Grateful for Inauguration Day
Since 1933, Inauguration Day has been observed on Jan. 20 (or Jan. 21 if Jan. 20 falls on a Sunday). The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution even specifies the time of day when one four-year executive term of office ends and the next one begins: noon. In the American experience, Inauguration Day has almost […]
Begin 2025 With the Fear of the Lord
“What is past is prologue.” These words are inscribed on the statue known as Future that stands in front of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. The quotation is taken from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In Act 2, Scene 1, Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan, tells Sebastian, the brother of the King of Naples, “What’s past […]
The Scale of Trump’s Moment
By now, most of us are fully apprised of the situation. The most controversial political figure in a generation has won a second term as president. In his first election, Donald Trump won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. His opponents and political enemies immediately attacked him over the results, constantly questioning the […]
The Electoral College Doesn’t Threaten Democracy, It Secures It
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. In 1967, a commission of the American Bar Association came up with a proposal for the establishment of a national popular vote for the election of the president of the United States and the abolition of the Electoral College, which is laid out in Article 2 of […]
Why Do We Care About History?
People are touchy about the topic of history these days. They get worked up about statues in public places, history education in middle and high school classrooms, and whether America was or was not founded as a Christian nation. Academic historians are famous for disparaging beloved authors like Barbara Tuchman and David McCullough for writing […]
D-Day, 80 Years Later
We often read of the great events of history and consider that their outcomes were inevitable. There is something natural about this tendency. We live in the world that emerged from the outcomes of great contests and wars, and we cannot quite imagine what the world would have looked like had those events turned out […]
A Tribute to David McCullough
The start of a new semester always includes introductory level history courses full of students whose primary interest is not necessarily history. At my institution, I teach intro history courses in American history and modern church history, and since those courses are required, I can always count on there being students in the room who […]