"Good morning sir"...The children stood up and greeted the man as he entered the class room.

"Good morning children. Please sit down", instructed the forty year old bespectacled teacher. He looked around and smiled at the 10th grade students sitting before him.

"I am your new History teacher"....No response..

"How many of you like history?".. A couple of hands from the front row went up. He expected that there weren't going to be too many. Even he hated history when he was in the 10th grade.

"Hmm..OK..Why do u hate it?".. Silence..

"Sir. It's a boring subject, sir.. Full of useless facts..Need to memorize lots of time-lines and names..What is the use, sir?"...

"I am not surprised at your answer children. But what you think about history is wrong. Don't you like stories?"

"Yes, we do" murmured a few.

"History is full of stories. HIS + STORY is history. There are lots of stories". This statement caught the attention of a few. No one spoke to them about history like that. He seemed to be different from the other history teachers.

"I am going to tell you stories. Lots of them.You won't feel bored. How does that sound?"

"OK sir". The children were excited.

"Today I am going to tell you about the battle of thermopylae".

"Thermo..what?"

"Thermo..pylae.." the teacher repeated..

"It was the year 480 B.C. The Persians occupied most of Asia from the middle east to the north of India.

They wanted to conquer Europe and the gateway to Europe was Greece. Greece at that time was not a single country. Greece was a combination of cities like Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta, Thebes. So Persia decided to conquer Greece and the King of the Persian army at that time was Xerxes I. He gathered a huge army around 1 million soldiers and marched towards Greece."

The teacher looked around. He sure had caught the attention of the kids. Every one was keenly listening to the story.

"Country after country started falling as Xerxes successfully led his army towards Athens."

The teacher unrolled the map that he brought with him and hooked it onto the black board.

" To reach Athens, the Persian army had to cross a narrow pass called the thermopylae. On one side the pass stood a massive hill and the other side was covered with water.

The only hope the Greek army had was to hold the thermopylae pass. If that was comprised the huge Persian army would walk over Greece. King Leonidas of Sparta led a small army of about 7000 soldiers and decided to hold the pass.

The pass was very narrow. At a time only one chariot could pass thru it. The Greeks stood at the pass and awaited the Persian army. Xerxes sent out warnings to the Greeks but they were unmoved. The next day the battle of thermopylae ensued. The battle continued for 3 days and all the strategy Xerxes planned failed. There was a huge casualty on the Persian army. King Leonidas and his men fought like lions.  

Can any one guess what happened next?" asked the teacher.

"umm..Xerxes went back and accepted defeat?"

"I think he must have come up with a master plan to defeat Leonidas".

"So who do you think won the battle?", the teacher asked

"Leonidas".....

"Xerxes".....

"May be both lost the battle"............ 

There were lots of guesses.                                                                                      

"Sir..Please continue the story sir. The suspense is killing us"? pleaded one.

"OK children. This is what I am going to do. I am going to stop here and I am giving you an assignment. You should read yourself and figure out what happened next and we shall discuss that in the next class".

"Oh noooo...Please sir..You can't do this to us, sir.."

"How many of you like to watch movies"?

The teacher lost count on the number of hands that went up.

"There is a movie releasing tomorrow titled '300'. The movie is about the battle of thermopylae. I am not sure if it will get released in India. But I am sure the DVD's would come out soon. Watch this movie and you will never forget about the battle". 

"Ok Kids. The rest of the hour is free. You can go out and play. I will see you next week".

For the first time the kids hated a history teacher leaving the class early.

Most of the kids rushed to the nearest computer browsing centre to learn more about the battle of thermopylae.

Date : Nov 1, 1755

Place : Lisbon, Portugal.

It was a beautiful morning on the 1st of Nov, 1755. It was also the All Saint's Day, a day considered auspicious by the devout catholic people of Lisbon. People were in their holiday mood. Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is located in the West of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean Coast at the point where the river Tagus flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

Around 9:40 in the morning the inevitable happened. An earthquake with a magnitude of around 9 on the Ritcher Scale with its epicentre in the atlantic ocean, struck Lisbon with such a massive force that it caused gigantic 5 metres wide fissures to appear in the city centre. Many of the survivours rushed to the open space of the docks. Many of them were trapped inside their building's.

To worsen the situation, fire broke out in the buildings as a result of the falling candles, overturning furnaces. The victims were either burnt or buried alive. The only place safe was the open ground near the sea shore and people rushed to the sea shore only to witness the sea receding.

A couple of minutes later an enormous Tsunami hit the left over town swallowing the innocent survivors of the earthquake. It is believed that the triple destruction killed around 100,000 People and the fire raged for 5 days destroying what was left of the city.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake set into motion many important events that followed. The triple disaster not only shook and burnt the buildings but it also shook the belief that people had on GOD. How could one explain such a phenomenon where there was mass destruction and death and that too happening on All Saint's Day.

The earthquake influenced Voltaire, the famous writer, to write his best known work "The Candide".  He criticed the church dogma and blind beliefs.  Another famous philospher, Immanuel Kent, collected all information regarding earthquakes and studied the causes of them. It is believed that Kent brought the first Systematic attempts to explain earthquakes by natural rather then supernatural causes and started the begining of Seismology.

Marquis of Pombal, the then prime minister, was hugely responsible for the reconstruction of the modern Lisbon architecture. The whole city was rebuilt within an year and the architectural models were designed to resist subsequent earthquakes. They remain the first quake proof buildings.

The 1775 Lisbon earthquake has left me thinking a lot. Humans cannot withstand natural calamities yet we go about depleting our natural resources. We are so small compared to nature yet the small ego in every one of us makes us think otherwise. But even after such a calamity, humans have the will power to overcome it, innovate things and continue with what is left over and rebuild our lives.

So where does our real power lie?

More information on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Tagged by KK and Sat.

The story so far….

I find myself in a virtual world with Hitler who is set out to straighten the anti-social elements in the real world using  time travel.

Since I am not going to tag anyone this branch of the story will end with my story.

And Now…..

The fuhrer is busy reading H.G.Wells classic trying to gather his inputs for time travel.  I enter the room only to find that he has lost all track of time and was immensely enjoying the battle between the Eloi’s and the Morlock’s.

“Hello…Excuse me…Aren’t we supposed to leave now?” I intercepted.

“Sorry. Give me a minute. What a classic novel.” He closed his book ready for his journey. “Do you know that Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated wisdom?”

I was literally taken aback to hear a quotation on books from the great general.

 “huh. Is it”.?

 “You humans will never understand the importance of them. Come let’s go”.

 He took me to a garage and there stood which he described as the time-machine. It resembled like a vimana that Ravana used to abduct sita back in the days of Ramayana.

 “You mean this is going to take us back to the past”?

 “Just hop-in Kid and leave the rest to me. So whom shall we elimintate first. Your choice boy.”

 “Ok. Let’s go back to May 10, 1933. The destination is Berlin, Germany”

 “Ok. Who’s this guy that we need to eliminate?. Was he really dangerous”

 “You will find that out”, I assured him.

 He closed his eyes and murmured something to himself in some cryptic language. The machine started to ascend. A beautiful lady appeared in the monitor in front of me and there was a 5 minute video on wearing seat belts and the safety precautions that needs to be taken care of in case of an emergency landing or if the time machine goes into an out-of-bound loop.

 “What is this wet towel and peanut for”?

 “Oh. Just in case. I read somewhere that a wet towel and peanut is needed for inter galactical travel.”

 I was sure that the he would be in for a real surprise after we land at our destination.

 The sound in the machine was growing loud and it started whirling. I felt dizzy and closed my eyes.

 “Wake up kid.”

 “Are we there? I started remembering everything.

 We saw rows of students marching towards an open ground with bunch of books in their hands.

 “OK sir. You are now in my land. The guy that we are going to eliminate will resemble like you. Under no circumstances should you meet him face to face.” Since I was back in the real world, I started taking control from him.

 “But Why? I would like to meet him.”

 “The shock of coming face to face with oneself will traumatize anyone. They could go into a shock. His heart might stop and will probably drop dead. This would create a time-paradox which would unravel the very fabric of the time-space continuum and destroy the entire universe”. I was glad that I could remember the whole sentence from a famous movie.

 “Ok. Whatever dude. So where are these students going”?

 “You see those books they carry? They are going to burn them”

 “What? Who in the right mind would do that?”

 “The one we are planning to eliminate”.

 “So why do we want this guy to eliminate. Just becos he is burning books? "

 “See. This guy was one of the main reason for the world to witness a brutal war in the 20th century. This is what might happen if we eliminate him.”

 “There would be no world war. Millions of people across the globe will be saved.”

 “There would be no concentration camps for the Jews”.

 “Jews would be happy staying back in Europe. They wouldn’t go back to Asia. There would be no war between Israel and Palestine in the future. People who are staying there will be happy.”

 “There would be no two Germanys”,

 “There would be no cold war”.

 “There would be no arms race”.

 “Ok..Enough..Enough..Stop…I have enough reasons now. So how do we kill him?”

 “Kill him?. Are u nuts. Killing him would create a time-paradox” and I started to give him a lecture on astro mechanical physics.

 “You don’t kill him. You just switch places with him. I have taken care of all the details. You will now make an entrance and act like the general. When the real one comes tell him that he is Charlie-chaplain and have your security guards arrest him. I will take care of the rest. Got it? And one more thing. A guy called Indiana jones, who is looking for some grail, will also come here for your autograph. Just sign it. God Speed and Save the world.”

 “Are you sure this will work?”

“Definetly. This is called the ripple effect. Time travel into the future is always the extrapolation of current events of the immediate present. Just as the present affects the future, the future reverberates back into the past.”

 Looking at the expression at his face I knew that he understood nothing. Every thing would become clear in the future or rather in my past.

 The End.

When I read about PHI in The DaVinci Code, it was very surprising to know that a number could determine the way humans behave and the way things are organised in the universe.

Here is a good resource on the Golder Number.

Foucault's pendulum by Umberto Eco is a book about the Knight's templar... Boy, reading the book is really tough. Thought that all the reviewers must be joking. But it's really tough and challenging to keep up the pace.

For those interested in medieval history, this is a good book.