One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Add in divisive politics and distinguishing between terrorists and freedom fighters depends entirely on the political and moral perspectives of the person telling the story. John Brown is a perfect example of this dichotomy.

He was one of the most divisive figures in 19th century America on the issue of slavery and racial equality. Brown began as a sane, deeply moral, non-violent man working to end slavery, but like so many fanatical people, his grip on reality slipped.

He was nicknamed Smiling Al for his most constant and visible trait. Albert Kesselring had a smile on his face even when he was a prisoner of war facing a potential death sentence for committing war crimes. He was an eternal optimist.

Unlike most of the stern, rather humorless German officer corps, he wasn’t descended from a long line of military men. His family was full of school teachers, farmers and priests. He was also a commoner from Bavaria rather than an aristocratic Prussian Junker.

In the summer of 1932, Franz von Papen cut a deal that he thought would save his political life and allow him to remain as German Chancellor of a center right coalition. But he miscalculated the ruthlessness and mendacity of the guy across the negotiating table. His miscalculation killed the Weimar Republic.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany had a way of uniting people who normally didn’t agree on anything. They all agreed they despised him. He was a tin-eared, boorish bully who managed to insult someone every time he opened his mouth. In July 1914, his years of strutting around and threatening others led to a fatal error.

Mount Rushmore is causing a fire storm. The president’s July 3rd fireworks display outraged environmentalists who worried about sparks starting a wildfire. Health professionals worried about creating another covid-19 hotspot. Black Lives Matter activists are outraged by a memorial honoring two slave owners and a eugenics enthusiast.

Amid the uproar few people noticed the rage felt by Native Americans. Mt. Rushmore is located in the Black Hills, a site sacred to several tribes, including the Lakota. The Lakota creation story is based on these hills and they consider it the center of the world.

Last Friday, 47 states observed Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when Union troops informed slaves in Texas that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth has special meaning this year as we continue a national debate about racial equality.

The Emancipation Proclamation was written by President Abraham Lincoln and took effect on January 1, 1863. Lincoln’s views on slavery and race would probably not win him any favors today. In his own time, people used the fact that he was born in a slave state (Kentucky) and moved to a free state (Illinois) as the basis for arguing that he was pro- or anti-slavery.

Frustration was bubbling under the surface. The frustration had been building for years and was about to blow up in a rage that caused destruction. There was no race issue involved, but like America today an underlying grievance fueled the frustration. It was about the privilege enjoyed by one segment of the population at the expense of others.

Recently I received a random text message threatening to publish embarrassing details supposedly posted on social media unless I paid an unspecified amount of money. As a blackmail attempt, it was feeble. My life is dull, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic confined us to our homes and my resources are unlikely to satisfy a bum too lazy to get a real job.

Boston Brahmins traced their families back to the Mayflower. New York’s upper crust was dubbed by Edith Wharton as the “tribe”. They were fabulously wealthy trust fund babies who attended Harvard, Yale or Princeton. They set a glittering path between their vast country estates, their townhomes, academic appointments and government service.

Yet in the early 1900’s these trust fund babies were deeply worried. Their cozy world was being invaded by immigrants who didn’t look like them or speak American English. Between 1890 and 1910, over 11 million European immigrants arrived, an average of 550,000 per year. (By comparison, about 1.3 million immigrants arrived in the European Union in 2015 before the door slammed shut.)

About 150 miles south of Leningrad is the town of Demyansk. In 1941, the German Army II Corps captured the town during the invasion of Soviet Russia. They were soon surrounded and had to be supplied by air, like a mini-Stalingrad, until a relief column opened a corridor to them in 1942. The corridor was only six miles wide at the Lovat River at the western edge of the pocket.

It’s not often that we are invited to a museum exhibit full of artifacts that everyone knows were stolen. I had that opportunity in 1992 when the Dallas Museum of Art held a special exhibit of the Quedlinburg Treasure. How these artifacts came to north Texas is a sordid tale of greed and official indifference.

The stolen artifacts came from an abbey later converted to a Lutheran church in Quedlinburg, Germany and some pieces dated to the 10th century. The collection included jewel-encrusted books and reliquaries with ivory inlays.

General Dietrich von Choltitz didn’t look like a hero. He was a chubby little Prussian from Silesia (now southwestern Poland) who joined the military because all the men in his family were soldiers. He had no sense of humor or charisma and his career advanced mostly due to his rigid habit of never questioning his orders. He also had a reputation for destroying cities.

The disease arrived in Messina, Sicily aboard a merchant ship returning from a Crimean port. The sailors had black lumps in their armpits and groins about the size of an egg or an apple. The black swellings oozed blood and pus and spread over the men’s bodies as boils and black spots caused by internal bleeding. A revoltingly foul odor emanated from their bodies.

March 1942 was better for civilians in Leningrad than the prior three months. In March, civilian deaths due to starvation, illness, hypothermia and the constant bombardment decreased to 98,966. The daily bread ration for manual laborers increased to 500 grams (17.6 ounces). The worst of the starving time was over.

The starving time “was when life ended and existence began”, said one survivor. About 2.5 million civilians, including 400,000 children were trapped when Leningrad was cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union. Our closest contemporary example is the city of Idlib, Syria into which civilians were herded so that Bashar al-Assad’s forces could more easily bomb and starve them to death.

Desperation leads to innovation in wartime. In 1942, the Allies were desperate because they were losing the war. Japan was winning in the Far East, the Afrika Korps was winning in North Africa, and the Wehrmacht had reached Stalingrad. U-boats were sinking supply ships in the North Atlantic.

In desperation, Britain and the U.S. decided to create a unique commando force, consisting of Canadian and U.S. soldiers. They gave it an innocuous sounding name, First Special Service Force (FSSF). Robert T. Frederick was appointed commander. He was a West Point graduate with a reputation for being opinionated but having a flair for organization.

Ancient Egyptian pharaonic culture stretched for millennia of kingdoms, dynasties, foreign invasions and civil war. The best known period today is the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom (c. 1549 – 1298 BC), thanks to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. But poor little buck-toothed Tut was a footnote in the history of the pharaohs, overshadowed by his predecessors.

One of his 18th Dynasty predecessors was Hatshepsut. Her father was Thutmose I, a great warrior king and Ahmose, his Chief Royal Wife (yes, it was an official title). Hatshepsut became the wife and queen of her half-brother, Thutmose II. It seems revolting to us today that step-siblings would marry, but the practice is rooted in how the 18th Dynasty pharaohs came to power.

It all started with a fender bender at the corner of 5th Avenue and 67th Street.  An angry driver chased the other car through Central Park.  It ended at 65th Street where Major Terry Allen was charged with driving a motor vehicle without proper identification. A charge of disorderly conduct was added after Allen stated his opinion of the arresting officer.

In court that day in 1926, Terry Allen admitted his guilt, but complained that the cops hadn’t allowed him to call friends to post the $500 bail.  When Allen insisted he was a reliable person, the judge asked how he’d prove it.   A police officer present in court spoke up. “I can vouch for him. He led me over the top many times. He always brought me back safely, too”.  The policeman had been an Army private during WWI with troops led by Allen.  The judge immediately suspended the sentence. 

The greatest and most loyal knight ever was William Marshal.  He outlived his enemies, amassed great landholdings and titles, and married a woman he loved.  He managed it all while serving a family that makes Game of Thrones and Empire seem tame.

William was born around 1147 during the civil war between Stephen of Blois and Empress Matilda. Both were grandchildren of William the Conqueror and both claimed the English throne.  William’s father, John Marshal, supported Matilda which was a lucky break when her son was designated as Stephen’s heir.

In 2003, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq intent on overthrowing Saddam Hussein.  President George W. Bush referred to the invasion as a crusade. Calling it a crusade was a gift to Saddam Hussein. Among Arabs, “crusade” is code for European cultural and racial imperialism.  

While most Europeans have moved on, the Arabs have never forgotten the original Crusades.  In the 1090’s Pope Urban II called for a crusade to save Christian Byzantium from the Seljuk Turks and liberate Christian sites in Jerusalem from Muslim control.     

On May 21, 1921, Anna Brown arrived half-drunk at the home of her sister Mollie Burkhart in Gray Horse, Oklahoma.   After causing a scene in front of Mollie’s in-laws who had been invited to dinner, fighting with her invalid mother and with Mollie, Anna walked out the door and became a statistic.   

Her badly decomposed body was found about a week later in the bottom of a ravine.  The coroner had her body hauled to the top of the ravine where an inept autopsy was immediately performed.  A bullet hole was found in the back of her skull.  A coroner’s inquest, composed of white men present during the retrieval of the body and the autopsy, concluded that Anna had been murdered.