The Soul of Shaolin is a popular Chinese play based on martial arts. It was staged during the Beijing Olympics. It is due to begin on Broadway in January 2009 and will have the distinction of being the first Chinese theatrical event to appear on Broadway. The show portrays the life of Hui Guang, who is separated from his mother …

The smallest country in the world is the Vatican City, which is less than one square mile in area, and is completely surrounded the city of Rome. The Vatican City has its own national anthem, stamps, newspaper and radio station, and has a population of just under a thousand people.

The theory was the brainchild of psychologist Stanley Milgram who wanted to find the answer to the small-world problem. So in the 1960s, he conducted an experiment by mailing a packet to 160 people in and around Omaha, Nebraska, that needed to reach a broker in Boston. The findings showed that these letters reached the broker in five to six …

In 1939-1940, a brutal invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union decimated Estonia. But in 1991, after several years of aggressive political manoeuvring, bold demonstrations and large singing protests, where thousands of Estonians gathered publicly in an effort to end decades of Soviet occupation, Estonia declared its independence. The revolutionary songs they created anchored Estonia’s non-violent struggle for freedom.

The pawnbrokers’ symbol is three spheres suspended from a bar. The three sphere symbol is attributed to the Medici family of Florence, Italy, owing to its symbolic meaning of Lombard. This refers to the Italian province of Lombardy, where pawn shop banking originated under the name of Lombard banking. The three golden spheres were originally the symbol which medieval Lombard …

Navratri is celebrated to worship the goddess Durga. She is the embodiment of Devi, or the supreme goddess. This form of the goddess has nine aspects. Navratri therefore is dedicated to the worship of these aspects. Each form or aspect of the goddess has its own day dedicated to it. The Navratri celebrations are devoted to the worship of the …

Jerusalem Day, called Yom Yerushalayim by the Jews, is the festival celebrated by Israel every year on the 28th day of the Iyar month of the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem by Israel during a sixday war in 1967. Many sites, including Temple Mount, considered holy by the Jews, are located in the …

The term avante garde refers generally to art for the sake of social progress. But sometimes, the term is also used to refer to experimental and innovative art without any specific social purpose. The term is used with the former meaning in Russia, which experienced a great art reform in the period 1917-1932 in the wake of the Russian revolution. …

The Priory of Sion is a very obscure group whose presence has not been established with concrete evidence. Papers relating to their existence were found in 1975 at Paris Bibliothhque Nationale, which named Da Vinci and Isaac Newton among its Grand Masters. According to the most popular theory, it is believed that the priory started out as an administrative wing …

Prague Spring refers to the period of liberalisation in Czechoslovakia from January 5, 1968 to August 21, 1968 under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek who controlled the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In April 1968, agricultural and industrial reforms were instituted, a new constitution with a guarantee of civil rights and greater freedom of press was introduced with the announcement of …