Free Republic

The Department of Antiquities has announced the completion of the 2014 excavation season of the Kourion Urban Space project (KUSP) under the direction of Dr. Thomas W. Davis of the Tandy Institute for Archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This year’s excavations uncovered the remains of more victims of the massive earthquake that destroyed Kourion in the fourth century AD. According to an official announcement, initial analysis indicates the remains consist of two adults, a juvenile, and an infant. The family was found huddled together; the infant was found under the right arm of one of...

"The USS Enterprise, a Navy ship stationed in Virginia, is slowly being taken apart. According to The Daily Press, the ship's 'inactivation' is being handled in Newport News. The Enterprise was active between 1962 and 2012 - and is 'the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,' The Press said.A ninth USS Enterprise will eventually be built and may include parts of the eighth ship being disassembled, the newspaper said. .....; Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

As time goes by I find reading less pleasurable, mostly due to time constraints and my continuing fading vision. I find myself listening to more stuff on my MP3 player. I also am finding those voices I want to pay attention to. For almost thirty years one of those people I listen to VERY CAREFULLY is Angelo Codevilla, whose insights into the nature of the political world are unerringly well thought through. His previous book, "America's Ruling Class," a bipartisan evisceration of the political establishment, ranks in my opinion with Thomas Sowell's "Conflict of Vision," perhaps the most insightful secular...

Laura Ingalls Wilder penned one of the most beloved children's series of the 20th century, but her forthcoming autobiography will show devoted "Little House on the Prairie" fans a more realistic, grittier view of frontier living. "Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography" — Wilder's unedited draft that was written for an adult audience and eventually served as the foundation for the popular series — is slated to be released by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press nationwide this fall. The not-safe-for-children tales include stark scenes of domestic abuse, love triangles gone awry and a man who lit himself on fire...

Sprajc and his team found the massive remains as they further explored the area around Chactun, a large Maya city discovered by the Slovenian archaeologist in 2013. No other site has so far been located in this area, which extends over some 1800 square miles, between the so-called Rio Bec and Chenes regions, both known for their characteristic architectural styles fashioned during the Late and Terminal Classic periods, around 600 - 1000 A.D. One of the cities featured an extraordinary facade with an entrance representing the open jaws of an earth monster. The site was actually visited in the 1970s...

There was a time when some mayors and police commissioners knew their duty. First and foremost, protect lives. Second, protect property. Unlike Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, Frank Rizzo knew how to keep the peace and what to do with rioters. "Throughout his career, Mr. Rizzo seemed to embrace controversy. "I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot," he once told a newspaper reporter." Check out the following 1991 NYT column on the life of Philly Police Commissioner and Mayor Frank Rizzo: Frank Rizzo of Philadelphia Dies at 70; A 'Hero' and 'Villain'

" only the large scale here is exceptional. This is the traditional celebratory gunfire at a wedding celebration. Note that the arms being fired are fully-automatic sub-machine guns. And you thought the United States had a "gun culture!" We're pikers compared to most of the Middle East...."

A 200-year-old stoneware seltzer bottle that was recently recovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea contains alcohol, according to the results of a preliminary analysis. Researchers discovered the well-preserved and sealed bottle in June, while exploring the so-called F53.31 shipwreck in Gdańsk Bay, close to the Polish coast. Preliminary laboratory tests have now shown the bottle contains a 14-percent alcohol distillate, which may be vodka or a type of gin called jenever, most likely diluted with water. The chemical composition of the alcohol corresponds to that of the original brand of "Selters" water that is engraved...

We now mark the 69th anniversary of VJ-Day preceded by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. The generations which made the decisions for World War II have passed away. The generation which faced the tragic violence required for carrying out those decisions is rapidly leaving us. As this personal knowledge becomes ever rarer, we must increasingly listen without response to revisionist contra-factual analyses expounding about what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. The arguments advanced display a pleasing, deliberate ignorance which burnishes this peculiar new morality. However, these views...

Homicide Watch Chicago is dedicated to the proposition that murder is never a run-of-the-mill story. Attention must be paid to each one, not merely a select and particularly tragic few. We understand the reality of public’s demand for news - that some stories get more attention than others. But all murders represent a degree of human suffering - direct and indirect - that cannot be ignored. Our goal is to tell the story of every murder in the city, so that together we might fight the tendency to view homicides as just another rising or falling number, like mortgage rates...

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a "patriotic" act. Roosevelt had taken the helm of the country in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression, the nation's worst economic crisis. The Social Security Act (SSA) was in keeping with his other "New Deal" programs, including the establishment of the Works Progress Administration and...

All races White Black Year Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female 2010 78.7 76.2 81.1 79.0 76.5 81.3 75.1 71.8 78.0 2007 77.9 75.4 80.4 78.4 75.9 80.8 73.6 70.0 76.8 2006 77.7 75.1 80.2 78.2 75.7 80.6 73.2 69.7 76.5 2005 77.8 75.2 80.4 78.3 75.7 80.8 73.2 69.5 76.5 20041 77.8 75.2 80.4 78.3 75.7 80.8 73.1 69.8 76.3 2003 77.5 74.8 80.1 78.0 75.3 80.5 72.7 69.0 76.1 2002 77.3 74.5 79.9 77.7 75.1 80.3 72.3 68.8 75.6 2001 77.2 74.4 79.8 77.7 75.0 80.2 72.2 68.6 75.5 2000 77.0 74.3...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XVzHTg706s This is an interesting speech. Speaker burns Secretary Hillary Clinton for treating Kurd PKK who are fighting for freedom, as a terrorist group (enemy of USA) even though they killed no Americans

Born out of the necessity rapidly to put inexpensive submachine guns in the hands of American soldiers and Marines, it was so cheap it looked like a mechanic’s tool rather than the product of advanced American industrial know-how. It was supposed to serve as a replacement to the iconic and expensive Thompson submachine gun, but developed a reputation of its own that kept it in the U.S. military inventory from World War II all the way through Desert Storm. Nobody really loved the M-3 that G.I.s dubbed the “Grease Gun.” But nobody really hated, either.

'Archaeologists unearthing a burial site at Amphipolis in northern Greece have made an "extremely important find", says Greek PM Antonis Samaras. Experts believe the tomb belonged to an important figure dating back to the last quarter of the Fourth Century BC. A large mound complex has been unearthed at the Kasta hill site in the past two years. Lead archaeologist Katerina Peristeri said it certainly dated from after the death of Alexander the Great.'

The College Board has changed the framework for the U.S. Advanced Placement History exam and has released a practice exam. I have just glanced at it, but the reading passage for questions 18-20, from "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America" by Mae Ngai are interesting.

When people joyously discover on Ancestry.com that they're related to, say, a medieval archduke or a notorious Victorian criminal, evolutionary biologists may be permitted to snicker. Because in actuality, we are all related: Humans all share at least one common ancestor if you go far enough back. You are related to every king and criminal who ever lived, to Gandhi and Paris Hilton and Carrot Top. You are even related to me. But buckle up — that's only the beginning. Humanity, after all, is but one ugly branch on the big tree of life. Go back far enough, and you'll...

Archaeologists have unearthed a funeral mound dating from the time of Alexander the Great and believed to be the largest ever discovered in Greece, but are stumped about who was buried in it. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Tuesday described the find as "unique" after he visited the site, which dates to the era following Alexander's death, at the ancient town of Amphipolis in northern Greece. "It is certain that we stand before an exceptionally important find," Samaras said in a statement. "This is a monument with unique characteristics." Hidden under a hill at the ancient town, the Hellenistic-era mound...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit Wednesday to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, where he met the tiny nation’s leaders and commemorated the ferocious World War II battles fought on Guadalcanal. Kerry met with Solomon’s Prime Minister Gordon Lilo and Governor General Frank Kabui to discuss sustainable development, ocean preservation and how the islands’ 600,000 residents are coping with the effects of climate change. …