A small force of Spartans held up the superior numbers of Xerxes army at the coastal pass of Thermopylae. The Persians broke through and sacked Athinai. Meanwhile the main Greek forces benefited from the delay and won a great naval victory at Salamis (480) and a land battle at Plataea (479). Find out more about the battle and the Spartan King Leonidas who stood his ground knowing it would result in his defeat and the massacre of the brave 300 men he took on his suicide mission.

Cleopatra has profoundly stirred the imaginations of writers and scholars. This queen- vital, tireless, subtly intelligent, ruthlessly ambitious, ensnarer of two great Roman generals-attracts hyperbole. In Rome the stories about her exploits excited loathing and terror. She formed a subject for the contemporary poets Horace (Odes; Epodes) and Virgil (Eclogues'). Unfortunately, the earliest historical accounts that have been preserved are those of Appian (Bella, civilia) and Plutarch (Lives, chiefly Antony), written about a century after her death. She is mentioned by Ovid, Lucian, and Pliny. Strabo, Josephus, and Dio Cassius provide some of the elements of her legend.

The early historical sources are in the main unsympathetic to Cleopatra, for they are based on Roman presentations of the case, and Rome had nearly been defeated by this woman. Plutarch's account is the most complete, and it served as the basis for Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. (In Notes to Caesar and Cleopatra, George Bernard Shaw excused his play Caesar and Cleopatra from any attempt at delineating historically true personalities.) With fresh evaluation of old sources and the use of evidence hitherto unrecognized, the historian W. W. Tarn has written eloquently in Cleopatra's defense (The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 10, chapters 2 and 3).

The popular 20th century image of Cleopatra as a sex-mad siren is due to ignorance. The stories of her sexual exploits, aside from the liaisons with Caesar and Antony, were almost certainly fabricated as part of the propaganda campaign to discredit Antony. (Tarn has called attention to the fact that the outrageously exaggerated charges and countercharges in this propaganda campaign were accepted as fact by the Classical historians and have distorted our picture of Roman history every since.) In her relationships with the two great generals, Cleopatra used her body as well as her mind to achieve political ends. Her standards of conduct differed widely from Roman custom and law and are generally repugnant to present-day Europeans and Americans, so largely the heirs of Rome. But it was for her determination and intelligence that she was feared at Rome, and Cleopatra deserves to be remembered as a nearly successful contender for control of the Hellenistic world.

The founder of the Epicurean philosophy, which taught that Virtue should be followed because it leads to happiness.

Can there be only one? Or can both live in harmony? Which is better than the other? Which one best suits you? Find out here. We look at the differences, and what's the same. And who the eventual winner is.

Augustus was the name given Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus when he became the first Roman emperor in 27 BC. The period of the Roman Republic ended, and the era of the Roman Empire began under Augustus.

Tagfoot combines the best features of some of the internets most popular sites. And they've done it with flair, finesse and a large portion of fun!.

Premiering in Melbourne on December 26 in 1906 the 70 minute long depiction of the life and crimes bushranger Ned Kelly has the honor of being the worlds first feature length film.

Publius Aelius Hadrianus aka Hadrian (AD 76-138) was born at Italica in Hisania Baetica (modern Spain), where his family had lived for about 200 years. A relative of M. Ulpius Traianus (later the emperor Trajan), he was placed under his guardianship on the death of his father in 85. For the next six years Hadrian lived in Rome, returning to Spain at the age of 15 to join the army.

One of the greatest Roman emperors, who ruled from 117.

Summoned by Trajan to Rome in 93, he held various minor civil posts; then he went as tribune of the Second Legion at Aquincum in Lower Pannonia and remained there until 99, when he returned to Rome with Trajan. In the following year the empress Plotina arranged a marriage between him and Trajan's great-niece, Vibia Sabina. Hadrian's public career from this date until his accession was as follows: quaestor. 101; tribune of the plebs, 105; praetor. 106; distinguished himself in both Dacian campaigns, 101-02 and 105-07; legatus praetorius of Lower Pannonia, 107; legatus in the Parthian campaign, 113-117.

When Hadrian became emperor, Rome was faced with internal and external problems. There were insurrections in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Mauretania, and the barbarians were invading what is now Bulgaria. The emperor believed that his government should not attempt to hold lands that could not be controlled. Therefore, he relinquished some of the territory on the outskirts of the empire. He concentrated on consolidating Roman power where possible. By reform and force he maintained imperial unity.

His reign was generally peaceful. He rejected Trajan's aggressive policies, ending a war with Parthia, a land beyond Rome's eastern frontiers. To avoid further wars, he returned Parthian territory that Rome had won adopted a defensive policy, which included the building of Hadrian's Wall in Britain to protect the Roman province against the barbarian tribes of Picts and Scots.

Hadrian was probably the most capable of the Roman emperors. His tours of inspection did much to unify the empire and allowed him to introduce many necessary administrative, financial and legal reforms. His magnificent buildings at Rome and Athens remain some of the chief glories of the Roman Empire.

Greek writer and general. A pupil of Socrates. Led one of the greatiest military retreats in history in Cunaxa.

Most cultivated varieties of banana are hybrids between two Southeast Asian species grown throughout the tropics. The banana plant consists of large, oval leaves, up to 2 and a half meters in length, with flat stalks that wrap around each other at the base and form what appears to be a trunk, some 3 to 6 meters high. The female flowers hang down in large spikes, but the fruits later turn upwards, forming the familiar bunches, or hands, of bananas.

About 10 species are found along Australian coasts, including the world's largest, weighing about 7 pounds. The only one of market vaule, however, is the rock oyster, which is cultivated on a large scale, especially in New South Wales. It has no equal for delicacy of flavor, and is renowned for its good keeping qualities, even during summer months.

The body of philosophical concepts developed by the Greeks, particularly during the flowering of Greek civilization between the years 600 and 200 BC Greek philosophy formed the basis of all later philosophical speculation in the Western world. The intuitive hypotheses of the ancient Greek foreshadowed many of the theories of modern science, and many of the moral ideas of pagan Greek philosophers have been incorporated into the body of Christian moral doctrine. The political ideas set forth by Greek thinkers influenced political leaders as different as the framers of the Constitution of the United States, on one hand, and the founders of various 20th century totalitarian states on the other.

The origin of the oblong pieces of paste-board used in card games is obscure, but they are certainly of very great antiquity, and probably came originally from Asia. They were known in Europe by the middle of the 14th Century, but their use did not become general for another 50 vears.

The earliest cards were probably painted by hand; and not made from wood-blocks before 1423. Tarots, probably the earliest type of card, which are still used in parts of Europe, had 78 cards to the pack, 4 suits of 14, with 4 court cards, and 22 emblematic cards, or trumps.

The earliest suits consisted of hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns; later swords, batons, cups, and money were used. French cards of the 15th Century, use modern suits, coeur, trefle (clubs), pique (spades), and carreau (diamonds).

The court cards in early packs were king, chevalier, and knave. Playing cards have been taxed in England since the reign of James I.

A web-footed bird widely distributed over tropical latitudes and deriving its name from its great expanse of wing and forked tail, which seem to suggest the shape of a swift vessel. It feeds on flying fish mostly, being unable to dive.

Bones of fossil tapirs have been found over Europe and Asia and also North and South America. The earliest of these are some 50 million years old, and many of them, while obviously of the same family, differed from the tapirs of today. Nevertheless, there were tapirs, very like those we know today, in existence about 20 million years ago.

From this widespread distribution they have dwindled until they are now found in two limited and widely separated areas. It is, perhaps, rather surprising that they should have been so widespread for so long, and it is no less surprising that any of them should have persisted until now, for of all the large animals of the world they are probably the most completely defenceless. They are normally slow and deliberate in their movements, habitually with their snouts near the ground and showing little sign of being on the alert for danger.

It is possible that the tapir's trunk-like proboscis has contributed as much as anything to its survival. It may, in fact, be a highly efficient sentinel, constantly sampling the air in all directions even while searching for food, as it twists and turns, with wide-open nostrils. When, therefore, we speak of the tapir as shy, we ought perhaps to say instead that it is highly sensitive to its environment and quick to make its escape.

This may be the main reason why tapirs, although of such long lineage and now so widely separated geographically, have undergone so little change: they are so well adapted to life that there is no need for change. So the secret of their survival may well lie in this short but extraordinary trunk.

Tapirs are unique, virtual living fossils. Let's hope they survive this century as well as they have the last twenty million years.

There are three types of louse or pediculus which may infest the human body, namely, the head, the body and the crab louse. The last is usually found in the pubic area, but may spread to other hairy parts of the body. Their presence cause itching and scratching with resulting sores which are apt to become pustular. Patches of eczema or dermatitis may also arise. Apart from this local skin disorder, the chief indictment against the louse is its danger as a disease carrier. Typhus, or "jail fever " as it was called for many years in this country, is definitely known to be transmitted by the louse, not only directly by its bite, but by its excrement also, if rubbed into an abrasion of the skin. Two other diseases can be transmitted by these insects—relapsing fever and trench fever. The latter caused an enormous amount of sickness amongst our armies during the first World War. The disease is intensely infective, it being possible for a person to become infected by receiving excremental dust on the eye membranes.

The germs of bubonic plague have been found in lice feeding on plague patients. Life History. The development of the louse is limited to two stages only (the egg and the adult) metamorphosis, then, being said to be incomplete. The egg, or nit, which is plainly visible, is attached by a cement-like substance, towards one end, to a hair of the head, body, or of the clothing. On the latter the most common sites are beneath the seams and at the neck and wrist-bands. Up to 260 eggs may be laid by one female at the rate of eight to twelve a day. With moderate warmth they hatch in from seven to ten days. The emerging adult is not full-grown for a further eleven days, during which it moults three times, and the female may commence to lay eggs the following day. The length of life is from three to five weeks— exceptionally it may attain to forty-five days—the insect feeding on blood, which it does twice daily.

The presence of lice can be easily detected, either by seeing the lice themselves or their nits affixed to hairs. The age of a nit on the head can be roughly estimated by its position on the hair if we remember that when laid it was affixed to the base of the hair. If then, the nit is some way along the hair, we can safely say that it is some days old and probably about to hatch if it has not already done so.

The wild or semi-domesticated dog of Australia, probably introduced by the Aborigines from Asia about 8000 years ago. Dingos have short hair, bushy tails and pointed ears, and are about 60 cm high at the shoulders. European settlers almost exterminated the species because it preyed on sheep, but it multiplied rapidly when the introduction of rabbits provided it with a ready source of food. Dingoes also feed on kangaroos and other game. They hunt alone or in small packs.

Turn back the clock one hundred years and see New York City and the surrounding areas. Much has changed since these shots were taken in the early 1900's. Panaromic photos that make an interesting history lesson.

Greek thinker who developed the theory that the universe is made up of atoms.

Michelangelo's most enduring monument is the ceiling and part of the walls of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, an epic fresco account of biblical history painted between 1508 and 1512.

This Photography group will spotlight a large variety of photography related lenses. You will find information on image hosting, digital camera reviews, photo gifts, photo editing, Photoshop, photography tips, wedding photography, plus lots more.

This site will show you a collection of free and commercial software that focuses on how to enhance faces. In addition to enhancing photos you can have some fun morphing faces and trying on new hair and makeup.

Dorothea Lange was America's most prominent Depression-era photographer, and can be considered the mother of of American documentary photography. Her work exposed the real life consequences of the Depression on people, and was funded by the Farm Security Administration.

Squidoo lens on photography tips and doing panoramas

An article about film versus digital photography: classic nikon, canon, leica and Olympus SLR cameras, scanning slide film or negatives and scanners