Free Republic

China: Two Incidents Open Pandora’s Box – Analysis May 22, 2012 By Bhaskar Roy Two incidents, one regarding Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and the other involving a blind human rights activist and self-taught lawyer Chen Guangchen, destroyed the myth that the Chinese system is a well oiled machine. Policy, individual, and bitter factional rivalries are kept sealed from the public to ensure the Party’s inviolability. This is the biggest political quake the country has experienced since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. The new age of social communication, the internet, has also damaged the Party’s secrecy. Even people inside the...

snip... Washington’s Immortals tells the story of a heroic regiment that saved the Continental Army from destruction at the Battle of Brooklyn by holding the British at bay. Despite the pivotal importance of their sacrifice, the regimental dead are buried in a mass grave with only the most minimal markings, their story largely unknown to the modern public. “About 2010, I was in New York City, and the regimental commander I was with in the Battle of Fallujah, Colonel Willie Buell, is assigned there. He’s part of the Council on Foreign Relations. He just called me up and he said,...

Immortals - The new movie from the producers of 300 to be released Nov. 11th, 2011.

Archaeologists have found a cellar in the university town of Pécs in southern Hungary, which they believe to have belonged to Wallachian Duke Vlad III, more commonly known as ”Dracula.” Tamás Fedeles, tutor of medieval and early modern history at Pécs University said his research showed that Vlad III Tepes alias ”Dracula,” lived in a two-story town house on what is now the city’s central square. Fedeles says the Duke of Wallachia (modern-day southern Rumania) owned the house in the 1460s and this is confirmed by a 1489 document that refers to it as ”Drakulya House.” The document contains a...