Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

← Page 1

1027

Gideon’s Fleece

Gideon is chosen by God to save Israel from the Midianites, but doubts his fitness for the task.

Gideon is numbered among Israel’s ‘Judges’, charismatic leaders of the ancient tribes of Israel after they escaped from slavery in Egypt and settled in the land of Canaan, sometime before the 11th century BC. Their task was to free Israel from the ever-present temptation to adopt the religions of the indigenous peoples.

Read

Picture: © TrickyH, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

1028

Gideon Recruits an Army

Gideon prepares to drive the Midianites out of Israel, but first he has to make it a fair fight.

Gideon has been visited by an angel of God, who has commissioned him to liberate Israel from seven years of cruel oppression by the Kingdom of Midian. Gideon has sparked a revolt, but with a decisive battle before him, he remains far from convinced that he is the right man for the task.

Read

Picture: By Zoltan Kluger (1896–1977), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1029

Gideon’s Snare

While spying out the enemy’s camp, Gideon hears something which fills him with renewed confidence.

Gideon has been chosen by God to rid Israel of the invading Midianites, and has successfully fulfilled his commission. All that remains is for his unlikely army of just three hundred hand-picked men to capture the Midianites’ top generals, but he does not get much co-operation from his fellow Israelites.

Read

Picture: Jim Greenhill, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1030

Mark Antony Catches a Kipper

The surprisingly sensitive Roman commander was hoping to impress a girl with his angling skills.

After Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, his nephew Octavian joined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) to avenge him at the Battle of Philippi. Rome’s possessions were divided among the three victors, and Mark Antony was granted Egypt, at that time ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator.

Read

Picture: © Fortysix Vie, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1031

Edith Cavell

The experienced nurse could not stop saving lives, even at the cost of her own.

The execution of nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915), an Englishwoman working in a Red Cross hospital in Brussels during the Great War, was one of a number of scandals that did nothing to help the German Empire justify their claim to be the superior civilisation of Europe.

Read

Picture: © GdML, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

1032

The Day of ‘No’

On October 28th, 1940, the Kingdom of Greece surprised everyone by refusing to become part of the German war machine.

By the Autumn of 1940, British forces fighting the Second World War were dangerously overstretched: Paris had fallen, Benito Mussolini had pledged Italy’s support to Germany, and Greece was under a state of emergency, with fascist sympathies.

Read

Picture: From the Athens War Museum collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.