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Duchy Of Grand Fenwick
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is a tiny fictional country created by Leonard Wibberley in a series of comedic novels beginning with ''The Mouse That Roared'' (1955), which was made into a 1959 film. In the novels, Wibberley goes beyond the merely comic, placing the tiny nation (15 square miles/39 square kilometres) in absurd situations so as to comment satirically on contemporary politics and events. History and topography The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is described as no more than five miles (8 km) long and three miles (5 km) wide and lies in a fold in the Northern Alps. The imaginary country features three valleys, a river, and a mountain with an elevation of . On the northern slopes are of vineyards. The hillsides where the ground is less fertile support flocks of sheep that provide meat, dairy products, and wool. Most of the inhabitants live in the City of Fenwick, which is clustered around Fenwick Castle, the seat of government. The city of Fenwick is also home to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mouse That Roared
''The Mouse That Roared'' is a 1955 satirical novel by Irish-American writer Leonard Wibberley, which launched a series of satirical books about an imaginary country in Europe called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. Wibberley used the premise to make commentaries about modern politics and world situations, including the nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons in general, and the politics of the United States. The novel originally appeared as a six-part serial in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' from 25 December 1954 through 29 January 1955, under the title ''The Day New York Was Invaded''. It was published as a book in February 1955 by Little, Brown. The British edition used the author's original intended title, ''The Wrath of Grapes'', a play on John Steinbeck's ''The Grapes of Wrath''. Wibberley wrote one prequel (1958's ''Beware of the Mouse'') and three sequels: '' The Mouse on the Moon'' (1962), ''The Mouse on Wall Street'' (1969), and ''The Mouse That Saved the West'' (1981). Each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinot (grape)
Pinot (pronounced ) is a Burgundian grape family. Wine grape varieties in the Pinot family * Pinot blanc (Pinot bianco, Weißburgunder) * Pinot gris (Pinot grigio, Grauburgunder) * Pinot Meunier (Schwarzriesling) * Pinot noir (Spätburgunder, Pinot nero) * Pinot Noir Précoce (Frühburgunder) Biochemistry Red-berried Pinot vines are known to not synthesize acetylated or para-coumaroylated anthocyanins, as other grape varieties do, only glucosylated anthocyanins."Biosynthesis of Anthocyanins and Their Regulation in Colored Grapes". Fei He, Lin Mu, Guo-Liang Yan, Na-Na Liang, Qiu-Hong Pan, Jun Wang, Malcolm J. Reeves and Chang-Qing Duan, ''Molecules'', 2010, 15, pages 9057-9091, See also * Terret (grape) Terret is an ancient ''Vitis vinifera'' vine that, like the parent Pinot vine of Pinot noir's history, mutated over the course of thousands of years into grape varieties of several color. Originating in the Languedoc-Roussillon wine of southern ..., a grape vine like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longbows
A longbow (known as warbow in its time, in contrast to a hunting bow) is a type of tall bow that makes a fairly long draw possible. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow and are circular or D-shaped in cross section. Flatbows can be just as long, but in cross-section, a flatbow has limbs that are approximately rectangular. Longbows for hunting and warfare have been made from many different woods in many cultures; in Europe they date from the Paleolithic era and, since the Bronze Age, were made mainly from yew, or from wych elm if yew was unavailable. The historical longbow was a self bow made of a single piece of wood, but modern longbows may also be made from modern materials or by gluing different timbers together. History Europe A longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was long; the body has been dated to around 3300 BC. A slightly shorter bow comes from the Sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mail (armour)
Chain mail (properly called mail or maille but usually called chain mail or chainmail) is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD in Europe, and longer in Asia and North Africa. A coat of this armour is often called a hauberk, and sometimes a byrnie. History The earliest examples of surviving mail were found in the Carpathian Basin at a burial in Horný Jatov, Slovakia dated at 3rd century BC, and in a chieftain's burial located in Ciumești, Romania. Its invention is commonly credited to the Celts, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Men-at-arms
A man-at-arms was a soldier of the High Middle Ages, High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of Weapon, arms and served as a fully-armoured heavy cavalryman. A man-at-arms could be a knight, or other nobleman, a member of a knight's or nobleman's retinue, or a mercenary in a company serving under a captain. Such men could serve for pay or through a feudal obligation. The terms ''knight'' and ''man-at-arms'' are often used interchangeably, but while all knights equipped for war were men-at-arms, not all men-at-arms were knights. Terminology Though in English the term man-at-arms is a fairly straightforward rendering of the French ''homme d'armes'', in the Middle Ages, there were numerous terms for this type of soldier, referring to the type of arms he would be expected to provide: In France, he might be known as a ''lance'' or ''glaive'', while in Germany, ''Spieß'', ''Helmet, Helm'' or ''Gleve'', and in various places, a ''bascinet' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expeditionary Warfare
Expeditionary warfare is a military invasion of a foreign territory, especially away from established bases. Expeditionary forces were in part the antecedent of the modern concept of rapid deployment forces. Traditionally, expeditionary forces were essentially self-sustaining with an organic logistics capability and with a full array of supporting arms. In the ancient world The earliest examples of expeditionary warfare come from the Sea Peoples, a term used for a confederation of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty. The raiding tactics were expanded into the more complex expeditionary warfare operations by Alexander the Great who used naval vessels for both troop transporting and logistics in his campaigns against the Persian Empire. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword
"The pen is mightier than the sword" is a metonymic adage, created by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, indicating that the written word is more effective than violence as a means of social or political change. Under some interpretations, ''written communication'' can refer to administrative power or an independent news media. Origin The sentence was coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play '' Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy''. The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details ... has been, though not unsparingly, indulged". The Cardinal's line in Act II, scene II, was more fully: The play opened at London's Covent Garden Theatre on 7 March 1839 with William Charles Macready in the lead role. Macready believed its opening night success was "unequivocal"; Queen Victoria attended a performance on 14 March. In 1870, literary critic Edward Sherman Gould wrote that Bulwer "had the good fort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the Saxon period. Originally of strategic significance due to its controlling location on the upper reaches of the River Thames at its junction with the River Cherwell, the town grew in national importance during the early Norman period, and in the late 12th century became home to the fledgling University of Oxford. The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142. The university rose to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-headed Eagle
In heraldry and vexillology, the double-headed eagle (or double-eagle) is a charge associated with the concept of Empire. Most modern uses of the symbol are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originally a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi. It was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire on the one hand, and in Orthodox principalities (Serbia and Russia) on the other, representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or '' Aquila'' associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle. The motif has predecessors in Bronze Age art, found in Illyria, Mycenaean Greece, and in the Ancient Near East, especially in Hittite iconography. It re-appeared during the High Middle Ages, from around the 10th or 11th centuries, and was notably used by the Eastern Roman Empir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hereditary
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can accumulate and cause species to evolve by natural selection. The study of heredity in biology is genetics. Overview In humans, eye color is an example of an inherited characteristic: an individual might inherit the "brown-eye trait" from one of the parents. Inherited traits are controlled by genes and the complete set of genes within an organism's genome is called its genotype. The complete set of observable traits of the structure and behavior of an organism is called its phenotype. These traits arise from the interaction of its genotype with the environment. As a result, many aspects of an organism's phenotype are not inherited. For example, suntanned skin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, becoming the state's 48th governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight as a man of decisive action. Coolidge was elected the country's 29th vice president the next year, succeeding the presidency upon the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative distinguished by a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor, receiving the nickname "Silent Cal". Though his widespread popularity enabled him to run for a third term, he chose not to run again in 1928, remarking that ten years as president was (at the time) "longer than any other man has had ittoo long! ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constituti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
