Some of the better presidents are the ones most people don’t know.

Publius Rutilius Rufus (158 B.C.-78 B.C.) attempted to reform Rome's corrupt tax system, and soon found himself accused of corruption and extortion himself.

Some people may look back on late 19th Century America in disdain because women couldn’t vote. But consider the context: For most of human history, nobody could vote—neither man nor woman. You did as you were told, as serf, slave or subject. Women could not vote in Mexico, for instance, until 1953.

All over the world, a year before World War II even started, doors were closing to Jewish refugees. One tiny island offered to accept a huge number.

Were Georgians right when they endorsed William Jennings Bryan all three times he ran for President? Personally, I wouldn’t have voted for him even once, so now you know where I stand.

The staggering death toll in France is a reminder of what can happen when private initiative is replaced with government “safety nets.”

The tragedy in Hawaii reminded Biden of his kitchen; but the horrific nature of it and government’s culpability in it brought to my mind another event, long forgotten.

In the face of soaring prices, do you suppose the inflating Ptolemies repented by cutting their spending, balancing their budgets, and restoring sound money?

Did Montanans make the right choice by giving Coolidge their votes in 1924? You bet they did.

Looking to models of courage such as Jan Nowak-Jezioranski for inspiration will help us grow in courage ourselves. We may need it when we least expect it.

Like most dictators, Aurelian thought he was special. Inscribed on some of the coins he minted, and which bore his image, was the phrase, deus et dominus natus, meaning “god and born ruler.”

It was under Coolidge that the Mellon Plan achieved its fullest implementation, and the country was all the better for it.

Most political leaders are happy to cowardly defer real reform to some future generation and, in the meantime, do nothing more than “manage” the decline. Pertinax was different.

Before this book, I thought “tabby” was one of the more common names for a house cat. Now I know it’s a kind of concrete made with oyster shells.

People said he had a voice like gravel, and they meant it as a high compliment. 

Governments don’t like gold because they can’t print it is a truism worth canonizing in the Book of Proverbs. The experiences of Australia, the UK and the US.

Why have a “commerce clause” in the first place if the federal government can declare that you’re doing commerce—interstate or otherwise—even if you’re not?

Personally, Grover loved pork in his sausage, but he hated it in bills.

Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, to their eternal credit, proved that even the most entrenched of laws and policies can be changed by people of courage, character and conscience.

When the English Civil War began in 1642, John Hampden was among the first the King unsuccessfully attempted to arrest.