28th September: Caravaggio

Michelangelo da Caravaggio, influential Italian realist painter, was born on this date in 1571.

1. His full name is Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the Caravaggio part actually being the name of the town he grew up in.
2. He was born in Milan, where his father was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio. When Michelangelo was about six, the family moved to Caravaggio because there was a plague in Milan. Sadly, his father and grandparents died anyway. He was just eleven when his mother died, too. It was then that he became an apprentice to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, under a contract describing him as a "pupil of Titian".
3. After his training, he left for Rome. he was possibly running away because he'd been involved in "certain quarrels" and had wounded a police officer, most likely in a brawl. In fact, throughout his life he seemed to be quarrelsome and violent, apt to get involved in brawls and many of his moves to new cities were because he was fleeing from the law. There are pages and pages of police and court records relating to his violent crimes, including smashing a waiter in the the mouth with a plate and, eventually, a murder - he killed a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni from Terni (Umbria). The exact circumstances aren't known but it is thought to have been accidentally during a fight over a gambling debt. This crime was serious enough that his influential patrons could do nothing this time. He fled to Naples and was on the run for most of the rest of his life.
4. His earliest known painting is Boy Peeling a Fruit, painted during his first job in Rome, in a painting factory belonging to Giuseppe Cesari, Pope Clement VIII's favourite artist. Even then, the realism and attention to detail were such that botanists could identify the type of fruit in his painting right down to exactly which cultivar had been depicted.
5. He frequently included his own image in his paintings. Notable examples are an early work, Young Sick Bacchus, a self portrait painted while he was recovering from a serious illness which had cost him his job. While he was on the run for murder, he painted David with the Head of Goliath, with his own features on Goliath's severed head, which some have interpreted as a plea for forgiveness and a pardon. He is also believed to be the lantern-bearing figure in the far-right hand corner of The Taking of Christ.
6. Caravaggio is famous for his realism. To achieve it, he often used lower class people as models and painted them "warts and all". This occasionally got him into trouble with the church. The Carmelites rejected one of his paintings, The Death of the Virgin. Although there was a theological issue (The Virgin Mary is supposed to have been taken up to Heaven rather than dying) it was as likely to have been because the model for Mary was a well known prostitute, and the painting showed her bare legs.
7. Caravaggio never married and had no known children. Which naturally led to speculation that he was gay, especially since he never painted female nudes, but the male form was often celebrated in his work. He lived with a male friend for a while, so it was rumoured they were lovers - but he also painted portraits of prostitutes, albeit with clothes on. Whether he was ever a customer, we don't know.
8. During his flights from the law, Caravaggio went to Valetta, Malta, and secured a patronage with Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights. Perhaps he thought this would help him get a pardon in Italy. De Wignacourt was so impressed with him that he inducted him as a Knight of Malta. While there, he painted more religious paintings as well as portraits of leading knights. However, his propensity for getting into fights dogged him even here. He apparently lost his rag with one of the knights and the resulting brawl saw the knight badly injured and the door of his house broken down. Caravaggio was thrown in prison for this but managed to escape. Needless to say, he was expelled from the order, dubbed a "foul and rotten member".
9. The following year, he suffered a disfiguring injury to his face, possibly at the hands of Knights of Malta seeking revenge. The injuries were bad enough that rumours circulated that he was dead. It's thought his painting Salome with the Head of John the Baptist, with his own head on the platter, which he sent to de Wignacourt, might have been a plea for forgiveness.
10. Finally, he received news from Rome that he might finally be getting that pardon, thanks to the influence of some of his powerful friends there. He set sail for Rome with three paintings as gifts. He never got there. Nobody knows exactly what happened to him, although reports say he died of a fever on the way. There are suggestions that the Knights of Malta or some other faction which had it in for him caught up with him and murdered him. Another possibility is that he died of lead poisoning. Bones believed to be his were found to have a lot of Lead in them. This would have been an occupational hazard back then, as paints contained high levels of lead salts. One symptom of lead poisoning is a tendency for violent behaviour, so it's entirely possible.

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27th September: World Heart Day

Today is World Heart Day, so here are ten things you might not know about hearts.

1. Old words for heart include the Old English heorte, Latin cor and Greek kardia, from which we get the words cardiology and cardiac. The chambers of the heart are called the left and right atrium (Latin for entrance hall) and the left and right ventricle (Latin for little belly).
2. A human heart pumps out 2 ounces of Blood each time it beats. That's 2.500 gallons a day. As it can beat anything up to 3.5 billion times in a lifetime, we're talking 1.5 million barrels of blood, enough to fill 200 train tank cars, over the course of a person's life. You'd have to leave your kitchen tap running at full pelt 24 hours a day for 45 years to pump out the equivalent amount in water. All this from an organ which is about the size of your fist and weighs about the same as an Apple.
3. The heart does the most physical work of any muscle during a lifetime. Every day, the heart creates enough energy to drive a lorry 20 miles. That means in a lifetime, the heart produces enough energy to drive the same lorry to the Moon and back. The heart has its own electrical impulse, so it can keep on beating even if taken out of the body, provided it has an Oxygen supply.
4. While we know today that the heart is basically a blood pump, in ancient times, people had different ideas about what it was for. In ancient Egypt, they thought the heart could move around inside the body with a will of its own. It was Plato who theorised that the heart was responsible for passion and Aristotle believed sensory input was transported to the heart through the blood and the heart was responsible for thought and emotions. In Old English, “heart” meant breast, soul, spirit, mind and intellect. Hence we have phrases like "to learn by heart" and "heartfelt". Erasistratus of Chios (304-250 B.C.) was the first to discover that the heart functioned as a natural pump.
5. All this aside, the association of the heart with love isn't necessarily complete balderdash. It's been found that if a couple stare into each other's eyes for three minutes their heart rates synchronise; and broken hearts are real. Strong emotions and stress, which breakups and bereavements can cause, can result in a condition called "takotsubo's cardiomyopathy" or "broken heart syndrome."
6. The device a doctor uses to listen to a patient's heart, the stethoscope, was invented by French physician Rene Laennec (1781-1826). Before this, a doctor had to actually place his ear on a patient's chest to listen to their heart. Laennec invented the stethoscope so he wouldn't have to put his ear against women's breasts.
7. Women's hearts naturally beat faster than men's. Male hearts beat at 70 beats a minute and female hearts at 78 beats a minute. On average. A person's heart rate can speed up or slow down depending on the type of Music they are listening to, and studies have shown that people who practice yoga have lower heart rates, at least while they are meditating. Laughter relaxes the blood vessels and is therefore good for the heart because it doesn't need to work quite so hard.
8. The pressure a human heart generates is strong enough to squirt blood thirty feet across a room. Blood leaves the heart at a speed of about 1 mile (1.6 km) per hour, but as it travels through the body, it slows down. By the time it gets to the capillaries, it will be moving at 43 inches (109 cm) per hour.
9. I'm not in the business of health scaremongering - I'll leave that to the Daily Mail, but I will pass on a couple of interesting facts about heart attacks. The peak times for heart attacks are Monday mornings and Christmas. While having an active sex life is quoted as being good for the heart in general, men who are having affairs are more likely to suffer a cardiac arrest during sex.
10. A few words about hearts elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The smallest heart belongs to the Alpatus magnimius, a type of fruit fly - it is less than 0.21mm long. The largest belongs to the blue Whale, which has a heart which weighs up to 900kg and is the size of a Mini Cooper. An Octopus has three hearts (eat one of your hearts out, Doctor Who). Two to pump blood through the gills, one to pump it around the body. In general, the larger the mammal, the slower its heart rate is (the world’s smallest mammal, the Etruscan shrew, has a heart rate of 835 beats a minute) and the slower the heart rate, the longer the animal lives (the shrew only lives for about a year). Humans are the exception, probably because medicine and hygiene have extended human lives.

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26th September: Ivan Pavlov

10 quotes from Ivan P Pavlov, physiologist, born this date in 1849.

1. Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise.
2. Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin.
3. While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things.
4. It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life are dominated by the search for daily bread - the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature.
5. It is clear to all that the animal organism is a highly complex system consisting of an almost infinite series of parts connected both with one another and, as a total complex, with the surrounding world, with which it is in a state of equilibrium.
6. Never think that you already know all. However highly you are appraised, always have the courage to say to yourself-I am ignorant.
7. Be passionate in your work and in your searching.
8. Men are apt to be much more influenced by words than by the actual facts of the surrounding reality
9. Learn the ABC of science before you try to ascend to its summit.
10. Learn, compare, collect the facts!

25 September: Phyllis Pearsall (The A to Z)

This date in 1906 saw the birth of Phyllis Pearsall, creator of the A to Z map of London. Here are ten facts about Phyllis Pearsall and her creation.

1. Map making was in her blood. Her father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who had his own cartographic business, Geographia Ltd, which produced street maps of Britain but went bankrupt.
2. The story goes that she had the idea for the A-Z map after getting lost on her way to a party in 1935, because the Ordnance Survey map she was using dated back to 1919 and was hopelessly out of date; although some sources say it wasn't a party she was going to, but the home of someone whose portrait she'd been commissioned to paint.
3. She was an author as well as an artist and map maker. She wrote an autobiography, From Bedsitter to Household Name, published by her own company. She remained in charge of that business until she died at the age of 89 in 1996. She drove to work every day in a Red Mercedes. Her motto was "On we go".
4. In her book, she tells of how she spent 18 hours a day for a year walking 3,000 miles through the streets of London in order to compile her map. This has been questioned by sceptics who believe she wouldn't have needed to do that, since she would have had access to the maps her father produced and could have obtained street plans from local authorities - but that's a much less romantic story.
5. It was such a romantic story that someone made a musical out of it - The A-Z of Mrs P premièred in 2014. She is also commemorated with a tunnel boring machine named after her. Crossrail has two machines called Phyllis (after Pearsall) and Ada (after Ada Lovelace).
6. Publishers weren't interested in publishing her maps, so she formed her own company, the Geographers' Map Company in 1936. Then she had the challenge of getting shops to sell them. Eventually, WH Smith ordered 1250 copies. Pearsall said she delivered them herself in a wheelbarrow. They sold out - and other shops became interested. The map has been in continuous production ever since, and there are A-Zs covering other cities too.
7. If you had a first edition A to Z and wanted to get to Trafalgar Square, you might have been out of luck. The story goes that index cards with every street on them were kept in shoeboxes, one for each letter of the alphabet. Pearsall accidentally knocked the "T" box out of a window and didn't manage to find all the cards.
8. Talking of editions, another omission for a number of years was the date of publication, so it would have been easy for people to end up with an out of date one just as Pearsall did herself with Ordnance Survey. Collectors wishing to date an old edition they've found have to do a bit of detective work by looking at the name and address of the publisher since they know which years the company moved, and which year it changed its name. They will also know that no maps were produced during the second world war, because the Government ordered that street maps should be removed from sale, so the business was only producing war maps for newspapers at that time.
9. Early editions were in black and white but later on they were produced in colour. The colour scheme is the reason cab drivers refer to A and B roads as "Oranges and Lemons", since they use A to Z maps when completing the Knowledge.
10. If you're thinking of producing a map and reckon copying the A to Z is a good idea, beware. The company are out to get people who try to copy them. The London A to Z contains about 100 "trap streets", roads that either don't exist or are wrongly named. If another map is produced with those in it, they know it's a copy and will sue. Trap streets have found their way into popular fiction as places that do exist but are somehow magically hidden from the general population and populated by magical creatures. The A to Z itself was used as a plot device in an episode of Sherlock when a code was said to be hidden in a "book everyone owns". When the Bible and a dictionary failed to crack the code, Sherlock is inspired to try the A to Z when he goes outside and sees some tourists using one.

24 September: Mithras

On this date in 1954, a Roman temple to the god Mithras was found near Mansion House in London. Setting out to research Mithras, what I mostly found was references to a Roman cult associated with him, rather than much information about the god himself. So here are ten facts about Mithras and his cult.

1. The Roman cult is thought to have been inspired by the Persian religions which worshipped a god with a similar name. The name could come from Sanskrit and the word "mitra" means "Friend" or "friendship", "contract" or "covenant".
2. There isn't much in the way of written information about Mithras or his followers. However, a lot of his story has been inferred from carvings, reliefs and other archaeological evidence at the sites of temple like the one found in London. He was born out of a rock, and emerges as a youth or a young man, naked but already carrying a dagger. He is usually shown wearing a Phrygian cap (a symbol of freedom). Sometimes other gods such as Oceanus the water god, Sol the sun god and Saturn are present as well as various types of animal.
3. Every temple to Mithras thus found has a centrepiece called a tauroctony. It's as ubiquitous as a crucifix in a Christian church. It will be a carving or relief showing Mithras killing a bull. (The Persian god of the same name is not associated with killing bulls). A Dog and a Snake are waiting to drink the Blood and Mithras is looking over his shoulder at Sol, the sun god. Other carvings found show Mithras and Sol feasting on the bull.
4. The cult is called Mithraism, or the Mithraic mysteries, and about 420 temples have been found throughout the reach of the Roman Empire. Historians estimate there would have been about 680 temples to Mithras in Rome alone.
5. So it was popular, then. Who with? Some inscribed membership lists have been found, suggesting a lot of the members were soldiers. Merchants, customs officials and minor bureaucrats were also represented. None of the lists so far found include any female names, so it seems likely it was a boys' club of some kind.
6. In fact, having recently watched a documentary on modern Freemasonry, there seem to be a lot of similarities between the two. Men only, and secret initiation ceremonies to various levels or degrees involving the candidate reciting something and answering set questions with set answers. Members of a temple even referred to themselves as syndexioi (those united by the handshake)! A new member would shake hands with a senior member which was meant to symbolise the fact that Mithras shook hands with Sol. Whether there was anything unusual or secret about the handshake isn't known. There are also suggestions that it wasn't a religion as such and members were free to worship whichever gods they liked in their free time and could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another. Masonic rituals are always followed by a meal, and Mithraic ones were, too - evidence of feasting has been found in the temples.
7. Talking of which - some sources state Mithras celebrated his birthday on December 25 (which leads to comparisons with Jesus - more later) but this has been questioned, because the sites where the biggest feasts were held yielded a lot of cherry stones, suggesting they took place in the summer, around the Solstice, when Cherries would be in season.
8. Another characteristic of a Mithraic temple would be the figure of a naked man with a Lion's head with two serpents wrapped around him and four wings. He may be standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross and holding a key and a sceptre. While there are a lot of gods in various pantheons, in particular Egyptian, with animal heads, there doesn't seem to be a parallel to this figure in any mythology. Inscriptions give him the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. However, it has been suggested the figure doesn't represent a god or a demon at all, but the spiritual state of the Mithraic adept.
9. Lion is the name given to one of the levels of initiation, so there could be some truth in that. Other levels are Raven/Crow, bridegroom, soldier, Persian, sun-runner and father.
10. Mithraism pre-dated Christianity by about six centuries, but historians have been quick to point out the similarities between Mihtras and Jesus. Not only did they possibly share the same birthdate, Mithras has twelve companions - although his represented the signs of the zodiac, not the tribes of Israel. Mithras performed miracles - striking a rock with a sword and producing Water was one and this has been compared with baptism by some. Mithraic feasts have been compared to the Eucharist and there's even a belief that Mithras died, was buried in a cave and was resurrected and taken to paradise.

23 September: Saffron

Celebrated on this date in the French Revolutionary Calendar, saffron is hailed as the world's most expensive spice. Here are some things you might not know about it.

1. Saffron is made from the stigmas of a Crocus flower, Crocus sativum.
2. The origins of the word saffron are a little uncertain but most sources go with the theory that it comes from the Arabic word, ”zafaran” which means Yellow.
3. One reason it's the most expensive spice is that harvesting it is extremely labour intensive. It takes 80,000 flowers to produce a pound of saffron (453 grams) and the stigmas have to be removed by hand, at dawn when the flowers first open. According to legend, in some parts of the world, it can only be picked by virgins or girls under 13.
4. Iran produces 90% of the world's saffron. It's also produced in India and Spain. It was probably first cultivated in and around Greece. In years gone by, the town of Basel in Switzerland owed its prosperity to growing saffron, until one year the crop failed. It's even been grown in Britain. In Saffron Walden, naturally.
5. Saffron was so sought after that it was a major motivation for piracy in the 13th century - and the theft of a shipment of it once sparked a fourteen week war. In 1444 any merchant caught selling adulterated saffron in Bavaria would be burned alive.
6. In ancient times it was highly prized as an aphrodisiac. Saffron would be strewed across the beds of newly married couples, and they'd also be given it to drink, powdered in hot Milk, to help the wedding night along. It was also an ingredient of a magic potion intended to make a man fall in love. Cleopatra used to bathe in it, because not only would the scent and colour on her skin drive men wild with desire, it would increase her own enjoyment of lovemaking as well.
7. There were other uses. Saffron was said to be a cure for melancholic thoughts. The Romans used it as a perfume and deodorant and would spread it in public areas like amphitheatres. When Nero entered Rome they spread saffron along the streets. The Romans also made mascara out of it and offered it to their gods. It can be made into a yellow Orange dye, traditionally the colour of the robes of Buddhist monks. Saffron threads have been found interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets and funeral shrouds. Aulus Cornelius Celsus prescribes saffron in medicines for wounds, cough, colic, and scabies. Alexander the Great used Persian saffron in his infusions as a curative for battle wounds. Even today, scientists acknowledge it has medicinal benefits including improvement of vision, anti cancer properties, and benefits for depression.
8. Saffron is rich in Vitamins B and C, manganese and magnesium.
9. An ancient Greek legend explains the origins of saffron thus: a handsome youth named crocus fell in love with a nymph named Smilax and set out to woo her. She was flattered at first and the two had an idyllic love affair - until she got bored with him. To get rid of him, she turned him into a saffron crocus.
10. Even today it's expensive stuff and can cost $50 for a quarter of an ounce. It's expensive enough that it has been chosen in Afghanistan as a replacement crop for the opium poppy to combat drug trafficking.

22 September: Native American Day

The third Friday of September is Native American Day. Here are some interesting facts about Native Americans.

1. Native Americans have been living on the American continent since about 12,000 B.C. While Mormons believe they came from the Middle East and were originally Jewish, and Nazis believed they were part of the Aryan race, science has a different story to tell. Scientists believe they migrated from Asia 20,000 years ago, walking across a land bridge at the Bering Strait. Further studies suggest this happened three times, since Native American languages can be divided into three groups. This theory is also held up by studies on the Blood types and teeth of the various tribes.
2. There are 566 federally recognised Native American tribes and any number more which aren't recognised. The "Sioux" tribe never called themselves that at all. French explorers picked up the word when they heard the Chippewa tribe use it to refer to them. The word "Sioux" is actually the Chippewa word for enemy. The Sioux are actually the Lakota, a name that means, “Where the people of peace dwell.”
3. A number of Native American words found their way into the English language. Here's a list: caribou, chipmunk, moccasin, moose, muskrat, opossum, chili, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, mesquite, peyote, shack, tamale, Tomato, abalone, bayou, cannibal, Chinook, Manatee, poncho, Potato, Raccoon, skunk, squaw, toboggan, totem, wigwam, woodchuck, and barbecue (from the Arawakan Indian language meaning “framework of sticks).
4. About half of the fifty American states have names derived from Native American words or phrases. Oklahoma is from the Choctaw okla homma, which means “red people.” “Arizona” is from the Papago word airzonac, which means “small springs. “Dakota” is the tribal name of the Sioux, meaning “allies. “Massachusetts” is the name of an Algonquian tribe meaning “at or about the great hill.” “Michigan” is from the Native American word michigamea, meaning “great water.” “Ohio” is an Iroquois word meaning “beautiful river.”
5. Lacrosse was originally a Native American game. The Choctaw played it and French settlers watched. The settlers dubbed the game "Lacrosse" because the sticks resembled a Bishop’s crosier.
6. Even though they were not citizens, over 8,000 Native Americans served during WWI. Over 24,000 Native Americans served during WWII, including the Navajo Code Talkers, who invented an unbreakable code. Indigenous skills have often been used for modern day purposes. Tracking skills are used by a US law enforcement team consisting entirely of Native Americans called “The Shadow Wolves.” Their job: tracking down drug smugglers on the Mexican border. Mohawks were often used as labourers on the skyscrapers because it was believed they had no natural fear of heights. In fact, they were as terrified as everyone else; they simply wouldn't show it.
7. Many Americans have a proportion of Native American DNA. Celebrities who claim Native American ancestry include Cher, Anthony Quinn, Ava Gardner, James Earl Jones, Lou Diamond Phillips, Anne Hathaway, Megan Fox, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton, Burt Reynolds, Johnny Depp, Rosa Parks, Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Ludacris, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey. Edith Wilson (wife of Woodrow Wilson) and Nancy Reagan are said to be descended from Pocahontas.
8. The term “Indian” originated with Christopher Columbus who thought he had landed in the East Indies. He called the indigenous people “Indians.” According to the 1995 census, the majority of American Indians prefer the term “Indian” over “Native American”.
9. Some tribes built totem poles, which could be up to 40 feet tall. Their function was to advertise the status of a family or as a memorial to ancestors and would depict the animals and birds important to that family. They were not, as Christians used to believe, depictions of gods.
10. Those large feather headdresses could only be worn by warriors who had proven their courage in battles. Eagle feathers were thought to contain spiritual power. 

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