Month: April 2023

Battle of the Ice (1242)

The Teutonic Knights attacked the Republic of Novgorod in 1242 as part of their Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. Waged on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus, which now sits on the border of Estonia and Russia, the Battle of the Ice proved disastrous for the knights. Though some historians consider the battle a major turning point in the Northern Crusades, others believe it was only a minor skirmish. Why? Discuss

Thomas Hobbes (1588)

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and political theorist whose famous 1651 book Leviathan profoundly affected political-legal theory in general and influenced the early formation of US law in particular. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that man is by nature a selfishly individualistic animal and advocates absolutist government as the only means of securing civil society. A lack of such authority, he postulated, would lead to bellum omnium contra omnes, which means what? Discuss

Cicadas

A cicada is an insect with a stout body, a wide, blunt head, protruding eyes, and two pairs of membranous wings. Male cicadas have platelike membranes on the thorax, which they vibrate like drum heads, producing a loud, shrill sound. The Magicicada species have the longest known life cycles of any insect–17 years. They live only one week as winged adults, however, spending the rest of the time in the form of larvae, burrowed underground. To what are their long life cycles an adaptation? Discuss

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan Executed (1979)

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party, served as president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and as prime minister from 1973 to 1977. In the 1970 parliamentary elections, Bhutto’s party won a majority of seats in West Pakistan, but East Pakistan’s Mujibur Rahman won an overall majority. The power struggle that followed led to a civil war in which East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, gained its independence and Bhutto rose to become president of Pakistan. Why was he executed in 1979? Discuss

Megalesia

The cult of the Phrygian goddess Cybele (also known as Magna Mater) was established in Rome on this day in 204 BCE, and April 4 continued to be set aside as a commemoration of the foreign goddess’ arrival in Rome. In the beginning, no Roman citizens were allowed to take part in it. But over time it spread to the streets of Rome, where Cybele’s image was carried in a chariot drawn by lions with her castrated priests leaping and gashing themselves in a frenzy of devotion. The procession went from the Palatine to the Circus, where plays known as ludi megalenses were held. Discuss

Antoine Galland (1646)

Antoine Galland was a French scholar famed as the first European translator of The Thousand and One Nights. After translating The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor into French in 1701, he embarked on a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of the tales, filling 12 volumes. Still, mystery surrounds the origins of some of the most famous tales. No Arabic manuscripts of Aladdin and Ali Baba pre-date Galland’s translations, leading some scholars to conclude what? Discuss