Fascinating History

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)

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.

"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."

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

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

On the 15th March 44 B.C (Ides of March), Julius Caesar was assassinated. Suetonius, not surprisingly, gives us a detailed account of those events. "As soon as Caesar took his seat the conspirators crowded around him as if to pay their respects. Tillius Cimber, who had taken the lead, came up close, pretending to ask a question. Caesar made a gesture of postponment, but Cimber caught hold of his shoulders. 'This is violence!' Caesar cried, and at that moment, as he turned away, one of the Casca brothers with a sweep of his dagger stabbed him just below the throat. Caesar grasped Casca's arm and ran it through with his stylus; he was leaping away when another dagger blow stopped him. Confronted by a ring of drawn daggers, he drew the top of his gown over his face and at the same time ungirded the lower part, letting it fall to his feet so that he would die with both legs decently covered. Twenty-three dagger thrusts went home as he stood there. Caesar did not utter a so

And some more from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations : "Never allow yourself to be swept off your feet: when an impulse stirs, see first that it will meet the claims of justice; when an impression forms, assure yourself first of its certainty." "Do not copy the opinions of the arrogant, or let them dictate your own, but look at things in their true light." " Observe how all things are continually being born of change; teach yourself to see that Nature's highest happiness lies in changing the things that are, and forming new things after their kind. Whatever is, is in some sense the seed of what is to emerge from it. Nothing can become a philosopher less than to imagine that seed can only be something that is planted in the earth or the womb." "Observe carefully what guides the actions of the wise and what they shun or seek."

The following love letter was written in 108 AD by Pliny the Younger to his third wife Calpurnia, when he was 47. "You cannot believe how much I miss you. I love you so much and we are not used to separations. So I stay awake most of the night thinking of you, and by day I find my feet carrying me (a true word, carrying) to your room at the times I usually visited you; then finding it empty I depart, as sick and sorrowful as a lover locked out."

Mycobacterium tuberculosis We know that TB has been present since ancient times and has been one of the main causes of death throughout the ages. Examinations of parts of the spinal columm of Egyptian mummies from 2400 BC, show certain signs of the disease. The official name for the cause of the disease is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Throughout the centuries it has had many names. The Ancient Greeks called it phthisis (consumption). Around 460 BC Hippocrates identified the disease as the most widespread one of his time, noting that almost every case was fatal. He even advised his fellow doctors not to visit patients at the late stages of the disease as their death would be inevitable. During the 17th century the first pathological and anatomical decriptions of the disease appeared. Sylvius in 1679, was the first to identify the tubercles as a characteristic change occuring in the lungs and other areas of the patients' body. The earliest references to the infectiousness of the dise

Love letters always fascinate me. Here's one from Beethoven: "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at