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This is presumably the Nuremberg bookseller Johann Philipp Palm. Napoleon did not shoot him personally, but he was shot on Napoleon's orders on the charge of distributing anti-Bonapartist pamphlets, f …

I suspect that Sacks is describing a device sometimes known as platinum "gas match", or more precisely, a catalytic gas igniter. It has been known since the 1820s that platinum has a catalytic action …

"Buying" someone out of military service is a procedure also known as "discharge by purchase". It basically consists of paying the service, in this case the army, a fine in return for leaving before t …

Within the Catholic church, it is common to "baptise" bells when they are installed, giving them names (usually the names of saints), and assigning them godparents. For example, the large bell in Notr …

Mistral's 1922 collection, Desolación ("Despair") is divided into seven parts: Vida, La Escuela, Infantiles, Dolor, Naturaleza, Prosa, and Prosa Escolar. In the Prosa Escolar ("School Prose") section …

Two train crashes are often cited as the inspiration for the crash described in The Last Battle. One, as mentioned in the question, is the Harrow and Wealdstone disaster of 1952, and the other is the …

As the OP's quote says, Ukraine's economy in the 1990s was indeed "wretched": Ukraine’s economy contracted annually between 9.7 and 22.7 percent in 1991–1996. The country experienced hyperinflation a …

In this piece Thoreau is comparing the press with the church. The newspaper is equated with the Bible, the newspaper editor is identified with a preacher, and the cost of the newspaper ("one cent dail …

The question raises two points: To what recent law does Thoreau allude? What is meant by "lack of sufficient force" to serve a writ of replevin? The first point almost certainly refers to the 1843 L …

In the mid-eighteenth century when the play La Guerra is set, the post of "commissario di guerra" (or "commissaire des guerres" in French) was common in many European militaries such as the Bourbon ar …

Franz Joseph Gall was a nineteenth century professor of physiology, who is particularly noted for his contributions to founding the pseudo-science of phrenology. From the wikipedia article: Gall beli …

Yes, within the text the identity of the white man was found by Samuel Adjai Crowther, the close friend of Eucaristus (one of Naba's sons): "Oh, I nearly forgot!"' said Samuel suddenly. "You remember …

Yes, I believe that these are two different usages of the term "A.B.C.". The first almost certainly refers to the Aerated Bread Company. Initially this was a company marketing bread that had been mad …

The first translation provided is not very effective. I find that Le Guin's translation is much closer to the sense of the original, which I would render rather freely as "who lifts up their entrails …

In 1954, Moravia was interviewed by two journalists from The Paris Review. With the usual caveats concerning personal reminiscences, he gave a quite detailed account of the censors' response to La Mas …