Bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another
A man married to more than one woman at the same time is called a polygamist. Polygamist comes from the Greek: poly- means "many" and gamos means "marriage."
When John McCain Married Cindy Lou Hensley, he was still married to Carol Shepp McCain
In 285 AD, Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian passed laws mandating monogamy as the only legal form of marital relationship, in line with traditional Greek and Roman cultural values. This was before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
In the 19th century, bigamy was more common in the United States, as many people moved westward and it was easier to remarry without the knowledge of previous marriages.
19th century Mormon polygamist Brigham Young got out of paying alimony to one of his ex-wives on the grounds that — since polygamy was illegal — they were never actually married.
Benito Mussolini married Ida Dalser sometime in 1914 at a church in Milan. She was the daughter of the mayor of Sopramonte, and had been supporting him financially. Not long after however, they became estranged, but they never divorced. This didn't stop Mussolini marrying Rachele Guidi in December 1915, with whom he was to have five children. After becoming the Italian leader Mussolini tried to erase Ida from history and she was confined to a mental hospital.
In 1922 24-year-old Theresa Vaughn was tried for bigamy in England. In five years she had accumulated 62 husbands in 50 cities throughout England, Germany, and South Africa, averaging a marriage a month. She said that she had never obtained a divorce from any of her previous husbands.
Vaughn was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was released after serving 12 months. After her release, she disappeared from the public eye.
Vaughn's case was a sensation at the time. She was dubbed the "Serial Bigamist" and her story was featured in newspapers and magazines around the world. Her case also raised questions about the legal definition of bigamy and the rights of women in the early 20th century.
Conman Giovanni Vigliotto had at least 104 bigamous marriages around the world before he was jailed in 1983. He used many aliases between 1949 and 1981 in 27 US states and 14 other countries. A court in Phoenix, Arizona, sentenced him to 28 years for fraud and bigamy, but he died, aged 61, in 1991.
In the United States, bigamy is considered a felony in some states and a misdemeanor in others. It carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
In the United Kingdom, bigamy is an offence under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and carries a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.
In Islamic law, bigamy is considered a serious crime and is punishable by death in some cases, especially if the person is found guilty of fraud or deception in the marriage.
Big Ben, the bell in the Palace of Westminster's clocktower in London, was cast on April 10, 1858 by Whitechapel Bell Foundry after the original bell had cracked during testing.
The 30,300 lb (13.76 tonne) bell is known as ‘Big Ben’ after Benjamin Hall, First Commissioner of Works at the time.
The second "Big Ben" (centre) and the Quarter Bells from The Illustrated News of the World, 4 December 1858
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry company was established in 1570, making it one of the oldest manufacturing companies in the world. The foundry was located in Whitechapel, London and was known for making church bells and other types of bells. As well as Big Ben, it also casted Philadelphia's Liberty Bell. 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.
The clock mechanism of Big Ben was designed by Frederick Dent, who oversaw its development. The clock's tower and dial design were conceptualized by other architects, primarily Augustus Pugin, a prominent neo-Gothic architect, who assisted Charles Barry, the project's chief architect.
Shortly after completing his contributions to the tower, including its intricate Gothic details, Pugin suffered from what was described as a "nervous breakdown." His condition worsened, and he was institutionalized in an asylum before dying in 1852, just a year after the design phase.
Charles Barry often overshadowed Pugin's contributions. While Barry received much of the public credit, Pugin famously lamented that he had designed the decorative details, including the clock faces, yet remained unrecognized.
The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, started keeping time on May 31, 1859. Big Ben rang for the first time on July 11, 1859.
For two years during World War I, the bells were silenced and the clock face darkened at night to prevent attack by German Zeppelins.
The tradition of Big Ben's bongs heralding the news bulletins on the BBC began on December 31, 1923. It's a fascinating story that started with BBC engineer A.G. Dryland climbing onto a rooftop opposite the Houses of Parliament to capture the sound with a microphone, as he wasn't allowed into the clock tower itself.
That first New Year's Evebroadcast was a bit rough, picking up traffic noise along with the chimes. But it marked the beginning of a beloved tradition that continues to this day. Big Ben's bongs can now be heard twice daily on BBC Radio 4 at 6 pm and midnight, and three times on Sundays.
Although the bells continued to ring, the clock faces were darkened at night through World War II to prevent guiding Blitz pilots.
In 1979 starlings were in such large numbers in London that they stopped Big Ben by landing on the hands.
On April 1, 1980, the BBC reported that Big Ben was getting a digital display. It was of course an April fool.
In 2008 a survey of 2,000 people found that the tower was the most popular landmark in the United Kingdom.
The Big Ben name is often used to mean the tower as well. It is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower.
The Clock Tower was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in a tribute to Queen Elizabeth in her 2012 Diamond Jubilee Year.
By Diliff - Own work,Wikipedia Commons
Each of the four clock faces of Big Ben are 23 feet (7 meters) in diameter and are made up of 312 panes of glass.
Each of the copper sheet minute hands on Big Ben’s clock faces weigh 222lb (100kg). The end of the 13 foot (4.2m) long minute hands travel 120 miles (190 km) every year
Putting Big Ben’s hands forwards or back in spring or autumn, plus a maintenance check, takes 16 hours.
Pennies are used to keep Big Ben accurate if its losing time. Putting a coin on its pendulum speeds it by two-fifths of a second a day.
Those wishing to go up Big Ben must climb the 334 spiral steps to the top — there is no lift. It is only open to UK residents, who have to apply to their MP.
The 15-minute chimes on Big Ben have lyrics that are based on Psalm 37:23-24 : "All through this hour. Lord be my guide. And by Thy power. No foot shall slide."
The company which maintains Big Ben has staff on 24-hour call should something go wrong.
If Big Ben was built today, it would cost around £3.7 million ($4.9 million).
The Big Bang is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the origins of the universe. According to this theory, the universe began as an incredibly hot and dense state about 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding and cooling ever since.
The Big Bang theory explains the observed large scale structure of the universe, the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the relative abundances of light elements. It also predicts that the universe will continue to expand indefinitely.
The Big Bang theory is supported by a large body of observational evidence from various scientific fields such as astronomy, cosmology, and particle physics.
Below is a timeline of the metric expansion of space, including the hypothetical, unobserved parts of the universe. On the left side of the timeline, the expansion is shown to be rapid during the inflationary epoch. In the center of the timeline, the expansion is depicted as accelerating (this is an artist's concept and not to scale).
After the big bang only hydrogen and helium along with trace amounts of lithium and beryllium were created. The other 86 elements found in nature were all created by nuclear reactions inside stars.
The Big Bang Theory, the scientific explanation for the origins of the universe, was first proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Catholic Priest who is widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists that many people have never heard of. On May 9, 1931, Lemaître published a letter in the journal Nature in which he proposed that the universe began as a single quantum, and that the concepts of space and time only came into existence after this original quantum had divided into many smaller quanta. He later referred to this idea as the "Primeval Atom" in a collection of essays. Lemaître's work served as the foundation for what would later be known as the Big Bang Theory, as other scientists built upon his ideas.
A small percentage of static on televisions is actually radioactive resonance from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago.
In 1964, Bell Labs built a large space antenna. Upon testing, two of their scientists encountered ‘interference’, which could not be isolated. After multiple attempts to fix the bug, they determined the “noise” was in fact, a remnant ‘hum’ from the Big Bang. They went on to win The Nobel Prize.
Justin Bieber was born on March 1, 1994, in London, Ontario, Canada, at St Joseph's Hospital. Kurt Cobain shot himself exactly one month after Justin entered this world.
Justin is the son of Jeremy Jack Bieber and Patricia "Pattie" Mallette, who were both 18 when he was born. His parents never got married and Pattie raised her son with the help of her mother Diane, and stepfather, Bruce. Justin paid tribute to his mom with his song "Turn to You (Mother's Day Dedication," which he explained is about, "the struggles she went through and how brave she was and I think the world needs to know that."
Justin Bieber was discovered by chance. When he was 12 his mother uploaded a video to YouTube of him singing in a talent contest. It was intended just for his family, but music executive Scooter Braun clicked on one of his videos on YouTube. He was checking out another artist who was singing Aretha Franklin's "Respect," and Justin came up with a related video singing the same song. Braun clicked on it thinking it was the same artist, and realized that the 20-year-old he thought he was watching was a 12 year old.
His autobiographyJustin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever was published when Justin was just 16.
Bieber in 2010, By Daniel Ogren, CC BY 2.0, Wikipedia Commons
Justin Bieber fans call themselves "The Beliebers". They were named the greatest superfan community of the past 20 years by Rolling Stonemagazine.
To celebrate Justin Bieber’s 18th birthday, his fans set the Guinness World Record for most social-media messages sent over a 24-hour period with 300,000 tweets; at one point, Beliebers accounted for three percent of all activity on Twitter.
His first three tattoos are all reminders of his Christian faith. Bieber has a sizeable portrait of Jesus on his left calf, the Hebrew word for Jesus on his rib cage, and a dove on his stomach.
Justin Bieber biggest scandal to date is when 20-year-old Mariah Yeater falsely claimed that he impregnated her backstage at a concert when he was just 16. He wrote a song "Maria" about the incident.
Bieber presented Ellen DeGeneres with one of his hairs after the talk show host said that all she wanted for her 53rd birthday was a bit of his trademark fringe, Justin presented her with her wish with the agreement that she sold it for charity. The luscious lock sold on eBay for $40,668, all of which was donated to the animal charity Gentle Barn Foundation.
Bieber has his initials, “J.B.,” spelled out in crystal studs on the dashboard of his Range Rover.
When Justin met with President Obama in the White House during Christmas 2011, he greeted him with, “What up, my dude!” instead of the standard “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. President.” Obama returned the love by replying, “What up, Biebs!” Justin is the first singer to have seven singles from a debut albumchart on the Billboard Hot 100.
His visual for "Baby" became for a time the most-watched video ever on YouTube in mid July 2010, overtaking Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" clip.
When Believe Acoustic debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, Justin was still only 18. In doing so he became the youngest artist to top the album chart five times.
Bieber performing in October 2012. By Joe Bielawa. Uploaded by MyCanon - Wikipedia Commons
Bieber overtook Lady Gaga in January 2013 as having the most popular celebrity Twitter account with over 33 million followers. After 47 visits to the Hot 100, Justin Bieber topped the tally for the first time on September 17, 2015 with "What Do You Mean?"
21-year-old Justin Bieber became the youngest male artist to debut at the top on the Billboard Hot 100 when "What Do You Mean?" bowed at #1 on the chart. Justin Bieber's 2015 Purpose album set new worldwide and US records for the most streams for an album in its first week of release, with 205 million global streams and 77 million US streams. In the week that Purpose was released, Justin posted 17 songs on the Hot 100, the most that any artist has placed on the chart in a single week. The Canadian star's tally on the December 5, 2015 Hot 100, beat the 14 each that The Beatles managed on April 11, 1964 and Drake earned on the March 7 and October 17, 2015 tallies.
Justin Bieber occupied the number 1, 2 and 3 spots on the UK singles chart dated January 10, 2016 with his songs - a feat never accomplished before. "Love Yourself" was at pole position, "Sorry" was one position below and "What Do You Mean?" was at #3. In July 2017, the Chinese government banned Justin Bieber from performing in China. They released a statement later on saying "In order to maintain order in the Chinese market and purify the Chinese performance environment, it is not suitable to bring in badly behaved entertainers."
Justin Bieber had eight different entries in the Guinness World Records 2017 Edition. They were for:
Most streamed track on Spotify in one week with 'What Do You Mean?'
Most streamed album on Spotify in one week with Purpose
Most simultaneous tracks on the US singles chart (the 17 he posted on the December 5, 2015 Hot 100)
The most simultaneous new entries on the US singles chart (13 songs).
The first act to occupy all top three positions simultaneously on the UK singles chart.
The most YouTube subscribers of any male
The most viewed music channel on YouTube.
The most Twitter followers of any guy on the planet.
Justin Bieber briefly dated model Hailey Baldwin in the winter of 2015-2016 before splitting. They reconciled two-and-a-half years later and married in the fall of 2018. The Biebers had a second ceremony in Bluffton, South Carolina on September 30, 2019.
Justin Bieber has more followers on Twitter than Canada has people. Justin Bieber revealed on January 8, 2020 that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by infected ticks. In an Instagram post he explained that people who had said he looked like he was on drugs, "failed to realize I've been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease." The pop star had reportedly spent much of 2019 undiagnosed, as doctors struggled to find what’s wrong. He can complete the Rubik's Cube in under two minutes.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are eight people named Justin Bieber.
A bidet is a plumbing fixture that is used for cleaning the genitals and anus after using the toilet. It consists of a basin with a water jet or faucet, and is typically placed next to the toilet in a bathroom. Some bidets are separate fixtures that are designed to be used in conjunction with a toilet, while others are integrated into the design of a toilet and can be used in place of toilet paper.
The bidet was invented in France in the the late 17th century by Christophe des Rosiers. It got its name from a French word meaning ‘pony’ as it looked like an undersized horse.
The first written record of a bidet appears in a 1710 account of the Marquis d’Argenson, who noted that he had an audience with one Mademoiselle de Prie “as she sat astride her bidet.”
Early bidets were long, low wooden cabinets, with a metal or china bowl inset in the middle. A lady would sit astride it and wash her nether regions.
By the mid 18th century bidets were prized designer items in France. Madame La Pompadour possessed two particularly fancy examples. One had a rosewood cabinet decorated with a floral inlay; the other was in walnut, with a red leather backrest. Ladies received guests, both men and women, while sitting astride their bidets.
In Italy, the bidet became more common after World War II, although it has been used in the country for much longer. Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily, was an early adopter of the bidet, and she had one installed in the Royal Palace of Caserta in the second half of the 18th century.
The bidet seat came about in the 1960s and was improved in the 1980s with the creation of the “washlet.” Using remote-controlled wands that spout water jets and finish with a warm-air dryer, the washlet is especially popular in Japan.
Today, bidets are commonly used in many parts of the world, particularly in Europe and Asia, as an alternative to toilet paper for cleaning after using the toilet.
Bidets are not as commonly used in the United States as they are in other parts of the world, such as Europe and Asia, as the use of toilet paper has been deeply ingrained in American culture and is seen as the norm for cleaning oneself after using the toilet.
Some people believe that using a bidet is more hygienic than using toilet paper, as it can help to remove bacteria and other contaminants from the body more effectively.
In Italy, it's illegal to build a house that doesn't have a bidet.
Joe Biden Jr. was born November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr.
EARLY LIFE
Joe Biden had an extremely audible stutter when he was a child, from stumbling over his words to not being able to voice them at all. Biden has worked hard throughout his life to solve this problem - he even practiced public speaking holding pebbles in his mouth - and can now manage the speech condition.
Biden played American Football at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school. A standout wide receiver and running back, he caught an impressive 19 touchdown passes. A poor student but a natural leader, he was class president in his junior and senior years.
Biden at age 10 (1953)
After finishing law school at Syracuse University, he was drafted for service in the Vietnam War. But he failed the medical due to his asthma.
CAREER
Biden practiced law first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat. Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well, and he supplemented his income by managing properties.
Biden started his political career in 1969 when he was elected to a county council seat in a usually Republican district of New Castle County, Delaware. He served on the council, while still practicing law, until 1972.
A member of the Democratic Party, Biden was first sworn in as a Delaware senator aged 30 which made him the sixth-youngest senator to ever hold office. He served as a United States senator for Delaware from 1973 to 2009.
Biden was the first senator to endorse Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential bid.
During his first presidential campaign in 1987, Biden was considered one of the potentially strongest candidates in the field. However, it fell apart he was found to have plagiarized a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock.
Days before former President Barack Obama ended his second term, he awarded Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA's highest civilian honor.
PRESIDENCY
In April 2019, Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election, and he reached the delegate threshold needed to secure the Democratic nomination in June 2020.
Joe Biden was the oldest man to assume the presidency of the United States. When he was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, he was 78 years and 61 days old. This surpassed the previous record held by Donald Trump who was 70 years old when he took office in 2017.
PERSONAL LIFE
Neilia Hunter met Joe Biden in Nassau, Bahamas, while Biden was on spring break from college. Shortly after, Biden moved to Syracuse and attended law school. The couple married on August 27, 1966.
Neilia Hunter Biden
They had three children, two sons (Beau and Robert) and a daughter (Naomi).
Nelia Hunter died in a car crash on December 18, 1972 with her infant daughter, Naomi; her two sons, Beau and Hunter, were severely injured but survived.
Biden married his second wife, Jill Jacobs on June 17, 1977, at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York City. The pair were first introduced on a blind date and Joe Biden had to propose five times before Jill agreed to marry him.
Jill Biden is an English teacher, who since 2009, has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College. She is the first president's wife to hold a paying job outside the White House during her husband's tenure.
Jill Biden in 2012
In 1981, they had a daughter, Ashley, who is now a social worker.
His oldest son Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015.
Biden and his wife are Roman Catholics and regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.
Joe Baden loves his pasta and his favorite dessert is ice-cream. Biden once claimed, “I am a genuine lover of ice cream. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. But I eat a lot of ice cream.” There's even a Tumblr page dedicated to his obsession.
He is teetotal having seen the effect of alcohol addiction on others.
The Bidens have two German Shepherds, Champ and Major. Champ was named because Mr. Biden’s father had told him growing up, “Get up, champ,” when his life was challenging. Major is a rescue dog who the Biden family adopted from the Delaware Humane Association.
The bicycle evolved from a tiny wooden horse with a front wheel that was invented in France in the 1790s. The design was improved in 1817, by Germany's Baron Karl von Drais, who developed the steerable front wheel.
Bicycles were first seen in the U.S. in New York City on May 21, 1819. Originally known as "Swift Walkers" or "Velocipedes," they were based on Baron Karl von Drais two-wheeled, steerable machine.
The world’s first pedal bicycle was made by a Scottish blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan (d1878), of Keir Mill, Dumfriesshire in 1839. His novel design enabled cyclists to ride for the first time with both their feet continuously off the ground. The popular bicycle of the time, the Hobby Horse, only provided momentum through the swinging of the riders feet back and forth. Macmillan never patented his idea and it was therefore widely copied.
During the four years Macmillan was developing his new machine, he travelled through the country lanes of his home district. Macmillan, who was known locally as 'Daft Pate', was able to attain speeds up to 14 mph (22.5 kmh) and, to the dismay of drivers and passengers, on many occasions he overtook the local stage-coach.
In June 1842, Macmillan decided to visit his brother in Glasgow on his bicycle, a distance of 68 miles (109 kms). However, when he reached the Gorbals he knocked down a little girl who ran across his path and he was fined five Scots shillings for speeding at 8 mph (13 kms). The magistrate initially declared that the highways of Britain had to be kept free of speedsters of his kind but later modified his opinions after the young inventor had shown him his contraption and is said to have slipped him the money for the fine.
Further advance in the evolution of the cycle was made, once again, in France, when E. Michaux, of Paris began to construct the original "boneshaker" in 1865. This was designed by Pierre Lallement, a mechanic employed by Michaux's firm. Its main feature was that the front wheel (larger than the rear wheel) was driven by a crank, fixed on its axle. The wheels themselves were still made of wood, but had irontires.
The horsecycle was patented in 1869. It was a bicycle that looked like a horse; and supposedly it wouldn't scare horses that you met along the road.
In the 19th century, 'experts' warned women about a fake disease called bicycle face, to prevent them from riding bikes – The condition was "characterized by a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes." The first US national bicycle society was formed in Newport, Rhode Island in 1880. It was known as the League of American Wheelman.
The Briton, John Kemp Stanley’s Rover safety bicycle, which he patented in 1885, was the prototype of a design that survives with few modifications today. It turned cycling, which had been something of an extreme sport on the old penny-farthings, into a safe form of mass transportation.
The pneumatic tyre was first successfully applied to the bicycle in 1888. As a result bicycles are a lot cheaper and affordable to most people. The inventor, John Boyd Dunlop fought a legal battle against Robert William Thomson to patent the tire. Between 1888-1930 British cyclists were obliged by law to ring their bells non-stop on a public highway.
Photo by Les Gosden
In 1936 part-time inventor Anton Loibl, a Nazi, and Hitler's chauffeur, invented bicycle reflectors. The SS went into business with him. The Nazis then brought in traffic laws requiring all bicycles to have reflectors, creating a cash windfall for the SS.
In April 2018, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 3 as International World Bicycle Day. They said "the benefits of investing in pedestrians and cyclists can save lives, help protect the environment and support poverty reduction."
FAMOUS CYCLISTS
The renowned 19th-century US feminist Susan B Anthony said in an interview in 1896: "I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."
Mark Twain first learned to ride a bicycle at the age of 55. For his 11th birthday, Elvis Presley asked for a bicycle. Instead, his father bought him a guitar.
FUN BICYCLE FACTS
The longest “tandem” bike that's ever been built was over 20 meters long and seated 35 people.
The longest bicycle in the world was created by Australian Bernie Ryan and built by Santos Ltd and University of South Australia,. The (135 ft 10.7 in (41.42 m) bicycle was measured and ridden by Ryan in Paynesville, Victoria, Australia, on November 14, 2020.
In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes.
There are more bicycles in the world than motor cars.
About 400 million of the world’s one billion bicycles are in China.
Beijing is considered to the bicycle capital of the world as it has many parking lots dedicated to bikes alone. The Netherlands has 16.77 million people and 18 million bicycles. There are bicycle hotels throughout Norway, where, for a small monthly fee, cyclists can safely store their bikes indoors while at work. There are more than 96,000 bicycle-related patents at the European Patent Office. These include about 20 devices allowing a cyclist to exercise a dog while riding the bike.
The Bible is a collection of religious texts sacred in Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament, which is based on the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament, which is a collection of texts written by early Christians.
A HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
The word Bible comes from the Greek word for "papyrus plant" (biblos), since the leaves of that plant were used for paper.
The New Testament canon originated when due to many false gospels being produced. The church leaders of about AD200 decided to get together in one book all the known writings of the original apostles. This was also done as a true statement of faith to refute the criticisms of those who misunderstood Christianity. Around this time Tertullian was writing of the ‘New Testament’ which he placed on a level with the Old as regards divine inspiration.
The oldest surviving copy of the four Gospels date back to 350. Cynics would need to move forward 500 years to approximately 850 to find the date of the oldest surviving copy of the supposedly more historically sound Julius Caesar’s account of the Gallic War.
The first evidence for a canonical list which completely matches that widely accepted for the New Testament today is the 39th Easter letter of Athanasius written in 367, which designated 27 books of the New Testament alongside the canon of the Old Testament.
The title comes from the Greek ta biblia which means "the books." The first time ta biblia was explicitly used to describe the Old and New Testaments is in the works of John Chrysostom (cAD 347-407)
In 397 At the Council of Carthage the western church agreed on the same New Testament canon as the Eastern church.
The Goths in Germany were introduced to Christianity by Roman prisoners, whom they had taken captive during raids into the Empire. In 375AD Ulfilas, a missionary bishop to the Goths, translated the Bible into their everyday speech, a monumental task as in order to achieve this task, he had to first of all devise a Gothic alphabet. He omitted the Books of Kings as he was concerned the accounts of the military campaigns of the Hebrews in those books would urge the warlike Gothic tribes to acts of war. This was the first barbarian translation of the Bible and the first done specifically for missionary purposes.
Rather than copying from any one source, The Venerable Bede researched from several sources to create single volume bibles, a practice which was highly unusual for the time: previously, the Bible had circulated as separate books.
It was Stephen Langton, a professor in Paris, who the first person to divide the Bible into defined chapters. In the early 13th century he inserted chapter divisions into a Vulgate edition of the Bible. Langton later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Verses were not added until the 15th century.
During the Middle Ages, the medieval church walls were covered in paintings of Biblical scenes, which, in a period of almost universal illiteracy were thought to be the poor man’s Bible. Though reformers such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus advocated the importance of the Bible, throughout the Middle Ages the clergy were afraid to let the common people have any knowledge of the Scriptures and in most of Europe it was dangerous to possess or even to be found reading the Bible. In England, for instance, in 1399 the death penalty became the punishment for heresy and many Lollards were burnt alive with their Bibles around their necks.
In the 1490s, Oxford Professor John Colet began a public reading of the New Testament in Greek, translating it into English, in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. People were so hungry to hear the Word of God in the language they could understand, that within six months the cathedral was filled with 20,000 standing packed inside and another 20,000 outside. Colet only avoided execution for this crime because he had powerful friends in high places.
Around the same time an Oxford professor, Thomas Linacre, learnt Greek in order to compare the original Greek text with the many, many corrupted manuscripts of the church's Latin translations. When he read the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles in the original Greek, Linacre was so shocked with what he found, he wrote in his diary, "Either this (the original Greek) is not the gospel or we are not Christians!" What he meant was if the church is right, then the Greek New Testament was a lie! If the Greek New Testament is right, then the church is wrong. That was an incredible statement, but the church's teaching at the time of the reformation was so far from the scripture.
The first section of the Complutensian Polyglot (the world's first multi-language Bible) was printed at Alcala, Spain in 1514. (The complete translation was published in 6 volumes in 1517.)
William Tyndale's English New Testament was the first complete translation from the original Hebrew and Greek text. After being forced to flee, he completed it clandestinely in Worms in 1526. When it was read in English churches its popular reception was the 16th century equivalent of the popular soaps of today. The common people flocked to hear the humor, violence and suspense of the Biblical stories. Despite its popularity the Bishop of London ordered all copies to be seized and burned but those were soon replaced and copies continued to circulate.
William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament introduced some of the most familiar phrases to the English language, such as ‘filthy lucre’, and ‘God forbid.’
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale, was published on October 4, 1535. It was the first complete translation of the Bible and the Apocrypha to be printed in English. When Henry VIII, at Archbishop Cranmer’s request, authorized that it can be bought and read by all his subjects there was a tremendous widespread excitement. So much the English King was forced to draw back and issue new regulations restricting the reading of the Bible to wealthy merchants and aristocrats.
Title page of Coverdale Bible
John Marbeck, an English theologian, published the first English Concordance in 1550. Seven years previously an earlier version, which he’d been working on, was confiscated and destroyed after he’d been arrested for heresy.
Whilst Jewish Masoretes divided the Old Testament Hebrew text into verses, the New Testament was not divided into verse numbers until Robert Stephens’ Greek and Latin versions in 1557.
The 1560 Geneva Testament was the first English Bible to be divided into chapter and verses. The Geneva Bible was the Bible taken to America by the Pilgrim Fathers.
The King James Bible was published for the first time in London, on May 2, 1611 by printer Robert Barker.
Many common expressions were taken from the King James Bible. These include:
Casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7.v6)
Pride goes before a fall (Proverbs 16 v 18)
Go from strength to strength (Psalm 84 v 7)
In the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15 v51-52)
The eleventh hour (Matthew 20 v 6)
One thousand bibles printed in 1631 left the "not" out of "Thou shall not commit adultery"—most were burned, but a handful still exist.
In 1646 The Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law making it a capital offence to deny that the Bible is the Word of God. Any person convicted of the offence was liable to the death penalty.
The ‘Unrighteous’ Cambridge Bible is published in England in 1653. It included the following two mistakes: 1 Corinthians 6 v 9 “know yet not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God”. And Romans 6 v 13 “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin.”
John Eliot (1604-1690), an American who was called the "Apostle to the Indians," was the first translator of the Bible into a native American — the first Bible to be printed in America.
The Robert Aitken Bible was printed by Philadelphian Printer, Robert Aitken in 1782. This first ever published English language Bible in America was printed due the lack of new Bibles available in the United States. The supply of English language Bibles has been cut off as a result of the Revolutionary War.
The British and Foreign Bible Society was formed on March 7, 1804 when a group of Christians sought to address the problem of a lack of affordable Bibles in Welsh for Welsh-speaking Christians. It was to be the first of many similar organizations throughout the world.
The Pennsylvania Bible Society, the oldest in the United States, was founded in 1808.
The American Standard Version, a revision of the Revised Version was published in 1901. It was the first ever major Bible to be written in American English.
The Gideon organization was founded in 1898 by three travelling businessman in Boscobel, Wisconsin, as an interdenominational group dedicated to evangelism. Ten years later, they begun distributing free Bibles with the aim of placing a Bible in every hotel room on the planet. The first Gideon Bible was placed in a room in the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Montana.
The Revised Standard Version New Testament was published on February 11, 1946. It was intended to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation and was the first serious challenge to the popularity of the Authorized King James Version. The Old Testament (and thus the full Protestant Bible) was completed six years later.
Title page to the first edition of the RSV Bible
In 1965 a group of academics met at Palos Heights, Illinois and agreed on the need for a trustworthy and readable translation of The Bible in modern English. Over one hundred scholars from English-speaking countries were enlisted on the project. On October 27, 1978 the complete New International Version (NIV) of the Bible was published by Zondervan of Grand Rapids Michigan. It became one of the most popular and widely used translations in the English language.
FUN BIBLE FACTS
Paul McCartney’s song “Uncle Albert” was about a real uncle of his, who when drunk would quote and read from the Bible, but when sober would not be seen near one.
In the Authorised version of the Bible there are 66 books, 1189 chapters, 31173 verses, 774746 words and 3566480 letters.
The middle verse in the Old Testament is 2 Chronicles 10 v17 and in the New Testament is Acts 17 v17.
The shortest verse in the Old Testament is 1 Chronicles 1 Chronicles 1 v25 (Eber, Peleg, Reu) and in the New Testament is John 11 v35 (Jesus Wept).
The longest word is "Mahershalalhashbaz," Isaiah 8:3."
Ezra 7 v 21 “And I, even I Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you, it be done speedily.” (King James), contains all the letters of the Bible except J.
The word ‘and’ occurs 35,543 times in the Old Testament and 10,684 times in the New Testament.
There are 8,674 different Hebrew words in the Bible and 5,624 different Greek words translated into 12,143 different English words in the King James version.
If you disregard words that are articles, conjunctions and prepositions such as "the", "and", "a" etc, the most common is "Lord". It occurs somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 times depending on the translation.
Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention the name of God.
That are number of acrostic poems found in the Bible that we completely miss in English translations. For example each verse famous passage about the excellent wife in Proverbs 31:10-31 begins with a subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. It is the Hebrew way of saying, this is the complete A to Z on a topic.
The Bible has been fully translated into 532 languages and 2,883 languages partially.
An American linguist spent six months translating the New Testament into Klingon, the language created for Star Trek movies.
The most-shoplifted book in the United States is the Bible.
The Bible was translated at the beginning of the 21st century into Hawaiian pidgin English. Da Jesus book features characters such as “da bad guy” (Satan) and renders verses such as “Our Father who art in Heaven” as “God you our Fadda You stay inside da sky.”
Among the plethora of market-serving "versions" of the Bible made to please sub-groups and consumerist niche markets are the following: A magazine-style Bible for teenage girls, Revolve, which has tips on cosmetics and boys and it counterpoint, the Refuel edition for boys, the African-American Woman's Study Bible, the Promise Keeper's Bible for Men, the Twelve-Step Bible. and the Green Bible with its green-inked verses having to do with the environment.
The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is a mountainous, landlocked country in southeast Asia, bounded north and west by Tibet and to the south and east by India.
Bhutan has the world’s highest unclimbed peak, Gangkhar Puensum. The mountain is sacred and the Bhutanese government has banned mountaineering on any peak above 6,000 metres (19,685 feet).
Ugyen Wangchuck was crowned the first Druk Gyalpo (King of Bhutan) on December 17, 1907. During his reign between 1907–1926 Ugyen Wangchuck made great efforts to unite the country and gain the trust of the people.
King Ugyen Wangchuck — in Punakha, the old capital of Bhutan, in 1905.
In 1972, Bhutan declared Gross National Happiness to be more important that Gross National Product.
Bhutan issued a postage stamp in 1973 that looked like a record and actually would play the Bhutanese national anthem if placed on a turntable.
The country remained closed to the outside world until 1974. As at 1980, Bhutan was the only country in the world with no telephones.
Bhutan ended its status as the only country in the world to prohibit television on June 2, 1999 when the state-run Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) came on the air. It started broadcasting on the night of the silver jubilee of Bhutan's king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck.
Bhutan Broadcasting Service logo
In Bhutan, marijuana plants were historically used as pigfood—until the country got television in 1999 and learned cannabis was a drug.
Until 2005 no one knew how many people lived in Bhutan. A national census was carried out in that year and it turned out that the population was 672,425.
Bhutan officially became a democracy, with its first ever general election on March 24, 2008. The Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party, led by Jigme Thinley, won 45 out of 47 seats in the country's National Assembly.
Thimphu is the capital and largest city of Bhutan. It is one of the two national capitals in the world that does not have traffic lights (the other is Ngerulmud, Palau).
All citizens of Bhutan officially become one year older on New Year's Day.
Less than 16 per cent of Bhutan is arable but 80 per cent of the population are dependent on agriculture, one of the highest proportions in the world. Bhutanese red rice is the country's most widely known agricultural export. Bhutan is the only country in the world to have exclusively banned the use of tobacco.
Bhutan is the world’s only carbon sink – it absorbs more CO2 than it gives out – and the only country whose largest export is renewable energy: they sell hydroelectric power. In keeping with the Buddhist idea that humans and nature form a symbiotic relationship, 72 per cent of the country is forested, and it is in their constitution that 60 per cent always will be, making it a sink of over four million tonnes of CO2 per year.. Bhutan is the only country that has archery as its national
sport.
