Showing posts with label 17th century. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 17th century. Show all posts
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 ...
Friday, April 5, 2024

A review of Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (audiobook)

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In the seventeenth century , Thomas Hobbes gave the most powerful argument ever written for the necessity of some form of government. His o...
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...
Tuesday, August 29, 2023

A review of John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” (audiobook)

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John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” is one of the greatest political works ever written. It had a massive influence on the founding d...
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...
Thursday, January 24, 2019

The “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut” may be the world’s first written constitution

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“I pass over the constitutions of Rhode Island and Connecticut , because they were formed prior to the Revolution , and even before the pr...
Sunday, December 16, 2018

The Habeas Corpus Act and the English Bill of Rights influenced our Constitution

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“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may r...
Monday, December 10, 2018

How did the Massachusetts Body of Liberties influence the Bill of Rights?

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“No man shall be put to death without the testimony of two or three witnesses or that which is equivalent thereunto.” – The Massachuset...
Thursday, June 7, 2018

The Petition of Right influenced the United States Bill of Rights

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“The history of  Great Britain  is the one with which we are in general the best acquainted, and it gives us  many useful lessons . We may...
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...