Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction. read more…
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry from Alsace whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus’ complete exoneration. The case remains interesting to this day because it is based on allegations, assumptions and circumstantial evidence without any real probative value, making it a political issue, including in the Jewish community of France itself, which has an impact into modern times. No matter from which direction you look at the affair, there is always a residual doubt and thus an indissolubility. The material for exciting, entertaining and complex cinema films with the possibility of shooting numerous sequels, but for Alfred Dreyfus himself and his family, of course, pure disaster. read more…
Salman Schocken was a German Jewishpublisher, and co-founder of the large Kaufhaus Schocken chain of department stores in Germany. Stripped of his citizenship and forced to sell his company by the German government, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1934, where he purchased the newspaper Haaretz (which is still majority-owned by his descendants). read more…
Socrates was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing offers to help him escape. read more…
Charles Cunningham Boycott was an English land agent whose ostracism by his local community in Ireland gave the English language the term boycott. He had served in the British Army39th Foot, which brought him to Ireland. After retiring from the army, Boycott worked as a land agent for Lord Erne, a landowner in the Lough Mask area of County Mayo. read more…
Master James of Saint George (French: Maître Jacques de Saint-Georges) was a master of works/architect from Savoy, described by historian Marc Morris as “one of the greatest architects of the European Middle Ages”. He was largely responsible for designing King Edward I‘s castles in North Wales, including Conwy, Harlech and Caernarfon (all begun in 1283) and Beaumaris on Anglesey (begun 1295). read more…
