Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category

Beautiful loose diamonds and diamond engagement rings have captivated people for centuries! One of the most famous loose diamonds is the Cullinan Diamond.

Willem Prinsloo, owner of the Elandsfontein farm in South Africa, discouraged prospectors from exploring on his property. He was, in fact, famous for discouraging prospectors. After Prinsloo’s death, Thomas Cullinan, a Johannesburg building contractor, purchased the farm. He bought it for 52,000 British pounds and registered the Premier (Transvaal) Diamond Mining Company Limited on December 1, 1902; mining on the farm began immediately thereafter. The Premier Mine was one of South Africa’s most productive, employing more than 2,000 people by the end of 1904.

The Discovery

As the sun was beginning to set on Thursday afternoon, January 26, 1905, Superintendent Captain Frederick Wells was making his daily inspection. A crystal caught light on the shaft wall; it was only nine meters from the surface. Thinking the miners were playing a joke, Wells took it for a piece of broken glass and pried it out with a pocketknife. The crystal weighed 1.5 pounds, was 37/8 inches long, 21/4 inches wide and 25/8 inches high. Wells was sure it was worthless…well, almost sure. So he sent it to be analyzed. It turned out that the uncut stone was a perfectly clear and colorless diamond weighing 3,106 carats and was twice the size of any other diamond ever found. There is talk that the stone was originally much larger; experts surmise that since one side of the crystal was smooth the stone was cleaved by natural forces. Named for Cullinan, the diamond was sold to the Transvaal Government for 150,000 pounds and Wells received 3,500 pounds as a reward. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview

The Bastille, Porte and Faubourg St. Antoine, ca. 16th-17th cent.
(click on image for expanded view of neighborhood)

The Bastille {bah-steel’} was a prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine — Number 232, rue Saint-Antoine. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 marked the beginning of the French Revolution. The event was commemorated one year later by the Fête de la Fédération. The French national holiday, celebrated annually on July 14, is officially called the Fête Nationale, and commemorates the Fête de la Fédération — but it is commonly known in English as Bastille Day. Bastille (from bastide) is a French word meaning “castle” or “stronghold”. In most accounts of French revolutionary history, La Bastille generally refers to the prison in Paris. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Lewis Hackett Date: 1992

Industrialization: The First Phase

Most products people in the industrialized nations use today are turned out swiftly by the process of mass production, by people (and sometimes, robots) working on assembly lines using power-driven machines. People of ancient and medieval times had no such products. They had to spend long, tedious hours of hand labor even on simple objects. The energy, or power, they employed in work came almost wholly from their own and animals’ muscles. The Industrial Revolution is the name given the movement in which machines changed people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacture. Read the rest of this entry »