Who Am I -M?

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Oh Dear! Boadicea has boobed badly!

I make a long list of people whose names begin with the appropriate letter and I had both Marcus Brutus and Mark Anthony on the list. I chose Marcus Brutus and, mistakenly, put up a picture of Mark Anthony…

My apologies to all – especially to OZ, who got it right first. 🙂

43 thoughts on “Who Am I -M?”

  11. Christina
    6. In 1498, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) began his career as an active politician in the independent city-state of Florence, engaging in diplomatic missions through France and Germany as well as Italy. After more than a decade of public service, he was driven from his post when the republic collapsed. Repeated efforts to win the confidence and approval of the new regime were unsuccessful, and Machiavelli was forced into retirement and a life of detached scholarship about the political process instead of direct participation in it. Machiavelli originally wrote Principe (The Prince) (1513) in hopes of securing the favour of the ruling Medici family, and he deliberately made its claims provocative.
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  12. Tocino

    3. In the two centuries of their known existence the Knights Templar served under twenty-three Grand Masters. It is Jacques DeMolay (1244-1314) the twenty-third and last Grand Master however, who is best known. In 1305, Philip the Fair, King of France, set about to obtain control of the Knights Templars. They had been accountable only to the Church. To prevent a rise in the power of the Church, and to increase his own wealth, Philip set out to take over the Knights. The year 1307 saw the beginning of the persecution of the Knights. Jacques DeMolay, along with hundreds of others, were seized and thrown into dungeons. For seven years, Jacques DeMolay and the Knights suffered torture and inhuman conditions. The inquisitors would go to any means to extract the confessions that would damn the order in the eyes of the people and the Catholic Church While the Knights did not end, Philip managed to force Pope Clement to condemn the Templars. Their wealth and property were confiscated and given to Philip’s supporters. During years of torture, Jacques DeMolay continued to be loyal to his friends and Knights. He refused to disclose the location of the funds of the Order and he refused to betray his comrades. On March 18, 1314, DeMolay was tried by a special court. As evidence, the court depended on a forged confession, allegedly signed by Jacques DeMolay. He disavowed the forged confession. Under the laws of the time, the disavowal of a confession was punishable by death. Another Knight, Guy of Auvergne, likewise disavowed his confession and stood with Jacques DeMolay. King Philip ordered them both to be burned at the stake that day, Jacques DeMolay was then taken to an island on the Siene and burned along with Guy of Auvergne the Preceptor of Normandy.
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    4. Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) was a Portuguese sea explorer who sailed for both Portugal and Spain. He was the first to sail from Europe westwards to Asia, the first European to sail the Pacific Ocean, and the first to lead an expedition for the purpose of circumnavigating the globe. Though Magellan is often credited with being the first to circle the globe, he himself died in the Philippines and never returned to Europe. Eighteen of his approximate 250 crew members and one of the 5 ships in his fleet did return to Spain in 1522, having circumnavigated the globe.
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  13. John
    7. Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589) was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de’ Medici. Both of her parents, Lorenzo II de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne, died within weeks of her birth. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Caterina married Henry, second son of King Francis I of France and Queen Claude. Under the Gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was queen consort of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from influence and instead showered favours on his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henry’s death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life.
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    Mrs M
    5. Christopher Marlowe, English dramatist and poet, b. Canterbury. Probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare, Marlowe was educated at Cambridge and he went to London in 1587, where he became an actor and dramatist for the Lord Admiral’s Company. His most important plays are the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great (c.1587), Dr. Faustus (c.1588), The Jew of Malta (c.1589), and Edward II (c.1592). Marlowe’s dramas have heroic themes, usually centering on a great personality who is destroyed by his own passion and ambition. Although filled with violence, brutality, passion, and bloodshed, Marlowe’s plays are never merely sensational. The poetic beauty and dignity of his language raise them to the level of high art. Most authorities detect influences of his work in the Shakespeare canon, notably in Titus Andronicus and King Henry VI. Of his non-dramatic pieces, the best-known are the long poem Hero and Leander (1598), which was finished by George Chapman, and the beautiful lyric that begins “Come live with me and be my love.” In 1593, Marlowe was stabbed in a barroom brawl by a drinking companion. Although a coroner’s jury certified that the assailant acted in self-defense, the murder may have resulted from a definite plot, due, as some scholars believe, to Marlowe’s activities as a government agent.
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  14. Jan
    9. Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was a Austrian priest and scientist, and is often called the father of genetics for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel’s work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century. Its rediscovery prompted the foundation of the discipline of genetics. Mendel was inspired by both his professors at university and his colleagues at the monastery to study variation in plants, and he conducted his study in the monastery’s garden. Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel cultivated and tested some 29,000 pea plants. This study showed that one in four pea plants had purebred recessive alleles, two out of four were hybrid and one out of four were purebred dominant. His experiments brought forth two generalizations which later became known as Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance.
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  16. Tocino

    2. Charles Martel (688-741) (in Latin, Carolus Martellus; in German, Karl Martell) – grandfather of Charlemagne – was the illegitimate son of Pippin II of Herstal and, after an intense power struggle, succeeded him as the “mayor of the palace” of Austrasia, the eastern part of Frankish territory. By this time the Merovingians were rulers in name only and the mayors of the palace ruled both Austrasia and Neustria. Martel (the name means “hammer”) succeeded in reuniting the Frankish realm, eventually acquiring Aquitaine and Burgundy. He supported the missionary efforts of Saint Boniface and others like him in the hopes of consolidating his military victories. In 732 he achieved one of the most significant victories in early Europe at the Battle of Tours, which stemmed the tide of Muslim advancement from Spain into Frankish territory. Although Martel was in practice king of the Franks, he never took the title, always maintaining the fiction that the Merovingians still ruled. When he died, he divided his lands between his two legitimate sons, Pippin III (father of Charlemagne) and Carloman.
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  22. Araminta

    8. Milton, John (1608-1674), one of the greatest poets of the English language. While Milton was at Cambridge he wrote poetry in both Latin and English, including the ode “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629). Although the exact dates are unknown, “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” were probably written not long after this. His dislike of the increasing ritualism in the Church of England was the reason he later gave for not fulfilling his plans to become a minister. Resolved to be a poet, Milton retired to his father’s estate at Horton after leaving Cambridge and devoted himself to his studies. There he wrote the masque Comus (1634) and “Lycidas” (1638), one of his greatest poems, an elegy on the death of his friend Edward King. For many years Milton had planned to write an epic poem, and he probably started his work on Paradise Lost before the Restoration. The blank-verse poem in ten books appeared in 1667; a second edition, in which Milton reorganized the original ten books into twelve, appeared in 1674. It was greatly admired by Milton’s contemporaries and has since then been considered the greatest epic poem in the English language. In telling the story of Satan’s rebellion against God and the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Milton attempted to account for the evil in this world and, in his own words, to “justify the ways of God to man.”
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  25. Hmm – back to some history lessons Oz! Marc Anthony was a faithful friend… 🙂

  32. Araminta

    10. In 1894 Maria Montessori (1870-1952) became the first woman physician in Italy. Her interest in children and education led her to open a children’s school in 1907 in the slums outside Rome. Montessori put into practice her theory that children have a natural “tendency towards elevation,” and created an environment for self-education and self-realization, with remarkable success. She became internationally famous and schools using the Montessori method now exist all over the world.
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    Bearsy saw a specialist yesterday. He has to go back next week – only then will we know if we can go back to Oz as planned on the 20th.

  33. Thanks, Boadicea for the update. Poor Bearsy, it must be a worry. Do send him my best wishes please and I hope he will be OK to fly back as scheduled. It must be a worry, and I’m sure he would be better off at home.

  35. Please send Bearsy my best wishes, Boa. I missed what happened, if it was mentioned, as I was away last week.

  42. OZ

    With huge apologies!

    1. Marcus Antonius (83-30BC) was a Roman politician and general. He was an important supporter of Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator. After Caesar’s assassination, Antony allied with Octavian and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus to form the second triumvirate. The triumvirate ended in 33 BC, and Antony committed suicide in 30 BC.

  43. Mornin’ Boadicea. I always suspected you had nice boobs. 😀

    Please give Bearsy a big hairy hug from The Cave.

    OZ

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