Category Archives: History

Benjamin Franklin – Two Maxims

Benjamin Franklin’s accomplishments dwarf those of any American since the advent of recorded history. His accomplishments are so vast and varied that no other American comes close. He was interested in virtually everything and made more contributions to more fields than any of his countrymen before or since his time. He was a writer, scientist,…


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Churchill: Walking with Destiny – Book Review

Author Andrew Roberts has the industry of a worker bee mixed with the allure of a rare butterfly. He turns out historical biographies like lava from an active volcano. His one volume biography of Churchill, a very big one volume comprising 1152 pages, was published in 2018 and is the definitive account of the great…


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Universal Genius

If you do a search for universal genius a variety of definitions will appear. Often they equate the term with polymath. Polymaths are quite numerous, though a very small proportion of the total population. The definition used here is a person whose accomplishment is either so far above any other person of genius in the…


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Follow the Leader

It (progressivism) is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby. GK Chesterton…


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The Last King of America – Book Review

Biographer Andrew Roberts recently published The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. The book is a detailed biography of the monarch who lost America. It’s so detailed that it likely contains more than some readers will care know about the King. Roberts had complete and unprecedented access to the royal archives…


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Quotation of the Month

  This one really speaks to the state of contemporary thought and discourse. “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” ― Marcus Tullius…


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Ostracism and “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”

Ostracism was an interesting feature of the Athenian democracy, if you can call a city-state which granted the suffrage only to adult male land owners a democracy. About 30 to 50 thousand of about 300 thousand Athenians were eligible to vote. Unsurprisingly, democracy in Athens lasted little more than a century. Ostracism derives its name from ostraka,…


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History Minus 101

The following is attributed by CBS News to Senator Lamar Alexander (R Tenn): In talking about consensus building, Alexander described himself as a “very Republican Republican,” but he said senators do their jobs with excessive civility. He rejected the notion that Congress is overly divisive and cited more egregious examples from U.S. history — Vice President…


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