Free Republic

6. The Davenport Tablets The Davenport Academy was a major force in early American amateur archeology. Unfortunately, the organization ended up lending its name to one of the most ridiculous hoaxes in American history. In 1877, Reverend Jacob Gass claimed to have found a set of four inscribed tablets buried in an ancient mound in Iowa. Gass was quickly invited to join the Davenport Academy, which contained many supporters of the “Mound Builders” myth. This theory, now entirely discredited, argued that Native Americans were too primitive to have built the giant earthworks that dot the American countryside. Instead, 19th century...

BISBEE — Bisbee High School sent 84 seniors out in the world Thursday night with some sage advice from both students and teachers alike. It was lovely evening at Bisbee’s historic Warren Ballpark, where a full moon shone over Bisbee’s hills while students waited nervously for the ceremony to begin. The theme of the evening was perseverance, brotherhood and love. Bisbee High School principal Laura Miller gave her first commencement speech, while keynote speaker, former Bisbee High teacher and coach Walt Edge gave his 50th.

What causes one culture to flourish while another flounders? Why do some civilizations reach great heights only to fall mightily? Historians have dedicated great tomes to these questions. Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West are two prime examples of this line of inquiry. But another can be found not in a work of non-fiction, but that of historical fiction. In Tides of War, author Stephen Pressfield provides a fictionalized account of one of the greatest conflicts in history — the Peloponnesian War — fought between two of the West’s greatest...

ohn Amos isn’t known for biting his tongue, and that has been well-documented, especially when his character James was killed off of Good Times. But now that the Roots remake is airing soon, the actor has voiced his opinion about the History Channel series and how he’s not sure that it’ll be as impactful as the original version was. SNIP “I guess it will be contingent upon how well it’s done, but I don’t think it’s gonna have the same impact for a number of reasons,” he said. “One, the circumstances that Roots was originally shown under was totally different...

They have a socialist paradise in Venezuela! People there receive "according to their needs". But you'd better not need much in Venezuela Lest you find your self buried under weeds. Oooooooooohhhhh! They're cooking cats on every corner in Caracas. In Maracaibo they make a meal of mud. Palmasolans put pepper on their pooches. Hugo Chavez sure turned out to be a dud! The professors in their classes in the US Tell their students that socialism is great. But I don't think they'd be asking for seconds If Spot and Mittens were cooked and on their plate! Oooooooooohhhhh! They're cooking cats...

New Orleans and the state government prepared to go to war over control of the city in the summer of 1934. At 10 o'clock one Monday night that July, as Sen. Huey Long sat in his suite atop the Roosevelt Hotel, National Guardsmen under his control broke down the doors of the registrar of voters office across Lafayette Square from City Hall. The heavily armed forces searched and surrounded the building. Snipers trained their guns on the office of Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley, a former political ally of Long who was now his bitter adversary. A tense standoff ensued. Long,...

I saw an article on Yahoo Bashing SGTMAG Plumbley for being a Fake with an exaggerated record. What the hell started this?

Fresh from the huge success of their adaptation of War & Peace, work has begun on the BBC's latest literary drama. To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters, written and directed by the award winning Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango In Halifax), has begun shooting, with the streets of York transformed this week for the one off, two hour drama. Finn Atkins, who plays Charlotte Bronte and Charlie Murphy, who has been cast as her younger sister Anne, were both spotted on set on Thursday in their elaborate 19th century costumes.

American and Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a rare structure called a nilometer in the ruins of the ancient city of Thmuis in Egypt’s Delta region. Likely constructed during the third century B.C., the nilometer was used for roughly a thousand years to calculate the water level of the river during the annual flooding of the Nile. Fewer than two dozen of the devices are known to exist. Before the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, the Nile flooded the surrounding plains each year in late July or August. As the waters receded in September and October, they left...

This video was a looooong time coming. It seems almost daily some leftist troll is espousing the wonders of socialism. Usually from a device which was created through capitalism. Yes, we’re looking at you SJW hipster, Bernie Sanders supporters, tweeting about how horrible the free market is from your iPhone. Most startling is that this video in support of Karl Marx has seen a resurgence in no small part, due to Bernie voters. No really, peep the comments. So it required a rebuttal. We’ve done so in video format, so you don’t have to read any more words. #Caring. VIDEO...

On what would have been her 95th birthday, Google is recognizing late activist Yuri Kochiyama with one of its most visible honors: a Google Doodle on the search engine's homepage.

A study suggests that lead isotopes can reveal the history of ancient Roman water distribution systems. The impact of the Vesuvius volcanic eruption in AD 79 on the water supply of Naples and other nearby cities has been a matter of debate. Hugo Delile and colleagues measured lead isotopic compositions of a well-dated sedimentary sequence from the excavated ancient harbor of Naples. The isotopic composition of leachates from the harbor sediments differed from those of lead native to the region, suggesting contamination from imported lead used in the ancient plumbing. The authors observed an abrupt change in isotopic composition in...

New research published by archaeologists from MOLA reveals a previously unknown Roman fort, built in AD63 as a direct response to the sacking of London by the native tribal Queen of the Iceni, Boudica. The revolt razed the early Roman town to the ground in AD60/61 but until now little was understood about the Roman's response to this devastating uprising. Excavations at Plantation Place for British Land on Fenchurch Street in the City of London exposed a section of a rectangular fort that covered 3.7acres. The timber and earthwork fort had 3metre high banks reinforced with interlacing timbers and faced...

Just below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, a team of archaeologists, scholars and students will soon be busy at work excavating one of Jerusalem's most important archaeological sites... a wealthy residential area that saw its heyday during the time of Herod and Jesus. Directing the operation is Shimon Gibson, a British-born Israeli archaeologist and adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte... Referred to as the Mount Zion excavation because of its location in the sacred elevated area at the center of ancient Jerusalem near the historical Temple Mount, the work here is important because...

Will [Donald Trump] have some appeal to working-class Dems in Levittown or Bristol? Sure. For every one he’ll lose 1½ , two Republican women. Trump’s comments like “You can’t be a 10 if you’re flat-chested,” that’ll come back to haunt him. There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally. — Ed Rendell, a surrogate for the Hillary Clinton campaign

HISTORY® premieres "Roots" on Memorial Day 2016, airing over four consecutive nights at 9 p.m. beginning Monday, May 30, it was announced today by Paul Buccieri, President of A&E and HISTORY. The four-night, eight-hour event series developed by HISTORY, from A+E Studios, is a historical portrait of American slavery recounting the journey of one family and their will to survive and ultimately carry on their legacy despite hardship.

One civilization's trash is another civilization's treasure. A ship in Israel's Caesarea Harbor was filled with bronze statues headed for recycling when it sank about 1,600 years ago. Now, thanks to a chance discovery by a pair of divers, archaeologists have salvaged a haul of statuary fragments, figurines and coins from the seafloor. The coins found in the wreckage date to the mid-300s A.D. Some show Constantine, who ruled the Western Roman Empire from A.D. 312-324, and who unified the Eastern and Western Roman Empire in A.D. 324; he ruled both until his death in A.D. 337. Other coins show...

The story starts with a young nobleman named Duke Pierfrancesco "Vicino" Orsini. Orsini was born around 1516 and married a noblewoman named Guilia Farnese in 1544. He worked as a military officer and diplomat until 1553 when he was captured in the same battle that killed his best friend. He was held for ransom for three years and then, shortly after his release, his beloved wife died. Depressed, Orsini retreated to his family's holdings near Bomarzo where he began to plan his strange, melancholy garden. What is known of the garden is mostly just what historians have found by visiting...

A most excellent songwriter aka "The Craftsman", built songs as well as guitars.

The First Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, being appointed by George Washington, was also President of the American Bible Society. Who was he? John Jay, who died MAY 17, 1829. As President of the Continental Congress, John Jay approved the "Circular Letter from the Congress of the United States of America to their Constituents," September 13, 1779: "Friends and Fellow Citizens... In governments raised on the generous principles of equal liberty... the rulers of the state are the servants of the people, and not the masters of those from whom they derive authority... ...The ungrateful despotism and inordinate...