THE ULTIMATE
Archaeologists have unveiled a Roman fast food store they have unearthed amongst the ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii.
The archaeologists began uncovering the fast food store in 2019, and though a number are known of in the ruins of Pompeii, this is the first complete one, called a thermopolium, they have uncovered. The store would have sold hot food and drinks to the residents of the city of Pompeii, and the counters have been preserved so that the original bright paintings, or frescoes, can still be seen on them - showing animals such as ducks, chickens, and a dog tied to a wall, as well as images from Greek and Roman literature. Some of these may show what was on sale, whilst others may suggest the store was gaurded and the possibly early branding. Pompeii is famous for being the Roman city that was covered in lava and ash from an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It is south of Naples, in Southern Italy. The site will be open to tourists later in the year. Find out more on the BBC at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55454717 The design below is based on the murals of the thermopolium at Pompeii.
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June 20th this year marks the Summer Solstice the longest day of the year for those in the Northern Hemisphere, it is Midsummer.
This is when the Earth is tilted on its axis on its orbit around the sun, so that the North Pole is at its closest to the Sun, For Arctic regions this means they have continuous sunlight for 24 hours! Whilst the Northern Hemisphere, marks Midsummer, in the Southern Hemisphere - for example, for Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina, it's Midwinter and they are having the their Midwinter, their Winter Solstice. The Summer Solstice in Northern Hemisphere has long been a time of festival and ritual, most famously, at England's Stonehenge, in Wiltshire of Salisbury Plain. There are plenty of other stone mounment aligned with the Solstices across the British Isles, including in Ireland, as well as in Europe, such as in France. Stonehenge, sees hundreds of people attend each year to see the sun rise between one of the stone 'arches' that make the ring of Stonehenge, and over the more distant 'heel' stone outside of the henge. Those that attend may be modern pagan and New Age belief followers, who believe in spirituality associated with nature, many of whom will see themselves as a continuation of an ancient Celtic to Stone Age set of beliefs in Britain that were present before Christianity - they may call themselves Druids. Stonehenge has many numerous theories for why it was built, and how it was built - was it a temple to the sun? was it a place of healing? or was it a place for remembering the dead? Or was it all of these and more? Was it built by magic as suggested by Merlin in Arthurian legend? Or how did the inner smaller 'Bluestones' get from coastal West Wales, in the Preseli Mountains, to Salisbury plain? across the land around 250 miles, or floated on boats around South Wales and South West England, then Northwards across the land to Salisbury Plain? And why at Salisbury Plain - what was special about this area to early Britons? Due to Coronavirus, this year people are not able to visit Stonehenge, but you van witness the sunrise on 21st June (the Summer Solstice sunrise depends on how the days are counted, and there is little difference to the spectacle a day either side) as English Heritage are airing the sunrise live on their Social Media accounts. you can find out more about Stonehenge, and the Solstices at the English Heritage website below - oh, and fingers crossed for a clear sky tomorrow morning! https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/things-to-do/solstice/ Black History in Britain goes back to before the Anglo-Saxons invaded and settled Britain creating the English. Black people lived in Britain as Roman Citizens during the Roman Empire's control of Britain. As the Roman Empire stretched across Europe and into North Africa, Africans could migrate as citizens, or as soldiers in the Roman Army. There has long been pictorial evidence from Roman Times, but as the BBC article featuring Lavinya Stennett shows archaeological evidence and scientific analysis in 2010 of a Roman woman's skeleton found in 1901, shows that she was born in Britain around 350 AD, and likely of North African descent.
Another fascinating example in the article is the case of John Blanke, Henry VIII's, and Henry VII's trumpeter, shown on a roll at a tournament to celebrate the birth of Henry VIII's scroll, on horseback in a troop of royal trumpeters. Incredibly, further evidence has survived in a petition by John Blanke to the king for a pay rise. The article includes the triumphs of the 1960s Bristol bus boycott, as well as the sadness of the Race Riots that followed the First World War when Black soldiers returned from the front to scapegoated (blamed unfairly) for the economic crises - as well as how slavery was a driving force in the UK's industrial development. Find out more on the BBC with Kameron Virk's article at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52939694 The United States is set to see its first crewed launch of a spacecraft since the Space Shuttle programme was ended in 2011.
NASA is to utilise the Space X company's rockets to send two astronauts to the International Space Station, in what is also a first, as it will be the first time a company rather than a nation-state has launched people into space. Space X is the company founded by Elon Musk, having created Pay Pal and Tesla. The launch will be at 16:33 locat time, 20:33 GMT, 21:33BST. The Crew Dragon capsule, pictured below, will be launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, from the same launchpad that launched Apollo 11 to the moon. As VE Day (Victory in Europe) is celebrated, which drew to a close the war against the Nazis across Europe, it should be remembered that it was an international Allied effort - involving citizens from the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union (the main part of which was modern day Russia).
What is more, the war effort was even more international than the above list of countries suggests, for at that time Britain was a globe spanning Empire, and British citizens from across its Empire leapt to the defence of what they saw as the 'mother country'. Around 10,000 British citizens came from the Caribbean to fight for Britain against the Nazis, around 5,000 served in the RAF. See the story of 95 year-old veteran, Albert Jarret who travelled from the Caribbean to serve in the RAF, and the campaign to give such contributions greater recognition with a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, on the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-52543809/ve-day-the-experience-of-a-caribbean-ww2-raf-veteran Banksy's latest artwork has been gifted to Suthampton General Hospital, and portrays the latest Superhero - a nurse!
The painting shows a boy playing with his toys, the old superheroes Batman and Spiderman have been discarded, as the boy plays with a nurse doll, as a child would a plane. The nurse is a caped crusader, wearing a female nurse's outfit, emblazoned with a red cross, wearing a face mask and in the superhero flight pose of Superman. The message is unmistakable, the nurses, the NHS, are the new superhero on the block in the era of coronavius, Covid-19. see more on the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52556544 |
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