A review of “Iran: The Forgotten Glory”

“All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he [including Daniel] shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree.”

– The Hebrew Bible, “The Book of Daniel,” Chapter 6, Verses 7 through 9 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible) – a notable chapter in the Bible to mention the Persians

There are actually three pre-Islamic empires in Persia, and this film is about two of them

There are actually three pre-Islamic empires in Persia. This film is about two of them. The first episode covers the Achaemenid Empire, and the second episode covers the Sasanian Empire. Thus, they (mostly) skip over the Parthian Empire that was between these two great groups. (More about that empire later.) The first episode is roughly 53 minutes long, while the second episode is roughly 44 minutes long. Thus, this film is a little more than an hour and a half in all. It’s a reasonably good primer on the history of Ancient Persia. But its focus seems to be more archeological than historical. Its focus is on showing ancient ruins and reliefs, and what they tell us about the Ancient Persians. And I’m perfectly okay with this film being so low-budget. They make reasonably good use of maps, reconstructions, and other relevant images. They rely on two talking-head scholars, one of them speaking a language that I presume to be Farsi – the Iranian dialect of modern Persian. The other is an American guy from California, whose name suggests some Iranian ancestry of his own – something that proves to be quite helpful in this context. And the film’s credits show many Iranian names involved in the making of this film. But one feels that the viewer doesn’t get a great understanding of Persia’s military or political history, or even their cultural history. They don’t even really show where these great Persian events took place. It’s just an examination of the artifacts from the time (including their art), and what they tell us about the Ancient Persians themselves.

Darius the Great

John Tyler: The only US president to take part in the Confederate government

“I do solemnly swear [that] I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

– Text of the presidential oath of office (as taken by John Tyler), from the United States Constitution (written 1787), Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 7

When the American Civil War began in 1861, the former president John Tyler initially supported a peace conference. When that failed, John Tyler sided with the Confederacy. He was a slaveholding Virginian, and would preside over the opening of the Virginia Secession Convention. John Tyler would even serve as a member of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States. Later on, he won election to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before it was first assembled. Earlier in his career, John Tyler had been the tenth president of the United States. He had presided over this very same Union, from which he was now voting to secede. John Tyler is thus the only president who took an active part in the Confederate government. When he died, John Tyler’s coffin was draped with a Confederate flag – the only president ever laid to rest, under a different flag from that of the United States. But who was John Tyler? What is the legacy of his presidency? And where did this man come from?

John Tyler

The English Empire: The predecessor of the British Empire

In 1485, the last Plantagenet king of England fell in battle. His name was Richard the Third, and he was killed on the battleground of Bosworth Field. The winner of the battle was a young man named Henry, who then became “Henry the Seventh.” He was the first of the Tudor rulers of England. Henry had been on the Lancastrian side of the “Wars of the Roses.” But, when he married a Yorkist lady in 1486, the two factions from the civil war were finally united, since he was marrying someone from that faction. Her name was Elizabeth of York, and she would eventually give birth to a son in 1491. The boy was the future “Henry the Eighth,” who would eventually form the new “Church of England.” (More about that here.) But, at that time, the boy’s birth signaled a formal end to the “Wars of the Roses.” The following year was 1492, the year that Christopher Columbus was arriving in the Americas. Spain and Portugal would soon be creating massive overseas empires, in which they spread their longtime Catholic faith to distant shores. Henry the Seventh was still the king of England in 1496, when he commissioned John Cabot to sail to Asia. Cabot sailed in 1497, but instead landed on the coast of Newfoundland – in what is today Canada. They did not yet attempt to found a colony there. Cabot later made another voyage to the Americas, but did not return. To this day, no one knows what happened to Cabot’s ships.

A replica of John Cabot’s ship the Matthew

A review of “Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead” (audiobook)

Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead once collaborated on a book. It was a three-volume work entitled “Principia Mathematica” – not to be confused with the similarly-named work by Isaac Newton. Both Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead were mathematicians, as well as philosophers. They had a lot in common. But they would diverge significantly in their later years, in religion and politics as well as in philosophy. This audiobook covers both of them, although it may cover Bertrand Russell even more.

A review of “Skepticism and Religious Relativism” (audiobook)

I was expecting something very different from this audiobook. Specifically, I was expecting to get an overview of agnostics, atheists, and other like-minded groups (including “secularists”). And these groups are certainly covered therein. But it is really a treatment of religious skepticism, including within the religious community. This audiobook also talks about the different kinds of skepticism, and the responses to it from within the believing community. And it finally talks about religious relativism – the idea that all religions are just a “state of mind,” and that none of them is more valid than any other. (More about that later.)

William Henry Harrison: A great general and a 30-day president

In the United States, the most famous general in our War of 1812 was probably Andrew Jackson, who now appears on our $20 bill. But my vote for the greatest American general of the war would go to William Henry Harrison, whose name has never even been heard by most contemporary Americans. He was one of the great generals in American history, but he is remembered mainly for being just a 31-day president. As the Animaniacs would later joke, “William Harrison, how do you praise? That guy was dead in thirty days!” He is the shortest-serving president in American history, when you exclude all currently-serving presidents from this category. A president who has just been inaugurated would technically have even less time in office, but usually has a good chance of making it past day 31 in good shape. Mr. Harrison is often excluded from presidential rankings, because his brief tenure provides little data by which to judge his administration. But his pre-presidency life provides much greater insight into his character, and makes his story much more interesting than his anticlimactic death by natural causes in 1841. He was first and foremost a great soldier, who contributed much to the early American republic.

William Henry Harrison

William McKinley: President during the Spanish-American War

In 1898, President William McKinley sent American troops to fight in Cuba and the Philippines. This conflict is now known as the “Spanish-American War.” It lasted for only six months, but had a profound influence on world affairs. The war is now controversial – but at the time, it was viewed as a great success. But only three years after the war, William McKinley would be assassinated. In 1901, he was visiting Buffalo, New York, when he was shot by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Who was William McKinley? What was his legacy as president? Why was he struck down at the height of his glory? And where exactly did this unknown man come from? These are the questions that this post will try to answer.

William McKinley