Creative History

  Fourteen nations competed in the first ever modern day Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896. In 1894 the newly created International Olympic Committee had unanimously chosen Athens as the site for the first modern Olympic Games as an homage to the city-states of ancient Greece whose original pan-Hellenic Olympiad in honor of the God Zeus had been held every four years, for over ten centuries beginning in 776 BCE and not ending until well into the 4th Century CE, when the by then Christianized Roman authorities finally put a stop to the Pagan tradition.   Of the fourteen nations represented at the games of the 1st Olympiad thirteen were from Europe with the lone exception being the team from the United States. The Olympic Games of 1896 were considered a great success.  At the time, the First Olympiad represented the largest international sporting event ever held and the Olympic Stadium in Athens, called the Panathenic Stadium, hosted a crowd of over 100,000 spectators for the

It is the middle of the fifteenth century and Catholic pilgrims from all across Europe are flocking to the County of Kent near the town of Maidstone in the southeast of England. These devout pilgrims journey by the thousands, twice each year on Easter Sunday and on the day of the Ascension, to witness one of the most holy miracles of the Middle Ages in action--the Rood of Grace. The Rood of Grace is located among lush green rolling fields and hills in the center of the church at Boxley Abbey.  Boxley Abbey was founded in the year 1148 by a Flemish mercenary turned scholastic monk named William of Ypres and in the middle of the 15th century it is home to a flourishing order of Cistercian monks. Boxley Abbey as Depicted Before it Fell into Ruins Sometimes referred to as the Rood of Boxley Abbey, the Rood of Grace, is a representation of a crucified Jesus on a wooden cross that is said to move and to even speak to worthy pilgrims as if it is alive. To journey to Boxley Abbey and t

  In early September of 1780 two soldiers of the line from Massachusetts, Michael Logan and Daniel Power, both hungry and disillusioned with the American cause after years of service in the Continental Army, crossed the Hudson River at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and turned themselves over to British forces stationed in New York City. That August George Washington at the head of an army of 14,000 troops marched south from Orangetown, New York and crossed into Bergen County, New Jersey.            Washington is hoping to be able to meet up with a combined French land and naval force heading northward and trap the British in New York City before winter sets in.  British Encampments on Manhattan If Washington and his army, along with the French can do so, then perhaps, the combined weight of the Franco-American forces can decimate the main British army encamped around New York City and force Parliament to pressure King George III to finally recognize American independence.   As August tu

                 September 12, 1814, A massive British fleet sails toward Baltimore Harbor.  It is led by Admiral Alexander Cochrane.  By 1814 Cochrane was famous the world over for his exploits during the Napoleonic Wars.   In 1807, as a Rear Admiral, Cochrane commanded the HMS Belleisle at the head of a squadron of Royal Navy ships that conquered the Danish West Indies.  In 1809 Cochrane defeated a French force and raised the Union Jack over the island of Martinique. Now, in the late summer of 1814 Alexander Cochrane has been promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral and placed in overall command of all Royal Navy forces, both sailing ships and marines, deployed against the United States at the height of the War of 1812. When war first broke out between the United States and Great Britain for the second time in just over a generation in 1812 the British government adopted a conservative, largely defensive strategy against the haughty and traitorous Americans because their military res