RealClearHistory Articles

RealClearHistory is seeking an Assistant Editor, who is passionate about history and ready to work on bringing the latest history news to a wide audience. RealClearHistory is a non-partisan, comprehensive news site that contains original articles from an array of experts and has the best aggregated stories of the day. It is part of the greater RealClear team. This is a great opportunity to contribute to the overall discussion about the latest developments in the field of history. This is a paid position that is completely remote. The hours and schedule will be discussed and decided between...

He was a high school dropout. He failed at ranching. He failed at real estate. He ran for sheriff of Madison County (of Bridges of Madison County fame), Iowa and lost. He would eventually scam his way to wealth. He’d begin to believe his own lies and would die in a hospital for the criminally insane. In 1915 Oscar Hartzell was 40 years old and broke. Two conmen approached him claiming they were looking for descendants of the British privateer Sir Francis Drake. They claimed to be selling shares of Drake’s massive inheritance. Hartzell’s mother believed the story and gave the...

As women’s history month draws to a close, I am reminded of the fact that there are little known women who have made massive impacts here in the United States. From women who made their way west to the women who today serve in our highest offices, women have long been impacting our political atmosphere. As a woman myself, I have been on the cutting edge of political decisions and listened into various conversations that I know were a part of history. Women, though long underestimated, have begun to show the world that they too have a place in the history books. The old saying goes that...

What has happened to our Novus ordo seclorum? The American City upon a Hill is in ruins. Our “New” fallen America runs on grift – what’s good for me is good for the world! We are all Boomers now. Harvard University and West Point led the way to the new promised land. At Harvard, your personal “truth” validating racism and plagiarism will get you the Presidency. At West Point, there is no need for a mission centered on “duty, honor, country.” Our President is a compulsive grifter; his Republican rival is a compulsive huckster. For them, it...

On March 23rd in 1775, Patrick Henry rose at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, to urge his countrymen to arm themselves for the Revolutionary War. Four weeks before the battle of Lexington and Concord, Henry saw the future: “The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!”  Most Americans remember the stirring ending of Henry’s speech: “give me liberty, or give me death!” But in this election year, it is useful to be reminded of the beginning of that speech.  When Henry rose to speak, he knew he...

Each day I hear echoes of the global unraveling of Bronze Age civilizations that delayed the course of human progress for centuries; the sounds of a globally interconnected submersible imploding under the titanic weight of the same crises that crushed once-thriving Bronze Age societies. Ecological Exhaustion One cornerstone of Bronze Age collapse was a long period of severe drought, famine, and environmental degradation. Today, we grapple with the impacts of unchecked warming, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, disastrous wildfires, parched diminishing centralized farmland,...

Today, states across the country are beginning to actively embrace pro-sound money legislation, inviting a critical examination of how America abandoned the gold standard of money and racked up $34.5 trillion in debt. To understand how we got here, it’s important to understand the policy that initiated our monetary decline.   91 years ago, on April 5th, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, forever reshaping America's monetary system.  This controversial order marked a pivotal moment in the nation's financial history. EO 6102 banned...

Transitions in political and social paradigms have influenced how nation-states have fought wars since the dawn of modernity. Evolving from the smaller, dynastic armies like those of Louis the XIV and Frederick the Great, the explosion of broader and more passionate citizen involvement in the affairs of state in the 18th and 19th centuries transformed the fundamental character of Western conflict. Beginning with the stunning outbreak of French nationalism and culminating in the unprecedented carnage of the First and Second World Wars, the fusion of mass participation with industrial means to...

The Biden – Trump Presidential election will be the seventh rematch in our nation’s history and the first in almost seventy years. Thomas Jefferson / John Adams – 1796 / 1800 After George Washington declined to serve a third term, our nation experienced its first contested Presidential election in 1796. This election featured the first political parties, with John Adams of the Federalist Party opposed by Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic–Republican Party. The 1796 campaign was hard fought, showing partisan politics were present from our nation’s founding. For...

In the annals of American constitutional history, it is practically totemic to say that war makes for hard decisions and limitations on otherwise acceptable speech. The American Civil War was not the first conflict to bring up the question of free speech in times of war–the Alien and Seditions Acts in 1798 were–but the nation’s greatest drama raised novel and significant constitutional dilemmas which we continue to wrestle with today. In 2024, America’s greatest conflicts are global and harder to define–the War on Terror, the potential new Cold War with China,...

The echoes of Russia’s Stalinist past reverberate as its detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich approaches the one-year mark.The contemptible action would not have shocked my late second cousin Boris Smolar, given his experiences nearly a century ago as among the initial half-dozen American journalists allowed into the Soviet Union before the United States formally recognized the country in 1933. But he nevertheless would be distraught at the back-to-the future Cold War brutality it represents in replicating the disdain for individual freedoms that he observed...

The God of the Quran in revealing to his Prophet Muhammad Surah 5, Al-Ma’idah, ratified the covenants which 1) Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures had made with Abraham that his descendants by his son Isaac would be a great people and 2) through his chosen agent Moses with the Children of Israel that they would live in the “Holy Land”. Verses 20 and 21 of the Surah confirm for the God of Muhammad that: “… Moses said to his people, “O my people, remember God’s blessings upon you, when He placed prophets among you, and made you kings, and gave you what He...

The third episode of Apple TV’s “Masters of the Air” focuses exclusively on the Eighth Air Force’s 17 August 1943 double-strike on the Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg and the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, one of the darkest days for the “Bloody Hundredth” Bomb Group and the Army Air Forces in World War II. The raids comprised 361 unescorted B-17s. Sixty of those bombers—each carrying 10 men—were shot down; another 87 were written off because they were too damaged to fly. Obviously, those were not the results envisioned in designing...

Neocon war hawk Nikki Haley is rarely shy about using force against other people.  Most recently, she has called for airstrikes on Iran and Syria, imposition of aggressive economic sanctions, and the elimination of leaders supposedly tied to a drone attack on U.S. soldiers stationed in Jordan.  The foreign policy establishment applauds her bellicosity.  President Biden apparently believes her advice sage and in recent days has used U.S. airpower to attack multiple targets in the Middle East.    But in an uncharacteristic lapse into humanity, Haley...

Three years ago, the United States gave up its defense of freedom and constitutional democracy for the people of Afghanistan. Forty-nine years ago, the American defense of the South Vietnamese people ended in defeat. What is wrong with us that we can’t win “small wars”? The Antiwar movement preached that we could never win in Vietnam and so shouted loudly that we should get out of Vietnam “NOW!”, chanting “Hey, hey LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?” and “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win!” And yes, American generals and war...

Donald Trump just crushed the dreams of moderate Republicans hoping to see a change in party leadership. Despite his age, demeaning comments, and multiple ongoing trials, the former president dominated the primaries of Iowa and New Hampshire. Nikki Haley claims the race is “far from over,” but our country must face reality: 2024 will most likely become another Trump vs. Biden rematch, with the vast majority of Americans left without a horse in the race. This nightmare scenario could be avoided with one tiny tweak to the US Constitution: reforming the Electoral College...

In the aftermath of Hamas’ barbaric attacks against Israel on October 7th, those of us who are interested in pluralism, freedom of religion, and social equality more broadly have been left pondering one overwhelming question: Why are American colleges and universities so antisemitic?  After years of apparent harmony and tranquility, Jewish students are now subject to death threats, physical intimidation, and a seemingly endless barrage of online and in-person harassment. This isn’t just an online phenomenon. Indeed, a survey by the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel...

Almost two years into the Russia-Ukraine War, the outlook is grimmer than ever. Hundreds of thousands have died, millions have fled their homes, the much-hyped counteroffensive has failed, and the likelihood of a Ukrainian victory is negligible. Time and money is running out, yet the Biden Administration has reportedly blocked all attempts to broker a peace deal, and last week warned that the United States risks getting pulled into direct conflict with Russia, with “consequences [that] reverberate around the world.”  Evidently, the ultimate goal is a post-Putin future in...

Eighty-one years ago, on January 7, 1943, a member of the Class of 1937 at Connecticut’s Trinity College lost his life in the crash of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in the Gulf of Papua, south of New Guinea.  Second Lieutenant Judson Ramaker, the navigator, was one of six aircrew who died on that mission.  Another was the mission’s bombardier, Master Sergeant Meyer “Mike” Levin. Ramaker '37 1937 Ivy Levin Public Domain                     Americans, Australians, and Japanese were fighting for...