Free Republic

England was invaded by “Dane” Vikings from Scandinavia who destroyed churches, libraries and defeated all opposition except for 23-year-old King Alfred. Forced into the swampy, tidal marshes of Somerset, Alfred, King of the Anglos and Saxons, began a resistance movement in 878 A.D. According to biographer Bishop Asser, “Alfred attacked the whole pagan army fighting ferociously in dense order, and by divine will eventually won the victory.” King Alfred’s Law is considered the basis for English Common Law as it contained concepts such as liberty of the individual family and church, a decentralized government and equal justice for all under...

The nation's Republicans are working against the clock to answer two key questions: Can conservative Ronald Reagan possibly attract enough independent and Democratic votes to win in November? "Reagan is the opponent of choice for Carter," says I. A. Lewis, director of the Los Angeles Times Poll, a point on which most analysts agree. "But Reagan can reach across and cause mischief in the Democratic constituency," Mr. Lewis says. "Reagan appeals to blue collar, working-class voters. He can win Democratic votes..."

The irony here, of course, is that the history lesson of democracy gets delivered by a former refugee from the former Soviet Union, but the history lesson doesn’t just end with the USA. One young man tried to pass an “Occupy Wall Street Journal” to two men observing the protests, and ended up gaining an education in history, politics, economics, and statecraft. Give the young Occupier credit, as Joe Schoffstall says — he was at least willing to listen. I’m not sure he was actually convinced, but he at least knew better than to keep arguing:

Our lesson for today comes from George and Ira Gershwin:       They all laughed at Christopher Columbus        When he said the world was round        They all laughed when Edison recorded sound        They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother        When they said that man could fly        They told Marconi wireless was a phony . . . Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang it in the film Shall We Dance? (1937). Seventy-five years on, the president revived it to tap dance around his rising gas prices and falling approval numbers. Delivering his big speech on energy at...

London, England, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Britain's Prince Harry has agreed to apologize personally to the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. The prince, who is third in line for the British throne, has been dogged by criticism since he was photographed at a party wearing a Nazi uniform. After talking with his father, Prince Charles, the 20-year-old agreed to meet Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Britain's leading rabbi, before or after the Jan. 27 celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Times of London reported Saturday.

America's Eurasian reshuffle By Francesco Sisci and Lu Xiang BEIJING - The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, seemed close enough to Samuel P Huntington's forecasts in his famous The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, but the consequences for the world appear now, some 18 months after those events, completely opposite. France and Germany, the bulwark of Western civilization according to Huntington, are on a collision course against the United States; ironically, the European countries closer to the US are the ones further from Huntington's "nordic" culture: Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe. France and Germany, partly...