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When did we start using passports? - Kristin Surak

AdvancedAmerican accentAnimated lesson6 min

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Transcript: 46 sentences

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  1. 0:07 In 1941, in German-occupied Poland, the Nazis began abducting members of the Jewish population and imprisoning them in extermination camps.
  2. 0:18 But there were exceptions - the Nazis held foreign passport holders in detention camps to be traded later for Germans detained abroad.
  3. 0:29 With this loophole in mind, Aleksander Ładoś, a Polish diplomat in Switzerland, started producing forged Latin American passports
  4. 0:40 and smuggling them to Polish Jews.
  5. 0:43 In the end, these simple paper booklets would mean the difference between life and death for thousands.
  6. 0:51 A striking thing about passports is that they’re actually a relatively new invention.
  7. 0:57 They’re not the first form of travel documents: in ancient Egypt, travelers carried letters of safe conduct issued by rulers;
  8. 1:06 in Han China and Tudor England, foreigners were issued travel passes; and in the 19th century,
  9. 1:13 poorer migrants often needed health certificates to enter the US.
  10. 1:18 However, for much of human history, borders have been relatively fluid and travel lacked bureaucratic requirements.
  11. 1:27 But when World War I broke out in 1914, everything changed.
  12. 1:33 Neighboring countries, and their colonies, became wartime enemies.
  13. 1:38 To deter both espionage and desertion, many European nations established checkpoints at ports of entry to confirm travelers’ nationalities.
  14. 1:49 Here, authorities would screen early versions of passports, which, depending on the issuing country, were documents that followed different formats
  15. 1:59 and contained varying types of information.
  16. 2:02 When the war ended, many expected nations to remove passport requirements.
  17. 2:08 In 1920, the newly established League of Nations discussed this, but in light of other post-war concerns,
  18. 2:16 such as safeguarding national security, preventing the spread of epidemics, and managing the movement of refugees, they opted to temporarily keep the passport system.
  19. 2:28 To ease travel, they encouraged countries to follow international passport guidelines, using booklets of standard size and layout,
  20. 2:38 written in the language of the issuing country and French.
  21. 2:42 But beyond this, every country was free to determine what approvals or documents a person needed to cross its borders.
  22. 2:51 This included rules around issuing visas, the legal permissions dictating how long a person can stay in a country, and what they can do, such as work or study.
  23. 3:03 And by 1926, when the League of Nations met again, the idea of abolishing passports had lost momentum,
  24. 3:11 solidifying the passport system we know today.
  25. 3:15 However, this system brought new problems with it.
  26. 3:19 Passports were used not just to monitor movement, but also as tools of power and control.
  27. 3:26 They reinforced hierarchies between citizens born in colonizer states and those born in the colonies.
  28. 3:33 For example, in the 1920s, UK-born British subjects could get British passports,
  29. 3:40 while Indian-born subjects could receive a distinct British Indian passport.
  30. 3:46 And since passports are issued by governments, they could be withheld from citizens as punishment or to discourage dissent.
  31. 3:55 During the Cold War, the US revoked the passports of political and civil rights activists, like W.E.B.
  32. 4:03 Dubois.
  33. 4:04 As passport monitoring was largely relocated into airports in the second half of the 20th century, advances in digital tracking and databases
  34. 4:14 allowed governments to more tightly regulate and control individual movement.
  35. 4:20 Today, a passport’s strength and where a person can travel to and from are often dependent on relationships between countries.
  36. 4:29 There can be regional agreements, like the Schengen Agreement, which allows border-free travel within 29 European countries.
  37. 4:37 Higher-income countries also typically have better travel access.
  38. 4:42 The result is a system that privileges citizens of certain countries, while constraining others.
  39. 4:49 As of 2025, a US passport holder can enter almost 180 countries without arranging a visa beforehand.
  40. 4:59 For a Pakistani passport holder, that number drops below 40.
  41. 5:04 And these disparities extend to a person’s chances of securing a foreign visa.
  42. 5:10 For example, in 2024, Algerian applicants for US visitor visas faced a much higher refusal rate than Brazilian applicants.
  43. 5:21 In some places, money can buy you access - more than a dozen countries offer "golden passports” programs that grant citizenship,
  44. 5:30 and therefore passports, to people who make a significant investment or donation.
  45. 5:37 As the world becomes increasingly global for some, and increasingly divided for others, the question remains:
  46. 5:45 should lines on a map determine a person’s rights and freedoms?

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