istoryworld
Trajan
There are two good reasons for Trajan's interest in subduing this area. One is revenge; the Dacians, led by a powerful ruler, Decebalus, inflicted a major defeat on a Roman army sent out by Domitian in 86. The other is greed; the territory includes some famous gold mines. In two campaigns (101-2, 105-6) Dacia is crushed and brought firmly within the empire; the modern name of the region, Romania, reflects Rome's success. Great wealth is brought back to the capital to fund Trajan's building programme. ...
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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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The First Fleet
On January 21 Phillip sails a few miles north and finds the great natural harbour of Port Jackson. Here he selects an inlet with a good water supply as the site for the new colony. He names the place Sydney Cove in honour of the home secretary, Viscount Sydney.A prefabricated house of wood and canvas, designed in London for the governor, is erected at the centre of the settlement. Tents are put up for the marines and the convicts, with a separate encampment a little ...
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Fra Angelico and San Marco
The Dominican order has among its ranks a superbly talented painter. As a friar he is referred to as 'brother' (frater in Latin, fratello in Italian), and the name by which he becomes known is Fra Angelico - the angelic brother. From 1443 Dominicans in Florence employ him to provide contemplative images for the walls of their convent of San Marco. Over the next four years he and his assistants create an extended masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art - though they would not have thought ...
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Re and Amen
The central divinity of Egyptian religion is the sun, and from early times the most important sun god is Re. He is believed to sail his boat under the world each night. Every time, during the journey, he has to defeat an evil spirit, Apophis, before he can reappear. At Thebes, which becomes the capital in about 2000 BC, another god, Amen, is of great importance. In about 1500 BC Amen combines with Re to become Amen-Re, who from then on is effectively the state ...
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Jubilee Years
Senior representatives of the colonies are naturally in London for the Jubilee, and the opportunity is taken to hold an assembly which can now be seen as the first in a long line of Imperial and Commonwealth conferences. Ten years later, for the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, the mood is even more ecstatic. 2500 beacons are lit on the nation's hills, four times as many as in 1887.The queen, driven in an open carriage through six miles of London streets, notes in her diary: 'The ...
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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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Gothic
The Gothic style, though also used in secular buildings, is most associated with the great cathedrals of Europe. There are certain immediately recognizable characteristics in any Gothic cathedral. The interior gives an impression of lightness and height, with slender columns framing large tall windows and reaching up to support a delicately ribbed stone roof. The exterior is encrusted with a filigree of delicate ornament, again essentially slender and vertical, made up of a blend of elegant statues, bobbly pinnacles, the skeletal patterns of the stone ...
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Kakiemon porcelain
In the following century Japan makes another major contribution to the history of ceramics. In about 1644 Sakada Kakiemon, a member of a family of potters with kilns at Arita in northwest Kyushu, introduces to Japan the Chinese system of overglaze painting. In the 1670s his two sons, known as Kakiemon II and Kakiemon III, are producing exquisite wares of milky white porcelain, often square or hexagonal in shape, decorated with elegant and brightly coloured motifs of plants and birds. The decoration, covering relatively little ...
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Greek architecture in the colonies
The last of the temples of Paestum, dating from about 460 BC, coincides with the greatest period of Greek architecture. In the mid-5th century the Greeks in Sicily build magnificent temples at Segesta, Selinus (now Selinunte), Agrigentum and Syracuse. At Syracuse the shrine to Athena is now the city's cathedral. But the summit of Greek architectural achievement comes at this time with the rebuilding of Athens.
Moghul domes
Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan's son, does not inherit his father's passionate interest in architecture. But he commissions two admirable buildings in the same tradition. One is the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, begun in 1673; even larger than his father's Friday Mosque in Delhi, it rivals it in the beauty of its domes. The other, begun in 1662, goes to the other extreme; the tiny Pearl Mosque in the Red Fort in Delhi, begun in 1662 for Aurangzeb's private worship, is a small miracle of white marble. ...
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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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Baroque Rome
The Baldacchino rises above an altar at which only the pope conducts mass. Visible between the columns, from the point of view of the congregation, is Bernini's other dramatic contribution to the interior of St Peter's. This is a golden tableau, a piece of pure theatre, above the altar at the far end of the church. Its central feature is the papal throne of St Peter, held aloft among the clouds.Sculpted golden rays stream up from St Peter's throne towards heaven. In an extra dimension ...
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Strike and Slump
The government temporarily defuses the issue with a subsidy to keep up the level of wages, but this is due to end on 30 April 1926. A few days before this deadline the mine owners offer their final terms, which are so unacceptable to the miners that they interpret them as a lock-out.With the miners staying at home on May 1 the government declares a state of emergency. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) responds by calling a general strike, to start at midnight on May ...
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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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British portraits
Reynolds often paints his subjects full length, in splendid poses and in close proximity to a classical column or urn. These are the sort of people who go on the Grand Tour. Their easy self-confidence in Reynolds's canvases revives the great tradition of the English portraits of van Dyck.If anything is missing in these powerful images by Reynolds, it is perhaps the fleeting quality of fashion - a quality abundantly supplied by his slightly younger rival Thomas Gainsborough. When Gainsborough catches William and Elizabeth Hallett ...
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Augustus II and III
On the death of Augustus III, in 1763, the succession to the Polish throne is yet again decided by the Russian ruler - by now the empress Catherine II. Her troops are in Poland to ensure the election, in 1764, of Stanislaw II. One of her lovers, he has lived in St Petersburg for the past seven years.During Stanislaw's reign Russian policy towards Poland becomes increasingly brutal, with Russian troops even terrorizing members of the sejm on important occasions. Stansilaw contrives, against the odds, to ...
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An inspiring inheritance
Alexander is born in Pella, the Macedonian capital, at about the time his father becomes king of Macedonia. Philip II's expansion of the kingdom, an unfolding saga of glory and excitement, is Alexander's boyhood. At an early age he proves himself well equipped to share in these military adventures. He is only sixteen when he is left in charge of Macedonia, while his father campaigns in the east against Byzantium. During his father's absence he crushes a rebellious tribe, the Thracians. As a reward he ...
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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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Ravenna
The town of Ravenna becomes a place of importance early in the 5th century when the western emperor, Honorius, moves his capital there from Rome to escape the advancing Huns. Well fortified and with a safe harbour, it remains until 751 the place from which Byzantines and barbarians in turn administer Italy. The Byzantine rulers and the greatest of the barbarians, Theodoric, decorate the holy buildings of Ravenna in glittering mosaic, the medium which by now almost symbolizes the might of Christian rule within the ...
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