Horn Herald

Memorial Day Picnic 2013

Bill Brown

On Monday our church will be having it's annual Memorial Picnic. At the event, we strive to honor our country's veterans, tell the stories of what God has done in history, and minister to the community.

Visit the new website at celebratememorialday.com

Baltic Trip

Wittenburg. Source.

We are leaving today for the a trip around the Baltic Sea! We will be going to going to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany and Estonia. We probably will not be able to post while we are over there, but stay tuned for a bunch of blog posts when we get back.

Source

Virginia Filming Trip 2013

Last week we filmed for a few days around Virginia for Discerning History. Here are some pictures.

Stone wall at Fredericksburg

Chatham, a Union headquarters during the Battle of Fredericksburg

Virginia Capitol Building

St. Paul's Church, where Lee and Davis attended in Richmond, VA

Battle of Chancellorsville 150th

This week is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Chancellorsville was one of the most important battles of the entire Civil War. Stonewall Jackson launched one of the greatest attacks of the entire Civil War, routing an entire Union corps. But as he was preparing to launch a follow up attack to seal his victory, he was wounded by friendly fire. He died a few days later. Some say that this was the turning point of the Civil War.

But although the story normally ends with Jackson's fall, that was just the beginning of the battle. The armies continued to fight for several more days, and the Union still had a good chance for victory. But the hard fighting from the Confederates and the mistakes from the Union handed the Confederacy the victory, but at a terrible cost. It was the fourth bloodiest battle of the Civil War, and May 3rd was the second bloodiest day.

Make sure to follow my Civil War 150th Blog for "live" blogging of the battle throughout the week.

There will be a reenactment this weekend in Chancellorsville, Virginia. Thousands of reenactors will be there and it will certainly be an impressive sight. We hope to be there filming, so check back next week for pictures and videos from the event.

Hope vs. Sovereign Softball

This past Saturday Stephen and I played in softball game between Hope Baptist and Sovereign Redeemer. Hope initially had a good lead, but Sovereign ended up winning 28-16.

Rachel's Pies

100 Years Ago - The Great Omaha Tornado

A century ago the nation was struck with several terrible natural disasters. The first was the Omaha Tornado of 1913, which struck 100 years ago today with terrible effect.

March 23, Eastern Sunday, 1913, dawned a beautiful day in eastern Nebraska. But towards evening the sky began to darken and threaten rain, but none fell. The day changed unexpectedly as the first tornado touched ground at 5:20 pm near Craig, Nebraska, destroying a dozen houses. Ten minutes later another tornado hit Yutan. As it made its way through the town 20 people were killed and 40 homes destroyed. To the south, another tornado leveled the village of Berlin and another dozen people were killed.

Read the rest of this post on the Discerning History Blog.

History of the Filibuster

Discover the interesting history of the filibuster, from Cato the Younger to Rand Paul, and see why it is an important part of the American system of government.

Alaska Photo Book

Open publication - Free publishing - More alaska

After our trip to Alaska I put together a book of some of the photos we took. Above is a digital version of it.

CSS Neuse Replica

On our Discerning History Youtube Channel, we just released a video on the CSS Neuse, were we visit the only full scale replica of a Confederate ironclad and see how Civil War naval technology changed warfare. Stayed tuned to this blog over the next few years

Recent Purchase - Philip's Spanish Cob

King Philip V

When Spain settled the New World they found mines which yielded vast riches. But those riches had to be shipped back to Spain and taxed 20%. To do this, in America they were made into temporary coins, called macuquinas or cobs. Instead of rolling the metal into a smooth sheet, the cobs were just cut off of a bar at their approximate weight and then hand struck in a rough die. Roughly made, they were only in this form temporarily until they could be melted down in Spain and turned into coins or jewelry. Some cobs, however, did circulate as currency making their way to the Spanish colonies. This brought numerous problems. Since they were of such poor quality, a little metal could easily be clipped off without anyone noticing, because their shape was already irregular. This produced coins that were significantly lighter than the originals.

This particular coin, which I bought a few weeks ago, was minted during the reign of Philip V, between 1700 and 1746. When King Charles II of Spain died in 1700 without any children, he named Philip, the grandson of his half sister, his heir. The succession of the Spanish kings at the time was very complex. Philip was the first member of the House of Bourbon to become king of France. Bourbon is a French family, but Philip had attained the kingship through the marriage of his grandmother to King Louis XIV of France. To avoid an international crisis because of a powerful alliance, Philip upon becoming King of Spain had to renounce all claims to the kingship of France. Interestingly enough, upon becoming King of Spain, the 17 year old Philip had not yet learned Spanish.

Philip riding into battle

Although the English and Dutch had not opposed Philip when he became king, the next year the War of Spanish Succession broke out because they feared that France and Spain would be united under one Bourbon monarch. The Holy Roman Empire, with Great Britain, the Dutch and parts of Spain loyal to the House of Habsburg fought against France and the rest of Spain under Philip. The war finally ended in 1713 when Philip renounced all claim to the throne of France. This costly war sped up the decline of the Spanish empire.

King Louis I

In 1724 Philip abdicated his throne to his 17 year old son Louis. The reasons for this are still debated. It may be that he hoped to obtain the kingdom of France, or he may have been gradually going insane and become unfit to rule. Either way it did not last long. Within the year his son died of smallpox, and he resumed the kingship as he had no other son old enough to take the kingdom. Although Spain had been very rich because of the precious medals obtained from the New World, by this time they were in serious financial difficulty. Thousands of servants were employed at the palace while the rest of the government went without pay for months. The government was only kept going by the treasure ships coming from America, one this coin may well have been on. Spain effectively went bankrupt in 1739 by refusing payment on its debts. Philip died in July, 1746 after the longest reign in modern Spanish history.

You can get coins like this one very inexpensively on ebay.

San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival 2013

I went to this year's San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival this past weekend for the showing of one of the episodes from our DVD series Discerning History: Causes of the Civil War. Here are some pictures taken along the way:

Confederate center

Doug Phillips opening the festival

Charlie Zahm and Tad Marks

The Wintons and Phillips

The Alamo

An African's View on the Slave Trade

Discerning History at the SAICFF!

Our episode on John Brown from Discerning History: Causes of the Civil War, has been selected as a semi-finalist at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. The trailer for the festival is above, and you can see the link for our film here.

Civil War Tour Pictures

We have finally uploaded all the images from this year's tour in September. View the entire album here.

Fredericksburg 150th Reenactment Video

Here are two videos from the Fredericksburg reenactment last weekend! Read my posts on the history of the battle on my other blog.

Fredericksburg 150th Reenactment Pictures

Fredericksburg

Today is the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg during the American Civil War. Last weekend I went with Stephen Breagy to a reenactment of the battle on the actual ground. Pictures are below, and you can watch the videos here. Also see posts about the battle throughout the day on my Civil War blog.