History Unheard

We have  heard of the word mafia often  in various video games or movies and various other shows. But what did mafia originally mean and what are their origins ?? Well lets try to find that out. The word mafia originates from the Sicilian word mafioso which roughly  translates to ' Swagger ' or ' Boldness ' or  ' Bravado ' . In the 19th century it signified ' Fearless ' ,' Enterprising' and 'Proud'. They are said to have originated from Sicily but later to have spread all across Italy and operate in various parts of Italy and as time passed to operate even out of Italy e.g in USA . But the term Mafia was never used by the Sicilian mafioso instead they and their associates call themselves as "Cosa Nostra"  They are a type of organised crime syndicate whose primary activities include protection racketeering, brokering illegal transactions causing disputes between criminals and benefitting from them.Their secondary activities inclu...

Memes are the day to day medicine of everybody in this age of internet.They not only make us laugh but are also an effective weapon to influence people,it is used by politicians to further their cause and ridicule the opposing person . But do you know how these memes came into existence?? Well lets find out. According to the dictionary a meme is "An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means." But according to the Internet's  definition a meme is  "An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations." The term meme comes from the Greek word 'mimema'  which mean 'imitated' it was introduced in 1976 by British revolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins Dawkins conceived of memes as the cultural parallel to biological genes and considered them, in a manner similar to “selfish” g...

  Humans have always searched for easier steps and easier alternatives to solve any problems, but for most of the part these easy steps often end up doing more harm than good. One such example we find in history is the haphazard decision of the People’s Republic Of China leader Mao Zedong.   The year is 1958 , it has been eight years since the Chinese civil war had ended , the entire nation is under a communist rule under the communist party of china. The 23 year long civil war had ravaged the entire nation causing most of the people to live under poverty and die of hunger.Mao Zedong   the chairman of the People’s Republic Of China is under constant pressure to improve the condition of his nation and to feed his people.   Mao feels that the sparrows are eating up to much of the grain and hence the production of food is less. He thought that getting rid of these sparrows will help him boost the nation.So he came up with a plan   “The Four Pests Campaign...

  THE UNSEEN SIDE OF DICTATORS                                                         [in pic:Muammar Al- Gaddafi(left) and Adolf Hitler(right). Source:Google] Dictators have been very complex and controversial topics in all of history.  The questions related to them have always been more or less of the line that they are brutal tyrants who kill their own people for their own  personal gains and security. Today we are going to discuss the same psychology of dictators which make them such feared humans. But first we must learn the definition of dictators. So what or rather who is a dictator? If we search on the net we see the definition to be something like a person with absolute power over a nation and a person who has obtained it by force.  “A dictatorship is a form of government characterized by a single leader or group of lea...