Free Republic

It all started in February 2017, when Katarina Ristić, then an eighth-grade student at the Emerson School in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, along with four other schoolmates, was given the task of doing a project on “Bosnian Genocide.”A seminar paper by a 14-year-old girl of Serbian origin, Katarina Ristić from Chicago, on the topic of “Bosnian genocide”, stirred the spirits in her primary school, but also opened the way to fight for justice, which resulted in removing propaganda that portrays Serbs in a bad light. and accuses Serbia of committing genocide and killing 200,000 people in Bosnia.Naturally,...

One privacy activist responded: “This decision will be added to the timelines of the most significant expansions of domestic surveillance in the modern era.” WITH ONLY DAYS until Donald Trump takes office, the Obama administration on Thursday announced new rules that will let the NSA share vast amounts of private data gathered without warrant, court orders or congressional authorization with 16 other agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security. The new rules allow employees doing intelligence work for those agencies to sift through raw data collected under a broad, Reagan-era executive order that...

Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I wore these armored gloves from 1508 until his death IMG src="">The first sunglasses date back to the prehistoric Inuits Antoine Fraveau was wearing this breastplate when he was struck and killed by a cannonball at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 King Tutankhamun's sandals This 16th Century ring unfolds into an astronomical sphere Boot dating back to 300 BC found preserved in the frozen ground of the Altai Mountains [Asia] This rare Keaton music typewriter features a circular keyboard with 33 keys for musical notation Surgeon's kit from the American Civil War Carbonized bread from...

In historiography, one learns that historians take facts and evidence to create interpretations of why events happened. The “what” is important, but the “why” serves as history’s lessons. The worst sin a professional historian can commit lies in holding a person, place, or event’s historical period against them. Marcus Aurelius, for example, served as Rome’s finest emperor. Through his wise and restrained government, Rome knew peace, prosperity, and security that it rarely saw again after his death. Christian civilizations have dutifully honored Marcus Aurelius in historical works and statues, choosing to overlook his zeal in persecuting faithful followers of Jesus...

Allegedly on this date in 1724, a young woman was hanged at Edinburgh’s Grassmarket for concealing her pregnancy. Any number of details in this horrible/wonderful story are shaky, including the date: some sources make it 1728, a few say 1723, and only a handful attest a specific calendar date. Nobody seems to doubt the tale in the main, however — and it’s certainly excellent enough lore to deserve even a heavily asterisked entry. Deserted by her husband, young Maggie Dickson took lodgings at an inn in exchange for work, and became pregnant by either the innkeeper or his son. (Again...

Modern banking has its auspicious beginnings in the early to mid Middle Ages. Primitive banking transactions existed before, but until the economic revival of the thirteenth century they were limited in scope and occurrence. By the dawn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, bankers were grouped into three distinct categories: the pawnbrokers, the moneychangers, and the merchant bankers. But with these economic specializations came religious denunciation and backlash. However, these bankers persevered and a new industry was born. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the late fifth century, there followed centuries of deep economic depression, sharp deflation of...

For a country formed as a marriage between free and slave states, the Constitution was a compromise. Why are Americans debating whether the Constitution is a pro-slavery document more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery? Can it be that, after decades of disinterest, Americans have suddenly realized history is fascinating?Historical debates are usually fairly esoteric, more likely to bore than to excite the general public. When historical debates inflame passions beyond the circles of academic history, it is a sign that the debate is not really about the past, but about the present. So it goes with the...

Math? Whatever. It’s a sine of things to come. TikTok girl’s thoughts on math prove the theory that civilization is already dead. From British Museum to Mr. Bean, what made us civilized is being torn down (and we’re not talking about statues). For viral content, in-depth insights and breaking news be sure to follow David Knight on Parlor and Twitter @Libertytarian

It is often said that before the Civil War, the United States “are,” but after the War, the United States “is.” This is a reference to the formerly theoretically sovereign nature of each state as compared to “one nation, indivisible.” More than just the theoretic sovereignty of the individual states, the territory now comprising the U.S. has a rich history of sovereign states outside the control of the federal government. Some of these you’ve almost certainly heard of, but a lot of them are quite obscure. Each points toward a potential American secession of the future. Continue reading America's Sovereign...

America under the sway of the Black Lives Matter movement is reminding me of life in the Soviet Union: One's entire existence is premised on something believed to be untrue. The worst thing about socialism is not empty grocery stores or even the Gulags. The worst thing is harder to represent visually or to pinpoint, but it’s inescapable, and its damage extends for generations. The worst thing about socialism is what being forced to live a lie does to one’s psyche. Save for the few true believers whose numbers dwindle as time passes, virtually everyone experiences this mental toll.By “living...

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul warns of the dangers of being “tossed about with every wind of doctrine.” Early Christianity had very little institutional existence or stability. Churches met in homes (usually those of the wealthy). They gathered around their Bishop (or Bishops) with their Presbyters and Deacons. They were grounded in the Eucharist. When we think about these things in hindsight, we too easily project the institutionality of our own experience onto a very unstable format. The reality is that, at least in the major cities, there were often competing groups. Generally, they were centered around...

The Editor I am not a Southern Partisan (even though I hail from southern Minnesota, the tropical part) nor am I a political partisan having renounced party affiliation in 1988, so I have no particular dog in the fight over historical monuments. That said, I discern some unfortunate (and I hope inadvertent) parallels between the anti-historicists of our current time and numerous misanthropic regimes of the past. In this matter I draw on the wisdom of philosopher George Santayana, who famously said, “Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” This debate is not about the “offensiveness”...

Monalisa Foster’s short story, Pretending to Sleep: A Communism Survivor’s Short Story*, takes readers on a journey into the hourly difficulties of living an “average life” in a Communist country.

If we’re going to make America great again, we have to know what made it great in the first place. That’s why the Left went into a frenzy of vandalism in tearing down statues earlier this summer, not just of Confederates but of those notable slaveowners Lincoln, Grant, and Frederick Douglass. To repudiate American history is to repudiate America itself. In response, lovers of freedom have deplored the destruction and denounce the barbarians, but few are mounting a robust and informed response to their hatred of American history itself. Yet if there is anything that this orgy of destruction should...

Just back from a road trip following the Lewis & Clark Expedition. I had queried FR before we left for 'must see' so wanted to follow up. #1 - We saw Trump signs everywhere!! We left from LA, visited friends in Idaho, then headed east through: Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and home. Not a Biden sign to be seen! It was very encouraging, especially being here in the Occupied Territories. We saw more folks wearing masks than I had expected, but perhaps that was bc we were either in motels or at National Park...

The ritual decapitation of 800 Christians who refused Islam 539 years ago—and whose commemoration was last Friday, August 14—sheds much light on contemporary questions concerning the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West. Background: When he sacked Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II was only 21-years-old—meaning he still had many good decades of jihading before him. He continued expanding into the Balkans, and, in his bid to feed his horses on the altar of Saint Peter’s basilica—Muslim prophecies held that “we will conquer Constantinople before we conquer Rome”—he invaded Italy and captured Otranto in 1480. More than half...

If you are familiar with the wit and wisdom of conservative philosopher and comedian Evan Sayet from his first book, KinderGarden Of Eden: How the Modern Liberal Thinks, or his lecture to the Heritage Foundation on the same topic – the most-viewed lecture in Heritage history, which the late Andrew Breitbart called “one of the five most important conservative speeches ever given” – or his illustrated faux children’s tale about climate change, Apocali Now, or his standup performances, then you know what an incisive and entertaining perspective Sayet brings to our national political conversation. Now Sayet has authored a brand...

...Now Nimro was a mighty hunter, and among carnivores, a beast among all beasts. And having gained over time notoriety above all others, he was exalted in Babolongna and became very great. And when he was great, he became exceedingly proud and lifted up within his heart. And the spirit of Belzub rested upon him. https://devilsnemesis.com/ainigma-1

It always amazes me just how stupid reporters are. Maybe stupid isn’t the right word, ignorant is more like it. How do people who claim to be the arbiters of what is news not follow the news? Seems like knowing what you’re talking about would be an important component of journalism, especially since journalism considers itself “the first draft of history.” But for too many of these left-wing teleprompter readers and Democratic Party stenographers, history just started yesterday. MSNBC anchor Katy Tur is known not for her depth of knowledge on important issues, but her basic ignorance of things that...

A hundred years ago this week, a series of biggest battles that Europe were to witness between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 decided the fate of the continent as much as, if not more than, the Great War itself. In early August 1920, the newly resurrected, independent Poland saved the Eastern Europe, Germany and possibly the rest of the war-exhausted Europe from the triumphant Russian communism. As a result of a little known war in the distant corners of the continent, the status quo of the...