Elizabeth Anscombe (In Our Time)
1956 · Resource
In 1956 Oxford University awarded an honorary degree to the former US president Harry S. Truman for his role in ending the Second World War. One philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe (1919 – 2001), objected strongly. She argued that although dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have ended the fighting, it amounted to the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It was therefore an irredeemably immoral act.
On these timelines: In Our Time (BBC podcast), Resources: Combined
Around 1956
- Cuban Revolutionary War (1953)
- Indian independence and Partition (1947)
- US Civil Rights Movement (1954)
- Korean War (1950)
- Suez Crisis (1956)
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- Apartheid (1948)
- Vietnam War (American phase) (1965)
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)
- Berlin Airlift (1948)