16th Century

Warsaw.--Marcin Zamoyski is a TV cameraman by trade. He has neither a political activist's history nor an administrator's experience.But last year, in one of the more evident signs of Polish nostalgia for yesterday, a group of conservative Catholic intellectuals in the southeastern town of Zamosc asked him to become their mayor.He won two thirds of the city councilors' votes, beating two veterans of the Solidarity labor movement."They voted for the Zamoyski name," Marcin Zamoyski commented, "a name which guaranteed honesty and justice."

Earle Havens can almost hear their voices. Each time Havens steps inside the George Peabody Library, he senses the muted exclamations, the murmured back-and-forth of a conversation that's been going on now for more than two millennia. In one corner, there's a treatise from the third century B.C. in which Aristarchus of Samos estimated the distances between the sun, moon and earth. Across the room is an extremely rare unbound volume of Copernicus' "Revolution of the Celestial Spheres," in which the 15th-century astronomer advanced the then-heretical notion that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

The 16th-century Japanese art of swordplay demands that its warriors begin "as still as a mountain," then pounce "as powerfully as a raging river.""This is not the Errol Flynn school of swashbuckling sword fighting," said William Buckley, a 53-year-old Hampstead resident who teaches computer science at Catonsville Community College."

FIFTH-GRADE PUPILS, their parents, teachers and other visitors recently turned back time at the Medieval Day Festival at Friendship Valley Elementary School. They threw javelins, walked on stilts, jousted from tricycles and reveled in the 16th century. "I love this festival and I've only been here for 20 minutes," Jeff McDonogh said at the beginning of the festivities. "This sure beats writing paragraphs, and right now it's [integrated language arts] time and we would be writing paragraphs," Ian Bucacink said.

Dozens of people gather every Sunday morning in the Gothic sanctuary of St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church to pray for the future of a tradition that's deeply rooted in the past. Before the Latin prayers begin, they seek God's intercession for the future of the Tridentine Mass - a form of liturgy established in the 16th century but now celebrated only in churches with special permission. If the speculation around the Vatican is right, their prayers might be answered. Rumors have swirled for months that Pope Benedict XVI will formally grant permission to all Catholic churches to perform what's commonly - though incorrectly - known as the Latin Mass.

Archaeologists digging along the Patuxent River in Solomons have found the skeletal remains of an American Indian believed to have lived in the 1500s.A jawbone with two molars, some bone fragments and a shard of ceramic pottery were found March 13 near the visitors information center at the Naval Recreation Center in Calvert County, northwest of the Thomas Johnson Bridge, according to a Navy spokesman.Richard Hughes, chief of the office of archaeology for the Maryland Historical Trust, said that the remains have been reburied at the 30-by-30-foot excavation site while Navy officials decide what to do with them.

Fred Nelson was sweating. He had 15 minutes to catch his breath, change into royal garb and prepare to make the biggest entrance of his life: as King Henry VIII at the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival, which opened yesterday in Crownsville. "The only thing that has me nervous is my shoulder," he said. "It's twitching, and I have a sword fight later. " The festival, which started 25 years ago in Columbia and moved to Crownsville as it grew, is one of many such fairs throughout the country that pay homage to Shakespeare's era with costumes, shows, craft vendors and general revelry.

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii -- Resorts, airports and much else about Hawaiian island life were back to normal this week, days after a magnitude-6.7 earthquake struck just off Hawaii Island. But for some of the Big Island's most historic - and fragile - structures, the quake's effects were not so quickly overcome. "We didn't fare well at all," said Fanny AuHoy, administrator of the two-story Hulihe'e Palace, built of coral, lava rock and native wood in 1838 for the Hawaiian royal family. "This building has withstood other earthquakes, hurricanes and big storms.

It was nearly 500 years ago that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, setting into motion the Protestant Reformation and a major division of Christianity.Modern-day Lutherans meeting this week in Philadelphia will vote on whether to adopt three ecumenical agreements that would undo some of that division.The Churchwide Assembly of the 5.2 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will consider agreements with the Episcopal Church, three Reformed churches and the Roman Catholic Church.

A group of Century High School students has set out to prove that Shakespeare is, well, groovy, baby. This week, the school's student Shakespeare troupe, the Rude Mechanicals, is putting on its first full-length play: As You Like It. But amid 16th-century prose, the troupe has slipped in a taste of the 1960s and 1970s, complete with bell bottoms, James Taylor and peace signs. The result: A world where "fair princess" and "baby" - not the infant kind - are uttered in nearly the same breath.