The Crisis of the Third Century — The year 476 CE will always be associated with the Fall of Rome. It was this year that the Western Roman Empire crumbled for good, and the Roman torch passed forever to Constantinople in the East. However, Rome nearly collapsed two centuries earlier during the Crisis of the Third Century…

And help support writers you love — Hello reader! Welcome to my single post pledge drive campaign. Medium recently launched a new subscriber tier that has a ton of benefits for the writers on this site. The new tier is called Friends of Medium, and it will pay out 4x as much money to authors for reads…

And I am in love — It recently came to my attention that the University of Michigan does not use a sideline mascot during its sporting events. This seems like a large oversight in an era of national media attention and the popularity of other college mascots. How can Michigan take itself seriously when playing schools…

The weight of punishment — Humans are no strangers to cruel and unusual punishment. History is riddled with new and interesting ways to torture, maim, and kill one another. Today, there are laws and norms that attempt to prevent people from being especially awful to one another. But that was not always the case. For…

Breaking down the numbers — A large percentage of Americans favor a reduction in income inequality. In 2020, a survey by Pew Research found that 42% of Americans said that reducing income inequality should be a top priority of the federal government. During the pandemic, income inequality was once again on the rise in the…

A look at some species that used to live alongside humans — Over the course of world history, over 99.9% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. Today, people make a big deal over individual species going extinct (even though they probably shouldn’t). When most people think of extinct species, some obvious examples come to mind, including the dinosaurs and…

Who is contributing the most CO2? — Who produces the most carbon in the world? This is a pertinent question. Many citizens of industrial nations such as the United States, France, and Canada have felt personally responsible for the carbon in the atmosphere. But should they feel that way? There is a lot of guilt about the…

Happy Thanksgiving — Another year here, another year gone. Another Thanksgiving to spend time with family and reflect on what we have and what we are thankful for. In the past, Thanksgiving was a much more religious holiday when thanks were given to God rather than said hollowly around a table. This year…

A decade where nearly everything went wrong — A lot of bandwidth has been used to discuss which years were the worst in history. People often love dwelling on the worst times. In fact, there are very few articles talking about the best years in history. For certain people, the times always seem bad. Between COVID-19, political polarization…