Reformation Propaganda
Happy Reformation Day! Today marks the 500 year anniversary of the date that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This action touched off a spiral of events that led to the Protestant…
A Christian Sailor in the First World War
“It seems that, after HMS Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir had been torpedoed, two exhausted sailors, swimming about in the water, at last came upon a spar which, while sufficiently buoyant to keep either of them afloat, sank under the combined…
Four Modern Myths about Ancient Eras
The past was very different. No one would disagree with that. Even people who know little about the past (think: most modern Americans) understand that the past was different. What they don’t understand is how different things once were. I…
Renaissance Culture as Depicted by Hans Holbein
This article is an analysis of a famous painting titled ‘The Ambassadors’ that I created for a recent project. You can view the full painting by clicking here. The Ambassadors (Holbein, 1533) is a painting from the Renaissance period by…
Lessons from Passchendaele
One hundred years ago today, at 3:50 AM, thousands of British soldiers began to advance across hundreds of feet of no-mans-land. This was July 31, 1917, the first day of the great battle of Passchendaele (pronounced as PASSION-dale). The attack…
Video: The Act of Toleration of 1689
May 24, 1689 is an important date in the history of religious freedom. It marks the anniversary of the signing of the Toleration Act of 1689, which provided legal religious freedoms to many in Great Britain. I’ve begun to mark…
Victory in Death: Narrative of the Death of Thomas Halyburton
When he was still young, Thomas Halyburton’s family moved from Scotland in 1685 to avoid a bloody persecution, started by the British king, against all who did not attend the established church. These ‘covenanters’ were guilty of the ‘crime’ of…
Victory in Death: Narrative of the Death of an Irishman
A certain Irishman was a complete agnostic, who believed only in materialism; he was a lawyer, but now he knew that he would die. His aunt, a Christian, had asked for Spencer, a minister of the Christian Gospel, to visit…
Victory in Death: A Narrative of the Death of Polycarp
The following narrative is an excerpt from a short booklet that I authored, titled ‘Victory in Death.’ Solomon said that it was better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, because the wise will lay…
Four Compelling Reasons to Study History
I’m excited that my newest article is published, for the first time, in The Old Schoolhouse, a magazine for home educators that comes out yearly in print and quarterly online. In this article, I address four reasons why history is beneficial to…
