MaryAnn Bernal's Blog, page 208

Boxing Day - December 26

Boxing Day - is a traditional celebration, dating back to medieval times, when gifts were given to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class.


Why is it Called Boxing Day:

Arguments abound on the origins of the name Boxing Day, all of the answers here are relevant, so maybe it is all of them.
A ‘Christmas Box’ in Britain is a name for a Christmas present.Boxing Day was a day off for servants and when they received a ‘Christmas Box’ from the master. The servants would also go home to give ‘Christmas Boxes’ to their families.A box to collect money for the poor was placed in Churches on Christmas day then opened the next day.Great sailing ships when setting sail would have a sealed box containing money on board for good luck.If the voyage were a success the box was given to a priest, opened at Christmas and the contents given to the poor.Read more

History Trivia - Leo III elected Roman Catholic Pope

December 26

  795 Leo III was elected Roman Catholic pope. Pope Saint Leo recognized Charlemagne as the patricius of the Romans, crowning the great leader Holy Roman Emperor who protected Pope Leo from his enemies. He was an effective administrator of the papal territories, and contributed to the beautification of Rome.

Enter to win Scribbler Tales Volume One audio book by Mary Ann Bernal

 Roberto Scarlato (Narrator)  “Scribbler Tales is a unique mix of genres in one anthology rich with tension, humanity and genuine emotion. Unconventional settings and unexpected twists are bound to leave you pondering long after you close this book.”

In Desperate Measures, Audrey learns of Paul’s duplicity when human cloning experiments go awry. Forbidden Lore beckons Arianna and Ethan into a haunted cemetery where they are confronted by a gathering of witches with evil intent . Adrian must challenge his father to marry Rina or suffer the fate of star-crossed lovers in Forever Lost. In The Hourglass, Flair makes a covenant with the Devil to keep Brice alive. Aaron reflects upon his childhood as a military brat in Sail with Me.
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Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas
I am grateful for your support and interest in my work. 
God bless. 
Mary Ann Bernal  




 

History Trivia - Charlemagne, King of the Franks, crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor

December 25

 The date recognized by the Roman Catholic Church for the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas was also known as Yule (Anglo-Saxon) or Noel (French). 337 Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th. 352 First definite date that Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th.

498 French king Clovis baptized himself.

597 England adopted the Julian calendar.

795 Pope Adrian I died. The relationship of Adrian to Charlemagne was considered an ideal expression of Church and State in a united Christian society.

 800 Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome.

875 Charles the Bald was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

1066 William the Conqueror was crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.

1100 Baldwin of Boulogne was crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity.

1156 Peter the Venerable died. As Abbot of Cluny, Peter of Montboissier made great reforms to the monastery that restored its influence in European religious politics.

1223 St. Francis of Assisi assembled the first Nativity scene.

History Trivia - second dedication of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

December 24

563 The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by earthquakes.

640 Pope John IV was elected. In his brief pontificate, John sent help to the victims of invaders in Dalmatia, opposed monothelitism and the Irish choice for the date of Easter, and defended the orthodoxy of Pope Honorius I.

1167 King John I of England was born. The youngest son of King Henry II, John lacked the trust of his barons and was maneuvered into signing the Magna Carta.

1476 400 Burgundy soldiers froze to death during siege of Nancy (Burgundian Wars, the battle finally being fought outside the walls on 5 January 1477 between Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and René II, Duke of Lorraine. René's forces won the battle, and Charles' mutilated body was found three days later.)

1515 Thomas Wolsey was appointed English Lord Chancellor.

Could the dwarf planet Ceres support life?

The dwarf planet Ceres, also the largest asteroid in the solar system, is seen here in an amazing view from the Hubble Space Telescope. In March 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is expected to enter orbit around Ceres to study the object like never (NASA, ESA, J. Parker (Southwest Research Institute), L. McFadden (University of Maryland))

By Mike Wall
Fox News

A NASA probe is about to get the first up-close look at a potentially habitable alien world.
In March 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will arrive in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is a relatively warm and wet body that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus, both of which may be capable of supporting life as we know it, some researchers say.
 "I don't think Ceres is less interesting in terms of astrobiology than other potentially habitable worlds," Jian-Yang Li, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said Dec. 18 during a talk here at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. [Photos: The Dwarf Planet Ceres]
Life as we know it requires three main ingredients, Li said: liquid water, an energy source and certain chemical building blocks (namely, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogren, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur).
The dwarf planet Ceres — which is about 590 miles wide — is thought to have a lot of water, based on its low overall density (2.09 grams per cubic centimeter; compared to 5.5 g/cubic cm for Earth). Ceres is likely a differentiated body with a rocky core and a mantle comprised of water ice, researchers say, and water-bearing minerals have been detected on its surface.
Indeed, water appears to make up about 40 percent of Ceres' volume, Li said.
"Ceres is actually the largest water reservoir in the inner solar system other than the Earth," he said. However, it's unclear at the moment how much, if any, of this water is liquid, he added.
As far as energy goes, Ceres has access to a decent amount via solar heating, since the dwarf planet lies just 2.8 astronomical units (AU) from the sun, Li said. (One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun — about 93 million miles). Europa and Enceladus are much farther away from our star — 5.2 and 9 AU, respectively.
Both Europa and Enceladus possess stores of internal heat, which is generated by tidal forces. This heat keeps the ice-covered moons' subsurface oceans of liquid water from freezing up, and also drives the eruption of water-vapor plumes on Enceladus (and probably Europa as well; researchers announced last year that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted water vapor erupting from the Jupiter moon in December 2012).
Intriguingly, scientists announced the discovery of water-vapor emission from Ceres — which may also possess a subsurface ocean — earlier this year.
Ceres' plumes may or may not be evidence of internal heat, Li said. For example, they may result when water ice near Ceres' surface is heated by sunlight and warms enough to sublimate into space.
"Right now, we just don't know much about the outgassing on Ceres," Li said.
Dawn should help bring Ceres into much clearer focus when it reaches the dwarf planet this spring. The spacecraft, which orbited the huge asteroid Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, will map Ceres' surface in detail and beam home a great deal of information about the body's geology and thermal conditions before the scheduled end of its prime mission in July 2015.
Ground-based instruments should also play a role in unveiling Ceres. For example, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA — a huge system of radio dishes in Chile — has the ability to probe deeper than Dawn, going into Ceres' subsurface and shedding more light on the dwarf planet's composition and thermal properties, Li said.
"This is highly complementary to the Dawn mission," he said.
Ceres' relative proximity to Earth also makes it an attractive target for future space missions, Li added. 

Diane Turner - London Rocks - 23-12-2014

Diane Turner - London Rocks - 23-12-2014 by Pipeline Radio International on Mixcloud

History Trivia - Gunthamund becomes king of the Vandals

December 23

484 Huneric died and was succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund, who became king of the Vandals. During his reign the Catholics were freed from persecutions.


 1116 St. Ivo of Chartres died. He was one of the most notable bishops of France at the time of the Investiture struggles and the most important canonist before Gratian. Gratian was a legal scholar and the founder of the science of canon law, which is the body of law based on the legislation of the councils (both ecumenical and local) and the popes, as well as the bishops (for diocesan matters) in the Roman Catholic Church.

Ten Facts You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know About Author Mistral Dawn

   1.  I've lived on both coasts of the US but never in the middle.2.  I once ended up in Canada...by accident. Yeah, never ask me for directions. 3.  I've volunteered with animal shelters and rescues since my teens, and I rescue cats and kittens out of my home. Please spay or neuter your pets!4.  Taken By The Huntsman was inspired by a debate I had with a friend about the nature of consent and what should be accepted by society.5.  I have four books and two short stories planned in the series I started with Taken By The Huntsman, but new ideas occur to me all of the time so that number will probably grow. 6.  My characters keep me awake harassing me to write their stories. "Write faster darn you!" 7.  There will be at least one cat as a main or semi-main character in every book I write. 8.  Some of my characters are based on real people I know. Can you guess which ones?9.  Before writing Taken By The Huntsman, I had never joined or belonged to any social media or online group. *gasp* I know, totally behind the times.10. If you asked my friends what I'm like, most of them would say "odd." I know because I had a school project where I had to ask them and that's what they said!  *** Mistral Dawn is a thirty-something gal who has lived on both coasts of the US but somehow never in the middle. She currently resides in the Southeast US with her kitty cats (please spay or neuter! where she works as a hospital drudge and attends graduate school. This is her first effort at writing fiction and if it is well received, she has ideas for several more novels and short-stories in this series.  Purchase Links Amazon Smashwords Barnes & Noble  iTunes Kobo Social Media Links Twitter Blog Facebook