Early historians sometimes used the names of Olympic victors as a method of dating events to a specific year. For instance, Thucydides says in his account of the year 428 BC: “It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory”.
On April 10, 428 AD, Nestorius is made patriarch of Constantinople. He preached a new doctrine that today is called Nestorianism. It makes a distinction between the divine and human natures of Jesus but it came under immediate attack from Pope Celestine I, which led to him to be removed from the patriarchy in 431 AD.
Every gal in Constantinople lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople, so if you’ve a date in Constantinople, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul.
“Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is a 1953 swing-style song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. Written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, the lyrics humorously refer to the official 1930 renaming of the city to Istanbul. The song’s original release was certified as a gold record. The band They Might Be Giants covered the song - at a faster tempo than the original - on their album Flood in 1990.
Actors Lucy Arnez and Laurence Luckinbill were introduced to each other by playwright Neil Simon. They married in 1980, and named their first son Simon.
British actor Simon Callow, perhaps best known to American audiences for his role in Four Weddings and A Funeral, has written biographies of Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Orson Welles.
One of the great-great-grandfathers of actress Olivia Wilde, Henry Arthur Blake, was Governor of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was written in English as one word, until 1926, when official government documents started using the two-word form. It means “Fragrant Harbor” in Chinese Cantonese dialect.
On August 29, 1842, the Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the First Opium War. It was an unequal treaty that forced the Chinese Qing dynasty to give to the British control of the island that is now the site of Hong Kong.
Unlike many other federal countries, the Canadian federal government does not have the power to legislate to enact a treaty into law. Parliament can pass laws to enact those treaties (or portions of a treaty) which come under federal jurisdiction (e.g. military and criminal law matters), but if the treaty deals with matters under provincial jurisdiction (e.g. family law matters), provincial legislation is necessary to implement the treaty.
At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879, engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming first proposed the adoption of worldwide standard time zones based on a single universal world time. By 1929 all of the major countries of the world had accepted time zones linked to the longitudinal meridian of Greenwich, England.
China does not have time zones, it is the same time everywhere in China. So, of crossing the very short and remote border between Afghanistan and China, you have to reset your watch by three and a half hours.
The four largest countries in the world by size are Russia, Canada, the United States, and Canada. Russia is almost twice as big as Canada.
One of the most frequently performed Russian ballets is Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Major American ballet companies generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from Christmas season performances of The Nutcracker.
The Russian alphabet, formally known as Cyrillic, was actually developed in Bulgaria, which still uses it. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, a number of languages spokeni n former Soviet republics are tending away from Cyrillic, in favor of the Latin alphabet.
Basil II was a Byzantine Emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from January 976 to December 1025. He was nick-named “Basil the Bulgar Slayer” , for his subjugation of the Bulgarian state and people.
On July 26, 811, Bulgarian forces led by Khan Krum defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Pliska, killing most of the army and Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I. This was the final of a series of battles taking place in some of the passes in the eastern part of the Balkans. The Bulgarians used the tactics of ambush and surprise night attacks. After the final battle, Krum encased Nikephorus’s skull in silver, and used it as a cup for wine-drinking— using skulls as cups became a custom in some areas (“skull cups”).
Viktor Krum is a character in J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the film version, he was played by Bulgarian actor Stanislav Yanevski.
Stanislev Yanevski was born in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center to construct and maintain an airborne observatory. It is mounted in a specially modified Boeing 747 aircraft.