Shorts
Description: Nicolaus Copernicus (born Niklas Koppernigk; in Latin, Nicolaus Copernicus; in Polish, Mikołaj Kopernik; in German, Nikolaus Kopernikus; Thorn, Royal Prussia, February 19, 1473-Frauenburg, Royal Prussia, May 24, 1543) was a Prussian Renaissance astronomer who formulated the heliocentric theory of the solar system, first conceived by Aristarchus of Samos. His book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the celestial spheres) is usually considered the starting point or founder of modern astronomy, as well as being a key piece in what was called the Scientific Revolution in the Renaissance era. Copernicus spent nearly twenty-five years working on the development of his heliocentric model of the universe. At that time it ...
Description: Edward VII (Albert Edward; November 9, 1841 - May 6, 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India from January 22, 1901 until his death in 1910. Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was related to royalty throughout Europe. He was Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne for almost 60 years. During his mother's long reign, he was largely excluded from political power and came to personify the elegant and idle elite. He traveled all over Britain performing ceremonial public functions and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular hits, but despite public approval, his...
Description: Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo, in Italian, or Christophorus Columbus, in Latin; of disputed origins, some experts lean towards Genoa, n.1 3 4 where he could have been born on October 31, 1451 and it is known that died in Valladolid, May 20, 1506) was a navigator, cartographer, admiral, viceroy and governor general of the West Indies in the service of the Crown of Castile. He made the so-called discovery of America, on October 12, 1492, upon reaching the island of Guanahani, in the Bahamas. He made four trips to the Indies - initial denomination of the American continent - and although he was possibly not the first European explorer of America, he is considered the discoverer of a new continent - for that reason called the N...
Description: John Dalton (ʤɒn ˈdɔːltən) (Eaglesfield, Cumberland (United Kingdom), September 6, 1766-Manchester, July 27, 1844) was a British naturalist, chemist, mathematician and meteorologist. His works include the atomic model and his table of relative weights of the elements, which contributed to lay the foundations of modern chemistry. He is also known for having described color blindness, a visual defect related to the perception of colors that he suffered and that bears his name.
Description: Confucius (simplified and traditional Chinese, 孔子; pinyin, kǒngzǐ; Wade-Giles, K'ung-fu-tzu; literally, "Master Kong"; Qufu, September 28, 551 BC - Lu, 479 BC. C.) was a renowned Chinese thinker whose doctrine is called Confucianism. Coming from a ruined noble family, throughout his life he alternated periods in which he worked as a teacher with others during which he was an official of the small state of Lu, he worked as a carpenter in northeast China, during the time of fragmentation of power under the Zhou dynasty or Warring States period He made four trips to the Indies - initial denomination of the American continent - and although he was possibly not the first European explorer of America, he is considered the discoverer of a new ...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Hercules (in Roman mythology, Heracles in Greek mythology) was a demigod, son of Zeus and Alcmena. He was undoubtedly the greatest hero of the Greeks, known for his superhuman strength. There are many stories about his life, including the account of the twelve labors of Hercules. This constellation was also known as the kneeling one, and Eratosthenes said that in it Heracles was crushing with one of his knees the serpent that guarded the apples of the Hesperides. ...
Description: Edward VII (Albert Edward; November 9, 1841 - May 6, 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India from January 22, 1901 until his death in 1910. Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was related to royalty throughout Europe. He was Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne for almost 60 years. During his mother's long reign, he was largely excluded from political power and came to personify the elegant and idle elite. He traveled all over Britain performing ceremonial public functions and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular hits, but despite public approval, his...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Eridanus is associated with two Greek myths, both derived from the shape of the constellation. Eridanus was sometimes thought of as a river flowing with the waters of Aquarius; in those cases Aquarius looked at Eridanus (which required changing the angle and connection of the Aquarian stars so that their waters would flow towards Eridanus). Eridanus was mainly related to the myth of Phaethon, who took the flying chariot of Helios (the Sun), but did not have enough st...
Description: Cai Lun (Traditional Chinese: 蔡倫, Simplified Chinese: 蔡伦, Pinyin: Cài Lún, Wade-Giles: Ts'ai Lun) was a Chinese imperial adviser eunuch to Emperor He of Han, who lived in the court of the Han Dynasty (between the years 77 and 110 or, according to other sources, between 50 and 1211). In China he is traditionally considered the inventor of paper, since under his administration the manufacturing technique of the material used for writing documents was perfected, which began to have properties similar to those of current paper, quite different from papyrus and the parchment used in older times. Although early forms of paper existed in China from the 2nd century BC. C., 2 he was responsible for the first significant improvement and standardiz...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Equuleus is associated with the foal Celeris, which was the brother of the winged horse Pegasus. Celeris was gifted to Castor by Hermes. In the Latin version, he is the son of Pegasus, and is gifted to Castor by Mercury, the Roman equivalent of Hermes.
Description: Anton van Leeuwenhoek ([ˈɑntɔn vɑn ˈleːuənɦuk]) (October 24, 1632, Netherlands-August 26, 1723, known as the "father of microbiology"), was a Dutch merchant who also stood out as the first in making observations and discoveries with microscopes whose manufacture he himself perfected. The history of biology considers it a precursor of experimental biology, cell biology and microbiology.
Description: Plato (ancient Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn; Athens or Aegina, c. 427-347 BC was a Greek philosopher follower of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. In 387 he founded the Academy of Athens, an institution that would continue to Over more than nine hundred years and to which Aristotle would go from Estagira to study philosophy around 367 BC, sharing some twenty years of friendship and work with his teacher. Aristotle (in ancient Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs; Estagira, 384 BC-Chalcis, 322 BC He was a philosopher, polymath and scientist born in the city of Estagira, north of Ancient Greece. He is considered along with Plato, The father of Western philosophy.His ideas have had an enormous influence on the intellectual history of the West for more...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Lyre is the Lyre of Orpheus, who is said to have made such lovely music that even the animals would stop to listen. Orpheus was one of the Argonauts who accompanied Jason on the expedition in search of the Golden Fleece. When Orpheus' wife Eurydice died, he managed to convince Hades and Persephone, both gods of the underworld, to let her return to the world of the living with him. They agreed on the condition that Orpheus did not look back, but a fear that he was being ...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. According to legend, it is about the king of Arcadia, Lycaon, who was transformed into a wolf as punishment for his extreme cruelty since he killed almost all of his children.
Description: He is known mainly for his work The Wealth of Nations (1776), which is a study about the process of creation and accumulation of wealth, topics already addressed by the mercantilists and physiocrats, but without the scientific character of Smith's work. Because of this work, which was the first comprehensive and systematic study on the subject, Smith is known as the father of modern economics. He was honorary rector of the University of Glasgow.
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. The constellation Hydra appears as a writhing serpent, and thus appears in some Greek myths. In Greek mythology, Apollo has a raven as a servant. He sends him to fetch water, but he rests on the journey and, when he finally collects water in a cup, he also brings a water snake as an excuse. Apollo realizes the deception and, angrily, throws the raven, the cup and the serpent into the sky. The origin of the story seems to come from the proximity of this constellation wit...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Although the constellation Lepus is ancient, it has little associated mythology, other than the possible incidental role in the Orion myth. According to Higino, it was a hare fleeing from the Orion dog. Eratosthenes added that Hermes put it between the constellations due to its great speed.
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. According to Germanicus, César, in his Latin version of the Phaenomena of Aratus of Solos, [citation required] and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, in his Catasterisms (καταστερισμοί), among others, the famous Nereid Amphitrite agreed to marry Poseidon - of whom he had tried to hide - once it was found among the islands of Atlantis by Delfino, a dolphin sent by Poseidon, who was so grateful for it that he decided to place it among the stars. It can also be identified with Ari...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. In Greek mythology this constellation is known thanks to the eleventh task entrusted to Hercules. In it he was to get the apples from the tree of Gaia in the garden of the Hesperides, where Hera had placed Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon, as protector. Hera was very sorry for the loss of her brave guardian of the garden of the Hesperides, for which she placed him in the firmament around the north pole. The constellation features one of the legs of Hercules on the head ...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. In Greek mythology, the crown belongs to Ariadne, daughter of Minos, king of Crete. Ariadne did not want to accept Dionysus's marriage proposal, which had a mortal form, as she did not want to marry a human after being abandoned by Theseus. To prove that he was a god, Dionysus removed his crown and threw it into the sky. Ariadna, pleased, married him and became immortal. Another legend says that Dionysus gave Ariadne a crown as a wedding gift. When she died, the god ...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. Zeus decided to kill Ixion, king of Thessaly, so that he could not live among the gods to overcome the mental torture he suffered for having killed his father-in-law. However, far from being grateful, Ixion tried to seduce Hera. Zeus realized and formed a Hera made of clouds: Nefele. Ixion slept with her and Kentauros was born, a being with the legs and body of a horse and the head, arms and torso of a human. Kentauros sired the Centaurs with some mares. This breed did ...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. In Greek mythology, the constellation represented various legendary swans. Thus, Zeus disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda, from which, according to one version, Helen of Troy was born. Orpheus was transformed into a swan after his death, and it was said that he had been placed in heaven with his lyre (Lyra). Finally, it is said that a king named Cicno was a relative or lover of Phaethon. Apollo's son, Phaethon, tricked his father into allowing him to ride t...
Description: A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together but are actually very distant from each other. Many ancient civilizations drew imaginary lines between these stars and created virtual silhouettes in the sky. And with them great mythological stories. It represents the laurel wreath that Chiron the centaur once belonged to and is sometimes called the Crown Sagittarii. In the 3rd century BC. C., the Greek didactic poet Aratus wrote, but did not name the constellation by name, instead calling it the two crowns Στεφάνοι (Stephanoi). The Greek astronomer Ptolemy described the constellation in the 2nd century AD, albeit with the inclusion of Alpha Telescopii, after being transferred to Telescopium. Assigning 13 stars t...
