Good morning, it’s Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019. Well, the nation’s capital finally has a baseball team in the World Series. It’s only been 86 years. The last time, during the Great Depression, the Washington Senators represented the American League in the autumn classic and played the New York Giants. This year’s Washington club, with its throwback starting rotation, racing presidents, […]

American Minute with Bill Federer Yale President Ezra Stiles stated in 1783: “Most states of all ages … have been founded in rapacity, usurpation and injustice … The Nimrods … (were) the first invading tyrants of the ancient ages … The spirit of conquest had changed the first governments … All succeeding ones have in general proved one continued series […]

H/T to Bill War movie buffs have probably already seen Mel Gibson’s movie, Hacksaw Ridge, about Seventh-day Adventist Desmond Doss, who received the Medal of Honor despite refusing to bear arms. We’d like to honor this unlikely hero by taking a look at the real life Desmond Doss. Desmond Thomas Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1919. During the […]

October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 77 days remaining until the end of the year. Holidays around the World Christian Feast Day: Saint Teresa of Ávila (Doctor of Church) Saint Hedwig of Silesia Saint Thecla of Kitzingen October 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) National Tree Planting Day (Sri […]

Good morning, it’s Monday, Oct. 14, 2019. Thirty-nine years ago today, a Republican presidential candidate made a momentous campaign promise. It was a pledge originating, as most of them do, from the exigencies of trying to fashion a winning message. This particular bit of campaign-trail theater had its origins in a conversation between former California Gov. Ronald Reagan and his […]

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Booker T. Washington

By David Deming There’s hardly a more forgettable holiday than the innocuous and poorly observed Columbus Day. Celebrated in the U.S. on the second Monday in October, Columbus Day commemorates the discovery of the Western hemisphere by Christopher Columbus and the beginning of European colonization.  Ironically, this obscure date has evolved into the most controversial and politicized of all holidays. There […]

October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 78 days remaining until the end of the year. Holidays Christian feast day: Angadrisma Fortunatus of Todi Joseph Schereschewsky (Episcopal Church (USA)) Pope Callixtus I October 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Intercession of the Theotokos Day of the Cathedral of Living Pillar […]

“The Federal Reserve … is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up.”  William McChesney Martin, the ninth and longest running Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Beyond Band of Brothers Forced into an inhumane situation, Gisella Perl saved women’s lives by performing abortions on them Gisella Perl was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in 1907 in the town of Máramarossziget (located in present-day Romania). She graduated from high school as the first in her class, even though she was the only girl and the only […]

“[W]e should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice […]

October 13th is the 286th day of the year (287th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 79 days remaining until the end of the year. Holidays Christian Feast Day: Blessed Alexandrina of Balasar Edward the Confessor (translation) Gerald of Aurillac Our Lady of Fátima Theophilus of Antioch October 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Fontanalia, in honor of Fontus. (Roman […]

The Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990 entered the atmosphere aboveCzechoslovakia and Poland and, after 9.8 seconds, returned to space. Named EN131090, the 44-kilogram (97 lb) meteoroid was observed travelling 409 kilometres (254 mi) at a speed of 42 km/s (26 mi/s …. 93,600 miles per hour) by cameras of the European Fireball Network. Its apparent magnitude peaked at −6.3, several times brighter than Venus‘s […]

Good morning, it’s Thursday, October 12, 2017. Here in the nation’s capital, baseball fans are nervously awaiting Game 5 of the playoff series between the Washington Nationals and the Chicago Cubs. The Cubbies, as most sentient Americans know, are world champs. The Nats, by contrast, haven’t advanced past the first round in postseason play since opening shop in D.C. in […]

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Named after the Roman god of agriculture, it is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. Although it has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, it is over 95 times more massive. The planet probably has a core of iron–nickel and rock, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an […]

October 12 is the 285th day of the year (286th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year. Holidays Christian feast day: Blessed Louis Brisson Edith Cavell and Elizabeth Fry (Church of England) Fiacc Our Lady of the Pillar (Fiestas del Pilar) Our Lady of Aparecida Radim Gaudentius (Czech Republic) Seraphin of Montegranaro Wilfrid of Ripon October […]

The gold dollar was a coin struck as a regular issue by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1849 to 1889. The coin had three types over its lifetime, all designed by Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. The Type 1 issue had the smallest diameter of any United States coin ever minted. A gold dollar had been proposed […]

Good morning. It’s Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, the day of the week for parsing an inspirational historical quotation. Today’s comes from an unlikely source: the only U.S. president driven from office in the face of impeachment proceedings — just as he began to contemplate the possibility of not finishing his second term in the White House. The Watergate scandal was […]

“HOW ON EARTH do you accidentally create the finest sniper rifle of WWII?” author, photographer and contemporary/historic firearms authority of note Jeff John asks.  “The British did with the adoption of the No. 4 Mk I (T), the official designation of the telescopic-sighted No. 4 infantry rifle. It is arguably the most well thought out, rugged, durable and accurate of all […]

Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived in the city-state of Athens.​ In 380 BC, Plato wrote The Republic, where he described in Books 8 and 9:​ “States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.”​ “Like State, like man.”​ The Republic is written as a collection of conversations of Plato’s teacher Socrates.​ It gives insights into […]