Among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, few have been surrounded by a more disturbing martyrdom tradition than Saint Bartholomew. Christian tradition holds that after spending years preaching the Gospel, Bartholomew was subjected to a brutal execution in which he was allegedly skinned alive before being killed. The story has made Bartholomew one of the most…
Few stories in the history of Christianity are as extraordinary as that of Saint Denis of Paris, a Christian missionary traditionally regarded as the first bishop of Paris. According to a centuries-old Christian tradition, Denis was arrested by Roman authorities because of his preaching. He was tortured and eventually taken to a hill outside ancient…
Water has been associated with life, purification and sacred rituals for thousands of years. Long before the Christian practice of holy water developed, ancient societies used water in religious ceremonies, purification rituals and acts of devotion. For many religious traditions, water represented more than physical cleanliness. It could symbolize renewal, purification, protection and a person’s…
Long before modern perfumes, medicines and religious ceremonies developed into the forms familiar today, oil already held an important place in the ancient world. Olive oil and other scented oils were used on the body, in medicine, during ceremonies and in royal settings. In several ancient religious traditions, however, oil acquired a deeper meaning. To…
Long before hospitals, laboratories and modern antimalarial drugs existed, African communities had developed their own ways of dealing with fever and other illnesses that are now understood to include malaria. Malaria has been part of life in tropical Africa for centuries. Communities living in areas where mosquito-borne diseases were common relied heavily on knowledge passed…
Long before he scored goals in the English Premier League and represented the Netherlands, Collins John was a child growing up amid one of West Africa’s most devastating conflicts. Born in Zwedru, Liberia, in 1985, John experienced the Liberian Civil War as a young boy. His childhood was marked by violence, the death of his…
In African football, few matches have produced a stranger controversy than the 2003 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying encounters between Rwanda and Uganda. At the centre of the drama was Rwanda’s goalkeeper, Mohammed Mossi, whose extraordinary saves convinced some Ugandan players that something more than goalkeeping ability was protecting his net. They accused him of…
Imagine living in ancient Rome and hearing that the emperor was preparing to give one of the most important political positions in the empire to a horse. It sounds like a joke. But more than 2,000 years ago, Roman writers recorded a remarkable story about Emperor Caligula and his beloved racehorse, Incitatus. According to the…
Few natural forces are as unpredictable and frightening as lightning. A single strike can cause severe burns, cardiac arrest or death within seconds. For most people, being struck once would be an extraordinarily rare event. Roy Cleveland Sullivan experienced it seven times. An American park ranger from Virginia, Sullivan became known as the “Human Lightning…
On December 14, 1650, a 22-year-old woman named Anne Greene was led to the gallows at Oxford Castle in England. She had been convicted of infanticide and sentenced to death by hanging. In the eyes of the law, her fate appeared certain. Greene was hanged in front of a crowd. She remained suspended for around…