During the Middle Ages in Europe, the cat became an object of superstitions and was associated with evil. The animal was believed to have powers of black magic – an assistant to witches and perhaps the embodiment of the devil. People who kept cats were suspected of wickedness and were often put to death along […]
History and biography have several similarities, but they are not synonymous. Both the biographer and the historian search for evidence. They evaluate the information they find to decide if it is factual and relevant. History, however, is the recorded past of human societies; it tells the story of nations, wars and movements – the whole […]
Paintings and power shovels, sonatas and submarines, dramas and dynamos – they all have one thing in common. They are fashioned by people. They are artificial, in contrast to everything that is natural – plants, animals, and minerals. The average 20th-century person would distinguish paintings, sonatas, and dramas as forms of art, while viewing power […]
The composer of some of the most influential pieces of music ever written, Ludwig van Beethoven created a bridge between the 18th-century classical period and the new beginnings of Romanticism. His greatest breakthroughs in composition came in his instrumental work, including his symphonies. Unlike his predecessor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for whom writing music seemed to […]
The human race’s progress on the Earth has been due in part to the animals that people have been able to utilize throughout history. Such domesticated animals carry people and their burdens. They pull machinery and help cultivate fields. They provide food and clothing. As pets they may amuse or console their owners. Domesticated animals […]
Penguin ancestors could fly as well as any other sea bird. Now its wings are short, paddle-like flippers that are entirely useless for flight. The bird has lived for ages in or near the Antarctic regions, where it has few enemies. Thus it came to spend all of its time on land or in the […]
Dolphins and porpoises, often called simply “small whales,” are mammals, not fish, and are thus warm-blooded, keeping their body temperature nearly constant even when they are exposed to different environmental temperatures. The mothers provide milk for the young for a year or more. Like other whales, dolphins have lungs and breathe through a single nostril, […]
Because of his imperturbable manner, both on and off the tennis court, and his relentless ground strokes, Bjom Borg was dubbed Ice-Borg by his opponents on the professional tennis circuit. Borg won his first tournament when he was 11. In four years, he won all the world’s junior titles, and became the first of the […]
Exactly what is a plant and how is it different from other life forms? This may initially seem like a simple question. Everyone knows that an elm tree is a plant, whereas a dog is not. Nevertheless, the precise definition of plants is still a matter of debate among some scientists. All living things are […]
The novels and plays of Alexandre Dumas are filled with action and clever talk. Some critics, however, have said that Dumas’s work is not good literature because it is sometimes carelessly written and historically inaccurate. After several failures as a playwright, Dumas wrote a play about the king called Henri III. It was produced in […]