Charles River

*Includes pictures*Examines the archaeology, history, and culture of both groups*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Nearly 2,500 years after the Golden Age of Athens, people across the world today continue to be fascinated by the Ancient Greeks. But who did the Ancient Greeks look up to? The answer to that question can be found in Homer's The Odyssey, in which Odysseus makes note of "a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned." It was perhaps the earliest reference to the Minoan civilization, a mysterious ancient civilization that historians and archaeologists still puzzle over, but a civilization that renowned historian Will Durant described as "the first link in the European chain." Nearly 2,000 years before Homer wrote his epic poems, the Minoan civilization was centered on the island of Crete, a location that required the Minoans to be a regional sea power. And indeed they were, stretching across the Aegean Sea from about 2700-1500 BCE with trade routes extending all the way to Egypt. The Minoans may have been the first link in the "European chain", leading to the Ancient Greeks and beyond, but questions persist over the origins of the civilization, the end of the civilization, and substantial parts of their history inbetween, including their religion and buildings. In the wake of the Minoans, a Greek culture flourished and spread its tentacles throughout the western Mediterranean region via trade and warfare. Scholars have termed this pre-Classical Greek culture the Mycenaean culture, which existed from about 2000-1200 BCE, when Greece, along with much of the eastern Mediterranean, was thrust into a centuries long dark age. However, before the Mycenaean culture collapsed, it was a vital part of the late Bronze Age Mediterranean system and stood on equal footing with some of the great powers of the region, such as the Egyptians and Hittites. Despite being ethnic Greeks and speaking a language that was the direct predecessor of classical Greek, the Mycenaeans had more in common with their neighbors from the island of Crete, who are known today as the Minoans. Due to their cultural affinities with the Minoans and the fact that they conquered Crete yet still carried on many Minoan traditions, the Mycenaeans are viewed by some scholars as the later torchbearers of a greater Aegean civilization, much the way the Romans carried on Hellenic civilization after the Greeks. Given that the Mycenaeans played such a vital role on the history in the late Bronze Age, it would be natural to assume there are countless studies and accurate chronologies on the subject, but the opposite is true. Although the Mycenaeans were literate, the corpus of written texts from the period is minimal, so modern scholars are left to use a variety of methods in order to reconstruct a proper history of Mycenaean culture. In fact, even the name "Mycenaean" can be a bit misleading since it refers only to one locale in Greece. However, since the city was the first Bronze Age site discovered, it became a reference point for archeologists and historians to use to refer to any Bronze Age discoveries in Greece. Archeology provides the base for any study of the ancient Mycenaeans; since many of their cities were replaced and built over in classical, medieval, and modern times, excavations of the Bronze Age cities can tell modern scholars how these people lived and died. Closely related to archaeology is art history, which can be the study of any material culture including pottery, sculptures, reliefs, and jewelry. The Homeric epics also provide some information about Mycenaean culture, though Homer was a poet who lived hundreds of years after the collapse of the Mycenaean culture. Classical Greek historians and geographers also wrote about the Mycenaeans, but their works should be consulted with caution as some of their statements have proved false.

*Includes pictures *Includes excerpts from the apocrypha *Includes a list of the apocrypha, online resources, and a bibliography for further reading Between 50 and 90 CE, the various writings that comprise the New Testament were written, including the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, and other letters to more general communities of the early Church. But what is recognized as the 26 books of the New Testament today, in literally hundreds of English translations, actually took several more centuries to be determined as "canonical" by the Church. In fact, it was not until a synod in Rome in 382 that the Church in the West formally adopted a list of the canonical books of the New Testament. For the intervening three centuries, there was much discussion among different writers over the many manuscripts circulating among the early Christian communities. Many of the manuscripts were anonymously authored by members of early heretical groups of Christians who shaped supposedly inspired writings to provide support for their doctrinal positions. Many more had the veneer of inspired texts because they were attributed to one of the Twelve Apostles or Mary, the mother of Jesus; they claimed to offer details of Jesus' life not covered in depth in the Four Gospels (such as his infancy and childhood), or the activities of the named apostle, or doctrinal teachings. The process of determining the Canon of the New Testament was a long one. It involved numerous scholars directed by the teachings of the Church sifting through numerous manuscripts with various attributed authorships. The 29 that made it into the canon were those that passed muster in terms of apostolic authorship and conformity to orthodox Church teaching. Most of those that did not make it in failed on those two accounts. Others were not included because they were judged not to have been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Whatever the reason they were excluded, the writings that comprise the New Testament Apocrypha, while not inspired Scripture, do show something of the context in which the early Church developed its doctrines and its writings. Even today, not every branch of the Christian church agrees on which writings should be regarded as "canonical" and which are "apocryphal", even though some apocryphal texts often have noticeable links with books regarded as "canonical". Regardless, the New Testament Apocrypha refers to texts written by early Christians that were not included in the Bible used by the main branches of Christianity today. These texts vary in subject matter, with some being accounts of Jesus, others being about the nature of God, and still others being accounts and teachings of Jesus' apostles. What makes them fascinating is not just the history behind why they are considered non-canonical, but what they tell us about the early Church and early Christianity. Moreover, they offer insight into what sources were used to write them, and whether they shared the same sources as the texts that comprise the Bible today. Given their historical and religious importance, there is still a fierce debate over the authenticity of many of these texts. The Apocryphal Gospels: The History of the New Testament Apocrypha Not Included in the Bible looks at some of the famous texts that were kept out of the Bible. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the apocryphal books like never before.

Jes s de Nazareth fue un maestro jud o de origen rural que vivi en el primer tercio del siglo I de nuestra era. Durante una celebraci n de la Pascua en Jerusal n fue condenado a la pena de muerte -espec ficamente crucifixi n- por la autoridad imperial de Roma, que en ese momento ten a el control de su pa s. Muchas cosas m s podr an decirse de su vida, pero aparte de este peque o resumen y quiz uno o dos detalles m s, ser a complicado que todos los acad micos estudiosos de la Biblia levantaran su mano en se al de acuerdo. Sin embargo, la literatura escrita en los siguientes 250 a os despu s de la muerte de este predicador jud o -relativamente desconocido en vida- fue abundante, casi estridente. Cu ntas personas dejaron por escrito vida o dichos de Jes s de Nazareth? La persona poco versada en estos temas responder que cuatro: los autores de los evangelios de Mateo, Marcos, Lucas y Juan, libros que se encuentran en el Nuevo Testamento. Pero para muchos resulta una sorpresa saber que los evangelios que aparecen en la Biblia no son sino una peque a muestra de los que se produjeron. Desde el principio, la producci n literaria de quienes consideraban a Jes s como Mes as fue abundante. Sin contar las breves menciones sobre la vida de Jes s que aparecen en las cartas de San Pablo, en los primeros dos siglos y medio de nuestra se compusieron muchas otras colecciones de dichos y hechos sobre el maestro jud o, algunas de ellas posiblemente por testigos oculares, o cuando menos, por cristianos de la primera o segunda generaci n (disc pulos de los disc pulos de Jes s). Algunos de esos textos fueron tan populares y gozaron de tal difusi n que han dejado su influencia hasta nuestros d as. Los nombres de los reyes magos -Melchor, Gaspar y Baltazar-, la tradici n de que Jos el padre de Jes s era viudo, los nombres de los bandidos que perecieron junto a l en la cruz -Dimas y Gestas- y el de la esposa de Pilatos, por citar s lo algunos ejemplos, provienen todos de los ap crifos: nunca se mencionan en la Biblia. La imponente pintura que est en la iglesia de San Paolo Maggiore, en N poles, que muestra a San Pedro luchando contra el mago Sim n, tambi n proviene de la imaginer a ap crifa.

*Includes pictures *Includes the actors' quotes about their lives and careers *Includes a bibliography for further reading Only a select few actors become international stars in their time, but none had as unique a career as Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was the first true film star, and he managed to do so even when films were still silent. He has been honored with too many awards to count, and the fact that his name remains instantly recognizable nearly a century after his first film is a testament to his influence. Even today, Chaplin's films are arguably more recognizable than those of perhaps any other actor or director; everyone is familiar with the famous "Tramp" costume and persona, and even the casual film enthusiast has likely seen films such as City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). Chaplin is known for the singular blend of pathos and humor evinced by his films, and it is not uncommon for audiences to laugh and cry at alternate points of a Chaplin film, a trait that continues to endear audiences even to this day. For this reason, in his review of Stephen Weissman's biography of Chaplin, Martin Sieff noted, "It is doubtful any individual has every given more entertainment, pleasure, and relief to so many human beings when they needed it most." As Sieff's comment suggests, Chaplin's career coincided with the two World Wars and the Great Depression, but while Chaplin the actor was popular, Chaplin the person became controversial in the final decades of his life. In fact, there is a wide discrepancy between the almost uniformly enthusiastic praise of Chaplin today and the subversive identity he cultivated toward the latter part of his career. Although accusations of being a communist sympathizer and Chaplin's confrontation with the House Committee on Un-American Activities have mostly become a footnote in the storied career of a man best remembered as an acting pioneer, it forced Chaplin to spend the last 15 years of his career working as an artist in exile, and the shifting viewpoints of Chaplin were instrumental in forcing people to evaluate the way in which they viewed celebrities, as well as what it means to be entertained. In the 1920s, the burgeoning movie industry was starting to come into its own, and alongside actor and director Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton was at the peak of Hollywood. It's no surprise that Keaton was so effective in silent films, because he had been practicing comedy in his family's vaudeville acts as "The Little Boy Who Can't Be Damaged", becoming a popular performer by the age of 5. Indeed, his physical form of comedy, which initially involved having his father throwing him around the stage, translated well onto the screen, and some of his slapstick and other comic gags remain legendary even today, in part because Keaton practiced his own stunts. In fact, Keaton wrote his own material and was a crucial comic influence on acts like The Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. In addition to being one of the foremost comedians of his time and writing his own stuff, Keaton also directed many of his own films, and he mastered the use of cameras at a time when film was still relatively new. As Time magazine writer Richard Corliss noted, "Watch his beautiful, compact body as it pirouettes or pretzels in tortured permutations or, even more elegantly, stands in repose as everything goes crazy around it. Watch his mind as it contemplates a hostile universe whose violent whims Buster understands, withstands and, miraculously, tames. Watch his camera taking his picture (Keaton directed or supervised all his best films); it is as cool as the star it captured in its glass... The medium was still in its infancy; comics were pioneering the craft of making people laugh at moving images. Keaton, it turns out, knew it all - intuitively."

*Includes pictures *Includes both men's quotes about their lives and careers *Includes a bibliography for further reading Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the "Wild West", which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorful portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind. Of all the colorful characters that inhabited the West during the 19th century, the most famous of them all is Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), who has long been regarded as the embodiment of the Wild West. Considered the "toughest and deadliest gunman of his day", Earp symbolized the swagger, the heroism, and even the lawlessness of the West, notorious for being a law enforcer, gambler, saloon keeper, and vigilante. The Western icon is best known for being a sheriff in Tombstone, but before that he had been arrested and jailed several times himself, in one case escaping from prison, and he was not above gambling and spending time in "houses of ill-fame". The seminal moment in Earp's life also happened to be the West's most famous gunfight, the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, which famously pitted Earp, his brothers Morgan and Virgil, and Doc Holliday against Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. Though the gunfight lasted less than a minute, it is still widely remembered as the climactic event of the period, representing lawlessness and justice, vendettas, and a uniquely Western moral code. For Earp, the aftermath led to assassination attempts on his brothers, one of which was successful, touching off the "Earp Vendetta Ride". By the end of the 19th century, Earp was already a poignant symbol of that time and day, having permanently etched his name in the folklore of the West, but he stayed out west, engaging in everything from gold mining to vigilante justice on the Mexican border. A living legend, he even served as an advisor to early Hollywood, which was already pumping out Western movies. When he died in 1929 at the age of 80, one of the West's toughest fighters and one of its longest survivors had finally passed Though he is no longer as well remembered as he once was, one of the most famous and notorious lawmen of the Wild West was Bat Masterson, who drifted around Dodge City and other parts of the West and was associated with legends like Wyatt Earp. Carrying a six-shooter that he called "the gun that tamed the West", Masterson was involved in several duels and shootouts, much of which was embellished during the early 20th century when he became a newspaper columnist and was given a chance to frame anecdotes about the frontier days and talk about colorful characters like Doc Holliday. Like Wyatt Earp, who once served as a lawman under him, Masterson was primarily known as being on the right side of the law, but he wasn't afraid to firmly straddle both sides of it. While tall tales about shootouts were commonplace and believed wholesale throughout the West in the 19th century, few men had as strong a reputation as Bat Masterson, who was known for public shootouts, one of which took place in Dodge City in 1878 that ended with the death of his brother and town marshal, Ed Masterson. Bat also took part in the famous Earp Vendetta Ride near Tombstone, which occurred in the wake of the Shootout at the O. K. Corral. Given the number of times he fought, and the fact that he was shot and injured himself, perhaps Bat Masterson's most remarkable feat was that he managed to survive into the 20th century, something few Western legends of his era (with the exception of Wyatt Earp) accomplished. Thanks to his survival, Masterson was able to parlay his notoriety into opportunities back East, including even being appointed marshal in New York.