The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)

The time after World War II changed the political map of Southeast Asia permanently. Indonesia declared its independence from the Netherlands in 1945, which they accepted just in 1949 after the War of Indonesian Independence. The Philippines became independent from the USA in 1946. The Federation of Malaya became independent from the United Kingdom in 1957 and in 1963 Malaysia was founded when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were added to the Federation. Indonesia did not accepted its new neighbour and started the Konfrontasi and also the Philippines raised a claim to Sabah. Singapore was expelled from the Federation in 1965 due to ideological differences and became an independent state. But despite all these conflicts representatives of the four states and of Thailand came together in Bangkok in August 1967 and founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with the Bangkok Declaration. Its main aims were and still are economic growth, social progress, sociocultural evolution and the protection of regional stability, but it was also founded as reaction against the Vietnam War and the Communism. In 1984 Brunei joined the ASEAN barely a week after gaining independence from the United Kingdom. Myanmar and Laos joined in 1997. In the same year the ASEAN was also hit hard by the Asian financial crisis. Cambodia joined the community as last new member in 1999. In 2007 the ASEAN- Charter was signed, which turned the ASEAN into a legal entity and aimed to create a single free-trade area with the purpose of moving closer to an EU-style community. Today the ASEAN is an active global partner and works together with other parts of the World to promote World peace and stability.

To commemorate the 48th and 50th anniversary of the ASEAN its member states issued joint stamps in 2015 and 2017 (without Brunei). I have all stamps from 2015, but still miss some stamps from 2017. If anybody can help me to get the stamps from Cambodia, Myanmar or Laos please write it in the comments. 

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, from Stendal to Rome (Germany, Vatican)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann was born in Stendal on 9th December 1717 as son of a poor cobbler. Due to bursaries he was able to receive a good education. For a while he studied theology in Halle and medicine in Jena and worked as private tutor. At the same time he also pursued philologic, philosophic and historic studies. In 1748 he became a librarian at Count Heinrich von Bünau's famous library near Dresden. There he met Cardinal Alberico Archinto, who offered him an employment as librarian in Rome on condition that Winckelmann converts to the Catholicism. Also during that time King Augustus III of Poland became his patron. In 1754 he quitted his employment in von Bünau's library and moved to Dresden for a short time to learn how to draw. In 1755 he moved to Rome. Also in 1755 he published his famous Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture. During his time in Italy he visited many important ancient sites and art collections. He visited for example Florence, Neapel and Pompeii. In 1763 he became Commissario delle Antichità, the most important curator of monuments in the Papal States. Winckelmann's masterpiece The History of Art in Antiquity was published in 1764. In 1768 he wanted to visit his old friends in Germany, but had to terminate the journey before he reached his destination. On his way back to Rome he was killed in Trieste on 8th June 1768 by a robber. Johann Joachim Winckelmann is today considered to be the father of the modern archaeology and the discipline of art history and a pioneer of the Classicism in Germany.

Thanks to Winckelmann the Apollo Belvedere became one of the World's most celebrated art works when he championed it as the best example of the perfection of the Greek aesthetic ideal. It became one of the leading lights of Classicism and an icon of the Enlightenment.

In Stendal there are today a Winckelmann Statue and the only Winckelmann Museum in the World, which was opened in 1955.