I’ve been working my way through some of Pennsylvania’s land records as part of the project I’m working on, and ran across a survey mentioning a county I’d never heard of before. Looks like the copyist was in a hurry.
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
A Pre-Typo Typo
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Gorbachev Looks Back
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011Drudge had an interesting link today to an interview the Guardian did with Mikhail Gorbachev recently. There are a couple of nuggets of new information about the chaos surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – nothing too surprising, but things that give better insight into what was going on within the Soviet government before the coup. Gorbachev is an eminence grise in Russian politics, and deservedly so. He makes some interesting comments regarding liberalization in China as well as on Putin’s leadership as well. Definitely worth looking into, as the man quite obviously shows his vast experience as well as his sound political intuitions.
Putting The War On Terror In Perspective
Thursday, August 11th, 2011Now that Bin Laden is dead, we can finally start putting the past decade into perspective. Via Powerline I ran across this article that begins to do just that. It’s definitely good to be able to step away from the day-to-day skirmishes over politics of the moment and look at things in context.
Another Side Of The Story
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011Rewatching the coverage of the September 11 attacks the other day, it made me wonder what the reaction of those students in that classroom in Florida thought about being front and center while history was being made. Apparently the folks at Time were wondering that too.
It’s difficult for me to realize that the little kids you see in that footage are the same age as the students I have every day in class. It’s hard for me to imagine what growing up in the shadow of the smoke rising from the Twin Towers and never knowing things to ever be any other way would be like. I suppose it would be similar to the Cold War in that respect, but even I can only barely remember the end of that – I was about the same age when it ended that these kids were when the war on terrorism began. Definitely food for thought there.
UPDATE 5/5/2011 21.20: CNN has been taking a look at comments made by their users on this subject as well, and their coverage of that is also rather illuminating. There are definitely views from all sides on the issue.
Inspiration 150 Years Old
Saturday, April 9th, 2011There’s quite a good story here from the New York Times – they have been covering the history of the Civil War 150 years on, and this article is an inspiring story of how slavery REALLY ended in America.
Frank Buckles
Monday, February 28th, 2011The last surviving American doughboy is dead. Be sure to read the whole way through the article – some of the things the man experienced and remembered are phenomenal.
Rest in peace, sir.
Comparing Genocide
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011Slate has a fascinating article here on the unmitigated evil of Stalin, and the comparison of him to Hitler. The author makes some excellent points, and dances around the key lesson given us by the mass murderers and Ukrainian cannibalism, but never quite gets there. I’ll copy in my comment on the article:
The author gets really close to the key revelation of these incidents here, but doesn’t quite get there. “That any human could cause or carry out such acts must mean many are capable of it” – yes, indeed. Man is capable of great acts of goodness, but within everyone is the potential for great evil as well. The murders that both Stalin and Hitler committed were not done by those men themselves – they had the willing cooperation of hundreds of thousands and the silent acceptance of millions to commit their crimes. What portion of the blame does the individual NKVD or Gestapo agent bear? What portion the average German or Russian who stood by in silence while their fellow men were butchered? For that matter, what portion of the blame do those in the west who idealized Hitler or Stalin and tried to align the western democracies with either of them? The vital lessons to take out of this is that EVERYONE is capable of evil, whether active or passive, and that evil is real, and must be confronted.
Today’s Find
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010I was outside raking dead grass today, and something caught my eye:
I’m definitely no expert on prehistoric artifacts, but it looks to be a fairly late lithic point – not sure when, or even what style, but pretty cool nonetheless.
Repercussions of World War 2
Friday, January 9th, 2009It’s hard to comprehend just how massive an event the Second World War was. There’s a fascinating story here about one man still trying to come to grips with his past, and how his early life was completely shaped by the Nazi conquest.
Cool Picture
Friday, January 9th, 2009Regardless of what it really was, this picture from the Telegraph is pretty cool looking:
"Searchlights converge on an unidentified object over Los Angeles on February 25, 1942. The bright blobs around the flashes are anti-aircraft shells exploding."