Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola was born on September 21, 1452 in Ferrara, which was the capital of the independent Duchy of Ferrara.

In these early years Girolamo wrote two poems which showed his anger at morally corrupt clergymen. The first "On the Ruin of the World", about the end of the world, was written when he was only 20. In "On the Ruin of the Church" written three years later, Savonarola singled out the papal court at Rome for special obloquy.

His grandfather was a very successful physician who oversaw his education and his family had hopes that Girolamo would follow in his grandfather's footsteps. He studied humanism and the classics but by the mid 1470s, he had abandoned his career intentions.

Girolamo Savonarola went to Bologna where on April 25, 1475 he knocked on the door of the Convent of San Domenico, of the Order of Friars Preachers, and asked to be admitted. Girolamo explained to his father in his farewell letter, he wanted to become a knight of Christ.

By Fra Bartolomeo - Florence, Museo di San Marco, 

In 1482 the Dominicans sent Savonarola to Florence, the ‘city of his destiny’, where he was assigned as lector, or teacher, in the Convent of San Marco in Florence. After five years, he went back to Bologna where he became 'master of studies’.

For the next several years Savonarola lived as an itinerant preacher with a message of repentance and reform in the cities and convents of north Italy.

He returned to Florence in 1490 to take up a position as Prior of San Marco. Savonarola became a popular preacher in Florence, 15,000 at a time flocked to hear him preach. His extravagant language was fired by his interpretations of the biblical doom-sayings of Ezekiel. The Dominican friar warned of a great judgement coming on the city after which a golden age would arise.

Charles VIII of France invaded Florence in 1494 with 60,000 men and modern innovative artillery made of bronze. The Medici rulers of Florence fled and Savonarola became the new leader of the city, both as a secular leader and priest. The popular preacher headed up a puritan moral dictatorship, reasoning that by making the Law of Christ the law of the land he was ushering in the reign of Christ on earth and the kingdom of the Holy Spirit.

Savonarola initiated tax reforms, aided the poor, reformed the courts and changed Florence from a lax, corrupt, pleasure-loving place into a virtual monastery.

One person who was influenced by Savonarola's powerful call to repentance was the artist Botticelli, who destroyed some of his earlier mythological paintings. He felt that when they were painted, he was unduly influenced by the worldly spirit of the age

On February 7, 1497, Savonarola organised a "bonfire of the vanities" at the carnival celebration before Lent, in which Florentine luxury goods, works of art, pornographic books, mirrors, cosmetics, musical instruments, fine dresses and gambling equipment were publicly burnt by his followers.

By the spring of 1497, Florence had become tired of Savonarola. During his Ascension Day sermon on May 4, 1497, groups of young men rioted in the streets, people began singing and dancing, and the taverns reopened. The riot became a revolution.

Savonarola had also been criticising the immorality of Pope Alexander VI and a week later, on May 13, 1497, the pope accused the Dominican friar of heresy and he was excommunicated.  

By the following year, the pope was demanding his arrest and execution. On April 8, 1497 soldiers attacked the Convent of San Marco and after a bloody battle Savonarola's guards and religious supporters were killed. He surrendered and during the next few weeks was tortured to make him say that he was guilty of heresy, corruption, and other crimes against the Church.

On the morning of May 23, 1498, Savonarola, together with fellow friars Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico da Pescia were led out into the main square where, before a tribunal of high clerics and government officials, they were condemned as heretics and sentenced to die forthwith. The three men were put on crosses and were burned alive. Savonarola died in the same place where he had burnt the paintings and books.

Painting (1650) of Savonarola's execution in the Piazza della Signoria

Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince, witnessed and wrote about the execution. The Medici soon retook control of Florence. 

Savonarola was a hero to many of the early Protestants, who saw in his opposition to the papacy a useful example to follow.

Source The Lion History of Christianity

Sausage

SAUSAGES IN HISTORY

The ancient Greek cook Aphtonite was the first person to have mentioned the sausage. His version was a black pudding, a savory sausage consisting of mainly seasoned pig's blood and fat contained in a length of intestine.

The sausage was also talked about in Homer's Odyssey. "As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted."

The Knights by Aristophanes was the first play to mention sausages. First performed in 424BC the work is about a sausage vendor who is elected leader.

Even earlier, the Sicilian playwright Epimarchus is said to have written a play called The Sausage, which is sadly now lost.

The most famous sausage in  Ancient Roman times was from the Lucanica, a short spicy, smoked beef or pork sausage. According to Cicero and Martial, it was brought by Roman troops or slaves from Lucania (modern Basilicata).

Sausages were banned in the newly Christianized Rome in the mid-4th century because of their association with sinful pagan festivities. A black market was set up.

Early in the 10th century during the Byzantine Empire, Leo VI the Wise outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning.

Nürnberger - a type of white sausage, dates back to the year 1313. Traditionally this sausage is only as long as your finger and served three in a bun.

Alheira de Mirandela is a kosher bread sausage, which was invented in Portugal to help hide Jews from the Spanish inquisition. Jews had fled to Portugal from Spain and pretended to be Catholic. In Trás-os-Montes every home preserved pork sausages to see the family through the winter, hanging them from the rafters and Jews – who did not eat pork – were conspicuous for their missing sausages.

The word 'sausage' comes originally from the Latin 'salscius' meaning 'prepared by salting'. It dates back to the 15th century in English.

Early Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli's first overt gesture against Catholic dogma was his eating of sausage during Lent in 1522, an event usually taken as the start of the Swiss Reformation.

Martin Luther killed his own pigs to make sausages.

Frankfurt in Germany makes a good claim to having invented the frankfurter in the 1480s and in 1987, the city celebrated the 500th birthday of the hot dog.

This claim is disputed by those who assert that the frankfurter – then called a dachshund or little-dog sausage - was created in the late 1600’s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher, living in Coburg, Germany. According to this report, Georghehner later traveled to Frankfurt to promote this long smoked sausage.

Smoked frankfurter By Frank C. Müller 

Every Thursday the French chemist Louis Pasteur habitually consumed for his dinner hot sausage garnished with red kidney beans.

During his time in Switzerland in the mid 1910s, Vladimir Lenin lived at a crowded house at Spiegelgasse, Zurich. A nearby sausage factory emitted such an unpleasant whiff that the future communist leader retreated to the city's Central Library as often as possible.

Cow intestines used for sausage skins were so vital in making gas bags for German Zeppelins that during World War 1 the Kaiser banned Germans from eating sausages.

During World War I, meat shortages led to sausages having a higher water content, causing them to pop when fried—so sausages are called "bangers" in the U.K.

The first recorded use of the adjective 'sausagey' was by DH Lawrence in 1921.

The soya sausage was invented 1916 in Germany. It was first known as Kölner Wurst ("Cologne Sausage") by later German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967).

FUN SAUSAGE FACTS

The British spend around half a billion pounds on sausages in a year, eating more than a quarter of a million tonnes.

The Currywurst Museum in Berlin is the world’s only museum dedicated to the German sausage currywurst.

Botulinum toxin, the toxin that Botox is derived from, is the most expensive substance ever made at £100 trillion per kilo and was first discovered in poorly prepared sausages.

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Saudi Arabia

HISTORY

In the early 7th century, Muhammad united the various tribes of the Arabian peninsula and created a single Islamic religious polity.

During much of the past millennium,  Mecca and Medina were under the control of a local Arab ruler known as the Sharif of Mecca, but for the majority of the period the Sharif owed allegiance to other Islamic rulers - from the 16th century it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as the Al Saud, began in Nejd in central Arabia in 1744, when Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the dynasty, joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. They established the first Saudi state in the area around Riyadh.

Parts of Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the same family for longer than the United States has been a country. 

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire continued to control or have a suzerainty over most of the Arab peninsula. 

King Ibn Saud united the Arab peninsular into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud.

King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, founder of Saudi Arabia

The Allied victory in World War I resulted in the end of Ottoman suzerainty and control in Arabia.

The 1927 Treaty of Jeddah was signed by Sir Gilbert Clayton on behalf of the United Kingdom and Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz on behalf of Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd on May 20, 1927. The treaty recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud over Hejaz and Nejd.

On September 23, 1932, Hejaz and Nejd merged to form the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with Ibn Saud as the first monarch and Riyadh as the capital city.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after unification in 1932. Wikipedia

Saudi Arabian Petroleum was first discovered on March 3, 1938  by the Americans in commercial quantities at Dammam oil well No. 7 in 1938 in what is now modern day Dhahran. It was followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province.

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques from 2005 to his death in 2015. According to Forbes, his estimated wealth was $21 billion in 2011.

For many centuries, the kingdom used the lunar Islamic calendar, not the international Gregorian calendar, but in 2016 Saudi Arabia announced its switch to the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, jumping from 1438 to 2016.

Saudi Arabia is one of only ten modern countries that have never been (in their entirety) a colony of a European empire. The others are: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Japan, Liberia, Mongolia, North/South Korea and Thailand.

GEOGRAPHY 

With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the fifth largest state in Asia and second largest state in the Arab world after Algeria.

July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 36C (96F) in Riyadh. The mildest is January at 15C.

The country is largely desert. Any rain falls from November to April.

Saudi Arabia is the largest country on this planet without a river.

Although Saudi Arabia is covered in sand, the granular material is of such low quality that for construction projects, sand has to be imported from places like Australia.

The Nejd landscape: desert and the Tuwaiq Escarpment near Riyadh

Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia are Islam's two holiest cities.

CULTURE 

The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture.

In Saudi Arabia the sale, consumption, importation and brewing of, and trafficking in alcoholic drinks is strictly against the law.

Under Saudi law, women are required to wear hijab but niqab is optional.

A woman wearing a niqāb. By Walter Callens

In Saudi Arabia women are allowed to fly aircraft, though for many years they had to be
chauffeured to the airport as it was illegal for them to drive a car. On September 26, 2017 the kingdom announced that it would allow women to drive automobiles.

In 2015, women were allowed to vote and to run for seats on the kingdom’s local councils.

For many years, Saudi Arabia women  were not allowed to compete in national sports—clerics said that female sports constitute "steps of the devil" toward immortality. This is slowly changing  and the Saudi 2012 Summer Olympics team included female athletes for the first time ever. Sarah Attar participated in women's track and field, while Wojdan Shaherkani participated in the Judo competition.

35% of Saudi women in prison are there because no male relative will collect them.

Starbucks has a different logo for Saudi Arabia because the normal logo shows too much female flesh.

In 2014, Saudi Arabia banned the baby name "Linda" due to its association with Western culture.

FUN SAUDI ARABIA FACTS 

Saudi Arabia has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 8.8 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 1.5 million are illegal immigrants.

"Shiek" means "old man" in Arabic.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves.

Oil accounts for more than 90% Saudi Arabia's of exports and nearly 75% of government revenues.

Saudi Aramco is a Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. Saudi Aramco's market value has been estimated at between $2 trillion and $10 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world.

Headquarters in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, oil is cheaper than water.

Arabic delicacies include nkhaat pane, which is deep-fried lamb brain.

Saturnalia

Saturnalia was an ancient Roman winter celebration. It began as a farmers' festival to mark the end of autumn planting, in honor of Saturn, who was the god of agriculture.

The first Saturnalia festival was celebrated in ancient Rome on December 17, 497 BC when the city's Temple of Saturn was dedicated.

Bas-relief depicting the god Saturnus with a scythe. By Français : inconnu 

Starting as a one-day feast, the Saturnalia festivities expanded to three days, then a whole week, from December 17 to 23.

The holiday was celebrated with a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere.

Each household would elect a King of Chaos or King of Misrule to preside over the festivities.

It was customary during the Saturnalia festivities for everything to be turned upside-down. For instance, slaves and masters would exchange roles, with the slaves relaxing as their masters did the cooking for them.

The Roman pantomime was popular during the Roman Saturnalia festivities. Pantomime dames (men comically dressed up as women) and principal boys (young women dressed up as boys) are the modern day equivalent.

The standard greeting during this period was "Io Saturnalia!" Some believe that Santa Claus' 'Ho, ho, ho' has its origins in this cry of "Io".

Saturnalia by Ernesto Biondi (1909). Usuario:Roberto Fiadone 

Before it was used as Christmas decoration, holly was used for the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

The celebration of Christmas on December 25, just after Saturnalia, began in 350 after Pope Julius I designated the day to celebrate Christ's birth. He did so mainly as a political move to counteract the effect of Saturnalia.

Saturn

THE PLANET 

Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture. Its name equated to the Greek Cronus (the Titan father of Zeus), the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani.

Saturn’s nickname is “the jewel of the solar system" because many astronomers consider it the most beautiful planet in the solar system.

A natural color view of Saturn created from images collected by Cassini 

Saturn is a gas giant. Together, with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian planets, meaning "Jupiter-like".

The American space probe Pioneer 11 was launched on April 6, 1973. In September 1979, it became the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passed the planet at a distance of 21,000 kilometres (13,000 mi).

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun in the Solar System.

It is the second largest planet after Jupiter.

The interior of Saturn is probably a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, then a layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium and finally, an outer gaseous layer.

Ammonia crystals give the upper atmosphere a pale yellow hue.

Electrical currents within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to the planetary magnetic field.

Winds on Saturn can reach 1,118 miles per hour, while the fastest winds on Earth reach only about 250.

A global storm girdles the planet in 2011.

The wind speeds are higher than on Jupiter, but not as high as on Neptune.

THE RINGS

Saturn is best known for its rings which were first seen by Galileo Galilei in 1610 with his telescope.

They are the most massive and conspicuous rings in the Solar System.

The rings extend from 6,630 km to 120,700 km outward from Saturn's equator.

The rings of Saturn (imaged here by Cassini in 2007)

These rings which are only 20 metres thick and 120,700 km wide, are made of ice, rocks and dust.

Saturn's rings are only temporary – over time they will either disperse or be sucked into the planet.

THE MOONS 

Saturn has hundreds of moonlets and at least 82 moons, which orbit the planet; fifty-three are officially named.

The largest moon Titan was discovered on March 25, 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.

Titan is larger than the planet Mercury. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System and the only one with a thick atmosphere.

Its thick atmosphere is orange due to a dense organonitrogen haze.

Its thick atmosphere is orange due to a dense organonitrogen haze.

Titan in natural color

Titan is the only world in the solar system that has surface liquid in the form of lakes, rivers and oceans.

Ice-encrusted and 310 miles wide, Enceladus is Saturn’s sixth-largest moon and — owing to its underground ocean — one of the most likely places to find extraterrestrial life, says NASA.

It was announced in October 2019 that a team had discovered a haul of 20 new moons orbiting Saturn using the Subaru telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. This brings the total to 82 overtaking Jupiter who has 79 natural satellites.

FUN SATURN FACTS

In the time it takes Saturn to complete one orbit of the Sun, or one Saturn year, the Earth has orbited 29.6 times, or 29.6 years on Earth.

Although it has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, Saturn is over 95 times more massive.

Saturn's density is lower than water. If you were to place the planet in a big enough bowl of water, it would float.

The rings of Saturn have captured the imagination of writers, artists, and filmmakers for centuries, and have been featured in many works of fiction. They include:

The science fiction novel Ringworld by Larry Niven, which is set on a giant ring-shaped structure around a star, inspired by Saturn's rings.

The film Interstellar, which features a dramatic scene in which the protagonists visit a planet orbiting a black hole, with Saturn and its rings visible in the background.

The video game Destiny, which takes place in a science fiction universe where Saturn's moon Titan has been terraformed and serves as a hub for human civilization.

Satellite

A satellite is a man-made object which has been intentionally placed into orbit.

HISTORY

In the 16th century, the word "satellite" meant "an attendant on a person of importance." The following century, it came to be used for a small planet revolving around a larger one.

The English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail in a 1945 Wireless World article, the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet.

On October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. Sputnik 1 was about the size of a beach ball and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth.

Sputnik 1: The first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.

Model Sputniks were among gifts given by the Soviet government to UK Prime Minister Mr Harold Macmillan and Mr Selwyn Lloyd, Foreign Secretary, on March 3, 1959 during a visit to Moscow. They played the Soviet national anthem, punctuated by a ‘Beep, beep, beep’ — the sound of the three real Sputniks.

Sputnik's launch is marked every year by World Space Week from October 4-10, a “celebration of science and technology, and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition”.

Launched on March 17, 1958, Vanguard 1 is the oldest satellite still orbiting the Earth. Weighing only 3.2 pounds and with a diameter of 6.5 inches, Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, derided it as "the grapefruit satellite".

Vanguard 2 was the second satellite launched by the United States, and it was specifically designed to study the Earth's cloud cover distribution. It was launched on February 17, 1959, and it orbited the Earth once every 134.2 minutes.

Vanguard 2 was equipped with two cameras that took photographs of the Earth's cloud cover, and it was able to transmit these images back to Earth using radio signals. The satellite was also equipped with a set of temperature sensors, which helped scientists to better understand the relationship between cloud cover and temperature.

Explorer I, the first American satellite, was launched on January 31, 1958, four months after Sputnik I, beginning the so-called space race. Although it carried a number of instruments, Explorer I was relatively small, weighing just 30 lbs (13 kg).

Explorer 1 satellite

Explorer I stopped transmission of data later in 1958, when its batteries died, but remained in orbit for more than 12 years.

SCORE was the world's first communications satellite, launched by the United States on December 18, 1958. It was developed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was designed to transmit telephone calls, television pictures, and other data between the United States and Europe. SCORE was the first satellite to be used for commercial communications, and it helped to pave the way for the development of satellite television and the internet.

In 1961, a Soviet satellite called Sputnik 3 crashed into a cow pasture in Cuba. The satellite was about the size of a refrigerator and weighed about 2 tons. The cow was killed instantly. This is the only documented case of a satellite crash fatality.

The 34 inch spherical communications satellite Telstar 1, backed by John F Kennedy, was launched, paving the way for live broadcasting from thousands of miles away.

The first historic ‘space-vision’ pictures to be transmitted directly across the Atlantic flashed onto British TV screens at 1am on July 11, 1962. Viewers saw the pictures — relayed from America to the satellite Telstar 2,000 miles above the ocean — for 30 seconds.

Telstar

Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit was launched in 1965.

On October 28, 1971, Britain's Black Arrow rocket launched the satellite Prospero into space from Woomera in South Australia. It was the first and only successful orbital launch to be conducted by the United Kingdom. Prospero was an experimental satellite that tested materials and systems that could be used in the manufacture of communications satellites. It also carried a micrometeoroid detector to measure the presence of very small particles in space.

Prospero remained in orbit for over two years, and it collected valuable data on the effects of the space environment on satellites. The data collected by Prospero helped to improve the design of future British and international satellites.

In 1974 the Soviet Union launched Salyut 3, a crewed military satellite armed with a 30mm 'self defence' cannon. It was fired several times and even used to destroy a test satellite in orbit. The Salyut 3 remains the only armed, crewed spacecraft ever flown.

The space station Skylab crashed to Earth in Australia after six years in space in 1979. Leading up to the event, Electric Light Orchestra took out ads in trade magazines dedicating their new single, "Don't Bring Me Down", to Skylab.

When the Skylab re-entry approached the Earth, the San Francisco Examiner offered $10,000 to the first person to deliver a piece to them within 72hrs knowing it wasn't heading toward the USA. A 17-yr-old Aussie collected a piece, jumped on a plane with no passport or luggage and collected his prize.

NASA received a $400 littering ticket  from Western Australia when pieces of Skylab fell on the region. 30 years later a Californian radio DJ raised funds from his listeners and paid NASA’s bill.

On February 10, 2009 two communications satellites, from the US (Iridium 33) and Russia (Kosmos-2251), collided and destroyed each other. It was the first time two man-made satellites had collided by accident.

The communications satellite Meridian 5 was launched on December 23, 2011, with the rocket performing nominally during first and second stage flight. At 288 seconds after launch, the Blok I third stage's RD-0124 engine ignited to begin its burn. During third stage flight, an anomaly occurred which prevented the rocket from reaching orbit. Debris from the launch fell over the Novosibirsk Oblast in Siberia, near Ordynsk. One piece of debris fell through the roof of a house in Cosmonaut Street in the village of Vagaitsevo. Despite debris falling in residential areas, no injuries were reported.

FUN SATELLITE FACTS

The speed a satellite must travel to stay in space is called its orbital velocity. It usually needs to be more than 17,500 mph.

A full-size model of the Earth observation satellite ERS 2

There is a satellite 'Lageos 1′ – which is in orbit and designed to stay up there until it decays in eight  million years with messages for whoever is still around.

Geostationary satellites orbit the equator at the speed of the Earth’s rotation so seem not to move.

Polar satellites’ orbits pass over the poles so scan the whole Earth as it rotates beneath them.

More than 20 satellites make up the Global Positioning System, or GPS, enabling precise positions to be measured at any time.

GPS satellites move at a very high speed, about 4 kilometers per second. This means that they are experiencing time dilation, which is the slowing down of time as seen by an observer who is moving relative to another observer. As a result, the clocks on GPS satellites need to be slowed down by about 45 microseconds per day to account for time dilation.

According to a 2013 estimate, there are now more than 3,600 artificial satellites in orbit around the Earth. Of those, about 1,000 were operational; while the rest have lived out their useful lives and became space debris.

Source Daily Express

Sardine

A Sardine isn't actually species of fish but rather a generic name given to various small, oily fish within the herring family of Clupeidae.

The term sardine was first used in English during the early 15th century and probably came from the Italian island of Sardinia, around which sardines were once abundant.

Indian oil sardine

There is sometimes confusion between sardine and pilchard. The terms "sardine" and "pilchard" do not relate to specific species, they describe ways of packing fish. The United Nations and the World Health Organisation cite 21 different species that could be classed as sardines. Moreover, no fishing organisations seem to agree on what the difference is between the two.

Sardines are legally restricted in the UK, following a court ruling of 1915 in favour of an application by a French firm, to the young of the pilchard, caught off Sardinia and Brittany.

In 1980 there were attempts to change this ruling which adversely affects packers of other small fish in the group which are indistinguishable in taste, and are now marketed as sild or brisling.

In 1824, four years after a man from Nantes, Joseph Colin, had the idea for canning sardines in oil, the world's first sardine canning factory started business there.

Sardines are typically tightly packed in a small can which is scored for easy opening – hence the popular English language saying "packed like sardines".

Sardines packed in a tin. By Rl 

Sardine tins with ring-pull tops were introduced in the United Kingdom in December 1970. John West Food were the pioneers of the system, which hastened the end of the infuriating key-opener.

Canned sardines are among the few canned products which have their own retinue of connoisseurs (and vintage years).

Whilst at Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher had a cat called Wilberforce whom she doted on. She once bought him back a tin of sardines after a visit to Moscow.

The sardines of the Indo-Pacific are numerous. In the 1980s the South American pilchard, Sardinops sagax, was the most intensively fished species of sardine. Some major stocks declined rapidly in the 1990s.

A school of sardines in the ocean

Morocco is the largest canned sardine exporter in the world and the leading supplier of sardines to the European market. Sardines represent more than 62% of the Moroccan fish catch.

The King Oscar export brand of sardines was founded in 1902 and named after Oscar II who was then king of Sweden and Norway.

From May to July, billions of sardines move north along the coast of South Africa, creating a feeding frenzy.

Fresh sardines are excellent when grilled. They may also be fried, but possess plenty of oil themselves.

The chief use of sardines is for human consumption, but sardine oil has many uses, including the manufacture of paint, varnish and linoleum.

Source The Penguin Companion to Food by Alan Davidson

São Paulo

HISTORY

On January 25, 1554, Jesuit missionaries José de Anchieta and Manoel da Nóbrega established a mission at São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, which grew to become the Brazilian city of São Paulo.

Founding of São Paulo, 1913 painting by Antonio Parreiras

The name of the city honors Saint Paul of Tarsus.

The first people moved to the region in 1560, when São Paulo became a village. For the next two centuries, São Paulo developed as a poor and isolated village that survived largely through the cultivation of subsistence crops by the labor of natives.

Cortiços, large houses divided into very small rooms for rent, originated in São Paulo during the late 1700s, and were developed by Italian immigrants. They continue to exist in contemporary times in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

On September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro declared the independence of Brazil from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga creek in São Paulo. After waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, he was acclaimed the following month as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil.

The Monument to Independence in São Paulo's Independence Park, is located at the place where then-Prince Pedro proclaimed the independence of Brazil.

Monument to Independence in Sao Paulo by Zé Carlos Barretta 

In 1827, a law school was founded at the Convent of São Francisc. After the construction of São Paulo's Law School, São Paulo became the capital of its province.

The expansion of coffee production was a major factor in the growth of São Paulo, as it became the region's chief export crop and yielded good revenue. Many European immigrants, especially Italians, moved to the city to work at the big coffee plantations.

FUN SÃO PAULO FACTS

The municipality of São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil and the Americas, as well as in the Southern Hemisphere. It's 2016 population was 12,038,175.

More than 21 million people live in the city's metropolitan area, which is called Greater São Paulo and is the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world.

São Paulo has the largest economy by GDP in Latin America and Southern Hemisphere. The city is home to the São Paulo Stock Exchange, the second largest stock exchange in the world in market value.

São Paulo is colloquially known as Sampa or Terra da Garoa (Land of Drizzle), because of its unreliable weather.

The city is known for the size of its helicopter fleet. São Paulo has the largest number of helicopters in the world, with 420 helicopters in 2012 and around 2,000 flights per day within the central area.

Helicopter arriving in the São Paulo City Hall. By Henrique Boney

Football is São Paulo's most popular sport. The city's major teams are Palmeiras, Corinthians, and São Paulo.

São Paulo also hosts the Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix, in Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Santa Claus

HISTORY

Although the characters "Santa Claus" and "Father Christmas" have for most practical purposes been merged, historically the characters have different origins and are not identical.

Santa Claus portrayed by children's tv producer Jonathan Meath. By Jonathan G Meath 

First recorded in Tudor England and pre-dating the first recording of Santa Claus, Father Christmas was a jolly well nourished man who typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, bringing peace, joy, good food and wine and revelry.

A similar figure with the same name (in translation) exists in many other countries, including Canada and France (Père Noël), Spain (Papá Noel, Padre Noel) and almost all Hispanic South America (Papá Noel).

The 17th century Dutch settlers version of Santa Claus was tall, slender, dignified and most importantly, beard-less.

The American version of the tradition, Santa Claus, is derived from Bishop Nicholas of Myra who died in Asia Minor aged 73 on December 6, 343. Among his other attributes, Nicholas was noted for his care of children, generosity and the giving of gifts. He was accompanied by helpers, and inquired about the behaviour of children during the past year before deciding if they deserved gifts or not. The church and legend transformed him into jolly old Saint Nicholas.

13th-century depiction of St. Nicholas from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai

The familiar image of Santa Claus with flying reindeer and entry down chimneys, began in America with poetry. On December 23, 1822, Dr Clement Clarke Moore, a university professor, wrote a poem for his children. He called it "A Visit from St. Nicholas." The work was never meant for publication, for he feared he would be ridiculed for writing children's verse. A friend, however, sent a copy to a newspaper and very soon the poem became famous across the United States.

At first Santa Claus was drawn in his bishop robes, but with possible influences from the earlier English figure of Father Christmas. German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast's image of him, based on the traditional German figures of Sankt Nikolaus and Weihnachtsmann began the journey towards today's image of him as a portly, joyous, white-bearded man.

Nast's Santa Claus on the cover of the January 3, 1863, issue of Harper's Weekly

By the 1880's Santa Claus had evolved into the robed, fur clad form we now recognize.

In 1890, the first department store Santa appeared—James Edgar, a store owner, brought joy to his patrons by dressing up as the character.

 Man dressed as Santa Claus fundraisingt in Chicago in 1902, 

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is the title of a famous editorial that appeared in The New York Sun on September 21, 1897. The editorial was written by Francis Pharcellus Church, a veteran newspaper editor and reporter. He wrote it in response to a letter sent to The New York Sun by 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon where she asked whether Santa Claus truly existed, as some of her friends had told her otherwise. Church's response sought to reassure her and capture the spirit of Christmas.

Since its initial publication in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897, the "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial has been reprinted countless times. The New York Sun itself regularly republished it during the Christmas season until their closure in 1950. Other newspapers and publications have followed suit, making it a staple of holiday reading for generations. It is widely considered the most reprinted editorial in the English language.

Until the 1930s, depictions of Santa Claus had him wearing a green cloak. Santa Claus as we know him today, with white beard, red tunic, hat and trousers trimmed with white fur, was created by an American commercial artist, Haddon Sundblom for a 1931 Coca-Cola advertisement.

The Coca Cola American adverts portrayed Santa in a red suit because that was the color they used for their ads.

When Coca-Cola created the modern image of Santa Claus in their advertisements, Santa was depicted without a wedding ring, causing fans to write to the drinks company asking whether he was still married to Mrs. Claus.

Shirley Temple stopped believing in Santa at the age of 6 after her mother took her to see him in a department store and he asked for her autograph.

Leaving cookies and milk for Santa started to become popular in the U.S during the Great Depression. Parents wanted to teach their children it was better to give and to be grateful for presents they received during times of economic hardship.

The Charles W Howard Santa School, Michigan is the world’s oldest Santa school. It began in 1937.

In 1974, staff at Canada Post's Montreal office were noticing a considerable number of letters addressed to Santa Claus entering the postal system, and those missives were being treated as undeliverable. They created the H0H 0H0 ("ho ho ho") postcode and started responding to children's previously unanswered letters. Now they answer one million letters per year, many of them originating from outside Canada, in the letter's native language.

In 2009, a man dressed as Santa Claus robbed a bank in Tennessee: he claimed he needed money to 'pay his elves'.

Lloyd's of London issued in 2010 the first insurance policy to protect Santa Claus. The policy covered Santa until December 25th in the event of accident and illness, in the run up to and during his worldwide travels to deliver presents to good children.

FUN SANTA FACTS

In the Marvel comics Santa Claus is actually the world's most powerful mutant ever registered by the X-Men.

Santa has his own postal code – HOH OHO – in Canada.

There is a Santa Claus museum in Columbus, Texas.

The Santa Claus Museum in Columbus, Texas

Since 1937, hundreds of Santas a year have attended the Santa School in Michigan, with curriculum including Santa history, sign language, handling difficult present requests, sleigh flight lessons, and the habits of live reindeer.

Santa was number one on Forbes list of the world's richest fictional people with an infinite wealth to give children.

While American children famously leave milk and cookies for Santa Claus, Irish kids put out mince pies and a bottle of Guinness.

Instead of Santa Claus, Dutch children wait for “Sinterklaas” and his helper Black Pete on December 6. If the kids left shoes filled with hay and sugar for Sinterklaas’ horse, he will refill the shoes with candy and nuts.

Sinterklaas arriving in the Dutch town of Schiedam in 2009. By Sander van der Wel 

 In China, Santa Claus is often depicted with a saxophone and no-one seems to know why.

Santa Claus received 670 votes in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.