Author: Editor

On June 21, 1979, Sony presented the first Walkman, a portable cassette player with headphones that could be taken along during a bike ride or walk, for example. The Walkman was available for purchase from July 1 that same year and became very popular. Several other brands subsequently launched similar devices. However, these companies were not allowed to call their device a ‘Walkman’, that word was reserved for Sony players. Many other brands appeared under the name ‘portable cassette player’, but people often simply spoke of ‘walkmans’. For the first version of the real Walkman, music lovers had to pay…

The Most Noble Order of the Garter is the highest order of chivalry in the United Kingdom and one of the oldest European orders of chivalry. The order was established in 1348 by King Edward III of England. According to tradition, an event at the court led to the creation of the famous order. During a ball, the king’s dancing partner Edward III, the Countess of Salisbury, is said to have lost a garter, after which the king picked it up and tied her to his own leg to reassure her. The king is said to have said: “Honi soit…

In the Catholic tradition, the stigmata are known as visible wounds on a believer’s body, precisely on those parts of the body where Jesus was wounded prior to his death on the cross. Instead of stigmata, people sometimes speak of “cross wounds” or “the wounds of God”. According to Catholic tradition, the stigmata were a visible sign that a person has become one with Christ, in his suffering and death. Faith in Jesus is so intense that one literally experiences the pain of his crucifixion. In a general sense we know the word ‘stigma’ as an indication for a negative…

On August 26, 1789 was in France the first Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ( Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen adopted). The statement was composed by the French Marquis de Lafayette and the Count Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès. The document contained the foundations for the later Constitution of France. The Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen arose from the Enlightenment movement and was strongly influenced by the declaration of independence of the United States and also leaned on French legal tradition. The declaration states, among other things, that the people…

An old saying teaches that one cannot live on the wind. At the end of the nineteenth century, the French artist Joseph Pujol proved that this is not necessarily true. Pujol made a living by farting in theaters. In England, the special artist was also jokingly called The Fartist. Joseph Pujol was born in Marseille in 1857, the son of a bricklayer and sculptor of Catalan descent. After graduating from primary school, Pujol trained as a baker. In 1883 he married the mason’s daughter Elisabeth Olivier. Ten children were born from this marriage. His eldest son, Louis-Baptiste, later recorded several…

Erected in honor of one of Napoleon’s victories at Austerlitz, the Arc de Triomphe is one of Paris’ most famous structures. If it had been up to the French architect Charles Ribart, however, at the end of the Champs-Élysées stood a completely different building. A monument in the shape of an elephant. Charles Ribart designed the three-storey elephant in 1758. A spiral staircase had to be built in the belly of the animal . If it were up to Ribart, the building would have included a ballroom, furniture that could be folded away into the walls and an air ventilation…

On August 27, 1896, the United Kingdom and Zanzibar went to war. It became the shortest war in history. Already after thirty-eight minutes this short but fierce Anglo-Zanzibar War came to an end. The problems arose after the pro-British sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini died. He was succeeded by his cousin, Sultan Khalid bin Barghash (1874-1927), who was more German than British. A few years earlier, in 1890, Germany and the United Kingdom had concluded the so-called Zanzibar Treaty. Agreements were made about certain areas that the countries wanted to lay claim to. These included Zanzibar, Witu and Helgoland. The United…

The poppy flower is a symbol of the First World War in the United Kingdom, but also in many other countries , because they bloomed frequently on the battlefields in Flanders. Particularly famous is a poem by John McCrae (1872-1918) about poppies on the Western Front: In Flanders Fields. The Canadian army doctor wrote his poem on December 8, 1915, when he saw large poppies blooming on war graves. McCrae threw away the paper he wrote the poem on, but a fellow officer found it and sent the poem to several London magazines. It was first published in the popular…

The Jewish-Lithuanian ophthalmologist and philologist Lejzer Zamenhof designed the international auxiliary language Esperanto. The language is spoken in more than one hundred and twenty countries today. Lejzer Zamenhof was intrigued by the idea of ​​an international language from an early age. In 1887, under the name Doctor Esperanto , he published a brochure explaining his idea of ​​an international world language. The language soon got the name Esperanto . The brochure was published in French under the title Langue Internationale, Préface et manuel complet . Zamenhof was born in the place Bialystok, which at the time was part of the…

Northern General John Sedgwick died during the American Civil War while trying to encourage his men. His last words are legendary. John Sedgwick had earned his spurs. He fought in the Mexican-American War and several Indian Wars, among others. At the beginning of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Sedgwick was a colonel. In Virginia, he fought at the Battle of Yorktown and the Battle of Seven Pines. In a later battle he was wounded in the arm and leg. He recovered and on July 4, 1862, Sedgwick was promoted to major general. The American was killed on May 9, 1864,…