Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
Hope you're not implying Reagan did ANYTHING to bring about the end of the Cold War.
Your favourite historical persons?
- Thread starter Russeljones
- Start date
Hope you're not implying Reagan did ANYTHING to bring about the end of the Cold War.
kiki
Banned
Reagan made a bad mistake and I am sure the armamentistic lobby damned him¡¡¡ because there was big business in the main theater but also in secondary theaters to be made if Cold War continued¡¡¡
Dedans, the Democratic Germany was considered the closest to a working class paradise that could exist ( if that is possible).Look at the anthem, it says it all about their sense of mission and obstination to reach their goals after suffering so much during WW II.
Dedans, the Democratic Germany was considered the closest to a working class paradise that could exist ( if that is possible).Look at the anthem, it says it all about their sense of mission and obstination to reach their goals after suffering so much during WW II.
Mainad
Bionic Poster
I agree with most of the suggestions here.
In addition, I'd like to know more about:
1. Antoninus Pius: 2nd century Roman emperor who succeeded Hadrian and reigned for 23 years, longer than any other emperor except Augustus and in all that time never left Rome, never commanded any armies, never went to war with anyone, never ordered anybody to be killed, enacted laws to limit the practice of torture against accused people, was happily married to the same wife, never indulged in any orgies or wild parties, always went to bed early and rose early and whose dying word was "Aequanimitas (Equanimity)". How did he do it? What made him tick? Who wouldn't want to know?
2. Alan Turing: widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Did he really commit suicide or was his death just a tragic accident?
In addition, I'd like to know more about:
1. Antoninus Pius: 2nd century Roman emperor who succeeded Hadrian and reigned for 23 years, longer than any other emperor except Augustus and in all that time never left Rome, never commanded any armies, never went to war with anyone, never ordered anybody to be killed, enacted laws to limit the practice of torture against accused people, was happily married to the same wife, never indulged in any orgies or wild parties, always went to bed early and rose early and whose dying word was "Aequanimitas (Equanimity)". How did he do it? What made him tick? Who wouldn't want to know?
2. Alan Turing: widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Did he really commit suicide or was his death just a tragic accident?
Dedans Penthouse
Legend
Ladies!....Ladies!!.....no need to get your panties all twisted in knots. You 'Bolshis' gotta lighten up ....I'm just phuckin' with ya... ; )
Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
Mainad
Bionic Poster
That Pius fellow looks completely useless
Maybe but he spent 23 years being 'useless' and got away with it! How did he manage it when most others ended up with a knife in the back or a cup of poisoned wine within a year or two of ascending to power?
He might not have been as useless as he seems!
max
Legend
Cliché and boring.
Try Charlie Rose
Larry King
David Letterman
Jay Leno
Warren Buffett
your guests would PAY to be on my table
Charlie Rose? just a nice guy
Larry King. You'd get tired quickly.
David Letterman. I can do much better; tiresome
Jay Leno. 2d rate letterman
Warren Buffet. Doesn't reveal as much as one might wish.
You can have these guys all you like! Enjoy!
max
Legend
You get your "humor party" grouping, you get your intellectual party grouping (talking the Great Ideas), and you get your Just Fascinating Person grouping and Politics grouping, as well as, at last, a grouping of known great conversationalists. Montaigne might be good there. Captain Cook as well, or Christopher Columbus.
kiki
Banned
Piet Keizer: " Johan, you never see me when we play the Champions League finals.You only see Johnny.Not fair; I am better than Johnny.In fact, only you and Ruud are better than me"
Sentinel
Bionic Poster
That's very interesting, Mainad.
I was also earlier thinking of mentioning the King Ashoka, aka Ashoka the Great, who took to peace and non-violence (304 BC).
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka
I have read a bit about Alan Turing. It was a tragic case, if i recall. I heard he was humiliated/tortured due to his orientation. But very respected in the technology field today.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
The brilliant magicians of deception that long ago convinced Swedes that pungent rotting fish, known as surströmming, is a delicacy deserve mention for being the first masters of advertising and public relations.
Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
Dedans Penthouse
Legend
Where slab met drab. All in all 'twas just a ..another brick in the wall.
Historical: Ron Popiel, inventor of Kitchen Magician, the Pocket Fisherman, the Smokeless Ashtray and GLH-9: Spray hair-in-a-can among other things.
"just set it and forget it!"
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
A Brief History of Chocolate
Uncover the bittersweet story of this ancient treat and watch a VIDEO
By Amanda Bensen
SMITHSONIAN.COM
MARCH 1, 2008
When most of us hear the word chocolate, we picture a bar, a box of bonbons, or a bunny. The verb that comes to mind is probably "eat," not "drink," and the most apt adjective would seem to be "sweet." But for about 90 percent of chocolate's long history, it was strictly a beverage, and sugar didn't have anything to do with it.
"I often call chocolate the best-known food that nobody knows anything about," said Alexandra Leaf, a self-described "chocolate educator" who runs a business called Chocolate Tours of New York City.
The terminology can be a little confusing, but most experts these days use the term "cacao" to refer to the plant or its beans before processing, while the term "chocolate" refers to anything made from the beans, she explained. "Cocoa" generally refers to chocolate in a powdered form, although it can also be a British form of "cacao."
Etymologists trace the origin of the word "chocolate" to the Aztec word "xocoatl," which referred to a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans. The Latin name for the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means "food of the gods."
Many modern historians have estimated that chocolate has been around for about 2000 years, but recent research suggests that it may be even older.
In the book The True History of Chocolate, authors Sophie and Michael Coe make a case that the earliest linguistic evidence of chocolate consumption stretches back three or even four millennia, to pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica such as the Olmec.
Last November, anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania announced the discovery of cacao residue on pottery excavated in Honduras that could date back as far as 1400 B.C.E. It appears that the sweet pulp of the cacao fruit, which surrounds the beans, was fermented into an alcoholic beverage of the time.
"Who would have thought, looking at this, that you can eat it?" said Richard Hetzler, executive chef of the café at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, as he displayed a fresh cacao pod during a recent chocolate-making demonstration. "You would have to be pretty hungry, and pretty creative!"
It's hard to pin down exactly when chocolate was born, but it's clear that it was cherished from the start. For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered valuable enough to use as currency. One bean could be traded for a tamale, while 100 beans could purchase a good turkey hen, according to a 16th-century Aztec document.
Both the Mayans and Aztecs believed the cacao bean had magical, or even divine, properties, suitable for use in the most sacred rituals of birth, marriage and death. According to Chloe Doutre-Roussel's book The Chocolate Connoisseur, Aztec sacrifice victims who felt too melancholy to join in ritual dancing before their death were often given a gourd of chocolate (tinged with the blood of previous victims) to cheer them up.
Sweetened chocolate didn't appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and sampled the native cuisine. Legend has it that the Aztec king Montezuma welcomed the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes with a banquet that included drinking chocolate, having tragically mistaken him for a reincarnated deity instead of a conquering invader. Chocolate didn't suit the foreigners' tastebuds at first –one described it in his writings as "a bitter drink for pigs" – but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain.
By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe, believed to have nutritious, medicinal and even aphrodisiac properties (it's rumored that Casanova was especially fond of the stuff). But it remained largely a privilege of the rich until the invention of the steam engine made mass production possible in the late 1700s.
In 1828, a Dutch chemist found a way to make powdered chocolate by removing about half the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, pulverizing what remained and treating the mixture with alkaline salts to cut the bitter taste. His product became known as "Dutch cocoa," and it soon led to the creation of solid chocolate.
The creation of the first modern chocolate bar is credited to Joseph Fry, who in 1847 discovered that he could make a moldable chocolate paste by adding melted cacao butter back into Dutch cocoa.
By 1868, a little company called Cadbury was marketing boxes of chocolate candies in England. Milk chocolate hit the market a few years later, pioneered by another name that may ring a bell – Nestle.
In America, chocolate was so valued during the Revolutionary War that it was included in soldiers' rations and used in lieu of wages. While most of us probably wouldn't settle for a chocolate paycheck these days, statistics show that the humble cacao bean is still a powerful economic force. Chocolate manufacturing is a more than 4-billion-dollar industry in the United States, and the average American eats at least half a pound of the stuff per month.
In the 20th century, the word "chocolate" expanded to include a range of affordable treats with more sugar and additives than actual cacao in them, often made from the hardiest but least flavorful of the bean varieties (forastero).
But more recently, there's been a "chocolate revolution," Leaf said, marked by an increasing interest in high-quality, handmade chocolates and sustainable, effective cacao farming and harvesting methods. Major corporations like Hershey's have expanded their artisanal chocolate lines by purchasing smaller producers known for premium chocolates, such as Scharffen Berger and Dagoba, while independent chocolatiers continue to flourish as well.
"I see more and more American artisans doing incredible things with chocolate," Leaf said. "Although, I admit that I tend to look at the world through cocoa-tinted glasses."
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-brief-history-of-chocolate-21860917/?all
uncle pollo
Rookie
Atila The Hun.
What he managed to accomplish in Europe was astonishing.
What he managed to accomplish in Europe was astonishing.
Vcore89
Talk Tennis Guru
John Lennon's Imagine song...''you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.''
John Lennon, among many other thing is a dreamer!
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Vcore89
Talk Tennis Guru
How about Jim Morrison? Still see a lot of those.
kiki
Banned
Doors didn´t have the impact the Beatles did have
Bhagi Katbamna
Legend
Many people have dreams. Che was a murdering asshat.
Keizer
Hall of Fame
Haha, never seen that before. He was fantastic in the 71 final, if I remember correctly. And as for Rudi Krol being better than PKeizer from 70-73..idk, that's a toss up.
Loving the anecdotes though! Keep em' coming.
kiki
Banned
Haha, never seen that before. He was fantastic in the 71 final, if I remember correctly. And as for Rudi Krol being better than PKeizer from 70-73..idk, that's a toss up.
Loving the anecdotes though! Keep em' coming.
Lovely times when the ajaccied ruled the world¡¡
Not the best one but my fave was always Suurbier.The Captain.
I couldn´t stop talking about 1970-73 Ajax and 1974 Holland
kiki
Banned
He was a Saint with a mission.A modern mixture of a profet and Robin Hood
He killed much less people than any CIA journeyman.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
Keizer
Hall of Fame
Haha, you sure about that? He was pretty terrible.
Keizer
Hall of Fame
Lovely times when the ajaccied ruled the world¡¡
Not the best one but my fave was always Suurbier.The Captain.
I couldn´t stop talking about 1970-73 Ajax and 1974 Holland
Suurbier was a top 5 wingback, super endurance and speed. Though not an Ajax man, Wim Van Hanegem is one of my favorites, again criminally underrated.
kiki
Banned
Oh¡ on that we can still talk.
Yes, Van Hanegem was the real heart of the dutch team, tremendous midfielder.As I told you, he did not play as he should in the final, because Michels was a poor strategist and didn´t see the plot I mentioned to you.He was lucky of the talent he had.
Bhagi Katbamna
Legend
You don't care about the people he killed?
You're a bad person for implying justification of killing political prisoners.
The Cuban dictatorship killing people doesn't justify more killing.
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kiki
Banned
Guevara was used by Castro.Plenty of evidence of that.
He truly believed in another kind of development of marxism; he was a Christian marxist and he couldn´t be more different than Castro.Che felt completely cheated by the Castro dictatorship.plus, Castro betrayed him.typical paranoid dictator who saw in him the most terrible potential foe.It usually happens.The bad guys always win.
He truly believed in another kind of development of marxism; he was a Christian marxist and he couldn´t be more different than Castro.Che felt completely cheated by the Castro dictatorship.plus, Castro betrayed him.typical paranoid dictator who saw in him the most terrible potential foe.It usually happens.The bad guys always win.
Bhagi Katbamna
Legend
I knew we'd see a variation of the "he was just following orders" defense.
kiki
Banned
any non ingenuous person with a bit of knowldege of that situation knows Castro made a deal with CIA to deliver them Che.Who else knew where he was hidding in the Bolivian jungle?
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Butch and The Kid???
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Poor Moneypenny! 007 missed out by overlooking her talents.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
It's not a moral question. In politics all the choices can be less than satisfactory.
The Cuban Revolution was a positive development, but a managed transition to a new economic framework could have been faster.
Without America it probably would have been faster.
The Cuban Revolution was a positive development, but a managed transition to a new economic framework could have been faster.
Without America it probably would have been faster.
I Heart Thomas Muster
Semi-Pro
British mountain climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. I like to think they made the summit of Mt. Everest in 1924 before dying on the descent.
My son's middle names are Mallory and Andrew.
My son's middle names are Mallory and Andrew.
Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
You're delusional, kiki. Che was a terrorist.
kiki
Banned
If he was a terrorist,I don't know what words would define more, much more people
Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
Really, if someone used the type of warfare he used, it would be classified as terrorism today. Why do you need to compare with other people?
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
I'm not great with American history, but at some point and in some senses the revolution would have been a guerrilla war.
Washington, for example, hated the amateurism of the militias but what do militias do, and why do they have the right to bear arms, if not to conduct guerilla war?
Washington, for example, hated the amateurism of the militias but what do militias do, and why do they have the right to bear arms, if not to conduct guerilla war?
Russeljones
Talk Tennis Guru
The only people who can rationalize in such a way are demagogues and internet trolls.
Bartelby
Bionic Poster
I'm sorry, but there is an enormous amount of legal and political literature that distinguishes guerilla war both from war and from terrorism, so you are simply wrong.