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Barbara W. Tuchman: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Barbara W. Tuchman, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• A decoded telegram offering Mexico Texas back helped pull the US into WWI

  In January 1917, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann cabled Mexico proposing a wartime alliance, offering to help it reclaim Texas, New Mexico and Arizona if the US joined t…

  — Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram

• One plague killed roughly half of Europe's population in six years

  In October 1347, ships carrying the plague docked at Messina, Sicily, and the disease tore across Europe over the next six years. Estimates vary, but historians put the toll at 40-…

  — Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

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