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Showing posts from October, 2020

The Twelve Labors of Hercules

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  For a very long time, Hercules (Heracles) did not know he was half man and half god. His mother was a mortal. But his father was a king - a very special king, the king of all the gods, the mighty Zeus. Zeus loved his little son. But Hera, Zeus' wife, hated Hercules. She was very jealous. She tried all kinds of ways to kill Hercules, including sending a couple of big snakes into his crib. Hercules crushed those snakes in a flash! Hercules was incredibly strong, even as a baby! To keep his small son safe from attack, Zeus sent him to live with a mortal family on earth in the ancient Greek city-state of Argos. Hercules grew up noble and loved. He married and had a couple of kids. He was happy, but he did not fit in on earth. He was too big and too strong. He was hard to miss. Hera soon discovered his location. The rest of the story of Hercules is a bunch of little stories that together tell the tale of how Hercules used clever tricks and great courage to stay alive and earn his way ...

The Statue of Liberty and Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament

  The Statue Of Liberty from Δήμητρα Κουτσιλά The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor within New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery. After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, s...

Greek Myths

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Prometheus and Fire Icarus and Daedalus Medusa and Athena A myth is a classic or legendary story that usually focuses on a particular hero or event, and explains mysteries of nature, existence, or the universe with no true basis in fact. Myths exist in every culture; but the most well known in Western culture and literature are part of Greek and Roman mythology. The characters in myths—usually gods, goddesses, warriors, and heroes—are often responsible for the creation and maintenance of elements of nature, as well as physical, emotional, and practical aspects of human existence—for example Zeus; the god of the sky and the earth and father of gods and men, and Aphrodite; the goddess of love and fertility. A culture’s collective myths make up its mythology, a term that predates the word “myth” by centuries. The term myth stems from the ancient Greek muthos, meaning a speech, account, rumor, story, fable, etc. The terms myth and mythology as we understand them today arose in the E...

James and the Giant Peach

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  James Henry Trotter is a boy who lives with his parents in a house by the sea happily. Unfortunately, when he is four years old, an escaped rhinoceros from the zoo eats James's parents and he ends up with his two cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Instead of caring for him, they treat him badly, feed him improperly and force him to sleep on bare floorboards. After James had been living with his aunts for three years, he meets a mysterious man who gives him green beans and says that if he would drink it his life would change for the better. While going to his home he falls and the beans spill on a peach tree. The tree, in turn, produces a single peach which soon grows to the size of a house. Spiker and Sponge build fences around it and earn money by selling tickets to tourists, giving them the chance to see the peach. James is locked in his house and sees the peach through the bars of his bedroom window. After the tourists have gone, James is assigned to clean the rubbish and finds a...