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Forty thousand men, women and children, the last survivors of Japans’s persecuted Christian population, took refuge without earthly hope in a seaside castle.
In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Regent of Japan, had vowed to stamp out Christianity after a Spanish sea-captain boasted that, to the Pope and the King of Spain, its spread was a step towards European conquest. The repression grew in savagery until, on December 17th, 1637, forty thousand Christians huddled together in the seaside fortress of Hara Castle, on the southern tip of the Shimabara Peninsula.
Posted March 20 2022
278
Thomas Wright offers his readers a way of thinking about the enormous distances involved in any description of the solar system.
As an astronomer, Thomas Wright was particularly struck by the sheer size of the universe, “the secret Depths of Infinity, and the wonderful hidden Truths of this vast Ocean of Beings”. He often found that others, though fascinated by the solar system, had no conception of the distances involved, so he came up with this homely illustration.
Posted March 4 2022
279
Though some other sciences may seem to destroy it, astronomy restores a sense of religious awe.
Astronomer Thomas Wright approached his subject not only with passion but also with reverence. In a preface to his collection of nine ‘Letters’, in which he discussed fifteen years of observations, he told his unnamed correspondent that in common with many heroes of science and literature, he had found his religious belief deepened by studying the stars.
Posted March 4 2022
280
Augustus, the Roman Emperor, invited himself to dine at the luxury Naples villa of Publius Vedius Pollio, but a broken goblet thoroughly spoilt the evening.
The Roman Emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC - AD 14) made a habit of inviting himself to other men’s tables — not expecting much ceremony, though to one host who put on no show at all he remarked as he left, ‘I didn’t realise I was such an intimate friend of yours’. His dinner companions varied, but for the sake of his civic building projects he favoured the vulgar millionaire, and few were as vulgar as Vedius Pollio.
Posted February 26 2022
281
As a young man, surveyor Thomas Telford was a red-hot political activist who yearned for revolution, but admittedly he had read just one book on the matter.
In 1791 Norfolk-born Thomas Paine (lately of the USA), a vocal enthusiast of the French revolution, published a withering denunciation of the British constitution entitled The Rights of Man. Surveyor Thomas Telford, who was living in Shrewsbury Castle as a guest of the local MP, Sir William Pulteney, was swept away by it, and began recommending it to his friends back home in Galloway.
Posted February 25 2022
282
The politicians of Novgorod, angry at Moscow’s interference, thought they would teach her a lesson by selling out to Poland.
In 1471, even as England was being torn apart by the Wars of the Roses, the little republic of Novgorod was rent by its own bitter divisions. The meddling of upstart Moscow in their historic city had become insupportable, and many in the Veche, Novgorod’s civic Council, cried that independence could be achieved only by submission to the King of Poland.
Posted February 19 2022