The Benedictine Order was founded by St Benedict (480-543) at Mount Cassino, Italy, in 529.
After founding the Benedictine order Benedict compiled a series of rules by which the Benedictine monks should live by. In his Rule he allocated each monk a pound of bread and two cooked dishes each day, though meat was forbidden.
The monks of Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery, in Hulbert Oklahoma. by Wall Street Journal
Benedict wrote practically in his Rule "For the daily meal let there be two cooked dishes so that he who happens not to be able to eat of one may take his meal of the other. Avoid excess-above all things, that no monk shall be overtaken by indigestion."
In his Rule he allocated each monk a nemina (quarter of a litre) of wine each day. Benedict would have liked to prohibit wine but he realized it would be an overly controversial measure, so he restricted his demands to banning drunkenness.
The Rules of Benedict specified that monks should spend two hours a day reading holy books.
In 580 the Benedictine Mount Cassino monastery was sacked by the Lombards thus fulfilling a prophecy of Benedict. The monks took refuge in Rome and started to spread knowledge of Benedictine rule. The Benedictine movement within the next few centuries became a key source for the conversion of Germany and England to Roman Christianity.
View of the Monte Cassino abbey at dusk By Radomił
The Benedictine order arrived in England in 597 when a monastery was built in Canterbury by the Benedictine prior St Augustine. Other Benedictine missionaries completed the conversion of England to Roman Christianity. A century later the English Benedictines, Sts. Willibrord and Boniface successfully evangelized Germany and from there it spread northwards to Scandinavia and southwards to Spain.
In 816 the Benedictine monastic order was imposed on the Holy Roman Empire. By this time the Benedictine had become the only form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where the Celtic form of Christianity remained prevalent.
A typical Benedictine day in England in the ninth century was : 12.00 Laud and Mass. Back to bed. 7.00 Service (prime) and mass. Breakfast. Discuss day’s business. 12.00 Work. 5.00 Vespers then relaxation. 6.30 Supper. 7.00 Compline then bed.
Gregory I was the first of 50 Benedictines who have occupied the papal throne; some others were Leo IV (800?–55), Gregory VII, Pius VII, and Gregory XVI (1765–1846).
During the Dark Ages copies of the masterpieces of Roman literature were preserved and recopied in the monasteries of the Benedictine monks.
The Benedictine Abbey of Cluny in France was founded in 910 by the Abbot Berno as a reaction to the corruption and lack of zeal in the Benedictine Order. It became the headquarters of the Cluniac order, who were noted for their strict adherence to the rule of St Benedict. From here monastic reforms were spread and Cluny became the leader of western monasticism from the later 10th century.
The Benedictine order was to be the most important order in Europe for many centuries and produced 50 popes and many cardinals and archbishops. By the 11th century they existed in great numbers in every country of Western Europe except Ireland. By the Reformation there were almost 300 Benedictine monasteries and nunneries in England.
The order had 37,000 monks in the 14th century; in the 15th century it had 15,107. The Reformation left not more than 5,000, but this number has since increased to about 11,000 men and 25,000 women.
Late 15th century Benedictine monks in Westminster Abbey would eat 6,000 calories a day normally and 4,500 a day when "fasting". They drank a gallon of beer and 10 oz of wine and ate 2.25 lbs of bread, 5 eggs, and 2 lbs of meat or fish a day. Many monks became obese and suffered related conditions.
The Benedictine habit consists of a tunic and scapular, over which is worn a long full gown, or cowl, with a hood to cover the head. The color of the habit is not specified in the rule, and it is conjectured that the early Benedictines wore white, the natural color of undyed wool. For many centuries, however, black has been the prevailing color, and thus Benedictines have been called "black monks."
Because Benedict never mentioned underpants in his instructions, his followers were not allowed to wear them.
Saint Benedict of Nursia was born on March 2, 480 in Nursia, Kingdom of Italy into a distinguished Christian family who loved each other tenderly. Benedict's early life is not well documented, All we know of his father was that he was a Roman Noble.
tatue of Saint Benedict of Nursia - Cathedral of Barcelona
He was educated at home before being sent to Rome to study. Once there, the sight of the disorderliness of his fellow students made Benedict fear they would influence him to turn to sin. He fled at the age of 15 without completing his studies to a cave in mountains of Subiaco.
Whilst living as a hermit for three years in his cave Benedict had bread lowered to him in a basket attached to a rope by Romanus, a monk living at one of the numerous monasteries nearby.
After three years in the cave, the fame of Benedict's virtues reached some monks whose abbot had just died and they insisted that he become his successor. Though Benedict remained in the cave, more and more disciples placed themselves under his guidance. Eventually he established an abbey at Vicovano to house the growing number of his followers. It was the first of twelve monasteries in the Subiaco he built for them, each of twelve monks.
The monks at Vicouano Monastery rebelled against the strict regime Benedict had imposed on them and arranged for poisoned bread to be given to him. However, a raven that daily used to come to him from the next wood, flew forward and tore the piece of bread away from the saint thus saving the life of his master.
Benedict built his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, in 529 at Monte Cassino, a rocky hill about 80 miles southeast of Rome. It was on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to the god Apollo.
Monte Cassino By Radomił, Wikipedia
Monte Cassino was so strongly built that weeks of bombardment by the allies during World War II could not destroy it. It is now a museum and picture gallery.
Once established at Monte Cassino, Benedict never left. There he wrote the Benedictine Rule. The rule encouraged monks to participate in manual labor and studying, a novel idea at the time, but a monument of wisdom that became the founding principle for western monasticism.
Benedict liked paintings to have straight lines as straight lines reach God more easily.
Benedict's beloved twin sister, Scholastica, became a nun and leader of a community for women at Plombariola, about five miles from Benedict's abbey at Monte Cassino. They used to meet up once a year. On the appointed day Scholastica went to Monte Cassino. Benedict came to meet her; they passed some hours together in a guest house of the abbey and ate together, then each went their own way.
A few weeks after the death of his beloved sister Scholastica, Benedict had her tomb opened as he wished to be laid to rest beside her. He was then without warning taken with a violent fever. The dying Benedict was carried into the chapel at Monte Cassino by his fellow Benedictines where he received communion before he drew his last breath standing erect supported by his disciples. He passed away on March 21, 547, aged 67.
During the post war restoration of the Abbey at Mount Cassino, an urn was discovered which is said to contain the remains of Benedict and Scholastica.
In 1964 Benedict was appointed Patron Saint of Europe. His emblems include a broken cup and a raven.
A bench is a long seat on which more than one person can sit at the same time. Benches are usually made of wood, metal, stone, or other synthetic materials.
Flickr
The word ‘sofa’ dates back to Ancient Egypt. It derives from the Arabic word ‘suffah’ (which translates as ‘bench’).
In the 16th century, moneylenders often conducted their business on benches outdoors. The Italian word for such benches was "banc," from which we derive bank. A "banca rotta" literally means a ‘broken bench’, hence bankrupt.
British politician Tony Benn met his wife in Oxford in 1949. Nine days later, he proposed to her on a park bench. Later, he bought the bench from Oxford City Council and installed it in the garden of their home. They were together for 51 years.
After accepting a role in the 1974 comedy-drama filmThe Girl from Petrovka, Anthony Hopkins set out to find the book. Unable to find any for sale, he spotted one on a park bench and snagged it. Two years later he was speaking with the author, who lamented having lost his copy with notes. The same copy Sir Hopkins found.
The 'cyber seat' was the world's first park bench with free internet. It was installed in the United Kingdom in 2001 by Microsoft. Within days, two teens had plugged their house phone into it, attempting to call Bill Gates to say "we are calling you from your bench." They managed to reach his secretary.
A park bench in Bristol was given an official postal address so doctors could register the homeless as patients.
Lew Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905) the governor of the New Mexico Territory, decided to write a book that would explode once and for all the supposedly absurd claims of Jesus Christ. After researching his material, he began writing only to find he couldn’t go any further as it contradicted his original thesis denying Christ is the Son of God. So he converted his book into a novel, whose primary purpose was to support the claims of Jesus. The novel’s title was Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, and it became the best selling American novel of the nineteenth century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
First edition
The novel is set in Ancient Rome and Ancient Judea. It tells the story of two men - one a Jewish prince (Judah Ben-Hur) and the other a Roman tribune - whose lifelong friendship turns to bitter hatred. At the end, Ben-Hur witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus. He becomes a Christian.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ had the honor of being the first work of fiction to be blessed by a Pope.
U.S. presidentJames Garfield was so impressed with the book that he appointed Wallace as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire, based in Constantinople, Turkey. Wallace served in this diplomatic post from 1881 to 1885.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was the best-selling American novel from the time of its publication until Gone with the Wind appeared in 1936.
The 1959 MGM film adaptation of Ben-Hur is considered one of the greatest movies ever made and was seen by tens of millions, going on to win 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The success of the Ben Hur movie boosted the book sales and it surpassed Gone with the Wind.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, creator of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, first met in a junior High gym class at Merrick Avenue Middle School in New York. The two were both lagging behind while running, which caused the gym teacher to yell at them. From there, the two became best friends.
Ben & Jerry originally considered getting into the bagel business, but the equipment was too expensive. Their plan was to deliver bagels, lox, creamcheese, and the New York Times on Sunday mornings.
Ben & Jerry taught themselves how to make ice cream through a $5 correspondence course from Penn State University and with the textbook Ice Cream by Wendall S. Arbuckle.
On May 5, 1978, with a $12,000 investment Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont.
In 1983, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was used to build “the world’s largest ice cream sundae” in St. Albans, Vermont; the sundae weighed 27,102 pounds (12,293 kg).
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream was invented by Ben and Jerry’s in 1984 after a fan anonymously listed it as an idea on their ‘flavor board.’
In 2005 Ben & Jerry's apologized for naming an ice cream flavor "Black & Tan". While intended to evoke the popular beer drink of the same name, the name unfortunately carried a harmful historical baggage in Ireland. The term "Black & Tan" was the nickname for a British paramilitary force deployed in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921.
Jerry of Ben & Jerry's has never come up with an ice cream flavor.
Ben and Jerry's sends the waste from making ice cream to local pigfarmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
Ben & Jerry's employees get to take home three free pints of ice cream every single day. They also get free gym membership.
Each Ben & Jerry Waffle Cone has an average of 259 little squares.
Ben and Jerry's used to have a policy that no employee could make more than five times what the lowest paid worker was paid.
Jerry Greenfield (left) and Ben Cohen (right) in 2010.
Ben & Jerry's get about 13,000 flavor suggestions a year.
Ben & Jerry's has a "flavor graveyard" where there are tombstones for earlier flavors that are no longer sold. You can actually go and visit it.
Ben Cohen has no sense of smell and gets his "food enjoyment" from texture. This is why the brand puts chunky ingredients in their ice cream.
Ben & Jerry's operates nowadays globally as a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch Unilever conglomerate. Its headquarters is in South Burlington, Vermont, with its main factory in Waterbury, Vermont.
Your belly button (also known as the navel) is formed from scar tissue left over from the umbilical cord that connected you to your mother’s placenta.
Pexels.com
InAncient Egypt, onlythe pharaoh was allowed a belly button piercing. If anyone else got on they would be executed.
Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incan Empire, literally means belly button as the Incas thought their capital to be "the belly button of the world".
Alfred Hitchcock was born with a belly button but at some point in his life it was surgically removed. During one of the many operations done on the British director's stomach, a doctor stretched skin over the area where the belly button used to be.
Because of TVcensorship, actress Mariette Hartley was not allowed to show her belly button on Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek episode All Our Yesterdays in 1969 but later Roddenberry got even when he gave Hartley "two" belly buttons in the sci-fi movie Genesis II (1973).
Cher became the first actress to reveal her belly button on TV in 1975, when her navel was seen during an episode of The Cher Show.
You can tell twins apart by looking at their belly buttons, which are scars and not determined by genetics.
A person's belly button depth isn’t determined by the cut at birth, but just randomly how theirf stump heals.
Belly button lint forms because your hairs point toward your navel, and breathing causes your shirt to move up and down, transporting loose clothing fibers forward along those hairs, but not backward.
The average man has 1.8 milligrams of belly button lint in his navel at any given time.
Australian Graham Barker was officially recognized in November 2000 for possessing the largest collection of belly button lint, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Barker had collected 22.1 grams of navel lint over a sixteen year period, filling three large bottles.
In early 2011, North Carolinascientists set up The Belly Button Biodiversity Project. in which they examined the genetic makeup of the bacterial found in the belly buttons of 60 volunteers. One individual, who hadn't washed in several years, hosted two species of extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.
The belly button is so dirty scientists are finding new unknown bacteria. One person had bacterium previously found only on Japanese soil, where he had never been.
The belly button of a blue whale is about 8 inches (20 cms) wide.
As a young man, Bellow went to Mexico City to meet Leon Trotsky, but the expatriate Russian revolutionary was assassinated the day before they were to meet.
Bellow’s first novel, Dangling Man (1944), deals with the anxiety and discomfort of a young man waiting to be drafted in wartime.
In 1948, Bellow was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to move to Paris, where he began writing his best-known novel, The Adventures of Augie March (1953). A long, loosely structured narrative with a picaresque hero, it gives a vivid, often humorous picture of Jewish life in Chicago and of a young man’s search for identity.
Bellow received the 1976 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel Humboldt’s Gift (1975); three months later he was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in literature. He was also awarded France’s Legion d’honneur.
Bellow is the first and to date only writer to win three National Book Awards (U.S.), for his novels The Adventures of Augie March (1954), Herzog (1965), and Mr. Sammler's Planet (1971).
He was married five times and his fourth child and first daughter with his last wife Jane Bellow. Naomi Rose, was born when he was 84 years old. Janis, was in her early 40s.
Bellow said that of all his characters, Eugene Henderson, of Henderson the Rain King, was the one most like himself.
The bellbird is a bird native to Central and South America. Three of the four species are restricted to South America, while the last, the three-wattled bellbird, is restricted to Central America between western Honduras and eastern Panama.
It gets its name from its call which sounds like a bell. The bellbird uses this call to attract its mate.
The male white bellbird, which lives in the mountains of the Northern Amazon is identified as the noisiest bird in the animal kingdom. When it opens its beak, the noise sounds like an emergency siren and reaches up to a deafening 125 decibels.
Its call is louder than an eight lane motorway or a pneumatic drill. The male white bellbird is so loud it can be heard a mile or more away.
Female bellbirds, which are the target of the cacophony, risk hearing damage if they get too close.
Male white bellbirds are white but for their black ‘wattle’ – the flesh on the beak similar to a turkey’s. Females have a dusky olive crown and black streaking on the throat.
Male white bluebird By Hector Bottai from São Paulo, Brasil
The male white bellbird is the size of a dove, weighing only half a pound (250 grams).
While the white bellbird is easy to hear, it is hard to see because it perches at the top of large trees.
Bellbirds can swallow fruit whole, the seeds are later regurgitated.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home was at 16 South Charlotte Street.
He was born Alexander Bell and later adopted the middle name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend. To close relatives and friends he remained "Aleck" which his father continued to call him into later life.
Bell's father was a specialist in deafchildren's education who invented "visible speech", a method of phonetic notation for deaf mutes.
His mother, Eliza Grace (née Symonds), began to lose her hearing when he was 12 and Alexander learned a manual fingerlanguage so he could sit at her side and tap out silently the conversations swirling around the family parlor.
Bell's school record was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lackluster grades. His main interest remained in the sciences, especially biology, while he treated other school subjects with indifference, to the dismay of his demanding father.
As a boy, Alexander had attacks of what his mother called “musical fever”. Listening to music affected him so deeply, he couldn't sleep leaving him with a headache in the morning.
At the age of 11, Bell invented a device for separating wheat from its husk and when still in his teens, the precocious youngster made a talking doll that said "mama"; so convincing was it that his neighbors began hunting for an abandoned baby.
Throughout late 1867, Bell's health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His father had also suffered a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland, so his family moved from London to the fresh air of Canada for the sake of their one remaining son's health.
EARLY CAREER
In 1872 he opened a private school in Boston, USA to train teachers of the deaf and the methods of visible speech that he'd learnt from his father.
Before Bell invented the telephone he designed a piano which could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity.
Bell invented an audiometer artificial ear, which was capable of registering sounds on a sheet of glass covered in lampblack. Another invention was a sorting machine for punch coded census cards.
Before the telephone Bell developed a harmonic telegraph which meant for the first time many messages could be sent down the wire at once.
INVENTION OF THE TELPHONE
The inspiration for the telephone came when Bell was working to improve the telegram in Boston, Massachusetts. Not adept with his hands, the Scot was aided by a young repair mechanic and model maker, Thomas Watson. On June 2, 1875 Watson made a mistake, the incorrect contact of a clamping screw which was too tight changed what should have been an intermittent transmission into a continuous current. Bell at the other end of the wire heard the line vibrate and emit the same timbre of a plucked reed.
Bell spent the next winter making calculations and filing an application for a patent knowing a rival, Elisha Gray was working on a similar project. On February 14, 1876 a representative of Bell filed his patent for a "telephone" which is Greek for sound, at New York Patent Office at 12.00PM. The now forgotten Gray got there two hours later.
Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the patent for the electric telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 7, 1876
Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent[79] drawing,
The first telephone call was made on March 10, 1876 when the clumsy Bell spilled battery acid on his trousers and summoned Watson over the phone. So the first intelligible words transmitted over the new electric speech machine was not "Hello its Bell ringing" but "Come here Watson, I want to see you". As Bell could have shouted this and Watson would have heard it anyway it was an inauspicious start to selling the benefits of an audio communication device.
Bell's March 10, 1876 laboratory notebook entry describing his first successful experiment with the telephone.
The telephone became the great hit of the June 1876 celebration of the Declaration of Independence when Bell recited "to be or not to be" down the phone to an excited Emperor of Brazil who was standing 150 yards away.
In 1877, Canadian businessman Hugh Cossart Baker Jr. learned of Alexander Graham Bell's invention at the Philadelphia International Exposition and from there decided to test the communication tool in Hamilton. He installed the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on June 20, 1877.
An actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell speaking into an early model telephone.
Bell also invented the device that makes a telephone ring. A good thing he did as previously anyone making a call had to shout down the line to alert the people at the other end to pick up the receiver.
Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a phone in his study because the ringing drove him nuts.
His company, Bell Telephone Company, became one of the largest in the United States by making the art of communication more expensive than ever before in history.
The first telephone directory only had 50 names in it.
Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago in 1892.
Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated the U.S. transcontinental telephone service on January 25, 1915. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, he was heard by Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. Bell repeated his first ever words on the phone back in 1876, "Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you" as a joke.
MARRIAGE
After his successful invention of the telephone, Bell devoted the rest of his life to the education of deaf and dumb children. One of his pupils was a young woman called Helen Keller.
Another of his pupils, the deaf and mute Mabel Hubbard, was a bright, attractive girl who was ten years his junior. She became the object of Bell's affection and they married on July 11, 1877 in the Cambridge home of her parents, when she was 19 and lived together happily for 45 years.
Mabel Gardiner Hubbard with her husband Alexander Graham Bell and their daughters Elsie (left) and Marian (1885).
Two days before Alexander Graham Bell married Mabel Hubbard in 1877, he gave her 99 percent of his company shares as a wedding gift. He kept a mere ten shares for himself.
LATER CAREER
Bell created a metal detecting tool to help find the assassins' bullet in President James Garfield in 1881. The device failed to work as no one had thought of removing the steelbed springs on which the president was lying. The metal sent the machine haywire, couldn't locate the bullet and Garfield died from his wounds.
Bell helped found Science magazine in 1880 in partnership with his father in law Gardiner Hubbard.
In 1896 he succeeded his father in law as President of the National Geographic Society. Bell transformed what had began as a modest pamphlet into the world famous National Geographic Magazine. He wrote articles for the magazine under the enigmatic pseudonym of H.A. Largelamb.
HOBBIES, HEALTH, HABITS AND BELIEFS
The Scottish inventor had the odd habit of drinking his soup through a glassstraw.
Bell often suffered from a splitting headache in the morning. Because of this he normally lied in until after 9.00, or if he had an early morning appointment, the Scot stayed up all night. Bell had suffered from these headaches from an early age and when he was younger his mother suggested putting cold water on his eyes, a little beer and refraining from pickles as various cures.
Bell was a Unitarian and an Universalist. In 1901 he came across a Unitarian pamphlet and found its theology appealingly undogmatic. Bell wrote to Mabel: "I have always considered myself as an agnostic, but I have now discovered that I am a Unitarian Agnostic."
Alexander Graham Bell
Bell was connected with the eugenics movement in the United States. The Scottish inventor's hobby of livestock breeding led to his appointment to biologist David Starr Jordan's Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. His own investigations of race improving theories led to him developing a more prolific breed of sheep.
Fascinated by aeronautics, Bell begun experiments in 1891 to develop motor-powered heavier-than-airaircraft. His wife founded the Aerial Experimental Association, the first research organization established by a woman, as Mabel shared her husband's vision to fly. She advised Alexander to seek "young" help as he was at the graceful age of 60.
In 1907 Bell developed large human carrying tetrahedral celled kites and he made several other contributions in the early days of flying.
Bell's hydrofoil boat set the world water speed record in 1919 when he was 72 by reaching speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour. For many years it was the fastest boat in the world.
DEATH AND LEGACY
Bell died at his Cape Breton Island estate on August 2, 1922 after a long illness. Mabel whispered to him "don't leave me". Unable to speak, Bell traced with his fingers the sign "no". It was his last word.
During his funeral service, every telephone of the Bell system was kept silent for one minute.
Bell is buried alongside his wife atop Beinn Bhreagh Mountain overlooking Bras d'Or Lake.
The term "decibel" used to denote noise volume is named after Bell.
The 1939 filmThe Story of Alexander Graham Bell starred Don Ameche as the Scottish-American inventor. For a while after this movie, the telephone was known by the American public as the "Ameche".
Bell’s grandson answered the very first commercial mobile phone call in 1983.
No recordings existed of Alexander Graham Bell's voice until a wax on cardboard disc was discovered in 2013. In it we hear Bell say in a Scottish-tinged accent "Hear my voice. . . . Alexander. . Graham. . Bell."
The oldest known bell, found near Babylon (in present-day Iraq), is reputed to be more than 3,000 years old. China, Japan, Burma, India, Egypt, and other ancient civilizations made use of bells in different forms so long ago that to trace their history is almost impossible.
English bells have tolled the death of every English ruler since King John died in 1216.
The Great Bell of Dhammazedi is said to have been the largest bell ever made, It was cast in 1484 by the Mon monarch, Dhammazedi, and located in Shwedagon Pagoda of Yangon, Lower Burma, but was stolen by a Portuguese warlord. The story goes that the legendary bell lies at the bottom of a fast-flowing river that's full of shipwrecks.
In the 1500s local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, One out of twenty-five coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, "saved by the bell" or was "considered a dead ringer."
Sets of handbells tuned diatonically first appeared in England in the 17th century for practicing change ringing. By the 18th century groups of ringers had branched out into tune playing, with the bells' range having been expanded to several chromatic octaves.
Some of the bells that rang out in England when World War II ended were so old that they had sounded their notes to celebrate the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.
The biggest bell is the "Tsar Kolokol" cast in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, in 1733. It weighs 220 tonnes, and stands on the ground at the Kremlin, where it fell when being hung. Alas, it cracked and has never been rung.
The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The bell was commissioned in 1752, and originally called the State House Bell. It was not commonly referred to as the Liberty Bell until the mid-1800s, in coordination with the abolitionist movement. Photo of the original Liberty Bell below.
By William Zhang - https://www.flickr.com/photos/willzhang05/33650671514/
The Oxford Electric Bell is an experimental battery-powered bell that was set up in 1840 and is located in a corridor adjacent to the foyer of the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford, England. It has run nearly continuously ever since and holds the Guinness World Record as "the world's most durable battery delivering ceaseless tintinnabulation (a ringing or tinkling sound). Under the Chimney Sweepers Act 1894 in the United Kingdom, it was an offence “to solicit employment as a chimney sweep by … ringing bells”.
Russian bells differ from western bells in that, rather than being tuned to one specific note, each individual bell is crafted to sound several complete scales of different notes.
The ‘Peace Bell’ at the United Nations headquarters, New York, was cast in 1952 from coins presented by 64 countries. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry company was established in 1570. The foundry was notable for being the original manufacturer of the Liberty Bell, and for re-casting Big Ben, which rings from the north clock tower at the Houses of Parliament in London. The foundry closed on June 12, 2017, after nearly 450 years of bell-making. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain.
In the Lloyd's of London insurance market, a bell from an 18th century ship is rung once for good news, twice for bad.
"Campanology" comes from the same word as "campanile," a common name for bell towers.
Belgrade’s name in English translates to ‘White City.’
It is one of the oldest cities in Europe, first emerging as prehistoric Vinča in 4800 BC.
Belgrade was settled in the 3rd century BC by the Celts, before becoming the Roman settlement of Singidunum.
Throughout history, Belgrade has been a crossroads between the West and the Orient. Because of its strategic location, Belgrade has been battled over in 115 wars throughout history and razed to the ground 44 times.
The First World War was ignited on July 28, 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The following day Belgrade was shelled by Austro-Hungarians and most of the subsequent Balkan offensives occurred near the city.
The Austro-Hungarian government's declaration of war in a telegram sent to the government of Serbia on 28 July 1914
Belgrade fell to German and Austro-Hungarian troops on October 9, 1915. The city was liberated by Serbian and French troops three years later. Since Belgrade was decimated as the front-line city, Subotica overtook the title of the largest city in the Kingdom for a short while.
Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia (in various forms of governments) from its creation in 1918, to its final dissolution in 2006. It is currently the capital of Serbia.
Belgrade By Vlada Marinković - Vlada Marinković, Wikipedia Commons
In the Lonely Planet 1000 Ultimate Experiences guide of 2009, Belgrade was placed at the first spot among the top 10 party cities in the world.
The city proper has a population of over 1.1 million, while its metropolitan area has over 1.6 million people, making it one of the largest cities in Southeast Europe.
Belgrade covers 3.6% of Serbia's territory, and 22.5% of the country's population lives in the city.
The Port of Belgrade is on the Danube, and allows the city to receive goods by river.
Belgrade has given rise to several world-class tennis players such as Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. Ivanovic and Djokovic are the first female and male Belgraders, respectively, to win Grand Slam singles titles. The Serbian national team won the 2010 Davis Cup, beating the French team in the finals played in the Belgrade Arena.
Belgium is a country in Europe, bounded on the north by the Netherlands and the North Sea, on the east by Germany and Luxembourg, and on the south and south west by France. With the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Belgium forms the Low, or Benelux, Countries.
Belgium is named after the Belgae people, which is translated to "land where the people swell with anger."
The word ‘spa’ for a health resort comes from the town of Spa in Belgium where the ancient Romans enjoyed the health-giving springs.
The city of Bruges enjoyed almost 400 years of prosperity due to a single storm in 1134 that opened up a natural channel that allowed sea trade. It lost its prestige when the channel got blocked again in the 1500s.
The Brabant Revolution, sometimes considered as the first expression of Belgian nationalism, began on October 24, 1789 with the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands by an émigré army from the Dutch Republic.
On January 20, 1831, the European powers agreed to fix the borders of the new country of Belgium, splitting it from Holland.
Leopold I was inaugurated as the first King of the Belgians on July 21, 1831. Born into the ruling family of the small German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leoppld married Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only child of the Prince Regent (the future King George IV), thus situating himself as a possible future prince consort of Great Britain. Charlotte died in 1817, although Leopold continued to enjoy considerable status in England. The Belgian government offered the position to Leopold because of his diplomatic connections with royal houses across Europe.
Leopold I of Belgium
Since the installation of Leopold I as king, (which is now celebrated as Belgium's National Day), Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy.
The Treaty of London of 1839, signed on April 19, 1839 was a direct follow-up to the 1831 Treaty of the XVIII Articles which the Netherlands had refused to sign. Under the treaty, the European powers recognized and guaranteed the independence and neutrality of Belgium.
The first railway in continental Europe opened on May 5, 1835 between Brussels and Mechelen in Belgium. The rapid expansion of the Belgian railways in the 1830s was one of the factors allowing Belgium to recover from an economic recession which it had experienced since the revolution and served as a major force in the Belgian Industrial Revolution.
Painting of the opening of the Brussels-Mechelen railway on 5 May 1835
The world’s first beauty contest was held at Spa in 1888. It was won by 18-year-old Bertha Soucaret.
During World War I, King Albert I of Belgium personally led the defense against the Germans, while the Queen served as a nurse, and their son enlisted in the infantry.
The World War II Battle of Belgium began on May 10, 1940 when German forces launched a massive invasion of Belgium as part of their broader campaign in Western Europe. The German military employed its signature blitzkrieg tactics, using fast-moving armored units and air support to overwhelm Belgian defenses.
Despite putting up a valiant resistance, the Belgian forces, aided by British and French troops, found themselves outmatched and outmaneuvered. The German forces managed to breach Belgian defenses and advance swiftly through the country.
With the fall of Belgium's fortresses and the German army's rapid progress, the Belgian King Leopold III made the difficult decision to surrender on May 28, 1940.
After the invasion of Belgium by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the Belgian government, under Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot, fled first to Bordeaux in France. Then evading French and Spanish authorities, Pierlot arrived in England on October 22, 1940, marking the beginning of the Belgian government in exile in London. The Belgian government in London, also known as the Pierlot IV Government, was the government in exile of Belgium between October 1940 and September 1944.
Hubert Pierlot (left), Prime Minister of the government in exile, April 1944.
Belgium has so many political parties, that they faced a problem when 11 parties received a significant amount of votes in the 2010 election. It eventually took 541 days for a majority of parties to agree to work with each other.
In Belgium, 220,000 tons of chocolate are produced each year. That is about 22kg of chocolate per person.
About 55% of the population speak Flemish, 44% French, and a small proportion German.
Belgium is one of the few countries that requires education as mandatory until the age of 18.
French speaking residents of Belgium are called Walloons.
Belgium is the only country that has never imposed censorship for adult films.
Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometers (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people.
There is a small four acre plot of land inside Belgium, which belongs to Germany. Part of the city of Monschau, west of Vennbahn trackbed it consists of a single inhabited house with a garden.
The highest point in Belgium is actually shorter than the world's tallest building. The Signal de Botrange on the High Fens plateau is 694 meters high but the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is over 100 meters taller.
The climate near the sea is humid and mild. Farther inland, away from the moderating maritime influences, a marked increase in the range of temperature occurs. The mean annual temperature in Brussels is 10° C (50° F).
Heavy rains are confined almost exclusively to the highlands. Fog and drizzle are common, and April and November are particularly rainy months.
The Coast Tram is a public transport service connecting the cities and towns along the entire Belgian coast, between De Panne near the French border and Knokke-Heist. At 68 km (42 miles) in length, it is the longest tram line in the world.
Belgium experiences one of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams.
Belgium has 11 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including La Grand-Place, Brussels, Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai.
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