2022
Birth of Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, 1954
Week of September 18
Americans tend to ignore Japan as a nation, even less the men who have served there as Prime Minister in the post-WWII era. Unless a tsunami...
Duke of Marlborough Wins at Malplaquet, 1709
Week of September 11
Sir Winston Churchill, MP (1620-1688) fathered eleven legitimate children, fought for Charles I in the English Civil War, paid a huge fine for serving on...
Sickness Plagues the Niger Expedition, 1841
Week of September 4
West Africa has long been known as “the white man’s graveyard,” and for obvious and deadly reasons—fatal tropical diseases have plagued Europeans along those coasts for five hundred...
Visigoths Take Rome, A.D. 410
Week of August 21
Empires and tribes come and go throughout history. The prophet Daniel boldly predicted the rise of the following few empires, each of which would succumb to a stronger foe. The last...
Japan Formally Surrenders in WWII, 1945
Week of August 28
On September 2, 1945, Japan signed the “instrument of surrender” to the Allied forces, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. The United States hoped that the war would have drawn...
Thomas Watson’s Farewell, 1662
Week of August 14
Thomas Watson was one of the best known and most reprinted preachers in England’s history. On August 17, 1662 he preached his last sermon to the congregation he had served as pastor for...
President Without Receiving a Single Vote, 1974
Week of August 7
In listing the American Presidents in order, the one left out most often in the 20th Century is Gerald Ford. Part of the reason may be that he...
Decree Expelling Jews from Spain Goes into Effect, 1492
Week of August 1
“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” we learned in our earliest days in school. Leaving aside that the little rhyme to get children to remember...
Robert Barnes Burned at the Stake, 1540
Week of July 24
Some of the early leaders and martyrs of the Protestant Reformation have greater name recognition than Robert Barnes, but few lived as aggressive or colorful life than the Austin...
Operation Valkyrie, 1944
Week of July 3
In ancient Norse mythology, Valkyries were goddesses, appearing as female warriors who attended battlefields to escort the souls of the slain to one of two destinations in the afterlife, half...
Congressional Resolution Establishes the Medal of Honor, 1862
Week of July 3
On June 29, 2022, the last Medal of Honor (MOH) recipient of World War II died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Huntington, West Virginia....
The Declaration of Independence, 1776
Week of July 3
The Declaration of Independence is just that—a declaration of formal separation or secession from Great Britain, the final wording approved by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776...
The Coronation of Queen Victoria, 1837
Week of June 26
Eighteen years old, five feet tall, and eventually the mother of nine children, she became the most powerful woman on earth. Queen Victoria reigned in England for sixty-three-and-a-half years...
The Birth of Justice Clarence Thomas, 1948
Week of June 19
The Supreme Court has always been a political football, with the party in power seeking to perpetuate its beliefs and constitutional theories through SCOTUS appointments. ...
The Battle of Waterloo, 1815
Week of June 12
No individual in history so dominated the continent of Europe as did Napoleon Bonaparte from 1800-1815. He seemed to be the embodiment of the “Great Man Theory” that became prominent in the...
The Founding of the YMCA, 1844
Week of June 5
Throughout the 19th Century, millions of people, especially in the English speaking world, moved from farm to city, from rural to urban areas, causing great social upheaval and the exponential growth...
The Battle of Tsushima Ends, 1905
Week of May 29
The military history of the Far East had little resonance or study in the West prior to the 20th Century. Japan was not open to Western contact until the 1850s, and China remained…
John Brown the Domestic Terrorist, 1856
Week of May 22
The turbulent decade of the 1850s witnessed the attempts by the people of Kansas and Nebraska (1854) to organize formally as territories, looking forward to eventual statehood. Southern…
The Plessy v. Ferguson Case Decided, 1896
Week of May 15
Supreme Court rulings look like the Friday night boxing card between two pugilists, usually destined for future anonymity, but temporarily the main event for entertainment. And so it is with many of those…
Crazy Horse Surrenders, 1877
Week of May 1
Census data, missionary tales, soldiers’ letters and diaries, government documents of all sorts, photographs, and the impressions of enemies have been most often used in the past to tell the…
Edward I Invades Scotland, 1297
Week of April 24
Edward towered over his contemporaries at 6’2”. He thus received the nickname of “Longshanks,” by which history has since known him. He also got the sobriquet, “The Hammer of the Scots,” from later…
The Siege of Derry Begins, 1689
Week of April 17
Nations of the world often have some great battle or last stand or heroic deeds that everyone learns about in popular culture and family lore. Sometimes the event achieves a mythological status, the…
The Edict of Nantes Proclaimed, 1598
Week of April 10
Several of the greatest preachers, evangelists and theologians of the Protestant Reformation were born in France, often writing in French as well as Latin. They pastored churches in France…
General Robert E. Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox, 1865
Week of April 3
April is Confederate History Month in six Southern states. Four states commemorate a “Confederate Memorial Day.” And what a month it was…
Vladimir Putin Elected President of Russia, 2000
Week of March 20
I was born in 1952, about one month before Vladimir Putin, current President of Russia. We both grew up on stories of the Second World War, but...
Julius Caesar’s Assassination, 44 BC
Week of March 13
Cum esset Caesar in citeriore Gallia. . . and so begins De Bello Gallico, The War in Gaul by Julius Caesar. It has often been the first Latin translated by every school-boy and girl for hundreds of years...
The Birth of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1841
Week of March 6
The namesake of his famous father, Holmes, Jr. would exceed him in public recognition on a national scale and come to symbolize the…
Mexican Reinforcements Arrive at the Alamo, 1836
Week of February 27
The Siege of the Alamo in San Antonio de Bexar lasted from February 23 to March 6, 1836. Many people know how it ended in the assault and…
Voice of America Begins Broadcasting in Germany, 1942
Week of February 20
In 2022, “Voice of America provides trusted and objective news and information in 47 languages to a measured weekly audience of more than…
The Final Sinking of the CSS Hunley, 1864
Week of February 13
A bumper sticker I observed in Charleston, South Carolina a number of years ago read: “There are only two kinds of ships: submarines and targets.” How appropriate to see that sign in Charleston, for...
The Births of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, 1809
Week of February 6
In an unusual Providence, Abraham Lincoln, who redefined the political philosophy of the Founders to create a unitary state and set the Republic on a...
The End of the Punic Wars, 146 BC
Week of January 31
The conquest of Europe and the Mediterranean world by Rome did not happen overnight. Defeating the tribes and enemies of the Italian peninsula may have come easily, but the challenge of Carthage...
The Death of General Charles George “Chinese” Gordon, 1885
Week of January 23
Born on January 28, 1833, Charles George Gordon gained international fame as a Major General who testified boldly concerning his Christian faith, lived...
The Birth of Robert E. Lee, 1807
Week of January 17
Robert Edward Lee’s father was a great cavalry commander and hero of the Revolutionary War, General Henry, “Light-Horse Harry,” Lee III. Upon the death of George Washington, Henry Lee...
The Secession of Florida, 1861
Week of January 9
The State of Florida is no stranger to controversy. They are in the news today because of the high value the governor places on personal liberty and Constitutional fidelity. It is not the first time...
The Battle of New Orleans, 1815
Week of January 2
If ever there was an international city in America, New Orleans was it. The city was founded by the French Mississippi Company in 1718, ceded to Spain as a result of the French and Indian War...