Big Ben and Queen Elizabeth II

Photo courtesy 123rf.com

The Palace of Westminster tower that goes by the nickname, Big Ben, is being renamed The Elizabeth Tower in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's 60-year reign.  For more information click here.  What did you learn today?

The Shard on the Thames

Photo of The Shard and Tower Bridge courtesy 123rf.com

The tallest building in the European Union, The Shard, is on the banks of the Thames in London, and was built by a man whose last name is Piano, Renzo Piano.  For more information click here.

The Tower of London

Photo courtesy FreeImages

The central White Tower in the Tower of London, a castle keep, was built by the Norman, William the Conqueror (1028-1087), to signify the power he had over the Anglo-Saxons he had recently conquered at the Battle of Hastings.  Crowned William I on Christmas Day in 1066, he was the first Norman King of England.  Lacking confidence in the strength of the local building materials, William imported Caen stone from Normandy and built the edifice on top of Roman ruins, another move to signify his power over the country.  For more information, see the Royal Armouries Museum website.

If you have been to the Tower of London, what is your favorite area?

New Seven Wonders

Photo of Iguazu Falls courtesy New7Wonders.com

The New Seven Wonders Corporation began tallying popular votes on July 7, 2007 (07-07-07) for a list of  New Seven Wonders of Nature and New Seven Wonders of the World, which will be finalized and released in early 2012.  The New Seven Wonders series are based on the ancient Seven Wonders of the World lists by the ancient historians and scholars Herodotus and Antipator of Sidon.

History of Scrabble

Photo courtesy FreeImagesLive.co.uk

The board game, Scrabble, was invented by New York architect and artist Alfred Mosher Butts (1899-1993) in 1938.  To date, one hundred fifty million games have been sold worldwide, and between one and two million sets are sold annually in the United States alone.

Butts initially named the game Criss Cross Words, but when entrepreneur James Brunot (1902-1984)bought the rights to the game in 1948 he changed the name to Scrabble, a word meaning "to grope frantically", from the Dutch "Schrabben," to scrape or scratch.  Brunot converted an abandoned school-house into the Scrabble factory.

For more information in addition to the above links, including information about Scrabble associations and tournaments, see the websites of IdeaFinder.com, North American Scrabble Players Association, Anagrammer.com, and, of course, the official Scrabble website.

Golden Section & Stradivarius Violins

Photo courtesy FreeImageFinder.com

The golden section (also known as the golden mean, the golden ratio, and divine proportion), is a mathematical calculation that produces what is considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing proportion.  What I didn't know is that Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), the greatest violin maker in history, was aware of the golden section and used it to place the f-holes (pictured above) in his famous violins. 

I also didn't know that there has been quite a bit of research to find the golden section intentionally and unintentionally used in classical music compositions.

For more information, see the links above and the website on Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Section in Art, Architecture, and Music.

Sextus Julius Frontinus & the Roman Aqueducts

"By the middle of the 1st century AD Rome had nine aqueducts, which were the subject of a detailed treatise written by the distinguished Roman senator and consul Sextus Julius Frontinus in his capacity as curator aquarum (head of the water board).  Only two aqueducts were added in the later empire, bringing the total length to over 450 km (280 miles).  It is Frontinus who gives us much of the statistical data usually cited on the aqueducts of Rome, although some of his figures are questionable."  From page 235 of The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World:  The Great Monuments and How They Were Built, edited by Chris Scarre, published by Thames & Hudson.

For more information, see the page on Sextus Julius Frontinus at WaterHistory.org.