[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

And a ping for those on Alouette's list, she's away from her computor.

[sionnsar]

Here’s a difficult one to believe. Did you know that bagpipes are not a Scottish invention? According to historic sources, the Romans were playing bagpipes of sheepskin or a cow’s stomach with a few hollow stalks as the pipes. Some of the original pipes were made of animal bones

But that's only the beginning. The bagpipe (defined as a bladder air reservoir with one or more reed pipes) first appeared about the time of Christ in the Middle East.

"Native" forms of the bagpipe are found from India to Ireland -- some blown by mouth, some by bellows. I have seen and have known players of: Irish pipes, Scottish pipes (Highland and parlour), border pipes (Scotland & England, several flavours), English pipes (well, Northumbrian), Swedish, Polish, Macedonian (at least a couple varieties),, and have seen Lancastershire, French (several varieties), Belgian, Spanish, Italian, and some Middle-eastern ones I don't know much about. Have yet to encounter a volynka (Russian pipe).

The first known piper (I have read, can't confirm it) is Nero. Apparently known as a musician, there is a record of some promise he made to the gods, that if [X] took place he would perform for the public on a pipe and some other instrument. (Can't confirm this.) Makes you wonder, though... in Nero's time the fiddle was hundreds of years still in the future...

[xJones]

Let us go further. Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter, Catherine of Aragon, married Prince Arthur of England (who promptly died) and then his little brother who became Henry VIII.

Yes, amen, and because Catherine didn't give him a son, their divorce set off the Church of England. It also led to the beheading of two of Henry's later wives and gave us the history of the most 'colorful' English monarch. And now I think I'm getting lost in trivia, it was something about Columbus.....

[Mrs Zip]

ping

[GATOR NAVY]

Then, in 1498, Vasco Da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa. In the final analysis, that was a far more practical route than the one sought by Columbus.

Hindsight is 20/20. Nobody knew this when Columbus left, so what he trying wasn't pointless.

[HIDEK6]

Two of ten U.S. adults couldn’t read or write in 1904.

I'd be very interested in hearing what the count is today.

Bet it's worse.