Latest news with #CivilWar
Western Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Western Telegraph
Cadw announces packed summer programme at Laugharne
Cadw has announced a packed programme of family-friendly events across Wales, including west Wales, with activities taking place at historic sites throughout July and August. The summer line-up features immersive experiences, interactive workshops and live re-enactments designed to bring the past to life for visitors of all ages. Gwilym Hughes, head of Cadw, said: "Our summer events are all about making history fun and engaging for families. "From meeting medieval characters and witnessing dramatic falconry displays to discovering the secrets of ancient ruins and enjoying fairytale picnics, there's something to capture every imagination. "Plus, with free entry for children under adult memberships, it's a fantastic way to experience Wales' heritage together." More than 60 events are planned, with standout activities in west Wales. Laugharne Castle will host a Living History Weekend on Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, July 27. Guests can explore a medieval village, watch Civil War weapon demonstrations and take part in a mock archaeological dig. On August 2 and 3, the castle will transform into a scene of Victorian elegance with the Queen Victoria Afternoon Tea Experience, featuring period costumes and a glimpse into 19th-century refinement. Other events at Laugharne Castle include a Naval Living History Weekend on August 9 and 10, and a Willow Weaving Workshop on August 17. Cadw is offering an expanded programme of guided tours at select sites across Wales, including Oxwich Castle, with limited spaces available. Due to high demand, visitors are encouraged to book tickets in advance. For those looking to explore even more, a Cadw membership offers free entry to all events and unlimited access to 132 historic sites across Wales. Children go free with adult memberships, providing an affordable way for families to enjoy Wales' heritage throughout the summer. Full event details and ticket bookings are available on the Cadw website.
Time Magazine
a day ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
History Shows Why Birthright Citizenship is so Important
On Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump's first day back in the White House, he issued Executive Order 14160 'Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.' The directive attempted to nullify birthright citizenship, as enshrined by the Fourteenth Amendment for over 150 years, and restore an older understanding of U.S. citizenship not seen since before the Civil War. The framers of the Amendment worried about such an effort. They consciously chose to go through the rigors of the amendment process—instead of just passing a law—precisely to prevent future Congresses from repealing principles like birthright citizenship and to avoid future Supreme Courts from improperly interpreting them. They wanted to permanently ensure that American law would be more inclusive by extending U.S. citizenship—and the federal protections that came with it—to African Americans. The goal was to protect Black Americans against state discrimination after the abolition of slavery. Section One of the Amendment accordingly stated 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' Trump's order aims to eliminate this guarantee of citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose mothers were 'unlawfully present' or when the mother's presence in the U.S. was 'lawful but temporary.' While multiple legal challenges wind their way through the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court ruled on June 27 that a nationwide injunction halting implementation of the Executive Order was inappropriate. Then, last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's order and allowed a class-action suit on behalf of children and parents impacted by Trump's order to proceed. The history, however, is unambiguous: birthright citizenship was a necessary solution to the most fundamental question in U.S. history—who is included in the political community. It aimed to do away with longstanding limitations on many Americans' ability to move about, to live where they wanted, and to be free. Read More: What to Know About Trump's Order on Birthright Citizenship and the Legal Battle Around It Before the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments, African Americans suffered much discrimination due to the lack of clarity of their legal citizenship status. The Naturalization Act of 1790 had defined eligibility for U.S. citizenship as limited to 'free white persons.' Thus, European migrants easily and quickly became U.S. citizens and gained access to the attendant rights, privileges, and protections that came with it. By contrast, before the Civil War, enslaved Black Americans were regarded by law as property and without rights. This legal situation left an open question—did free African Americans have citizenship? During the antebellum period, slave and free states alike were obsessed with policing the mobility and settlement of free Black Americans. After the Revolutionary War, states passed many laws to minimize the size of any free Black populations in their jurisdictions. Free Blacks faced a patchwork of restrictionist laws dictating which states and towns they could legally go to and live in. Slave states went even further. They passed laws banning free Black people from even entering their borders, and exile laws requiring formerly enslaved persons to leave the state by a deadline or risk being re-enslaved. Between 1793 and 1820, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Georgia all passed laws banning Black migration into their states—even for people born in the U.S. Especially in the eight coastal slave states, legislators claimed such laws were necessary to protect their states from the 'threat' of enslaved insurrection. They argued that free Black Americans, including sailors working on foreign and domestic ships, would intermix with enslaved people and increase the odds of such revolts. Slave states weren't alone in taking such actions. During this time, free states in the upper Midwest that bordered slave states passed laws creating legal disabilities and burdensome bureaucratic hurdles for free Black people who wanted to stay within their borders. These laws didn't apply to white Americans or even white immigrants. In many towns, new arrivals would have to register at the county clerk's office and bring proof of how they became free. Other towns required letters from white witnesses attesting to a person's good moral character in order to stay or required exorbitantly high fees for free Blacks wanting to live there. States claimed that they were defending themselves against an influx of indigent people who would drain their public coffers and disrupt the public peace. In reality, the laws were more about upholding slavery, preventing Black labor competition⎯and in many cases, simply racism. Although there is little evidence that the laws restricting the mobility of African Americans and their ability to live where they chose were widely enforced, the laws enabled racial profiling and harassment. To be sure, some European migrants also faced discrimination in housing and employment. Yet, white migrants were not required by law to carry passes legalizing their interstate travel or settlement. In a time before digital technology, African Americans' identities had to be carefully preserved and portable. An African American's freedom and presence in parts of the U.S. was as fragile as the pieces of paper that they were legally required to carry and which could be lost, damaged, stolen—or disbelieved by whites. Free African Americans also worried about being able to stay in the U.S. and not be involuntarily removed to countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America. Such fears were not unmerited. The American Colonization Society (ACS), founded in 1819, reached its zenith of support by the 1850s. Working with the federal and state governments, the group spearheaded efforts to remove free African Americans from the U.S. The ACS was motivated by the discriminatory belief that free African Americans could not be politically incorporated into the nation. What worried Black Americans was whether these colonization programs would be voluntary. Read More: Birthright Citizenship Has Been Challenged Before After the Civil War ended, the framers of the three Reconstruction amendments, especially the 14th Amendment, were conscious of these earlier laws as they worked to make the Constitution more inclusive. They sought to remove all doubt that free Black Americans—including those who had been enslaved—had full citizenship rights, and would not face such laws giving them subordinate status. African Americans advocated for such protections to ensure that they would never involuntarily have to leave the only country they had known. The framers of the 14th Amendment chose plain language, and only made three exceptions to the ironclad guarantee of birthright citizenship: children born to foreign diplomats in the U.S., children born in U.S. territory occupied by enemy soldiers, and Native Americans. The exclusion of Indigenous people was out of deference to their citizenship in their own Native nations. The protections afforded by the 14th Amendment wiped away African Americans' fears of colonization programs, as well as rendering state laws restricting interstate mobility and settlement unconstitutional. In 1898, in the landmark case of U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the birthright citizenship guarantee, clarifying that even if one's parents were legally ineligible for U.S. citizenship, a child born on U.S. soil was a citizen. The overriding goal of the framers of the birthright citizenship clause (and the Reconstruction Amendments generally) was to include African Americans who had been left out of the U.S. polity⎯to form a more perfect union. Although the U.S. certainly still has gradations of belonging, the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright citizenship clause's broad inclusivity is well-established and indisputable, and it should be a point of national pride, which represents Americans' commitment to a multi-racial democracy. That requires strongly rejecting any attempt reinstate the exclusion and discrimination which spurred its creation. Anna O. Law is the Herbert Kurz chair in constitutional rights at CUNY Brooklyn College. Her forthcoming book The Origins of American Citizenship and Migration—African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants will be out from Oxford University Press in the spring of 2026. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
BBC News
a day ago
- Business
- BBC News
'We're not just gonna roll over': The US Civil War battlefield at the centre of a new conflict
The US state of Virginia saw some 50% of the nation's Civil War casualties. Now, mass construction of AI data centres is encroaching on historic lands, the environment and local communities. As the gunner of the Bull Run Legion lifts the explosive charge from its container and carries it up to the cannon, dozens of phones are lifted from pockets. Visitors open camera apps and raise devices high, focusing in on the handful of blue-uniformed men as they swab the gun's barrel with an era-appropriate sponge fastened to a stick. The cannon blasts its shot out into the air, and in the same moment, each phone fires its parcel of data at the cloud, landing in a data centre where banks of diligent servers sort, clean and route it along. On 21 July 1861, Union soldiers defending the United States watched over the crest of the same hills now framed on tourists' smartphones, as rebelling Confederate forces charged out of the forest in the first major battle of the American Civil War. A century and a half later, the Bull Run Legion, a group of "living historians" (better-known as re-enactors), still gather at Manassas National Battlefield Park using historic techniques and uniforms to commemorate that struggle. But today, the march of technology has turned this historic landmark into the scene of a new kind of battle. Technology companies are planning to erect one of the largest data centres in the world here at Manassas, Virginia, on the very ground where the Union army lost the war's first major land battle. Demand for data centres has skyrocketed as the artificial intelligence (AI) industry blossoms – but experts and advocates say the race for technological growth could threaten resources including water, energy and land. Some experts foresee a "growing crisis" for residents and future generations. The concerns aren't just practical, however – some fear building data centres too close to national landmarks could erase history and bury the lessons the Civil War has for future generations. "Do I want to see a data centre on the view line of this park? No, I do not. But do I recognise, since I worked in IT, that they're necessary? Yeah, I can get that. So there is no easy answer," Bart Wheeler, one of the living historians who works the cannon, tells the BBC. "Any interested citizen has to be worried." Those building the data centres disagree with these concerns and say they are taking steps to ensure the development is respectful of the historical context, even planning new information kiosks and trails around the site. Now, around 150 years after the Union army fought to protect this land in the 19th Century, a coalition of community advocates, environmentalists and history buffs are waging a differenty kind of war against an industry they say is steamrolling past their interests. It's a conflict with global repercussions. 'Data centre alley' The infrastructure which makes the internet work often lives in massive windowless buildings ringed by high black fences. Inside, stacked banks of computer servers receive signals and crunch numbers from devices around the world, providing the technical horsepower that allows for viral videos, cheeky text messages and more recently, untold numbers of AI queries. Data centres process our most intimate thoughts and transactions, but they're seldom seen by most users – that is, unless they're your neighbour. Around the world, the sprawling footprint of data centre development and their demands on resources have made this aspect of our digital lives more visible and controversial, particularly as the AI era sparks meteoric growth. "Customer demand remains very strong, driven by the digitalisation of the economy and AI revolution," says Karen Cohen, a spokesperson for QTS Data Centers, one of two companies seeking to build the massive Prince William Digital Gateway data centre development at Manassas. According to the American Battlefield Trust, the 37-building complex is the largest planned data centre development on earth the world. QTS and other data centre providers like it contract their servers out to other corporations, providing the backbone which makes the internet run. As the internet has grown, so has the industry's footprint in Northern Virginia: the region is already the world's biggest data centre market. As of this summer, there are plans for Virginia's approximately 340 data centres to be joined by up to 1,200 more, according to the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group. Northern Virginia was a cradle for the tech industry and continues to be a major nerve centre. Its proximity to Washington, DC and the defence industry, alongside generous tax breaks and access to a skilled workforce, helped the industry plant roots in an area sometimes dubbed " data centre alley". Several of the re-enactors of the Bull Run Legion tell the BBC they have careers in IT themselves, attending battle reenactments on the weekends. Rapidly scaling AI requires significantly more processing power and electricity than previous uses of the internet, and its need for data centres is ravenous: proposals have circulated to build data centres in lunar orbit, install nuclear reactors inside of them and spend trillions of dollars on their construction in the next few years. The Prince William Digital Gateway, planned to occupy land where soldiers clashed during the Battle of Second Manassas, will have a footprint of over 23 million sq ft (6.7 million sq km). Aaron Ruby, a spokesperson for Virginia's electric utility Dominion Power, tells the BBC that Dominion expects the energy demand of the state's data centre industry will quadruple over the next ten years – contributing to the doubling of the entire state's demand. And Virginia is no outlier. In 2024, data centres accounted for 1.5% of global energy demand, and that figure is expected to double to 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030. That's more energy than Japan uses today. But as the industry's footprint continues to grow, so too has local backlash. A 'growing crisis' A report by the state legislature says building the infrastructure to provide the necessary energy for the data centre boom "will be very difficult to achieve". The report adds that if the state intends to meet its clean energy goals and reduce the use of fossil fuels, it will be even harder to power the planned data centres. It also says that without guidelines in place, massive construction costs to build new power generation and lines could lead to higher electricity prices for regular consumers. QTS, however, says that it will pay any costs related to upgrading the electricity grid to ensure no impact to residential rates. But that's unrealistic, according to Ann Bennett, data centre issues chair of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. "This very reputable audit wing of the government says 'we have a big problem'," Bennet tells the BBC, describing the legislature's report. "We're subsidising these major companies with our energy, but also with our tax dollars." Bennett and the Sierra Club have published their own report about the data centre industry and its environmental impacts, calling it a "growing crisis". Tax breaks supporting the industry totalled over $730m (£536m) in 2024, and while data centres have brought significant revenue and some jobs to the state, critics argue the climate impacts and energy costs are not sufficiently accounted for. Ruby of Dominion Power, though, says that "data centres currently pay the full cost of their power". In order to "make sure that remains the case going forward", he says the state report recommended consumer protections, and Dominion is working to get these protections approved. Bennett says this won't be enough. "It's almost too late," she says. "In some ways, this is becoming a mitigation project already." The data centre industry is entrenched in Virginia, and further development seems like an unstoppable force. But the Sierra Club hopes other jurisdictions can learn from Virginia's experience and strike the right balance. The fight for history "We are not anti-development," says David Duncan, a native Virginian and president of the American Battlefield Trust. His organisation, along with a group of others, is suing to stop the construction of the Prince William Digital Gateway. "We believe this should be an and conversation," Duncan tells the BBC. "That's what has been lost in this rush to build these types of facilities too close to our historic resources." Cohen says the data centre development won't interrupt the historical value of the area and QTS plans to create "miles of multi-purpose trails" and install "historical landmarks, interactive kiosks and other tools in areas of historical importance" on the battlefield site. But for some, the issue isn't a lack of signage. "Nobody wants to look into the forest and see these massive monoliths rising," Jim Matte, another member of the Bull Run Legion, tells the BBC. The Digital Gateway's approval was finalised in a controversial marathon 27 hour town hall meeting in December 2023, after a 4-3 vote in a lame duck session by some legislators who had already lost their seats in the previous election. "We're in litigation because they took shortcuts in the approval processes", says Duncan, adding that activists and citizens alike believe developers and lawmakers anticipated public backlash, but chose to go ahead with the approval anyway. (QTS did not respond to questions on this issue.) The Battlefield Trust has worked with – and litigated against – powerful developers in the past. Years ago, the organisation successfully altered a plan to build a Walmart at The Wilderness, another pivotal battlefield in Virginia, by moving the site three miles (4.8km) down the road. "When we clamp down on your ankle and don't let go, you're going to get sick of us. We're not just gonna roll over," Duncan says. But he also feels the data centre industry has more money and momentum behind it than Walmart. "There's so much power," Duncan says. The Civil War and technological transformation The idea of a data centre would be lost on the soldiers of the American Civil War, but they would be no strangers to technological upheaval. During the Civil War, freshly-strung telegraph lines knit marching armies together. The new technology of photography carried images of battle's toll to homes across the world. Advancements in munitions and firearms increased the deadliness of combat, locking the North and South in trench warfare stalemate through the war's final months. It ultimately gave the North – with its industrialised economy – the advantage. Manassas stood near the crossroads of two railroads, a technology only a few decades old at that point. Manoeuvres throughout the war revolved around access to rail supply lines, with armies seeking to cut off or secure important junctions. The conflict itself was precipitated by the nation's railroad-fuelled westward expansion, which brought the question of extending slavery to new territories or abolishing it to a head. More like this: • The 'bison skull mountain' photo that reveals the US's dark history • The Oregon Trail, the controversial video game that defined the US • I can't drink the water' – life next to a US data centre At Manassas, a version of the world these soldiers knew and fought for is preserved: the open pastures, rolling hills and the farmhouses they encountered on the march and then returned to as old men to commemorate. Today, as Americans face another redefinition of their country in an era of big tech and political division, for many the historic battlefields remain an important resource. "These places are crucial for the future of our country," says Duncan. "This country was defined on the battlefields of the American Civil War." -- For timely, trusted tech news from global correspondents to your inbox, sign up to the Tech Decoded newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
How AI is leading to a new fight over this Civil War Battlefield
The US state of Virginia saw some 50% of the nation's Civil War casualties. Now, mass construction of AI data centres threatens its historic lands, the environment and local communities. As the gunner of the Bull Run Legion lifts the explosive charge from its container and carries it up to the cannon, dozens of phones are lifted from pockets. Visitors open camera apps and raise devices high, focusing in on the handful of blue-uniformed men as they swab the gun's barrel with an era-appropriate sponge fastened to a stick. The cannon blasts its shot out into the air, and in the same moment, each phone fires its parcel of data at the cloud, landing in a data centre where banks of diligent servers sort, clean and route it along. On 21 July 1861, Union soldiers defending the United States watched over the crest of the same hills now framed on tourists' smartphones, as rebelling Confederate forces charged out of the forest in the first major battle of the American Civil War. A century and a half later, the Bull Run Legion, a group of "living historians" (better-known as re-enactors), still gather at Manassas National Battlefield Park using historic techniques and uniforms to commemorate that struggle. But today, the march of technology has turned this historic landmark into the scene of a new kind of battle. Technology companies are planning to erect one of the largest data centres in the world here at Manassas, Virginia, on the very ground where the Union army lost the war's first major land battle. Demand for data centres has skyrocketed as the artificial intelligence (AI) industry blossoms – but experts and advocates say the race for technological growth could threaten resources including water, energy and land. Some experts foresee a "growing crisis" for residents and future generations. The concerns aren't just practical, however – some fear building data centres too close to national landmarks could erase history and bury the lessons the Civil War has for future generations. "Do I want to see a data centre on the view line of this park? No, I do not. But do I recognise, since I worked in IT, that they're necessary? Yeah, I can get that. So there is no easy answer," Bart Wheeler, one of the living historians who works the cannon, tells the BBC. "Any interested citizen has to be worried." Those building the data centres disagree with these concerns and say they are taking steps to ensure the development is respectful of the historical context, even planning new information kiosks and trails around the site. Now, around 150 years after the Union army fought to protect this land in the 19th Century, a coalition of community advocates, environmentalists and history buffs are waging a differenty kind of war against an industry they say is steamrolling past their interests. It's a conflict with global repercussions. 'Data centre alley' The infrastructure which makes the internet work often lives in massive windowless buildings ringed by high black fences. Inside, stacked banks of computer servers receive signals and crunch numbers from devices around the world, providing the technical horsepower that allows for viral videos, cheeky text messages and more recently, untold numbers of AI queries. Data centres process our most intimate thoughts and transactions, but they're seldom seen by most users – that is, unless they're your neighbour. Around the world, the sprawling footprint of data centre development and their demands on resources have made this aspect of our digital lives more visible and controversial, particularly as the AI era sparks meteoric growth. "Customer demand remains very strong, driven by the digitalisation of the economy and AI revolution," says Karen Cohen, a spokesperson for QTS Data Centers, one of two companies seeking to build the massive Prince William Digital Gateway data centre development at Manassas. According to the American Battlefield Trust, the 37-building complex is the largest planned data centre development on earth the world. QTS and other data centre providers like it contract their servers out to other corporations, providing the backbone which makes the internet run. As the internet has grown, so has the industry's footprint in Northern Virginia: the region is already the world's biggest data centre market. As of this summer, there are plans for Virginia's approximately 340 data centres to be joined by up to 1200 more, according to the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group. Northern Virginia was a cradle for the tech industry and continues to be a major nerve centre. Its proximity to Washington, DC and the defence industry, alongside generous tax breaks and access to a skilled workforce, helped the industry plant roots in an area sometimes dubbed "data centre alley". Several of the re-enactors of the Bull Run Legion tell the BBC they have careers in IT themselves, attending battle reenactments on the weekends. Rapidly scaling AI requires significantly more processing power and electricity than previous uses of the internet, and its need for data centres is ravenous: proposals have circulated to build data centres in lunar orbit, install nuclear reactors inside of them and spend trillions of dollars on their construction in the next few years. The Prince William Digital Gateway, planned to occupy land where soldiers clashed during the Battle of Second Manassas, will have a footprint of over 23 million sq ft (6.7 million sq km). Aaron Ruby, a spokesperson for Virginia's electric utility Dominion Power, tells the BBC that Dominion expects the energy demand of the state's data centre industry will quadruple over the next ten years – contributing to the doubling of the entire state's demand. And Virginia is no outlier. In 2024, data centres accounted for 1.5% of global energy demand, and that figure is expected to double to 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030. That's more energy than Japan uses today. But as the industry's footprint continues to grow, so too has local backlash. A 'growing crisis' A report by the state legislature says building the infrastructure to provide the necessary energy for the data centre boom "will be very difficult to achieve". The report adds that if the state intends to meet its clean energy goals and reduce the use of fossil fuels, it will be even harder to power the planned data centres. It also says that without guidelines in place, massive construction costs to build new power generation and lines could lead to higher electricity prices for regular consumers. QTS, however, says that it will pay any costs related to upgrading the electricity grid to ensure no impact to residential rates. But that's unrealistic, according to Ann Bennett, data centre issues chair of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. "This very reputable audit wing of the government says 'we have a big problem'," Bennet tells the BBC, describing the legislature's report. "We're subsidising these major companies with our energy, but also with our tax dollars." Bennett and the Sierra Club have published their own report about the data centre industry and its environmental impacts, calling it a "growing crisis". Tax breaks supporting the industry totalled over $730m (£536m) in 2024, and while data centres have brought significant revenue and some jobs to the state, critics argue the climate impacts and energy costs are not sufficiently accounted for. Ruby of Dominion Power, though, says that "data centres currently pay the full cost of their power". In order to "make sure that remains the case going forward", he says the state report recommended consumer protections, and Dominion is working to get these protections approved. Bennett says this won't be enough. "It's almost too late," she says. "In some ways, this is becoming a mitigation project already." The data centre industry is entrenched in Virginia, and further development seems like an unstoppable force. But the Sierra Club hopes other jurisdictions can learn from Virginia's experience and strike the right balance. The fight for history "We are not anti-development," says David Duncan, a native Virginian and president of the American Battlefield Trust. His organisation, along with a group of others, is suing to stop the construction of the Prince William Digital Gateway. "We believe this should be an and conversation," Duncan tells the BBC. "That's what has been lost in this rush to build these types of facilities too close to our historic resources." Cohen says the data centre development won't interrupt the historical value of the area, ands QTS plans to create "miles of multi-purpose trails" and install "historical landmarks, interactive kiosks and other tools in areas of historical importance" on the battlefield site. But for some, the issue isn't a lack of signage. "Nobody wants to look into the forest and see these massive monoliths rising," Jim Matte, another member of the Bull Run Legion, tells the BBC. The Digital Gateway's approval was finalised in a controversial marathon 27 hour town hall meeting in December 2023, after a 4-3 vote in a lame duck session by some legislators who had already lost their seats in the previous election. "We're in litigation because they took shortcuts in the approval processes", says Duncan, adding that activists and citizens alike believe developers and lawmakers anticipated public backlash and chose to go ahead with the approval anyway. (QTS did not respond to questions on this issue.) The Battlefield Trust has worked with – and litigated against – powerful developers in the past. Years ago, the organisation successfully altered a plan to build a Walmart at The Wilderness, another pivotal battlefield in Virginia, by moving the site three miles (4.8km) down the road. "When we clamp down on your ankle and don't let go, you're going to get sick of us. We're not just gonna roll over," Duncan says. But he also feels the data centre industry has more money and momentum behind it than Walmart. "There's so much power," Duncan says. The Civil War and technological transformation The idea of a data centre would be lost on the soldiers of the American Civil War, but they would be no strangers to technological upheaval. During the Civil War, freshly-strung telegraph lines knit marching armies together. The new technology of photography carried images of battle's toll to homes across the world. Advancements in munitions and firearms increased the deadliness of combat, locking the North and South in trench warfare stalemate through the war's final months. It ultimately gave the North – with its industrialised economy – the advantage. Manassas stood near the crossroads of two railroads, a technology only a few decades old at that point. Manoeuvres throughout the war revolved around access to rail supply lines, with armies seeking to cut off or secure important junctions. The conflict itself was precipitated by the nation's railroad-fuelled westward expansion, which brought the question of extending slavery to new territories or abolishing it to a head. More like this:• The 'bison skull mountain' photo that reveals the US's dark history• The Oregon Trail, the controversial video game that defined the US• I can't drink the water' – life next to a US data centre At Manassas, a version of the world these soldiers knew and fought for is preserved: the open pastures, rolling hills and the farmhouses they encountered on the march and then returned to as old men to commemorate. Today, as Americans face another redefinition of their country in an era of big tech and political division, for many the historic battlefields remain an important resource. "These places are crucial for the future of our country," says Duncan. "This country was defined on the battlefields of the American Civil War." -- For timely, trusted tech news from global correspondents to your inbox, sign up to the Tech Decoded newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Paulette Jiles, acclaimed author of ‘News of the World,' dies at 82
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Jiles ranged widely in her writing, publishing poems and nonfiction books that reflected her upbringing in small-town Missouri and her 10 years in the Canadian Arctic, where she helped Indigenous communities set up low-power radio stations. She also wrote dystopian science fiction novels, including 'The Late Great Human Road Show' (1986) and 'Lighthouse Island' (2013), that imagined the aftermath of a nuclear disaster in Toronto and the struggles of a hyper-urbanized, drought-ridden America some 200 years in the future. Advertisement For the most part, however, she turned to the past, writing historical fiction that demonstrated what Ron Charles, the Washington Post book critic, once described as an 'interest in the way ordinary people, particularly young women, have coped with national trauma.' Advertisement In 'Enemy Women' (2002), her breakout novel, she traced the Civil War's destructive power by focusing on a single family in southeastern Missouri. Before the conflict began, she wrote, they 'lived an untidy life and were improvident and argumentative and content.' Within a few years, Union soldiers have burned down their house and arrested the family's widowed patriarch; the book's heroine, 18-year-old Adair, is soon arrested herself while trying to bring him back home. 'This is a book with backbone, written with tough, haunting eloquence,' Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times. The novel became a bestseller, buoyed in part by comparisons to Charles Frazier's 1997 prizewinner 'Cold Mountain.' Ms. Jiles continued to garner praise for books including 'Stormy Weather' (2007), about a Depression-era widow raising three daughters on a run-down Texas farm; and 'The Color of Lightning' (2009), a Civil War-era western inspired by the true story of Britt Johnson, a freedman whose wife and children were abducted in a Kiowa raid in Texas. At times, her books could read like elegies to a lost American frontier, where the grasses were 'all bent in various yielding flows, with the wild buckwheat standing in islands, stiff with its heads of grain and red branching stems.' But in general she focused less on landscape than on action, and on the way honorable men and women try to navigate a chaotic and often hostile world. With Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, the hero of 'News of the World' (2016), she created a gruff, battle-scarred septuagenarian who drew comparisons to classic western protagonists Rooster Cogburn of 'True Grit' and Captain Woodrow F. Call of 'Lonesome Dove.' Advertisement Kidd, a veteran of three wars, makes his living in 1870 Texas by traveling to small, isolated towns and reading the news - charging crowds a dime a head to hear him recount newspaper stories about distant shipwrecks, the Franco-Prussian War, or the newly ratified 15th Amendment. He eventually finds himself with a new job: taking Johanna, a 10-year-old girl whose parents have been killed in a Kiowa raid, to her closest remaining relatives, an aunt and uncle in San Antonio. The novel, a finalist for the National Book Award, was was adapted into a well-received 2020 movie, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Paul Greengrass. 'In some ways Captain Kidd was speaking for me,' she told Texas Monthly in 2016. By reading the news - introducing audiences to far-flung places they may never be able to visit in person - Kidd was 'trying desperately to get these people to move into the world of imagination, which I think is as necessary to the human soul as food is to the body,' she added. 'What human being do you know who isn't put almost into a state of hypnosis when you bring up that phrase, 'Once upon a time'? All of a sudden, certain fibers in your body relax.' The second of four children, Paulette Kay Jiles was born in Salem, Mo., on April 4, 1943. Her father was an insurance salesman. In a 1991 memoir, 'Cousins,' she described him as an alcoholic who was in an almost 'perpetual rage.' Her mother was a painter who taught community art classes. Ms. Jiles majored in romance languages at the University of Missouri Kansas City, graduating in 1968. When her pacifist boyfriend moved to Canada to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, she went too, freelancing as a radio reporter for the CBC. Advertisement On the side she wrote poetry, publishing her first collection in 1973. The title poem, 'Waterloo Express,' was written from the perspective of a sardonic, train-riding wanderer: … I bet you think I'm running away from home or a man who never done me wrong. I bet you think I'm twenty, with the fragile soul of a wild fawn. Well, I used to think so too, but the job didn't pay much and anyhow I never liked the taste of wages. The poem was reprinted in her 1984 collection 'Celestial Navigation,' which won a Governor General's Award, one of Canada's top literary prizes. After a stint working on community radio stations with Cree and Ojibwe communities in the far north, she taught creative writing at the now-defunct David Thompson University Centre in British Columbia. In 1989, while camping in Missouri, she met Jim Johnson, a retired Army colonel who dropped in to help her start a fire. He looked, she later wrote with affection, like 'a cowboy demon.' They married a few years later and moved to San Antonio, in Johnson's home state, where they bought and restored a 19th-century stone house. The couple divorced in 2003 but remained close. A sister is her only immediate survivor. After the divorce, Ms. Jiles decamped to the Hill Country. She didn't own a television ('the lighted screen is a narcotic,' she said) but she became a prolific blogger, providing updates about her life and work. A 2020 Texas Monthly profile noted that her blog 'makes clear that she disapproves of all kinds of things - 'young people,' Kindles, political correctness, Europe's decision to admit large numbers of Middle Eastern refugees, the best-selling thriller 'Gone Girl ,' cancel culture, and other manifestations of modern liberalism." Advertisement She also rode horses and played the tin whistle in a local bluegrass band. But for the most part she lived a solitary life, plugging away on books including 'Chenneville,' another Civil War-era novel that she published in 2023. 'People ask me, 'Don't you get lonely up there?' And I say, 'I'm living with 25 characters in every one of my books,'' she said in a video interview for her publisher, William Morrow. 'When I walk away from it I need to get away from it absolutely and completely. The horses take me away from this world of the imagination.'
