In December 1914, the Western Front of World War I was entrenched in a brutal stalemate, with soldiers enduring harsh conditions and relentless combat. Amidst this grim backdrop, an unexpected moment of humanity emerged—the Christmas Truce. This spontaneous ceasefire allowed soldiers from opposing sides to lay down their arms and share in the spirit of ...

A rare ceramic trumpet found in Dorfen, Upper Bavaria, has been reassembled from eight fragments. The trumpet is now virtually complete, missing only the mouthpiece and a small chunk of the bell. Due to its construction, the instrument, which is just under 44 centimeters long, resembles the shape of metal trumpets. However, the Dorfen trumpet is a so-called natural trumpet, meaning an instrument without valves or keys, in which the different notes are produced solely by the tension of the lips. The trumpet was discovered in a 2022 excavation of the town’s moat near one of the city’s gates. That section of the moat was used by the tanning trade in the processing of animal skins into leather. The trade was notorious for the stenches, caustic tanning agents and noxious byproducts it generated, so tanneries were in a rough part of town. It’s possible the trumpet was used not to play music, but as a kind of emergency alert system to blast warnings about fires and other dangers. Artifacts found in the same archaeological layer date it to the late 18th or early 19th century, which is an unexpectedly later date than the few other ceramic trumpets discovered in excavations. They typically date to the late Middle Ages or early Modern period. The glaze and construction of the Dorfen trumpet are also different compared to the earlier finds, making it a unique example. “The discovery of the ceramic trumpet from Dorfen is a stroke of luck for the preservation of archaeological monuments,” says Mathias Pfeil, Director General of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BLfD). The delicate instrument, made of fragile material, is almost completely preserved, Pfeil explains: “It can contribute significantly to learning more about the manufacturing techniques and uses of such instruments – because clay trumpets are rare archaeological finds in Bavaria and in Germany.”

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  Early Modern Europe was a region plagued by anti-Jewish sentiment. Jews across the continent were viewed as dangerous enemies of Christianity. Jewish communities faced intense persecution for their religious practices, as well as their economic activities.   In the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal), Christian rulers made it their mission to convert Jews to the Catholic Church. Jews who were baptized as Catholics became known as Conversos. Yet even those Conversos who were sincere in the Catholic religion fell under suspicion from hostile non-Jewish neighbors. Could they actually be practicing Jewish rites in secret?   Jews and Conversos in Iberia Map of the Spanish kingdoms in 1210. Source: University of Texas at Austin   Jewish people have lived in Iberia since the Late Roman Period. Their communities existed alongside the growth of Christianity across the Mediterranean region. Christianity spawned from ancient Judaism, but by the 5th century, Jews and Christians were distinct social groups. Early Christians often resented the Jews, since Jewish leaders rejected the belief that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.   Because they rejected the messianic status of Jesus, Jews were persecuted across Europe. Sometimes these persecutions devolved into mob murders or pogroms. Pogroms became more common during the Late Medieval Era, both in Iberia and in the rest of Europe. The Conversos would emerge from Jewish communities forced to accept the supremacy of the Catholic Church in the 15th century.   A Persecutory Turn Panel with the Angel Appearing to Zacharias, by Domingo Ram, c. 1464-1507. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art   Anti-Jewish sentiment was already prevalent during the Late Middle Ages. Since religious scriptures forbade Christians from engaging in certain economic activities, such as moneylending, those jobs fell on Jews. A few wealthier Jews were actually employed in Christian kings’ courts. Yet the relative financial success of some Jews only fueled the hatred that ordinary Christians already felt toward them.   Medieval Christianity did not only hold the Jews responsible for rejecting Jesus Christ—it was also supersessionist. This meant that theologians believed the messages of Judaism had been fulfilled (and replaced) by the gospel of Jesus. To Christian clerics, the Jews defied the will of God and deserved punishment.   The Conversos in Spain Scene from the Book of Games depicting Alfonso X of Castile, 1283. Source: Wikimedia Commons   In the 14th century, authorities in Spain started to devote considerable attention to the Jewish communities in their domains. They wanted to solidify their own power in both the religious and secular spheres. So their initial ideas revolved around converting Jews en masse to the Catholic Church. These campaigns would mark the birth of a new category of people in medieval Spain: the Conversos.   The word converso refers specifically to a Jewish person who converted to Christianity. Some Jews did convert to Catholicism voluntarily, but more were coerced into converting. Christian authorities believed this was a viable way to rid the world of a “false” religion and save Jewish souls.   Saint Dominic Presiding Over an Auto de Fé, by Pedro Berruguete, 1490s. Source: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid   Over time, attitudes toward the Conversos took a darker turn. In 1391, pogroms in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon saw thousands of Jews murdered. These pogroms—egged on by an archdeacon named Ferrand Martínez—were condemned by civil authorities, but they reflected widespread attitudes toward the Jewish presence at the end of the 14th century.   In the 15th century, more Conversos genuinely professed Catholicism. Yet they could not shake the “taint” of their Jewish ancestry. Spanish Christians feared the Jewish newcomers as potential subversives. The doctrine of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) developed as a reaction to the growth of the Conversos. Legal statutes labeled Conversos as “New Christians,” in opposition to “Old Christians” with long Catholic lineages. Religious hatred started to morph into ethnic hatred.   The Proposal of the Jews to Ferdinand and Isabel, by Solomon Alexander Hart, 1870. Source: Mutual Art   Life was not exclusively difficult for Jewish communities, though. Historian Mark Meyerson argues that one Jewish community in Valencia, called Morvedre, actually recovered and thrived during the 1400s (Meyerson, 2004). Jews and Conversos in Morvedre forged new social and economic relationships, both with Old Christians and with each other.   Overall, the end of the 15th century was marked by the decline of the Conversos’ status. King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabel I united the Spanish kingdoms for the first time after 1469. They wanted to solidify Catholic supremacy and saw the Conversos as dreaded enemies. The Spanish Inquisition was created to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and royal authority. Conversos suspected of retaining Jewish practices faced especially severe punishments at the inquisitors’ hands.   In March 1492, the Spanish Crown officially declared that all Jews were to be expelled. Some Conversos remained but thousands fled Spain altogether.   The Crackdown on Conversos in Portugal Expulsion of the Jews, from the Quadros da História de Portugal, by Alfredo Roque Gameiro, 1917. Source: Tribos de Pinceis   Compared to Spain, the persecution of Jews in Portugal wasn’t as intense at first. Thousands of Spanish Jews actually escaped westward to Portugal after 1492. But their new refuge would prove fleeting. Potent anti-Jewish attitudes existed in Portugal, too.   The Portuguese King Manuel I issued a decree in 1497 authorizing the mass conversion of Jews. Manuel’s motives for issuing the edict are not entirely clear, but older scholars believed he had been pressured by the Spanish monarchy. Regardless of the king’s reasoning, his decree made life even more difficult for Portugal’s Jewish and Converso communities.   The bloodiest outbreak of violence against Conversos occurred at a church in Lisbon in April 1506. Conflict among parishioners—Old Christians and New Christians—led to thousands of Conversos being murdered over the course of three days. King Manuel allowed Portuguese Jews to emigrate after this, but only briefly. His successor, João III, created his own Inquisition in 1536 and intensified persecution.   Sao Tome and Principe, off the coast of West Africa. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The persecution of the Conversos extended to Portugal’s new overseas territories. Manuel I punished hundreds of rebellious Conversos, including children, by abducting them and shipping them off to São Tomé and Príncipe, off the coast of Africa. Many of these deportees died. Yet some São Tomé Conversos survived and had children with enslaved Africans. Portuguese chroniclers did not fail to note their multiracial children.   São Tomé would be a thorn in the side of Portuguese authorities for hundreds of years. A document from 1632 describes the death of the local bishop. Notably, the author accused “New Christians” of poisoning the bishop. He decried the alleged prevalence of Jewish rituals among the island’s Conversos (Newitt, 2010). However, it is difficult to separate the author’s biases from his understanding of events.   Where Did the Conversos Flee To? Portrait of Baruch de Spinoza, by Franz Wulfhagen, 1664. Source: Feel the Art   Spain and Portugal weren’t safe. So where could Iberian Jews and Conversos flee to? Their destinations would span the entire European continent and beyond.   The Netherlands was one of the most popular destinations. Compared to other places in pre-modern Europe, the Netherlands (especially Amsterdam) was renowned for its religious pluralism. The Dutch Reformed Church coexisted with other Christian denominations, as well as some non-Christians. Relations between the Conversos and Dutch authorities changed over time, alternating between acceptance and tension. One of the most renowned (and controversial) philosophers of the 17th century, Baruch de Spinoza, came from a Portuguese Converso family.   Sultan Bayezid II, by Paolo Veronese, 1528-88. Source: Bavarian State Painting Collection   Another destination for fleeing Conversos was the Ottoman Empire. The Islamic Ottomans did persecute their non-Muslim subjects, but the extent of this persecution seemingly did not match the violence of Christian Europe. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) had economic reasons for welcoming the Jews and Conversos as well. Many exiled Iberian Jews had financial experience, and the sultan was keen on exploiting whatever he could to undermine his Christian adversaries.   Smaller numbers of Conversos journeyed even farther afield for the Spanish and Portuguese American colonies. Officially, they weren’t allowed to travel overseas, but enforcement was not consistent. Mexican Inquisition records attest to a Converso presence in Spanish America during the first century of colonization. Conversos also settled in Brazil. Everywhere they went, they had to carefully balance their dual religious identities.   Bibliography/Further Reading   Meyerson, Mark D. A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.   Newitt, Malyn, ed. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415-1670: A Documentary History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  When Argentina’s democracy gave way to a period of military rule in the 1970s, it followed a trajectory common in Latin American politics. However, the scale of violence inflicted by the regime in Buenos Aires was unprecedented in the region. It is estimated that 30,000 people were killed by the regime in the Dirty War until its fall. Democracy returned to Argentina in 1983 only after defeat to Britain in the Falklands War.   The Peronist Dynasty and the Military Juan Péron and Isabel Péron, 1973. Source: Everett Collection via Deutsche Welle   For much of the 20th century, Argentine politics played host to a struggle between military and civilian factions that often turned violent. From 1930 to 1981 alone, there were six military coups in the country, meaning that its politics became inherently unstable. Throughout Argentine history, the military had been considered a professional and stable force. This led to the belief that they were the only institution that could govern the country. Their professionalism ironically undermined their commitment to the state.   Contrasting this vision was the policy of President Juan Perón, who ruled Argentina from 1946-1955 and 1973-1974. The leader of the Justicialist Party, Perón was one of Argentina’s longest-serving leaders, husband of the famous Evita. His ideology, known as Perónism, consisted of non-alignment in the Cold War, economic self-reliance, and an inclusive society that embraced minorities. However, he also cracked down on opponents and sought to control the press. His cult of personality and support for legalizing divorce and prostitution rankled military leaders, many of whom were very conservative.   In 1955, the military overthrew him as part of an effort to break his control of the country. He and his third wife, Isabel, fled into exile to avoid being arrested. Elections continued, but his party was banned. Nonetheless, he still exerted a major influence on Argentine politics from abroad and returned to the country in 1973 after the election of Héctor José Cámpora. He returned to the presidency in October a few months before his death in July 1974, which was mourned throughout the country.   The 1976 Coup Soldiers on patrol in Buenos Aires during the Coup, 1976. Source: The Guardian   After Perón died in 1974, he was succeeded by his wife and vice president Isabel. Isabel Perón hoped to win over the support of the military and weaken the small communist insurgency in the country by enacting ruthless anti-terror measures. She identified with the right-wing in the country because of her hostility to communism. Nonetheless, the military became convinced that she was not up to the task of defeating the communists. Senior officers believed that the country not only needed a new way forward; they also believed that the Perónists were privately connected to the communists.   On March 24, 1976, Isabel Perón was flown to a military camp instead of her private residence and told that she was being arrested. At the same time, soldiers and sailors seized control of several newspaper headquarters, arrested other members of the cabinet, and occupied trade union buildings. Surprisingly, the coup was relatively non-violent, thanks to a lack of resistance by Perónist loyalists. Many Argentines had grown accustomed to military involvement in the country’s affairs and day-to-day life did not change immediately.   Perón was placed under house arrest until 1981, when she was allowed to leave for Spain. The junta’s leaders argued in a press conference after the coup that her politics were not the problem, it was her failure to deal with communists and anarchists. Nevertheless, the new military government would crack down aggressively on her supporters.   The Junta and Its Ideology Members of the Junta including General Jorge Rafael Videla holding a press conference, 1976. Source: New York Times   Initially, the new government was led by a troika of military leaders: General Jorge Videla, Admiral Emilio Massera, and General Orlando Agosti, with the former as president. From 1976-1983, there would be four military governments. At a press conference after the coup, they promised that people would be allowed to live peacefully as long as they didn’t associate with enemies of the state. They claimed that they would bring stability to the country, especially in the major cities.   The junta’s ideology has been defined as a mix of neo-fascism, corporatism, and anti-communism. They believed that the country needed a societal overhaul to prevent people from supporting leftist politics. They also believed that Argentina’s Jews were supporters of communism. Many Argentine army officers spoke of a “final solution” for Argentine Jews, who represented five percent of the junta’s victims during the Dirty War even though they were less than one percent of the population.   Unlike some other regimes in Latin America, the so-called National Reorganization Process was not led by one individual strongman but rather a clique of senior military officers. This was due to internal rivalries and their desire to avoid a Perónist-style strongman. The economic policies they pursued were a mix of capitalism and corporatism that led to massive inflation and economic hardship. While Argentina had several military governments before, this one became infamous for its repressive policy towards its people.   Resistance to the Junta Flag of the People’s Revolutionary Army. Source: Wikimedia Commons   When Argentina’s generals and admirals spoke of enemies of the state, they often referred to the Montoneros and the People’s Revolutionary Army. The Montoneros were an organization formed in 1970 by left-wing Perónists who wanted to restore Juan Perón to power and sought to use force to accomplish that goal. They were mainly composed of students and by the time the coup took place, they had been decimated by the state security services.   The People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) was also engaged in hostilities with the Argentine government in the early 1970s. Composed of a couple of hundred militants, it had broken with the Montoneros and vowed total armed struggle against the government. Its weakness meant that it lacked any real ability to control territory but it was capable of inflicting violence. Similar to the Montoneros, the ERP was weakened after years of state action by the time the coup had taken place.   General Videla’s government made it clear that they considered anyone who opposed their rule as enemies. This went far beyond the Montoneros and ERP; it included trade unionists, members of leftist parties, homosexuals, and opponents of the Catholic Church. The journalist Jacobo Timerman spent several years in jail for his criticism of the junta even though he had no connection to the left-wing insurgents. While many newspapers managed to stay active during the junta years, they faced enormous pressure from the government to report the official narratives. Argentina’s government carried out some of the most intense repression seen in Latin America since the time of Spanish rule more than a century and a half earlier.   Disappearances and Operation Condor Remembrance march in Buenos Aires on March 24, 2024, the 48th anniversary of the coup. Source: Pablo Cuarterolo via Buenos Aires Times   While the term Dirty War is commonly used to describe the junta’s actions, it is a misleading one. What the junta actually did was to practice a form of state terrorism against its own people. Isabel Perón’s government had targeted leftist dissidents, even using death squads, before the coup. However, the scale of state terror expanded massively after 1976. Instead of mass killings in the street, the junta sought to make its enemies disappear without attracting too much attention from the public. This practice was an international operation in South America known as Operation Condor.   Much of the work done by the Junta was conducted by the Intelligence Secretariat, Argentina’s security agency formed in 1946. Working with the police, the SI operated from secret locations where they tortured and murdered opponents and then got rid of their bodies. The junta sometimes took the children of their victims and sent them to another country. They also looted homes of disappeared people to send a message to their families. SI operated with total impunity and had the full backing of the state.   Operation Condor enabled every Latin American right-wing dictatorship to target dissidents in their neighbor’s territory and there was no safe place for opponents of these regimes in Latin America. If the Pinochet regime in Chile identified opponents living in Argentina, then the SI could arrest and disappear them on behalf of the Chileans. While Condor ended in 1978, the Argentine junta’s practice of disappearing enemies continued right up until its collapse.   US Support for the Junta Henry Kissinger meeting with President-elect Jimmy Carter, 1977. Source: Buenos Aires Herald   One of the main reasons that the junta could act with impunity was because of the support it initially received from the United States. When the coup took place, President Gerald Ford was in office. His secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was a major supporter of the Argentine military and ensured that the junta received American diplomatic backing. Argentina bought military equipment from a variety of sources including US arms manufacturers. Officials in Washington believed that this relationship was more important than human rights concerns.   Declassified documents released in 2019 revealed that not only did the CIA know that a coup was coming, they knew what the junta planned to do. Even when American citizens were killed by the junta, the US stood by their partners in Argentina. The typical US response to the presence of leftist insurgents in Latin America was to arm the militaries opposing them, even when they committed horrendous atrocities. While the Carter administration paused US security assistance to Argentina in protest to their actions, the intelligence relationship continued.   Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 made it seem like everything would go back to normal. Reagan restored military ties in response to Argentina’s closer ties with the USSR. They stopped public criticism of the junta by the White House and hoped that media scrutiny would decrease. However, when the junta decided to seize the Falkland Islands from Britain, Reagan supported the British, marking an end to the US government’s relationship with the junta.   The Falklands War and the Fall of the Junta Argentine prisoners of war repatriated from Port Stanley in the Falklands, 1982. Source: Ken Griffiths / Wikimedia Commons   In 1982, the junta faced a crisis of legitimacy. Scrutiny over its actions led to massive demonstrations. The economy was collapsing, prompting once-friendly businesses to turn against the government. Fearing a loss of control, Argentine President General Leopoldo Galtieri and Admiral Jorge Anaya developed a plan to seize the Falkland Islands off the Argentine coast. This would encourage rise in nationalism and give the military a sense of purpose. In April 1982, the navy and army took the British garrison prisoner and declared sovereignty over what they called the Islas Malvinas.   This time, the junta met its match. British forces were better trained and equipped. In April and May, they mounted a ferocious counterattack using a large force of soldiers and sailors. The Argentine military may have been good at attacking its internal enemies but it didn’t stand a chance against a NATO power. Argentina’s defeat opened the floodgates of anger towards the junta and demands for elections.   Disgruntled veterans, the relatives of the junta’s victims, and supporters of democracy used the anger from the defeat to demand change. The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo marched every week in Buenos Aires to demand accountability. In 1983, the junta finally collapsed and allowed an election in which Raul Alfonsin won legitimately. Although the junta leaders hoped that they would escape scrutiny, they started to go on trial in 1985. Nine leaders were tried by courts of inquiry and five were found guilty. In its determination to root out its enemies, the junta killed over 30,000 people, started a war it lost, and wrecked the economy. Argentina has never had a military government since.