Just a reminder to readers that all around you, every day, are discoveries waiting to be made that no one has ever before pointed out. Many of these potential discoveries are so simple that anyone might notice them. You can than check online to see if anyone else had noticed it.
This also shows how a liberal arts education is valuable because a broadly-educated person may notice a connection between two or more specialties that no one in the specialties would have noticed.
As a case in point, there was the connection between the two destructions of the Israelites' temple in ancient times and the two major splits in the Christian Church in more modern times.
The original temple, at Shiloh, was destroyed by the Philistines in 1050 B.C. Shiloh was never rebuilt because it was replaced by Solomon's Temple, in Jerusalem. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar who then took the Jews into exile. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem that resulted in the destruction of the Temple began in 587 B.C.
From 1050 B.C. to 587 B.C. is 463 years.
The Book of Daniel, Chapter 9, has the famous "weeks of years" prophecy. There are to be 70 weeks of years, 70 x 7 = 490. But one of those weeks is reserved for the seven years that the Antichrist will be allowed to reign. That leaves 483 years.
These 69 "weeks of years" refers to the time between the completed reestablishment of the Temple, the so-called Second Temple after return from the exile in Babylon that replaced Solomon's destroyed temple, to the death of the promised messiah. This was marked by Ezra being sent to Jerusalem to instruct in proper worship in the newly-completed temple. The biblical Book of Ezra describes this.
The date that Wikipedia gives for the sending of Ezra to Jerusalem is 457 B.C. Jesus was almost certainly crucified in 26 A.D., being born in 7 B.C. and believed to be 33 years old at crucifixion. This is amazing. From 457 B.C. to 26 A.D. is exactly 483 years.
Now, let's go to more recent times. There have been two major splits in the Christian Church. The first was the Great Schism of 1054 that resulted in the splitting of what is today the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church. The second is the split of the Protestants from the Catholics, due to the Reformation that began in 1517.
Jesus is to return, to end the reign of the Antichrist and establish the Millennium, when the world will finally be the godly paradise that it was always intended to be. No one knows the exact day but a secular millennium began in 2000 which is during the general timeframe as we see in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It".
What I noticed one day is that from 1054 to 1517 is 463 years, and from 1517 to 2000 is 483 years.
No one had ever pointed that out. I refer to it as "The Ancient-Modern Parallel". It is described in section 25) of "The Aztec Prophecy", on this blog, and I thank God that I was the one that was allowed to notice this.
Another thing that I was amazed had never been noticed is that the great explosion in the sky that formed what we now see as the Crab Nebula was taking place just as the conference in Constantinople was going on, in 1054, that would lead to the splitting away of the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church. July 4, 1054.
The Crab Nebula today is considered as the classic example of a supernova. At the time, the explosion was so brilliant that it shone brightly even in the daytime. Could it have been a warning from God of the trouble that was coming because the east-west divide ever since, from the Eastern Front of the two world wars to the nuclear standoff during the Cold War, were secular manifestations of that split. This is described in section 1) of "The Aztec Prophecy".
But, as far as I could find online, it had never been pointed out that this great explosion in the sky was going on at the same time as the ill-fated conference in Constantinople and, once again, I thank God that I was the one to be allowed to point it out. it doesn't seem that Europeans paid much attention to the supernova.
Now, what discoveries are there that you might make today?
Friday, December 13, 2019
Friday, November 22, 2019
The Roots Of Abbreviation
On the subject of northern France today, from which the Normans crossed to England in 1066, I have decided to repost this part of an article.
In the posting "The Story Of The English Language", on the world and economics blog www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com , we saw how the language got the wide span of words, that makes it suitable to be the global language of today, by being basically a Germanic language but then having French words added after the Norman Invasion. What I would like to add to that is how the French-influenced words in the language are far more likely to be the words which are commonly abbreviated. This is simply because these added words were originally alien, and abbreviation was a way of adapting them.
Words of Germanic origin are almost never abbreviated. These are words that can be seen as similar to their counterparts in other northern European languages, such as drink, house, water and, school. This is not a strict rule because "street" is abbreviated as st. and "near" is sometimes abbreviated as nr. and both of these words are of northern European Germanic origin.
French-influenced words commonly use prefixes, such as con-, or suffixes, such as -tion. Some English words have their roots in French clearly seen, such as the word "donate" from the French "donner", meaning "to give". Almost all French words have had their pronunciations anglicized. The first exceptions that I can think of are the words "depot" and "debut".
Two words that illustrate the French way of forming words involves the prefix con-, meaning to put together, and the suffix -tion. Construction means the putting together of a structure. Stellar means something to do with stars, and so constellation means a group of stars that have been put together.
Here is a list of the words that I can think of which are commonly abbreviated. Every one is a word of French origin or form:
Abbr. for abbreviation
Amp. for ampere
Auto for automobile
Ave. for avenue
Avg. for average
Co. for company
Comps. for comparables (in real estate)
Const. for constant
Cont. for continued
Corp. for corporation
Dept. for department
Dist. for distance
Ed. for education
Esq. for esquire
Est. for established
Expo for exposition
Ext. for extension
Freq. for frequency
Gen. for generation
Govt. for government
Info for information
Ins. for insurance
Inst. for institution
Intel for intelligence
Max for maximum
Mfg. for manufacture
Min. for minimum
Neg. for negative
Org. for organization
Pos. for positive
Pres. for pressure
Prop. for propulsion or propellor
Req. for require
Spec. for specifications
St. for saint
Tel for telephone
Temp. for temperature
Var. for variable
Notice how French-sounding all of these words are, and most are the same or similar to their French counterparts. It is very likely that, if English was originally a Romance language and northern European Germanic words were added later, the pattern would be reversed and it would be those words which would be abbreviated today.
In the posting "The Story Of The English Language", on the world and economics blog www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com , we saw how the language got the wide span of words, that makes it suitable to be the global language of today, by being basically a Germanic language but then having French words added after the Norman Invasion. What I would like to add to that is how the French-influenced words in the language are far more likely to be the words which are commonly abbreviated. This is simply because these added words were originally alien, and abbreviation was a way of adapting them.
Words of Germanic origin are almost never abbreviated. These are words that can be seen as similar to their counterparts in other northern European languages, such as drink, house, water and, school. This is not a strict rule because "street" is abbreviated as st. and "near" is sometimes abbreviated as nr. and both of these words are of northern European Germanic origin.
French-influenced words commonly use prefixes, such as con-, or suffixes, such as -tion. Some English words have their roots in French clearly seen, such as the word "donate" from the French "donner", meaning "to give". Almost all French words have had their pronunciations anglicized. The first exceptions that I can think of are the words "depot" and "debut".
Two words that illustrate the French way of forming words involves the prefix con-, meaning to put together, and the suffix -tion. Construction means the putting together of a structure. Stellar means something to do with stars, and so constellation means a group of stars that have been put together.
Here is a list of the words that I can think of which are commonly abbreviated. Every one is a word of French origin or form:
Abbr. for abbreviation
Amp. for ampere
Auto for automobile
Ave. for avenue
Avg. for average
Co. for company
Comps. for comparables (in real estate)
Const. for constant
Cont. for continued
Corp. for corporation
Dept. for department
Dist. for distance
Ed. for education
Esq. for esquire
Est. for established
Expo for exposition
Ext. for extension
Freq. for frequency
Gen. for generation
Govt. for government
Info for information
Ins. for insurance
Inst. for institution
Intel for intelligence
Max for maximum
Mfg. for manufacture
Min. for minimum
Neg. for negative
Org. for organization
Pos. for positive
Pres. for pressure
Prop. for propulsion or propellor
Req. for require
Spec. for specifications
St. for saint
Tel for telephone
Temp. for temperature
Var. for variable
Notice how French-sounding all of these words are, and most are the same or similar to their French counterparts. It is very likely that, if English was originally a Romance language and northern European Germanic words were added later, the pattern would be reversed and it would be those words which would be abbreviated today.
Matter And Energy, Square And Rectangle
The theory on this blog, described in the compound posting "The Lowest Information Point" December 2017, is not independent as are the other scientific theories here. The others are completely independent of each other but this one rests on the others.
The basis of "The Lowest Information Point" is that all of the matter of the universe seeks to be in the form of a square, because a square requires less information than does a rectangle. Another way of looking at this basis is that the universe prefers the related ratio A / B = B / C to the ratio A / B = C / D, where the denominator of one ratio is also the numerator of the other, because the first contains only three points of information while the second contains four. This makes the first ratio a lower information point that is preferred by the universe.
We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, which is why objects in the air fall to the ground. But we have seen here that energy and information is really the same thing because we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it and we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it. Another way that we can see energy and information as the same thing is in how we can make our lives physically easier through technology, but only at the expense of making life more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make life physically easier and also less complex.
So, the reasoning of this theory goes, if the universe is well-known to always seek the lowest energy state, and if energy and information is really the same thing, then we should see that the universe always seeks the lowest information point.
As we have seen in "The Lowest Information Point", one way that the matter in the universe seeks to be in the form of a square, not a literal geometric square but a state in which two sides are equal rather than the higher information state of being unequal, is with regard to the total number of things in the universe relative to the number of possible different things.
What this means is that there are many things in the universe, agglomerations of matter that can be defined, but not every thing is different from every other thing. Rather, the "things" tend to fall into patterns with many of each. There are clouds, rocks, planets and, trees, but everything is not different from everything else. There are many clouds, many rocks, many trees and many planets.
Just after the Big Bang, and when matter had cooled enough to condense into atoms, The matter in the universe formed at extreme rectangle, with one side almost infinitely longer than the other. There were almost countless atoms, but only a few different types of atom. This was as far from a square that the universe would get because the total number of atoms formed the long side of the rectangle, while the very few different kinds of atoms formed the short side.
Ever since then, the matter of the universe has been seeking to move toward a square because that is "The Lowest Information Point". What is always happening is that more smaller atoms are being crunched together into fewer larger atoms by the nuclear fusion taking place in stars. Instead of the very few different initial atoms after the Big Bang, there are now 92 naturally-occurring elements, many of which have several different isotopes and ionic states.
All of these atoms that have come into being makes possible millions of different molecules, which in turn makes it possible for more "things" to form, such as our clouds, rocks, planets and, trees. Meanwhile, the total number of atoms in the universe is being continuously reduced because smaller atoms are being crunched, by fusion in stars, into larger atoms.
This is how the matter of the universe is moving from an extreme rectangle back toward a square. That will be achieved if the matter ever formed into one giant black hole. There would be only one thing, the black hole, and one type of thing.
But in this move from a rectangle to a square, the information of the rectangle cannot just be lost. Also, the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction means that, if the matter in the universe is moving from a rectangle to a square than something must be moving in the opposite direction. If energy and information is really the same thing, and the matter of the universe is moving toward "The Lowest Energy Point", then that means that energy must somehow be moving in the opposite direction to matter.
Notice that matter, in my scenario here, operates according to what we could call the "Square Law", seeking to be a square instead of a rectangle because it is the lower information point. But the electromagnetic radiation, which is released by the same fusion process in stars that moves the matter in the universe toward a square by crunching more smaller atoms into fewer larger atoms, operates by the "Inverse Square Law".
The Inverse Square Law is that the energy in an electromagnetic wave, such as those produced by fusion in stars, decreases as it moves outward from the source according to the square of the distance from the source. In other words, a wave at twice the distance will have one-quarter the energy because 4 is the square of 2.
So fusion produces fewer atoms in favor of more different atoms and, at the same time, more electromagnetic radiation relative to the number of possible wavelengths of that radiation. So matter and energy are moving in opposite directions according to the rule that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. This means that the information of the matter rectangle is not being lost because energy is taking the place of the matter as that rectangle.
But if the matter of the universe "knows" to move toward being a square then the information of that square must have come from somewhere, and that is where my cosmology theory comes in. The theory, one of the theories here on which "The Lowest Information Point" rests, is described in the compound posting on this blog, The Theory Of Stationary Space" July 2017.
In this cosmology theory, the matter in the universe began with a two-dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the surrounding multi-dimensional background space. Both blocks of space former by the same mutual induction of electric charges. Starting with one charge, whether positive or negative, that charge would have to induce an opposite charge next to it, in multiple dimensions because the number one rule of the universe is that electric charges must always balance out to zero.
But this original two-dimensional sheet of space must have been a square, with equal sides, because that would be the lowest information point and there would be no other information to make it otherwise. Thus is was the original square of the matter of the universe which that matter has been continuously trying to get back to after atoms formed following the Big Bang.
According to the cosmology theory described above, charge migration must have taken place in the sheet, one side becoming more positive and the other more negative, due to opposite charge attraction and like charge repulsion from the charges comprising the surrounding background space. These two sides attracted one another through the background space by opposite charge attraction. when the two sides of the sheet came into contact, they mutually annihilated in a matter-antimatter reaction that we perceive as the Big Bang.
One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet thus disintegrated and became energy and the remaining dimension became the one-dimensional strings of matter, such as electrons, that we see as particles because we can only see in three of the four dimensions over which the strings of matter in the sheet were scattered by the Big Bang. The fourth dimension, the one in which the strings are primarily aligned in space, is the dimension of space that we perceive as time.
That meant that matter and energy were originally equal after the Big Bang, one dimension of the sheet each, but energy has since been increasing while matter has been decreasing. This is because some matter is inevitably converted into energy, the large atoms produced by solar fusion contain slightly less energy than the smaller atoms from which they were formed, and this excess energy is relased as the radiation which obeys the Inverse Square Law. This is why stars shine.
The basis of "The Lowest Information Point" is that all of the matter of the universe seeks to be in the form of a square, because a square requires less information than does a rectangle. Another way of looking at this basis is that the universe prefers the related ratio A / B = B / C to the ratio A / B = C / D, where the denominator of one ratio is also the numerator of the other, because the first contains only three points of information while the second contains four. This makes the first ratio a lower information point that is preferred by the universe.
We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state, which is why objects in the air fall to the ground. But we have seen here that energy and information is really the same thing because we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it and we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it. Another way that we can see energy and information as the same thing is in how we can make our lives physically easier through technology, but only at the expense of making life more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make life physically easier and also less complex.
So, the reasoning of this theory goes, if the universe is well-known to always seek the lowest energy state, and if energy and information is really the same thing, then we should see that the universe always seeks the lowest information point.
As we have seen in "The Lowest Information Point", one way that the matter in the universe seeks to be in the form of a square, not a literal geometric square but a state in which two sides are equal rather than the higher information state of being unequal, is with regard to the total number of things in the universe relative to the number of possible different things.
What this means is that there are many things in the universe, agglomerations of matter that can be defined, but not every thing is different from every other thing. Rather, the "things" tend to fall into patterns with many of each. There are clouds, rocks, planets and, trees, but everything is not different from everything else. There are many clouds, many rocks, many trees and many planets.
Just after the Big Bang, and when matter had cooled enough to condense into atoms, The matter in the universe formed at extreme rectangle, with one side almost infinitely longer than the other. There were almost countless atoms, but only a few different types of atom. This was as far from a square that the universe would get because the total number of atoms formed the long side of the rectangle, while the very few different kinds of atoms formed the short side.
Ever since then, the matter of the universe has been seeking to move toward a square because that is "The Lowest Information Point". What is always happening is that more smaller atoms are being crunched together into fewer larger atoms by the nuclear fusion taking place in stars. Instead of the very few different initial atoms after the Big Bang, there are now 92 naturally-occurring elements, many of which have several different isotopes and ionic states.
All of these atoms that have come into being makes possible millions of different molecules, which in turn makes it possible for more "things" to form, such as our clouds, rocks, planets and, trees. Meanwhile, the total number of atoms in the universe is being continuously reduced because smaller atoms are being crunched, by fusion in stars, into larger atoms.
This is how the matter of the universe is moving from an extreme rectangle back toward a square. That will be achieved if the matter ever formed into one giant black hole. There would be only one thing, the black hole, and one type of thing.
But in this move from a rectangle to a square, the information of the rectangle cannot just be lost. Also, the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction means that, if the matter in the universe is moving from a rectangle to a square than something must be moving in the opposite direction. If energy and information is really the same thing, and the matter of the universe is moving toward "The Lowest Energy Point", then that means that energy must somehow be moving in the opposite direction to matter.
Notice that matter, in my scenario here, operates according to what we could call the "Square Law", seeking to be a square instead of a rectangle because it is the lower information point. But the electromagnetic radiation, which is released by the same fusion process in stars that moves the matter in the universe toward a square by crunching more smaller atoms into fewer larger atoms, operates by the "Inverse Square Law".
The Inverse Square Law is that the energy in an electromagnetic wave, such as those produced by fusion in stars, decreases as it moves outward from the source according to the square of the distance from the source. In other words, a wave at twice the distance will have one-quarter the energy because 4 is the square of 2.
So fusion produces fewer atoms in favor of more different atoms and, at the same time, more electromagnetic radiation relative to the number of possible wavelengths of that radiation. So matter and energy are moving in opposite directions according to the rule that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. This means that the information of the matter rectangle is not being lost because energy is taking the place of the matter as that rectangle.
But if the matter of the universe "knows" to move toward being a square then the information of that square must have come from somewhere, and that is where my cosmology theory comes in. The theory, one of the theories here on which "The Lowest Information Point" rests, is described in the compound posting on this blog, The Theory Of Stationary Space" July 2017.
In this cosmology theory, the matter in the universe began with a two-dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the surrounding multi-dimensional background space. Both blocks of space former by the same mutual induction of electric charges. Starting with one charge, whether positive or negative, that charge would have to induce an opposite charge next to it, in multiple dimensions because the number one rule of the universe is that electric charges must always balance out to zero.
But this original two-dimensional sheet of space must have been a square, with equal sides, because that would be the lowest information point and there would be no other information to make it otherwise. Thus is was the original square of the matter of the universe which that matter has been continuously trying to get back to after atoms formed following the Big Bang.
According to the cosmology theory described above, charge migration must have taken place in the sheet, one side becoming more positive and the other more negative, due to opposite charge attraction and like charge repulsion from the charges comprising the surrounding background space. These two sides attracted one another through the background space by opposite charge attraction. when the two sides of the sheet came into contact, they mutually annihilated in a matter-antimatter reaction that we perceive as the Big Bang.
One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet thus disintegrated and became energy and the remaining dimension became the one-dimensional strings of matter, such as electrons, that we see as particles because we can only see in three of the four dimensions over which the strings of matter in the sheet were scattered by the Big Bang. The fourth dimension, the one in which the strings are primarily aligned in space, is the dimension of space that we perceive as time.
That meant that matter and energy were originally equal after the Big Bang, one dimension of the sheet each, but energy has since been increasing while matter has been decreasing. This is because some matter is inevitably converted into energy, the large atoms produced by solar fusion contain slightly less energy than the smaller atoms from which they were formed, and this excess energy is relased as the radiation which obeys the Inverse Square Law. This is why stars shine.
Friday, November 15, 2019
Rotation And Spheres In Cosmology
This is about the cosmological theory described in the compound posting on this blog, "The Theory Of Stationary Space" (July 2017). For more information you can read the introduction there.
There are some people who still believe that the earth is flat, instead of spherical. But let's take a closer look at this question, starting with a definition of what is flat and what is spherical.
In my cosmology theory, the matter in the universe began with a two-dimensional sheet of space that formed as within, but not contiguous with, the background of multi-dimensional space. Both began with a single electric charge, whether negative or positive, inducing an opposite charge next to it, because the number one rule of the universe is that opposite electric charges must always balance out. This process continued indefinitely, and explains the universe that we have today.
On such a flat plane, we could say that there was the potential for information but no actual information yet. But if we consider this original sheet relative to the surrounding background space, the situation changes. There is information in the two-dimensional sheet in the plane that it occupies, out of all possible planes, in the background space.
Since the two-dimensional sheet of space was not contiguous with the background space, meaning that it's alternating negative and positive electric charges were not aligned in the same checkerboard pattern, two sides of the two-dimensional sheet eventually came into contact, not from the sheet's own perspective but from the perspective of the surrounding background space. Since charge migration had taken place in the sheet, one side becoming more positive and the other more negative due to the opposite-charge attraction and like-charge repulsion of the charges comprising the surrounding background space, this caused the negative and positive sides of the two-dimensional sheet to come into contact.
The result was the great matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we refer to as the Big Bang. This caused one dimension of the two-dimensional sheet to disintegrate, and to become energy. The remaining dimension of the sheet was then very long one-dimensional strings, of either negative or positive charge, that became the strings of matter that we have today. The strings of the two-dimensional sheet are now scattered, by the energy that was released by the other dimension, across four dimensions of the background space. We perceive the fundamental particles of matter as particles, instead of strings, because we can only see in three of those dimensions. The fourth dimension, the one along which the strings were primarily aligned, is what we perceive as time.
So the flat plane of the original two-dimensional sheet is now scattered across multiple dimensions of space. One dimension of the plane of this sheet remains as the dimension that we perceive as time. But the other dimension has been scattered across all possible planes in the new dimensions, and the information of this must be there in whatever form the matter now takes.
Basically, all possible geometric planes in space must be manifested equally. That is why the sphere is the predominant form of matter in the universe. A sphere is actually flat, but it is flat in all possible planes rather than being flat in only one plane. Each infinitesimal spot on any sphere is flat in one plane.
A sphere is actually a low information state, which is why it is described as the geometric form with the lowest energy state, because energy and information is really the same thing. It avoids the information of a flat surface along a plane as to why the sheet is in the particular plane that it is by simply having the flat surface in all possible planes. This requires less information than having it in one particular plane among many.
The trouble with right angles, even though they make the most efficient use of space, is that information is required to explain why they are in the alignment that they are. Spheres get around that by encompassing all possible alignments, and so contain less information.
But the formation of a sphere is not all that can be done to achieve the lowest information state. If a sphere, such as a planet or star, is set in any one position then it requires information, as one choice among all possible choices, to explain why the sphere is set in that position instead of other possible positions.
If the universe really seeks the lowest energy state, as we know it does, then it will find a way to get around defining why a sphere should be set in any one particular position. That is why spheres such as planets and stars inevitably rotate. Rotation gets around the sphere being set in any one position by encompassing all possible positions. But this cannot be done in all dimensions that the sphere occupies, one must be reserved for the axial plane around which the planet or star rotates.
We have seen that energy and information is really the same thing. We cannot apply energy to anything without also adding information to it, and we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it. Another way we can see that energy and information is really the same thing is in how we can make our lives physically easier, through technology, but only at the expense of making life more complex. We cannot, on a large scale, make life both physically easier and also less complex.
But yet there is energy in rotation as we can see on earth with tidal energy and because the spin of the earth creates hurricanes and causes ice-age glaciers to move toward the equator by centrifugal force. Energy and information seem to diverge when it comes to the inevitable rotation of spheres such as stars and planets.
Not rotating would require the information of one plane over all other possible planes. This cannot be done because one of the two dimensions of the sheet from which matter originally came has disintegrated. But this caused the intrinsic energy of the electric charge relationships in that dimension to be released into the background space as energy. So this is where the energy of rotation of the sphere comes from, there is not the information to define one plane but there is the energy to have the sphere rotate over all possible planes.
But there is the other dimension of the original sheet remaining as matter, ultimately composed of one-dimensional strings. The primary direction of alignment of these strings is the dimension that we perceive as time and this is why rotation takes place over time around the rotational axis of the sphere.
This means that, in a very real way, the earth really is flat. But it is flat in all possible planes, rather than in just one plane.
There are some people who still believe that the earth is flat, instead of spherical. But let's take a closer look at this question, starting with a definition of what is flat and what is spherical.
In my cosmology theory, the matter in the universe began with a two-dimensional sheet of space that formed as within, but not contiguous with, the background of multi-dimensional space. Both began with a single electric charge, whether negative or positive, inducing an opposite charge next to it, because the number one rule of the universe is that opposite electric charges must always balance out. This process continued indefinitely, and explains the universe that we have today.
On such a flat plane, we could say that there was the potential for information but no actual information yet. But if we consider this original sheet relative to the surrounding background space, the situation changes. There is information in the two-dimensional sheet in the plane that it occupies, out of all possible planes, in the background space.
Since the two-dimensional sheet of space was not contiguous with the background space, meaning that it's alternating negative and positive electric charges were not aligned in the same checkerboard pattern, two sides of the two-dimensional sheet eventually came into contact, not from the sheet's own perspective but from the perspective of the surrounding background space. Since charge migration had taken place in the sheet, one side becoming more positive and the other more negative due to the opposite-charge attraction and like-charge repulsion of the charges comprising the surrounding background space, this caused the negative and positive sides of the two-dimensional sheet to come into contact.
The result was the great matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we refer to as the Big Bang. This caused one dimension of the two-dimensional sheet to disintegrate, and to become energy. The remaining dimension of the sheet was then very long one-dimensional strings, of either negative or positive charge, that became the strings of matter that we have today. The strings of the two-dimensional sheet are now scattered, by the energy that was released by the other dimension, across four dimensions of the background space. We perceive the fundamental particles of matter as particles, instead of strings, because we can only see in three of those dimensions. The fourth dimension, the one along which the strings were primarily aligned, is what we perceive as time.
So the flat plane of the original two-dimensional sheet is now scattered across multiple dimensions of space. One dimension of the plane of this sheet remains as the dimension that we perceive as time. But the other dimension has been scattered across all possible planes in the new dimensions, and the information of this must be there in whatever form the matter now takes.
Basically, all possible geometric planes in space must be manifested equally. That is why the sphere is the predominant form of matter in the universe. A sphere is actually flat, but it is flat in all possible planes rather than being flat in only one plane. Each infinitesimal spot on any sphere is flat in one plane.
A sphere is actually a low information state, which is why it is described as the geometric form with the lowest energy state, because energy and information is really the same thing. It avoids the information of a flat surface along a plane as to why the sheet is in the particular plane that it is by simply having the flat surface in all possible planes. This requires less information than having it in one particular plane among many.
The trouble with right angles, even though they make the most efficient use of space, is that information is required to explain why they are in the alignment that they are. Spheres get around that by encompassing all possible alignments, and so contain less information.
But the formation of a sphere is not all that can be done to achieve the lowest information state. If a sphere, such as a planet or star, is set in any one position then it requires information, as one choice among all possible choices, to explain why the sphere is set in that position instead of other possible positions.
If the universe really seeks the lowest energy state, as we know it does, then it will find a way to get around defining why a sphere should be set in any one particular position. That is why spheres such as planets and stars inevitably rotate. Rotation gets around the sphere being set in any one position by encompassing all possible positions. But this cannot be done in all dimensions that the sphere occupies, one must be reserved for the axial plane around which the planet or star rotates.
We have seen that energy and information is really the same thing. We cannot apply energy to anything without also adding information to it, and we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it. Another way we can see that energy and information is really the same thing is in how we can make our lives physically easier, through technology, but only at the expense of making life more complex. We cannot, on a large scale, make life both physically easier and also less complex.
But yet there is energy in rotation as we can see on earth with tidal energy and because the spin of the earth creates hurricanes and causes ice-age glaciers to move toward the equator by centrifugal force. Energy and information seem to diverge when it comes to the inevitable rotation of spheres such as stars and planets.
Not rotating would require the information of one plane over all other possible planes. This cannot be done because one of the two dimensions of the sheet from which matter originally came has disintegrated. But this caused the intrinsic energy of the electric charge relationships in that dimension to be released into the background space as energy. So this is where the energy of rotation of the sphere comes from, there is not the information to define one plane but there is the energy to have the sphere rotate over all possible planes.
But there is the other dimension of the original sheet remaining as matter, ultimately composed of one-dimensional strings. The primary direction of alignment of these strings is the dimension that we perceive as time and this is why rotation takes place over time around the rotational axis of the sphere.
This means that, in a very real way, the earth really is flat. But it is flat in all possible planes, rather than in just one plane.
Friday, November 8, 2019
How History Repeats Itself
The thing that makes understanding history so important is that we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it. This is a compound posting about examples of how history repeats itself. Some of this has been posted on this blog before, but much of it is new.
CONTENTS
1) THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
2) FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
3) THE MILITIAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
4) THE SEPARATION AND THREE WARS RULE
5) THE PRESIDENTIAL BABY BALLOON AND THE REPETITION OF HISTORY
6) ANNIVERSARIES
7) COMPUTERS AND COMMUNISM
8) ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
9) OTHER EXAMPLES OF HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
CONTENTS
1) THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
2) FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
3) THE MILITIAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
4) THE SEPARATION AND THREE WARS RULE
5) THE PRESIDENTIAL BABY BALLOON AND THE REPETITION OF HISTORY
6) ANNIVERSARIES
7) COMPUTERS AND COMMUNISM
8) ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
9) OTHER EXAMPLES OF HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
10) THE CARIBBEAN TAX HAVENS
11) THE TIME OF TROUBLES AND THE GORBACHEV-YELTSIN ERA
12) THE SERIAL KILLERS OF LONDON, ONTARIO
13) PUTIN AND HITLER
14) THE OBELISK AND THE REFORMATION
1) THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The French Revolution of 1789 brought the world into the modern political era. it has echoed across time and space in other revolutions.
The Xinhua Revolution, in China, of 1911 brought about the end of Imperial China, and began the modern republic, in virtually the same way as the French Revolution well over a hundred years before.
The Russian Revolution of 1917, popularly known as the October Revolution, was an obvious repetition of the French Revolution. It brought the end of the rule by the tsars, replaced by a modern republic, in the same way as the French Revolution. Napoleon, whose ruled followed the French Revolution, carried the ideals of the revolutions by way of his extensive military conquests and this is what ultimately planted the seeds of a repetition of the French Revolution, in 1917 in St. Petersburg. The ideals of the French Revolution were also brought to eastern Europe by way of Napoleon's conquests. Could it be just an accident that 1989, when Communism ended in eastern Europe, was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution? The execution of Nicolae Ceausescu, like the execution of the Romanov family in Russia, was preceded by the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette.
The Russian Revolution of 1917, popularly known as the October Revolution, was an obvious repetition of the French Revolution. It brought the end of the rule by the tsars, replaced by a modern republic, in the same way as the French Revolution. Napoleon, whose ruled followed the French Revolution, carried the ideals of the revolutions by way of his extensive military conquests and this is what ultimately planted the seeds of a repetition of the French Revolution, in 1917 in St. Petersburg. The ideals of the French Revolution were also brought to eastern Europe by way of Napoleon's conquests. Could it be just an accident that 1989, when Communism ended in eastern Europe, was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution? The execution of Nicolae Ceausescu, like the execution of the Romanov family in Russia, was preceded by the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette.
The German Revolution of 1919, after the end of the First World War, was also a definite echo of the French Revolution in that is replaced the monarchy, the Kaisers, with the Weimar Republic. But just as the republic that replaced the Bourbon Dynasty in France ultimately gave way to rule by the prototype of the modern dictator, Napoleon, so the Weimar Republic would give way to rule by Hitler.
There were actually two Russian Revolutions in 1917, the February Revolution which was limited to the city of St. Petersburg and the much more decisive and better-known October Revolution. it was the October Revolution which brought the rule of the tsars to an end. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was an echo of not only the French Revolution but also of the two Russian Revolutions before it. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 culminated in February, with the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Paris. But it's signature event was the seizing of the U.S. Embassy in November. The difference between October and November can be explained by the fact that Russia was using the Julian calendar at the time of it's 1917 Revolution so that, by the Gregorian Calendar, the October Revolution was actually in what is now November.
The end of the Ottoman Empire, with it's rule by the sultans, and replacement by the modern Turkish republic led by President Ataturk was a near-perfect reenactment of the French Revolution.
The "People Power" Revolution of 1986 in the Philippines, with Corazon Aquino replacing the long-time dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was another definite echo of the French Revolution.
2) FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
Part of the problem with the 2018 G-7 summit, which didn't go very well, was that it was held in Quebec. This is the Canadian province that is like a mirror into the past of France before the Revolution. The French Revolutionaries wanted to destroy anything royal. But the name of Montreal actually means "Mount Royal", and that is the name of the hill around which it is built.
The French Revolutionaries also wanted to destroy anything to do with the Catholic Church. But so much in Quebec, from streets to towns, is named for Catholic saints. Everywhere is St. This and St. That. The most prominent building in downtown Montreal, Place Ville-Marie, was built in the form of a cross, and there is the prominent lighted cross atop Mount Royal. The Catholic Church even controlled education in Quebec until the 1960s.
The provincial flag of Quebec features the fleur-de-lis that was the symbol of France before the revolution.
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Clearly, although the emphasis is on speaking French, Quebec is like a part of France that never heard about the revolution.
Actually the French revolution finally did arrive in Quebec, in the 1960s as what is known as the "Quiet Revolution". It was helped along by a visit from Charles de Gaulle, who represents the France after the revolution and not the Bourbon kings who live on as U.S. Republican presidents. Control of education was taken away from the church. The "revolution" was about the French language and the Quebec version of "The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen", which was the primary document of the French Revolution, was "The Charter Of The French Language", often referred to as simply "Bill 101".
Anyway when you bring a U.S. Republican president to "France Before The Revolution", it is like bringing him back home to the Bourbon Dynasty, and we should expect him to act like a king.
Why should a king have to listen to people who disagree with him? Isn't that what guillotines are for? What is the world coming to when it is ruled by presidents and prime ministers who have to be elected by popular vote? The way to get everyone to agree with you is to simply behead those that don't.
3) THE MILITIAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
4) THE SEPARATION AND THREE WARS RULE
5) THE PRESIDENTIAL BABY BALLOON AND THE REPETITION OF HISTORY
8) ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
There is something that I have never seen pointed out about the Middle East of today, and it is about how history tends to repeat itself. That is why it is important to understand history because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it.
Have you ever wondered why there seems to be such a preponderance of militias in the Middle East? By militia I mean a paramilitary force that is not a national army. Some people refer to such militias as "non-state actors".
The best-known militia in the Middle East is Hezbollah, which means "The Party of God". But there were many more in the present and the recent past. There is the two Palestinian militias, Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah which rules the West Bank. There has been the Amal Militia, which used to be a rival of Hezbollah in Lebanon. There has also been a Druze militia and older movements like the PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization and the PFLP, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
All of these militias are related to the founding of Israel in 1948. But why should this region have so many militias that are not national armies? There is a clear answer, and it goes back nearly a thousand years.
That answer is the Crusades.
The militias of the Middle East today are the direct descendants of the medieval orders of knights at the time of the Crusades. Those knights were first tasked with protecting and assisting Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, and then to liberate the Holy Land from Moslem control. The militias of the Middle East have a very similar role, and operate in the same area, but the role is reversed. They are tasked with regaining control of the Holy Land for the Moslems from the restored state of Israel.
While only the First Crusade was a great success, the knights established several "Crusader States" in the Middle East. These orders of knights were Catholic but independent of any nation, which today would be referred to today as militias or "non-state actors". The descendants of these temporary states today are Gaza, ruled by Hamas, and the West Bank, ruled by Fatah.
Hezbollah, operating in Lebanon and the best-known of the militias of the Middle East, is sometimes referred to as "a state within a state". That is exactly what was being said about the Knights Templar eight hundred years ago. They were named for Solomon's Temple, which some Crusaders mistakenly believed the Al Aqsa Mosque to be. The Knights Templar accumulated a tremendous amount of wealth and power until they fell out of favor with both the pope and the king of France.
They were followed as the predominant order of knights by the Knights Hospitaller, or the Knights of St. John. When they were given control of Malta, as we saw in "Malta And Jerusalem", they became known as the Knights of Malta. So great was their influence that places where the sick and injured are cared for became known as hospitals.
We see the long-lasting influence of orders of knights such as these most of all in how the militias of the Middle East seem to be their direct descendants, except that the militias are Moslem while the orders of knights were Catholic.
How about the militias of Pakistan.
Has anyone ever noticed the close similarity between the Islamic militias of Pakistan and the buccaneers and privateers of centuries ago? By my definition, a pirate was simply a robber. But a buccaneer or privateer or, in French terminology, a corsair, were similar in nature to pirates in that they raided ships but, unlike a simple pirate, a buccaneer, privateer or, corsair, only raided ships of nations with which their country was at war. They were independent of the official navy, but operated in conjunction with the national interests.
The militias of Pakistan operate in exactly the same way, not directly controlled by the government but useful to it and usually acting with coordinated interests. It is really amazing how much Osama Bin Laden had in common with Captain Morgan. One was raiding in the name of religion and the other in the name of simple accumulation of wealth.
How about the militias of Pakistan.
Has anyone ever noticed the close similarity between the Islamic militias of Pakistan and the buccaneers and privateers of centuries ago? By my definition, a pirate was simply a robber. But a buccaneer or privateer or, in French terminology, a corsair, were similar in nature to pirates in that they raided ships but, unlike a simple pirate, a buccaneer, privateer or, corsair, only raided ships of nations with which their country was at war. They were independent of the official navy, but operated in conjunction with the national interests.
The militias of Pakistan operate in exactly the same way, not directly controlled by the government but useful to it and usually acting with coordinated interests. It is really amazing how much Osama Bin Laden had in common with Captain Morgan. One was raiding in the name of religion and the other in the name of simple accumulation of wealth.
4) THE SEPARATION AND THREE WARS RULE
Today I am going to do what I can to contribute to world peace. I have noticed something about wars that I cannot see has been pointed out anywhere.
What has long caught my attention is how the wars between Israel and the Arab countries parallel the wars between India and Pakistan.
Israel, India and, Pakistan all became independent at around the same time. India and Pakistan in 1947 and Israel in 1948. Each had a war immediately upon independence, and then two more wars since then. India and Pakistan fought wars with one another just after the independence of both, again in 1965, and again in 1971. Israel also had an initial war with surrounding Arab countries, again in 1967, and again in 1973.
Not only is there an obvious parallel between the two sets of wars but the time frame is close to being exactly the same. Israel gained independence one year after India and Pakistan but it's two subsequent wars are both delayed by two years from the counterpart war between India and Pakistan.
Why is there this close parallel between these two sets of wars, when there is no reason at all to believe that there is any direct relation between them? There is no sign of anyone in the Middle East saying "Hey, India and Pakistan just had a war, why don't we have one too"? It is almost as if these two apparently unrelated series of wars has some common root.
We know that history tends to repeat itself. We tend to reenact history, sometimes intentionally, but often without realizing it. We have seen in this blog how events such as the French Revolution have been echoed across the world, most recently in the posting "The Presidential Baby Balloon And The Repetition Of History".
Could there be some other historic event that was affecting what happens across the world, and leading to wars?
The first two European nations to begin building vast colonial empires were Spain and Portugal. These two countries have brought their languages, Catholic religion, and elements of their cultures to much of the world.
What I want to show today is that these two nations have also inadvertently brought their relationship with each other to much of the world.
There were four early European colonial powers, first Spain and Portugal, and then Britain and France. The relationship between Spain and Portugal is important because both originated from the same original entity, the Iberian Peninsula ruled by the Moors. Also, Spain and Portugal are the only two of the four that has a "direct" boundary between them. Britain and France have the English Channel between them and France and Spain have a range of mountains between them, which was a much greater barrier in times past than it is today. Spain and Portugal, in contrast, have only a small river for most of their boundary.
Let's start with India and Pakistan.
Has anyone noticed that the flag of the new ruling party of Pakistan is very similar to the flag of Portugal, with identical colors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Tehreek-e-Insaf#/media/File:Pakistan_Tehreek-e-Insaf_flag.PNG
If you wonder why that should be important, remember that Portugal was involved in India for about 450 years. Goa is usually the place in India most associated with Portugal, but the meeting of cultures must have had an effect on the entire country. Portuguese explorers, beginning with Vasco Da Gama, were greatly surprised to find Christians in India, who traced their line to the apostle Thomas, and tried to force them into the Catholic Church.
(Note-These Thomas Christians of India were actually Nestorians, that we saw in "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began").
Notice the parallels between India, from which Pakistan was divided, and Portugal.
Portugal shares the Iberian Peninsula with Spain just as Pakistan shares the Indian subcontinent with India. Portugal, much smaller than Spain, defines itself against Spain just as Pakistan, much smaller than India, defines itself against India. Someone from Portugal might describe their country as "We are part of the Iberian Peninsula but are not Spanish", just as someone from Pakistan might describe their country as "We are part of the subcontinent but are not Indian".
Pakistan is to the west of India just as Portugal is to the west of Spain. The geographic relationship of Pakistan to India very closely approximates that of Portugal to Spain. The land area and population of Pakistan, relative to India, is almost identical to that of Portugal, relative to Spain.
We can see how Portugal defines itself, relative to Spain, by it's flag. The narrower green area to the left represents Portugal, while the larger red area represents Spain. Although the green field is larger than Portugal's actual land area in relation to Spain.
The Pakistani flag shows how Pakistan defines itself, relative to India, in exactly the same way. The white fired to the left of the flag represents Pakistan, white standing for "The Land of the Pure", relative to India with which it shares the subcontinent. The crescent moon and star even resembles the circular medallion on the Portuguese flag.
Pakistan and Portugal, although on opposite sides of the world, seem to have quite a bit in common.
Spain and Portugal are close allies and friendly neighbors today, but historically they have been rival colonial powers. One traveler once wrote something like "The Spanish and Portuguese are both warm and welcoming people- to everyone except each other".
In fact, there are very close parallels between the past relationship between Spain and Portugal and the present relationship between India and Pakistan.
Like India and Pakistan, Spain and Portugal were jointly ruled by a colonial power before gaining independence. This we saw in "When The Moors Ruled Spain", on this blog.
The War of Portuguese Succession, which affirmed that Portugal was going to be a separate country from Spain, corresponds to the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, when Hindus living in what was to be Pakistan moved toward India and Moslems living in what was to be India moved toward Pakistan.
In the Eighteenth Century, Spain and Portugal fought three wars between themselves, not counting wars that were part of larger European struggles and involved other European powers. Just as India and Pakistan have fought three wars in the Twentieth century.
In common to the Eighteenth-Century wars between Spain and Portugal and those between India and Pakistan in the Twentieth-Century is that there were three limited wars, but never an all-out war where one had to surrender to the other. Between the three wars, there was lesser skirmishing along the border. Between Spain and Portugal in the Eighteenth-Century, this often took the form of rustling each other's livestock.
Not only that, but there is an area of Spain immediately north of Portugal, called Galicia, that historically spoke Portuguese but ended up being controlled by Spain. The difference between India and Pakistan is religion, rather than language, but other than that there is a virtually identical parallel in Kashmir. To the north of Pakistan, it is majority Moslem but ended up being controlled by India.
The following map shows Spain to the right, Portugal to the left, and the red region to the north of Portugal. This region is Galicia, which historically spoke Portuguese but ended up under the control of Spain. Notice how closely this map is mirrored today in that of India, Pakistan and, Kashmir.
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The third war between India and Pakistan involved not Kashmir but what is now Bangladesh. The third war between Spain and Portugal involved what is now Uruguay. Ironically, Bangladesh and Uruguay are similar in geographical size. Just as the Line of Tordesillas was mediated in an effort to keep peace between Spain and Portugal, the Line of Control was mediated in an effort to keep peace between India and Pakistan.
Plainly and simply, India and Pakistan are reenacting the historic relationship between Spain and Portugal, specifically that of the Eighteenth-Century, with Pakistan playing the role of Portugal.
There is another place that the historic relationship between Spain and Portugal emerges. It is in South America, involving Chile. Chile speaks Spanish but geographically corresponds to Portugal, along the southwest coast of the continent. Even though it is Brazil that actually speaks Portuguese. It does not seem to matter whether the primary influence on a region was from Spain or Portugal, it still brings along the historical relationship between the two.
Chile is, for some reason, the most disliked country by other South American nations. The most serious war since the independence of the nations of South America has been between Chile on one side and Bolivia and Peru on the other. Chile also tried to claim territory from Paraguay. More recently, a territorial dispute with Argentina brought the two countries to the brink of war. Chile is also the only South American nation to engage in a military conflict with Spain since gaining independence from it.
But one glance at a map tells us that South America is reenacting the historic rivalry between Spain and Portugal, the two nations that colonized it, but with Spanish-speaking Chile playing the role of Portugal due to it's geographical position. The conflict with Bolivia and Peru was along Chile's northern frontier, making it correspond with Galicia on the Iberian Peninsula and Kashmir on the subcontinent.
The pattern is the same, wars and skirmishes but never an all-out war where one has to surrender to the other.
Now we are beginning to understand the Israeli-Arab Wars, and why they so nearly-exactly parallel those between India and Pakistan. Even though neither Spain nor Portugal had a direct involvement in Palestine, their historic relationship is such a powerful influence in the Mediterranean that Israel and it's Arab enemies fell into reenacting it too. Like the three wars between Spain and Portugal, the Israeli-Arab Wars do not include the 1956 Suez Crisis, which was a wider power struggle.
The issue of occupied territory by Israel, which geographically corresponds ideally to Portugal and is close in population, revolves around the north of the country, the Golan Heights, West Bank and, formerly southern Lebanon,. which corresponds to Galicia between Spain and Portugal, Kashmir between India and Pakistan and, formerly the southern part of Bolivia between Bolivia and Chile. The Sinai Peninsula, which Israel occupied after the 1967 Six-Day War, is, in contrast, to the south of Israel, and maybe that contributed to Israel relinquishing it. The Hebrew and Arabic languages are related in roughly the same way as Spanish and Portuguese.
What about the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War? That was a non-friendly separation of eastern Europe from western Europe. But we see that this rule applies very clearly. There were three times that the Warsaw Pact "sent in the tanks" to quell an uprising. There was East Germany, in 1953, Hungary, in 1956, and Czechoslovakia (the Prague Spring), in 1968. Even though not directly related to Spain or Portugal, the rule had such an effect on the world that it applied here.
This rule could also have applied to Korea, where there was an unfriendly separation between north and south, except that outside powers were heavily involved. Kim Il-Sung was reportedly delighted by news of the Communist victory in the Vietnam War, and wanted to launch another war against South Korea. But this was after Richard Nixon's visits to both the Soviet Union and China, and this time neither was supportive.
Which state of the United States is talk of separation most often heard? The answer is California, whether is is talk of northern California forming a separate state, Californians voting on whether to split into three states, or even of California becoming independent altogether. But if we compare a map of the U.S. with a map of Europe, we see that California is in the geographical role of Portugal.
Then we have Eritrea, the region of Ethiopia along the Red Sea coast that split away to become a separate country. The geographical relationship between the two countries mirrors very closely that between Spain and Portugal. The two countries fought a thirty-year war of Eritrean independence, then there was a war from 1998 to 2000, then there was a battle along the border between the two countries in 2016. But the two countries have recently surprised the world by going back to being allies, although not politically reuniting.
Indonesia was a Portuguese colony for a long time. After Indonesia became independent, the eastern half of the island of Timor wanted to be a separate country. But Indonesia seized control of it, until finally relinquishing it in 1999. But Spain is to the east of Portugal, on the Iberian Peninsula, and this seems to reflect Spain being independent of Portugal, since Portugal became a nation first as the Moors were withdrawing. Notice how the majority red field on the flag of East Timor parallels the red field that represents Spain on the Portuguese flag.
Germany and France have even followed this Separation And Three Wars Rule. Both were originally part of what were known as the Franks, but which were separated into eastern and western halves. There have been three wars between the two since Napoleon's military campaigns prompted the many German-speaking states across central Europe to unite. But there is no geographical comparison with Spain and Portugal and the three wars, unlike the limited wars between Spain and Portugal, have been all-out wars, the Franco-Prussian War and the two world wars, requiring the surrender of one side or the other.
So here is the rule: When one country is separated in a non-friendly way from another, there will be initial conflict upon separation. There will then be three limited wars, over several decades and with plenty of skirmishing and lesser conflicts in between. But then there will be peace. It only applies to nations sharing a land border.
Keep in mind also that this is not including wars involving outside powers. This can change the formula. Spain and Portugal actually had more than three wars during their period of rivalry, but only three that were not part of a wider conflict involving outside powers.
But now that we see that so many of our wars are just unnecessarily reenacting historical wars, maybe we can have peace.
Israel and the neighboring Arab countries have already completed their three major wars, although this does not preclude lesser conflicts and near-constant skirmishing. We know from the prophecies in the Bible that the wars of the Apocalypse must begin over Israel, but since that definitely involves outside powers it goes beyond the Separation And Three Wars Rule.
5) THE PRESIDENTIAL BABY BALLOON AND THE REPETITION OF HISTORY
As I often write here, understanding history is important because we tend to repeat and reenact it, often without realizing it. The Presidential Baby Balloon in London is an amazing example of how we reenact history.
The posting on this blog, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris" is very important if you want to understand how the world works. The Bourbon Dynasty of French royalty, which was ended by the French Revolution of 1789 although it made a brief and limited comeback after the time of Napoleon, lives on as Republican U.S. presidents.
Before the revolution, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, helped the U.S. to gain independence and were the first foreign government to give the new country diplomatic recognition. This had a great effect on the early U.S. and I explained in detail in that posting how the Bourbons have lived on, not in France but as U.S. Republicans. There is actually a lot more that could be added to that posting, but it is long enough as it is.
The revolution that overthrew the Bourbons has been the prototype for revolutions and the replacing of old kings and emperors with modern republics ever since.
But kings and royalty have been part of the world for thousands of years, and are not going to go away just because of the drafting of a constitution.
What all of this came down to this week was the flying of the Donald Trump Baby Balloon over Parliament Square in London.
By the way, I am sure that the prime minister, or the queen, or any of the royal family does not approve of this balloon. But Britain is a democracy, as we saw in "Parliament Buildings", and they do not have the legal authority to stop the balloon. The mayor of London, who the U.S. president has criticized and irritated, must have given approval for it. But it is only being allowed for two hours.
Before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed, ironically facing the building where Ben Franklin had gotten their assistance and diplomatic recognition for the United States, they witnessed the first flight of a human being, in a balloon demonstrated at the Palace of Versailles. The idea of the balloon was originally conceived as a way to attack the British fortress at Gibraltar.
Could they have imagined that their dynasty would, in effect, ultimately continue on not in France but in the infant nation across the sea that they had just helped to gain independence? A king (officially a president) from that nation would visit the nation from which they had helped it to gain independence (Britain). That nation would counter the balloon that originally flew from the palace grounds at Versailles, which had been intended to attack it's fortress, with it's own balloon from it's own palace (Westminster does have the status of a royal palace but is used for parliament).
The balloon would be making fun of the king (officially a president) who's infant country the Bourbons had helped to gain independence, and was really a Bourbon king himself, by portraying him as an infant.
Finally, today, when the balloon was flown, is July 14. Today is Bastille Day, the anniversary of the French Revolution that overthrew and guillotined the Bourbon Dynasty, but which lives on in Republican U.S. presidents. There were tens of thousands of protesters in the streets of London, who could scarcely have done a better job of re-enacting the French Revolution.
This is not directed at France, which has long since moved beyond it's royal history and become the prototype of the modern republic, but at the royal line that lives on in the land across the sea that the Bourbons had helped to win independence.
The media is not seeing the meaning of the Presidential Baby Balloon that will fly over Parliament during the visit of Donald Trump to Britain.
It is a clear play on the 1977 Pink Floyd album "Animals". On the album cover is a giant pig flying over the Battersea Power Station, which is in London about 2.5 km or 1.5 miles from Parliament.
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We saw the now-closed Battersea Power Station on the Photo Blog Of Europe. The following photo was taken from the tower of Westminster Cathedral.
This power station is just adjacent to the new U.S. Embassy at Nine Elms.
The concept of the Pink Floyd album came from the popular novel "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. The novel, in which pigs are prominent as characters, was a warning of dictatorship based on cult of personality. The book is especially remembered for the phrase "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
Interestingly, the next Pink Floyd album was "The Wall" and Donald Trump's presidency has focused on building an impermeable wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and insisting that the Mexicans pay for it. In early 1980, any time a radio was playing we would hear "All in all, you're just another brick in the wall".
6) ANNIVERSARIES
We have long seen here how history repeats itself. We tend to reenact history, often without realizing it, although sometimes the reenactment or fulfillment of history is intentional. In fact, this is what led me to the scientific theory on this blog, "The Flow Of Information Through The Universe". I noticed that exactly the same principle applies to the inanimate matter of the universe.
Anniversaries are important in the repetition of history. Remember the fall of the Communist governments of eastern Europe by popular revolt in 1989? It swept one country after another. How much of a coincidence was it that 1989 was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution? It started in Poland but didn't spread across the continent until this anniversary.
The Xinhai Revolution that began modern China very much resembled the French Revolution. It seems to be no coincidence that the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square took place in the year of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.
America's urban uprisings in the 1960s began with Watts, in 1965. The Watts Uprising seems to have begun spontaneously, over a driver getting pulled over and mistreated by police, but how much of a coincidence is it that 1965 was also the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation?
Sometimes events that would have happened on such significant anniversaries are delayed in some way, but take place later. In two examples of a delay, the time frame is exactly twenty years.
The 1960s were a tumultuous time, full of protests against the established order. Europe had been swept by a series of revolutions in 1848. This was a phenomenal year of change that isn't well-known in North America because it never crossed the ocean. The French monarchy made a limited comeback after the time of Napoleon and it was 1848, not the French Revolution nearly sixty years before, that finally brought it to an end.
The uprisings of the 1960s were actually intended to take place on the 100th anniversary of that year. This was prevented from happening by the Second World War. But history was destined to be repeated and the anniversary uprisings were delayed by twenty years, until the children of those who otherwise would have carried out the uprisings had come of age.
Consider the mass student uprising of 1968 in France. This was the 120th anniversary of the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848. Mexico, which had spent some time under French control, also had the massive student protests in 1968 that culminated in the Tlatelolco Massacre.
In America, the protests of the 1960s were very political in nature. The uprisings of the people were against the Republican establishment, at least after the election of Richard Nixon even though he was a very moderate Republican and the nation's "wealth gap" was actually at it's narrowest during his tenure. Of course, it was reenacting the revolutions of 1848 which were popular uprisings which finally brought the French monarchy, of which U.S. Republican presidents were the continuation of the Bourbon Dynasty, to a final end.
The other example of the "Twenty-Year Delay" to the anniversary of a major event of change is the Arab Spring. It began in 2009, exactly twenty years after the fall of Communism in eastern Europe, which was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.
7) COMPUTERS AND COMMUNISM
Have you ever wondered why San Francisco is such an important city in U.S.-Russian relations, even though it is far from the centers of power?
The Russian Consulate in the city was so often suspected of conducting espionage that the U.S. Government finally demanded that it be shut down. On the roof of the building were all kinds of makeshift wooden structures that were built to hide secret antennas. The FBI is said to have dug a secret tunnel under the building in an effort to find out what goes on inside. Before the building was closed, a lot of black smoke was seen coming from the chimneys, suggesting that sensitive materials involving espionage were being destroyed.
The perceived motive that the Russians were spying on nearby Silicon Valley does not make sense. The computer industry is anything but secretive. The development of new apps are announced so that programmers will be drawn to help work on them. As soon as a new app is finished, the whole world knows about it. Why would anyone need to "spy" on Silicon Valley?
The answer to the Russian connection to San Francisco, much more so than other U.S. cities, lies in history. In the time of the Romanov Dynasty, California was a Russian colony and San Francisco is the nearest major city to Fort Ross.
Here is something really interesting to think about, something that has never been written about Silicon Valley.
I have speculated that the communal nature of modern computer and internet technology is actually the fulfillment of Marxist theory. We saw this is "The Roots Of Abbreviation And The Marx Cloud", and I will replicate the part about Marxist theory here:
Now, back to San Francisco. Russia was the original land where Marxist theories ended up implemented, although it was intended for countries like Britain. Before the Russian Revolution that implemented Marxism, California had been a Russian colony.
How much of a coincidence could it be that the focal point of the computer industry which, ironically, could be considered as the fulfillment of at least the spirit of Marxist theory, is based in a former colony of the original land where Marxism was implemented?
Just as "France Before The Revolution" can be seen to have continued in it's overseas colony of Quebec, after France itself was drastically changed by the Revolution, and that the royal dynasty that was overthrown in France effectively continued on as the Republican presidents of the land across the ocean that the French king and queen had helped to gain independence not long before being overthrown, why shouldn't Marxist theory continue on, at least in some way, in a former overseas Russian colony after it had ended in Russia itself?
Also, is it a coincidence that the Hippies of the 1960s could also said to have been based in San Francisco, in Haight-Ashbury? They were not overtly Marxist, but were seeking some major changes in the social order in a way similar to that of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which in itself was a replication of the French Revolution. Not to mention that the 1960s were the effective anniversary of the revolutions of 1848, as we saw above.
I tell you that history is a powerful force.
Symbolism is also important in understanding how history repeats itself.
St. George is one of the most popular of Christian saints. He was a Roman legionnaire who was martyred for his faith. Veneration of St. George is widespread and his symbol is a red cross on white, which can be seen on the national flags of England and Georgia. Malta has a red and white flag with the George Cross in the upper corner. St. George is also popular with Moslems.
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One era where the cross of St. George was to be seen everywhere was the time of the Crusades, the European Catholic expeditions to recover the Holy Land from Moslem control. The two best-known orders of knights were the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller.
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The International Red Cross says that it's flag is not related to the red cross of St. George, because it is an organization of peace and St. George was a saint of warriors, but I think that it is.
The red-on-white Cross of St. George is part of the flag of Ontario.
St. George is known as the dragon slayer, the killer of the dragon. He is so-depicted on another of the flags of Georgia.
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We may think that the story of St. George and the Dragon is "just a legend", but let's have a look at how things involving St. George and the dragon have turned out.
St. George is a Catholic saint. He is the patron saint of England today, and his cross is the national flag, because it was allowed to remain after England joined the Protestant side during the Reformation. The obvious reason that England's St. George is not as widely-known or celebrated as Ireland's St. Patrick is that Ireland is still Catholic.
Has it caught anyone's attention that England, the symbol of which is St. George the Dragon slayer, is paired with Wales, the symbol of which is the Dragon?
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Could it be a little bit of Welsh nationalism? The Dragon which St. George, who represents England, is supposed to have killed is very much alive, while St. George himself is nowhere to be seen.
Who, in human history, is the greatest dragon slayer of all? As it turns out, it was a native of Georgia the flag of which represents St. George slaying the Dragon.
If one considered the Nazis as in the role of the Dragon then Josef Stalin, the native of Georgia, fulfills the role of St. George perfectly. Whatever one thinks of Stalin and his Soviet Union, one thing that was accomplished was to stop the Nazis. About eighty percent of the Nazis' battle casualties were on the Eastern Front.
The world's greatest military battle, Stalingrad, largest tank battle, Kursk, and greatest siege, Leningrad, all took place on the Eastern Front which can be considered as the manifestation of St. George and the Dragon.
Stalin, representing St. George, could easily have lost. There are persistent stories that Stalin, leader of the atheist ideology who had dynamited cathedrals, held a prayer meeting in the Dormition Cathedral as Nazi forces approached Moscow. The tide of battle suddenly turned and Moscow was saved.
That was to show that St. George did not slay the Dragon with his own power. After that, Stalin actually worked at revitalizing the church that he had earlier tried to destroy, ostensibly for the political support of the church, and the war was eventually won.
Stalin's ally was Winston Churchill. prime minister of England the patron saint of which was St. George. The name of Churchill's personal aircraft was Ascalon, named for the lance with which St. George killed the Dragon.
Hitler had seen the Nazis as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, which was originally founded by the pope to confront the increasingly rebellious eastern Christians, which eventually broke away in the schism of 1054.
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was code-named Operation Barbarossa, for an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a successor of Charlemagne, who had died while leading an army in the Crusades, which marched under the banner of St. George. But it seems that by replacing Christianity with the secular and racial political-economic ideology called National Socialism, Hitler instead fell into the role of the Dragon.
The story of St. George and the Dragon isn't over yet. The greatest act is still to come.
The flag of St. George, as we have seen, was very prominent during the Crusades, the medieval expeditions to reclaim the Holy Land from the Moslems.
The Bible foretells that the final battle of Armageddon will also take place in the Holy Land, just before the return of Jesus to establish His Kingdom on earth. The base of the Antichrist will be Europe, the revived Roman Empire where the legionnaire St. George was martyred, and he will bring his forces to meet a great army from the east, the largest army that the world has ever seen with 200 million soldiers. The military deployment from Europe will thus be exactly the same as during the Crusades, where the banner of St. George was widely used.
As we saw in "Archeological Sites In The Holy Land", the name of Armageddon comes from Megiddo, which is adjacent to the Jezreel Valley, of which Napoleon is reported to have once said something like "All of the armies of the world could maneuver for battle here".
The European soldiers who go to defend the Holy Land probably won't be marching under the banner of St. George. But they will be the descendants of the Crusaders who did. The dragon is a widespread symbol of the far eastern countries from where the great army from the east will come.
One thing that I cannot help wondering about is the Titanic. The late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries had been a very good time. There had been no serious conflict for decades and much of the technology that we use today had been developed. This glorious time was given various names in different countries. The Belle Epoque (Beautiful Era) in France, The Gilded Age in the U.S., and the Victorian Age in Britain.
But the Theory of Evolution had become very popular in Britain as an explanation of how life began without being created by God. Even though it explains how one species supposedly evolved from another by natural selection but does not try to explain how life arose from inanimate matter. Traditional belief in God was on the decline.
Suppose God wanted to get Britain's attention that the good times were soon to end and a war like the world had never seen before would begin. Might he have done it by evoking England's patron saint? The Titanic was a ship like the world had never seen before. The crew of the ship received warnings about icebergs in their path but ignored the warnings, and proceeded ahead at high speed, because the ship was supposed to be unsinkable.
Notice how the ship did not collide directly with the iceberg. It was more like an edge of the iceberg breaking open the side of the ship below the water line. Just like the lance of St. George piercing the side of the dragon.
Hopefully, this makes the widely-celebrated St. George's Day, April 23, more interesting. It may be true that the story of St. George and the Dragon is "just a legend". But, as you can see, it is not quite as much "just a legend" as we might think.
9) OTHER EXAMPLES OF HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
9) OTHER EXAMPLES OF HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Notice how the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was a reenactment of Persia's greatest victory of ancient times, the overthrow of Babylon. The U.S. Embassy compound was surrounded by a wall. Babylon had also been surrounded by a wall, and the Euphrates River flowed through it. While a drunken royal party was going on in Babylon, the Persian engineers quickly built a dam across the river and the Persian soldiers were able to get inside on the riverbed. This was repeated in 1979 by Iranians scaling the wall around the U.S. Embassy compound. The wall was to provide protection but the embassy might have been better off without it since history is such a powerful force and the wall invited repetition of this great Persian victory of ancient times.
Since the French Revolution was such a clear influence on the Iranian Revolution, should we be surprised at all that the storming of the U.S. Embassy became the signature event of the Iranian Revolution? The very similar "Storming of the Bastille", which was a prison and armory, was the signature event of the French Revolution.
Another very obvious repetition of history in Iran is that, in the 1978-79 Revolution, Khomeini represented Islam and the Shah represented the monarchy that went far back into pre-Islamic times. This was very much a reenactment of the earlier conquest of Iran by Moslems and the bringing of Islam to Iran.
The Philippines used to be a Spanish possession that was governed from Mexico. Mexico had a revolution, beginning in 1810, in which it broke free from Spain and became an independent nation. But exactly a century later another revolution was necessary, in 1910, because President Porfirio Diaz had assumed dictatorial powers. The Philippines also gained independence, first from Spain and then from the United States but, in the same way as Mexico's 1910 Revolution, had to have the 1986 "People Power" Revolution because President Ferdinand Marcos had assumed dictatorial powers.
Timeframes are also part of the repetition of history. The rule of Egypt by the Hyksos, in ancient times, and the rule of Egypt by the Pashas, in modern times, both lasted roughly the same amount of time, about 112 years or so. Egypt was ruled by the Ottoman Empire but the Ottoman rulers of Egypt broke away from the rest of the empire and are known to history as the Pashas.
The Pashas breaking away from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, to rule Egypt separately, is a reenactment of Ptolemaic rule of Egypt after the Greek Empire fragmented flowing the death of Alexander the Great. Alexandria, the city that Alexander had founded in Egypt, probably surpassed Athens as the center of the Hellenistic world. But it was not ruled from Greece in the same way that the Pashas would break away from, and would no longer be directly ruled by, the Ottomans.
The Pashas breaking away from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, to rule Egypt separately, is a reenactment of Ptolemaic rule of Egypt after the Greek Empire fragmented flowing the death of Alexander the Great. Alexandria, the city that Alexander had founded in Egypt, probably surpassed Athens as the center of the Hellenistic world. But it was not ruled from Greece in the same way that the Pashas would break away from, and would no longer be directly ruled by, the Ottomans.
As another time frame example, both the Mongol Empire and the Soviet Union both lasted for about the same 70 years before fragmenting.
The Cold War between east and west, as well as the Eastern Fronts of both world wars, began with and are reenactments of the 1054 Split at Constantinople between the Catholic Church and what would become the Eastern Orthodox Church.
10) THE CARIBBEAN TAX HAVENS
Here is what I think is an amazing example of how history repeats itself. It has been added to the compound posting on this blog, "How History Repeats Itself".
The leaders of the major western nations recently announced a crackdown on global corporations that got away with not paying taxes. Such corporations often have their headquarters in a nation with low taxes, even though they do most of their business in other nations with higher taxes. The plan was to force these companies to pay taxes according to where most of their business was done, regardless of where their headquarters was located.
The focal point of places to put money in order to avoid paying taxes on it is the Caribbean. Possibly the best-known so-called tax haven in the world is the British Virgin Islands.
I notice something really interesting about how history repeats itself.
In the Caribbean is the island of Jamaica. Back in the days of piracy there was a notorious hangout for pirates on Jamaica's south coast, not far from present-day Kingston, known as Port Royal.
Piracy is a little bit complicated. My understanding is that a pirate was simply a robber. A privateer or buccaneer or, in French terminology, a corsair was a pirate who only raided ships of nations with which his country was at war. With no coast guard or radios to call for help many ships were at the mercy of pirate ships.
So much of the plunder that the pirates got was brought to Port Royal. It was buried under the sea by a terrific earthquake.
Can you see the historical similarity between Port Royal and the modern-day tax havens of the Caribbean? I have never seen this pointed out.
Just as pirates once prowled the Caribbean and brought their plunder to Port Royal, today there are tax havens in the area where it is quick and easy to set up a shell company, a company that exists only on paper, that can hold money without putting the money in the real name of it's owner, and where little or no tax has to be paid on it.
Maybe Captain Morgan could be the patron saint of these Caribbean tax havens.
11) THE TIME OF TROUBLES AND THE GORBACHEV-YELTSIN ERA
Vladimir Putin recently stated that he had to drive a taxi to earn enough money at the time the Soviet Union ended. Let's have a closer look because I notice something really interesting about how history repeats itself.
Understanding history is so important because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it. Here is something absolutely amazing about how history repeats itself, that helps explain the history of Russia in recent decades. History tends to repeat itself everywhere but not necessarily with the same timeframes. The history of Russia is remarkable because it has a way of repeating the same timeframes.
The two great dynasties of pre-Communist Russian history are the Ruriks, which consolidated the country, and the Romanovs, who ruled until they were overthrow in the October Revolution of 1917. The Romanovs specially built St. Petersburg as their capital, which we visited in the posting on this blog, "St. Petersburg And The Romanovs".
A number of Rurik Dynasty leaders were named "Ivan". The two best-known today are Ivan the Great, who was the first to refer to himself as the "tsar" (or czar) and his grandson Ivan the Terrible, who was the first to refer to himself as "Tsar of all Russia".
The Rurik Dynasty died out but the Romanov Dynasty didn't immediately come to power. There was a gap of fifteen years that was called "The Time of Troubles", and lived up to it's name. This was the period 1598-1613.
"The Time of Troubles" was a time of great instability in leadership, poverty and, foreign intervention in Russia. It was a time of a series of pretenders to the leadership, the so-called "False Dmitrys". "The Time of Troubles" were brought to an end only by the election of Michael Romanov as tsar. His grandson would become known as Peter the Great, and would build St. Petersburg as his capital, moving the capital from Moscow.
The Romanov Dynasty lasted until it was replaced by the Bolsheviks, or Communists, in 1917. The history is somewhat more complex than the Romanovs being overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Tsar Nicholas II had already abdicated, and was replaced by the Provisional Government which had failed to win the confidence of the people. That government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution of 1917.
The first Communist leader of the new country called the Soviet Union, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) was Vladimir Lenin. A "soviet" is a local council. Lenin was followed by Josef Stalin. The Stalin era was when the Soviet Union had to deal with the Second World War, and there were great purges in which countless people were executed.
After Stalin's 1953 death the country greatly moderated and liberalized under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. He was followed by Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev. After the death of Leonid Brezhnev, in 1982, the Soviet Union was led by two successive elderly leaders, who both had short tenures. These were Yuri Andropov and then Konstantin Chernenko.
The March, 1985 death of Chernenko marked the end of the "old guard" of Soviet communism. The economy was in need of reform. Chernenko was replaced by what was to be the first of the next generation of leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev, who initiated deep reforms in the system.
But Gorbachev's reforms would lead to both the end of the Communist system and of the Soviet Union itself. While the Gorbachev era would be a great time for democracy and world peace, it would be a difficult time in the Soviet Union. An attempted coup, by hard-line Communists hoping to save the system in August 1991, only hastened it's end.
Gorbachev's reforms faced opposition from the more liberal side, as well as those who were trying to save Communism. Boris Yeltsin had once been an ally of Gorbachev but while Gorbachev recognized that the system and the union needed reforming, Yeltsin resigned from the Politburo and publicly destroyed his Communist Party membership card and was willing to allow the Soviet Union to break up if that was what the republics wanted.
Russia had been the central republic of the Soviet Union. It became an independent nation, along with the other republics, when the Soviet Union broke up near the end of 1991. Russia was led by Boris Yeltsin who tried to lead the country straight from Communism into capitalism. The political instability and economic difficulties continued, and there was a coup attempt against Yeltsin in 1993 just as there had been against Gorbachev in 1991.
My thought is that Gorbachev's reforms were more about politics while Yeltsin's reforms were more about economics. Gorbachev was trying to preserve Communism, in terms of economics, by bringing in more democracy. Yeltsin definitely did not move the country toward democracy, he ordered tanks to open fire on his own parliament, but did move toward Capitalism.
Russia finally got back to stability with the advent of Vladimir Putin, who had been chosen by Yeltsin as his successor, in 2000.
Now here is what I find to be so amazing about how history repeats itself. The Gorbachev and Yeltsin years were a time of instability during transition between the Communist era and the permanent post-Communist era. Not only is this a repetition of the history of the "Time of Troubles" from 1598 to 1613, four hundred years before, but it lasted exactly the same fifteen years, 1985-2000, as the original "Time of Troubles".
We saw in the posting on this blog, "Why We Should Understand The Mongols" May 2016, that the Soviet Union lasted just about exactly the same amount of time that the Mongol Empire did.
Then there are the historical parallels of the prominent grandfather-grandson pairs, with the grandfather being the founder of the empire or dynasty. The two most prominent names from the Mongol Empire are it's founder, Genghis Khan, and his grandson, Kublai Khan. This is reflected in the two dynasties of Imperial Russia. The Rurik Dynasty had the famous Ivan the Great and his grandson, Ivan the Terrible. The two most prominent names in the Romanov Dynasty were the founder of the dynasty, Michael Romanov, and his grandson, Peter the Great, who founded the city of St. Petersburg.
This grandfather-grandson pattern does not repeat in Russia's Communist era, which was really a dynasty, because the leadership succession was not hereditary, but notice how Lenin-Stalin very much reflects Ivan the Great-Ivan the Terrible.
History tends to repeat itself everywhere but in Russia even the timeframes repeat themselves.
12) THE SERIAL KILLERS OF LONDON, ONTARIO
One of the greatest mysteries in the world is why such a nice city as London, Ontario would be known for it's serial killers. Admittedly I haven't spent a lot of time there but it has always been one of my favorite cities.
According to information online London, Ontario once had, for a period of about twenty-five years, the highest concentration of serial killers in the world, relative to it's population. This refers to the number of killers, but not to the number of their victims. It is believed that between 1959 and 1984 there were, at the very least, six active serial killers in London, Ontario, four of which were caught. These killers were certainly copying each other.
The utterly ironic thing is that, even during this time of the serial killers, London was considered as a relatively safe place to live. That makes this even more of a mystery.
Many attempts have been made to explain this concentration of serial killers in what is otherwise considered as a safe city. The explanations that I can see online just don't make sense to me. One explanation is that Highway 401 passes through the city. But every city has at least one highway nearby and it doesn't seem to create serial killers anywhere else. None of the killers that were caught were coming from elsewhere to commit their murders.
London is often used as a test marketing city when new products are introduced into Canada because it is believed to be an "average" Canadian city. For some reason this has been used to explain it's concentration of serial killers. But using most of the reasoning that I have seen Hamilton should have a concentration of serial killers too, but it doesn't.
The reason for the concentration of serial killers in London, Ontario is tragically simple. It is an ideal example of how history repeats itself. Understanding history is so important because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it.
Let's begin with the name of the city. London, Ontario is named for London, England and seems to do whatever it can to imitate it. The river that passes through both Londons is the Thames River. The streets of London, Ontario are named for places in and around the original London. It once had a Crystal Palace that evoked the one in London, England. The main museum of London, Ontario is also designed to evoke the Crystal Palace. The city has a park named for Queen Victoria and a neighborhood called Sherwood Forest.
London, Ontario can be considered as a museum city of the British heritage of the English-speaking part of Canada.
The prototype of the modern serial killer is London, England's Jack the Ripper. In the autumn of 1888 he is documented as almost certainly being the killer of five women in the Whitechapel district, although some believe that he likely killed more.
Jack the Ripper was never caught or identified. There are a multitude of theories about who he really was. The killings attributed to Jack the Ripper stopped abruptly. I consider it possible that he died and that the police knew who he was but purposely kept it quiet. His victims were prostitutes and, in an effort to control prostitution, wanted prostitutes to be worried that he might still be out there, and their customers to be worried that they might end up getting blamed for the killings.
Certainly many other serial killers far outdid Jack the Ripper. There are two reasons that he is so well-known.
The first is that the widespread distribution of daily newspapers was beginning just at the time his murders were going on. The newspapers made Jack the Ripper famous just as his killings greatly boosted their circulation.
The second is the scandal that the killings caused in Victorian society. The British Empire was near it's peak and this exposed the underside of society that many in the upper classes pretended didn't exist. Belief in the Theory of Evolution had become popular and these killings set off soul-searching about what a godless society might end up being like.
Historical forces are powerful. With Jack the Ripper being so unfortunately famous, and London, Ontario seeking to emulate London, England, doesn't this make it seem likely that one or more serial killers should emerge in London, Ontario?
So much about the killings there bear some resemblance to those of Jack the Ripper. I am not claiming that any of the killers were consciously thinking of emulating Jack the Ripper but we tend to repeat history, often without realizing it, and this explains why such a nice city as London, Ontario became known for it's concentration of serial killers.
13) PUTIN AND HITLER
Vladimir Putin has, in at least some quarters, been likened to Adolf Hitler, with the "Z" on military vehicles in Ukraine being compared to the swastika. But this is a really interesting example of how history repeats itself. Understanding history is important because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it.
Napoleon didn't initiate the French Revolution, which opened the modern political era, but he was what ultimately emerged from it. Napoleon conquered much of Europe, bringing the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire to an end. It was Napoleon's conquests that brought the pyramids and ancient Egypt into the modern consciousness.
Napoleon also invaded Russia. He actually got further in Russia than Hitler later would, managing to capture Moscow. Although Napoleon's venture into Russia ultimately ended in disaster.
What Napoleon did accomplish was to spread the ideals of the French Revolution across Europe, it sought the overthrow of the monarchy and was very hostile to the established church. Napoleon could not possibly have dared to imagine that, more than a century after his failed attempt to conquer Russia, a repeat of the French Revolution would take place there. It would result in the overthrow of the monarchy that had successfully resisted his invasion. It would be the October Revolution of 1917.
Hitler would later invade Russia, now the central republic of Soviet Union. Like Napoleon before him, Hitler's forces would advance deep into Russia but would ultimately be unsuccessful in conquering it.
But history tends to repeat itself and if Napoleon brought the ideals of the French Revolution to Russia, which eventually resulted in a replay of the French Revolution that overthrew the Tsar, then shouldn't we expect that Hitler would bring something to Russia that would eventually emerge also?
Indeed just as Napoleon, although failing to bring down the Russian monarchy by military force, planted the revolutionary ideals that eventually brought it down, so the Soviet Union that Hitler failed to conquer would eventually break up and the leader that would emerge out of it would end up, at least in some quarters, being compared to Hitler.
14) THE OBELISK AND THE REFORMATION
Does anyone see how the obelisk in St. Peter's Square led to the Reformation? Image from Google Earth.
The trouble with history is that it has a way of repeating itself. We sometimes purposely repeat history but more often without realizing it. The presence of the obelisk, brought to Rome by Caligula, caused the history of ancient Egypt, as described in the Bible, to repeat itself in the Catholic Church.
The Egyptians had the Hebrews as slaves, to make bricks for the incessant building that the Egyptians were doing. The Catholic Church copied this with the building of St. Peter's Basilica. Instead of having slaves making bricks the Church had people buying certificates, known as Indulgences, that their sins were forgiven. The money being taken in was used to build the Basilica.
Many people, especially in northern Europe, considered this as blasphemous, that salvation could be purchased. Moses had emerged, in the Book of Exodus, as a leader to demand that the Pharaoh let the people go. In exactly the same way Martin Luther emerged as a leader to demand that the Church reform. People were always being pressed to give money to the Church, but the money was being used to build this magnificent new basilica in Rome and so that Cardinals could live in palaces.
Instead of the Ten Commandments, on stone tablets, Martin Luther had the Ninety-Five Theses, nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg. The presence of the obelisk had caused history to repeat itself, with the Pope falling into the role of Pharaoh.
After Pharaoh had let the Hebrews go he changed his mind and sent a force to bring them back, which was destroyed in the Red Sea. History repeated itself in the Catholic Church, with the Spanish Armada being the sent to bring the Protestants back.
After reaching their Promised Land, the Hebrews divided the land among the Twelve Tribes. Likewise, instead of having one church like the Catholics, the Protestants divided into a number of denominations.
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