Stevenson was a mere shadow of Truman

                   

Ol’ Harry pored over Plutarch and the classics, and read and re-read his Bible; Adlai barely took time to crack open a book.

Stevenson was trounced twice by Ike: winning a total of nine states in 1952, and only seven states the next time.

(Bob Dole won 19 states, and McCain and Romney each carried more than twenty.)

What is stunning, however, is to see WHERE Governor Stevenson won.  It was the region so maligned by liberals – the Deep South, the heart of the Bible Belt – that saved the bacon of Adlai the Unitarian, preventing a complete shutout!

Here is the 1956 map:

                     

(Check out the similar ’52 results.)

The summons sent by Muhammad to the Byzantine emperor

                                   

Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570.

The Islamic prophet sent a message in 628, four years before his death in Medina, to Heraclius – emperor of the Byzantine Empire (pictured above):

'Aslim Taslam'

(In other words, "submit [convert to Islam], and you will have peace.")

When Heraclius refused the invitation, Constantinople became Islam’s arch-enemy.

Heraclius was emperor from 610 – 641, and was the one who made Greek the official language of the Eastern Empire (which endured for another eight centuries).

                         

YEMEN: first of 8 nation profiles (via Hugh Hewitt)

         

Check out this description of Yemen, the southern neighbor of Saudi Arabia that always seems to be in the news.  It’s interesting that the northern part of Yemen is predominantly Shia Muslim.

The capital of Sana’a is, by far, the largest city. Yemen – less than a fourth the size of Saudi Arabia in area – is only 3 million shy of her neighbor’s 29 million people.

The port of Aden (fourth largest Yemeni city) has played a pivotal role in the world’s naval history.  The gulf is now known as “Pirate Alley” for the ongoing depredations of Somali buccaneers.

Yemenis are a sizable portion of the foreign nationals living in Saudi Arabia (whose population is one-third foreign!); twenty years ago they expelled 800,000 of them because of Yemen’s support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

1,025 years of Russian Orthodox culture

“The adoption of Christianity became a turning point in the fate of our fatherland [and] made it an inseparable part of the Christian civilization…”                                                         (Vladimir Putin)

In 988 Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity, and beginning at Kiev, all of Russia bowed before Christ and the true faith.  Today is the feast day of Vladimir.

President Putin has played a central role in the anniversary celebration.

This video shows a spiritual depth to Mr. Putin that most Americans are not aware of.

WWI Serbia bled like no other

               

Most folks know about the staggering casualties that France suffered during the First World War.  But there was one country that went through a bloodier Calvary: and that was Serbia.

A landlocked nation, predominantly Eastern Orthodox in religion, it was situated directly south of Austria-Hungary (weakest of the European powers).  In late June 1914, when a Serbian terrorist killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the great conflagration was kindled.  Russia came to the aid of her traditional ally Serbia, as did France.

Serbia lost more than a million inhabitants during the war – about 60 percent of its male population!



[When the Great War ended in November 1918, the world was gripped by a flu pandemic.

 Kids used to sing this ditty:

“I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.” 

Most susceptible were healthy young adults – and the final toll was five to ten times as many deaths as had been caused by the massed armies of Europe].