Read and Reviewed: The City of God

Author: Augustine of Hippo
Publication: A.D. 426, De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos, trans. Marcus Dods 1880ish
Length: XXII Books, or 867 pages in my edition
Target Audience: Educated 5th Century Christians

     So, my thanks to my college for finally forcing me to read this. I started it in years prior something around three times and always bogged down about Book IV. That said, I recommend you take more than the three weeks I had to read this if you want to do anything else with your brain. It was... rough. However, the sensation of finishing it at 0030 in the morning of September the tenth is one I will long relish.
     Augustine contrasts the City of God with the City of Man, the citizens of this world with those of the next. Lots of excellent stuff, some interesting stuff, and some stuff that makes you wonder why that was important fifteen hundred years ago. Now, if you're only going to read one thing by Augustine, read Confessions, but this is great as well. Just take the good bishop up on his apology to those who think he wrote too much at the end!
    Recommended (for the stout of heart).

Once Upon A Day--September 13th

So, with 109 days left in Anno Domini 2015, let’s take a look at some of the fascinating occurrences of today! Be warned, there are a lot. To help incite you to reach the end, my personal preeminent past point will be produced at the posterior of this post. So read posthaste! ;-)

 

A.D. 81—Titus, the Roman emperor who conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, dies.

1501—Michelangelo begins work on his famous statue of David in Florence. It will take more than two years to complete. That’s a long time to chip on a rock…

1521—William Cecil, later the Baron Burghley, is born. He would become Elizabeth I’s treasurer, and along with her spymaster Walpole is one of the main reasons her reign was peaceful and solvent.

1541—John Calvin is recalled to Geneva after a three-year banishment by the town authorities. Who were, of course, all under his charismatic cultist thumb. Methodical as always, his sermon when he ascended the pulpit that Sunday was the consecutive passage from where he had left off three years before.

1592—Montaigne, the French philosopher, dies.

1609—Explorer Henry Hudson finds the river that would be named for him, in what would become New York.

1759—At the concluding battle of the Seven Year’s War (known in America as the French and Indian War) the British scale the impassable cliffs surrounding Quebec, the French citadel, and give battle on the Plains of Abraham. Although the British are victorious, their commander, James Wolfe, is mortally wounded.

1813—John Sedgwick, a Union Army corps commander in the War Between the States, is born.

Rockets and bombs glaring and bursting...

1814—During the War of 1812, the British attack Baltimore, which was defended from Ft. McHenry. The British bombarded the fort with shot, shell, and rockets on the night of the 13^th. On the morning of the 14^th, a young American lawyer arranging a prisoner transfer watched as the defiant garrison of McHenry raised their enormous fifteen-stars-and-fifteen-stripes flag. His name—Francis Scott Key. His poem in praise of the “star-spangled banner” would become the American national anthem in 1931.

1847—The Battle of Chapultepec results in Yankee victory during the Mexican-American War, paving the way for the capture of Mexico City. Chapultepec Castle was a strong point in the city’s defenses, but fell to American marines and soldiers with comparative ease; Santa Anna, the Mexican commander, is said to have exclaimed, “I believe if we were to plant our batteries in Hell, the d— Yankees would take them from us!” The battle involved several who would become famous in war twenty years later, including Lee, Jackson, Grant, Beauregard, Longstreet, and Pickett. The phrase in the Marine Hymn “From the Halls of Montezuma” is a reference to this fight.

Yes, I give kisses to blog readers...

1851—Walter Reed is born. He led the team that discovered yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes, allowing the completion of the Panama Canal.

1857—Milton Hershey, founder/inventor of Hershey’s Chocolate, is born.

1860—John J. Pershing is born. He served as the commander of America’s troops overseas, the Allied Expeditionary Force, in World War I.

1862—Two soldiers of the Union Army of the Potomac find Robert E. Lee’s Special Order 191 (detailing troop movements) wrapped around three lost cigars in a field, setting in motion the bloodiest single day of the War Between the States, the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg.

1881—Ambrose Burnside, a Union Civil War general (and the man who gave his name to sideburns) dies.

1942—Marines of LTC M. Edson’s Raider Battalion continue to fight along a ridge protecting Henderson Airfield from Japanese counterattack on Guadalcanal. Eventually called the Battle of Bloody Ridge or Edson’s Ridge, it was the first defeat of a sizable Japanese land force and one of the tipping points of WWII in the Pacific.

Okay, this was difficult. But I think that the Battle for Fort McHenry is my favorite for today, mostly because I got to go visit that place with my family and help raise the flag. Which was this history nut's dream he didn't know he had! So thankful to live in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!”