It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or where you were born. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, young, elderly, sick, healthy, or unique. Everyone in the world holds an inherent set of instinctive behaviors. Some of the behaviors include a collection of reflexes. Scientists continue to examine the purpose of these instincts and develop hypotheses on their function. Many of the instincts remain an evolutionary mystery. For this article I have focused on reflexes in adults and left out the common primitive reflexes.

A primitive reflex is displayed by normal human infants and not neurologically intact adults. Some examples include the Palmar grasp reflex, which is the tendency for babies to close their hand around anything that strokes the palm. The swimming reflex occurs if you place a small infant in water. In response they will begin to paddle and kick. Up until the age of four months, an infant will turn its head towards anything that strokes its cheek or mouth. This is known as the rooting reflex and is used to assist in breastfeeding.

Post-micturition convulsion syndrome (pee shivers) is a human phenomenon in which a person feels a shiver running down their spine following urination. The event can produce a brief twitch. It is a form of myoclonus, which is the involuntary twitching of a muscle. Twitching is normal in humans and most widely seen in people as they fall asleep. Pee shivers are quite mysterious and not understood by the medical community. There is currently no agreed explanation for the phenomenon, but it is reported by men all over the world. Not every man experiences pee shivers and only a small percentage of women have described the event.

Scientists have speculated that the phenomenon could be related to the fact that people experience a drop in blood pressure following urination. Others have suggested that it may be a reaction to the loss of several ounces of warm fluid. Most intellectuals point to the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of activities that occur when the body is at rest, including sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation (tears), urination, digestion, and defecation. However, the explanation doesn’t consider the fact that the phenomenon is only experienced by a percentage of the world population. Comedian George Carlin examined the topic: “pee shivers date back to pre-civilization days when men hadn’t learned to do their own shaking.”

Interesting Fact: Pee shivers shouldn’t be confused with micturition syncope, which is a feeling of faintness following urination. During the phenomenon people become pale, nauseated, and sweaty before losing consciousness. Micturition syncope is responsible for 2.4 to 8.4 percent of all fainting by adults. In many cases it occurs after the individual has been sleeping for a long period of time. Some people have reported dizziness and a loss of balance while urinating at night, but not a complete loss of consciousness.

The Prisoner’s Cinema is a phenomenon reported by people kept in total darkness, especially prisoners confined to dark cells for a long period of time. The sensation has been reported by truck drivers, pilots, and practitioners of intense meditation. Astronauts have also experienced a similar occurrence in space. The light show usually includes various colors and appears out of total darkness. The lights are said to have a succinct form, which is difficult to describe. The lights often transform into human form. Scientists believe the cinema is a result of phosphenes combined with the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to darkness.

A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. In 1970, a scientist named Oster hypothesized in Scientific American that the prisoner’s cinema may be the cause of some “ghost” sightings. Others have noted a connection between the lights and Neolithic cave paintings. Legend says that the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras retreated to pitch black caves in order to receive wisdom through visions.

Interesting Fact: The Ganzfeld effect is a similar phenomenon that has been reported for hundreds of years. It occurs when someone experiences a sudden loss of vision or hallucinations after staring at a uniform field of color, not just black. Arctic explorers who saw nothing but white snow for a long period of time also reported hallucinations and an altered state of mind. The Ganzfeld effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals. Many feel it is similar to dream production because of the brain’s state of sensory deprivation during sleep.

Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body to induce involuntary twitching and laughter. Knismesis and gargalesis are the scientific terms used to describe the two types of tickling. In 1897, the terms were coined by psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin. In a general sense, knismesis is the light, feather-like type of tickling that doesn’t induce laughter in humans. This type of tickling is often accompanied by an itching sensation. Knismesis requires a low level of stimulation and can be triggered by a touch or electrical current. Knismesis can also be triggered by crawling insects, which will prompt the individual to scratch the area.

Gargalesis is a different type of tickling. It refers to the harder, laughter-induced response. Gargalesis involves the repeated application of high pressure to sensitive areas of the body. This type of tickling is often associated with play and laughter, but can be considered highly unpleasant and even torture if used relentlessly. The gargalesis type of tickling works on both humans and primates. It has been hypothesized that the difference between the two sensations are produced by separate itch and touch sensors in the body. The strange thing about the two types of tickling is that people can trigger knismesis in their own body, but not gargalesis. The inability for humans to self-tickle is hard to understand.

Interesting Fact: Tonic immobility is a natural state of paralysis in animals. Some sharks can be put in a tonic state of paralysis for an average of fifteen minutes. This is achieved by placing your hands on the sides of the animal’s snout and lightly rubbing (applying knismesis). In 1997, around the Farallon Islands off the coast of California, a female orca was seen purposely inducing tonic immobility in a great white shark. The orca held the shark upside down and kept it immobilized for fifteen minutes until it suffocated to death. The case was the first recorded eye witness account of predation on a great white shark by a species other than humans.

Blushing is the involuntary reddening of a person’s face due to embarrassment or emotional stress. In many cultures it has become associated with being lovestruck or certain romantic situations. Blushing is related to flushing. However, flushing involves a more intense reddening of the skin and extends all over the body. Just about any situation can bring on intense blushing. It usually takes about one or two minutes for the reddening to disappear. Severe blushing can make people self-conscious and has been known to make it difficult to feel comfortable in certain situations. A collection of studies have determined that blushing is the result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system.

During the process of blushing, the person’s sympathetic nervous system will cause the blood vessels to open wide, flooding the skin with blood, and resulting in a reddening of the face. In some people, the ears, neck, and upper chest may also blush. The reaction will also cause the person’s face to feel hot. Several different psychological mechanisms for blushing have been hypothesized. In 2010, Crozier published a paper that suggested blushing was a visible rebound to the basic fight/flight mechanism found in humans. Charles Darwin was intrigued by blushing and described it as “the most peculiar and human of all expressions.”

Interesting Fact: Alcohol flush reaction is a condition in which an individual’s face and body experience a reddening as the result of alcohol consumption. The flushing is created by the accumulation of acetaldehyde in the body. Acetaldehyde is made by the oxidation of ethanol and is believed to be the cause of hangovers.

In human sexuality, the refractory period is the recovery phase after an orgasm during which it is impossible to achieve additional orgasms. Most men are unable to maintain or achieve an erection during this time. The penis may also be hypersensitive and stimulation may feel painful or uncomfortable. The effect has been linked to the hormone oxytocin and the protein prolactin. The length of the refractory period varies across species, ranging from a couple minutes to days. In contrast to men, most women do not experience a refractory period immediately after orgasm. However, some women have reported the phenomenon. According to studies, a 20 year-old has a refractory period of about 15 minutes, while people in their 70s take about 20 hours.

Interesting Fact: Sexual intercourse can sometimes lead to a feeling of melancholy in humans called post-coital tristesse (PCT). The feeling is more common in men than women and was described by philosopher Baruch Spinoza in 1677. English comedian Russell Brand described the phenomenon: “it’s like, Oh my God, what have I done? A sense of profound existential angst, a sense of loss, and a sense that somehow I’ve let my mum down.” Another sexually related phenomenon is the inability for males to control their urination after intercourse. This fact was featured in the Jim Carrey movie Me, Myself & Irene.

A cold chill is a tingling in the body accompanied by a cold sensation, and sometimes a shudder or shivering. Unlike body shivering or chills, cold chills are not caused by temperature, menopause, anxiety, or sickness, but are triggered by emotion. Cold chills occur when someone is deeply affected by music, video, speech, or recollection. They create goose bumps on the body. A similar sensation to cold chills is spine-tingling. Spine-tingling occurs when someone is scared by an event or experiences a strong emotional reaction. The sensation can be spontaneous, but can also be felt seconds before it happens, similar to a yawn or sneeze. The feeling may also cause goose bumps and cold chills. Some people have reported being able to recreate the spine-tingling sensation without being frightened.

Interesting Fact: Goose bumps appear on a person’s skin when it is cold out or they experience a strong emotional reaction such as fear, nostalgia, pleasure, awe, admiration, or sexual arousal. Goose bumps are created when tiny muscles at the base of each hair contract and pull the hair erect. In animals covered with fur or hair, the erect hairs trap air and create a layer of insulation. Goose bumps can also appear as a response to anger or fear. The erect hairs make the animal appear larger, in order to intimidate enemies.

Emotional contagion is the tendency for humans to feel the emotions of people around them. It appears to be involved with mob psychology and related to the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effect is a well documented form of groupthink. It says that human conduct spreads among people in a similar way as fads and trends. As more people come to believe in something, others “hop on the bandwagon.” The idea of emotional contagion is clearly evident in human children. For example, if a parent is sad, the child will often notice and react with crying.

Emotional contagion covers a wide range of human emotions, including power, strategy, invincibility, and dominance. The ability to transfer moods between humans is innate. This is a powerful fact and behind some the world’s religions, dictators, and the history of war. As you would expect, the transfer of emotions between humans has been studied in a number of different situations and settings. Unlike cognitive contagion, emotional contagion is less conscious and more automatic. It relies mainly on non-verbal communication, although it has been demonstrated to occur via telecommunication.

Interesting Fact: Folie à deux is a psychiatric syndrome in which delusional beliefs are transmitted from one individual to the next. The disorder was first conceptualized in France during the 19th century. It is related to Stockholm syndrome, which is a phenomenon that occurs when a hostage expresses empathy for their attackers. One of the most horrific examples of folie à deux is Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

A yawn is a natural human reflex. It involves the inhalation of air, stretching of the eardrums, and is followed by a large exhalation of breath. Yawning is associated with tiredness, stress, lack of stimulation, and boredom. It is one of the most bizarre human functions. Yawning can be infectious and is triggered by seeing others yawn, hearing a yawn, or talking on the phone with someone who is yawning. A number of theories have been proposed that attempt to explain why animals yawn, but nothing has been substantiated. One theory states that yawning occurs when a person’s blood contains an increased amount of carbon dioxide and needs oxygen. However, other studies show that yawning decreases oxygen intake.

Another theory states that yawning is a person’s way of controlling brain temperature. It has been suggested that a yawn can reduce or increase blood pressure in the brain. This theory has been supported by the fact that people get a desire to yawn while making a drastic change in elevation. Another speculated reason for yawning is the desire to stretch one’s muscles. Contagious yawning may be a way of keeping a group of animals alert. It may be an instinctual reaction from one member of the herd to the next, reminding everyone to stay alert. Anecdotal evidence suggests that yawning helps increase the state of alertness.

Interesting Fact: It is possible that yawning is a territorial reflex, a process that is meant to make the body appear bigger by stretching out the arms and opening the mouth. When animals are witnessed yawning, the human reaction is to become aware of the creature’s teeth and fighting potential.

Did you ever wonder how humans are able to move their heads from left to right and still focus on visual images? The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a human reflex movement that stabilizes images on the retina. It accomplishes this by producing a rapid eye movement in the direction opposite to the head movement. For example, when the human head moves to the right, the eyes move to the left, and vice versa. The VOR is vital because people are constantly making small head movements. Individuals who have an impaired VOR usually can’t read because small head movements blur the image.

The VOR works in total darkness and when the eyes are closed. The reflex is one of the fastest in the human body. It has been estimated that the eye movements lag the head movements by less than 10 milliseconds. Today, the VOR can be tested by doctors with the caloric reflex test, which involves injecting cold water, warm water, or air into the ear. When you inject water into the ear, the VOR is automatically triggered. A healthy cerebellum is also essential to the VOR in order to ensure accurate eye movements. People who experience brain damage to the cerebellum often have complicated problems with visual comprehension.

Interesting Fact: Did you ever wonder why you shouldn’t drink and drive? Ethanol (alcohol) consumption can disrupt the VOR, greatly reducing your ability to see. The more intoxicated you become the more blurry your vision is.

The mammalian diving reflex allows people to stay underwater for extended periods of time. It is exhibited strongly in aquatic mammals, but also in humans. The diving reflex is triggered specifically when cold water contacts the face. Water that is warmer than 21°C (70°F) does not cause the reflex, and neither does submersion of body parts other than the face. As soon as the face hits cold water, the diving reflex is triggered in an attempt to maximize oxygen output. The human heart rate slows down by 10-25% and blood flow is constricted to the extremities. At extreme depths, the body intentionally allows fluid to fill the lungs and chest cavity to prevent organs from being crushed by pressure.

The mammalian diving reflex greatly increases the odds of survival during accidental submersion. It helps prevent drowning in humans and even works if the individual is unconscious before entering the water. Because of the reflex, a person can survive longer periods of time without oxygen in cold water than on dry land or in hot water. Another interesting fact is that the diving reflex lessens with adulthood. Children are more likely to survive extended periods of time in cold water. The reflex is particularly strong in seals, otters, and dolphins, which are mammals that spend a lot of time in the water. It remains unclear if the diving reflex occurs in extreme cold weather outside water.

Interesting Fact: The mammalian diving reflex has caused some to examine the aquatic ape hypothesis, which says that the common ancestors of modern humans spent time adapting to life underwater. The hypothesis is based on the differences between humans and other great apes, and similarities between humans and some aquatic mammals. The theory uses many human functions to support the claims including hair loss, hair location, the subcutaneous fat on babies, the descended larynx, the hooded nose, voluntary breath control, the waxy coating on newborns, and the mammalian diving reflex.

After the surprising success of my first list (by which I mean it wasn’t immediately tossed onto the virtual slush pile), I felt inspired to write another. This list focuses on some of the best-loved scenes in musical theater history, and covers roughly sixty-six years. Needless to say, it’s difficult to compound six decades into 5000-odd words, but one tries.

Unlike in my last list, not all of the musicals these scenes are from were successful or memorable, but the scenes themselves are classic, innovative or showcase great talent. I’ve been confident enough to go into far more detail this time around, though I’ve also tried to make certain not to repeat anything that was already visited in the last list. I can assure you that my misguided enthusiasm for musicals is sufficient to fill two lists. Perhaps three. Hmmm.

A perennial classic, Singin’ in the Rain produced a star in 19-year-old Debbie Reynolds, while further cementing the brilliance of Gene Kelly. It also produced his co-star Donald O’ Connor’s most memorable and popular dance sequence, “Make ‘Em Laugh,” where he showcased his strenuous, acrobatic dancing abilities. The scene has been recreated many times since, on shows like Glee (regrettably), and the Oscars.

But the scene that is most famous is undoubtedly the title song, because of the unforgettable image it conveys of Gene Kelly, umbrella in hand, dancing in the rain. It’s hard to pick what will become an instant classic, but since its inception, this scene has been recreated, honored, referenced and spoofed more times than perhaps any other scene in cinema. It was also remixed quite recently in a remarkable Volkswagen advertisement.

One of the most captivating things about this scene is how polished and strictly choreographed it seems, while behind the scenes it was anything but. Many people are aware of the story of Gene Kelly being extremely ill while shooting this scene. Refusing to leave the set until he could run through the scene at least once, the legend is that it was shot in one take, with very limited blocking. The notion of such a classic piece of cinema being created in one cursory take is very romantic and has captured the imaginations of actors and audiences alike since.

The rain itself was made of water and milk in order to make it thicker and more visible on screen. The tapping of Gene’s shoes was also dubbed later, and this was also done to much of Debbie Reynolds’ tapping in the film. Despite these clunky technical details, the viewer would never know what effort had been made to make the scene work. The song, paired with Gene Kelly’s undeniable talent, created a classic scene in cinema, and one of the greatest in dancing history.

While not a particularly great example of either Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell’s best singing or dancing, this song was the opening scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the film that launched Marilyn Monroe to stardom. Marilyn had appeared in a few successful movies before this production, such as Monkey Business (1952) and Niagara (1953), but it wasn’t until Gentlemen Prefer Blondes that she garnered widespread attention. At this time, she was still considered a less famous actress than Jane Russell, and her name is therefore billed below Jane’s in the opening credits.

By the time Gentlemen was filmed, she had modeled a persona of smoldering sex appeal, wrapped in an almost naive, wide-eyed innocence. Marilyn was reputedly told during the filming of Gentlemen that she needed to tone down this sexual magnetism, which could sometimes become a little too intense for the sweet, likable (though slightly conniving) role that she was playing (Jane Russell was reputedly told to tone it up). However, she was just beginning to strike a chord with the movie-going public with this calculating sexuality, and it remained a popular aspect of her acting.

In this famous scene we are introduced to Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe’s characters in dazzling Technicolor. It was only the second time the audience had heard Marilyn sing, (the first was in a 1948 B movie called Ladies of the Chorus) and one of the early glimpses of her with the platinum blonde locks that were to become her signature (before Monkey Business, she’d tried several different shades of blonde; in Don’t Bother To Knock (1952) her hair is more a yellowy, golden shade than the white-blonde we’re familiar with).

It must have been clear to moviegoers, when they saw this blonde bombshell explode onto the stage in her flashy red sequins, that they were watching a true star, a woman of unfathomable beauty, and sadly underrated talent. She easily keeps up with her more experienced co-star, and flaunts the breathy, dreamy singing voice that was to become one of her famous trademarks.

Throughout her quite short career, Marilyn was usually typecast as beautiful but idiotic sexpots. Despite this on-screen persona, she had a deep interest in psychoanalysis, very liberal beliefs (especially about equal rights), and was said by third husband (and writer of the play The Crucible), Arthur Miller, to be a devoted buyer of books. There is a recurring rumor that she had an IQ of over 160, which, if true, would make her much more than averagely intelligent. Certainly much more intelligent than a certain American president she’s rumored to have romanced on the sly. But the ‘IQ rumor’ is just one of many that continued to surface in the years after Marilyn’s death, some more controversial than others. Her often very shrewd remarks suggest that she was far from unintelligent, once quipping: “Speaking of Oscars, I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy.”

However, she could never quite fight the frequent typecasting, though she managed to deviate from her blonde ditz role in a few of her movies, like Niagara, Bus Stop (1956), and The Misfits (1961). Despite her success, Marilyn’s life was also very troubled. Towards the end of her life she was very ill, and suffered two miscarriages. Throughout her life, she suffered from depression and spells of wild self-destruction. She would turn up to filming late, dazed, addled by pills, and sometimes wouldn’t turn up at all. She was widely blasted as being a nightmare to work with, because of her unprofessional behavior and problems with alcohol and drugs.

One of these instants was on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) where esteemed actor Laurence Olivier frequently attacked Marilyn for her tardiness and for forgetting her lines. Marilyn felt she was made to feel inadequate and undesirable by the English great (though after her death he would express his distaste for how she was ruthlessly exploited by the industry). But she also recounted, more light-heartedly, of how she had appeased him when, one day, he had “given her hell” about “screwing up”: “I soothed him by telling him I thought his Hamlet (1948) was one of the greatest films ever made. You know he won an Oscar for it.”

This scene, from the movie The Band Wagon, is a small slice from the movie’s climax. The movie centers on languishing Hollywood actor Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire), who feels his star is waning and that his fame is drying up. He’s persuaded into starring in a light-hearted musical that his two writer friends have created. They misguidedly employ Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), an actor and director with numerous shows running simultaneously on Broadway, to help in the production.

Melodramatic, and slightly pretentious, Cordova immediately turns the quaint musical into a stormy drama, complete with complex mechanical sets that eventually malfunction and ruin the premiere of the show. He also employs the statuesque ballet dancer Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse) to star beside Tony. The two initially clash, but come together in the end to make the show a success.

After Cordova’s production collapses, Tony convinces him to revert back to his friends’ original songs. These include a montage titled “Girl Hunt,” which is a spoof of crime fiction and the “hardboiled” detectives that often appear in it. In this scene, Fred Astaire’s character plays a gruff detective on the hunt for the tormenters of a delicate blonde, played by Cyd Charisse’s character Gabrielle. Gabrielle also plays a sultry, “dangerous” brunette, who attempts to seduce the detective.

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire were both extraordinary dancers, as this scene undoubtedly shows. Cyd Charisse was, literally, bred to be a dancer and held it in esteem over even acting. Her legs were insured for $5 million, and she is one of the few women to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, others include Rita Hayworth, Debbie Reynolds, and Judy Garland.

Fred Astaire was known for his incredible grace, his perfectionism and lightness of foot. Gene Kelly was often noted for his vigor and strength, while Fred Astaire was more precise, and sometimes considered more coordinated. However, even Cyd Charisse herself stayed very diplomatic on the matter, commenting in her autobiography: “It’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re both delicious.”

To jump forward some sixteen years, Sweet Charity was not lucky enough to be born in the 1950s, where questionable plots and sweet-to-a-fault heroines were generally forgiven if the musical numbers successfully atoned for it. Sweet Charity starred dancer, singer and actor Shirley MacLaine, who took one of the film’s songs “If My Friends Could See Me Now” as her trademark.

The film also carries another perennial favorite, “Hey, Big Spender.” The film itself follows the misadventures of Charity Hope Valentine (I told you she was sweet), a naive dancer-for-hire, aka prostitute. Despite being constantly taken advantage of in life and falling on hard times, she remains hopeful. Her dreams seem to have come true when she leaves the seedy dance hall she works in, and meets Oscar Lindquist (John McMartin), who seems to be understanding of her ex-profession, though he later struggles with the idea.

Made in the late ’60s, this musical could dare to tackle issues that earlier musicals couldn’t. Prostitution was often hinted at in movies in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, as was sexual promiscuity (Bette Davis’s Jezebel (1938), and Joan Crawford’s The Damned Don’t Cry (1950) spring to mind), but the morally dubious women was usually ultimately punished by humiliation or heartbreak, or were killed off (Bette Davis’s 1931 Waterloo Bridge is an example of the latter).

Sometimes sexuality was hinted at wordlessly to avoid the wrath of the censor. Cyd Charisse and Marilyn Monroe were often “victims of the censor,” meaning that they were watched closely to make sure that no inappropriate amounts of skin were shown or that they overstepped the mark when it came to their sex appeal. Cyd Charisse expressed her amusement at this attention, saying: “The censors were always there when I was on the set. When I was held up, in a lift, they were up on ladders to see if I was properly covered.”

However, in Sweet Charity Charity all but states that she sleeps with men for money, but is never shamed, or killed for her actions. How to handle this issue made even the filming of the movie quite contentious. Ross Hunter (producer of the 1967 Thoroughly Modern Millie) was originally set to be producer but dropped out due to disagreements with director Bob Fosse on how to handle the delicate matter of prostitution. Ross Hunter wasn’t known for his liking of gritty realism, so it’s possible that he didn’t wish for Charity’s profession to be mentioned at all.

Storms in teacups aside, “Rich Man’s Frug” is an exceptionally well-choreographed and jaunty scene, in which Charity accompanies a celebrity to an exclusive club, and watches the floorshow. The music number also seems to satirize the nature of celebrity and the well-to-do, creating a scene that is quite bizarre and outlandish, complete with cheetahs in cages and elaborate marble statues. The scene also practically drips with the sixties, remaining very faithful to the style and look of the time, and for that reason alone is very memorable and enjoyable to watch. You almost expect Austin Powers to walk out at any moment.

To jump forward another nine years, Grease again pushed the envelope when it came to taboo subjects. In this film, teenage sex, drinking and smoking feature strongly in the storyline (though the lyricist makes certain to mention that Sandy and Danny are “eighteen,” and therefore at least the age of consent). Rather than shy away from the facts, the musical number “Summer Nights” paints a realistic picture of a high school: the boys are almost all fascinated with sex, the girls can be petty and two-faced. There is an obvious rivalry between Sandy and Rizzo, who doesn’t share the other girls’ interest in Sandy’s summer romance with Danny, while Danny’s friends are more interested in “how far” Danny got with Sandy than anything else.

This well-loved musical was adopted from the stage and altered to fit around the fact that Olivia Newton-John was Australian (perhaps she couldn’t do a convincing American accent?), making Sandy not an all-American girl, but an Australian exchange student. Depending on the production, performances of this musical since have opted to either retain this change or not, (the production in my high school chose to keep Sandy’s Australian heritage, unsurprisingly).

The censors still sunk their teeth into the film’s many sexual references, making certain that some of the more crude references were cut. Perhaps for fear of unnecessarily baiting the censors, the producers decided against casting Harry Reems as Coach Calhoun, due to his overturned conviction for “conspiracy to distribute obscenity across state lines”, and his ties to adult movies. Stockyard Channing, who played the promiscuous Rizzo, claimed in an interview that the hickeys on her neck in one of the scenes were real, and that Jeff Conaway “insisted on applying them himself.” Though personally I think that claim more exemplifies Stockyard’s acidic wit than any unusual acting methods used.

The “Summer Nights” scene occurs early in the movie, and is arguably the best-known and best-loved of all the Grease scenes. “You’re The One That I Love” and “Greased Lightning” are also recurring and lasting favorites, but “Summer Nights” is the only song to appear in an insect repellent commercial so it clearly tops the list. It provided, in one quite brief number, a great insight into the 1950s school atmosphere that the film wanted to create. It introduced and distinguished the characters of shallow Marty, prickly Rizzo and sweet, bubbly Frenchy, and those of Danny’s womanizing “T-Bird” friends.

Olivia Newton-John showcased her strong singing voice, if not strong acting skills, while John Travolta followed up his popular role in Saturday Night Fever (1977) with an equally acclaimed role, and began a very long and successful career in film.

I am one of those soulless people who prefer the terrible 2005 remake of The Producers than the classic, groundbreaking original. I feel unclean for admitting it, but there it is. It’s Nathan Lane, and he’s fabulous, and I’m weak. But, confessions aside, this musical number is perhaps one of the most hilarious, most beautifully satirical numbers ever made. It is dripping with Mel Brooks’ rambunctious wit.

Mel Brooks felt that the best revenge we could take on Adolf Hitler, for inflicting such hatred and misery on the world, was to mock him, mercilessly, and he does. In the 1983 remake of To Be or Not To Be he appears as the fuehrer himself, asking: “What do they want from me!? I’m good-natured! I’m good-hearted! I’m good-looking!” when he discovers what the foreign newspapers are calling him, and goes on to sing that he doesn’t want war, he wants peace! A little piece of every country in Europe.

The Producers was one of his most successful and loved comedies, teaming Gene Wilder with Zero Mostel, and creating one of the funniest, most offensive numbers in musical history. Brooks later adapted the film for the stage, turning it into a musical. Nathan Lane appeared as Max Bialystock in the stage production, earning his second Tony award. His experience on the stage is perhaps why he fared better than Mathew Broderick in the remake, and is so funny as the sleazy Max Bialystock.

The 2005 remake is actually more a faithful remake of the stage musical, than the original movie, which didn’t have any of the musical numbers later written for the stage (“We Can Do It,” “Keep It Gay,” “You Never Say Good Luck On Opening Night,” “Betrayed,” etc), and differing characters to the remake. For example, in the 2005 remake Hitler is depicted as being very effeminate, while in the original he is depicted more as being a drug-addled pothead.

The film and musical both centre on Max Bialystock (incidentally, ‘Bialystock’ is also the Polish town Brooks’ ancestors lived in, and which was devastated by the Nazis during WWII), who teams up with the mousy accountant Leo Bloom to make the greatest flop in history, in the hope that the money they raise for the production will be far more than what is needed. They choose “Springtime For Hitler,” a play certain to offend people everywhere, and employ a kitschy director, the insane, Nazi-sympathizing playwright and inept actors to make sure the musical has the shortest run on Broadway in history.

Turning Nazi Germany into a stage musical is just about the most offensive thing anyone could attempt, but, with its outlandish, over-the-top insanity, “Springtime for Hitler” is nothing but brilliant in its intentional tastelessness. Both the 1968 and 2005 versions of the “Springtime for Hitler” scene strongly encompass Brook’s satirical humor, but the original has the advantage of being, well, the original. And of having Brooks dub one of the dancers’ lines (“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi Party!”), but in the 2005 version we watch as scantily dressed soldier women take the pins off invisible grenades with their teeth, while a blonde John Barrowman (Torchwood) dons a German uniform. It’s a tough one.

Though not necessarily a particularly memorable movie in itself, RENT did produce one truly excellent scene and that was accompanied by the song “La Vie Boheme.” Based on the stage production of the same name, RENT centers on the lives of impoverished bohemians living in New York. Among them is a filmmaker, a musician, a drug-addicted exotic dancer, a transsexual and a philosophy professor (both of whom have AIDS), and a bisexual performance artist.

It seems like a crowded and slightly bewildering premise for a musical, but RENT is not about light-hearted comedy or romance. It tackles numerous controversial issues, and centers particularly on the AIDS panic of the late 1980s and 1990s. It is also based on the Puccini opera La Boheme, which has a similar story of struggling artists and musicians.

The film is more or less a series of gritty, hard-hitting numbers, concerning numerous issues, like sexuality, and heroin addiction. The stage production fared far better than the film, winning the Tony for Best Musical, while the film suffered from that “staginess” that so often alienates audiences from musicals. Its (sometimes overwhelmingly) grim material is not enough to make up for the fact that there is very little dialogue, and some of the numbers seem awkward and unrealistic off the stage. Some of the scenes of the disheveled bohemians suddenly breaking into song are very clunky.

But, flaws aside, “La Vie Boheme” is one of the lighter, funnier numbers, providing much needed relief from the sober drama. Rather than focusing on the difficulties of the bohemians, “La Vie Boheme” embraces their various differences and takes a strong stand against convention, conservatism and prejudice. The number is jaunty and witty, taking particular aim at the bohemians’ ex-roommate Benny Coffin III (Taye Diggs), who they feel has betrayed and deserted them. Benny takes a more realistic approach to their situation, pointing out that they are starving and living in a dangerous, filthy neighborhood, but seems ruffled by the displays of sexuality and defiance.

The song also references The Wizard of Oz in the line: “Why Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow to blow off Auntie Em. La Vie Boheme!”

In 2001, after a limited release in the United States, Moulin Rouge embarked on a slow, but sure domination of box offices worldwide. Baz Luhrmann, with his erratic, gaudy trademark, created a film of tremendous power and appeal, and took the notion of “jukebox musicals” to greater extents than any other movie had before. It referenced a huge selection of artists and music, most notably in the song “Elephant Love Melody” where a majority of the song is created out of single lyrics from famous love songs from artists like The Beatles, Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Elton John, and U2.

“El Tango De Roxanne” (based on the song “Roxanne” by The Police) takes place towards the end of the film. Christian and Satine are lovers, but the duke is aggressively pursuing Satine and makes no secret of what will occur if he discovers that Satine is being unfaithful to him. As the number begins, Satine has been coerced into spending the night with the Duke, and Christian is intensely jealous. Sitting in broody silence with the other residents of the Moulin Rouge, he takes out his rage on one of the other prostitutes, prompting her lover, the unconscious Argentinean (Jacek Koman), to retaliate against Christian, accusing him of bringing it on himself for falling in love with a woman who sells herself: “When love is for the highest bidder there can be no trust. Without trust, there is no love.”

The number is almost a throwback to ‘Golden Age’ cinema, in the way that it centers largely on traditional, partnered dancing. This was common in older musicals: “Pick Yourself Up” from Swing Time (1936),”You Were Meant for Me” from Singin’ In the Rain, “Girl Hunt” from The Band Wagon (1953) are examples, among countless others. But it seemed to lose popularity as time wore on, and became increasingly rare, perhaps because it was increasingly difficult to convince the younger, more cynical audiences of a realistic situation when a couple would sporadically burst into dance together. Contrastingly, chaotic, improvised dancing, like that in “La Vie Boheme,” is far easier to integrate.

But in Moulin Rouge, the image of the rows of couples dancing in “El Tango De Roxanne” worked spectacularly, despite the difficult task of sewing this together with the secondary plot of Satine and the Duke. It is an example of flawless musical cinema. There is no seam between the spoken dialogue and the music, it melts together perfectly.

Laced between the tango of the men and women of the Moulin Rouge, we see scenes of the Duke and Satine dining together. The Duke believes that Satine is smitten with him, and is lavishing gifts on her, but his mood soon sours when he realizes that it isn’t him that Satine is in love with.

Incidentally, the principal dancer in this scene (“Roxanne”) is played by Caroline O’ Connor, a celebrated Australian actress, best known for her role as Velma Kelly in the stage production of Chicago.

I read recently that one critic, on reviewing Chicago, had believed that “Cell Block Tango” had played out in the movie much like it had on the stage, and I can tell you that nobody who has seen both the movie and the stage production could make such a claim. The stage production is centered strongly on minimalism, and the acts are staged much like the acts of a vaudeville show, the type of show that Renee Zellweger’s character Roxie Hart desperately wants to star in.

The Ziegfeld Follies are often described as a “higher class” of the vaudeville variety shows that ran from the late 1880s to the 1930s. Vaudeville shows were made up of a wide range of acts, everything from ‘freak shows’ to song and dance. It usually had the archetypal beautiful, costume-clad chorus girls present as well. To keep with this vaudeville flavor, Chicago’s stage production presents both classic dance numbers, like “All That Jazz” and “I Can’t do it Alone,” and other performances, like the “Hungarian Disappearing Act.”

The film also kept the vaudeville flavor of some of the numbers, but was obviously able to create much more intricate, complex scenes that the stage production. Much like “El Tango De Roxanne,” where cutaway scenes of Satine and the Duke are shown, “Cell Block Tango” uses cutaway scenes of Roxy in prison to create two plots, one that is occurring in Roxy’s mind and the second that is the reality. There are other examples of this. Particularly notable is the scene when one of the imprisoned women is hanged. The hanging scene is laced between shots of a “magic act” called the “Famous Hungarian Disappearing Act”. The scene is less effective on stage, because the focus of the audience is split between watching the “disappearing act,” and the actual hanging.

The critic is correct in that, arguably, the movie’s take on the “Cell Block Tango” could have been translated to the stage, as no CGI effects were used in the scene. But it would have to be a production of Phantom of the Opera sized proportions to achieve such a feat.

Despite the added advantages of cutaway scenes (and a huge budget), the film’s take on the “Cell Block Tango” is otherwise quite simple. It is, in essence, an extremely sleek, large-scale vaudeville act. The concept involves each murderess in Cook County Jail recounting the murder she committed, using a red scarf to emulate “where the blood would have been”.

The stage production on which the movie is based is itself actually based on a movie (actually, two movies), which are in turn based on the two very public trials of two murderesses in 1920s Chicago. The story has been taken to the screen twice before, once in a silent 1927 film of the same name, and again in Roxie Hart (1942), in which Ginger Rogers (Fred Astaire’s partner of choice) appears as Roxie.

I decided to add this as a sort of extra, because it does have obvious differences to the other scenes. Most obvious is that it contains no dancing. But an oversight would certainly be made if this classic scene was omitted (yay for agent less sentences). The Wizard of Oz launched a 17 year-old Judy Garland into stardom. Before this film, she had appeared in several small, unremarkable films and it wasn’t until she performed “You Made Me Love You” at the birthday party of Clark Gable that her company MGM seemed to realize her potential.

The Wizard of Oz turned Judy into a household name, and she afterwards appeared in several successful musicals: Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), beside Fred Astaire in Easter Parade (1948), and beside Gene Kelly in The Pirate (1948). At age three, her daughter, Liza Minnelli, also appeared beside her in The Good Old Summertime (1949).

Much like Marilyn, Judy’s life was extremely troubled, and checkered by five marriages, and numerous affairs (some of her alleged lovers included Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner, and Orson Welles), as well as several attempted suicides. She often accused MGM of making her feel inadequate about her looks and treating her badly. Like many movie figures of her time, she suffered from an alcohol problem, and a prescription drug addiction, and this may have led to her overdose and death in 1969, at age 47.

Judy is still one of the most widely recognized and celebrated actresses of all time. This status is aided by The Wizard of Oz’ enduring popularity, and the song “Over The Rainbow,” which made her a star and brought her contralto singing voice widespread admiration. The song snagged #1 on The American Film Institute’s list of the “Greatest Songs” over the past 100 years. The song’s wistful sadness is strongly associated with Judy and her ultimately tragic life.

Judy was often very open about the troubles in her life, and her words often hinted at deep unhappiness. She was quoted in the biography Judy (1999) as saying: “I wanted to believe and I tried my damnedest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and couldn’t. So what? Lots of people can’t…”

Less a film than a series of individual music acts, Ziegfeld Follies boasts a slew of stars: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Lucille Ball, Lena Horne, and one of the original Ziegfeld Follies girls, Fanny Brice.

The Ziegfeld Follies were lavish theatrical shows that ran from 1907 to 1937, and mostly showcased women singing, dancing, or just showing off their looks and figures. The Ziegfeld Follies were known for their extravagance. The creator, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., conceived the idea of taking the popular vaudeville premise of unrelated musical acts and then surrounding them with grand sets and costumes. He also had scenes where beautiful women would simply pose in different ways, and called these “living pictures.”

The history of the Ziegfeld Follies is extremely interesting, and controversial, but far too long to discuss here. It provides, nonetheless, any extremely rich canvas for any film. Unfortunately, Ziegfeld Follies’ premise is fairly weak, and consists of Florenz Ziegfeld sitting in heaven and mentally conjuring up the scenes that follow. Despite this flimsy storyline, “The Babbitt and the Bromide” is truly remarkable. Side by side are two legendary dancers: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. It would be the only time the two would dance together in their careers, except for That’s Entertainment Part II (1976), 31 years later.

The act itself consists of a “Babbitt” and a “bromide” meeting on the street and embarking on a pointless and shallow discussion. A “Babbitt” is a, fairly obscure, word for a complacent, narrow-minded middle-class man, and a “bromide” is a word for an unoriginal or insincere figure of speech, suggesting that Fred Astaire’s character is also both of these characteristics (assuming that Astaire’s character was the bromide, I don’t think that was ever addressed). Fred Astaire’s grace and precision, Gene Kelly’s physical strength and remarkable choreography skills make for a classic, unforgettable scene.

It is also memorable because it is seen as the meeting of two geniuses, especially as the two men play themselves and not characters. They tease each other at the beginning of the scene, Gene making a reference to Fred’s frequent dance partner Ginger Rogers, and Fred doing the same to Gene’s dance partner Rita Hayworth in the 1944 movie Cover Girl.

Most book lists on this and other sites contain the usual suspects, but I think by now everyone who wants to read Haruki Murakami or Thomas Pynchon, already has. Moreover, most of these lists tend to focus on American and British literature, whereas the world is bigger than that. And last but not least: who needs realism if you can have books that create a surreal and absurd world? That’s why I’ve created this list of 10 books written by non-English authors that can be called either experimental or offbeat. No worries for the non-polyglots: all the books on this list have been translated into English.

Alessandro Baricco is an Italian author, who is most known for his very small novella ‘Silk.’ He is often called the successor of Italo Calvino, and though that comparison isn’t exactly right, it gives at least a vague guideline of what to expect. I always think of his novels as disturbed Disney movies, and especially ‘Ocean Sea’ fits that description. In a small seaside town, professor Bartlebloom is trying to find out where the sea ends. There is also a painter who only paints the ocean, using water of the ocean as paint. And then there is this girl suffering from a mysterious illness. All characters stay at the same inn, and all look at the sea for answers.

Roland Topor may not ring a bell, but the 70s movie ‘The Tenant’ by Roman Polanski is perhaps better known. It was based on a novel by Topor and tells the story of a Polish file clerk who rents a room in Paris and soon discovers that the previous tenant has tried to kill herself. Furthermore, his neighbors act really weird around him. Topor, a French artist, was perhaps even more known for his illustrations. His short stories are also very enjoyable, especially a morbid funny story about a school bus that crashes and kids who throw their limbs through the bus.

Penguins – who doesn’t love them? Victor, the main character in ‘Death and the Penguin,’ does and when the zoo in his hometown decides to give away animals because they can no longer feed them, he takes home a depressed pet penguin. From this point the story turns into a twisted crime novel. Victor writes obituaries for living people, but soon finds out that all the people he writes about die. That’s all I can tell, but there is a reason why Kurkov is the most successful Ukranian author at the moment. And it’s not just the penguin.

Being a writer in a communist regime must feel like being a dwarf in a country of giants. Russian Daniil Kharms was even more unlucky, because his fondness of absurdism and the avant-garde, had to be hidden. Social realism was the only literary genre the Soviet regime allowed. Luckily Kharms discovered that he had more freedom if he turned to children’s literature. Kharms hated children by the way. Still, more interesting are the small stories or ‘scenes’ he wrote in secret. Most of them have no real plot and are just absurd, but his use of language makes it very interesting to read. One of my favorite stories is called ‘Falling Ladies,’ and can be read here.

Another Russian writer, although he is more known for his American novels. Lolita is quite an off-beat book because of its theme, but ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ is even more eccentric. The novel tells the story of Cincinnatus C., who is awaiting his execution in a big prison without any fellow prisoners. He is accused for some vaguely defined human trait he has. What follows is a novel that somewhere was described as “Franz Kafka meets the Marx Brothers.” Cincinnatus gets visits from the prison ward all the time and when a fellow prisoner occupies the cell next to him, things get really weird (and funny). The story quite resembles ‘The Trial’ by Kafka (though Nabokov said he hadn’t heard of the Czech writer back then).

The French author Raymond Queneau was a member of the Oulipou-movement, a group of writers who believed in constraint literature. They imposed all kinds of rules on themselves while writing, the most famous example being ‘A Void’ by George Perec, a novel without the letter ‘e’. ‘The Blue Flowers’ isn’t stylistically restrained, but the novel does follow a very peculiar story line. It follows the idea that if you dream you’re a butterfly, it could also mean that the butterfly dreams it is you. In the novel we meet The Duke of Auge, who lives in the Middle Ages, and dreams he is Cidrolin, a French man living on a boat in the 1960s. Cidrolin however, dreams he is the Duke of Auge. Although they live in a different time, their stories are woven together.

Existentialism – I love it. The Japanese author Kobo Abe is often referred to as the Japanese Kafka, so it’s not hard to figure out what to expect. In ‘The Box Man,’ we meet a man who wears a big cardboard box over his head. He walks through the streets of Tokyo this way, while scribbling his thoughts on the inside of the box. He is destined to lose his identity. In the meanwhile he describes the reality outside of the box. There is a man with a rifle who is determined to shoot the box man, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself. As the novel progresses, the reader kind of starts losing his identity as well.

The second Belgian on the list, this time an author from the Flemish-speaking part of the country. Peter Verhelst’s ‘Tonguecat’ won the biggest literary prize in Belgium and he is a very respected author, although his novels aren’t always that accessible. In ‘Tonguecat’ he takes mythology and turns it into something very dreamlike. The book contains a lot of stories that, for example, involve minotaurs who aren’t half man half horse, but half man half motorcycle, and the prostitutes in Tongecuat don’t sell their bodies but stories. The subtitle of the book is “a story brothel.” But the most interesting thing about Verhelst is the language he uses. It’s like an hybrid form between poetry and prose.

Slawomir Mrozek, again, is a writer who had to survive in a communist environment, and used absurdism as a sort of criticism against the regime. That’s why in the story collection ‘The Elephant,’ we read about people who have a revolutionary as a pet and about a zoo keeper who replaces a dead elephant with an inflatable one. But the funniest story is the one about a boy who asks his uncle what a giraffe looks like. Because the uncle only reads books on Marxism, he cannot answer that question. The nephew can only conclude that giraffes don’t exist, since Marx hasn’t written about them. That kind of anti-Soviet humor.

Before I came up with this list, I already knew what would be my number one. Boris Vian is one of my favorite authors, although he is also known for his music (he was a French jazz artist). His novels are very surreal and jazz is a recurring theme. In ‘Foam of The Daze’ we meet Colin, a rich man who has invented the pianocktail, a piano that mixes cocktails if you play certain melodies. When he meets Chloé, he falls madly in love and they marry a little bit later. Alas, their love doesn’t last that long, cause soon they find out that Chloé suffers from a lily in her lung, a deadly disease. At the same time, Colin’s friend, Chick, stars losing control in his obsession to obtain all the works of philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, and the absurd world they live in responds to the growing gloominess of its characters. Did I mention one of the characters is a mouse? Michael Gondry is working on a movie adaptation!

Amélie Nothomb is a Belgian author, writing in French, with a very big fan base in France. She publishes a book a year. Although her latest books are quite sloppy and not very inspiring, she has produced some quite original novels in her early years. Her debut novella ‘Hygiene & The Assassin’ is one of those books. When the world-famous author Prétextat Tach announces he’s dying – of a fictitious disease – all journalists are dying to have a last interview with him. Too bad Tach is an evil man, who succeeds in humiliating all of them. But then a female journalist enters the game, and the confrontation between the misanthropic writer and the determined reporter turns into a brutal clash.

There are many stories about werewolves or lycanthropy. Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf that could mysteriously talk. An American Werewolf in London. Being Human. All STORIES of talking, walking, hungry wolf-men. But has any one really thought if this is actually a real case? I am here to tell you about 10 interesting and weirdly scary cases of real lycanthropy…

In the sixteenth century town of Dole, a proclamation was publicly read in the town square. Its contents gave permission for the people to track down and kill a werewolf that had been terrorizing the village.

While walking through the forest, a group of peasants heard the screams of a small child accompanied by the howling of a wolf. When they arrived they saw a wounded child fighting off a monstrous creature whom they later identified as Gilles Garnier. When a ten year-old boy disappeared in the vicinity of Garnier’s home, he was arrested and confessed to being a werewolf. He was then burned at the stake. Wikipedia has a few more details on this werewolf here.

According to old records, c. 1640, the German city of Greifswald became overrun with werewolves. The population of these beasts grew so large that any human who ventured out after dark was in danger of being accosted by one of them.

A group of students decided that they had had enough and devised a plan. They gathered all their silver goblets, plates, buttons, etc., and melted them down for bullets.

Armed and ready – they struck out into the night to challenge the werewolves. After it was over, the people of Greifswald, once again could venture out at night.

In 1685 the Bavarian town of Ansbach was being terrorized by a large vicious wolf. The rumors were that the wolf was actually a werewolf whose identity was that of the town’s dead mayor. When the wolf was killed, the people of Ansbach dressed the wolf’s carcass to resemble their mayor. It was then put on display in the town square and later moved to a museum.

In earlier times there were extensive forests rich with game in the vicinity of Klein-Krams, near Ludwigslust, Germany. Great hunts were held in the area by sportsmen who came from all over Germany to test their prowess at bringing down their choice of game. For years, however, the hunters had been stymied by the appearance of a great wolf that seemed impervious to any bullet. Sometimes the beast would taunt them by approaching within easy shooting distance, on occasion even adding to the mockery by snatching a piece of their kill, then dash away without a bullet seeming to come anywhere near it.

Now it happened during one great hunt that one of the participants, a young cavalry officer, was traveling through the village when his attention was captured by a group running and screaming out of a house. Seeing nothing pursuing them that would cause such panic, he stopped one of the youngsters and asked what the matter was. The child told him that no adult from the Feeg family was at home except for their young son. When he was left alone, it was his custom to transform himself into a werewolf and terrorize the neighborhood children. They all ran away when he achieved such a transformation because they didn’t want him to bite them.

The officer was bemused by such wild play of the children’s imaginations, that he assumed they were playing the big bad wolf after the sheep or some game. But then he caught a glimpse of a wolf in the house, and in the next few moments, a small boy stood in its place.

In 1541, Pavia, Italy, a farmer… as a wolf, fell upon many men in the open country and tore them to pieces. After much trouble the maniac was caught, and he then assured his captors that the only difference which existed between himself and a natural wolf, was that in a true wolf the hair grew outward, whilst in him it struck inward. In order to put this assertion to the proof, the magistrates, themselves most certainly cruel and bloodthirsty wolves, cut off his arms and legs. The wretch died of the mutilation.

One of the worst-ever lycanthropes was the Werewolf of Chalons, otherwise known as the Demon Tailor. He was arraigned in Paris on 14 December 1598 on murder charges which were so appalling that the court ordered all documents of the hearing to be destroyed. Even his real name has become lost in history.

Burnt to death for his crimes, he was believed to decoy children of both sexes into his shop, and having abused them he would slice their throats and then powder and dress their bodies, jointing them as a butcher cuts up meat. In the twilight, under the shape of a wolf, he roamed the woods to leap out on stray passers-by and tear their throats to shreds. Barrels of bleached bones were found concealed in his cellars as well as other foul and hideous things. He died (it was said) unrepentant and blaspheming.

Claudia Gaillard was one of the hundreds of unfortunate souls brought to trial by the witch-finder Henry Boguet. According to witnesses, she was seen behind a bush assuming the form of a wolf without a tail. For this great sin, she was set to the torture. Regarding the tortures, the judge commented, “Common report was against her. No one ever saw her shed a single tear, whatever effort might be made to cause her to shed tears.” Claudia was then burned to death at the stake.

In 1521, Jean Boin, Inquisitor of Besancon, tried Philibert Montot, Pierre Bourgot, and Michel Verdun for having made a pact with the devil and for lycanthropy. These men became known as the werewolves of Poligny.

These men came under suspicion when a traveler passing through the area was attacked by a wolf. While defending himself, he was able to wound the animal, forcing it to retreat. Following the trail of the injured creature, the man came upon a hut where he found a local resident, Michel Verdun, under the care of his wife, who was washing a wound on his body. Believing Verdun’s injury to be a sympathetic wound, the man notified the authorities. Arrested and tortured, Verdun admitted that he was a shape-shifter. He also revealed the names of his two werewolf accomplices, as well as confessing to hideous crimes: diabolism, murder, and eating human flesh. The three men were promptly executed.

This case was tried in 1692, Jurgenburg, Livonia, situated in an area east of the Baltic Sea, steeped in werewolf folklore. It involved an 80 year-old man named Thiess.

Thiess confessed being a werewolf, saying his nose had been broken by a man named Skeistan, a witch who was dead at the time he had struck Thiess. According to Thiess’ testimony, Skeistan and other witches were preventing the crops of the area from growing. Their purpose for doing this was to carry the grain into hell. To help the crop to continue to grow, Thiess with a band of other werewolves descended into hell to fight the witches and recover the grain.

The warring of the werewolves and the witches occurred on three nights of the year: Saint Lucia, Pentecost and Saint John (the seasonal changes). If the werewolves were slow in their descent the witches would bar the gates of hell, and the crops, livestock, and even the fish catch would suffer. As weapons the werewolves carried iron bars while the witches used broom handles. Skeistan broke Theiss’ nose with a broom handle wrapped in a horse’s tail.

The judges were astounded by such testimony, for they had naturally supposed the werewolves were agents of the Devil. But now they were hearing the werewolves were fighting the Devil. When asked what became of the souls of the werewolves, Thiess said they went to heaven. He insisted werewolves were the “hounds of Gods” who helped mankind by preventing the Devil from carrying off the abundance of the earth. If it were not for them, all would suffer. He said there were werewolves in Germany and Russia also fighting witches in their own hells.

Thiess was determined in his confession, denying he had ever signed a pact with the Devil. He refused to see the parish priest who was sent for to chastise him, saying that he was a better man than any priest. He claimed he was neither the first nor the last man to become a werewolf in order to fight witches.

Finally the judges, probably out of desperation, sentenced Thiess to ten lashes for acts of idolatry and superstitious beliefs.

During the early spring of the year 1603 there spread through the St. Sever districts of Gascony in the extreme south-west of France, the department Landes, a veritable reign of terror. From a number of little hamlets and smaller villages young children had begun to mysteriously disappear off the fields and roads, and no trace could be discovered. In one instance even a babe was stolen from its cradle in a cottage whilst the mother had left it for a short space safe asleep, as she thought. People talked of wolves; others shook their heads and whispered something worse.

The consternation was at its height when the local magistrate advised the puisne Judge of the Barony de la Roche Chalais and de la Chatellenie that information had been laid before him by three witnesses, of whom one – a 13 year-old girl named Marguerite Poirier of the outlaying hamlet of St-Paul in the Parish of Esperons – swore that in full moon she had been attacked by a savage beast, much resembling a wolf. The girl stated that one midday whilst she was watching cattle, a wild beast with rufulous fur, not unlike a huge dog, rushed from the thicket and tore her kirtle with its sharp teeth. She only managed to save herself from being bitten thanks to the fact she was armed with a stout iron pointed staff with which she hardly warded herself. Moreover a lad of thirteen or fourteen years-old, Jean Grenier, was boasting that is was he who attacked Marguerite, as a wolf, and but for her stick he would have torn her limb from limb as he had already eaten three or four children.

Part of English’s success is due to the embracing of new words; British and Irish people in particular seem to take a delight in using new words or misusing or adapting old ones. This list contains eleven words – mostly coined or adopted from the last 40 years, that have become widespread and that have somewhat odd roots.

TWAIN is a standard for communication between imaging devices (usually scanners) and computers. Because it’s always written in upper case, it’s often assumed that TWAIN is an acronym – with the “AIN” perhaps standing for “acquired image network.” It doesn’t, according to the twain.org website, the word “twain” was chosen from Kipling’s the Ballad of East and West, which coined the phrase “…and never the twain shall meet…” which, at the time, symbolized how hard it was to connect a scanner to a computer. It was changed to upper case to make it more distinctive, but in doing so has raised the question “what does TWAIN stand for?” many, many times since.

The “official” collective noun for gorillas is a “band of gorillas,” however a new term “whoop of gorillas” is starting to be used in scientific books and papers. The term “whoop of gorillas” originates from a comedy sketch show called “Not the Nine O’Clock News” and in particular, from one of their most famous sketches, “Gerald the Gorilla.” Just read that sentence again, a scientific term really derives from a comedy sketch starring Rowan Atkinson in a gorilla suit.

You can see the original sketch by searching for Gerald the Gorilla on YouTube. The sketch show appeared on the BBC – which is so widely trusted that even a term made-up in a sketch is assumed to be true.

10a. The same sketch also introduced “flange of baboons” as a collective noun; this is also starting to be used and leads us nicely to:

As well as a “new” collective noun for baboons, “flange” has a meaning in music production. A flanger is a musical effect produced by mixing two identical signals together with one signal having a small, varying delay.

The invention of the flanging effect is usually attributed to Ken Townsend, an engineer at EMI’s Abbey Road studios who devised the system in 1966. The invention was prompted by a particularly tiring session of trying to double-track vocals for a Beatles recording. Such sessions were often difficult as it is obviously important that exactly the same lyrics and phrasing are used for the second track when double tracking. John Lennon asked Townsend if there was any way of getting the effect without actually singing the part twice. Driving home that evening, Townsend “had an idea.” Once a vocal part had been recorded, a copy was made and played back alongside the original. The speed of the playback of the copy was varied slightly (EMI recorders had a varispeed facility to make this possible) which created the flanging effect. At EMI, the effect was officially named “artificial double tracking” or ADT, however Lennon asked producer George Martin how the effect worked and Martin pulled Lennon’s leg by saying, “now listen, it’s very simple: we take the original image and we split it through a double-bifurcated splashing flange with double negative feedback.” From that point on, whenever Lennon wanted the ADT effect he asked for “Ken’s Flanger.” Such was the Beatles’ influence – and Lennon’s enthusiastic praise for the “flange” effect in interviews – the effect was used on most tracks on Revolver and Sgt Pepper and that the name stuck.

There is an alternative explanation that engineers used to press the flange wheel on the copy playback to introduce a slight delay. Some engineers may have tried that, but as the flange wheel rotated at over 20MPH, it seems a little dangerous!

To explain why we “boot” computers, we have to start with Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen, or Baron Münchhausen as he is more usually known. Münchhausen served in the Russian cavalry during various Russo-Turkish wars in the 18th century. During his retirement he gained a reputation for witty and greatly exaggerated tales of his wartime exploits. One adventure was being trapped in quicksand – he escaped (he claimed) by grabbing his own hair and pulling up – which is actually impossible.

The stories were published anonymously in 1781 and over the next hundred years or so, stories were added, changed and translated back and forth between various European languages. By the time they reached America, the quicksand story had changed to him pulling himself up by his bootstraps (which is also impossible, and probably harder than using the hair).

However, the phrase “pulling up from the bootstraps” survived and when computers were being developed, the description seemed apt. In the early days of small computers, the process of starting one up was fairly labour intensive; a tiny program would be loaded using switches on the front panel – the program would enable a larger program to be loaded from a punched tape reader, that program, in turn, would allow the operating system to be loaded from magnetic tape or disc. Because the computer was starting from practically nothing and ended up as a running machine, this process was known as bootstrapping and, eventually, booting. Even modern computers essentially go through the same process – a small program (on a PC known as the BIOS) allows the computer to access a boot disc, which contains the full operating system.

Millions of people use Wikipedia everyday, but Wikipedia is only one example of a “wiki” website – a website which is quick and easy for users of that site to modify.

The wiki website was developed by Howard G. Cunningham, starting in 1994 with the first “WikiWikiWeb” being installed on his website in 1995. So why did he pick “wiki” for the name? It’s derived from the Hawaiian word meaning “fast” or “quick” with “wikiwiki” meaning “very fast” – Cunningham remembered a Honolulu Airport employee telling him to take the “Wiki Wiki Shuttle.” Explained Cunningham: “I chose wiki-wiki … avoiding calling this stuff ‘quick-web.’”

As a very young child, I remember watching the Tokyo Olympics – these were the first games to be broadcast internationally using satellites, so it was with huge amazement that we watched “live” events from the other side of the globe.

One of the lesser-known technological innovations for the Tokyo Olympics was the development of the electronic printer which was used to print the times of results. The printer was developed by the Seiko Group and the printer was called the “Electronic Printer” or “EP.” The printer module was successful and became incorporated into early calculators. Around 10 years later, Seiko launched a range of dot matrix printers into the US market and the US distributor was named EPSON – as the range was the “son” of “EP.” The brand became so established that Seiko renamed itself the Epson Corporation a few years later.

Bluetooth is a short-range radio system for exchanging data over short distances. So why, it has to be asked, is it called “Bluetooth”? The short answer is that “Bluetooth” is the epithet of King Harald 1 of Denmark. A tenth century king who had blue – or possibly black – teeth. The reasoning becomes slightly clearer when you realize that Bluetooth was developed by Ericcson – a Swedish telecoms company who were familiar with the Nordic Harald 1 – and that King Harald’s main achievement was to unite Denmark and Norway under a single king (i.e. himself). In a similar way (at least in marketing speak) Bluetooth would unite different devices under a single protocol.

The system was nearly called Pan – presumably implying it allowed data to cross boundaries (as in Pan-Continental), but just before the launch it was discovered that Pan was already trademarked to someone else, so Bluetooth was quickly pulled in as a replacement.

Although the idea of automata – mechanical people or animals – dates back hundreds of years (there are stories of mechanical horses in the Arabian Nights), the word “Robot” wasn’t coined until 1920 by Karel Čapek. Čapek wrote a play called Rossum’s Universal Robots and the word “robot” came from the Czech word for “serf worker” or “drudgery” (technically, Karel attributed the word to his brother Josef).

So far so odd, but the term “robotics” has an even odder derivation, it was first used by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov who introduced the term in a 1942 short story, Runaround. Asimov was, understandably, proud – and surprised – when he realized that the term had become adopted by people working to build real robots and that many of these people had been inspired by Asimov’s robot stories.

Another word that comes from science fiction, “Cyberspace” was first used by William Gibson in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome. Cyberspace has a slightly eerie feel about it as a concept and Gibson is also credited with the prediction of the rise of reality TV and the virtual worlds of some video games.

The ubiquitous wi-fi – just do a scan for wi-fi servers in any street in the UK and you’re pretty much guaranteed to see half a dozen hosts – is very occasionally known as “wireless-fidelity.”

Clearly, that makes no sense. However, the term “hi-fi” as a contraction of high-fidelity has a tighter specification. In principle, only equipment conforming to the DIN 45500 standard could call itself “hi-fi” (although in practice the term “hi-fi” has been applied to more or less anything that produces a sound). However, when consultants Interbrand were asked to produce a name for the new system, they coined “wi-fi” as a play on the word “hi-fi.” Whilst it’s true that if “wi-fi” is a contraction of any phrase, it would be “wireless-fidelity,” it isn’t. “Wi-fi” is simply a phrase that sounds like another phrase that is a contraction of “high-fidelity.”

And finally, the second (or third if you count “a whoop of baboons,” which I like to do) word derived from a comedy sketch – the famous “Spam” sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The sketch is easily found on YouTube, but it’s based in a cafe where most dishes contains spam, with most items containing several portions – viz “…egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam…” as the waitress reads out the menu, a group of Vikings sitting at another table start chanting “spam, spam, spam, spam.”

As luck would have it, the Spam sketch was broadcast a few years before the early days of online networking, which was carried out over dial-up phone connections running at 1200, or even 300 characters per second, it was a widespread joke to send the word “Spam” repeatedly so that the receiver’s screen would be covered in Spam – this hilarious activity was known as “spamming.”

Now the etymology becomes a little blurred, because in the 1980s, companies that carried out the vital work of bulk posting unsolicited adverts referred to their material as SPAM – an acronym for “Sales, Promotion And Marketing.”

As the Internet became widespread, the two terms seemed to have merged into the single meaning of junk emails clogging up mail boxes, but when I see the term, I still think of Terry Jones in a dress saying as an aside, “bloody Vikings!” when the Spam chant becomes overwhelming.

In the first volume of this list, we covered the top ten awe-inspiring waterfalls. The objective was to present the top 10 showcases of falling water; the ideal large gushing falls which one tends to picture in their mind at the thought of the word “waterfall.” The original ten includes some of the most popular and recognizable waterfalls in this world. When you get past those, it becomes increasingly difficult to find waterfalls with the large enough width, height, and water flow to be specified in the awe-inspiring category. However, after some relentless digging, here are 10 more waterfalls which look genuinely monstrous and also carry the right aesthetic appearance. I wonder if there will be a part three to this awe-inspiring waterfalls series because huge stellar waterfalls are running low.

Big wholesome waterfalls serve as great separation landmarks in forming borders between countries, think Iguazu between Argentina and Brazil, Victoria between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and Niagara between USA and Canada; all three waterfalls covered in the first edition of this list. Detian Falls is not as big as those massive cataracts, but this splendid waterfall is impressive enough to crack open a place for itself in this list. It forms a part of the border between China and Vietnam. It falls 50m down in three steps, which somewhat mucks its holistic potential, but Detian Falls also comes with an 80m width which greatly enhances the whole spectacle. It’s located on the Guising River between the provinces of the two nations respectively and it probably has the lushest surroundings of any waterfall in this list, a common scenic feature surrounding cascades in that region. It must be quite an experience to stand back at the midst of lime-green rice paddy fields of Vietnam, and then glance up and witness the contrast of the whitish blue plunging water.

The beautiful fiords of New Zealand have been featured before in this site, but as gorgeous as the fiords are, the water is not limited to the inlets. Just south of Milford Sound lies Sutherland, arguably New Zealand’s most famous waterfall. Usually tall cascades don’t provide a good representation of what a powerful waterfall should look like. There are exceptions of course, and the first edition featured a couple. So keeping up with that tradition, the Sutherland Falls is a unbelievably tall waterfall at 580m, and is thankfully not too narrow, nor imperfectly vertical as with non-plunge falls; both common faults with tall waterfalls. Also the water flow certainly isn’t weak as being reduced to a trickle as is the case with some of tallest waterfalls of the world. The thundering Sutherland Falls reminds us how height can be such a plus with enough water flow. Tourists say that the noise is more deafening than some of that of the other more popular falls they have been too. Now, that is power.

With Jim Jim falls, we slowly venture into that territory of the classic rectangular waterfall with a robust sheet of water falling in one single plunge. That to me is the perfect kind of falls, and I try to promote that in the previous edition as well as this one. Jim Jim Falls suits this purpose very well as it plunges 150m down from the straight cliffs at Kakadu National Park, located in Australia’s Northern Territory. It is seen best during the wet season which runs from December to March in the southern hemisphere. So with the desired copious amount of rain, the falls emerge straight out of the upper plateau with fantastic force. Sadly in the dry season the water ceases to flow completely, but this makes for a remarkable transformation as the seasons change, and Jim Jim Falls delivers a very aqueous outcome.

Rhine Falls presents itself as one big blur of rushing water. It takes some time for the eye to make out where the waterfall starts and ends as the deluge of water just camouflages with river Rhine and there is no visible terrain present at the top as the sheer volume of the water covers it all. It is a lowly 23m tall, but boasts large width of 150m, and together with the enormity of its water flow, Rhine Falls seizes the no.7 spot. In fact it always makes high appearances on waterfall charts ranking flow rates. And due to the fact it doesn’t carry any rapids and is large enough to have a distinctive appearance, it can be easily counted as one of the elite pure waterfalls. There are also a few viewing platforms which let you observe the falls from up close, adding to the feverish excitement.

USA and Canada have many things in common. One of them is that both nations are hosts to fantastic waterfalls. Montmorency Falls can be argued to be Canada’s best waterfall after Niagara with its awesome dimensions of 275 feet in height and 150 feet in width. It certainly accounts for a grandiose display of falling water on the Montmorency River in Quebec. Fortunately or unfortunately, as per one’s own taste, they have made the falls easier to access by making a park around it complete with facilities to make the viewing easier. These include a footbridge across the falls and a cable car to transport you up and down the cascading waters. This tourist-friendly approach might detract some visitors preferring the thrill of a nearly inaccessible beauty left alone and hidden in its remote location, but then again, the number of possible views from varied angles would be limited without the constructions. Either way, Montmorency Falls is sheer greatness.

Normally, when asked about Ethiopia you might shout out in name of its famous coffee bean varieties, but you know it is a safe bet to bank on a state’s natural wonders if that country happens to be on the Dark Continent. The Ethiopian Tis Issat Falls is also known as the Blue Nile Falls and it is an example of the power of the river Nile, which happens to be the longest river in planet Earth. Due to the building of a hydroelectric dam, the water flow really dries up during the dry seasons providing only a meek sight – a fairly common phenomenon around the world where dams are built. But come rainy season, the water really barrages down and can transform to a 400m wide, full blown waterfall. The height of the Falls ranges from 37 to 45m and there are some wedges of terrain breaking the sheet of falling water. But despite that, Tis Issat continues to amaze, fully deserving an entry at no.5.

Iceland had been established as a minefield for big staggering waterfalls in the previous edition, a list which featured two waterfalls from the Nordic nation. So I can’t believe that Skogafoss Falls got away the first time, as it merits the same attention given to its other two counterparts. It is probably the smoothest waterfall in this list as the water falls down immaculately in a perfectly edged out rectangle of dimensions of 25m width and 60m height. There are no rocks or ridges in between to separate the flow or result in sprouting different water flows which ultimately are close enough to mix and give the illusion of one single large plunge. While this usual case for some of the biggest falls out there, it isn’t for Skogafoss as there is one large sheet of streamlined descent of water, giving the waterfall a very potent appearance. With Skogafoss included, the Icelandic big three are now officially covered.

Continuing another trend from the previous list, India’s state of Karnataka seems to have churned out yet another ravishing waterfall, and there were many more strong candidates from that region when doing the research. Undoubtedly, Karnataka is South Asia’s best waterfall province with its multitude of waterfalls, and it gives us at Gokak Falls at no.3. Now we really kick into beast mode, with the water barraging down from gorges and creating tremendous amounts of mist below. The water of Gokak is of a brownish color which sets it apart from other large waterfalls, and it definitely has the proportions which command respect – a height of 50m, but more importantly a width of 177m. The construction of hydroelectric dam have curbed the water flow to some extent, but come monsoon season this fearsome waterfall hits top gear.

When it comes to Kalandula Falls, stats speak for themselves. It is 104m tall and can be 400 to 600m wide depending on the water flow. This Angolan treasure can look similar in appearance to the Tis Issat Falls with its flow consisting of long stringy plunges coming together to form a creditable sheet of cascading water, revealing brown ridges in between. But it’s over twice the height of Tis Issat, and thus naturally makes an appearance in this list. It is by far Africa’s second biggest waterfall after Victoria Falls, not counting the many rapid containing falls across river Congo, which should not be technically classified as waterfalls in as they look nothing like them. It’s a funny thought how nature goes uninterrupted in spite of all man-made conflicts. The former Portuguese colony took a long time to pull out of a civil war after its independence and is recently working on developing its tourism industry. Kalandula Falls will definitely boost this effort.

Kaieteur Falls was the reason for writing 10 More Awe-inspiring Waterfalls. This was the one cascade closest to making the cut in the first edition, and so I justify its previous exclusion by rewarding it the no.1 spot in this list. Located in Guyana, Kaieteur Falls is blessed with the measurements of 221m in height and nearly 100m in width. Its flow is as planate as you can get without any breaks, it produces more than generous amounts of mist, and no other waterfall at over 200m is as voluminous as Kaieteur Falls. Altogether, it is one of the best exemplary waterfalls out there. The top three waterfalls in the previous edition are dwarfed in height by this wonder and it still manages to have an extraordinarily heavy water flow. In the previous edition, we showed that Iguazu Falls had Niagara Falls beat in all fairness. Kaieteur Falls similarly has got the features to hog your attention and it should be mentioned more often when speaking of the world’s most awe-inspiring waterfalls.

Before I begin my list of fast national dishes, I openly admit being heavily influenced by Jamie’s previous list Top 10 National Dishes You Should Try. The difference here is that Jamie’s (awesome) list was about national dishes, some of which are very labour-intensive – trust me, moussaka takes several hours to prepare, whereas my list solely focuses on fast food. By the way, Jamie, thanks for that list, I had never heard of or tried Bigos or Kimchi before seeing them on your list. They are yummy! Special thanks to my beautiful Katie. Without you this list wouldn’t be half as good and you know it.

Eastern European food is getting more attention globally (just like Eastern European boxers, who dominate most boxing divisions from middleweight up to Heavyweight for the last 15 years, once the Iron Curtain collapsed and they finally made it in the pros), and with delicious foods as Pierogi, I personally join the movement.

In reality it’s truly uncertain the real country of origin of this dish, since its origin is specified to be the wider area of Central and Eastern Europe, but I believe that in the western world, especially in Europe and the US, the Polish version of Pierogi is the most popular one.

Pierogi are dumplings of unleavened dough – first boiled, then they are baked or fried usually in butter with onions – traditionally stuffed with potato filling, sauerkraut, ground meat, cheese, or even fruit. Pierogi are served in a variety of forms and tastes (ranging from sweet to salty to spicy) in Polish cuisine, considered to be the Polish national dish. The Polish word Pierogi is plural; the singular form Pieróg is rarely used, as a typical serving consists of several Pierogi (and trust me, you can’t have just one).

I don’t think there are many people nowadays who have not heard or haven’t tasted sushi. The common ingredient across all the different kinds of sushi is sushi rice. The variety in sushi arises from the different fillings and toppings, condiments, and their preparation. The same ingredients may be assembled in a traditional or a contemporary way, creating a very different final result. The increasing popularity of sushi around the world has resulted in variations, typically found in North America and Europe, but rarely in Japan. Such creations to suit the Western palate were initially fueled by the invention of the California roll. A wide variety of popular rolls has evolved since.

A friendly advice from me to whoever reads that list, try to avoid the kind of sushi which contains pufferfish fugu, it can cause severe poisoning if not prepared properly. The Emperor of Japan is forbidden to eat fugu, as it is considered too risky – he knows better, I guess.

Spring roll is an umbrella term used in the Western world to describe disparate filled, rolled appetizers similar to the Chinese Chūn Juǎn (春卷, lit. “Spring roll”), from which the term was derived. East and Southeast Asian versions of “spring rolls” have different names depending on the place of origin, method of cooking, type of wrapper and filings. Spring rolls can be sweet or savory, baked or fried. Savory spring rolls are typically prepared with vegetables; baked spring rolls are usually larger and tastier!

Personally, I have eaten them in various Chinese restaurants and prefer the fried ones with chicken and veggies inside. Spring rolls are now very common (in the western world) as appetizers in many popular restaurants such as TGI Fridays and the Hard Rock Café, among others.

Not really popular in Europe, but still one of the most famous fast foods in North and Central America, Burrito definitely deserve a place in this list. Burrito or taco de haring as they call it in Mexico, is one of the most famous Mexican foods. It consists of a wheat flour tortilla wrapped or folded around a filling. The flour tortilla is usually lightly grilled or steamed, to soften it and make it more pliable. In Mexico, refried beans or meat are sometimes the only fillings. In the United States, however, fillings generally include a combination of ingredients such as Mexican-style rice or plain rice, refried or regular beans, lettuce, salsa, meat, avocado, cheese, and sour cream, and the size varies, with some burritos considerably larger than their Mexican counterparts.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of Mexican fast food stores in Europe (at least in the three countries I have spent the biggest part of my life, Greece, France and Italy) I have not been exposed much to Mexican cuisine and the few Burritos I had in Taco Time of Glyfada Athens back in the 1990s – they were decent, but I bet were nothing like the ones in Mexico and US. Can we have more Mexican restaurants all over Europe please?

Easily the most famous British fast food, this is also a staple addition to the vast array of available take outs in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada (albeit originally English). Commonly referred to in the UK as the “chippy” this meal consists of battered fish which is deep fried and served with chips and doused with salt and vinegar! Today eating real fish and chips is usually classed as a must for tourists visiting the UK. Personal note – there was nothing like leaving a club in the early hours and eating fish and chips served in newspaper! This was a sure way to avoid a hangover… Damn the EU and its pesky health and safety laws!

A croissant is a buttery flaky pastry named for its distinctive crescent shape. It is also sometimes called a crescent, from the French word for crescent. You can eat it for breakfast, you can have it for lunch or even dinner; you can have it either sweet (dessert) or savory. In the motherland of the specific food, France, croissants are generally sold plain and eaten without added butter.

In the United States, thanks to the Greek American community of Chicago and New York, sweet fillings or toppings are common, and warm croissants may be filled with ham and cheese, or feta cheese, tomatoes and spinach, just like in Greece, where croissants were originally classed as savory and were not only eaten as dessert or breakfast.

In Germany and Italy, croissants are sometimes filled with Nutella and in some Latin American countries; croissants are commonly served alongside coffee as a breakfast or merienda. In Japan, croissants covered with a sweet glaze or filled with chocolate, are common in bakeries and convenience stores. Croissants are also seen in many former French colonies such as Morocco and Vietnam where in the latter they are called bánh sừng bò.

The only sure thing is that croissants are a global fast food nowadays that millions of people worldwide can enjoy on a daily basis. From personal experience, the two best croissants one can have are La Parisienne Almond Croissant and the ham & cheese croissant.

The Greek hamburger, well at least until the arrival of the actual hamburger! Souvlaki, has been around since the days of Aristophanes, Xenophon and Aristotle; that makes Souvlaki the most ancient and historic food of this list, easily. Souvlaki consists of small cubes of skewered grilled meat usually lamb or pork, often served in a pita bread, garnished with sliced tomatoes, onions with a serving of tzatziki (a cucumber-yoghurt-garlic mix). Commonly known outside Greece as “gyro” or “gyros,” since the 2004 Olympics has become increasingly popular and is now served as far afield as China. However, regardless of how popular this has become worldwide, a real souvlaki will only be found in Greece – and trust me on this, I have done my research!

The term hamburger originates from Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, and even though the history of hamburgers go back to 15th century Europe, these tasty ground meat patties really only shot to fame due to mass emigration to the USA. Usually made from high quality ground beef, served in a bread roll with various condiments, the hamburger gained international fame thanks to various American franchises such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, TGI Fridays and the British Hard Rock Cafés.

My three personal favorites: The Beefeater by Thomas Cook. The Jack Daniels Burger by TGI Fridays and the Legendary Burger by the Hard Rock Café.
The worst: The Big Mac!

The national food of Italy, and my personal favorite! You see, the funny thing about Pizza is that if you truly want a good pizza, then you won’t find one in Italy. From personal experience (living two years in Pisa, Bologna and Macerata) I can honestly say I have eaten much better pizza elsewhere, and before nationalists complain – it was not for want of trying! I ate pizza in various restaurants, and pizzerias across Italy and honestly the results were always the same. Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little, but honestly in my opinion pizzerias in the US and Greece serve much better pizza than those in Italy. Again this is my personal opinion, I mean no offense to Italians or Italian cuisine. All I am saying is that the biggest disappointment I experienced whilst living in such a beautiful and historic country… was its national dish!

Clearly the winner and whoever denies this, is just delusional! I can understand there will be some difference of opinion regarding the other nine entries on this list, each will have his/her personal favorite. I also understand that some people will disagree with some of my choices as well, but I doubt there is a single person who has never tasted French fries. Some of the foods mentioned in this list are usually served with French fries (burger, souvlaki and fried fish – This alone proves the popularity of the humble French fry.

Despite the name, this dish originated in Belgium, the term “French Fry” simply means to deep fry. In Belgium you can buy fries in “Friteries” or in a “Frietkot,” they are served with a large variety of sauces or can be eaten on their own. Traditionally they are served with a spoonful of mayonnaise.

When it comes to Western pop culture, I think fries are the true king of the fast food – speaking in terms of popularity and preference. Interesting historical fact: Shortly after the May 1940 invasion of Belgium by the Wehrmacht, Hitler attempted to ban “French fries” because they were the central nutritional source of the Belgian resistance due to their simplicity and availability.

There’s a list here on Listverse of performers who died on stage, and there is a growing list of actors who died during the filming of a motion picture (Vic Morrow, John Candy, Brandon Lee, etc). This list, however, deals specifically with a TV series in which an actor dies in real life, and whose character also dies and is written out of the show, with the expectation that the show continues on without them. Some shows managed a little while, others came to a screeching halt, others have continued on, mostly depending on the role played.

Obviously the shows listed here are U.S.-based TV shows. I’m sure there are probably shows in other countries that had actors die and be written out of the show. I came close to adding Ronnie Barker, but the show he was involved with at the time of his death was a compilation of previous comedy skits with the other Ronnie (Corbett), and technically played himself most of the time. I had a hard enough time finding some of these in the list – you’re welcome to add your own. I’ve arranged these in the order of “star” power; the closer the actor was to the center of the scene, the higher up the list.

Biggs was a regular supporting actor on the show. He died from complications following an aortic dissection on May 22, 2004 (the same condition as #1 only 6 months prior). In the show, his character was killed in an unseen traffic accident. The show continued until 2006.

Hexum played Mac Harper, a former Marine hired by Dani Reynolds (Jennifer O’Neill) to locate her husband. Hexum appeared in only seven episodes. On October 12, 1984, while joking between scenes, Hexum took a blank-loaded .44 Magnum and pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Despite being a prop gun with blanks, the wadding was fired with enough force to send skull fragments into Hexum’s brain, causing massive hemorrhaging. He was taken off life-support six days later. Australian actor Antony Hamilton was brought in to play another member of Harper’s team, stepping in while Harper was away on assignment. Later, it was revealed that Hexum’s Harper character was killed in action. The show was cancelled after the one season.

Hyland played Joan Bradford, wife to Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) and mother to eight children. Diana played in only four episodes of the first season before falling ill. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and died March 27, 1977, 12 days after the first episode aired. She was written out of the remainder of the first season, and at the beginning of Season 2, Tom was a widower who later remarried.

Interesting note: Hyland was dating John Travolta at the time of her illness, and died in his arms.

Allport played a brief supporting role as Andrew Campbell, father of ad man Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) in Season 1 of this series surrounding a New York ad agency in the early 1960s. Allport, an avid hiker, was one of three people killed January 28, 2008 by avalanches near Mountain High, a ski resort near Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. Near the beginning of Season 2, while the agency looked to woo American Airlines as a larger client, a plane crash involving the airline proves a public relations nightmare. Pete suggests to American Airlines that the agency has someone who knows the airline’s pain, revealing that his father was one of those killed in the plane crash.

Conrad played officer Phil Esterhaus, who ended each roll call on the show with “Let’s be careful out there.” The part earned Conrad two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (1981, 1982). In November 1983, during the fourth season, Conrad died of urethral cancer. In the episode “Grace Under Pressure,” the character Phil Esterhaus dies while making love to Grace Gardner (a recurring character played by Barbara Babcock), leaving the precinct in shock.

Davis played Jock Ewing, patriarch of the Ewing oil family, and father to J.R. (Larry Hagman), Gary (Ted Shackelford) and Bobby (Patrick Duffy). Davis appeared in 75 episodes from Seasons 1-3, working as much as he could despite his diagnosis with multiple myeloma and the subsequent chemotherapy. As the third season progressed, his condition required him to be seated and at times wearing a wig. A storyline had Jock separating from his wife, Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes), then reuniting for an extended second honeymoon at the end of the third season which kept Davis off-screen. Davis died April 26, 1981, while Season 3 was still on the air. Rather that write him out of the show immediately, Jock Ewing was kept in the story for another 13 episodes, away in South America exploring for oil. Jock Ewing “died” in a helicopter crash in the episode “The Search,” which aired January 8, 1982.

Nicholas played Ernie “Coach” Pantusso, a regular congenial character on “Cheers” for the first three seasons. Colasanto died of a heart ailment February 12, 1985; his last episode was “Cheerio, Cheers.” The hugely successful show continued on for another eight seasons (11 total). Rather than write Coach directly out of the show, Coach’s character was continually referred to over the course of the show. His absence was attributed to some excuse, either he was away visiting or otherwise doing something away from the bar. Colasanto appeared in the credits all the way to the end of Season 3. He wasn’t replaced directly, but Woody Harrelson joined the show to fill the void. Colasanto had a picture of Geronimo in his dressing room which had special meaning to him; the cast and crew displayed the picture on the main set in his honor. At the end of the final episode, Sam (Ted Danson) silently pauses to straighten the picture on his way out of the bar.

Most notable for his role in “Sanford and Son,” Redd was looking for a comeback with this new series. The show centered around Alphonso Royal (Foxx) and his wife Victoria (Della Reese), a couple hoping for a quiet retirement until interrupted by their daughter Elizabeth and her three children. During rehearsals on set, Foxx collapsed. It was first thought it was part of the character’s act, but Foxx’s heart attack was real, and fatal. By then, seven episodes had been completed with favorable ratings. The immediate thought was to cancel the show, but it was decided to continue with Al’s character written out and cast changes to keep up the show. After 15 episodes and declining ratings, The Royal Family was cancelled.

Hartman played Bill McNeal, a news co-anchor at TV station WNYX. Hartman was shot to death by his wife, Brynn, on the morning of May 28, 1998, who afterward committed suicide. “NewsRadio” had completed four seasons by this time. At the beginning of the fifth season, the character Bill was revealed to have had a heart attack. As a “dying wish,” Bill left notes for each of the other characters to be read on his passing.

At the time of his death, Phil Hartman made guest appearances on “3rd Rock from the Sun” (as Vicki’s ex-lover) and “The Simpsons.” Hartman voiced various characters over 54 episodes of the latter, including recurring character Troy McClure (a washed-up actor). McClure appears for the last time in the episode “Bart the Mother,” which aired four months after Hartman’s death – the episode is dedicated to him.

Ritter played the main character, Paul Hennessy, a sports writer prompted to play a more active role as dad to his two teenage daughters and son. During rehearsal for the fourth episode of the second season, Ritter complained of discomfort, and he was taken to the hospital. He died September 11, 2003 as a result of an aortic dissection (a tear in the aorta causing blood to flow and force the layers of the heart apart), thought at first to be a heart attack. In the show, Paul collapses in a grocery store, supposedly of a heart ailment. A one-hour episode titled “Goodbye” aired November 4, 2003, dedicated to Ritter. The show continued, with the plot working around the death of Paul. Despite moving to different timeslots and the introduction of new actors (Suzanne Pleshette, James Garner and David Spade), the ratings continued to slide, and eventually the show was cancelled after the third season in May, 2005.

Interesting note: Ritter also voiced the title character of the animated series “Clifford: The Big Red Dog.” By the time of his death, Ritter had completed 68 television episodes and work on the feature movie, which was released posthumously. PBS had just debuted “Clifford’s Puppy Days” before Ritter’s death, a serendipitous continuation of the Clifford legacy.

Reeves became synonymous with Superman, playing the title character throughout the series. Hamilton played Perry White, the editor of the ‘Daily Planet’ newspaper. On October 15, 1958, Hamilton died of a heart attack, age 71. His death threw a wrench in plans to continue the series through 1960. Pierre Watkin was brought in to play the brother of Hamilton’s character. Then on June 15, 1959, Reeves died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, although the circumstances of his death has aroused controversy and conspiracy since. Still, producers hoped to continue with the show. Their idea was to focus more on Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen (played by Jack Larson) using stock shots of Reeves and stand-ins for behind shots. Larson rejected the idea out of hand, and the show was basically over. (Larson reprised the role in 1996 as an aged Jimmy Olsen, in one episode of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”).

As if we don’t have enough terrestrial examples of potential exposure to accidental radioactivity release to worry about (Cherobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island) we also need to be looking up for other hazards. Throughout the history of US and Soviet space exploration, these countries have sent multiple devices into space (or attempted to send them into space) that were equipped with one type of radioactive material or another. Most were launched and performed successfully. Some, however, failed and as a result, potentially exposed humans to radioactive material through fallout. Here are ten examples of space launches involving radioactive material that did not go as planned.

RORSAT, meaning Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, is the western term used to describe a series of Soviet Union satellites. These satellites were launched between 1967 and 1988 to monitor NATO and merchant vessels using radar. They were referred to as Cosmos satellites and carried type BES-5 nuclear reactors fueled by uranium-235. For the radar to work efficiently the satellites were placed into low Earth orbit. The plan was for the spacecraft to jettison the reactor into high Earth orbit when the satellites effective life had ended. However, there were several failures.

One such failure was Cosmos 1402. At the end of the satellites intended operational period, the reactor did not separate into high Earth orbit as planned. When the satellite reentered the atmosphere on February 7, 1983, the reactor was the last piece to come home to Earth. It landed somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean.

The US equivalent to a Soviet Union satellite equipped with a nuclear reactor is the radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG. An RTG is a nuclear reactor type electrical generator. The heat released from the radioactive decay of a specified radioactive element in the device is converted into electricity and used for power. Thus RTGs can be considered as a type of battery and have been used as power sources in satellites, space probes and other unmanned remote facilities (such as a series of lighthouses built by the former Soviet Union inside the Arctic Circle). RTGs are used where solar cells are not practical and power usage is longer than what can be provided by fuel cells. A common application of RTGs is as power sources on spacecraft such as Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Galileo. In addition, RTGs were used to power scientific experiments left on the Moon by the crews of Apollo 12 through 17 (except Apollo 13, as we will see).

RTGs may pose a risk of radioactive contamination: if the container holding the fuel leaks, the radioactive material may contaminate the environment. For spacecraft, the main concern is that if an accident were to occur during launch or a subsequent passage of a spacecraft close to Earth.

One such incident took place on April 21, 1964 when a Transit-5BN-3 navigation satellite failed to reach orbit when launched. The spacecraft burned up over Madagascar and the plutonium fuel in the RTG was injected into the atmosphere over the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Traces of the Plutonium were detected in the atmosphere as a result.

On April 25, 1973 the Soviet Union attempted to launch one of its RORSAT satellites into orbit. However, the launch failed and the on board nuclear reactor plunged into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. Little else is known about this launch except the USA is reported to have detected radioactivity over the region through air sampling.

The second incident involving a US RTG happened on May 21, 1968 when a Nimbus B-1 weather satellite exploded when the launch vehicle had to be intentionally destroyed and the lift off aborted shortly after launch. This satellite was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The remains of the satellite and the RTG plunged into the Pacific Ocean off California and five months later the RTG and its plutonium dioxide were recovered from the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel. No radioactive material had been released.

Cosmos 367 was a Soviet RORSAT nuclear-powered satellite launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. On October 3, 1970, only 110 hours after launch, the satellite failed and had to be moved to a higher orbit. Little else is known about Cosmos 367. It now orbits the Earth at an altitude of 579 miles and circles the Earth at a speed of 4.4 miles per second. For a really cool real-time satellite tracking, look at where Cosmos 367 is here (those with low internet speeds be warned).

On December 12, 1987 the Soviet Union launched Cosmos 1900, another RORSAT nuclear-powered satellite. By May of 1988, communication had been lost with the satellite and the Soviets told the world it expected the satellite to renter the Earth’s orbit sometime in September or October of 1988. On or about September 30, 1988, just before the satellite reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up, the Soviets shot the reactor core out of the satellite, intended for high Earth orbit. However, the primary booster failed. Fortunately, the backup booster did move the reactor core closer to high Earth orbit, but 50 miles below its intended altitude. The reactor core is still in low Earth orbit and decreases in altitude with each passing year. Someday, it will come down to Earth, somewhere. The Cosmos 1900 reactor core now circles the Earth at an altitude of about 454 miles and speeds along at 16,753 mph. It takes just about 99 minutes to complete one full orbit. Go here if you would like to see its orbit, but for those with slow internet speed, be careful as this is a link to a website.

SNAP-10A was the first and so far only known launch of a U.S. nuclear reactor into space (although many radioisotope thermoelectric generators have also been launched). The Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power Program (SNAP) reactor was developed under the SNAPSHOT program overseen by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

SNAP-10A was launched from Vandenberg AFB by an ATLAS Agena D rocket on April 3, 1965 into a low Earth orbit over the Polar Regions. On board was a nuclear electrical source (a nuclear reactor) capable of producing 500 watts of power for up to a year. After only 43 days, an on-board voltage regulator failed, causing the reactor core to be shut down. The reactor is now stuck in a 700-nautical-mile earth orbit where it will stay for an expected duration of 4,000 years.

Making matters worse, in November 1979 an event caused the vehicle to begin shedding pieces. Therefore, a collision has not been ruled out and radioactive debris may have been released.

One of the better known incidents involved the unplanned reentry into Earth’s atmosphere of the Cosmos 954 satellite on January 24, 1978. Partly, this was because, unlike the other reentries, the reactor and radioactivity reentered over land, not the ocean. Soon after Cosmos 954 was launched, it became apparent to US officials that the satellite had not achieved a stable orbit and in fact, the orbit was decaying – fast. Once it was known that this was a Cosmos satellite and therefore there was a nuclear reactor on board, the US went into high alert status, tracking the satellite and trying to calculate when and where it would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and crash (the reactor itself was too large to completely burn up on reentry and was sure to hit the Earth). When the satellite finally came down it did so over sparsely populated Northwest Territories of Canada. The radioactive material was spread over 124,000 square kilometers (47,876 square miles), most of which was recovered by a special and secret US radioactive emergency response team. However, it is possible the reactor core itself is still buried deep below the Arctic permafrost and remains radioactive to this date. Had the satellite made one more orbit, it would have reentered somewhere over the populated East Coast of the USA.

Unknown to many Americans, the Soviet Union was attempting, in secret, to put unmanned rovers onto the moon at the same time the US and Neil Armstrong were landing and walking on the moon. The Lunokhod program was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers that were to land on the moon between 1969 and 1977. If not for an accident during the launch, the Soviets would have been on the moon months before the Americans landed. On February 19, 1969 the first Lunokhod rovers were launched. Within a few seconds, the rocket exploded and the rovers were destroyed. On board the rovers were the Cosmos-type nuclear reactors to be used for power. When the rocket exploded, radioactivity was spread over a large area of Russia.

On November 10, 1970 the Soviets were successful when the second Lunokhod vehicle landed on the moon and became the first remote-controlled robotic rover to ever land on another planet or moon. In 2010, the Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter took detailed images of the lunar surface and detected the tracks left behind by the Lunakhod vehicle. Only then, forty years after it touched down on the moon surface, were scientists finally able to determine the final location of the vehicle.

The heroic rescue of the astronauts of the failed moon mission Apollo 13 is well-known. On April 14, 1970 (1970 sure was a bad year for launching stuff into space), on the way to the moon, one of the oxygen tanks exploded, damaging the vehicle. The astronauts, James A. Lovell, John L. “Jack” Swigert, and Fred W. Haise were able to circle the moon on April 15 and return safely to Earth on April 17 thanks to their own heroic efforts and those of engineers and scientists back on Earth.

The return to Earth, however, was not intended to take place with the Lunar module still totting the SNAP 27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). This was designed to be left behind on the moon surface to conduct ongoing scientific experiments. As the Lunar module never landed on the moon, the SNAP 27 and its radioactive RTG came back to Earth along with the Apollo 13 astronauts.

The lunar module burned up in Earth’s atmosphere on April 17, 1970. It was aimed in the direction of the Pacific Ocean near the Tonga Trench (a 5 mile deep ocean valley) to minimize the potential exposure to radioactivity. As it was designed to do, the RTG and its 3.9 kilograms of radioactive plutonium dioxide survived reentry and plunged into the Tonga Trench. There it will remain radioactive for the next 2,000 years. Subsequent water testing has shown the RTG is not leaking radioactivity into the ocean.

One unexpected benefit of the Apollo 13 mission was the survival, in an intact condition, of the RTG. The high reentry velocities the Apollo 13 RTG were exposed to demonstrate the design is sturdy and highly safe.

The history of the Roman Empire is perhaps unprecedented in its prosperity. It is considered by most historians and scholars to have been the “perfect empire,” with a stable economy, a strong government, and, of course, a good military, considered to be the first professional military force (and the deadliest) of its time. Rome’s rich history is dotted with great generals, so from good to great to genius – here are the top 7 Roman generals.

Flavius Aetius lived from 396-454 BC, a time when the Western Roman Empire was in chaos and facing threats from all sides, and had witnessed the quick rise and fall of several military leaders over the course of the past decade, with the brutal Hunnic leader Atilla pushing deep into Italy with vast armies. Flavius Aetius grew up as a boy serving the Imperial Court, before being kept hostage for three years between 408 and 405 BC by King Alaric I of the Visigoths, and later being sent to serve under King Rugila of the Huns. These experiences around clans that were constantly thriving in war largely contributed to Flavius’ military success in later years. In 427 BC, Flavius campaigned in Gaul, defeating King Theodoric I of the Visigoths and capturing the city of Arelate, before driving the Visigoths back and emerging victorious again at the Battle of Mons Colubrarius, defeating King Anaolsus. He campaigned further in 431 BC, gaining victories over the Franks and adding more land to his territory. In 451 BC, Flavius won the battle in which he is most famous for today. Atilla the Hun was thirsty for large conquest to fuel his ambitions, and wanted to attack Gaul while Flavius was still stationed there. The two negotiated, exchanging gifts, with Atilla even presenting Flavius with a dwarf called Zerco. Eventually, however, Atilla invaded, and Flavius partnered with his old Visigoth enemy Theodoric I to meet the Huns on the battlefield. What resulted was the Battle of Catalaunian Plains, in which some sources claim Atilla had over 300,000 men. Over the course of the battle, both sides suffered heavy losses, and it is said that both Flavius and Theodoric I participated in the long battle, with Theodoric I being killed, either by falling of his horse and being trampled to death or by being hit by an arrow. Regardless, Flavius’ forces are considered the victors and Atilla’s Hunnic army was forced to withdraw. Feats like these have earned Flavius the common title of “the last true Roman.”

Living from 63-12 BC, Agrippa lived during a time of great Roman generals such as Julius Caesar and Pompey, and served as the highest ranking and most respected military leader under Rome’s greatest emperor: Augustus Caesar. Agrippa was one of Augustus’s (then called Octavian) best friends throughout his early life, and rose to power with Octavian as he was Julius Caesar’s adopted nephew, and was appointed governor of Gaul in 39 or 38 BC. Agrippa was hailed throughout Rome for quelling a Gallic rebellion, and became famous for refusing to have a triumph help for him. Octavian then seized control of the Roman Empire when Agrippa won his most famous victory, the naval clash between the Egyptian forces of Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII, the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Agrippa participated in minor campaigns in 34 and 33 BC, before leading massive projects to beautify Rome, ordering for the large aqueduct Aqua Marcia to be renovated, and cleaned out the sewers and plumbing systems. This later prompted Augustus to state that he had “found a city of brick and left it a city of marble.” In his later years Agrippa charted geography, carried out surveys of the empire’s citizens, and helped to secure the new empire government system and added his own ideas to how it should be maintained.

I will not write his name twice so I will simply refer to him as Lucius. Living from 229-160 BC, Lucius was the two-time consul of Rome responsible for the fall of the once-great kingdom of Macedonia. Ever since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Macedon had been torn apart and divided by civil wars due to the fact that Alexander did not provide any heirs. Tensions were strained between Rome and Macedonia after the clashes Rome fought previously with King Phillip the V. Thus, in 171 BC, in what is known as the Third Macedonian War, Rome and Macedon were at each other’s throats after King Perseus defeated a Roman army at the Battle of Callicinus. Later that same year, Lucius dealt the final blow to Macedon at the decisive battle of Pynda, a clash of arms which famously displayed legions flexibility over the tightly packed phalanx. Lucius ordered the execution of 500 Macedonian soldiers and exiled many more, before plundering huge amounts of money, the majority of which Plutarch states he selfishly kept to himself. To satisfy both his hunger and his men, Lucius authorized the brutal sacking of 70 towns in the kingdom of Epirus, enslaving an estimated 150,000 people. His return to Rome was celebrated with huge triumphs, in which the senate awarded him the title Macedonicus.

Constantine the Great (or St. Constantine) is famously remembered for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, which is described as a dramatic ordeal in which he viewed the forming of a cross while staring into the sun. He relocated the Roman capital from the western city of Rome to the eastern city of Constantinople (Istanbul), a city that was brilliantly centered in between the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and thus thrived as a huge trading center for people from all over the world. Thus, he is considered the founder of the great Eastern Roman Empire (also called the Byzantine Empire), which would live on another 1,000 years following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. He established his rule by defeated Maxentius and Licinius during civil wars. During his reign he led successful campaigns against the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and the Sarmatians. He is considered one of the best emperors (and first) of the Byzantine Empire and launched it into great success for the many emperors that would follow him.

Commonly referred to as simply Pompey, he lived from 106-48 BC, experiencing much war and conquest with his life. In 83 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla returned to Rome from successful campaigns against King Mithridates the Great of Pontus, battling the powerful Marian family for control of Italy in a civil war. Soon, with the help of Pompey and his tactical maneuvers with three legions, Sulla took full control of Rome and declared himself dictator for life. Sulla was impressed with Pompey’s performance, and over the course of decades, Pompey fought successful campaigns – the first of which in Sicily and Africa through 82-81 BC. He secured Sicily and established a large grain supply for Rome, before defeating King Hiarbas and conquering Numidia. Pompey was declared Imperator by his loyal soldiers and given the title Pompey the Great by Sulla, before receiving lavish triumphs in Rome. Sulla died in 78 BC, and Pompey was sent to Hispania, in which he campaigned for five years (76-71 BC) and found it difficult to deliver a crushing blow to the resilient King Sertorious, who successfully deployed effective guerrilla tactics against Pompey’s forces on more than one occasion. Finally, after Sertorious’ assassination by one of his own officers, Pompey returned to Rome, where he captured 5,000 gladiator rebels led by Spartacus, which infuriated the very rich Marcus Licinius Crassus, who claimed that the credit should be directed at him as the rightful one who ended the rebellion.

In 71 BC he was rewarded another massive triumph in Rome, and was easily elected Consul in 70 BC along with Crassus. In 68 BC Pompey gained more popularity by commanding the successful eradication of pirates in the Mediterranean Sea (however some, notably Cicero, would later criticize this). In 61 BC, Pompey joined the First Triumvirate along with Julius Caesar and Crassus (mentioned earlier, the two had made up by then). Throughout the 50s (BC time, not 1950s), Pompey led even more successful campaigns against Pontus and Judea (Israel). However, trouble was brewing in the Triumvirate after Crassus was killed at the disastrous Battle of Carrhae, and Pompey was growing increasingly jealous of the huge military success Caesar was experiencing. Inevitably, Caesar and Pompey went to Civil War in 49 BC, and Caesar was determined the victor after the decisive Battle of Pharsalus, in which Caesar’s brilliant tactics and superior veterans defeated Pompey’s larger numbers. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated on the order of King Ptolemy XIII, in an attempt to please Caesar (this attempt completely backfired, by the way).

Scipio lived from 236-186 BC and is considered one of the greatest generals in all of history. Upon his joining of the Roman army at an early age during the Second Punic War against Carthage and led by the brilliant Hannibal Barca, Scipio vowed that he would participate in the struggle until the end. He served with distinction and notably survived the Battles of Ticinus, Trebia, and Cannae (Cannae being labeled by some historians as the worst military defeat in Roman history). Even more incredible, Scipio supposedly saved his father’s life (also named Publius Scipio) when he was 18 “by charging the encircling force with reckless daring” – from the historian Polybius. Scipio’s loyalty to achieving Roman victory was so strong that, during a conference in which Rome’s leaders had gathered to discuss the possibility of surrender, Scipio ran into the room, threatening the politicians at sword point to never surrender. In 211 BC, both Scipio’s father and uncle were killed in battle by Hasdrubal (Hannibal’s brother) and Scipio became the new head general. Over the course of the next few years, Scipio captured Carthago Nova (New Carthage) in Hispania, which became his base of operations. Scipio gained huge respect for his humble conduct towards prisoners, and on one occasion, after being offered a beautiful woman as a prize of war, he returned her to her fiancé, a chieftain of the Celtiberian tribe named Allucius. Allucius was then so thankful that he reinforced Scipio’s forces with warriors from his tribe. Scipio then fought the Battle of Baecula against the forces of Hasdrubal, in which he outflanked and surrounded the Carthaginian army with his cavalry, while evading the armies of Gisgo and Mago (also two of Hannibal’s trusted generals). This victory, however, has been criticized because of Scipio’s decision not to pursue Hasdrubal’s fleeing army. There are many theories, but I will stick with the one in which he feared getting caught by the separate armies of Mago and Gisgo. In 205 BC Scipio was given the title of Consul and returned to Africa to resume his campaign against the Carthaginians, in which Scipio fought his most legendary and famous battle: Zama.

Arriving at the battlefield, Hannibal (yes, the great Carthaginian general himself was present at Zama) had an estimated 58,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, as well as 80 war elephants Scipio had 34,000 infantry and about 8,700 cavalry. The battle took place on October 19, 202 BC, and began when Hannibal ordered his elephants forward to punch holes in the Roman lines. Scipio, however, had arranged his men in vertical columns with pathways in between. Many elephants were simply goaded along through the openings, while others were forced back into the Carthaginian soldiers due to blaring noise from Roman trumpeters, causing damage and confusion to Hannibal’s left flank. Scipio’s cavalry then successfully engaged and routed the elite Numidian cavalry deployed by Hannibal, and chased them down. The infantry then proceeded to engage each other, Scipio having his line drawn out long to match the numerical superiority the Carthaginians had. The resulting clash was fierce, brutal, and bloody, and after a long standstill Hannibal’s army was finally vanquished when the Roman cavalry returned to make a rear charge. Modern historians call Zama the “Roman Cannae.” The humble Scipio did not sack Carthage like the Senate wanted him to, instead imposing moderate regulations and taxes upon them, and Scipio was welcomed back to Rome hugely famous, rewarded with a triumph and given the title Africanus and was even asked to become dictator or king (which he refused). Scipio Africanus had the rare military distinction of never losing a battle in his career.

Julius Caesar (I will call him Caesar), is probably the most famous Roman to have ever lived. He was a brilliant politician, writer, statesman, and of course, an absolute genius military general, and the most legendary of any Roman. Caesar was born in 100 BC (there is debate that it was 102 or 101 BC) to a noble family and joined the army in 85 BC following the sudden death of his father, receiving the Civic Crown for his service in an important siege (the Civic Crown is a laurel leaf “hat” that Caesar would wear throughout his life to cover his baldness). Caesar was almost killed in his 20s when Lucius Cornelius Sulla became dictator of Rome in 82 BC, he quickly began eliminating his enemies by either execution or exile, and Caesar was opposed to his policy, and thus was forced to flee Rome, catching severe malaria that very nearly killed him. Caesar returned to Rome after Sulla’s death in 78 BC, quickly becoming extremely popular by holding elaborate gladiator games for the public (in one instance, the Senate limited the amount of gladiators used in one of his shows because he had an amount large enough to prompt the Senate fear a secret rebellion). Caesar led successful campaigns in Spain in 69 BC, and famously discovered a statue of Alexander the Great, and felt ashamed realizing that he was the same age Alexander was when he had conquered half the world. Caesar was a master orator and hosted huge gladiator shows for the public, while giving bribes to voters.

This accumulated him massive debt but, in the end, caused him to reach the position of pontifex maximus (high priest) and consul in 59 BC. Caesar had also formed the First Triumvirate with Marcus Crassus, who was perhaps the wealthiest person in Rome (if not the world) during that time and freed Caesar of his huge debts. Pompey, the third member, was chosen for his huge military success (at the time, he was more popular than Caesar) and the deal was sealed following Pompey’s marriage to Caesar’s daughter Julia. Caesar launched his conquest of Gaul in 58 BC, and would remain there until 51 BC. This campaign is perhaps the most famous and brilliant of any Roman general, and is vividly recorded through Caesar’s own seven volume writings, in which he relates himself in the third-person and often relates himself as a genius, and probably has some figures exaggerated. Even so, his writings generally match that of Plutarch and other historians. He faced a formidable opponent, Vercingetorix, who understood that the science to defeating the Romans was not to face them on open ground in a fair fight, but rather, use guerrilla tactics and quick ambushes, and even deployed the interesting tactic known as “scorched earth,” in which everything, from landscape, to food, and even your own villages, is torched, the goal being that Caesar would not be able to supply his army with the necessary resources for a campaign. In 55 BC, in a display of the brilliant architectural abilities of the Romans, Caesar ordered his 40,000 men to build a bridge that would allow them to cross the 30 foot Rhine River to engage the Germanic forces on the other side. The bridge is estimated to have been 460-1,300 feet long and 23-30 feet wide, and only took ten days to complete.

Then, in 52 BC, perhaps Caesar’s greatest battle took place at the Siege of Alesia, in which Caesar used brilliant siege tactics, which included walling the already walled city, before then walling the wall to keep out reinforcements (yes, Caesar was GENIUS!). Over the course of the several weeks following, Vercingetorix and the 180,000 men, women, and children trapped in Alesia were starving to death, and the Gallic general managed to get word to other Gallic tribes to aid him, receiving a response of 250,000 soldiers led by Commodus. Despite being outnumbered 4:1, Caesar’s wall only allowed for a narrow opening, and thus Caesar still managed to ward off the counterattack. Finally, Vercingetorix surrendered, and Caesar’s 7 year campaign came to an end. Upon returning to Rome, Caesar was hugely welcomed with massive triumphs, and Pompey paled in comparison. Soon, Caesar left for the British Isles to campaign, and he and the jealous Pompey fought their own separate wars until Crassus (who was jealous of both of them), went off to Parthia with an army that was defeated at Carrhae, considered one of the worst losses in Roman history. Soon (you know what, you know the story…) and Pompey was killed. Caesar then killed our old friend Ptolemy XIII and married Cleopatra VII, and the couple gave birth to a son, Caesarian. Caesar then invaded Rome and took control of it by force, becoming dictator for life in 45 BC. Caesar had many plans for the future, including an invasion of Parthia the following months (in revenge for Crassus). He changed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire and established the second chapter of Roman history, and the long line of emperors that would come with it. However, on March 15, 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by 60 senators led by Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius by being repeatedly stabbed in the Senate chambers, with sources claiming he was stabbed up to 23 times.