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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey y'all, Um Eves and welcome to This

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Speaker 1: Day in History Class, a podcast that proves you really

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Speaker 1: do learn something new every day. Just a quick morning

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Speaker 1: before we start the show today. This podcast does contain

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Speaker 1: content about genocide. Today is The day was April nineteen fifteen.

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Speaker 1: The Armenian genocide began when around two d and fifty

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Speaker 1: Armenian intellectuals and politicians were arrested. Most of the people

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Speaker 1: who were arrested were killed in the following months. The

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Speaker 1: Turkish government refuses to recognize the deportations and massacres that

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Speaker 1: followed as genocide, claiming that the killings were necessary and

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Speaker 1: there was no official policy for killing Armenians. However, most

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Speaker 1: historians consider it a genocide since it was a planned,

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Speaker 1: in systematic effort to kill a specific group of people.

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Speaker 1: In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Armenia came under control

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Speaker 1: of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was home to Christians, Muslims,

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Speaker 1: and Jewish people, but it was dominated by ethnic Turks.

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Speaker 1: Christian Armenians, as well as other Christian communities, were minorities

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Speaker 1: in the empire. Armenians did have a strong sense of

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Speaker 1: community under Ottoman rule, but in the second half of

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, Turkish nationalism that favored ethnic and religious

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Speaker 1: majorities was on the rise, and Armenians were on the

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Speaker 1: receiving end of Turkish persecution. As the twentieth century approached,

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Speaker 1: political instability, economic issues, and military defeats weakened the Empire.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, Turkish nationalist movements were growing stronger.

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Speaker 1: Armenians were one of the largest Christian groups in the

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Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire. There were civically and economically successful, and many

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Speaker 1: Armenian elites were well educated and highly influential. Their prominence

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Speaker 1: inspired resentment among Turkish nationalists. Russian Armenians participated in the

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Speaker 1: Russo Turkish War of eighteen seventy seven to eighteen seventy eight.

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Speaker 1: After the Russian victory in the war, Russia insisted in

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Speaker 1: the Treaty of San Stefano that the Ottoman Sultan, Sultan

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Speaker 1: Abdul Hamid the Second reform Armenian administration. The Armenian question,

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Speaker 1: or the issue of the protection and rights of Armenians

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Speaker 1: in the Ottoman Empire, was a topic that was growing

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Speaker 1: in importance in Turkish politics. Young Armenian activists organized to

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Speaker 1: demand independence from the Ottoman Empire and to call for reforms,

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Speaker 1: but despite proposed European backed reforms that Ottoman authorities supposedly supported,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered in massacres from

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four to eighteen ninety six. By the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, there were somewhere around two or

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Speaker 1: two point five million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire,

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Speaker 1: but Ottoman authorities continued to institute oppressive measures against Armenians,

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Speaker 1: including putting restrictions on property ownership and religious practices, and

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Speaker 1: more Armenians were killed in riots and pogroms in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o nine. When the Young Turk movement seized power in

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire in nineteen o eight, there was hope

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Speaker 1: that Armenians and other minorities would not face as much persecution,

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Speaker 1: but over time the Young Turks became more authoritarian. They

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Speaker 1: intended to Turkify the empire and to resolve the Armenian

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Speaker 1: question violently. When World War One broke out in nineteen fourteen,

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Speaker 1: the Young Turks joined on the side of the Central Powers.

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Speaker 1: When they suffered defeats to the Russians, they shifted blame

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Speaker 1: to the Armenians, who sided with Russia and deemed them

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Speaker 1: a threat to the state. So Armenians serving in the

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Speaker 1: Ottoman Army were removed from active duty and transferred into

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Speaker 1: labor battalions, and on April nineteen fifteen, the government ordered

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Speaker 1: the arrest of two hundred and fifty Armenian intellectuals and

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Speaker 1: community leaders, mainly in the Ottoman capital, which was then

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Speaker 1: called Constantinople. The government then began to deport Armenians from

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Speaker 1: Eastern Anatolia, a move that was soon authorized by the

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Speaker 1: Ottoman Parliament. It confiscated Armenian properties and businesses. It sent

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Speaker 1: Armenians on death marches across the Syrian desert to concentration camps,

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Speaker 1: with people dying of exhaustion and starvation along the way.

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Speaker 1: It kidnapped children, and it sponsored mass executions of Armenians.

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Speaker 1: The Ottoman Empire failed in nineteen two, and Turkey was

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Speaker 1: formally declared a republic in nineteen twenty three. By this time,

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Speaker 1: many Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had died, fled, or

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Speaker 1: been expelled. That said, there's no consensus on the number

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Speaker 1: of people who died in the genocide. Some countries sent

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Speaker 1: a to Armenian people, but the perpetrators of the genocide

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Speaker 1: went largely unpunished. Law student Raphael lim Keen was influenced

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Speaker 1: by the Armenian massacres to coin the term genocide. Turkey

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Speaker 1: denies the Ottoman government's role in the systematic killing of

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Speaker 1: Armenians and has instituted laws restricting discussion about the genocide.

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Speaker 1: Many other countries have avoided recognizing the massacres as a

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Speaker 1: genocide to keep from harming relations with Turkey. I'm Eve

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Speaker 1: Jeff Code and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. And if you have

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Speaker 1: any suggestions about episode topics or any comments, you can

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Speaker 1: send them to us via social media where at t

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Speaker 1: d I HC Podcast. You can also send us an

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Speaker 1: email at this day at I heeart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening to the show and we'll see

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Speaker 1: you tomorrow. Yeah. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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