Discoveries About Christianity

How about something amazing today?

Let's first review 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 II 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.

CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

With that review here is what I noticed to add onto it. I find this to be absolutely amazing.

Constantinople was founded in the year 330 by the Roman Emperor Constantine as the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. It would later be the place where the split, known as the Great Schism of 1054, would take place. This is when the eastern domain of the Catholic Church would split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is one of the most momentous events in western history. After that, in 1453, Constantinople would be conquered by the Ottomans and renamed as Istanbul.

From the founding in 330 to the split of 1054 is 724 years.

The Holy Roman Empire was founded by the pope in the year 800. Charlemagne was crowned as it's first emperor. The purpose of the Holy Roman Empire was to rein in the wayward eastern Christians, who were questioning the authority of the pope and would later split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. Despite the name the Holy Roman Empire was more centered on what is now Germany and would become more of a rival to the papacy than an ally. In 1517 the second great split in the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation, began in the Holy Roman Empire over the urgent need for reform in the church.

From the founding in 800 to the split of 1517 is 717 years.

What do you notice here about the times between each founding and split? The two figures, 724 and 717 are close but there is a 7 year difference. Just like the "Weeks of Years" prophecy in the Bible described above, there are still seven to go for the Holy Roman Empire. We know that the Antichrist's base of operations will be a united Europe, which is a reviving of the Holy Roman Empire. These remaining seven years will be the seven years that the Antichrist is allowed to reign, as described in the Book of Revelation.

I find this to be absolutely amazing and again I thank God that I was allowed to be the one to point it out.

THE CRAB NEBULA AND THE GREAT SCHISM OF 1054

Another thing that I was amazed had never apparently 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, although it was recorded by Arab, Chinese and, Japanese observers.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

I won't go into detail here but in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It" I described why I think the fabled "Mark of the Beast", in the Book of Revelation" is actually phones.

It has become the stuff of folklore that people in the Last Days will have a "mark" put upon them without which they will not be able to buy or sell. I am sure that this refers to phones. Remember that St. John was an ancient man without the slightest concept of modern technology. God gave him a vision of the distant future and he described it as best he could.

WAS JESUS FORETOLD BY NAME ?

The prophet Zechariah, in the Old Testament of the Bible, has well-known references to the life of Jesus, more than five hundred years before his time.

References to a potter and price of thirty pieces of silver, which are also in the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, as well as the coming king entering Jerusalem "riding on a donkey", Zechariah 9:9, which was quoted in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 21, in the Gospel of Mark 11: 1-11 and the Gospel of John, Chapter 12.  Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem riding on a borrowed donkey.

Zechariah also has a vision about people "mourning for the one who they pierced". We know that as Jesus was being crucified, a Roman soldier thrust his spear into Jesus' side to be sure that he was dead.

But what about the visions of Zechariah in the first seven chapters of his book? In these seven chapters are nine separate visions. Two of the visions are about a high priest named Joshua, who was the first high priest following the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem following the return from exile in Babylon.

In one of the visions, in Chapter 3 of Zechariah, Joshua has his rags replaced with clean clothes. It states that Joshua will "take away sin in one day". Another vision, beginning in Chapter 6 Verse 3, is about Joshua being given a crown.

The thing that is so striking is that nowhere else do the prophets treat the religious establishment with such reverence. God himself is revered, but the religious establishment is usually portrayed as corrupt and hypocritical. The way that the high priest is revered here is very much an exception for all of the prophets.

But here is something that might explain it.

The Book of Zechariah was written well before the Hellenistic era. The name "Jesus" is actually the Greek form of the name "Joshua". Notice that, in the Old Testament, there are others named Joshua but no one named Jesus.

The Old Testament Book of Joshua, about the leader who succeeded Moses, was a different Joshua and his story took place centuries before this.

Other examples of Greek names introduced in the Hellenistic period, which began with the conquests of Alexander the Great and continued after his empire broke into pieces, with the Ptolemies ruling Egypt and the Seleucids ruling what is now Syria and Palestine, are the names of the three pyramids of Giza, within what is now Cairo.

The three pyramids of Giza were built by a succession of three Egyptian pharaohs, who were father, son and, grandson. The original Egyptian named of the pyramids were Khufu, Khafre and, Menkaure. The Ptolemies, of which the queens were named Cleopatra, took on the trappings of Egyptian pharaohs but continued to speak Greek. The pharaohs who had built the three pyramids more than two thousand years before took on the Greek names of Cheops, Chephren and, Mycerinus.

For that matter, Thebes as well as Egypt are actually Greek names.

Considering this, doesn't it seem that the two visions of Joshua by Zechariah are actually prophecies of Jesus by name? Even though it is true that the first high priest after the rebuilding of the Temple after return from exile in Babylon was also named Joshua?

Remember that Jesus paid the price for sin, "taking away sin in one day", as in the vision of Zechariah. If an ordinary high priest could "take away sin in one day" it wouldn't be necessary for the ritual sacrifices to keep going on.

Also Jesus comes twice, the first time as Savior to pay the price for sin and the second time as king to actually rule over the world, making it the paradise that God had always intended it to be. The first vision of Zechariah about Joshua was having his rags replaced by clean clothes, and "taking away sin in one day", this was about the Savior role. The second vision of Zechariah about Joshua was of him receiving a crown, this was about the king role.

Each of these two visions of Joshua in the Book of Zechariah also refers to a servant of God in the future, known as "The Branch". In the first vision regarding Joshua, it is "The Branch" who will "take away sin in one day". In the second vision, it is "The Branch" who will reign as a king blessed by God.

"The Branch" was a prophecy of Jesus. If God is represented as a tree then Jesus is a branch. 

THE BOULDER LANDING ON THE FEET OF THE STATUE

The second chapter of the Book of Daniel has the famous prophecy of the statue that, from top to bottom, represent the four successive dominant empires of the future. These are Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and, Rome. By the time this prophecy was made, the time of Egypt and Assyria as the greatest powers had passed. But a great boulder, not the work of humans, will land on the feet of the statue and shatter it.

This represents the failure of the godless and idolatrous empires and nations, before God sends Jesus back to run the world directly. But why would God choose to illustrate it with imagery such as this, a boulder landing on the feet of a statue? Remember that the Book of Daniel is very old, from the Babylon-Persian era and well before it was known that there would be great European powers, Greece and Rome.

Since the order of empires moves from top to bottom on the statue, this means that the feet represent the Roman Empire, which was centered on the Italian Peninsula. In the following image from Google Earth notice that, on a map, the peninsula is in the form of a boot and Sicily is in the form of a boulder about to land on it.

ST. PETER'S SQUARE IS OF THE SAME SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS AS THE COLOSSEUM 

The rest of this posting is about how the Vatican has been set up in secret alignment with the Colosseum and Arch of Titus, on the other side of Rome. This has never been pointed out.

Have you ever wondered why St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, is actually shaped like an oval?

As it turns out there is a simple answer. I cannot find anything about this being documented but am not quite sure whether to believe that I am the only one today that knows this.

St. Peter's Square, inside the Colonnades, is exactly the same size and shape as the Colosseum, which is about 3.5 km away. This is St. Peter's Square. St. Peter's Basilica is to the left so that the two together have the shape of a key, with the oval form of the "square" being the handle of the key.

Image from Google Earth

Here is the Colosseum, shown from the same altitude. Although the directional alignment of the two is not the same, you can right click and select the "Measure Distance" feature to see that the dimensions of the Colosseum are exactly that of the internal diameter of the Colonnades that give St. Peter's Square it's oval form. Part of the structure of the Colosseum along it's long axis is missing but both measure about 190 meters, or 625 feet.

Image from Google Earth

The oval form of both is not an extreme ellipse, the ratio of the long axis to the short axis being about 1.2 or 6/5.

Clearly, St. Peter's Square was constructed to exactly match the Colosseum but this has never been made public.

THE CENTER OF ST. PETER'S SQUARE IS LOCATED EXACTLY ON THE LONG AXIS OF THE COLOSSEUM, AND ALSO THE LATERAN PALACE

There is more to the hidden relationship between St. Peter's Square and the Colosseum. By using the right click and "Measure Distance" option on Google Maps, it draws a straight line between the two points that are clicked on. If we choose the first point as the obelisk in the center of St. Peter's Square and the second point as the far side of the long axis of the Colosseum, the southeastern end, we find something else amazing that has never been made public.

The direction to St. Peter's Square from the Colosseum is exactly along the extension of the long axis of the oval form of the Colosseum.

So St. Peter's Square was not only constructed to match the dimensions of the Colosseum, it was also located to be aligned with the long axis of the Colosseum, although the directional alignment between the two is not the same.

Images from Google Earth

That is not all. The original center of the Catholic Church was not the Vatican, as it is today, but the Lateran Palace. The papacy moved, for some time, to Avignon in southern France. When it returned to Rome, the Lateran Palace had been damaged by fire and was relocated to the Vatican instead. The Lateran Palace is still officially the headquarters of the church.

As it turns out the Lateran Palace is located on the opposite side of the Colosseum, which is from ancient Rome and was built before either, from the Vatican. This means that the Lateran Palace was also located on the extension of the long axis of the Colosseum, but in the opposite direction to that of the Vatican with St. Peter's Square.

The Lateran Palace is a large complex, but that means that we can draw a straight line with the Google Maps "Measure Distance" feature from the obelisk in St. Peter's Square to a point in the Lateran Palace complex, and the line will go right along the long axis of the Colosseum.

But what could these alignments mean? It is reminiscent of the Historical Axis of Paris, but that is no secret. I have searched and searched and cannot find that this alignment in Rome has ever been made public. The Colosseum is the best-known structure from ancient Rome, is the symbol of the modern city of Rome as well as it's geographical center.

It seems clear that this alignment with the Colosseum is an effort by the church to link itself with the power of the Roman Empire, but not to be made public. It could be a symbolic sympathy for those Christians who were martyred by the Roman Empire but it is not clear how many were martyred at the Colosseum, as opposed to the nearby Circus Maximus.

THE CENTER OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S IS ON THE AXIS THROUGH THE ARCH OF TITUS

Putting down the Jewish uprising against Roman rule, which resulted in the destruction and looting of the Temple, had not been an easy battle for the Romans. When it was over, the Arch of Titus was built next to the Colosseum, to memorialize the victory. The engravings on the Arch illustrate the wealth being taken from the Temple which went to build the adjacent Colosseum.

Jews who visit Rome are not supposed to walk under the Arch of Titus.

The amazing thing is that there is not only the above described axis, through the long axis of the Colosseum, there is also another axis that runs close-by and parallel to it. The center of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica is located exactly on the axis that runs through the Arch of Titus.

Images from Google Earth

The Center Of My Religion

Would you like to see the center of my religion? It is a basement altar.

The New Testament references clay pots. There are two clay pots. The one on the left has white glazing while the one on the right is plain. The plain one on the right represents the First Coming of Jesus, when he came as an ordinary human to pay the price of sin. The pot in white on the left represents the Second Coming of Jesus, when He will come back as a conquering king dressed in white to destroy the Antichrist and establish His Kingdom on earth. The world will finally be the godly paradise that was always intended.

The three slats on the crate holding up the wooden cross represents the three days that Jesus was in His tomb. An old Bible is holding up the cross in the front.

Both of the Christmas cards are of the three Wise Men, or Magi, who brought gifts to the newborn Jesus. Although the Bible doesn't actually state how many there were, only that they brought three gifts.

The shelf I made out of scrap lumber when I was eighteen years old.

The Next Bollywood Movie

Does anyone remember those mostly-Japanese monster movies from the 1960s? Monsters would emerge from the sea on a regular basis to terrorize Tokyo. Godzilla was the best-known. Another was "The X From Outer Space". Fortunately there was a good monster, Ultraman, to defend Tokyo. Ultraman was like the Japanese version of Superman. 

"Bollywood" is so-called because it is the Indian version of Hollywood, based in Bombay (Mumbai). Bollywood movies are famous for everyone stopping periodically and singing in Hindi. But this is preferable to Hollywood movies where everyone stops periodically and shoots each other.

I cannot see that Bollywood has gone in the direction of monster movies yet. What about the Statue of Unity, in Gujarat? It is the tallest statue in the world.

Image from Google Street View

Now that India is the most populous country in the world, those who resent India's success manage to implant an AI device in the statue that causes it to come to life and go on a destructive rampage across the country.

But the people gather before the statue and sing in Hindi. This causes the statue to remember who it is and what it stands for. It then turns and destroys those who tried to turn it against it's own country.

The Toronto Story

This has been updated and seventeen satellite images have been added. This posting contains street descriptions of the Toronto area. Readers unfamiliar with the area can just skim over the street names. It is not necessary to know locational details to understand this.

ALL SATELLITE IMAGES IN THIS POSTING ARE FROM GOOGLE EARTH

We know the Toronto story. In the Eighteenth Century, Fort York was built on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Settlements around the fort continued to grow until today it is a world-class city to which people from all corners of the globe come to live.

But that is only the most recent chapter of The Toronto Story. The story goes back 12,000 years to the melting of the last glacier. The ice may have been two km thick in some places and when the climate warmed and it melted, a veritable ocean of water was released. This water and bergs of ice formed the physical geography of Toronto that we see today.

Lake Iroquois, the larger predecessor to Lake Ontario began to drain faster through the St. Lawrence and Hudson Rivers due to shifting land levels caused by the release of the pressure of the ice so that the level of what is now Lake Ontario was getting lower and the shoreline receding even as this ocean of meltwater poured into it. The former shore of the lake is visible in some places in the Toronto area.

This task was made somewhat easier by the fact that Toronto tends to establish parks in many of it's ravine areas and I could see trails of green on a map and satellite images. This is the general image that we will be using. We can see the former water and ice drainage channels, in dark green, because Toronto has put parks in the ravines that were thus formed.

West of Toronto a natural gap between two areas of higher ground formed a vast temporary river to drain the central area of southern Ontario. This was called the "Dundas River" by natural historians and it flowed through where the Town of Dundas is now located. Both ice and water would be deflected here by the Niagara Escarpment. This wide gap can be seen while driving the 403 west from the QEW to Ancaster Heights. The flow of water eroded a low area that we now call Hamilton Harbour. It is also known as Burlington Bay. This is well to the west of Toronto.

In several locations across southern Ontario, pooling areas formed in low areas that the rushing waters flowed into, as the last ice age was ending. The lowest parts of these pooling areas remain filled with water today. Lakes Nipissing, Simcoe and, St. Clair all display multiple arms that are the remains of channels for inflowing waters following the glacial melting. All of these are the results of underlying intersections of lines of magma emergence, as described in the posting on the geology blog, "The Story Of Planet Earth", in the supporting document, "The Emergence Geology Of Ontario".

Notice the "arms" of Lake Simcoe, directly north of Toronto,

 The "arms" of Lake Nipissing.

 And the "arms" of Lake St. Clair.

On Lake Simcoe, to the north of Toronto, Cook's Bay took in water from the south. Kempenfelt Bay, around which Barrie is built, took in the flow from the west and, the elongated Lake Conchiching from the north. 

It is known that, for a while, the route for flowing water from the upper Great Lakes to Lake Ontario went through Lake Simcoe and the Trent River rather than through Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie and, Niagara Falls. This is why the section of the Niagara River Gorge around the power plants and the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge is so narrow.

Notice how narrow the Niagara Gorge is, from the Whirlpool to the Escarpment, compared to the Gorge further south, between the Falls and the Whirlpool. This is because most of the water from the Great Lakes, except Lake Erie, took a detour across southern Ontario during the time that this part of the Gorge was forming.

During the time that the falls were eroding their way southward through this section, the Niagara River was only draining Lake Erie, which was isolated from the other upper lakes. But eventually, the waters from the upper lakes established a new route through Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie and over the falls. This gave the falls much more erosive power and we can see where the gorge gets wider further south because of this.

THE ORIGINAL CHANNEL

The Toronto area is shaped roughly like a half of a bowl on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The lowest point of this bowl is about where High Park is today. This represents the Humber Valley. From directly out of the north, a flow of water from the melting ice crossed the area on it's way to the lake, which was then at a considerably higher level than it is now so that all of what is now downtown Toronto was under water.

This was a powerful flow of water that eroded a channel on it's way down to the lake. Yonge Street is on the east side of this channel and Avenue Road is on the west side of it. We will call this simply "The Original Channel" and it can easily be seen by crossing it on Lawrence, Eglinton or, St. Clair Avenues.

The yellow line in this image shows the route of what I believe was the "Original Channel" that began flowing when the glaciers of the last ice age began melting. It forms a shallow ravine but is not visible in the satellite imagery. The line does not go all the way to the lake because the level of the lake was much higher than it is today, with all the water from melting glaciers. The former shoreline can still be seen in some places in the Toronto area.

FROM THE WEST TO THE DON VALLEY

In time, the flow of water from directly north of Toronto into the Original Channel diminished. We can see that there is a lesser dip at St. Clair Ave. to the south than there is at Eglinton Ave. because by the time the lake had retreated to the line at St. Clair Ave., the flow had diminished in this channel.

There was more highland area in the central part of southern Ontario and from there flowed two mightly channels of water eastward. As the two channels crossed the Toronto area, the bowl shape of the terrain brought the two closer together until they had nearly merged.

If you go north on Yonge St. from Steeles Ave., you will cross the first great dip, which we will call the "Steeles Channel" and then the second one, which we will call the "Thornhill Channel". If you go east on Steeles Ave. from Yonge St., you will see that the two channels have changed direction and are flowing southward.

The Steeles Channel has it's lowest point at Bayview Ave. and the Thornhill Channel at Leslie St. Not far south of Steeles Ave. The two channels merge to join the Don Valley. These channels would have cut off the flow of water from the north of Toronto to the original channel.

Inside the box we see two channels merging to form the Don Valley, which is the most important feature of Toronto's geography. Remember that ice and water is flowing southward, toward Lake Ontario.

The Don Valley is the most prominent natural feature of the Toronto area and can be observed, of course, from the Don Valley Parkway. Going north on the parkway from downtown, it forms a kind of an S-curve, going from one side of the valley to the other and then back across the broad valley again.

To the west of the Don Valley, ravines carved by the flowing waters after the ice age come together to form what we will call the "York Channel". The large dip on Eglinton Ave. at Leslie St. is where the York Channel joins the Don Valley. 

The dark green "V" on the satellite image of Toronto is what I call the "York Channel", after the original name of Toronto, on the left merging with the Don Valley, on the right. Smaller channels join both of these channels, before they merge with each other.

The York Channel can be seen at Lawrence Ave. and Bayview Ave. On Lawrence Ave. can be seen dips in the road at Bathurst St. and Saguenay Ave., these small channels also merged with the York Channel.

The Valley in the road on Eglinton Ave. at Bayview Ave. is what we will call the "Leaside Channel". This also joins the Don Valley at Leaside. Like the numbers on a clock, channels of fast-flowing water come from all directions except south to join the Don Valley. It is easy to see how the Don Valley has "arms" or inlets coming in from all directions much like Lakes Simcoe and Nipissing.

If the ground had not been so sloped toward Lake Ontario, the Don Valley would be a lake instead of a vast ravine. We can see on a map the inlets coming into lakes like Simcoe and Nipissing. If the ground here had been flat, this is what the Don Valley would be like today.

The Moore Channel, as I will call it, joins the Don Valley at the Moore Park Ravine. The valley on Eglinton Ave. at Mount Pleasant Road is this channel.

The Chaplin Channel was an important route for rushing water heading for the Don Valley from the melting glaciers. On Eglinton Ave., the channel's east bank is at Heddington Ave., it's low point is at Chaplin Crescent and it's west bank is at Old Forest Road. On Dufferin St., north of Eglinton Ave.

The dips in the road at Glencairn Ave. and Dane Ave. merge to form the Chaplin Channel. The small dips on Lawrence Ave. at Varna Dr. and Brookview Dr. are also channels that merged with this channel. The vast dip on Yonge St. north of Lawton Blvd. is the Chaplin Channel. It cut right across the then-obsolete Original Channel and it joins the Don Valley at Rosedale.

The Rosedale Channel joins the Don Valley at Rosedale Ravine. There is a wide dip in the road on St. Clair with a ravine just east of Bathurst St. This channel can also be seen in the dip on Dufferin St. at Castlefield Ave.

These channels approaching the Don Valley from the west display the deepest valleys on Eglinton Ave. in comparison with other east-west roads further north such as Lawrence Ave. This is because the smaller channels were still merging at the Lawrence Ave. level.

FROM THE EAST TO THE DON VALLEY

The roughly half bowl shape of the Toronto area continues east of the Don Valley. As in the west there were inflowing channels that merged and joined the Don Valley but not until the lake had retreated far enough. The flow from the eastern part of Toronto merged into a powerful channel that actually took over the Don Valley inflow and caused it to flow westward instead of southward toward the lake for about three kilometres.

On Warden Ave. going southward from Eglinton Ave., you will see the land getting lower toward the lake. There are two great dips in the road not far apart. The one closest to Eglinton Ave., we will call the "Eglinton Channel", the other we will call the "Danforth Channel".

These two merged to form what I will call the "Woodbine Channel" that takes over the Don Valley. In fact, it is a kind of comparable valley itself that can be said to merge with the Don Valley.

In the box is what I call the "Woodbine Channel". It merges with the Don Valley from the east and changes it's direction of flow. This causes the Don Valley to flow westward, instead of southward, for about 3 km, as can be seen in the imagery.

Not all channels east of the Don Valley flow into the Valley or the Woodbine Channel. There is the Scarborough Channel further east that can be seen in the great dip on Lawrence Ave. from Mc Cowan Rd. to Burnview Cr. Another vast valley can be seen south of Lawrence Ave. on Scarborough Golf Club Rd.

These eastern channels form an outlet at Bluffer's Park. But many of the broad, shallow dips on East Lawrence Ave. ultimately contributed their waters to the Woodbine Channel.

Morningside Park was also a vast pooling area that emptied it's waters into the lake via the ravine through which Highland Creek now flows. A more local drainage took place at what is now Sylvan Park through the same route that Bellamy Ravine Creek now flows. Rouge Park was a drainage channel, the Rouge Channel, that could have rivalled the Don Valley if it had had the time to develop.

Closer to the Don Valley, Danforth Ave. gets lower in elevation west of Woodbine Ave. and a low valley can be seen going to the south. This formed the outlest at Ashbridge Bay, just east of the Don Valley outlet. There is a shallow dip on Danforth Ave. at Linsmore Cres. and Greenwood Ave. that also goes here.

THE HUMBER SYSTEM

It is easy to see whether on a map or through actual observation that the Don Valley becomes much narrower as it approaches Lake Ontario. The reason for this is obvious. As the lakeshore withdrew to within a couple of kilometres of where it is today, the flow of water through the Don Valley had drastically diminished. The vast channels that supplied water to it were running dry except for small creeks and that is the way they remain today.

After the Don Valley System had had it's day, another player came on the scene. As the lakeshore withdrew southward, more land was exposed that had previously been under water. As you drive west on Eglinton Ave. west of the Chaplin Channel, you will notice that the ground gets progressively lower and as the flow through the Don Valley began to diminish, another great drainage system formed here in what is now the western part of the city.

The Humber Channel was a mighty flow from the northwest that came down toward what is now Humber Bay. The Humber River that we have today is but a ghost of that channel of long ago. We notice today, two vast dips in the road on Jane St., one at Eglinton Ave. and one at Alliance Ave. The dip at Alliance Ave. is the route of the former Black Creek Channel, through which Black Creek now flows. The Black Creek Channel can also be observed in the valley on Weston Rd. at Black Creek Dr.

The valley on Jane St. at Eglinton Ave. is what is known today as the "Eglinton Flats". The reason for this flat area is the course of the Humber Channel. The great flow of water through this channel from the melting glacier underwent a curve in it's flow that is bypassed by the modern Humber River.

Water flowed from the higher area of Toronto to the lower western part of the city, the Humber System. North and south of Eglinton Ave. around Keele St. you can see the channels that drained water into the Black Creek Channel.

There are two great channels that, unlike the Black Creek Channel, never joined the Humber Channel before emptying into the lake. The elongated Grenadier Pond in High Park is the remains of one such channel, the Grenadier Channel. Parallel to it on the other side of High Park is another vast channel that we will name the Parkside Channel.

The elongated Grenadier Pond, which appears to be a continuation of Humber Bay, is the remnants of a great drainage channel west of downtown Toronto.

I found the sources of these two channels. Just off Old Weston/Rogers Rd. on higher ground, there is a valley at Kane Ave. This is the route of the Grenadier Channel. There is another valley just off Old Weston Rd. at Chambers Ave. This is the route of the Parkside Channel. The two parallel channels curve toward Humber Bay and end up on opposite sides of High Park.

There is also a broad, shallow dip noticable on St. Clair Ave. at Batavia Ave. This is a local drainage channel that drained waters south of where the Black Creek Channel joined the Humber Channel. The remains of this channel can be seen in West Pond in Rennie Park, near High Park. We will call this the West Channel. It flowed between the Humber and Grenadier Channels and emptied into Humber Bay.

On Bloor St., there is a mild dip in the road west of Christie and Grace Sts. near Christie Park. There is also a dip on St. Clair Ave. at Lauder Ave. This is the remains of what we will call the Lauder Channel. This was a small drainage channel that caught the water flowing down from the higher ground in the west of the Chaplin Channel and south of the Black Creek Channel.

There is a very wide valley in Dundas St. around Islington Ave. This tells us that Mimico Creek was once far more than just a creek. In fact, it was a very mighty river that emtied water from melting glaciers into Humber Bay.

The Humber System was a vast and elaborate drainage system just as was the Don Valley System. The reason that there is no great Humber Valley can easily be seen by looking at a map. Except for the Black Creek Channel joining the Humber Channel, the channels of the Humber System empty into Humber Bay before they have the chance to join together to create a Humber Valley as great as the Don Valley. If the shore of the lake would have receded five kilometres more, we may have today a Humber Valley Parkway as well as a Don Valley Parkway.

The Humber Valley is, of course, the result of the Humber Line that I noticed. This line is the result of pressure on the land from the Appalachian collision, which took place between what is now Africa and what is now North America.

The line in the following image is the Humber Line, formed when the collision front of the sliding tectonic collision changed direction. This line runs from the "focal point" of the curve of the Appalachians, around Harrisburg PA, to the long axis of Georgian Bay. It passes right through the Toronto area, west of downtown, and forms the gradual drop in elevation going westward on east-west streets, such as Blood Street.

The Humber Line that I found meets the shore of Lake Ontario at Humber Bay, and is what formed Humber Bay.

 THE CREDIT SYSTEM

West of the Humber System around Mississauga, we have the third major drainage system in the Toronto area. I will name it the "Credit System" after the Credit River. This system is less developed than the Humber System simply because it had less low hinterland to collect water from melting glaciers. This system is on the western side of the vast half-bowl that is the Toronto area.

The wide, shallow dip on Lakeshore Rd. in front of Humber College seems to be an isolated, local drainage area. The wide dip on Lakeshore Rd. at Etobicoke Creek shows that, like Mimico Creek, it was once far more than merely a creek. It was a great drainage channel, the Etobicoke Channel. This Etobicoke Channel can be seen to have formed from two merging channels.

On Burmanthorpe Rd., a great valley can be observed with Fieldgate Dr. on one side, Ponytail Dr. and Etobicoke Creek on the bottom and Mill Rd. on the other side. A little further eastward, another, smaller, dip can be seen just west of Saturn Rd. This formed a peninsula, now known as Markland Wood in the same way that Don Mills was formed in the Don Valley System.

Along Burmanthorpe Rd., there is a very wide but relatively shallow valley with Westminster Pl. on one side, Tomken Rd. and Little Etobicoke Creek in the valley and Dixie Rd. on the other side. This "Applewood Channel", as we will call it, was a vast but short-lived river that did not have time to develop the V-shape of mature rivers.

On Lakeshore Rd. there is a dip in the road at Cawthra Rd. There is also a dip on Dundas St. just east of Cawthra Rd. That means that this "Cawthra Channel" extends in a relatively straight line perpendicular with the shore of Lake Ontario. This is unlike most other channels in any of the three drainage systems.

The channels in the Credit System to both the east and west of the Cawthra Channel point toward it at various angles so that even the Cawthra Channel is nowhere near as large as the channel that now houses the Credit River, it can be considered as the focal point of the Credit System.

On Lakeshore Rd. in Port Credit, we find a dip in the road at Helene St. at Harbour Marina. There is a corresponding wide dip on Dundas St. at Confederation Pkwy and Mason Heights. That means that this "Helene Channel" is fairly perpendicular to the lake shore, entering from slightly westward. We can see that, like the Don Valley System, channels converge from every direction except south like the hands on a clock.

On Burmanthorpe Rd., near Square One, there is a wide dip with a low point at Robert Speck Pkwy. This is the Mississauga Valley. On Dundas St., there is a broad valley with a low point at Constitution Blvd. and Tomken Rd. Both are the "Mississauga Channel" and it joins the Etobicoke Channel.

We can see that Cooksville Creek occupies the vast Mississauga Valley at Burmanthorpe Rd., but no valley where it reaches the lake at Port Credit. This demonstrates not only that the Mississauga Valley Channel went off and merged with another channel before the lakeshore retreated to it's present position but that Cooksville Creek is a latecomer to the Credit System and never carried much more water, from melted glaciers, than it carries today.

The Credit River, the center of the Credit System, displays what a vast amount of water it once carried at the valley around it on Dundas St. It can also be viewed very well on Burmanthorpe Rd. near Credit Woodlands. East of the Credit River Valley on Burmanthorpe Rd., there is a vast, wide valley with the eastern side at Perivale Rd. This we will call the "Perivale Channel" and it merged with the Credit Channel.

The Credit River Valley shows why rivers have valleys. Because they once carried much more water than they do today and if the same volume of water is flowing through a river, it will erode the ground faster in the middle of the river, where it is moving fastest, and form a V-shaped valley with the river at the bottom.

West of the Credit River, there is a significant dip in Lakeshore Rd. at Richards Park. There is a corresponding dip on Dundas St. at Erin Mills Pkwy. Let's call this the "Erin Mills Channel".

West of the Erin Mills Channel, we have a dip in the road on Lakeshore Rd. at Jack Darling Park and a corresponding dip in Dundas St. and Winston Churchill Blvd. We will call this the "Churchill Channel".

In this Credit System, we can see that the channels come in from all directions, except south, like the hands on a clock to empty into the lake in the area of the Credit River mouth and the Lakeview Generating Plant. This system is clearly less developed than the Humber System and certainly the Don Valley System simply because the lake shore stopped retreating before the channels merged and created one vast valley like the Don Valley.

DELTAS

There is more to the natural history of the Toronto area since the last glacier than the three drainage systems. We can see that the Don Valley is messy. The reason being that it did not have time to be smoothed out by millennia of flowing water. It's source of water ended when the water from the melting glacier stopped flowing through it.

But where did all the soil and loose rock go that comprised the area excavated by the vast Don Valley and the channels that joined it? It is easy to notice that the Toronto Islands are where the Don Valley meets the lake. Those islands are actually a river delta deposited by a great but messy and temporary river. Silt was deposited when the lake was at a higher level and when it lowered, the islands emerged as dry land.

Have you ever wondered how the Toronto Islands formed? This scenario explains it. The first of the following images shows the location of the Toronto Islands, the second is a close-up.

 

The thing that I notice about river deltas is that they usually occur when the river has it's source in a body of water instead of being only the drainage of a watershed. The two most famous deltas in the world are the Nile and the Mississippi. Both have as their source a body of water rather than a watershed. The Nile emerges from Lake Victoria and the Mississippi from the lakes of Minnesota. The Amazon River is bigger than either but has no delta because it is solely a watershed river.

The Niagara and St. Lawrence Rivers also emerge from bodies of water yet these two have no deltas. But these two rivers are of high volume relative to their length and there is quite a sandbar in Lake Ontario at the end of the Niagara River. The former Dundas River described earlier has no delta either, in fact it carved out the low area that we now call Hamilton Harbour or Burlington Bay. But this was a pre-existing channel that the waters from the melting glacier simply flowed through.

It seems certain that deltas, or delta islands, as we will call the Toronto Islands, form when a flow of water forces it's way from one body of water to another and plows along silt with it. The long piece of land at Long Point on the Ontario shore of Lake Erie was almost certainly formed in the same way. Has anyone ever noticed the similarity in shape and size between Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania and the Toronto Islands? It is because both are the result of the same process.

This is the Long Point Peninsula.

This is Presque Isle. The reason delta Islands are more prominent in Lake Erie than in Lake Ontario might be that Lake Erie is shallower.

There are many small deltas formed by the outlets of former channels into Lake Ontario. To the east of the Don Valley there are Ashbridge Bay and Bluffer's Park. The islands at Ontario Place, I know are artificial. The Mimico Channel left quite a delta as did the broad, local drainage channel at Humber College. The Cawthra, Helene and, Credit Channels also left deltas in the lake.

SUMMARY

Hopefully, this has made some sense of Toronto's maze of ravines and the endless valleys and dips in the roads. We can only be awed by the volume of glacial water that it took to carve these channels. The ice must have melted relatively quickly or the process of carving these channels would have been too gradual to form deltas.

All documentation that I have seen concerning melting glaciers concerns the materials; tills, moraines and fluvoglacial deposits that the glacier leaves behind and pays little attention to the erosive power of the meltwater itself. I want to change that.

This area is a museum of river development. There is everything to be seen from wide, short-lived rivers that never lasted long enough to form the V-shaped cross-section to the small rivers of today in vast valleys that remind us of that wet world of long ago. There are so many of what we will call pre-rivers in various stages of formation. A place like the Eglinton Flats shows us how the small river of today took a "shortcut" in the valley of the curving Humber Channel.

The Humber and especially the Credit system never had the time or space to develop like the Don Valley System. If the shore of Lake Ontario would have receded another ten kilometres or so, the three systems would have merged into one big system that would have created a Grand Canyon of the north.

The time came when the ocean of water from melting glaciers had finished draining into the permanent bodies of water such as Lake Ontario and the oceans. The channels that had been carved by the rushing waters now hosted small rivers and creeks. Not much changed for more than ten thousand years. Then, Fort York was built here. The next thing we know, there is a great modern city built on these old channels and ravines. That is the Toronto story.

FORMATION OF THE DON VALLEY AND THE NIAGARA FALLS MORAINE

Here is an addendum to the Toronto Story that goes beyond the Toronto area and concerns the glacial formation of the Don Valley and it's relation to Niagara Falls.

The so-called Niagara Falls Moraine is a mass of land known to have been deposited by a glacier. Most of the city of Niagara Falls, Canada is built upon this moraine. It can be seen as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls. I have found that the glacial thrust that deposited this moraine is the same one that initiated the formation of the Don Valley in Toronto.

If we look on a map of Toronto and Lake Simcoe to it's north, it is easy to trace this.
This lake has three "arms" extending from it. The northernmost arm, Lake Couchiching, is from the thrust of the glacier moving southward. The southward thrust was pushed westward by another glacial thrust that formed the arm on the western side of Lake Simcoe, Kempenfelt Bay, but it continued southward.

This formed the southern arm of Lake Simcoe, Cook's Bay. It is easy to see that the Don Valley is a direct continuation in a straight line with the southern arm of Lake Simcoe.

The Don Valley was largely dug by flowing water, but the reason it was a low-lying area to serve as a conduit for the glacial meltwater at the end of the last ice age in the first place is due to this glacial thrust.

Now, if we continue this straight line from the southern arm of Lake Simcoe through the Don Valley across Lake Ontario, we find that it comes straight to Niagara Falls. This has got to be the source of the Niagara Falls Moraine. Remember that the water level dropped during the ice ages because so much water was locked up in glaciers on land. Also any water that remained in Lake Ontario would be absolutely frozen solid so that a glacier, pulled by the rotation of the earth, could pass over it.

The powerful glacial thrust that created the southern arm of Lake Simcoe and began the Don Valley carried a vast amount of soil and rock with it which it dropped at Niagara Falls. Part of the moraine did not make it over the Niagara Escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston. This today forms the ridge upon which Ridge Road is built. The rest crossed the escarpment and today forms the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls. I believe that this happened not in the last ice age but the one before that, this means that some of the Don Valley was already there as the last ice age ended and was ready to act as a water and ice channel.

If you would like to continue this story in the Niagara area, here is a link:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/06/niagara-natural-history-summary.html?m=0

Ontario's Gordon Lightfoot

One of the stars of the Rock Music Era, Ontario's Gordon Lightfoot, has died. The Toronto area made a major contribution to Rock Music. Other stars were Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and, Rush. 

If Canada didn't have the maple leaf as it's national symbol would Rush have done a song about a war between trees in a forest? Bands in the U.S. and Britain would never have thought of that.

Does anyone remember "Sam The Record Man", the great record store on Yonge Street in the days of vinyl records? 

THE MEANING OF DAYLIGHT KATY

The meaning of the song "Daylight Katy", by Gordon Lightfoot in 1978, has long been a mystery. There is a range of opinions online as to the meaning of the song.

"Katy" is the name that is closest to "cat".

The song describes Katy as "living nine lives in her midnight world". Cats are said to have "nine lives". Why would she be called "Daylight Katy" if she lives in a "midnight world" and "She doesn't have to get up in the morning"? It is because cats can see at night. To "Daylight Katy" the night is as good as daylight.

The other refrain is "If you can't follow me down, Daylight Katy go home". This means that, unlike dogs, cats will not follow their owners or obey commands.

Katy is described as "living in town with her high-heeled friends". A cat's hind feet look like "high heels".

The song states that "She knows it's a long way down". This is about the proclivity of some cats to climb to high places, usually trees.

Daylight Katy is a long-fur cat. I see a couple of opinions that it is a cat. This is my opinion.

AN AMAZING TORONTO STORY FROM THE ROCK MUSIC ERA 

Almost exactly fifty years ago something absolutely unprecedented took place. A Toronto radio announcer, named Gordon Sinclair, made a speech praising America. It was not long after the peace agreement in the Vietnam War. Although the facts presented in the speech were not entirely accurate, it soon got a lot of attention.

The next thing we knew the recording of the speech had been made into a song, and released as a record. It wasn't really a song, just the speech with music playing in the background, but it got a lot of airplay.

We saw in the posting "Names And Canadian Politics" how the name "Mackenzie" is a very Canadian name. No less than three Prime Ministers of Canada as a first or last name, with none related to the others, as well as the first mayor of Toronto. An early explorer named Mackenzie gave his name to a river in the far north of Canada.

"Sinclair" is also a very Canadian name.

Here is a link to the posting:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/04/names-and-canadian-politics.html?m=0

Remembering The Holy Roman Empire

On the subject of Nuremberg today how about a look back at the Holy Roman Empire. While it was not an "empire", in the traditional sense, it has had a tremendous influence on history simply because it lasted for a thousand years. 

It was formed by the Catholic Church in an effort to rein in the wayward eastern Christians, who would later split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. Charlemagne was crowned as it's first emperor on Christmas day of the year 800. The Holy Roman Empire would last until finally brought to an end by the conquests of Napoleon.

But it grew beyond the control of the pope and, if anything, was more of a rival to the Catholic Church than an ally. I consider it as no coincidence that the Protestant Reformation, which split the Catholic Church, began in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. It's boundaries fluctuated and, despite the name, usually didn't include Rome. It didn't have an official capital but if any city can be described as the heart of the Holy Roman Empire it was Nuremberg.

Here is a link to the posting "The Far-Reaching Legacy Of The Holy Roman Empire":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-far-reaching-legacy-of-holy-roman.html?m=0

Earth's Rotation And Water Depth

Here is a question that I have wondered about. What would the map of the world look like if the earth was not rotating?

The spin of the earth produces centrifugal force. The earth is solid while the oceans are fluid. This means that the centrifugal force should pull water toward the equator so that the seas should, on the average, be deeper in the tropics than at higher latitudes.

We can see this centrifugal force in the movement of glaciers during the ice ages. Glaciers begin to form when the temperature gets cold enough that the snow of a winter hasn't entirely melted when the snow of the next winter begins. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The snow is compacted into ice by the weight of the snow above it. The result is a vast sheet of ice maybe one or two km thick, limited in thickness only by the altitude of the cloud from which the snow falls.

The centrifugal force of the earth's spin is greatest toward the equator. This means that there is a difference in the centrifugal force on the glacier, with the greatest force closer to the equator. This has the effect of pulling the entire mass of ice toward the equator, and this is why glaciers move.

The spin of the earth also has a pronounced effect on the winds. The prevailing winds on earth are alternating bands of prevailing west or east winds, while north and south winds are intermittent. Circular storms like hurricanes pick up their cyclical motion from the spin of the earth.

So if the spin of the earth affects glaciers and winds then shouldn't it have an effect on the water in the oceans? It does affect ocean currents but if the centrifugal force pulls glacial ice toward the equator, although the sheet will move only if it is vast enough for there to be enough difference in the centrifugal force closer to and further from the equator to move it, then shouldn't it also pull the water of the oceans toward the equator?

This would mean that, on the average and with other factors being equal, water would be deeper around the equator than at higher latitudes. This in turn would mean that there would be less land and more water composing the earth's surface around the tropics than there would have been if the earth were not spinning.

Indeed the deepest points of both the Indian and Pacific Oceans are within a few degrees of the equator. The deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean is about 18 degrees from the equator.

The surface of the entire earth is about 72 percent water and 28 percent land. It is true that the distribution of land on earth is very uneven and follows no pattern. The vast majority of the earth's land area is in the northern hemisphere so that the northern hemisphere is about half land while the southern hemisphere is about 90 percent water.

But the equator is between the northern and southern hemispheres and we might have the expectation that the surface over which the equator passes would be about 72 percent water and 28 percent land. But the percentage of land would be expected to be less, and that of water greater, if the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation did, in fact, pull water toward the equator.

This is indeed the case as the surface over which the equator passes is only about 21.4 percent land, and 78.6 percent water. The four significant land masses over which the equator passes are South America, Africa, Sumatra and, Borneo.

The light blue on the following map from Google Earth is the vast shallow area of sea between Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and, Thailand. Might this have been land if the earth didn't spin, or rotated more slowly so that there wouldn't be as much centrifugal force to draw water to the tropics?

The following map from Google Earth makes it seem as if Australia and Papua New Guinea are really one land mass until the light blue shallow sea flooded in because the centrifugal force of the spin of the earth pulled water toward the equator.

There is a wide area of shallow sea off the Gulf Coast of Florida. If the earth didn't spin, or spun much slower, might Florida have much more real estate than it does now? Image from Google Earth.

On the other hand, what if the earth rotated more slowly so that days were longer? Might Britain and Ireland be joined to continental Europe, as they once were, until the shallow sea separating them was formed by glacial movement? Because the spin of the earth wouldn't be pulling so much water to the tropics. Image from Google Earth.

The spin of the earth is very significant, relative to it's scale. A point on the equator is moving eastward at about the speed of sound. It actually seems that there should be even more difference in water depth between the tropics and the higher latitudes.

The earth actually does bulge at the equator due to the centrifugal force of rotation. The equatorial diameter of the earth is a little bit more, relatively speaking, than the polar diameter. If not for this bulge, if the earth were a perfect solid, and water was drawn to the tropics by the force of the spin, then there may well have been no land at all around the equator.

The fact that the earth bulges like this is what I consider proof that there must be magma, hot molten rock, beneath the surface all over the world. This would be a requirement for my geologic theory as described in the compound posting "The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog, www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com . This theory, based on Continental Asteroids and the emergence of magma from below, leaves no major feature of the earth's surface, whether on land or the seafloor, unexplained. It has indeed recently been confirmed that there is a layer of magma, about 150 km down, across the entire earth.

The Historical Roots Of Mario

I cannot see written anywhere about how rooted the Nintendo mascots of Mario and Luigi are in history. This is a primary example of how important history is to us. We resonate with things that are rooted in history, even if we are not consciously aware of it. Everything about this is very cleverly rooted in the history of the Mediterranean area of Europe.

Mario and Luigi are twin brothers, although not identical twins. This gives them a lot in common with Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Romulus, or one of his followers, killed Remus so that Romulus got Rome named for him. Mario's red and Luigi's green obviously represent the two sides of the modern Italian flag. 

Mario and Luigi are plumbers by trade. This is a further link with Rome. Plumbers today are so-called because the Romans made pipes out of lead which, unlike iron, doesn't rust. The Latin word for lead was "plumbum", which is also why the chemical symbol for lead is Pb.

Mario and Luigi live in the Mushroom Kingdom. On a map, Italy is shaped like a mushroom with the two peninsulas in the south being the roots. The Mushroom Kingdom has "Warp Tubes", which can transport a person to other places, even distant worlds. This represents the era of Christopher Columbus, and also Galileo's telescope.

The palace of the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach, is built on a hill. This represents Mario and Luigi being a reconciled version of Romulus and Remus, who argued over which hill Rome should be built on. Mario regularly rescues Princess Peach, just as Romulus had once rescued his brother. The palace is white, the spires are red and, the grass is green, again the Italian flag.

Mario looks like a southern Italian, except that he has blue eyes. This is done to cleverly incorporate northern Italians in too.

There is a program about the "Odyssey" of Mario. "The Odyssey" is a vital part of the classic literature of ancient Greece, which preceded Rome. The major cities of southern Italy, although not Rome, began as Greek settlements.

The city that is now called Istanbul was actually founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine. It was named Constantinople and was to be the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. In 1453 the city was conquered by the Ottomans and renamed as Istanbul.

The palace in the Mushroom Kingdom is based on the Topkapi Palace. This was the palace of the Ottoman Rulers, before they later moved to the Dolmabahce Palace on the waterfront. Image from Google Street View.

The tower of the palace in the Mushroom Kingdom was clearly based on the Galata Tower, also in Istanbul. This tower was actually built by settlers from Genoa in what was then-called Constantinople. Image from Google Street View.

This was obviously very carefully thought out by Nintendo. It shows the importance of history. Las Vegas is based on the same principle. It's emphasis on "getting rich quick" is rooted in the history of the gold rushes of America's Old West. It just forms a resonance, even if we are not consciously aware or thinking about it.

The Troubles And The Wall

It is really ironic that we just happen to be visiting Berlin today while Joseph Biden is visiting Northern Ireland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement.

I notice something that I have never seen written about the period in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles". It is yet another example of how history repeats itself. It is important to understand history because we tend to reenact it, often without realizing it.

There is a direct relationship between "The Troubles" and the Berlin Wall, even though the wall was 1300 km from Belfast.

The Berlin Wall began in 1961. "The Troubles", the period of conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics favoring union with Ireland and Protestants favoring union with Britain, is generally considered to have begun 8 years later, in 1969.

Germany was reunified in 1990, after the Berlin Wall came down. "The Troubles" ended 8 years later, with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

So "The Troubles" lasted for the same length of time as the Berlin Wall, but with an 8 year delay. This is similar to what we saw in the posting on this blog, "Why We Should Understand The Mongols", the Soviet Union actually lasted the same length of time as the Mongol Empire.

There was an obvious relationship between "The Troubles" and "The Wall" in that walls were built in cities to separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods, in an effort to keep the peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines#/media/File:Peace_Line,_Belfast_-_geograph_-_1254138.jpg

But both "The Wall" and "The Troubles" prominently involved painting and murals. On the western side of the Berlin Wall, there was scarcely a spot that had not been covered by a painting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#/media/File:Berlinermauer.jpg

Relatively few people got involved in actual violence in Northern Ireland, and the violence was generally denounced by people on both sides. As in Berlin, it was much more widely a quiet conflict of paintings on walls.

Here are some Catholic murals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Belfast_mural_15.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Ballymurphy.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Muralbelfast2.jpg

Protestants were just as artistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Thorndyke_Street.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:Cluan_Place.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murals_in_Northern_Ireland#/media/File:UVF_mural_in_Shankill_Road,_Belfast.jpg

The official name of the second-largest city, after Belfast, in Northern Ireland was Londonderrry, and that was what Protestants called it. Catholics dropped the "London" and just called it "Derry". Catholics then made an art out of taking the "London" out of "Londonderry".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute#/media/File:Signpostinstrabane.JPG 

The Constitutional Succession Factor

Relative to other western countries the political climate in America tends to be more to the right. What I mean by that is business friendly, rather than worker-friendly. There is a factor in how left or right the politics in a western-style democracy will be that I cannot see referred to anywhere. It is the age of the nation's constitution.

America gained it's independence just before the French Revolution brought about modern France. The present government of France is referred to as the "Fifth Republic". What this means is that France is on it's fifth constitution since the revolution.

America, in contrast, has the same constitution that it had since the beginning. What America does, instead of a periodic updated constitution, is amending the constitution through constitutional amendments. The important difference is that America's constitutional amendments do not require much in the way of public input, while new constitutions in other democracies do.

America's constitution was written before the era of big business began. The "Robber Baron" era would come a century later. When the constitution was written most Americans were farmers, craftsmen and, shopkeepers. The constitution is focused on protecting Americans from tyranny in government, not from exploitation by big business.

Business in America has traditionally had more of a free reign. In democracies with newer constitutions, in contrast, the focus tends to be on protection from both government tyranny and big business. France, with it's more recent constitution, is an example of generally being more leftward, or supportive of the people, than America.

We may think of Europe as being the "Old World" and the western hemisphere as being the "New World" but the social order in Europe is actually from the postwar era and is thus newer. When it's constitutions were written big business was a major factor in society. As we might expect it's constitutions are more about protecting people from big business, generally as both employees and consumers, than that of America.

As time went on, in the western democracies, tyranny by government has become less likely while exploitation by business, if allowed, has become more likely. The old U.S. Constitution wasn't written with this in mind and the U.S. just doesn't periodically start over with a new constitution.

Today Americans have rights. The government is built around a system of checks and balances. A president can be removed, if necessary. People accused of a crime are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and can only be tried once for a given crime, if found not guilty. 

There are minimum wage laws, working hour limitations, workplace safety regulations and, unemployment insurance. There are laws against child labor and mandatory public education until age 16. Public assistance can be applied for, if necessary.

But only the first three were provided by the U.S. Constitution. The rest were brought about by social movements and were not guaranteed by the constitution. This is primarily because the constitution was written before most people were working for employers, before the era of big business.

The newer constitutions of other democracies tend to take this into account and thus tend to be further leftward.

Sikh Separatism In India

There has been a lot of news lately about the rejuvenation of Sikh Separatism in the Punjab state of India. Most Indians today had not yet been born when, in 1984, the Indian Army raided the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, the center of the Sikh Religion. I was working for some people from India at the time and followed the raid on the news.

Image from Google Street View

The separatist movement was led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed in the raid, although according to information online he was not actually seeking the separate country, to be called Khalistan. The Sikhs in the Golden Temple were heavily armed, in anticipation of the raid, but the Indian Army finally got control of the Temple.

The structure adjacent to the Golden Temple, the Small Takht, was damaged in the raid. The Indian Government paid to rebuild the structure afterward but the Sikhs famously tore the rebuilt structure down and rebuilt it themselves.

Image from Google Street View

The raid on the Golden Temple, known as Operation Blue Star, was followed by turmoil in India. The prime minister who had ordered the raid, Indira Gandhi, had two Sikh bodyguards who assassinated her. This set off a horrendous wave of violence across the country, between Hindus and Sikhs, that led to the bombing of an Air India plane that disintegrated over the ocean off the coast of Ireland. It was the worst instance of terrorism involving an aircraft before 9/11.

The Air India flight was from Montreal to India but actually began as a flight from Toronto. The disaster hit close to home, with so many victims being from Toronto's Indian community. This is the monument in Toronto commemorating the loss, a sundial and wall with the names of the victims.

Image from Google Street View

But now Sikh militancy, and possibly separatism, is emerging again, possibly irritated by the strong emphasis on Hinduism by the present Indian Government. Amritpal Singh, who was not yet born when the raid on the Golden Temple took place, is becoming known as "Bhindranwale 2.0".

Does everyone know the real story of this turmoil in India during the 1980s? Did you know that it was purposely incited by outside powers?

Here is a paragraph copied and pasted from the Wikipedia article "Operation Blue Star". At the time the last war between India and Pakistan was still in fairly recent memory. The KGB forged documentation indicating that Pakistan was supplying the Sikhs with armaments and encouraging them to separate from India. As we might expect the CIA was supposedly in on it too. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi believed what she was told.

Here is another paragraph from the same Wikipedia article "Operation Blue Star". This explains how the forged documentation alleged that Pakistani commandos were infiltrating the border to assist the Sikh separatists.

The distance from earth to Mars is how far India has come since this turmoil of the 1980s. Let's not go back to this. The world looks to India as a world leader. Remember that we saw in the recent posting. "Has India Entered Another Golden Age"? March 2023, that India has a history of having a golden age about every four hundred years, and that means it is due to start the next one right about now.