This blog is now in version 4.0. I’ve changed the name to The Backward Glance, and the site has a new design. The previous name was too abstruse, and I broke the previous design from too much customizing. The community that supports this new theme will maintain the code without my tweaking (read, wasting time). Most important, Abby is taking her rightful place as coauthor.

Next semester Jonathan Newell and I will be teaching a TOP class on the Revolutionary War in South Carolina. TOP classes are continuing education classes offered at Bob Jones University for both the Greenville community and the BJU family. The following is our course description: [Read more »]

The IVman’s latest post about world history according to student bloopers is worth reading.

Sources often refer to events that happened on “Wednesday last” or “next Sabbath,” and a historian sometimes needs to find out what date that was. At other times one needs to find out which day of the week “15 ulto.” or “23rd inst.” happened to be. This online perpetual calendar lets one create a calendar for any year. I’m using calendars for 1814 and 1815.

I haven’t tested the calendar to see how it works for dates before 14 September 1752, the day Great Britain and its colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

Since I started working on my thesis, I have consistently backed it up. I’ve heard or read horror stories about losing your research, and my imagination helped to convince me that I need to carefully back up mine. [Read more »]