Create yourn own medieval city

Press Here!

building an arch

Press Here

1st ESO unit 5 VOCABULARY

GLOBAL WARMING

Global Warming 101

More educational games & videos on Global Warming at NeoK12.com  

5 Degrees Warmer: Civilization Collapses

More educational games & videos on Global Warming at NeoK12.com  

2nd ESO unit 4 VOCABULARY

THE SEASONS

let´s review what causes the Seasons

Geography seasons

More educational games & videos on Seasons at NeoK12.com  

water cycle videos

would you like to remember all we have learnt about water cycle? try these videos!

THE WAR LORD

Probably, the most realistic film ever made about feudalism! Learn watching it

Overview of "war lord"

A knight in the service of a duke goes to a coastal villiage where an earlier attempt to build a defensive castle has failed. He begins to rebuild the duke's authority in the face of the barbarians at the border and is making progress until he falls in love with one of the local women.

Director:

Franklin J. Schaffner

Writers:

John Collier, Millard Kaufman

Stars:

Charlton Heston, Richard Boone and Rosemary Forsyth

Release Date:

17 November 1965 (USA) 

   

    

WAR LORD, THE MOVIE (no subtitles)

Steer the ship! what is an Island?

Time to review! try this activity

What is an island?

If you finished the activity...well done!! Now it´s time for a bit of fun

Do you remember unit 2 icebergs hazards?. Now it´s time to steer a ship from England to United States avoiding icebergs. Don´t crash and sink your ship!!

Steer the Ship

DESIGN YOUR OWN COAT OF ARMS

Try any of these two links

design your own coat of arms 1

design your own coat of arms 2

1st ESO unit 4 VOCABULARY

some videos about Middle Ages

We´ve just learned something about life in the middle Ages, so these videos could be useful to understand the unit. Watch them!

Daily life in the beginning of XIVth century


the role of serfs in the feudal society


the knights in the feudal society


Lords and Castles


religion in the Middle Ages

learning about water cycle

if you want to know more about water cycle, please press this link:
water cycle

or this:

water cycle 2

BAYEUX TAPESTRY ANIMATION

if you want to know what happened in the Norman invasion of England, try this fabulous animation movie

FIRST ESO: UNIT 3 VOCABULARY

Domesday Game

The Domesday Book is one of the most famous surviving public record. It is a highly detailed survey and valuation of all the land held by the King and his chief tenants, along with all the resources that went with the land in late 11th century England. The survey was a massive enterprise, and the record of that survey, Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement. There is nothing like it in England until the censuses of the 19th century (in Spain until the Catastro of  Ensenada, at the end of XVIIIth century).

       The nickname ‘Domesday’ may refer to the Biblical Day of Judgement, or ‘doomsday’, when Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Just as there will be no appeal on that day against his decisions, so Domesday Book had the final word – there was to be no appeal beyond it as evidence of legal title to land. For many centuries Domesday was regarded as the authoritative register regarding rightful possession and was used mainly for that purpose. It was called Domesday by 1180. Before that it was known as the Winchester Roll or King’s Roll, and sometimes as the Book of the Treasury.
If you want to try this game and become a great farmer, please press the link:

DOMESDAY BOOK GAME

SECOND ESO UNIT 2 VOCABULARY

Feudalism

It could be useful for you




And just for fun!

Warrior game

Would you like to taste the fear and fury of  head -to- head combat during ancient, medieval or modern times? just try this game, but remember. It´s only for your spare time and for a few minutes. Keep working and studying and don´t forget your homework!
Press this link and enjoy
Warriors, the game

USING WORDSIFT COULD BE USEFUL FOR YOUR SCHEMES OR TEXT ANALYSIS!!

Press this link to start using wordsift

http://www.wordsift.com

FIRST ESO UNIT 2 VOCABULARY

"CRACK THE CODE" GAME

WEB SITE:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/familyx/01/crackcode.html.

ROMAN AQUEDUCTS

if you like roman monuments, try this web page:
amazing roman aqueducts

Neardenthals were able to develop their own tools

Neanderthals were keen on innovation and technology and developed tools all on their own, scientists say.

A new study challenges the view that our close relatives could advance only through contact with Homo sapiens. The team says climate change was partly responsible for forcing Neanderthals to innovate in order to survive. The research is set to appear in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory in December.

"Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals," said Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado in Denver, who led the seven-year study. "They were far more resourceful than we have given them credit for."

Vanished culture

Neanderthals were first discovered in Germany's Neander Valley in 1856.

It is believed that they lived in Europe and parts of Asia. Close examination of the found fossils shows that they shared 99.5-99.9% of modern humans' DNA, which makes them our closest relatives.

They had short, muscular bodies, large brains, prominent facial features and barrel chests. Neanderthals split from our evolutionary line some 500,000 years ago, and disappeared off the face of the Earth about 30,000 years ago. Since the first discovery, anthropologists have been trying to crack the mystery of the vanished culture, also debating whether or not Neanderthals were evolving on their own or through contact with Homo sapiens. During the research, Dr Riel-Salvatore and his colleagues examined Neanderthal sites across Italy.

About 42,000 years ago, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were already living in the northern and central parts of the area. At that time, an entirely new group appeared in the south. The researchers believe that the southerners were also Neanderthals, of a culture named Uluzzian.

 Dr Riel-Salvatore's team was astonished to find quite a few innovations throughout the area, even though the Uluzzians were isolated from Homo sapiens. They discovered projectile points, ochre, bone tools, ornaments and possible evidence of fishing and small game hunting.

"My conclusion is that if the Uluzzian is a Neanderthal culture, it suggests that contacts with modern humans are not necessary to explain the origin of this new behaviour."This stands in contrast to the ideas of the past 50 years that Neanderthals had to be acculturated to [modern] humans to come up with this technology.

"When we show Neanderthals could innovate on their own, it casts them in a new light.

"It 'humanises' them, if you will."

Brothers?

The researchers believe that one reason that forced Neanderthals to innovate was a shift in climate.When the area where they were living started to become increasingly open and arid, they had no choice but to adapt - or die out. "The fact that Neanderthals could adapt to new conditions and innovate shows they are culturally similar to us," said Dr Riel-Salvatore. He added that they were also similar biologically, and should be considered a subspecies of human rather than a different species. "My research suggests that they were a different kind of human, but humans nonetheless. "We are more brothers than distant cousins."

 BBC news Katia Moskvitch 09/24/2010

Battle of Hastings, a strategy game

Be a great warrior and strategist! you must win the battle against evil norman invaders or maybe do you prefer to defeat the coward saxons?? choose your side and live an amazing experience !! And remember...maybe the force and the Lord be with you, general

Press this link and follow carefully the instructions:

Battle of Hastings

unit 1 fall of rome and the rise of barbarian kingdoms VOCABULARY

unit 1 cartography vocabulary

Massive solar flare 'could paralyse Earth in 2013'

A massive solar flare could cause global chaos in 2013, causing blackouts and wrecking satellite communications, a conference heard yesterday. Nasa has warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could generate huge radiation levels.

The resulting solar storm could cause a geomagnetic storm on Earth, knocking out electricity grids around the world for hours, days, or even months, bringing much of normal life grinding to a halt. Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who delivered the keynote address at an international conference on the vulnerability of electricity grids around the world, warned that modern societies' dependence on technology leaves them vulnerable to such events he Sun follows an 11-year cycle of high and low periods of solar activity. It is now leaving a notably quiet phase and scientists expect to see a sharp increase in the number of solar flares as well as unprecedented levels of magnetic energy. 

The rings of fire, which have the power of 100 hydrogen bombs, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina. Experts met in Washington DC in June to discuss how to protect Earth from the ferocious flares, which are expected sometime around 2013. asa is using dozens of satellites – including the Solar Dynamics Observatory – to study the threat. The problem was investigated in depth two years ago by the National Academy of Sciences, in a report which outlined the social and economic impacts of severe space weather events.

It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. But much of the damage could  be minimised if it was known in advance that the storm was approaching. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers could  protect them from damaging electrical surges.

Scientists are said to fear that a similar effect could be achieved by a hostile power exploding a nuclear weapon in space, producing a massive burst of electromagnetic energy known as a high altitude electromagnetic pulse. Mr Fox also  warned that countries seeking nuclear capabilities could use them in a different way to the traditional 'nuclear strike" method used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. Citing North Korea and Iran, Dr Fox said countries seeking nuclear capabilities could use them in a different way to the traditional 'nuclear strike' method used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War.

This could involve a nuclear detonation in the upper atmosphere that would knock out vital electronic systems by producing an electro-magnetic pulse, he said. He warned that terrorists might also seek to employ similar methods as he urged the public to take greater heed of the threat. 'I think it's a subject that we need to give a good deal more attention to, not least because we are in an era where there are those who seem to believe that we can choose to enter or not enter certain conflicts, and also because we live in a war where proliferation is becoming more not less the case,' the Defence Secretary said.

'And when we are discussing North Korea or Iran, for example, people need to understand there are other risks than just what we would consider the sort of nuclear strike we saw in Nagasaki or Hiroshima.'The range of risks out there are many-fold and I think we need to make that extremely apparent to the public.' Dr Fox insisted that the threat of such an attack was 'low', but that the Government was working internationally with telecoms, energy and transport companies to increase resilience. 'With reliance, for instance on technology, comes vulnerability, and vulnerability can invite attack,' he went on .'Our wider reliance on digital technologies will not have gone unnoticed among those who would mean us harm.'We will need to ensure that those same technological innovations that provide advantage do not become our Achilles heel.'


Daily Mail 09/22/2010

Prolonged Climatic Stress Main Reason for Mass Extinction 65 Million Years Ago, Paleontologist Says

Long-term climate fluctuations were probably the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. This conclusion was reached by PD Dr. Michael Prauss, paleontologist at Freie Universitaet Berlin, based on his latest research results.

Prauss thus challenges the almost 30-year-old theory that a meteorite impact at the Mexican Yucatan peninsula was the single cause for one of the five largest mass extinctions in Earth history, which has most recently been reiterated in a publication in the journal Science. According to Prauss, the impact was only one in a chain of catastrophic events that caused substantial environmental perturbations, probably largely controlled by the intermittent activity of the Deccan volcanism near the then-Indian continent, that continued over several million years and peaked at the Cretaceous-Paleogen boundary."The resulting chronic stress, to which of course the meteorite impact was a contributing factor, is likely to have been fundamental to the crisis in the biosphere and finally the mass extinction," says Michael Prauss

(Science Daily 03/27/2010)

Iron Age village found in UK school building site

Ancient human infant and animal remains believed to be more than 2,000 years old have been unearthed during the construction of a school in London. Archaeologists say the discovery, one of the most important in the British capital in recent years, points to evidence of an Iron Age and early Roman farming settlement.

Experts say the find is important because similar sites from the period in the area have been destroyed by later development. Excavations have revealed child and animal burials -- some dating from Roman rule -- dotted across the south London site as well as an assortment of weaponry, including a spear and a shield. "A very large number of domestic animal skeletons have been recovered -- including horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and dogs," said lead archaeologist Duncan Hawkins.

"These animals which were either whole or partly dismembered appear to have been deliberately sacrificed and deposited in deep pits cut into the chalk bed rock."

Early Iron Age features, including a livestock pathway, shallow gullies and pits have also been identified. Builders stumbled over the remains while laying the foundations for Stanley Park High School in Sutton. The site is just a stone's throw from one of the largest late Bronze Age hilltop enclosures in southeast England, found in the early 20th century. It is not known whether the two settlements are connected.

(Reuters) Thursday September 16 2010

Spain in the XVIth century: the Comunidades war

secrets of egyptian mummification process

Russian Revolution Documentary Part 3

Russian Revolution Documentary part 2

Russian Revolution Documentary Part 1

1929 CRASH, the black thursday and the collapse of stock exchange

the great Depression

.

THE GOLDEN TWENTIES. LIFE AFTER WORLD WAR I

DARWIN AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

2009 was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin´s masterpiece: On Origin of the Species. If you want to know more about the fascinating world of evolution, press this link:

EVOLUTION

Modern History of Spain: XIX century

Peninsular war and the age minority of Isabel II

The ancient human genoma discovered in 4000 years old hair

For the first time, the sequence of a near-complete nuclear genome has been obtained from the tissue of an ancient human. It comes from permafrost-preserved hair, about 4,000 years old, of a male palaeo-Eskimo of the Saqqaq culture, the earliest known settlers in Greenland. Functional single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) assessment was used to assign possible phenotypic characteristics. The analysis provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of the migration that gave rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit. Elsewhere in the issue we profile the paper's last author Eske Willerslev, who headed the project and found the lock of hair in a Copenhagen museum basement — after a fruitless search among the archaeological sites of Peary Land.

From Nature, International Journal of Science

Muck and brass

would you like to live like a victorian british?? try these games and make the correct choices to run the city or being a great cotton tycoon. Don´t forget to read carefully the instructions!!

press this links;

Muck And Brass

Who wants to be a cotton millionaire?

from bbc history web

ancient Rome overview

Fishing old cars in Lake Maggiore (Italy)

A 1925 Bugatti Brescia that was pushed into the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore in 1936 has been retrieved by a diving society and put up for sale.

It’s not in very good condition, what with having been underwater for 70+ years, but about 20% of the body is usable and you can still see bits of the original blue paint. The Brescia was called that because it won the top four spots on the Brescia course in a 1921 race, so its an important car for collectors. Even with just 20% of the body left, it could be fully restored or used as a model for an accurate modern duplicate.

Locals thought the story of the sunken Bugatti was apocryphal until a diver found it 160 feet below the lake surface in 1967, but nope, it really happened. The French-registered car appears to have been owned by Zurich architect, Max Schmuklerski. He lived in Ascona, Switzerland, for 3 years working on some buildings and stored the car in his builder’s yard for the duration.

Customs agents knew it was there and they knew it was never registered in Switzerland. When Schmuklerski left Ascona, the builder certainly wasn’t going to pay the custom duties and by the now the car was 11 years old and well-used, so its value was probably less than the tax bill.

So the builder and/or the customs agents decided to just dump it in the lake. The kept a chain attached to it in case they needed to retrieve it, but over time the chain corroded and the Bugatti dropped down to the lake floor.

It would probably have remained there until it disintegrated had it not been for a tragedy. In February of 2008, Damiano Tamagni was mugged by three juveniles. He was beaten so severely that he died from his injuries. He and his father Maurizio were members of the local underwater diving and salvage club in Ascona so they decided to raise the Bugatti sell it to fund a charity in Damiano’s name. The Fondazione Damiano Tamagi seeks to combat juvenile violence.

Despite its condition, Bonham’s estimates the Bugatti could sell for €70,000 – €90,000 ($100,000 – $130,000) which would be a nice nest egg to launch the charity.

See the Bonham’s lot details for lots of pictures of the car at various stages in its recovery.

from History blog news

Two thousand year old roman aqueduct discovered

A pair of British amateur archaeologists believe they have found the hidden source of a Roman aqueduct 1,900 years after it was inaugurated by the Emperor Trajan

The underground spring lies behind a concealed door beneath an abandoned 13th century church on the shores of Lake Bracciano, 35 miles north of Rome.

Exploration of the site has shown that water percolating through volcanic bedrock was collected in underground grottoes and chambers and fed into a subterranean aqueduct, the Aqua Traiana, which took it all the way to the imperial capital. Centuries later, it provided water for the very first Vatican, after Rome began to convert to Christianity under the Emperor Constantine.

The underground complex, which is entangled with the roots of huge fig trees, was discovered by father and son documentary makers Edward and Michael O'Neill, who stumbled on it while researching the history of Rome's ancient aqueducts. They recruited a leading authority on Roman hydro-engineering, Prof Lorenzo Quilici from Bologna University, who confirmed that the structure was Roman, rather than medieval as had long been believed.

Using long iron ladders to descend into the bowels of the sophisticated system, they found that the bricks comprising the aqueduct's walls are laid in a diamond shape known as "opus reticulatum" – a distinctive Roman style of engineering.

"A lot of the stone work bears the original Roman tool marks," Edward O'Neill said.

The underground labyrinth of galleries has remained almost unknown to archaeologists because for hundreds of years it was full of water. It was only when modern bore pumps started directing the supply to the nearby town of Bracciano that the water level dropped dramatically and the subterranean complex became accessible.

The vaulted ceiling was decorated with a rare type of paint known as Egyptian Blue, which led the O'Neills to speculate that the grotto was a Roman nymphaeum – a sacred place believed to be inhabited by water gods. "The paint was very expensive to make, but it was painted all over the walls, which suggests an imperial link," said Mr O'Neill.

It may even have been inaugurated by Trajan himself in AD 109. Historical records show that the emperor may have been in the area on June 24 of that year. By coincidence, the O'Neills first explored the aqueduct on June 24 2009 – exactly 1,900 years later. A coin minted during Trajan's reign commemorates the opening of the aqueduct, the documentary makers believe. It depicts a river god holding an urn and a reed – traditionally symbols of a spring – and reclining in what looks like a cave, over what may be the representation of a tunnel. The documentary makers hope to raise funds to pay for the site to be excavated by professional archaeologists.

From Daily Telegraph.co.uk (01/25/2010)

A short review of the Al - Andalus History and the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

Evidence of Stone Age amputation forces rethink over history of surgery

The surgeon was dressed in a goat or sheep skin and used a sharpened stone to amputate the arm of his patient.

The operating theatre was not exactly Harley Street — more probably a wooden shelter — but the intervention was a success, and it has shed light on the medical talents of our Stone Age ancestors.

Scientists unearthed evidence of the surgery during work on an Early Neolithic tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles (65km) south of Paris. They found that a remarkable degree of medical knowledge had been used to remove the left forearm of an elderly man about 6,900 years ago — suggesting that the true Flintstones were more developed than previously thought.

The patient seems to have been anaesthetised, the conditions were aseptic, the cut was clean and the wound was treated, according to the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).

The revelation could force a reassessment of the history of surgery, especially because researchers have recently reported signs of two other Neolithic amputations in Germany and the Czech Republic. It was known that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations, cutting through the skull, but not amputations. “The first European farmers were therefore capable of quite sophisticated surgical acts,” Inrap said. The discovery was made by Cécile Buquet-Marcon and Anaick Samzun, both archaeologists, and Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist.

It followed research on the tomb of an elderly man who lived in the Linearbandkeramik period, when European hunter-gatherers settled down to agriculture, stock-breeding and pottery. The patient was important: his grave was 2m (6.5ft) long — bigger than most — and contained a schist axe, a flint pick and the remains of a young animal, which are evidence of high status.

The most intriguing aspect, however, was the absence of forearm and hand bones. A battery of biological, radiological and other tests showed that the humerus bone had been cut above the trochlea indent at the end “in an intentional and successful amputation”. Mrs Buquet-Marcon said that the patient, who is likely to have been a warrior, might have damaged his arm in a fall, animal attack or battle.

“I don’t think you could say that those who carried out the operation were doctors in the modern sense that they did only that, but they obviously had medical knowledge,” she said.

A flintstone almost certainly served as a scalpel. Mrs Buquet-Marcon said that pain-killing plants were likely to have been used, perhaps the hallucinogenic Datura. “We don’t know for sure, but they would have had to find some way of keeping him still during the operation,” she said.

Other plants, possibly sage, were probably used to clean the wound. “The macroscopic examination has not revealed any infection in contact with this amputation, suggesting that it was conducted in relatively aseptic conditions,” said the scientists in an article for the journal Antiquity.

The patient survived the operation and, although he suffered from osteoarthritis, he lived for months, perhaps years, afterwards, tests revealed. Despite the loss of his forearm, the contents of his grave showed that he remained part of the community. “His disability did not exclude him from the group,” the researchers said.

The discovery demonstrates that advanced medical knowledge and complex social rules were present in Europe in about 4900BC, and that major surgery was likely to have been more common than we realised, Mrs Buquet-Marcon said.

The Times (01/25/2010)

Gladiator, the movie: a Playmobil tribute

Butter from Scott´s polar expedition found now

Unlike the scary 3000-year-old adipocere bog butter, the latest aged butter actually looks like butter. It’s 97 years old, and it’s been living at no more than 10 degrees Celsius sinceCaptain Robert Scott left it at base camp during his ill-fated final expedition to the South Pole.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust has been restoring Scott’s Cape Evans hut. Despite the steady low temperature, the past couple of years have seen a lot more snow than usual, and it’s damaging the structure. While working on the pony stable (yes, Scott brought a bunch of Siberian ponies with him; it didn’t end well for them either), they found a wrinkled bag amidst a stack of empty boxes. Inside the bag they found two blocks of butter, much to their amazement.

“I think the butter was absolutely a treasure find,” Lizzie Meek of the Antarctic Heritage Trust told TV NZ. “It looked like an old wrinkly bag and you look inside and saw the wonderful Silver Fern logo,” she said.

She desribed the butter’s smell as “very pungent.”

“What’s amazing is how strong that smells,” she said. “I’m not sure I’d want it on my toast.”

Yeah no. Even in the freezer 100 years is a long time for any dairy product. On the other hand, maybe they just liked a bit of funk back then, like a cultured butter.

The silver fern is a familiar symbol to New Zealanders, most famous today as the logo of their legendary Rugby team, the All Blacks. Captain Scott’s team set off from New Zealand, so all their supplies were purchased there or donated by locals.

The maker’s label on the butter reads CCCDC, which probably stands for Canterbury Central Co-operative Dairy Company, a Christchurch company established in the 1890’s.

The AHT team plans to restore the butter, believe it or not. They’ll carefully remove the pieces of grit embedded in it and then just put it right back in the stable where they found it. Assuming its condition does not deteriorate, it should be fine in the frigid temperatures for another century at least.

Captain Scott’s second expedition set out to be the first to reach the South Pole, but adverse weather and some questionable choices on Scott’s part ensured they got there second, five weeks after Norwegian explorer and sled dog expert Roald Amundsen.

Dejected by their loss, Scott and his team trudged through Antarctic blizzards for 3 months, until the final three of them died on March 29 , 1912, just 11 miles from the food and fuel depot. Scott himself appears to have been the last man to die. His touching final diary entry, found by a search party 8 months later, and the tragic finale of the expedition, made him a hero in the Commonwealth.

e took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last [...] Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

(From History Blog)

Elements of gothic architecture

Colonialism

A different point of view about colonialism. It could be useful for you learning unit 4 main concepts

Colonialism

View more presentations from Donald Johnson.

Gothic Art and Architecture

Would you like to know more about gothic art?? try this slideshare presentation. Enjoy!

Gothic Art and Architecture

View more presentations from April Gerbasi.

Create your Middle Age character!!

Try end enjoy. Now you can design yor own character from medieval times!!Press here

LAST OF THE NEARDENTHALS

In March of 1994 some spelunkers exploring an extensive cave system in northern Spain poked their lights into a small side gallery and noticed two human mandibles jutting out of the sandy soil. The cave, called El Sidrón, lay in the midst of a remote upland forest of chestnut and oak trees in the province of Asturias, just south of the Bay of Biscay. Suspecting that the jawbones might date back as far as the Spanish Civil War, when Republican partisans used El Sidrón to hide from Franco's soldiers, the cavers immediately notified the local Guardia Civil.

But when police investigators inspected the gallery, they discovered the remains of a much larger—and, it would turn out, much older—tragedy.

Within days, law enforcement officials had shoveled out some 140 bones, and a local judge ordered the remains sent to the national forensic pathology institute in Madrid. By the time scientists finished their analysis (it took the better part of six years), Spain had its earliest cold case. The bones from El Sidrón were not Republican soldiers, but the fossilized remains of a group of Neanderthals who lived, and perhaps died violently, approximately 43,000 years ago. The locale places them at one of the most important geographical intersections of prehistory, and the date puts them squarely at the center of one of the most enduring mysteries in all of human evolution.

(From National Geographic web page)

"Daring young men" a book about The Berlin Blockade in its 50th anniversary

It´s 50 years now from the soviet troops Berlin Blockade, a thrilling story of how a great city could be supplied only by air. Even before World War II ended, the Western Allies knew that the peace was going to be tough, with the Soviet Union trying to control as much of Europe as it could—all the way to the Rhine, if possible. The Americans let their conscript army go home; the Russians did not. By June 1948, the U.S. had only 90,000 troops in Germany, facing a million men of the Red Army in the much smaller Soviet zone of occupation. The clashing visions of postwar Europe led to a crisis over what now seems a trivial dispute: whether the French, British and Americans could introduce a common currency in their West German occupation zones and—this was key—bring the new banknotes to Berlin. The defeated country's capital city was now divided between the Russians and the Western Allies though situated 100 miles inside the Soviet zone.

To prevent the banknotes from arriving—and potentially facilitating the rise of an independent, Western-oriented economy—the Russians halted traffic on the highways and railroads leading into the city. That move put the U.S. on the horns of a dilemma: risk war by ramming a convoy through to Berlin or make a humiliating retreat from the island city, leaving West Berliners to become part of the Soviet bloc. The actual solution was to supply Berlin supplied by air. It was possible? "Absolutely impossible," said the American military governor, Gen. Lucius Clay. The British were optimistic, though; they would not only feed their own garrison but have a go at supplying the Berliners as well. But President Truman gave the Order: he penned a dispatch to Gen. Clay: "We have ordered our planes all over the world to fly to Europe. You have our full support. God bless Berlin."

It was a risky mission, for Lt. McAfee and the thousands of other pilots and crew members—mostly British and American—who managed to supply Berlin for the rest of the year and well into 1949: Flying into the city's two airports was less a matter of landing than of diving, and on a glide path that, at one point, could put a plane's wheels within 17 feet of an apartment building. In the winter, fog settled over Berlin, requiring pilots and air controllers to cope with "zero-zero" conditions—no forward visibility and no sight of the ground until the wheels touched down. Altogether, the airlift would kill at least 80 servicemen and civilians—more British lives than American, along with the lives of several German workers. A third airport was hurriedly built from the city's rubble, largely by German housewives. Indeed, a majority of West Berliners were women—thanks to the ravages of war—and many had been raped between the time the city fell and the Americans arrived, a period of 62 days. (Mr. Reeves says that there were one million rapes in that time; he gives no source for the number.) The women worked to construct the airport from the rubble of wartime bombing. They dressed sometimes in bathing suits, sometimes in heels and Sunday best— whatever clothes they happened to own.

(from New York Times)

Yuri Gagarin death mystery solved after 40 years

The mystery surrounding Yuri Gagarin's death in an aircraft crash more than forty years ago may finally have been solved by a report which quashes decades of conspiracy theories. Independent Russian investigators say they have uncovered crucial new evidence which finally reveals how the world's first man in space died aged just 34. The study claims Gagarin's death during a routine training flight in 1968 was caused by his panicked reaction after realising an air vent in his cockpit was open.

He threw his MiG-15 fighter jet into such a steep dive that he blacked out and crashed into a forest below killing himself and his co-pilot. Igor Kuznetsov, a retired Soviet air force colonel, believes his findings will end years of conspiracy theories ranging from claims Gagarin was drunk to allegations the accident was staged by jealous Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He has spent the past nine years with a group of aviation specialists, piecing together the circumstances using modern accident investigation techniques.

SOURCE: Daily Telegraph (UK) (1-8-10)

medieval architecture

ANATOMY EXPERT SHOWS HOW ART MASTERPIECES REVEAL ILLNESS

Mona Lisa's famous smile may have been the result of fatty acids gathered around her eye socket suggesting her high cholesterol levels, according to an Italian medical expert.

Vito Franco, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Palermo, who has been studying art masterpieces for evidence of disease and illness, alleged some of the world's greatest works of art revealed signs of illness.

"I look at art with a different eye from an art expert, much as a mathematician listens to music in a different way from a music critic," he said. Professor Franco, who presented his findings at a European congress on human pathology in Florence, said he had found evidence of a range of afflictions in not only aristocrats but also Madonnas, angels and mythical heroes.Dr Franco says his medical examinations reveal more than artistic viewings.

"Illness exists within the body, it does not have a metaphysical or supernatural dimension," Dr Franco told La Stampa newspaper. "The people depicted in art reveal their physicality, tell us of their vulnerable humanity, regardless of the artist's awareness of it," he added. He also suggests the delicate elongated fingers in Botticelli's Portrait of a Youth reveal the boy was perhaps suffering from Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects connective tissues.

The Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca appears to have a goitre, or swelling of the thyroid gland, on her neck typical of people who drank water from a well in certain areas" in medieval times, it was claimed.

Professor Franco also claims that Michelangelo's own ailment, that he diagnoses as kidney stones, seem to come to surface in Raphael's School of Athens where he appears with strangely swollen and knobbly knees.

(From Medieval news)