The Soviet dissident writer and Nobel literature prize winner has died following a long illness

We aren't fighting rebels, nationalists, or patriots in Iraq. We are fighting criminals and bandits in Iraq. "Bandit" is a very interesting term. It implies that we aren't actually fighting a war against a legitimate military foe, but are instead just hunting a group of outlaws.

It is the morning of April 16, 2007, and I am in my final year of college. I live in Blacksburg, Va., but I attend Radford University. Today a lone student gunman will shoot and kill 27 students and five teachers before he takes his life.

The U.S. media, military, and politicians refer to the people we are fighting as "Criminal gangs", "Thugs", "Bandits", and "Outlaws". But never "rebels", "nationalists", or "patriots". This is an old story that played out in much the same way 80 years ago, when America invaded Nicaragua because its government owed American bankers money.

The fifth chapter of the History of Persia - Persia and the Great Game – where the lesson is learned, not for the last time, that failing to accurately assess an enemy's capabilities frequently plays a major role in victories and defeats in Southwest Asia. Marcus Licinius Crassus didn't appreciate that fact, nor did Hulagu Khan centuries later.

360 years ago today a fleet of Spanish warships sailed into the harbor in Naples, Italy, and ended the first real experiment in popular democracy in the western world since dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla marched his armies into Rome seventeen centuries earlier.

Martin Luther King Jr.: January 19, 1929 – April 4, 1968

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the Declaration of Independence 45 ½ years ago, he did so in a way few people understand.

A new paper from the journal Time and Mind suggests that Moses and various other Jewish prophets were taking a mixture of plants which produced a halucogenic effect. Is Benny Shanon right or do you have to be on drugs to beleive that Moses was a junkie?

The idea of celibacy is an old one. But for many centuries, bishops and priests were married, with families. Bishops had worldly power...and a lot of money too. Often, they left their posts to their sons.

The person winning the White House this year will be the one sitting there, either as a lame duck or a president-re-elect, on December 21st, 2012. This has special significance, since a great many prophecies seem to converge on that particular day – it's been slated to be the End of the World by seers from Ancient Mexico to Renaissance France.

English naval legend Francis Drake's greatest adventure was his circumnavigation of the globe in his ship the Golden Hind. Drake claimed to have set foot on North America in 1579 during his voyage. He supposedly established an English foothold (Nova Albion) on the Pacific Coast. There was never any publicly verifiable proof that he had done so.

Science Fiction Legend Arthur C. Clarke has died at a hospital near his home in Sri Lanka early Wednesday.

The fourth chapter of the History of Persia - Medieval Persia – a whirlwind tour of nearly 1000 years of Iranian history, from the Abbasids to the Safavids, by way of the Ziyarids.

The third chapter of R. Scott Peoples' history of Persia - Islam Comes to Persia – where the religion of ancient Persia is displaced by the rising force of Islam.

In the second century Regilla a Roman woman was murdered- what happened and what does it tell us about the ancient world?

An investigation of the historiography of ancient slavery provokes new questions- like whether we can ever discover historical truth and whether history is always bound to be a propagandistic lie.

The second chapter of R. Scott Peoples' history of Persia - Persia in the Classical Age – and find out that Iran's willingness (and ability) to go toe-to-toe with the West's greatest superpowers is not something that first emerged in the Era of Petroleum.

In the light of recent research work by Chris Wickham of Oxford University, we examine how taxation worked in early medieval Europe

The first part of R. Scott Peoples' history of Persia, land of the Aryans, whose ancient past included every major historical figure in the Middle Eastern world, from Alexander to Zoroaster.

The first reported food riot of the Great Depression happened January 3, 1931, in England, Arkansas. There was no violence that day, so calling it a riot may not have been the best description. However, it remains significant for one reason - it was the first, and last, food riot that the national media reported.

It's a very old tradition that repeats over and over again throughout history, where the bravest and most patriotic of the working class get screwed first. It is particularly likely to occur when a republic begins to drift towards empire.

Medieval Europe was a rough place. The ruling aristocracy didn’t get its position at the top of the heap by virtue of its social graces. It got there by fighting… killing… and conquering.

In a national radio interview yesterday, Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, said that Britain must face the inevitability of having to adopt certain aspects of Sharia law into its legal code. In the following hours, Britain begged to differ.

The story of how the mafia and infamous capo Lucky Luciano aided the World War II Allied invasion of Sicily, and how the Allies in turn revived the criminal organisation.

It's a fact that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were on the CIA payroll. Yet it's still strongly denied in some circles - not because there is any contrary evidence, but because the idea that we supported such horrible people is too repulsive to acknowledge. The real problem is that they aren't even the worst dirt-bags that we've created.

Every successful popular movement has its legendary, or near legendary, characters. People, or groups, who seemed bigger than life, and in the end must be sacrificed to the cause. The civil rights movement had Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. The American Revolution had Nathan Hale.

When most people think of labor unrest in America they think of the 1930's, or the various major strikes of the 19th Century. The fact is that no year, before or since, saw so many strikes, and such a large percentage of people on strike, or so many industries effected by strikes, as 1946.

We reexamine the Children's Crusade in the light of recent research from the University of Edinburgh's Gary Dickson.

The "heretic pharaoh" Amenhotep IV, who called himself "Akhenaton" and whom history sometimes terms the world's "first individual", thought he knew better than his people; thought he could, through sheer force of will, change a public mindset centuries in the making. His people did their best to erase him from history.

Candidates for public office offer solutions and ameliorations for just about everything else, from the price of gasoline to the weather. But no candidate offers to put even a dollar into a program to make women more like men…which, in the male mind, is to make them better.