The apollo asteroids are a group of small asteroids whose orbits cross that of the earth. They were first discovered in 1932 and then lost until 1973. Research Apollo Asteroid
The Apollo Project was the US space project to land a person on the moon in order to prove to the world the ideological superiority of the American system over that of Communist Russia. It was reportedly achieved by Apollo 11 in July 1969. The three-stage vehicle to carry the astronauts to the moon was code named Saturn, and the contract to develop the Apollo three-man spacecraft was awarded to North American Aviation Incorporated in 1961 by NASA. The first launch into orbit of an Apollo command module was made by Saturn SA-6 on May the 28th 1964, and the first manned flight was made after a fire during ground tests killed the three astronauts - Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee - on January the 27th 1967.
Controversy surrounds the supposed moon landing, with theories abounding that in 1969 it was technically impossible to land on the moon, and as a result NASA faked the moon landing, filming the 'landing' at the top secret military base, Area 51, in the Nevada desert while the astronauts actually orbited the earth for eight days before returning. This theory was later illustrated in the film 'Capricorn One' which told the fictional story of a faked landing on the planetMars. Research Apollo Project
In sculpture, a colossus is a statue of enormous magnitude. The Asiatics, the Egyptians, and in particular the Greeks, have excelled in these works. The most celebrated Egyptian colossus was the vocal statue of Memnon in the plain of Thebes, supposed to be identical with the most northerly of two existing colossi (60 feet high) on the west bank of the Nile.
Among the colossi of Greece the most celebrated was the Colossus of Rhodes, a brass statue of Apollo 70 cubits high, esteemed one of the wonders of the world, erected at the port of Rhodes by Chares, 290 or 288 BC. It was knocked down by an earthquake about 224 BC. The statue was in ruins for nearly nine centuries, when the Saracens, taking Rhodes, sold the metal, weighing 720,900 lbs, to a Jew, about 653. There is no authority for the popularly-received statement that it bestrode the harbour mouth, and that the Rhodian vessels could pass under its legs.
Among the colossi of Phidias were the Olympian Zeus and the Athena of the Parthenon; the former 60 feet high and the latter 40 feet.
The most famous of the Roman colossi were the Jupiter of the Capitol, the Apollo of the Palatine Library, and the statue of Nero, 110 or 120 feet high, and from which the contiguous amphitheatre derived its name of Colosseum.
Among modern works of this nature is the colossus of San Carlo Borromeo, at Arona, in the Milanese territory, 60 feet in height; the 'Bavaria' at Munich, 65 feet high; the statue of Hermann or Arminius near Detmold, erected in 1875, 90 feet in height to the point of the upraised sword, which itself is 24 feet in length; the height of the figure to the point of the helmet being 55 feet;
the statue of Germania, erected in 1883 near Rudesheim, a figure 34 feet high, placed on an elaborately-sculptured pedestal over 81 feet high; and Bartholdi's statue of Liberty presented to the United States by the French nation, and which measures 104 feet or to the extremity of the torch in the hand of the figure 138 feet. It is erected at New York harbour on a pedestal 114 feet, is constructed for a lighthouse with what was at one time was one of the most powerful fixed lights in the world, and stands 317 feet above mean tide. Research Colossus
The Apollo Butterfly (Parnassius apollo) is an endangered species of butterfly (protected by law in many countries) of the Swallowtail family (Papilionidae). The Apollo is believed to be a relic from the Tertiary period that survived the glacial epoch in Europe. It has one generation a year, and flies from June to September, settling calmly on thistle flowers which makes it easy to catch by hand. Research Apollo Butterfly
The Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne) is a very rare European butterfly of the Swallowtails family (Papilionidae). The Clouded Apollo lives in damp, grassy localities in hilly landscapes and on the outskirts of deciduous forests supplied with rich undergrowth. Research Clouded Apollo
Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor. He was born in 1757 at Possagno, in Venetian territory and died in 1822. He was first an apprentice to a statuary in Bassano, from whom he went to the Academy of Venice, where he had a brilliant career. In 1779 he was sent by the senate of Venice to Rome with a salary of 300 ducats, and there produced his Theseus and the Slain Minotaur. In 1783 Antonio Canova undertook the execution of the tomb of Pope Clement XIV in the Church of the Apostles, a work in the Bernini manner, and inferior to his second public monument the tomb of Pope Clement XIII (1792) in St Peter's.
From 1783 his fame rapidly increased. He established a school for the benefit of young Venetians, and amongst other works produced his group of Venus and Adonis, the Psyche and Butterfly, a Repentant Magdalene, the well-known Hebe, the colossalHerculeshurling Lichas into the Sea, the Pugilists, and the group of Cupid and Psyche. In 1796 and 1797 Antonio Canova finished the model of the celebrated tomb of the Archduchess Christina of Austria, and in 1797 made the colossal model of a statue of the King of Naples executed in marble in 1803. He afterwards executed in Rome his Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which, when the BelvidereApollo was carried to France, was thought not unworthy of its place and pedestal.
In 1802 he was invited by Bonaparte to Paris to make the model of his colossal statue. Among the later works of the artist are a colossalGeorge Washington, the tombs of the Cardinal of York and of Pius VII; a Venus Rising from the Bath; the colossal group of Theseus Killing the Minotaur; the tomb of Alfieri; the Graces Rising from the Bath; a Dancing Girl; a colossalHector; a Paris, etc. After the second fall of Napoleon, in 1815, Antonio Canova was commissioned by the pope to demand the restoration of the works of art carried from Rome. He went from Paris to London, and returned to Rome in 1816, where he was made Marquis of Ischia, with a pension of 3000 scudi. Research Antonio Canova
Arion was an ancient Greek poet and musician. He was born at Methymna, in Lesbos, and lived about 625 BC. He lived at the court of Periander of Corinth, and afterwards visited Sicily and Italy. Returning from Tarentum to Corinth with rich treasures, the avaricious sailors resolved to murder him. Apollo, however, having informed him in a dream of the impending danger, Arion in vain endeavoured to soften the hearts of the crew by the power of his music. He then threw himself into the sea, when one of a shoal of dolphins, which had been attracted by his music, received him on his back and bore him to land. The sailors, having returned to Corinth, were confronted by Arion, and convicted of their crime. The lyre of Arion, and the dolphin which rescued him, became constellations in the heavens. A fragment of a hymn to Poseidon, ascribed to Arion, is extant. Research Arion
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist. He was born in 384 BC at Stagira, in Macedonia, died in 322 BC.. He was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, His father, Nicomachus, was physician to Amyntas II, king of Macedonia, and claimed to be descended from Aesculapius. Aristotle had lost his parents before he came, at about the age of seventeen, to Athens to study in the school of Plato. With that philosopher he remained for twenty years, became pre-eminent among his pupils, and was known as the Intellect of the School. Upon the death of Plato in 848 BC, he took up his residence at Atarneus, in Mysia, on the invitation of his former pupil Hermeias, the ruler of that city, on whose assassination by the Persians in 343 BC, he fled to Mitylene with his wife Pythia, the niece of Hermeias.
During his residence at Mitylene he received an invitation from Philip of Macedon to superintend the education of his son Alexander, then in his fourteenth year. This relationship between the great philosopher and the future conqueror continued for five or six years, during which the prince was instructed in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, logic, ethics, and politics, and in those branches of physics which had even then made some considerable progress. On Alexander succeeding to the throne Aristotle continued to live with him as his friend and councillor until he set out on his Asiatic campaign in 334 BC. He returned to Athens and established his school in the Lyceum, a gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceius, which was assigned to him by the state. He delivered his lectures in the wooded walks of the Lyceum while walking up and down with his pupils. From the action itself, or more probably from the name of the walks (peripatoi), his school was called Peripatetic. Pupils gathered to him from all parts of Greece, and his school became by far the most popular in Athens. The statement that he had two circles of pupils, the exoteric and the esoteric has given rise to much controversy.
By some it has been held that Aristotle published during his lifetime popular discourses with a view to make way for his doctrines in Athenian society, then impregnated with Platonic theories, and that these are called exoteric in contradistinction to those in which are embodied his matured opinions. It was during the time of his teaching at Athens that Aristotle is believed to have composed the great bulk of his works. On the death of Alexander a revolution occurred in Athenshostile to the Macedonian interests with which Aristotle was identified. He therefore retired to Chalcis, where he soon after died.
According to Strabo he bequeathed all his works to Theophrastus, who, with other disciples of Aristotle, amended and continued them. They afterwards passed through various hands, until, about 50 BC, Andronicus of Rhodes put the various fragments together and classified them according to a systematic arrangement. Many of the books bearing his name are spurious, others are of doubtful genuineness. The whole are generally divided into logical, theoretical, and practical. The logical works are comprehended under the title Organon (instrument). The theoretical are divided into physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The physical works (including those on natural history) are on the General Principles of Physical Science, The Heavens, Generation and Destruction, Meteorology, Natural History of Animals, On the Parts of Animals, On the Generation of Animals, On the Locomotion of Animals, On the Soul, On Memory, Sleep and Waking, Dreams, Divination. In mathematics there are two treatises, On Indivisible Lines and Mechanical Problems. The Metaphysics consist of fourteen books: the title (Tametata Physika, 'the things following the Physics') is the invention of an editor. The practical works embrace ethics, politics, economics, and treatises on art, and comprise the Nicomachaean Ethics (so called because dedicated to his son Nicomachus), the Politics, (Economics, Poetry, and Rhetoric). Among the lost works are the dialogues and others to which the term exoteric is applied, and which were published during Aristotle's lifetime. His style is devoid of grace and elegance. His works were first printed in a Latin translation, with the commentaries of Averroes, at Venice in 1489; the first Greek edition was that of Aldus Manutius (published in five volules between 1495 and 1498). Research Aristotle
Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) was an Italian painter of the Lombard school. He was born in 1581 or 1582 at Bologna and died in 1641. He studied under Annibal Carracci, and afterwards went to Rome, where he became painter to Pope Gregory XV. Among his best works are the Communion of St Jerome in the Vatican Museum, the History of Apollo, the Martyrdom of St. Agnes, and the Triumph of David. Research Domenichino
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Abbreviations
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