Found this on Wikipedia:

wrote:A well-known story in the collection One Thousand and One Nights describes a genie who had displeased King Solomon and was punished by being locked in a bottle and thrown into the sea. Since the bottle was sealed with Solomon's seal, the genie was helpless to free himself, until freed many centuries later by a fisherman who discovered the bottle.

Familiar?

Now I see where all these little things come from!! You can find references to myths and real world events that you didn't even know were references when you first read them.
I love that about this series.

Yeah, even though there are some obvious changes to some parts of history, there are a lot of awesome historical references.

It's probably what made history classes even more exciting for me in high school, now that I think about it: reading about some event or place and thinking, "I've heard about this before."

More interesting tidbits:

wrote:After disagreements with the new Danish king Christian IV in 1597, [Tycho Brahe] was invited by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor Rudolph II to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer...

...the duel two days later (in the dark) resulted in Tycho losing the bridge of his nose. For the rest of his life, he was said to have worn a replacement made of silver and gold. When Tycho's tomb was opened on June 24, 1901, green marks were found on his skull, suggesting copper.

Apparently, he was also Johannes Kepler's mentor. When I first read about Tycho in GE, I thought Stroud had just made him up.
This is sooo cool!

wrote:A well-known story in the collection One Thousand and One Nights describes a genie who had displeased King Solomon and was punished by being locked in a bottle and thrown into the sea. Since the bottle was sealed with Solomon's seal, the genie was helpless to free himself, until freed many centuries later by a fisherman who discovered the bottle.

I had read this before.
Yeah all these references makes the whole series more awesome and history more interesting. :)

Yeah, anyway, anyone got anything about william gladstone yet?

Pretty much every character historically mentioned existed in real life and in some way is reflected historically with similar traits in the Bartimaeus university. Ex. Ptolemy, who actually lived for a very long time and contributed a lot to astronomy and mathematics. But, as you can see from the Ptolemy example, they've been altered, some more than others.

For Gladstone, I'm not sure how he stacks up with other British Prime Ministers, but he certainly did have a rivalry with Disraeli who was also Prime Minister in between Gladstone's times in office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone

Nero wrote:Ex. Ptolemy, who actually lived for a very long time and contributed a lot to astronomy and mathematics. But, as you can see from the Ptolemy example, they've been altered, some more than others.

Wrong Ptolemy; you're thinking of Claudius Ptolemaeus, astronomer in Roman-ruled Egypt in ~100AD. Our Ptolemy is a relation of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, who ruled Egypt from ~300BC to ~30BC (hence him being related to the ruler). It's not clear whether there's a real individual he corresponds to, however.

Sentynel wrote:

Nero wrote:Ex. Ptolemy, who actually lived for a very long time and contributed a lot to astronomy and mathematics. But, as you can see from the Ptolemy example, they've been altered, some more than others.

Wrong Ptolemy; you're thinking of Claudius Ptolemaeus, astronomer in Roman-ruled Egypt in ~100AD. Our Ptolemy is a relation of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, who ruled Egypt from ~300BC to ~30BC (hence him being related to the ruler). It's not clear whether there's a real individual he corresponds to, however.

Ah, my mistake. I thought of Claudius because of his mathematical contributions.