A Brief History On September 5, 1725, Louis the XV, King of France, married Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczynska, the daughter of King Stanislaw I of Poland. Known as Queen (consort) Marie of France, she served in that role until her death in 1768 at the age of 65. For a whopping 43 years between Louis XIV (“The Sun King” famous for his namesake furniture style) and Louis XVI (the guy that wed Marie Antoinette and got his head lopped off) there was a Polish lady serving as Queen of France. If you did not know this, perhaps you are…
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A Brief History On an unknown date in 324 BC, the Macedonian (Greek) King Alexander the Great arranged about 80 weddings in the Persian city of Susa between the daughters of Persian nobles and Greeks of high office. An astute judge of culture, Alexander regularly acknowledged a conquered people’s customs and culture and attempted to show respect and acceptance for their ways in order to better incorporate the new lands into his empire. Of course, Alexander also meant to further Greek culture into conquered lands as well. Digging Deeper Alexander had already married Roxana (aka Roxanne or Roxanna) the beautiful…
A Brief History On an unknown date in 495 BC, one of the greatest Athenian heroes of their “Golden Age” was born, Pericles, the man that came to be known as “The First Citizen of Athens.” So important and influential was Pericles that his time as leader of Athens is called “The Age of Pericles” (461-429 BC). Digging Deeper Like many truly great men, Pericles was multi-dimensional, and served as a military general, statesman, and orator, as well as being a great patron of the arts and education. A strong advocate of democracy, Pericles is responsible for most of the…
A Brief History Morgan, an upcoming 2016 American science fiction thriller film directed by Luke Scott and written by Seth Owen, is scheduled to be released on September 2, 2016 by 20th Century Fox. Digging Deeper Viewed on August 24, 2016 with only minimal knowledge of the movie (provided by the trailer), we expected a science fiction/horror type film and that is what we got. Excellent casting in every role and quality acting and directing, we enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The build up to action was slightly slow, as is to be expected with character development, but once the…
A Brief History On September 1, 1985, after 73 years sleeping on the deep dark ocean floor, the wreck of the fabled ocean liner, RMS Titanic, was discovered by a joint American-French salvage team led by Robert Ballard, sponsored by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The mighty ship had sunk on its maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg 375 miles South of Newfoundland on April 15, 1912 with the loss of more than 1500 passengers and crew, including the ship’s captain. Not equipped with sufficient lifeboats for all on board, only about a third (705) of the 2224 people…