via The National Archives blog by Philippa Mesiano
One side of the Papal seal depicting Saint Peter and Paul with the inscription “Gloriosi Principes terrae SA PA SA PE” which translates as “Glorious leaders of the earth, Saint Paul and Saint Peter” (Catalogue reference: SC7/14/3)
Due to its longevity and impact at home and abroad, Henry VIII’s break with Rome stands out as one of the most notable events in British history.
For a long time, Henry was determined to have a son and heir to his throne and secure the Tudor dynasty. His wife, Catherine of Aragon, had produced no surviving male heirs and Henry feared that his daughter, Mary, would be challenged if she tried to rule. Henry was willing to go to extreme measures to acquire a legitimate male heir and, after becoming enamoured with Anne Boleyn by 1527, he had the final incentive to initiate the annulment proceedings. These proceedings were built on the notion that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was ‘invalid’ as her previous marriage to Henry’s brother, Arthur (1486-1502), had been consummated.
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via Interesting Literature
The greatest poems about being alone
The poet’s life is often viewed as a lonely one – starving in garrets, pining away for lost loves, moping about the streets of the city looking for Baudelaire-style inspiration – so it should come as little surprise that there have been many classic poems written about solitude and loneliness. Here are ten of our favourite poems about isolation and being alone.
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via Flavorwire by Jason Bailey
One of the best things about being a classic cinema fan in New York City is the killer retro programming at our beloved Film Forum, and their current program is an all-timer: “Hank and Jim,” a celebration of the parallel careers and personal friendship of Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, tied to the new duo-biography of the same name by the great Scott Eyman. So in commemoration of that series, we’re looking back on a few of our favorite BFFs of the movies’ golden age – movie stars who clearly entertained each other as much as they did the rest of us.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Or is it a delightful furniture-sized cat?
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via the Guardian by Maev Kennedy
One of the photographs from May’s Queen in 3D collection. Photograph: Brian May
Even those who weren’t alive 40 years ago when Queen’s sixth studio album was released will feel something like nostalgia when they see images of Freddie Mercury drenched in golden light and Brian May linking arms with a slightly anxious-looking robot.
Released on 28 October 1977, News of the World became the band’s biggest studio album, selling more than 6m copies and going four times platinum in the US. The two most famous tracks, We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You, continue to be blasted out at sporting tournaments and wedding receptions.
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via OUP blog by Randall Lesaffer
“Allegorie op de Vrede van Rijswijk, 1697 Rijksmuseum” by Johannes Voorhout. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
In the fall of 1697, the great powers of Europe signed a series of peace treaties at Rijswijk [Ryswick], near The Hague, which ended the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), in which France was opposed by a great coalition of the Holy Roman Emperor, Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Spain. In its first article, the peace treaty between Britain and France, signed on 20 September 1697 (21 CTS 409), stated that, henceforth, there would be ‘universal and perpetual peace’ (‘pax … universalis perpetua’). The peace between the two powers held for less than five years. On 4 May 1702, the British formally declared war on France.
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via the Big Think blog by Paul Ratner
A model of Neanderthal man constructed on the basis of excavated bones, at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. circa 1920 (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)
Neanderthals, our ancient predecessors, who became extinct in Europe about 40,000 years ago, were found to interbreed with modern humans when both lived at the same time in Eurasia. As such, some Neanderthal genes found their way into our DNA, making up from 1 to 3 percent of the genetic code of humans who were not indigenous to Africa. As shows a new study from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, the Neanderthal code, while not large, may still be having a significant effect on how we look and feel.
The research team set out to figure out which specific elements of human appearance and behavior are linked to Neanderthal DNA. The scientists used information from the UK Biobank which made available genetic data on 112,338 individuals with white European ancestry (who have Neanderthal DNA), along with answers by the participants to questionnaires that included physical and behavioral descriptions. The researchers compared this to the genetic analysis of a Neanderthal specimen from the Altai mountains in Siberia.
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via Arts & Letters Daily: Philip Caputo in the Literary Hub
I’ve been frequently asked if I think it’s good for a writer to have been to war. My answer is usually that war isn’t good for anyone. Setting that aside for the moment, an argument can be made that witnessing or taking part in a battle might not harm a writer – provided that he or she doesn’t see too much of it. However, as prolonged exposure to direct sunlight can blind the eyes, prolonged exposure to combat can blind the writer’s imagination, making it difficult to impossible to write about anything else.
I recall when Joseph Heller and I shared the stage at a literary festival in Cheltenham, England, in 1993. He remarked that many of the writers we associate with the war novel were not in action for very long. Hemingway, for example, served on the Italian front in WWI for a mere 12 days. Heller himself flew mostly routine missions as a bombardier in WWII. He’d hardly been shot at, and believed that if he’d been in the thick of it, he might have been unable to write the ten books that followed Catch-22.
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via Interesting Literature
A commentary on a classic Shakespeare sonnet
‘I grant thou wert not married to my Muse’ is the 82nd sonnet in Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets charting the romantic drama that’s played out between the poet, the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the rival poet. In this poem, Shakespeare genteelly criticises his contemporaries who excessively praise beauty in their poems, arguing that when a poet is writing about the beauty of the Fair Youth, Shakespeare’s way – telling the truth and speaking plainly – is much more effective. Before we offer some words of analysis of Sonnet 82, here is the poem.
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via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Londonist's roundup of cutaway maps – many from the outstanding Transport Museum in Covent Garden – combines the nerdy excitement of hidden tunnels with the aesthetic pleasure of isomorophic cutaway art, along with some interesting commentary on both the development of subterranean tunnels and works and the history of representing the built environment underground in two-dimension artwork.
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Fascinating
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