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Leander recalls that first night when he dared the perilous waters of the Hellespont, and swam to meet his lover Hero.
According to legend, one stormy night the wind extinguished the candle that Hero lit to guide her lover Leander as he swam to her across the Dardanelles Strait, and he was lost. Roman poet Ovid imagined the letter that Leander might have sent by ship to his darling, while he waited impatiently for calmer waters.
Posted May 29 2022
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As Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli stoked fears of Russian aggression, John Bright said that Russia was only threatening when she felt threatened.
In 1879, British politicians were warning that we must occupy Afghanistan to prevent Russia invading India, and that Emperor Alexander II’s military operations in the Balkans were not a liberation but an excuse to sweep across Europe that must be met with force. John Bright watched this escalation with alarm, and urged the Government to make our peace with Russia as we had with France – by trade.
Posted May 29 2022
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Employees are the key to any entrepreneur’s success, and he must know them intimately, trust them completely and pay them generously.
Scottish engineer James Nasmyth, son of an Edinburgh artist, set up the Bridgewater Foundry in Patricroft, Salford, in 1836. He tells us in his Autobiography that in the competitive market of Victorian heavy industry, the key to success was making sure that his employees never wanted to work for anyone else.
Posted May 25 2022
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Henry Maudslay, the great engineer, had seen enough apprentices to last him a lifetime.
In 1829, artist Alexander Nasmyth tried to realise his son James’s abiding dream, an apprenticeship at Maudslay’s engineering firm in London. Presuming on a slight acquaintance, father and son presented themselves at Henry Maudslay’s home in Westminster, only to be told that apprentices had been such a disappointment that he would take no more. A guided tour of the factory was small compensation.
Posted May 25 2022
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A loyal Scotsman on the run from pro-English traitors disguised himself as a blacksmith’s apprentice, but soon gave himself away.
The Scottish surname Nasmyth or Naesmyth is said by scholars to derive, in all probability, from nail-smith. But Scottish engineer James Nasmyth, who appropriately enough in 1839 invented a steam hammer for making enormous iron bars, had heard a different tale, which he set down in his Autobiography.
Posted May 21 2022
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Byron felt compelled to set the record straight after it was alleged that he had swum the Hellespont the easy way.
Every night, so the Greek myths tell us, Leander left Abydos in Asia Minor and swam across the narrow Hellespont to his lover Hero, priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos in Thrace, the European side, until he was drowned in bad weather. On May 3rd, 1810, George Gordon Byron and his friend Lt William Ekenhead swam the same stretch of water in the other direction, from Europe to Asia.
Posted May 16 2022