Sabbath

Up until the time of Moses nobody had a Sabbath. In around 1490BC The Torah, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, allowed slaves, who had previously labored seven days a week, one day a week free of work.

Philippe de Champaigne - Moses with the Ten Commandments 

In Judaism, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar week, which in English is known as Saturday.

In the early days of the church Christians started gathering together on Sunday, the first day of the week, as they believed that both Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven happened on that day.

Sunday became a legal holiday in 321 AD, at the decree of Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine I. Constantine ordered that Sunday was made a day of rest throughout the Roman Empire for everyone apart from farmers. Public offices were closed and markets banned.

Queen Elizabeth I vetoed a Parliament bill banning on the Sabbath shooting matches, play-going and other activities as she participated in them herself.

The English Puritans took Sabbath observance very seriously. When King James I threw down the gauntlet by publishing the Book of Sports—a list of authorized sports and games people could engage in after church—the controversy that followed was so volatile that a 17th-century historian cited it as one of the leading causes of the English Civil War.

In the early 18th century the colony of South Carolina required "all persons whatsoever" to attend church each Sunday and refrain from skilled labor and travel. Violators of the "Sunday Law" could be fined 10 shillings or locked in the stocks for two hours.

Sunday Laws in Ontario, 1911

During the French Revolution, the First Republic introduced in September 1792 a reformed 10-day week calendar rid of religious connections. Thirteen years later Napoleon was forced to reintroduce the Gregorian calendar as he realized the loss of a 7-day week and in particular the Sabbath was having a detrimental affect on the health of the nation.

In the UK, The Great Western Railway Bill of the 1840s made the company liable for a £20 fine for every locomotive or carriage discovered using the tracks on the Lord's Day.

When James K. Polk's presidential term ended on Sunday March 4, 1849, his successor, Zachary Taylor, an Episcopalian, refused to take the presidential oath of office on the Sabbath. This led to a curious situation in which the United States was "without" a president for a day.

Laws forbidding the sale of sweets and delicacies on Sunday prompted William Garwood to invent the ice cream sundae in Evanston, Illinois in 1874. A mixture of ice cream and fruit coated with jam or syrup it could be served on the Sabbath with no fear of the law being broken.

Queen Victoria was out one Sunday with her servant John Brown in the Scottish Highlands when she noticed someone fishing from a boat on the loch. "Fancy people doing that on the Sabbath" she remarked "But ma'am, the Lord Jesus was on a boat on the Sabbath" her servant replied. The Queen turned and said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Charles Dodgson, aka author Lewis Carroll,  refused to have his own photo taken on the Sabbath.

The first five-day working week in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill in 1908 to afford Jewish workers the ability to adhere to the Sabbath.

The Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire tells the true story of the Scottish Olympic athlete and later missionary Eric Liddell who refused to run on the Sabbath in the 1924 Olympics in the heats for the 100 meters, his favored event. Instead the devout Scot, who ran for God, entered the 400 meters which he proceeded to win on July 11, 1924.

Eric Liddell at an athletics meeting on Sat 19 July 1924

The Sunday Trading Act was introduced in 1994 in England and Wales, coming into force on August 26 of that year. It allowed shops to open on Sundays, but restricted opening times of larger stores to a maximum of six hours, between 10am and 6pm only.

By 1996 more than 31% of all employees in England had to work on a Sunday.

In 2004 Pope John Paul remarked that sport should not be played on Sundays. "When Sunday loses it's fundamental meaning and becomes subordinate to a concept of "weekend" dominated by such things as sport," he said. "People stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they no longer see the heavens."

Sabbath elevators are ones which stop at every floor so that Jews using them do not have to operate machinery on the Sabbath.

Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce,  Christianity Today

Saab

Saab is a Swedish airplane and automobile maker, which started in Trollhattan, Sweden in 1937.

Saab stands for "Svenska Aeroplan AB (aktiebolag)" (Swedish for "Swedish Aeroplane Company Limited").

The main focus of Saab's aircraft production is fighter aircraft.

Saab Automobile was founded in Sweden in 1945 when its parent company, SAAB AB (soon to be Saab AB) began a project to design a small automobile.

Full-scale production of the company's first automobile, Saab 92, started December 12, 1949. The design was very aerodynamic for its time, due to Saab's experience in making fighter aircraft. The entire body was stamped out of one piece of sheet metal and then cut to accommodate doors and windows.

SAAB 92 1949. By Lars-Göran Lindgren Sweden 

The 92 was thoroughly redesigned and re-engineered in 1955, and was renamed the "Saab 93". Its front fascia became the first to sport the first incarnation of Saab's trademark trapezoidal radiator grill. It was first presented on December 1, 1955.

The Saab 93 was the first Saab to be exported from Sweden, with most exports going to the United States.

The 93 first achieved fame on the rally circuit. In 1957, Erik Carlsson finished first in the Finland Rally in a Saab 93, in 1959 he won the Swedish Rally, also in a Saab 93.

The 93's lasting legacy was in the field of safety: it was the first mass production car to have seat belts as standard, leading Mercedes-Benz (and later every other manufacturer) to follow suit soon afterwards.

Saab 93. By MartinHansV

In 1978 the Saab 900 was launched, in time becoming Saab's best-selling model.

General Motors bought 51 percent of Saab Automobile in 1990, and acquired the remainder a decade later, turning Saab Automobile into a wholly owned GM subsidiary.

General Motors sold Saab Automobile AB to the Dutch automobile manufacturer Spyker Cars N.V. in 2010.

The novelist Kurt Vonnegut ran America’s first Saab dealership in Cape Cod. The dealership, on Route 6A, W. Barnstable, Massachusetts, eventually failed.

Source The Independent

Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is a golf tournament played every two years between professional male golfers from the USA and Europe (originally Britain).

English businessman Samuel Ryder (1859-1936) built up a prosperous business in St Albans, mainly through selling penny packets of garden seeds. Ryder, who had started playing golf at the age of 50, suggested the idea of a regular international competition between teams of British and American golfers.

The first official Ryder Cup was held in Worcester, Massachusetts on June 3–4, 1927. (Two unofficial matches between British and American teams, had been played in Scotland in 1921 and in England in 1926, both won by the British).

Appendicitis kept Ryder's coach, British professional golfer Abe Mitchell, out of first Ryder Cup, and the United States team beat Britain 9 1/2 to 2 1/2.

The cup was donated by Ryder. Made of 14-karat gold on a wooden base, the trophy stands 16 inches (41 centimeters) high and weighs 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms). The figure at the top of the cup is modeled on Abe Mitchell.

The trophy was manufactured by Mappin & Webb and cost nearly £300.

The Ryder Cup on display in 2008.

The first Ryder Cup tournament had nine golfers per team. The number rose to 10 in 1929 and 12 in 1969.

When he returned from the 1967 Ryder Cup, Jack Nicklaus confessed to his wife Barbara that having to play 36 holes in one day had worn him out. He went on a diet and lost so much weight The Golden Bear had to buy a new golfing wardrobe.

 In 1973 the official title of the British Team was changed from "Great Britain" to "Great Britain and Ireland". This was simply a change of name to reflect the fact that golfers from the Republic of Ireland had been playing in the Great Britain Ryder Cup team since 1953, while Northern Irish players had competed since 1947.

In the 1977 tournament, United States beat Britain and Ireland 12½ -7½. This was the last Ryder Cup to feature a side exclusively from the British Isles.

The U.S. opponents in the next Ryder Cup, held in 1979 at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, were drawn from all of Europe. The inclusion of continental European golfers was partly prompted by the success of a new generation of Spanish golfers, led by Seve Ballesteros and Antonio Garrido. The U.S.-Europe format has continued ever since.

German golfer Bernhard Langer at 1991 Ryder Cup

Rwanda

Rwanda is a country in Central and East Africa. It is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The predominantly rural population of 11.7 million people forms three main groups: the Hutu (84% of the population), Tutsi (15%) and Twa (1%). The Twa are a forest-dwelling pygmy people descended from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants.

The old Royal Palace of the Rwandan monarchy is located in the town of Nyanza. It is now the Rwesero Art Museum.

The ancient King's Palace in Nyanza (now museum).

The Berlin Conference of 1884 assigned the territory to Germany as part of German East Africa, marking the beginning of the colonial era.

Following the first World War Rwanda was placed under Belgian administration as a League of Nations mandate, then as the United Nations Trust territory.

The Germans and the Belgians had both promoted Tutsi supremacy, considering the Hutu and Tutsi different races. Tension escalated between the Tutsi, who favored early independence, and the Hutu emancipation movement. In 1959 fighting broke out in 1959 between the two groups, resulting in a loss of some 22,000 lives and causing at least 336,000 Tutsi to flee to neighboring countries, where they lived as refugees.

In 1961, the Belgians held a referendum in which the country (then known as Ruanda) voted to abolish the monarchy. It achieved full independence on July 1, 1962 after a Hutu revolt led to massacres of Tutsis and the establishment of a Hutu-dominated republic named Rwanda.

Cycles of violence followed, with exiled Tutsi attacking from neighboring countries and the Hutu retaliating with large-scale slaughter and repression of the Tutsi.

The Rwandan Genocide begun on April 7, 1994 , the day after the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down. Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus over the following 100 days.

Building in which 10 Belgian UNAMIR soldiers were massacred. By Dylan Walters

The Tutsi Republican Public Front gradually took control of Rwanda methodically, gaining control of the whole country by July and ending the genocide. The victory for the RPF over the Hutu extremists is celebrated as Liberation Day on July 4th.

The flag of Rwanda was adopted on October 25, 2001. The blue band represents happiness and peace, the yellow band symbolizes economic development, and the green band symbolizes the hope of prosperity. The sun represents enlightenment.

Rwanda flag

A period of reconciliation and justice began, with the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the reintroduction of Gacaca, a traditional village court system.

All of Rwanda is at high elevation, with a geography dominated by mountains in the west.

The economy is based mostly on subsistence agriculture by local farmers using simple tools. Coffee and tea are the major cash crops for export.

Kigali is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. The city has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transport hub since it became the capital following independence from Belgium in 1962.

The country's principal language is Kinyarwanda, which is spoken by most Rwandans.

In 2008, Rwanda banned plastic bags and, eleven years later it banned all single use plastics.

The last Saturday of each month in Rwanda is Umuganda day, which means "coming together in common purpose.", On that day adult Rwandans are required to join in nationwide clean-up tasks like picking up litter.

As of April 2017, Rwanda had the only government on earth in which the majority of parliamentarians are women.

Ernest Rutherford

EARLY LIFE 

Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871 on a small farm at Brightwater near Nelson, New Zealand.

His father, James Rutherford, was a farmer, and his mother, Martha Thompson, a schoolteacher.

Ernest studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand.

After gaining his BA, MA and BSc, Rutherford did two years of research at the forefront of electrical technology, during which he invented a new form of radio receiver.

Rutherford aged 21

In 1895 Rutherford was awarded a scholarship to travel to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He originally was overlooked for the scholarship, but the successful candidate fell ill so the award was passed to him.

CAREER

Rutherford worked at the Cavendish Laboratory between 1895-98. During his time there, the New Zealander briefly held the world record for the distance over which wireless waves were detected.

In 1898 Rutherford was appointed Professor of Physics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

In 1907 Rutherford returned to Britain to take the chair of physics at the Victoria University of Manchester.

Rutherford was knighted in 1914.

During World War I, Rutherford worked on a top secret project to solve the practical problems of submarine detection by sonar.

In 1919 he returned to Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory succeeding J. J. Thomson as the Cavendish professor and Director.

Between 1925 and 1930 Rutherford served as President of the Royal Society.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge in 1931.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH 

Rutherford's work is the basis of all modern understanding of nuclear energy but he used very simple equipment for his experiments.

In 1896 French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered the principle of radioactive decay when he exposed photographic plates to uranium. Hearing of Becquerel's experience with uranium, Ernest Rutherford started to explore its radioactivity during his time at McGill University in Canada.

As a result of his experiments, Rutherford proved that radioactivity involved the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another. He coined the terms alpha ray and beta ray to describe the two distinct types of radiation on May 8, 1899.

Ernest Rutherford at the McGill University in 1905

In 1908 Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".

Rutherford pioneered modern atomic science. In 1911 the New Zealand physician's famous gold foil experiment, which involved the scattering of alpha particles by a thin foil, revealed that atoms had almost all their mass concentrated in a very small central positively charged nucleus, around which the electrons move.

During World War 1, Rutherford joined the Admiralty Board of Invention and Research and devised ways to detect submarines by deploying underwater signals and microphones.

In 1919, Rutherford made the world's first artificial nuclear reaction by bombarding some nitrogen gas with helium atoms and turning it into a different chemical thereby creating a nuclear reaction between nitrogen and alpha particles.

Rutherford also discovered (and named) the proton. After returning to Cambridge, he spent several years directing the development of proton accelerators (atom smashers). In 1932 Cockcroft and Walton of Rutherford’s group used the first workable atom smasher to artificially disintegrate lithium into helium.

As late as 1933 Rutherford saw no practical use for nuclear power. He saw no source of power in the transformation of atoms.

PERSONAL LIFE

A tall man, Rutherford was notoriously clumsy.

Ernest Rutherford 

Rutherford’s booming voice was said by colleagues to be three times louder than most.

In 1900, Rutherford returned to Christchurch, so he could marry Mary Georgina Newton (1876–1954 to whom he had become engaged before leaving New Zealand.

They married at St Paul's Anglican Church, Papanui in Christchurch.

Rutherford and Mary had one daughter, Eileen Mary (1901–1930), who married British physicist and astronomer Ralph Fowler. Eileen died after the birth of her fourth child.

LAST YEARS, DEATH AND LEGACY

Rutherford had a small hernia, which he had neglected to have fixed. It eventually became strangulated, causing him to be violently ill. Four days after an emergency operation in London, the father of nuclear physics died on October 19, 1937 of what physicians termed "intestinal paralysis", at Cambridge.

Rutherford was buried in Westminster Abbey, near Isaac Newton and other illustrious British scientists.

 Statue of a young Ernest Rutherford at his memorial in Brightwater, New Zealand.

Rutherford is a hero in his native New Zealand and his face appears on the country’s $100 note. The Rutherford banknote went into circulation on November 3, 1992.

Both the unit of radioactive disintegration-the "Rutherford" and the chemical element rutherfordium are named after "The Father of the Atom".

Babe Ruth

George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. was born on February 6, 1895 at 216 Emory Street in the Pigtown section of Baltimore, Maryland.

Ruth in 1920

At age seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory where he learned baseball skills from Brother Matthias Boutlier of the Christian Brothers, a capable baseball player.

In 1914, George Ruth Jr. was signed to play minor-league baseball for the Baltimore Orioles. He was only 19 and the law stated he had to have a legal guardian to sign his baseball contract, so Baltimore Orioles owner Jack Dunn became Ruth's guardian, leading teammates to jokingly call Ruth "Dunn's new babe." The joke stuck, and Ruth quickly earned the nickname "Babe" Ruth.

Babe Ruth was soon sold to the Boston Red Sox. He made his major-league debut in 1914 with the Boston Red Sox at an annual rookie salary of $2,900.

He hit his first professional home run playing for the Providence Grays on September. 5, 1914 in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club at Hanlan's Point Stadium.

Recalled to Boston after Providence finished the season in first place, Ruth pitched and won a game for the Red Sox against the New York Yankees on October 2, 1914 getting his first major league hit, a double.

By 1916, Ruth had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs, a feat unusual for any player in the pre-1920 dead-ball era.

Ruth pitching for the Boston Red Sox

In a 1917 game against the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore retired 26 batters in a row after replacing Babe Ruth, who had been ejected for punching the umpire.

By the end of the 1910s, Ruth was regularly demonstrating his power with the bat, and in 1919, he set a Major League Baseball record with 29 home runs, the last hit off pitcher Rip Jordan.

On December 26, 1919 Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan.

Even though the Red Sox had won several World Series in the years before this, they would not win another one until 2004. Many baseball fans believed that the Red Sox had become "cursed" by trading Ruth, and called this the "Curse of the Bambino."

Ruth was made a full-time outfielder by the Yankees. His signing was the prelude to an extraordinary Major League season during which the Bambino would hit 54 home runs.

Ruth's legendary power and charismatic personality made him a larger-than-life figure during the Roaring Twenties.

Ruth in his first year with the New York Yankees, 1920

In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth helped the team win seven American League (AL) championships and four World Series championships.

Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season on September 30, 1927 against the Senators. In the eighth inning off Tom Zachary he hit his 60th homer to break a 2–2 tie. The record was broken by Roger Maris in 1961 when he hit his 61st home run.

In 1929 Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

He left the Yankees after the 1934 season and played one last season with the Boston Braves in 1935.

Ruth in 1935

Ruth hit 714 home runs in his career. Only two players, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, have hit more.

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool. He changed it every two innings.

Babe Ruth was one of the first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, along with Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.

On June 13, 1948 Ruth visited Yankee Stadium for the final time in his life, appearing at the 25th anniversary celebrations of "The House that Ruth Built". His number 3 was retired that day.

Babe Ruth was seen by the public for the last time on July 26, 1948 when he attended the New York City premiere of the motion picture, The Babe Ruth Story.

Babe Ruth died of cancer on August 16, 1948, at 8:01 p.m in his sleep at the age of 53. His open casket was placed on display in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium, where it remained for two days; 77,000 people filed past to pay him tribute. Life magazine said that Babe Ruth's funeral was the "kind of tribute normally reserved for kings and presidents."

Babe Ruth's funeral Mass took place at St. Patrick's Cathedral; a crowd estimated at 75,000 waited outside.

Ruth was buried on a hillside in Section 25 at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Source Nyti

Diet of Medieval Russians

In Russia, soldiers' and peasants' meals were monotonous, usually consisting of a handful of millet flour, a little pork or salted fish, accompanied with beetroot, cabbage, swede and turnip.

The diet of Russian sovereigns and nobles was much more varied. Roasted swan and crane, bears paws, haunch of reindeer and salted cucumbers were amongst the food served at Russian banquets.

Much food had a sour flavor; for instance dark brown rye breads were made with sour yeast doughs and pickles were often used.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Russia

HISTORY

Boys in Bronze Age Russia had to slay their own dogs to prove they were ready to become warriors.

The Vikings and their descendants founded the first East Slavic state of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century.

Prince Vladimir, the ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015, decided that his nation needed a monotheistic religion and an entry into the civilized world so he dispatched ambassadors to neighboring countries to inquire about their religious beliefs and practices.

In 988 two envoys of Prince Vladimir visited a service at the Great Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. They were greatly impressed and reported back to their master positively. "We know not whether we are in Heaven or on Earth, for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon Earth. We cannot describe it to you, only we know that God dwells there among men and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places, for we cannot forget that beauty."

The Russian prince decided to accept Christianity and the Russian Orthodox Church was born.

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The following year, Prince Vladimir ordered all his subjects to gather on the bank of the River Dneiper. He then led the entire population of Kiev into the water in order that they all might be baptized.

Prince Vladimir also ordered that all idols should be destroyed. The great wooden idol Perun was beaten by twelve appointed men with sticks as it was dragged along attached to a horse's tail, in order to cast out the demon, which had fooled the idol worshippers. It was then thrown into the river Dneiper.

Kievan Rus' eventually broke up and the lands were divided into many small feudal states. The most powerful successor state to Kievan Rus' was the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

Times remained difficult, with frequent Mongol-Tatar raids. Ivan III ("the Great") finally threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of Central and Northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion. He was also the first to take the title "Grand Duke of all the Russias"

By the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest, annexation and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third largest empire in history. It stretched from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth eastward to the Pacific Ocean and Alaska. The empire was ruled by an emperor called the Tsar.

Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1689 until 1725. The Tsar moved the capital from Moscow to a new city named Saint Petersburg and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721.

Peter The Great

Czar Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar, believed his subjects should be base and servile tools. Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra ran Russia like a small country estate failing to notice the church was rotten with corruption.

The Russian Bloody Sunday occurred on January 22, 1905 when the Imperial Guards shot down hundreds of unarmed peasants who were marching to petition Czar Nicholas II in St Petersburg.
After the revolution, in response to the peoples' wishes, Czar Nicholas granted a parliament with limited powers.

22 January 1905: Crowd of petitioners, led by Father Gapon, near Narva Gate, St. Petersburg

The Russian Republic was declared on September 14, 1917 under the leadership of Minister-President Alexander Kerensky. The Russians called the date September 1 because they were still using the Julian Calendar. They adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918.

For the same reason, they call the Russian Revolution the “October Revolution” though it began on November 7 by the modern calendar.

On November 7, 1917, Kerensky's government was overthrown by the Lenin-led Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Once they took power, the Bolsheviks, under Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, created the first Marxist Communist State.

The Russian Empire had lasted from 1721-1917, the Russian Republic lasted only a few weeks.

Alexander Kerensky fled Russia and lived in Paris and New York until he died in 1970.

The new post-revolution Russian republic existed from 1917-1922 when it became part of the USSR.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the USSR or Soviet Union for short) was founded on December 30, 1922, five years after the Russian Revolution overthrew the monarchy of the tsar.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consisted of Russia and surrounding countries that today make up Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The Soviet Union had the goal of eliminating religion from inside the country and wanted to create a state of atheism. In the first five years of Soviet power they executed around 1230 orthodox bishops and priests.

Eighty percent of Soviet males born in 1923 did not survive World War II.

During Soviet times, the sale of vodka was one-third of the Russian government's income.

On October 12, 1960 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reportedly pounded his shoe on a desk during the Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in response to Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong's assertion of Soviet colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe.

All church properties had been confiscated by the government following the 1917 October Revolution. By the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, was introducing radical liberal reforms and churches were being allowed to reopen. At this stage, despite decades of persecution by the communist regime authorities church members were outnumbering communist members in the USSR by 10:1.

On December 8, 1991 the leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine signed an agreement that dissolved the Soviet Union. All official Soviet Union institutions had ceased operations by this date.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia again became an independent country.

The Russian flag was first used as an ensign for Russian merchant ships and became official as the flag of the Tsardom of Russia in 1696. It remained in use until the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in 1917. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the pre-revolutionary tricolor was re-introduced as the flag of the Russian Federation.

Russian flag

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law on December 25, 2000 that officially established a new National Anthem of Russia, with music adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union that was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.

On March 24, 2014, Russia was suspended from the G8 after its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Eastern Ukraine. Falling oil prices coupled with international sanctions imposed at the beginning of 2014 led to GDP shrinking by 3.7% in 2015.

GEOGRAPHY

 Covering 6.6 million square miles, Russia is by far the largest country in the world by area.

Map of Russia

If you travel across Russia, you will cross seven time zones.

Russia accounts for 20% of the world's forest area.

Russia has the deepest lake in the world, Lake Baikal.

At 5,642 metres or 18,510 feet Mount Elbrus is the highest mountain in Europe. It's located just in Russia, though it is only a few miles from the border of Georgia.

Yakutsk, Russia, is probably the coldest city on earth. The average January temperature is -40C.

Theater in Jakutsk (Yakutsk), Russia.

POPULATION 

75% of Russian territory is located in Asia. That being said, only 22% of the population lives in the parts of Russia that are technically in Asia. An overwhelming majority of Russians are concentrated in western Russia.

The life expectancy for men in Russia is 64 years old, a total among that of the 50 lowest countries in the world.

25% of Russian men die before reaching 55, compared with 7% in the UK and less than 1% in the US. Vodka is cited as the cause for low life expectancy.

In Russia, there are 1,159 women for every 1,000 men.

FUN RUSSIA FACTS

Some bears in Russia are hooked to jet fuel due to the leftover kerosene and gasoline containers in far-east regions.

The wildlife of Russia includes about four million reindeer in the tundra region which can endure temperatures down to about −50 °C (−58 °F).

New Year is a way bigger deal than Christmas in Russia. In fact, gifts are exchanged there at midnight on New Year's Eve, rather than on Christmas Day.

The Russian language doesn't have a word for "fun."

Sources Business Insider, Daily Express

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was born on May 18, 1872, at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire.

He was the Third Earl Russell but he always liked being called Bertrand even after he inherited his title.

Bertrand Russell portrait.

FAMILY BACKGROUND 

The Russells had been prominent for several centuries in Britain, and were one of Britain's leading Whig / Liberal families.

Bertrand's paternal grandfather, Lord John Russell introduced the 1832 Reform Bill and started Britain on the road to democracy. He was twice asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s.

His father, Viscount Amberley, was a freethinker who among other things, consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Amberley ruined his parliamentary career by advocating atheism and birth control for women.

Bertrand's mother, Viscountess Amberley was also from an aristocratic family, and was the sister of Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle.

His godfather was John Stuart Mill. The Utilitarian philosopher was Russell's greatest teenage influence .

CHILDHOOD

In June 1874 Bertrand's mother died of diphtheria. A year and a half later, his father died of bronchitis following a long period of depression.

After his parents' premature deaths, Russell and his older brother, Frank, the future 2nd Earl, were raised by their staunchly Victorian grandparents, Lord Russell, the former Prime Minister, and his second wife, the Countess Russell, nee Lady Frances Elliot.

Bertrand also had a sister Rachel who died when he was an infant.

The Countess Russell was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and her influence on Bertrand's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life.

Young Bertrand was raised as an aristocrat, he was a silent and shy boy.

Russell as a four-year-old

Russell's childhood was very lonely and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that only his keen interest in mathematics seemed to keep him interested in living.

EDUCATION 

Bertrand was educated at home by a series of governesses, and he spent countless hours in his grandfather's library.

His brother Frank introduced him to Euclid, which transformed Russell's life.

Bertrand was fascinated by figures but his grandmother did not allow the governesses to teach him maths so he had to study it secretly

Russell studied philosophy and logic at Cambridge University, starting in 1890, where he became acquainted with the younger G.E. Moore, and where he later came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead. He quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy.

Russell took Mathematics honors in 1893 and graduated in 1894, surprisingly with only a third.

CAREER 

For two years after graduation, Russell lectured in the United States before returning home to a lectureship at the London School of Economics.

In 1907 Russell ran for Parliament as a candidate of the Union of Woman's Suffrage Societies. He lost by 7000 votes.

Russell in 1907

Three years later, Russell attempted to be adopted as a Liberal candidate but his constituency association refused him when they discovered he was an agnostic.

Russell took up a job as a Maths Lecturer at Trinity College Cambridge in 1910. Until the outbreak of World War 1, Russell was an academic who was revolutionizing the study of mathematics, but due to his vocal opposition to the war he became an outsider and he lost his job in 1914.

In 1920, Russell traveled to Russia and subsequently lectured in Peking (now Beijing) on philosophy for one year. The Chinese loved the British lecturer as he considered the Chinese problems from a Chinese point of view rather than the imperialistic English. His Peking University students even launched a special Russell magazine.

In 1922-23 Russell ran as Labour candidate for Chelsea. However, it was a safe Tory seat and was easily defeated by the Conservative candidate Sir Samuel Hoare.

Throughout the remainder of the 1920s, Russell supported himself during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics and education to the layman.

Russell set up the experimental Beacon Hill School, near Petersfield, Hampshire on 1927, which allowed children complete freedom in expressing and behaving themselves. In other words, rather than repress their feelings they could swear at their teachers etc. At Russell's school there was mixed naked bathing, no punishment and no religious instruction. The school was a failure as mainly unruly children who had been expelled from other schools were sent there.

Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became 3rd Earl Russell. He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms and the like.

In 1938 Russell moved to the United States where he taught at many universities and wrote his History of Western Philosophy.

Russell in 1938

In the spring of 1939, Russell moved to Santa Barbara to lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York shortly thereafter, but after public outcries, the appointment was annulled by the courts. Russell returned to Britain in 1944 and he rejoined the faculty of Trinity College.

On December 26, 1948, Bertrand Russell delivered the very first BBC Reith Lecture, launching a tradition that continues to this day. His series of six talks, collectively titled "Authority and the Individual," explored the complex relationship between individual freedom and the various forms of authority present in society.

Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, in the King's Birthday Honours of June 9, 1949. George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating the controversial freethinker saying, "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted".

In 1958 Russell was elected the First President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

WRITINGS 

Russell wrote over 40 books.

The three-volume Principia Mathematica, written with AN Whitehead, was published between 1910 and 1913. The work, which explored the relationship between pure maths and logic took them ten years to write. Russell had to pay part of the printing costs himself so convinced was Cambridge University that it had a commercial loser on its hand.

Principia Mathematica became one of the most influential volumes for 20th century intellectuals and along with the earlier The Principles of Mathematics, made Russell world-famous in his field.

Russell  included a 360 page proof to show that 1+1=2 in Principia Mathematica. Despite its acknowledged importance in the study of the foundations of math is so complex and obtuse that it is rarely used today.

The title page of the shortened Principia Mathematica 

A History of Western Philosophy was written during Russell's time in the States in the 1940s. A survey of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the early 20th century, it was a popular and commercial success, and provided Russell with financial security for the last part of his life.

In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought". When Russell was awarded the honor, A History of Western Philosophy was cited as one of the books that won him the award.

Front cover art for the book A History of Western Philosophy. Wikipedia

PACIFISM 

While never a complete pacifist, Russell called his stance "Relative Pacifism," he held that war was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances (such as when Adolf Hitler threatened to take over Europe) it might be a lesser of multiple evils.

Russell opposed British participation in World War I. Bertrand Russell's pacifist refusal to fight in World War 1 made him an object of ridicule in the press. He spent six months in prison in 1917 for an article he wrote for the No Conscription Fellowship in a journal

Russell recommended in the 1930s that Britain gave up its army, navy, air force and empire as then Hitler would have no need to invade us!

In the years leading to World War II, Russell supported the policy of appeasement; but by 1941 he acknowledged that in order to preserve democracy, Hitler had to be defeated.

Russell advocated nuclear disarmament from 1949. Five years later, Russell made a much acclaimed broadcast "Man's Peril," in which he criticized the Bikini A Toll H bomb tests.

CND was launched in February 1958 with Russell as its first President.

Russell made several absurd pronouncements during campaign for nuclear disarmament that Harold Macmillan and John F Kennedy were murderers for supporting the bomb.

Russell (centre) alongside his wife Edith, leading a CND anti-nuclear march

At the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, it was in reply to a message from Russell that Nikita Khrushchev revealed the Russian climbdown.

Russell spent a week in Brixton jail in 1961, after persistently obstructing the highway by sitting on it as part of his Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

BELIEFS 

As a young man, Russell was a member of the Liberal Party and wrote in favor of free trade and women's suffrage.

In his 1910 pamphlet, Anti-Suffragist Anxieties, Russell wrote that some men opposed suffrage because they "fear that their liberty to act in ways that are injurious to women will be curtailed."

Later a Socialist, Russell coined the famous phrase "better red than dead."

Russell had a genuine interest in religion, in which he grew increasingly skeptical. By 1910 he believed only in things that could be proved by experience.

Russell wrote a booklet, Why I'm not a Christian. When asked what he would say to God if he ever met him, Russell replied "I should tell him, that he had not provided me with the necessary evidence".

He was a member of a hard-core of progressive group of the 1920s intent on challenging the established order and influential in bringing in the permissive age.

Russell was in favour of eugenics, and together with other left-wing British intellectuals endorsed the fashionable idea with rare enthusiasm.

Russell wrote against Victorian notions of morality. His early writings expressed his opinion that sex between a man and woman who are not married to each other is not necessarily immoral if they truly love one another. This might not seem extreme by today's standards, but it was enough to raise vigorous protests and denunciations against him during his first visit to the United States.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Russell had a slight, lean figure with bright eyes.

He was quiet and retiring but a frightful prig when young and an unprincipled philander when older.

Russell saw everything in black and white, he didn't believe in compromise.

He had a dry, reedy voice.

Russell had a mordant wit.

RELATIONSHIPS  

Russell first met the American Quaker, Alyssa Pearsall Smith, when he was seventeen years old. He fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was connected to several educationists and religious activists.

Alyssa Pearsall Smith in 1892

Russell's grandmother didn't like her so she whipped him off to Paris, and got him a job as Honorary Attaché' there. This didn't suit Russell so he only stayed for a brief time before fleeing home to Alys. They married at Friend's House in London on December 13. 1894.

Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was cycling, that he no longer loved Alys.

The couple separated a decade later. Alys pined for him for years and continued to love Russell for the rest of her life. During this period, Russell had passionate affairs with, among others, Lady Ottoline Morrell (half-sister of the 6th Duke of Portland) and the actress Lady Constance Malleson.

Russell first met British author, feminist and socialist campaigner Dora Black in 1916 when they both took part on a weekend walking tour. However, the pair did not embark on a relationship for another three years when Russell invited her to join him during his summer holidays.

Dora Black Wikipedia

Meanwhile his first wife Alys hovered outside to observe Russell's family life with Dora. In 1921, he divorced Alys so he could marry his fellow socialist campaigner.

Dora was a fierce left wing activist and a believer in free love. She reluctantly became Russell's second wife as she was pregnant and Russell wanted to legitimize her. They were married on September 25, 1921 at Battersea Town Hall with Eileen Power and Frank Russell acting as witnesses. Dora who was seven months pregnant with the couple's first child, John, wore black during the ceremony.

Their second child Kate was born in 1923 and Dora later had two more by a live in lover. Russell accepted them and gave his name to them for the sake of protecting his own children.

In 1931 Russell went on a bizarre holiday with Dora, his mistress, Dora's lover, his two children and his wife’s illegitimate baby.

John Conrad Russell later briefly succeeded his father as 4th Earl Russell and Lady Katherine Russell became Lady Katherine Tait.

Russell with his children, John and Kate

Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her adultery with an American journalist. They separated and later divorced.

On January 18, 1936, Russell married his third wife, a vivacious 25 year old redhead Oxford student named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, at the Midhurst register office. She had been his children's governess since 1930.

Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad.

Patricia acted as secretary to Russell. She left him in 1951 after years of Russell's womanizing. The final straw was during an unhappy holiday, when he declared during a picnic "I am as drunk as a Lord but then I am one." The bad tempered Patricia stormed off taking Conrad whom she forbade having any further contact with his father.

In 1952, Russell divorced Peter and later that year on December 15 he married his fourth wife, American writer and biographer Edith Finch. They had known each other since the 1930s after being introduced through her close friend and housemate Lucy Martin Donnelly, who was a friend of Russell's first wife, Alys. Finch moved to England in 1950 and remained with Russell until his death. By all accounts, their relationship was very close and loving throughout their marriage.

The four times married Russell lived out his belief in free love and became a hero to the sixties generation.

His eldest son John was driven into withdrawal, then open hatred followed by schizophrenia.

At Russell’s death he left behind two embittered ex-wives and a son and two granddaughters with schizophrenia.

PERSONAL LIFE 

Russell was bought up at his grandparents home at Pembroke Lodge, a Grade II listed Georgian mansion in Richmond Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

Childhood home, Pembroke Lodge. By steve, Wikipedia

From 1955 Russell had a small house called Plas Penrhyn near Portmeirion in North Wales.

Russell liked to eat at a certain cheap cafe that served poor food. He explained the reason he ate there was "because I am never interrupted".

HEALTH 

At the age of 16 Russell strained his eyes (which was a blow as he was an avid reader). He was forbidden to read and write so he spent his time recovering learning poetry by heart.

In 1920 Russell had a serious illness in China due to lecturing in cold halls and as a result he refused to grant interviews. The resentful Japanese press (the Japanese were at the time occupying China) carried the news that he has died. On his way home Russell stopped in Japan and the press sought to interview him again. By way of reprisal he had his secretary hand out printed slips to each reporter "since Mr Russell is dead he cannot be interviewed."

Russell was one of 24 survivors of an airplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. Russell swam to safety clutching his briefcase whilst 19 people died. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

At age 89, Bertrand Russell was jailed for "breach of peace" for anti-nuclear demonstration.They offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't."

Russell was still active in international peace drives in his mid 90s.

Russell died of influenza on February 2, 1970 at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales.

He was cremated without ceremony at Colwyn Bay and his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains.