Armenian genocide denial is the claim that the Ottoman Empire did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime widely documented and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars. The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out; incriminating documents were later systematically destroyed. Denial has been the policy of every government of the Republic of Turkey, and rests on the assumption that the "relocation" of Armenians was a legitimate state action, not deliberate extermination. Deniers claim the death toll is exaggerated or attribute the deaths to other factors. Ronald Grigor Suny states that the main argument is "there was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it". An important reason for this denial is that the genocide enabled the establishment of a Turkish nation-state; recognition would contradict Turkey's founding myths. The Turkish state's century-long denial of the genocide sets it apart from other cases of genocide.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide_denial

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1916:

Irish republicans led by Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising

1944:

World War II: The British Special Boat Service executed a successful raid to destroy an Axis radio station on the Greek island of Santorini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Santorini

1990:

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

1993:

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

soft-pedal: 1. (transitive) 2. To reduce the volume of (music, a sound, etc.). 3. (figuratively) To reduce the force or impact of (something); to damp, to mute; especially, to minimize the less desirable aspects of (something); to play down, to tone down. 4. (figuratively) To attempt to persuade someone about (something) through understatement, so that the listener accepts the good points as obvious. 5. (intransitive, figuratively) Chiefly followed by on: to act in a less assertive or forceful manner. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soft-pedal

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.   --Robert Penn Warren https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Penn_Warren