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  • HEINRICH KRAMER – THE FIRST WITCH HUNTER

    Okay so maybe not the FIRST witch hunter, but probably the most famous if for one reason: He wrote the book on witch hunting. LITERALLY. I’ll get to that. Kramer was born in Selestat, Alsace circa 1430 CE and from a very young age showed a great deal of interest in the church and it’s works. He joined the Dominican Order of Monks at a markedly young age (though how young is not known) and became the Prior of the Order in his hometown while still quite young. Sometime in his 40’s he was appointed as Inquistor of Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia, and Moravia, and his charisma and passion in the…

  • A DAY IN THE LIFE… OF PIRATES!

    I considered writing this entirely in pirate speak, but I determined that would distract too much from the actual information I wanted to get across… so instead, look for the piratical translation below! A long time ago on the Spanish Main in the region known as the Caribbean lived a rough and rugged sort of men and women. Some were refugees, some were criminals, some just couldn’t make it in civilized society. Whatever the case “roughing it” was a way of life. Some of the earliest hunters in and among the uninhabited islands used a style of wooden frame similar to a modern grill to cook their food. This wooden…

  • HERODOTUS

    Look, let us be straight with each other: History, as it is taught in the United States (I cannot speak for other countries) is dry as toast and boring as hell. And to be perfectly honest, most history is not taught as a means of reflecting on the past, but as a method to teach other concepts, such as how to write a paper, how to create a bibliography, how to cite your sources, etc. (I cringed when one student referred to the Celts as the SELTS, soft “C” sound. I blame basketball!) It is because of this that I didn’t really get into history until later in life when…

  • Spartacus

    Do you know why we love the story of Spartacus? And why it is told and retold over and over again in television, movies, and literature? I bet you do, but I'm going to say it anyway because I absolutely have to. Spartacus is the ultimate underdog. It's like a militant rags to riches fairytale where everyone dies in the end… or really, just a fairytale as written, y'know prior to the rigorous Disney sanitizing.What was that? Some people don't KNOW the Spartacus story? Well that is just pl [...]

  • The Shardana

    In honor of “Talk Like a Pirate Day” I have decided to write a story about the Shardana, a race of ancient pirates. In order to talk like them you would have to learn a long dead language, I am afraid.The Shardana, or the Sherden, didn't exactly leave behind anything for us to definitively talk about who they were or what they are about. The first possible reference to them was in a letter from an Egyptian mayor, a guy named Rib-Hadda, to the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, wherein he refere [...]