In the present moment you exist you are living in what future generations will look back upon as history. They may not remember your specific name or maybe not even see your name on a tombstone, but they will remember the times, culture, events, places and particular individuals that shaped our world for better and for worse.

Whether you are remembered or forgotten on earth, there is only one place and person whom it is important that remembers you.

And verily I say unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. Mark 14:9

By James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, Public Domain, 1900

It’s interesting and intriguing to investigate these increments of time and to reflect upon how it used to be, knowing that it has shaped how it would be now. I have started to write and will be writing and presenting to you blog posts on

The Catholic Bard’s Guide to History

These blog posts on history are an extensive short list of some of the highlights of important events and people who lived and shaped the year and the few years preceding it or succeeding it. And perhaps some particular days as well. It will be one good look at what was “One Heck of a Ride Around the Sun.”

It is a good resource for

An aspiring author who wants quick info for that great historical novel you want to write.
History and Trivia buffs.
A list of people to pray for who might possibly be in need of prayers either before they died or after they died.
Time Travelers looking for info on a good year to visit and sightsee.

Catholic Bard’s Guide To History Timeline Of Articles |
A Link List To The Catholic Bard’s History Articles. (patheos.com)

To understand What I love and How I Write About History click on this particular link.

To understand about this particular series I’m writing about, read more below.

Historical Introduction

I’ve taken the opening comments from Fr. Casey Cole’s Church History 101 and Mike Aquilina’s Reclaiming Catholic History series introduction and adapted it for my introduction to The Catholic Bard’s take on history. They both say what I’m trying to do with my posts on this topic. I justify it with this.

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.”
― Marlene Dietrich

“Immature ‘writers’ imitate; mature ‘writers’ steal; bad ‘writers’ deface what they take, and good ‘writers’ make it into something better, or at least something different. The good ‘writer’ welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.”

—T. S. Eliot

For many people, history is a sort of fuzzy subject. The blog posts I present on history are nowhere close to enough written space to cover even all the basics and important events that ever happen. There will be important things left out and unimportant things kept in because there is simply too much material to record and write about. It’s good to remember though, that history is not an exact science. In choosing what to include and exclude and weaving events together into coherent narratives, there is an implicit bias on the part of the historian.

But once you begin to select certain facts and leave others out—and once you begin to emphasize some details over others—you have already begun to impose your own perspective, your interpretation, and your idea of the story. Still, there is no other way to practice history honestly. When we read, or teach, or write history, we are discerning a story line. We are saying that certain events are directly related to other events. We say that events proceed in a particular manner until they reach a particular end, and that they resolve themselves in a particular way. Every historian has to find the principle that makes sense of those events.- Mike Aquila

Marie-Denise Villers, Portrait of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, 1801,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

What I am sharing is not a dogmatic detailed specific academic telling of history. It’s a basic birds eye view on some interesting and key historical trivia. This should be your first resource, not your last. Much of the written historical facts come verbatim from Wikipedia, Oxford Reference and other sources such as the Reclaiming Catholic History series. I’m not a historian but a sleep deprived ADHD Catholic blogger who works at a nursing home and spends time with his wife, God and sometimes friends. So intense historical research is not a possibility with my current psychological and time commitments.

I will include famous individuals and some unknown public figures and sometimes include when people arrived on earth and when they departed. I will include events you’ve heard of and events your not too familiar with. I will include interesting and important and intriguing moments in art, science, lititiure, entertainment, discoveries, social trends, religion, philosophy, weird off the wall moments and more. I will include some but not every major battle or natural disaster. I will include history from all cultures and countries but a good deal from American history. Although I will include some references to the various varieties of religions that exist or have existed the focus will be on Catholic church history. The name of this post and blog might give you a clue as to why.

Fr. Casey Cole gives a pretty good overview of Catholic history in just 15 minutes.

Every time period may have references to the past of the date mentioned or the future of the date mentioned. As I move on through history, I will narrow my focus and include more historical data and trivia. All posts are subjects to updates and revisions.

So now that is all said. You have to start your journey somewhere so I’m starting in the beginning.

Biblical Figures Who Lived Before The First Christmas

People And Places Before The First Christmas

The first one I wrote was…

1775 Was a Heck of a Ride Around the Sun | A look back at the years 1775, 1785

Why a Heck of a Ride Around the Sun?

It might be good for you to know why this history series is called A Heck of a Ride Around the Sun.

History does not fit neatly into the annual cycles of the Gregorian calendar. A year is not a historical category, it’s a cosmological event: a single revolution of the earth around the sun; three hundred and sixty-five spins on its polar axis; or, in the case of certain years , a leap year, three hundred and sixty-six.

With that in mind, here is a more modest claim: This Particular Year by whatever quirk of history or cosmology, was one hell of a ride around the sun.

What follows is an attempt to recount the disparate events that certain people confronted on their way into their own futures. Confined to a single journey of the earth around the sun it is the story of several smaller journeys, beginning, on the first day of the year.

Jim Rasenberger,America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation (2006)

Or I might call it The Year of ……

The Hobbit, Snow White and Dr. Seuss – 1937

This is the year The Hobbit, the first all animated feature and the first Dr. Seuss book all came out.

Connecting Creative Moments in History

is the goal of these writings.

I love to see what events were going on at the same time other events were going on.

Oh my …, I don’t believe, how can it be?
That you’re alive at the same time as me
-Pale Waves- Fall to Pieces.

I’m so happy that I’m alive
Happy I’m alive at the same time as you
-Coldplay featuring Chris Martin-Higher Power

Through the Years some of the years I break down

are usually broken down in these possible categories.

Stolen Art Picture

Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them.” How does an artist look at the world? First, you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it. When you look at the world this way, you stop worrying about what’s “good” and what’s “bad”—there’s only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing. –Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (2012) Workman Publishing Company.

News of the World

CAPTAIN KIDD LAID out the Boston Morning Journal on the lectern and began to read from the article on the Fifteenth Amendment. He had been born in 1798 and the third war of his lifetime had ended five years ago and he hoped never to see another but now the news of the world aged him more than time itself. The lantern lights were harsh, the air was dark. Captain Kidd traveled from town to town in North Texas with his newspapers and read aloud the news of the day to assemblies like this in halls or churches for a dime a head. –Paulette Jiles, News of the World (2016)

Arrivals

November 16, 1835 – Halley’s Comet reaches perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun.

November 30, 1835– Mark Twain, Author of Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper (d. 1910)

Departures

April 10, 1910– Halley’s Comet becomes visible with the naked eye (perihelion: April 20); Earth passes through its tail about May 19 (its next visit will be in 1986).

April 21, 1910

Anne Isabella Robertson, Anglo-Irish writer and suffragist (b. circa 1830)
Mark Twain, Author of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee (b. 1835)

Hey A Movie

Hey! A movie!
Yeah! We’re gonna be a movie!
Starring everybody…
…And me!

Publications Hot of the Press

“Give me a room whose every nook is dedicated to a book.” — Robert Southey

“Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”— Dr. Seuss

Sanctifying Time

The Church takes seriously the call to sanctify all things, even time. The Catholic significance of days and months is a profound reminder that our lives are finite, and that time should not be squandered. As the Psalmist said, “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). But more than anything, it reminds us that time is a gift from God, and with him and through him, all things are holy, and nothing is without meaning. –SAM GUZMAN, Sanctifying Time: The Catholic Meaning of Days and Months (FEBRUARY 24, 2015) (catholicexchange.com)

The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones

And some articles might be broken down differently…

Some of the Information I get from and might include in an article come from…

List of popes – Wikipedia
List of presidents of the United States – Wikipedia

List of Ecumenical councils – Wikipedia
List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union – Wikipedia

List of Doctors of the Church – Wikipedia
List of amendments to the Constitution of the United States – Wikipedia

Wikipedia
CatholicSaints.Info
Famous People in the World – (thefamouspeople.com)
Browse In Timeline – Oxford Reference

Reclaiming Catholic History Series

One Last Thing…

Outside of Patheos I have written an article for ‘Where Peter Is”. It’s a piece that highlights all the cultural things that were happening in the same decade that the Second Vatican Council was happening. A snapshot of the world of Vatican II – Where Peter Is.

2021 and 2023 I did a weekly review of What Happen Last Year and Week in Life. Take a look back at yesterday if you want to learn more.

Last Week in Life Easy Access Portal | Mark Wilson (patheos.com) 2021

Last Week In Life Easy Access Portal | A Link List of Last Week In Life, A weekly review of each week in 2023 (patheos.com)