History Video Blog #39

Posted on April 26, 2010 by admin

Many of my early history teachers suggested that the Protestant Reformation (or reformations, if you prefer) was hell on art. When I became interested in the Reformation era as an undergraduate I encountered Zwingli’s theology that excluded any ecclesiological adornments that were not specifically found in the New Testament. His practical approach resulted in plain church buildings that must have seemed to a sixteenth-century person a remarkable contrast to Roman and Eastern counterparts. The Zurich reformer’s influence bolstered my initial idea that the heirs of that Reformation are deficient in their appreciation for, and production of, beauty. But my hasty generalization about the artlessness of the Reformation was completely challenged when one of my professor’s required Roland Bainton’s magisterial biography of Martin Luther, Here I Stand, as reading in a class in the History of Christianity. This 1950 biography was filled with marvelous woodcuts from the 1500s that sparked curiosity about both kitsch and artistic genius in the era, and opened the world of Dürer, Holbein the Younger, and Cranach the Elder to me. These brilliant artists not only chronicled the era, but played a role themselves in the making of history.

This video is another experiment in wysiwyg storytelling. I have tried to use separate takes to show the illustrations in books I own. I wanted to convey the same feeling you would have if you sat down next to me and I showed you my favorite paintings from these books. At one point in the video my mind wandered–I was so interested in the back cover of one of the books–and the camera gave an extended view of the gold tablecloth! I decided to keep that in because it seemed just like what might happen in reality if we were really having coffee and talking about our favorite art.

In the sequel to this clip I will focus in on my personal favorite of the Reformation artists, Hans Holbein the Younger. Please forgive me if you find HVB #39 a little quirky and rambling for your taste. That’s very much the way I am in real life. I hope to use my experience with this video to do a better job of telling the stories of artists in history. I sort of feel like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act V):

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.

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Popularity: 54% [?]

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History Video Blog #38

Posted on April 13, 2010 by admin

William Phillips was a young attorney who came to early Leavenworth for idealistic reasons. He was vehemently and courageously opposed to slavery and determined to make Kansas a free state. In early Leavenworth he was greatly outnumbered by slavery-sympathizers, who were capable of any kind of violent mischief when drunk on the cheap booze that flowed through early Leavenworth saloons.

Phillips had crossed the pro-slave party by crying foul to territorial Governor Reeder about the first election to the territorial legislature because the number of votes cast in Leavenworth was more than six times the actual number of legitimate voters. The extra votes were cast by ruffians from across the river in Missouri who were actually egged on by U. S. Senator David Rice Atchison, who challenged them to stuff the ballot boxes in Kansas, and justified the illegal act by claiming the property (presumably slaves) of Missouri’s citizens was being threatened within a few miles of their homes and it was their duty to vote in the Kansas election. Atchison said if they failed and the institution died, they would deserve their fate for lack of willingness to do their duty.

Pro-slavery sympathizers formed vigilance committees that accused Phillips of murder (he happened to be present when one man shot another in a public place). At first they rattled their sabers and told him to get out of town, but Phillips stood firm. He sent his wife and young child away, but he stayed on in Leavenworth until one night a vigilance committee took matters into their own hands…

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Popularity: 53% [?]

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History Video Blog #37

Posted on April 12, 2010 by admin

You need to know that this video is a great example of Wysiwyg history on location. I debated whether or not to post this segment, but decided to go ahead with it. When we were shooting the video we had no idea the wind was going to play a factor in the quality of the audio. In the end, because it is an on-location video, I thought that the parts that are easily understood are worth the hassle with the whistling wind. So here is the story of the finest of the early Kansas hotels–the Planter’s House.

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Popularity: 47% [?]

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History Video Blog #36

Posted on April 9, 2010 by admin

William Tecumseh Sherman is famous for his March to the Sea that both angered and broke the will of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The quotable Sherman is equally famous, perhaps, for saying, “War is hell!” But not many know that Sherman once tried his hand at a career in law. He was admitted to the Kansas Bar in the antebellum territorial days when the interpretation of the law was as shaky as the volatile political atmosphere. Joining in a partnership in Leavenworth, Sherman dodged the law by saving a fugitive slave and held high ideals for his future as an attorney. But he hadn’t reckoned on a scatterbrained, Latin-and precedent-spouting prosecuting attorney, a confused old judge at the end of his career,  and a prize pig torn between two sloppers. Sherman is fortunate to have kept his sanity in the weird, wonderful, and sometimes dangerous place known as Leavenworth, Kansas Territory!

This video is dedicated to all my friends who went to law school.

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Popularity: 45% [?]

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History Video Blog #35

Posted on April 8, 2010 by admin

Leavenworth, first city of Kansas, was incorporated on June 13, 1854, just two weeks after Kansas Territory was declared open for settlement. We continue our series about Leavenworth with a discussion about the early newspapers of Kansas, the establishment of Leavenworth, and the debate about what to name the town. And before our video was invaded by a speeding train, we talked about Leavenworth’s famous connection to Susan B. Anthony!

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Popularity: 53% [?]

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History Video Blog #34

Posted on April 4, 2010 by admin

I had told followers of HVB that I was plannning to begin on-location blogs from historical sites. This video is the introduction to a series I will do in Leavenworth, Kansas. Leavenworth is the First City of Kansas, incorporated in 1854, and home to a wide variety of colorful characters from the history of the Old West. The town is more widely known for its prisons, but the town played an important role in the growth of the United States. It is also probably most important for its relationship to Ft. Leavenworth, the oldest military base west of the Mississippi River, home of the Command and General Staff College, founded by William Tecumseh Sherman and the “Intellectual Center of the U.S. Army.”

In this vlog, I am standing in a valley near Five Mile Creek, in Leavenworth. The cars on the road on your right in the video are driving on a modern road that follows the historic Ft. Leavenworth-Ft. Scott Military Road constructed in the nineteenth century. The creek at this point is five miles from the original flagstaff of the old fort and empties into the Missouri river several kilometers to the northeast of where I am standing. In subsequent vlogs I will introduce you to the good, the bad, and the ugly of the early days of a frontier boom town. Here we will meet abolitionists, border ruffians, buffalo soldiers, pony express riders, foreign military officers, psychopathic criminals, and I am saving a surprise in two well-known literati who may have discussed their thoughts about writing and their future dreams over whiskey and cigars in a local saloon. Stay curious!

(By the way, the thumbnail picture is of Fred Harvey, the Ray Kroc of the 19th century, a restauranteur who established “Harvey Houses” at rail stations throughout the country. Maybe you remember Judy Garland, who strarred in the 1946 movie The Harvey Girls? I loved the the Oscar-winning “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” as Judy belted it out!)

Popularity: 100% [?]

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Change for change’s sake

Posted on April 2, 2010 by admin

Hey friends, thanks for your interest in my little history site. I appreciate all the support and encouragement; I really, really do. With the circus that is the internet, there are plenty of other places to spend your time. I really want this site to be nourishing–really feeding your mind and your soul–and feeding a genuine curiosity that will change the world. Not just a voyeurism that serves up empty calories. (Hope I am not mixing my metaphors too much!)

History is like that. It is good for the mind and good for the soul.

I also like to change things up a bit from time to time, and I wanted all the fans of the site to be in on the new stuff. First, you will notice that the font family for the site has changed from Arial to Trebuchet MS. After pondering the change way too long, I decided to take the plunge. Tell me if you prefer it to the old look. I also change the banner from all uppercase to upper- and lowercase bold italic. It give the home page more of a dynamic look. I had long struggled with the way the all-uppercase banner seemed to “shout” at readers. So loud was the banner that the only site name that actually looked good in it was the old blog title “The Raft,” which was a really cool name for a blog, but didn’t either brand this site nor relate to the actual content. By fooling around with the code I was able to reduce the size of the font in the banner and thus was able to consider other titles for the blog site. For now, I have chosen “modernera.us” to match the site’s URL and hopefully help readers and lurkers to easily remember the address and to spread the word more easily.

You will also note a change on the video blogs on this site. The generic Viddler logo has been replaced with a new History Video Blog logo featuring the portrait of the Site Muse, French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (who was a champion of genuine curiosity), with “HVB” for History Video Blog superimposed in a sort of electric peacock color. I hope it inspires, rather than distracts, you.

The last feature is one I am nervous about, so I really care what my readers think. I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles andAmazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more. When your cursor rolls over a link on this site, a “cloud” appears with a “snapshot” preview of the linked site. Some subscribers to Snap shot also use icons that appear superscripted following the links, but I thought that was too distracting and decided to stick with the linked text alone. those who use the icons think it is easier for readers to find the link, but I am not convinced of that. Seems like a surer way to market Snap Shots, but I am not sure how it helps the blogging experience. What do you think?

Anyway, sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times they let you “look ahead,” before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide all this snap-shottiness is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out. My readers’ having the ability to opt out of this function helps me to feel a little better about the experiment. Please tell me what you think of this and all other changes. I really listen to you, my friends!

Stay curious, my friends!

Popularity: 65% [?]

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History Video Blog #33

Posted on March 31, 2010 by admin

The Medici were a family of farmers who originally came from a town called Cafaggiolo, about fifteen miles north of Florence. We don’t know if they came into a little money, or if they were ruined in farming, but they moved to Florence about the time it became a republic and within a hundred years they were one of the richest families in the city and they were bankers–their business was to lend money. Each generation of Medici became even richer. But in 1389 was born Cosimo de’ Medici, who not only became wealthier than his father, he came to control the city itself. Cosimo was 40 when his father died, and Cosimo was so feared by the other powerful ruling family of Florence, the Albizzi, that they arranged to have Cosimo arrested for trying to put himself above others in the city and mismanagement of the defense of the city, a crime that could have cost him his life, except that he ransomed himself by paying an enormous amount and went into exile for a year.

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Popularity: 54% [?]

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History Video Blog #32

Posted on March 15, 2010 by admin

Florence is a city in Italy on the River Arno about 170 miles north of Rome in Tuscany, Northern Italy. it was an important city in the Middle Ages and it is considered the center of the Italian Renaissance, a “rebirth” of the arts and architecture after the constrictive days of the Middle Ages (or so Renaissance people thought). That rebirth was made possible because Florence was also a center of banking and trade, and its wealthy patrons made the burgeoning of the arts possible. It was the richest city of its time, and home to one of the wealthiest families in Europe, the de’ Medici family.

Florence was a city-state that began as a republic ruled by a council called the signoria, appointed by a ruler that was elected every two months. It was a republic beginning in 1115 and it soon came to dominate most of Tuscany (there was no nation of Italy until the nineteenth century), despite frequent coups and political unrest. The Medici family and the papacy together finally destroyed the republic completely in the 16th century and made it a kingdom controlled by the de’ Medici family for decades and decades. The Medici man who made all this possible was named Cosimo.

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Popularity: 47% [?]

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More trials of Blogging

Posted on March 6, 2010 by admin

There is always something new at ModernEra.us. Those of you who follow my Blog will notice a new format that requires a little more of you when you want to comment. The comment format is an experiment with a system that organizes all comments as content stored off-line rather than on my website. The same system tracks my comments on the blogs of other writers and stores them in one place. There are some glitches I have run into already. For example, the system balks at my wanting the option of approving comments before publication. When I ticked the box that would specify that protocol, I lost many past comments and those that remained became like “ghosts.” What I mean by that last comment: sometimes when one would read an entry “Joe’s” comment would appear, and the next time I accessed the entry, “Joe’s” comment was gone! Also, the system invites innocent commentators a “sign up” offer that would permit he or she to become a tracked commentator in the system. if that bugs you, please accept my apologies. I haven’t decided for sure if I am going to keep the system.

There are some up sides: The offline administration of comments is easier overall, security is as good as before but without captcha requirements because the comments are stored and filtered elsewhere. Also, the system allows me to offer replies to comments that show up after the comment I am replying to. I couldn’t do that before. But I saw one of my replies appear on Twitter, and I was talking about castration! I need to be careful. Hey, I keep calling this thing a system, but it has a name: Disqus–a shibboleth, the word is pronounced “discuss”. Bear with me, and check out disqus.com to see if you would like to use it on your own blog.

In other news: On March 3, the visitors on my blog site surpassed 3500 since History Video Blogs appeared on Kansas Day, January 29. March 4 was my record high one-day visitor total.  On that day 195 people viewed at least one entry. The day was not, however, a record day for comments, which means that loads of you readers are still “lurking.” I love you, but this is sort of like coming into my office, picking up books off the shelf, reading my diplomas on the wall, but not speaking to me. You are always welcome to look around my site, but please tell me what you think from time to time!

Last week I set up a fan site for the History Video Blogs on Facebook. I was stunned that 74 people have actually become fans! Thank you so much, and I will find a way to encourage and reward all of you who have become fans. And please, send along your suggestions for making this low-budget high-tech project bloom. So many of you have made wonderful contributions already.

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Popularity: 45% [?]

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History VB Interactive #3

Posted on March 5, 2010 by admin

We have our first two winners in the skype History Buddy Contest! In this video we read the best comments and announce the winners.

By the way, this is an ongoing contest. Next week we will review the best comments of the week and award another CD and face time. For more details about the contest go to http://www.modernera.us/wordpress/skype-history-buddy-contest/

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Popularity: 53% [?]

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History Video Blog #31

Posted on March 3, 2010 by admin

Well, I played a trick on you last time. You haven’t missed the 2010 game if you are viewing this before Wednesday night, March 3. But this top five game was played when KU was ranked higher than K-State in the top five–the first time that had happened and the last before 2010.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.The year was 1958. the great Tex Winter was the K-State coach who had the dream. Watch the video to find out how his dream played out.

Popularity: 56% [?]

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History Video Blog #30

Posted on March 2, 2010 by admin

Hey did you miss the game? Yeah, they played it already! K-State and KU both in the top five played two overtimes before a winner was established. And what a game! K-State had already lost once to KU and now they had to go to Allen Field House where they were met by 17,000 screaming fans.

Before the game K-State’s coach had a dream. He came up with the perfect way to defend KU’s big center, a huge guy who literally seemed to occupy the entire center of the court. In his dream K-State completely stifled the big guy by putting forwards at the big guy’s “belt buckle” and at each of his shoulders, then depended on the guards to zone the other guys on the team. The K-State coach told his team, “The big dude doesn’t go to the bathroom without this triangle around him!”

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Popularity: 55% [?]

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History Video Blog #28

Posted on February 28, 2010 by admin

While being held captive at Durnstein, Austria, Richard I Lion Heart (1157-99) supposedly fell in love with the daughter of Leopold V of Austria–or at least that is the legend. When Leopold found out, he was infuriated and decided to stage an accident to do away with Richard. Leopold had a private zoo in which he owned a mature Lion. He arranged with the keepers to starve the Lion for a few days then they were to allow the lion to escape and find its way into Richard’s cell. According to the story, the daughter overheard the plan and warned Richard and offered several bold options for escape. Richard refused to leave and instead asked her to bring him forty silk handkerchiefs. He wrapped the handkerchiefs around  his right forearm, and when the Lion broke into the cell he thrust his hand down the Lion’s throat and pulled out his heart! The door having been left open to allow the beast to enter, Richard took the Lion’s heart in his hand, still beating (!) and went to the Great Hall of Leopold, where he smacked the heart down on the table in front of him! Not done yet, he snatched the salt cellar, salted the heart and ate it raw in front of the astonished king!

That is just a tall tale circulated for centuries in establishing Richard’s reputation, but here are the hard facts of his imprisonment:  England paid the ransom for Richard, 100,00 silver crowns, equivalent to three years total taxation, and this was already on top of the heavier taxes his subjects had to pay to allow him to go crusading. Richard didn’t even speak English, and he was fatally wounded by a crossbow arrow in France besieging a castle in France, leaving the throne to his blockhead brother John of Robin Hood and Magna Carta fame.

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Popularity: 66% [?]

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History Video Blog #27

Posted on February 27, 2010 by admin

Last time we talked about the anti-Semitism that broke out in England around the time that Richard I of England first became king and prepared to go on his crusade in the years 1189-1190. We said that Richard decried the persecution of Jews and issued proclamations protecting them and defining capital crimes against them. The Jews had been in England for less than a century. They came with the Normans at William’s conquest and most of those who came were financiers. Richard also was the king not only of Normandy, but also had a claim to the French throne. It seemed that when he turned his attention from England, persecution broke out. Richard was not much of a king to the English: he didn’t spend much time or attention on it. And his narcissism parading as piety nearly bankrupted the nation. That story is closely related to the legend of how he got his nickname, Coeur de Lion, Lionheart. Here’s the story:

On his way back from campaigning for 16 months in the Holy Land during the third Crusade, 1189-92 (failed to take Jerusalem, the objective), Richard was captured by Leopold, duke of Austria, and held for ransom in the dungeon of Castle Durnstein. He had been warned not to go through Austria, but his head was apparently in the clouds.

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Popularity: 34% [?]

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History Video Blog #26

Posted on February 26, 2010 by admin

In 1190, 150 Jewish residents of York were trapped in a medieval keep. They went voluntarily into Clifford’s Tower, originally for their own protection. A crazy monk appeared, who whipped up the anger of the mob against the Jews. It was proposed that the Jews would be killed unless they consented to receive Catholic baptism. The monk began to celebrate masses at the foot of the tower daily during the siege. One time a large stone fell from the battlement onto the crazy monk and he was killed. The mob went nuts and began to lay fire and hurl objects into the keep. The leader of the group of Jews, Yom Tov, directed the Jews to take their own lives rather than submit to the horrors the mob had planned for them. When the mob broke through into the burning citadel only a few were still alive and they were put to death.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

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History Video Blog #25

Posted on February 25, 2010 by admin

I have many memorable storm experiences, but my most memorable experience in a storm occurred in England, not in the US. I was with my daughter, Hope, in the City of York in northern England, and we were touring the castle there. There is a particular part of the castle with a notorious reputation that we were touring when the storm occurred. The place is called Clifford’s Tower, the keep or strongest and most protected part of a medieval castle. The tower stands on a little hillock that overlooks York. It was here in 1190 that one of the most tragic and disgraceful events in English history took place.

1190 was the second year of the reign of Richard I, called the Lion-heart. Richard was preparing already to participate in a crusade against the Saracens, and in the wake of this strong anti-Semitic feelings were stirred to a fever pitch in England. Many Jewish people were bankers and money-lenders and many town burghers and nobles were indebted. Hatred of the one owed was the primary motivation for this hatred and it was whipped up by twisted theology that served the ends of the persecutors. There was violence all over the country during this year, but the events at York began when in March 1190, a prominent and wealthy Jewish man of York named Benedict died from wounds sustained in London at the hands of an angry mob.

Back in York a mob whipped up by people who owed Benedict money broke into his house, murdered his widow and children, and carried off all his material wealth. Then they set his house and other houses where Jews lived on fire. All this violence happened because a false rumor had been started that Richard had ordered persecution of the Jews.

About 150 Jews in York petitioned the Warden of the Castle to allow them sanctuary from the mobs. He allowed them into Clifford’s Tower, but they caught wind of his plans to release them to the mobs that then besieged the castle and would not allow the Warden in once they were safely inside. When the Warden could not get in, he called on the Sheriff, Richard Malebys, who besieged the tower.

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Popularity: 66% [?]

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Win face time and a $55 CD!

Posted on February 25, 2010 by admin

In shamelessly attempting to promote the History Video Blog site (where you get Past Imperfect, the WYSIWYG history story time!), I have come up with a little contest to reward my faithful viewers and to draw friendly lurkers from the shadows of the blogosphere. I call it my “Skype History Buddy Contest,” and the winner gets face time with me either via skype or in person AND a 25-issue CD of the critically acclaimed Mars Hill Review ($55 value). Interested? Here is how it works:

1. Go to the Facebook Fan site, http://is.gd/98mke and become a fan of “History Video Blog”.

2. Come back to THE RAFT and choose the latest blog or something out of the past and make a brilliant comment.

3. Check back when the latest installment of “History VB Interactive” is posted. Watch th evideo to find out if your comment is the big winner of the week. I award each weekly winner one million points and enter their comment into the monthly drawing.

4. If I draw your name randomly at the end of the month, you become my Skype History Buddy, and we get to talk via skype (or in person if you are in my part of the universe)! I don’t know everyone’s emails, so you will have to check the interactive videos for announcements about winners.

5. BONUS: For a limited time only, the monthly winner will received a CD version of the first 25 editions of the critically acclaimed journal Mars Hill Review. Each of the 25 issues contain full length essays from provocative thinkers, conducts in-depth studies of issues having theological import and interviews leading-edge writers, teachers and artists.MHR also features original fiction, nonfiction, poetry and critical reviews of film, books, music and other texts that remind us of God. Each issue is over 200 pages, so this CD represents over 5000 pages of compelling reading! (Thanks to Kim Hutchins, publisher of MHR, for making this $55 value exclusively available to History Video Blog fans!)

6. This contest has to be limited to people who either speak English or Koine Greek, otherwise we won’t have much to talk about.

Popularity: 48% [?]

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History Video Blog #24

Posted on February 24, 2010 by admin

Many of us know the legend of Franklin flying a kite in a thunderstorm (which by the way, he never wrote about though he kept copious notes on his other experiments). But this supposedly took place in 1752, and Franklin had already been experimenting with electricity for five or more years. Franklin even constructed his own battery to generate electricity, although he told a friend he wasn’t sure what could be done with it (!).

So he was very practical and turned his brilliant mind to try to figure out how to protect people and property from the devastation of lightning strikes, which he theorized (note: theorized) were electrical. He had thought there was a connection between electricity and lightning based on visual observation alone. The color, noise, crookedness of both led him to suspect a connection.  Franklin thought if he could draw the electrical fire “out of a cloud silently, before it could come near enough to strike” he could protect structures. He knew that in his lab metal was a good conductor of electricity. He had accidentally noticed that an iron sewing needle could conduct electricity away from a charged metal sphere. and so he came up with a sharply-pointed metal rod, originally 8 to 10 feet in length that was mounted on the highest points of buildings and connected by wire to the ground.

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Popularity: 49% [?]

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History Video Blog #23

Posted on February 23, 2010 by admin

In October 1631, in the midst of the Thirty Years War, Catholic troops commanded by the Count of Tilly, attacked with a force of 40,000 troops, losing only 300 men, occupied Protestant Rothenburg. Tilly threatened to plunder and completely level the city. On a whim he promised to spare the town from destruction if a town officer could manage to drink an enormous tankard containing four-fifths of a gallon wine in one go.

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Popularity: 44% [?]

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History Video Blog #22

Posted on February 22, 2010 by admin

Our story takes place as the war breaks out–in Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic). Bohemia was a kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire (neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an empire). The HRE was a virtually ungovernable hodge-podge of 360 autonomous political entities joined together under an emperor who was elected by an elite group drawn from the 360 “countries.” The Imperial crown was elective, but had gone traditionally to a person from the Hapsburg family. The Hapsburgs were rabidly Catholic, but were forced to abate their usual hatred of Protestants by the checks of the powerful electors. Bohemia’s religious liberties had been guaranteed since 1575.

But in 1618, a scion of the Hapsburg family named Ferdinand became king of Bohemia. Ferdinand had been educated by Jesuits and had little regard for past treaties convinced as he was that Prot must be stamped out. His first act of office was to revoke Protestant liberties in Bohemia. What happened next was the stuff (or stink) of legend.

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Popularity: 61% [?]

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History Video Blog #21

Posted on February 21, 2010 by admin

During the Reformation, those in Europe who wanted to pursue Protestantism had a tough row to hoe. The Roman church had tremendous wealth and political power. The only safe place to be a Protestant was in a country led by a Protestant prince, but even that was not always safe. From 1562 to 1648, wars racked Europe as Protestants sought freedom and the power to maintain that freedom, and the Catholic church and the political powers that wanted to contain or even suppress Protestantism.

In France, the French Wars of religion were fought from 1562-1598. The Protestants actually won tolerance in France and came within an eyelash of becoming a bastion of Protestantism, only to see it stolen away in the 17th century under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. The Spanish and English fought each other off and on during the reign of Elizabeth I in England and her former brother-in-law Philip II in Spain. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1587 is a story for another day.

The final war of religion was the Thirty Years War. It began for reasons of maintaining religious liberty, but ended as a political conflict with France and the Hapsburg family duking it out to control the balance of power in Europe. Every major political power in Europe was involved directly or indirectly, and Germany was devastated in the paths where various armies trod up and down.

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Popularity: 53% [?]

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History Video blog #20

Posted on February 20, 2010 by admin

Can winning in any arena be achieved at too high a price? We have been discussing a few stories about the Greek colony, Taras. There were a number of Greek city-states founded in the southern part of the Italian “boot” and in Sicily. So ubiquitous were the Greek colonies that the area was called “Magna Graecia.”

After 300 BC the power of the Roman Republic was really expanding. Though there would be no emperor for about 275 more years, Rome was becoming very much an empire. In southern Italy, some Greek poleis began to call on the Romans to help them militarily whenever neighboring cities attacked them. The Romans often came to help when they were asked, but like empires are wont to do, they seldom left once they showed up. Taras was a leading city and proudly feared and resisted Roman incursions. Their civic pride would lead them to call upon one of the world’s greatest generals, who would bring one of the world’s finest armies to their anticipated rescue. But could this decision rather lead to their doom?

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Popularity: 38% [?]

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History Video Blog #19

Posted on February 19, 2010 by admin

Parthenian Spartans founded the colony of Taras in southern Italy. The video discusses who these Spartans were and why they came, and relates the unique founding myth of the city. Founding myths were stories used to make sense of the origin of the city. It combines elements of truth, legend, and aspiration. The founding myth of Taras has a message in some ways similar to the screen version of the Wizard of Oz: “there is no place like home…” That is, sometimes the place to be is the imperfect right-where-you-are rather than the perfect place you can’t find.

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Popularity: 76% [?]

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History Video Blog #18

Posted on February 18, 2010 by admin

Ancient Greece was dotted with city-states, the most famous of which, to us, are Athens and Sparta.  Ancient Greece was not a nation in our sense of the word. There was no central government, and to an ancient person this would be unthinkable since each of these cities had their own dialect, cultural heritage, economic system, and preferred form of government. Greece was a region that comprised the  Greek peninsula so familiar to us today, as well as the Western part of what is today Turkey, and the islands of the Aegean Sea. When the Greeks thought about the world that was dear to them, they thought about the rocky lands that surrounded the Aegean Sea–sort of a “Greek Lake.”

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Popularity: 50% [?]

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History Video Blog #17

Posted on February 17, 2010 by admin

What happened to Abelard and Heloise after…you know, ahem…”snip, snip?” Well, Abelard continued to find trouble while in denial, and Heloise distinguished herself as an abbess, even though she was incredibly angry with God.

Separated in life, the two lovers were joined in death. See how that could be by watching the video.

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Popularity: 78% [?]

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History Video Blog #16

Posted on February 16, 2010 by admin

In Paris, there was a canon (or prebend, someone attached to a cathedral as a clergy who performs services for a fee) of church of the name Fulbert, who had an already famous niece named Heloise (1101-1164).  She was perhaps 22 years younger than Abelard and knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. She wrote and loved literature, having been an unusual woman who received an education previously only open to men. She was apparently good looking, too. She had perhaps the finest mind of anyone described during this time, an even greater intellect than Abelard. There were few who could challenge her, so her uncle Fulbert looked for a tutor and latched upon a plan that involved Abelard…

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Popularity: 59% [?]

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History Video Blog #15

Posted on February 15, 2010 by admin

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was once the most recognized celebrity in Europe. He was from Brittany and was raised by a father who loved literature and sought to inculcate writing and literature into his sons. Pierre was the oldest and was quite precocious. At a young age he had a grasp of logic and would engage in disputations with local yokels older than he, until he ended up in Paris at the cathedral school of the most famous logic teacher of the day, William of Champeaux. As a student, Abelard would disagree openly with William and, being quicker, would make jokes at his expense. Finally, young Abelard decided he himself wanted to teach and moved to Melun, 25 miles SE of Paris. This essentially ruined the career of William, and Abelard eventually came back to Paris, where he was the toast of the town. Students flocked in droves. He was the biggest draw in Paris and had a continent-wide reputation.

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Abelard was a brilliant narcissist. He presented  his lectures in a dry way with unforgettable humor, and was one of those teachers who awe students with their mind, rather than inspire them to greater things. He was entertainment, and students latched on to every word. He was apparently great at academics, but was a hopeless klutz in almost everything else. Besides being handsome, women were very much attracted to his confidence and to that sense of the helpless little boy who needs a feminine hand to take care of him. Heloise herself later said that every woman in Europe dreamed of sharing a bed with him. He had a hypnotic effect on women and young men wanted to advance their careers by taking lessons from him.

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History Video Blog #14

Posted on February 14, 2010 by admin

Let’s hear a love story from history. Just a warning–it’s a tragic one. You may shed a tear. Cole Porter wrote a love song that included a reference to this particular love story called Just One of Those Things. Here are some of the lyrics:

As Abelard said to Eloise,

“Don’t forget to drop a line to me, please”

As Juliet cried, in her Romeo’s ear,

“Romeo, why not face the fact, my dear?”

It was just one of those things

Just one of those crazy flings

One of those bells that now and then rings

Just one of those things.

The point of the song is that sometimes love must end, and when it does there is no explanation because it was just one of those things that happen. The first stanza above was not sung in many popular versions by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick Jr., Sarah Vaughn and others, probably because while everyone knows who Romeo and Juliet were, no one has a clue about Abelard and “Eloise”. To find out who they were, and to hear the story of their star-crossed love, we have to go back almost 900 years, to the first third of the 12th century in France.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

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History Video Blog #13

Posted on February 13, 2010 by admin

Dr. Alan bearman and his student, Kevin, talk about what history means to them.

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If you want to know more about Dr. Bearman. See the following video:

YouTube Preview Image

Popularity: 55% [?]

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History Video Blog #12

Posted on February 12, 2010 by admin

If you have ever wondered what it might be like to become a university professor, you need to watch this video blog. Dr. Robert D. Linder is University Distinguished Professor of History at Kansas State University, and he shares about what is actually involved in pursuing graduate studies for the purpose of a career in college teaching and research.

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Popularity: 75% [?]

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History VB Interactive #2

Posted on February 12, 2010 by admin

Yike! Twenty-three and a half minutes, but worth every second! We go over the best comments of the week and award a million points for the very best of the best.

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Popularity: 56% [?]

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History Video Blog #11

Posted on February 11, 2010 by admin

Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, produced a male heir for the throne, but Jane died from complications related to childbirth. The King wanted to remarry, so Cromwell took charge and presumed to pursue a match with a Protestant princess from the continent to make a political alliance. The story goes that Henry was willing to make a match for diplomacy if the woman was good-looking. Cromwell produced a portrait by the great Hans Holbein the Younger that portrayed princess Anne of Cleves from a frontal view. Henry was pleased; she looked attractive so he gave Cromwell permission to make the match. What happened next made heads roll…

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