This article is an adaptation of our weekly History newsletter that was originally sent out on January 25, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Subscribe here.
By Debra Adams Simmons, HISTORY Executive Editor
It was a road-building effort that the world had never seen. Jesus, Caesar, and Augustus traveled the roads the Romans built—and the accomplishment far outlasted the flashy gladiators and royalty of the empire.
At its peak, the Roman roads (pictured above, near Aleppo, Syria) spanned as many as 200,000 miles. Unifying an empire, the roads also eased travel and emboldened citizens from Tangiers to modern-day Turkey who were told they were Romans. They fostered trade and order as well, and established routes that have endured for 2,000 years.
As nations rebuild and rethink their connective ties, some with greater balances for cyclists, pedestrians, and what Nat Geo’s Craig Welch sees as a likely boom in electric-powered vehicles, Rome’s focus on public works—and smoother travel—provides an inspiration. Expanded broadband connections and high-speed public transport, which a new U.S. official last week called a “generational opportunity.”would be understood in the Roman ethos.
For Romans, that desire to connect the world was fundamental, says Jesús Rodríguez Morales in this story for Nat Geo’s History magazine. “Roads,” he writes, “were in Rome’s DNA from the very beginning.” (Below, a detail from a Roman-era map laying out roads, towns, lodgings, and distances.)
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TODAY IN A MINUTE
When did the National Guard begin? Many of the soldiers guarding the U.S. Congress probably don’t know the answer. It was in December 1636 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, says History.com. Today’s “ready reserve” group of 450,000 Americans began with three militia regiments to secure early settlements from members of the Pequot Tribe. Those three regiments still exist today.
Deal with it: COVID-19 will be with us forever. The good news is that it will eventually morph into a much milder illness. The bad news is that we need not just vaccinations but continued vigilance and surveillance to blunt the current pandemic, Nat Geo’s Michael Greshko reports. COVID-19 has infected nearly 100 million people worldwide—more than 25 million of them Americans.
The night two A-bombs fell on North Carolina: Sixty years ago this month, a B-52 disintegrated over the Piedmont State, and an eyewitness tells us about the night when everything was burning. “My mother was praying,” says Billy Reeves, now 78. “She thought it was the End of Times.” As Bill Newcott reports, it almost was.
A fresh start: Recognizing the historic racial bias of the justice system, one newspaper is trying to redress that past by offering people named in minor crime stories to apply to have those stories removed. The Boston Globe asks individuals to include relevant court documents, such as evidence of charges being dismissed. It will likely reject pleas from people who committed serious crimes, public officials, or people in “positions of public trust,” The Wrap reports. “It was never our intent to have a short and relatively inconsequential Globe story affect the futures of the ordinary people who might be the subjects,” says editor Brian McGrory.
Followup: Amid a week in which funding for the border wall was halted, the DACA program was extended, and a pathway to citizenship was proposed, undocumented Americans who went public nearly a decade ago have had second thoughts about doing so. That’s one conclusion of National Geographic Society Explorer Sarah Lowe, who found the 30 undocumented immigrants who disclosed their status in a TIME cover story. For many, Lowe said, “their storytelling for others ultimately left them feeling depleted, defeated, and more discerning about who they tell their stories to.”
The National Geographic Society has supported Explorers doing significant research for over 133 years. Help continue the work of great explorers like Sarah Lowe at natgeo.org/give.
INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY
Greening the mosque: In a packed city, how can a community garden together? Maybe on a roof. This “farm” in Jakarta, Indonesia began in the early weeks of a COVID-19 outbreak. On the fourth floor of a mosque, the garden has produced various vegetables for local consumption and for sale. Photographer Muhammad Fadli, on assignment for a story on food security and the pandemic, says the profits will go to the mosque’s welfare fund and to feed the farmers’ families.
Adaptation: How Indonesians made it through lockdown
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
The way to unity: The desire to bring a nation back together by President Biden is an aspiration—but only that— unless America really comes together on race. And this time, the nation would have to transcend the backlashes that have blunted racial advances in the past. That’s a point Phillip Morris makes in his Nat Geo story on the inauguration and its aftermath. Here’s what we haven’t dealt with, in his opinion: “In many ways, the seditious mob that stormed the Capitol reflects a sweeping cross-section of America. The brazen assault on America’s constitutional process also reflects a nation that has long been fractured at its core by an unrelenting and polarizing factor: race.” Morris’s conclusion: This time, there’s no turning away. (Pictured above, protesters seeking equality at the 1963 March on Washington, left, and pummeled by authorities with fire hoses and attack dogs the same year in Birmingham, Alabama.)
OVERHEARD AT NAT GEO
Beyond the pomp: Another key takeaway of the inauguration? “Such power is always derivative,” writes Nat Geo’s Robert Draper. “It resides finally, immutably with the people.” Draper reported from an inauguration that had flags (pictured, above right) instead of people (above left, in 2013). It had a no-show from an outgoing president for the first time in 152 years. But just like way back then, Draper concludes, “we are likely to weather the estrangement between the 45th president and the 46th.” See the inauguration from the eyes of a steel drum musician, a leaping dancer, and a photographer high up in a crane.
MAKING HISTORY
Many firsts: Not only has Kamala Harris become the first woman (and first Black and Asian woman) to serve as vice president, she carries additional power as the tie-breaker in a divided U.S. Senate. Learn more about the women who blazed a path for Harris by visiting National Geographic Society’s virtual tour, “Women: A Century of Change” or reading Women: The National Geographic Image Collection. Join the conversation at our Facebook group, Women of Impact.
IN A FEW WORDS
My troubles began with my father being an intellectual and a writer, so I can say all of my troubles resulted from my family reading books.
Ai Weiwei Artist, human rights activist, From When Ai Weiwei’s father burned the family books
DID A FRIEND FORWARD THIS TO YOU?
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LAST GLIMPSE
The mask: Historians will include the face mask in their accounts of these COVID-19 years. So why not make the masks beautiful as well as safe? Designers are using the ancient art of origami as inspiration for better fitting, more comfortable, and more stylish face coverings, Nat Geo’s Maya Wei-Haas reports. “It’s a kind of alchemy,” one designer, Richard Gordon, tells her. (Pictured above, one of Gordon’s intricately folded masks.)
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, and Jen Tse has selected the photos. Kimberly Pecoraro helped produce this. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading, and happy trails.
