Calliope articles from April 2004

Calliope archives from April 2004

Musings.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... We should endeavor to do something so that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time. --Napoleon NAPOLEON--JUST SEEING THE NAME BRINGS VISIONS OF WORLD CONQUEST AND...

Ci-git.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Longwood House, St. Helena, May 5, 1821: In a small, crowded bedroom, high atop "the ugliest and most dismal rock conceivable," Napoleon Bonaparte lies dying. His short, stout frame racked with fever, the Emperor of the French tosses...

Napoleonic images.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Since the beginning of Napoleon's career, people have been making images of him on just about every type of material. Many of them were based on famous paintings available only to a few wealthy people or museums. These small decorative arts...

Emperor for life.
April 1, 2004... It was in 1804, barely 15 years after the French Revolution abolished the monarchy, that the French government was again under the control of one man--Napoleon. After an assassination attempt on Napoleon that same year had scared the...

Rising in the ranks.
April 1, 2004... Not only did Napoleon not belong to the French royal family, he did not even have a drop of French blood. His ancestors were minor Italian nobles who had settled on the island of Corsica. His father had even fought against French rule. How,...

Revolt topples the monarchy.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... During Napoleon's youth, ideas of liberty and self-rule filled people's minds. Corsicans were struggling for independence from France. Americans were winning their battle against British rule--with French help. Frenchmen were dreaming of...

Revamping the government.
April 1, 2004... When Napoleon became the ruler of France, the country was a nation in turmoil. From the all-powerful regime of the Bourbons had emerged a successful revolution led by the people. But after 10 years of upheaval, the people were ready to welcome...

A time for love.
April 1, 2004... A beauty from the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean and a soldier from a proud family on the impoverished island of Corsica: Under normal circumstances, these two would have made an unlikely pair. Nevertheless, with their colorfully...

Title for an heir.(Activity)
April 1, 2004... Use the clues below to help you find the 15 words in the maze. Then, assemble the letters in the circles. Unscramble them to find a title given to Napoleon's heir. Answers below. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. Napoleon's first wife 2....

Friends and foes.
April 1, 2004... Countries, like people, have friends and foes. Friends exchange goods and services and, when necessary, came to a country's defense against aggressive nations. Foes want someone else's land or resources, or they disagree with another country's...

Waterloo: the end of an age.
April 1, 2004... A desperate gamble, a final campaign, a last battle: Thus do historians describe Napoleon's return from exile on the island of Elba, the Hundred Days that followed his re-entry into France, and his final defeat at Waterloo. Declared an...

Last retreat.
April 1, 2004... After the catastrophic defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated his throne for the second time and fled to the coast. Unable to slip away to America, he bowed .to the inevitable and boarded HMS Bellerophon. becoming a prisoner of the British,...

Winning the war, losing the peace.
April 1, 2004... Before 1789, the common people throughout Europe had little experience with freedom or democracy. In each country, powerful rulers were in control. France's adoption of "The Rights of Man" and Napoleon's "freeing" of his country promised...

How accurate is historical painting?(Activity)
April 1, 2004... The date: December 2, 1804. The place: Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. The occasion: The coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of France. Napoleon commissioned his official painter, Jacques-Louis David, to record the pomp and ceremony of...

Napoleon's legacy.(From Past to Present)
April 1, 2004... How can the career and impact of a figure such as Napoleon be described? No one can deny that he left the imprint of his towering personality everywhere--from his administrative and educational reforms to the new nobility he created, the...

A debt paid in full.
April 1, 2004... On May 19, 1984, a French delegation visited the little town of Bourg-St. Pierre in Switzerland's Canton of Valais. The reason? The dedication of a bronze plaque, cast at the Louvre Museum in Paris, to commemorate the passage of Napoleon...

Chowder.(Work Origins)
April 1, 2004... Ever wonder why soups made with milk, onions, potatoes, spices, and fish are called chowders. The term is actually an American one, but its root word is French: chaudiere, meaning "pot." To be sure, you need a good pot to make a good chowder!

Five-card Napoleon.(Expressions)
April 1, 2004... In the 1800s, a card game in which the winner was the player who took all five tricks, that is, took cards from each of the other players, became quite popular. Appropriately, it was named after Napoleon, as he was known to impose heavy taxes...

Napoleon pastries.(Expressions)
April 1, 2004... Here's a phrase that can fool you. Walk into a bakery, and you're sure to see rectangular squares of layered puff pastry that have a custardlike filling. Yummy, yes, but they're not named for the French emperor, but after the Italian city of...

Picayune.(Word Stories)
April 1, 2004... Today, the adjective "picayune" is used to refer to a situation or thought that is of little importance, as well as to ideas that reflect prejudice or a narrow outlook on a topic. When used as a noun, "picayune" has two distinct meanings:...

A 'head' match.(Activity)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Napoleon belonged to a Corsican family whose members were closely involved in one another's affairs. He used his relatives to extend his political power by placing them into important positions of by arranging key marriages for them. Read the...

Ask Calliope.
April 1, 2004... [?] What does Machu Picchu mean? Where is it? --Dolores, Web post [!] Machu Picchu translates into English as "Old Peak." Located in the Andes Mountains in southern Peru, it is separated by canyons from Huayna Picchu, which translates...

Books.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2004... A recent biography of Napoleon is Napoleon's Road to Glory: Triumphs, Defeats & Immortality by J. David Markham (Brassey's, 2003, www.chrysalisbooks.co.uk). This easy-to-read, one-volume biography covers all aspects of Napoleon's life: his...

Documentaries.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2004... One of the best documentaries on the French emperor is Napoleon: The Myth, the Battles, the Legend, available on DVD and VHS. It features a number of historians giving their point of view on every aspect of Napoleon's life and includes dramatic...

Movies.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2004... One of the very first silent films ever made was about Napoleon, and they just keep coming! A really enjoyable one to watch is Waterloo, starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon Christopher Plummer as Wellington, and Orson Welles as Louis XVIII....

Web sites.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2004... The Napoleon Series [http://www.napoleon series.org/] is probably the best overall Web site on Napoleon. The information is clearly organized, and there are many images that illustrate the period. There are also maps, translations of important...

Napoleon's sunken fleet.
April 1, 2004... On July 1, 1798, after successfully escaping a British fleet, Napoleon landed at Alexandria, Egypt. Three weeks later, in sight of the pyramids at Giza, his army defeated the Mamelukes, the warrior-rulers of Egypt. All was going well with the...

Eyewitness to battle.
April 1, 2004... Vivant Denon, one of the civilian scholars or savants V accompanying the French fleet, described the battle and its aftermath in his book Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt (1803). At first, Denon and his colleagues believed their fleet has been...

Napoleon's Savants and the Rosetta Stone.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... By almost any measure, Napoleon's Egyptian adventure was a disaster. On August 17, 1799, little more than a year after he had landed at Alexandria, Napoleon headed back to France. His abandoned soldiers--cut off, defeated by disease and a lack...