The Weekly Sam: Make America Literate Again. Help Distribute “Alpha-Phonics”

Published September 4, 2026 | By Hal Shurtleff

 

Welcome to the “Alpha-Phonics workbook by Samuel L. Blumenfeld.
This book has been used by thousands of parents who have taught their
children to be excellent readers, which includes my children.

It is arranged in 128 easy to follow lessons. Sam rightfully pointed out that
pictures of puppets popping out of trash cans are not needed to teach children
how to read.

This book may also be used for adults who have been taught the
whole word or look-say method and therefore are functionally illiterate.
While this is a free resource, we would like to be able to make this resource
known far and wide. A donation of $5.00 would go a long way, and you can
donate more to help our cause, too.

Go to https://campconstitution.net/product/alpha-phonics-workbook
acquire it.
to

Additional donations to the Camp can be made via your PayPal account
accessed from our website’s homepage: https://www.campconstitution.net
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution

 

From the Front Lines of Institutional Child Abuse By David Arthur

Published September 3, 2026 | By campconstitution

 I have stood at microphones in school board meetings, legislative hearings, and political bill sessions more times than I can count. The rooms change. The crowds change. The scripts do not.

Boys and girls, men and  women line up to regurgitate the same force-fed statistics and standardized talking points handed down by the lgbtq+ transqueer cult. They defend their new “family” and the shiny new “identities” that cult has so generously bestowed upon them. Watching it is like staring into a funhouse mirror of my own wrecked past.

I see every stage of the path I once walked: deception, confusion, abuse, victimization, cult membership, and advocacy. Boys in various degrees of chaos. Girls desperate to escape girlhood because it never delivered the fulfillment they expected. Adult men and women living vicariously through children they claim to protect while preying on them. The rooms reek of controlled vulnerability.

Some of the men in dresses call themselves “transgender women.” Not all of them are gender dysphoric. Many are autogynephiles — AGPs — men sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as women or by wearing women’s clothing.

 

The average person still doesn’t grasp that gender dysphoria and fetishes are not the same thing. Even inside the “trans community” there is a quiet civil war: the dysphoric do not want the fetishists under the same umbrella. That umbrella is a marketing scam designed to expand the customer base, not a coherent medical category. Very slippery slopes.

I never used the men’s room with so many women until I started testifying. The discomfort is immediate and instructive. If adults feel it, imagine the children forced to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers with the opposite sex. Speak against it, and you risk being labeled, isolated, or worse. The stigma does the enforcement work that the activists prefer not to do themselves.

I remember three young men in various stages of transition. I saw my teenage self in each of them. One hid almost every inch of his skin. Gloves with the fingertips cut off so the painted nails could show. A high-necked sweater and mask that left only made-up eyes and rouged cheeks visible. The rest of him was tattoos and body jewelry. How much louder do they have to scream before someone with power actually listens instead of celebrating the scream? The people who control the institutions do not care about your parental-rights. They will keep medicalizing, sterilizing, and sacrificing children regardless. Believe that.

A case manager once told a hearing about a school that helped place a youth on wrong-sex hormones. The committee asked for proof. She had none to hand over. I needed none. Teachers and counselors have already invited Planned Parenthood into classrooms and private meetings. False information, puberty blockers, and wrong-sex hormones are distributed like product samples — without parental knowledge or consent. It does happen. I know it for a fact.

Then there was a “father” in full drag who claimed to be “trans” and spoke about his own children already aboard the same delusional train. “Hop on, kids. Daddy’s driving.” My stomach turned.

This is child abuse being performed in public under the banner of inclusivity. Most of the room stayed silent. Fear of being called a bigot, hypocrite, or transphobe is a powerful silencer. Then there is the fear of this cult that inflicts social death, intimidation and the constant threat of suicide statistics against anyone who dissents.

We will never please everyone. We shouldn’t try. Moral law still exists whether or not one believes in God. It is written into us. Some have buried it under layers of ideology. Others have been taught that the only authority is whatever the cult currently feels is acceptable. I once claimed to “feel like a woman” but that claim was absurd. I had never been a woman. I could not possibly know what a woman feels like. Womanhood is not a feeling. It is a biological reality.

No amount of pills, shots, surgeries, or “gender-affirming” mutilation turns a male into a female. He remains a man who has been sold a lie and paid for it by mutilating and destroying his mind, body and soul.

One child insisted he didn’t “feel like a boy,” so he needed the outside to match the inside. No adult in his life had the courage or clarity to tell him that he can only feel like a boy because he is one. Thousands of chromosome markers say so. Reality is not bigotry, it’s biology.

These hearings and board meetings are full of people who’ve been lied to by the largest, most unstable, unethical political experiment ever aimed at the weak, weary, and mentally ill. It targets children; desensitizes them, sexualizes them, butchers them, sterilizes them, and calls the process “care.”

It does this in plain sight while the rest of us complain on social media, march, and carefully avoid being labeled. The time for polite pussyfooting is over. Mentally ill youth with co-morbidities and a desperate need to belong are being exploited. That is not compassion. It is predatory with better branding.

The only immediate practical answer for parents who actually care is to remove their children from government-run schools and educate them at home. Solutions exist for those who want them. Excuses exist for those who prefer the comfort of performative concern.

I was targeted and groomed. I became a groomer. I was an addict, a criminal, and a mentally unstable man in a dress. I am a de-transitioner — an EXtrans. I make myself available to parents, citizens, ministries, organizations, and anyone else who wants unfiltered testimony, hard questions answered, or practical discussion about what is happening and how to stop it. The cult does not get the last word. Reality still does.

IBelongAmen.com
Email:
ibelongAmen@gmail.com 

Camp Constitution’s Fall “Fling” Retreat at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center Friday October 23 to Sunday October 25, 2026

Published August 25, 2026 | By Hal Shurtleff

 

                         Camp Constitution’s Fall “Fling” Retreat at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center Friday October 23 to Sunday October 25, 2026
      Activities include arts and crafts, Bible studies, optional marksmanship,  an evening campfire, and fellowship.
     The cost for the weekend which includes two nights of lodging, five meals and materials will be $220. per person.
  For More Information and/or an application call (857) 498-1309 or E-mail campconstitution1@gmail.com

The Weekly Sam: Defining Whole Language By Samuel Blumenfeld

Published August 21, 2026 | By Hal Shurtleff

 

The other day, I received an e-mail from a lady in California who asked, “What on earth
is the whole-language system?” She had read my article on the making of the black
underclass   http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/1987/BEL%2002-06%20198706.pdf

in which I had identified whole language as the primary cause of reading
failure among so many black students.

Fortunately, the answer is easy to give, because whole-language professors have been
quite open in defining what they mean by their pedagogic philosophy. So I shall quote
some salient passages from their writings.
In a book entitled “Whole Language, What’s the Difference?” written by three
whole-language professors in 1991, we read on page 32:

Whole language represents a major shift in thinking about the reading process.
Rather than viewing reading as “getting the words,” whole language educators
view reading as essentially a process of creating meanings … Meaning is created
through a transaction with whole, meaningful texts (i.e., texts of any length that
were written with the intent to communicate meaning).

It is a transaction, not an extraction of the meaning from the print, in the sense that
the reader-created meanings are a fusion of what the reader brings and what the
text offers … Although students who learn to read in whole language classrooms
are, like all proficient readers, eventually able to “read” (or identify) a large
inventory of words, learning words is certainly not the goal of whole language.

Another passage from page 19 of the same book may be even more illuminating:

From a whole-language perspective, reading (and language use in general) is a
process of generating hypotheses in a meaning-making transaction in a
sociohistorical context. As a transactional process … reading is not a matter of
“getting the meaning” from text, as if that meaning were in the text waiting to be
decoded by the reader.
Rather, reading is a matter of readers using the cues print provides and the
knowledge they bring with them (of language subsystems, of the world) to
construct a unique interpretation.
Moreover, that interpretation is situated: readers’ creations (not retrievals) of
meaning with text vary, depending on their purposes of reading and the
expectations of others in the reading event. This view of reading implies that there
is no single “correct” meaning for a given text, only plausible meanings.

Now you might think that all of this pedagogical insanity is taking place in some kind of
political vacuum. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Whole language practice is
very politically oriented. We read on page 23:

Learning is a social process … Although whole language educators accept the
importance of learning through individual interactions with the environment
(Piaget 1967), they lean more heavily on Vygotsky’s ideas about the social nature
of learning (Vygotsky 1978).

Whole language takes seriously Vygotsky’s notion of the Zone of Proximal
Development (Engstrom 1986) which entails stressing the importance of
collaborations (between students and teachers and between peers) through which
students can transcend their own individual limitations.

You might ask: Who is Vygotsky? Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Soviet psychologist who
worked with Pavlov’s colleagues at the State Institute of Experimental Psychology in
Moscow in the 1920s and ’30s. James Wertsch, Vygotsky’s biographer, writes:
[It] is important to note that Vygotsky was a staunch advocate of dialectical and
historical materialism. He was one of the creators of Marxist psychology …

People such as Vygotsky and his followers devoted every hour of their lives to
making certain that the new socialist state, the first grand experiment based on
Marxist-Leninist principles, would survive.
Vygotsky’s colleague, Alexander Luria, wrote: “Vygotsky was … the leading Marxist
theoretician among us … in [his] hands, Marx’s methods of analysis did serve a vital role
in shaping our course.”

Apparently, these same methods of analysis are also serving to shape the course of the
whole-language agenda. The three professors, cited earlier, state on page 67:
The whole language theoretical premise underlying which topics are pursued and
how they are treated is: “All knowledge is socially constructed.”

Therefore all knowing is political. In an effort to promote critical literacy and thus
to help children learn to read the world, not only the word (Shor & [Marxist
revolutionary] Freire 1987), teachers who work with theme cycles try – no matter
whether the topic is overtly “political” or not – to show how the topic is related to
other more general questions.

They try to demystify social institutions by helping children investigate
connections between surface facts and underlying social structures, between lived
experience and structural features of class, gender and race. They know that not
making connections is as political as making connections.
No further explanation needed. But what about phonics, you might ask? Here’s a view of
phonics given in another book on whole language, “Evaluation: Whole Language, Whole
Child.” We read on page 19:

The way you interpret what the child does will reflect what you understand
reading to be. For instance, if she reads the word feather for father, a
phonics-oriented teacher might be pleased because she’s come close to sounding
the word out.

However, if you believe reading is a meaning-seeking process, you may be
concerned that she’s overly dependent on phonics at the expense of meaning.
You’d be happier with a miscue such as daddy, even though it doesn’t look or
sound anything like the word in the text. At least the meaning would be intact.
My response to that kind of imbecilic pedagogy is that any child who looks at the word
“father” and says “daddy” can’t read. It’s as simple as that. But tell that to a
whole-language teacher. Meanwhile, we the taxpayers are paying for it all.

(The above is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm

The Blumenfeld Archives

The biggest garbage heaps in human history: So much for the lies about clean, renewable, sustainable energy. Where will all the trash go?  

Published August 16, 2026 | By Paul Driessen

 
Contact me: pkdriessen@gmail.com 

The Weekly Sam: Gaza Declares War on Israel By Samuel L. Blumenfeld (Article written 15 years ago.)

Published August 14, 2026 | By campconstitution

 

The declaration by the head of Hamas in Gaza that they are going to resume sending
rockets into Israeli towns is, in fact, little else than a declaration of war against the Jewish
state. The Hamas leader threatens war, and the United Nations just yawn.
The president of Iran tells the UN General Assembly that he will wipe Israel off the map,
and many delegates applaud. I thought that genocide is illegal, and that the UN is
against it?

Jews can’t live in Palestine, but Arabs can live in Israel. Some of the Jewish “settlers” in
Gaza actually said they were willing to live under a Palestinian government provided
they were treated as equal citizens. But the Israeli government preferred destroying
Jewish Gaza than encourage a multiethnic Gaza run by Palestinians. The Jewish
“settlers” had employed thousands of Palestinians to work on their highly productive
farms and greenhouses. In fact, Jewish Gaza produced the best vegetables in the Middle
East.

But now that the Arabs have Gaza all to themselves, their chief enterprise has become
kidnappings and bombings. The Israelis proved that Gaza could be turned into a Garden
of Eden. But Hamas wants to turn it into a hell on earth.
So what can Israel do? The Israeli government has launched a public relations effort to
justify to the civilized world that a full-scale war against Gaza is inevitable. But it is
doubtful that the world press will buy that. If Israel retaliates against Gaza, it will be
seen as Israeli aggression against a tiny, enclave full of peace-loving Arabs.
Of course, Gaza’s declaration of war against Israel has hardly been reported in the
Western press. You can only find out about these things by reading Israeli Internet sites
or World Net Daily.

But once Israel launches its assault on Gaza, it will be all over the liberal press. Big Israel
will be accused of attacking Little Gaza. The world expects Israel to tolerate rockets
being launched over its towns, while no other country would tolerate such attacks.
The United Nations has become a farce. It has been a farce for many decades, but now it
is so obvious that no one with half a brain can expect it to do anything constructive.

 

The Weekly Sam: America Started with Educational Freedom By Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Published August 7, 2026 | By campconstitution

One of the reasons why the United States of America got off to such a great start is
because we had total educational freedom. When the Constitution was written, there was
already by then a great variety of teaching institutions. The Dames Schools were colonial
preschools in which children were taught the three R’s in preparation for going on to an
academy. The academy was a private school run by an educational entrepreneur. It
prepared students for higher learning or a trade or profession. They were considered the
most appropriate educational institution for a free people. Their responsibility was to the
parents who put their children in the academy.

Home tutoring was also very common in those days. There was no such thing as
“compulsory school attendance.” Parents were free to provide their children with any
fonn of education which met their needs. Children were taught to read and write in the
Dames Schools, which were keenly aware that Biblical literacy was an absolute necessity
in a society based on the teachings of the Bible.

In New England, laws had been passed requiring parents to educate their children. This
spurred the creation of Common Schools throughout the region. Towns hired teachers to
run such schools. Their main function was to prepare the students for future studies in
the colleges. They were owned and operated by the local folks who usually paid the
schoolmasters with commodities rather than money.

The beauty of this high degree of freedom was that education was practical, its
foundation based on reality. Whatever was taught was intended to improve the
knowledge, skills, and aptitUdes of the students. The community’s basic purpose in
education was to pass on to the future generation the knowledge, wisdom, religion and
morals of the previous generation. There was no such thing as religious neutrality. The
United States was a Christian nation and all agreed that children should be inculcated in
the tenets of Christianity. And anyone who went into the education profession knew its
spiritual purposes.

But then the question arises: why did Americans give up educational freedom so early in
their history when its benefits were so obvious? Believe it or not, it had nothing to do
with economics or poor teaching. Literacy was very high and education was available to
everyone. There were even excellent charity schools that provided education for the
children of the poor. There was no need for the government to get involved in education.
.

But in Boston, the government did get involved in establishing the Boston Latin School,
an elite school to prepare students for Harvard. It was funded by the city even though the
parents of the students could easily have paid its costs. But the liberals in Boston were
already looking to government to establish an elite institution separated from the church.
What happened to create this state of mind? It was the rise of the Unitarian heresy at
Harvard among the descendants of the Puritans. Intellectual pride became the spearhead
of religious Liberalism.

The Unitarians no longer believed in the Trinity or in the divinity of Christ. If Christ was
divine it was in the sense that we are all divine. But while Christ was considered a great
teacher, he was not considered to be the source of salvation. The Unitarians also rejected
Calvin’s view of man as being innately depraved who needed to be saved by Jesus Christ.
The Unitarians believed that man was basically good, and that all he needed was a good
secular education to achieve moral perfectibility.

And so the Boston Unitarians launched a strong campaign to create government primary
schools in which Calvinist teachings would be eliminated. They were successful because
they learned how to influence the press, control the legislature, and get what they wanted.
As the public school movement grew, the orthodox were in a dilenuna as to whether or
not to support it. In 1849, the orthodox General Association of Massachusetts decided in
favor of support with this very important stipulation. They wrote:

“If after a full and faithful experiment, it should at last be seen that fidelity to the
religious interests of our children forbids a further patronage of the system, we
can unite with the Evangelical Christians in the establishment of private schools,
in which more full doctrinal religious instruction may be possible.”

There is no question that the “full and faithful experiment” has been a colossal failure,
and that millions of Christian children have been spiritually harmed. While many parents
have taken their children out of the public schools, and hundreds if not thousands of
church schools have been founded, the vast majority of Christian parents still put their
children in these anti-Christian public schools. In other words, we have still to learn the
lessons of history.

(The above article came from the Sam Blumenfeld Archive. http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm

The Blumenfeld Archives

Pilgrims to Patriots: A Celebration and Rededication to the Forefathers Monument

Published August 7, 2026 | By Hal Shurtleff

A delegation from Camp Constitution were honored to attend the Pilgrims to Patriots celebration and rededication of the Forefathers Monument last Saturday August 1, 2026.  This daylong event took place in ‘America’s Hometown”-Plymouth, MA.  Our well-staffed information table was busy with attendees from all over the United States stopping by to pick up T-shirts, books, pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution and get their pictures taken holding our Brown Bess firing replica musket.

The program stared at 10:00 AM at the Pilgrim Memorial Park-the original site of Plymouth Plantation with the Massachusetts 1775 Colonial Navy Fife and Drum from Fall River presenting their colors, and an opening prayer offered by Pastor Matthew Dembinsky.   The event had an excellent line up of speakers which included Leo and Nancy Martin of the Jenney Museum, https://thejenney.org/ Bill Federer of the American Minute, Dr. Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries, Tim and David Martin of WallBuilders, and actor and author Kirk Cameron who produced the documentary “Monumental.”  The Pilgrims to Patriots Band performed between the speakers which included a rendition of “My Country Tis of Thee.”

After an afternoon break, the group reconvened at the nearby Forefather’s Monument where the monument was rededicated.  Nancy Martin read the original dedication which took place on August 1, 1889 and Kirk Cameron gave an historical and spiritual overview as well as his personal connection to the Monument which inspired the creation of his documentary.

At 6:00 PM, we participated in a sold-out testimonial dinner for Leo and Nancy Martin and a fund raiser for the Jenney Museum at the 1620 Hotel in Plymouth.  (Readers who would like to donate to the Jenney:  https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx?ORGID2=900133398&vlrStratCode=9wKJQGl1rasPHo7YmGMedYfKNEvpeEocIQHRRM0CdWr%2fy%2fEA375LpFfLe%2fqTi8%2bf

Thanks to Maura Shurteff, Penny Stevens, Kathy Mickel, Bonnie Manchester, Jessica and Willow Whitworth, Rev. Steve and Edith Craft for helping out at the info table or with videotaping, and a special thanks to Roberta Stewart

 

The Third Crusade by Bill Federer

Published August 5, 2026 | By campconstitution

 
Read American Minute

Palm Sunday, 937 A.D., Caliph al-Radi ordered the destruction of Jerusalem’s Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

 

What was the background?

Jerusalem had been a Jewish city since King David, around 1000 BC, and it had been a Christian city since Emperor Constantine, circa 325 A.D …

—

continue reading …

Download as PDF …

What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur’an-A History of Islam & the United States

Muslim warriors under Caliph Umar took Jerusalem away from the Byzantine Patriarch Sophronius in 637 A.D.

“Caliph” is the title of Islam’s supreme religious, political and military leader.

Caliph Umar forced Christian and Jewish inhabitants to live as second-class citizens under “Jim Crow” style laws called “dhimmi.”

In the 700’s, Christians were banned from giving religious instruction to their children and displays of the cross were banned in Jerusalem. Pilgrims to the Holy Land began to be harassed, massacred and even crucified.
In 846 AD, 11,000 Arab Saracen Muslim warriors invaded Rome, Italy, and damaged the Basilica of St. Peters and the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls, desecrating the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul.

In response, Pope Leo IV built a 39 foot wall around the Vatican.

In 923 A.D., Caliph al-Muqtadir of the Abbasid Caliphate began enforcing sharia in Jerusalem, inciting Muslim rioters to destroy churches in Jerusalem.

In 937 A.D., on Palm Sunday, Abbasid Caliph al-Radi ordered Muslim rioters to plunder the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

In 1004, Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah of the Fatimid Caliphate, known as the “Mad Caliph” or the “Nero of Egypt,” began a ten year persecution of Christians and Jews.

Thousands were forced to convert or die. 30,000 churches were destroyed.

In 1008, Mad Caliph al-Hakim forbade Christians from having their annual Palm Sunday procession from Bethany.

 

In 1009, al-Hakim ordered frenzied rioters to use picks, hammers and fire to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, considered the holiest site in Christendom.
In Egypt, al-Hakim demanded everyone speak Arabic. Those caught speaking the traditional Egyptian language of Coptic had their tongues removed.

In 1958, Egypt, President Gamal Nasser told a gathering:

 

“I met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and he … made his requests … to make wearing the hijab mandatory in Egypt … I told him, if I make that a law they will say that we have returned to the days of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who forbade people from walking at day and only allowed walking at night.”

In 1075, Seljuk Turkish Muslims captured Jerusalem from Arab Muslims.

Travelers returning from pilgrimages to the Holy Land shared reports of Islamic persecution of “dhimmi” Christians.

Italian city-states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia fought the Muslims who were raiding Italy’s coasts, Majorca, Sardinia, and Catalonia.

By 965, Muslim forces had succeeded in their 130 year conquest of Sicily.

Nearly a century later, in 1057, the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard fought against the Islamic warriors of Sicily and gained control of Calabria in the “toe of Italy.”

In 1071, the Seljuk Turkish Muslims inflicted a major defeat on the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Manzikert and took control of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor.

 

Cries for help were carried back to Europe. Europe sent help, it was called the Crusades.

Europeans had just two centuries of crusades compared to Islam’s fourteen centuries of jihad crusades which are still continuing, killing an estimated 240 million.
The Europeans’ nine major Crusades lasted from 1095 till 1291, when Acre was finally recaptured by Islamic forces.

 

The First Crusade began when, in desperation, the proud Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First Comnenus humbled himself and sent ambassadors to the Council of Piacenza in March of 1095, appealing for aid from his religious rival, the Roman Catholic Pope.

The seriousness of this call for help is underscored by the fact that it occurred just a few years after the Great East-West Schism of 1054, where the Byzantine Church and the Roman Catholic Church split.

Pope Urban II gave an impassioned plea at the Council of Clermont in 1095 for Western leaders to set aside their doctrinal differences and come to the aid of their Byzantine Christians brethren.

Pope Urban described how Christians were treated by Islamists, who “compel (them) to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow,” as recorded by Robert the Monk in Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.

With Spain exuberant after successfully driving the Muslim occupiers from Toledo and Leon a few years earlier, the First Crusade began in 1097, led by Godfrey of Bouillon. It freed Iconium, though it was later lost.
The First Crusade defeated Islamic warriors at Dorylaeum and Antioch, and captured Jerusalem in 1099, holding it for nearly 100 years.

 

After Muslims conquered Edessa, another crusade was called for by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1147.

It was made up of French and German armies, led by King Louis VII and Conrad II.

In 1148, Turkish ruler Nur ed-Din of the Zinged Dynasty slaughtered every Christian in Aleppo.

The Second Crusade failed to take Damascus and returned to Europe in 1150. Bernard of Clairvaux was disturbed by reports of misdirected violence toward some Jewish populations.

On July 4, 1187, the Muslim leader Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, captured Crusaders at Hattim and ordered their mass execution.

 

In 1190, Pope Gregory VIII called for a Third Crusade. It was led by German King Frederick I, called Frederick Barbarossa — meaning Redbeard — who was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
He was joined by Richard I of England and Philip II of France.

Frederick led 100,000 soldiers across Byzantium, driving out Muslims and temporarily freeing Iconium.

He most likely would have freed Jerusalem had he not fallen off his horse while crossing the Göksu River in Cilicia, Asia Minor.

 

Being 67 years old and weighted down with heavy armor, Frederick Barbarossa drowned in waist deep water and the Crusade went into confusion.

Richard the Lionheart was suddenly in charge leading the Third Crusade and successfully captured Acre.

Due to rivalries, Philip II, without warning, abandoned the Crusade and returned to France in 1191.

Richard’s troops came within sight of Jerusalem in 1192, but grew weary as it did not look like they were making an impact.

Then word came to Richard that Phillip II was trying to take away Normandy from England, so Richard quickly ended the Crusade to go back and defend his kingdom.

 

Richard later discovered Saladin was on the verge of defeat and was propping up dead soldiers along the walls.
Saladin allowed some Christians to leave Jerusalem if they paid a ransom, but according to Imad al-Din, approximately 15,000 could not pay their ransom and were enslaved.

Richard sailed away, but was shipwrecked and attempted to travel on foot across Europe in disguise.

 

He was recognized near Vienna and captured by Duke Leopold V of Austria. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, imprisoned Richard at Dumstein for three years.

Legend has it that Richard’s loyal minstrel, Blondel, traveled from kingdom to kingdom across Europe trying to find him by singing Richard’s favorite song.

When Richard heard the song, he sang the second verse from the prison tower, and was found. Richard’s brother, King John, had to raise taxes for the “king’s ransom.”

This was the origins of the story of Nottingham, Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, prepared for another crusade in 1197, but died from malaria.

Once back in England, Richard ruled only a few years before being shot with an arrow during the siege of a castle in Normandy.

His brother, King John, once again ruled, where he raised taxes oppressively.

 

When he lost Britain’s claim to Normandy after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, English baron’s were upset, as they also lost their titled lands there.
Angry barons then surrounded King John on the plains of Runnymede on June 15, 1215, and forced him to sign the Magna Carta – the cornerstone of English liberty.

—

Download as PDF …

Read as American Minute blog
William J. Federer videos
Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924 wjfederer@gmail.com
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment. www.AmericanMinute.com

Designed by Eric Conover.