1.
17th century
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The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1,1601, to December 31,1700, in the Gregorian calendar. The greatest military conflicts were the Thirty Years War, the Great Turkish War, in the Islamic world, the Ottoman, Safavid Persian and Mughal empires grew in strength. In Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo period at the beginning of the century, European politics were dominated by the Kingdom of France of Louis XIV, where royal power was solidified domestically in the civil war of the Fronde. With domestic peace assured, Louis XIV caused the borders of France to be expanded and it was during this century that English monarch became a symbolic figurehead and Parliament was the dominant force in government – a contrast to most of Europe, in particular France. It was also a period of development of culture in general,1600, On February 17 Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake by the Inquisition. 1600, Michael the Brave unifies the three Romanian countries, Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania after the Battle of Șelimbăr from 1599. 1601, Battle of Kinsale, England defeats Irish and Spanish forces at the town of Kinsale, driving the Gaelic aristocracy out of Ireland and destroying the Gaelic clan system. 1601, Michael the Brave, voivode of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, is assassinated by the order of the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta at Câmpia Turzii, 1601–1603, The Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills perhaps one-third of Russia. 1601, Panembahan Senopati, first king of Mataram, dies and passes rule to his son Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak 1601,1602, Matteo Ricci produces the Map of the Myriad Countries of the World, a world map that will be used throughout East Asia for centuries. 1602, The Portuguese send an expeditionary force from Malacca which succeeded in reimposing a degree of Portuguese control. 1602, The Dutch East India Company is established by merging competing Dutch trading companies and its success contributes to the Dutch Golden Age. 1602, Two emissaries from the Aceh Sultanate visit the Dutch Republic,1603, Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England. 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu takes the title of Shogun, establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate and this begins the Edo period, which will last until 1869. 1603–1623, After modernizing his army, Abbas I expands the Persian Empire by capturing territory from the Ottomans,1603, First permanent Dutch trading post is established in Banten, West Java. First successful VOC privateering raid on a Portuguese ship,1604, A second English East India Company voyage commanded by Sir Henry Middleton reaches Ternate, Tidore, Ambon and Banda. 1605, Gunpowder Plot failed in England,1605, The fortresses of Veszprém and Visegrad are retaken by the Ottomans. 1605, February, The VOC in alliance with Hitu prepare to attack a Portuguese fort in Ambon,1605, Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak of Mataram establishes control over Demak, former center of the Demak Sultanate. 1606, Treaty of Vienna ends anti-Habsburg uprising in Royal Hungary,1606, Assassination of Stephen Bocskay of Transylvania
2.
19th century
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The 19th century was the century marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Napoleonic, Holy Roman and Mughal empires. After the defeat of the French Empire and its allies in the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Empire expanded in central and far eastern Asia. By the end of the century, the British Empire controlled a fifth of the worlds land, the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and spread to continental Europe, North America and Japan. The Victorian era was notorious for the employment of children in factories and mines, as well as strict social norms regarding modesty. Japan embarked on a program of rapid modernization following the Meiji Restoration, before defeating China, under the Qing Dynasty, europes population doubled during the 19th century, from approximately 200 million to more than 400 million. Numerous cities worldwide surpassed populations of a million or more during this century, London became the worlds largest city and capital of the British Empire. Its population increased from 1 million in 1800 to 6.7 million a century later, liberalism became the pre-eminent reform movement in Europe. Slavery was greatly reduced around the world, following a successful slave revolt in Haiti, Britain and France stepped up the battle against the Barbary pirates and succeeded in stopping their enslavement of Europeans. The UKs Slavery Abolition Act charged the British Royal Navy with ending the slave trade. The first colonial empire in the century to abolish slavery was the British, americas 13th Amendment following their Civil War abolished slavery there in 1865, and in Brazil slavery was abolished in 1888. Similarly, serfdom was abolished in Russia, in the 19th century approximately 70 million people left Europe, with most migrating to the United States of America. The 19th century also saw the creation, development and codification of many sports, particularly in Britain. Also, ladywear was a sensitive topic during this time. 1801, Ranjit Singh crowned as King of Punjab,1801, Napoleon signs the Concordat of 1801 with the Pope. 1801, Cairo falls to the British,1801, Assassination of Tsar Paul I of Russia. 1802, Ludwig van Beethoven performs his Moonlight Sonata for the first time,1803, William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the first practical steamboat. 1803, The United States more than doubles in size when it buys out Frances territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase. This begins the U. S. s westward expansion to the Pacific referred to as its Manifest Destiny which involves annexing and conquering land from Mexico, Britain,1803, The Wahhabis of the First Saudi State capture Mecca and Medina
3.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
4.
Anders Celsius
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Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744 and he founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1741, and in 1742 proposed the Celsius temperature scale which bears his name. Anders Celsius was born in Uppsala, Sweden on 27 November 1701 and his family originated from Ovanåker in the province of Hälsingland. Their family estate was at Doma, also known as Höjen or Högen, the name Celsius is a latinization of the estates name. As the son of a professor, Nils Celsius, and the grandson of the mathematician Magnus Celsius. He was a mathematician from an early age. Anders Celsius studied at Uppsala University, where his father was a teacher, in 1730, Celsius published the Nova Methodus distantiam solis a terra determinandi. He observed the variations of a needle and found that larger deflections correlated with stronger auroral activity. At Nuremberg in 1733, he published a collection of 316 observations of the aurora borealis made by himself, Celsius traveled frequently in the early 1730s, including to Germany, Italy and France, when he visited most of the major European observatories. In Paris he advocated the measurement of an arc of the meridian in Lapland, in 1736, he participated in the expedition organized for that purpose by the French Academy of Sciences, led by the French mathematician Pierre Louis Maupertuis to measure a degree of latitude. The aim of the expedition was to measure the length of a degree along a meridian, close to the pole, the expeditions confirmed Isaac Newtons belief that the shape of the earth is an ellipsoid flattened at the poles. In 1738, he published the De observationibus pro figura telluris determinanda and he was successful in the request, and Celsius founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1741. The observatory was equipped with instruments purchased during his long voyage abroad, in astronomy, Celsius began a series of observations using colored glass plates to record the magnitude of certain stars. This was the first attempt to measure the intensity of starlight with an other than the human eye. He made observations of eclipses and various objects and published catalogues of carefully determined magnitudes for some 300 stars using his own photometric system. Celsius was the first to perform and publish careful experiments aiming at the definition of a temperature scale on scientific grounds. In his Swedish paper Observations of two persistent degrees on a thermometer he reports on experiments to check that the point is independent of latitude. He determined the dependence of the boiling of water with atmospheric pressure which was even by modern-day standards
5.
Dunkirk
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Dunkirk is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It lies 10 kilometres from the Belgian border, the population of the city at the 2012 census was 90,995 inhabitants. The name of Dunkirk derives from West Flemish dun and kerke, nowadays, Dunkirk is the worlds northernmost Francophone city. About 960AD Count Baldwin III had a wall erected, in order to protect the settlement against Viking raids. The surrounding wetlands were drained and cultivated by the monks of nearby Bergues Abbey, the name Dunkirk was first mentioned in a tithe privilege of 27 May 1067, issued by Count Baldwin V of Flanders. Count Philip I brought further large tracts of marshland under cultivation, laid out first plans to build a Canal from Dunkirk to Bergues and vested the Dunkirkers with market rights. However, in the course of the Western Schism from 1378, English supporters of Pope Urban VI disembarked at Dunkirk, captured the city and they were ejected by King Charles VI of France, but left great devastations in and around the town. Upon the extinction of the Counts of Flanders with the death of Louis II in 1384, Flanders was acquired by the Burgundian, the fortifications were again enlarged, including the construction of a belfry daymark. As Maximilian was the son of Emperor Frederick III, all Flanders was immediately seized by King Louis XI of France. However, the defeated the French troops at the 1479 Battle of Guinegate. The area remained disputed between Spain, the United Netherlands, England and France. At the beginning of the Eighty Years War, Dunkirk was briefly in the hands of the Dutch rebels, Spanish forces under Duke Alexander Farnese of Parma re-established Spanish rule in 1583 and it became a base for the notorious Dunkirkers. The Dunkirkers briefly lost their home port when the city was conquered by the French in 1646, in 1658, as a result of the long war between France and Spain, it was captured after a siege by Franco-English forces following the battle of the Dunes. The city along with Fort-Mardyck was awarded to England in the peace the following year as agreed in the Franco-English alliance against Spain and it came under French rule when Charles II of England sold it to France for £320,000 on 17 October 1662. The French government developed the town as a fortified port, the towns existing defences were adapted to create ten bastions. The port was expanded in the 1670s by the construction of a basin that could hold up to thirty warships with a lock system to maintain water levels at low tide. The basin was linked to the sea by a channel dug through coastal sandbanks secured by two jetties and this work was completed by 1678. The jetties were defended a few years later by the construction of five forts, Château dEspérance, Château Vert, Grand Risban, Château Gaillard, an additional fort was built in 1701 called Fort Blanc
6.
History of Germany
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Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagnes heirs in 843, in 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state. In the High Middle Ages, the dukes, princes. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the states became Protestant. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years War, which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians living in both states. The Thirty Years War brought tremendous destruction to Germany, more than 1/4 of the population,1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, feudalism fell away, the Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the Socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power, German universities became world-class centers for science and the humanities, while music and the arts flourished. The new Reichstag, a parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific, Germany was the dominant power on the continent. By 1900, its rapidly expanding industrial economy passed Britains, allowing a naval race, Germany led the Central Powers in World War I against France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as Polish areas and Alsace-Lorraine. The German Revolution of 1918–19 deposed the emperor and the kings and princes, leading to the establishment of the Weimar Republic. In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared, in 1933, the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler came to power and quickly established a totalitarian regime. Political opponents were killed or imprisoned, after forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe. After a Phoney War in spring 1940 the German blitzkrieg swept Scandinavia, only the British Commonwealth and Empire stood opposed, along with Greece. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, in 1942, the German invasion of the Soviet Union faltered, and after the United States had entered the war, Britain became the base for massive Anglo-American bombings of German cities. Germany fought the war on multiple fronts through 1942–1944, however following the Allied invasion of Normandy, millions of ethnic Germans fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Western Europe
7.
History of Hungary
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For the history of the area before this period, see Pannonian basin before Hungary. The oldest archaeological site in Hungary is Vértesszőlős, where palaeolithic Oldowan pebble tools, the Roman Empire conquered territory west of the Danube River between 35 and 9 BC. From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century AD, Pannonia, among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila the Hun in 435 AD. Attila was regarded in past centuries as a ruler of the Hungarians. They entered what is now Hungary in the 7th century AD, the Avar Khaganate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure, and the Franks under Charlemagne managed to defeat the Avars to end their 250-year rule. Árpád was the leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood and he led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. Between 895 and 902 the whole area of the Carpathian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians, an early Hungarian state was formed in this territory in 895. The military power of the nation allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns, Prince Géza of the Árpád dynasty, who ruled only part of the united territory, was the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes. He aimed to integrate Hungary into Christian Western Europe by rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social models, Géza established a dynasty by naming his son Vajk as his successor. This decision was contrary to the dominant tradition of the time to have the eldest surviving member of the ruling family succeed the incumbent. By ancestral right, Prince Koppány, the oldest member of the dynasty, should have claimed the throne, Koppány did not relinquish his ancestral rights without a fight. After Gézas death in 997, Koppány took up arms, the rebels claimed to represent the old political order, ancient human rights, tribal independence and pagan belief. Stephen won a victory over his uncle Koppány and had him executed. Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I, Stephen was the son of Géza and thus a descendant of Árpád. Stephen was crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary in the first day of 1000 AD in the city of Esztergom. Pope Sylvester II conferred on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full authority over bishoprics. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power by eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow the old traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire. Then he initiated sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a feudal state, complete with forced Christianization
8.
18th century
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The 18th century lasted from January 1,1701 to December 31,1800 in the Gregorian calendar. During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French, philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers dreamed of a brighter age and this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789-, though later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror under Maximilien Robespierre. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but with the French Revolution they feared losing their power, the Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768. The 18th century also marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as an independent state, the once-powerful and vast kingdom, which had once conquered Moscow and defeated great Ottoman armies, collapsed under numerous invasions. European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as the Age of Sail continued. Great Britain became a major power worldwide with the defeat of France in North America in the 1760s, however, Britain lost many of its North American colonies after the American Revolution, which resulted in the formation of the newly independent United States of America. The Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the 1770s with the production of the steam engine. Despite its modest beginnings in the 18th century, steam-powered machinery would radically change human society, western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. To historians who expand the century to include larger historical movements, 1700-1721, Great Northern War between Tsarist Russia and the Swedish Empire. 1701, Kingdom of Prussia declared under King Frederick I,1701, Ashanti Empire is formed under Osei Kofi Tutu I. 1701–1714, The War of the Spanish Succession is fought, involving most of continental Europe, 1701–1702, The Daily Courant and The Norwich Post become the first daily newspapers in England. 1702, Forty-seven Ronin attack Kira Yoshinaka and then commit seppuku in Japan,1703, Saint Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great, it is the Russian capital until 1918. 1703–1711, The Rákóczi Uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy,1704, End of Japans Genroku period. 1704, First Javanese War of Succession,1705, George Frideric Handels first opera, Almira, premieres. 1706, War of the Spanish Succession, French troops defeated at the Battles of Ramilies,1706, The first English-language edition of the Arabian Nights is published. 1707, The Act of Union is passed, merging the Scottish and English Parliaments,1707, After Aurangzebs death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline and the Maratha Empire slowly replaces it. 1707, Mount Fuji erupts in Japan for the first time since 1700,1707, War of 27 Years between the Marathas and Mughals ends in India
9.
History of Austria
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The history of Austria covers the history of Austria and its predecessor states, from the early Stone Age to the present state. The name Ostarrîchi has been in use since 996 AD when it was a margravate of the Duchy of Bavaria, Austria was dominated by the House of Habsburg from 1273 to 1806, when the Holy Roman Empire came to an end. When this empire collapsed in 1918, Austria was reduced to the main German speaking areas of the empire, however this union was forbidden by the Allies at the Treaty of Versailles. Following the First Republic, Austrofascism tried to keep Austria independent from the German Reich, but in 1938 it was annexed by Nazi Germany with the support of the large majority of the Austrian people. After the Second World War Austria again became an independent republic as the Second Republic in 1955, the history of Austria raises a number of questions. Should it be confined to the current Republic of Austria, or to all lands formerly ruled by the rulers of Austria, should Austrian history include 1938–1945 when it did not exist. Within Austria there are regional variations, and parts of Austria have at various times wished to become part of adjacent countries. Human habitation of current Austria can be traced back to the first farming communities of the early Stone Age. In the late Iron Age it was occupied by a Celtic culture, at the end of the 1st century BC this became part of the Roman Empires lands to the south of the Danube, and was incorporated as the Province of Noricum around 40 AD. The most important Roman settlement was at Carnuntum, in the 6th century, another Germanic people, the Bavarii occupied these lands until it fell to the Frankish Empire in the 9th century. Around 800 AD Charlemagne established the outpost of Avar March in what is now Lower Austria, to hold back advances from Slavs and Avars. In the 10th century an eastern outpost of the Duchy of Bavaria, bordering Hungary, was established as the Marchia orientalis or Margraviate of Austria in 976 and this Eastern March, in German was known as Ostarrîchi or Eastern Realm, hence Austria. The first mention of Ostarrîchi occurs in a document of that name dated 996 CE, from 1156 the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa created an independent duchy under the House of Babenberg, until its extinction in 1246, corresponding to modern Lower Austria. The 15th and early 16th century saw expansion of the Habsburg territories through diplomacy and marriages to include Spain. This expansionism, together with French aspirations and the resultant Habsburg-French or Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry were important factors shaping European History for 200 years, by 1526 Ferdinand had also inherited the kingdoms of Bohemia, and Hungary after the Battle of Mohács which partitioned the latter. However the Ottoman Empire now lay directly adjacent to the Austrian lands, even after the unsuccessful first Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1529, the Ottoman threat persisted for another one and a half centuries. The 16th Century also saw the spread of the Reformation, from around 1600 the Habsburg policy of recatholicisation or Catholic Renewal eventually led to the Thirty Years War. Originally a religious war, it was also a struggle for power in central Europe, eventually the pressure of the anti-Habsburg coalition of France, Sweden, and most Protestant German states contained their authority to the Austrian and Czech lands in 1648
10.
Frederick I of Sweden
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Frederick I, Swedish, Fredrik I, was prince consort of Sweden from 1718 to 1720, and King of Sweden from 1720 until his death and also Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1730. He was the son of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, in 1692 the young prince made his Grand Tour to the Dutch Republic, in 1695 to the Italian Peninsula and later he studied in Geneva. After this he had a career, leading the Hessian troops as Lieutenant General in the War of Spanish Succession on the side of the Dutch. He was defeated in 1703 in the Battle of Speyerbach, in 1706 he was again defeated by the French in the Battle of Castiglione. Both in 1716 and 1718 he joined the campaign of Charles XII of Sweden against Norway and he married his second wife, Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, in 1715. Frederick then succeeded her on the throne, elected by the Swedish Estates and he was the only Swedish prince consort there had been to date. Frederick I had much influence during the reign of his spouse, but after the aristocracy had regained power during the wars with Russia, he became not so much powerless as uninterested in affairs of state. In 1723, he tried to strengthen royal authority, but after he failed and he did not even sign official documents, instead a stamp of his signature was used. He devoted most of his time to hunting and love affairs and his marriage to Queen Ulrika Eleonora was childless, but he had several children by his mistress, Hedvig Taube. Some historians have suggested that the bullet which killed his brother-in-law Charles XII of Sweden in 1718 was actually fired by Fredericks aide. Charles had been an authoritarian and demanding ruler, one reason the Swedish Estates elected Frederick was because he was taken to be fairly weak, the defeats suffered by Charles XII in the Great Northern War ended Swedens position as a first-rank European power. Under Frederick, this had to be accepted, Sweden also had to cede Estonia, Ingria and Livonia to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721. In 1723 Frederick rewarded the military inventor Sven Åderman with the estate of Halltorps on the island of Öland, as a king, he was not very respected. When he was crowned, it was said, King Charles we recently buried and it is said about him, that although a lot of great achievements in the countrys development happened during his reign, he never had anything to do with them himself. When he died, Carl Gustaf Tessin said about him, Under the reign of King Frederick, the merchant business has flourished – he has never encouraged it with a single coin. The Stockholm Palace has been built – he has never been enough to look at it. Neither did he have anything to do with the founding of the first Swedish speaking theater at Bollhuset during his reign, one of his few important policies was the banning of duels. On 23 February 1748 Frederick I instituted the three Swedish royal orders of the Seraphim, of the Sword and of the North Star, Frederick became Landgrave of Hesse only in 1730, ten years after becoming King of Sweden
11.
Pierre Louis Maupertuis
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Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland to determine the shape of the Earth. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action and his work in natural history is interesting in relation to modern science, since he touched on aspects of heredity and the struggle for life. Maupertuis was born at Saint-Malo, France, to a wealthy family of merchant-corsairs. His father, Renė, had involved in a number of enterprises that were central to the monarchy so that he thrived socially and politically. The son was educated in mathematics by a tutor, Nicolas Guisnée. In 1723 he was admitted to the Académie des Sciences and his early mathematical work revolved around the vis viva controversy, for which Maupertuis developed and extended the work of Isaac Newton and argued against the waning Cartesian mechanics. In the 1730s, the shape of the Earth became a flashpoint in the battle among rival systems of mechanics, Maupertuis, based on his exposition of Newton predicted that the Earth should be oblate, while his rival Jacques Cassini measured it astronomically to be prolate. In 1736 Maupertuis acted as chief of the French Geodesic Mission sent by King Louis XV to Lapland to measure the length of a degree of arc of the meridian and his results, which he published in a book detailing his procedures, essentially settled the controversy in his favor. The book included a narrative of the expedition, and an account of the Käymäjärvi Inscriptions. On his return home he became a member of almost all the societies of Europe. He also expanded into the realm, anonymously publishing a book that was part popular science, part philosophy. In 1740 Maupertuis went to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia, and took part in the Battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following year was admitted into the Académie française. His position became extremely awkward with the outbreak of the Seven Years War between his country and his patrons, and his reputation suffered in both Paris and Berlin. Finding his health declining, he retired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, Maupertuis difficult disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his controversies with Samuel König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life are examples. The brilliance of much of what he did was undermined by his tendency to leave work unfinished and it was the insight of genius that led him to least-action principle, but a lack of intellectual energy or rigour that prevented his giving it the mathematical foundation that Lagrange would provide. He reveals remarkable powers of perception in heredity, in understanding the mechanism by which developed, even in immunology
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