Adela
-
The Highest Paid Athlete of All Time
Gaius Appuleius Diocles No I’m not talking about Tom Brady, Lionel Messi or Serena Williams I’m talking about Gaius Appuleius Diocles. Never heard of him? Well no one else really has either. So let’s get to know the wealthiest athlete of all time. Diocles was born to a middle-class family in 104 AD Lusitania (now Portugal) and started racing as a teen. The area was known for stud farms which bred the best racehorses. He raced for 24 years, which is a long time for a charioteer and he represented three of the four most famous chariot racing stables in Rome at the time, which were known by their racing…
-
Graduation Traditions
Since it’s that time of year where students from all over receive their diplomas after years of hard work. We decided to do a short post on where some of the traditions actually started. The Graduation cap, which is sometimes called a mortarboard, due to the fact it resembled the mortar board used by bricklayers. The mortarboard is believed to have developed from the biretta. The Biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy and academics, typically in red or black, square, upright with three or four peaks. The Graduation tassel has been worn on graduation cap for centuries, In the last 40 or 50 years student started moving the tassel…
-
Skull and Bones
This mysterious secret society was founded in 1832 after a dispute among Yale debating societies Linonia, Brothers in Unity, and the Calliopean Society over that season’s Phi Beta Kappa awards. William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft co-founded “the Order of the Scull and Bones”. The Russell Trust Association, incorporated in 1856 and named after the Bones co-founder manages their assets. Their members go by the nickname “Bonesmen”. Many famous and powerful people have been known to be in the society. Skull and Bones selects new members among students every spring as part of Yale University’s “Tap Day”, and has done so since 1879. Since the society’s inclusion of women in…
-
The first death by Robot
Robert Williams was 25 and worked as an American engineer for the Ford Motor Company factory in Flat Rock, Michigan. He was killed by an industrial robot arm on January 25, 1979 when he was struck in the head and killed by the arm of a 1-ton production-line robot as he was gathering parts in a storage facility. The robot was part of a parts-retrieval system that moved material from one part of the factory to another; when the robot began running slowly, Williams reportedly climbed into the storage rack to retrieve parts manually when he was struck in the head and killed instantly. His family sued the manufacturers of…
-
Chernobog
Also known as Czernobog, he was a dark demonic deity in Slavic mythology. His name means ‘Black God’. Only coming out at night he causes calamity and disaster, bringing bad luck and misfortune wherever he turns. His opposite number is Belobog, the White God of Goodness. Few would pray to such a god but one early passage reveals that people would spit curses into a bowl during feasts to keep him at bay. Little else is known about him. The only historical sources, which are Christian ones, interpret him as a dark, accursed god, but it is questionable how important or malicious he really was. The name is attested only…
