Welcome to Glewwe's Historical Archive

The best way to store them was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small, neat area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem, how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling out from under the weight of the others.

The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 roundedindentations. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickley rust to it, since cannons were not fired that often. Thus, to correct this problem, the solution was to make the plate out of Brass, thus calling it a "Brass Monkey."

Few landlubbers realized that brass contracts much more and muchfaster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!" (And all this time, you thought that was an improper expression, didn't you?)
 

Small cakes were baked and offered to goddesses at the beginning of spring in a number of ancient cultures including the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians. The goddess being honoured was Ishtar, or Hathor, the goddess of the moon, associated with fertility and renewal. These cakes were marked with a curved shape representing the horns of an ox, the animal connected with the moon. The Greeks and Romans also made cakes for their moon goddesses, and again marked them with ox horns. In fact, it is thought that the Greek word for these cakes, 'boun', meaning 'ox', may have given us our word 'bun'. Soon, Europe was full of variations on these little buns to mark the start of spring and they eventually ended up in Britain via the pagan cultures of northern Europe. The Saxons worshipped Eostre, the goddess of dawn and spring, this word deriving from the Norse 'eostur' meaning the season of the growing sun. The English word 'Easter' is actually derived from the name of the pagan goddess of spring, Eostre.  Eostre gave her name to Easter, the month-long festival to honour the arrival of spring and the passing of winter, and during this festival the Saxons made buns to offer the goddess.

The cross, it seems, comes from the pagan cross long used to represent the four phases of the moon.  The cross was the symbol of choice for the Saxons wanting to honour their goddess Eostre, and so they marked their wheaten buns accordingly. When the Christians gained a firm foothold in Britain, their leaders banned the pagan Easter rites, and it was not until 782 AD,
having found a way to incorporate some of these rites into the Christian ones held at this same time of year, that they decided that substitution was easier than fully-fledged conversion. The cross on the buns conveniently echoed the traditional Christian cross and the Easter festival became dominated by Christian traditions, the original pagan rites slowly sliding into obscurity. Nowadays, we all associate hot cross buns with Good Friday, and it is said that if made on this day they will never grow mouldy.   Much of this came from the Eras of Elegance.
 

During World War One (1914-1918) the British developed and used the first armored track-laying vehicles.  To maintain secrecy, the vehicles were shipped to the battle zone in crates marked “tanks,” hence the origin of the name.  The first battle in which these tanks were employed was the Battle of the Somme, on September fifteen, 1916, when the British used forty-nine tanks with disappointing results.