I’ve been slowly reading Paul Johnson’s The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830. Don’t let the dry dull title or its length put you off; it’s wide-ranging and has something of interest (and something I didn’t previously know) on … Continue reading →
You should have seen it around 1815: To send a letter from the United States to Britain, you addressed it by domestic U.S. Mail to a shipping house on the coast, enclosing money to cover ocean travel and inland postage … Continue reading →
It’s been 73 years to the day that the Munich Pact was signed (on September 30, although it was post-dated September 29), ceding the Sudetenland to Hitler and giving appeasement a bad name. No, I don’t have the date memorized; … Continue reading →
Ten years ago today. That’s a long time. So long ago that there are now teenagers who were so young back then that they don’t remember it. To them, 9/11 is just a piece of history, not part of their … Continue reading →
Well, the 9/11 Memorial was a long time coming, but it will be opening tomorrow on the 10th anniversary of that fateful day. Take a look, and perhaps you’ll agree with me that it’s a fitting tribute, classic and moving … Continue reading →
Ronald Brownstein thinks that the recent ten-year stretch—the one that’s been going on since 9/11—is the worst America’s been through since the Civil War and then the Great Depression. I disagree. I think that the decade beginning some time in … Continue reading →
Ever hear of Propaganda by the Deed? At the beginning of the 20th Century, anarchists were in the middle of what was known as the ”˜Propaganda by the Deed’ period. The idea was that by killing members of the ruling … Continue reading →
There are two topics almost guaranteed to draw a lot of heated commentary and trolls. No, I’m not speaking of tits and ass (hey, I just threw that in to see if some traffic would come). I’m speaking of (a) … Continue reading →
I’ve been reading a book by Vincent Bugliosi entitled Reclaiming History, which purports to definitively prove that Oswald killed JFK by himself and was not part of any conspiracy. Bugliosi amasses a mountain of evidence (almost literally; the book is … Continue reading →
…and says she was essentially correct, I guess we can finally believe it. The stupidhead.
Continue reading →The right side of the blogosphere has been busy digging up evidence that Sarah Palin’s remarks on Paul Revere, for which her opponents had derided her in their usual manner, were actually correct (I did my little part here). Now … Continue reading →
Palin commits an Obamaism and mispeaks on history: [Paul Revere] who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town … Continue reading →