Memphis is an important centre and capital of ancient Egypt, significantly advancing humanity’s understanding of medicine. Memphis is the Greek name for the city, which the Egyptians called Men-Nefer (“beautiful harbour”) since at least the third millennium BC. The archaeological zone at Memphis is now a designated UNESCO World Heritage site with tourists that flock to see the remains of the ancient city in the Memphis Open Air Museum.

Memphis, capital of ancient Egypt

The area has been inhabited since Neolithic times and had a well-developed culture by about 3600 BC. During the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2200 BC), Egypt’s first golden age, Memphis was home to as many as <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-lost-city-of-memphis-egypt.html">30,000</a> people, making it perhaps the world’s largest settlement at that time.

Memphis served as capital for almost three and a half millennia

<ul><li>The great medical innovator was Imhotep, the chief minister and head magician for the Third Dynasty Pharaoh Djoser (reigned c. 2686–2648 BC,) whose court was in Memphis.</li><li>The medical advancements made in Memphis were remarkable for the era, partly thanks to the practice of mummification.</li><li>The physicians of Memphis also developed many medical specializations. Each physician [was] a healer of one disease and no more, such as eye physicians or stomach physicians. </li><li>The physicians discovered many effective treatments and pioneered areas, including surgery, nutrition, pharmacology, and prosthetics.</li></ul>

Memphis is home to the earliest pioneer of medicine

history

History

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Centers of Progress, Pt. 33: Memphis (Medicine) - HumanProgress

Royal jubilee celebrations have a long history, despite that only a few British monarchs have lived long enough to reach a major milestone. <ul><li>October 1809 was the 49th anniversary of George III's accession, at the height of the Napoleonic wars.</li><li>Queen Victoria celebrated Golden and Diamond Jubilees marking 50 and 60 years of her reign. </li><li>George V's silver jubilee in May 1935 marked 25 years of George V as the King.</li><li>In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her platinum  jubilee. No other British monarch has ever reigned for 70 years.</li></ul>

Royal jubilee celebrations

The success of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II's 25 years on the throne was not a foregone conclusion.  The country was in an economic crisis and bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. There was a sentiment of political instability and discontent. The exposure of the affair between Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener and baronet, caused ribald headlines, and the Labour government was reluctant to spend money on a celebration. Huge crowds greeted her enthusiastically. "I am simply amazed: I had no idea," the Queen was overheard saying repeatedly.

1977: The silver jubilee

The 50th anniversary of the Queen’s accession followed a decade of shocks to the monarchy: the divorces of three of her children, and the fire at Windsor Castle,  whereafter the Queen wished to pay income tax for the first time. These events led to questioning both the monarchy’s popularity and its long-term viability. After the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother at the age of 101, the public reaction revealed respect and affection for the monarchy. These are some events that contributed to another successful jubilee celebration.

2002: The golden jubilee

The diamond jubilee was not tentative testing of the monarchy’s popularity. Yet, to prevent criticism of the cost at a time of recession, some elements of the celebrations were privately sponsored. Overall, the Queen’s jubilees proved an increasingly successful element in promoting the monarchy’s popularity.

2012: The diamond jubilee

The 65th anniversary of the Queen’s accession passed without publicity. The chief reason for the lack of ceremony is that the date of her accession is also the anniversary of her father’s death, which the Queen liked to spend in private. George  VI was found dead in bed in 1952, having unexpectedly suffered a heart attack in his sleep. Elizabeth II was on tour in Kenya when she succeeded to the throne.

2017: The sapphire jubilee

Royal anniversary celebrations have long been a litmus test of the public mood. As Queen Elizabeth II reaches her platinum jubilee, Stephen Bates looks at the major milestones in the reign of Elizabeth II, and Britons’ reactions to these events...

Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilees: Celebrations Of A Record-Breaking Reign | HistoryExtra

Queen Elizabeth II rose to the throne in 1952 at the age of 25 after the death of her father, King George VI. She became the longest-reigning monarch in British and Commonwealth history. The previous record-holder was Queen Victoria, who ruled from 1837 to 1901.

Queen Elizabeth II

<ul><li>The record-holder for the longest-reigning monarch is French King Louis XIV, who ruled as an absolute monarch from age 4 for approximately 72 years. He reigned from 1643 to 1715.</li><li>The next longest-reigning monarch is Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who was on the throne for about 70 years from 1946 until he died in 2016. He was known as one of the world's wealthiest royals.</li><li>Queen Elizabeth is the world's third longest ruling monarch in modern history. She is two years away from becoming the longest-reigning monarch in Europe.</li></ul>

The world’s longest reigning monarchs

Longest Reigning Monarchs: Where Queen Elizabeth II Fits

Émile Cohl is the father of the animated cartoon. In 1907, Cohl was hired as a scenarist by Gaumont to generate one-page story ideas for movies.
Between February and May 1908, Cohl created <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasmagorie_%281908_film%29">Fantasmagorie</a>, the first fully animated film. To create the animation, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and traced the next drawing, reflecting the variations needed to show movement. The animation contained over 700 illustrations.

The Story of Fantasmagorie (1908)

Georges Méliès was the first cinemagician for his early use of special effects in cinema.
In 1902, he appeared in one of his own films, l'oeuf du sorcier (The Prolific Egg). The groundbreaking exploration of scale, multiplication, and transitions truly sealed his reputation as a "cinemagician".

Georges Méliès (The Prolific Egg)

McCay is considered the father of "true" animation.
His 1911 film, Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics, or Little Nemo contains two minutes of pure animation using sequential hand illustration in a novel way.

Winsor McCay (Little Nemo)

British filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton is credited with creating the first animation in America. He was the first to use stop-motion as a storytelling technique.
In The Enchanted Drawing, Blackton sketches a face, cigars, and a bottle of wine, then "removes" these last drawings as real objects so that the face appears to react.

The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

The animal locomotion studies of Eadweard J. Muybridge are among the earliest visual experiments in creating an illusion of motion. The "persistence of vision" principle laid the foundation for later forms of videography.

Muybridge: Waltzing couple (1893)

A look back at the early-20th-century inventors of a new art form, from Émile Cohl to Eadweard J. Muybridge

movies

Movies & Shows

Before Walt Disney: 5 Pioneers of Early Animation

Shopping carts helped usher in mass consumption and enabled grocery stores and brands to expand their products. Customers didn't have to worry about how they would get the goods to their car. Carts also spurred the rise of impulse buying. But early on, customers were wary of the carts. Women did not want to push carts in stores, saying they had pushed enough baby buggies around. Men thought the carts would make them look weak.

Shopping carts was not an immediate success

The adoption of shopping carts came just as supermarkets came onto the scene in America. In the ensuing decades, more Americans started driving and larger supermarkets with parking lots started opening in suburbs. Yet, shoppers still carried baskets and were unlikely to stock up. In the early 1900s, a grocery chain in Texas offered carts, but it didn't gain traction as baskets were considered aristocratic. Pushing a cart around was a kind of embarrassment.

The arrival of supermarkets

In 1936, Samuel Goldman came up with an idea for a rolling cart. He noticed customers would stop shopping once their basket became too heavy. He attached wheels to a folding chair and put a basket on top. But few shoppers took to the carts. To convince customers, Goldman hired people to walk around the store with shopping carts and fill them up. Customers eventually started following the example.

The evolution of the shopping cart

In 1946, Orla Watson patented the "telescope cart" allowing them to slide together in horizontal stacks to solve the storage dilemma. Seatbelts were added to the child seats in the 1960s. However, carts were often abandoned in back alleys, rivers, and forests, leading lawmakers to impose regulations and fines on businesses that didn't keep track of their trolleys. Carts also became a symbol of urban blight and poverty, often used by homeless people to store and transport their belongings.

The shopping cart's design and function

We live in a world shaped by shopping carts. The ubiquitous, unloved contraptions are a key feature of US economy. (Yes, really.) 

Why people hated shopping carts when they first came out

Archaeologists repeatedly stumble upon artifacts that seem way too advanced for the times from which they originate. The ancient Greeks, for instance, developed a clock capable of calculating and tracking planetary motions and solar eclipses among other things. These forward-thinking inventions are often called "ahead of their time." In reality, they are reflections of the ingenuity of their respective civilizations.

Back To The Future

Archaeological excavations throughout the world reveal that, once in a while, ancient civilizations developed inventions that were decades if not centuries ahead of their time.It is sometimes said that these inventions rival or outmatch modern science. This, too, is a misconception. While many ancient super technologies — from Roman concrete to Damascus steel — were once lost, they have since been recreated by present-day researchers.

Ahead Of Their Time

When the Muslim fleet of the Umayyad Caliphate attempted to lay siege to the Byzantine city of Constantinople in 674, their ships were doused in flames. At first, the Muslims were not alarmed; fire was often used in naval warfare and could be put out easily with cloth, dirt, or water. This, however, was no ordinary fire. Once ignited, it could not be extinguished, and after the entire fleet had burned down, even the sea itself was set ablaze.

Greek Fire: Flames that Don’t Go Out

The Antikythera mechanism, which was found to be over 2,200 years old, had functioned as an ancient computer.  CT scans reveal the contraptions mind boggling complexity, combining cycles from Babylonian astronomy, mathematics from Plato’s Academy, and ancient Greek astronomical theories. It could calculate the ecliptic longitudes of the moon and sun, the phases of the moon, the synodic phases of the planets, the excluded days of the Metonic Calendar, and the Olympiad cycle, among a myriad of other things.

Antikythera Mechanism: A Cosmic Clock Before Copernicus

Damascus steel swords originated in the Middle East during the 9th century and were renowned for their appearance as well as their durability, being multiple times stronger and sharper than the Western swords used during the Crusades. Their name, derived from the Arabic word for “water,” references not only the Syrian city from which they hailed but also the flowing pattern that adorns their surface. This pattern was created during a unique forging process where small ingots of wootz steel sourced from India, Sri Lanka, or Iran were melted with charcoal and cooled at an incredibly slow rate.

Damascus Steel: Swords that Will Not Dull

Created almost 2000 years ago, the Houfeng Didong Yi holds the honor of being the world’s first seismoscope. Its place of origin was China, a country that has been plagued by earthquakes for as long as its inhabitants can remember. Its creator was Zhang Heng, a distinguished astronomer, cartographer, mathematician, poet, painter, and inventor who lived under the Han Dynasty from 78 to 139 AD.

The Houfeng Didong Yi: The World’s First Seismoscope

Many architectural projects of ancient Rome would not have been possible without Roman concrete. Also known as opus caementicium, Roman concrete was a hydraulic-setting cement mix consisting of volcanic ash and lime that bound rock fragments into “a single stone mass” and made them impregnable to the waves and every day stronger.

Roman Concrete: Cement that Does Not Crack

Archaeologists use the term “Baghdad battery” to refer to a ceramic pot, copper tube, and iron rod that were found in Iraq near what was once the capital of both the Parthian and subsequent Sasanian Empire. They believe the three distinct objects once fitted together to create a single device. The purpose of this device, which seems to have been capable of generating electricity, remains unclear.

Baghdad Battery: A Rudimentary Taser (for Pain Relief)

These astounding inventions show that civilizations of the past were a lot more advanced than we might have thought.

These astounding examples of ancient technology show that past civilizations were more advanced than we might have thought.

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Ancient technology that was centuries ahead of its time

Early museums began as private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions. They displayed rare or curious natural objects and artefacts in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities. The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/791/capitoline-museums">Capitoline Museums</a> are the oldest public collection of art in the world. It began in 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of important ancient sculptures to the people of Rome. You can see medieval and Renaissance art, ancient Roman statues, coin and jewellery collections, etc.

The Capitoline Museums

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/785/vatican-museums">Vatican Museums</a> are a group of museums located inside the Vatican City. It traces its origins to the sculptural collection begun in 1506 by Pope Julius II. It displays works from the collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries and includes masterpieces of Renaissance art.

The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani)

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Royal Armouries in the Tower of London</a> is the oldest museum in Britain. It opened to the public in 1660. Royal Armouries is located at three sites across England:<ul><li>In a purpose-built museum in <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1402/royal-armouries-museum-leeds">Leeds</a>, West Yorkshire</li><li>A Victorian fort at <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/7396/royal-armouries-museum-fort-nelson">Fort Nelson</a>, Portsmouth, Hampshire</li><li>Its historic home at the <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Tower of London in the White Tower</a></li></ul>

The Royal Armouries in the Tower of London

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1364/ashmolean-museum">Ashmolean Museum</a> in Britain is the oldest university museum in the world. In 1677, it received the cabinet of curiosities from Elias Ashmole. The museum houses an extensive collection of items with artistic and archaeological significance. Notable exhibitions include biblical manuscripts, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, watercolours by Turner, a ceremonial dress owned by Lawrence of Arabia, and more.

The Ashmolean Museum

The private collection was bought by the university and city of Basel in 1661 and opened to the public in 1671. The collection is now part of a rich historical and cultural heritage in the city of Basel. The main focus is on paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600 and in the 19th and 21st centuries.

The Amerbach Cabinet

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5711/muse-des-beauxarts-et-darchologie">Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie</a> in Besançon was established in 1694 when an abbot, Jean-Baptiste Boisot, gave his personal collection to the Benedictines of the city to create a museum open to the public. The museum is famous for its extensive collections of archaeology, paintings, and drawing cabinet and includes Egyptian mummies and works of art from famous Italian, French, and Spanish painters.

 The Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie

Founded in 1717, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (<a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15970/kunstkamera">Kunstkamera</a>) in St. Petersburg is one of the richest ethnographical museums in the world.

The Kunstkamera 

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/418/british-museum">British Museum</a> in London was founded in 1753. Sir Hans Sloane's personal collection of curios provided the initial collection. Today its collections number more than seven million objects from around the world and illustrate and documented the story of human culture.

The British Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5340/uffizi-gallery">Uffizi Gallery</a> in Florence started in the 15th century by Cosimo de’ Medici. It is one of the most famous museums of paintings and sculpture globally, containing universally acclaimed Primitive and Renaissance paintings. It includes works by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.

The Uffizi Gallery

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15967/the-state-hermitage-museum">State Hermitage Museum</a> in St. Petersburg, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, contains over three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. It includes paintings, graphic works, sculptures and works of applied art, archaeological finds and numismatic material.

The State Hermitage Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/773/museo-nacional-del-prado">Museo del Prado</a> in Madrid. Founded in 1785 by Charles III of Spain, the significant royal collection represents the foundation of the Museum's collection as we know it today. Today, we can see great masterpieces such as The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosh, The Nobleman with his hand on his Chest by El Greco, Death of the Virgin by Mantegna, The Holy Family known as The Pearl by Raphael, Emperor Carlos V on Horseback by Titian, The Foot Washing by Tintoretto, Self-portrait by Durër, Las Meninas by Velázquez, The Three Graces by Rubens, and The Family of Carlos IV by Goya.

Museo del Prado

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/358/belvedere">Belvedere</a> Palace of the Habsburg monarchs in Vienna opened in 1781 with a collection of art. It holds the greatest collection of Austrian art dating from the Middle Ages to today.

The Belvedere Palace of the Habsburg monarchs

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/702/louvre-museum">Louvre Museum</a> opened to the public in 1793. It contains nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century.

The Louvre Museum in Paris

The first collection was established around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania. The museum comprises:<ul><li>European Art, Romanian Art and the Library (in the Brukenthal Palace),</li><li>Contemporary Art and the Museum of History (in the Altemberger House),</li><li>the Museum of Natural History, Museum of Pharmacy and Museum of Hunting.</li></ul>

The Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Transylvania

The Museum was founded in 1773. It is the oldest in Latvia and the whole of the Baltics. The Museum is situated in Old Riga, in a remarkable architectural monument of the 13th–20th centuries - the ensemble of the Riga Dom. The rich and diverse collections of the Museum came from an art and natural sciences collection of a Riga doctor, Nikolaus von Himsel (1729–1764). It houses over 5000 000 items, grouped in about 80 collections.

The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation

A list of some of the oldest and finest museums in Europe that you can still visit.

The world’s oldest museums

This scene, photographed by Mathew Brady during the U.S. Civil War, shows a deserted camp and wounded soldier, circa 1865.

Mathew Brady (1822-1896)

Ernest Brooks became known for his striking silhouetted photos, including this one taken during the World War I Battle of Broodseinde in 1917 near Ypres in Belgium. It shows a group of soldiers from the 8th East Yorkshire Regiment moving up to the front, silhouetted against the skyline.

Ernest Brooks (1876-1957)

A Polish concentration camp survivor weeps near the charred corpse of a friend at the Leipzig-Thekla subcamp of Buchenwald in 1945. The Nazi SS guards set fire to barracks No. 5 there with approximately 300 prisoners locked inside just before the army's 69th Infantry Division liberated the camp.

Margaret White-Bourke (1904-1971)

Robert Capa was the only photographer to land on Omaha Beach with U.S. troops during the D-Day invasion. Only eight images from the landing were salvageable.

Robert Capa (1913-1954)

Dickey Chapelle photographed Vietnam while embedded with the U.S. Marines. She was killed by a landmine while on patrol, making her the first war correspondent to die in the Vietnam War.

Dickey Chapelle (1918-1965)

Kevin Carter worked tirelessly to photograph the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa in the 1990s. Here he photographed members of the African National Congress (ANC) who had staged an attack during a funeral for a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Kevin Carter (1960-1994)

Catherine Leroy's moving image of U.S. Marine Vernon Wike grieving over his fallen comrade on Battle of Hill 881, is one of her most famous. Forty years later, she photographed Wike again in his home in Colorado. It was her last assignment before she died of cancer in 2006.

Catherine Leroy (1944-2006)

This image from 1980 by Philip Jones Griffith shows a West Somalia Liberation Front fighter in Somalia likely high from consuming 'khat,' a leaf containing an amphetamine-like substance. To compensate for food shortages, the soldiers ate large quantities of khat, which made them undisciplined and easy targets for the enemy.

Philip Jones Griffith (1936-2008)

Chris Hondros' image of Samar Hassan, 5, shows how fast things can go wrong during war. Hassan is screaming and covered in blood after her parents were killed by U.S. soldiers in a 2005 shooting in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town.

Chris Hondros (1970-2011)

9 War Photographers and Their Images That Moved Millions

Photographers have been risking their lives since the Civil War to bring back images from the front lines. Not just to document history, but to show the uncensored, gritty version of battle to those of us who never have to face danger.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

Sun Tzu- The Art of War

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

Book One of The Warrior Series Sun Tzu and Sun Pin's timeless strategic masterpieces are constantly analyzed and interpreted by leaders worldwide. For the first time ever, author D.E. Tarver explains the classic texts, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Art of Warfare by Sun Pin, in plain English. War is the perfect training ground for teaching Sun Tzu's ancient philosophies to attaining victory over an opponent. The Art of War outlines the steps for outwitting the enemy, be it an army of 10,000 or an unresponsive client. The Art of War teaches leaders strategies to attain victory by: Knowing when to stand up to an opponent, and when to back down. How to be confident without being overly confident. Considering the cost of the campaign before launching an attack. Avoiding an opponent's strengths and striking his weaknesses. "The one who is first to the field of battle has time to rest, while his opponent rushes into the conflict weary and confused. The first will be fresh and alert. The second will waste most of his energy trying to catch up." Be the first to the battlefield with The Art of War.

strategy

Strategy

books

Books

"There's not a dated maxim or vague prescription in it." — Newsweek Regarded as the world's oldest military treatise, this compact volume has instructed officers and tacticians for more than 2,000 years. From its origins in China, The Art of War traveled the world to inform the strategies of Napoleon and World War II generals. More recently, it has taken on a new life as a guide to competing successfully in business, law, and sports. All of The Art of War's concepts retain their value to modern readers, from the prudence of circumventing a strong opponent and taking advantage of a weak one to the wisdom of preparedness and flexibility. Other topics include strategy, tactics, maneuvering, communications, the treatment of soldiers, and the worth of well-trained officers. History enthusiasts, business thought leaders, and anyone intrigued by competition and rivalry will appreciate this elegant edition of the classic work.

Sun Tzu (孫子; pinyin: Sūnzǐ) is a honorific title bestowed upon Sūn Wu (孫武 c. 544-496 BC), the author of The Art of War (孫子兵法), an immensely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Sun Tzu believed in the use of the military sciences to effect outcomes that would result in peace.In the author's name, Sūn Wu, the character wu, meaning "military", is the same as the character in wu shu, or martial art. Sun Wu also has a courtesy name, Chang Qing (Cháng Qīng).

Sun Tzu

The Art of War

Heroes of old had encountered Amazons in the martial women’s kingdom, Themiscyra, on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Amazons had invaded Greece, their advance halted in a great battle. Herodotus related how they had been captured, carried away in Greek ships and escaped to the banks of the river Don, where they intermarried with Scythian tribesmen.No one knew where the name ‘Amazon’ came from, so the Greeks claimed it was derived from a-mazdos – without a breast: these fearsome women cut off their right breasts to remove an obstruction to the bowstring, it was claimed.

Amazon Women: History Vs Folklore

In the grasslands of inner Asia, from the Black Sea to western China, Scythian women had the same skills as their men: wielding bows, riding and herding animals, fighting – and dying from their injuries. Their remains have been found in tomb-mounds from the Crimea to western China.For centuries, women warriors en masse have been dubbed ‘Amazons’. Regiments of such women existed in Dahomey (in what’s now Benin) and in the Soviet air force, and the female fighters of Kurdistan have a formidable reputation.

Wonder Women: The Facts

<ul><li>These warrior women, it is reputed, lived on the river Thermedon (today's Terme), on the southern shores of the Black Sea.</li><li>In legend, they captured men and used them as studs, rearing only female children and killing the males.</li><li>The Amazon nation was the ultimate imagined threat to Greek machismo.</li></ul>

Hippolyte, Queen of The Amazons

<ul><li>There is no direct evidence that Greeks actually met any 'Amazons', but a story about Alexander the Great suggests that they did</li><li>In 330 BC, the ambitious Macedonian warrior had conquered Persia and was advancing eastward along the shores of the Caspian Sea (in present-day Iran).</li><li>Alexander was approached by a group of Scythians who included women, one of whom was their leader.</li><li>The group then vanished back into the heart of inner Asia, leaving the way open for the creation of a dramatic tale that provided a Greek name for a sex-hunting Scythian queen.</li></ul>

Scythian Women: An Encounter With Alexander The Great

<ul><li>Around 1500, a Spaniard named Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo wrote or adapted a series of novels about Amadís, a knight-errant from the fairytale country of Gaula (unconnected with Gaul or Wales).</li><li>In the stories, Califia was a formidable warrior, with a menagerie of 500 griffins that were fed on human flesh.</li><li>She lived in a realm called California or Califerne, an island-state near the lands newly discovered by Christopher Columbus.</li></ul>

Queen Califia: Amazonian women in the Middle Ages

<ul><li>Archaeological finds have raised intriguing questions about the status of Scythian women.</li><li>In 1969, a farmer noticed something glinting in newly ploughed earth near a 6-metre-high burial mound: a small piece of patterned gold.</li><li>Renowned Soviet archaeologist Kemal Akishev came to investigate and, excavating the burial mound, discovered a small skeleton surrounded by treasures.</li><li>The skull was too badly damaged for its sex to be determined, but the 'Golden Man' became the symbol of the nation when Kazakhstan emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.</li></ul>

The Golden Wo-Man

<ul><li>In 1993, Russian archaeologist Natalia Polosmak unearthed a body embalmed with a mix of herbs, grasses, and wool, along with a tall headdress, revealing that the body was that of a woman.</li><li>The mummy became known as the 'Ice Maiden' or the 'Ukok Princess'.</li><li>She was taken to Novosibirsk for further study, and then on tour internationally.</li></ul>

The Ice Maiden of Siberia

<ul><li>This name has been applied to several all-female fighting groups, among them the regiment of female Soviet bomber pilots who fought in the Second World War, the most famous of whom was their founder, Marina Rasksova.</li><li>In the 1930s, the Soviet Union was recovering from years of war, revolution, and famine, and women were given opportunities in aviation, with the new government seeing this as an opportunity to unite and defend this vast nation</li><li>She became the first female Soviet navigator, and led a volunteer unit of 400 women fliers in three regiments: fighters, heavy bombers and night bombers</li></ul>

The Night Witch

In 2017, Hollywood remade the Amazon myth in a film with the tagline: “Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, Princess of the Amazons.” The link between the two legends makes a convoluted story, its origins stretching back a century to the struggle for women’s rights.Wonder Woman made her debut in All Star Comics in December 1941, introduced with a semi-Greek backstory as the Amazonian princess of Paradise Island (later Themiscyra).

Wonder Woman: Diana, Princess of the Amazons

The Fearsome Ladies Of History: Amazonian Women

For centuries, women warriors en masse have been dubbed ‘Amazons’. But were Amazonian women real? Discover the truth here

Amazonian Women: The Truth About These Real Female Warriors Who Inspired Wonder Woman | History Extra

Find 100+ fun History Facts - European, American, Black, Asian across various periods - Curated by our community from books, articles or documentaries