Free Republic

1,721 years ago, two Christian brothers in pagan Gaul were martyred. 300 years later, they were named Saints of the Catholic Church, celebrated on the 25th of October. On the Feast of Crispin and Crispinian, some of the most climactic battles in Western history have been fought: Balaklava, Leyte Gulf, Cap Finisterre. The Cuban Missile Crisis began on Crispin’s Day, as did the First Marxist Revolution, and the United States invaded Grenada. Pablo Picasso and Minnie Pearl were born on Crispin’s Day; Geoffrey Chaucer and Bat Masterson passed away. But no one remembers Saint Crispin’s Day the way Will Shakespeare...

Before reading A Glorious Disaster my knowledge of the 1964 presidential election was shallow. I knew Lyndon Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide, but I never really knew anything about the nuts and bolts of the campaign. The 1964 election is an odd one. Johnson had just become president after the Kennedy assassination (killed by a Marxist, go figure). As senator Johnson served as a conservative southern Democrat. He voted against every Civil Rights bill while he was in Congress. Johnson only shifted his opinion later because of the popularity of the measure. Johnson's ambitions were much stronger than any...

Western leaders searching for a long-term strategy to defend our civilization from fundamentalist Islam ought to reread the speech President Reagan delivered at the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this month. It was neither democracy nor capitalism Reagan foresaw bringing down the wall. It was Christianity. Reagan's demand that Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the wall was the defining sound-bite of that speech, but it was another passage that defined the core meaning of the Cold War. Pondering what sustained Berliners, surrounded as they were by the Soviet menace, Reagan concluded: "Perhaps this gets to the root of the...

Decorated veteran John Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Relations Committee, questions the War in Vietnam, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1971. .............................. Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington and Senator Pell. I would like to say for the record, and also for the men sitting behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of a group of 1,000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this...

The History Of Flag Day The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America's birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as 'Flag Birthday'. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as 'Flag Birthday', or 'Flag Day'. On...

<p>Thank you very much for that warm welcome.</p> <p>Thank you for inviting me.</p> <p>This is the first Republican Convention I have ever attended.</p> <p>I am grateful that you should invite me, a lifelong Democrat. On the other hand, I realize that you are inviting many lifelong Democrats to join this common cause.</p>