1519
When Polydectes, King of Seriphos, sent Perseus to get the Gorgon’s head, he hoped the boy would never come back.
Polydectes, King of Seriphos, sent Perseus to get the vile Gorgon’s head, thinking it was a hopeless errand that would lead to the boy’s death.
Picture: From Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.. Source.
Posted November 7 2015
1520
Long before Jason came to claim it, the golden fleece had already saved a boy’s life.
King Athamas’s first wife was the cloud-goddess Nephele, but she grew restless and left him. His choice of Ino as her successor proved even more disastrous.
Picture: © Costas78, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted November 7 2015
1521
It lasted barely forty minutes, but it brought slavery to an end in the little island territory.
The Anglo-Zanzibar War on the 27th of August 1896 is the shortest in British history, but to the people of Zanzibar it meant everything.
Picture: © xlandfair, Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.. Source.
Posted November 5 2015
1522
Armistice Day is the anniversary of the end of the First World War on the 11th of November, 1918.
Armistice Day is an annual commemoration of the end of the First World War in 1918. Public ceremonies are kept on the nearest Sunday, which is now renamed Remembrance Sunday in recognition of other conflicts.
Picture: © Mez Merrill, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Open Government v1.. Source.
Posted November 5 2015
1523
An English monk warned of a flaw in the world’s most widely-used calendar.
Until 1752, the British Isles used the Julian Calendar brought here by the Romans in the first century AD. It had its problems, as even vocal champion St Bede acknowledged; but when Rome updated it in 1582 they trampled needlessly on ancient Church rules, offending the Greeks and Russians, and the Reformation was in full swing, which meant the English were in no mood to comply either.
Picture: Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.. Source.
Posted November 5 2015
1524
The ruthless diamond magnate and Prime Minister of the Cape divided opinion in his own lifetime as he still does today.
Basil Williams sat on the board of inquiry into the infamous ‘Jameson Raid’ of 1895 that was instigated by Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) and helped to ignite the Boer Wars. He came to know Rhodes quite well, and just after the Great War published a biography of him in which he suggested ways for the reader to respond constructively to the challenge of Rhodes’s controversial life and vision.
Picture: © PHParsons, Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA 3.0 Licence.. Source.
Posted November 5 2015