The book is constructed of a series of poems, each containing a rule, way or belief to becoming successful.
The Tao Te Ching is a short book of about 5,000 Chinese characters. It has 81 short chapters. It has two parts: Part One is the Tao Ching (道經) "Way Rules", which is chapters 1–37; Part Two is the Te Ching (德經) "Virtue Rules", which is chapters 38–81.
The Tao Te Ching is one of the most translated books in history, alongside the Bible and the Quran. Why are there thousands of translations? The text is short, the meaning is difficult. There are many interpretations, or ways to understand what the book says.
Bacon
Bacon is a type of meat that comes from pigs. It is taken from the sides, back, or belly of the pig. It is often cut in thin slices, unlike other cured or smoked pork products. It is usually fried or grilled. It can also be microwaved.
In the USA, back bacon and smoked ham is sometimes called Canadian bacon.
Bacon has lots of fat. Because bacon comes from pigs, people of some religions will not eat it. In some cultures and religions (such as Islam and Judaism), eating pork may be considered "unclean." Because of this, other varieties of bacon are also made out of turkey or chicken instead. Turkey bacon and chicken bacon usually contain half of the fat of pork-based bacon.
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, otherwise known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact, was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov (Stalin's Soviet foreign minister) and Joachim von Ribbentrop (Hitler's German foreign minister) on 23 August 1939. The agreement promised that neither the Soviet Union nor Nazi Germany would attack each other.
A secret part established spheres of interest in Eastern Europe, and a border between both countries existed after they had invaded and divided Poland.
Only nine days latee, 1 September 1939, the German invasion of Poland began. On 17 September, the Soviet invasion of Poland began.
About 250,000 to 454,700 Polish soldiers and policemen were captured and interned by the Soviet authorities. About 125,000 were imprisoned in camps run by the NKVD, and 43,000 soldiers born in western Poland, then under German control, were transferred to the Germans. In turn, the Soviets received 13,575 Polish prisoners from the Germans, which showed how close the co-operation was between the Germans and the Soviets.
On 3 September, France and the United Kingdom declared war soon because both had promised to defend Poland if it was attacked. Since neither of them was ready for war, they did nothing to help Poland for some time, but the Second World War clearly started on that day.
Later, Hitler broke the pact in June 1941 by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The war would end by the Soviet victory in 1945.
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (; in Kukarka – November 8, 1986 in Moscow) was a Soviet politician and diplomat. He was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he came to power. He was a protégé of Joseph Stalin until the 1950s, when Nikita Khrushchev dismissed him from office.
Molotov was the main Soviet signatory of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The pact was signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, and both countries promised not to attack each other. The pact lasted about two years until Germany started the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
The Molotov Cocktail, which was invented by Finns fighting in the Winter War against the Soviet invasion of Finland, is named after him.
Babylonia
Babylonia was a city state in Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC, over 3000 years ago. Its capital city was Babylon, which meant "The Gate of the Gods". They built an empire out of the lands of the former Akkadian empire.
Mesopotamia is the region of the two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris. At that time the region also included the city states of Assyria to the north, and Elam to the south-east. It is part of the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. It was there people first lived together in a civilization, with farming, cities and writing.
The Babylonians had a written language that they used for trade and communication. They got it from the Sumerians, who invented it. The Babylonians used the same cuneiform system of pressing triangular shapes into soft clay. They wrote in two different languages: Sumerian for religious purposes and Akkadian language for official purposes.
Hammurabi was a king of Babylon who fought wars and made Babylonia into an empire by putting Assyria under a vassal (puppet) king. He created the earliest written set of laws, called the "Code of Hammurabi". It has 280 judgments and can be seen today in the Louvre, a museum in Paris. Whereas the earlier Sumerian punishments had not been harsh, Babylonian law was quite severe. The death penalty was given for theft, murder, and other crimes.
The houses in Babylon had open roofs, so that on hot nights, the family could sleep there. The living rooms, dining rooms, and the kitchens were, of course, downstairs. Lamps burned with olive oil, and every house had a chapel for burial and worship ceremonies. Since Mesopotamia had only clay for use in building, the strong wooden supports for the houses were imported from Lebanon. Eventually, people began baking their bricks and improved the strength of their buildings.
Later, Babylon was sacked by the Hittite king Musilis I, which led to the so-called 'Dark Ages' of the Bronze Age, where there is little evidence in writing. The date of the sacking of Babylon is debated by archaeologists, who have proposed no fewer than four chronologies. Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are:
The difficulty is to line up the Mesopotamian dates with the Ancient Egyptian dates.
After the Hittite destruction, Babylon was ruled by Kassites for 576 years. Next it was ruled by Elam, and then regained its independence for about three centuries. They were then conquered by the Neo-Assyrians. A century later they again became free, to form the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire. This constant conquest and re-conquest is partly due to geography. There are no natural boundaries except the rivers, and it is easy to get at the cities from north or south.
The king Nebuchadnezzar II reigned for 43 years. He conquered Phoenicia in 585 BC.
The Babylonian empire was finally brought to an end by Cyrus the Great of Persia.
It was in 549 BC that Cyrus put an end to the empire of the Medes. Three years later Cyrus had become king of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia), and was engaged in a campaign in northern Mesopotamia.
In 539 BC Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Two days after the capture of Sippara, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting". Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of "Marchesvan" (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon.
Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of their god Bel-Marduk. The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless helped by the presence of foreign forced exiles like the Jews, who had been planted in the midst of the country.
One of the first acts of Cyrus was to allow these exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them the images of their god and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, whereby the conqueror endeavored to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne. The feeling was still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests; and accordingly, Cyrus henceforth assumed the imperial title of "King of Babylon."