Syria | Good News For Humankind

‘Disappeared’ Syrian dissidents emerge from Assad’s prisons after regime collapse

By Peter Schulte / December 8, 2024 / Good news links

As Syrian rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured city after city on the road to Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee the country, they also opened the doors of the regime’s notorious prisons, into which upwards of 100,000 people disappeared during nearly 14 years of civil war. Many emerged frail and emaciated into the bright December sunlight, greeted by weeping family members who had no idea they were still alive.

Women’s rights group eliminates female genital mutilation in Kurdistan’s Garmiyan region

By Peter Schulte / February 7, 2020 / Good news links

On International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a women’s rights group active in the Kurdistan Region announced that zero cases of GM were reported in the Garmiyan Administration in 2019.

Syria signs Paris climate agreement

By Peter Schulte / November 8, 2017 / Good news links

Syria’s decision brings to 197 the number of nations signed up to the landmark 2015 pact on global warming, the first in more than 20 years of UN negotiations to bind both developed and developing countries to a clear limit on temperature rises.

Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria form the League of Arab States

By Peter Schulte / March 22, 1945 / Archive of Human Genius

The League’s main goal is to “draw closer the relations between member states and co-ordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries”.

Ismail al-Jazari publishes The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices

By Peter Schulte / November 1, 1206 / Archive of Human Genius

The Book describes 100 innovative mechanical devices, including the camshaft, some 80 of which are trick vessels of various kinds, along with instructions on how to construct them.

Tughril Beg and Chaghri Beg found the Seljuk Empire

By Peter Schulte / May 20, 1037 / Archive of Human Genius

At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf in the south.

A drawing of one side of the tablet on which the Hymn to Nikkal is inscribed[

Oldest known song, “Hurrian Hymn No. 6”, composed in Ancient Sumeria

By Peter Schulte / May 20, 1002 / Archive of Human Genius

For the title of oldest extant song, most historians point to Hurrian Hymn No. 6, an ode to the goddess Nikkal that was composed in cuneiform by the ancient Hurrians sometime around the 14th century B.C.

Phoenician civilization flourishes in the eastern Mediterranean

By Peter Schulte / January 10, 1002 / Archive of Human Genius

Phoenicia was an ancient civilization composed of independent city-states located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel.

Damascus – perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world – is founded in modern-day Syria

By Peter Schulte / April 25, 1001 / Archive of Human Genius

Pottery from the 3rd millennium B.C.E. has been discovered in the Old City of Damascus.

Humans make glass for the first time, perhaps in modern-day Syria

By Peter Schulte / February 1, 1001 / Archive of Human Genius

The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested that Phoenician merchants had made the first glass in the region of Syria around 5000 B.C.E. But according to the archaeological evidence, the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500 B.C.E.