History
Today is St. Crispin's Day, my son informs me, the 596th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. [caption id="attachment_3842" align="aligncenter" width="486" caption="King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, John Gilbert (1817-1897)"][/caption] King Henry V of England was hopelessly outnumbered by the approaching French Army, but (more…)
NASHVILLE- 593 miles - In the City Cemetery of Nashville, Tennessee, is an unusual gravestone. Here, 650 miles from the nearest ocean, is the grave of Captain William Driver, the American skipper who named his ship's flag "Old Glory" and carried it to Nashville with him when he retired from sailing. After hiding the flag…
With apologies for the unplanned silence en route, we're glad to announce we're back at home base now, with The Overland Express Tour of 2011 successfully completed! For those who like numbers, here are some initial figures that surprised even me: We travelled 8034 miles. That includes 97 miles on a tow truck from Gilroy to…
Everyone thinks they know about Leonardo da Vinci. We hear all sorts of things about him - from the specious Da Vinci Code to descriptions of him as the perfect Renaissance man, but most of us have a very vague picture of who he really is. Catherine McGrew Jaime opens a window into the early life…
John and Betty Stam were young American missionaries to China when Communist forces took over their town. Tim Challies re-tells the gripping story of what happened to John, Betty, and their infant daughter Helen, the testimony they bore, and the impact it had on the Chinese and Christians around the world. The title above was…
[caption id="attachment_2621" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="William Turner, The Slave Ship (1840)"][/caption] John Newton, the converted former slave trader who became pastor to English abolitionist William Wilberforce, has a supporting role in the film Amazing Grace -- besides, obviously, writing the theme song (in a sense). His own story is just as fascinating, and even more dramatic,…
Yesterday while I was writing about our Thanksgiving traditions for this blog, I looked up George Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in preparation for suggesting you share it with your family. As I read it, I felt increasingly sad. George Washington thanked God "for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed." I thought…
We just love Thanksgiving! What a wonderful holiday! Leading up to the day, we teach our children great hymns of Thanksgiving, such as "We Gather Together," "Come Ye Thankful People, Come," "Count Your Blessings," and "Now Thank We All Our God." We particularly love "We Gather Together," because it was a Dutch song of the proper…
We've got a lot of veterans in our family, myself included, so we like to recognize them on Veterans' Day. Someone asked a question recently about this particular veteran, so I thought I'd share the story today in honor of intrepid young men doing their duty all over the world! We talk about Admiral David Farragut…
Halloween is an English contraction of "All Hallow's Eve", or properly, the Eve of the Feast of All Saints ... which is, after all, November 1. In our house, it's not a day of jack-o-lanterns and goblins, but a day to remember true heroism -- a man who faced death and thereby opened the door…