JasonM





Image used for WW2 Mural

World War 2 Mural

[| A nice little Renaissance Quiz]

ABC Book Project-->>> (Since I downloaded custom fonts, some of the fonts will not display properly. That is why I will also handed in a hard copy)

[|Flash Card Website]

Interesting facts on the Middle Ages:

King Richard II of England sometimes gave feasts for as many as 10,000 people at once. One of these required 140 hogs, 14 oxen, 12 calves, 12 boars and 3 tons of salted venison.

Most important was the use of Arabic numerals, which we still use today. The Moors also brought new words to Europe. "Algebra," "lute," "magazine," "orange ," and "tariff" all come from Arabic. In addition, the Moors introduced a game that quickly became popular from Cadiz to London: chess.

The way early middle age people kept track of time was different than today. They divided the day into 7 hours' of equal length. Because summer days are longer than winter ones, a winter 'hour" was about 60 minutes, but a summer one was 150 minutes! By the late 1300s, Europeans had mechanical clocks and often installed them in the towers of churches and town halls.


 *  Under Medieval law, animals could be tried** **and sentenced for crimes, just as though they were people.** There are records of farm animals being tried for injuring or killing people. Animals were charged with smaller crimes, too. Some mice were taken to court for stealing part of the harvest, and, in another case, a flock of locusts was convicted --in absentia--of eating crops.

One of the most unusual military maneuvers ever was performed in 1191, during the third Crusade, when Richard the Lion-Hearted captured the city of Acre. The inhabitants were barricaded inside, so King Richard had his soldiers throw 100 beehives over the walls. **The people in the fortress surrendered immediately.**

A plague of drunkenness settled over Europe to match the plague of the Black Death in the mid-1300s, and remained after the disease was gone. The theory at the time was that strong drink acted as a preventive against contagion. It didn't, but it made the drinker less concerned, which was something.

In the Middle Ages, the skulls of saints were used as drinking cups on ceremonial occasions.

All practicing Jews were expelled from England and France in the 1290's. In England, this law was not revoked for several centuries.

Relics of saints and holy people were so valued in the Middle Ages that when Elisabeth of Thuringia, a very holy woman, died in 1231, a crowd quickly dismembered her body for holy relics.