On my historical stuff, Antonio writes:
Hey Bob, give my countrymen a break. We did build that famous tower that looks like its about to fall over.
REPLY:
*** Italy did a lot. It is NOT in the Middle East.
*** It’s too bad your folks didn’t dig caves instead of build towers.
*** A leaning tower is interesting, but a leaning cave would have been spectacular!
As for Columbus, I think his life shows that in the grand scheme of things sheer boldness goes farther than mere intellectual brilliance. He died thinking he landed on the east coast of India. But no Columbus- no Plymouth Rock.
REPLY:
*** Plymouth Rock was where the Pilgrims landed because they couldn’t get to Virginia. They landed in November of 1620. If we had had better immigration laws, there would have been no Yankees.
*** By 1619 Jamestown had been settled twelve years. The Virginia Legislature, then the House of Burgesses, sat for the first time in 1619.
*** My own ancestor was the son of a Cambridge professor. He wrote the first book in English from America, which inculded quotations in Latin, Greel and Heberew and is on the web.
*** He converted Pocahontas and baptized her, which came in handy for John Smith.
*** And he DIED in Virginia.
*** All this happened BEFORE the Pilgrims first settled America.
*** I have known Harvard grads who did not know that.
*** But that is no excuse for a Bob’s Blogger to be as ignorant as a professional historian.
Incidentally, Galen was a Greek hired to keep the Emperor and his family healthy.
*** He probably actually wrote in Greek, too. It was the upper class language in Rome.
*** As you know, the Latin Bible is called the Vulgate, related to “vulgar.” It is a translation from the Greek — not the Hebrew — in which Hellenic Jews, before and after they became the Christian Church — wrote.
Comment by Antonio Fini
#1 by LibAnon on 03/15/2006 - 4:51 pm
“He probably actually wrote in Greek, too.”
You’re right about that. But your earlier statement is incorrect; the authority of Galen was overthrown (by Vesalius) during the Renaissance, not re-established. If you’re looking for an example of a true advance made during the Renaissance, in fact, Vesalius is a good one.
The bloodletting that killed George Washington can be blamed on the theories of Benjamin Rush, the doctor who signed the Declaration of Independence, not on Galen’s. Similar bloodletting fads were to continue well into the 19th century.
#2 by Mark on 03/15/2006 - 10:55 pm
“*** Plymouth Rock was where the Pilgrims landed because they couldn’t get to Virginia. They landed in November of 1620. If we had had better immigration laws, there would have been no Yankees.”
I take offense at that Robert the blabber mouth! One of my ancestors, by the last name of White, came over with those insufferable “yankees” on the Mayflower and had it not been for them I would not be here today. So “pffffff!” on you and your ole Virginia!
#3 by Mark on 03/15/2006 - 11:00 pm
Oh, and another thing! You Virginians like to act like you were the sole universe when it came to the Civil War. Well, let me remind you that us Missourians were fighting the war a good decade before anyone in Virginia even thought of wearing pretty little grey uniforms. We were invaded by anti slavery Yankees from the north who migrated to Kansas for the sole purpose of causing harm to us border folk. We were invaded twice in fact, once by New England Kansans and later, after succession and entry into the Confederacy, by Lincoln’s armed goons. And our armies werent even given the rights ordinary military folk were afforded when captured. Our armies were considered traitors and outlaws and hanged if captured. So again, “Pffffff!” on your ole Virginia! Gonsarnitt!
#4 by Elizabeth on 03/18/2006 - 12:25 pm
You forgot the First Thanksgiving — celebrated in Virginia in 1619.
A lot of those Missourians were Virginians and Carolinians and their children.
One of the grandchildren of Missourians of that era was William
Randolph Hearst. At least two of his grandparents were born in South Carolina.