Free Republic

We should stop teaching history in our schools. The way history is now being taught leads to a racist society, perpetuates white privilege, and overlooks the contributions of women and minorities. I ask school districts to immediately remove history curricula, books, and materials that unfairly communicate history until suitable alternatives are developed. Enslaved people built our young nation and made possible an economy that would throw off the control of the most powerful country then on earth, Great Britain. But, oh, at what a price. According to Bennett Minton in The Washington Post, some schools across the country intend to...

The bust was modeled from life just before Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. It was created by American sculptor Vinnie Ream, the first woman to be granted a federal commission by the United States, according to the university’s website. It was purchased and donated to the campus by Ezra Cornell, founder of the university. Its scheduled return to public viewing comes amid concerns over its removal among some Cornell donors and alumni. The public was first alerted of its removal by an article in The College Fix in late June 2022. The Fix was told of the situation by Cornell...

Joe Chambers, who founded The Musicians Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville, died on Sept. 28. Prior to becoming CEO of the multi-million-dollar museum, Chambers was a guitarist, record producer and songwriter on Music Row. The Georgia native arrived in Nashville in 1978 as a member of a rock band seeking recording opportunities. Producer Billy Sherrill and superstar Conway Twitty took him under their wings. Sherrill became his mentor and tutor, allowing Chambers to shadow him in the recording studio. He also gave the guitarist a job at CBS Records and signed him as a staff songwriter for his publishing...

Though it was actually the first operational space shuttle to be retired from NASA service, the Orbiter Vehicle-103 (OV-103) Space Shuttle Discovery certainly earned that retirement after more than 27 years in service. As the third operational orbiter – preceded only by Columbia and Challenger – Discovery actually launched and landed successfully 39 times, more spaceflights than any other craft to date.

A joint study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science has discovered the world's earliest evidence of opium use from pottery that was unearthed during an excavation in Tel Yehud, Israel. The pottery was collected and photographed at the Israel Antiquities Authority lab in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

In other words, it’s far from fated that China’s rise will track forever upward. The United States and China may never reach the crossover point envisioned by exponents of the “Thucydides Trap”—the point beyond which Chinese power outstrips American, giving Beijing the upper hand in the Western Pacific. But Brands and Beckley argue rightly that an impending stall in China’s rise doesn’t mean the coming years will be free from U.S.-China conflict. In fact, the opposite could well be true. A China on the threshold of decline is a dangerous China—as Clausewitz might prophesy were he among the quick today.

...At Dyrrhachium in what is now Albania, Caesar attacked Pompey's supply base on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Because of the vagaries of the wind, Caesar sent supply ships to several destinations across the Mediterranean Sea to ensure his own troops could be fed and outfitted in the coming campaign...An Israeli researcher... studied wind patterns and ancient texts about the weather. And then he did something more unusual. He and a team of experts built a replica of a 5th century B.C. boat and sailed it across part of the Mediterranean to test his theory...In addition, by examining Roman...

Prime Minister Yair Lapid met Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York with UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, who reportedly said she is considering moving the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Lapid expressed “his deepest condolences, on his own behalf and on behalf of the people of Israel, on the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, ” congratulated Truss on taking office, and expressed “confidence that under their leadership, ties between Israel and the United Kingdom will reach new heights in various fields, in particular the economy, innovation and...

The National Jewish Monthly, Volume 77, B'nai B'rith., 1962, p. 1 Review Of The Month Anti Semitism at UN Arab delegates spouted the most vicious kind of anti-Semitism ever heard in the halls of the United Nations during a debate on the Arab refugee issue in the General Assembly's special political committee. The worst statement was made by Ahmad Shukairy, of Saudi Arabia. He said, Argentina "should be saluted" because of its violently anti-Jewish youth organization, Tacuara, and added: "Tacuara has proclaimed a crusade... we propose that Tacuara be adopted by the United Nations." This was too much even for...

While much attention has been paid to Donald Trump’s continuing fixation on denying the results of the 2020 presidential election and the possibility of a repeat in 2024, a more immediate threat to democracy is looming: an alarming number of Republicans across the country are now gearing up to cast doubt on the outcome of the midterm elections this November. The New York Times reports that “six Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in key midterm states … would not commit to accepting the November outcome.” Five others refused to answer the question. The Washington Post found a similar...

Israeli archaeologists on Sunday announced the "once-in-a-lifetime" discovery of a burial cave from the time of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, filled with dozens of pottery pieces and bronze artifacts. The cave was uncovered on a beach Tuesday, when a mechanical digger working at the Palmahim national park hit its roof, with archaeologists using a ladder to descend into the spacious, man-made square cave. In a video released by the Israel Antiquities Authority, gobsmacked archaeologists shine flashlights on dozens of pottery vessels in a variety of forms and sizes, dating back to the reign of the ancient Egyptian king who...

Arabs Read Hitler "My Struggle" Becomes Best Seller Among Anti-Semitics. BERLIN. November 26 (AP). -- Arabs, who join with Nazi Germany in antagonism to Jews, are reading Adolf Hitler's book "My Struggle." The Fuehrer's autobiography, with its anti-Semitic theroies, has been translated into Arabic and already is a best seller in Palestine, German newspapers say. The German edition once was barred in Palestine during the high point of Jewish immigration there, but Arabs who fought the Jewish influx, are reported much interested in the new translation.Nebraska State Journal Archives, Nov 26, 1936, p. 2 - NewspaperArchive

The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was a common practice through most of its history. The practice started in 1683 during the reign of Charles II and continued until abolished on 1 November 1871, as part of the Cardwell Reforms. Commissions could only be purchased in cavalry and infantry regiments (and therefore up to the rank of Colonel only).

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that while some conservatives do want to whitewash the past, “plenty of liberals also want to abuse history to control the present,” through presentism and acting as through “the capacity for cruelty” is “a white thing.” Maher began by saying, “How we teach our kids history has become a big controversy these days, with liberals accusing conservatives of wanting to whitewash the past, and sometimes that’s true, sometimes they do. But plenty of liberals also want to abuse history to control the present, and last month, a scholar named...

Two of the greatest insights from the philosopher Plato are that societies are structured around symbols of justice and unity. and that societies need stories to function in an orderly way without the chaos of tyranny. For most of American history, those symbols of justice and unity were the Declaration, Constitution, flag, and churches. These symbols combined for a powerful unifying story: the story of American liberty and equality that was also inspiring the advance of liberty and equality around the world. In the maelstrom of the chaos of 24/7 news, societal decay and violence, and media and political platitudes,...

Lee and Lee-Jackson highways may officially no more. In a 9-1 decision, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted to change names of Lee and Lee-Jackson highways to Route 29 and Route 50 respectively. “This is a necessary and important change for Fairfax County. We will continue to strive to realize our vision of a more equitable One Fairfax,” wrote Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay in a statement. The move comes after a yearlong review by the county’s Confederate Names Task Force, which called on renaming the highways. The task force submitted recommendations in December. Overall, updates...

The discovery of a young adult who lived for years with an amputated leg pushes back the first documented limb surgery by 20,000 years.At the beginning of the last Ice Age, 31,000 years ago, a community in what’s now Eastern Indonesia buried a young person in the dry floor of a mountainside cave painted with handprints. The people lived on the edge of what was then a low continent called Sunda, and they were likely part of the same group of early seafarers who crossed to Australia. They were sophisticated in other ways, too: According to a description of the...

Loot, a despicable word, was evidently among the first few Hindustani expressions to enter the British lexicon. It aptly illustrates the brand of British colonisation like no other word. On a chilly evening in the first week of December in 1862, British Empire’s railway engineer E.B. Harris reached a small riverside market village called Sultanganj on the south bank of Ganges some twenty miles west of Bhagalpur. Here his 4,771 workers were excavating a vast mound of bricks on the hillside to build a railway yard. Harris, recognised among the railway engineers for the construction of the challenging Jamalpur tunnel,...

Speed can do many things for an aircraft. It can allow an airplane to get to its target quickly and complete its bombing run. Speed can help outmaneuver enemy fighters and shoot them down. It enables survivability to outfox air defense systems. Spy planes such as the SR-71 Blackbird could really boogey. The Blackbird had MACH 3 speed that allowed the bird to outrun surface-to-air missiles. That’s 36.55 miles per minute or 3,216.4 feet per second. In fact, when the SR-71 streaked by, SAMs could barely lock on to target, and if they did the Blackbird was already out of...

Get ready to be blown away. You are about to be treated to a real life story of heroes working tirelessly to Save Democracy and restore normalcy to American politics.Yes, Showtime has taken a deep dive into the wild world of politics to bring you a documentary that will rivet the nation from now until the end of time: Lincoln Project, The Movie.No, I am not kidding. They made a 5 part documentary about the Lincoln Project.It promises to be riveting stuff. Listen to what the producers have to say about it:“There has never been a super PAC that has...