What’s in a Year?

For at least as long as people have had written records, people have used celestial effects to mark off time. This continued until half a century ago, when we developed clocks more accurate than most celestial effects and measurements. Thus, the day and the month and the year. There are two issues with these units [...]

Monarchy: How Did It Emerge?

As we have seen, monarchy has gone on a rather precipitous decline over the last few centuries, with many of the remaining monarchs being figureheads who preside over de facto republics. But here and there, hereditary succession of leaders has re-emerged, notably in North Korea and Syria. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Khadafy both wanted to [...]