Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 125

Don't Know Much About "a Lady"

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

So says Henry Tilney, the charming young clergyman in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, defending a genre that was taken about as seriously in Austen's time as drugstore romances and "beach reads" are today. Novels, to high-minded nineteenth-century readers, were trashy and sentimental, and only filled women's heads with nonsense. Born on Deceember 16, 1775, Austen (d.1817) herself came...

Twelve Myths of Christmas (4): You Light Up My Life

Over the weekend, in Vermont, on a cold night lit only by the thinnest sliver of crescent moon, I was struck by the depth and inky blackness of the night. In a snow-covered world of bone-freezing cold and endless darkness, I was brought back to the idea of how this world must have seemed to people whose world was illuminated only by fire.

That idea is driven home by the fact that in 2009, the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere will occur on December 21 at approximately 17:47 UTC...

Myths of Christmas (3): Who started the "War on Christmas?"

During the past few years, the so-called "War on Christmas" has been a staple of conservative broadcasters and the religious right. Their basic idea: Christmas is under attack by Grinchy atheists and secular humanists who want to remove any vestige of Christianity from the public space. Any criticism of public space devoted to religious displays –mangers, crosses, stars — is seen by these folks as part of an assault on "Christian values" in America. Mass market retailers who substituted...

The 12 Myths of Christmas-2

OK. I started this series the other day with St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. But here's the real first Christmas question: Why all the fuss over December 25?

For starters, the Gospels never mention a precise date or even a season for the birth of Jesus. How then did we settle on December 25?

If a bright light just went off in your head, you're getting warm. It's all about the Sun.

In ancient times, a popular Roman festival celebrated Saturnalia, a thanksgiving-like holiday marking the winter...

TODAY IN HISTORY: "A date which will live in infamy"

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor, looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
. . . The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I...

The 12 Myths of Christmas (1)

Were there really Three Kings? Which pagan festival was a time for gift-giving and candle lighting? Why is mistletoe hung at Christmas?
I'll try not to be the Grinch here. But the truth is that almost everything we cherish about Christmas traditions –lights, trees, gifts, jolly old men– has some interesting background –much of it from a time long before there was a Christmas. In fact, advent is really a time to bring out your inner pagan. In the next few weeks, I will be posting some blogs...

Today In History: Don't Ride the Bus

A black seamstress would not budge on December 1, 1955. And all America shook.

History is taught as the record of presidents, kings and generals. But sometimes it is the extraordinary story of an "ordinary" person that history must tell. On December 1, 1955, one woman's act of defiance changed history. But it wouldn't be fair to call Rosa Parks , who as born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama and died October 24, 2005 at age 92, an ordinary person. What do you know about this courageous woman who ...

Don't Know Much About Minute: More Pilgrims 101

In my previous videoblog, I told you that there were no black hats with buckles, half of the "pilgrims" weren't Pilgrims and that the first Thanksgiving was in October. Here are a few more pieces of the picture.
And here is a link to a story Iwrote for the New York Times about America's real first Pilgrims, a group of French settlers in Florida who arrived 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26davis.html?scp=1&sq=Kenneth%20C%20Davis%20Pilgrims&st=cse

T...

TODAY IN HISTORY: The Gettysburg Address

The opening lines are among the most familiar words in our history.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Today is Dedication Day, the date on which Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at a ceremony to dedicate the opening of the cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield in 1863. On that day, Lincoln was not the featured speaker. The "few...

Thanksgiving Myths- A Videoblog

With Thanksgiving around the corner, cutouts of Pilgrims in black clothes and clunky shoes are sprouting all over the place. You may know that the Pilgrims sailed aboard the Mayflower and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. But did you know their first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three whole days? What else do you know about these early settlers of America? Don't be a turkey. Try this True-False quiz.

True or False? (Answers below)
1. Pilgrims always wore stiff black clothes and...