I assume that Edward Gibbon has low name recognition today, 228 years after his death and 248 years after the publication of the first volume of The Decline & Fall of The Roman Empire, but the reaction of the Duke of Gloucester to Gibbon’s presentation of his labors makes me laugh and is worth remembering. Continue here…

Robert Castell’s life is a cautionary tale – a warning how not to indulge your creativity. Dedicated to his dream, the man wound up ruined, imprisoned, sick and then dead. His misfortune, though, did lead to founding of Savannah, Georgia. Castell was an Oxford graduate and an inheritor of a “competent estate”, but not a man of unlimited means. His passion was classical architecture, which he saw as the cure for societies’ ills. He literally thought that good buildings would ameliorate and inspire England’s urban poor. Read the rest here.

I learned something that I never knew about an iconic photograph of a Marine Corps leader and Medal of Honor recipient, Baldomero Lopez, who was killed in action on this day 73 years and one day ago. Read it here.