When: About 600 B.C.
Particulars: Picture a terraced garden, built on higher and higher levels, covered with trees, flowers, fountains, and waterfalls. Estimates say it probably covered 100 by 150 feet. Now picture the whole thing supported by columns 75 feet high. Reports say that slaves worked around the clock to irrigate the garden with water from the nearby Euphrates River.
What happened: While there is no concrete proof of their existence, if they were real, time eroded them.
What’s Left: Virtually nothing, but stay tuned; archaeologists are still digging.
Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman in the British House of Commons, was born in Virginia.
3. THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS AT EPHESUS
Where: The ancient city of Ephesus, near modern Selcuk, Turkey
Who Built It and Why: King Croesus, the man from whom we get the term “rich as Croesus,” was the heaviest contributor to the shrine to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and wild nature.
When: About 550 B.C.
Particulars: Except for the roof, the temple was made entirely of marble. Writers called it the most beautiful structure on earth, with pillars of gold, glorious frescoes on the walls, and its most famous feature: four bronze statues of Amazons, the women warriors who were Artemis’s most faithful followers. The temple was a bustling tourist center, where everyone was expected to leave gifts for the goddess. Outside the temple, souvenir stands sold little statues of her. In one of her forms, Artemis was the goddess of the moon. Her father, Zeus, and her brother, the sun god, Helios, were honored with wonders of their own (read on).
What Happened: A fire set by a pre-Christian publicity seeker destroyed the temple in 356 B.C. It was rebuilt, then burned down by invading Goths. Early Christians demolished what remained.
What’s Left: Excavations have uncovered the foundation and one column. You can see other columns that were excavated and shipped to the British Museum in London.
4. THE STATUE OF ZEUS
Where: Olympia, Greece, the site of the ancient Olympic Games
Who Built It and Why: The Greeks wanted visitors to the ancient Olympics to be impressed, so what was originally a simple temple to Zeus was turned into the home of an enormous statue of Greece’s most powerful god.
When: Around 450 B.C.
Particulars: The 40-foot-high statue of Zeus sitting on a throne made the temple look like a playhouse. Zeus’s head was just below the ceiling, giving the impression that if he stood up, he’d go right through the roof. His body was made of ivory, and his beard, robe, and sandals were made of gold. His throne, also made of gold, was encrusted with precious stones.
What happened: A fire in A.D. 462
What’s Left: Nothing is left of the statue. The temple is one of those picturesque ruins you can visit on vacation.
The castle of Bavaria’s King Ludwig II was the model for Cinderella’s castle at Disney World.
5. THE MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS
Where: Southwestern Turkey
Who Built It and Why: Queen Artemisia built it as a tribute to her husband, King Mausolus.
When: About 353 B.C.
Particulars: Except for the fact that Artemisia was King Mausolus’s sister as well as his wife, the only interesting thing about him was his death: The word for a large above-ground tomb, “mausoleum,” comes from his name.
What’s Left: Some of the foundation. Once again, the British Museum scores big, with statues taken from the tomb.
6. THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES
Where: Overlooking the harbor of Rhodes, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea
Who Built It and Why: The people of Rhodes built it in honor of Helios, the sun god, to celebrate a military victory.
When: 282 B.C.
Particulars: The Colossus was a colossal statue of Artemis’s brother, Helios. No one knows exactly what it looked like, but most artists’ reconstructions show him naked, or at least scantily clad, which must have been quite a sight at 120 feet high from his toes to his sunburst-shaped crown. In fact, Frenchman Fréderic Bartholdi used the statue for inspiration when he designed the “New Colossus,” America’s Statue of Liberty, who wears the same pointy headdress.
What Happened: An earthquake hit around 226 B.C. and the statue broke off at its weakest point—the knee.
What’s Left: Nothing.
7. THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA
Where: The ancient island of Pharos, in Alexandria harbor, Egypt
Who Built It and Why: Finally, a wonder that actually served a purpose. Designed to guide ships into the harbor, it was completed during the reign of King Ptolemy II.
When: About 270 B.C.
Particulars: This wasn’t some puny little wooden lighthouse. We’re talking magnificence: Covered in marble and close to 400 feet high (the height of a 40-story skyscraper), the lighthouse was famous enough to be pictured on Roman coins minted in Alexandria in the second century A.D. During the day, an enormous mirror reflected the sun; at night, a fire at the top did the job. It was apparently also a tourist attraction, selling food on the first level, with a balcony above for climbers who wanted the scenic view. After 1,500 years as a working lighthouse, it became the last of the six lost wonders to disappear.
What Happened: Another earthquake, this one in the 14th century A.D.
What’s Left: Deep-sea divers may have found the ruins in 1996. There are plans to turn it into a tourist attraction again, though visitors may have to snorkel to see the best stuff.
Twenty-eight U.S. states and 4 Canadian provinces have names with Native American origins.
AND THE WINNERS ARE:
We were so impressed with the people who built the wonders that we held an awards dinner—hosted by Mother Nature and Father Time. A round of applause for:
Best Builders: Egyptians
Most Ostentatious Display of God-Worshipping: Greeks
Most Romantic: Babylonians
Most Far-Sighted Accumulators of Other People’s Ruins: British
Best Adapters (Copiers) of the Ancient Style: French
OTHER WONDERS
The U.N. World Heritage has compiled a list of the natural wonders of the world. They include: Angel Falls in Venezuela; the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia; the Grand Canyon in Arizona; the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; Iguassu Falls in Brazil/Argentina; Krakatoa Island in Indonesia; Mount Everest in Nepal; Mount Fuji in Japan; Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; Niagara Falls in Ontario and New York; Paricutin Volcano in Mexico; and Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe. Yes, there are 12! No one could agree on just seven when faced with the glory of Mother Nature.
When the Civil War started, Robert E. Lee owned no slaves, but Ulysses S. Grant did.
WHEN READERS MOVED THEIR LIPS
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When people first started learning to read, most couldn’t understand the words unless they said them out loud. You might be surprised at how recently that’s changed.
For most of human history, storytellers passed everything there was to know from one generation to the next—out loud. Rhyme and rhythm made things easier to remember, so the stories were usually told in poems or songs.
STORY TIME
Singing storytellers were the keepers of information during Europe’s Middle Ages. In 13th century Ireland, they called them “bards.” The really good ones got to sit next to the king in court. Then there were the troubadours, singers who wandered around the countryside, telling stories in the form of ballads. And of course, that’s how your everyday news was passed along, too.
So it’s not surprising that when people started reading, it was generally out loud and to each other—just like stories had always been told. Readers needed to hear the words as well as to see them. It wasn’t until the 15th century that people got the hang of reading silently.
DIRTY BOOKS
Once silent reading caught on, a person didn’t have to let everybody else know what he or she was reading, and therefore, thinking. Silent reading allow
ed for private thoughts. And it created a demand for different kinds of books—including nonreligious and erotic stories.
By the time the printing press started turning out books in the 16th century, lots of people had libraries of handwritten books. More and more of them had already learned the pleasures of retreating into a private place and reading—just like you’re probably doing now.
Women in Switzerland didn’t get the vote until 1971.
DIGITIZED HISTORY
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Who says you can’t change history?
Some of our favorite (good) video games with historical themes.
As you might expect, video games aren’t typically a very good way to learn about history. Even the ones with strong historical themes tend to put the player in the action in order to influence outcomes, so that a smart person playing as the Confederates in a Civil War simulation might actually win the Battle of Gettysburg (so much for that address, Abe). Be that as it may, there are lots of interesting games that use history as a backdrop or use historical data to accurately capture a moment in time. Here are five mostly recent games that make the grade, all available for the PC.
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings
Help! Rome has fallen and it can’t get up! Thus begins the Age of Feudalism on the European continent, and players take on one of 13 different civilizations, ranging from the Turks to the Vikings, to rule all the land. The game features innovations and cultural advantages consistent to each of these emerging civilizations’ strengths, and also uses lessons from history to advance the player in the game—for example, the tutorial for the game has a player re-creating the battles of William “Braveheart” Wallace. And if that wasn’t enough, the game ships with actual, accurate historical information about each civilization represented.
Railroad Tycoon II
Dust off your top hat and wax your Snidely Whiplash moustache, it’s time to play railroad baron. Players aim to lay track across any of the seven continents, squaring off against historically modeled opponents in an effort to rule the rails. But it’s not all blowing the whistle on the choo-choo, players have to master the stock market as well to bury their competitors. (Watch out for J.P. Morgan—he’ll sell you short.) Players lay track, manage their railroads, deal with “real-world” events like wars or disasters and try to take over the world one whistle stop at a time.
Rowan’s Battle of Britain
Someone’s got to stop those pesky Nazis from pummeling Britain into submission at the start of the Second World War, and that person is you. The game allows players to command the entire RAF effort against the Germans (or the other way around, if you’ve got a soft spot for the Luftwaffe), but the real action here is in the flight simulator mode, which fairly accurately re-creates what it was like to fly a Supermarine Spitfire or a Messerschmidt Me-109 in dogfight situations (i.e., don’t expect to be an Ace your first time out). As you dogfight, you’ll see dozens of other planes fighting in the skies as well, which will give you an idea of the scope of these battles as they happened in the real world.
Japan’s Emperor Akihito is 125th in an unbroken line that goes back to first century B.C.
Shogun: Total War
If there’s one shortcoming in historical video games, it’s that they tend to be centered on the Western hemisphere, re-creating events in European or American history. “Shogun” redresses this, offering game play steeped in Japanese history and culture. Shogun units and their movements are modeled on real 16th century Japanese troops, and the story line re-creates some of the historical milieu of the times (for example, Buddhist Shoguns are fighting with Christian Shoguns). And in case everything you ever learned about Japanese history came from Godzilla movies, the game also has a primer on 16th-century Japanese history.
Sid Meier’s Gettysburg!
Yes, yes, the exclamation point in the title is a little much (it makes it seem like a bad Broadway musical, with Robert E. Lee played by Nathan Lane), but this is one of the very best examples of the historical genre. Creator Meier (who was already a legend to historical game buffs via his “Civilization” series), has painstakingly re-created the circumstances of this pivotal battle in the American Civil War. Players can take either side to seize the high ground and hold it, re-creating select battles or the entire Gettysburg campaign. (If you play as the Rebs, mind you, additional and fictional storylines open up if you win.) Can’t get enough? There’s a sequel that takes on Antietam.
“Man is a gaming animal.
He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.”
Charles Lamb
Polish king Augustus the Strong had more than 300 kids, but only had one legitimate son.
BETTER LIVING THROUGH ALCHEMY
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The history of alchemy is the history of massive, unceasing, never-ending, total, and complete failure.
For two thousand years (at least!), alchemists strove mightily towards two goals: transmuting base metals into gold, and discovering the Elixir of Life, which would grant immortality to those who drank of it. In all that time, not one alchemist changed lead (or any other metal) into gold. And everyone who drank various elixirs has since died—a significant number of whom died from the elixirs themselves. In all, it’s a remarkable history of failure that only a few today have the capacity to fully appreciate.
PREMISES, PREMISES
How could so many have failed so often and for so long? The reasons are numerous, but sooner or later they can all be boiled down to this: alchemists—all of them—simply had no clue as to how the universe actually functions. Although they were diligent experimenters and fervent researchers (and occasional grifters as well), alchemists invariably started from bad premises. In science, and in alchemy (which are not the same things), bad premises get you bad results.
HERE’S HOW IT’S DONE
For example, let’s take the whole “making gold” concept. The alchemists weren’t wrong on one important idea: You can make gold from other elements. Here’s how you do it: start with a huge cloud of hydrogen floating around in the universe. Collapse it into a supergiant star. Let that star run through its natural life, fusing hydrogen into helium, and then helium into carbon, then oxygen, silicon, and iron, and so on through the process of thermonuclear fusion in its core. Soon (relatively speaking) the star will totally collapse and explode in a supernova, shooting out millions of tons of gold and other heavy elements in its final dying outburst. There you have it: gold from hydrogen. Really, it couldn’t be simpler.
King Alfonso XIII of Spain was so tone deaf, he couldn’t recognize Spain’s national anthem.
WHAT DID THEY KNOW?
Sadly for our alchemists, they had no convenient access to stellar cores. Not that they’d know what to do with them, anyway. Alchemists were to a man woefully ignorant of atomic theory, the periodic table, and stellar physics. (It wasn’t entirely their fault, mind you—everyone was ignorant of these subjects until the 18th and 19th centuries at the earliest.)
WEREN’T THEY A ROCK GROUP?
Instead, they had some practical knowledge of metals and ores, gleaned from the experience of metallurgists and other metal workers, and a belief that everything in the universe is comprised of varying amounts of four “elements”—earth, fire, air, and water. If one presumes everything is made from these four things, then changing one metal to another is simply a matter of rejiggering the proportions—typically through the use of acidic solvents and alloys. It makes perfect sense, provided all matter is actually comprised of these four “elements.” Which it is not.
WHEN THE MOON IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE
Compounded to this misapprehension of matter was the belief (in Western alchemy, at least) that the seven known metals (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury) were in some way aligned with the seven major “planets” in the sky (the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury). Astrology touched on alchemy, making it as much a mystical art as a practica
l endeavor. Alchemy was known to ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Indians as “the Art.” The word “alchemy” doesn’t show up until the Middle Ages. With these as the guiding principles of alchemy, it’s no wonder alchemists didn’t get much done in terms of making gold.
WHAT A LOT OF BOLOS
Which is not to say alchemists didn’t put on a good show, or didn’t claim to make gold. In the 3rd century B.C., Bolos of Mende, writing under the name of Democritus (and not to be confused with the real Democritus, who was, interestingly, a philosopher who believed in the existence of atoms), claimed in his treatise, Physica et Mystica, to have made gold. Unfortunately for would-be transmuters, the directions for changing other metals into gold were maddeningly vague, with heaps of astrological mumbo-jumbo thrown in to further muddy the waters.
The Finnish capital of Helsinki was founded in 1550 by a Swedish king.
MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING
Further up the timeline, a 14th century alchemist named Raymond Lully was rumored to have created gold for England’s Edward II. Of course, this is not verifiable, and in any event, didn’t seem to do Edward any good, even if it were true. (He was overthrown by his wife, and skewered on a red-hot poker. Ow.)
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Page 5