Attaches and Correspondents with General Kuroki’s

General Nogi and his Staff, the Conquerors of Port Arthur

In the end, the Russo-Japanese War was a particularly brutal one, foreshadowing the global conflicts that were to follow.
It’s believed that both sides sustained casualties mounting to more than 150,000 combined, and that some 20,000 Chinese civilians were killed as well.
The fighting concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, which was mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during the spring and summer of 1905. Negotiating for Russia was Sergei Witte, a minister in Czar Nicholas’ government. Harvard graduate Baron Komura represented Japan.
Although Japan had won the war decisively, victory had come at a severe cost: the country’s coffers were virtually empty.

Irish Rebellion 1798

The Irish harp
During the Gaelic period, Irish people loved to entertain their guests with harp music. Since then it has been a beloved symbol of Ireland. The harp was written in the documents of Benedictine monks in the 8th century. It was also shown on coins of the 16th century. Furthermore, it was found again on the flags waved at Queen Elizabeth I's funeral. The harp also played an important role in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and was part of the Irish national flag between the 18th and 19th centuries.

Brutal Drawings from the Gulag

Medieval Hymn for Jerusalem: O Jerusalem - Hildegard of Bingen (Lyric video)

A Scythian ceremonial golden helmet with a fighting scene, excavated in the burial mound Perderieva Mogila near Zrubne in the Don basin, 4th century BC; a showpiece of the archaeological Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, Kiev.

Source: De Krim. Goud en geheimen van de Zwarte Zee. Allard Pierson Museum Series volume 4, 35.

Van der Laarse, R. (2016). Who Owns the Crimean Past? Conflicted Heritage and Ukrainian Identities. A Critical Biographic Approach of Europe’s Past: Proceedings Finissage Colloguium Ename. (pp. 15-53).

Aesop's Fables: The man with the two mistresses

"There was a woman who had a middle-aged man as her lover and although she was no spring chicken herself, she concealed her age with exquisite grace. There was also a beautiful young girl who had caught the man's fancy.

Both women wanted to seem a suitable partner for him, so they began plucking out his hair in turn. The man imagined that his looks were being improved by their attentions but in the end he went bald, since the young girl plucked out every one of his gray hairs, while the older woman plucked out all the black ones."

The Moral: Tis a much harder thing to please two Wives, than two Masters; and he's a bold Man that offers at it. (L'Estrange, 1692)

Aesop's Fables [Translated by Laura Gibbs]
Art: Johannot, T. (1803-1852). L’homme entre deux ages et ses deux maîtresses.

The Nemean Lion
Initially, Hercules was required to complete ten labors, not twelve. King Eurystheus decided Hercules' first task would be to bring him the skin of an invulnerable lion which terrorized the hills around Nemea.
Setting out on such a seemingly impossible labor, Hercules came to a town called Cleonae, where he stayed at the house of a poor workman-for-hire, Molorchus. When his host offered to sacrifice an animal to pray for a safe lion hunt, Hercules asked him to wait 30 days. If the hero returned with the lion's skin, they would sacrifice to Zeus, king of the gods. If Hercules died trying to kill the lion, Molorchus agreed to sacrifice instead to Hercules, as a hero.
When Hercules got to Nemea and began tracking the terrible lion, he soon discovered his arrows were useless against the beast. Hercules picked up his club and went after the lion. Following it to a cave which had two entrances, Hercules blocked one of the doorways, then approached the fierce lion through the other. Grasping the lion in his mighty arms, and ignoring its powerful claws, he held it tightly until he'd choked it to death.
Hercules returned to Cleonae, carrying the dead lion, and found Molorchus on the 30th day after he'd left for the hunt. Instead of sacrificing to Hercules as a dead man, Molorchus and Hercules were able to sacrifice together, to Zeus.
When Hercules made it back to Mycenae, Eurystheus was amazed that the hero had managed such an impossible task. The king became afraid of Hercules, and forbade him from entering through the gates of the city. Furthermore, Eurystheus had a large bronze jar made and buried partway in the earth, where he could hide from Hercules if need be. After that, Eurystheus sent his commands to Hercules through a herald, refusing to see the powerful hero face to face.
Many times we can identify Hercules in ancient Greek vase paintings or sculptures simply because he is depicted wearing a lion skin. Ancient writers disagreed as to whether the skin Hercules wore was that of the Nemean lion, or one from a different lion, which Hercules was said to have killed when he was 18 years old. The playwright Euripides wrote that Hercules' lion skin came from the grove of Zeus, the sanctuary at Nemea: