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The sixth century historian Procopius, in both his History of the Wars, and The Secret History, mentions a sea monster--a gigantic whale--named Porphyrios that dwelt in the Bosporus Strait and the Black Sea, and which terrorized the shipping lanes around Constantinople for about fifty years, and which causes significant headaches for the Emperor Justinian & the Roman navy. Our information is fairly limited, but what can we say about this real life Moby Dick?SOURCES:The Secret History, ProcopiusThe History of the Wars, ProcopiusA Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities, KaldellisPinned by The Historian's CraftPorphyrios: The Sea Monster that Terrorized the Late Roman Empire3:51...

NATO warships, which passed through Istanbul's Bosporus Strait Thursday, entered the Black Sea for long-planned exercises and routine visits to ports in Romania and Bulgaria, the alliance said. A U.S. Navy warship entered Turkey's Dardanel Strait on Friday taking relief supplies to Georgia. Three warships - from Spain, Germany and Poland - sailed into the Black Sea on Thursday. The move is not linked to the tensions over Russia's invasion of Georgia, which lies on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, about 900 kilometers (550 miles) from the Romanian coast, said officials at NATO's military command in southern Belgium....