March 09, 2017 Thursday
Bedtime Story
French Wars of Religion and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 1572)
Of of many such religious massacres that took place in France in
1500s, there is one most notorious one that goes by the name of St.
Bartholomew’s massacre.
These mon ami are no different from the murderous riots place with
striking regularities in South Asia today.
It simple goes on to show that we human apes have really not
changed much over the years, in spite of declaring noble democratic ideals and
charter of human rights.
These religious wars were the second most deadly of their type in West
Europe, the first one if you recall my earlier bedtime stories were the Thirty
Years’ War that took place in the next century of 1600s.
The French Wars of Religion did away with 3 million West Europeans
and led to famines and diseases which resulted in untold misery and
destruction.
St. Bartholomew’s massacre was just one of the events of this
whole exasperating historical episode.
It was carried out in some day of the August of 1572 by a Catholic
mob against the Calvinist Protestants.
At least 2000 were butchered in Paris alone.
In the provinces, the numbers could be as high as 10,000.
Just look at the appalling barbarity displayed by the good-hearted
Christians.
The Catholic mob severed the head of the Protestant leader Admiral
Coligny and as a trophy dispatched it to Pope Gregory XIII, the Bishop of Rome.
Pope Gregory XIII showed his appreciation of this insane and asinine
blood lust by dispatching a Golden Rose to Charles IX, King of France for
condoning and enabling the St. Bartholomew’s massacre.
Remember mon ami, this has always been the thing about religious
leaders, no matter what they preach about any gospel (in essence they are all
different variations of the same story), they have no scruples and will leave
nothing to stay at the helm of their dogma.
By the way, this Bishop of Rome, Mr. Pope Gregory XIII is famous
for commissioning (paying for) and promulgating the calendar that we still
follow today.
The calendar that was followed before him was the Julian calendar
that was initiated by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. that in turn was a modification
of the Roman Calendar.
I would not like to digress in the story of calendar which I am
very tempted to, but I have already digressed far enough from my story of
mathematical notation.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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