The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ended the Wars of the Reformation, laid the foundations for today’s system of nation-states, and drew the key borders of modern Europe. Below is a 100% accurate rendition of the final negotiations.
Category: Author’s Corner
Putin and Appeasement’s Bad Track Record
Today, Russia celebrated Victory Day: the anniversary of Germany’s 1945 surrender in World War II. That milestone offers a lesson about the war in Ukraine, but not the one claimed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. For the past fifteen years, Western nations have ignored one of World War II’s most obvious warnings … possibly until now.
Putin at today’s Victory Day parade in Moscow
Britain and France Appease Hitler
In 1938, Adolf Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia. He’d been supporting a separatist movement in a border area called the Sudetenland, by German-speaking Czechoslovak citizens. And he claimed he had to invade to protect those German-speakers. Continue reading “Putin and Appeasement’s Bad Track Record”
Leofric and Lady Godiva
The legend of Lady Godiva is based on real events, according to a startling new discovery — but the facts were distorted right from the start, during the heroine’s lifetime. Several months ago, a student found a medieval manuscript in a cellar beneath Queens’ College, Cambridge. It included a 14th Century copy of the 11th Century text below. Queens’ is my alma mater, so I was one of the first non-academics to receive this translation from the Latin. It will blow your mind. (And after all these years, it’s about time we heard the other side of the story: the legend of Lady Godiva from her husband’s point of view.)
I, Dunstan, priest, wrote this from the mouth of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, on the seventeenth day of July in the fifteenth year of the reign of our most gracious King Edward [1057 AD].
My wife’s Latin inscriptions call her Godiva, but in English her name is Godgifu, God’s gift. I will not offer the obvious play on words about whether the Lord actually meant her as a gift, and if so to whom. But I have my doubts. Certainly she was beautiful in her youth, but that fair quality brought me little joy. More often than not, when I knocked on her chamber door in the wee hours, she said her blood had come or she was fatigued. Yet those ailments interfered not at all when a handsomer, younger man knocked on Godgifu’s door. Of course, they all kept that from me, my loyal people. But I had my informants, for not all in an earl’s household fear his wrath. My truest spy was my housekeeper, Tydfil, who fears little and has more wisdom than any woman I know, or any man. Tydfil told me of all Godgifu’s lovers. Did you never wonder why so many handsome young men of Mercia found themselves fighting in distant Ireland or Scotia, rented as mercenaries to warring lords? But Godgifu had her revenge. Now I am old, and I can hear the rustling wings of the Angel of the Lord. So I need a son to follow me. Yet doubt plagues me. That warlike young man who waits so eager to take my place: is he my own getting or the son of some handsomer man? They say only a wise man knows his own child, and though sometimes even Tydfil praises my wit, I cannot tell my wife’s truths from her lies. Continue reading “Leofric and Lady Godiva”
Welcome to World History Encyclopedia
World History Encyclopedia has a great new video program. They release two new videos about history per week, and you can subscribe on YouTube. Just click below.
I’m proud to serve on the Board of Advisors for this great non-profit. I can’t recommend World History Encyclopedia more highly. As the video points out, “[h]istory grows your mind and helps you make sense of where we came from.”
NYC Big Book Awards!
My book, Secrets of Hominea, just won Distinguished Favorite at the New York City Big Book Awards — and so did The Jericho River!
Continue reading “NYC Big Book Awards!”
What Really Happens in a Challenged Election
by David W. Tollen and guest contributor Robert W. Tollen
Many commentators assume the new House of Representatives would choose the President after a challenged election — with each state’s delegation casting a single vote. Others say the Supreme Court would decide. Each scenario gives Republicans an advantage, since they’ll probably control more state delegations, despite their overall minority in the House, and they appointed most of the Justices. But in fact, neither scenario is likely, and the commentators focused on them misunderstand the law. State governments resolve disputes about their voters’ presidential electors, under state law. And the new Congress rules on challenges to those decisions in the normal way, with each house voting by simple majority.
The Unlikely Case of a Tie or Plurality in the Electoral College
When does the House of Representatives choose the President, voting by state? Only when no candidate gets a majority of the electors, per the rules in the Twelfth Amendment.
Continue reading “What Really Happens in a Challenged Election”
America Has No Guarantee of Freedom
In a second term, the ballot box would no longer restrict Trump. So we can expect:
- Expanded use of the Department of Justice (DoJ) against the President’s opponents, including members of Congress.
- More use of force against protesters.
- Federal tolerance of crime against the President’s opponents (e.g., Michigan’s governor).
- Refusal of federal disaster funds and other resources for blue states.
- Further suppression of information on Covid-19’s nationwide impact.
- Prompt firing of senior officials and federal prosecutors who try to restrain the President.
- White House orders blocking DoJ prosecution of the President’s allies.
- More separation of children from immigrant parents.
- Withdrawal of federal resources aimed at curbing White supremacists.
- Federal support for attacks on the voting process, particularly in swing states, probably leading to “disqualification” of large numbers of ballots and voters in 2022 and 2024.
Police History: Constable vs. Paramilitary
Calls to abolish or massively reform America’s police sound new and radical. Yet history offers a very old model for those reforms: an alternative to our current military style of policing. In the world of the Founding Fathers, civilian constables enforced the law. They had done so for 150 years in the American colonies and for longer in England. And they would continue well into the 19th Century.
Continue reading “Police History: Constable vs. Paramilitary”
Independent Press Award
I am very proud to announce that my second novel, Secrets of Hominea, just won an award: Distinguished Favorite in the Juvenile category of the Independent Press Awards.
Secrets of Hominea is a magical novel for middle grade readers (4th through 8th grade), using fantasy to teach history and science. Continue reading “Independent Press Award”
The Chief Justice Can Call Witnesses
Under the Constitution, the Vice President presides over the Senate — except during presidential impeachment trials. The Vice President would inherit the President’s position if the trial led to conviction, so the Founders feared the VP’s bias. Who then? An obvious choice would be the President pro tempore of the Senate: the Senator who presides in the Vice President’s absence. Or the Senate could elect another Senator. But instead of those natural choices, the Founding Fathers reached out of Congress and chose the Chief Justice of the United States. Why? Continue reading “The Chief Justice Can Call Witnesses”
