871
The first setbacks for the German Empire in the Great War came courtesy of ANZAC troops.
ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops were involved from the very beginning of the Great War on August 4th, 1914, not because they were summoned to Europe to protect Britain but because Germany’s growing colonial presence in the South Pacific was a direct threat to their independence.
Posted April 25 2018
872
Manto Mavrogenous hoped that her fellow women might show more solidarity with Greece than many men had done.
On August 12th, 1824, Manto Mavrogenous wrote an open letter to the Ladies of England, soliciting donations to the cause of Greek independence from Ottoman rule. Above all, she needed funds to take Euboia, and make it into a safe island for children and women displaced by the fighting.
Posted April 23 2018
873
In 1822, a rich and beautiful young woman took the cause of Greek independence into her capable hands.
The Greek war of independence lasted from 1821 to 1827, and resulted in a partial liberation from the oppressive rule of the Ottoman Turks which had begun with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Manto Mavrogenous (1796-1848) was one of the struggle’s most romantic and most tragic figures.
Posted April 23 2018
874
A traveller went into a Shropshire pub looking for information about a patch of grass with peculiar properties.
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 to 642, when he was defeated, aged 38, in battle by the pagan King Penda at Maserfield near modern-day Oswestry in Shropshire. He was soon venerated as a saint, for his own piety, and for bringing St Aidan over from Iona to preach Christianity with a simple kindness others had not shown.
Posted April 22 2018
875
An Arthurian knight commits a dreadful crime against a woman, and is sent by Queen Guinevere on a fitting errand.
Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ include a story told by a much-married lady from Bath named Alison. She prefaces it by complaining at great length that she has been made to feel guilty for marrying five times, and still more so for demanding some equality in the home. Yet, she says, sometimes that works out rather well.
Posted April 17 2018
876
Young Theseus sets out for Athens on foot to claim his kingdom, but the road is infested with giants, bandits and a savage sow.
According to Castor of Rhodes (first century BC), Theseus inherited the crown of Athens in 1234 BC – just about the time of the Exodus and shortly before the Siege of Troy. As his name implies, during his reign he ‘gathered’ all Attica under Athens, and the overwhelming challenge posed by that task is symbolised by the mythical labours attributed to him.
Posted April 16 2018