SAVE THE DATE: If you’re able, please catch my new, (hopefully) monthly livestream series with Elizabeth Urban starting Tuesday at 8 PM eastern here at Substack!
TODAY IN HISTORY
July 24, 1261: With much of the city’s garrison apparently out on a raid, a small group of soldiers from the Nicene Empire enters and seizes control of Constantinople in a nighttime incursion. Latin Emperor Baldwin II and most of the city’s grandees were evacuated by Venetian ships. The Nicene capture of Constantinople ended a 57 year war to reestablish the Byzantine Empire following its elimination during the Fourth Crusade. The restored empire was ruled by the Palaiologos Dynasty, starting with Emperor Michael VIII, through its final collapse in 1453.
July 24, 1923: The Treaty of Lausanne formally ends the Turkish War of Independence and establishes the borders of the Republic of Turkey. The treaty superseded the World War I Treaty of Sèvres, which partitioned Anatolia and was so punitive that it motivated the remnants of the Ottoman/Turkish military to resist.
INTERNATIONAL
International Criminal Court member states voted to sack chief ICC prosecutor Karim Khan on Friday. Khan had been accused of sexual harassment. He and his have argued that he’s been the target of a manufactured pressure campaign because of his investigations into Israeli atrocities and US war crimes in Afghanistan. It is unlikely that the ICC will replace him before next year, which among other considerations further ices those investigations.
A new study published this week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology contends that the carbon output of metals mining may be ten times higher (or more) than commonly thought. The study considered, apparently for the first time, the emissions effects of acid mine drainage, which can cause the release of carbon dioxide from certain types of rock. As metals mining is critical to a “green” transition its carbon impact is of particular concern.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) is in the process of launching a major crackdown in the West Bank after a settler attack on a town near the city of Nablus resulted in the deaths of four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers. The IDF is claiming that its forces responded to “an attack on Israelis hiking in the area” but those “hikers” must have been packing some firepower because they appear to have been the ones who started the shooting. At some point after the IDF showed up, a Palestinian resident reportedly seized a weapon from one of the Israelis and killed the two soldiers. In Israeli parlance this constitutes an act of “terrorism” requiring a “counterterrorism” operation in response.
