History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
MacPherson’s tireless efforts to promote Russian sport earned him a unique Imperial honour, and the enmity of the Communists.
Arthur Davidovitch MacPherson (1870-1919) was born in St Petersburg. He played a key part in establishing both Association football and tennis in his native land, helping Tsar Nicholas II to send a clear signal that Imperial Russia was becoming a modern and liberal society – the last thing the Communists wanted to see.
British factory workers started a historic three-cornered league in the Russian city of St Petersburg.
In the 19th century, Russia’s Tsars began to recognise the link between freedom, trade and prosperity. Merchants from Britain and other European neighbours were encouraged to relocate industries such as shipping, steel and textiles to Imperial Russia’s increasingly open society, and none was more important than Association football.
St Bede explains how the Exodus and the Ten Commandments are related to Easter and Whitsuntide.
Just as the Jewish festival of Passover commemorated the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt, so the Feast of Weeks fifty days later commemorated the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. St Bede explains how these two feasts are taken up in the Christian year as Easter and Whit Sunday or Pentecost.
A marble statue in Venice bears witness to Europe’s long history of brave defeats and fruitless victories.
The Piraeus Lion has seen some remarkable history pass before his eyes, from the days when Scandinavian and English mercenaries were taking the fight to the Normans in Italy, to the day when the Turks came knocking imperiously on the doors of Vienna.
A twelve-year-old girl from Lyme Regis made a historic discovery while selling seashells to tourists.
Around the time that the fictional Anne Elliot paid a visit to Lyme Regis in Jane Austen’s novel ‘Persuasion’, in real life a young girl named Mary Anning was chipping away at the nearby cliffs, and had already entered the history books.
In the fourth century, Britain’s Christians acquired a taste for watering down the mystery of their message.
When the Roman Emperor Constantine ended decades of persecution for Christians in February 313, those in Britain returned to their churches with simple joy. Yet missionaries to Anglo-Saxon Britain in 597 found a church scattered and plagued by alien beliefs. St Bede blamed a priest from Egypt, Arius, for the startling change.