Richard The Lionheart

Tammy: Hello, folks, welcome to the Past Times! I’m your host, Tammy Turnback, and with us today is the famous Richard the Lionheart.

Richard: Good day.

Tammy: You are one of the few English Kings known by your epitaph, the Lionheart, rather than your number, which was the First, wasn’t it.

Richard: I was.

Tammy: Tell me, what did you do to earn this honor?

Richard: Well, you see, I fought bravely in the Crusades and was a good leader of my army.

Tammy: I see. You were a devoted Crusader?

Richard: Of course – I wanted to serve God and win my place in heaven. If a crusader died on a crusade, it was said that they would go straight to heaven.

Tammy: I see. And why were you fighting these Crusades?

Richard: You see, the Turks had taken over the Holy Lands, and wouldn’t let us Christians go there for pilgrimages, so the Pope ordered us to do something about it. Mine was actually the third Crusade.

Tammy: Oh, I see. And how long were you on this crusade?

Richard: The crusade itself lasted three years, but then, en route back to my own kingdom, the Duke of Austria captured me and put me in prison.

Tammy: Oh, dear.

Richard: It was two years before I finally got out – and my brother John paid my ransom. When I finally got out, King Phillip of France sent John a letter saying “Look to yourself, the devil is loose.” John hadn’t been being very good of a king, you see, and I had to go put him in his place.

Tammy: And you came back and were hailed a hero.

Richard: You could say that. But I did have to forgive him and I even named him my heir.

Tammy: Why, if he were such a bad king?

Richard: You see, I considered him a better king that my other option, our nephew, Arthur, who was still young, and was being influenced by Phillip of France. I considered having a bad king who would keep our lands a better option than a king who was influenced by another king and would give our lands to him. I knew quite well how bad Phillip’s influence could be.

Tammy: Really?

Richard: Yes, you see, when I was young, before my father, King Henry II died, Phillip’s father, Louis VII,  influenced my brothers and I to rebel against our father. Phillip wanted to weaken us, you see. Our second eldest brother, Henry the younger, was influenced the worst, since the he really didn’t have much to do, as Father ruled the lands he had “given” Henry the younger. Our eldest brother, William IX, had died at the age of two from a seizure, so he really didn’t count.

Tammy: And the rest of you didn’t have it as bad.

Richard: Yes. I, for instance, had been given Aquitaine, which had been our mother’s land.

Tammy: Your mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine, wasn’t she?

Richard: She was. She was actually nine years older than our father – he married her for her lands. She had been married to King Louis VII, but had divorced him because he was away on crusades too much, and they had only had daughters.

Tammy: I see.

Richard: I actually liked Aquitaine better than England – England was such a wet rainy place, I wished I could have sold it off when I was raising money for the crusade, but I couldn’t find a buyer.

Tammy: Really? But you were the king of England – how could you not care about it.

Richard: I didn’t like it. Too wet and rainy, for all I cared, John could keep on ruling it. I actually spent no more than six months of my ten-year reign actually on that dismal island. Couldn’t even speak that barbaric tongue, English. I was dignified, and spoke French.

Tammy: Really?

Richard: Yes. Also, my wife was the only English queen to never set foot on English soil – at least, not while she was queen.

Tammy: Really? And who was she?

Richard: Princess Berengaria of Navarre, which was part of Spain. I had been betrothed to Princess Alys of France, King Louis’s daughter by his second marriage, but I didn’t want that tie to France, besides, there were rumors about her and my Father, and I didn’t like them.

Tammy: I see, so you married this Berengaria instead.

Richard: Yes. She was very beautiful. Married her before I left on the crusade, and even took her with me most of the way. I was a busy man, though, and didn’t have much time for her when I got back from prison, never saw her again.

Tammy: Oh, I see.

Richard: And when I died, they didn’t even think to send for her to come to my bedside. They called my mother though – and I died in her arms. My mother later got buried beside me.

Tammy: Which brings us to how you died, how did you die?

Richard: I was in France, laying siege to a city I wanted, and one of the men in the city shot me with a crossbow. I died. My body was buried at my father’s feet, but my heart, which was said to be twice the size of the heart of a normal man, was buried at Rouen in Normandy.

Tammy: And thus ended your reign.

Richard: Yep. It would later be written of me that, “I was a bad king, a bad husband, but a good soldier.” I liked fighting, I was good at it.

Tammy: And that’s all the time we have for today, folks, see you next time on the Past Times!

Aristotle

Tammy: Hello folks! Welcome to the Past Times. I’m your host, Tammy Turnback. With me today is the brilliant philosopher, Aristotle.

Aristotle: And scientist.

Tammy: Yes. What sort of subjects interested you?

Aristotle: A good many of them, especially natural sciences.

Tammy: Such as?

Aristotle: Animals really interested me. I also liked plants.

Tammy: I see.

Aristotle: They are so question provoking. Have they always stayed the way they are now? Or have they changed over time? I am known for being one of the first naturalists.

Tammy: When we had Alexander the Great on our show, he told us that you were one of his tutors.

Aristotle: Ah, yes! Alexander! Yes, I went to Pella for a long while to teach him and his friends. His conquests so expanded my range of study.

Tammy: How?

Aristotle: He had several scientists with him, and would send back stuff that they found. That was some interesting stuff!

Tammy: So, he remembered what you taught him better than his other teacher?

Aristotle: As far as I could tell.

Tammy: Tell me about your early life.

Aristotle: I was born in the town Stagira. My parent’s names were Nicomachus and Phaestis. My father was a doctor and he instilled in me my life long love of science and learning, although we scientists were considered philosophers at the time.

Tammy: Interesting.

Aristotle: My Father was a good friend of Alexander’s grandfather, King Amyntas. That might have had something to do with King Philip later selecting me for Alexander’s tutor.

Tammy: You said that your father taught you, what kind of stuff?

Aristotle: Practically anything that would be useful for a doctor. He hoped that I would follow him in his trade. I learned what he taught me quickly, and he eventually enrolled me in one of the local schools.

Tammy: Where you did very well.

Aristotle: I did. However, both he and my mother died while I was a boy. My guardian, Proxenus, sent me to Athens when I was eighteen in order for me to get further education, when I got beyond the teaching of the local schools.

Tammy: And you liked the place so much you stayed a while

Aristotle: I did. I didn’t return to Macedonian until Philip invited me to be Alexander’s teacher. That is why I am better known for my connection to Athens.

Tammy: I see. What are you best known for today?

Aristotle: My questioning on whether or not life forms stay constant, or change over time.

Tammy: The second is the commonly accepted today.

Aristotle: Yes, but it still do not think it is necessarily is the correct one. Personally, I still think it could be either.

Tammy: My personal opinion is the first. What other things did you think about?

Aristotle: Plenty, of other stuff. If it pertained to life and could be considered science, I thought about it. I did experiments, too. My Father had taught me early in life how to dissect animals and other stuff. I used that skill often.

Tammy: I personally do not care for doing that sort of thing myself.

Aristotle: Nor would I expect you to. You’re a girl.

Tammy: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Thank-you, Aristotle, for your brilliant insights. I’m your host, Tammy Turnback, tune in next time for more of the Past Times!

Aristotle: You’re welcome.

Interview with Archimedes

Tammy: Hello folks! Welcome to The Past Times. Today we have the brilliant thinker Archimedes, who has written several thought provoking books on math.

Archimedes: and variations on the subject

Tammy: Yet you never traveled from your hometown …

Archimedes: Except for when I went to Alexandria. I often thought about going back, but I never did.

Tammy: Why not?

Archimedes: I found that my own city needed me more.

Tammy: What sort of things did you do there?

Archimedes: Well, we were at war, so I built war machines. They were various types of catapults that could throw stones much larger than others that had been made before.

Tammy: Who were you at war with?

Archimedes: Rome.

Tammy: Tell me about your early life.

Archimedes: There isn’t much to say. My father was Phidias the astronomer, and I grew up like just about any other boy in Syracuse.

Tammy: Your home city?

Archimedes: yes.

Tammy: I heard somewhere that you were a favorite with the king in that city.

Archimedes: No, the Tyrant, King Hiero. I solved many a knotty problem for him.

Tammy: Like what?

Archimedes: One time he had had a solid gold crown made, but it didn’t seem to weigh enough. He had it weighed and it was the same weight as the original piece he had given the goldsmith, but it seemed to be too big. The only he could account for it was if the goldsmith had mixed the gold with silver.

Tammy: Because silver is lighter than gold?

Archimedes: Yes. But he couldn’t be sure. So he sent for me. I didn’t want to come. I was already on a very interesting problem. Hiero persisted and I finally reluctantly came. The crown proved to be one of my more interesting problems.

Tammy: Did you solve it?

Archimedes: It took a long time. I sat and looked at it for days on end. If it hadn’t of been for my slaves I never would of figured it out.

Tammy: How’d they help?

Archimedes: Whenever I got really involved with solving a problem, I ignore everything. I even forgot to eat and bathe. They’d bring me food to eat, so I didn’t starve, but I would get very dirty. When that happened, they would pick me up and, despite my screaming and kicking, carry me to the public baths. This time the bath master filled the tub almost to overflowing. Then they tossed me in.

Tammy: And water spilled out?

Archimedes: Exactly. I thought to myself, If water spills out when I get in, maybe it takes up the same amount of space as I do, and if the amount— I jumped out of the tub and ran back home, yelling, “Eureka!” which means “I have found it”

Tammy: Was it pure gold?

Archimedes: Nope. It took up more room than the piece of gold I had borrowed that was the same size as the original piece.

Tammy: I see. But I learned that back in high school geometry!

Archimedes: Yes, thanks to me.

Tammy: I heard that you once pulled a boat one-handed.

Archimedes: I did. And were I to have but another earth to stand on I could move this earth itself! It’s simple really; all I needed were pulleys and screws.

Tammy: Amazing!

Archimedes: Hiero thought sure so. After that event, he always had me solve all his difficult problems.

Tammy: Like the crown?

Archimedes: Exactly.

Tammy: Any other times you helped him?

Archimedes: I defended the city for him.

Tammy: How’d you do that?

Archimedes: With math.

Tammy: would you mind explaining?

Archimedes: Not at all, I designed several different types of machines and Hiero had them built and men trained to run them. The attack didn’t occur in his lifetime, but when it did, we were ready.

Tammy: What kinds of machines were there?

Archimedes: Rock catapults, arrow catapults, boat grabbers, mirrors… stuff like that.

Tammy: mirrors?

Archimedes: I made some with a curve that was just the right angle to focus the sun’s rays in one point in such a way that the object focused on melts or bursts into flames.

Tammy: That’s – amazing.

Archimedes: It’s just math. Anybody could figure it out.

Tammy: If they work at it. You do it seemingly effortlessly.

Archimedes: I don’t exactly figure things in five seconds though

Tammy: You find some things we can’t even fathom simple

Archimedes: You don’t think hard enough.

Tammy: Let’s not argue.

Archimedes: Anything else you would like to know?

Tammy: Yes, I heard that you were killed because of math.

Archimedes: Yes, when Syracuse was finally conquered, the Roman leader told his men that he wanted me brought to him alive, because he wanted to talk to me. I was working on an interesting problem at that point and didn’t want to go anywhere. The soldier who found me just laughed and stood on my work. I got mad and stabbed him with my drawing stylus. He got mad and ran me through with his sword.

Tammy: What did the Roman leader do?

Archimedes: had the soldier killed as a common murderer and me buried with highest honors. On my grave stone, he had the figure of a sphere inside a cube engraved.

Tammy: Why?

Archimedes: I always considered that my most important achievement and had asked for it to placed there.

Tammy: Well, that’s about all the time we have for today. Thank-you Archimedes for being with us today. I’m Tammy Turnback and this has been The Past Times.

Written 11/20/2009

Alexander the Great

Tammy: Hey Folks! Welcome to The Past Times. I’m you’re host, Tammy Turnback. Today, on our show, we have a very famous general from ancient Greece, Alexander the Great!

Alexander: The one and only!

Tammy: You led your army all over the known world, made them brave ice covered mountains, scorching desserts, and bloody battles, I have one question, what were you thinking?

Alexander: I wanted to conquer the world, and I did.

Tammy: Well almost all the world.

Alexander: Yes, my men were such wimps!

Tammy: And you named every city you established after yourself, Alexandria!

Alexander: Except for one. I named the last one after my horse, Bucephalus. The city was in India and I named it Bucephala.

Tammy: But the most famous was in Egypt.

Alexander: Egypt was also the easiest place to fight too. All I had to do was go into the temple of Ra, get proclaimed the son of Ra, and I was Pharaoh.

Tammy: The story that you were the son of a god didn’t start in Egypt, did it?

Alexander: No, my mom, Olympias, got mad at my dad, Philip II of Macedonia, because he wasn’t being true to her, so she came up with the story that Zeus had visited her in a lightning bolt and that he was my real dad.

Tammy: Wow! Do you believe it?

Alexander: It made it easier for me to conquer the world, that’s for sure!

Tammy: How did you get your horse, Bucephalus?

Alexander: When I was about ten, Dad was looking for a horse to buy, and was looking at Bucephalus, however would not let anyone mount him. I was there with them and soon figured out the problem.

Tammy: What was it?

Alexander: I’m getting there; I told my dad that if I could mount, he would he would have to pay me the price of the horse.

Tammy: What did he say?

Alexander: If I broke my neck, I would have to pay him the price of the horse. I went up to Bucephalus and after turning his face toward the sun, mounted him with ease.

Tammy: But what was the problem?

Alexander: The horse was afraid of his own shadow. The thing spooked him out the wazoo.

Tammy: Oh that’s funny!

Alexander: And I won! Afterwards, he was always the horse I rode into war.

Tammy: What kind of schooling did you have as a child?

Alexander: Only the best! When I was seven, dad got Leonidas. Boy, was he strict! He thought my luxurious lifestyle would make me lazy and spoiled. He had me march for miles at night, to make me hungry for breakfast, and when breakfast came, he gave me almost nothing. He would even search my room to make sure I hadn’t hidden any food there!

Tammy: Did you like him?

Alexander: Not his view of food, but he did teach me some vital battle skills, I am grateful for that.

Tammy: Was he your only teacher?

Alexander: No, later on dad invited Aristotle to Pella to teach me and a bunch of my friends.

Tammy: Pella?

Alexander: The capital city of Macedonia

Tammy: What did Aristotle teach you?

Alexander: Literature, philosophy, law… My favorite subject was science. Later, when I was on my battle expeditions, I brought scientists along. They made maps and collected samples of plants and animals. They also kept detailed records of things we saw on our travels.

Tammy: What did you do in your free time?

Alexander: I rode horses, practiced music, and went hunting.

Tammy: Anything else?

Alexander: Not that I can remember.

Tammy: So Aristotle was your favorite teacher?

Alexander: Of course, the two of us never lost touch.

Tammy: Did you have any other lasting friendships?

Alexander: Oh yes, I had several. My best friend was Hephaestion; he later went along with me on most of my travels.

Tammy: When was your first taste of war?

Alexander: That would have been in 338 BC, Bucephelus and I led the cavalry against the Thebans. At the same time Dad was leading the infantry against the Athenians.

Tammy: Did you win?

Alexander: Both city-states were soon defeated.

Tammy: How did the other city-states react?

Alexander: The next year they made an agreement with us. We promised that if one of us needed help, the others would help. The Spartans were the only ones who refused to agree. Dad was now the leader of the combined army of almost all of Greece!

Tammy: Did you like it?

Alexander: I would often complain that if my dad kept up at the rate he was conquering the world, there would soon be nothing for me to defeat.

Tammy: Well, you still found plenty to fight on your own.

Alexander: It helped that he died young though.

Tammy: What happened?

Alexander: For a while after our victories, Dad and I got along fairly well, but then he met Cleopatra.

Tammy: Didn’t she live after your time?

Alexander: wrong Cleopatra. Mom and I didn’t like her, but Dad decided he wanted to marry her. Rulers did that back then. Mom and I left Pella for a year, and not long after we came back, Dad was assassinated.

Tammy: By who?

Alexander: By one of his trusted bodyguards.

Tammy: And you became king?

Alexander: That’s right. The rest of Greece tried to rebel at that point, but I soon showed him who was boss.

Tammy: And then you conquered the world.

Alexander: I did.

Tammy: Some of the kings you treated differently from others. Why?

Alexander: Depended on how they handled the defeat. Darius ran away, so I treated him as the dog he was. Porus, the Indian king, asked to be treated “as a king”, so I let him rule over a large section of my empire.

Tammy: After you defeated the Persians, you started acting as Darius had. Why?

Alexander: It was more fun. However I accidentally killed some of my closer friends while drunk when they tried to rebuke me.

Tammy: But … they were your friends!

Alexander: I know; I felt terrible afterwards, but my point was made.

Tammy: Don’t mess with the king.

Alexander: Exactly.

Tammy: You also married three Persian girls.

Alexander: Roxanne was the only one who produced an heir, and the child wasn’t born until after my death.

Tammy: That brings up the question, why did you die.

Alexander: Old wounds … some people think I had contracted Malaria.

Tammy: but in any case, you died.

Alexander: And my friends split my kingdom up. Just as those Jews said they would.

Tammy: Jews?

Alexander: Seams that they had had a prophet named Daniel who had had a vision in which he saw all the major world rulers. It sounded good so I used the symbol they had associated with me as my own from then on.

Tammy: And they gave up without a fight?

Alexander: They did.

Tammy: Well it looks as if that’s all the time we have for today. I’m your host, Tammy Turnback, this has The Past Times, and we have had the famous Greek General, Alexander the Great!

Alexander: Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!

Written 10/21/2009

Homer

Tammy: Hello folks! Welcome to The Past Times. I’m your host, Tammy Turnback. Today, on our show, we have the best selling author Homer, writer of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Isn’t that right?
Homer: Oh, um yes, or at least according to tradition I am.
Tammy: Yes, two marvelously constructed poems, all about the superheroes of Greece, if only we had such talent today!
Homer: Well I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.
Tammy: And the most amazing thing is that you did it all without the help of your eyes!
Homer: Just because tradition claims that I’m blind doesn’t make me stupid.
Tammy: Well, it does make it harder for you to see where to put the pen down on the paper.
Homer: More like my fingers on my lyre. I’m just as illiterate as the next Greek over.
Tammy: How could you memorize such long poems?
Homer: The human brain is an amazing thing.
Tammy: oh isn’t it.
Homer: Besides, all you have to do is travel to Yugoslavia or Russia to see real live modern bards who recite poems that are as long or longer than my own.
Tammy: Really? And how do they do it?
Homer: It’s quite simple, they don’t memorize the words, they memorize the basic plot, characters, setting, etc. They always tell it slightly different at each recitation. Often they use and reuse many traditional phrases, lines or scenes. I did the same with the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Tammy: Amazing! But then there are the people who don’t believe you existed.
Homer: Oh the analysts. They seem to think that if it isn’t written down, you can’t remember it. They are right, though, about archeology not providing any proof for us Greeks having any alphabet in my day and age.
Tammy: I guess this would be a good time to ask, when did you live?
Homer: Somewhere between 800 and 700 BC.
Tammy: And what about those who do believe that you exist?
Homer: The unitarians say that my poems could have only of been written by one or maybe two people. They say that the unified plan of the poems and the consistent character portrayals point towards one author rather than many.
Tammy: But how did the poems get on paper?
Homer: Writing was introduced towards the end of my life. I then dictated my two poems to one of those new scribes. Historians find it hard to trace me, seeing as how I was a traveling bard and picked up a version of Greek that was not really native to any of the cities I traveled to.
Tammy: Interesting! What happened to the poems after your death?
Homer: They were recited as part of many great festivals. Copies became the basic textbooks that Greek children used to learn to read and to study the legends and myths. As a result the Greeks formed their religious views from my portrayals of the gods and goddesses. The poems also furnished characters and plots for the great tragic dramatists of the 400’s BC – Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles.
Tammy: Did the poems ever change after you had them written down?
Homer: Plenty. If you wanted copies of the poems I wrote, you had to write them by hand. Mistakes were often made, and some people even made “improvements”. In 300 to 100 BC scholars at the great Alexandrian Library in Egypt tried to correct the errors and restore them to original form. This was when the idea that there were two different poets originated. The scholars who thought this, the separatists, thought that the language, point of view, and subject matter in the two poems were so different that just one person could not have created them both.
Tammy: Fascinating! And just what did you base your poems on?
Homer: I got them from other bards, who got them from other bards, who got them from other bards, who got them from other bards, etc. etc. I imagine that if you go far enough back you would find a bard who was there when the Trojan War took place.
Tammy: Which brings up the question “did Troy exist?”
Homer: There is very good archaeological evidence for it.
Tammy: Like what?
Homer: Hienrich Schleimen, one of my biggest fans, discovered several cities in the hill called Hissarlik. He though that what he called Troy 2 was the one I talked about, Henry Durthbelt, a later excavator, discovered Troy 6, which matches pretty well with the descriptions I put in the Iliad. Another excavator said that an earthquake had destroyed Troy 6, and what he called Troy 7a, which was a city of soup kitchens and shanties, had been the one that had been ransacked by the Greeks.
Tammy: What do you think?
Homer: I know that I had changed a few details, so I wouldn’t put it past the bards who gave it to me. Maybe the wooden horse had just been a mix-up. Poseidon was both Earth-Shaker and the creator of the horse.
Tammy: Is he?
Homer: Yes.Tammy: Well that’s all the time we have for today folks. Thank-you Homer for your insight into the poems you wrote. I’m your host, Tammy Turnback, and thank-you for joining us on The Past Times!

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4. There's a character in Game of Thrones that, when I first heard of her, I was scared that she might be too much like a character I have in Half-Hidden, so I went and read her Wiki page. She shares a title, but that's about it.