In Roman beliefs, bay - the tree of Apollo - was considered a talisman against lightning, and hence was often worn in a wreath upon the head by the emperors. Research Bay
St Nicholas is the patron saint of children. St Nicholas was the Roman pontiff Nicholas I also known as Nicholas The Great, who was pontiff from 858 to 867 and who excommunicated Photius of Constantinople, causing the separation of the Eastern and Western Christian Churches. Adopted as the personification of the spirit of Christmas, his Dutch name was corrupted in the USA during the 18th century into the modern 'Santa Claus'.
St Nicholas, as Father Christmas or Santa Claus is first mentioned in the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' by Clement Clarke Moore, published in 1822. In this poem the description of St Nicholas as we know him today is first made, and not as many believe by a 1920's Coca-Cola advertisement! In the poem St Nicholas is described as: 'a little old driver, so lively and quick ... dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot...a bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; the stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; he had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.' The poem also describes how he drives a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, and how he visits houses via the chimney and fills stocking left out by the children full of toys. Research St Nicholas
In Greek mythology Thanatos (Mors in Roman Mythology) was the god of death, a son of Night and the twin brother of Sleep. He was frequently regarded with submission, or as coming opportunely, and was represented in the form of a quiet, pensive youth, winged, standing with his legs crossed, often beside an urn with a wreath on it, and holding an extinguished torch reversed. Or, as a personification of endless repose, he appeared in the form of a beautiful youth leaning against the trunk of a tree, with one arm thrown up over his head - an attitude by which ancient artists usually expressed repose. It was probably owing to the spread of the belief that death was a transition from life to Elysium, that in later times this more attractive representation of the god of death took the place of the former repulsive representations, whether as a powerful and violent god, or as a black child in the arms of his mother, Night. Among the figures sculptured on the chest of Cypselas, a description of which we have still in Pausanius, was that of Night carrying twin children in her arms - the one white, representing Sleep, and the other black, representing Death. Research Thanatos
The Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O.) is an order or decoration instituted by Queen Victoria on September the 6th, 1886, for the adequate reward of naval and military service, the recipients being such men and women as are mentioned in despatches. By a royal proclamation in 1905 it was ordained that the order should rank next after the Royal Victorian Order, It was also ordained that 'the badge of the order, which shall consist of a gold cross enamelled white, edged gold, having on one side thereof, in the centre, within a wreath of laurel enamelled green, the Imperial Crown in gold upon a red-enamelled ground, and on the reverse, within a similar wreath, and on a similar red ground, our Imperial and Royal cypher, E. R. I., shall be suspended from the left breast by a red riband, edged blue, and one inch in width'. Research Distinguished Service Order
The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was formed by order of Her Majesty the Queen on St. George's Day, 23rd April, 1968 by the union of the four regiments of the Fusilier Brigade: The Fifth Foot, The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, The Sixth Foot, The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, The Royal Fusiliers (The City of London Regiment), and the Twentieth Foot, The Royal Lancashire Fusiliers. There is no distinction between the regular battalions of the regiment as each shares an equal inheritance from the four former regiments, and each draws Fusiliers from the four regimental areas of England - Northumberland, Warwickshire, London and Lancashire. Currently, the regiment boasts two regular battalions (1st and 2nd) and two territorial battalions (5th and 6th) which are located in Coventry and Alnwick, Northumberland.
The regimental emblem is St. George with the Garter, all within a laurelwreath and surrounded by St. Edward's crown. The regimental flag is the red cross of St. George on a white field, with the regimental emblem in the centre of the cross. The regimental motto, inherited from The Royal WarwickshireRegiment and The Royal Fusiliers is that of the Royal Garter - Honi soit quimal y pense - 'Evil be to he who evil thinks.' The regimental cap badge consists of the symbol of St. George and the dragon within a laurelwreath ensigned with the crown. The St. George and the dragon is inherited from The Royal Fusiliers and the laurelwreath from The Lancashire Fusiliers. Research The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
Twenex was the TOPS-20 operating system by DEC - the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10. TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own. The first in-house code name for the operating system was VIROS; when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was briefly reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when someone objected that `krans' meant `funeral wreath' in Swedish (though some Swedish speakers have since said it means simply `wreath'; this part of the story may be apocryphal). Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it TWENEX (a contraction of `twenty
TENEX'), even though by this point very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously to the differences between AT&T V6 UNIX and BSD). DEC people cringed when they heard 'TWENEX', but the term caught on nevertheless (the written abbreviation ` 20x' was also used). TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact, there was a period in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent a culture of partisans as UNIX or ITS but DEC's decision to scrap all the internal rivals to the VAXarchitecture and its relatively stodgy VMSOS killed the DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in the sun. DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 hackers to convert to VMS, but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to UNIX. Research Twenex
A cent is typically a small coin denoting one hundredth of a larger denomination, such as one hundredth of a dollar or Euro.
In America, the cent is a copper coin stamped with various designs and issued first by the States, later by the Federal Government. Vermont was the first State to issue copper cents, having permitted in June, 1785, Reuben Harmon Jr., to make money for the State for two years. He started a mint at Rupert, Bennington County, coining the Vermont cent of 1785. This coin had on the obverse, wooded mountains and a rising sun with a plough, and the inscription Vermontis. Res. Publica. Exergue 1785. On the reverse was a ring surrounded by thirteen stars with rays springing from the circle; and the legend, Stella. Quarta. Decima.
Connecticut, in October, 1785, granted to Bishop, Hopkins, Hillhouse and Goodrich the right to coin 10,000 pounds of copper cents, known as the Connecticut cent of 1785. These had on the obverse, a mailed bust, head laureated; and the legend, Auctori. Connec. On the reverse they were marked with the goddess of Liberty grasping an olive branch in her right hand and liberty staff in her left, which was surmounted by a liberty cap; and the legend, Inde Et Lib Exergue 1785.
Massachusetts established a mint in 1786, and coined $60,000 in cents and half cents. These were marked on the obverse of the cent with a clothed Indian, in his right hand a bow, in his left an arrow; and the legend, Common + Wealth. On the reverse was marked a spread eagle, a shield on his breast bearing the word cent, his talons grasping an olive branch and a bundle of arrows; And the legend, Massachusetts, Exergue 1787, beneath a horizontal bar.
New Jersey granted to Goadsby and Cox, in 1786, the right to coin 10,000 pounds at fifteen coppers to the shilling, known as the New Jerseycopper coin of 1786. These were marked on the obverse with a horse's head, heraldic wreath and a plough; and the legend, Nova. Csesarea. Exergue 1786. On the reverse was a shield; and the legend, E Pluribus Unum.
In 1781 the Continental Congress directed Robert Morris to look into the matter of Governmental Coinage. Robert Morris proposed a money unit equal to one-fourth of a grain of fine silver, an equivalent of one-fourteen-hundred-and-fortieth of a Spanish dollar. The coin equal to one hundred of these units was to be called a cent from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred, 500 units a quint, 10,000 units a mark. These were not accepted, but in 1784 Jefferson proposed in his coinage report to Congress that 'the smallest coin be of copper, of which two hundred shall pass for one dollar'. In 1786 the hundredth was substituted. Copper cents began to be coined in the USA in 1793. In 1796 their weight was reduced and in 1857 the small nickel cent was substituted, and in 1864 the small bronze. Research Cent
The mark was from 1871 to the start of 2002 the currency of Germany.
In the USA, a silver coin, known as a mark, weighing eleven penny weights six grains, was offered by Morris to the Continental Congress in 1783 for consideration as a national coin, but not accepted. It was equivalent to ten of his cents, seventy American cents. On the obverse the decoration consisted of an eye, the centre of a glory, thirteen-points cross, equidistant a circle of as many stars; with the legend: Nova Constellatio. On the reverse was US 1.000, a wreath surrounding and the legend: Libertas. Justitia. 1783. This, with the quint, were known as the Nova Constellatio patterns.
The Quint was an American silver coin equal to about thirty-five cents and weighing five pennyweights, fifteen grains, presented to the Continental Congress in 1783, by Robert Morris for consideration as a national coin, but not accepted. On the obverse it was decorated with an eye, thirteen points cross, equidistant, a circle of as many stars and the legend: Nova Constellatio. On the reverse it was decorated with US 500. a wreath surrounding and the legend: Libertas, Justitia. This coin, with the mark, formed the Nova Constellatio coinage. Research Quint
Abbreviations
Research Bay
