Jordan | Good News For Humankind

Closeup hands of old woman suffering from leprosy, for article on leprosy elimination

Jordan becomes first country to receive WHO verification for eliminating leprosy

By / September 19, 2024 / Good News For Humankind

Leprosy has officially been eliminated in a country for the first time, with the World Health Organization verifying that Jordan has gone more than 20 years without a single locally transmitted case. Reaching that milestone took decades of coordination between Jordan’s Ministry of Health and WHO, plus surveillance systems sharp enough to catch cases arriving from abroad before they could spark local spread. Health leaders are quick to note that this was also a fight against stigma, which has shadowed the disease for millennia. With over 200,000 new cases still diagnosed worldwide each year, mostly in lower-income regions, Jordan offers something the global effort hasn’t had before: living proof that the finish line is reachable.

Israel and Jordan agree to team up to save Jordan River

By Peter Schulte / November 18, 2022 / Good news links

The agreement, struck at COP27 in Egypt, where world leaders are discussing how to mitigate the climate crisis, marks an important, albeit initial, step in cooperation.

image for article on Seljuk Empire founding

Tughril and Chaghri Beg establish the Seljuk Empire across Central Asia

By Peter Schulte / January 1, 1037 / Archive of Human Genius

Seljuk Empire founders Tughril and Chaghri Beg, two brothers from a nomadic Turkic clan near the Aral Sea, captured Merv and Nishapur in 1037 C.E. and built a state that eventually stretched from the Aegean to the Hindu Kush. Rather than dismantle Persian civilization, they governed through it — a pattern of cultural fusion that echoed across later Islamic empires.

Ain Ghazal statues, for article on Ain Ghazal settlement

Ain Ghazal rises as one of the ancient world’s largest Neolithic towns

By Peter Schulte / January 8, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

Ain Ghazal, a Neolithic town near modern Amman, Jordan, began taking shape around 7250 B.C.E. along the Zarqa River. At its height, it stretched across 15 hectares and housed up to 3,000 people, who plastered their floors, buried ancestors beneath their homes, and shaped some of the oldest known monumental human figures ever found.

Tomatoes on the vine, for article on Neolithic Revolution

Humans begin farming, setting off the Neolithic Revolution

By Peter Schulte / January 7, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

The Neolithic Revolution began around 12,000 years ago, as small groups across Mesopotamia, East Asia, Africa, and later the Americas independently started planting crops and tending animals instead of following them. Archaeologists have identified at least 11 separate regions where this shift happened on its own. It was the quiet groundwork for villages, writing, and nearly every civilization that followed.