Free Republic

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid recently delivered a peculiar history lesson to her social media audience. In her mind a reproach to Donald Trump, Reid warned that the Roman Empire “died because it wasn’t diverse enough,” implying that sticking with “just white folks” leads to inevitable civilizational decline. If history were written by cable news soundbites, we might soon learn that Napoleon lost Waterloo because he lacked a DEI department.In reality, Rome didn’t fall because of a lack of diversity. Nor is Europe today crumbling because of too many white people. Societies fail for many…Former MSNBC host Joy Reid recently...

Former President Joe Biden (D) plans to attend Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome. The news comes after President Donald Trump announced he will be in attendance. Former First Lady Jill Biden will accompany her husband to the funeral on Saturday to honor the late pope, who died at 88 years old, the Hill reported on Friday. In a social media post on Monday, the day the Vatican announced the Catholic spiritual leader had died, Biden said, “Pope Francis will be remembered as one of the most consequential leaders of our time and I am better for having known him.” The...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via phone on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump, the American leader said, declaring that the pair “are on the same side of every issue.” The call covered “numerous subjects including Trade, Iran, etc.,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, adding that the conversation went “very well.” Notably, Trump did not include Gaza or the 59 hostages being held there in his list of topics discussed amid the ongoing impasse in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. However, according to a report in Axios, the pair did talk about efforts to reach...

Washington and Tehran are expected to hold a second round of nuclear talks this Saturday, April 19, in Rome, following what Axios described as a “serious and substantive” first meeting in Oman. On April 12, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi held the highest-level US-Iran dialogue in eight years. Trump later said the talks are "going ok".

From ancient Rome to modern America, the impulse to wall off economies in times of crisis has proven consistently disastrous. Whether through tariff wars, currency debasement, or autarkic fantasies, economic nationalism has repeatedly triggered collapse -- not recovery Politicising structural economic fundamentals always leads to chaos, as history tells us. In the early 1930s, American President Herbert Hoover faced an agonising decision. The global economy, already reeling from the crash of 1929 and the calamity of the Great Depression, presented Hoover with mounting demands from his supporters for protectionism as a means of shielding the American economy from further harm....

Newly-declassified FBI documents shine new light on the FBI’s mishandling of its relationship with anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, on the FBI’s double standards on defensive briefings given to Trump and Hillary Clinton, and other key elements of the debunked collusion saga. Just the News already revealed on Thursday that declassified documents show that Stefan Halper, a key FBI informant in the widely-debunked Russia collusion case, was paid nearly $1.2 million over three decades and was motivated in part by "monetary compensation" — and that he continued snitching for the bureau even after agents concluded he told them an inaccurate...

U.S. Army Private Ethan Melzer Sent Sensitive U.S. Military Information to Members of a Neo-Nazi Group in an Attempt to Facilitate a “Mass Casualty” Attack on Melzer’s Army Unit The Department of Justice announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging Ethan Melzer, 22, of Louisville, Kentucky, for allegedly planning an attack on his U.S. Army unit by sending sensitive details about the unit – including information about its location, movements, and security – to members of an extremist organization named Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), an occult-based neo-Nazi and white supremacist group.   Melzer is charged with conspiring and...

We dive deep into the controversial case of Blessed Carlo Acutis and the troubling evolution of the Church's canonization process. Since Pope John Paul II removed the adversarial "devil's advocate" role, canonizations have exploded in number, with one priest lamenting, "We're becoming a factory here." Friends of Carlo share surprising revelations that cast doubt on the narrative around his extraordinary sanctity, raising uncomfortable questions about manufactured devotion versus authentic veneration.

When it emerged from the ground in 1853 at West Lodge, England, the so-called Colchester Vase was immediately deemed an important find due to its remarkable decorative relief depicting a gladiatorial battle, which dated the piece back to Roman Britain. It was also considered a cremation vessel, having been found containing human remains. But new studies have found that the jar was no ordinary grave object—it could represent the earliest form of sports memorabilia.Conducted by researchers at the Colchester and Ipswich Museums, where the artifact is held, the latest tests reveal that the vase was crafted out of local clay...

If you’d have asked a Roman citizen on New Year in the year 1 AD what kind of a nation he lived in, he’d have likely said a Republic. And he would have been right. That year, just a few years after Jesus was born, Rome was ostensibly a proud republic. While they had a Senate, which was an unelected aristocratic, they also had Consuls, a two-man quasi executive which was elected by representatives of the people. They had Tribunes, who were elected by the people (sans the aristocrats) and who acted as a check on the Senate and Consuls....

Belarus foreign minister dies suddenly - one day after meeting Pope's envoy Ante Jozić amid speculation they were discussing a secret peace plan in Ukraine. CAREER SPY Makei had been foreign minister for a decade and was due tomorrow and Monday to host Vladimir Putin's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Minsk. Lavrov's spokeswoman said Russia was 'shocked' at his passing. No cause of death was given - but several sources speculated that his demise could be suspicious. Makei was described as 'healthy'. He had been trained in the Soviet GRU and had a reputation as Lukashenko's 'grey cardinal'. While Lukashenko...

...the only known case of natural organic glass preservation in history. The brain vitrified at temperatures above 510°C followed by extremely rapid cooling, revealing a new timeline of volcanic hazards during the disaster. This unique preservation was only possible because of a perfect sequence: superheated ash cloud exposure, rapid cooling as the cloud dissipated, then burial by cooler volcanic flows...The victim, believed to be approximately 20 years old, was discovered in the Collegium Augustalium, a public building dedicated to the worship of Emperor Augustus. He is believed to have been the guardian of this important structure, which was located on...

The nearly complete skeleton, with severed feet and a pugio on the back, leaves the cause of death and burial a "real mystery." Archaeologists excavating a 4,900-year-old fortress in Almendralejo, southwestern Spain, have uncovered the burial of a man who may have been a Roman soldier. The solitary, shallow grave was discovered near one of the defensive ditches of the ancient fortress and contained the remains of a man between 25 and 35 years old, laid face down with a pugio—a Roman dagger—on his back. The dagger was found completely intact and still in its sheath. It has been dated...

Luke Farritor, one of the few employees at Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, rose to fame in the tech world after solving a 2,000-year-old riddle that has stumped every historian and archaeologist so far - and he did it with the power of artificial intelligence. 'Wonderkids' in the technology world are certainly not a rare occurrence, as often the best and brightest begin honing their skills from an early age, but young 'genius' Luke Farritor separated himself from the rest by achieving something that many had wrestled with for over 2,000 years. For centuries historians and archaeologists had wrestled...

This video explores the famous "grain dole" of ancient Rome. As we'll see, the dole was only one part of a centuries-long program to subsidize the price of bread in the ancient world's largest city. Chapters:0:00 Introduction 1:12 Grain, glorious grain 2:14 Taxes and transport 3:22 The voyage to Rome 4:33 Raycon 5:40 The grain dole 7:11 Millers and bakers 7:40 State subsidies 8:38 Imperial ideology 9:29 LegaciesThe Welfare Program that Fed a Million Romans | 11:09toldinstone | 541K subscribers | 26,830 views | February 7, 2025

A miniature gold lock dated to the third to fourth centuries was found by a metal detectorist in Germany...An analysis of the tiny lock with CT scans revealed the artifact's inner workings, showcasing its high level of Roman craftsmanship and hinting at trade between northern Germany and Rome in the third century...Measuring just under half an inch (1.2 centimeters) in diameter, the tiny lock was identified by metal detector in a field in Westphalia, a region of northwestern Germany, in 2023...Experts at LWL immediately recognized the gold lock as a miniature version of regular locks made in the Roman provinces...

A team of researchers led by Dr. Orly Lewis from the Department of Classics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has introduced a pioneering multidisciplinary approach to the study of ancient medical texts. Supported by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC), this innovative research combines expertise from veterinary and human medicine, computer and data science, ancient history, and classical philology to shed new light on Greco-Roman medical practices.By reenacting an anatomical dissection described by Galen, one of antiquity's most influential physicians, the team has provided critical answers to questions that have puzzled historians for centuries. Galen's 2nd-century CE...

This video explores the burial place of every Roman and Byzantine emperor, from Augustus to Constantine XI. | Where Every Roman Emperor was Buried | 13:52toldinstone | 538K subscribers | 43,428 views | January 24, 2025

Ancient texts speak of a strange and valuable metal known as orichalcum. The mystical material was often dismissed as a fantastical invention – until they discovered a large cache of the stuff in the Mediterranean Sea. Orichalcum’s name is derived from the Greek for "mountain copper.” One of its most prominent mentions comes in the legend of Atlantis by Plato, in which it is described as “more precious [...] than anything except gold.” The dialogue, called Critias, explains how the mythical citadel of Atlantis was adorned with walls, pillars, and floors that were coated in orichalcum, endowing the building with...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday, as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with Trump before his inauguration on Jan. 20. Members of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others. Her trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12. While no details of their meeting have been disclosed, Meloni had planned to talk with Trump about Russia's...