79
Governor Pitiorek assured the heir to the Austrian Empire that Bosnians rarely tried to murder the same man twice in one day.
In 1878, Serbia broke free from the Ottoman Empire, but thirty years later, Austria seized Bosnia from Serbia. The snatch was bitterly resented, and on June 28th, 1914, Bosnian Serbs could be found on the streets of Sarajevo celebrating the first anniversary of Serbia’s recovery of Kosovo from Turkish rule. It was amidst this swelling of Serbian national pride that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, chose to make an official visit.
Posted July 24 2024
80
Many problems in life and society would be eased if we were better at reading characters — especially our own.
In 1804-06, the Revd Sydney Smith gave a series of lectures to the Royal Institution, later published as Sketches on Moral Philosophy. The lectures were aimed at a wide audience (much like Michael Faraday’s Christmas lectures there), and encouraged Smith’s naturally easy style. It was in one of these lectures that Smith gave us what is now an indispensable analogy for a misfit employee.
Posted July 24 2024
81
The words of the ancient Athenian lawmaker, on the limits of legislation, sucking up to dictators, and the crime of lounging about.
In about 594-593 BC, Solon was tasked with ending civil strife in Athens. He abolished serfdom, placing the poor on a secure footing against wealthy oppressors. He facilitated inter-city trade and welcomed immigrant craftsmen, revitalising the economy. Finally, he overhauled the constitution, revoking the infamous laws of Draco and establishing a legacy that became the patrimony of classical Athens. Diogenes Laertius, writing in the early AD 200s, looked back on Solon’s career.
Posted July 24 2024
82
Now that King Odysseus has failed to return from the Siege of Troy, the earls of Ithaca are eager to marry his lovely widow.
Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey tells of the many adventures of Odysseus, King of the island of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea, as he returned home from the Trojan War after almost two decades away. Penelope, his grieving queen, has all but given up hope of seeing him again, and is under increasing pressure from Odysseus’s greedy earls to marry again.
Posted July 15 2024
83
Frances Colenso admired the gallantry of the men who defended the fort at Rorke’s Drift, and the restraint of the men who attacked it.
On January 22nd, 1879, some 150 British soldiers repelled an attack by several thousand Zulu warriors on a tiny garrison at Rorke’s Drift. It was a gallant action in an otherwise dubious war: the British colony of Natal had picked a quarrel with King Cetshwayo of the Zulus as an excuse to annex his realm. Frances Colenso, daughter of the Bishop of Natal, appreciated the Zulus’ restraint.
Posted June 26 2024
84
There is plenty of work in the garden of England for everyone, whether they have a green thumb or not.
A School History of England (1911) was a collaboration between C. R. L. Fletcher, an Oxford historian, and Rudyard Kipling, who wrote this closing poem as a call to citizenship. The citizen he admired wasn’t the one who shouted noisily for the flag or paraded in some highly-paid profession, but the one who was quietly busy keeping the garden of England beautiful.
Posted June 26 2024