As per usual with our man Plato, he doesn’t have the courage of his own convictions, and rather than just come out and describe one of the greatest metaphors in the history of Western philosophy, he embeds it in a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon (Plato’s brother).
The allegory is simple enough: picture a group of people chained in a cave. They face a blank wall, and there is a light source behind them – so that they only things they ever see are the shadows cast by whatever moves between them and the light. Inevitably, they come to ascribe meaning to the shadows they see, and to believe that they are all there is of reality…
…the philosopher, naturally, is a freed prisoner in this analogy: it is his role to describe the true reality to the other prisoners. If you’ve any familiarity with Plato’s work, you’ll recognise here his familiar concepts of Platonic forms (i.e. true and ideal forms) opposed to mundane forms (i.e. the ones in this world).
The man known only as “Sir” – singer, songwriter, legend of the silver guitar – was the founding member of the Replacements, the world’s finest They Might Be Giants cover band.
But TMBG material doesn’t work very well with just one guy on the guitar. You need, at very least, an accordionist and a backing singer. Drums, bass and a second guitar are also nice. Continue reading Hi, We’re the Replacements
Sargon the Great became the king of Akkad by murdering his predecessor. As king, he led a military conquest of Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions, covering modern Iraq and Kuwait, as well of parts of Iran, Arabia and even Anatolia and Syria, reaching all the way to the Mediterranean coast of the latter. This was the first centrally-controlled multi-ethnic empire in world history.
Sargon’s origin, much like that of Julius Caesar, has been mythologised. In particular, there is a portion of it that describes him as being set adrift upon a river in a basket woven of rushes – a tale strikingly similar to that of Moses (as described in Exodus), and predating the Book of Exodus by around two centuries.
The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or in English, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, is one of the foundational works of modern physics and mathematics.
In addition to being the first major treatise to seek to unify all mathematics since Euclid nearly 2000 years earlier, it built upon the works of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler and Descartes (to name but a few). Famously, it introduced the laws of gravitation and motion, which formed the basis of classical mechanics for centuries thereafter.
Much of the Principia has stood the test of time fairly well – for the most part, it has been refined rather than replaced. Newton’s work remained supreme in mathematics until the 20th century, when relativity and quantum mechanics began to expose it limitations. And although Newton’s laws fail at these extremes, they are superb approximations at the scale of everyday life (in this case, defined as reaching from the smallest visible objects up to entire solar systems).
Referenced in:
History Lessens — Skyclad
Man on the Moon — R.E.M.
Jason was a little-known hero who, in order to win the throne of Iolcus (in Thessaly), recruited a mighty crew and set sail in the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. They found it only with the assistance of the goddess Hera and the princess Medea, who betrayed her father and eloped with Jason and the Fleece. Jason made it safely home, claimed the throne and married Medea. This did not end well for either of them.
Jason’s crew was a who’s who of Ancient Greek heroes. It included Hercules, Theseus, Castor, Pollux, Laertes (father of Ulysses), Bellerophon, Iolaus, Nestor, Orpheus, Deucalion, Asclepius, Atalanta, Peleus (father of Achilles) and Autolycus. In fact, not counting the heroes of the Trojan War (who were mostly not yet born at this point), the only significant Greek hero not to participate was Oedipus.
The area known as the Oregon Country originally encompassed a much larger area of land than is now occupied by the state of Oregon. On the American side of the border, t took in the states of Washington and Idaho, as well as parts of Wyoming and Montana. On the Canadian side, it took in Vancouver Island, and parts of mainland British Columbia. And where the border was to be drawn was a subject of dispute for half a century after the war of 1812 and the treaty of 1818.
The matter was finally settled with the signing of the Oregon Treaty in Washington D.C., which set the boundary at the 49th parallel (i.e. latitude 49 degrees north), with the exception of Vancouver Island, which straddles the parallel, and was given to Canada in its entirety. This represented a backdown for the Democratic Party that counted President Polk as its leader, as they had campaigned on the slogan “54 40 or Fight!”, asserting a claim to the territory as far north as 54 degrees 40 minutes – the southernmost latitude of what is now Alaska (and was then Russian America).
Gilgamesh is the title character of one of the oldest known literary works, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates from approximately 2150 BCE. The most complete surviving version of the Epic was recorded on twelve clay tablets in the library of Ashurbanipal, a later Mesopotamian king.
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, an early Sumerian realm that encompassed what is now Kuwait and southern Iraq. His parentage was partially divine – he was two thirds god and one third man. As a result of this, he was abnormally strong and long-lived – some sources describe him as immortal. He seems to have been based on actual historical figure, and several details in the Epic appear to derive from historical figures who were his contemporaries. However, despite his reality, it is unlikely that he reigned for the 126 years attributed to him by Sumerian historians.
Hammurabi is perhaps the best-remembered king of Babylon’s first dynasty. Although he was the sixth of that house, he was the first one to actually be called a king, largely as a result of his military victories, Aside from the simple fact of his kingship, his greatest claim to fame is the Code of Hammurabi.
One of the oldest known written codes of law in the world, it predates Mosaic law (i.e. the Bible) by centuries, and was a direct influence on that code. The code consists of 282 individual laws, and states the punishments for each infraction. The law was revolutionary in three aspects:
It was written in the common tongue (Akkadian, in this case) so that any literate citizen could read it.
It standardised punishments, ensuring that the law was consistent (albeit rather harsh by modern standards – it is also one of the earliest known examples of the “eye for an eye” principle, which appears to have been intended to limit vengeance to an equitable level.).
It is one of the earliesst known examples of the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of our modern legal system today, and required that both sides provide evidence to substantiate their claims.
As a result of Hammurabi’s pivotal role in the history of the law, his likeness is often found in courts and parliaments, as a famed law-giver. In many such depictions, he is the earliest historical figure shown.
The 1964 World’s Fair was the second such fair not to be approved of by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the organisation in charge of such fairs. (The first was the previous New York World’s Fair, held in 1939.) There were a number of reasons for this, but the most prominent was the decision of the fair’s organising committee to charge rent to exhibitors.
Nonetheless, the Fair went ahead. Robert Moses, the city planner of New York City, was the main force behind it, and he recruited the architect Victor Gruen to design the site and the buildings (thus ensuring that the Gruen transfer would effect Fair-goers as well as mall-shoppers). Many of the world’s more prominent nations – members of the BIE – did not attend the Fair, but other nations from the developing world more than made up for them. By the time the World’s Fair closed its doors eighteen months later, 51 million visitors had visited.
One of the most revolutionary theories of physics of all time, Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity turned the celestial mechanics of Isaac Newton on its head, and set the stage for the quantum mechanical revolution in physics that characterised the Twentieth Century. Continue reading 1915 – Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is published
It’s an event that is easily overlooked, but it had a great deal of significance for the entire world: the swearing in of Lyndon Baines Johnson as the 36th President of the United States of America at 2:38pm on November 22, 1963, a little over 2 hours after President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
Johnson took the oath of office in cramped conditions aboard Air Force One, with 27 people crammed into a 16 square foot stateroom for the historic event – while down the hall, Jackie Kennedy sat grieving next to her husband’s corpse. Johnson would go on to be one of the most controversial Presidents in American history, remembered for the civil rights reforms of his Great Society program, but also for presiding over the massive escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Although the name had been in use informally since 1453, in most contexts Istanbul was still Constantinople to non-Turks, and Kostantiniyye in most government contexts. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923, the old name was gradually phased out.
The changeover was formalised on March 28, 1930, when the Turkish Postal Service Law came into force. All foreigners were requested to stop using the old names of Istanbul and various other Turkish locations. This was enforced by the post office’s refusal to deliver mail addressed to Constantinople, which drove acceptance of the new usage on pragmatic grounds.
Referenced in:
Istanbul Not Constantinople – The Four Lads
Istanbul Not Constantinople – They Might Be Giants
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