Category: Nations

The Sovereign State of Vatican City

Of course, the Vatican is older than Roscoe Bartlett, but when Roscoe was born, it was not an independent state. In 1929, Pope Pius XI negotiated with then Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini the treaty which established the independent and sovereign state of Vatican City . The Lateran Treaty requires that Vatican City maintain absolute neutrality in its international relations and, until 1984, it established Catholicism as the official state religion of Italy. Mussolini, a fascist, was a chief ally of Adolf Hitler. After Mussolini was executed in 1945, his body was taken to a gas station in Milan where it was hung upside down on a meat hook. Today, a cross marks the spot where he died.

India

Today, India is a nuclear power, the largest democracy in the world, with the second fastest growing economy in the world. When Roscoe Bartlett was born, it was just part of the British Empire.

India's first war for independence was in 1857, but it failed miserably. In 1916, a lawyer known as Mahatma Gandhi began organizing the poor in campaigns of civil disobedience. Ghandhi was arrested many times and spent much of his life in British prisons, but Gandhi inspired his people. For a lawyer, he was a remarkably humble man, wearing traditional garb made of cloth he had spun himself. His self-imposed poverty and his suffering took down British rule. In 1947, the British divided the colony into an independent India and Pakistan along religious lines, against Gandhi's wishes. Five months later he was shot to death.

Saudi Arabia

The royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia likes to trace it ancestry back to the 18th Century. It all sounds so ancient and, well, almost stable. But not so fast. The family of Saud has had its ups and downs. The current Saudi Arabia is actually the third time this family has asserted that it was in charge. Most recently, one Abdul Aziz bin Saud established what he called the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, at a time when he and his kingdom were destitute. Oil was not discovered there until 1938, and it wasn't until after World War II that anyone began to exploit it. Its hard to believe, but Roscoe Bartlett was in college before the Saudis made their first million. Abdul Aziz died 55 years ago.

Iraq

When Roscoe Bartlett was born, his mother didn't have to worry about him going to war in Iraq; there was no such place. After World War I, the League of nations established a British Protectorate of Mesopotamia which included Baghdad and Basra. In 1926, Mosul was added to the mix. Eventually, the British propped up a king named Faisal as their puppet ruler, and granted him an independent Iraq in 1932. Faisal died a year later. Eventually, the British reinvaded Iraq in 1941 and did not leave until 1947.