Showing posts with label 17th century. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 17th century. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 29, 2026

How little-known European conflicts sucked in Britain’s American colonies

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Note: This post covers a number of conflicts in various parts of the world. But all of them are arguably part of a larger pattern of Europea...
Saturday, May 23, 2026

The Thirty Years’ War was intertwined with many other conflicts

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The Thirty Years’ War eventually claimed at least four million lives … It was one of the most destructive wars in European history . The Thi...
Monday, April 27, 2026

Forgotten world empires: The rise and fall of the Dutch Empire

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During the  Enlightenment , the Netherlands were one of the world’s great imperial powers. They were then one of the freest countries in the...
Monday, January 26, 2026

The Great Turkish War: How Europe fought back against the Ottomans

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In the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire was making many enemies in Europe The seventeenth century was rocked by several wars in Euro...
Friday, September 19, 2025

Piracy played a role, early in the “Second” Hundred Years’ War

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“When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village [Hannibal, Missouri] on the west bank of the Missis...
Tuesday, June 10, 2025

A review of “The Salem Witch Trials” (History Channel)

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“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” – The Hebrew Bible, “The Second Book of Moses Called Exodus,” Chapter 22, Verse 18 (as translated b...
Monday, March 24, 2025

The English Empire: The predecessor of the British Empire

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“In the reign of king Henry the seventh, his ministers (not to say the king himself) were more industrious in hunting out prosecutions upon ...
Sunday, November 19, 2023

A review of the BBC’s “The Stuarts & The Stuarts in Exile”

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“… all and every person and persons, who shall or may take or inherit the said Crown, by virtue of the limitation of this present act, and i...
Monday, June 19, 2023

The unknown story behind the King James Version of the Bible

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“If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost!” – Willia...
Sunday, December 25, 2022

A review of “Isaac Newton’s New Physics” (audiobook)

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“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke on 5 February 1675 Sir Is...
Monday, September 5, 2022

A review of “Versailles” (French documentary)

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“ L’état, c’est moi. ” (“I am the State.”) – A line attributed to King Louis XIV of France – a line that he may or may not have actually sa...
Tuesday, February 15, 2022

A review of “Astronomy: The Heavenly Challenge” (audiobook)

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The battle over the Sun-centered universe was as much political as it was scientific. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , a th...
Thursday, November 21, 2019

A review of Ric Burns’ “The Pilgrims” (PBS)

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“Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant...
Monday, July 8, 2019

A review of “Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire” (PBS Empires)

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Japan's initial contact with the West in 1543 In the year 1543, a Portuguese trading ship arrived in the Japanese island of Tanegash...
Saturday, April 25, 2015

Cromwell: The movie that brings the English Civil War to life

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The English Civil War was a war over ideas, much like the American Revolution ... The British historian  Simon Schama  once said that th...