Sunday, December 29, 2024

Andrew Johnson: The man who botched Reconstruction

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An anecdote about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth … On April 14th, 1865,  President   Abraham Lincoln  was  assass...
Wednesday, December 25, 2024

A review of PBS’s “From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians”

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“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst....

A review of “Protestant Christianity” (audiobook)

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In 1517,  Martin Luther  wrote the “Ninety-Five Theses,” a written attack on the  Catholic Church . Luther may or may not have pinned this ...
Sunday, December 8, 2024

Forgotten battlegrounds of the World Wars: Asia and the Pacific

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Warning: This blog post contains some disturbing pictures. One of these, in particular, is very graphic, and may merit special caution. We a...
Thursday, December 5, 2024

The complicated legacy of Martin Van Buren

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Martin Van Buren was part of the “Jacksonian Era,” named after the controversial  Andrew Jackson . Nonetheless, historians usually begin th...
Sunday, November 24, 2024

Why is Zachary Taylor now considered a “forgettable” president?

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By 1849, General Zachary Taylor had spent more than four decades in the United States Army . He had become one of the heroes of the Mexican-...
Saturday, November 23, 2024

Franklin Pierce: One of our most pro-slavery presidents

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In the earliest decades of the United States , all successful political parties tried their best to sidestep the controversial issue of sla...