871
Herbert Bury believed that it was the British way to profit with another country, not to profit from it.
In 1912, the Lena massacre in Russia saw 250 gold miners shot during protests over low wages and harsh conditions in a mine backed by British money. Investors were ashamed when they learnt of the systematic exploitation, and Herbert Bury assured Tsar Nicholas II that decent Englishmen wanted Russia’s people to prosper.
Picture: © Andrej Putilov, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted July 18 2018
872
When Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, became the Tower of London’s first prisoner he did not intend making a long stay.
Ranulf Flambard followed William the Conqueror over to England, helped compile the Domesday Book, and collected eye-watering taxes for William II ‘Rufus’. On his accession in 1100, Henry I won many friends by making the abrasive and ambitious cleric, now Bishop of Durham, the Tower of London’s first prisoner.
Picture: © Rafa Esteve, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted July 16 2018
873
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna was a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, but to one ordinary Russian she was simply ‘dear Elizabeth’.
Herbert Bury was Anglican bishop for Northern Europe from 1911 to 1926. His duties took him to Russia, where he met Tsar Nicholas II and was deeply impressed by the Royal Family. The following story about the Tsar’s sister-in-law Grand Duchess Elizabeth, who was later martyred by the Communists, shows why.
Picture: Photo by Karl Ficher (1906), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 14 2018
874
A wily predator dons a sheepskin so he can help himself to the whole flock.
The wolf in sheep’s clothing is a metaphor used by Jesus Christ to warn against those who pretend to be Christians so they can prey on them. Nikephoros Basilakes, a twelfth-century teacher of rhetoric at the Patriarchal School in Constantinople, penned this little ‘Aesop’s Fable’ with a twist to the tale.
Picture: © Jim Clark (US Fish and Wildlife Service), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 13 2018
875
Alexander Graham Bell was heading for a dead end when a broken component showed him the way.
In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman working with deaf children in Boston, MA, had rigged up a complex apparatus to transmit sound by electric current. As his assistant Thomas Watson recalled, all was disappointment until one day a tiny contact jammed.
Picture: From the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 11 2018
876
Dr Johnson’s cat left James Boswell cold, but the great man himself would do anything to avoid hurting the little fellow’s feelings.
Dr Samuel Johnson has a reputation today as a master of put-downs and unkind cracks, but his private prayers and various passages from James Boswell’s biography show another, much gentler side. Here, we meet Hodge, the distinguished lexicographer’s cat in the 1760s.
Picture: © ceridwen, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 9 2018