Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley (1797–1851) that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. It is one of the great works of modern literature. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in 1823.
Shelley travelled through Europe in 1815 along the river Rhine in Germany stopping in Gernsheim...
Frankincense (also known as olibanum, Hebrew: לבונה [levona], Arabic: اللبان al-libān or Arabic: البخور al-bakhūr) is an aromatic resin used in incense and perfumes, obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia in the family Burseraceae, particularly Boswellia sacra (syn. B. bhaw-dajiana), B. carterii, B. frereana, B. serrata (B. thurifera, Indian frankincense), and B. papyrifera. The word is from Old French franc encens ("high-quality incense").There are five main species of Boswellia that produce true frankincense. Resin from each of the five is available in various grades, which depend on the...
The Serenity Prayer is the common name for a prayer written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). The best-known form is:
Niebuhr used various versions of the prayer widely in sermons as early as 1934. The prayer spread rapidly, often without attribution to Niebuhr, through church groups in the 1930s and 1940s and was adopted and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs. The Serenity Prayer appeared in a sermon of Niebuhr's as part of the 1944 A Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces, while Niebuhr himself first published it in 1951 in a...
