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The Invention of the Seven-Day Week & Related Trivia

As I have been asked about the invention of the seven-day week and when that was (the Assyrian's invented it by the way), please see link below, which provides lots of information on that and related issues. http://www.wfu.edu/~moran/planets_y_powers.html

Medieval Recipes

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The followng links offer a rich variety of original, Medieval recipes. http://members.tripod.com/BlackTauna/recipes.html http://www.bitwise.net/~ken-bill/med-p1.htm (these have been 'adapted for the modern cook'.) Enjoy!

Julius Caesar and his Calendar

In 45 BC Julius Caesar decreed a new calendar, based on the 365-da year as calculated by Sosigenes of Alexandria. However, Sosigenes's year had an extra quarter of a day to it so he cleverly added an extra day in the end of February for every fourth year, which was called bis-secto-kalendae . Caesar, via the Senate, also changed the name of the month of Quintilis to 'July' (in later years the month of Sextilis was renamed 'August' in order to honour Augustus). In the 4th century AD Constantine the Great added the seven-day week to the calendar (he was inspired by the book of Genesis), while in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the calendar, so it was from then on known as the Gregorian calendar.

'Baby-farmers' in Victorian London

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A Dickensian Life - Oliver Twist epitomizes the life of an abandoned child in Victorian London A wealth of information on the lives of London's poor during the Victorian era, can be found in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. Contraception was not really understood or practiced in those days, so inevitably the poor would have children which many times they were not able to look after. Some were so poor they could not let their children out to play because they had no clothes for them. Thus we have the story of one mother, whose kids got out onto the street wearing nothing but some bits from an old sack. Parents were many times in prison, in the workhouse or dead. The 'baby-farmer' was sort of like a baby-sitter but with a more sinister twist. While the parents or single mother worked, the children would be entrusted to the 'baby-farmer' to be looked after, for a fee of course. One tragic story tells of a mother who earning 6s and 3s a week making paper

Salaries & Wages in Victorian Times

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The Victorian City of London 9s a week was a milk-woman's wage 10s 6d was what a dentist charged for 2 fillings 16s was the top wage of a woman operating a sewing machine £1 per week was what the average coffee-stall keeper, general labourer or female copy clerk in the City earned With £4 being the minimum cost of a funeral, life cannot have been easy for the above. A live-in maid would earn £6 a year while a general servant would make £16 annually. A full set of false teeth cost £21, which probably meant that all the above went about toothless... A buttler would make £42 per annum while a clerk at the Post Office took home £90 a year. Now, an Anglican parson could probably get his false teeth as he got £140 a year, whereas teh Governor of the Bank of England, with an annual income of £400 could afford a twelve coffin vault in Highgate Cemetary for £136 10s, if he saved enough. A box in the The Royal Opera House was out of reach for most people as it cost £8,000, except for people

Winston Churchill's Love Letter

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Clementine and Winston after many years of marriage Winston Churchill's letter to his wife Clementine below, really sums up the mature love which succeeds romantic love and passion in a long marriage. January 23, 1935 My darling Clemmie, In your letter from Madras you wrote some words very dear to me, about my having enriched your life. I cannot tell you what pleasure this gave me, because I always feel so overwhelmingly in your debt, if there can be accounts in love.... What it has been to me to live all these years in your heart and companionship no phrases can convey.Time passes swiftly, but is it not joyous to see how great and growing is the treasure we have gathered together, amid the storms and stresses of so many eventful and to millions tragic and terrible years? Your loving husband (Winston Churchill)

Tudor Love of Sweet Spiced Wine

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In the last decade the English have developed a taste for wine and are now said to consume more wine than the French. In Tudor times however, wine was a favourite drink, especially a type of very sweet wine made in the Mediterranean, most notably in the Greek town of Monemvasia and certain parts of Cyprus. The secret was in the fact that the grapes, although ripe in the end of July, were not picked until September. They would then dry them out a bit for 3 days, after which they would squeeze the juice out of them, put it in jars, which were then buried. The contents would ferment and the end product would be an extremely sweet wine, which was very expensive. The Tudors often liked their wine to be spiced, an example of which was Hippocras which had been drunk since the Middle Ages. The spices used were usually a mixture of ginger, cloves and to nutmeg, to which they would also add 4lb of sugar per gallon of wine.

More from Marcus Aurelius...

"When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it." "To see the things of the present moment is to see all that is now, all that has been since time began and all that shall be unto the world's end; for all things are of one kind and one form." "No one can stop you living according to the laws of your own personal nature, and nothing can happen to you against the laws of the World-Nature."

The Seductive Lady Hamilton

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Lady Hamilton Lady Hamilton was born Emma Lyon, in Cheshire, England on the 26th April 1765. As the daughter of a blacksmith she didn't have the necessary background to mix with polite society. However, she was determined to do so and so she polished up her act, changed her name to Emma Hart and went off to London. By 1782 she had already become notorious as the mistress to several influential men. A rumour even went round that she had had an illegitimate child with Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh. The girl was apparently named Emma Carew and sent off to live in Wales for the rest of her life. She was living with Charles Francis Greville when he sent her to Italy to be the mistress of his uncle, Sir Wiliam Hamilton, in exchange for a cancellation of his debts. Hamilton was a diplomat. He fell for Emma and they were married in 1791. After having become a close friend of Queen Marie Caroline of Naples, she met Nelson in 1793. Now Nelson was no handsome young guy. In fact he had lost his

Ancient Roman Recipes

A variety of Roman recipes on this website. (Please click on link below) http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/arl_roman_recipes_upper_classes.htm