Browsing: Religion

A Brief History On August 24, 1215, Pope Innocent III declared the Magna Carta that King John of England signed with a group of dissatisfied barons on June 15, 1215, a famous document that is often treated with similar respect as the American Declaration of Independence, null and void.  Pope Innocent III was not just meddling with the affairs of far away Britain, he also claimed supremacy over all the various Kings and Queens of Europe!  Innocent was not so innocent when he instigated the Fourth Crusade, which was a disaster that resulted in the sack of Constantinople and ultimately…

A Brief History On August 5, 1620, 2 small English sailing ships left Southampton Water in England on a trip to the New World, carrying a group of Puritans seeking a land where they could practice their brand of religion without interference. The larger of the 2 ships, the Mayflower, has gone down in history as one of the most famous ships in the English speaking world, while the other, the Speedwell, became an historical afterthought. On July 22, 1620, the pinnace Speedwell left Delfshaven, now part of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, with a cargo of English Pilgrims bound for…

A Brief History On July 27, 1189, Friedrich Barbarossa (also known as Frederick), the Holy Roman Emperor, arrived at the capital of the Serbian King Stefan Nemanja, a city called Nis. King of Germany, King of Italy, and King of Burgundy, Barbarossa was a medieval force to be reckoned with, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1155. His undoing was his ill-considered foray into the Third Crusade, a venture that cost the Holy Roman Emperor his life. Digging Deeper Perhaps you are familiar with the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, a plan the Germans called “Operation Barbarossa” in…

A Brief History On July 26, 1953, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Arizona National Guard conducted a raid on an enclave of fundamentalist Mormons at Short Creek, Arizona, an enormous law enforcement effort that netted about 400 people taken into custody, including men, women, and children. Their alleged crime? Polygamy, also known as “plural marriage,” which had ended as a part of mainstream Mormonism as manifested by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the LDS and comprise more than 95% of all “Mormons.” Digging Deeper On July 26, 1953, the Arizona Department…

A Brief History On May 22, 1176, The Hashshashin (Assassins) made an attempt on the life of Saladin, the First Sultan of Egypt and Syria. The attempt failed, and Saladin, a Kurd and a Sunni Muslim, continued his reign until his death in 1193 of fever at the age of 56. Kurdish by ethnicity, Saladin was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and ruled what is now Egypt, Syria and Yemen along with the West coast of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula and Upper Mesopotamia (parts of Northern Iraq, Northeast Syria and Southern Turkey). Saladin is probably the best known person…