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Politics
The Other Irish Connection | Barack Obama and Daniel O’Connell
‘Race,’ President Obama said in his farewell address, ‘remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.’ ‘You never really know a person,’ he said, quoting Atticus Finch, hero of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, ‘until you…
Welcoming the Mayor to Hell | The Story of Jane Byrne and Cabrini Green
In 1981, Mayor of Chicago Jane Byrne took the unusual step of moving into one of the housing units in Cabrini Green. In these days of politicians having second homes and travel allowances this seems like a strange thing for a politician to…
Blood on the Leaves | Ep. 2 | The Abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer
Last Week: The Baader-Meinhof Death Night
The body of Max Weinberg lay outside the front door of Apartment 1, Connollystraße 31 in Munich’s Olympic village. Coach of the Israeli wrestling team at the 1972 Olympics, he was the first…
Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Policemen of World Peace
On June 22nd 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II, Hitler struck east to invade the Soviet Union. It was a big affair; over three million German soldiers and three thousand tanks. In December of that year, four…
Egotism is Egregious If It’s Your Only Weapon for Election
Once upon a time, in a political landscape far, far away, a fascist buffoon said, “Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday.”
The buffoon’s name was Benito Mussolini.
Now, as…
Victoria Woodhull, She Who Would Be President
American women have spent their entire lives choosing between presidential candidates of the opposite sex. That is until now. This year, Hilary Rodham Clinton made history by becoming the first female nominee from a major party. She is,…
‘Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!’ | Before Clinton vs. Trump, There was Blaine vs.…
In America, as everywhere else, politics and scandal are coupled like ham and eggs. Outrage at Donald Trump’s 'on mic' locker room banter, might suggest that such revelations are novel. Not at all!
Voters in the American Gilded Age,…
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, heir to the Earldom of Chesterfield, was born on the 22nd September 1694. He was a child of a family who had been part of the British aristocracy for centuries. One of his ancestors had been executed by Edward VI’s…
Fear of a Black Picture | The History Behind Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
“What will cause the riot?” wrote Spike Lee in his diary back in 1989. “Take your pick: an unarmed Black child shot, the cops say he was reaching for a gun; a grandmother shot to death by cops with a shotgun; a young woman charged with…
Easter 1916 | Writers and fighters
History is set in stone, but people always love to imagine the road not taken. One of the great what-ifs of Irish history is what would have happened if the 1916 leaders hadn’t been executed. A less often posed question is what would the…