One misconception I think many people have is that the Civil War ended at a courthouse. It did not. There is a difference between court house and courthouse. The one word version is the actual courthouse where judges would hear cases. The other is a small town. Appomattox Court House is a small town in Virginia, and a must see for any history buff. The National Parks Service has done a phenomenal job keeping this great piece of history alive. This past June my father and I got the chance to visit for the first time, and it was awesome. We both expected maybe one building left from the wartime ..read more

Recently I had the chance to visit Gettysburg for the first time. This was one of the best trips I have been on in my life, partly because I got to share the experience with my father who is a huge history buff. I will save the stories from the road for another post, but today I want to talk about Pickett’s Charge. This was one of the most incredible things that has ever been tried on a battlefield. And as our tour guide explained, it wasn’t as bad a decision as it might seem at first glance. If I were to tell you that Major General George Pickett led 9-11 brigades (roughly 12,500 men) across ..read more

Having always been a huge fan of history, the history of my family interested me. Then one day when my father was cleaning out my grandparent’s house after their passing, he came across a pair of books that blew me away. The first was printed in 1916 by Jasper E. Bynum and was called The History of the Bynum Family. The other was printed in 1958 and was called Historical Sketches of the Bynum Family. These two books supplied a wide range of information on my family’s history. Stories ranged from family moving out west to Texas from Alabama to stories of my ancestors fighting in the Civil War ..read more

Today let us take a look at the Keynesian economic theory and how it applies to the causes and end of the Great Depression. Just a quick note about the theory, in its simplest form it states that changes in a component of spending, whether investment, consumption, or governmental, causes output to change. When looking at the Great Depression, the focus will start with investment but then move to government spending. Companies during the 1920s rode high on the immense investment boom that took place. As stock levels began to reach a level desired by the companies, new investments were not neede ..read more

Hall of Fame baseball player Ty Cobb had an interesting financial life. As one of the best players of his time, Cobb was one of the highest paid. But I want to focus on his financial life as a whole including his investments and even his philanthropy. First of all, let’s take a look at his salary. During his time he was one of the highest paid players in the league. In fact, for several years (1910, 1911, 1914,1916-1920, and 1921) he was the highest paid player in baseball earning as high as $25,000 in 1921. This was all just before Babe Ruth took the baseball world by storm and became the hig ..read more

Check out my latest YouTube video – just a quick bit about Francis Butler Leigh and her time on her Georgia plantation after the war. You can even see her book online at the link below. Abstract: Francis Butler Leigh was a plantation owner and former slave owner who wrote a book about her experiences after the war. She discusses her life as well as the former slaves lives and what they were going through, and then I take a look at a study on slave owning vs. non-slave owning wealthy families and how their wealth changed after emancipation. The results of the study were a bit shocking. Bibliog ..read more

What is going on History fans! Today I wanted to talk about a book recommendation called, The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman. I am a child of the Cold War, at least the end of the Cold War. I have a lot of memories as a child in school dealing with nuclear bomb drills, especially since I grew up 20 miles from one of the largest military bases in the United States. Here in Central Texas we are living in the realm of Fort Hood. The base here is typically the 3rd largest military installation in the world behind Fort Bragg and Fort Campbell. With usually just under 50,000 soldiers at any ..read more

One of my favorite musical artists has long been Billy Joel. I can still remember going into Service Merchandise in the mall to buy the album Innocent Man for my brother for Christmas. I grew up with the sounds of him playing the piano, and still listen to this day. Plus, it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen way back in the last 90s. I’d love to see him again one day. Then in 1989 he released one of the best history songs of all time, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. Joel wrote this as sort of a time capsule for the 40 years of history during his lifetime up until that point. While he adm ..read more

Next in my book review series for 2022 is Evil Has a Name: The Untold Story of the Golden State Killer Investigation by Paul Homes, Jim Clemente, and Peter McDonnell. While this may not be the typical history book that I read and review, the story was a huge part of history in the US, and it is super interesting. This book is available through Audible and is an audio book, and I highly recommend it. Serial killer tv shows have been all the rage for a few years now, and it doesn’t seem to matter if they are real or fiction (Dexter). And the Golden State Killer is nothing new, but this looks at ..read more

In 2009 I moved to South Korea to teach English. I was living in Florida and trying to become a teacher. The economy was terrible, and most districts were not hiring new teachers. So, I took off for the first place I could find where I could teach, South Korea. Using a recruiter I found online, she helped me secure a job with Avalon (a franchise chain all over Korea). Within in a few months I was on my way to the Atlanta airport to fly to Seoul. Eventually I made my way to Daegu where I would spend the next 3 years teaching. Korea is where I found my love of teaching. I made some great friends ..read more