Tag: history

UK: Historic pub accused of ‘misogyny’ as influencers complain of ‘sickening’ 200-year-old name

Ahistoric pub has been branded misogynistic as American influencers complain of its “sickening” 200-year-old name.

The Henry VIII pub sits opposite Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and has stood proudly in the heart of the Kent village for five centuries.

After going viral on social media, Londoners looking to have their fill of English history now run rampant through the manicured castle grounds, seeking out the perfect Instagram spot outside the Big Smoke.

Tourists’ gaze will often fall upon the country pub opposite the attraction, whose name some visitors blame on the “patriarchy”.

Deirdre Rae, an American self-acclaimed life coach who moved to London, was one of the first to rage over the pub’s name.

After going viral on social media, Londoners looking to have their fill of English history now run rampant through the manicured castle grounds, seeking out the perfect Instagram spot outside the Big Smoke.

Tourists’ gaze will often fall upon the country pub opposite the attraction, whose name some visitors blame on the “patriarchy”.

Deirdre Rae, an American self-acclaimed life coach who moved to London, was one of the first to rage over the pub’s name.

“Imagine being Anne Boleyn and finding out people thought it was a good idea to open a pub dedicated to the man who beheaded you right in front of your childhood home,” she said.

“I’m just finding out about this and I’m sickened by the disrespect,” one said, while others cried out for a petition to change the “disrespectful as f**k” name. Some proposed the “Anne Bole Inn”.

“It’s how they’ve always treated women, nothing changes if nothing changes,” another added.

“It’s ridiculous to say our pub’s misogynistic,” one local told Britain’s News Channel.

“It’s history. That’s what it is. If influencers out here think they know better than us, they have another thing coming.”

But Ms Rae’s claim was met with some mocking responses as others lamented the “deeply-ingrained misogyny” pervading through British history.

“When you get the chance to ask her, let me know,” one ridiculed, while another mused that the beheaded Queen was unlikely to find out.

Others condemned her “simplistic analysis”, while insisting the story was far more complicated than at first glance.

“I don’t think the pub’s name is intended as misogynistic or offensive to Anne, who was executed in 1536,” royal historian Gareth Russell told the People’s Channel.

“I’m not sure renaming it as ‘The Anne Bole Inn’ has quite the sense of gravitas you might want for honouring a Queen of England…

“But that being said, I’ve always thought it was an odd choice to name the pub opposite her childhood home after the husband who signed her death warrant,” he added.

The Henry VIII was named as such as far back as 1848, although the site has long-served as a boozer for the locals and dates all the way back to the 1500s.

The second Queen Consort to Henry VIII was executed for treason in 1536 following a three-year reign alongside the King.

She spent her early youth in Hever Castle after her father inherited the estate in 1505. The King’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, eventually took over ownership of the property as part of the couple’s annulment settlement.

The pub at that time was renamed to the “Bull and Butcher”, a pun on “Boleyn Butcher”, following her beheading, when the inn was still a part of the castle’s estate.

However, with the site serving as a popular tourist attraction, Hever Castle has embraced the Tudor times, with an extensive annual programme including jousting tournaments and archery displays.

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Rigging Elections Has Been Around for Thousands of Years

Rigging elections have been a passtime for thousands of years. Even Joseph Stalin commented on that practice famously saying its the people who count the votes decide everything, not the people who vote. That is so true and that rose to the surface during the Scottish Referendum. When the ethnic Russians of Crimea voted to separate from the mother-land of ethnic cleansing Ukraine with its Neonazi agenda, because the EU did not like the outcome they claimed Russia rigged the vote. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring it invalid under pressure. They pulled the same stunt in Romania declaring the election invalid. The press routinely publishes fake polls to deliberately try to swing elections. The historical record for thousands of years is one continuous Greek tragedy when it comes to rigged elections.

In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune was so certain that New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey would defeat President Harry S. Truman that they ran the now-infamous front-page headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” This is considered one of the most legendary blunders in American journalism.

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All Socialists are Ignorant… But Some are More Ignorant Than Others

n The Law, published in 1850, Frédéric Bastiat made a case against “legal plunder,” the perversion of the law to violate liberty and property rights. Nearly 100 years later in The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek warned that socialists, whatever their intentions, lacked the knowledge to command the economy.

Hayek also explained how the worst always get on top in socialist regimes, and after the German National Socialists’ Anschluss in 1938, he did not return to his native Austria. In 1983, President Reagan brought Hayek to the White House, and in 1991 President George H.W. Bush awarded Hayek the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman authored Capitalism and Freedom and became a national figure with the “Free to Choose” series on PBS. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell also upheld the virtues of the market over government command of the economy. Those now proudly calling themselves “democratic socialists” seem unaware of these authors and show little if any inclination to engage in debate.

The surging socialists are even more unaware of works that show socialism as it actually existed under its most enthusiastic promoters. Consider, for example, the experience of Malcolm Muggeridge. His magisterial Chronicles of Wasted Time (1972) devotes a chapter to “A Socialist Upbringing.” The Muggeridge household jostled with politicians, scholars, and clergy dedicated to the cause, along with Labor Party stalwarts such as Ramsey MacDonald and Fabian socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Their collective efforts aimed to benefit “the workers,” who were never present at any of their events.

“A worker is someone for whom everything is done as long as he keeps off stage,” Muggeridge noted, and “the whole notion of a working class with a specific political or cultural, or even spiritual role qua working class is a fantasy invented by guilt-stricken renegade proletarians like D.H. Lawrence, or by renegade bourgeoisie on the run like William Morris or, for that matter, Marx and Engels themselves, or just by a sociologist looking for a subject and a job.”

After stints teaching in India and Egypt, Muggeridge wound up in the first “workers’ state,” the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as the Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. Correspondents ran contests to see who could pass off the most fatuous story to the regime’s foreign admirers. Muggeridge convinced Lord Marley that the long lines for everything were intended to give zealous workers a chance to rest. When a British lawyer asked if the Soviets practiced habeas corpus, A.T. Cholerton of the Daily Telegraph told him they strictly adhered to habeas cadaver.

Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture claimed more than a million victims in Ukraine, but Walter Duranty of the New York Times contended that there was no forced famine there. Muggeridge decided to see for himself. “This particular famine was planned and deliberate, not due to any natural catastrophe like failure of rain, or cyclone, or flooding,” he wrote. “There is not only a famine but a state of war, a military occupation… Peasants with their hands tied behind their back being loaded into cattle-trucks at gunpoint.” After breaking this story, Muggeridge was widely vilified while Duranty’s mendacious reports won a Pulitzer Prize.

In August, 1939, Stalin signed a pact with Hitler’s Germany. “I had been expecting such a development,” Muggeridge wrote, “never losing an opportunity to say that Bolshevism and National Socialism were the same thing, except that one was a Slav version and the other Teutonic.” Margarete Buber-Neumann described that reality in Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler.

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George Washington Waged a War of Attrition

George Washington did lose more battles than he won early on losing New York was his worst. Nevertheless, his overall record shows he understood that winning the war mattered more than winning every battle. He was seriously outnumbered. Once he understood that all he had to do was NOT lose!  He waged a war of attrition. He understood that maintaining a major force on foreign soil is a major logistical disadvantage. I have warned, that Iran is waging a war of attrition.

Washington may not have been formally educated in a university, that did not mean he was unread. He apparently read Roman history intensely. He was a brilliant strategist. His strength was in seeing the “big picture” and maintaining the army’s very existence. He embraced a “Fabian Strategy” of avoiding large, decisive battles that could destroy his army, instead choosing to fight smaller engagements and retreat when necessary to preserve his forces.

The Fabian Strategy was developed by Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, a Roman statesman and general, during the Second Punic War (218-201BC). Fabius was appointed as dictator of the Roman Republic in 217BC, following devastating military defeats by the Carthaginian general Hannibal. To counter Hannibal’s superior military skill and strength, Fabius devised a new approach.

His core tactic was to refuse to engage Hannibal’s army in a major, decisive battle, as Hannibal had proven superior in such confrontations. Instead, Fabius employed a strategy of harassment and attrition. He kept the Roman army close to Hannibal’s forces, shadowing their movements while sending out smaller detachments to attack foraging parties and disrupt supply lines. This was what Washington adopted.

Fabian also ordered residents in the path of the Carthaginian army to burn their crops and take refuge in fortified towns, denying Hannibal the resources his army needed. This cautious approach allowed Rome time to recover its strength. It was initially unpopular with the Roman public, who saw it as cowardly, but after another Roman army was annihilated at the Battle of Cannae in 216BC, the value of his strategy was recognized, and it was adopted again.

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Renowned Feminist Historian Loses Professorship as Experts Tear Apart Her So-Called Historical Findings

A black feminist historian whose work is being labeled as misleading — and who may have lost her cushy academic job — says it all comes down to an attack on black women.

The New York Times tells the tale of Kerri Greenidge, whose 2022 book “The Grimkes” was hailed for its narrative about a slaveholding family and its work in the abolitionist movement.

Publishers Weekly put the book on its list of that year’s top books, while the American Historical Association handed Greenidge the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, which honors scholars in women’s history and feminist theory.

But the glow has dimmed as the furor over her flimsy factual foundation is being linked to the end of her gig as a tenured associate professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University — and the loss of a book deal.

Myra Glenn, a retired professor of American history at Elmira College, was among the first to question what she was reading in 2024 when she was reviewing the book for a journal.

“I said, ‘Where is she getting this?’” she said. “Boy, it became a major problem.”

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The Democrat Party’s History of Race-Based Policies: From Slavery to the KKK to DEI

On a daily basis, Democrats refer to Republicans as racists, Nazis, and fascists. Meanwhile, they push for DEI, affirmative action, and race-based admissions, hiring, and promotions, which are objectively racist policies.

Republicans are characterized as racists because they want all laws to apply equally to everyone, with no preference given to any race, while Democrats not only have a long history of race-based policies but were also the founders of the KKK. The Republican Party, meanwhile, was formed largely by abolitionists, specifically to stop the expansion of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, elected in 1860 as the candidate of a party founded in 1854 primarily in opposition to the extension of slavery into new territories. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, presided over the Union victory in the Civil War, and was assassinated in April 1865, days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Republican-controlled Congresses then passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865, the 14th Amendment establishing citizenship and equal protection in 1868, and the 15th Amendment guaranteeing voting rights regardless of race in 1870.

The Democratic Party went in the opposite direction by restricting voting rights and attempting to disenfranchise Black people. That campaign ran from the 1890s through the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

After the Populist Party was defeated in the 1890s, Democrats amended state constitutions to include poll taxes and other disfranchising measures. Because payment of the tax was required to vote, impoverished Black people, and often poor whites who could not afford it, were denied the right to vote.

Democratic-controlled state legislatures across the South also imposed literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and whites-only primaries between 1895 and 1910 to exclude Black voters while exempting whites.

One tactic that has entered the historical memory of this era, and was later mentioned by Barack Obama at Congressman John Lewis’s funeral, was the so-called jelly bean test. Registrars asked Black applicants to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. Alabama voter Theresa Burroughs recounted being asked exactly this by the Hale County Board of Registrars in the late 1940s. According to NPR’s account, it was one of the tactics used to delay her voter registration by two years.

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What Happened To The 56 Signatories Of The Declaration Of Independence

While July 4 marks the day Thomas Jefferson’s revised draft of the Declaration of Independence was adopted, it would take months for the document to be signed by all 56 men who would eventually affix their names to it.

Several key figures in American history – George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, among others – don’t appear among the signatories of the Declaration of Independence at all, having been serving in military roles or other capacities at the time.

None of the 56 signers died as a result of their signature, but before the war was over, five would be captured, 12 would have their homes destroyed, and 17 would lose their entire fortunes. None of the 56 signatories ever renounced the cause of independence of their own free will.

Here’s what happened to the men who pledged “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” to the cause of American independence, on the basis of “self-evident … Truths” that not even a global empire – or a king – could deny.

‘The Sage Of Monticello’: Thomas Jefferson

Easily the most well-known of the Declaration’s signatories – as well as its author – Thomas Jefferson enjoyed several benefits later in life from his role in the document’s drafting.

During the war, Jefferson nearly faced capture by the British during his tenure as governor of Virginia, forcing him to flee from his Monticello estate. That led to accusations of “cowardice” that eventually prompted Virginia legislators to launch a formal inquiry, in which Jefferson was acquitted.

Later, Jefferson served in a series of key posts, first as the U.S. ambassador to France, then as secretary of state under President George Washington and vice president under President John Adams.

After he was elected president – an event dubbed the “Revolution of 1800” – Jefferson’s egalitarian vision expressed in the Declaration of Independence came to be viewed as one of the most critical documents of the American founding.

‘The First American’: Ben Franklin

While Jefferson often gets the lion’s share of the credit for drafting the Declaration, Ben Franklin is credited with one critical edit to the document.

Widely recognized as a multi-disciplinary polymath, Franklin has been dubbed “the First American” by history for his early and long-running calls for American colonial unity.

In the preamble to the Declaration, Jefferson had originally written, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.”

Franklin – who served on the drafting committee – replaced this with the revision: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

Franklin later served as ambassador to France and lead negotiator on the deal to end the war with Great Britain, was the “president” – or governor – of Pennsylvania from 1785 to 1788, and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Shortly before his death in 1790, Franklin made his last political statement with his support of a petition calling on the federal government to abolish slavery.

‘The Atlas Of American Independence’: John Adams

John Adams, the future second president, was one of the first delegates to the Continental Congress to call for independence. He was also among the most outspoken in its defense, leading him to be dubbed by some as “the Atlas of American Independence.”

In February 1778, Adams was nearly captured by British warships while leaving on a diplomatic mission for Paris with his son. Adams took up a musket to fight the British vessels, but it took a mix of skillful navigation and a fortuitous storm to shake the pursuers. Had he been captured, Adams likely would have faced imprisonment in the Tower of London and execution for treason.

In one of the most remarkable coincidences in history, Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826 – 50 years after the Declaration’s adoption day. Adams’s final words, “Jefferson still lives,” were in fact mistaken: the third president had passed away at Monticello hours earlier.

‘The First Founding Father’: Richard Henry Lee

Less well-known than either Jefferson or Adams, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee was no less instrumental in bringing about independence, authoring the part of the Declaration stating the 13 colonies “are, and of Right ought to be, free and independent States.”

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted this “Lee Resolution.” Adams famously predicted incorrectly that July 2, rather than July 4, would be celebrated as the American Independence Day, and would be commemorated with, “pomp and parade … from one end of this continent to the other.”

During the war, Lee faced military attacks on his property, chronic stress that took a toll on his health, and a severe hit to his finances as the war hit international shipping and the tobacco trade he relied on.

He later served as the first Virginia senator alongside William Grayson, joining the anti-Federalists in opposing a national government. Lee died in June 1794 at age 62.

The Midnight Rider: Caesar Rodney

A lesser-known but critical signatory of the Declaration was Caesar Rodney, who rode 80 miles to Philadelphia while suffering from facial cancer to cast a tie-breaking vote for Delaware’s delegation in favor of independence.

Unanimous support from all colonies was required to authorize the Lee Resolution – meaning Rodney’s vote was critical to final adoption.

Rodney later served as “president,” or governor, of Delaware until 1781, and died in 1784 of facial cancer at age 55.

The First Signer: John Hancock

John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration – the first – was so large that his name became an American idiom for one’s signature.

The Massachusetts revolutionary leader had been serving as president of the Second Continental Congress since May 24, 1775.

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10 Charts Show How America Has Changed In 250 Years

The United States has transformed from a collection of 13 eastern colonies into a transcontinental nation spanning 50 states, one district, and five major territories—a geographic expansion forged through land purchases and war treaties.

America’s two-and-a-half-century evolution includes not only geographic growth, but also transformations in population, family structures, wages, the housing market, and health.

Through data and graphics, here is a look at how the country has changed over 250 years.

Changing Face of America

In 1790, 95 percent of Americans resided in rural areas; by 2020, that figure had dropped to 20 percent.

This demographic shift transformed the rural landscape itself. More than 50 percent of rural residents lived on farms prior to 1940, but that share dwindled to a mere 5 percent by 2000.

Although the U.S. urban population surged from 5 percent in 1790 to 80 percent in 2020, this growth shifted heavily toward suburban and outlying areas after 1950, leaving central cities with less than half of the total urban population.

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Totally Dissolved: The Forgotten Vote for Independence

We celebrate Independence on the Fourth of July. But the actual vote to secede from the British Empire and become “free and independent states” – happened on July 2nd, 1776.

Twelve colonies voted in favor. None opposed. New York abstained because its delegates had not yet received new instructions.

The political connection to Britain was over. The deed was done.

The resolution came from Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. He stood before the Second Continental Congress with direct instructions from his state: declare independence, pursue foreign alliances, and propose a plan of confederation.

That wasn’t political theater. That was constitutional authority, exercised in plain view.

John Adams seconded the motion on the spot. And as soon as it passed, he wrote home to Abigail:

“Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men.”

He wasn’t talking about July 4th. He was talking about the vote – July 2nd.

THE FUSE WAS ALREADY LIT

Lee wasn’t leading a rebellion. He was carrying out orders. By the time he introduced his resolution on June 7, independence was already underway.

North Carolina moved first. On April 12, 1776, its Fourth Provincial Congress adopted the Halifax Resolves – the first official act by any colony to authorize a vote for independence. Their delegates weren’t told to negotiate. They were told to vote yes.

Just days later, John Penn wrote from Halifax to John Adams:

“We are endeavouring to form a Constitution as it is thought necessary to exert all the powers of Government, you may expect it will be a popular one.”

Then came Congress. On May 10, it passed a resolution drafted by John Adams and backed by Lee. It told colonies where royal government had collapsed to set up new governments under their own authority – a de facto declaration of independence in all but name.

Adams called it “the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.”

Congress adopted a formal preamble to the May 10 resolution, and Adams was the driving pen behind it. The message wasn’t subtle: British authority was finished, and power now flowed from the people.

“The exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted, under the authority of the people of the colonies, for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good order, as well as for the defence of their lives, liberties, and properties, against the hostile invasions and cruel depredations of their enemies.”

Virginia didn’t wait. On May 15, its revolutionary convention told its delegates to move for independence, back foreign alliances, and help organize a confederation.

That same resolution also called for the creation of a Declaration of Rights and a new constitution for Virginia – “such a plan of government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people.”

No slogans. No spectacle. Just orders – issued and implemented.

They marked the moment by pulling down the British flag in Williamsburg and raising the Continental banner. Troops fired artillery salutes.

Lee described it in a letter to Adams: “The British flag on the Capitol was immediately Struck and the Continental hoisted in its room. The troops were drawn out and we had a discharge of Artillery and small arms.”

Independence wasn’t theory. It was policy.

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What History Teaches Us About Why So Many Eventually Flee Socialism

History is filled with political movements born from noble promises. Few have been more appealing in theory than socialism. At its heart, socialism promises greater equality, economic fairness, and protection for those who struggle in a competitive marketplace. It speaks to the desire for justice and the belief that no person should be left behind.

Yet history also teaches a sobering lesson: While millions have voted for socialism, millions more have ultimately fled from it.

Why?

The answer is not found in campaign slogans or academic theories. It is found in the lived experiences of ordinary people across generations and continents.

Throughout the 20th century, socialist governments emerged across Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Many came to power promising to eliminate poverty, reduce inequality, and place the needs of the people above the interests of the wealthy. In the beginning, those promises often generated enormous enthusiasm. Citizens were told that government planning would be more efficient than free markets, that collective ownership would create fairness, and that centralized control would produce prosperity for all.

The results, however, frequently fell short of the promises.

One recurring problem was the concentration of power. When governments assume responsibility for directing large portions of the economy, political leaders inevitably gain greater control over employment, investment, production, and distribution. Over time, this concentration of authority often extends beyond economics into other aspects of society.

History shows that when governments acquire greater power, citizens frequently lose a measure of independence. Economic freedom and political freedom are often more closely connected than many realize. When a person’s livelihood depends heavily upon the state, dissent becomes more difficult and individual choice becomes more limited.

Another lesson history teaches is that incentives matter.

Human beings respond to rewards, risks, and opportunities. Free-market systems are far from perfect, but they have consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and productivity. When individuals are allowed to benefit from their hard work, creativity, and investment, economies tend to grow.

By contrast, heavily centralized systems often struggle to generate the same level of innovation and efficiency. Bureaucracies can become slow, inflexible, and disconnected from local realities. Over time, shortages, inefficiencies, and declining productivity have plagued many state-controlled economies.

This does not mean capitalism is without flaws. It clearly is not. Free markets can produce inequality, abuse, and economic dislocation. They require regulation, accountability, and moral responsibility. But history suggests that replacing markets with extensive government control often creates a different set of problems—problems that can be even more difficult to solve.

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