Free Republic

==CHAPTERS==0:00 Introduction0:10 The space between words1:34 What is punctuation?2:04 The first punctuation2:54 Period/full (.) stop & comma (,)5:11 Colon (:) & semicolon (;)6:57 NordVPN7:55 Question mark (?)10:12 Exclamation mark/point (!)11:47 Quotation marks (")13:50 Brackets (())14:57 Dash (–) & hyphen (-)16:00 Apostrophe (')17:28 Ellipsis (...)18:40 MERCH!Where does punctuation come from?! | 18:55RobWords | 538K subscribers | 144,436 views | August 17, 2024

In this episode, we'll trace English back to its oldest known ancestor: an ancestor it shares with almost all of Europe's languages, as well as some Asian languages. That ancestor is called Proto-Indo-European.I also talk about the controversial Nostratic language family and ask whether there could really be a "Proto-Earth" language. What is Proto-Indo-European? | Tracing English as far back as possible20:45 | RobWords | 515K subscribers | 126,562 views | July 13, 2024

A small, 1,600-year-old papyrus fragment discovered in a German archive has been revealed to contain the earliest known copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an early Christian text describing the childhood of Jesus that once enjoyed enormous popularity but was not canonized into the New Testament.

A newly deciphered manuscript dating back more than 1,600 years has been identified as the earliest known account of Jesus Christ’s childhood. The manuscript, written on papyrus in either the 4th or 5th century, had been stored at a library in Hamburg, Germany, for decades and was long believed to be an insignificant document. However, two experts have now decoded the text and say it is the earliest surviving copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. “The papyrus fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” Lajos Berkes, a theology lecturer and one of the two men who deciphered the document,...

Experts in Germany have uncovered a deciphered manuscript that has been determined to be the oldest record of Jesus Christ’s childhood. As CBS News reported, the 1,600-year-old document had been stored in a university library in Hamburg, Germany, for decades. It was ignored until Dr. Lajos Berkes, from Germany’s Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt University in Berlin, and professor Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from Belgium’s University of Liège looked it over and revealed it as the earliest surviving copy of the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” a document detailing Jesus Christ’s childhood. The two experts said in a news release...

Hollywood movies like Marley & Me or Hachi: A Dog’s Tale have brought both joy and tears to millions of viewers around the world, with their ability to capture the special bond between humans and their canine companions – aptly dubbed “man’s best friend”. In some ways, not much has changed over thousands of years. The ancient Greeks had their very own stories concerning this special relationship between man and dog. Of all the tales in Greek mythology, one of the most touching and relatable is that of the loyal dog Argos separated from his master Odysseus. Argos was Odysseus’...

The Antikythera Mechanism, widely believed to be the world’s first computer, was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera on May 17, 1901. A year later, it was identified as containing a gear by Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais. Since then, the Mechanism has had a lasting impact on scientists and thinkers across the world. The seven largest fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism, A-G, both sides. Courtesy Tom Malzbender and Hewlett Packard. The Tablet, or the Antikythera Mechanism “Tablet” was probably the name ancient Greeks gave the Antikythera Mechanism, which dates from the second...

The story of two Greek immigrants in Colombia serves as a lesson of what the nation can achieve when united. Petros Gkrilis and George Sitaras come from Thessaloniki. They are fanatic supporters of the city’s eternal rivals PAOK and Aris respectively. They proudly wear their club’s jerseys in Colombia, speak with passion about their love for their idols back in Greece and they both claim their team is the jewel in Thessaloniki’s sports crown. Yet they have managed to show to the entire world that football rivalries are nothing compared to all the other things in life which unite people...

Two horrific crimes against pregnant women in Greece have led to calls for femicide to be recognized as a specific criminal act. In the first case, a 41-year-old woman who was three months pregnant was murdered by her partner and his friend. The woman, who local media reports have identified as Georgia, had gone missing from Thessaloniki on New Year’s Day, and her body was found days later in a remote area of Halkidiki in northern Greece. According to one of the perpetrators, the two men waited for the woman to arrive at her partner’s apartment, where they ambushed her....

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish and Greek leaders on Saturday, marking the beginning of a week-long trip around the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East to discuss the next phases of the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. Blinken started his day in Istanbul to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Blinken and Erdoğan discussed the war in Gaza, the White House said a press release.

Most are unaware that there were Ancient Greek kingdoms in China and that Hellenism spread all the way to Japan and Korea via India. However, the fact is that the Greeks were indeed in China, and, in addition to this, Hellenism spread to the entirety of the East Asian Buddhist world. In fact, the first anthropomorphic statue of Buddha was created by the Greeks. The famous Silk Road that connected Europe to China actually opened because of a war between Greeks of Alexandria Eschate. Alexandria Eschate, meaning “Alexandria the Farthest,” is located in the Fergana Valley in what is modern...

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expresses its strongest condemnation of the Israeli airstrike that have struck its church compound in the city of Gaza. The Patriarchate emphasizes that targeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women who have lost their homes due to Israeli airstrikes on residential areas over the past thirteen days, constitutes a war crime that cannot be ignored. Despite the evident targeting of the facilities and shelters of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and other churches – including the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem Hospital, other schools,...

Researchers used artificial intelligence to extract the first word from one of the first texts in a charred scroll from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which has been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in AD 79 — the same one that buried nearby Pompeii...The Vesuvius Challenge, a contest with $1,000,000 (£821K) in prizes for those who can use modern technology to decipher the words of these scrolls, has awarded a 21-year-old undergraduate student at the University of Nebraska $40,000 (£32.8K) for being the first to read a word from one of the ancient Herculaneum scrolls.Luke Farritor, who is at...

Socrates has remained one of the most fascinating characters in the history of philosophy, but did his heritage survive in popular Arab fables too? Socrates is one of the most iconic thinkers of Western philosophy. His thought process was oral, and recounts of his life have survived through others’ writings, notably Plato’s. It is not a coincidence that Socrates did not actually put anything into writing. He never committed to any axiom, except human ignorance, and he created the thought process of “birthing” the truth. Socrates is the epitome of the wise fool. In the ancient world, Greek philosophical schools...

A bronze artifact salvaged from an ancient Greek shipwreck, recognized as the world’s oldest computer, may hold the secrets of the universe.When we talk of the history of computers, most of us will refer to the evolution of the modern digital desktop PC, charting the decades-long developments by the likes of Apple and Microsoft. What many don’t consider, however, is that computers have been around much longer. In fact, they date back millennia to a time when they were analog creations. Today, the world’s oldest known “computer” is the Antikythera mechanism, a corroded bronze artifact which was found at the...

Israeli experts uncover Dead Sea Scrolls for first time in 60 years: The significance of the find, explained Around 80 new fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in excavations in the Judean Desert, according to Israeli archaeologists. About 132 and 136 A.D., they were most likely hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome. Israeli archaeologists reported the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments bearing a biblical text in a desert cave, thought to have been hidden nearly 1,900 years ago during a Jewish revolt against Rome. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the fragments of parchment...

Greek authorities have arrested dozens of people on arson-related charges as deadly wildfires – the largest ever recorded in the European Union – rage across the country. Wildfires in Mount Parnitha, north of the Greek capital Athens, are still out of control Friday, with more forest destroyed overnight. The biggest fire front line in Greece remains near the northeastern town of Alexandroupolis, in the Evros region. The burned body of a man was found on a rural road near Dadia national park, near the border with Turkey, state media AMNA reported Friday. Earlier this week, 18 people were found dead...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greek fire department officials arrested two men on Saturday for allegedly deliberately starting wildfires as hundreds of firefighters battle blazes that have been blamed for 21 deaths. One man was arrested on Evia for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried grass in the island’s Karystos area. The fire department said the man confessed to having set four other fires in the area in July and August.

Greeks headed to the polls for the second time in less than two months on Sunday, with the conservative party in power a strong favorite to win with a wide majority after a campaign focused on economic growth and security. The vote is overshadowed by a major shipwreck just over a week ago that left hundreds of migrants dead or missing off the coast of western Greece. But the disaster is unlikely to significantly affect the overall outcome as Greeks are expected to focus on domestic economic issues. Conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, is eyeing a second term as prime...

Graeme Massie Thu, June 8, 2023 at 2:11 PM MDT·2 min read A Donald Trump-supporting New York billionaire says that he wants to buy embattled CNN from Warner Bros. Discovery. Grocery mogul John Catsimatidis told The New York Post that he would “go run the place tomorrow morning and all I’d want is $1 per year.” The news network has been hit by falling ratings and earlier this week under-fire CEO Chris Licht, who attempted to drag CNN to the right, was fired after a searing profile in The Atlantic. Greek-born Mr Catsimatidis, 74, refused to tell the newspaper how...