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For a short window of about 80 years in the 13th century, small, portable bibles were produced on a large scale to satisfy the needs of the growing mendicant friar community and university students. Both groups needed bibles that were lightweight and easy to transport, a far cry from the large, thick-paged, multi-volume bibles common in scriptoria, libraries, churches and learning institutions. Between around 1220 and 1300, at least 20,000 and possibly as many as 30,000 portable bibles were produced, most of them in Paris, but also elsewhere in France, plus England, Italy and Spain. The university centers of Paris,...

Happens every Thanksgiving, doesn’t? Some bleeding heart liberal you’re “related to” gets on their moral high Crazy Horse and lectures about how horribly rotten the white man was to the Native Americans. Which is why this year we’re throwing in the tomahawk. Time to scalp the facts about the Indians. Feathers not dots. TRIGGER WARNING: offensive video at link. Transcript (without the sketch-cutaways or jokes) It’s Thanksgiving! You know what that means. As you try and enjoy your downtime with your family, you’ll undoubtedly find a social justice warrior around your Thanksgiving table trying to force-feed you white guilt. Afterall,...

In the middle of December 1620 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, leaving behind the sinfulness of the “old world” to make a “new Jerusalem” in America. Three years later, in November 1623, they had a great feast thanking God for getting them through an earlier famine, and now for a bountiful crop. What had created the earlier famine and then the bountiful crops? The story is told in the diary of Governor Bradford, who was one of the elders of that early Puritan colony. At first, they decided to turn their back on all the institutions of the England...

OVER the last week, a growing number of students at Princeton have demanded that the university confront the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson, who served as its president before becoming New Jersey’s governor and the 28th president of the United States. Among other things, the students are demanding that Wilson’s name be removed from university facilities. Wilson, a Virginia-born Democrat, is mostly remembered as a progressive, internationalist statesman, a benign and wise leader, a father of modern American political science and one of our nation’s great presidents. But he was also an avowed racist. And unlike many of his predecessors...

A vast and historically valuable trove of Holocaust-era documents, long thought destroyed during the second world war, has been found hidden in a wall cavity by a couple renovating their Budapest apartment. The haul of 6,300 documents are from a 1944 census that was a precursor to the intended liquidation of the Hungarian capital’s 200,000 Jews in Nazi death camps. Brigitte Berdefy, co-owner of the apartment overlooking Hungary’s parliament, said in August a worker detected paper after jamming a screwdriver through a crack in the wall....

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Ok, let's get down to brass tacks. How long has the Islam religion been around and have they always been so hateful and violent (like so many of them are today)? I believe they claim to be direct descendants of Abraham but I also believe that Abraham was a favorite of our one true Judeo-Christian God, and was the father or grandfather of the Jewish and Christian religions. I have a hard time believing that our loving Judeo-Christian God is also the Islam God, Allah, whose Muslim followers seem to be so misplaced. Haven't the warlike Muslim tribes fanned out...

Actual Title:President Obama has made history by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to pose for the cover of an LGBT magazine. Obama is on the cover of Out magazine’s latest Out 100 issue as the publication’s “Ally of the Year.” “The 44th President of the United States is our Ally of the Year—a president who came to office on a wave of euphoria, appeared to lose momentum halfway through, and has since rallied, helping us secure marriage equality, among other landmark initiatives that are transforming our place in America,” the editors of Out wrote in an article accompanying the...

Today is the anniversary of Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, when at the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, the First World War came to an end after more than four years of carnage. (Armistice Day became Veterans' Day in 1954.) Described by British historian Corelli Barnett as a war that had "causes but no objectives, "the "Great War" left a legacy of disillusionment in its wake and made a shambles of the rest of the 20th century. All told, there were ten million military dead and seven million civilians killed. The resulting economic collapse, the...

Were the lungs the seat of wisdom, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly would be wise, but they are not and he is not. So it is not astonishing that he is doubling down on his wager that the truth cannot catch up with him. It has, however, already done so. The prolific O'Reilly has, with his collaborator Martin Dugard, produced five "history" books in five years: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and now the best-selling Killing Reagan. Because no one actually killed Reagan, O'Reilly keeps his lucrative series going by postulating that the bullet that struck Reagan...

  Certainly no lack of historical curiosity in my noggin, but this one's new on me. Hard to imagine how I missed it, because it's a delightful folk art form to be sure- pure Americana. Due to the relative cheapness, softness, portability, and (adequate) thickness for sculpturing, the US 5-cent coin proved perfect for carving into highly-creative works that can be carried around in your pocket.  Alterations of coins had occurred in Europe, S. Africa, and the US in the 18th and 19th century -in cruder forms- but introduction of the 'Buffalo' nickel in 1913 brought about a surge in popularity of...

".... I certainly don't agree with Carson on this but neither do I think it is terribly material to anything. If you are trying to make a case that Carson is an idiot or against science, I think it takes more than a religious conviction to discredit an internationally prominent neurosurgeon with a string of articles published in scholarly medical journals. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton believes in man-induced global warming. Many of the same people criticizing Carson actually believe that gender has nothing to do with chromosomes or endocrinology or physiology. When it comes to GMOs, especially seeds...

Federal employers would be prohibited from asking about a job applicant's criminal history. President Barack Obama on Monday will announce a series of measures designed to reduce obstacles facing former prisoners reintegrating into society, including an executive action directing federal employers to delay asking questions about a job applicant's criminal history until later in the application process. Many states, cities and private employers have already taken steps to "ban the box," which refers to the checkbox on employment applications asking if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, some federal employers and contractors still ask the question....

"Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you." (Frank Sinatra) Fairy tales certainly came true for Sinatra's chum John F. Kennedy. I refer to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 53 years ago this week. More specifically, I refer to the media/academia/Hollywood spin of the crisis, especially its outcome. Surely you know the tune: "JFK stood up to the Russians in Cuba! Khrushchevblinked, cowered, and took his missiles home with his tail between his legs! Ha-ha! Take THAT Russkies! That’s the kind of gumption we need today with Iran and Putin!" In fact, here was the consensus at the time...

At the end of the seventeenth century approximately 200,000 people inhabited the British colonies in North America. The following century saw an explosion in numbers with the population doubling about every 25 years. The majority of these new immigrants were Scotch-Irish, Germans or African slaves. Between 1700 and the beginning of the American Revolution, approximately 250,000 Africans, 210,000 Europeans and 50,000 convicts had reached the colonial shores. The passage to America was treacherous by any standard. Many of the immigrants were too poor to pay for the journey and therefore indentured themselves to wealthier colonialists - selling their services for...

Everything we discuss now ... minimum wage, teacher's salary, government growth, 55 years ago

Based on Hancock's own investigations and interviews with archaeologists and astronomers, the book claimed survivors of this cataclysm, the giant flood remembered in myths all around the world, went on to settle in locations from Mexico to Egypt and impart their ancient knowledge to the other remaining humans. ...snip.... "Let's get to grips with that first of all," he says. "The foundations upon which history is based look increasingly suspect. Let's no longer shroud ourselves in the illusion that [mainstream] historians and archaeologists are invincible." There are, according to Hancock, two smoking guns. Firstly, naondiamonds - types of diamonds that...

Ten years after publication of Who Was Adam? by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, 13 new chapters detail the new scientific evidence on the origins of humankind in a second edition.Rana and Ross are scholars affiliated with Reasons to Believe, which also published the new edition of Who Was Adam? RTB works to spread the Gospel by showing how science supports the truths found in Scripture. Rana and Ross both have doctorate degrees in the physical sciences, biochemistry and astronomy, respectively. Unlike most second editions, this one leaves the original edition alone and adds the new chapters onto the original.During an interview...

We frequently hear about American students’ low-test scores in science and math, and everyone from the PTA to candidates for the White House is rightly concerned with how to improve them. Indeed, this concern is a major part of our national conversation. And those who worry about our educational system often suggest that better instruction in these areas could help solve America’s economic, fiscal, and social problems, too. Certainly, there are plenty of good reasons to boost our efforts in science and math. But we should not lose sight of the fact that there are other subjects in which we...

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (wiki) in 1415, when the English under King Henry V defeated the French on St. Crispin's Day (25 October) of that year. Henry (1387-1422) followed his father King Henry IV to the throne in 1413 and two years later announced his claim to the French throne and rekindled the Hundred Years War by invading Normandy. This is also the anniversary of the "the charge of the Light Brigade" (wiki) at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Although of relatively little importance in the larger context of the Crimean War,...