Both these resounding names refer to a national defence system. They are, respectively, German and French. The principal difference between the two is that the former was erected in France by the Germans in World War I; the latter by the French between 1929 and 1934 on their own eastern frontier.
Vilnius, capital of Lithuania / balticblues-events.com
Lithuania is a Baltic country, lying between Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east, and Poland to the south. In the 14th century it was one of the largest countries in Europe, a grand duchy stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, almost to Moscow in fact. In 1569 Lithuania had merged with Poland, but by 1795 it was itself absorbed into Russia, in the so-called ‘Third Partition’.
After a revolt in 1863 the Lithuanian language was banned, but strong national movements emerged from the 1880s. The country was occupied by German troops between 1915 and 1918. In this last year a German king was ‘elected’ and deposed (in November). (more…)
Bucharest / bucharestdailyphoto.com
Capital: Bucharest.
Population: Nearly 23 million.
President: Traian Basescu (since 2004)
Currency: The Leu.
Languages: Romanian (official) Hungarian, Romany.
International Organizations: The European Union (since January, 2007), United Nations, CSCE, North Atlantic Co-operation Council.
Tallin / sobreturismo.es
Capital City: Tallin.
Prime Minister: Andrus Ansip.
Euro: officially adopted January, 2011.
Population: Nearly two million.
Currency: the Kroon.
Languages: Estonian and Russian.
International Organizations: EU (since 2004), United Nations, CSCE, North Atlantic Co-operation Council.
V.I. Lenin / elcomercio.com
While the present Spanish government is Stalinist in concept, and Leninist in its leaders’ outlook, it might be as well to examine the biography of Lenin, whose actual family name was Ulyanov. Vladimir was born at Simbirsk on the middle Volga in Russia, the son of a school inspector. When the young man was only sixteen he suffered the death of a brother, hanged for his complicity in a conspiracy to kill the Tzar of All the Russias. (more…)
Francis II, last Holy Roman Emperor / emersonkent.com
Someone once said that the odd thing about the Holy Roman Empire is that it was not holy, Roman or an empire. This mostly Germanic and North Italian territory was organised under Otto I, who had been crowned by the Pope (holy) in the year 962. In what we call The Middle Ages the Emperor tried to represent an attempt to maintain ancient Roman traditions of European unity blessed by a purely Christian conept of authority ordained by God. Naturally this was resented and there was constant friction with several Popes, which led at the end of the 15th century to an ‘Empire’ which was little more than a legal term for an instituted trusteeship of the German or Teutonic States.
London entertains the Olympics / taiwantoday.com
Our faithful internauts might want to know that without any help from Mr. Julian Assange, the British weekly The Spectator has just published what they call ‘an international sporting equivalent of the WikiLeaks cables’. To what is hoped to be the deep embarrassment of the International Olympic Committee, The Spectator has winkled out ‘the complete, contractually binding and previously confidential set of demands made by the 115-member IOC on poor old London for the 2012 Olympic Games’.
The Bible is the sacred book of Christianity. There are many Christian churches, but all accept the two sections of it: the Hebrew scriptures, which we know as the Old Testament, and the Christian writings, known as the New Testament. Roman Catholics, among other Christian churches, accept a third section known as the Apocrypha. This was included in the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint).
In modern literature and journalism the reader will often find a mention of the Fabians. It is as well to know exactly to what this name refers.
The Fabian Society was a movement of mainly middle and upper class intellectuals, established in 1884 to spread socialist ideas among what they called, perhaps patronisingly, ‘the educated classes’. Some may think it odd that a purely socialist movement should eradicate the working classes from its audience. Their aim, they said, was to work out the application of socialist principles to intelligent Britain.
Artist’s impression of the Jameson Raid / colonialwarfare18901875.dewhub.com
One hundred and five years ago something happened in South Africa which has now largely been forgotten. The incident probably arose because of the remorseless and unnecessary need of the British to expand an already overlarge Empire.
On December 29, 1894, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson (1853 – 1917), who was an administrator in the British South Africa Company, led an armed band of 470 mounted men (whites of course) from Bechuanaland into the Transvaal. The intention was to advance 180 miles to Johannesburg, there to join the non-Boer European workers known as the Uitlanders, in their attempt to overthrow the government of Paul Kruger. (more…)