Warrior Queens

Queen Tomyris

Tomyris was a Persian queen who had ascended the throne of Massagetai after the death of her husband, who reigned during 530 B.C. Massegetai was an ancient Iranian nomadic confederation.

According to Herodotus, an early classical writer, Queen Tomyris became a legend after the fiery battle with Cyrus II the Great of Persia who waged war on Tomyris’s country. Cyrus II was defeated and killed. A Central Asian folklore is that, Tomyris had Cyrus’s corpse beheaded and kept his head with her all the time.

Queen Artemisia

During 480 BC, after the death of the king of Halicarnassus, his wife, Artemisia took over the throne and became a loyal subject of Persia. Her major claim to fame was her bravery in the Persian wars especially in the naval Battle of Salamis in which she was one of the allies of the Persians under King Xerxes.

In the battle, Artemisia rose to fame by sinking an enemy vessel and playing a clever trick to save her crew. She was later praised for her bravery by Xerxes.

Queen Boudicca

Queen Boudicca was a warrior queen in the Celtic Icenic tribe. She has left a mark in the British history for her bravery against the Romans. She led a revolt after the death of her husband, the king of Iceni, Prasutagus. The main cause behind the revolt was the humiliation heaped on them by the Romans, who stormed into Boudicca’s kingdom.

Boudicca and both her daughters were flogged and ill treated. As a result, the queen gathered a force of around 120, 000 men and fanned the flames of a revolt. The rebellion lasted for several months, destroying major towns and killing thousands of citizens. Towards the end, when Boudicca suffered a major defeat, both her daughters and she chose to drink poison rather than fall into the hands of the Romans.

Queen Zenobia

Also named as the Empress of the East, Queen Zenobia was a third-century Syrian Queen of Palmyra known for her boldness and her brave battles against the Romans. During her reign, the eastern kingdoms of the Roman Empire fell one by one due to the growing power of Palmyra.

Described as a beautiful woman, Zenobia was a character of great ambition. She had broke her friendly relations with the Romans and revolted against them. In 270, she, along with her troops, advanced the Roman-held territories, defeated the Romans and captured Egypt. This success made Zenobia bolder and her army gave her the title as “The most illustrious and pious Queen.”

Penthesilea

Penthesilea was the Queen of the Amazones who had accidentally killed her own sister, Hippolyta, while hunting deer. This incident had caused so much grief that Panthesilea decided to die, but die an honorable death.

She joined the Trojan War, and fought for her own city, Troy. This transformed Panthesilea from a gorgeous queen to a strong warrior. She covered her great beauty with an armor and helmet. She mounted chariots and horses, not like a queen but like a soldier. She fought the war with great courage killing many but was eventually killed by Achilles, the Greek hero of Trojan War.

Rani Laxmibai

She was a national heroine and seen as the epitome of female bravery in India. Rani Laxmibai had married the Maharaja of Jhansi in 1853 and became the Queen of the princely state. She is known for her bravery during the first wars of Indian Independence in 1857. She had gathered an army of men and women and fought for the defense of her state. However, in 1858, the British army had entered Jhansi and the fiery conflict ended with the capture of Jhansi. Laxmibai died the same year fighting the British.

Cartimandua

At the time of Roman invasion in 43AD, Cartimandua was the queen of the Brigantes tribe in Northern Britain. She had signed a peace treaty with the Romans in exchange for being allowed to retain the control of her own lands. This relationship between the queen and the Romans raised other instabilities. Due to political and personal differences, Cartimandua’s husband Venutius called for a war during AD 69 and seized the kingdom. Though, the queen was rescued from being killed by the Romans, she never regained her throne.

Rani Durgavati

Rani Durgavati was a legendary queen who has left a mark in the Indian history. After the death of her husband, Dalpat Shah in 1550, the eldest son of king Sangram Shah of Gond Dynasty, the young Rani took the reins of the Gond Dynasty in her hands. She fought against the Muslim invasion by Baz Bahadur and succeeded the battle.

This victory gave Durgavati great honor and fame. Her next battle with the Mughal general, Khwaja Abdul Majid Asaf Khan, the ruler of Rewa, was almost successful but the Rani and her son got injured and their defeat was apparent. Rather than leaving the battlefield in dishonor, Rani Durgavati, took out a dagger and killed herself on June 24, 1564.

Strange customs around the world

Let’s have a look at some of the weirdest customs around world.

Bouncing babies – India

In Sholapur, India, an unbelievable non-religious ceremony takes place every year. Babies are dropped from a 15 m tower without any safety string tied to their bodies. They free fall straight into the hands of the people who wait below with a bed sheet. The people of Sholapur are clueless about the purpose behind this fearful act. Some say, it’s for good health while others say it is for good luck for the future of the child.

Spit to ward off the evil – Greece

In Greek tradition, it is customary for the Greeks to spit three times on the face of a person who give a compliment. The custom of spitting is an attempt to ward off the evil of the eye and bad luck.

Respect to the elders – Bhutan

In Bhutan, when a senior person enters a room, everyone in the room is expected to stand up and sit only when the person is seated. When it is time to leave, until and unless the guest of honor or the elderly person stands, no one should stand or leave.

Foot binding – China

Foot binding was a strange and painful century old custom followed in China. The feet of girls as young as three years were fractured and then tied up tightly with linen strips to restrict and alter their growth. It was a fashionable practice among the wealthy women and it took many years to die out. It is considered barbaric now, but the sufferers as old as 70 years are still seen across China.

Wedding custom – Sweden

The mother of the bride presents her daughter a gold coin and places it in her right shoe while the father gives her a silver coin and places it in the left shoe, to ensure that their daughter will never be poor. The groom presents the bride with three gold rings – the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the motherhood ring.

New Year custom – Spain

When the clock strikes midnight, the Spanish eat 12 grapes, one at every toll. This is done to bring good charm for the 12 months ahead.

Blackening the bride – Scotland

Blackening the bride is a weird Scottish wedding custom where the bride is drenched with a foul smelling mixture of eggs, sauces, flour and feathers. The unfortunate bride is then paraded around the town. Her friends and family make much noise by beating the sticks and banging drums. The custom still exists in the Scottish islands where the inhabitants follow this tradition.

Baby shower – Iran

In some parts of rural Iran, the family members visit on the 10th day after the birth of the child and have lunch with the mother. After the lunch is over, they put the child in the cradle with some money and then crack some sweets above the cradle making a clattering noise. The principle behind the noise is to accustom the baby with the high pitch quarrellings of his/her parents.

Christmas decoration – Ukraine

In Ukraine, it is customary to decorate the Christmas tree with artificial spiders and webs. Seeing a spider or a web on Christmas morning is considered as a good charm.

Hanging coffins – China

In southwest China’s Sichuan province, the ancient ethnic minority group, the Bo people hung coffins of their dead on the sides of the cliffs, a practice that has been in place for nearly 3000 years.

A similar culture was practiced in Indonesia and Philippines.

Top 10 gadgets of the year

1. Apple iPad

Apple ipad is the biggest hit of the year! It is a tablet computer developed and manufactured by Apple. The ipad runs on the same operating system as iphone and ipod. The functions are almost the same and the phone has a multi-touch screen as a user interface. It has a 9.7 inch, LED IPS display and is just 0.5 inch thin, it’s easy to carry and use anywhere. It’s the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video or so claims, Apple.

2. iPhone 4G

When creating the iPhone 4, Apple designers did not start with a clean paper. They had with them the basics of iPhone 3GS. With a new design and advanced technology, this is Apple’s new iPhone. It has an Apple A4 processor and 512 MB of eDRAM, 5 megapixel camera and a built in three axis gyroscope. It is also equipped with 3.5 inches (89 mm) LED backlit liquid crystal display with an increased 960-by-640 pixel resolution. This is known as the Retina Display.

3. Samsung 9000 series LED

The gorgeous ultra slim LED LCD TV is an integrated and renovated Led TV. It comes with a fancy touch screen remote controller. It renders both 2D and 3D content in real time which gives another new expression to 3D world.
Samsung unveiled its top of the line 9000 series of LED at this year’s CES. Some of its notable features include a built-in 3 D processor, auto conversion technology that renders 2D content into 3D.

4. Alienware M11x

Alienware, which are famous for their powerful computers, has introduced Alienware M11x. It eradicates the idea that gaming laptops have to be very heavy, loud and expensive.

Alienware is configured with 1.3 GHz Core 2 duo processor, 4 GB DDr3 Ram and 500 GB SATAII, which are all expandable. The Nvidia GT 335M graphic processor makes it deal with the new games. It has a user friendly access to exclusive applications. M11x also has an amazing 8 hours and 39 minutes of battery.

5. Sony Alphs NEX 5

The are key to the the world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera till date, comes with 14.20 megapixels, 3.0 inch LCD, 30-1/4000 shutter and is named Sony Alpha NEX 5 While light weight, accuracy, good video qualities, adjustable screen are its high points, it also has a few drawbacks.  It has a limited lens selection option. The AVCHD is not widely supported and the battery life is not long lasting.

6. HTC EVO 4G

The HTC Evo 4G is a smartphone developed by HTC. Launched in June 2010, the phone has a whole host of features. It has a giant 4.3 inch screen. With the first 4G phone on the first 4G network, one can upload, download and surf the net up to 10X faster than ever before. By default, the center home screen panel features a digital clock located on the top of the screen and weather animations of the current conditions in the device’s location, the remaining space in the bottom can be customized to the user’s preference.

7. Motorola DROID II Android Phone

The Motorola Droid is an Internet and multimedia enabled Smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google’s Android operating system for mobiles. It is a CDMA phone and will not run any GSM service. It features a 3.7 inch touch screen with a maximum resolution of 480x854pixels. It is configured with Arm Cortex A8 600 MHz under clocked to 550 MHz, graphics as PowerVR SGX 530 with 5 mega pixel camera.

8. BlackBerry Torch 9800

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the 2010 model in the BlackBerry line of Smartphone’s. It combines a physical QWERTY keyboard with a sliding multi-touch screen display and runs on the latest BlackBerry OS 6. The device looks similar to the existing BlackBerry devices. Sliding keyboard and 3.2 inch 360×480 screen are the new features.

9. Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com for the rendering and displaying of e-books and other digital media. Kindle software applications exist for Microsoft Windows, iOS, BlaclBerry, Mac OS X and Android.

The first generation Kindle was released in the United States in 2007. The latest, which is the third generation Kindle, was launched in2010.

10. Sony PS3

The Sony PlayStation 3 is the third home video game console in the PlayStation series. The PS3 is equipped with the same hardware as PS2 but it is much lighter. PS3 competes with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.

PS3 features an upgradeable 250 GB or 320 GB hard drive and is 33% smaller, 36% lighter and consumes 34% (CECH-20xx) or 45% (CECH-21xx) less power than the previous models.