On October 9, 1983, while South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan was on a visit to Rangoon, Burma to lay a…
The Bombing of U.S. Embassy Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
On August 7, 1998, between 10:30 and 10:40 a.m. local time, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi , Kenya and Dar…
The Panama Riots of 1964: The Beginning of the End for the Canal
When President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty with Panama in 1903, the United States gained sovereignty over the portion…
A U.S.-Chinese Mid-Air Collision and “The Letter of Two Sorries”
A collision in the air, a destroyed Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. ‘spy’ plane forced to make an emergency…
Combining Forces to Counter Terrorism — The Birth of S/CT
U.S. inter-agency coordination on countering terrorism was limited, for bureaucratic and technical reasons, prior to the mid-1980s. As hijackings and…
World Wide Wangs—When the State Department Met the Internet
One of the monumental technological advancements of the past century was the creation of the Internet. Commonly referred to as “the…
The “Other” Embassy Attack of November 1979 — The Siege of Embassy Islamabad
The attack on the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and the subsequent 444-day imprisonment of American personnel…
The 1989 Romanian Revolution and the Fall of Ceausescu
1989 was the year of remarkable popular uprisings throughout the world, most notably Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin…
A Tale of Two Countries — and One Bizarre Hostage Situation
If you think your relationships are complex, consider the convoluted ties among Ghana, Guinea, and the United States in the…
Negotiating the End of the Yom Kippur War
Israel’s resounding victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 left the Arab states humiliated and looking to regain the swathes…