Mitchel Stuffers
Assistant Editor at CIGH Exeter & PhD Candidate in History, University of Exeter

From resurfaced ‘Hunger Stones’ to a company’s slave trade four decades after abolition, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

Hunger stones: The history behind ‘if you see me, weep’

Brenda Haas
DW News

Centuries-old hunger stones are emerging as Europe’s rivers recede. Among the most famous is the Decin hunger stone in the Elbe River with its cryptic message. As Europe’s rivers recede during periods of drought, long-hidden traces of the past have resurfaced. Alongside Nazi-era shipwrecks, unexploded World War II bombs and prehistoric mammoth remains, some rivers reveal history literally written in stone. One such inscription, in German, reads: “Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine” — “If you see me, weep.” These words are etched on a hunger stone in the Elbe River near Decin in Czechia, close to the German border.

Why ‘hunger’?: Hunger stones, or “Hungersteine” in German, are riverbed boulders that usually stay underwater and hidden, but become exposed when river levels drop significantly during prolonged droughts. Unlike a high-water mark, which records the highest water level, the hunger stone marks the lowest. For centuries, communities carved dates or inscriptions onto these stones whenever the waters of rivers like the Elbe, Danube or Rhine receded dramatically. Some hunger stones bear lists of years, including 1616, 1746 and 1842. [Continue reading]

‘The Sun was dark and its darkness lasted for 18 months’ – what we can learn from worst volcanic eruptions in history

Alex Brown
Conversation

Europe was plunged into darkness and suffered from intense crop failures and famines in the years AD536 and AD1258, after massive volcanic eruptions. When many people think of volcanic eruptions, they envisage deadly lava flows and suffocating ash fall. The fate of the inhabitants of Pompeii after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year AD79 still resonates today. Yet, volcanic eruptions have more wide-ranging consequences than is often realised, and this is recorded in historical accounts.

Large volcanic eruptions emit gasses and ash particles into the atmosphere. Although the ash itself settles within weeks, the aerosols spread around the planet and can remain suspended in the atmosphere for years. Ice cores – long cylindrical samples drilled from glaciers – reveal these past sediment layers over hundreds of thousands of years. [Continue reading]

Pentagon threatens to cut federal funding to 30 universities over foreign academic partnerships

Joseph Gedeon
Guardian

Thirty US universities could lose federal funding unless they review and cut foreign academic partnerships the Pentagon considers a national security risk within the next two weeks, under a Pentagon directive aimed largely at ties to Chinese institutions. Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Cornell are among the institutions ordered to conduct and report the reviews – and end partnerships deemed problematic – by 31 August, according to a US official who provided the full list to the Guardian. “The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release from Monday.

The Pentagon said the reviews are intended to protect taxpayer-funded research from unauthorized technology transfers, intellectual-property theft and exploitation by foreign adversaries. According to the US official, the 30 institutions also include the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, San Diego; Penn State University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California; Duke University; and New York University. [Continue reading]

Poland to strengthen protection of more than 200 kilometers of Its Northern and Eastern borders by year-end

Editorial Team
Ukrinform

By the end of 2026, Poland will strengthen the protection of more than 200 kilometers of its eastern border in areas critical to a potential defensive operation. As reported by Polish Radio, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk said this, according to Ukrinform.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and his deputy took stock in the city of Giżycko of two years of construction of the East Shield defense system. “By the end of 2026, we will protect more than 200 kilometers of the Polish border in the most critical areas, important for conducting a potential defensive operation,” Tomczyk emphasized. At the same time, he said, the capabilities provided by the East Shield system are much broader. [Continue reading]

British corporation continued trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition

Chris Osuh
Guardian

When Britain abolished slavery, plantation owners from powerful families notoriously received huge sums in compensation, while those who were enslaved got nothing. Now evidence has come to light that Sandbach, Tinne and Company – a corporation closely linked to the merchants who got the biggest taxpayer-funded compensation payouts – continued to traffic enslaved Africans illegally after abolition to Guyana, in South America. The discovery is detailed in a book, Searching for My Slave Roots, by author Malik Al Nasir, who has been researching his family history. Its findings have inspired a new research project, Overwriting-Underwriting, which aims to uncover the financial networks behind enslavement and launches on Sunday, the International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

The Slave Trade Act of 1807 abolished the trade in human beings in British territories. Then, in 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act banned slavery itself in most of the British empire. But an 1847 letter, written to Sandbach Tinne’s Liverpool office by Peter Miller Watson, who managed the company’s interests in Demerara, Guyana, refers to a ship from the company’s own fleet arriving with a “cargo of negroes”, including dozens of young children [Continue reading]