Free Republic

Minnesota is adopting new social studies standards, which will replace those of the discredited Profile of Learning. These standards will specify, for the first time, what Minnesota students must know about American and world history. Is it any surprise, then, that they are the subject of controversy? The new standards' most vocal critics hail (predictably) from the educational establishment. Recently, 32 history professors from the University of Minnesota grabbed the media spotlight with a blistering 13-page letter to Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke. The letter -- which sums up many critics' complaints -- expresses "grave concerns" about the standards, and...

The bloody scenes from Riyadh this weekend remind us that, in large part, the war on terror is a Saudi civil war that the House of Saud has successfully exported to the rest of the world. Sooner or later, it has to be settled within the kingdom itself. Some of us can claim to have been on the Saudi case for over two years now. This excerpt from ‘The Face Of The Tiger’ was written in mid-October 2001. Before the White House decided to lean on the networks and get him off the air, Osama bin Laden popped up on the...

Timeline: Saudi Arabia A chronology of key events: 1871 - The Ottomans take control of the province of Hasa. DESERT KINGDOM Shifting sands: demand could exceed supply The Rub al-Khali is one of the largest deserts in the world The name means "empty quarter" One of the driest places on earth Saudis 'fear sand shortage' BBC Nature: Factfile on the Arabian camel 1891 - The Al Sa'ud family are exiled to Kuwait by the Rashidi family.1902 - Abd-al-Aziz Bin-Abd-al-Rahman Bin-Faysal Bin-Turki Bin-Abdallah Bin-Muhammad Al Sa'ud (often known as Ibn Sa'ud) takes control of Riyadh bringing the Al Sa'ud family...

A U.S. military official on Thursday presented a granddaughter of Josef Stalin with copies of World War II documents about the death of her father, Stalin's oldest son, who died in a Nazi prison camp after being captured by German forces. Jerry D. Jennings, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/missing personnel affairs, handed a simple blue folder packed with papers to Galina Dzhugashvili in a ceremony during a visit to discuss ongoing U.S.-Russian efforts to find missing servicemen from World War II and Cold War conflicts. Dzhugashvili's father was Yakov Dzhugashvili, a senior Soviet lieutenant who died...

THE OTHER SEPTEMBER 11 Commemorating the Victory of the Forces of Christendom over the infidel Turk at the Battle of Vienna 11 September 1683 “The last effort they made to destroy Christendom failed during the last years of the seventeenth century, only just over two hundred years ago. Vienna was almost taken and only saved by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history: September 11, 1683.” Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies, 1938 “More than 300 years ago, Europe lived in fear of the...

In September of 1922, Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the victorious revolutionary leader of Turkey, led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir) a predominantly Christian city, as a flotilla of 27 Allied warships -including 3 American destroyers- looked on. The Turks soon proceeded to indulge in an orgy of pillage, rape and slaughter that the western powers anxious to protect their oil and trade interests in Turkey, condoned by their silence and refusal to intervene. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it. There followed a massive cover-up by tacit agreement of the Western Allies. By...