Free Republic

Teaching tools have apparently become more exotic since the days of slide rules and overhead projectors. When his freewheeling pedagogical style landed him, effectively, in the Dean’s office, International Relations professor Arthur N. Gilbert found himself making what, for many, would be embarrassing admissions. For example, the tenured University of Denver associate professor “explained that he brings in an old, art-deco vibrator in [sic] lecturing students on gender-related differences in attitudes toward masturbation and masculine self-control in the late 19th century,” Peter Schmidt reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education in the issue that comes out on November 4, 2011....

Noted Catholic Scholar on “Spain”_______________________ REV. DR. RYAN TRACES ORIGINS OF THE STRUGGLE ______________________ Basques and Moors “If the people of Spain hadn’t risen against such atrocities they would not have been the valiant sons of Spain that they are but despicable cowards,” declared Very Rev. Dr. A. H. Ryan, Professor of Scholastic Philosophy, Queen’s University, Belfast, in an address on “Spain” in St. Mary’s Hall, Belfast, last night. Over 200 people attended, among them the Bishop of Down and Connor, Most Rev. Dr. Mageean. Mr. Raymond Burke presided. Dr. Ryan said that the deplorable events in Spain since the...

What are your most embarrassing moments? You don’t want to admit them. And if you do admit them, you certainly won’t add to your shame by inventing embarrassing moments about yourself to make you look even worse. Who’s going to lie to make himself look bad? People will lie to make themselves look good (especially politicians), but no one will lie to make himself look bad. That’s why when historical accounts contain events embarrassing to the authors (or heroes of the authors) those events are probably true. Historians call this the principle of embarrassment, and it’s one reason why I...

The Glory of Poland By ROGER COHEN Published: April 12, 2010 NEW YORK — My first thought, hearing of the Polish tragedy, was that history’s gyre can be of an unbearable cruelty, decapitating Poland’s elite twice in the same cursed place, Katyn. My second was to call my old friend Adam Michnik in Warsaw. Michnik, an intellectual imprisoned six times by the former puppet-Soviet Communist rulers, once told me: “Anyone who has suffered that humiliation, at some level, wants revenge. I know all the lies. I saw people being killed. But I also know that revanchism is never ending. And...

Academics have attacked a decision by a top university to scrap research into English history before 1700. It was claimed that the move by Sussex University risked jeopardising the nation’s understanding of the subject and “entrenching the ignorance of the present”. Under plans, research and in-depth teaching into periods such as the Tudors, the Middle-Ages, Norman Britain, the Viking invasion and the Anglo-Saxons will be scrapped, along with the Civil Wars. The university will also end research into the history of continental Europe pre-1900, affecting the study of the Napoleonic wars and the Roman Empire. The university said it was...

It may be hard for most people to imagine, but Spain was the first global Superpower. It gained this status as the defender of Europe against Muslim armies and by leading the West’s exploration of America. In 1492, the same year that Spanish-financed Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, the last Muslim stronghold of Granada was ceded to Ferdinand and Isabella to complete the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula... It controlled rich parts of Italy through Naples and Milan, and Central Europe from the Netherlands through the Holy Roman Empire to Austria. In the 16th century it added the...

Twelfth-century poem newly translated into English casts fresh light on the origin of today's Francophobic stereotypes Although it is meant to be an 'entente cordiale', the relationship between the English and the French has been anything but neighbourly. Poet Andrew de Coutances, an Anglo-Norman cleric, describes the French as godless, arrogant and lazy dogs When the two nations have not been clashing on the battlefield or the sporting pitch they have been trading insults from 'frogs' to 'rosbifs'. Now the translation of the poem has shown just how deep-rooted in history the rivalry and name-calling really is. Written between 1180...

Freepers: I happened to be reading my grandson's college text on the Middle East. Now I know that the crusades were a bloody affair--but all wars are bloody. In an age where there were no firearms, warriors often ended up fighting nose-to-nose and covered in each other's gore. Now according to the text, no more than 12,000 crusaders made it to Jerusalem in total--1,500 men in armor. Then they fought their way over the walls--were repulsed once--and then had to fight their way uphill to take the city. So, when the capture occurred, there could not have been a whole...

Alexander's men wore linothorax, a highly effective type of body armor created by laminating together layers of linen, research finds. A Kevlar-like armor might have helped Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) conquer nearly the entirety of the known world in little more than two decades, according to new reconstructive archaeology research. Presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Anaheim, Calif., the study suggests that Alexander and his soldiers protected themselves with linothorax, a type of body armor made by laminating together layers of linen. "While we know quite a lot about ancient armor made from...

Once the richest French colony in the Americas - contributing as much as 50 per cent of the mother country's wealth - Haiti now vies with Nicaragua for the title of poorest country in the New World. Thanks to yesterday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake, it is likely to fall further behind its fellow developing nations. The nation, the western half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, came under French rule in 1697 when it was called Saint-Domingue. (The eastern other half of the island - now the Dominican Republic - went to the Spaniards.) Through the course of the 18th century...

Scotland already has more identified Roman camps than any other European country -- reflecting Rome's repeated attempts to stamp its rule on the troublesome north. Now the number is set to increase. The first comprehensive survey of Roman remains for 30 years will boost the total of officially recognised sites and give them greater legal protection, officials said yesterday. Traces of at least 225 Roman military camps dot the Scottish countryside from the Borders to Aberdeenshire... They can be spotted today mostly from the air, where the distinctive bank and ditch defences thrown up by the legionaries still mark the...

The collapse of communism: Reagan, Thatcher and the pope By Joseph A. Cannon Deseret News Published: Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009 12:12 a.m. MST Twenty years ago, my wife, Jan, and I were in what was then called West Berlin for a conference. One pleasant afternoon we walked along the Berlin Wall from the Brandenburg Gate to Checkpoint Charlie. During that time, there were significant rancorous anti-Communist demonstrations in East Germany, primarily in the southern part. A German friend, with typical Prussian hubris, dismissed them. "Nothing will come of this, these are just the ineffective rumblings of a bunch of Bavarians."...

The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one. No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten...

TAMPA, Fla. - Jeffrey Kolowith’s kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships, and place the explorer’s picture on a timeline through history. Kolowith’s students learn about the explorer’s significance, but they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend. “I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,’’ Kolowith said. “And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.’’ Columbus’s stature in US classrooms has declined somewhat through...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history. Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance -- though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend. ''I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was,'' Kolowith said. ''And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.'' Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined...

TAMPA, Fla. – Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history. Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend. "I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was," Kolowith said. "And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy."

The paper, Women in Power: Milestones, listed 28 of the most significant events between 1907 and 2008 involving women on the political stage. The milestones included the election of the first female Head of Government – Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960 and Britain's first woman councillor Reina Emily Lawrence in 1907. The document, produced by the Equality Office which is run by Miss Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, highlights the role of Nancy Astor who was the first woman to take her seat in parliament in 1919, the election of Dianne Abbott...

“Kings,” Louis XIV once observed, “should enjoy giving pleasure” and when it came to the fairer sex, he obeyed this precept zealously and often. “They’re all good enough for him, provided they’re women,” his sister-in-law remarked, “peasants, gardeners’ daughters, chambermaids, ladies of quality”; women of every stripe benefited from the Sun King’s sexual largesse. Neither the bonds of matrimony (to the sad, neglected Marie-Thérèse of Spain) nor the intrigues of his “official” mistresses (one of whom, Athénaïs de Montespan, wasn’t above spreading the rumor that a particular rival had scabs all over her body) could deter him from sharing the...

Russian photos taken 100 years ago look as if they were taken yesterday.

White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums. It was only when early humans gave up hunter-gathering and switched to farming about 5,500 years ago that white skin began to be favoured, say the researchers. This is because farmed food was deficient in vitamin D, a vital nutrient. Humans can make this in their skin when exposed to sunlight, but dark skin is much less efficient at it. In places such as northern Europe, where sunlight levels are...

The first Briton sailed to the New World only seven years after Columbus, a long-lost royal letter reveals.Written by Henry VII 510 years ago, it suggests Bristol merchant William Weston headed for America in 1499.In his letter the king, right, instructs his Chancellor to suspend an injunction against Weston because "he will shortly with God's grace, pass and sail for to search and find if he can the new found land".Bristol University's Dr Evan Jones believes it was probably the earliest attempt to find the North-West Passage - the searoute around North America to the Pacific. He said: "Henry's...

MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia rejects all attempts to hold it responsible for the tragedies of World War II, the head of a presidential commission said on Friday. In mid-May, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the establishment of a special commission to counter attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia's interests. The commission is comprised of 28 officials from the presidential administration, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the State Duma, the Public Chamber, the state archives and science agencies, as well as the foreign, regional development, justice, and culture ministries. Presidential...

"Ukrainian and Russian officials commemorated the 300th anniversary of the defeat of Sweden at the battle of Poltava with the unveiling of a new memorial on Saturday. The commemoration ceremonies showed that the victory, which marked the beginning of Russian imperial dominance of eastern Europe, continues to cause controversy over how history should be remembered. High-profile delegations, including Kremlin administration chief Sergei Naryshkin and top Ukrainian presidency officials, inaugurated a memorial to soldiers killed in the battle and placed garlands in front of local monuments. "After the battle of Poltava... no-one on the European continent could ignore Russia's political will,"...

On the Sack of Rome: "Any time a major urban area is plundered so quickly, it is concerning to us. We are sure the Gauls and Chieftain Brennus understand Roman worries about the utter devastation of their city." On the Blitz: "Any time a city is bombed for 57 straight nights, we take notice. That is something that interests us. We hope all national air forces involved in this dismaying conflict behave responsibly." On the creation of the Berlin Wall: "Any time a barrier divides people we get worried, and perhaps even chagrined. We hope all Germans can work this...

Who were the Huguenots? John Calvin (1509 - 1564), religious reformer. The Huguenots were French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church which was established in 1550 by John Calvin. The origin of the name Huguenot is uncertain, but dates from approximately 1550 when it was used in court cases against "heretics" (dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church). There is a theory that it is derived from the personal name of Besançon Hugues, the leader of the "Confederate Party" in Geneva, in combination with a Frankish corruption of the German word for conspirator or confederate: eidgenosse. Thus, Hugues plus...

> Even as the Russians retreated before him in disarray, Napoleon found his army disappearing, his frantic doctors powerless to explain what had struck down a hundred thousand soldiers. The emperor’s vaunted military brilliance suddenly seemed useless, and when the Russians put their own occupied capital to the torch, the campaign became a desperate race through the frozen landscape as troops continued to die by the thousands. Through it all, with tragic heroism, Napoleon’s disease-ravaged, freezing, starving men somehow rallied, again and again, to cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” >

Economy in a freefall. Political rhetoric. An apathetic electorate dismayed by the slide of their country into irrelevence. Theological liberalism. Doctrinal indifference. America, 2008? No. Germany, just before electing Adolf Hitler to lead their country, with the apparent support of the majority of those who considered themselves Christians. We're rereading a book []by Erwin Lutzer []. In it Lutzer looks at the holocaust and the rise of Hitler and asks the question: where was the Church? This book is a fascinating read, particularly in this time of economic upheaval and election year rhetoric. [snip]Did you know that Hitler was elected...

Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University. A former dean of Yale College, he received his Ph.D. in 1958 from The Ohio State University. His publications include The Archidamian War, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, Pericles and the Birth of the Athenian Empire, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, and The Peloponnesian War. In 2002 he was the recipient of the National Humanities Medal and in 2005 was named the National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecturer.

I cannot accept, your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ~Lord Acton Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and...

You can't help the poor, by destroying the rich. You can't bring about prosperity, by discouraging thrift. You can't lift the wage earner up, by pulling the wage payer down. You can't further the brotherhood of man, by inciting class hatred. You can't build character and courage, by taking away men's initiative and independence. You can't help men by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves. ~William J. H. Boetcker One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who...

World history, as most Westerners interprets it, very much revolves around nations like France, Russia/Soviet, Britain, Italy and USA. These corners of the Earth, undeniably, have played major roles in the development of mankind. BUT, there seems to be a gap in the historical knowledge of several, otherwise well educated, Westerners concerning what took place during the period of approximately 1620-1720 on European soil. A lot of people seem aware that Britain at that time was not really, yet, the world's leading power and that France, Spain, Austria and Holland excersised much of influence over world affairs. However, during this...

On Oct. 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler's armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany. Hitler's tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him. On Aug. 7, 2008, Vladimir Putin's armies marched into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Russia said it was responding to...

MOSCOW -- The Byzantine Empire fell in 1453. But you wouldn't know it in Russia, where Vladimir V. Putin has been behaving as though the 15th century never ended, as though he is the direct descendant of the Byzantine kings and Moscow remains the "Third Rome" it declared itself to be in 1472. Just like the leaders of Byzantium centuries ago, Putin and his supporters talk about Russia today as if it were a divinely ordained power, destined to withstand the decay and destruction of the West. The "double eagle" emblem, originally adopted in Russia about the time of the...

Eminent historian debunks Scottish history as largely fabricationA book by the late Hugh Trevor-Roperand due to be published five years after his death argues that Scottish history is based on myths and falsehoods Stuart MacDonald SCOTLAND’S history is weaved from a “fraudulent” fabric of “myths and falsehoods”, according to an explosive new study by one of the world’s most eminent historians. The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, is the last book, and one of the most controversial, written by the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. Now, five years after his death, the book is to be published at one of the...

Arab women had more rights at the time of the Romans than they have today. At that time, in fact, their capacity to conduct their own economic affairs was recognised, which is not true in Saudi Arabia today. This is maintained by a female Saudi scholar, Hatoon al-Fassi, in a book entitled "Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia", Barred from teaching at King Saud University in 2001, the scholar has examined the situation of Nabataea, a kingdom that at the beginning of the Christian era included parts of modern-day Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and had its capital in Petra. "We now...

Franco 'collaborated with Nazis' to prove Canary Islands were home to Aryan race By Fiona Govan in Madrid Last Updated: 7:12pm BST 11/04/2008 Spanish archaeologists collaborated with the Nazis in their attempts to prove the theory of Aryan supremacy and justify their claims of racial superiority over the Jews, according to a new book. Spain wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis. Archaeologists appointed by Franco were asked to look into claims the Canary Islands were the remains...

NOTE: Today, April 6th, 2008 marks the anniversary of the German bombing campaign against Serbia, which commenced on this day in 1941, drawing Yugoslavia into the war. He had previously assured everyone that he had no intentions of "harming" Yugoslavia or Serbia. On March 27, 1941, the Serbs rejected adherence to the Tri-Partite Pact, which would have allied them with the Axis forces led by Nazi Germany. Hitler responded accordingly. The following is an excerpt from the 56th day of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial that took place in 1946. The topic that day was the German invasion of Yugoslavia....

It is the internet site that contains dark family secrets, unspeakable truths and appalling injustice. The French log on to it in trepidation and in private. Les Guillotinés offers the most complete online list yet established of the French Revolution’s victims and invites users to discover the answer to a terrible question: “Do you have an ancestor who was decapitated?” Hundreds of thousands of people have consulted the death base, created by Raymond Combes, a computer programmer and amateur genealogist. Many more are likely to follow suit. According to one estimate, up to five million French people are descended from...

For centuries Europe was a prickly landscape of heavily armed nation states. Now the continent has largely lost its enthusiasm for conflict. How did that happen? For all its inhumanity, war is a profoundly human institution. Its ugliness can hardly be exaggerated. Men and women caught in the midst of the carnage have struggled to make sense of it. Young soldiers such as Arthur Hubbard, who served with the 1st London Scottish Regiment during the First World War, fractured psychologically under the strain of combat. On 7 July 1916, Hubbard painfully set pen to paper in an attempt to explain...

Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing The Epoch Times Feb 24, 2008 Mysterious ancient books found in Chongqing. For the past two years no one has been able to read them. (Epoch Times screen shot taken from 21 cn.com) The Tujia have been known as an ethnic minority with its own spoken language but without a written language. Yet a succession of ancient books in the same written language have been found in the Youyang Tujia habitation straddling the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou Province, and Chongqing City. For the past two years none have been able to read the...

<p>"Kosovo is Serbia", "Ask any historian" read the unlikely placards, waved by angry Serb demonstrators in Brussels on Sunday. ...</p> <p>History, for the Serbs, started in the early 7th century, when they settled in the Balkans. Their power base was outside Kosovo, which they fully conquered in the early 13th, so the claim that Kosovo was the "cradle" of the Serbs is untrue.</p>

She crucified her enemies and burnt London to the ground. Meet Britain's first feminist, Boadicea By PAUL JOHNSON Last updated at 21:32pm on 6th February 2008 Britain's history is rich in fiery queens, and the first such heroine, tall with red hair down to her waist, commanding and brave, was Boadicea, warrior leader of the ancient Britons. She lived at the same time as the emperors Claudius and Nero, and led a surprisingly successful British revolt against Roman rule in AD60-61 (which, for reference, was when St Paul was writing epistles and St Mark composing his Gospel). She was a...

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real. The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Every once in a while, some pollster comes up with a survey that shows what idiots Westerners can be. They especially like to pick on Americans and their rather insular attitude towards geography, being unable in large numbers to actually find Iraq on a globe or to identify the correct continent for Guyana (South America, in case anyone asks). Jay Leno has a running gag on the Tonight Show where he goes out in the street and asks people simple questions and films them getting the answers spectacularly wrong. So I have some sympathy with our friends in Britain this...

Patriotism lessons would glorify Britain's morally dubious past, say teachersBy LAURA CLARK - More by this author » Last updated at 20:17pm on 31st January 2008 New study: Patriotism lessons could be introduced to foster nation pride but teachers think it could exclude non-British pupils "Moral failings" in Britain's past mean pupils should not be taught patriotism, teachers said in a survey.  Nearly 90 per cent opposed plans for history and citizenship lessons aimed at fostering national identity and pride. One of the 47 London teachers questioned said the lessons might encourage "BNP-"type thinking". Another said the idea "reeked of...

Overnight Islamic Republic have Wiped out 3000-Years of Iranian History 30 October 2007 Pol-Borideh after its destruction by the Islamic Republic Ministry of Road & Transportation" LONDON, (CAIS) -- The destruction of one of the biggest historical sites in the Chahar-Mahal Bakhtiari province by the Islamic Republic Ministry of Road and Transportation was reported by the Persian service of ISNA on Monday, October 22. "Overnight %60 of the architectural and archeological remains of Pol-Borideh in Chahar-Mahal Bakhtiari province is being destroyed to construct a road. The ancient site was registered on the National Heritage List", said Aliasghar Noruzi, an archeologist...

The Last Crusade: Spain 1936By Warren Carroll(Christendom Press/ISI Books, 240 pages, $15) WHEN THE HEROICS of the Spanish Civil War come up -- Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Hemingway's fictions or the effusions of various poets -- there is a very large and usually unremarked elephant in the room: Orwell, who actually fought, and Hemingway who wrote about fighting, were on the wrong side. The strategic point is simple: had the Stalinists won war, then during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact from 1939 to mid-1941, they would have allowed Hitler to cross Spain and seize Gibraltar. Had this happened, the...

Possible discovered of America by Marco Polo before Colomb: account in VSD 'America - its West coast - would have been discovered by Marco Polo some 200 years before Christophe Colomb, according to a chart of the Library of the Congress in Washington examined since 1943 by the FBI and whose history is told in published review VSD Wednesday. This document, brought to the Library in 1933 by Marcian Rossi, an American naturalized citizen originating in Italy, “represents a boat beside a chart showing part of India, China, Japan, the Eastern Indies and North America”, indicates the report/ratio of...

Now in their 70s and 80s, children of the victims of Josef Stalin's political repressions remembered one of the darkest pages of Russia's history at a ceremony Wednesday in central Moscow. Several hundred people laid flowers and lit candles to honor the victims of the Great Purge of 1937, when millions were labeled "enemies of the state" and executed without trial or sent to labor camps. The 70th anniversary comes as the Kremlin, focused on restoring Russians' pride in their Soviet-era history, has been trying to soften public perception of Stalin's rule and hushing up the full horror of his...