Free Republic

The early American settlers called it "the starving time," and accounts of the winter of 1609-1610 were so ghastly, and so morbid, that scholars weren't sure if the stories were true. George Percy, then president of the English settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, wrote that settlers ate horses, then cats and dogs, then boots and bits of leather, and, finally, one another. "One of our colony murdered his wife, ripped the child out of her womb and threw it into the river, and after chopped the mother in pieces and salted her for his food," wrote Percy, who then ordered...

MOSCOW, April 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Kremlin presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov wrote a letter to his namesake who had been denied the right to buy sneakers in an American online shop because of the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials. US imposes sanctions on 20 Russian officials “Dear namesake and fellow citizen! I was surprised to find out that the sanctions imposed by the U.S. administration, including against me, have created certain inconveniencies for you. Your parcel was delayed and the U.S. Post showed that it could place ignorance and corporate zeal above elementary logic. We may face such farce again...

Historian Tony Horwitz tries to separate the truth from the myths that have been built up about the Jamestown “princess” Pocahontas is the most myth-encrusted figure in early America, a romantic “princess” who saves John Smith and the struggling Jamestown colony. But this fairy tale, familiar to millions today from storybook and film, bears little resemblance to the extraordinary young woman who crossed cultures and oceans in her brief and ultimately tragic life. The startling artwork (above), the oldest in the National Portrait Gallery collection, is the only image of Pocahontas taken from life. Made during her visit to London...

As you gobble your Thanksgiving turkey, imagine being a Pilgrim in March 1621. Hardly four months after the Mayflower reached Plymouth Rock the previous November, you still struggle for food, shelter, and survival in the state of nature.Suddenly, an Indian reaches your outpost. Friend or foe? What brought him here? How would you ever communicate with him?And then he opens his mouth. He speaks English! More amazing, he does so with a British accent and the demeanor of someone who had lived and worked among England’s elite.Who on Earth is this incredible man?Squanto, a.k.a. Tisquantum, was born about 1580...

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | "The New World," a film slated for Christmas day release, tells the romantic story of Pocahontas and John Smith, but ads for the movie tell a more depressing story of political correctness. A glossy magazine layout says that what settlers "named the Jamestown Settlement was already home to a noble civilization." On my radio show, I mocked the idea that the pre-literate, stone-aged Powhatan Indians of Virginia constituted a "noble civilization," and in later version of ads for the movie, the word "noble" disappeared. In its place, however, New Line Cinema included an even more absurd declaration, claiming...

When you're called a genius and avoid the press like Howard Hughes and direct only one movie every decade or so, it's an event when you crank out a new one. This time around, Terrence Malick, the media-shy maestro behind Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line, trains his jeweler's eye on the love story between Native American Pocahontas (15-year-old newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher) and English explorer John Smith (Colin Farrell) in 17th-century Jamestown, Va. Malick originally wrote a draft of the screenplay in the late '70s, but much like his own Hollywood ambitions at the time, the project...

It was Bush supporter, John Smith! This pic was taken by a Mansfield News Journal (lib rag) photographer, but SOMEHOW didn't make it into the paper. Kerry tried to shake John's hand, but he declined as he pointed his thumb down at his sign.

November 10, 2002 — Contractor Jon Smith of Delaware, Ohio (Columbus) knew he was fast with a cordless drill. Now he has a million dollars to prove it.