1549
Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with nearly 50,000 men and 38 elephants is the stuff of legend.
In 218 BC the North African empire of Carthage and the Roman Republic stood, as they often did, on the brink of war. But when war came, it came not from Africa but from Cartagena on the east coast of Spain.
Picture: By TL. From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Free Art Licence.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1550
Handel called it ‘Air and Variations’, but by Charles Dickens’s day everyone knew it as ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’.
‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’ wasn’t the name given to this piece by Handel; so how did it get it?
Picture: © Jorge Royan, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1551
(That’s cat-tails, obviously.) And who ever said cats were unpredictable?
Charles Fox was a Whig politician who served briefly as Foreign Secretary. A staunch opponent of King George III, he once dressed himself in the colours of the American revolutionary army. But he was also friends with Prince George, the King’s son.
Picture: © Dwight Sipler, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1552
When he caught his wife with her lover, the ugly blacksmith of the gods showed that he was not without his pride.
While Odysseus is in the court of King Alcinous, a court musician entertains them with the story of Hephaestus. He was the lame and ugly blacksmith to the gods, whom Zeus instructed Aphrodite to marry so that the other gods would stop fighting over her — a solution which did not solve anything at all.
Picture: © Anna Anichkova, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1553
The gods had given Heracles every grace of body and mind, but there was one thing he must do for himself: choose how to use them.
Heracles, a child of Zeus, is endowed with astonishing physical strength and skill, but does he also have strength of character to match?
Picture: From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1554
Hild founded an abbey that poured out a stream of priests and bishops for the revitalised English Church.
Hild or Hilda was a seventh-century Northumbrian princess who at the age of thirty-three became a nun. Taught by St Aidan, she was one of the early English Church’s most respected figures and was given the care of a monastery for men and women at Hartlepool, moving to Whitby in about 657. There she trained clergy to preach the gospel and lead church services for Christians all over the kingdoms of the English.
Picture: © Geir Hval, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015