Thursday, May 28, 2026

The Rhine-Ruhr (Cologne) Area

The Ruhr area of western Germany is known for industry. It is one of the places that the Industrial Revolution began. For the first stage of the Industrial Revolution, it had those two all-important resources of coal and iron.

But the history of this region began long before the Industrial Revolution. The Rhine River was the edge of the Roman Empire. What you will generally find in the Rhine-Ruhr Area is that the cities to the west of the Rhine River began as Roman outposts, while the cities to the east of the river began hundreds of years later, in medieval times. The part of Germany to the west of the Rhine River is known as the Rhineland.

Cologne is the largest city of the Rhine-Ruhr area. But I would like to begin our visit with Aachen, in the far west of Germany. The way I see it, Aachen is really where Germany began.

Like the other cities in the area to the west of the Rhine River, Aachen has Roman origins. But it is known as the city of Charlemagne. Both France and Germany are descended from people known as the Franks, which is where the name of Frankfurt comes from. Charlemagne, sometimes referred to as "The Father of Europe" was of the Carolingian Dynasty of the Franks. Charlemagne was crowned by the pope as the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, in the year 800, in the old St. Peter's Basilica.

The dynasty of the Franks that had preceded the Carolingian Dynasty, the Merovingian Dynasty, had their center of power in Paris. It was they who built a palace on the island in the Seine River from which Paris would grow outward.

But the Carolingian Dynasty moved it's center of power eastward, to Aachen. This is where Charlemagne lived and was buried and where later Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Notice the similarity between Aachen and the Isle de la Cite in Paris. There was a palace in Aachen, which is now gone. But the chapel of the palace remained, and the present Aachen Cathedral was built around the chapel.

The empire of the Carolingian Dynasty did not last, eventually splitting into East Francia and West Francia. East Francia, including Aachen, would become the Holy Roman Empire and later Germany. West Francia, including Paris, would become France.

The main reason for the split was likely language. The western area had been part of the Roman Empire and had gotten to speaking a Romance language, which would become French. The eastern part had not been ruled by Rome and spoke a northern European language, which would become German.

The name of the Franks lives on today in France and in the German city of Frankfurt. The German name for France is still "Frankreich". The French name for Germany is still "Allemagne", for a people in this area who the Franks had conquered.

Also significant in Aachen is the Rathaus, or City Hall, from the Fourteenth Century. German cities, as well as Vienna, typically have a medieval city hall across the central square from the cathedral. The following scenes of Aachen begin at the Rathaus.

This first image, from Google Earth, shows the Cathedral in the foreground and the Rathaus in the background. The unique dome of the Cathedral is the oldest part of it.


The first two of the following four images are of the Cathedral and the next two are of the Rathaus.





This image, from Google Street View, is of the original statue of Charlemagne from about four centuries ago. This statue has now been brought inside and a copy put in front of the Rathaus.


These four images, from Google Street View, are of the octagonal chamber beneath the dome of the Cathedral. This is the oldest part of the Cathedral and we could say that this is where Germany really began. It is very reminiscent of the interior of the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem.





Immediately adjacent to this chamber beneath the dome is the shrines of Charlemagne and Mary. The lower gold box is the Shrine of Charlemagne and contains his remains. Two images from Google Street View.



There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aachen+Cathedral/@50.7754846,6.0838576,3a,75y,263.87h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sCIHM0ogKEICAgIC1zI61Ow!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fgpms-cs-s%2FAFfmt2Zir0rmKfp6qUZtJDzqW2GJEZ4zg15YWQlFA9hNuEyDAW4S3pdJaJEFhn-FON8ib9UKs3XsigAWT-TK4i-1ISRnNmmBxOhP-fo3jclVIiS6g7XBF3L3ziFfj8sUA0WoQO75yQE%3Dw900-h600-k-no-pi0-ya345.8732074369525-ro0-fo100!7i7680!8i3840!4m6!3m5!1s0x47c0997c84f087fb:0x38730b23e56788c3!8m2!3d50.7747198!4d6.0839201!16zL20vMDFmZHFw?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Cologne, being on the west bank of the Rhine River, has been important since Roman Times. The Frank conquest of Cologne was the beginning of them becoming the people from whom both modern France and Germany would descend. Is is known today especially for it's Thirteenth-Century cathedral with the twin spires. Notice how dark the stone of the old cathedral looks, that is from prolonged exposure to coal smoke following the Industrial Revolution. The first five images of Cologne Cathedral are from Google Earth and Street View.







We have seen, in previous visits to Vienna and Moscow, how city walls are sometimes later dismantled and a grand boulevard built over the former course of the wall. The following scenes begin on the Kaiser Wilhelm Ring in Cologne. The first two images are from Google Earth and Street View. The Ring is indicated by the red dots.




Dortmund, to the east of the Rhine River, is not of Roman origin but from the early Middle Ages. The first three images are from Google Earth.




https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5170243,7.4597047,3a,75y,207.51h,100.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya262-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

Bonn is another city from Roman times. It is remembered today as having been the capital city of West Germany until the capital was moved back to Berlin upon reunification. The vote, held in 1991, was only narrowly in favor of moving the capital back to Berlin. 

Bonn is not a really major city and it was supposedly chosen as the capital of West Germany for this reason. It was never really intended to be a permanent capital, only until the country could be reunified and the capital moved back to Berlin. If a larger city had been chosen as capital, such as Cologne or Frankfurt, it might have been tempting to make that the permanent capital. 

The following views of Bonn begin at the Munsterplatz in the center of the city. The first six images show the area of the Munsterplatz and the church known as the Bonn Minster.







https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7344922,7.0989619,3a,75y,134.57h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya277.20572-ro0-fo100!7i7776!8i3888

There are suffixes that are common to the names of German towns and cities, -heim means "home", -stadt means "place", -berg means "hill" or "mountain", -burg means "castle", -bad means "bath" or "spa", -furt means "ford" which is a place where a river is shallow enough to be crossed, and -dorf means "valley". Here is the city of Dusseldorf, which means "The valley of the Dussel River". The first four images, from Google Earth and Street View, are of the old part of Dusseldorf and the modern observation tower.






Essen is another city of the Ruhr which originated in the early Middle Ages and later for industry. It was the home of Krupp, the famous steel company. These three images of modern Essen are from Google Earth.





Munster is one of the most charming old cities anywhere, and also the home of a very old cathedral. After the Reformation, there was even a plan to make Munster the "New Jerusalem". Munster is also an Irish name, Ireland is geographically divided into four quadrants and the southwest is called Munster. I cannot see that the two names are connected although very early Irish monks did evangelize in this area. 

The following six scenes of the center of Munster begin at the Prinzipalmarkt. The first two images, from Google Street View, are of the St. Paulus Cathedral and the next are of the St. Jacobi and the area of the Prinzipalmarkt.









Hanover is another medieval city with an impressive Rathaus, or town hall. This town hall is not from medieval times, but from the time of the Kaisers. The first six images are from Google Earth and Street View.

The first of these three are the Rathaus and old part of Hanover.




These three images are of the Herrenhausen Palace. This belonged to the House of Hanover. The Kingdom of Hanover, which is now part of Germany, was in a personal union with Britain for over a century. This means that two countries are ruled by the same king, although not that the two are completely united. Queen Victoria was actually of the House of Hanover but the personal union was ended by different succession rules. Hanover didn't allow a female to inherit the throne, while Britain had male-preference inheritance but not exclusive. Victoria became queen because she didn't have any living brothers.





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Explosion Over Buffalo

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 8, describes a "falling star" that is named Wormwood. It also describes how people would die from drinking the "water made bitter" by the falling star. It turns out that the cardinal rule of surviving after a nuclear attack or mishap is to never drink from open water. The skin shields against alpha particles but they are deadly if they get inside the body.

But why would a "falling star" be named for wormwood, which is a shrub? In 1986 there was the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, which is also in Ukraine, and the name of Chernobyl means "Wormwood".

There was a fireball in the sky over Buffalo yesterday that looked like a nuclear explosion. Apparently it was caused by a "falling star" just like the prophecy in the Book of Revelation.

For a detailed explanation of Bible Prophecy see the parallel postings on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It" and "Inducing The Apocalypse".

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Apocalyptic Developments

This is in regard to the parallel postings "The End Of The World As We Know It" and "Inducing The Apocalypse", both January 2026.

We saw that, in the Last Days of the world, there will be people falsely claiming to be Jesus. The man who was recently shot near the White House had reportedly claimed to be Jesus.

We know that the Antichrist, the great leader who will have all of the answers that the world needs at least for a while, will be from Europe. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently called for a new international order, based on Europe that does not depend on the United States.

Vladimir Putin indicated that he is "ready to talk to Europe". This is a boost for Europe to be the focal point of the world, as we know it will be during the time of the Antichrist.

Remember that Donald Trump still has the nuclear option. He recently stated that "there will be nothing left of Iran" if it doesn't accept a nuclear deal". The world really needs a great leader like the Antichrist who can get everything under control.

Another crisis for Europe is Russia hacking Ukrainian drones and spoofing the GPS signals so that the drones fly into Europe. This is ultimately leading to the ultimate in drone technology, having the drone guided by AI so that no communication with the base is necessary.

While the annual parade in Red Square was scaled back, Russia has held a great drill of it's nuclear forces, ready to retaliate against aggression.

The hope is that the eventual end of the Ukraine War will bring peace. But this war has taken the use of technology in war to an entirely new level. Ukrainian veterans and manufacturer's of drones and war robots will be in demand all over the world, to bring all countries which might engage in war up to this level.

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The Comeback Of Print

With the visit to Mainz last week let's look at what the printing press still has going for it.

Nowadays almost all of what we read is digital. Most people don't read that much in hard copy any more. Printed hard copy hasn't yet joined the dinosaurs but is clearly on the way out.

But not so fast. I see a lot that the printing and publishing industries could be doing to roll back some of the apparently inexorable gains made by digital. None of this requires any new technology, just some creative thinking.

It is a simple matter to print text in ink of different colors. In a novel or story why not assign a different color of ink to each major character? When Character A speaks the words might be printed in red. When Character B speaks the words might be printed in green. Wouldn't that make the story more lively and easy to follow?

Suppose there was an article involving two or more different viewpoints. Why not express one viewpoint in red, and another in blue? This would only be for the essence of each viewpoint. Comparisons of the viewpoints and observers' opinions would be in ordinary black ink.

By coloring and varying in shade the letters on a page of text we could easily embed a photograph or illustration in the words on each page. The photo or illustration would not be separate from the words on the page but would actually be embedded in them. This would be a novel idea that would make any book more interesting, and would be much easier to do in print than in digital.

The printing fonts in use now were not intended for this. Why not develop a new font especially for printing text and illustrations in one? The letters would take up more of the space on the page relative to present fonts, to better convey the illustrations. One way of looking at it would be the illustrations embedded in the text. The opposite way of looking at it would be the text embedded in the illustrations.

There is a lot that print could be doing to regain territory that seems to have been lost to digital. It would be relatively easy to do and wouldn't require any new technology. It just requires some creative thinking.

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Meteor Showers

There was an explosion over Buffalo, apparently caused by a meteorite. I find the fact that there are scheduled meteor showers reveals a lot about the history of the sun and Solar System.

There are many separate meteor showers that occur at the same time each year. These meteor showers, as well as comets, are actually remnants of the Solar System before the sun or the planets existed. But the large star that preceded the sun existed and had undergone at least one nova, which came before the supernova that created the present Solar System.

There are regular meteor showers throughout the year. As the earth moves through it's orbit around the sun it passes through clouds of dust. Particles burning up by friction with the atmosphere is what produces the "shooting stars".

The dust was mostly left behind by comets. These comets are composed mostly of ice and collect dust in space as they move along in their orbits around the sun. The orbits of comets around the sun tend to be extremely eccentric, coming from far out in space and spending only a brief time near the sun before going far back out into space for long periods of time. There are comets with orbital periods of thousands of years.

When the comet gets close to the sun the outermost ice gets vaporized by the heat. This is what produces the visible "tail" of the comet, as the vapor reflects sunlight. It also leaves a trail of dust in space in the part of the comet's orbit that was close to the sun. It is this trail of dust that the earth passes through every year to create the predictable shower of "shooting stars".

The comets have orbits around the sun in geometric planes that are not the same at all as the earth's. This is why different meteor showers that occur every year seem to come at us from different directions in the sky. Each meteor shower has it's own direction.

Meteor showers, which occur on the same date every year as the earth passes through the cloud of dust during it's orbit around the sun, are thus named for the constellations in the sky that they seem to radiate from. Some of the meteor showers are the Perseids, Geminids, and, Leonids.

The first thing that is obvious is that the particles of dust cannot be in orbit around the sun. For the particles to enter the earth's atmosphere would mean that the particles are the same distance from the sun as earth. This would then mean that the earth and the particles would never run into each other since everything in the Solar System orbits the sun in the same direction, and objects at the same distance from the sun will orbit at the same rate. In a similar way Jupiter has two groups of asteroids that share it's orbit at Lagrangian Points L4 and L5, known as the Greeks and the Trojans, but which never meet Jupiter.

Neither is it possible that the particles of dust that are shed by the comet when it is near the sun continue with the momentum of the comet in the orbit of the comet. Comets have very eccentric orbits with long orbital periods. A comet comes close to the sun, where it's outer layers are vaporized into the familiar "tail" and it sheds the dust that it has collected in it's journey through space, for only a relatively brief time during it's long orbit. If the particles of dust continued with the momentum in the orbit of the comet they would be there for the earth to pass through them for one, or just maybe two, years. But the earth has been passing through the same cometary clouds of dust that have been producing the same predictable meteor showers that have been recorded for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

The only possible conclusion is that the clouds of dust that the earth passes through during it's orbit around the sun are stationary in space and do not orbit the sun. I don't see how it could be any other way.

This requires some special explanation. These dust particles are made of matter, which has mass, and gravity acts on mass. So why aren't these clouds of dust that the earth passes through in it's orbit in orbit themselves around the sun? The vast clouds of dust and gas in our galaxy orbit the center of the galaxy along with all of the stars.

We know that the sun was preceded by a large star that exploded in a supernova. Some of the debris fell back together by it's mutual gravity to form the sun and planets. My theory is that at least one, but probably three, nova preceded the supernova. As stellar fusion proceeds to successively heavier atoms more energy is released per time and this upsets the equilibrium of the star. A nova is the blasting away of the outer layers of the star, in an effort to regain equilibrium. If that doesn't restore equilibrium then the star will explode from the center as a supernova. 

We also know that the tremendous energy released by a supernova fuses together elements heavier than iron, which would not otherwise exist because the ordinary fusion process only goes as far as iron. This is why iron and lighter elements are exponentially more common than heavier elements, like silver, gold and, uranium. The much-lesser energy released by a nova fuses molecules together from the light atoms in the outer layers of the star. These light molecules include water, ammonia and, methane. Comets are composed mostly from these light molecules and the water on earth almost certainly came from comet impacts.

The comets were in orbit around the previous star before it exploded in the supernova. Some of the matter from the explosion collected back together by gravity to form the sun and the planets. But the sun was much less massive than the previous star had been. This means that the comets had much less orbital energy than before but the information of their orbits around the previous star could not just be lost. So the orbits of the comets around the sun "shrank" but with the high point, aphelion, remaining as it was before. This is why the orbits of comets are so elliptical. 

In the first of the following diagrams the previous star is shown in red and the typical orbit of a comet around it in green. The second diagram is after the supernova and the falling back of a portion of the matter to form the sun and Solar System. But the sun, shown in black, has only a fraction of the mass of the previous star so the orbit of the comet, shown in blue, has to "shrink" to match the decreased orbital energy. These diagrams are not to scale.


The question is why the particles of dust don't orbit the sun so that the earth passes through them in it's orbit every year. The answer is that their orbits would necessarily contain orbital energy. The planets orbit the sun because they formed in the same way as the sun, from the supernova debris, but the comets existed, and were in orbit around the previous star, before the sun formed. For the particles of dust to begin orbits around the sun would thus mean creating energy out of nothing, and we know that this cannot be done.

The dust is not entirely stationary. It is stationary with regard to the sun but the sun itself is in orbit around the center of the galaxy, bringing the Solar System with it. The comets orbit the sun because they were in orbit around the previous star before it exploded.

So the reason there are meteor showers that repeat every year is that energy cannot be created out of nothing. 


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