Part 31 (1/2)

The origin of the 26-mile run dates to a Greek messenger called Pheidippides, who ran this distance from Marathon to Athens to relate the victory of the Athenians over the Persians in 490 BC BC. According to popular legend he delivered the message and then dropped dead.

It's a heroic tale but it doesn't hold water. Very few marathon runners die after the event, and professional ancient Greek couriers were regularly required to run twice as far.

This version of the story first appears in the work of the Roman historian Plutarch (c. AD AD 45125) more than 500 years later. He calls the runner Eucles. It seems to have become confused with the much older story of Pheidippides recorded by Herodotus, who was born six years after the battle, and whose account is the nearest we have to a contemporary one. 45125) more than 500 years later. He calls the runner Eucles. It seems to have become confused with the much older story of Pheidippides recorded by Herodotus, who was born six years after the battle, and whose account is the nearest we have to a contemporary one.

According to him, Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Sparta (246 km or 153 miles) to ask for help in beating off the Persian attack. The Spartans were busy with a religious festival, so he ran all the way back and the Athenians had to fight the Persians on their own. They won a resounding victory, losing 192 men to the Persians' 6,400. Pheidippides didn't die.

Ultra-running is the discipline that covers any running event that's longer than a marathon. In 1982, the American Ultra-running a.s.sociation ran the authentic Pheidippides route (as agreed by a consortium of Greek scholars) and established it as the International Spartathlon in 1983. The first winner was a modern legend: the Greek long-distance runner, Yannis Kouros.

Kouros currently holds every world record from 200 to 1,600 km (125 to 1,000 miles). In 2005, he retraced Pheidippides' complete route, running from Athens to Sparta and back.

What does the Queen say to someone she's knighted?

Not a lot.

According to the official website of the British monarchy, es from Latin is 'the salutation on the bestowal of knighthood'. It comes from Latin ad, ad, 'to', and 'to', and collum, collum, 'neck' hence, 'an embrace round the neck'. 'neck' hence, 'an embrace round the neck'.

There also used to be a ceremony a.s.sociated with the removal of a knighthood: degradation. The last public degradation was in 1621, when Sir Francis Mitch.e.l.l was found guilty of 'grievous exactions' and had his spurs broken and thrown away, his belt cut and his sword broken over his head. Finally, he was p.r.o.nounced to be 'no longer a Knight but Knave'.

Unlike Lord Kagan (jailed for theft in 1980), Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare was never knighted and so hasn't faced degradation following his own 'grievous exactions'. He keeps his peerage but has inspired reforms so far not carried out that will make it impossible for a convicted criminal to serve in the House of Lords.

STEPHEN By tradition, what's the difference when clergy are knighted, if they happen to be? By tradition, what's the difference when clergy are knighted, if they happen to be?

PHILL They kneel on a corgi. They kneel on a corgi.

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Why do Spaniards lisp?

In the first place, they don't. And, even if they did (despite what you may have heard) it has nothing to do with sucking up to the king.

The first problem is that no one can agree which king this might have been: Ferdinand I, Charles I, Philip II are all regularly cited, but the only Spanish king who is recorded as having a lisp is Pedro of Castile (133469). What's more, the man who alleged he had a lisp was Lopez de Ayalla, who can hardly be counted as a reliable source, since he became chancellor under Pedro's b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother, eventual usurper and murderer, Henry of Trastamara. As well as saying, he 'lisped a little' ('ceceaba un poco'), Ayalla invented the slur that he was known as 'Pedro the Cruel'. In fact, Pedro was very popular among merchants and tradesmen, and unusually tolerant of the Jews. Geoffrey Chaucer met him in his professional capacity as a diplomat, and admired him a great deal. In The The Canterbury Tales Canterbury Tales, he called him the 'Glory of Spain'.

The second problem is that the so-called 'Castilian lisp' only began to develop in the sixteenth century, 200 years after Pedro died.

Technically, a lisp is a misp.r.o.nunciation of the 's' sound. No normal Spanish speaker does this Espana itself has an 's' in it. The issue revolves around the p.r.o.nunciation of 'z' and 'c' (when it comes before an 'i' or an 'e').

There are three options open to Spanish speakers. In most of Spain, particularly Castile, the 'th' sound is used and this is distinguished clearly from the 's' sound. So, casa casa is p.r.o.nounced 'carsa' and is p.r.o.nounced 'carsa' and caza caza is 'cartha'. The second option is called is 'cartha'. The second option is called ceceo ceceo (p.r.o.nounced 'theth-ayo'), in which both words are p.r.o.nounced 'cartha'. This 'double-lisp' is only found in southern parts of Andalusia and is considered extremely b.u.mpkinish. The final option is (p.r.o.nounced 'theth-ayo'), in which both words are p.r.o.nounced 'cartha'. This 'double-lisp' is only found in southern parts of Andalusia and is considered extremely b.u.mpkinish. The final option is seseo seseo (p.r.o.nounced 'sesayo'), in which both the words are p.r.o.nounced 'carsa'. Basques and Catalans, for whom Soanish is a second language, tend to use this option and it is the p.r.o.nunciation used in the Canary Islands and throughout Latin America. The reason for this is that (p.r.o.nounced 'sesayo'), in which both the words are p.r.o.nounced 'carsa'. Basques and Catalans, for whom Soanish is a second language, tend to use this option and it is the p.r.o.nunciation used in the Canary Islands and throughout Latin America. The reason for this is that seseo seseo is also used in the area around Seville, the city that held the monopoly on trade with the New World, and the port from whence most explorers and emigrants left for the Americas. is also used in the area around Seville, the city that held the monopoly on trade with the New World, and the port from whence most explorers and emigrants left for the Americas.

But these aren't strict rules. p.r.o.nunciation evolves and changes all the time as result of social pressures, such as the need to be understood, or the desire to fit in. One researcher noted that a native of the northern city of Zaragoza managed four different p.r.o.nunciations of the city's name in the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes.

Who was the first King of England?

Alfred the Great's grandson.

King Aethelstan (92439) was the first true King of all England. His grandfather, Alfred the Great, was only King of Wess.e.x, even though he did refer to himself rather optimistically as 'King of the English'.

When Alfred came to the throne, England was still made up of five separate kingdoms. During Alfred's life, Cornwall came under his control but Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia fell to Viking invaders.

After a period hiding in the Somerset levels (where he didn't didn't burn any cakes), Alfred fought back against the Danes, eventually restoring his old kingdom. But in the treaty he made following his defeat of the Viking warlord Guthrum at Edington in 878, he chose to give half the country (everything east of a line from London to Chester) to the enemy. This was known as the Danelaw. In return, Guthrum agreed to convert to Christianity. burn any cakes), Alfred fought back against the Danes, eventually restoring his old kingdom. But in the treaty he made following his defeat of the Viking warlord Guthrum at Edington in 878, he chose to give half the country (everything east of a line from London to Chester) to the enemy. This was known as the Danelaw. In return, Guthrum agreed to convert to Christianity.

Alfred was keen to ensure that any future Scandinavian raiders wouldn't find it quite so easy and set about creating a network of defended towns to protect his territory.

It worked. By his grandson's reign, Wess.e.x's control of England was complete. At the battle of Brunanburh in 937, Aethelstan defeated the Kings of Scotland, Strathclyde and Dublin to establish the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England.

No one is sure where 'Brunanburh' is: Tinsley Wood near Sheffield seems the best guess.

The last King of 'England' that is, the last King to rule England and nothing else was Harold G.o.dwinson or Harold II. William, his successor, was already Duke of Normandy, and the English crown controlled substantial portions of France until Calais was finally surrendered in 1558.

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What did they call the man who won the battle of Hastings?

Many things, not all of them nice, but absolutely n.o.body called him 'William'.

'William' is an English invention, one of the unforeseen consequences of the Conquest. It was the product of a collision between Norman French, which had no 'W' and Anglo-Saxon, which had a 'W' but no equivalent name. The Conqueror's Norman French companions would have called him 'Guillaume' and written it in Latin, Guillelmus (as it appears on his tomb in Caen). The English compromise they had to call the new boss something was to p.r.o.nounce and spell his name with a Germanic 'W' Willelm. You can see the s.h.i.+ny new name (complete with W) on the Bayeux tapestry, completed ten years later.

What is astonis.h.i.+ng is that, in less than fifty years, William, a name that in 1066 had never been used anywhere in the world, became the most popular boy's name in England. By the year 1230, an estimated one in seven Englishmen was called William. The top fourteen names in England, in fact, were all Norman and accounted for three-quarters of all names recorded.

Despite the brutal harrying of the North, the murder or expulsion of almost the entire Saxon ruling cla.s.s and the imposition of the so-called Norman yoke, the English people seemed quite happy to identify themselves with their oppressors. So, out went Aelfwine, Earconbert, Hengist, Swidhelm and Yffi and in came John, Hugo, Richard and Robert, which must be counted as something to thank the Normans for ... ...

Though the Conqueror was illegitimate, and nicknamed Guillaume le Batard in French, the Saxons wouldn't have called him a b.a.s.t.a.r.d (the word comes from the French batard batard, another Norman import unknown in England before the Conquest). They would have called him a cifesboren cifesboren or a or a hornungsunu hornungsunu, both of which roughly translate as 'son of a wh.o.r.e'.

William remained one of the top ten boys' names in Britain until the 1950s, where it went into a decline only to re-emerge in 2004, probably as a result of the popularity of Prince William. The royal connection still seems to matter. William was the eighth most popular boy's name in 2007 and Harry the fifth (Charles, however, has fallen to 52 and Philip languishes at 270).

Neither Tony or Gordon make the top 100; David is currently in at 64; but the William the Conqueror Prize for fastest climber is Jayden, the thirty-second most popular boy's name in the UK in 2007, up from 68 in 2006. That's 2,548 new Jaydens, all of them, it seems, inspired by the naming of Britney Spears's youngest son, born in September 2006.

Who fought at the battle of Culloden?

Essentially, it was Scotland v. Scotland.

There were more Scots in the army that defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746 than there were in his own army.

As well as three battalions of Lowland Scots, the Hanoverian army under General c.u.mberland included a well-trained battalion of Highland Scots from Clan Munro, a big contingent of the Highland Clan Campbell's militia, and a large number of Highland foot soldiers from Clans MacKay, Ross, Gunn and Grant, fighting under English officers.