Ruckert, coloured tea service, 1887-96, Alamy Early medieval Russian silver often included calm niello work and ornamental lines with black enamel. But under Tsar Peter the Great (1682-1725), who west­ernised the Russ­ian Empire, local silversm­iths began explor­ing modern forms. The Imperial family and weal­thy cl­asses dined from fash­ionable, solid-silver Baroque, Rococo, then Neoclassic-style gob­lets, plat­ters, caviar dishes and bas­kets. Showy gilt-silver cigar­ette cas­es, cigar cas­es and tankards sat on shelves. Silver mirrors, per­fume bott­l­es, powder boxes and jewel­l­ery cask ..read more

Don Stephens founded Mercy Ships in 1978, as a Christian charity headquartered in Texas, with the purchase of the SS Anastasis. During his time as President of Mercy Ships, Don directed and led thousands of volunteers from 60+ nations, plus employees in 16 countries. Don Stephens and wife Deyon Global Mercy at dock Mercy Ships Don pioneered The Mercy Minute, a daily radio broadcast on 840+ stations for decades. He handed over the programme to Mercy Ships spokeswoman Raeanne Newquist while Stephens wrote 3 books: Trial by Trial (1985), Mandate for Mercy (1995) and Ships of Mercy (2 ..read more

As I wrote in an earlier post, American Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) played world championship mat­ches in 1970–1 when he won 20 consecutive games before losing once and drawing 3 times to ex-world champion Russian Tigran Petros­yan. In 1972 Fischer was the first American-born Jewish man to hold the World Champion tit­­le when he defeated Russian Boris Spassky in a mat­ch held in Reykjavík Iceland. Russia had dominated chess since the end of WW2, so the tournament was highly publicised; the Fisc­h­er-Spassky match thus became a metaphorical battle in the Cold War Spassky and Fischer, 1972 ..read more

As a graduate, James Lough had wanted to link exper­ien­ce with education. Later Lough became Prof of Experimental Psychology at NYU (1901-27), when he wanted to create a new kind of education that allowed students to learn on location. Lough took students to places like Grand Central Station and Wall St, to learn from experts.  Students arrive on board   This became the foundation of an experiment that he ran in 1913 to take students offshore; he ran the first study abroad programme in Am­erica that gave university credit for travel exper­ience. And it ran again in 1914. But ..read more

Lionel Logue (1880-1953) was born in College Town Adelaide, eldest of 4 children of South Australian par­ents clerk George Logue and his wife Lavinia. Logue attended Prince Alfred College in 1889-96, then studied elocution with Edward Reeves to lose his Aus­tralian accent, and to start a career in dramatic arts under Reeves’ tui­­t­ion. In 1902 he bec­ame Reev­es's assistant-teacher and stud­ied at the Elder Conserv­at­orium of Music.                               King George VI made his speech to the nation,  Sep ..read more

In 1960 my first year in high school, there were 120 students - a few from Russian, German or Romanian parents and 114 from Polish parents. They all went back to visit Poland in the early 1960s, and mostly loved Warsaw,  Krakow and Lublin. Town hall tower,  Visit Krakow Kraków’s Market Square/Ry­nek in Poland is the centre of the city’s medieval Old Town, designed in 1257 when the town first won its charter. Laid out on a grid, the Old Town and its central square changed little in the centuries that followed. Always active, this 40,000 sq ms grouping of cafés, clubs, music cent ..read more

Mark Rothko Mark Rothkowitz Rothko (1903–70) was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Dvinsk Latvia, rejecting Jew­ish obser­v­ance as a teenager only once they were in the US. Yet his life in New York was inflect­ed by Jewish culture at nearly every turn, especially in the art­is­t­ic company he kept, including Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman and Louise Nevelson. Plus the curat­ors and critics he dealt and argued with eg Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. Examine his early works in this blog. Rothko began with the idea of a painted environment in the 1950s, when he created his Seag ..read more

Corfu Island sat in the eastern Medit­erranean, off the western coast of Greece, Albania and near South Italy, occupying a milit­ar­ily and economically strategic point. Corfu was therefore conquered often: by the Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Vene­tians, Sicilian kings, Ottoman Empire, Napoleonic armies, Britain and the Greek Kingdom. neoclassical Achilleion Palace built for Empress of Austria, 1888 Shiny Greece Before France's Revolutionary Wars, the Ionian Sea Islands had been in Re­public of Venice. The 1797 Treaty dissolved the Republic of Ven­ice and Corfu was ann­ex­ed to the ..read more

Władysław Szpilman (1911-2000) was born in Sosnowiec Poland into a cultured family. He showed an early talent for the piano, training in Warsaw, then in the 1920s continuing in Berlin. In the most exciting art and musical environment anywhere, Weimar Germany, Szpilman studied piano and composition at the Ber­l­in Acad­emy of Arts, working with Franz Schreker. When the Nazis took power in 1933 he returned to his family in Warsaw and worked as a pianist for Polish Radio. By 1939, he had composed many popular songs and classical works, and became quite famous. Szpilman and his parents pre-war ..read more

Belgium-born Jacques Rogge (1942-2021) was ed­ucated at the Jesuit Sint-Barbara College in Ghent and the Univ­ersity of Ghent. I imagine that because his grandfather (cyc­l­ing) and father (track-field; hoc­key) were both professional sports­men, he felt encouraged to study sp­orts medic­ine. In 1972, Rogge was the first to study muscle activity during sailing using invasive needle EMG to obtain his Master degree in Sports Medicine. Then he got his Medical De­gree at Bruss­els’ Free Uni. Jacques Rogge, Juan Antonio Samaranch,  Vladimir Putin,  following Rogge's elec ..read more