George II of Great Britain

George II was born on November 10, 1683 in the city of Hanover in Germany.

He was the son of George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg (later King George I of Great Britain), and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle.

George as a young boy with his mother and his sister, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover

George spoke only French until he was four, then he learnt German and later English and Italian

When his father died in June 1727 during one of his visits to Hanover, George II succeeded him as English king and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire at the age of 43.

George II was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain.

George II and his wife Caroline of Ansbach were crowned King and Queen of Great Britain on October 11, 1727.

Like his father, George was particularly fond of the music of Handel. Zadok The Priest was one of four pieces the German composer wrote for George’s coronation.

George II had a number of mistresses. Two of his illegitimate children later became the Earl of Salisbury and the Archbishop of York.

George II was the last British monarch to command his troops in battle, at the Battle of Dettingen in June 1743.

George II thought his popularity might be increased by allowing his subjects to watch him eat in a public dining room at Hampton Court. Tickets could be brought allowing his subjects to be able to watch the king and his family eat Sunday dinner.

George II took such an interest in his food that he ordered every dish served to him to be labelled with the name of the chef who had made it.

George II died on October 25, 1760 alone sitting on his toilet after drinking hot chocolate. At 76-years-old, he had lived longer than any of his English royal predecessors.

Before George died he left explicit instructions for the sides of his and his wife’s coffins to be removed in order that their remains could mingle.

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought

George I of Great Britain

George I (1660-1727) was born in Osnabrück, Germany and was the ruler of Hanover in North Germany.

When Queen Anne of Great Britain died in 1714, an Act of Parliament said the next ruler must be a Protestant. George was not the closest relative, but was the closest Protestant one. Closer relatives were all Roman Catholic, so George became King of Great Britain and Ireland on August 1, 1714, marking the beginning of the Georgian era of British history.

George I, c. 1714. Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller.

King George I was the last king of England who did not speak English fluently. George spoke German and French fluently, and he also knew Latin. He often spoke to his Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, in Latin. This was not unusual at the time, as Latin was still the language of diplomacy and scholarship.

Walpole was a skilled linguist, and  though he was able to converse with the king in Latin, he also had to translate documents and speeches for the king, which could be a time-consuming process. This led to some friction between Walpole and George, as Walpole felt that the king was not taking his role as king seriously.

George I's inability to speak English was a source of some amusement to his British subjects. They mocked him for his "German" accent, and they made fun of his attempts to speak English. 

George was a keen hunter. He would often go on hunting expeditions in the countryside, and he was also a skilled marksman. He was known to be particularly fond of shooting pheasants and ducks.

George I also enjoyed fishing. He would often go fishing in the rivers and lakes around his palace. He was known to be a patient fisherman, and he would often sit for hours waiting for a bite.

He was nicknamed the “Turnip King” because many regarded him as a country bumpkin. 

King George was a devout Lutheran, and he insisted that his ministers attend Lutheran services.

King George was responsible for extensive remodeling of Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace during his reign. 

King George I took his meals in private attended by two Turkish servants. He particularly liked oysters and oily salads.

George’s mistress was Duchess Museline von der Schulenburg. There were together for most of their lives and had three illegitimate children together

He suffered a stroke on the road between Delden and Nordhorn while visiting his native Hanover. King George was taken by carriage to the Prince-Bishop's palace at Osnabrück where he died in the early hours of June 11, 1727.

King George was buried in the chapel of Leine Castle but his remains were moved to the chapel at Herrenhausen after World War II.

Source Anglotopia

Saint George

Little is known about the life of Saint George (d c303) apart from the fact he was a soldier in the Roman army who was martyred for his Christian beliefs at Lydda in Palestine at the beginning of the 4th century.

Many stories have been ascribed to the saint, the best known being the legend of George and the dragon. A pagan town in Libya was being victimized by a dragon (representing the devil), which the inhabitants first attempted to placate by offerings of sheep, and then by the sacrifice of various members of their community. The daughter of the king (representing the church) was chosen by lot and was taken out to await the coming of the monster, but George arrived, killed the dragon, and converted the community to Christianity.

St. George slays the dragon. Georgian Fresco

By the 5th century the Christians of Syria and Egypt were consecrating monasteries and churches to him and within a hundred years the same thing was happening in Western Europe.

In 494, Pope Gelasius said St. George was among the saints “whose names are justly reverenced among men but whose actions are known only to God”.

The cult of Saint George, was originally introduced to the English by the crusaders. In 1222 , the Council of Oxford ordered that the feast of Saint George be celebrated as a national festival. Later in the thirteenth century the popular collection of rather outlandish details concerning the saints, The Golden Legend, which included the story of Saint George, enhanced his reputation even further.

Portrait by Hans von Kulmbach, circa 1510

As a result of the success of the war cry "St George for England", King Edward III appointed Saint George as patron saint of England,  replacing Saint Edmund the Martyr, probably in 1348 .

St George's badge, a red cross on white background,  became a symbol of England. It was emblazoned on the standards of the army, who were fighting the French in the Hundred Years War., and on the English flag.

Saint George's Day is celebrated on April 23rd, the traditionally accepted date of St. George's death in 303 AD. The establishment of George as a popular saint and protective giant in the West was codified by the official elevation of his feast to a festum duplex at a church council in 1415, on the day, April 23rd, that had become associated with his martyrdom,

When the Reformation in England severely curtailed the saints' days in the calendar, St. George's Day was among the holidays that continued to be observed.

Some doubts have been expressed about whether Saint George actually existed at all.  Because of these doubts, Pope Paul VI demoted Saint George to ‘optional worship’ in 1969.

John Paul II reinstated Saint George to full membership of the calendar of saints in 2000.

St George is also patron saint of Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Georgia, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia.

Bulgarians celebrate St George’s Day on May 6th when it is traditional to roast a whole lamb

St George is patron saint of Scouts, who see April 23 as the first day for camping.

Source Daily Express

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan's  (c. 1162 – August 18, 1227)  real name was Temujin which means ironworker. He was named after a Tatar chieftain, Temüjin-üge, whom his father had just captured. Because of his military success people referred to him as Genghis, meaning "Universe ruler".

Genghis Khan's name is pronounced with a soft G, not a hard G, and is sometimes spelled Chinggus to reflect the correct pronunciation.

EARLY LIFE

Temüjin was born in 1162 into a Mongol tribe near Burkhan Khaldun mountain and the Onon and Kherlen Rivers in modern-day Mongolia, not far from the current capital Ulaanbaatar.

Temüjin was born with a blood clot grasped in his fist, a sign that he was destined to become a great leader.

Temujin was the second-oldest son of his father Yesükhei, a minor tribal chief of the Kiyad and an ally of Ong Khan of the Kerait tribe, and the oldest son of his mother Hoelun. Because his father was a chieftain, Temüjin was of a noble background.

When the Chinese Jin Dynasty switched support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, Genghis's father, Yesügei, emerged as the head of the ruling clan of the Mongols. When Yesügei was poisoned, Temüjin who was only 13, became leader.

After his father died,  Genghis Khan and his small family led a life of extreme poverty, eating roots and fish instead of the normal nomad diet of mutton and mare's milk.

Temüjin married Börte of the Onggirat tribe when he was around 16 in order to cement alliances between their respective tribes.  As a dowry, from Borte's family he was given a black sable coat, which he decided to present to Toghril, the powerful ruler of the Kereit, a tribe in central Mongolia. Toghril, who had been an ally of Genghis' father, had taken the young man under his protection and promised his support.

MILITARY CAMPAIGNS

During the 1206 political rise of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire created by him and his allies shared its western borders with the Western Xia Dynasty of the Tanguts. Genghis organized his people, army, and his state to prepare for war with Western Xia.

Genghis Khan

When they invaded the Chinese Tangut kingdom, the fortifications of Volohai appeared to be too much for the Mongol horsemen. Genghis offered to withdraw from Volohai if he was given 1000 swallows and 1000 cats. The Chinese agreed but the cunning conqueror had other ideas. Instead of withdrawing, Genghis sets them alight and released them. The cats and birds set the city on fire and while the garrison fought the flames, the Mongols breached the walls of Volohai and destroyed it.

In retaliation for the murder of some Mongol traders, Genghis Khan and his followers turned westward, invading the empire of the shah of Kiva, a vast Turkish empire that included Iraq, Iran, and part of Western Turkistan.

Genghis Khan proposed "friendship and peace" with the fellow nomadic Khwarezmian Empire in Persia. The Khwarezmia shah ordered a Mongol trade delegation killed, prompting Khan to invade the empire in 1219. In the ensuing war, lasting less than two years 1.25 million were killed and the Khwarezmid Empire was destroyed.

After the husband of Genghis Khan's daughter was killed at Nishapur in 1221, she or Genghis ordered the death of the entire population of the city. 1,748,000 people were reportedly slaughtered in one hour by Genghis Khan's army.

Genghis Khan was very successful in battle, conquering many other peoples such as the Jin Dynasty and by the early 1220s the pope in Rome was trembling before the relentless advance of Genghis' "devil horsemen."

As he swooped through Asia towards Europe it was said that Genghis Khan was the Antichrist. The Mongol warrior genuinely believed he had a divine mission to conquer the world and had previously proclaimed himself to be an earthly representative of the "Supreme God.” He was religious in a pagan way and was tolerant of other religions, consulting with various religious leaders. He also exempted Daoists, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims from tax duties.

Battle between Mongol warriors and the Chinese.

As Genghis and his fellow hordes swept westwards one of their dishes was kyrgyz, which tastes like the smell of a cow and carries quite a kick. They didn’t eat fruit or vegetables as they were unwilling to be tied to the land.

Everything Genghis and his fellow Mongols ate came from animals. As a sweet treat he and his horsemen would enjoy mikong, a honey bread.

His cavalry rode female horses. The reason for this became apparent when Genghis and his hardened troops crossed the vast barren Gobi desert, as they were forced to survive by drinking milk and blood from their mares.

Genghis and his men preferred plain living and were content with to live in their Yarts (a circular tent.) After pillaging and sacking an unfortunate city, the Mongols would not settle there but move on to the next one. They were restless nomads at heart.

The Baljuna Covenant was an oath sworn by Temüjin, the future Genghis Khan, and a small group of companions in 1203. The covenant was a pledge of loyalty to Temüjin and to each other, and it also established a set of principles that would govern the Mongol Empire.

One of the most important principles of the Baljuna Covenant was social equality. The covenant stated that all men were equal, regardless of their social status or clan affiliation. This was a radical idea at the time, as most societies were hierarchical and stratified.

The covenant also emphasized personal choice. It stated that each man was free to leave the Mongol Empire if he so desired. This was another radical idea, as most societies at the time did not allow people to leave their communities without permission.

His system of law respected the environment by outlawing bathing in rivers and requiring soldiers to pick up their trash.

Genghis Khan started the sport of Vlak Tartysh, a kind of wild polo, in order to keep his troops fit. The rules were that around 50 men fought over the possession of a stuffed sheep or goat carcass. The person in possession must carry it around a post and back to a marked circle in the ground before a wild horde of fierce Mongols could prevent them.

He conquered in total approximately 4.8 million square miles, more territory than Alexander The Great, Napoleon, or any other leader achieved. By his death Genghis Khan's empire ranged from the Yellow Sea to the Black Sea to North India.

Genghis Khan entering Beijing.

Genghis Khan killed enough people to cool the earth, 40 million people were killed and vast areas of farmland were reclaimed by forests.

DEATH AND LEGACY

Genghis Khan died in the Liupan Mountains in northwestern China, on August 18, 1227 during the fall of Yinchuan, the capital of Western Xia.

After Genghis died, his body was returned to Mongolia and presumably to his birthplace in Khentii Aimag, where many assume he is buried somewhere close to the Onon River and the Burkhan Khaldun mountain. Genghis had ordered his burial site to be kept a secret. To this end, his heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession. After the tomb was completed, the slaves who built it were massacred, and then the soldiers who killed them were also killed.

Genghis was buried in an unmarked grave and to this day exact burial site is unknown.

We have no accurate record of what Genghis truly looked like. Some sources vaguely claim he had long hair and a bushy beard. Seventy years after Genghis’ death, the Persian historian Rashid al-Din purported the Khan had green eyes and red hair. 

Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan, was the first ever emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) in China.

Around 8% of the men in central Asia are descendants of Genghis Khan. That’s nearly 350 million men with one common ancestor.

Source Food For Thought

Geneva

The Protestant Reformation reached the Swiss city of Geneva in the 1530s. The people of the city voted on May 21, 1536 to live "according to the gospel and the Word of God and to put an end to the masses and other papal practices" in their territory. John Calvin arrived in the city two months later.

Destruction of icons in Protestant Switzerland

In 1541 John Calvin was appointed pastor of Geneva's Cathedral of St Peter with a decent salary, a fine house and 250 gallons of wine a year. He established a rigorous theocracy ( a government by priests) in the city.

Prior to Calvin’s reformation, Geneva had been described as “the stinkiest city in Europe,” where for instance there were more bars per head than any other major city of its time. Calvin enforced morality in a strict way whereby bards, dancing and bawdy singing were banned and adultery was punishable by death.  Every home got a visit from a church leader once a year to check on the morality of it’s occupants.

Calvin’s association with Geneva was not part of his plans. He visited the city only because of a detour to avoid the hostilities of a war raging between the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and the King of France, Francis I. Calvin had intended to remain in Geneva a single night before resuming his travel to Strasbourg.

The Geneva Testament under the leadership of William Whittingham was produced in Geneva in 1560. It was the first English Bible to be divided into chapter and verses.

Geneva B

The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau was brought up  at 28 Rue due Coutance, Geneva. He abandoned the city in disgust at the age of 15, after returning to Geneva and finding the city gates locked due to the curfew.

Voltaire lived between 1758-1778 at Ferney Chateau, near Geneva in France on the Swiss border. The French philosopher once prophesied that in "another century and there will not be a Bible on Earth.” Ironically a century after his death his home was occupied by the Geneva Bible Society.

The English scientist Humphrey Davy died in a hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 29, 1829 after suffering a stroke several months previously.

After the English author George Eliot's father died in 1849, she received a small inheritance. Eliot traveled abroad after his death, and spent a winter in Geneva at the home of M and Mme D' Albert reading intensively and pondering her future.

In 1996 physicists using the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, created the first atoms of antimatter, when nine atoms of antihydrogen survived for 40 nanoseconds (40 billionths of a second).

Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world, including the headquarters of many of the agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross.

Geneva is the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.

Since 1818, a particular chestnut tree is used as the official "herald of the spring" in Geneva. The sautier (secretary of the Parliament of the Canton of Geneva) observes the tree and notes the day of arrival of the first bud.

JT International (JTI), Mediterranean Shipping Company, Serono, SITA, Société Générale de Surveillance and STMicroelectronics all have their international headquarters in Geneva. Many other multinational companies like Caterpillar, DuPont, Electronic Arts, Hewlett-Packard, INVISTA, Procter & Gamble and Sun Microsystems have their European headquarters in the city too.

Genetically Modified Food

The earliest use of the term ‘Frankenstein food’ to refer to genetically modified food was in 1989.
Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption. The tomatoes were genetically modified to prevent ripening thus preventing wastage. It was produced by the Californian company Calgene, and was first sold in 1994.

Flavr Savr  was only available for a few years before production ceased in 1997. The failure of the pioneering food has been attributed to Calgene's inexperience in the business of growing and shipping tomatoes.

A tomato puree became Britain’s first genetically modified food to be sold in supermarkets in 1996. Over the next three years, 1.8 million cans, clearly labelled as genetically engineered, were sold in supermarkets At one point the paste outsold normal tomato paste but sales fell in the autumn of 1998. Many were anxious about the hazards of GM and protesters were trampling on and destroying many crops.

AquAdvantage salmon is the trade name for a genetically modified Atlantic salmon developed by AquaBounty Technologies. A growth hormone-regulating gene from a Pacific Chinook salmon and a promoter from an ocean pout were added to the Atlantic salmon's 40,000 genes. These genes increased the speed at which the fish grew by enabling it to grow year-round instead of only during spring and summer. In November 2015 AquAdvantage salmon became the first genetically modified animal approved by the US FDA for human consumption.

General Motors

General Motors was founded on September 16, 1908, in Flint, Michigan, as a holding company for McLaughlin Car Company of Canada Limited and Buick, then controlled by William C. Durant.

In the late 1920s, American automaker General Motors introduced four brands to supplement its five existing brands of passenger cars. Oakland introduced Pontiac at the 1926 New York Auto Show as a low-priced model for the 1926 model year,  In descending order of price, the others were  LaSalle, to supplement Cadillac; Viking o supplement Oldsmobile and Marquette, to supplement Buick.

The Great Depression resulted in the failure of most of these brands. Viking and Marquette were each discontinued within two years of their introductions, and LaSalle after slightly more than a decade. Pontiac had the opposite fate; it was Oakland that would be discontinued, while Pontiac would continue until 2010.

The Empire State building was born out of a race between Walter Chrysler and General Motors executive John R Raskob to build the world's tallest skyscraper. The Chrysler was the tallest building in the world for just a few weeks in 1930, until Raskob added a few more stories to his Empire State building, pipping the Chrysler by 62 metres.

The first commercial stereo recording was a $10.00 seven-inch reel tape of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" and Sibelius's "Finlandia," The stereo process was developed by Magnecord, Chicago, in 1954 for General Motors to meet a need to analyze engine noise.

The General Motors Corporation became the first US corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year in 1955.

General Motors produced its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado in 1968.

General Motors was baffled that its Chevy Nova was not selling in Latin America in the 1970s, until somebody pointed out that ‘Nova’ means ‘it doesn’t go’ in Spanish.

The gas tank on the 1979 Malibu was only 11 inches from the rear bumper; in some earlier models it had been more than 20 inches away. It would have cost General Motors $8.59 per vehicle for a safer design but that the corporation had decided it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits that arose.

General Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer than any other automaker.

The Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan was designed by John Portman and completed in 1977, this complex initially consisted of a five-tower rosette rising from a common base; two further towers were added in 1981. The central tower, measuring 73 floors in height, is the tallest building in Michigan. Since 1996, the complex has been owned by General Motors and used as its world headquarters.

Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan from South 2014-12-07.

General Motors currently produces vehicles in 37 countries; its core under brands include Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC.

Mary Barra was appointed the CEO of General Motors Company on January 15, 2014. She is the first female CEO of a major global automaker.

Mary Barra, changed the workplace dress code of General Motors from a complicated 10-page document to two words: "Dress appropriately."