Alex Seifert

Today I ordered a new book that looked really interesting. The book is called It Happened in Colorado by James A. Crutchfield. I am originally from Colorado and so I figured a book on the history of Colorado would be an interesting read. James A. Crutchfield always writes interesting books about the history of the … more →

Lincoln seems to be in the news a lot this week. Today CNN is reporting that a new photograph of Lincoln has emerged that is believed to be the last taken before his assassination in 1865. It was discovered in a photo album belonging to General Ulysses S. Grant’s great-great grandson, Ulysses S. Grant VI. … more →

I found a really interesting news article on CNN about a message left to President Lincoln on the inside of his pocketwatch by a watchmaker who was repairing it at the time Fort Sumter was attacked. Here is the article: A long-hidden message has been discovered inside Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch, the Smithsonian’s Museum of … more →

I just got through reading an interesting article from the BBC about archaeologists having found and partially excavated the foundation of the original theater Shakespeare would have used. It is believed that the premier of plays such as Romeo and Juliet and an older version of Hamlet were performed at this theater with Shakespeare himself … more →

As a student of history, I unfortunately do not have a lot of time to devote to reading fiction books of my choice. If I am reading generally it is either a specifically assigned book or text for a class or a book pertaining to something relavent to my studies (such as Der Dienst by … more →

I’ve finally finished my research paper proposal for one of my history classes. The research paper is going to be about Reinhard Gehlen, but I have discussed that in a previous post. I feel a lot better about the paper now though because I now have a clear direction in which I want to head … more →

I have to admit that I have an unhealthy obsession with 19th century architecture and houses in general which means that whenever I come across photos taken in the 19th century of a house from that period, I get quite excited. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to stumble upon this website, but I … more →

As I have discussed before, I am doing a research project on the former German spymaster Reinhard Gehlen and the organization that he established after the second World War which eventually became the West German (and now just German) Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Federal Intelligence Service. The relationship between Gehlen and his spy ring had with the … more →

So I broke down and decided to catalog my ever-growing personal library. I chose to use an online tool called LibraryThing because it seemed like a good way of keeping track of everything. There are other tools out there that I considered, many of which are offline, however most of the cost money and I … more →

The BBC is running an interesting article about the oldest words in the English language. Researchers are currently saying that they believe the oldest words still in use in modern English are “I”, “we”, “two” and “three” which date back tens of thousands of years. They also cite words such as “squeeze”, “guts”, “stick” and … more →