The term to play second fiddle to originated in the world of music (fiddle means violin) in the early 19th century. In orchestras, the most prominent member was the musician who played the lead violin and got the most recognition. The other musicians became known as second fiddles and the expression is now used to denote someone or something with …

The Rubicon is a shallow river, about 80 km long, in northeast Italy. The idiom ‘crossing the Rubicon’ means to pass a point of no return, and refers to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the river in 49 BC, which was considered an act of war, as the course of the river has frequently changed. It is a point beyond which …

A trip up a high mountain near the equator takes you through a series of climatic and plant zones that resemble those you would meet on an overland journey from the equator to the poles. This is because temperatures fall by about 6 C for every 1,000m (roughly 1o F for every 300ft), so that leave a hot equatorial climate …

The Hecatoncheires, or Hekatonkhires, were figures in an archaic stage of Greek mythology, three giants of incredible strength and ferocity that surpassed that of all Titans whom they helped overthrow. Their name derives from the Greek, “each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads” (Bibliotheca). Hesiod’s Theogony (624, 639, 714, 734–35) reports that the three Hekatonkheires became the …

On exposed cliff faces, you will often see that the rocks are arranged in layers, rather like a sliced loaf placed on end. The layers, or strata, may be level, tiled or bent into rounded wrinkles, or folds. Folds are caused by sideways pressure from colliding plates in the Earth’s crust. The tremendous pressure created by sideways moving plates can …

By looking like a dead twig, the stick insect fools hungry birds and escapes being eaten. A few animals, however, make every effort to attract attention. The skunk ambles about the its black and white markings easily seen. Some caterpillars are so brightly coloured they can hardly be missed by birds. Why? The bold marking are a warning. The massage …

To William Shakespeare, the son of John Shakespeare, a dealer in wool and leather, who lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. In this town standing on the banks of the River Avon in Warwickshire, was born in April 1564, the boy who was to win immortal fame as the world’s greatest dramatist, the good friend of nobles and the wonder of his and …

It was written by an actor, ex-schoolmaster and clerk in the City of London. His name was Jerome Klapka Jerome, born at Walsali, near Wolverhampton, May 2, 1859. Turning to literature, his first book was On the Stage and Off, published 1885, an account of his theatrical adventures. Four years later his masterpiece Three Men in a Boat appeared. It …

Owen Wister, who, like several other writers, first studied the law. Born at Philadelphia, July 14, 1860, he became a barrister in 1889 but he abandoned the law to write books. He excelled in stories of the West and is regarded as the writer who laid the foundations of the later form of cowboy stories. The Virginian has been filmed …

By Julius Caesar himself. As a man of letters, Caesar stands in the highest rank. Regrettably the only works of his that have come down to us are his famous commentaries on the Gallic war and Civil war. His accounts of his campaigns reveal the brilliant genius that certainly made him one of the greatest warriors of all time.