Antonio Pigafetta, a Florentine navigator who went with Magellan on the first voyage around the world, wrote, upon his passage through our southern lands of… Read More »The Magellan Expedition and Elcano’s Circumnavigation: 500 Years
(Above: February 27, 1945: Douglas MacArhur and Sergio Osmeña at the ceremony in Malacañan Palace in which the civilian authority of Commonwealth was restored in… Read More »Endgame for Japan: From the Potsdam Declaration, the Atomic Bombs, and Surrender, the Defeat of Japan in Diaries from 75 Years Ago
(Last updated: January 27, 2022) Over time, we’ve been gratified to notice that people are starting to refer to the Philippine Diary Project, in blog… Read More »Citations of the Philippine Diary Project
(Note: this was originally published to mark the 120th anniversary of the outbreak of the Filipino-American War in 2019; last modified in February, 2023). The… Read More »Diaries describe the start of the Filipino-American War, February 4-28, 1899
One of the great romantic stories of World War II, is of Polish lancers bravely –and desperately– charging German tanks in the opening days of… Read More »The cavalry and their last charge, December 1941-January 1942
News is that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) has approved a Feasibility Study to proceed for the proposed Mindanao Railway Project. The map… Read More »Railways in Mindanao: Then and Now
This 1942 New World Order map attributed to Maurice Gomberg is interesting in that it gives a snapshot of emerging thought about the United… Read More »Philippine wartime views on the future of Indonesia, China and Japan
On December 16-17, 1941 (around midnight, hence the event straddling two dates), the S.S. Corregidor, an inter-island steamship of the Compañia Maritima, hit a mine… Read More »The sinking of the S.S. Corregidor, December 16-17, 1941
(above) British Pathé newsreel of a portion of former President Herbert Hoover’s mission to assess food requirements for devastated parts of the world, 1946. While… Read More »Hugh Gibson’s Food Mission Diary: Herbert Hoover in Manila, 1946