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War has shaped all of our lives. You may not like it. You might think that war is evil. That war must come to an end. But whatever you think, every day of your life, and throughout every day more than you’d like to think, so many of the things that you do or get the benefit of, have been shaped or come out of war.
Anyway enough of that depressing talk. How about you just go into that coffee shop there and get your starter for the day – a nice cup of coffee. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Why not get a croissant – with ham and cheese. Maybe a sweet croissant if that’s more your style.
Why am I talking about croissants? Well the first people who sat down to enjoy a croissant did it because something marvellous had just happened. It was the year 1683 and people were sitting down to try the newest pastry delight. It had been created to celebrate the ending of the danger of the Christian world being conquered by the invading armies of Islam. Until just then it looked like that was going to happen. But thanks to the arrival of the brilliant Polish army, their amazing looking winged hussars, and the armies of the Holy Roman Empire, the army of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by Merzifoniu Kara Mustafa Pasha, was decisively defeated. The threat of Islam to Europe now slowly and forever re-traced its steps back to modern Turkey where they had come from. Their battle standards, the crescent moon, became immortalised in the crescent moon shaped pastry delight of the croissant the same shape that we still enjoy today.
So what else to we have to thank war for? It’s going to take some time to answer that but let me get started.
Tag words: Ottoman Empire; Merzifoniu Kara Mustafa Pasha; Islam; penicillin; Alexander Fleming; Robert Koch; Max von Pettenkofer; cholera; Barry Marshall; Nobel Prize; Howard Florey; Therapuetuic Research Corporation; Boots Pharmaceutical; Glaxo Laboratories; Wellcome Foundation; Adolf Hitler; Albert Einstein; President Franklin Roosevelt; Ernst Chain; Albert Alexander; Mary Hunt; Nazi Germany; Reinhard Heydrich; The Man with the Iron Heart; Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich; Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich; Auschwitz; Treblinka; Wannsee; Nazi death camps; Operation Reinhard; Dr Morell; Winston Churchill; D-Day; staphylococuccus aureus; golden staff; bacteria;
War has shaped all of our lives. You may not like it. You might think that war is evil. That war must come to an end. But whatever you think, every day of your life, and throughout every day more than you’d like to think, so many of the things that you do or get the benefit of, have been shaped or come out of war.
Anyway enough of that depressing talk. How about you just go into that coffee shop there and get your starter for the day – a nice cup of coffee. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Why not get a croissant – with ham and cheese. Maybe a sweet croissant if that’s more your style.
Why am I talking about croissants? Well the first people who sat down to enjoy a croissant did it because something marvellous had just happened. It was the year 1683 and people were sitting down to try the newest pastry delight. It had been created to celebrate the ending of the danger of the Christian world being conquered by the invading armies of Islam. Until just then it looked like that was going to happen. But thanks to the arrival of the brilliant Polish army, their amazing looking winged hussars, and the armies of the Holy Roman Empire, the army of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by Merzifoniu Kara Mustafa Pasha, was decisively defeated. The threat of Islam to Europe now slowly and forever re-traced its steps back to modern Turkey where they had come from. Their battle standards, the crescent moon, became immortalised in the crescent moon shaped pastry delight of the croissant the same shape that we still enjoy today.
So what else to we have to thank war for? It’s going to take some time to answer that but let me get started.
Tag words: Ottoman Empire; Merzifoniu Kara Mustafa Pasha; Islam; penicillin; Alexander Fleming; Robert Koch; Max von Pettenkofer; cholera; Barry Marshall; Nobel Prize; Howard Florey; Therapuetuic Research Corporation; Boots Pharmaceutical; Glaxo Laboratories; Wellcome Foundation; Adolf Hitler; Albert Einstein; President Franklin Roosevelt; Ernst Chain; Albert Alexander; Mary Hunt; Nazi Germany; Reinhard Heydrich; The Man with the Iron Heart; Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich; Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich; Auschwitz; Treblinka; Wannsee; Nazi death camps; Operation Reinhard; Dr Morell; Winston Churchill; D-Day; staphylococuccus aureus; golden staff; bacteria;