Chauvet Cave was first discovered by Jean-Marie Chauvet in 1995. It is located in southeast France and has been dated between 30,000 and 33,000 years B.P. (Before the Present). These dates place the drawings in the Auriganacian, or the early Upper Paleolithic period. This era is defined by the functionally flexible stone tool industry, their manufacture of body ornaments and sophisticated cave art. 
Art of the Aurignacian era can be separated into two groups. The first is portable art which began appearing about 35,000 B.P. and is made up of carvings such as the Venus figurine. The second group is stationary art, or parietal art, mainly made up of cave drawings and paintings. Over Europe, the majority of cave art depicts animals with an overwhelming representations of animals of significant economic value like horse, reindeer, bison, aurochs, ibex, and mammoth along with carnivores such as lions, bears and wolves. Chauvet Cave particularly seems to contain a surprisingly large number of carnivores, with at least thirty-three figures making up almost fourteen percent of the animal figures. The carnivores represented include mainly bears and large cats including at least one spotted panther. These animals, especially the felines, are consistently among the most inaccurately proportioned with their canine teeth substantially larger than in real life. This may be because the large cats are harder to observe than other common animals such as the horse and bison, however, their teeth do seem to attract a lot more attention in general. Not only were the carnivores the only animals drawn with teeth but also their teeth were used as jewelry.
It is hard today to interpret the art of the Upper Paleolithic because so much has changed over the 30,000 years since its creation. When studying Paleolithic art we are only observing a small proportion what was made, only the surviving art is accessible to us. While art historians often view this early cave art as the ‘awakening’ of a human instinct to study the world around them, the majority of pre-historians believe instead that it is part of a wider cultural behavior. One suggestion is that the art represented a type of communication related to the movement and behavior of animals, perhaps in response to planned hunting activities. This hypothesis shows a marked shift from the idea of symbolism towards one focused on the communication of information about the surrounding environment. At any rate, the majority of experts agree that the people creating the drawings are copying images and scenes from real life. It is, however important to note, that while many of the drawings found probably do represent some greater thought or idea, there may be a certain percentage of meaningless scrawl made by amateurs or practicing children.
The French Revolution
Prior to the revolution that would change the system of governance in France, the people had suffered under the mismanagement of King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, who, along with the aristocracy, refused to acknowledge the economic plight of the lower classes.
The first phase of the French Revolution started in 1789 when representatives of the noble, clergy, and common classes convened in a meeting of the Estates-General to address the economic duress of the population and institute reforms. King Louis XVI, under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council had banished the reformist finance ministers Turgot and Necker and generally neglected discussions of reform. He banned the crucial meeting of the Estates-General, forcing them to meet outside where they drafted the famous Oath of the Tennis Court on June 20, 1789. By July of 1789 the people of Paris were clamoring for change and began taking to the streets in protest. They stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, tearing down what had been a symbol of monarchical and aristocratic abuse of power for years.
The slogan of the French Revolution was “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and aimed to elevate the rights of the impoverished lower classes and mitigate the inequalities that had existed for centuries in the French feudal system.
Both political and socioeconomic factors contributed to the French Revolution as the ambitions of the rising bourgeoisie were allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners, and individuals of all classes. The influence of the ideas that rounded out the revolutionary movement, rooted in Enlightenment philosophies were also paramount to the desire for change in what was felt to be a stagnant system of government.
The poor economic situation, peaked by high national debt due to Louis XVI’s involvement in foreign causes and war on the North American continent, aggravated the inequality between the classes in France. The feudal peasants and the enlightened liberals resented royal absolutism and aspired for a republican government that would represent the rights of individuals. In the months before the revolution, high unemployment and high bread prices resulted in strife for the lower classes who could not afford to purchase food and led to a general dissatisfaction and upheaval among the population.
The King, his wife Marie Antoinette, and their children attempted to escape from Paris in 1791 after months of popular dissatisfaction and the increasing threat to the monarchy. The King and his family did not make it out of Paris and were instead captured and held in Paris and in 1792 the King was sent to the guillotine. For three years, between 1792 and 1795, a committee was established to rule the country headed by Georges-Jacques Denton, Jean-Paul Marat, and Maximilien Robespierre. They ruled in what became known as the Reign of Terror, sending thousands of Royalists to the guillotine including Marie Antoinette and other Royalists, dissidents of the Revolution, and even moderate thinkers who sought to mediate the excesses of the revolutionary movement. The Revolution succeeded in overturning generations of autocratic monarchic rule but became a symbol of excessive force and revolt without sufficient stabilizing elements to fundamentally change conditions for the French people. In 1799 a young General named Napoleon Bonaparte helped overthrow the government, called the Directory, and by 1804 had risen to such power that he etablished himself as “Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.”
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Many of the phrases we use on a regular basis are well known and they often seem like a cliché. Among these often used sayings is “raining cats and dogs”. We all know that when someone says it is “raining cats and dogs” it means that there is a torrential rainstorm in progress. However, like many other such phrases the actual origin is not commonly known and there are several different theories as to how it began. One of the most interesting is that the notoriously bad drainage and sewage systems of 17th century England would become rivers of debris during rainstorms. Among the debris drowned cats and dogs would be littered. Richard Brome wrote about the phenomenon in the 1652 work The City Witt saying 
There have been reports of whirlwinds dropping frogs, grasshoppers, and fish from the sky but cats and dogs have never been among the creatures actually raining down. Another idea is that an old French word catadoupe (which means waterfall) sounds similar to “cats and dogs”. These are some of the competing theories for the origin of the phrase although there is no definite winner. Regardless of which theory each of us subscribe to the saying that it is “raining cats and dogs” will continue to be a common part of the English language. 
In 880 BC, the Buddha is reputed to have relayed the Kalachakra Tantra – a complex system of philosophy and meditation for attaining enlightenment - to sect of followers in Andhra, India. This document, later adopted by Tibetan Buddhists and elaborated upon in a series of subsequent manuscripts, speaks in depth of a kingdom called Shambhala – an paradise where only most spiritually resplendent of beings can reside.
It is the goal of all Tibetan lamas to one day, after years of intense study and reflection, to perceive the awesome grandness of this ethereal oasis through the achievement of enlightenment and the cycle of rebirth. 
Drawing from these conclusions, Heinrich Himmler deployed as an SS unit to Tibet in May 1938 to not only collect data and artifacts that supported those views on Aryan lineage, but also substantiate rumors of Shambhalah’s existence. Within six months, the squad completed the arduous task of reaching the Tibetan capital of Lhasa - but would eventually fail to locate their mythical conquest before returning to Germany.
The word “museum” means house of the muses and is a designation of places that inspire, inform, entertain and delight. The history of the most well known museum in the country, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., is an example of how an entire country can inspire one man to leave a firm mark in history.
Smithson began by leaving his inheritance to his only nephew with the stipulation that if his nephew would pass away with no heirs of his own, his bequest would then be deferred in whole to the United States. He left his fortune to the people of America with a single stipulation: the money be used to start a museum called the Smithsonian.
The sad yet strange note of Smithson’s legacy is the fact that he never had the opportunity to actually visit the land he viewed as the embodiment of the Enlightenment perspective. 
