The Great Fire of London occurred in 1666, starting in a baker's house in Pudding Lane and burning for four days. It was attributed to be a Catholic plot intended to destroy the Protestant city of London (an early act of terrorism). The fire destroyed 88 churches, the city gates, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, the Guildhall, Sion College, other public buildings, 13,200 houses and destroyed 400 streets. 200,000 people were made homeless and camped in Islington and Highgate fields, but only eight people were killed by the fire. A monument to the fire (the Monument of London) was erected designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1671 - 1677. Research Fire Of London
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet and philosopher. He was born in 1772 at Ottery St Mary in Devon and died in 1834. Sent to school at Christ's Church Hospital, to which he had obtained a representation, the young Samuel Coleridge took little interest in the ordinary sports of childhood, and was noted for a dreamy abstracted manner, though he made considerable progress in classical studies, and was known even at that early age as a devourer of metaphysical and theological works.
From Christ's Church he went with a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained for two years, but without achieving much distinction. At this time, too, his ultra-radical and rationalistic opinions made the idea of academic preferment hopeless, and perhaps it was partly to escape the difficulties and perplexities gathering about his future that Samuel Coleridge suddenly quit Cambridge and enlisted in the 15th Dragoons. Rescued by his friends from this position, he took up his residence at Bristol with two congenial spirits, Robert Southey, who had just been obliged to quit Oxford for his Unitarian opinions, and Lovell, a young Quaker. The three conceived the project of emigrating to America, and establishing a pantisocracy as they termed it, or community in which all should be equal, on the banks of the Susquehanna. This scheme, however, never became anything more than a theory, and was finally disposed of when, in 1795, the three friends married three sisters, the Misses Pricket of Bristol.
Samuel Coleridge about this time started a periodical, the Watchman, which did not survived beyond the ninth number. In 1796 he took a cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, where, soothed and supported by the companionship of Wordsworth, who came to reside at Allfoxden, he wrote much of his best poetry, in particular the Ancient Mariner and the first part of Christabel. While residing at Nether Stowey he used to officiate in a Unitarian chapel at Taunton, and in 1798 received an invitation to take the charge of a congregation of this denomination at Shrewsbury, where, however, he did nothing further than preach the probation sermon.
An annuity bestowed on him by some friends (the Wedgewoods) furnished him with the means of making a tour to Germany, where he studied at the University of Gottingen. In 1800 he returned to England and took up his residence beside Southey at Keswick, while Wordsworth lived at Grasmere in the same neighbourhood. From this fact, and a certain common vein in their poetry, arose the epithet of 'Lake School' applied to their works. About 1804 Coleridge went to Malta to re-establish his health, seriously impaired by opium-eating. In 1806 he returned to England, and after ten years of somewhat desultory literary work as lecturer, contributor to periodicals, etc, Samuel Coleridge in a sort took refuge from the world in the house of his friend Mr. Gillman at Highgate, London. Here he passed the rest of his days, holding weekly conversaziones in which he poured himself forth in eloquent monologues, being by general consent one of the most wonderful talkers of the time.
His views on religious and political subjects had now become mainly orthodox and conservative, and a great work on the Logos, which should reconcile reason and faith, was one of the dreams of his later years. But Samuel Coleridge had long been incapable of concentrating his energies on anything, and of the many years he spent in the leisure and quietness of Highgate nothing remains but the Table Talk and the fragmentary notes and criticism gathered together, and edited by his nephew, valuable enough of their kind, but less than might have been expected of Samuel Coleridge.
The dreamy and transcendental character of Samuel Coleridge's poetry eminently exhibits the man. In his best moments he has a fine sublimity of thought and expression not surpassed by Milton; but he is often turgid and verbose. As a critic, especially of William Shakespeare, Samuel Coleridge's work is of the highest rank, combining a comprehensive grasp of large critical principles and a singularly subtle insight into details.
Samuel Coleridge's poetical works include The Ancient Mariner, Christabel (incomplete), Remorse, a tragedy, Kubia Khan, a translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, etc; his prose works, Biographia Literaria, The Friend, The Statesman's Manual, Aids to Reflection, On the Constitution of Church and State, etc. Posthumously were published specimens of his Table Talk, Literary Remains, etc. Research Samuel Coleridge
A vaccine was originally a preparation of cowpox from a cow (whence the name) for protection against smallpox. Today, a vaccine is a preparation of modified pathogens (viruses or bacteria) that is introduced into the body, usually either orally or by a hypodermic syringe, with the view to induce the specific antibody reaction that produces immunity against a particular disease. In 1796, Edward Jenner was the first to inoculate a child (supposedly) successfully with cowpox virus to produce immunity to smallpox. His method, the application of an infective agent to an abraded skin surface, is still used in smallpox inoculation. However, officially vaccinations are only 80% effective, and reviewing the decline of instances of polio and other diseases both before and after inoculations started over the past hundred years reveals a uniformcurve, questioning whether inoculations are effective at all.
The side-effects of many inoculations are similarly dangerous and may induce severe brain damage, for example (since the introduction of the MMR vaccine in the UK for measles, mumps and Rubella, incidences of autism in children rose 400% from 1 in 1000 to 4 in 1000, as the vaccine can rupture the intestine wall allowing proteins to escape into the blood system and damage the brain). The problem for independent thinkers, is that it is impossible to prove or disprove whether an inoculation has succeeded, unless the patient then contracts the disease against which they were inoculated, in which case the inoculation obviously failed. However, in cases where an inoculated patient does not contract a disease who can say with certainty that their own immunity system would not have prevented the disease being contracted without the inoculation.
Vaccines have long been controversial, propagated by propaganda. The original concept was to immunise against smallpox by infecting patients with cowpox. However, there is serious doubt that the original vaccinations were effective at all. During the smallpoxepidemic of 1871, 91.5% of the patients suffering from smallpox at the HighgateSmallpoxHospital in London had been previously vaccinated - while only 90% of the London population as a whole had been vaccinated, and in 1881 96% of the patients suffering from smallpox at the HighgateSmallpoxHospital in London had been vaccinated, while again only 90% of the general population of London had been vaccinated. Despite strong evidence then and now that vaccines are ineffective at all but making profit for their manufacturers, and in many cases are actually very dangerous to the patients to which they are administered, in 1853 the British government introduced compulsory vaccination and popular belief among the less educated population is still one of the effectiveness of vaccines. Research Vaccine
Highgate Dark Mild is a dark-brown, smooth mild produced in the Victorian tower brewery in Walsall, West Midlands. It is fermented using a vigorous four-strain yeast to give a complex flavour. Research Highgate Dark Mild
Highgate (formerly a toll gate known as Le Heighgate during the 14th century) is a suburb of north Greater London, England situated on a hill. It is renowned for its cemetery which contains the remains of Karl Marx, George Eliot and others.
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