An interesting historical story.
Titian was one of the greatest of the Renaissance painters. He, rather than the sculptor Donatello, should have been one of the Ninja Turtles. (I think the creators were afraid of people mispronouncing the name.) He specialized in mythological subjects and portraits. He also would accept commissions to paint Read more
Mary Godwin was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Her parents were famous writers and political radicals. In 1814, she began an affair with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. They eloped to Europe and in the summer of 1816 they joined Shelley’s fellow poet Lord Byron in Read more
When King Philip of Macedonia invaded Greece in 338 B.C., he defeated an Athenian/Theban army at the Battle of Chaeronea. Resistance ceased as all the other Greek city-states submitted to Philip’s victorious army. All except Sparta. When Philip arrived outside Sparta, he halted his army and awaited the Spartan emissaries Read more
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet and an opium addict. One day in 1797, he went to sleep under the influence, after having read about Kubla Khan’s palace at Zanadu. When he awoke, he began to feverishly copy down a poem he had dreamed. It began with the famous line: Read more
In the middle of his dramatic victory in the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson was shot by a French sniper and mortally wounded. Nelson was carried below deck while the battle raged. The captain of the HMS Victory was able to come visit Nelson as he lay dying. Nelson Read more
Mozart once bet fellow composer Haydn that he could not play a piano composition that Mozart had written that day. Haydn accepted the bet and sat down at the piano with the music in front of him. He started out well, but then reached a part of the composition Read more
In 1632, Galileo published his Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems which supported the Copernican theory that the sun was the center of the Universe and the Earth moved around it. The book caught the attention of the Inquisition which summoned Galileo to Rome for trial. Under threat of torture, Read more
John, besides being a rotten king, was a terrible human being. He attempted to sleep with any woman who caught his eye, even the wives of his nobles. Once while visiting the castle of Eustace de Vescy, he noticed that Eustace’s wife was beautiful and John decided he needed to Read more
Frederick the Great was known for the strict discipline in his army. When his army was on the march, he ordered that all fires and lights be extinguished by a certain hour. One night he was walking through his camp after the curfew and saw a light in a Read more
I ran across this today and wanted to share it. I have added it to my 1970’s page. Some of the facts are shocking! THINGS WOMEN COULD NOT DO IN 1971 women could not get a credit card without your husband’s signature – it was not until 1974 that a Read more