Retriever

The retriever is a gundog used for retrieving game. The commonest breeds are the Labrador retriever and the golden retriever.

HISTORY

A Golden Retriever. By Marlies Kloet 

Retrievers were bred primarily to retrieve birds or other prey and return them to the hunter without damage. As a result, retriever breeds are bred for soft mouths and a great willingness to please, learn, and obey. Many have them as pets because they are friendly and playful.

The Curly Coated Retriever is possibly the oldest breed of gun dog and at one time the most popular, due to its willingness to hunt over water.

Curly coated retriever. Wikipedia Commons

It was developed in Great Britain in the early 1800s by cross-breeding Newfoundland Hounds, Irish Water Spaniels, various retrievers, pointers, and possibly even poodles; The Curly Coated Retriever is now a very popular hunting dog in New Zealand and Australia.

The Golden Retriever was once also called Russian retriever or Russian tracker because of the legend that Russian sheepdogs from a traveling circus were ancestors of this very affectionate and reliable breed.

Dudley Majoribanks, later known as Lord Tweedmouth, is largely credited with developing the modern breed in 19th century scotland. The breed was created to be stronger than other retrievers but more gentle with people so they could be trained very easily.

Golden Retriver

In 1868, Nous, a Wavy-coated Retriever, and Belle, a Tweed Water Spaniel were bred together by Lord Tweedmouth. This created the foundation litter of Golden Retriever puppies, three yellow wavy-coated dogs called Cowslip, Crocus and Primrose. All Golden Retrievers are related to Nous and Belle.

In 1903, the Golden retriever breed was added to the list of the Kennel Club of England, but it was not added to the list of the American Kennel Club until 1932.

FAMOUS RETRIEVERS

United States President Theodore Roosevelt owned a Chesapeake Retriever called Sailor Boy.

Most war dogs trained for World War II were German shepherds or Labrador retrievers (for their superior noses).

President Gerald R. Ford owned a Golden Retriever called 'Liberty'.

During his time at the White House Bill Clinton had as a pet Buddy, a Labrador retriever.

Buddy

Buddy, the Golden Retriever who starred in the 1997 comedy movie Airbud, was actually a stray rescued in the Sierra Nevada mountains. In the film, Airbud is also a stray who gets rescued after being abandoned by his owner.

A golden retriever named Toby saved his owner from choking to death by jumping on her chest. Maryland resident Debbie Pankhurst said she was eating an apple at home on March 23, 2007 when a piece became lodged in her throat and she began to choke. Toby saved her by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre until the apple was dislodged. He also licked her face to keep her from passing out.

The mayor of Idyllwild, California is a Golden Retriever. Max (Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller) was voted into office during an election held in June 2012, and was inaugurated to a one-year term on July 1, 2012.

On April 2, 2013, Mayor Max passed away. The successor for the remainder of Max's term, Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller, II, arrived in Idyllwild on July 21, 2013. Max II was accompanied by two deputy mayors: Mikey and Mitzi (Mikey Mighty-Dog Mueller and Mitzi Marie Mueller). Mayor Max II, Deputy Mayor Mikey, and Deputy Mayor Mitzi are all related to Mayor Max.

In March 2014, as the end of Max's term approached, the Idyllwild citizens overwhelmingly pled for Mayor Max's continuation in perpetuity. After Mayor Max II passed away July 30, 2022, he was succeeded by Mayor Max III.

USE AS SERVICE DOG

The retriever's willingness to please and trainability have made breeds such as the Labrador Retriever and Golden Retriever popular as a disability assistance dog.

A golden retriever, Figo, sacrificed his safety to protect his owner in Brewster, New York in 2015. He leaped in front of a school bus in an effort to protect a blind woman. The chief of police said he'd seen dogs protect their owners from intruders, but never automobiles. Figo only sustained a leg injury.

Source Compton's Encyclopedia

Restoration (England)

The term Restoration means both the actual event which puts a monarch back in power and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established.

The English Restoration was a period in English history beginning in 1660 after the fall of the puritan republican government and the re-establishment of the English monarchy, Scottish monarchy and Irish monarchy under King Charles II. The term is very often used to cover the whole reign of Charles II (1660–1685).

King Charles II

King Charles II returned from exile in Holland and on May 29, 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. To celebrate Charles' return to the country of his birth, May 29th was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day.

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act, which became law on August 29, 1660, pardoned all past treason against the crown, but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. Major-General Thomas Harrison, who had been the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant, was the first regicide to be hanged, drawn and quartered because he was considered by the new government still to represent a real threat to the re-established order.

Thomas Harrison. By Moustaky 

Charles' coronation in April 1661 marked a reversal of the stringent Puritan morality.

At the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy there were many hundreds of meeting houses including around 300 Baptist churches in Britain. However between 1661 and 1665 a series of statutes named the Clarendon Code was passed by Parliament that abolished Oliver Cromwell's toleration of independent (non-Anglican) congregations. As a consequence the meeting houses were sealed and locked up and the dissenters were forced to meet together for worship in woods and private homes always fearing arrest.

Among these statutes were the 1662 Act of Uniformity, which made the meetings of the Protestant "sects", (such as Baptists) illegal and also made non-attendance at the parish churches a crime. Those ministers who did not conform to the Book of Common Prayer would lose their positions and become Non-conformists. (This is where the word "Non-conformist" comes from.)

The Act of Uniformity also required the new 1662 edition of the prayer book to be used in all churches and some 2,000 ministers who refused to comply were ejected.

The activities of Non Conformists were further clamped down on with the 1664 Conventule Act, which forbade non-Anglican meetings for religious purposes of more than five people and the 1665 The Five-Mile Act, which prohibited Non-conformists from going within five miles of a corporate town and from teaching in schools.

Restaurant

The Historic Sausage Kitchen of Regensburg (Historische Wurstküche zu Regensburg) in Regensburg, Germany is notable as perhaps the oldest continuously open public restaurant in the world. It has been serving Bratwurst since 1146 AD.

Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House in Kaifeng, China is the oldest operating restaurant outside of Europe, first opening in 1153 AD. Having survived numerous wars and dynasty changes, the business is still serving noodles, rice, and roast chicken.

The first American eatery opened in Boston in 1653. Early Bostonians referred to such eating establishments as a "restorator".

The oldest restaurant in Europe still in operation, opened in 1725 in Madrid. The restaurant was founded by Frenchman Jean Botin and his wife, and was originally called Casa Botín. It is now named Sobrino de Botín.

Casa Botín, en Madrid (España

The artist Francisco de Goya worked in Cafe Botin as a waiter before he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

Cafe Botin and its specialty of cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig) are mentioned in the closing pages of Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises.

The French word 'restaurant' originally meant 'restoring' and was used for a fortifying broth. The modern idea of a restaurant – as well as the term itself – first appeared in Paris in the 1760s.

The first restaurant, by that name, was ran by a Parisian soup vendor Monsieur A. Boulanger, the owner of a Parisian cafe. Originally he was unable to make fully cooked dishes such as stews, as he didn't belong to the guild of caterers, the only ones allowed to sell them. The sign above his door advertised restoratives, or restaurants, referring to the soups and broths available within. However he decided to serve "pieds de mouton a la sauce poulette" (basically sheep's feet in white sauce enriched with egg yolks), then won the case against the protesting caterers because Parliament decreed that because the sauce was made separately and was poured onto the meat, his dish wasn't a stew. By around 1765 it had become the first establishment other than inns and taverns to offer a menu with a choice of dishes.

A French cook, Antoine Beauvilliers, founded in Paris in 1786 La Grande Taverne de Londres. The first luxury restaurant, the eating house was the first to list the dishes available on a menu and serve them at individual tables during fixed hours.

Before the French Revolution, aristocratic French households maintained luxurious culinary arrangements, but the Revolution reduced the number of private households offering employment. Consequently in Napoleonic France many chefs and cooks found employment in eating establishment kitchens or opened their own restaurant, of which there by the early 19th century there were 500 in Paris alone. Many of these won devoted followers among the French bourgeois, who were eager to display their elevated tastes in food and fashion.

Engraving from the title page of L'art du Cuisinier, Paris 1814

The earliest use of 'restaurant' in English was in 1806. Peoplee just said 'eating-house' before that.

Britain's first curry house, the Hindostanee Coffee House, opened in Portman Square, London in 1810. The owner, Dean Mahomet was an Indian was known as Mr Vindaloo.

The Hindostanee Coffee House was not a success. The menu wasn't popular and many customers felt misled, as despite the restaurant's name, it did not sell coffee.

The original Delmonico's opened in 1827 in a rented pastry shop at 23 William Street, New York City. It was opened by the brothers John and Peter Delmonico, from Ticino, Switzerland.

In 1831, the Delmonico brothers were joined by their nephew, Lorenzo Delmonico, who had arrived from Switzerland. Lorenzo became responsible for the restaurant's wine list and menu with the aim of introducing European standards to New Yorkers.

By the 1840s Delmonico's had become a New York chain of restaurants. Its fresh foods, large menu, and long hours, were becoming widely copied innovations that were promoting a restaurant culture in American cities.

Banquet menu in French for the 1883 Commemoration of Evacuation Day

Antoine’s restaurant in New Orleans remains the same as the day it opened in 1844. The Big Easy institution still serves the same classic French-Creole cuisine, still embodies the same Old World style, and is still run by the descendants of the same French-born family that founded the place in the 1840s.

The first self-service restaurants appeared in San Francisco during the 1848–1855 California gold rush. A selection of free food was placed on the counter in saloons.

The first self-service restaurant on the East Coast of the U.S, the Exchange Buffet, was founded in 1885. Only men were allowed to eat there and the male customers ate standing up.

The first cafeteria was set up in the YWCA in Kansas City, Missouri in 1891. It provided cheap, self-service meals to working women and was modelled on a Chicago luncheon club for women where some aspects of self-service were already in practice.

An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by vending machines. The world's first automat was named Quisisana, which opened at 13 Leipziger strasse, Berlin, Germany in 1895.

The first automat, at 13 Leipziger strasse, Berlin, 

Frank Hardart and Joe Horn opened the first US Automat on June 9, 1902 at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Food was in small glass door compartments with a slot for nickels to unlock the door to retrieve your food selection.

In 1900 André Michelin (1853-1931) co-founder of the Michelin tire company, published his first guide for French motorists that would rate restaurants by awarding ‘Michelin stars’.

When France's Michelin tire company published its first restaurant guide, there were only 3,000 cars on the road in all of France. The guide was an attempt from Michelin to get people to travel more so that they would eventually come around to needing to buy more tires.

Denny’s was originally named “Danny’s Donuts” simply because the founders, Richard Jezak and Harold Butler, thought that “Danny’s” flowed well with “Donutts”. In 1956, a year after Jezak's departure from the then-6-store chain, Butler changed the concept, shifting it from a donut shop to a coffee shop. Danny's Donuts was renamed Danny's Coffee Shops and changed its operation to 24 hours.

Very first Denny's location in Lakewood California, 1953.

Danny's Coffee Shop was in close proximity to a Coffee Dan’s so in 1961, Butler decided to change the name to “Denny’s” because customers began confusing their restaurants with the competing restaurant chain.

The chain isn't named after anyone, Butler just swapped one letter to make Denny’s.

The first revolving restaurant in the U.S., La Ronde, opened in 1961 in Honolulu, atop the Ala Moana Building.  It closed in the mid 1990s. 

La Ronde was soon followed by The Top of the Needle restaurant in Seattle, which opened on May 22, 1962. It made way in 2000 for SkyCity, a larger restaurant that features Pacific Northwest cuisine. It closed in September 2017 as part of the landmark’s renovation project. 

Outback Steakhouse is an Australian-themed American casual dining restaurant chain, serving American cuisine. It was founded in March 1988 with its first location in Tampa, Florida, by four Americans who had never visited Australia. They simply saw an opportunity to ride the wave of popularity of all things Australian following the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee. Their concept was “American food and Australian fun.”

In 2015, a tiny Tokyo restaurant with only nine seats became the first ramen restaurant in the world to obtain a Michelin star.

In 2015 people spent more money at restaurants than on groceries for the first time ever according to the United States Commerce Department.

A&W became in 2019 the first franchised restaurant chain to turn 100 years old.

UNUSUAL RESTAURANTS

At El Diablo restaurant in the Canary Islands, food is cooked with the geothermal heat from an actual volcano.

Fife & Drum in Concord, Massachusetts is the only restaurant in the U.S. serving meals made by prisoners.

Singapore restaurant Ce La Vi offers an 18-course meal for $2 million, complete with $17,000 diamond-encrusted chopsticks.

Pyongyang is a chain of 130 restaurants owned by the North Korean government, which provides a source of income for the pariah state. Named after the capital of North Korea, the eateries are located in a dozen countries around the world. Signature dishes include ‘cold noodle’ (encrusted with ice), barbecued cuttlefish and stringy dangogi (dog meat) soup.

Lunch at a restaurant in Pyongyang

Ichiran Ramen is a Japan-based restaurant chain where customers eat alone behind partitions that separate them from other diners and staff.

There's a restaurant in Amsterdam called Ctaste where patrons dine in the dark and all the waiters and waitresses are blind.

Kuappi, a restaurant in Iisalmi, Finland, is according to Guinness World Records, the smallest restaurant in the world. The building has a footprint of 8 m2 (86 sq ft), of which 3.6 m2 (39 sq ft) is indoors.

There's a five-star restaurant at Antarctica's Concordia Station that is always headed by one of Italy's finest chefs.

FUN RESTAURANT FACTS

There are more French restaurants in New York City than in Paris.

Restaurants in Japan give you moist towels and green tea before your meal.

The founder of Popeyes joked that he was "too poor" to afford an apostrophe for the restaurant's name.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. serves more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant chain.

The “A” in "Chick-fil-A" is capitalized to indicate that the food the restaurant serves is of the best quality.

At Jon Bon Jovi's restaurant, JBJ Soul Kitchen, you can pay for your meal with either a donation or one hour of volunteer work in the kitchen. In 2014, JBJ served 11,500 meals, and half of them were paid for with a donation, and the other half were paid for with volunteer work.

The reason why there are so many Thai restaurants in America, is that the Thai government has been training and exporting chefs, using a tactic known as "gastrodiplomacy"

The Bawabet Dimashq Restaurant in Damascus has 6,014 seats, making it the world's biggest.

Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Daily Express

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party was founded on March 20, 1854 in a little white schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. About 50 slavery opponents began the new political group to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska act, which would permit each territory to allow slavery if they wanted to.

Republican Party Birthplace Museum, Little White Schoolhouse, Ripon

The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party.

The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.

The first Republican candidate for president was John C. Frémont in 1856. His strong run in the election demonstrated that the Republican party dominated most northern states.

As the Whig Party collapsed, the Republicans became the second major party (the Democratic Party being the other one). It first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president.

The elephant. has been the traditional mascot of the Republican party since November 6, 1874, when Thomas Nast first used it in a political cartoon published in Harper's Weekly. The cartoon, titled "The Third-Term Panic," depicted the Republican vote as an elephant standing at the edge of a cliff. Nast used the elephant to represent the Republican Party because it was seen as a strong and stable animal, just as the Republicans were seen as the party of stability and order.

1874 Nast cartoon featuring the first appearance of the Republican elephant

Following Lincoln, the USA had mostly Republican presidents until 1912. The party lost the presidential election just twice over that period (non-consecutively to Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892).

Ronald Reagan was the first Republican president who was a former member of the Democratic Party.

Neither of George W. Bush's daughters are Republican.

Rent

In medieval England, eels were used and accepted , to an extent, as currency, mostly in rental agreements. Many rental agreements, where the landlord would stipulate the rent due in "eel currency" were found. 25 eels would be a "stick". 10 sticks a bind.

In a German village called Fuggerei, the rent hasn't been raised since 1520—it costs just 88 euro cents to live there for an entire year.

Charles Boycott (March 12, 1832 – June 19, 1897) was a former soldier who worked as a land agent for Lord Erne (John Crichton, 3rd Earl Erne), a landowner in the Lough Mask area of County May, Ireland. The Norfolk-born soldier’s surname gave the world the word ‘boycott’ when he refused to cut tenants’ rents and they stopped serving him in their shops and pubs.

Caricature of Charles Boycott by Spy (Leslie Ward).

Some Dutch Jews faced fines after World War II  for not having paid rent on their homes while they were incarcerated in concentration camps. The issue came to light in 2013 when a student published archive documents in which Jews who had survived the camps were billed for arrears on properties belonging to the city of Amsterdam.

London still pays the Queen a rent of 61 nails, six horseshoes, an axe and a knife for two pieces of land — a forge and some moorland — in the Ceremony of Quit Rents held each October at the Royal Courts of Justice. The quaint ritual dates back eight centuries, with the objects handed to the Queen’s Remembrancer, the oldest judicial position in England.

Source Daily Mail

Italian Renaissance Cooking

One aspect of the Italian Renaissance, the revival of classical culture was that during the first half of the 16th century the Italians lead the way in culinary arts. The upper and middle classes dined in elegant style on recipes such as thick slices of beef fillets with garlic and mushrooms and pasta dishes such as lasagne or ravioli. Truffles had returned to popularity after centuries of little use as it was felt they were a manifestation of the devil. Such delicacies were being served in a manner befitting the affluence of the household, the dining table being decorated with fine tablecloths, earthenware, and silverware.

Vincenzo Campi - The Fruit Seller.

For the poor cereals, in the form of bread, cakes, or pottage, were the mainstays of most diets with the addition of a few vegetables, such as beans and cabbage. Meat was only eaten on feast days or on special occasions. The peasants usually sold the dairy products they made, they couldn't afford to eat them themselves.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Remote control

On June 1, 1894, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University, the British physicist Oliver Lodge made the first demonstration of wirelessly controlling at a distance. During a memorial lecture on the work of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz and the German scientist's proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves, Lodge made a mirror galvanometer move a beam of light when an electromagnetic wave was artificially generated.

Two and a half years years later, radio innovators Guglielmo Marconi and William Preece arranged a demonstration of radio controlled apparatus on December 12, 1896 at Toynbee Hall, a center of social reform in East London. Marconi advertised the event and invited the newspaper press. During the event, the pair amazed the assembled audience by making a bell ring by pushing a button in a box that was not connected by any wires.

In 1893 the Serbian-American inventor, Nikola Tesla successfully demonstrated a radio-controlled boat at the Electrical Exhibition held at Madison Square Garden, New York City. Tesla called his boat a "teleautomaton".

Tesla was awarded U.S. patent No. 613,809 for a "Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles." The patent, awarded on November 8, 1898, describes the first device anywhere for wireless remote control.

Tesla radio-controlled boat

In 1903, Spanish civil engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo obtained a patent for the Telekino. The device consisted of a robot that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves.

On September 25, 1906, in the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Torres-Quevedo successfully demonstrated his iTelekino in the port of Bilbao by guiding a boat from the shore. With the Telekino, Torres-Quevedo laid down modern wireless remote-control operation principles and the event is considered the birth of the remote control.

The Telekino receptor

The first remote intended to control a television was developed by US company Zenith Radio Corporation in 1950. The device, originally linked to the television by an unsightly wire, was quickly nicknamed "Lazybones".

In 1955, Zenith engineer Eugene Polley invented the first wireless remote, the "Flashmatic." His invention used visible light to remotely control a television outfitted with four photo cells in the cabinet at the corners of the screen. The "Flashmatic", which spawned the family of remotes that now crowds the average coffee table.

The first TV remote controls were called "clickers" and did not use batteries, they transmitted an ultrasound when the user clicked the button, striking a metal rod inside to send an audible signal to the TV.

The Zenith Space Commander Six hundred remote control. By Jim Rees

When the Beatles met Elvis on August 27, 1965, they were amazed by the device he had that could change channels on the TV from across the room.

Source The Independent

Rembrandt

EARLY LIFE 

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden in the Dutch Republic, now the Netherlands.

He was born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn, a prosperous miller and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck, who was a baker's daughter.

Conflicting sources state that his family either had 7, 9, or 10 children. Rembrandt was one of the youngest.

As a boy Rembrandt attended Latin school and was enrolled as a student at the University of Leiden on May 20, 1620.

Rembrandt had no scientific leanings preferring to paint and he studied less than a year at the University of Leiden.

CAREER 

In 1621 Rembrandt to dedicate himself fully to painting. His parents apprenticed him to a history artist, Jacob van Swanenburgh in his home town of Leiden, with whom he spent three years.

After a brief but important apprenticeship in Amsterdam, Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan Lievens.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime.

A young Rembrandt, c. 1628, when he was 22. 

In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students and two years later, he was taken up by an influential patron Constantijn Huygen, the Secretary to Holland's chief administrator. As a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646.

Rembrandt had a huge reputation as a young man, between 1632 and 1642 he was reasonably prosperous, but his portraits became too original and truthful for the public.

After the death of his wealthy wife Saskia in 1642, Rembrandt fell out of love with society and did not paint anymore lucrative society portraits. Rembrandt's fame waned from then on, only to be restored much later after his death.

Rembrandt often went to art auctions sometimes buying back his own paintings. For instance he paid a huge price to buy back his etching of Christ Preaching.

After the decline in his fame, Rembrandt lived beyond his means, buying many art pieces, costumes (often used in his paintings), and rarities, which caused his bankruptcy in 1656. (He could only keep the earnings that were necessary to buy life's basics). The great Dutch artist died in poverty.

Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar (1659), National Gallery of Art, 

Not everyone appreciated Rembrandt even 150 years later. John Hunt wrote "Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted English artist Mr Rippingille."

WORKS 

Rembrandt was the world's foremost practioner of etchings, many of which survive today. His reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime and never questioned since.

Self-portrait leaning on a Sill, etching, 1639

He was a master draughtsman and printmaker and over 1000 of his drawings survive. Rembrandt's foremost contribution in the history of printmaking was his transformation of the etching process from a relatively new reproductive technique into a true art form.

Rembrandt was the master of the pre- camera selfie, painting at least 64 self-portraits. Experts suggest he suffered from stereo-blindness, an inability to gauge depth perception.

Rembrandt was the head of a large studio operation. He staged scenes in his studio and then painted them, his art inevitably hinting at some inner drama.

His first signed and dated painting, The Stoning of St Stephen, was painted in 1625 at the age of 19.

The Stoning of Saint Stephen, 1625,

Rembrandt established his name with his 1632 painting Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632. This work established his name and made him famous. It gave Rembrandt access to the moneyspinning society portrait paintings.

Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

In 1635 Rembrandt, painted his large scale masterpiece Belschazzar's Feast. It was the Dutch artist's attempt to establish himself as a painter of large, baroque history paintings.

The look of surprise of King Belschazzar and others as the hand wrote the prophecy was striking. However Rembrandt mistranscribed one of the Hebrew characters of the Hebrew inscription the hand is writing. (He obtained his information from a book by his Jewish friend, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel.) Rembrandt also mistakenly arranged them in columns, rather than right to left, as Hebrew is written.

Belshassar's Feast, 1636-8

Rembrandt's most famous work is arguably The Night Watch, which he painted in 1642. But despite its nickname, it is actually a painting that depicts broad daylight. The dark background that led to the misunderstanding was a varnish that turned almost black with age and dirt.

The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642

Rembrandt's immediate family — his  wife Saskia, son Titus, and mistress Hendrickje — often figured prominently in his paintings.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Rembrandt had a huge frame, crumpled face, curly fringe, puffball hair, a root vegetable nose and mottled skin.

In his Self Portrait with a Plumed Beret painted in 1629 at the age of 23, Rembrandt is wearing an outrageous feathered hat.

Rembrandt with plumed beret, by Rembrandt

A contemporary noted "The ugly and plebeian face with which he is ill-favored is accompanied by untidy and dirty clothes."

RELATIONSHIPS

In the early 1630s Rembrandt moved into the house of his art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh. This move eventually led, in 1634, to the marriage of Rembrandt and Hendrick's wealthy niece, Saskia van Uylenburg.

Saskia by Rembrandt. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Saskia and Rembrandt married on July 2, 1634, in Sint Annaparochie, the principal and largest settlement of the municipality of Het Bildt in Friesland, the Netherlands. The preacher was Saskia's cousin, but none of Rembrandt's family attended the marriage.

A daughter of a patrician, Saskia introduced Rembrandt to higher social circles, which increased his fame.

Three of their children died shortly after birth. Their fourth child, a son, Titus, was born in 1641 and survived into adulthood.

Saskia died on June 14. 1642 soon after Titus' birth, from tuberculosis.

In 1645, Hendrickje Stoffels, who had initially been Rembrandt's maidservant, moved in with him.

In 1654 Rembandt and Hendrickje had a daughter, Cornelia, bringing them an official reproach from the church for "living in sin". Hendrickje admitted that she had "committed the acts of a whore with Rembrandt the painter" and was banned from receiving communion.

Portrait of Hendrikje Stoffels, c.1654-6,

Hendrickje Stoffel died of bubonic plague on July 21, 1663. She was buried in the Westerkerk, Amsterdam.

Rembrandt outlived Hendrickje and Titus. In the end, only his daughter Cornelia was at his side.

HOMES

In 1639, Rembrandt and Saskia moved to a prominent four storey house 4-6 Jodenbreestraat in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, which later became the Rembrandt House Museum.

Rembrandthuis, Jodenbreestraat, Amsterdam. By M.Minderhoud  wikipedia

When Rembrandt was fifty-two, he had to sell his Jodenbreestraat home after being made bankrupt. The artist moved with his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, their young daughter Cornelia and Rembrandt’s seventeen-year-old son Titus to a little rented four- roomed house on the Rozengracht canal. Here, Hendrickje and Titus started an art shop to make ends meet.

BELIEFS 

While Rembrandt's work reveals a deep Christian faith, there is no evidence that the Dutch artist formally belonged to any church. However, he had five of his children christened in Dutch Reformed churches in Amsterdam.

DEATH 

Rembrandt died October 4, 1669, in Amsterdam in poverty and was buried in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk.

After twenty years, Rembrandt's remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor people at the time.

There is a museum in Amsterdam that has a range of paintings by Rembrandt - but only those depicting cats.

Relic

A relic is a part of some divine or saintly person, or something closely associated with them, which has been carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a memorial. Relics are an important aspect of Buddhism, some denominations of Christianity, Hinduism, shamanism, and many other personal belief systems. In medieval times they were fiercely fought over.

Reliquaries in the Church of San Pedro, in Ayerbe, Spain. By Pepe Bescós 

RELICS IN CHRISTIANITY

The veneration of Saints started growing in significance within three hundred of years of Christ walking this earth. For instance at the beginning of the fourth century, a cathedral was built around the relics of St Emeterius and St Celedonius who died in Diocletian's persecution, at Calahorra in Spain.

Saint Andrew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and the patron saint of Scotland. However, St Andrew never set foot in Scotland. His Scottish link comes from a legend that the 4th century monk or bishop of Patras, St Rule, was ordered to take the apostle’s relics to “the ends of the earth”, so he took them to Scotland. The relics are said to have been a kneecap, an upper arm bone, three fingers and a tooth.

At Nicaea in 787, a council insisted that relics were to be used in the consecration of every church despite the fact there weren't not enough saints' bodies to go round.

Saint Thomas Aquinas defended the practice of veneration of saint's relics during a time when some regarded it as mere superstition. Aquinas argued that the bodies of the saints are vessels of the Holy Spirit.

Relic from the shrine of S Boniface in the hermit-church of Warfhuizen By Broederhugo 

In 1247 Henry III of England prepared to receive a relic of the Holy Blood of Jesus sent from Jerusalem, by keeping vigil the night before its reception in London, fasting on bread and wine with many candles and solemn prayers.

Robert the Bruce attributed his victory at the Battle of Bannockburn to the relic of the Scottish Saint, St. Fillan, which he took into battle. He declared it was the Saint's intercession that gave him victory.

The inventor of modern printing Johannes Gutenberg was also an entrepreneur. One of his schemes in the late 1430s was to mass produce "pilgrim mirrors" to sell to the thousands of people walking to Aachen every seven years to see the town's holy relics . The purpose of these mirrors, which many pilgrims pinned to their hats, was to catch the benign rays that were assumed to radiate from the relics and to take them home where they would benefit relatives as well.

There are also many relics attributed to Jesus, perhaps most famously the Shroud of Turin, said to be the burial shroud of our Savior.

The cult of relics was condemned by Protestant reformers. Martin Luther satirized the countless dubious relics in the Middle Ages, making a list of ones he expected the Catholic Church to trot out next: “Three flames from the burning bush on Mount Sinai . . . A whole pound of wind that roared by Elijah in the cave on Mount Horeb . . . Two feathers and an egg from the Holy Spirit.”

Reliquary and skull of St Ivo of Kermartin. By Derepus - Foto zal gemaakt in de kerk,

Martin Luther's patron, the Saxony ruler Frederick the Wise, had a collection of 19, 013 relics in the church of his castle at Wittenburg. They ranged from a saint's little finger to the complete mortal remains of one of the Holy Innocents martyred by King Herod.

The Council of Trent of 1563 upheld the veneration of relics. They enjoined Roman Catholics. bishops to instruct their flocks that "the holy bodies of holy martyrs ... are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these [bodies] many benefits are bestowed by God on men".The council further instructed that within such veneration, "every superstition shall be removed and all filthy lucre abolished."

A 1980 worldwide survey of religious relics commissioned by the Italian newspaper Republica found that there were ten St John the Baptist skulls in churches dotted around the globe. The remarkable English Patron Saint George topped the list with enough bones to make up 30 complete skeletons.

The Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts contains relics of St. James, St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. Simon, St. Thomas, St. Stephen and other saints.

Reliquary at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary By John Stephen Dwyer,

RELICS IN OTHER RELIGIONS AND NON-RELIGIOUS RELICS

In Buddhism, relics of the Buddha and various sages are venerated. After the Buddha's death, his remains were divided into eight portions. Afterward, these relics were enshrined in stupas wherever Buddhism was spread.

Buddha relics from Kanishka's stupa in Peshawar, Pakistan, By Teresa Merrigan 

The most important collection of Muslim relics are The Sacred Trusts, which are a collection of over 600 pieces treasured in the Privy Chamber of the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul. Muslims believe that these treasures include: Hair from Prophet Muhammad's beard and footprint, Pot of Abraham, Staff of Moses, Turban of Joseph and the Sword of David.

One example of a non-religious relic is the preserved body of Lenin in Moscow. In 1933 a permanent Mausoleum was built in Red Square to contain his body encased in glass.

When President Chester A. Arthur redecorated the White House, he needed money to pay for all the new furniture. His solution was to sell off 24 wagon loads of historical relics, including a pair of Lincoln’s pants and one of John Quincy Adams’ hats.

Source Christianitytoday.com

Reindeer

ETYMOLOGY 

The reindeer is a species of deer living in Arctic regions. In North America the animals are called caribou if they are wild and reindeer if they are domesticated.

The name "reindeer" comes from the Norse word "hreinn," meaning deer.

REINDEERS IN HISTORY

During World War II, the crew of British submarine HMS Trident kept a fully grown reindeer called Pollyanna aboard for six weeks.

On August 26, 2016 in Hardangervidda, Kingdom of Norway, a herd of wild reindeer was struck by lightning. More than three hundred reindeer died in what wildlife officials say was "a highly unusual massacre by nature."

FICTIONAL REINDEER 

Santa's reindeer were introduced in the poem "A Visit From St Nicholas" written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823. He named eight reindeer. The ninth, Rudolph, was added in 1939.

The song "Up on the House Top," which was written by Benjamin Hanby in 1864, is responsible for giving people the idea of Santa Claus and his reindeer landing on people’s homes, just before Santa is supposed to head down the chimney.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was created in 1939, for the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward department stores. Robert L. May, a copywriter for the stores, created a Rudolph coloring booklet as a Christmas promotional gift for their customers.

Rudolph's story was made into a song by May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks. "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" was first recorded by singing cowboy Gene Autry in 1949 and went on to become the second biggest-selling Christmas song of all time, next to Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

Rudolph is copyrighted - Chuck Berry had to pay up when he wrote a rock song about the famous reindeer ("Run Rudolph Run").

In 2001, Harrods store in London had to replace Santa's reindeer and sleigh with a horse and cart because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

Since male reindeer shed their antlers in December, Santa's sleigh is most likely pulled by females.

HABITATION 

Reindeer live in the northernmost parts of the world; they are native to Arctic regions, as well as northern Europe and Siberia.

Reindeer standing on snow to avoid blood-sucking insects. Bjørn Christian Tørrissen 

The Arctic reindeer was a species that lived in Greenland but became extinct around 1900.

ANATOMY 

Reindeer are uniquely capable of living in harsh and cold environments. Their noses actually warm the air before they breathe it in, so that their lungs don't freeze.This explains why Santa chose reindeer to lead his sleigh - he needed animals that could live at the North Pole!

Reindeer have the widest feet of any deer. They seem to have adapted for walking in snow.

A one-day-old North American reindeer can outrun an Olympic sprinter. Adult reindeer can run at speeds of 40-50mph.

Both male and female reindeer have antlers. Male reindeer lose their antlers during the winter.

The size of the antlers plays a significant role in establishing the reindeer's hierarchy in the group

Reindeer eyes change color from gold to blue during winter. This helps them see in the dark and better detect predators.

Reindeer are the only mammals that can see into the ultraviolet spectrum, and adapt their eyes for winter night vision. This allows them to see lichen, polar bears against the snow, and urine trails. Animals such as reindeer with tetrachromatic color vision may be able to distinguish between colors that, to a normal human, appear to be identical.

Reindeer are so well insulated by their thick coats that they don't melt the snow they lie on.

DIET

Reindeer mainly eat lichens in winter, especially reindeer moss. They have a unique adaptation among mammals which enables them to break down lichen to glucose.

Reindeer like to eat bananas.

RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANS 

In Lapland a sport called 'pulka' features reindeer pulling a sleigh known as a 'pulk', which is normally used for transport or carrying supplies.

Reindeer milk is the only source of milk for Laplanders, because no other dairy animal can survive in such a cold environment.

It takes two Laplanders to milk a reindeer - one to do the milking, the other to hold the antlers.

Milking reindeer in the 19th century

Reindeer meat was a widespread source of food for prehistoric humans. Hunters stalked and killed the reindeer which they found crossing their territory and their lives followed the rhythm of the herds' migrations.

In 1941, the crew of submarine HMS Trident were given a reindeer as a gift by the USSR navy and it spend six weeks on the sub with them until they reached home.

After the Italian Prime Minister complained about Finnish cuisine, the Finns entered an international pizza competition, named their entry (with marinated reindeer meat) after the PM, and came in first place.

Reindeer herders in Finland put reflective paint on the antlers in order to cut down on nighttime motor vehicle accidents.

A live reindeer was brought to the studio so that Frozen animators could be inspired.

Sources Daily Express, Kidzworld, Songfacts