Browsing: July 15

A Brief History On July 15, 1838, while delivering a speech at Harvard Divinity School, Ralph Waldo Emerson described Jesus as a “great man,” but not “God.”  He further caused a furor by discounting the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Bible as not true. Digging Deeper One of the guiding lights of the 19th Century philosophical Transcendentalist Movement, Emerson was a prolific writer of essays and a speech maker, and was a friend and mentor to Henry David Thoreau. In 1836, his essay, Nature, became the foundation of Transcendentalism, and his 1837 speech he called The American Scholar was called by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.…

A Brief History On July 15, 1815, Emperor Napoleon I of the French surrendered to the British aboard the HMS Bellerophon.  If you are unfamiliar with the name of the ship, it comes from the greatest Greek hero of ancient times (until Hercules).  Naming a ship after a mighty hero sure sounds better than naming one after some pencil necked politician.  The British have always found some pretty nifty names for their warships and so have the US Navy, at least sometimes.  Here we list 10 of the impressive, intimidating, just plain cool names for ships, and for each we…