Catholic Textbook Project
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Redshirts Invade St. Peter’s Patrimony: September 29, 1867
From our text, Light to the Nations II: The Making of the Modern World The pope’s army was very small—no more than four thousand men. It...
A Priest Leads a Peasants' Revolt: September 16-28, 1810
From our text, Lands of Hope and Promise, A History of North America. A group of creole intellectuals and army officers had been meeting...
A Coup the Sparked a Revolution: September 15, 1808
From our text, Lands of Hope and Promise, A History of North America. It was not conditions in New Spain that finally precipitated...
El Cid Conquers Valencia: June 15, 1094
Alfonso VI’s fame was surpassed only by one other man of his time, whom Spanish legend presents as a loyal soldier and vassal. He was...
Robespierre's Supreme Hour: June 8, 1794
While Paris ran with the blood of patriots, French arms continued to achieve victories against the republic’s enemies. By the spring of...
Voltaire’s Philosopher Becomes King: May 31, 1740
This week's "This Week in History" continues a story about Prince Fritz that we began last August, which you may read here. Reconciled at...
The Defenestration of Prague: May 23, 1618
Cardinal Richelieu wanted not only to make his king all-powerful in France, but to make France the supreme nation in Europe. To do this,...
The Passing of a Good Man: May 12, 2008
This year, May 12 marks the fourteenth anniversary of the death of the founding general editor of the Catholic Textbook Project, Dr....
Lee Whips Hooker at Chancellorsville: May 1-4, 1863
The turn of the year 1863 found the Army of the Potomac mired in Virginia clay at Falmouth, on the left bank of the Rappahannock,...
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus: April 27, 1862
Lincoln’s first task was to secure for the union the neutral border states — Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri. Delaware, with...
Parliament Emancipates Catholics: April 13, 1829
Conditions did not improve when George IV became king in 1820. As regent for his insane father, George III, since 1811, George IV had...
The Founding of Danton’s Dictator: April 5, 1793
Danton had not been in Paris when the National Convention declared war on Great Britain. Instead, he had gone on another mission to the...
Birthday of a Troubled Philosopher: March 31, 1596
When the the terrible Thirty Years War had only just begun, a young man took up a private struggle, a fearful struggle, of his own. This...
Assassination of a Tsar: March 23, 1801
It was night. All was quiet in the Michailov Palace in St. Petersburg. The members of the imperial family were in their beds, asleep—all...
Texas and Hard Cider: February 28, 1845
In May 1836, John C. Calhoun said: “there [are] powerful reasons why Texas should be part of this Union.” The southern states, he said,...