Hannibal was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.
The Battle of Zama was fought in 202 BC in what is now Tunisia between a Roman army commanded by Scipio Africanus and a Carthaginian army commanded by Hannibal. The battle was part of the Second Punic War and resulted in such a severe defeat for the Carthaginians that they capitulated. The Roman army of approximately 30,000 men was outnumbered by the Carthaginians who fielded either 40,000 or 50,000; the Romans were stronger in cavalry, but the Carthaginians had 80 war elephants.
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus was a Roman general and statesman during the third century BC. He played a major part in the Second Punic War establishing Roman Rule in the east of the Iberian Peninsula and tying up several Carthaginian armies keeping them from reinforcing Hannibal.
The Chindits, officially as Long Range Penetration Groups, were special operations units of the British and Indian armies which saw action in 1943–1944 during the Burma Campaign of World War II.
Krabi-Krabong is a weapon-based martial art from Thailand. It is closely related to other Southeast Asian fighting styles such as Pencak Silat Indonesia, Burmese banshay and Cambodian kbach kun boran. The royal bodyguard corps of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej were said to be highly trained in krabi-krabong.
A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.
The Battle of Agrigentum was the first pitched battle of the First Punic War and the first large-scale military confrontation between Carthage and the Roman Republic. The battle was fought after a long siege which started in 262 BC and resulted both in a Roman victory and the beginning of Roman control of Sicily.
The Surin Elephant Round-up is a cultural festival held every year in Surin Province, Isan, Thailand. Usually the event is organized during the third week of November on the weekend. The festival has its origins in the royal hunts which were conducted in Surin Province during medieval times. The indigenous residents of Surin, the Kuy, have been traditional practitioners of corralling elephants and training them as working animals. When the Ayutthaya Kingdom came into power these hunts were converted into a public extravaganza and wild elephants were replaced with tame ones. The festival, in its contemporary form, was first organized in the 1960s when civil war in Cambodia and the steady decline in economic value of elephants forced the elephant handlers (mahouts) to seek occupations in the entertainment and tourism industry.
The Battle of the Metaurus was a pivotal battle in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, fought in 207 BC near the Metauro River in Italy. The Carthaginians were led by Hasdrubal Barca, brother of Hannibal, who was to have brought siege equipment and reinforcements for Hannibal. The Roman armies were led by the consuls Marcus Livius, who was later nicknamed the Salinator, and Gaius Claudius Nero.
Balarama was the lead elephant of the Mysore Dasara procession and carried the idol of goddess Chamundeshwari on the fabled Golden Howdah thirteen times between 1999 and 2011. Balarama was a bull born about 1958 and was accompanied in the procession by other Dasara Elephants. Of the many elephants participating, Balarama was one of the star attractions when he carried on his back the sacred idol of goddess Chamundeshwari in the 750 kilograms (1,650 lb) golden howdah on the auspicious 10th day of Dasara celebrations.
The Church of the Province of Myanmar in Asia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. The province comprises the entire country of Myanmar. The current archbishop of Myanmar and bishop of Yangon is Stephen Than Myint Oo.
Jumbo is a 2008 Indian 3D computer-animated adventure live-action film directed by Kompin Kemgumnird, produced by Percept Picture Company and features the voices of Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Dimple Kapadia, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, and Gulshan Grover. Jayveer Singh aka Jumbo, a little elephant, which tries to find his Father and the journey of finding his father made him a war elephant. The film is a Hindi remake and Hindi dubbed version of the 2006 Thai film Khan Kluay, which is based on "Chao Praya Prab Hongsawadee" by Ariya Jintapanichkarn.
Burmese names lack the serial structure of most Western names. The people of Myanmar have no customary matronymic or patronymic naming system and therefore have no surnames. In the culture of Myanmar, people can change their name at will, often with no government oversight, to reflect a change in the course of their lives. Also, many Myanmar names use an honorific, given at some point in life, as an integral part of the name.
U Phoe Kyar is considered one of the top Burmese authors and education reformists in 20th century Myanmar. He is regarded as the father of Burmese short stories, a key member of the Nationalist Education movement of the 1930s and also a literary genius. His works continue to be popular with both the young and old in Myanmar.
Thado Minbya was the founder of the Kingdom of Ava. In his three plus years of reign (1364–67), the king laid the foundation for the reunification of Central Burma, which had been split into Pinya and Sagaing kingdoms since 1315. He also founded the capital city of Ava (Inwa) in 1365, which would remain the country's capital for most of the following five centuries. The young king restored order in central Burma, and tried to stamp out corrupt Buddhist clergy. He died of smallpox while on a southern military expedition in September 1367.
Ma Than E Fend was a prominent Burmese singer in the early 20th century, known by her stage name Bilat Pyan Than (ဘိလပ်ပြန်သန်း). She was also an international civil servant who spent a long career in the United Nations.
Mingyi Swa was heir apparent of Burma from 1581 to 1593. The eldest son of King Nanda of the Toungoo Dynasty led three out of the five Burmese invasions of Siam between 1584 and 1593, all of which ended in complete failure. He died in action during the fifth invasion in 1593. In prevailing Thai history, he was killed in single combat by King Naresuan. However no other accounts, including the earliest Siamese records and European accounts, mention a formal duel between the two. The Burmese chronicles say Swa was felled by a Siamese mortar round.
Hood of Death is the thirty-fourth novel in the long-running Nick Carter-Killmaster series of spy novels. Carter is a US secret agent, code-named N-3, with the rank of Killmaster. He works for AXE – a secret arm of the US intelligence services.
The elephant has been a contributor to Thai society and its icon for many centuries. The elephant has had a considerable impact on Thai culture. The Thai elephant is the official national animal of Thailand. The elephant found in Thailand is the Indian elephant, a subspecies of the Asian elephant. In the early-1900s there were an estimated 100,000 captive elephants in Thailand. In mid-2007 there were an estimated 3,456 captive elephants left in Thailand and roughly a thousand wild elephants. By 2017 the number of captive elephants had risen to an estimated 3,783. The elephant became an endangered species in Thailand in 1986.
The Emerald Jungle is a 1934 Burmese black-and-white silent film about a spoiled urbanite fleeing to the Jungle with a bunch of stunts and actions. But what would also make for an interesting film is the story of the loss and restoration of director Maung Tin Maung's 1934 masterpiece.
