Hunger marches in Ireland and the history of Halloween: November 2nd: today's top history news

77 years ago today: hunger marches across Ireland
The Irish Times archive reports on hunger marches that took place across Ireland on November 2nd, 1932, as a reaction to the effects of the Great Depression.

The Hollow History of Halloween
In The Telegraph Christopher Howse reports on the history of Halloween. Fritz Lang’s

Metropolis to be screened at Berlin International Film Festival, 83 years after it was first premiered
Metropolis was the first ever film to be granted World Heritage status by UNESCO. It was premiered in Berlin in 1927 and, at the time, was the most expensive German film ever made. Shortly after, however, the film was cut into a much shorter version. The cut 30 minutes were believed to be lost until they were discovered in Argentina last year. The film will be shown in its complete uncut version at the Berlin International Film Festival in February next year. The Spiegel Online reports.

Former participants in Chile’s ‘dirty war’ offer to confess
Al Jazeera reports on how a group of Pinochet-era soldiers want to sign a group confession on abuses committed during the dictator’s government.

Original US Second World War propaganda films
The Classic Cinema Online website features original US propaganda films from the Second World War with great footage of Spitfire dogfights and different types of combat.

Coming to terms with the past in Shanghai
In Chinese history textbooks, the period after the 1840 Opium War is referred to as the ‘century of humiliation’ during which Shanghai was successively occupied by French, British, American, Russian and Japanese forces. In an article on the website of The Telegraph, Malcolm Moore reports on the city’s plans to restore its former British Consulate built in 1873. Is Shanghai gradually coming to terms with its history of foreign occupation?

John F. Kennedy’s reaction to the construction of the Berlin Wall
In the Spiegel Online, Gregor Peter Schmitz interviews William R. Smyser who was a US diplomat stationed in Berlin at the time of the construction of the Berlin Wall.