istoryworld
A mood of rebellion
During the years after the end of the French and Indian War there is mounting tension between Britain and her American colonies. The contentious issues are British taxes and the presence of British troops on American soil. Unrest centres particularly on the most radical of the colonial cities, Boston.In 1770 there is an incident in Boston of a kind familiar in northern Ireland two centuries later. An unruly crowd throws stones at the much resented troops. The soldiers open fire, killing five. The event becomes ...
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The Knights of St John
As they grow in power, the Knights of St John become an important part of the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem, fighting battles against the Muslims while also maintaining their charitable function in the care of the sick. It is a measure of their power that the great castle of Krak des Chevaliers is one of their strongholds - a hospital with thicker walls than most. In their militant role the knights are matched by the other great 12th-century order, that of the Templars. ...
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The legacy of Francis I
The centre of French court life is Fontainebleau, a royal hunting lodge almost entirely rebuilt by Francis I from 1527. Here he brings the Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino (in 1530) and Primaticcio (in 1532), who together establish a French style of mannerist painting known as the school of Fontainebleau. They are joined in 1540 by the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, whose famous golden salt cellar is made at Fontainebleau. Francis has earlier rebuilt Chambord, from 1519 - in name a castle on the Loire, ...
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Daoism
Confucianism and Daoism are like two sides of the same Chinese coin. They are opposite and complementary. They represent town and country, the practical and the spiritual, the rational and the romantic. A Chinese official is a Confucian while he goes about the business of government; if he loses his job, he will retire to the country as a Daoist; but a new offer of employment may rapidly restore his Confucianism. The same natural cycle of opposites is reflected in the Chinese theory of yin ...
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Minoans
Defensive walls are notably absent in Minoan Crete, as also are paintings of warfare. This seems to have been a peaceful as well as a prosperous society. But its end is violent. In about 1425 BC all the towns and palaces of Crete, except Knossos itself, are destroyed by fire. It is not known whether this is a natural disaster, which gives Greeks from the mainland their chance, or whether Greek invaders destroy Minoan Crete - keeping only the main palace for their own use. ...
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The Wealth of Nations
During the second half of the 18th century visible changes are occurring in Britain as a result of the developing Industrial Revolution. Where previously land has been the traditional source of wealth, and the purchase of land the natural investment for anyone with a spare fortune, money is now being put into manufacturing enterprises. In 1771 the greatest of the new entrepreneurs, Richard Arkwright, opens the first custom-built and water-powered cloth mill at Cromford. In the same decade the investment of another entrepreneur, Matthew Boulton, ...
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The Greek theatre
In the first Greek theatres the stage is a full circle, in keeping with the circular dance - the choros - from which the theatrical performance has evolved. This stage is called the orchestra (orchester, a dancer), because it is the place where the chorus sing and dance. Epidaurus, built in about 340 BC, provides the best example of a classical Greek theatre. In the centre of the orchestra is the stone base on which an altar stood, reflecting the religious aspect of theatre in ...
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The Flavian emperors
On his accession Vespasian entrusts the important Jewish war, previously his own concern, to his son Titus. In AD 70 Titus captures and sacks Jerusalem, destroying the Temple and bearing off its treasures - including the sacred menorah, or seven-branched candelabrum, as depicted in the triumphal Arch of Titus in Rome. Other frontier districts are forcibly pacified in a similar manner, with the result that after ten years of rule Vespasian bequeaths to his son a Roman empire in better order than at any time ...
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Timur's conquests
Home is Samarkand, the city closest to his birthplace. Timur is busy turning it into a great centre of Muslim architecture and art. Together with the Indian elephants come the best craftsmen of Delhi, who will be set to work in Samarkand - where they join, in 1399, a community of skilled captives from previous expeditions. This is connoisseurship of an unusually violent kind, but it is a genuine passion. Inherited by Timur's descendants, in less rapacious form, it results in a great Timurid tradition ...
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The great Dutch century
From the many practising in each field there emerge a handful of outstanding masters. In landscape Aelbert Cuyp achieves, from the 1640s, exceptionally beautiful effects of warm and gentle light in broad tranquil vistas. Jacob van Ruisdael, a few years younger, is the greatest of the Dutch landscape painters. He works a more dramatic vein than Cuyp, finding romance in wooded landscapes among which streams tumble or half-hidden roads wind their way. Ruisdael's theme is followed by his pupil Hobbema - though Hobbema's most famous ...
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Stone Age graves and temples
In a later stage of this deeply mysterious neolithic tradition the megaliths, previously hidden beneath the mounds of the tombs, emerge in their own right as great standing stones, often arranged in circles. The ritual purpose of such circles is not known. They too, in many cases, have a solar alignment, usually now relating to sunrise at the summer solstice. The most striking of these circles is Stonehenge, in England. The site is in ritual use over a very long period, from about 3000 to ...
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Balaklava and Inkerman
A British and French army lands near Sebastopol in September 1854. During the next eight weeks there are three battles with Russian forces, at the river Alma in September, at the allies' supply port of Balaklava in October and at Inkerman on the heights just outside Sebastopol in November.Alma is an allied victory but brings little advantage in the central purpose of seizing the fortified port of Sebastopol. The other two battles are inconclusive, with very heavy casualties - Balaklava also being famous in British ...
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Villa and country seat
The single most imitated aspect of Palladio's style is his use of columns and pediment as a portico in front of a house (his model being the Pantheon in Rome). In broader terms the balance and the relative simplicity of classical design are his hallmark. Palladio's most striking influence is seen in the great houses of 18th-century England. By then part of his appeal is in reaction against a very different and far from reserved style which has intervened during the 17th century - that ...
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Cave paintings
When humans first form settled communities, paintings again play a prominent part in religious life. A good example is the early neolithic town of Catal Huyuk, from about 6000 BC. Many of the houses so far excavated appear to be shrines. Their walls are painted with a wide range of subjects, including hunting scenes, a picture of vultures setting about human corpses, and even an elementary landscape. As in many early societies, such as Minoan Crete, the bull is here a sacred animal. Bulls' heads ...
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The first farmers
The earliest place known to have lived mainly from the cultivation of crops is Jericho. By around 8000 BC this community, occupying a naturally well-watered region, is growing selected forms of wheat (emmer and einkorn are the two varieties), soon to be followed by barley. Though no longer gatherers, these people are still hunters. Their source of meat is wild gazelle, cattle, goat and boar. It is no accident that Jericho is also the first known town, with a population of 2000 or more. A ...
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The roots of Chinese culture
Most of the elaborate bronze vessels made in Shang times are for use in temples or shrines to ancestors. The richly decorated urns are for cooking the meat of the sacrificed animals. The most characteristic design is the li, with its curved base extended into three hollow protuberances - enabling maximum heat to reach the sacrificial stew. The bronze jugs, often fantastically shaped into weird animals and birds, are for pouring a liquid offering to the ancestor - usually a hot alcoholic concoction brewed from ...
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Act of Supremacy
The Act of Supremacy demands public consent to the king's newly assumed role as head of the Church of England. Prominent figures in public life are required to swear on oath their acceptance of this new doctrine. A few brave men refuse to do so, among them the bishop of Rochester (John Fisher) and Thomas More. Thomas More holds a position of particular significance. A scholar of distinction, friend of Erasmus, author of Utopia, he has also been a close friend of Henry VIII and ...
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Victoria, Albert and the Great Exhi....
An architectural competition is launched, resulting in the submission of 245 designs. From these proposals the members of the building committee, in somewhat high-handed fashion, produce a composite design of their own. It is extraordinarily dull (a long low brick building, like farm outhouses, capped by an incongruous dome), and it suggests to Londoners that Albert's exhibition is going to be equally dreary.In June 1850 tenders are about to come in for the construction of this building when Joseph Paxton, superintendent of the gardens at ...
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The abdication crisis
The issue breaks in the newspapers early in December, after the bishop of Bradford has declared in a sermon that the king should be more aware of his Christian duty. Baldwin, almost certainly in tune with the majority of public opinion, feels that a marriage of any kind between the king and a divorced woman is out of the question. Yet Edward insists that he must marry.Abdication is the only solution. On December 10 Edward becomes the only British monarch voluntarily to give up the ...
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The Book
The books of the Jewish Bible are believed to have been written over several centuries, beginning in the 10th century BC - by which time the Hebrews are settled in Canaan, or Palestine. But in many parts the scribes are writing down a much older oral tradition. It is thought that some of the events described may go back as far as the 18th century BC. The holiest part of the Bible for Jews is the first five books, known as the Torah ('instruction' or ...
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