnic majority in Burma.
He was a nationalist and opposed to British colonial rule in
Burma.
With
the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), Aung San organised and led the collaborationist Burmese army that accompanied
the IJA invasion of Burma from Thailand in 1942.
Burmese
soldiers destroyed many villages of the Karen, a large ethnic minority, and massacred many Karens.
Burmese
soldiers fought against the Americans and British. They fought against guerrillas of the Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon and other
ethnic groups who were allied to the Americans and British. Burmese soldiers killed Allied POWs and downed Allied airmen or
turned them over to the Japanese.
As the tide of war turned in 1944, Aung San decided to go over to the Allies. In mid-May 1945, after considerable negotiation with the British, Aung San's
offer to change sides was accepted by Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia. Burmese soldiers were disarmed, reformed and joined the British in fighting
the Japanese at the very end of the war.
After the Japanese government agreed to surrender unconditionally on
14/15 August 1945, Japanese troops in Burma headed for Thailand to surrender to the Allies. But many were trapped and annihilated
by vengeful Karen guerrillas. Between June and September 1945 at least 12,500 Japanese soldiers were killed by the Karen.
Forgotten
Allies
Episode
from the Timewatch documentary series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJ3q5yg38Q
There were many among the Allies who insisted Aung San should be
arrested and tried as a traitor for his collaboration with the enemy and also for murder.
But
Mountbatten, Supreme Commander in Southeast Asis, maintained that Aung San was of value to the Allies and should not be arrested.
The
British recognised Aung San as the post-war leader of the ethnic majority Burmans in Burma, the paramount leader of post-war
pre-independence Burma and prime minister in all but name, subject to the British governor of Burma.
Few, if any, Burmese who collaborated with the Japanese or fought against the Allies
were tried for treason against the British, or for their collaboration with the Japanese, or for war crimes.
British prime minister Clement Atlee, left, with Aung San,
right, in London In England in January 1947,
Aung San and Clement Attlee signed an agreement guaranteeing
Burma's independence one year hence - in January 1948.
British PM Attlee and Aung San
London, 1947
In the town of Panglong in Burma in February 1947, Aung
San reached an agreement with the Shan, Kachin and Chin to form an united federation.
Aung San was assassinated in July 1947, apparently by a
political rival. British complicity has long been suspected.
U Nu
U Nu (1907 – 1995) on cover of a 1948 issue
of Time Magazine
Following Aung San's assassination in mid-1947, U Nu, an ethnic Burman and one of Aung San's comrades, replaced Aung
San as the paramount leader of Burma.
With independence in early 1948, U Nu was the first
prime minister of post-colonial independent Burma.
U
Nu signs the independence agreement with British Prime Minister Clement Atlee in London in October 1947
Burma Treaty Signed (1947)
British Pathé film
Burma treaty signed in London by British prime minister Clement
Attlee and Burmese prime minister Thakin U Nu
Without narration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7LZRIIJTtE
With
narration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Auxyp9Jwzs
First President of Burma
Sao Shwe Thaike, Sabwa of Yaunghwe (1894 - 1962)
The first president and head of state of independent Burma was Sao Shwe Theike,
sabwa of Yaungwhe in the Shan State of Burma (1948 - 1952).
Burma Independence Day
January 4, 1948
British Pathé newsreel
How Burma Celebrated Day of Independence
Pathe newsreel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDS-KxG2rkc
Burma Celebrates Independence
1948
British Pathé silent film footage
Mountbattens visit Burma
1948
British Pathe newsreel
British Pathe silent film footage
There immediately followed a long war between the Burmans and other
ethnic groups that continues to this day.
At
one point, in January 1949, Karen soldiers reached the outskirts of Rangoon and appeared to be on the verge of victory
and about to occupy the capital but they were stopped and eventually driven back.
The
above two maps are drawn from details in
the
book Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of
Ethnicity
by Martin Smith in 1991.
Burma,
Buddhism, Neutralism
CBS-TV
programme See it Now with Edward R. Murrow
and U Nu (1957)
Shu Maung (Nom de guerre: Ne Win) (1910 - 2002), ethnic Burman, comrade of Aung San;
military dictator of Burma from 1962 to 1988.
When U Nu faced difficult problems in parliament in 1958, he appointed Ne Win interim prime minister and Ne Win led a caretaker government.
U Nu won elections in 1960 and resumed control of government.
In 1962, Ne Win staged a coup d'etat and suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament and made himself head of state and prime minister. He closed universities.
Following the political protests and military
crackdown of 1988, Ne Win withdrew from public
life but retained influence over the ruling junta
until 1998.
Welcome
to America (1966)
Meet General Ne Win
Changing Our World
2012
Aung San Suu Kyi (born in 1945), daughter
of Aung San.
Leader of the struggle for democracy
in Burma.
Focus of the 1988 demonstrations that
compelled Ne Win
to retire from public life.
Her politial party, the National League for Democracy (NLD),
trounced
army candidates in national elections in 1990,
winning 59% of the vote, but the results were nullified by the ruling junta.
Suu Kyi spent 15 of the next 21 years,
from 1989 to 2010,
under house arrest.
Interview on Norwegian television (2012)
Interview on Al Jazeera
2013
One brave
soldier can change history
Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won also
the 2015 national elections, again trouncing all opposition.
Despite the military's retention of all unelected seats, totaling one-quarter of both houses of the legislature, Suu
Kyi's NLD won enough seats to overrule any possible objections from the military in parliament to the appointments of
NLD party members to top posts.
By law (the 2008 constitution), because Suu Kyi was married to a foreigner and her chidren foreigners, she could not
assume the presidency. She could not be head of state. There was a possibility of changing the law but it was opposed
by the military.
To amend the current constitution,
which was drafted and enacted in 2008 without NLD participation, more than 75% of the vote of the legislature is required. The military, which holds 25% of the seats in the legislature
and votes as a bloc, has strangled efforts to amend the constitution.
Nonetheless, Suu Kyi became
the nation's foreign minister.
The post of special counselor
with wide powers was created for her. In effect, Suu Kyi became the country's supremo de facto in 2016.
ASSK and NLD
celebrate landslide victory
Suu Kyi's
Opposition Party Wins Majority In Myanmar Elections
Newsy
World Headline News
Last Myanmar Parliament session under current government
Reuters (Uploaded 28 January 2016)
Myanmar's Suu Kyi readies for power as her party comes to
parliament
Euronews (Uploaded 29 January 2016)
Suu Kyi's
party prepares to take charge of Myanmar parliament
AFP (Uploaded 29 January 2016)
First session of Myanmar's NLD-dominated parliament
held
ARIRANG NEWS
Uploaded in February 2016
First civilian president of Burma in many decades
Al-Jazeera, March 2016
Suu Kyi's Confidante Htin Kyaw Elected As Next President
ARIRANG News, Uploaded March 15, 2016
Myanmar swears in a new government after decades of military
rule
30 March 2016
Suu Kyi Meets MPs from Ethnic Political Parties
Panglong summit
BBC news
Uploaded 31 August 2016
President Htin Kyaw in India
August 2016
Aung San Suu Kyi Address to 2016 UN General Assembly, 21 September 2016
or
Aung San Suu Kyi meets Indian President Pranab Mukherjee
- 17 October 2016
Aung San Suu Kyi pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at his memorial, Raj
Ghat, in New Delhi - 17/10/16
Joint Press Statements of Indian PM Narendra Modi and Aung San Suu Kyi
- 19/10/16
Interview
BBC
5 April 2017
Reconsidering Aung San Suu Kyi
7 September 2017
Aung San Kyu Kyi and the Rohingyas
BBC, 7 September 2017
--------------------------
Karen
Bo Mya (1927 - 2006), leader of the
Karen
National Union (KNU).
In the
late 1980s and early 1990s, Manerplaw, headquarters of the KNU, became the major
focal point of all those seeking the restoration
of democracy and equality in Burma.
Karen
National Liberation Army (KNLA) Last Line of Defense
On patrol with
the KNLA along the Moei River
Australian documentary
(January 2009)
Note: Camps
101 and 102 are All-Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF) camps, composed mostly of Karen, on the right bank of the
Salween, across the river from Thailand.
The Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) is the breakaway KNLA faction, led mostly by Buddhist officers. The KNU is led mostly
by Christian officers.
Karen Revolution
Day 2014
Civil War continues
DVB (19 January 2016)
On patrol with the Karen
Video (2016)
Kachin
Kachin
Independence Army (KIA) and All-Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF) fighting the Burmese army in 2014
Note: The ABSDF
in the Kachin State is composed mostly of Kachin
2016
Palaung
The Burden of War
Women bear burden of displacement
Palaung Women's Organization
The Situation in mid-February 2016
Shan
Shan State Army
66th SSA Resistance Day
SSA fighting the Burmese army
Shan State Army and the Peace Talks
25 February 2017
Chin
Chin
Documentary
(2011)
Chin
National Army
Arakan
Rohingya
Rohingya
Daily News
05 December
2016
UN:
Bangladesh
must accept Rohingya refugees
Uploaded by Press
TV on 23 November 2016
UN
official:
Myanmar
pursues ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims
Uploaded 25 November
2016
Rohingya
Mujahideen in Burma
November
2016
Rohingya
refugees seeking sanctuary in Bangladesh
Uploaded
by Al Jazeera, 1 December 2016
Former UN
chief in Myanmar to investigate plight of Rohingya
Uploaded
by Al Jazeera, 2 December 2016
See
no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
Kofi Annan
in Burma
AFP
6 December
2016
Malaysian
PM Najib to attend Rohingya rally
3 December
2016
Malaysia
PM Protests Genocide
NewsBeatReal,
5 December 2017
Myanmar
accused of genocide
Malaysia
rally
Al-Jazeera,
4 December 2016
"Enough
is Enough!" Mayasian PM tp ASSK
4 December
2016
5
Fakta Pembersihan Etnik Rohingya
#KupiKupiFakta
6 December
2016
ASEAN Foreign Ministers (less Vietnam and Cambodia)
gather in Rangoon to urge Aung San Suu Kyi to
act now
to prevent genocide against the Rohingya in Arakan
on 19 Dec. 2016
Rohingya News, Arakan, 20 December 2106
Burma to allow aid from ASEAN to Rohingya
Press TV News
20 Dec. 2016
Amnesty International: Burma government and army
committing crimes against humanity in Arakan
Press TV News
19 Dec. 2016
UN envoy visits Rakhine to assess persecution
Press TV News, January 14, 2017
UN special rapporteur on human rights, Yangee
Lee, arrives in Burma's Rakhine state to begin
a 12-day trip to investigate escalating violence, torture, rape and killing of Rohingya Muslims by the Burmese military.
January 14, 2017
Malaysian relief ship arrives in Burma with aid
for Rohingya
Al-Jazeera
10 February 2017
Malaysian Ship Delivers Aid for Rohingya
Muslims in Burma
Radio Free Asia (RFA)
10 February 2017
Myanmar
Government blocks UN envoy access to Rohingya
PRESSTV
3 Feb. 2017
Are crimes against humanity taking place?
BBC Newsnight
Uploaded 10 March 2017
Rohingya
News
27 April 2017
Rohingya
crisis:
On the scene in Rakhine state
BBC News
In the jungle with Rohingya refugees
feeling Myanmar
BBC News
Uploaded 4 September 2017
"I don't accept the narrative."
- American ex-civil servant
France 24 in English
Uploaded 6 September 2017
UN: 300,000 Rohingya
refugees could flee Myanmar
Times of Oman
7 Septembner 2017
Myanmar’s
persecuted Rohingya refugees
The Economist
Uploaded 8 September 2017
Myanmar military accused of planting
landmines
in path of Rohingya refugees
Al Jazeera
10 Sep 2017
UN: 300,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh
10 Sep 2017
Bangladesh PM visits Rohingya refugee
camps; asks Burma to take them back
Al Jazeera, 12 September 2017
Burma
and the Rohingyas
France
24
13 September
2017
UNSC
meeting on Rohingya crisis
The Big
Picture
13 Septmber
2017
Will
Aung San Suu Kyi step up to halt Rohingya crisis?
Inside
Story
Al
Jazeera
Repatriation
to genocide
Al
Jazeera
January
2018
How long
before the U. N. troops are sent to Burma to prevent genocide? To protect the Rohingya?
--------------
70th Mon National Day
Japanese Well (Baw Nipoon), Mon State,
Burma
12 February 2017
-------------
Burma's
Military Power (2014)
-----------------
Pope Francis visits Burma and meets Rohingyas in Bangladesh
The Pope with Supremo Aung San Suu Kyi, 28 November 2017
Rome Reports
The Pope in Rangoon, 27 - 30 November 2017
Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Rangoon
29 November 2017
The Pope visits Bangladesh, 30 November - 2 December 2017
Pope meets Rohingya Refugees
Euro News
-----------------------
Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi
New President
in Burma
Myanmar parliament
elects Win Myint as new president
28 March 2018
Suu Kyi's
NLD wins majority in new elections
November 2020
Aung San Suu Kyi
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
Tropical Ceylon
A James A. Fitzpatrick Talkfilm (1930s) (9 min.)
Song
of Ceylon
Ceylonese Movie (1934)
A
Soldier's Film Journal of Ceylon
The home movies of an American G. I.
1944 - 1945
Ceylon Gains Independence
British Pathé
1948
Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka
War with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
Episode 6 of the documentary series Guns and Glory on Headlines
Today
----------
Singapore and Malaya
SOE in Malaya
Documentary
Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960
The Malayan Emergency (1948
- 1960)
Documentary (44:38)
the
same but longer
The Malayan Emergency
Documentary
(1:31:05)
The same in 8 clips:
Malaysia
today (2013)
The
Test of Nationhood
Imperial
War Museum (Malayan Film Unit) documentary
Chin
Peng (1924 - 2013)
Leader
of the Malayan resistance against the Japanese in WW2, leader of the colonial rebellion against Britain, leader of the Communist
insurgency in Malaya
Ex-CPM
leader Chin Peng dies in Bangkok (September 16, 2013)
CPM comrades, Thai Princess and retired
generals pay last respects to Chin Peng
---------------------------
The Falkland Islands
1982 Falklands
Episode from the British documentary series 20th
Century Battlefields with Peter and Dan Snow
The Falklands Legacy
2012 documentary with Max Hastings ((60:00)
The Falklands
Movie dramatisation
The Falklands War
The Untold Story
Documentary (1:41:22)
The Falklands Surprise
Episode from the Discovery Channel documentary series Sea Wings
My Falklands War and the Importance of Naval Corporate
Memory
Lecture by Rear Adm. Chris Parry
Eight Bells Book Lecture, Naval War College Museum, Newport, Rhode
Island, March 15, 2016.
---------------------------
The Fall of the Dutch Empire
Indonesian War of Independence 1945-1949
Documentary
Irian Jaya
-------------------------------
End of the Belgian Empire
maps of the Belgian Congo (Zaire) here
L'HISTOIRE
de LA COLONISATION de LA R.D.C.
Part 1.
Part 2.
White
King, Red Rubber, Black Death
Documentary
about the Belgian Congo
Belgian
Congo Uprising
---------------
Portugal
Portugal
in World War II
Portugal:
WWII Enigma?
Lecture
by Walt Burgoyne and Michael Pease
Lunchbox
Lecture Series at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana
Uploaded
in 2013
The End of the Portuguese Empire
O
fim do imperio Portugues
Carnation Revolution
Carnation
Revolution
Portugal
25th april 1974
RTP News
Guinea
Bissau
The Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oStgRh1IxI
Cape
Verde
Cape
Verde
Mozambique
Mozambique: Life after Death
Documentary
Angola
Angolan Civil
War
Documentary film
Jonas Savimbi jamba
Documentary (1987)
Timor
The Indonesia Genocide in East Timor
1993 documentary
Timor Leste
East Timor - Birth of a Nation
The
Story of Camarada Lu Olo (Fretilin)
East Timor - The Unseen Massacre
Documentary
(5 clips)
Goa
Macau
--------------------------
Spanish Empire
Map of Spanish Empire
1492 - 1977
Animation
New Spain
The Americas
The Spanish Main
Mexico and the Caribbean
Puerto
Rico
Cuba
Inhabited by Taino Indians, the island of Cuba was claimed by Christopher
Columbus for Spain in 1492 and colonised by the Spanish from the early 1500s.
The U. S. took over the island in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and granted
Cuba independence in 1902.
The Spanish Indies
The Philippines
--------------------------------
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