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Top 15 Influential Ancient Greeks

by Theodoros II fact checked by brunobanana Ancient Greece has had an enormous amount of impact on culture in the Western world. Some of the first works of literature in the west, of which we have record, come from Greece, and although they were created at a time after older works from Mesopotamia, such epic poems as the Iliad and Odyssey have exerted wide influence over generation after generation of western thinkers. Greeks have made huge contributions to the world in various aspects, however this is most noticeable in literature, architecture, Olympic games, science, mathematics and politics. Here is a list of some of the most influential and memorable ancient Greeks.

15 Hippocrates of Cos Hippocrates of Cos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the father of Western medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.

14 Thales of Miletus Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus, in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. According to Bertrand Russell, “Western philosophy begins with Thales.” Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology, and was tremendously influential in this respect.

In mathematics, Thales used geometry to solve problems, such as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales’ Theorem. As a result, he has been hailed as the first true mathematician, and is the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. Also, Thales was the first person known to have studied electricity.

13 Phidias Phidias, or the great Pheidias, was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece. Phidias’ Statue of Zeus, at Olympia, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, namely the Athena Parthenos, inside the Parthenon and the Athena Promachos, a colossal bronze statue of Athena which stood between it and the Propylaea, a monumental gateway that served as the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens.

Prior to the Peloponnesian war, Phidias was accused of embezzling gold intended for the statue of Athena inside the Parthenon. Pericles’ enemies found a false witness against Phidias, named Menon. Phidias died in prison, although Pericles’ companion, Aspasia, was acquitted of her own charges.

12 Solon

“In making their own evaluation of Solon, the ancient sources concentrated on what were perceived to be the democratic features of the constitution. But…Solon was given his extraordinary commission by the nobles, who wanted him to eliminate the threat that the position of the nobles as a whole would be overthrown.” — Stanton, G.R. Athenian Politics c800-500BC: A Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), p. 76.

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.

11 Democritus Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher, born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos. His exact contributions are difficult to disentangle from his mentor Leucippus, as they are often mentioned together in texts. Their speculation on atoms, taken from Leucippus, bears a passing and partial resemblance to the 19th century understanding of atomic structure that has led some to regard Democritus as more of a scientist than other Greek philosophers; however, their ideas rested on very different bases. Largely ignored in ancient Athens, Democritus was, nevertheless, well-known to his fellow northern-born philosopher Aristotle. Plato is said to have disliked him so much that he wished all his books burned. Many consider Democritus to be the “father of modern science.”

10 Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria, and lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He has been called the “Father of History,” and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories — his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced — is a record of his “inquiry” (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and took on its modern meaning of history), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were not completely accurate, he claimed that he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history, since ancient records are scanty, contradictory and often fanciful.

9 Leonidas I

Leonidas I was a hero-king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter’s strength and bravery. Leonidas I is notable for his leadership at the Battle of Thermopylae, which has long been the topic of cultural inspiration, as it is perhaps the most famous military last stand of all time. His “against all odds” story is passed to us from the writings of the Greek Herodotus. He relates the story of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians defending the Pass of Thermopylae against almost “2 million” Persians for three days.

Although modern historians have questioned the numbers presented by Herodotus, with most at around 100,000 to 250,000 invaders, the story has resonated with authors and poets for centuries over the inspiring bravery and resolution of the Spartans.

The performance of the defenders at the battle of Thermopylae is often used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain to maximize an army’s potential and has become a symbol of courage against overwhelming odds. Even more, both ancient and modern writers used the Battle of Thermopylae as an example of the superior power of a volunteer army of freemen defending native soil. The sacrifice of the Spartans and the Thespians has captured the minds of many throughout the ages and has given birth to many cultural references as a result.

8 Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors.

Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity, and one of the greatest of all time. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.

Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little-known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until c. 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes, written by Eutocius in the 6th century AD, opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes’ written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance, while the discovery, in 1906, of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results.

7 Pythagoras Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist, but he is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. However, because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than with the other pre-Socratic philosophers, one can give account of his teachings to a little extent, and some have questioned whether he contributed much to mathematics and natural philosophy. Many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues and successors. Whether or not his disciples believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality is unknown. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato, and through him, all of Western philosophy.

6 Pericles Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator and general of Athens during the city’s Golden Age — specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, his contemporary historian, acclaimed him as “the first citizen of Athens.” Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the “Age of Pericles,” though the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars, or as late as the next century.

Pericles promoted the arts and literature; this was a chief reason Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural centre of the ancient world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis (including the Parthenon). This project beautified the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to the people. Furthermore, Pericles fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist.

Pericles’ most visible legacy can be found in the literary and artistic works of the Golden Age of Athens, most of which survive to this day. The Acropolis, though in ruins, still stands and is a symbol of modern Athens. A famous modern Greek historian wrote that these masterpieces are “sufficient to render the name of Greece immortal in our world.” Pericles also is lauded as “the ideal type of the perfect statesman in ancient Greece”, and his Funeral Oration is nowadays synonymous with the struggle for participatory democracy and civic pride.

5 Plato Plato, was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. In the famous words of A.N. Whitehead: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.” Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric and mathematics.

4 Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates, Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle’s views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as “a river of gold”), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.

3 Homer In the Western classical tradition, Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece.

The Iliad and the Odyssey reveal much about the values of the ancient Greeks. The heroes display honor, courage, and eloquence, as when Achilles rallies his troops. For almost 3,000 years, the epic of Homer have inspired writers and artists around the world.

2 Socrates Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato’s dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.

Through his portrayal in Plato’s dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato’s Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.

As one recent commentator has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers “an idol, a master figure, for philosophy. A Saint, a prophet of the ‘Sun-God,’ a teacher condemned for his teachings as a heretic.”

1 Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella, Greece in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle, and is considered one of history’s most successful commanders.

Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip’s death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father’s military expansion plans. In 334 BC he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

Seeking to reach the “ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea,” he invaded India in 326 BC, but was eventually forced to turn back at the demand of his troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several states ruled by the Diadochi – Alexander’s surviving generals and heirs.

Alexander’s legacy includes the cultural diffusion his conquests engendered. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander’s settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and features prominently in the history and myth of Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves and military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics.

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cpw-nyc · 9 months ago

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10 Craziest Things Done By Philosophers

by Scott Hillard * fact checked by Jamie Frater

When we think “philosopher,” a certain image comes to mind—most often a wise, calm person, who is knowledgeable and mature. You wouldn’t necessarily imagine someone being cheeky with the people about to kill them or urinating on random bystanders. Nevertheless, those were some of philosophy’s greatest minds, and some did even crazier things.

10 Descartes Slept In Ovens Rene Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am” is possibly the most quoted idea in all of philosophy. His ideas are said to be the grounding for most Western philosophy, and he may have come up with many of those ideas in an oven. Exactly when and where is up for debate, but according to Descartes himself, it did happen.It wasn’t an oven as you might imagine, but a stone room where a fire always burned. Temperatures were raised when it was needed for cooking, but it was kept relatively low during other times of the day. They certainly weren’t designed for people, but that didn’t stop Descartes from sleeping in one and having dreams that he eventually turned into the grounding of his life’s work.

9 Chicken Or Man? Diogenes was from ancient Greece and known for his controversial stunts. For example, he once plucked a chicken and hand-delivered it to Plato’s philosophy school. But it wasn’t on an insane whim—he had a point to make. When Plato publicly defined man as “a featherless biped,” Diogenes disagreed, believing man was more complex. To argue his point, he obtained a chicken, plucked it, and presented it to Plato’s academy as a man. Annoyed, but not to be outdone, Plato added “with broad flat nails” to his definition.

8 Public Masturbation

Diogenes famously lived in a small barrel in public, so where did he go when he needed privacy? Apparently he didn’t need privacy at all. He is said to have frequently masturbated in his barrel, well within the visibility of passersby. When those who were offended confronted him, he simply said that he wished it was “as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing an empty stomach.”

In further attempts of challenging society’s understanding of why we feel shame, he’s also believed to have urinated on people who annoyed him and defecated in public theaters. It turns out that ancient Greece drew a thin line between “great philosopher” and “offensive bum.”

7 The Government Owes Socrates

Socrates was known as the “gadfly of Athens” because he was said to have annoyed Athenians (just as a gadfly annoys a horse) with his constant questioning of the societal norms they took for granted. His questioning, which was considered “corrupting the young” annoyed Athenians so much that it eventually lead to Socrates being put on trial and sentenced to death.

According to Plato’s Apology, Socrates was asked what he deemed an acceptable punishment for his actions. His response? Among other things, he should receive “free maintenance by the state.” In modern terms, Socrates claimed the government should give him food and wages because he believed his questioning was a service to them. Unsurprisingly, his rebellious attitude didn’t get him out of the death penalty.

6 Bestiality: Not So Bad?

Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher who specializes in morals and is known predominantly for his ability to propose ideas that result in widespread protests. One of those ideas was that bestiality isn’t all that bad.

On a live Australian television show, Peter stated that he opposed any act in which an animal is harmed, but that there can be situations where both parties are pleased. He then gave an example: that a woman receiving oral sex from a dog might not be so horrible. The psychologists and politicians on the panel with him did not agree.

5 Nietzsche Hugged A Horse And Collapsed

Although many of his ideas aren’t well known, the Nietzsche’s name is definitely recognizable. Many know he was a philosopher of sorts, but not many know the details of his life. On January 3, 1889, Nietzsche left the place he was staying and saw a horse being whipped by a cabman. He reportedly ran to protect the horse, threw his arms around its neck, and began to cry. He then collapsed in the street. Believe it or not, his life went downhill from there.

4 Sartre Hid From A Nobel Prize

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was an existentialist and political philosopher in the ’60s and ’70s. Some of his work was so good that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964. The only problem was that he didn’t want it.

He claimed that winning the award would associate him with the Nobel committee forever. The press was very interested in someone turning down a Nobel Prize, but their attempts to contact Sartre went unanswered. Sartre hid in his sister-in-law’s apartment until they all went away.

3 Alexinus’s Failed School

Alexinus was an ancient Greek philosopher you’ve probably never heard of—and for good reason. Alexinus thought he was good enough to start his own philosophy school, and he moved all the way from Elis to Olympia to do so.

When asked why he made the move, he said it was because he wanted the school to be called the “Olympian,” and that wouldn’t make sense in Elis. Unfortunately, the school was not prepared, ran out of provisions quickly after students arrived, and wasn’t cleaned. The students decided the place was dirty and left, leaving Alexinus with one servant.

2 Demonax Starved Himself

Despite having the most evil name of all time, Demonax was a popular philosopher and celebrity figure. One thing that earned him that admiration was his love of solving disputes. According to a biography of his life, “he was fond of playing peace-maker between brothers at variance, or presiding over the restoration of marital harmony.” So not only was he willing to use his ideals to solve the problems of squabbling couples, he did it for free because he enjoyed it.

When he got so old that he thought he couldn’t take care of himself, he just stopped eating until he died. He was nearly 100 at the time.

1 An Expert On Children Abandoned His Own

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher known for his thinking on politics and sociology. Early in his life, Rousseau fathered five children and abandoned all of them to a home. He did this because abandoning children and sexual boasting was in fashion among his social circles, and men who had abandoned the most children were highly applauded.

Such despicable behavior isn’t quite what one would expect from a theorist on education and child-rearing, but that didn’t stop Rousseau from becoming one. His past didn’t escape the eye of rival philosophers—such as Voltaire—and he was severely criticized for being a hypocrite.

https://listverse.com/2013/08/26/10-craziest-things-done-by-philosophers/?utm_source=more&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=direct

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cpw-nyc · 9 months ago

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10 Male Sex Workers Who Made History

by Ann Feeney * fact checked by Jamie Frater When we think of famous prostitutes, we usually think of women. Royal mistresses like Madame de Pompadour or Nell Gwynn, the hetaerae of the ancient world like Aspasia or Phryne, the women of the century demimonde like Marie DuPlessis (immortalized in Verdi’s La traviata) or La Belle Otero, or more recent women like Xaviera Hollander (The Happy Hooker) or Brooke Magnanti, writing under the pen name Belle de Jour.But male prostitutes have made history, too. They’ve inspired poets and artists, led rebellions, brought down powerful political figures, and become infamous serial killers. Two of these men, Lao Ai and Shai Shahar, are famous for their liaisons with women, while the others primarily served other men.Here are some of the most famous—from ancient times to today.

10 Phaedo Of Elis - Fourth Century BC Phaedo, a handsome young man from an aristocratic family, was captured in the war between Elis and the allies, Athens and Sparta. He was enslaved in Athens and made to serve as a prostitute.Phaedo was serving clients at an event where the philosopher Socrates was present and pleaded for his freedom. Socrates’s friends bought Phaedo’s freedom, and he became a philosopher himself.Plato’s dialogue Phaedo is named for Phaedo, and he was present at Socrates’s death. After Socrates’s death, Phaedo went back to Elis and formed his own school of philosophy.

9 Lao Ai - Died 238 BC

During the regency of Qin Shi Huang, ruler of the Qin state and later the first emperor of China, Lao Ai was recruited to become the queen dowager’s boy toy. He was smuggled into the court as a eunuch, although he was no such thing. In fact, it was the size of his equipment that caught the queen’s eye.

Lao took advantage of his hold over the queen and publicly boasted of his power. Lao and the regent Lu Buwei conspired unsuccessfully against the future emperor with the queen’s tacit approval. After their coup attempt failed, Lao was killed, Lu committed suicide, and the queen was placed under house arrest.

8 Febo di Poggio - 1500s

Febo di Poggio was one of Michelangelo’s many male models and lovers. According to Michelangelo’s poetry and contemporary rumor, di Poggio was fickle and mercenary and demanded so many gifts that Michelangelo called him “little blackmailer.”

Michelangelo was so enamored that he wrote two poems to di Poggio, G. 99 and G. 100. In keeping with Renaissance poetic tradition, Michelangelo included several plays on words in these poems, referencing di Poggio’s last name (which means “of the hill”) and his first name (equivalent to “Phoebus,” another name for the god Apollo) in these poems.

However, the relationship ended after a relatively short time and Michelangelo moved on to new loves.

7 John Saul * 1857–1904

Although John Saul was born into desperate poverty in a Dublin slum, he became the most famous of London’s male prostitutes and was involved in both major male prostitution scandals of the Victorian period. He might have been the author of the 1881 pornographic novel The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism.

In 1884, Irish nationalists alleged that there were homosexual orgies at the castle and named Martin Oranmore Kirwan, the son of a prominent Galway landowner, as one of the participants. Earlier in his career, Kirwan had paid Saul for sexual favors. Saul was brought to London to testify, although he wasn’t actually put on the witness stand.

In 1887, Saul was one of the in-house prostitutes at 19 Cleveland Street, which was involved in a major public scandal in 1890. Saul openly testified during the related trial that he worked there as “a professional Mary-Ann,” the current slang for male prostitutes.

However, he was never prosecuted, possibly because the authorities were afraid that he might name other Cleveland Street clients, including Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson and heir to the throne at that time.

6 Herbert Huncke - 1915–1996

Herbert Huncke, whose last name is pronounced “hunky,” was one of the most prominent Beats of the post–World War II generation and was indeed the one who named the Beat movement. He came from a middle-class family but found street life far more compelling.

Huncke, who briefly worked for Al Capone’s gang, started his prostitution career in Chicago. But Huncke didn’t make it big until he moved to New York City in 1939, where he was known as the “Mayor of 42nd Street.” He was addicted to drugs, especially morphine, from an early age.

William S. Burroughs wrote his first novel, Junkie, about Huncke and Jack Kerouac later used Huncke as the primary inspiration for the character Elmer Hassel in his famous book On the Road. In addition, Alfred Kinsey used Huncke to recruit subjects for his sexual research.

5 Jean Genet - 1910–1986

Jean Genet was one of the best-known dramatists and thinkers behind French Modernism, inspiring Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida, among others. The son of a prostitute, Genet wrote about his experiences servicing sailors in his autobiographical novel, Our Lady of the Flowers.

This book’s frank depiction of life among prostitutes and the criminal classes became an instant scandal and is now considered a classic piece in the literature of gay liberation. Genet followed the book with the plays The Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids, and The Screens. He also wrote the novels Querelle of Brest, Funeral Rites, and The Thief’s Journal, and a short film, A Love Song.

Genet became a political activist as well as a playwright and even inspired a David Bowie song, “The Jean Genie.”

4 Denham Fouts - 1914–1948

Denham Fouts led a colorful life. He counted the wealthy, artists, and royalty among his clients as well as many of the period’s most famous authors and Bright Young Things among his friends.

In the 1920s, after Fouts robbed a Greek millionaire client and was sentenced to jail, the Welsh poet Evan Morgan (the 2nd Viscount Tredegar) bailed him out and supported him. Fouts left Tredegar for Prince Paul of Greece, but Paul ended the relationship when he became king.

Fouts then took up with Peter Watson, an industrialist and publisher of the literary magazine Horizon. Christopher Isherwood said Fouts was “the most expensive male prostitute in the world.” He fell in love with a picture of Truman Capote and sent Capote a blank check and his address in Paris. Fouts died young of heart failure in Paris.

3 Shai Shahar - Retired 1999

Shai Shahar, a former soldier in both the United States and Israel, was the first man to go on display in the famous windows in Amsterdam’s red-light district. He claimed that his clientele, there and elsewhere, included royalty, politicians, and movie stars.

Shahar also claimed to have had sex with 500 different women and 40 couples. After retiring from prostitution, he became a singer and promoter for burlesque productions as well as an advocate for legal prostitution and sex worker rights.

2 Mike Jones - 20th century

Mike Jones, who prefers to be called an escort rather than a prostitute, became famous for outing his client, Reverend Ted Haggard. Haggard was one of the best-known evangelical leaders in the United States and was a regular adviser to President George W. Bush.

Haggard, a married man, was an active proponent for the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned same-sex marriage. This advocacy made Jones decide to out Haggard, despite knowing that it would almost certainly cost him his career. “This [hypocrisy] is so strong for me, and it hurt me so deeply, that I simply reached the point where I had to say something.”

1 Jeff Gannon - Born 1957

Jeff Gannon (born James Dale Guckert) lived two lives, one as a member of the White House Press Corps during George W. Bush’s administration and the other as a professional escort named “Bulldog” who advertised on websites such as militaryescorts.com. He did not, however, have a military background.

Gannon was able to bypass the standard clearance procedures for White House press passes, which later raised suspicions that he had received special treatment. During a press conference on January 26, 2005, he asked President George W. Bush, “How are you going to work with people [Senate Democrats] who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?”

This overtly partisan question brought him to national attention. Reporters began digging into his background and revealed that he had been a male escort. In 2007, Gannon published a book, The Great Media War, about his experience and the media in general.

+ Andrew Cunanan - 1969–1997

Andrew Cunanan was a very successful prostitute on the West Coast of the United States who made a good living off multiple clients. One, Norman Blachford, flew Cunanan around the world and gave him a car, housing, and an allowance.

Cunanan was a habitual liar, exaggerating his background and frequently pretending to be independently wealthy. For some unknown reason, he embarked on a violent murder spree in 1997.

His first victim was Jeff Trail, a former lover, followed by David Madson, an architect. Cunanan then murdered Lee Miglin, a famous and wealthy real estate developer, which put Cunanan on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He then killed cemetery caretaker William Reese, the first victim who had no apparent preexisting link to Cunanan.

Then Cunanan fled to Miami, where he shot and killed fashion designer Gianni Versace and later shot himself. To date, no investigation has uncovered a motive for the killings.

Ann is a researcher, writer, and currently, a job hunter. Learn more about her on LinkedIn or see more of her writing on Medium.

https://listverse.com/2016/12/27/10-male-sex-workers-who-made-history/?utm_source=more&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=direct

After the last article about "prostitutes" who made history, I'm surprised I have to point out (yet again) that SLAVES ARE NOT SEX WORKERS! They are rape victims and it's no more OK to force a man into sexual slavery than it is a woman.

Author here. Today, of course, Phaedo would be rightly considered a human trafficking and rape survivor. In the context of the time he lived in, however, he would have been considered a sex worker. That's the perspective I was using.

Also, it seems pretty obvious that Phaedo wasn't happy with the arrangement and didn't wish to be considered a sex worker. Should we not respect those wishes just because his suffering was normalized in the time and place of his birth?

Other than that one contentious detail, it was a fine article. You're a good writer and I don't mean to sound accusatory toward your worth as a person.

So would you consider the child sex slaves at time...sex workers?

Hi there's a major difference between the two. Pimping is slavery your right, but the majority of escorts are independent, they call the shots make the rules no outside pressure. A lot of the independent escorts make more than me or you could dream of every week.You should talk to some escorts and see yourself. The current law is what allows scumbags to abuse these men and ladies. The ladies are criminalized when they come forward to report a pimp etc.

What you said is both true and horrifying, but I was actually taking issue with the author calling the man in #10 a "sex worker." People who are FORCED into sexual slavery should never be referred to as sex workers and prostitutes because it lets all the human sex traffickers out there take comfort in knowing that we WILL blame and shame their victims by insinuating that they entered into the arrangement willingly and suffered no real trauma.

#Male Sex Workers

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cpw-nyc · 9 months ago

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10 Minor Things That Changed The Course Of History

by Radu Alexander - fact checked by Jamie Frater

According to the idea of the “butterfly effect,” even the smallest causes can have large, unforeseen consequences. The term itself came courtesy of MIT meteorology professor Edward Lorenz. He used a computer program to simulate weather patterns with a dozen variables over long periods of time. Lorenz noticed that just rounding off one variable from .506127 to .506 was enough to drastically alter the entire pattern, and he equated it to the flapping of a butterfly’s wings influencing a tornado weeks later.The following items weren’t quite as minor as a butterfly flapping its wings, but nevertheless, few could have predicted the impact they would have on the world.

10 The Garbage Bag That Helped Foil The Heist Of The Century Back in 2003, a group of thieves robbed the Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC), making off with over $100 million in diamonds, gold, and jewelry. The press quickly dubbed it the “heist of the century.” The criminals managed to break into a supposedly impenetrable vault which was protected by ten layers of security, including Doppler radar, heat detectors, and seismic sensors. If only they were more careful when getting rid of their trash.Now we move on to August Van Camp, a retired grocer. He owned a small strip of forest where he liked to roam with his two pet weasels. However, because the land was next to the highway, people would often dump their garbage on the property. The day after the heist, he found a trash bag on his land, and, as he did many times before, he called the police to complain. Van Camp began listing off various items in the refuse pile, which included videotape, a half-eaten salami sandwich, and empty envelopes marked “Antwerp Diamond Center.” That last one caught the attention of the police, who came down to investigate.Among the rubbish were bits of torn paper which, when assembled, revealed an invoice for a video surveillance system billed to Leonardo Notarbartolo.[1] DNA from the sandwich also pointed back to him. He was a high-ranking member of a gang known as the School of Turin. He was sentenced to ten years, and although circumstantial evidence suggested the identities of his partners, Notarbartolo never exposed them.

9 The Missing Key That Could Have Saved The TitanicDavid Blair was a British merchant seaman who was appointed by the White Star Line in 1912 as second officer of the Titanic. He participated in the sea trials, but days before the ship’s maiden voyage, he was replaced with the more experienced Henry Wilde. In his rush to leave, Blair accidentally took the key to the crow’s nest locker with him, thus denying the lookouts the pair of binoculars that could have prevented the tragedy from ever happening. The missing binoculars became a point of interest during the inquiry into the Titanic’s sinking. One of the surviving lookouts, Frederick Fleet, testified that binoculars would have enabled him to see the iceberg with enough time to get out of the way.[2]Others also feel that the missing key would have changed the course of events that day, but not everyone is convinced. For starters, some versions of the story say crew members couldn’t find the binoculars because Blair left them in his cabin or because he took them with him, as they were his personal pair. After all, if the glasses were that vital, the ship’s crew could have broken into the locker or sourced another pair. There are plenty of other theories of what went wrong that day, and this remains an unanswerable “what if.” Even so, many people still see the historical value of the missing key, as it was sold at auction in 2010 for $137,000.

8 The Typo That Brought Down A Government

At first glance, a typo doesn’t seem like a big deal. It’s a mistake that can happen to anyone, and most people should be able to discern the intended meaning from context. However, historically, there have been numerous examples of typos that came with a heavy cost. In 1999, typos managed to bring down the Kuwaiti parliament.

The initial plan was to print a state version of the Quran which would be available for free to all citizens. However, whoever was in charge of publishing didn’t do a very good job because the holy books contained several misprinted verses, while others were missing altogether. Pretty soon, this caused a row, with most of the anger directed at the minister for Islamic affairs, Ahmad al-Kulaib. He faced a vote of no confidence, which he lost. However, this wasn’t enough to make the controversy go away, and the emir of Kuwait, facing growing pressure, had to dissolve the National Assembly.

7 The Train Ride That Founded Molecular Medicine

Linus Pauling (pictured left above) is widely considered one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century and has two Nobel Prizes to his name. He is typically seen as one of the founders of molecular biology and was particularly interested in studying the structure of proteins. In 1949, Pauling, along with fellow biologists Harvey Itano, S.J. Singer, and Ibert Wells, published a paper called “Sickle Cell Anemia, a Molecular Disease,” which provided the first proof for human diseases caused by abnormal proteins. It was later deemed as the foundation for the field of molecular medicine, and it has its roots in a chance encounter during a train ride.

Back in 1940, a medical student at Johns Hopkins University named Irving Sherman observed that light passing through the red blood cells of sickle-cell patients was transmitted differently than through regular cells. He published his findings, but nothing really became of it. However, they did reach Harvard professor of medicine William Castle. Years later, the professor found himself sharing a train with Pauling and began chatting about biology. Castle told the distinguished chemist about Sherman’s observations.[4]

By that point, Pauling had already studied proteins extensively, and he immediately suspected hemoglobin as the culprit. He used a protein-separating process called electrophoresis to analyze samples from people with sickle-cell disease, people without it, and people who carried the sickle-cell trait. He discovered that the first two groups had different types of hemoglobin, while the third had both types. This formed the basis for his aforementioned seminal paper.

6 The Software Update That Brought Down A Banking Giant

Software updates have become an annoying but necessary occurrence in our modern lives. However, all we know to do is accept the “Terms & Conditions” and press “Next” a few times. Anything more than that, and we’re stumped. Typically, failing to update a piece of software doesn’t come with grave consequences, but it once managed to shut down one of the largest banking groups in the world.

June 19, 2012, was supposed to be a typical day for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS Group). Its technical staff had to apply a regular patch to the CA-7 software, which controlled the bank’s payment processing system. As some outlets reported, this task was left to an “inexperienced operative.”[5] They tried to patch the software and encountered an error. No big deal, just back out of the update and try again. However, when he backed out, the staff member accidentally cleared the system’s whole queue. This created a huge backlog of information that needed to be re-inputted and reprocessed.

For six days, millions of people were unable to withdraw money from their accounts or make online transactions. Some missed mortgage or bill payments, while others were left stranded abroad with no money. In a dire case, a seven-year-old girl was in danger of being taken off life support because her family couldn’t pay for her treatment.

5 The Pirates Who Stopped The Metric System

Photo credit: Library of Congress

Joseph Dombey was a French botanist who, in 1794, was on his way to Philadelphia to meet with first US secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson. At the behest of the French government, Dombey was carrying with him rare cargo—a set of measurement standards called a meter and a kilogram (back then still known as a grave). Jefferson was keen to persuade Americans to adopt the French measurements, which later formed the basis for the metric system. So were many people in Congress eager to get rid of the British measurements. Having the standards presented by a respected scientist such as Dombey should have made it an easy task.

Unfortunately, Dombey never made it to Philadelphia, as his ship was captured by pirates.[6] He tried to disguise himself as a Spanish sailor, but his accent and his poor understanding of the language gave him away. The pirates took him to Montserrat to ransom him to the French government. However, Dombey died in captivity. It would be another century before the US government adopted the metric system under the Mendenhall Order of 1893. Even today, however, most Americans are more familiar with the British Imperial units of measurement.

4 The Clouds That Saved Kokura And Doomed Nagasaki

Photo credit: US Air Force

On the morning of August 9, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Bockscar took off from the North Field on the island of Tinian carrying one of the deadliest payloads in history—the Fat Man nuclear bomb. As most people know, the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, but that wasn’t the original intended target.

The United States identified several potential bombing targets. One of them was Kyoto, which was spared at the insistence of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who honeymooned there. Another one was Kokura, a city which housed a giant munitions factory. On its way to its destination, Bockscar was supposed to rendezvous with two other planes—the Great Artiste and the Big Stink. The latter never showed up, and the others left after a 50-minute delay. By that time, visibility above Kokura had worsened due to clouds.

Some official versions say the weather turned bad, while others claimed it was actually smoke from the firebombing of nearby Yawata the day prior.[7] A third version says visibility was obscured by steam purposely created as a countermeasure against the bombers. Whatever their origin, those clouds prevented the crew aboard the Bockscar from visually confirming their targets as instructed. Running low on fuel, they headed for their alternative target, which was Nagasaki.

3 The Piece Of Tape That Ended A Presidency To this day, Watergate remains one of the biggest political scandals in US history. The revelation that Nixon’s administration was involved in a conspiracy to spy on political opponents and other officials led to the president’s resignation and the indictment of 69 people. And the whole thing started with a piece of duct tape.

On the night of June 17, 1972, 24-year-old security guard Frank Wills was doing his rounds at the Watergate Office Building. During his first round, he noticed a piece of duct tape on a basement door, placed over the bolt to prevent it from latching shut. Initially, he thought a worker used it during the day to get in and out more easily and forgot the duct tape there. Wills simply removed it and moved on. However, after another inspection half an hour later, he saw a new piece of duct tape in the same spot.[8] This time, he called the police. Authorities went from room to room and found five burglars in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

An investigation eventually connected Nixon to the conspiracy and led to his resignation. As for Frank Wills, he actually quit soon after for not getting a raise. He didn’t make much money from his involvement in Watergate, but he did get to play himself in the 1976 classic All the President’s Men.

2 The Blackout That Led To The Rise Of Hip-Hop New York blackouts always seem to come with good stories. There is the popular myth that the 1965 Northeast blackout, which affected 30 million people, led to a massive spike in birth rates nine months later. And many credit the 1977 blackout for helping popularize the new movement of hip-hop.

On July 13, 1977, most of New York City and its surroundings were impacted by a blackout. This was at a time when the city was affected by a fiscal crisis, experiencing a severe heat wave, and under the threat of David Berkowitz, aka the Son of Sam. Tensions were running high, and 31 neighborhoods fell victim to looting and vandalism. Among the looters were many up-and-coming DJs and b-boys who saw the blackout as a golden opportunity to “acquire” new sound equipment.[9]

By that time, hip-hop had been around for a few years. DJ Kool Herc is typically credited with its invention at a block party in 1973. By 1977, he even had some competition, like Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. But it was still a small community. However, the next day after the blackout, “there were a thousand new DJs.” That’s according to hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Caz, who admitted to stealing a mixer that night. The same sentiment was echoed by Grandmaster Flash, hip-hop journalist Nelson George, and music scholar Joe Schloss. More recently, the subject was covered in the Netflix musical drama The Get Down.

1 The Piece Of Paper That Changed The Civil War

September 1862 started out grim for the Union Army during the US Civil War. Following the Confederacy’s stunning victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run, General Lee began his first invasion of the North in the Maryland Campaign. The French and British governments were preparing to recognize the independence of the Southern states. One great victory across the Potomac and then a magnanimous offer of peace was all that was needed for the Confederacy to accomplish its political goals.

Lee split up his army into several parts and identified multiple targets. He drew up marching orders known as Special Order 191. He sent a copy to each of his key commanders. Some burned their copies. Others kept them on their person. General James Longstreet chewed his copy with tobacco.[10]

There was a bit of confusion with the orders for General Daniel Harvey Hill. Due to the recent unit division, Stonewall Jackson wasn’t sure if Hill still served under his command or reported directly to Lee. Therefore, he wrote another copy of Special Order 191 and sent it to him. Unbeknownst to him, so did General Lee.

On September 13, the Union army, led by George McClellan, set up camp on the outskirts of Frederick in an area previously occupied by Hill’s men. While resting, two soldiers found three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper. That paper was Special Order 191.

According to Hill, he only received the copy from Jackson. We’ll never know who exactly was responsible for the misplacement, but this priceless information helped the Union Army push the Confederates back south. Lee blamed the defeat of the Maryland Campaign unequivocally on the lost order. A few months later, the victory gave Lincoln the support necessary to announce the Emancipation Proclamation.

https://listverse.com/2018/02/09/10-minor-things-that-changed-the-course-of-history/?utm_source=more&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=direct

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#Nina

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#Nina

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Don’t Quote Him on That: Did Mark Twain Really Say This?

By Editor November 10, 2020

To this day, Mark Twain (1835–1910) remains the most frequently quoted American author. But there’s a caveat: many of the clever sayings commonly attributed to him were actually someone else’s.

In his lifetime, which began 184 years ago this past November, Twain had indeed voiced many opinions that reflected his sharp wit, intelligence, and an often quirky way of seeing the world. He was able to capture the American spirit of the era, and his wisdom was derived from his many varied activities, ranging from piloting a steamboat and prospecting for gold out West to traveling the world on a cruise liner (which led to his widely popular book, The Innocents Abroad). All these experiences inspired the sometimes biting, often funny, and always pertinent sayings—even the ones that he never claimed as his own.

This is an opportune moment to separate fact from fiction, which Twain, a one-time journalist, would have surely appreciated.

Here are just a few of the more famous quotations mistakenly ascribed to Twain:

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” (In fact, Twain’s contemporary, British politician Leonard H. Courtney, said this.)

“Golf is a good walk spoiled.” It’s a great quote but, unfortunately, not Twain’s. It appears that American novelist Harry Leon Wilson said it in 1904.

“The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer day I spent in San Francisco.” There’s some debate about who this quote should be attributed to, but Twain never voiced this.

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Though Twain liked to use this quote, he credited it to a journalist and fellow humorist, Edgar Wilson Nye.

These are just a few of many quotations that have, over the years, been misidentified as Twain’s. But the fact remains that the author of such literary classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, really did have a fine sense of humor and delivered plenty of his own witty lines.

For instance, he DID say: “You can’t depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus.”

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it—if you live.”

“All dentists talk while they work. They have inherited this from their professional ancestors, the barbers.”

And—perhaps the most pertinent one to this subject—It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.”

Twain really did have a clever way with words, even if—to paraphrase another American icon, baseball great Yogi Berra—he never actually said most of the things he allegedly did.

We can only imagine that this confusion over the quote attribution might have prompted Twain to voice an appropriately amusing remark, which we could, in good consciousness, attribute to him.

https://www.simplycharly.com/read/blog/dont-quote-mark-twain-really-say/

✍️ 📔 📙 📕 📗 📙✍️ 🗑 📬 📌 📘 📚 📖 📒

10 Things You Might Not Know About Mark Twain October 3, 2021

1. Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He took his pen name in 1863. The reason for this particular choice may have been that the phrase “mark twain” was often used in navigation to measure water depth, and the theory is that he heard it during the four years he piloted steamboats on the Mississippi River.

2. Before becoming known primarily as a novelist, Twain was a newspaper reporter and a travel writer. He may have been the most widely traveled author of his era, having crossed over 300,000 miles at a time when international travel was a rarity.

3. His overseas trips inspired such bestselling books as Innocents Abroad, A Tramp Abroad, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Roughing It.

4. While Twain’s primary purpose for traveling and writing books about his adventures was to make money, these experiences inspired him to make a living from writing novels.

5. Authors Eugene O’Neill and William Faulkner called Twain “the first truly American writer” and “the true father of American literature.”

6. Among Twain’s best-known and popular novels are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

7. Starting in 1885, the year Huckleberry Finn was released, it was banned from many libraries, schools, and bookstores because of its use of “coarse language,” as spoken by its uneducated protagonist. Some writers of that time, like Louisa May Alcott, criticized Twain’s language, while later authors defended Huckleberry Finn. Ernest Hemingway said, “All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

8. To this day, the book remains controversial for its frequent use of the “n-word.” However, many school districts are now replacing the offensive language with alternative wording.

9. Although Twain has a reputation as a humorist (and many of his stories do have elements of humor), he also experienced dark moods sparked by the deaths of several family members, including his oldest child, Langdon, and brother, Henry.

10. Though an acclaimed writer, Twain did not have such luck in his business endeavors. His investments failed, resulting in a hefty debt.

https://www.simplycharly.com/learn/facts/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-mark-twain/

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#Mark Twain

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