Category: History

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, D.C.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE —August 6, 1945

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam” which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.

It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1’s and the V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb at all.

The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.

Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists working together we entered the race of discovery against the Germans.

The United States had available the large number of scientists of distinction in the many needed areas of knowledge. It had the tremendous industrial and financial resources necessary for the project and they could be devoted to it without undue impairment of other vital war work. In the United States the laboratory work and the production plants, on which a substantial start had already been made, would be out of reach of enemy bombing, while at that time Britain was exposed to constant air attack and was still threatened with the possibility of invasion. For these reasons Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt agreed that it was wise to carry on the project here. We now have two great plants and many lesser works devoted to the production of atomic power. Employment during peak construction numbered 125,000 and over 65,000 individuals are even now engaged in operating the plants. Many have worked there for two and a half years. Few know what they have been producing. They see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of those plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly small. We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won.

But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in managing so diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in an amazingly short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.

The Secretary of War, who has kept in personal touch with all phases of the project, will immediately make public a statement giving further details.

His statement will give facts concerning the sites at Oak Ridge near Knoxville, Tennessee, and at Richland near Pasco, Washington, and an installation near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the workers at the sites have been making materials to be used in producing the greatest destructive forces in history they have not themselves been in danger beyond that of many other occupations, for the utmost care has been taken of their safety.

The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man’s understanding of nature’s forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced on a basis to compete with them commercially. Before that comes there must be a long period of intensive research.

It has never been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this Government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally, therefore, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public.

But under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of production or all the military applications, pending further examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of sudden destruction.

I shall recommend that the Congress of the United States consider promptly the establishment of an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make further recommendations to the Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.

Apollo 11 – The Bigger Takeaways from Greatness 53 Years Ago

Fifty-three years ago this week, America launched Apollo 11, a mission that reached a pinnacle of scientific and national achievement with the successful landing of the Lunar Module Eagle on the Moon.  The Apollo 11 Moon landing represented not only a crowning triumph for humanity, but it was one of America’s most noble and awesome moments.  It was an accomplishment so monumental that to try and describe it in words almost undersells its importance.  It truly was – and still remains – one of the most awe-inspiring milestones in human history.

Think about all of this for a moment.  Over a half-century ago – without a sliver of the computing power we have now and with only a fraction of the advanced modeling and simulation technology at hand today – we put human beings on the lunar surface.  It was a technological feat of unprecedented proportions.  There were no supercomputers, how-to videos on YouTube, or ready answers on Google.  We did it with hypotheses and testing, analog technology, manual chronographs, slide rules, and chalkboard math.

And there was no playbook to study – it was true technology trailblazing, in lockstep with America’s traditional frontier spirit.  In fact, given that America’s formal space program existed in earnest for less than two decades prior to the landing, putting humans on the Moon was a ground-breaking endeavor almost every step of the way.  But we navigated uncertainty and the unknown with the right combination of vision, daring, and calculated risk while maintaining a laser focus on the goals.  When a challenge or hurdle complicated our effort, we didn’t simply complain and quit – we got creative.  We innovated, adapted and figured it out.  We learned from our mistakes and went back to the drawing board (literally) to make adjustments and improve our approach.  Incidentally, it was this attitude that not only put Americans on the Moon in July of 1969, but also brought the Apollo 13 astronauts back to Earth in 1970.

Beyond the glory of the Moon landing itself, the entire Apollo program – and Mercury and Gemini programs before it – stands as a sterling testament to what strong leadership and unity of purpose can achieve.  The Apollo program consisted of hundreds of thousands of people, each responsible for different but vital aspects of the mission, working together across different sites for weeks, months and years.  It required unwavering coordination and alignment between the public and private sectors, and involved everyone from appropriators in the Congress to engineers and technicians in the lab.  It was a herculean undertaking – but commitment, organization, and active and effective management made it all possible.

Finally, we maintained adherence to the task and never lost sight of what was important despite the upheaval and turbulence of the times.  We often forget that the Apollo program endured through the 1960’s – a period not completely unlike our contemporary era – which was marked with the assassinations of several national leaders (including a sitting President), a grossly unpopular war, radically changing cultural values, riots, social tension, and violence.  But we stuck with it through the highs and lows, kept our eyes on the road, and drove on toward the objective.

Incidentally, this year also will mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 – which was the last Apollo journey to the Moon (completed in December of 1972).  Like many of the other missions, it set new records in science, technological and human achievement and was a successful last chapter in the Apollo program.  In looking back, whether it was the first or last steps that Americans placed in the lunar dust, all of those missions essentially represented a magnificent capstone achievement in what was a serious, decade long effort concentrated on one goal – outlined by our national leaders and executed by the people.  As we look toward our next expeditions in space, namely a return to the Moon and beyond, we would be wise to take some of these core lessons from the Apollo program.  Frankly, there are a lot of things we could learn from Apollo to improve and enhance America’s standing and position aside from space.

The Apollo program is but one example of American greatness that manifests itself when we’re serious, when we ignore petty distractions and challenge the impossible with hard work and spirit.

It is something we’ve actually done quite often as a country – think of the Berlin Airlift, the building of the transcontinental railroad, or American war production in WWII – and we do it well when we try.  The Apollo 11 anniversary is a reminder of what America can do when it puts its mind to a noble task.  It is a reminder of what can be done when we apply national, political and cultural energy on something that actually matters…something of weight, purpose and lasting importance…something that is greater than the sum of all of its parts…something that was, and is, “For all Mankind.”

Hershel ‘Woody’ Williams, Last Living World War II Medal of Honor Winner, Dead At 98.

Sad news: Hershel “Woody” Williams, the last living Medal of Honor winner from World War II, has died at age 98.

Williams was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was awarded the Medal of Honor on Oct. 5, 1945, from President Harry S. Truman for his “valiant devotion to duty,” the Woody Williams Foundation said.

“Today at 3:15am, Hershel Woodrow Williams, affectionately known by many as Woody went home to be with the Lord. Woody peacefully joined his beloved wife Ruby while surrounded by his family at the VA Medical Center which bears his name,” the Woody Williams Foundation wrote.

Williams, who was born in Quiet Dell, West Virginia, served for 20 years in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserves and then worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for over 30 years as a veterans service representative.

The U.S. Navy commissioned a warship called the USS Hershel “Woody” Williams in his honor in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020.

I had previously honored Williams for my 2019 Veterans Day profile.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as demolition sergeant serving with the 21st Marines, 3d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 23 February 1945.

Quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering vainly to open a lane for the infantry through the network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines, and black volcanic sands, Cpl. Williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machinegun fire from the unyielding positions.

Covered only by 4 riflemen, he fought desperately for 4 hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out 1 position after another.

On 1 occasion, he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent, killing the occupants and silencing the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon.

His unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistance were directly instrumental in neutralizing one of the most fanatically defended Japanese strong points encountered by his regiment and aided vitally in enabling his company to reach its objective.

Cpl. Williams’ aggressive fighting spirit and valiant devotion to duty throughout this fiercely contested action sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

Sometime in the next decade or two, the last living World War II veteran will die, and that epoch-changing conflagration will pass out of living memory.

Why Commemorate Black April?

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which signified the true end of the Vietnam War. Who could forget that famous picture of people queued up on a Saigon building (mistakenly thought to have been the US Embassy), getting on a UH-1 helicopter leaving Vietnam, as shown in this video:

There were some other great pictures in that video, too. However, the real last helicopter flight out was that of a CH-46 (Callsign “Swift 22”). The video describes the helicopter evacuation operations that were part of Operation Frequent Wind, the largest such operation in history, which commenced on 25 April 1975…………

The non-Communist Vietnamese who escaped the country have long referred to April 1975 as “Black April.” Those who escaped to the US have become some of the most patriotic and anti-Communist of all Americans. Many of them, as well as their progeny, mark Black April on 30 April each year. Here is a typical comment from one person on the 40th anniversary that explains what Black April means:

For Van Truong Le in Boston, this is a painful day, a time he and others who fled Vietnam call “Black April.”

“Because that was when folks from South Vietnam lost our country to the North Communist regime,” he said. “It was the day we lost our country. So we refer to it as Black April 1975. In fact for the last 40 years on April 30, the Vietnamese who have resettled here for the most part commemorate and observe that day as a day to commemorate the loss of Vietnam.”

And that name fits with good reason. Forced reeducation camps and a communization of the economy were in store for those who remained in Vietnam, as part of North Vietnam’s Communist takeover. Here is an excerpt of an account by Quyen Trong, who relates his father’s oral history:

Continue reading “”

On this day in 1960, President Eisenhower signed the law into effect making Wilson’s Creek a national battlefield monument

The Battle for Wilson’s Creek’s recognition

 In southern Greene County, there is peace.

You can’t hear traffic. The wind howls through the trees, birds chirp, and a creek churns through the hills.

But as soon as you hear the name of this creek, your opinion of this place will change. This is Wilson’s Creek and in 1861 peace was far from here.

“The Battle of Wilson’s Creek is the second major battle of the Civil War,” superintendent of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Sarah Cunningham said. “It’s also the first major battle west of the Mississippi.”

Missouri was a key state to hold thanks to the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. A large Confederate army was camping near Wilson’s Creek with plans of claiming the state for the South. But on August 10, 1861, General Nathaniel Lyon led his Union soldiers from Springfield to surprise the southern encampment on what became known as Bloody Hill.

“It was a five or six-hour bloody battle that took place,” Cunningham said.

A few hours into the fight, General Lyon was killed while positioning his troops. He becomes the first Union general killed in action in the Civil War.

“For years, veterans of this battle would come back to remember,” Cunningham said, “and commemorate the battle that occurred here.”

Those veterans would lay rocks at the spot where their leader, General Lyon died. In 1928, the rocks were replaced with a stone marker made by the University Club of Springfield. But to see it, visitors would have to trespass on the private land.

“Schoolchildren would go to school and they would bring pennies, nickels, anything that they could save,” Cunningham said, “and contribute to the preservation of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.”

In 1951, the Foundation purchased the 37-acres of land known as Bloody Hill. Over the next few years, the property would grow in size but not in status.

With 16 Civil War sites as National Parks, the government didn’t need another. The Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas was added in 1956. One account mentioned the National Parks thought Pea Ridge was enough to tell the story of the war west of the Mississippi.

After several failed attempts, the Foundation’s persistence paid off.

“On April 22, 1960, President Eisenhower signs into law the establishment of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield,” Cunningham said.

Over the decades, a tour road was built around the site as well as a horse riding trail and walking trails. Signs were placed telling stories about this battle and taking you to the points of interest.

In 2021, a $3.5 million renovation was made to the Visitor’s Center and Museum.

The Arts in the Park Music Series is back on Saturday nights in May at Wilson’s Creek. It’s also planning a large event over Memorial Day weekend. And, the National Parks just launched a Wellness Challenge you can do while at Wilson’s Creek. Just visit the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield website for more information.

EVENTS OF APRIL 18, 1775

“Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”

With these words an American poet and ardent abolitionist named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Paul Revere and Old North Church in American history and myth. Many of us may remember the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” but it doesn’t portray the true events of what took place on that fateful night. Longfellow wrote the poem 80 YEARS after Revere’s famous midnight ride when the country was on the brink of Civil War in 1860. He wanted to inspire people to join the Union army by demonstrating that one person could make a difference AND change history in the process. As we shall see, the only one really changing history was Longfellow himself through his creatively altered story. The real events of what took place on April 18, 1775 are far more interesting.

Continue reading “”

How God Used Roads to Pave the Way for Jesus

Holiday travel is picking back up in cities across America this year. A recent study reported that 70% of us are planning on taking a road trip as part of our holiday celebration. Roads are important to our travel plans, and they were also important to God as he planned the arrival of Jesus. According to the Apostle Paul, God timed the appearance of Jesus perfectly:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. (Galatians 4:4-5 NASB)

But what did Paul mean when he wrote that Jesus arrived in the “fullness of time”? As a thirty-five-year-old homicide detective and skeptic, I pondered Paul’s words the first time I read his letter to the Galatians. In fact, I began an investigation of history and examined the “fuse” leading up to the explosive appearance of Jesus. I discovered that God used roads to prepare the way.

Advancing on the Roads

Wheels appeared early in history, perhaps as soon as 5000 BC in ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia). From the same region came the first two-wheeled cart (c. 3000 BC), usually pulled by donkeys called “onagers.” Four-wheeled carts came later in history (around 2500 BC) and were used primarily for farming. By 2000 BC spoke-wheeled chariots emerged in southern Siberia and Central Asia.

These developments certainly aided the ability to move materials and wage war, but their use for “social” transportation was limited to the quality of roads in each region. Most roads were little more than cleared pathways, susceptible to weather and war. Had Jesus been born at this time in history, his message would not have traveled far from the region in which he lived.

But as road technology advanced, so did the opportunity to advance the message of Jesus.

Persians were among the first to build significant roads. Darius the Great refurbished an existing roadway and created the “Royal Road” in 500 BC, connecting regions as far apart as Susa (now the Khuzestan region of Iran) to Sardis (now the Manisa Province in western Turkey). This reduced travel from ninety days on foot to nine days on horseback.

Not Yet the Time

Surprisingly, the powerful Greek Empire contributed little to the advancement of roads, primarily because of Greece’s difficult, mountainous, and rocky terrain, their reliance on sea travel for trade, and their inability to protect travelers with official oversight. Until 400 BC, with some exceptions (like the thoroughfares between major cities and surrounding holy sites), most roads were difficult for wheeled transportation.

Had Jesus arrived at this point in history, his followers would still have faced the limits of transportation within nations in less-than-perfect road conditions. But as before, the Roman Empire provided a solution.

The Roman Solution

As the Roman Empire grew militarily, so did its need for roads. As a result, Roman roads were widespread and usually well paved. Wherever they conquered, the Romans built long, relatively straight roads to make the movement of military equipment easier. This desire to avoid curves necessitated the advanced engineering of bridges, tunnels, and viaducts to traverse mountains and valleys. Roman roads were well built and often populated by the military, making them much safer to travel than their Greek counterparts. Spanning nearly 250,000 miles, these roads became a symbol of Rome’s power, connecting diverse subcultures within the empire.

Construction of probably the most famous of Roman roads, the Appian Way, was started in 312 BC. Called the “Queen of Roads,” it set the standard for the many famous roads Romans would build leading up to the lifetime of Jesus.

The Romans weren’t the only ones contributing to the advance of transportation.

The Roads We Travel

By 130 BC, the Silk Road (also called the Silk Routes) was formally opened for travel by the Han dynasty of China. This ancient network of connected trade routes would be used to facilitate trade between the East and the West for many centuries.

As the Romans built the infrastructure of secondary roads and perfected the engineering of bridges and tunnels by 100 BC, the stage was set for the peacetime expansion of the Roman highway system that occurred as Jesus’s followers began to share his message and ministry.

At this point in history, early in the first century, the Roman Empire had unified and refurbished the road systems of conquered nations, connecting the various systems into a network of roads that spanned the empire from Britain to Syria. This network provided a new opportunity to trade and share ideas, even ideas about Jesus, including his birth, death, and resurrection.

So, this year, as you’re on the road heading toward a Christmas celebration, be sure to celebrate the way God used roads as He delivered Jesus in the “fullness of time” so we might “receive the adoption as sons and daughters.”

 

 

Almost forgot.
Happy Assault Weapons Ban Sunset Provision Day, Everyone!

On this day in 2004, the Assault Weapon Ban that had been enacted in 1994 reached its sunset date.
Lest anyone also forget, the NRA had a big hand in getting that 10 year sunset provision added.
Also, this law was one of the major factors in such a massive demoncrap loss in Congress when 8 Senators and 54 Representatives were sent packing.

The Thirteen-Hundred-And-Eighty-Nine-Year War

During an interview regarding the recent suicide attack on Kabul airport, a former Navy SEAL quipped that no one making military decisions for the United States seems to have read a history book. Lack of knowledge, he implied, is partly why America is suffering a humiliating and unconscionable defeat in Afghanistan.

Here, then, is a short skeletal history of Muslim-Christian relations beginning with Islam’s founding in 622 AD by Muhammad, an Arab military leader intent on unifying the Arab world and conquering the rest. The lessons learned might put us on the right path forward.

Muhammad died in 632 and, soon thereafter, his followers began Muslim military advances into the Christian Levant. In your mind’s eye, if you can picture the Mediterranean Sea on your left, the landmass to its right – Syria, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and part of Turkey—is known as the Levant, which means the place where the sun rises. A great trading center in ancient and medieval times, conquering the Levant was the Muslims’ first great conquest over the Christian Greeks at the Battle of Yarmuk, in 636, only four years after Muhammad’s death. Jerusalem surrendered in 638.

Islam pushed on vigorously after this battle, sweeping over North Africa, uniting Arab countries, and setting its sights on conquering Constantinople, the Greek capital. Today, Constantinople is known as Istanbul and is part of Turkey. In 717, however, at what is known as the Siege of Constantinople, 80,000 Muslim troops and 1,880 galleys laid siege to the city. Possessing the equivalent of napalm, a fire that is very difficult to put out, the Greeks set fire to the galleys and after a year of siege and attack without success, Muslim forces retreated.

This Christian victory is thought to have slowed Muslim conquest of Europe but Islam penetrated Europe by crossing the Gibraltar Strait into Spain. Not content, in 732, Muslim forces moved north into what is now France. At this time France, western Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands were part of the Frankish Empire, led by Charles Martel, or Charles the Hammer, and his victory over the Muslim attack at the Battle of Tours, in France, is credited with reversing Islam’s spread in Europe. Christianity, not fully established in Western Europe at this time, began to unify Western Civilization around the Roman Catholic Church.

So, here is one of the great moments of history. Were it not for Charles Martel, Europe would have been swept up in the advance of Islam instead of the advance of Christianity. One of the differences is Christianity’s mental openness to science and intellectual inquiry – hence the rise of the great universities of Europe and Europe’s eventual influence on America.

The story does not end here. The struggle continued back and forth for another 1,289 years. Muslim Turks defeated the Christian Greeks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Greeks had re-conquered the Levant in the 1100s but lost again at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Back and forth it went. Muslim victories – then Christian victories – finally ending at the Siege of Acre in 1291 when the last of the Crusader influence was dispelled from the Holy Lands and the Hospitallers moved to Cyprus and Rhodes, where they held out until 1523.

Islam had conquered Spain. Islam had conquered the Holy Lands. Islam had conquered the Levant.

Islam laid siege to the Greek capital, Constantinople, which surrendered in 1453. That surrender marks the end of the Roman Empire and a victory for the Muslim Ottomans.

Painstakingly, Western Civilization began to fight back. Spain was re-conquered at the Battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212.

[if I may interject, this isn’t correct. While the battle was a major turning point, the final battle of the Reconquista was in 1492 .ed]

A fleet of the Holy League, mostly from Spain and Venice, fought the last rowing naval battle at Lepanto, in 1571, routing the Muslims. Finally, in 1683, the Muslim Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire fought it out literally at the gates of Vienna. The Ottoman defeat there meant that Islam ceased to be a menace to the West, especially with the Ottoman Empire’s and caliphate’s final dissolution on March 23, 1924, after World War I.

America was colonized by Christian Europe, specifically Protestant Christian Europe, beginning in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia, and Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Americans take for granted the intense battle for humanity’s mind that this history represents. The notion of natural individual rights through a Creator; the notion of the development of the person (male or female); the notion of personal Liberty; the notion of people as a reflection of the divine—the undergirding of our way of life is the result of being on the Western side of this war.

We are now at the Battle of Afghanistan, 2021. Because our military and political leaders have not read a history book, they deem it a 20-year war, but they are wrong. It is a thirteen-hundred-and-eighty-nine-year war that we will lose because we do not know we are in it.

The Navy SEAL was right. Our political and military leaders make decisions without a clue. We had a stable and neutralized position in Afghanistan, with very few troops, that served as a check on Islamic Jihad and the rise of an Islamic caliphate and harsh Sharia Law.

We do not need to be there to nation-build—something that anyone who knows history knows cannot be successful. We are there because Islam decided to attack the West once again in 2001. We are there to save Western Civilization. We cannot allow a humiliating defeat.

Name of biblical judge found inscribed on 3,100-year-old jug found in Israel

A rare 3,100-year-old inked inscription from the era of the Book of Judges is displayed on Monday by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the excavation site at Khirbat a Rai. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI

Archaeologists have uncovered a small jug with a rare five-letter inscription, linking the 3,100-year-old ceramic artifact to a biblical judge mentioned in the Book of Judges.

The jug and ancient inscription — the first to feature the name ‘Jerubbaal’ — were found at a dig site in the Shahariya Forest, among Israel’s Judean Foothills, archeologists reported the discovery Monday in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

“The name of the Judge Gideon ben Yoash was Jerubbaal, but we cannot tell whether he owned the vessel on which the inscription is written in ink,” archaeologists said in a press release.

The inscribed jug, bearing the name Jerubbaal, was recovered from a subsurface storage pit lined with stones. Researchers suspect the small jug likely held a precious liquid, such as oil, perfume or medicine.

Though the jug features only five inscribed letters, close analysis suggests the original inscription was longer.

In the Book of Judges, Jerubbaal is first mentioned as a leading opponent of idolatry.

He’s also credited with leading a successful battle against the Midianites.

“According to the Bible, Gideon organized a small army of 300 soldiers and attacked the Midianites by night near Ma’ayan Harod,” said Yossef Garfinkel and Sa’ar Ganor, lead archaeologists on the project and professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“In view of the geographical distance between the Shephelah and the Jezreel Valley, this inscription may refer to another Jerubbaal and not the Gideon of biblical tradition, although the possibility cannot be ruled out that the jug belonged to the judge Gideon,” Garfinkel and Ganor said.

“In any event, the name Jerubbaal was evidently in common usage at the time of the biblical Judges,” they said.

Because the jug and its inscription date to roughly 1,100 B.C., the time of biblical judges, archaeologists suggest the discovery offers proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible.

“As we know, there is considerable debate as to whether biblical tradition reflects reality and whether it is faithful to historical memories from the days of the Judges and the days of David,” according to Garfinkel and Ganor.

“The name Jerubbaal only appears in the Bible in the period of the Judges, yet now it has also been discovered in an archaeological context, in a stratum dating from this period,” Garfinkel and Ganor said.

“In a similar manner, the name Ishbaal, which is only mentioned in the Bible during the monarchy of King David, has been found in strata dated to that period at the site of Khirbat Qeiyafa,” the archaeologists said.

Identical names being mentioned in the Bible, which have been found in other previously recovered inscriptions, they said, ” shows that memories were preserved and passed down through the generations.”

Yes, Gun Control Did Help Facilitate The Holocaust

The Holocaust is one of the most horrible events in human history. It became the benchmark by which we compare atrocities, and for good reason. Millions of Jews slaughtered. Millions more put through some of the worst abuses a person can visit upon another. It was awful in so many ways.

However, we on the gun right side have pointed out over and over again that if the Jews had been able to have guns, the Holocaust may never have happened.

Unsurprisingly, some people disagree.

But the freshman congresswoman is hardly the only figure in the nation to have manipulated the Holocaust. The National Rifle Association, or at least its modern leaders led by its now embattled CEO, Wayne LaPierre, have long searched for “proof” that gun control is nothing more than a slippery slope to genocide. And in recent years, the NRA has manipulated the Holocaust to claim they finally found it, funding research that has allegedly discovered a new link between gun control and the Holocaust that generations of scholars have yet to find.

In 2013, the Anti-Defamation League said “Nazi Analogies Have No Place In Gun Control Debate” after a half dozen commentators including Sean Hannity and Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News out of the blue all raised the matter of gun control and the Holocaust.

“If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and the ammunition that the Nazis did, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust,” claimed Napolitano.

It’s as if they were all laying the groundwork for the book, “Gun Control in The Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ‘Enemies of the State,’” published later that year by the Independent Institute, a small think-tank in Oakland. Research for this book was partly funded by the NRA. Its author, Stephen P. Halbrook, is the nation’s best-known pro-gun lawyer. Several years before, during the watershed gun rights case Heller vs. District of Columbia that established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep arms, Halbrook filed a successful amicus brief on behalf of 250 members of the House of Representatives, 55 senators, and the president of the Senate, then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Halbrook’s thesis about gun control and the Holocaust is novel at best. Most Holocaust scholars, like Alan E. Steinweis, director of holocaust studies at the University of Vermont, say that the idea that gun control was a factor in the Holocaust is “simply a nonissue.” But Halbrook claims that prior gun control laws during the Weimer Republic, or Germany’s democratic years before Hitler took power, were used to seize firearms from Jews, enough to have helped enable the Holocaust.

Never mind the weak evidence, the NRA’s house organ crowed about the book’s supposed breakthrough.

The problem with this line of “reasoning” is that they’re demanding pro-gun voices provide proof for something that wasn’t allowed to happen.

Did the Weimar Republic ban guns? Yes.

Were the Jews in Nazi Germany armed? No.

As such, were they able to offer armed resistance when herded into concentration camps? Also, no.

No one is saying that the Weimar Republic actively sought to empower those that followed them to commit genocide against the Jewish people. No one is claiming that things proceeded along a set plan all built around the idea of exterminating not just the Jews but also homosexuals and gypsies.

To make that claim, you’d need a great deal of evidence and that evidence likely doesn’t exist.

However, there’s ample reason to suggest that the Nazis could capitalize on the existing laws and take advantage of a disarmed population. In fact, no one disputes the fact they were disarmed and while some claim the Holocaust didn’t happen, I don’t really care about their opinions on much of anything.

Now, let’s also be clear that we can’t be certain that an armed population would have prevented the Holocaust. Even in the modern United States where guns outnumber people, a lot of folks are unarmed by choice. That would likely have been true right up until the Nazis decided to put the Jews in concentration camps. How many would have been able to fight back?

Frankly, we’ll never know.

Continue reading “”

While it’s a year old, it’s still a good article.

May Day Is a Communist Holiday

One suspects that Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman doesn’t see any irony in launching his new capitalistic subscription-based website with a tweet noting the celebration of May Day, a nefarious and un-American tradition.

In 1901, May Day (the one for “workers,” not the Catholic one) became a mandate by the Second International Socialist Congress that proletariat groups “energetically” celebrate the advent of the eight-hour work day.” Leon Trotsky was one of May Day’s greatest champions. In his 35th anniversary speech for the holiday, this contemptible despot, whose only problem with Stalin’s genocide of the Ukrainian populace was that it wasn’t sufficiently “militarized,” stressed that it was a holiday to commend “red militarism.”

Indeed, May Day was inspired by the 1886 Haymarket incident in Chicago, in which an anarchist and terrorist threw dynamite at policemen (the police had killed a protester the day before), sparking a riot. By the end of the day, seven police and four more protesters had been killed.

It was an ugly incident. But while American workers would one day benefit from capitalism in ways that would have been unimaginable to the 19th-century Chicago striker, the ideological progeny of the May Day organizers would go on to kill tens of millions of people and ask millions more to work a lot more than eight hours a day in the Siberian Gulag.

The Long, Hot Summer of 1967: A Forgotten Season of Riots and Urban Unrest Across America

The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. And while many have spoken of the “unprecedented” nature of the rioting in the early summer of 2020, it is actually quite precedented.

The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 was the peak of urban unrest and rioting in the United States in the lead up to the 1968 election. While there are certainly a number of key differences, there are also a number of striking parallels that make the topic worthy of discussion and examination.

The long-term impact of the urban unrest of the summer of 2020 is unclear, but the long-term impact of the Long, Hot Summer of 1967 and related urban rioting was a victory for Richard Nixon in 1968, and a landslide re-election in 1972. One must resist the temptation to make mechanistic comparisons between the two, and we will refrain from doing so here. But the reader is encouraged to look for connections between these events and more recent ones. Continue reading “”

SpaceX spacecraft docks with International Space Station on historic NASA mission

SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft crewed by NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken has docked with the International Space Station on its historic Demo-2 mission.

The spacecraft launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center Saturday. The mission is the first time that astronauts have launched from American soil since the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011.

The mission is also the first time a private company, rather than a national government, has sent astronauts into orbit………..

On Saturday evening Hurley announced that the spacecraft, previously known as capsule 206, has been renamed Endeavour, continuing the tradition of astronauts naming their capsules.

“We would like to welcome you aboard capsule Endeavour,” he said. “We chose Endeavour for a few reasons – one, because of the incredible Endeavour NASA, SpaceX and the United States has been on since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. The other reason we named it Endeavour is little more personal – Bob and I, we both had our first flight on Shuttle Endeavour and it just meant to much to us to carry on that name.”