istoryworld
The spread of printing
An invention as useful as printing, in a Europe of increasing prosperity, readily finds new customers. The first Italian press is founded in 1464, at the Benedictine town of Subiaco in the papal states. Switzerland has a press in the following year. Printing begins in Venice, Paris and Utrecht in 1470, in Spain and Hungary in 1473, in Bruges in 1474 (on a press owned by Caxton, who moves it to London in 1476), in Sweden in 1483. By the end of the century the ...
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Pennsylvania
In 1737 the colony of Pennsylvania decides to claim the full extent of this supposed agreement. Athletes are trained for the occasion; a path is cut through the scrub; on August 25-6 the quickest among them covers sixty-four miles in the day and a half, bringing some 1200 square miles of Indian territory securely into British hands.There is a further irony attached to this loss by the Lenape. When they reject the so-called Walking Purchase, both sides agree to accept arbitration by the Iroquois League. ...
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The Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock, completed in 691 and the earliest surviving example of Muslim architecture, borrows in spectacular fashion the themes of Byzantine mosaic and domed roof. This city of Jerusalem, taken from the Christians only half a century previously, still has the skills and crafts first developed for use in imperial churches. The dome itself is a great wooden structure. The caliph has both interior and exterior of the shrine lavishly decorated in a combination of polished marble and glittering glass mosaic against ...
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Amphibious war against Japan
A significant step in the slow move north towards Japan is the US assault, in February 1944, of a strong naval base in the volcanic cluster of the Truk Islands. Eleven Japanese warships and more than 300 planes are destroyed here, in the first radar-guided night attack. After this it is clear that the next target must be the Marianas, a group of islands which the Japanese rightly regard as a crucial line of defence. From here US planes will be within bombing range of ...
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Falklands War
On May 3 the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano is torpedoed and sinks with heavy casualties (368 dead). This becomes the most controversial event of the war, because of allegations that the ship was outside the exclusion zone and was heading away from it. The following day the British destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile, with the loss of twenty men.The first British landing is on East Falkland, where a bridgehead is established by May 21. Within the following week Port Darwin and ...
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Savonarola
In 1491 Savonarola becomes prior of the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence. His powerful sermons, critical of decadence and luxury in both church and state (meaning papal Rome and the princely circle of the Medici) are already familiar in Florence, for he has been in the convent of San Marco on and off since 1482. In spite of his savage voice, Lorenzo the Magnificent encourages this incorruptible man of God. Contrary to rumour, Savonarola blesses Lorenzo on his deathbed in 1492.
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Mosaic in the Roman empire
The great Roman villa near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, built in about AD 300, has mosaic floors which were probably laid by craftsmen from north Africa. Originally they covered some 4200 square yards. Of their many lively scenes none has given more delight than the group of bikini-clad maidens playing a musical game with a ball. The mosaics of Piazza Armerina are of the early 4th century. By that time the bishop of Aquileia in northern Italy is adapting this Roman art form to his ...
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Florence's patrons
At the time of the dominance of the Pazzi and the Medici, Florence is the pioneering centre of the Italian Renaissance. Both families are directly involved as patrons. In about 1430 Donatello produces the nude bronze of David for a Medici palace. In the same year Brunelleschi is starting work on the Pazzi chapel. These two families are not the only enlightened patrons from the world of commerce. Brancacci, who pays for Masaccio's frescoes, is a silk merchant. Florentine guilds commission Donatello to provide sculptures ...
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Nimrud and Nineveh
Layard continues to dig at Nimrud, finding many more reliefs (Assyrian kings decorate their palace rooms and even their corridors in this way, as freely as lesser mortals apply wallpaper). He also extends his searches to another site by the name of Kuyunjik. This turns out to be the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh. Here he discovers the superb cuneiform library of Ashurbanipal. Layard leaves Mesopotamia in 1851, but his assistant Hormuzd Rassam continues at Nineveh. In December 1853 he uncovers the palace built by ...
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Buddhist murals
Monks and pilgrims play an important part in the practice of Buddhism. Both are attracted to caves in remote places. And the profusion of popular stories in Mahayana Buddhism (on topics such as the adventures of Buddha in his previous lives on earth) provides a rich source of material for narrative paintings on the walls of the caves. Two places suggest more vividly than any others the vitality of Buddhist cave painting from about the 5th century AD. One is Ajanta, a site in India ...
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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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Vijayanagara
During the declining years of the Delhi sultanate, a great Hindu empire is established in the south. Founded in about 1336 with its capital at Vijayanagara (meaning 'city of victory'), it is a worthy successor to the empire of the Cholas and controls much the same area (the whole of India south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers). The site of Vijayanagara is at Hampi - now just a village surrounded by a ruined city of temples and palaces. Deserted in 1565, after a catastrophic ...
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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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Wives of Henry VIII
It is not known whether there is any basis to this accusation, but those accused of being her lovers (including her own brother) are executed on May 17. Anne is beheaded on May 19. On the very next day Henry is betrothed to one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. They marry on May 30. The following year, in October, Jane does at last produce the long-awaited male heir, the future Edward VI. But she herself dies twelve days later. Henry's next marriage also leads to ...
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Pharaohs called Ramses
Ramses inherits the throne young (though he already has experience of war, through accompanying his father on campaigns) and he rules for the huge span of sixty-six years (1279-1213 BC). His reign is marked by a peaceful resolution of Egypt's struggle against the Hittites in Syria, and by major building projects. Ramses completes the great hall of columns at Karnak, planned by his grandfather and started by his father. And he creates spectacular monuments at a new site, Abu Simbel. In addition to the great ...
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Roman expansion in Italy
Rome reinforces this network of alliances with a sound system of communication. In 312 the first of the great Roman roads, the Via Appia, is built by Appius Claudius to link Rome with an important new ally - the city of Capua, north of Naples. Additional security is provided by small colonies planted at strategic places. In each of them 300 Roman families are settled in a walled encampment, becoming in effect a self-sufficient military outpost. Each family is given its own plot of land; ...
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Romantic Scotland
Scott surpasses himself in the cause of romantic Scotland when he organizes the festivities, in 1822, for the first visit of a British monarch to Edinburgh since the union of 1707. A year after his coronation in Westminster, George IV travels to the north of his realm. The ageing reprobate appears in the role of a Scottish chieftain, wearing tartan (banned until quite recently) and thus launching the 19th-century craze for Highland dress.The nation's love affair with romantic Scotland reaches its climax in 1856, when ...
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Brunelleschi and the Duomo
Brunelleschi's greatest claim to fame in his own day is connected with a medieval rather than a Renaissance building. In his childhood Florence's cathedral (the Duomo, built during the 14th century) has had only a temporary covering over the central space where the nave and transepts cross. The intention has always been to build a dome, but the Florentines have been too eager to impress the world with the scale of their cathedral. The space to be spanned is 140 feet across, some 35 feet ...
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Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius
There are two more rulers in a group later known as the 'five good emperors'. Hadrian has no children. He selects as his successor a respected senator, Antoninus Pius, insisting at the same time that Antoninus designate Marcus Aurelius, a talented young member of the ruling class who is as yet only 17, as next in line of succession. Both men assume power without unrest, in AD 138 and 161. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol, one of the first of its ...
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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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