32 thoughts on “Who Am I – J?”

  2. Christina
    1. Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44BC) is remembered as one of history’s greatest generals and a key ruler of the Roman empire. As a young man he rose through the administrative ranks of the Roman republic, accumulating power until he was elected consul in 59 BC. Over the next 15 years he led Roman armies against enemies abroad, especially in Gaul, while fighting Pompey and others for political control at home. In 45 BC. he reached his ultimate success, being named dictator of Rome for life. That rule was short-lived: the next year he was stabbed to death in the Senate by a group led by his follower Marcus Junius Brutus. Caesar had a romance with the Egyptian ruler Cleopatra, and fathered her son, Caesarion. Caesar’s adopted heir was Octavian, who later became the emperor Caesar Augustus. The ruling titles Kaiser and Czar are derived from the name of Caesar.
    Source

    5. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the leading literary scholar and critic of his time. He was celebrated for his brilliant and witty conversation. His rather gross appearance and manners were viewed tolerantly, if not with a certain admiration. Johnson’s first work of lasting importance, and the one that permanently established his reputation in his own time, was his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the first comprehensive lexicographical work on English ever undertaken. Although Johnson enjoyed great literary acclaim, he remained close to poverty until a government pension was granted to him in 1762. The following year was marked by his meeting with James Boswell, whose famous biography presents Johnson in exhaustive and fascinating detail, often recreating his conversations verbatim.
    Source

  4. John Mackie
    4. James II of England and VII of Scotland (1633 –1701) was the last Catholic monarch to reign in Britain. Increasingly Britain’s political and religious leaders opposed him as too pro-French, too pro-Catholic, and too much of an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded and the leaders called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands. James fled England (and thus abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James made one serious attempt to recover his crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but, after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, James returned to France. He lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV.
    Source

  5. An interesting story about Johnson, he was short of money as usual and had to pay some medical bills for his mother, so he bashed out Rasselas at great speed. It was perpetrated as a con. The upper classes just bought it and never read it, so the newly found literate middle classes bought it but couldn’t understand it, the vocabulary is byzantine and arcane to say the least. They didn’t like to admit that they couldn’t understand it so recommended it to all their friends as a very good read! it was a great success financially and he paid off his bills. Of course they should have bought his dictionary too! It is a total farrago of rubbish that complied with the fashion for ‘oriental tales’ of the time, an interesting forerunner of the ‘bodice ripper’. He was a cunning old fox.
    Try reading it today, most need a dictionary at their side. I came across it helping a friend of mine who was given it as a set text at University and was nearly reduced to tears by the vocabulary, I had the advantage of having been bought up by a linguist.

  6. Christina:

    Thanks for adding some fascinating details!

    It was your mother who was the linguist? Anglo-Saxon poetry, I seem to remember – lucky you!

  7. Yes, every night I had to wipe up the dishes and whilst we did the chores I used to get spelling test and new vocabulary, that went on until I was an adult nearly! It has left me with an extraordinary vocab for a science person.
    Which is why I rather like poets like Pope and the metaphysicals, no problem reading them at all!
    To get my own back I did similar to my son.

  9. Mrs M

    8. Josephine Baker (1906-1975) sashayed onto a Paris stage during the 1920s with a comic, yet sensual appeal that took Europe by storm. Famous for barely-there dresses and no-holds-barred dance routines, her exotic beauty generated nicknames “Black Venus,” “Black Pearl” and “Creole Goddess.” Admirers bestowed a plethora of gifts, including diamonds and cars, and she received approximately 1,500 marriage proposals. She maintained energetic performances and a celebrity status for 50 years until her death in 1975. Unfortunately, racism prevented her talents from being wholly accepted in the United States until 1973.
    Source

    Just as well someone’s around John!

  11. Araminta
    9. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 –1941) was an Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He was a key figure in the development of the modernist novel. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922). Although most of Joyce’s adult life was spent in continental Europe, his fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin and populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there.
    Source

  13. Oops, Araminta. Your answer hadn’t published when I put up my answer for the same number!

  22. Christopher
    3. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) is now chiefly remembered for discovering the three laws of planetary motion that bear his name. He also did important work in optics, discovered two new regular polyhedra , gave the first mathematical treatment of close packing of equal spheres (leading to an explanation of the shape of the cells of a honeycomb, gave the first proof of how logarithms worked, and devised a method of finding the volumes of solids of revolution that (with hindsight!) can be seen as contributing to the development of calculus. Moreover, he calculated the most exact astronomical tables hitherto known, whose continued accuracy did much to establish the truth of heliocentric astronomy.
    Source

  25. Sipu

    6. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) , English portrait painter and aesthetician who dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. With the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first president and knighted by King George III.
    Source

    I’ll give you this one – for Oz!

    10. Judy Garland (1922 –1969), born Frances Ethel Gumm, was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, won a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. After 15 years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances. Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Plied with drugs to control her weight and increase her productivity, Garland endured a decades-long struggle with prescription drug addiction. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce. She also attempted suicide on a number of occasions. Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47, leaving children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, and Joey Luft.
    Source

  26. Hi Boa

    Since you’ve put the clues up, just to jump in on No 2.

    John Ruskin, fellow Jock (born in London but of Scots parentage from my home towm of Perth) and strange man. Never consummated his marriage because the body of his wife, Effie Gray (also from Perth) revolted him. Author of ‘The Stones of Venice’ -hated most of the buildings in La Serenissima.

  27. John

    Thanks for the information – makes my offering a bit ‘tame’!

    2. John Ruskin (1819-1900) was an English author, poet and artist, although more famous for his work as art critic and social critic. Ruskin’s thinking on art and architecture became the thinking of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. In 1878 he wrote a review of a painting by James Whistler in which he accused the painter of “throwing a pot of paint in the face of the public” that led to a famous libel case. Ruskin lost, though the award of damages was only one farthing, and his reputation was tarnished which may have accelerated his mental decline. He suffered from a number of mental breakdowns as well as delirious visions. His later works influenced many Trade Union leaders of the Victorian era. He was also the inspiration for the Arts and Crafts Movement, the founding of the National Trust, the National Art Collections Fund and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. He wrote over 250 works, which tended to connect art history to topics ranging from science, literary criticism, environmental conditions, and mythology. He is well known for his essay on economy Unto This Last, the essay The Nature of Gothic, and the early fantasy novel The King of the Golden River.
    Source

  29. John
    Thanks for the link. I carried on to read a bit more about Ruskin – it certainly seems as though Ruskin had more than one or two problems!

  30. The story I heard was that Ruskin was unaware that women had pubic hair. Any knowledge he had of the female form came from the romanticised paintings he studied so assiduously. So when he first saw his wife in the nick, he freaked out. He should have married a Brazilian.

  32. Whoops, Bearsy. Your post was not there when I put my answer in. Ooooeerrr

Add your Comment