triticale - the wheat / rye guy

I Didn't Know That

Marginal Tyler has posted an interesting quote regarding the notion that the United States is a "young" nation. I reckon one is as young as one feels. The British traditions we view as old may have only been established in the 1890s, but they were established by looking backward, with the sense that they were traditions of an old nation. Germany and Italy may be younger, as nation-states, than the United States, but they do not focus their national identity on the time of their unification, but upon past glories and hurts. As long as other nations keep looking backwards, and the United States keeps looking forward, we will remain a young nation.

There was one item in the quote which caught my attention because I had been reviewing the relevant history in connection with my reading of Eric Flint's recent 1634 novel. I had been unaware that "Galileo was offered a chair at Harvard University, ..., before Charles I had his head cut off." As I recall from high school English. the clause ellipsed from between the commas, which happens to be "which was founded in 1636" cannot change the overall meaning of the sentence. Whoever proofread it neads to be eaten, shot and left.