- Star Tales - Boötes (ianridpath.com)
This constellation (pronounced Boh-oh-tease) is closely linked in legend with the Great Bear, Ursa Major, because of its position behind the bear’s tail. The origin of the name Boötes (Greek: Βοώτης) is not certain, but it probably comes from a Greek word meaning ‘noisy’ or ‘clamorous’, referring to the herdsman’s shouts to his animals. An alternative explanation is that the name comes from the ancient Greek meaning ‘ox-driver’, from the fact that Ursa Major was sometimes visualized as a cart pulled by oxen.
- Star Tales - Hercules (ianridpath.com)
The origin of this constellation is so ancient that its true identity was lost even to the Greeks, who knew the figure as Ἐνγόνασι (Engonasi) or Ἐνγόνασιν (Engonasin), literally meaning ‘the kneeling one’. The Greek poet Aratus described him as being worn out with toil, his hands upraised, with one knee bent and a foot on the head of Draco, the dragon. ‘No one knows his name, nor what he labours at’, said Aratus. But Eratosthenes, a century after Aratus, identified the figure as Heracles (the Greek name for Hercules) triumphing over the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, quoted by Hyginus, offered a different explanation. He said that Heracles was kneeling, wounded and exhausted, during his battle with the Ligurians.
- Star Tales - Serpens (ianridpath.com)
This constellation is unique, for it is divided into two parts – Serpens Caput, the head, and Serpens Cauda, the tail. Nevertheless, astronomers regard it as a single constellation. Serpens represents a huge snake held by the constellation Ophiuchus. Its Greek name was Ὄφις (Ophis), but in the Almagest Ptolemy gave it as Ὄφις Ὀφιούχου (Ophis Ophiouchou), i.e. the serpent of the serpent-holder, presumably to prevent confusion with the other celestial serpents Draco and Hydra.
- A semicircle of stars between Boötes and Hercules marks the golden crown worn by Princess Ariadne of Crete when she married the god Dionysus (known to the Romans as Bacchus). The crown is said to have been made by Hephaestus, the god of fire, and was studded with jewels from India.
- Star Tales - Corona Australis (ianridpath.com)
Corona Australis was known to the Greeks not as a crown but as a wreath, which is how it is depicted on old star maps. Aratus did not name it as a separate constellation but referred to it simply as a circlet of stars beneath the forefeet of Sagittarius. Hyginus said it was a wreath cast off by the archer ‘as by one at play’.
- Seattle — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle is the largest city in Washington state and its economic capital. Settled in 1851, its deep harbor and acquisition of Puget Sound’s first steam-powered sawmill quickly established it as a center of trade and industry. It gained the Territorial University (now University of Washington) in 1861, but was snubbed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1874 when it picked Tacoma as its western terminus. Despite this, the town prospered thanks to independent railroad development fueled by local coal deposits…