The Time of Death of Alexander the Great: 11 June 323 B.C. (–322), ca. 4:00–5:00 PM

Por-Bajin

Brackett's Star Wars sequel screenplay

A trip to the field of Waterloo immediately succeeding the battle, 1815

Holograph journal kept by an unnamed traveler journeying from Ramsgate to Brussels with a friend, Henry Hargrave. The author describes the journey in detail, including his impressions of the scenery, the voyage, meals and table manners among the Belgians, and extensive comments on church architecture and Roman Catholic ceremonies he observed in the cities.

On approaching the field of Waterloo, he questions British and Prussian soldiers and Belgians for information on the battle and their parts in it, but notes that the Belgians were "unaccustomed to freedom of sentiment" and did not seem to confide their real opinions of "their old friend Napoleon." the journal ends shortly after the travelers' arrival in Brussels.

Concluding text of the journal is crosswritten on the opening pages in contrasting ink.

https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3873482

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Wordsworth's French Daughter

Dragon Quest Builders 2: If you build it, they will farm.

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Kyffhäuserdenkmal

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The language of life and death: The transformation of experience in oral narrative

Euhemerus (circa 330-260 BC)

Euhemerus saw myth as a history in disguise, where the gods being worshiped were originally living men, elated in this way because of some great feat of theirs, or their shiny virtue, perhaps sometimes simply because of all the power they had when alive. Men who had been glorified when alive, had by later generations been deified.

This theory was adopted and applied by numerous scholars during all of the Christian era, well into our days, more or less closely similar to how its originator had used it.

The most elaborate presentation of Euhemerus is in Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History, from the first century BC, when discussing what different theories the ancients had regarding the gods:

Certain of the gods, they say, are eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and the moon and the other stars of the heavens, and the winds as well and whatever else possesses a nature similar to theirs; for of each of these the genesis and duration are from everlasting to everlasting. But the other gods, we are told, were terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honor and fame because of their benefactions to mankind, such as Heracles, Dionysus, Aristaeus, and the others who were like them. Regarding these terrestrial gods many and varying accounts have been handed down by the writers of history and of mythology; of the historians, Euhemerus, who composed the Sacred History, has written a special treatise about them, while, of the writers of myths, Homer and Hesiod and Orpheus and the others of their kind have invented rather monstrous stories about the gods.

Diodorus goes on to present Euhemerus as a friend of king Cassander, first ruler of Macedonia after the death of Alexander, himself to remain on the throne no more than four years until his death. It was Cassander, though, who sent Euhemerus to sea on international errands, going southward from Arabia for a number of days, before carried to shore on the island of Panchaea. On this island he saw pious inhabitants worship their gods with magnificent sacrifices, and he found a temple to Zeus, in which there was a writing telling the deeds of Uranus, Cronus and Zeus - when they were men who walked the earth.

Euhemerus goes on to say that Uranus was the first to be king, that he was an honorable man and beneficent, who was versed in the movement of the stars, and that he was also the first to honor the gods of the heavens with sacrifices, whence he was called Uranus, or "Heaven". There were born to him by his wife Hestia two sons, Titan and Cronus, and two daughters, Rhea and Demeter. Cronus became king after Uranus, and marrying Rhea he begat Zeus and Hera and Poseidon. And Zeus, on succeeding to the kingship, married Hera and Demeter and Themis, and by them he had children, the Curetes by the first named, Persephone by the second, and Athena by the third. And going to Babylon he was entertained by Belus, and after that he went to the island of Panchaea, which lies in the ocean, and here he set up an altar to Uranus, the founder of his family.

Thus, the whole Olympian community began as a family matter. Euhemerus further tells of Zeus conquering Cilicia and visiting many other nations, "all of which paid honor to him and publicly proclaimed him a god." It is generally assumed that the island of Panchea, as well as the rest of what Euhemerus accounts, is more or less fiction of his. Yet, this approach to mythology, seeing behind it some distant historical facts did not therefore lose their credibility. Myths, also those involving the gods, even the very genesis of them as well as the whole world, tend to be mingled also with the affairs of men. In this, Homer is certainly a good example, having gods and men interact to the extent that they become difficult to tell apart at all.

To the Christian thinkers, the ideas of Euhemerus had that advantage, too, of doing away with the heathen ingredient in the Greek myths, without having to do away with the myths altogether. The stories of old could be nourished and retold, with an interpretation doing pretty much the reverse of what Euhemerus said once had taken place, so that men having been turned into gods could be turned back into men.

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Epitaph on a Tyrant W. H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum by Pozzo, Andrea, 1642-1709

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Dmitriy Fedorovich. On Shermans

I remember’ interview of Dmitriy Loza, Hero of the Soviet Union, pertaining to the Emchas.


Dmitriy Fedorovich, on which American tanks did you fight?

On Shermans. We called them “Emchas”, from M4 [in Russian, em chetyrye]. Initially they had the short main gun, and later they began to arrive with the long gun and muzzle brake. On the front slope armor there was a travel lock for securing the barrel during road marches. The main gun was quite long. Overall, this was a good vehicle but, as with any tank, it had its pluses and minuses. When someone says to me that this was a bad tank, I respond, “Excuse me!” One cannot say that this was a bad tank. Bad as compared to what?


Dmitriy Fedorovich, did you have just American tanks in your unit?

Our 6th Guards Tank Army (yes, we had six of them) fought in Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. We ended the war for us in Czechoslovakia. Then they rushed us to the Far East and we fought against Japan. I briefly remind you that the army consisted of two corps: 5th Guards Tank Stalingrad Corps on our own T-34s and 5th Mechanized Corps, in which I fought. For the first time this corps had British Matildas, Valentines, and Churchills.


They delivered the Churchill later.

Yes, a bit later. After 1943 we largely declined British tanks because they had significant deficiencies. In particular, they had 12-14 h.p. per ton of weight at a time when good tanks had 18-20 h.p. per ton. Of these three British tanks, the best was the Valentine produced in Canada. Its armor was streamlined but more importantly, it featured a long-barreled 57mm main gun. My unit switched over to American Shermans at the end of 1943. After the Kishinev Operation our corps became the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps. I missed to tell you that every corps consisted of four brigades. Our mechanized corps had three mechanized brigades and one tank brigade, in which I fought. A tank corps had three tank brigades and one mechanized brigade. Yes, we had Shermans in our brigade at the end of 1943.


But the British tanks were not withdrawn from service, so they fought until they were gone. Wasn’t there a period when your corps had a mixture of tanks, both American and British? Were there any problems associated with the presence of such a broad variety of vehicles from different countries? For example, with supply and maintenance?

Well, there were always problems. In general, the Matilda was an unbelievably worthless tank! I will tell you about one of the Matilda’s deficiencies that caused us a great deal of trouble. Some fool in the General Staff planned an operation and sent our corps to the area of Yelnya, Smolensk, and Roslavl. The terrain there was forested swamp. The Matilda had skirts along the sides. The tank was developed primarily for operations in the desert. These skirts worked well in the desert-the sand passed through the rectangular slots in them. But in the forested swamps of Russia the mud packed into the space between the tracks and these side skirts. The Matilda transmission had a servomechanism for ease of shifting. In our conditions this component was weak, constantly overheated, and then failed. This was fine for the British. By 1943 they had developed a replacement unit that could be installed simply by unscrewing four mounting bolts, pulling out the old unit, and installing the new unit. It did not always work this way for us. In my battalion we had Senior Sergeant (Starshina) Nesterov, a former kolkhoz tractor driver (Kolkhoz is sort of farm – Valeri), in the position of battalion mechanic. In general each of our tank companies had a mechanic and Nesterov was it for the battalion. At our corps level we had a representative (whose name I have forgotten) of the British firm that produced these tanks. At one time I had it written down, but when my tank was hit everything I had in it burned up -photographs, documents, and notebook. We were forbidden to keep notes at the front, but I did it on the sly. Anyway, this British representative constantly interfered with our efforts to repair separate components of the tank. He said, “This has a factory seal. You should not tinker with it!” We were supposed to take out a component and install a new one. Nesterov made a simple repair to all these transmissions. One time the British representative came up to Nesterov and asked him, “At which university did you study?” And Nesterov replied, “At the kolkhoz!”

History Respawned