Alexander the Great died more than 2,300 years ago. But his cult of personality is just starting to grip this tiny Balkan country. To the annoyance of next-door Greece, which has long claimed the conqueror as its own, Macedonia has anointed Alexander its national hero.
For centuries it's been said that the crusading Knights of Malta constructed an underground city on the Mediterranean island of Malta, sparking rumors of secret carriageways and military labyrinths. Now a tunnel network has been uncovered beneath the historic heart of the Maltese capital of Valletta, researchers say. But the tunnelslikely from an ahead-of-its-time water systemmay render previous theories all wet.
Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life. So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.
The fact that the British, Spanish, French and others ended slavery peacefully – as did the Northern states in the U.S., where slavery existed for over 200 years – is perhaps the court historians’ best-kept secret. Most Americans have only heard of how slavery was ended in the Southern states and are unaware of how it was ended peacefully in the Northern states and in the rest of the Western Hemisphere during the 19th century. There were no "wars of emancipation" in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, or Illinois, which were all once slave states.
The mass executions -- intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners -- were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century.
The layer of peat and the high acidity of the marshy lake had created a kind of protective cocoon around the tank, sealing it off from corrosion and preserving it through 56 years under water. To the team’s delight, nearly every part and mechanism proved to be in perfect working order after cleaning. The fuel tanks were found to be empty, confirming the assumption that the tank had been abandoned and dumped in the lake due to shortage of fuel. The diesel engine had leaked no oil. Astoundingly, without replacing any spare part, the team managed to start up the Diesel engine.
The story of Jesus was not only not unique, but it was an almost identical copy of several other religious leaders, including Krishna, Buddha, Mithras, and Osiris.
