BABIES BORN ON NEW YEARS

We encountered this cute baby elephant in Thailand, an animal whose ancestors took part in diplomatic missions!

In 798 AD Charlemagne dispatched an embassy to Baghdad with orders to seek an alliance with the ruler of the Muslim empire,Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Interested in negotiation he decided to send Charlemagne a very special gift—a gift, he said in his note to the Imperial Council, that few in Europe had seen since Hannibal and his Carthaginians marched across the Alps - an elephant.

There are no details on where the Caliph's animal trainer found the elephant or how he got it to Europe. But find it and get it there he did. In the spring of 801 the huge creature lumbered patiently down the streets of Aachen, an old Roman town in western Germany near today's border between Belgium and Holland—a town newly prosperous since Charlemagne, ruling King of the Franks and recently crowned Holy Roman Emperor, had chosen it as his residence a few years earlier.

To Aachen, the arrival of the elephant was an exciting event. Crowds turned out to meet it. Boys, running and slipping over the cobblestone streets, shouted excitedly to their friends to come see. Adults, gathered in taverns or working in shops, turned out to point and stare at this gray beast with the stubby tail and the long trailing nose.

As for the alliance that Charlemagne wanted, it never came off. Charlemagne and Harun al-Rashid achieved no more than a vague understanding on trade and communications. Charlemagne, however, did keep the elephant and, later, even took him into battle where he frightened enemy horses. By the time he died in 810, his name—Abul Abbas—had become a household name in France and Germany and even the laconic historian of the Royal Frankish Annals, normally concerned only with kings and wars and eclipses, was sufficiently moved by that event to break into his narrative in 811 and add, "... the elephant which Harun, King of the Saracens sent, suddenly died." So passed one of the more curious episodes in the history of European-Middle Eastern relations

[Extracted from an article by Jon Mandaville, associate professor of history and Middle East studies at Portland State University]

this week, alice got her new dog sister, an aussie/chessie/dobie/lab named june. these first few days have been rough, i have to be honest. the puppy is the complete opposite of how alice was as a baby. alice never whined or cried. alice never (believe it or not!) chewed on anything other than her toys. alice's biting phase lasted all of three attempts to nibble my fingers. alice was a super eater from day one and i never once had to get up with her for middle of the night potty breaks. the new puppy does all of the above and more! alice is doing great with the puppy, generally just ignoring her but she is interacting more and more. june came from a litter of 10 pups and spent the last couple of weeks mixed in with another litter of 9 pups that were a week older, so she is quite used to the company of dogs. i meant to use a photo of the two pups together for this week, but i liked this look on alice's face so i had to choose it for the project.

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