History Archives

Activists take aim at conquistador statues in New Mexico

Jun 13, 2020

Two public statues of Spanish conqueror Juan de Oñate in New Mexico are drawing renewed attention and criticism as memorials erected in honor of Confederate leaders and other historical figures worldwide become a focus of protests.

By Morgan Lee

Is a 16th century friar the ‘inventor’ of papal history?

Jun 10, 2020

Many of the fundamental historical questions surrounding the Protestant Reformation remain open, and one little-known 16th century Italian scholar might be a key to finding answers. Onofrio Panvinio was an Augustinian friar who traveled across Italy to search out the documentation surrounding the history of the papacy.

By Charles Collins

Supreme Court decision could affect abortion debate in America

May 30, 2020

Mary Ziegler is the Stearns Weaver Miller Professor at Florida State University College of Law. Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Garrow has called her “the premier historian of abortion in the post-Roe era.”

By Charles C. Camosy

During plague, Catholic Church waived taxes, other requirements

Apr 4, 2020

Correspondence can reveal a lot about periods of history and the letters written by popes during the Black Death are no exception. These documents, often responses to questions, provide a window into a long-ago era that is getting renewed attention amid today’s coronavirus pandemic.

By Carol Zimmermann

Students collect soil from lynching site in act to achieve racial justice

Nov 20, 2019

In the dark of night June 17, 1887, a mob lynched Benjamin Hance, hanging the 22-year-old African American man from the branch of a witch-hazel tree near the road to Newtown Neck in Leonardtown. About 140 people gathered at the site in southern Maryland Nov. 1 in a solemn ceremony to remember Hance and to commit themselves to working for racial justice.

By Mark Zimmermann, CNS

13th-century encounter points way to greater Christian-Muslim understanding

Nov 10, 2019

Eight centuries ago, St. Francis of Assisi took a risk when he crossed the battlefield between Crusader and Muslim forces near Damietta, Egypt, desiring to meet Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil and preach his faith in Jesus Christ.

By Dennis Sadowski