How did Coins get their names?

In the world of coins and money there are many fascinating stories of how things came to get their names. Let's consider just a few of them in this column.We'll start with the word "money" itself. In ancient Roman times, Juno was the goddess of warning. The Romans were so grateful to her for warning them of important dangers, that they put their mint in her temple and made her guardian of the finances. They called her Juno Moneta. "Moneta" came from the Latin word moneo, meaning "to warn". Our word "money" is derived from this.The word "coin" comes from the Latin cuneus, which means "wedge". This is because the dies that made pieces of money looked like wedges.The "dollar" goes back to the days when money was being coined in Bohemia, where there were silver mines. The mint was located in a place called Joachmsthal, so the coins were called Joachimsthaler. In times this became thaler and finally "dollar".The "dime" comes originally from the Latin word desimus, which means "tenth".The "cent" comes directly from the French word cent, which means "one hundred", and the Latin centum. The idea was that one hundred cents make a dollar.The English "pound" comes from the Latin pondo, which means "pound" as a weight. Originally the full expression was libra pondo, or " a pound by weight". By the way, that's where we get our abbreviation for a pound-lb.The Spanish peso and Italian lira also refers to certain weights.The French franc came from the Latin words Francorum Rex, tor "King of the Franks", which appeared on their first coins. Peru has a coin called the sol. This is Spanish name for the sun. As you know, the Incas of Peru worshipped the sun long ago!The words crown, sovereign, krone, kroon, krona, and corona, all used as names of coins in different countries, show that some crown authority first gave permission to make them. In Panama, the balboa is named in honor of the great explorer, and Venezuela has the bolivar after its national hero.

What makes Money valuable?

The idea of having such a thing as money is one of the most fascinating ever developed by man. But many people don't know where this idea came from, or why money is valuable.Thousands of years ago, money was not used. Instead, man had the "barter" system. This meant that if a man wanted something he didn't happen to make or raise himself, he had to find someone who had this article. Then he had to offer him something in exchange. And if the man didn't like what he offered in exchange, he couldn't get his article!In time, certain things came to be used as money because practically everyone would take these things in exchange. For example, cows, tobacco, grains, skins, salt, and beads were all used as money among people tho were always ready to accept them.Eventually, all these varieties of money were replaced by pieces of metal, especially gold and silver. Later on, coins were made of a certain purity and weight, and these represented certain amounts of various objects. So many coins represented a cow, or 20 kilograms of tobacco, and so on.Today, of course, we have bills and coins issued by the Government, and everybody accepts and uses this money. What makes the money valuable, what use does it have for us? There are four chief things that money does for you.First, it makes possible exchange and trade. Suppose you want a bicycle. You're willing to work for it by mowing lawns. But the person for whom you mow the lawn has no bicycles. He pays you with only and you take this to the bicycle shop and but your bicycle. Money made it possible to exchange your work for something you wanted.Second, money is a "yardstick of value". This means money may be used to measure and compare the values of various things. You're willing to mow the lawn for an hour for 1.50 pounds. A bicycle costs 50 pounds. You now have an idea of the value of a bicycle in terms of your work.Third, money is a "storehouse of value". You can't store up your crop of tomatoes, because they're perishable. But if you sell them you can store up the money for future use.Fourth, money serves as a "standard for future payments". You pay 10 pounds down on the bicycle and promise to pay more later. You will not pay in eggs or tomatoes or cricket balls. You and the bicycle shop owner have agreed on exactly what you will pay later. You use money as a form in which later payments can be made.

How did our system of counting begin?

It seems very natural to you taht if you have two pennies and you add two pennies to them, you have four pennies. But did you know it may have taken man millions of years to be able to think this way? In fact, one of the most difficult things to teach children is the concept of numbers.
In ancient times, when a man wanted to tell how many animals he owned, he had no system of numbers to use. What he did was put a stone or pebble into a bag for each animal. The more animals, the more stones he had. Which may explain why our word "calculate" comes from the Latin word Calculus which means "stone"!
Later on, man used tally marks to count. He would just scratch a line or tally mark for each object he wnated to count, but he had no word to tell the number.
The next step in the development of the number system was probably the use of fingers. And again we have a word that goes back to this. The word "digit" comes from the Latin word Digitus, which means "finger"! And since we have 10 fingers, this led to the general use of "10" in systems of number.
But in ancient times tehre was no single number system used all over the world. Some number systems were based on 12, others were based on 60, others on 20, and still others on 2,5, and 8. The system invented by the Romans about 2,000 years ago was widely used by the people of Europe until about the 16th century. In fact, we still use it on clocks and to show chapters in books. But it was a very complicated system.
The number system that we use today was invented by the Hindus in India thousands of years ago and was brought to Europe about the year 900 by Arab traders. In this system all numbers are written with the nine digits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to show how many, and the zero. It is a decimal system, that is, it is built on the base 10.

Where was Gold first mined?

Gold is so rare and precious that you would imagine man didnt't discover it until quite recently in his history. But the opposite is true! Gold was one of the first metals known to man.
We will never know when man first found it and began to desire it, since it was long before history was written down. But since gold is found in the free state, that is, it is not always combined with other metals or rocks, it was the first metal that man knew.
The first evidence we have of mining work to obtain gold comes from the Egyptains. They were mining gold more than 5,000 years ago! We also have records to show that the ancient Assyrians were conquering their neighbours to obtain gold about 4,500 years ago!
The Greek and Roman kings also loved gold. They obtained as much gold as possible by stealing from countries which they had conquered and by using slaves to dig in the mines. So you see, the mining of gold goes back to the very beginnings of man.
In the New World, gold must have been mined from very ancient times, too, because when the Spaniards came to Mexico, they found that the Aztecs had huge quantities of gold in their cities. In Peru, SOuth America, the ancient Incas also had collected gold for hundeds of years before the white man came.
The discobery of gold anywhere in the world had always caused a rush of adventurous people to the spot in search of the yellow metal. In the year 1848, a man named John Sutter was building a sawmill in California. James Marshall, who was helping him, noticed some flakes of yellow metal mixed with the gravel from the stream. Tests showed these flakes to be gold.The news of this discovery spread rapidly over the whole world and the "Gold Rush of '49" was on. It was the large number of settlers who came to California in 1849 that started the development of the Pacific Coast region of the United States.

Who wrote the first English Dictionary?

Do you know what the word "Dictionary" means? It comes from the Latin dictionarius, meaning "a collection of words". This word was first used in this way about the year 1225 by an English scholar called John Garland, as the title for a manuscript of Latin words to be learned by heart.
In fact, it wasn't for another 300 years that any English words appeared in any dictionary. Most of the "Dictionary" that had been written were really to help people to study Latin. They had all sorts of colorful names, such as Storehouse for the Little Ones and Gardens of Words.
Fianlly in 1552, the first real English dictionary appeared. It was compiled by a man called Richard Huloet and has this very long title: Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum pro Tyrunculis. As you can see, the name of this book was still in Latin. But what made this book unusual was that each word was first given in English, then defined in English, and then came the Latin translation. Because it listed English words first and gave the English definations, it can be regarded as an English dictionary, the first ever printed.
The abcedarium contained 26,000 words and was very popular, but it was quite expensive. As a result, many other works soon came out that were smaller in scope and intented for poorer people.
In those days, the compliers of the dictionaries made no attempt to include all the words; they were satisfied to define just the hard words. The first book with the title The English Dictionairie appeared in 1623, and was compiled by Henry Cockeram.
In the United States, Noah Webster began his great dictionary in 1807 and t was finally published in 1828. It contained 12,000 words and 40,000 definations that had never appeared in any similar list before. Webster Favoured simpler speelings, and because of this Americans write "color", "labor", and "honor" instead of "colour", "labour", and honour".

Who invented Cartoons?

You know that between the way something started years ago, and the way it is today, there may be quite a difference! There is no better example of this than the cartoon.
The word "cartoon" was originally used by painters during the period of the Italian Renaissance. And in fact, it is still used today by artists. What they are referring to, however, is the first sketch in actual size of any work of art which covers a large area, such as a mural, a tapestry, or a stained-glass window.
When newspapers and magazines began to use drawings to illustrate news and editorial opinion and to provide amusement, these drawings also came to be called "cartoons"!
In the days before newspapers, famous caricaturists like Hogarth, Goya, Daumier, and Rowlandson made series of drawings on a single theme. These drawings often pictured the adventures of one character. They were the ancestors of present-day cartoons and comic strips.In the 19th and early 20th century there were a number of magazines which specialized in cartoons- Charivari in Paris, Punch in London, and Life and Judge in the United States. When most newspapers and magazines in the United States began to include cartoons as regular features, the humorous magazines lost their appeal and many of them stopped appearing.
The first comic strips appeared in the early 1900's. Richard Outcault, the artist who created Buster Brown, published this comic strip in 1902. It was so popular that children all over the country wanted to dress in "Buster Brown" clothes.
Another of the early comic strips was Bringing Up Father. This came out in 1912. It has since been translated into 27 different languages, and published in 71 countries!

When were books first made?

Books as we know them didn't appear until the Middle Ages. The nearest thing to them were rolls of papyrus. Sheets of papyrus were glued together to form long rolls. The Romans called them volumen, from which we get our word "volume".
About the middle of the fifth century, parchment and vellum had replaced papyrus. Parchment is made from the skins of sheep and goats and vellum is made from calfskin. Sheets of this material, with writing on one side, were cut to uniform size and bound together at one side with leather tongs. So they were "books" in a way.
But it was in the Middle Ages that books were first made that resemble out printed books of today. Four pieces of vellum were folded in such a way so that each piece formed two leaves. These pieces were then placed inside one another so that there was a group of eight leaves, which is called "a section".
These sections were sent to a scribe to write the book. He took them apart and wrote a single page at a time. Vellum was thick enough so there could be writing on both sides.
The next step was to send the finished sections that made up the book to the binder. He sewed the sections through the back fold with cords. Wooden covers were made and the ends were laced through holes in the baords to bind together the sections and the covers. Then a large piece of leather was glued over the back of the sections and the wooden sides. Other steps were taken to decorate and preserve thses books, but these were the first books that resemble those we have today.
Most of the medieval books were Bibles, sermons and other religious books. Next came books of law, medicine, natural history, and later came a few chronicles and romances. Most books of the Middle Ages are in Latin.

Where was the first newspaper printed?

You probably have a bulletin in your school. When you read what's posted on it, what do you get? You get news! At one time, this was the only form of "newspaper" that existed. News would be gathered from travelers or from government sources, and posted on a bulletin board for everyone to read.
Of course, this isn't really a newspaper, because you can take a newspaper with you to read whenever you like. So for the first newspaper ever printed we must go to China about 1300 years ago. At that time the government printed a paper called Tching pao, which meant "News of the Capital". In this way the government was able to keep its people informed of important developments.
There was also a government newspaper in ancient Rome which was distributed among the people. This was called Acta Diurna, which meant "Daily Happenings". These two are the first newspapers of which we have any records.By the 16th century, people were already paying to buy a newspaper! In Venice the government put out a paper called Noitizie Scritte ("Written News") and people paid one gazetta for a copy.
By the 18th century, newspaper were coming out more or less regularly which not only contained news but also opinion. One such paper was started in London as early as 1663 and was called The Intelligencer. Most early papers, however, came out only once a week because both communication and production were slow.
The first American newspaper was called Publick Occurrences, and was started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1690. It was quickly stopped by the Governor of the colony. Benjamin Franklin conducted a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, from 1729 to 1765. In 1752, the Colonies has only two newspapers, but at the time of the American Revolution there were 37!Probably the most influential newspaper ever published, The Times Of London, began in 1785 and is still published today.
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Who discovered how to make paper?

Take a piece of paper and tear it in both directions. You will notice two things. It tore more easily in one direction than in the order, and hairlike fibres stick out from the edges of the tear.
The first shows that the paper was made by machine; otherwise it would tear the same way in all directions. The second shows that paper is a mat of tiny fibres, felted together. These fibers are the small particles of cellulose that help form the framework of plants.
Man had created a writing material before he invented paper. The ancient Egyptians, about 4000 years ago, took the stems of the papyrus plant and peeled them apart and flattened them. Then they laid them crosswise and pressed them down to stick them together. When dry, this made a sheet of papyrus and could be written on.But it wasn't paper. This was invented in China about the year 105, by a man called Ts'lai Lun. He found a way to make from the stringy inner bark of the mulberry tree.
The chinese pounded the bark in water to separate the fibers, then poured the soup mixture onto a tray with a bottom of thin bambo strips. The water drained away and the soft mat was laid on a smooth surface to dry. Bamboo and old rags were also used. Later on, somebody thought how to improve the paper by brushing starch on it.
Chinese traders traveled far to the west and came to the city of Samarkand in Russia. There they met Arab who learned their secret and took it to Spain. From there the art of papermaking spread over Europe and to England.
In time, all kinds of improved methods and machines for making paper werediscovered. One of the most important, for example, was a machine developed in France in 1798 that could make a continuous sheet or web of paper.
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Who invented the Pencil?

There is a Latin word, penicillus, which means "little tail". This word was used to indicate a fine brush, and the word "pencil" originally meant a small, fine pointed brush.Today, of course, a pencil means something altogether different. Pencils as we know them are less than 200 years old. About 500 years ago, graphite was discovered in a mine in Cumberland, England, and it is believed that some sort of crude pencils may have been made then.In Numerberg, Germany, the famous Faber family established its business in 1760 and used pulverized graphite to make a kind of pencil, but they were not very successful. Finally in 1795, a man called N.J. Conte produced pencils made of graphite which had been ground with certain clays, pressed into sticks, and fired in a kiln. This method is the basis for the manufacture of all modern pencils.As you might have guessed by now, a "lead" pencil doesn't contain lead but a mineral substance called graphite. Graphite, like lead, leaves a mark when drawn across paper. Because of this it is called "black lead", and that's where we get the name "lead pencil".In manufacturing pencils, dried ground graphite is mixed with clay and water. The more clay, the harder the pencil will be, the more graphite, the softer the pencil will be. After mixture reaches a doughy consistency, it passes through a forming press and comes out as a thin, sleek rope. This is straightened out, cut into lenghts, dried, and put into huge ovens to bake.Meanwhile, the pencil case has been prepared. The wood, either red cedar or pine, is shaped in halves and grooved to hold the lead. After the finished leads are inserted in the grooves, the halves of the pencil are glued together. A saw cuts the slats into individual pencils, and a shaping machine gives the surface a smooth finish.Today, more than 350 different kinds of pencils are made, each for a special use. You can buy black lead pencils in 19 degrees of hardness and intensity, or get them in 72 different colors! There are pencils that write on glass, cloth, cellophane, plastics, and movie film. There are even pencils, used by engineers and in outdoor contruction work, that leave a mark that won't fade after years of exposure to any weather!

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Who invented the Pen?

The art of writing is one of the most important contributions to the development of civilization. It enables man to record his thoughts and deeds. But there were great many writing tools before a real pen was first made.For instance, early man used pointed flints to scratch records and pictures on cave walls. He even dipped his finger in plant juices or the blood of an animal and used it as a pen. Later on, he tried lumps of earth and peices of chalk. The Chinese painted their letters with a fine camel's hair.Probably the first real pens were made by the Egyptians. They fastened a piece of copper, similar to a modern steel pen point, to the end of a hollow stem. The first letter handwriting was done by the Greeks alomost 4000 years ago. They used a "pen" made of metal, bone, or ivory, and wrote on wax-coated tablets. Later still, a split pen was made from hollow, tube like grasses which was dipped into a form of ink and used to write on papyrus.When paper was introduced in the Middle Ages, man learned that the tail or wing feathers of a goose, crow, or swan could be made into a pen. The tip was pointed on split so that the ink could flow down the channel to the paper. It may interest you to know that the word "pen" itself comes from the Latin penna, which means "feather"! Even though a feather pen didn't last long, this was man's writing instrument for a thousand years.Steel pens began to be made in England as early as 1780, but they didn't become popular for another 40 years. The first fountain pens, our modern writing instruments, were made in United States in 1880's. The point, or nib , of a fountain pen is usually made of 14-carat gold, and is tipped with osmiridium or iridium. These are smooth, hard metals which enable the pen to write without scratching. Inside, the barrel holds a supply of ink and usually is made of hard rubber or plastic.The ball-point pen is a 20th century invention. The writing point is a tiny ball of chrome steel which is about one millimetre in daimeter. The ball sits in a socket and revolves as it is dragged across the writing surface. it picks up the ink from a reservoir inside.

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How did slang begin?

Slang is a variation of or addition to standard speech. If you stop to think of it, you'll realize how many forms of slang there are.For example, slang may be formed by compounding words ("lowdown") or by clipping words ("pro", "mike", "pix") or abbrevation ("O,K.", "snafu", "q.t"), or onomatopoeia ("boom", "whiz", "bang"), or borrowing from foreign languages ("pronto", "savvy"), or by analogy ("Prak your hat", "He got pickled").These various forms of slang arise from many reasons and under many different conditions. One of the most common ways is among people who belong to the same group. It might be the same trade, profession, hobby, age, or social position. For example, students have their "lab" and their "gym". Second-hand car dealers have their "creampuffs" (good cars) and their "dogs" (bad cars). A waitress will say, "Drop two on", when she orders poached egs on toast.But the same slang word in one group may mean something else to another group. In the underworld, "cat" doesn't mean the same thing it does in the jazz world. Some social conditions tend to produce slang more easily. If there is exitement, crowding, or people have been suddenly assembled for a particular purpose (as in time of war), then a large number of slang words are formed. "Blitz", "doodlebug", and "walkie-talkie" were salng expressions created in the last world war.Sometimes one clever person may launch a new slang expression and it is picked up by a lot of people. In many cases, new expressions that were once considered slang have been accepted into the dictionary in time. Among these are "bet", "shabby", "chap", "cab", and "kidnap". Some words have lasted as slang for hundereds of years, as, for example, the word "booze".
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How did the English language begin?

Practically all languages spoken on earth today can be traced by scholars back to some commmon source, that is, an ancestor language which has many descendants. The ancestor language-together with all the languages which have developed from it- is called a "family" of languages.
English is considered a member of the Indo-European family of languages. Other languages belonging to the same family are French, Italian, German, Norwegian, and Greek.In this Indo-European family of languages there are various branches and English is a member of the "West Teutonic" branch. Actually, English dates from about the middle of the fifth century, when invaders from across the North Sea conquered the native Celts and settled on the island now known as Great Britian.
For the sake of convenience, the history of English language is divided into three great period: the old English( or Anglo-Saxon), from about 400 to 1100; Middle English from 1100 to 1500; and Modern English from 1500 to present day.
The Anglo-Saxons themselves spoke several dialects. Later on, the Norsemen invaded England and they introduced a Scandinavian element into the language. This influence, which was a Germanic language, became a part of the language.
In 1066, William the Conqueror brought over still another influence to the language. He made Norman French the language of his Court. At first, this "Norman" language was spoken only by the upper classes. But gradually its influence spread and a language quite different from the Anglo-Saxon developed. This language became the chief source of modern English.

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Why don't we all speak the same language?

At one time, at the beginning of history, what there was of mankind then probably spoke one language. As time went on, this parent language, or perhaps there were several parent languages, spread and changed.
At first, the parent lanuages were spoken by small numbers of persons or by scattered small groups. Gradually, some groups increased in numbers and there wasn't enough food for all of them. So some people would form a band to move a new location.
When these people arrived at a new location and settled down, they would speak almost the same as the people from whom they had parted. Gradually, though, new pronunciations would creep in. The people would begin to say things a little differently and there would be changes in the sounds of words.
Some words that were needed in the old home were no longer needed in the new place and would be dropped. New experiences would require new words to describe them. Ways of making sentences would change. And suppose the people had settled in a place where others were already living? The two languages would blend, and thus both of old languages would change.
At first , when the speech of the new people had changed only slightly from the original language, it would be called "a dialect". After a longer time, when there were many changes in words, sounds, and grammar, it would be considered a new language.
In just these ways, Spanish, French, and Portuguese developed from Latin; and English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Dutch grew from an early form of the German language.
The ancestor language, together with all the languages which developed from it, is called "a family" of languages.
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Who first thought of the Alphabet?

The letters if an alphabet are really sound signs. Those of the English alphabet are based on the Roman alphabet, which is about 2,500 years old. The capital letters are alomost exactly like those used in Roman inscriptions of the third century B.C.
Before alphabets were invented men used pictures to record events or communicate ideas. A pictures of several antelopes might mean "Here are good hunting grounds", so this was really a form of writing. Such "picture writing" was highly developed by the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese.
In time, picture writing underwent a change. The picture, instead of just standing the object that was drawn, came to represent of a foot might indicate the verb "to walk". This stage writing is called "ideographic", or "idea writing".
The trouble with this kind of writing was that the messages might be interpreted by different people in different ways. So little by little this method was changed. The symbols came to represent combination of sounds. For example, if the word for "arm" were "id", the picture of an arm would stand for the sound of "id". This stage of writing might be called "syllabic writing".
The Babylonians and Chinese and the Egyptians never passed beyond this stage of writing. The Egyptian did make up a kind of alphabet by including among their pictures 24 signs which stood for seperate letters or words of one consonant each. But they didn't realize the value of their invention.About 3,500 years ago, people living near the eastern shore of the Mediterranean made the great step leading to our alphabet. They realized that the same sign could be used for the same sound in all cases, so they used a limited number of signs in this manner and these signs made up an alphabet.
A development of their alphabet was used by the Herbews and later the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians carried their alphabet to the Greeks. The Romans adopted the Greek alphabet with certain changes and additions and handed it down to the people of Western Europe in the Latin alphabet. From this came the alphabet we use today.
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How did Halloween originate?

The name Halloween means "hallowed, or holy, evening." Yet, for some reason this holiday has become one of the most popular and best liked holidays of the entire year and is celebrated with great enthusiasm in many countries.
Halloween, which takes place on October 31st, is really a festival to celebrate autumn, just as May Day is a festival to celebrate spring. The ancient Druids ( the Druids were the religious priest in ancient Gaul, Britian, and Ireland) had a great festival to celebrate autumn which began at midnight on October 31st and lasted thorugh the next day, November 1st.
They believed that on this night their great God of death, called Saman, called together all the wicked souls who had died during the year and whose punishment had been to take up life in the bodies of animals. Of course, the very idea of such a gathering was enough to frighten the simple-minded people of that time. So they lit huge bonfires and kept a sharp watch for these evil spirits. This is actually where the idea that witches and ghosts are about on Halloween began. And there are still people in certain isolated parts of Europe who believe this to be true!The Romans also had a holiday about the 1st of November which was in honour of their goddess Pomona. Nuts and apples were roasted before great bonfires. Our own Halloween seems to be a combination of the Roman and Druid festivals.
Originally, the Halloween festival was quite simple and was celebrated mostly in church. But all over Europe, people looked upon this occasion as an opportunity to have fun and exitement, to tell spooky tales, and to scare each other. So instead of being devoted to the celebration of autumn, it became a holiday devoted to the supernatural, to witches, and to ghosts.
Here are some of the curious customs which sprang up in connection with Halloween: Young girls who "ducked" for apples on this night could see their future husbands if they slept with the apple under their pillow. Stealing gates, furniture, signs, and so on, is done to make people think they were stolen by the evil spirits. And of course, no one goes near a cemetery on Halloween because spirits rise up on that night! Today we use these superstitions as a way of having fun on Halloween.
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Why are Eggs and Rabbits associated with Easter?

Easter is the most joyous of Christian holidays. It is celebrated in commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.The exact day on which Easter falls may vary from year to year, but it always comes, of course, in the spring of the year. Thus, Christianity spread, the celebration of Easter included many customs that were linked with the celebration of spring's arrival. This explains why many Easter customs go back to traditions that existed before Christianity itself.Both Easter and the coming of Spring are symbols of new life. The ancient Egyptians and Persians celebrated their spring festivals by coloring and eating eggs. The Christians adopted the egg as symbolic of new life, the symbol of the Resurrection.There is another reason why we observe the practise of eating eggs on Easter Sunday and of giving them as gifts to friends or children. In the eartly days of the Church, eggs were forbidden food during Lent. With the ending of Lent, people were so glad to see and eat eggs again that they made it tradition to eat them on Easter Sunday.The Easter hare also was part of the spring celebrations long before Christianity. In the legends of ancient Egypt, the hare is associated with the moon. The hare is linked with the night because it comes out only then to feed. By being associated with the moon, the hare became a symbol of a new period of life. Thus the hare stood for the renewal of life and for fertility. The early Christians therefore took it over and linked it with Easter, the holiday that symbolizes new life!By the way, the rotation of wearing new clothes on Easter Sunday is also Symbolic of casting off the old and the beginning of the new!

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How did the days of the week get their Names?

There was a time in the early history of man when the days had no names! The reason was quite simple. Men had not invented the week.
In those days, the only division of times was a month, and there were too many days in the month for each of them to have a separate name. But when men began to build cities, they wanted to have a special day on which to trade, a market day. Sometimes these market days were fixed at every tenth day, sometimes every seventh day or every fifth day. The babylonians decided that it should be every seventh day. On this day they didn't work, but met for trade and religious festivals.
The Jews followed their example, but kept every seventh day for religious purposes. In this way the week came into existence. It was the space between market days. The Jews gave each of the seven days a name, but it was really a number after the Sabbath day (which was Saturday). For example, Wednesday was called the fourth day (four days after Saturday).
When the Egyptians adopted the seven-day week, they named the days after five planets, the sun, and the moon. The Romans used the Egyptian names for their days of the week: the day of the sun, of the moon, of the planet Mars, of Mercury, of Jupiter, of Venus, and of Saturn.
We got our names for the days not from the Romans but from the Anglo-Saxons, who called most of the days after their own Gods, which were roughly the same as the Gods of the Romans. The day of the sun became Sunnandaeg, or Sunday. The day of the moon was called Monandaeg, or Monday. The day of the Mars became the day of Tiw, who was their God of war. This became Tiwesdaeg, or tuesday. Instead of Mercury's name, that of the God Woden was given to Wednesday. The Romans day of Jupiter, the thunderer, became the day of the thunder god Thor, and this became Thursday. The next day was named for Frigg, the wife of their God Odin, and so we have the Friday. The day of Saturn became Saeternsdaeg, a translation from the Romans, and then Saturday.
A day, by the way, used to be counted as the space between the sunrise and sunset. The Romans counted it as from midnight to midnight, the most modern nations use this method.
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How did the Calendar begin?

When men first began to plant seeds and harvest crops, they noticed that t he time for planting came at a regular time each year. Then they tried to count how many days came between one planting time and the next. This was man's first attempt to find out how long a year was!
The ancient Egyptians were the first to measure a year with any exactness. They knew that the best time to plant was right after the Nile River overflowed each year. Their priests noticed that between each overflowing the moon rose 12 times. So they counted 12 moonths or months, and figured out when the Nile would rise again.
But it still wasn't exact enough. At last the Egyptian priests noticed that each year, about the time of the flood, a certain bright star would rise just before the sun rose. They counted the days that passed before this happened again and found that it added up to 365 days. This was 6,000 years ago, and before that no one had ever known that there were 365 days in a year! The Egyptians divided this year into 12 months of 30 days each, with 5 extra days at the end of the year. Thus they invented the first calendar.
Eventually, the calendar was based not on the moon (lunar calendar) but on the number of days (365 1/4) it takes the earth to go around the sun (solar calendar). The extra quarter of day began to cause more and more confusion. Finally, Julius Caesar decided to straighten it all out. He ordered that the year 46 B.C. should have 445 days to "catch up", and that every year from then on was to have year of 366 days to use up the fraction left over in each ordinary year.
But as time went on it was discovered that Easter and other holy days were not coming where they belonged in the seasons. Too many "extra" days had piled up. In the year 1582, Pope Gregory XIII decided to do something about it. He ordered that ten days should be dropped from the year 1582. And keep the calendar accurate for all the future time, he ordered that leap year should be skipped in the least year of every century unless that year could be divided by 400. Thus 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the year 2000 will be a leap year!
This system is called the Gregorian calendar and is now used all over the world for everyday purposes, though various religions still use their own calendar for religious purposes!
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Why is there daylight saving time?

Let's say a person gets up at 7:00 in the morning and goes to bed at 11:00 in the night. He comes home from work about 6:30, and by the time he's finished with dinner it's after 8:00. He steps outside in the summer to relax- but its already getting dark! Not much time to enjoy the summer day.
Now suppose you set the clock ahead one hour. This person still does everything at the same hour- but this time, when he steps out at 8:00 o'clock there's still plenty of light to enjoy. An hour of day light has been "saved" for him.
Daylight saving time doesn't, of course , add any hour to a day. That's impossible. All it does is increase the number of useful hours of daylight during the seasons when the sun rises early.
Daylight saving is most popular in cities. It permits the closing of offices, shops, and factories at the end of the working day while the sun is still high. Farmers, who do their work by sun time, usually do not observe daylight saving time. They cannot work in the field before the morning dew has dried or after it appears in the evening.
Did you know who first thought of daylight saving time? It was Benjamin Franklin! When he was living in France in the 18th century, he suggested the idea to the people in Paris. But it was not adopted then.
Daylight saving laws were first passed during World War 1. At this time, fuel for generating electricity was scarce, and so it was necessary to save on artificial light. With the daylight saving, the bedtime of many people comes son after it gets dark, while without it, if they stay up until the same hour they may have to use artificial light.
The first country to adopt daylight saving time was Germany in 1915. Then England used it in 1916, and the United States adopted it in 1918.

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Does the whole world have time zones?

Now that we can travel so fast by jet plane over big distances, the differences in time have become even more startling. We can leave New York at a certain hour, for example, and arrive in Los Angeles just a little while later-on the clock.
The reason for this is that the U.S.A. is divided into time zones. This division was adopted in 1833, when the United States was divided into four time belts or zones-Eastern, central, mountain, and Pacific.
The division was based on meridians, the imaginary lines that run around the earth through the North and South Poles. The time kept in each belt varies exactly an hour from the belt next to it. And the time kept everywhere within each belt is exactly the same.
As you move from one belt to another, going east, the time advances an hour. If you go west, it goes back an hour. But the time belts do not follow perfectly straight lines. The reason for this is that some community may be closely linked with an area very near it and wish to keep the same time. For example, Georgia, most of Florida, and the lower peninsula of Michigan could all be in the central time zone, but they include themselves in the Eastern zone.
The whole world is divided into time zones exactly as the United States is. Every 15 degrees as one goes around the world, in terms of meridians, there is a new time zone. Where does the measuring start?
It starts in Greenwich, England, which has 0-degree meredian running through it. As you move east from Greenwich, you add an hour to Greenwich time every 15 degrees. As you move west from Greenwich, you subtract an hour from Greenwich time in the same way.
So when it is 12:00 noon in Greenwich, it is 4:00 in the morning in California, because you have moved west nine 15-degrees interval, and it is 2:00 in the afternoon in Egypt, beause you have moved east two 15-degrees intervals.
Exactly on the opposite side of the world from Greenwich is an imaginary line called "the International Date Line". If you cross this line moving west, you "lose" a whole day, and if you cross it moving east, you "gain" a whole day.

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How did the custom of kissing start?

We know the kiss as a form of expressing affection. But long before it became this, it was the custom in many parts of the world to use the kiss as an expression of homage.

In many African tribes the natives kiss the ground over which a chief has walked. Kissing the hand and foot has been a mark of respect and homage from the earliest times. The early Romans kissed the mouth or eyes as a form of dignified greetings. One Roman emperor allowed his important nobles to kiss his lips, but the less important ones had to kiss his hands, and the least important ones were only allowed to kiss his feet!

It is quite probable that the kiss as a form of affection can be traced back to primitive times when a mother would fondle her child, just as a mother does today. It only remained for society to accept this as a custom for expressing affection between adults.

We have evidence that this was already the case by the time of the sixth century, but we can only assume it was practised long before that. The first country where the kiss became accepted in courtship and love was in France. When dancing became popular , almost every dance figure ended with a kiss.

From France the kiss spread rapidly all over Europe. Russia, which loved to copy the customs of France, adopted the kiss and it spread there through all the upper classes. A kiss from Tsar became one of the highest form of recognition from the Crown.

In time, the kiss became a part of courtship. As marriage customs developed , the kiss became a part of the wedding ceremony. Today, of course, we regard the kiss as an expression of love and tenderness. But there are still many places in the world where the kiss is part of formal ceremonies and is intended to convey respect and homage.

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How long have people been using last names?

"Hey, Shorty!" "Hi, Skinny." "Here comes Blondie." Sounds familiar to you? It's a perfectly natural way to call people-give them a name that describes them in some way.
And you know, that's exactly the way first names were given originally! A girl born during a famine might be called Una (Ctelic for "famine"), a golden haired blonde might be called Blanche (French for "white"). A boy might be called David because it means "beloved".
A first name was all anybody had for thousands of years. Then, about the time Normans conquered England in 1066, last names, or surnames, were added to identify people better. The first name wasn't enough to set one person apart from another. For example, there might be two Davids in town, and one of them was quite lazy. So people began to call this one "David, who is also lazy," or "David do little". And this became David Doolittle.
The last names were originally called "ekenames". The word "eke" meant "also". And by the way, we get our word "nickname" from this word!
Once people got into the habit of giving a person two names, they thought of many ways of creating this second name. For example, one way was to mention the father's name. If John had a father called William, he might be called John Williamson, or John Williams, or John Wilson ( Will's son), or John Wills.
Another good way to identify people with second names was to mention the place where they lived or came from. A person who lived near the woods might be called Wood, of if he lived near the village green he might be called John Green.And then, of course, the work that a person did was a good way to identify him. So we have last names like Smith, Taylor, and Wright. ("Wright" means someone who does mechanical work).
The nearest thing to last names in ancient times existed among the Romans. A second name was sometimes added to indicate the family or clan to which a child belonged. Later , they even added a third name, which was a kind of description nickname.
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Who were the first people to believe in one God?

The believe in one God is called "monotheism". The belief in many Gods is called "polytheism".
Most of the "dead" religions-religions which no longer have any followers-were religions having many Gods. Among these are the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrain, Greek, Roman, Celtic and Norse. In very primitive times and among primitive peoples everywhere, there were only religions having many Gods.
The idea of monotheism-one God- developed quite late in the history of religion. And according to most people and students of the subject, it is the fullest and best expression of the spirit and meaning of religion. It is built on the conviction that the ethical and religious values we hold must have a basis, and this is the one God on whom all existence and values depend.
But the idea of monotheism took a long time to develop. It first started with what is called "monarchianism". Just as a monarch is set above his people, so the idea arose that one God should be exalted above the rest and should be the king of the Gods. Among the ancient Greeks, for example, Zeus stood supreme over all the Gods.
The same idea existed among the Babylonians and the Egyptians. The Babylonians has a God called Marduk who was the supreme over all the other Gods, and the Egyptians had Ra, who was ruler over all the other Gods.
The next step was the idea of "monolatry". According to this concept, other Gods do exist, but only one is worshipped. About the 14th century B.C., an attempt was made in Egypt to introduce the idea of monotheism, with the sun as the one God. But it failed. And about 800 years before Christ, a Zoroastrian religion in Persia held that there was the great one God. But true monotheism, the belief that Chritians, Jews, and Mohammedans hold in one God, comes from the Hebrew religion as expressed in the Old Testament.

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How did the races of mankind originate?

Scientific authorities believe, based on evidence they have found, that man originated in one place and that all races of mankind have a common ancestor. Man's common ancestor, according to some of these scientist, looked very much like modern man and probably first appeared in Asia. Other scientists believe man first appeared in several places, at different times, and later met and mingled to form the present races of man.
About 500,000 years ago, in western Asia, man's ancestors lived in small groups. In these small, isolated groups, the first signs of difference appeared-differences in head shape, or eye sockets, or body build. Later, they began to look for new places to live, and about 300,000 years ago, groups of men began to move southeast towards Indonesia and north towards China.
Still later, other migrations took man to other parts of the world, where some developed in seperate ways while others met and mingled.
Modern students say that there are three major divisions or "stocks" of mankind. These are: the Caucasoids, similar to the people who lived in the Caucasus Mountains and who were thought by early scholars to be typical of the "white" race; the Mongoloids, similar to the Mongols who lived in Mongolia in Asia; and the Negroids, like the Negroes who lived in the forest regions of Africa.
Early scholars divided man into five groups based on skin color. This classification is no longer accepted, because the color of the skin dosen't tell to which main stock a group of people belongs. Nor can any other single triat, such as head type, blood type, or nose type, tell the stock to which a man belongs. Many physical traits must be considered.A race, therefore, is simply a group of people who have in common certain physical traits which they inherited from theirancestors and which set them apart from other groups.

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In trying to explain the existence of the complicated body structures we see in living things around us, a theory of evolution has been developed. While most scientists accept this theory, many people do not. They feel it goes against what is written in the Bible.
This theory is that all the planets and animals in the worl today have developed in a natural way from earlier forms that were simpler. These earlier forms developed from still simpler ancestors, and so on back through millions of years to the very biginning when life was in its simplest form, merely a tiny mass of jellylike protoplasm.
According to this theory, man, too, developed from some simpler form, just as the modern one-hoofed horse is the decendant of small five-toed ancestor.
In trying to prove that evolution did take place, scientist depend on three chief "signs". One of these is the study of fossil remains of animals and plants of past ages. Some of these fossils seem to trace the steps of evolution at work. Fossil remain of primitive men have been found that go back to a time 1,000,000 years ago. Fossils of certain crablike animals go back nearly 5,000,000,000 years. These fossils show that fish developed in the waters of the earth before amphibians, amphibians before reptiles, reptiles before birds, and so on. Scientist believe this proves life has progressed from one form to another.
Another "sign" of evolution comes from the study of embryology, the growth of a new living thing from an egg. In studying the development of the chick from the hen's egg, there is a time when this embryo is like a fish, later it's like an amphibian, then it passes through the reptile stage, and finally develops into its bird form. The unborn young of all animals go through the same kind of process, repeating their history of development.
The third "sign" is the bodies of living animals. For example, the bone and muscle structure in the paddles of a turtle, the wings of a bird, the flippers of a whale, the front legs of a horse, and the arms of a man are similar in structure. And man many organs in his body which seem of no use. They are thought to be relics handed down from his earlier ancestors. These are some of the "signs" that led to a theory of evolution.

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Who made the first map?

Imagine how hard it would be to tell in words the exact location of all the streets and buildings in your town. It would be simpler to make a picture or diagram of the location of such objects. The result would be a map!
The first map we have record of was modeled in clay and then baked more than 4,000 years ago, in Egypt. In ancient times, landowners marked the outlines of their land, and kings, the boundaries of their kingdom on maps. But when people tried to show on maps the location of faraway places, they ran into problems.
This was because the earth is round and it is difficult to measure large distances accurately. Astronomers were a great help to early map-makers, because their studies had to do with the size and shape of the earth.
A Greek called Eratosthenes, who was born in 276 B.C., figured the distance around the earth and came every close to the truth. His methods made it possible for the first time to calculate north-south distances correctly. About the same time, Hipparchus suggested that a map of the world be divided evenly by imaginary lines of latitude, or parallels, and of longitude, or meridians. The proper positions of thses lines, he said, should be based on knowledge gainedfrom study of the heavens.
Ptolemy, in the 2nd century A.D., used the same idea and made an improved map with evenly spaced lines of latitude and longitude. His book on geography was the standard text until after the discovery of America. The discoveries of Columbus and others greatly increased interest in maps and charts. The first large collection of maps was published by Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp in 1570. Geradus Mercator bacame the father of modern map-making. He made a map on which all the curved lines on a globe were straight ones on a map. This enabled the map to show a straight line between two places which would give a true course by the compass. This kind of map is known as "a projection"; it "projects" or transfers the earth's surface onto that of a map.
On the title page of his book there was a drawing of the giant Atlas, and this is why a collection of maps has come to be known as an "atlas"!
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Which nation had the first flag?

The idea of a nation having a flag is fairly new, but flags have existed from earlier times. They were used in war to mark the positions of leaders.
In very ancient times, most of the flags were craved poles. The ancient Greek's flag was merely a piece of armor or single letters held aloft upon poles. The first cloth flag was the invention of the Romans and consisted of a square banner attached to a crossbar at the end of a spear.
When the United States adopted a national flag, the idea was still very new. Most European nations were then fighting under the flags of their kings. The French used the white falg of the Bourbon family. The original national flag of England was the banner of St. George. The present form of union flag was proclaimed January 1, 1801. Probably the two oldest national flags are those of Denmark, adopted in 1219, and of Switzerland, used as early as 1339.
After the United States had chosen a national flag, many other nations followed that example. After the French Revolution, the Tricolor was chosen to represent France. The green, white and red flag of the Italians was first established in 1805. In the 19th century, many South American republics designed flags for themselves and the idea of a national flag became universally accepted.
Did you know that in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War the Colonies had flags of their own? Massachusetts had a flag with a pine tree; South Caroline had a rattlesnake; New York had a white flag with a black beaver on it.
In designing America's falg it was first proposed that the English Union Jack be part of it. But this was rejected and it was decieded to substitute 13 stars from the Union Jack.
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Was America discovered before Columbus?

When we say "discovered", we usually have a very special meaning in mind. We mean that people from one civilization came to a region where no one from their place had been before. As you know, an explorer often finds a people and a civilization already living in the place he "discovers." Why not say these people discovered it before him?

From our Western-civilization point of view, we say that Columbus discovered America. This is because after his discovery the New World he found began to be visited and finally populated from the Old World. But 500 years before Columbus was born, the Norsemen did a bit of "discovering," too. They sailed west to discover Iceland, then Greenland, and later the America mainland.

Did you know that the Chinese tell of an even earlier voyage by Chinese sailors to discover what has become California? And people of the South Sea Islands still sing of the great men of their distant past who sailed to South America long time before the white man reached either South America or the South Sea Islands.

For all we know, there may have been many ages of exploration thousands of years ago. There were certainly ages of exploration before the time of Columbus. Perhaps we might say that neither Columbus, nor the Norsemen before him, "discovered " America. Weren't the Indians already living here for many centuries before the white man arrived?

And who can say that they didn't set out on a voyage of discovery? It is believed that they cam from Asia, though we don't know when or how they made a trip. Probably they reached America over a period of centuries and by different routes. They also probably sent their scouts ahead to seek out routes by land or sea. These scouts were their explores, and perhaps it was really they who discovered America!

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What is Mythology?

Man has always wondered why the world is the way it is. He has tried to explain to himself why things happen as they do. Today, we have scientific explanations for things that happen in the universe. But in earlier times, man had to make up his

"explanations".

Just consider all the strange things he couldn't understand. Why did the snu rise and set so regularly? Why were there different seasons? What were the stars, and why did they move as they did?

Then there were all the events in man's personal life to consider. Why did unpredictable events happen? Why did men dream? Why did people get sick? Where did people come from and where did they go after death? How was the world and everything in it created?

All primitive people have asked these questions and tried to answer them. Different tribes of people in various parts of the world have had different explanations. But their "explanations" somehow accounted for the events of their world. The fanciful stories which contain these explanations are called "myths". All the myths of a people taken together from a mythology.

By their myths, early men tried to "humanize", or "personalize" their world. That is, they imagined the objects around them to be persons like themselves,thoughtful beings, some with great power. All these objects, animals, plants, stars, rivers, the sun and the moon, came to be gods with magic powers. Some of these gods were thought to be good and kind, some were evil and brought pain, hunger, and death.Because they thought all these objects, or gods, were intelligent beings, they felt they could appeal to them. Since the sun has a mind, they could beg him to send his rays so that plants would grow. They could pray to the rain god for rain and the rain god could understand them.

This led to all kinds of rituals, or ceremonies. There was a certain way to appeal to a god, and if you did it the wrong way the god would be angry. The purpose of these ceremonies and rituals was to keep men on good terms with their god. In that way, men believed they were able to direct and control events and live happier lives.

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