1.
The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)
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The Last Supper is a late 15th-century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. It is one of the worlds most famous paintings, the painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, as it is told in the Gospel of John,13,21. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. The Last Supper measures 460 cm ×880 cm and covers an end wall of the hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The theme was a one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building had recently been completed, but was remodeled by Bramante. The painting was commissioned by Sforza to be the centerpiece of the mausoleum, the lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats-of-arms. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, Leonardo began work on The Last Supper in 1495 and completed it in 1498—he did not work on the painting continuously. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed, one story goes that a prior from the monastery complained to Leonardo about the delay, enraging him. The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him, all twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. The apostles are identified from a manuscript with their names found in the 19th century, from left to right, according to the apostles heads, Bartholomew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Andrew form a group of three, all are surprised. Judas Iscariot, Peter, and John form another group of three, Judas is wearing green and blue and is in shadow, looking rather withdrawn and taken aback by the sudden revelation of his plan. He is clutching a bag, perhaps signifying the silver given to him as payment to betray Jesus. He is also tipping over the salt cellar and this may be related to the near-Eastern expression to betray the salt meaning to betray ones Master. He is the person to have his elbow on the table. Peter looks angry and is holding a knife pointed away from Christ, the youngest apostle, John, appears to swoon. Jesus Apostle Thomas, James the Greater, and Philip are the group of three. Thomas is clearly upset, the index finger foreshadows his incredulity of the Resurrection
2.
Leonardo da Vinci
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He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
3.
Last Supper
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The Last Supper is the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus shared with his Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper is commemorated by Christians especially on Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion or The Lords Supper. The First Epistle to the Corinthians contains the earliest known mention of the Last Supper, during the meal Jesus predicts his betrayal by one of the Apostles present, and foretells that before the next morning, Peter will deny knowing him. Scholars have looked to the Last Supper as the source of early Christian Eucharist traditions, others see the account of the Last Supper as derived from 1st-century eucharistic practice as described by Paul in the mid-50s. The term Last Supper does not appear in the New Testament, most Protestants use the term Lords Supper, stating that the term last suggests this was one of several meals and not the meal. The term Lords Supper refers both to the event and the act of Holy Communion and Eucharistic celebration within their liturgy. Evangelical Protestants also use the term Lords Supper, but most do not use the terms Eucharist or the word Holy with the name Communion, the Eastern Orthodox use the term Mystical Supper which refers both to the biblical event and the act of Eucharistic celebration within liturgy. The last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples is described in all four canonical Gospels and this meal later became known as the Last Supper. The Last Supper was likely a retelling of the events of the last meal of Jesus among the early Christian community, after the meal, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, tried, and then crucified. In Matthew 26, 24-25, Mark 14, 18-21, Luke 22, 21-23 and John 13, 21-30 during the meal and it would be better for him if he had not been born. In Matthew 26, 23-25 and John 13, 26-27, Judas is specifically identified as the traitor. In the Gospel of John, when asked about the traitor, Jesus states, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. ”Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him, in the course of the Last Supper, Jesus divides up some bread, says a prayer, and hands the pieces of bread to his disciples, saying this is my body. He then takes a cup of wine, offers another prayer, and hands it around, saying this is my blood of the everlasting covenant, finally, according to Paul and Luke, he tells the disciples do this in remembrance of me. This event has been regarded by Christians of most denominations as the institution of the Eucharist, there is recorded celebration of the Eucharist by the early Christian community in Jerusalem. The institution of the Eucharist is recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels and in Pauls First Epistle to the Corinthians, the words of institution differ slightly in each account. In addition, Luke 22, 19b-20 is a text which does not appear in some of the early manuscripts of Luke. Some scholars, therefore, believe that it is an interpolation, a comparison of the accounts given in the Gospels and 1 Corinthians is shown in the table below, with text from the ASV
4.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
5.
Chronology
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Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events and it is also the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events. It is also part of the discipline of history, including history, the earth sciences. Chronology is the science of locating historical events in time and it relies upon chronometry, which is also known as timekeeping, and historiography, which examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of living things by measuring the proportion of carbon-14 isotope in their carbon content. Dendrochronology is used in turn as a reference for radiocarbon dating curves. The familiar terms calendar and era concern two complementary concepts of chronology. Dionysius Exiguus was the founder of that era, which is nowadays the most widespread dating system on earth, an epoch is the date when an era begins. Ab Urbe condita is Latin for from the founding of the City and it was used to identify the Roman year by a few Roman historians. Modern historians use it more frequently than the Romans themselves did. Before the advent of the critical edition of historical Roman works, AUC was indiscriminately added to them by earlier editors. It was used systematically for the first time only about the year 400, pope Boniface IV, in about the year 600, seems to have been the first who made a connection between these this era and Anno Domini. Dionysius Exiguus’ Anno Domini era was extended by Bede to the complete Christian era, while of critical importance to the historian, methods of determining chronology are used in most disciplines of science, especially astronomy, geology, paleontology and archaeology. In the absence of written history, with its chronicles and king lists and this method of dating is known as seriation. Known wares discovered at strata in sometimes quite distant sites, the product of trade, laboratory techniques developed particularly after mid-20th century helped constantly revise and refine the chronologies developed for specific cultural areas. Unrelated dating methods help reinforce a chronology, an axiom of corroborative evidence, ideally, archaeological materials used for dating a site should complement each other and provide a means of cross-checking. Conclusions drawn from just one unsupported technique are usually regarded as unreliable, the fundamental problem of chronology is to synchronize events. By synchronizing an event it becomes possible to relate it to the current time, among historians, a typical need to is to synchronize the reigns of kings and leaders in order to relate the history of one country or region to that of another
6.
Nuremberg Chronicle
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Written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a version in German, translation by Georg Alt, it appeared in 1493. It is one of the early printed books—an incunabulum—and one of the first to successfully integrate illustrations. Latin scholars refer to it as Liber Chronicarum as this appears in the index introduction of the Latin edition. English-speakers have long referred to it as the Nuremberg Chronicle after the city in which it was published, german-speakers refer to it as Die Schedelsche Weltchronik in honour of its author. Two Nuremberg merchants, Sebald Schreyer and his son-in-law, Sebastian Kammermeister and they also commissioned George Alt, a scribe at the Nuremberg treasury, to translate the work into German. Both Latin and German editions were printed by Anton Koberger, in Nuremberg, the contracts were recorded by scribes, bound into volumes, and deposited in the Nuremberg City Archives. The first contract, from December,1491, established the relationship between the illustrators and the patrons, Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff, the painters, were to provide the layout of the chronicle, to oversee the production of the woodcuts, and to guard the designs against piracy. The patrons agreed to advance 1000 gulden for paper, printing costs, a second contract, between the patrons and the printer, was executed in March,1492. It stipulated conditions for acquiring the paper and managing the printing, the blocks and the archetype were to be returned to the patrons once the printing was completed. The author of the text, Hartmann Schedel, was a doctor, humanist. He earned a doctorate in medicine in Padua in 1466, then settled in Nuremberg to practice medicine, according to an inventory done in 1498, Schedels personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. The author used passages from the classical and medieval works in this collection to compose the text of Chronicle and he borrowed most frequently from another humanist chronicle, Supplementum Chronicarum, by Jacob Philip Foresti of Bergamo. It has been estimated that about 90% of the text is pieced together from works on humanities, science, philosophy, Nuremberg was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1490s, with a population of between 45,000 and 50,000. Thirty-five patrician families comprised the City Council, the Council controlled all aspects of printing and craft activities, including the size of each profession and the quality, quantity and type of goods produced. Although dominated by an aristocracy, Nuremberg was a center of northern humanism. Anton Koberger, printer of the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed the first humanist book in Nuremberg in 1472, Sebald Shreyer, one of the patrons of the chronicle, commissioned paintings from classical mythology for the grand salon of his house. Hartmann Schedel, author of the chronicle, was a collector of both Italian Renaissance and German humanist works. Hieronymus Münzer, who assisted Schedel in writing the chapter on geography, was among this group, as were Albrecht Dürer and Johann
7.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
8.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
9.
Washboard (laundry)
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A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the traditional washboard is usually constructed with a rectangular wooden frame in which are mounted a series of ridges or corrugations for the clothing to be rubbed upon. For 19th-century washboards, the ridges were often of wood, by the 20th century, a fluted metal washboard was patented in the United States by Stephen Rust in 1833. Zinc washboards were manufactured in the United States from the middle of the 19th century, in the late 20th century and early 21st century, ridges of galvanized steel are most common, but some modern boards are made of glass. Washboards with brass ridges are still made, many parts of the world still use washboards for washing clothes. Clothes are soaked in hot water in a washtub or sink. Washboards may also be used for washing in a river, with or without soap, the rubbing has a similar effect to beating the clothes and household linen on rocks, an ancient method, but is less abrasive. Military personnel often use washboards to do their laundry when no local laundry facilities exist, some experts emphasize that using a washboard is superior to using modern laundry machines because it saves water and electricity and is not so hard on the clothing
10.
Washing machine
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A washing machine is a machine used to wash laundry, such as clothing and sheets. The term is applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning or ultrasonic cleaners. Laundry detergent is used to clean clothes, and is sold in either powdered or liquid form. Laundering by hand involves soaking, beating, scrubbing, and rinsing dirty textiles, Water for the laundry would be hand carried, heated on a fire for washing, then poured into the tub. That made the warm soapy water precious, it would be reused, first to wash the least soiled clothing, removal of soap and water from the clothing after washing was originally a separate process. First, soap would be rinsed out with clear water, after rinsing, the soaking wet clothing would be formed into a roll and twisted by hand to extract water. The entire process often occupied an entire day of hard work, Clothes washer technology developed as a way to reduce the manual labor spent, providing an open basin or sealed container with paddles or fingers to automatically agitate the clothing. The earliest machines were hand-operated and constructed from wood, while later machines made of metal permitted a fire to burn below the washtub, the earliest special-purpose mechanical washing device was the washboard, invented in 1797 by Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire. By the mid-1850s steam-driven commercial laundry machinery were on sale in the UK, technological advances in machinery for commercial and institutional washers proceeded faster than domestic washer design for several decades, especially in the UK. In the United States there was emphasis on developing machines for washing at home, though machines for commercial laundry services were widely used in the late 19th. The rotary washing machine was patented by Hamilton Smith in 1858, as electricity was not commonly available until at least 1930, some early washing machines were operated by a low-speed, single-cylinder hit-and-miss gasoline engine. After the items were washed and rinsed, water had to be removed by twisting, to help reduce this labor, the wringer/mangle machine was developed. As implied by the term mangle, these machines were quite dangerous, especially if powered. A users fingers, hand, arm, or hair could become entangled in the laundry being squeezed, resulting in injuries, unwary bystanders, such as children, could also be caught. Safer mechanisms were developed over time, and the more hazardous designs were eventually outlawed, the mangle used two rollers under spring tension to squeeze water out of clothing and household linen. Each laundry item would be fed through the wringer separately, the first wringers were hand-cranked, but were eventually included as a powered attachment above the washer tub. The wringer would be swung over the wash tub so that extracted wash water would fall back into the tub to be reused for the next load, the modern process of water removal by spinning did not come into use until electric motors were developed. Spinning requires a constant high-speed power source, and was originally done in a device known as an extractor
11.
Ragtime
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Ragtime – also spelled rag-time or rag time – is a musical genre that enjoyed its peak popularity between 1895 and 1918. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated, or ragged, rhythm, the genre has its origins in African-American communities like St. Louis years before being published as popular sheet music for piano. Ernest Hogan was a pioneer of music and was the first to compose ragtime into sheet music. The composition was called LA Pas Ma LA and it was released in 1895, Hogan has also been credited for coining the term ragtime. The term is derived from his hometown Shake Rag in Bowling Green. Ben Harney, who is also a Kentucky native has often credited for introducing the music to the mainstream public. His first ragtime composition Youve been an old wagon but you done broke helped popularize the musical genre. The composition was published in 1895 but released in 1896, Ragtime was also a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa, with additional polyrhythms coming from African music. For at least 12 years after its publication, Maple Leaf Rag heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, Ragtime fell out of favor as jazz claimed the publics imagination after 1917, but there have been numerous revivals since the music has been re-discovered. First in the early 1940s, many bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire. A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a variety of ragtime styles of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published. In 1971 Joshua Rifkin brought out a compilation of Joplins work which was nominated for a Grammy Award, in 1973 The New England Ragtime Ensemble recorded The Red Back Book, a compilation of some of Joplins rags in period orchestrations edited by conservatory president Gunther Schuller. This also won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance of the year and was named Billboards Top Classical Album of 1974, subsequently, the motion picture The Sting brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The films rendering of The Entertainer, adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlisch, was a Top 5 hit in 1974. Ragtime – with Joplins work at the forefront – has been cited as an American equivalent of the minuets of Mozart, Ragtime also influenced classical composers including Erik Satie, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. Ragtime originated in African American music in the late 19th century and descended from the jigs and march music played by African American bands, referred to as jig piano or piano thumping. By the start of the 20th century, it widely popular throughout North America and was listened and danced to, performed. A distinctly American musical style, ragtime may be considered a synthesis of African syncopation and European classical music, some early piano rags are entitled marches, and jig and rag were used interchangeably in the mid-1890s
12.
Orpheus
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Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called Orphic mysteries and he was credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of which only two have survived. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles, some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus Thracian origins. The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a fragment of the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus. He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod, most ancient sources accept his historical existence, Aristotle is an exception. Pindar calls Orpheus the father of songs and identifies him as a son of the Thracian king Oeagrus, Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians, it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus had perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and divert the course of rivers. Orpheus was one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return, his music, Orpheus was an augur and seer, he practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason, Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban. He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages. Bertrand Russell noted, The Orphics were a sect, wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later. The intoxication that they sought was that of enthusiasm, of union with the god and they believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus, from Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious. Strabo presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a close to Olympus. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. He made money as a musician and wizard – Strabo uses agurteúonta, agúrtēs most often meant charlatan and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a mágeuse, according to Apollodorus and a fragment of Pindar, Orpheus father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king, or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo. His mother was the muse Calliope, or, a daughter of Pierus and his birthplace and place of residence was in Pimpleia, Olympus
13.
Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
14.
Lyre
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The lyre is a string instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later periods. The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences, the word comes via Latin from the Greek, the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. The lyres of Ur, excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, date to 2500 BC, the earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, the fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. However, later lyres were played with a bow in Europe, one example from Wales that has been resurrected recently is the crwth. In organology, lyres are defined as yoke lutes, being lutes in which the strings are attached to a yoke which lies in the plane as the sound-table. A classical lyre has a body or sound-chest, which. Extending from this sound-chest are two raised arms, which are hollow, and are curved both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke, an additional crossbar, fixed to the sound-chest, makes the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge, according to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo. In order not to be followed, he made shoes for the cows which forced them to walk backwards, Apollo, following the trails, could not follow where the cows were going. Along the way, Hermes slaughtered one of the cows and offered all, from the entrails and a tortoise/turtle shell, he created the Lyre. Apollo, figuring out it was Hermes who had his cows, Apollo was furious, but after hearing the sound of the lyre, his anger faded. Apollo offered to trade the herd of cattle for the lyre, hence, the creation of the lyre is attributed to Hermes. Other sources credit it to Apollo himself, locales in southern Europe, western Asia, or north Africa have been proposed as the historic birthplace of the genus. The instrument is played in north-eastern parts of Africa. Some of the cultures using and developing the lyre were the Aeolian and Ionian Greek colonies on the coasts of Asia bordering the Lydian empire, some mythic masters like Musaeus, and Thamyris were believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization
15.
Cesare Gennari
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Cesare Gennari was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. His Saint Mary Magdalene is in the Pinacoteca Civica di Cento and his Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Nicholas of Bari is at the Pinacoteca di Bologna. In his later work Cesare shed all traces of Guercinesque idiom, adopting instead the courtly accents of St Jamess, son of Ercole Gennari and born at Cento, he was trained in the studio of his maternal uncle, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri called Guercino, in Bologna. Cesares uncle, Benedetto Gennari, and his brother, Benedetto II Gennari, were painters in the circle of Guercino. Cesare and the younger Benedetto were heirs of Guercinos studio, papers and effects, preserved for some time at Casa Gennari and he married Francesca Ripa, and had two sons, Gianfrancesco and Filippo. Among his pupils was Ercole Gaetano Bertuzzi, hobbes, James R. Picture collectors manual adapted to the professional man, and the amateur. T&W Boone,29 Bond Street, Digitized by Googlebooks, media related to Cesare Gennari at Wikimedia Commons
16.
Top hat
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As of the early 21st century, top hats are still worn at some society events in the UK, notably at church weddings and racing meetings attended by members of the royal family, such as Royal Ascot. They remain part of the uniform of certain British institutions, such as Eton College. They are usually worn with morning dress or white tie, in dressage, the top hat was frequently associated with the upper class, and was used by satirists and social critics as a symbol of capitalism or the world of business. The top hat also forms part of the dress of Uncle Sam. The top hat is associated with stage magic, both in traditional costume and especially the use of hat tricks. According to fashion historians, the top hat may have descended directly from the sugarloaf hat, otherwise it is difficult to establish provenance for its creation. Gentlemen began to replace the tricorne with the top hat at the end of the 18th century, the first silk top hat in England is credited to George Dunnage, a hatter from Middlesex, in 1793. The invention of the top hat is often credited to a haberdasher named John Hetherington. Within 20 years top hats had become popular with all social classes, at that time those worn by members of the upper classes were usually made of felted beaver fur, the generic name stuff hat was applied to hats made from various non-fur felts. The hats became part of the worn by policemen and postmen, since these people spent most of their time outdoors. The 1840s and the 1850s saw it reach its most extreme form, with ever-higher crowns, the stovepipe hat was a variety with mostly straight sides, while one with slightly convex sides was called the chimney pot. It is said that Lincoln would keep important letters inside the hat, one of Lincolns top hats is kept on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Whether it directly affected or was coincidental to the decline of the trade is debatable. James Laver once observed that an assemblage of toppers resembled factory chimneys, in England, post-Brummel dandies went in for flared crowns and swooping brims. On May 5,1812, a London hatter called Thomas Francis Dollman patented a design for a round hat supported by ribs. His patent was described as, An elastic round hat, which may be made of beaver, silk, or other materials. The top of the crown and about half an inch from the top as well as the brim and about an inch, wide sewed on each side of the crown in the inside in an upright position. Then packed up for travelling, the double ribbon fastened under the band is to be pulled over the top of the crown to keep it in a small compass
17.
Quill
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A quill pen is a writing implement made from a moulted flight feather of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually. The hand-cut goose quill is rarely used as a tool, because many papers are now derived from wood pulp. However, it is still the tool of choice for a few professionals, in a carefully prepared quill the slit does not widen through wetting and drying with ink. It will retain its shape adequately and only requires infrequent sharpening, the hollow shaft of the feather acts as an ink reservoir and ink flows to the tip by capillary action. The strongest quills come from the flight feathers discarded by birds during their annual moult. Generally the left wing is favored by the majority of writers because the feather curves away from the sight line. The quill barrel is cut to six or seven inches in length, additionally, writing with the left-hand in the long era of the quill was discouraged, and quills were never sold as left and right-handed, only by their size and species. Goose feathers are most commonly used, scarcer, more expensive swan feathers are used for larger lettering, on a true quill the barbs are always stripped off completely on the trailing edge. Later a fashion developed for stripping partially and leaving a decorative top of a few barbs, the fancy, fully plumed quill is mostly a Hollywood invention and has little basis in reality. Most, if not all, manuscript illustrations of scribes show a quill devoid of decorative barbs, quill pens were used to write the vast majority of medieval manuscripts, the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. Quill pens are used today mainly by professional scribes and calligraphers. Quills are also used as the material in string instruments. Quills were the writing instrument in the Western World from the 6th to the 19th century. The best quills were usually made from goose, swan, quills went into decline after the invention of the metal pen, mass production beginning in Great Britain as early as 1822 by John Mitchell of Birmingham. Quill pens were the instrument of choice during the medieval era due to their compatibility with parchment, prior to this the reed pen had been used, but a finer letter was achieved on animal skin using a cured quill. Other than written text, they were used to create figures, decorations. The variety of different strokes in formal hands was accomplished by good penmanship as the tip was square cut and rigid and this has been done since the earliest sessions of the Court
18.
Eccentricity (behavior)
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In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive, eccentricity is contrasted with normal behavior, the nearly universal means by which individuals in society solve given problems and pursue certain priorities in everyday life. People who consistently display benignly eccentric behavior are labeled as eccentrics, from Medieval Latin eccentricus, derived from Greek ekkentros, out of the center, from ek-, ex- out of + kentron, center. Eccentric first appeared in English essays as a neologism in 1551 as a term meaning a circle in which the earth, sun. Five years later, in 1556, a form of the word was used. In 1685, the definition evolved from the literal to the figurative, a noun form of the word – a person who possesses and exhibits these unconventional or odd qualities and behaviors – appeared by 1832. Eccentricity is often associated with genius, intellectual giftedness, or creativity, people may perceive the individuals eccentric behavior as the outward expression of their unique intelligence or creative impulse. Eccentricity is also associated with great wealth, what would be considered signs of insanity in a poor person, some may accept as eccentricity in these people. Eccentrics may or may not comprehend the standards for behavior in their culture. They are simply unconcerned by societys disapproval of their habits or beliefs, many of historys most brilliant minds have displayed some unusual behaviors and habits. Some eccentrics are pejoratively considered cranks, rather than geniuses, eccentric behavior is often considered whimsical or quirky, although it can also be strange and disturbing. Many individuals previously considered merely eccentric, such as aviation magnate Howard Hughes, have recently been diagnosed as actually having suffered from mental disorders. Other people may have eccentric taste in clothes, or have eccentric hobbies or collections they pursue with great vigor and they may have a pedantic and precise manner of speaking, intermingled with inventive wordplay. However, this is not always successful as individuals are not necessarily charismatic. Extravagance is a kind of eccentricity, related to abundance and wastefulness, psychologist David Weeks believes people with a mental illness suffer from their behavior while eccentrics are quite happy. He even states eccentrics are less prone to illness than everyone else. According to Weeks study, there are several characteristics that often differentiate a healthy eccentric person from a regular person or someone who has a mental illness
19.
Aesthetics
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Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgements of sentiment. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as critical reflection on art, in modern English, the term aesthetic can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory, one speaks, for example, of the Cubist aesthetic. The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός, which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι, for some, aesthetics is considered a synonym for the philosophy of art since Hegel, while others insist that there is a significant distinction between these closely related fields. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object, philosophical aesthetics has not only to speak about art and to produce judgments about art works, but has also to give a definition of what art is. Art is an entity for philosophy, because art deals with the senses. Hence, there are two different conceptions of art in aesthetics, art as knowledge or art as action, any aesthetic doctrines that guided the production and interpretation of prehistoric art are mostly unknown. Western aesthetics usually refers to Greek philosophers as the earliest source of aesthetic considerations. Plato believed in beauty as a form in which beautiful objects partake and he felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts. Similarly, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the elements of beauty were order, symmetry. From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics underwent a revolution into what is often called modernism. German and British thinkers emphasized beauty as the key component of art and of the aesthetic experience, and saw art as necessarily aiming at absolute beauty. For Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten aesthetics is the science of the experiences, a younger sister of logic. For Immanuel Kant the aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgment of a subjective but similar human truth, however, beauty cannot be reduced to any more basic set of features. For Friedrich Schiller aesthetic appreciation of beauty is the most perfect reconciliation of the sensual and rational parts of human nature, for Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, the philosophy of art is the organon of philosophy concerning the relation between man and nature. So aesthetics began now to be the name for the philosophy of art, Friedrich von Schlegel, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also gave lectures on aesthetics as philosophy of art after 1800. For Hegel, all culture is a matter of absolute spirit coming to be manifest to itself, stage by stage, Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to sense-perception, and is thus an objective rather than subjective revelation of beauty. It is thus for Schopenhauer one way to fight the suffering, the British were largely divided into intuitionist and analytic camps
20.
Muntenia
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Muntenia is a historical region of Romania, usually considered Wallachia-proper. It is situated between the Danube, the Carpathian Mountains and Moldavia, and the Olt River to the west, the latter river is the border between Muntenia and Oltenia. Part of the border between Wallachia/Muntenia and Moldavia was formed by the rivers Milcov and Siret. Other important cities are, Brăila Buzău Pitești Ploiești Târgoviște
21.
Constantin Lecca
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Constantin Lecca was a Romanian painter and art professor. He was the first Romanian artist to create Western-style religious paintings, although he worked in a variety of genres, including history painting, he is best known for his portraits. He was born into a family of merchants, in 1827, he went to Buda to study painting, but it is not known where or with whom he studied, so he may have been essentially self-taught. In any event, he made his first contacts with Romanian revolutionaries and became a friend of Zaharia Caracalechi, contributing articles, translations, in 1833, he accepted an invitation to teach at the Școala Centrală in Craiova. Five years later, he became the founder and editor of one of Romanias first cultural magazines, when he returned home, he participated in the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, having to quit his position and leave his family for fear of reprisals. After remaining under cover in his hometown for a time, he was able to secure a professorship at Saint Sava National College, one of his best-known students was Theodor Aman. For the next fifteen years, he collaborated with Mișu Popp, painting murals at churches throughout Bucharest. Among them was the church at Curtea Veche, the oldest religious building in Bucharest that has not been significantly altered and it was at this time that he also established his reputation as a portrait painter. In 1870, illness forced him to retire and he painted little, paul Rezeanu, Constantin Lecca, Editura Arcade,2005 ISBN 973-8756-40-5 Jack Brutaru, Constantin Lecca, Editura de Stat Pentru Literatură şi Arta,1956 Revista de cultura Mozaicul, new series
22.
Bogdan III the One-Eyed
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Bogdan III the One-Eyed or Bogdan III the Blind Voivode of Moldavia from July 2,1504 to 1517. He was born in Huşi as the son of Voivode Ştefan cel Mare and he was his fathers only surviving legitimate son. Alexanders death and Sigismund the Olds ascendancy led to a breaking of the previous agreement, in October 1509, Bogdan was severely defeated on the Dniester river, a peace was signed on January 17,1510, when the ruler finally renounced his pretensions. In the same year, Moldavia suffered two major Tatar devastations — in 1511, the Tatars even managed to occupy most of the country. The events forced Poland, still recovering from the invasion of 1506, to send troops as aid. In 1514, in order to block the Tatar threat by enlisting the help of a powerful overlord, in exchange for these, Moldavia was allowed a high level of autonomy. Bogdan was blind in one eye, most likely after a wound received during one of his many battles and he was married to Stana, Nastasia and finally to Ruxandra – daughter of Wallachian Prince Mihnea cel Rău. He was buried next to his father in Putna Monastery
23.
Moldavia
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Moldavia is a historical region, and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river. The western half of Moldavia is now part of Romania, the eastern side belongs to the Republic of Moldova, the original and short-lived reference to the region was Bogdania, after Bogdan I, the founding figure of the principality. Dragoș was accompanied by his female hound called Molda, when reached the shores of an unfamiliar river. The dogs name would have given to the river and extended to the country. The old German Molde, meaning open-pit mine the Gothic Mulda meaning dust, dirt, a Slavic etymology, marking the end of one Slavic genitive form, denoting ownership, chiefly of feminine nouns. In several early references, Moldavia is rendered under the composite form Moldo-Wallachia, Ottoman Turkish references to Moldavia included Boğdan Iflak and Boğdan. See also names in other languages, the name of the region in other languages include French, Moldavie, German, Moldau, Hungarian, Moldva, Russian, Молдавия, Moldaviya, Turkish, Boğdan Prensliği, Greek, Μολδαβία. The inhabitants of Moldova were Christians, archaeological works revealed the remains of a Christian necropolis at Mihălășeni, Botoșani county, from the 5th century. The place of worship, and the tombs had Christian characteristics, the place of worship had a rectangular form with sides of 8 and 7 meters. Similar necropolis and place of worship were found at Nicolina, in Iași The Bolohoveni, the chronicle shows that this land is bordered on the principalities of Halych, Volhynia and Kiev. Archaeological research also identified the location of 13th-century fortified settlements in this region, Alexandru V. Boldur identified Voscodavie, Voscodavti, Voloscovti, Volcovti, Volosovca and their other towns and villages between the middle course of the rivers Nistru/Dniester and Nipru/Dnieper. The Bolohoveni disappeared from chronicles after their defeat in 1257 by Daniil Romanovichs troops, in the early 13th century, the Brodniks, a possible Slavic–Vlach vassal state of Halych, were present, alongside the Vlachs, in much of the regions territory. On the border between Halych and the Brodniks, in the 11th century, a Viking by the name of Rodfos was killed in the area by Vlachs who supposedly betrayed him. In 1164, the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, was prisoner by Vlach shepherds around the same region. In 1342 and 1345, the Hungarians were victorious in a battle against Tatar-Mongols, the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1353, Dragoș, mentioned as a Vlach Knyaz in Maramureș, was sent by Louis I to establish a line of defense against the Golden Horde forces of Mongols on the Siret River and this expedition resulted in a polity vassal to Hungary, centered around Baia. His realm extended north to the Cheremosh River, while the part of Moldavia was still occupied by the Tatar Mongols. After first residing in Baia, Bogdan moved Moldavias seat to Siret, disfavored by the brief union of Angevin Poland and Hungary, Bogdans successor Lațcu accepted conversion to Roman Catholicism around 1370, but his gesture was to remain without consequences
24.
Wallachia
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Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians, Wallachia is traditionally divided into two sections, Muntenia and Oltenia. Wallachia as a whole is referred to as Muntenia through identification with the larger of the two traditional sections. In 1417, Wallachia accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, in 1859, Wallachia united with Moldavia to form the United Principalities, which adopted the name Romania in 1866 and officially became the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. In the Early Middle Ages, in Slavonic texts, the name of Zemli Ungro-Vlahiskoi was also used as a designation for its location, official designations of the state were Muntenia and Țara Românească. The traditional Hungarian name for Wallachia is Havasalföld, or literally Snowy Lowlands, in Ottoman Turkish, the term Eflâk Prensliği, or simply Eflâk افلاق, appears. Mavrovlachi is another name of the Balkan Vlachs or Aromanians, both names could come from a confusion, Kara Iflak, the Turkish name of Wallachia, means land of Wallachians, but later kara was misconstrued as kara. Later, the Turks renamed Moldavia and Wallachia as Kara Iflak and Ak Iflak according to the Turkish cardinal points symbolism, north is symbolized by black, and west is symbolized by white. Ardeal/Erdel was the name of Transylvania, and Kara Iflak, Northern Wallachia was either Wallachia, north of the Balkan territories inhabited by Vlachs, the second explanation is typologically better. In the Second Dacian War western Oltenia became part of the Roman province of Dacia, the Roman limes was initially built along the Olt River, before being moved slightly to the east in the 2nd century—during which time it stretched from the Danube up to Rucăr in the Carpathians. The Roman line fell back to the Olt in 245 and, in 271, in 328, the Romans built a bridge between Sucidava and Oescus which indicates that there was a significant trade with the peoples north of the Danube. A short period of Roman rule in the area is attested under Emperor Constantine I, the period of Goth rule ended when the Huns arrived in the Pannonian Plain and, under Attila, attacked and destroyed some 170 settlements on both sides of the Danube. Wallachia was under the control of the First Bulgarian Empire from its establishment in 681, in 1241, during the Mongol invasion of Europe, Cuman domination was ended—a direct Mongol rule over Wallachia was not attested, but it remains probable. His successor was his brother Bărbat.1334, Basarab was succeeded by Nicolae Alexandru, followed by Vladislav I. Under Radu I and his successor Dan I, the realms in Transylvania, as the entire Balkan Peninsula became an integral part of the growing Ottoman Empire, Wallachia became engaged in frequent confrontations in the final years of Mircea the Elders reign. Mircea initially defeated the Ottomans in several battles, driving away from Dobruja and briefly extending his rule to the Danube Delta, Dobruja. He swung between alliances with Sigismund of Hungary and Jagiellon Poland, and accepted a treaty with the Ottomans in 1417, after Mehmed I took control of Turnu Măgurele. The two ports remained part of the Ottoman state, with interruptions, until 1829
25.
Kingdom of Romania
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The Kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy which existed between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania. As such, it is distinct from the Romanian Old Kingdom. From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a union of two vassal principalities under a single prince to a full-fledged independent kingdom with a Hohenzollern monarchy. During 1918-20, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Eastern Moldavia, in 1947 King Michael was compelled to abdicate and a socialist republic ruled by the Romanian Communist Party replaced the monarchy. The 1859 ascendancy of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire united an identifiably Romanian nation under a single ruler. On 5 February 1862 the two principalities were united to form the Principality of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital. On 23 February 1866 a so-called Monstrous coalition, composed of Conservatives and radical Liberals, the German prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Prince of Romania, in a move to assure German backing to unity and future independence. He immediately adopted the Romanian spelling of his name, Carol, on 15 March 1881, as an assertion of full sovereignty, the Romanian parliament raised the country to the status of a kingdom, and Carol was crowned as king on 10 May. Abstaining from the Initial Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Romania entered the Second Balkan War in June 1913 against the Tsardom of Bulgaria,330,000 Romanian troops moved across the Danube and into Bulgaria. One army occupied Southern Dobrudja and another moved into northern Bulgaria to threaten Sofia, Romania thus acquired the ethnically-mixed territory of Southern Dobrudja, which it had desired for years. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, the term came into use after World War I, when the Old Kingdom was opposed to Greater Romania, which included Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. Nowadays, the term mainly has a historical relevance, and is used as a common term for all regions in Romania included in both the Old Kingdom and present-day borders. Romania delayed in entering World War I, but ultimately declared war on the Central Powers in 1916, War with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 resulted in the occupation of Budapest by Romanian troops and the end of Béla Kuns Bolshevik regime. At the Paris Peace Conference, Romania received territories of Transylvania, part of Banat, Bessarabia, thus, Romania in 1920 was more than twice the size it had been in 1914. Although the country was satisfied and had no territorial claims, it aroused the enmity of Bulgaria, and especially Hungary. Greater Romania now encompassed a significant minority population, especially of Hungarians, by contrast, the prewar Romanian state had only one real minority, Jews, but nonetheless anti-Semitism was widespread. Transylvania had significant Hungarian and German population, and with a contemptuous attitude towards Romanians. Both groups were excluded from politics as the postwar Romanian regime passed an edict stating that all personnel employed by the state had to speak Romanian
26.
Sodom and Gomorrah
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Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and in the deuterocanonical books, as well as in the Quran and the hadith. According to the Torah, the kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah were allied with the cities of Admah, Zeboim and these five cities, also known as the cities of the plain, were situated on the Jordan River plain in the southern region of the land of Canaan. The plain, which corresponds to the area just north of the modern-day Dead Sea, was compared to the garden of Eden as being well-watered and green, suitable for grazing livestock. Divine judgment by God was then passed upon Sodom and Gomorrah, neighboring Zoar was the only city to be spared. In Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous with impenitent sin, Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation. The story has given rise to words in several languages. These include the English word sodomy, used in laws to describe sexual crimes against nature, namely anal or oral sex. Some Islamic societies incorporate punishments associated with Sodom and Gomorrah into sharia, the etymology of both names is uncertain. The exact original meanings of the names are also uncertain, of the five cities of the plain, only Bela, modern Zoara, is securely identified, and remained a settlement long after the biblical period. The ancient Greek historiographer Strabo states that locals living near Moasada say that there were once thirteen inhabited cities in that region of which Sodom was the metropolis. Strabo identifies a limestone and salt hill at the western tip of the Dead Sea. However, Sayce later mentions that the more closely resembles the doom of Sennacheribs host. The names si-da-mu and ì-ma-ar were identified as representing Sodom and Gomorrah, today, the scholarly consensus is that Ebla has no bearing on. If the cities existed, they might have been destroyed as the result of a natural disaster. One theory says that the Dead Sea was devastated by an earthquake between 2100 and 1900 BCE, which could have unleashed showers of steaming tar. It is possible that the towns were destroyed by an earthquake in the region, especially if the towns lay along a major fault, However, there is a lack of contemporary accounts of seismic activity within the necessary timeframe to corroborate this theory. Other possibilities also include Numeira, al-Safi, Feifa, and Khanazir, all sites were near the Dead Sea, with evidence of burning and traces of sulfur. However, according to Schaub, who dug at Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira was destroyed at a different time period from Bab edh-Dhra, Archaeological remains excavated from Bab edh-Dhra are currently displayed in Karak Archaeological Museum, Amman Citadel Museum, and the British Museum
27.
Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature, famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an member of the Highland Society. He survived a bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his grandparents farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a cure at Prestonpans during the following summer. In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to him for school. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and he was now well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books and he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, in March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his fathers office to become a Writer to the Signet. While at the university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macphersons Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott saw Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem The Justice of the Peace and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, and was thanked by Burns. When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in Moral Philosophy, after completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh. As a lawyers clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction and he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, as a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders
28.
Anthony Grafton
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Anthony Thomas Grafton is one of the foremost historians of early modern Europe and the current Henry Putnam University Professor at Princeton University. He is also a fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize. From January 2011 to January 2012, he served as the President of the American Historical Association, Grafton was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was educated at Phillips Academy and he attended the University of Chicago, from which he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in history in 1971 and a master of arts degree in 1972. He made Phi Beta Kappa in 1970, with honors in history, after studying at University College, London, under the celebrated ancient historian Arnaldo Momigliano, from 1973 to 1974, he earned his PhD in history from the University of Chicago in 1975. He still retains links with the University of Londons Warburg Institute, after a brief period teaching at Cornells history department, he was appointed to a position at Princeton University in 1975, where he has subsequently remained. Since January 2007, he has been a co-editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas, Anthony Grafton is noted for his studies of the classical tradition from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century, and in the history of historical scholarship. In 1996, he delivered the Triennial E. A. Lowe Lectures at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, speaking on Ancient History in Early Modern Europe. He is co-author of an article on the marginalia of Gabriel Harvey that is one of the pieces of scholarship in the new field of the history of reading. In some ways his most original and accessible book is The Footnote, A curious history and he also writes on a wide variety of topics for The New Republic, The American Scholar, and The New York Review of Books. He owns a bookwheel which he keeps at hand in his home, the history of ideas, Precept and practice, 1950-2000 and beyond. Journal of the History of Ideas 67#1, 1-32, online Joseph Scaliger, A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford-Warburg Studies. With Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities, education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe. Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship, defenders of the Text, The Traditions of Scholarship in the Age of Science, 1450-1800. Commerce with the Classics, Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers, cardanos Cosmos, The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer. Leon Battista Alberti, Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance, bring Out Your Dead, The Past as Revelation. The Art of History in Early Modern Europe, with Megan Hale Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea. Video, Anthony Grafton, Codex in Crisis on YouTube, Authors@Google, with Brian A. Curran, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss, Obelisk, A History
29.
Ludwig van Beethoven
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
30.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
31.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
32.
Dinosaur
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Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria that first appeared during the Triassic. Although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research and they became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 201 million years ago. Their dominance continued through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and ended when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of most dinosaur groups 66 million years ago, until the late 20th century, all groups of dinosaurs were believed to be extinct. As such, birds were the dinosaur lineage to survive the mass extinction event. This article deals primarily with non-avian dinosaurs, Dinosaurs are a varied group of animals from taxonomic, morphological and ecological standpoints. Birds, at over 10,000 living species, are the most diverse group of vertebrates besides perciform fish, using fossil evidence, paleontologists have identified over 500 distinct genera and more than 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both extant species and fossil remains, while dinosaurs were ancestrally bipedal, many extinct groups included quadrupedal species, and some were able to shift between these stances. Elaborate display structures such as horns or crests are common to all dinosaur groups, evidence suggests that egg laying and nest building are additional traits shared by all dinosaurs.7 meters and heights of 18 meters and were the largest land animals of all time. Still, the idea that dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is a misconception based in part on preservation bias, as large. Many dinosaurs were small, Xixianykus, for example, was only about 50 cm long. Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized to be dinosaurs, most of the community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish. Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that all dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction. The large sizes of some groups, as well as their seemingly monstrous and fantastic nature, have ensured dinosaurs regular appearance in best-selling books and films. Persistent public enthusiasm for the animals has resulted in significant funding for dinosaur science, the term is derived from the Greek words δεινός and σαῦρος. Though the taxonomic name has often interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs teeth, claws. Instead, dinosaurs, like many forms of reptile sub-groups, did not exhibit characteristics which were traditionally regarded as reptilian. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, dinosaurs are usually defined as the group consisting of Triceratops, Neornithes, their most recent common ancestor, Birds are now recognized as being the sole surviving lineage of theropod dinosaurs. In traditional taxonomy, birds were considered a class that had evolved from dinosaurs
33.
Hominidae
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Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time. Its original meaning referred only to humans and their closest non-extant relatives and that restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term hominin, which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees. The current, 21st-century meaning of hominid includes all the great apes including humans, the most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae, in the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa, the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98. 4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms, the earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Orrorin tugenensis, followed by Ardipithecus, with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus. The classification of the apes has been revised several times in the last few decades. The original meaning of the referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term hominin. And the meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a different usage of hominid that today all the great apes including humans. A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae, the apes, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees. A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae, gorillas, chimpanzees, a hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini, Chimpanzees and humans. A homininan is a member of the subtribe Hominina of the tribe Hominini, a human is a member of the genus Homo, of which Homo sapiens is the only extant species, and within that Homo sapiens sapiens is the only surviving subspecies. For each clade it is indicated approximately when newer extant clades emerged, some texts will refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch. Many scientists, including paleoanthropologists, continue to use the term hominid to mean humans, as mentioned, Hominidae was originally the name given to the family of humans and their close relatives, with the other great apes all being placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. However, that eventually made Pongidae paraphyletic because at least one great ape species proved to be more closely related to humans than to other great apes. Most taxonomists today encourage monophyletic groups—this would require, in this case, thus, many biologists now assign Pongo to the family Hominidae
34.
The Flintstones
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The Flintstones is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting, depicts the lives of the characters, their next-door neighbors and best friends. It was originally broadcast from September 30,1960, to April 1,1966 in a time schedule. The continuing popularity of The Flintstones rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern concerns in the Stone Age setting. The Flintstones was the most financially successful network animated franchise for three decades, until The Simpsons debuted decades later, in 2013, TV Guide ranked The Flintstones the second Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time. The show is set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock, in this fantasy version of the past, dinosaurs and other long-extinct animals co-exist with cavemen, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths. For example, the cars are made out of stone, wood, and animal skins, animation historian Christopher P. Lehman considers that the series draws its humor in part from creative uses of anachronisms. The main one is the placing of a modern, 20th-century society in prehistory and this society takes inspiration from the suburban sprawl developed in the first two decades of the postwar period. This society has modern home appliances, but they work by employing animals and they have automobiles, but they hardly resemble the cars of the 20th century. These cars are wooden structures and burn no fuel. They are powered by people who run while inside them, finally, the stone houses of this society are cookie-cutter homes positioned into typical neighborhoods. As a running gag, often the prehistoric analog to a modern machine uses an animal, for example, when a character takes photographs with an instant camera, inside the camera box, a bird carves the picture on a stone tablet with its beak. The animal powering such technology would frequently break the wall, look directly into the camera at the audience. The Stone Age setting allowed for gags and word plays involving rocks, for example, San Antonio becomes Sand-and-Stony-o, the country to the south of Bedrocks land is called Mexirock. Travel to Hollyrock, a parody of Hollywood, usually involves an airplane flight — the plane, in case, is often shown as a giant pterosaur. Sun Valley becomes Stone Valley and is run by Conrad Hailstone, once, while visiting one of Bedrocks houses of Haute Couture with Wilma, Betty even commented on the new Jackie Kennerock look. In some cases, the celebrity featured also provided the voice, Samantha and Darrin from Bewitched were voiced by Elizabeth Montgomery, examples from the above list include Ann-Margret, Curtis, Darren, and the Beau Brummels. Other celebrities, such as Ed Sulleystone and Alvin Brickrock, were rendered by impersonators, ace reporter Daisy Kilgranite was a friend of Wilma
35.
Comedy
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In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film, and stand-up comedy. The origins of the term are found in Ancient Greece, in the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a performance which pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a Society of Youth and a Society of the Old, a revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes. Satire and political satire use comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them. Similarly scatological humour, sexual humour, and race humour create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, a comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society and uses humor to parody or satirize the behaviour and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms. The adjective comic, which means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage. Of this, the word came into usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time. The Greeks and Romans confined their use of the comedy to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. Aristotle defined comedy as an imitation of men worse than the average, however, the characters portrayed in comedies were not worse than average in every way, only insofar as they are Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others, the mask, for instance, in the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings. It is in this sense that Dante used the term in the title of his poem, as time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter. During the Middle Ages, the comedy became synonymous with satire. They disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms and they viewed comedy as simply the art of reprehension, and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or to the troubling beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term gained a more general meaning in medieval literature. Starting from 425 BCE, Aristophanes, a playwright and satirical author of the Ancient Greek Theater wrote 40 comedies,11 of which survive. Aristophanes developed his type of comedy from the satyr plays
36.
Retrofuturism
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Retrofuturism is a trend in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a bent on anticipating what will come. Primarily reflected in artistic creations and modified technologies that realize the imagined artifacts of its parallel reality, but it has also manifested in the worlds of fashion, architecture, design, music, literature, film, and video games. The word retrofuturism, combines more recent ideas of nostalgia and retro with older traditions of futurism, an early use of the term was in the title of T. R. Hinchcliffes Pelican book Retro-futurism - Penguin,1967. A recent neologism, the actual term retrofuturism was used by American Lloyd Dunn in 1983, according to fringe art magazine Retrofuturism, Retrofuturism builds on ideas of futurism, but the latter term functions differently in several different contexts. In avant-garde artistic, literary and design circles, Futurism is a long-standing, in his 1967 book T. R. Retrofuturism is first and foremost based on modern but changing notions of the future. It took its current shape in the 1970s, a time when technology was rapidly changing, from the advent of the personal computer to the birth of the first test tube baby, this period was characterized by intense and rapid technological change. But many in the public began to question whether applied science would achieve its earlier promise—that life would inevitably improve through technological progress. In the wake of the Vietnam War, environmental depredations, but they also wondered, sometimes in awe, sometimes in confusion, at the scientific positivism evinced by earlier generations. Retrofuturism seeped into academic and popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s, inflecting George Lucas’ Star Wars and the paintings of pop artist Kenny Scharf alike. Surveying the optimistic futurism of the twentieth century, the historians Joe Corn and Brian Horrigan remind us that retrofuturism is a history of an idea. The future, or course, does not exist except as an act of belief or imagination, Retrofuturism incorporates two overlapping trends which may be summarized as the future as seen from the past and the past as seen from the future. Such futuristic visions are refurbished and updated for the present, and offer a nostalgic, counterfactual image of what the future might have been, the second trend is the inverse of the first, futuristic retro. It starts with the appeal of old styles of art, clothing, mores, and then grafts modern or futuristic technologies onto it, creating a mélange of past, present. In the movie Space Station 76, mankind has reached the stars, in practice, the two trends cannot be sharply distinguished, as they mutually contribute to similar visions. In the same way, futuristic retro owes much of its flavor to early science fiction, both retrofuturistic trends in themselves refer to no specific time. Examples include the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, set in an imaginary 1939, adam Reeds animated comedy series Archer is also set in a retrofuture aesthetic world. The import of retrofuturism has, in recent years, come under considerable discussion, some, like the German architecture critic Niklas Maak, see retrofuturism as nothing more than an aesthetic feedback loop recalling a lost belief in progress, the old images of the once radically new
37.
Amazing Stories
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Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsbacks Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction, Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction. Amazing was published, with interruptions, for almost eighty years, going through a half-dozen owners. Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy and lost control of the magazine in 1929, and by 1938 it was purchased by Ziff-Davis, Palmer made the magazine successful though it was not regarded as a quality magazine within the science fiction community. Amazing switched to a digest size format in 1953, shortly before the end of the pulp-magazine era. Ted White took over as editor in 1969, eliminated the reprints and made the magazine respected again, several other owners attempted to create a modern incarnation of the magazine in the following decades, but publication was suspended after the March 2005 issue. A new incarnation appeared in July 2012 as an online magazine, Gernsbacks initial editorial approach was to blend instruction with entertainment, he believed science fiction could educate readers. His audience rapidly showed a preference for implausible adventures, however, despite this, Gernsback had an enormous impact on the field, the creation of a specialist magazine for science fiction spawned an entire genre publishing industry. The letter columns in Amazing, where fans could make contact with other, led to the formation of science fiction fandom. Writers whose first story was published in the magazine include John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Howard Fast, Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Thomas M. Disch. Overall, though, Amazing itself was rarely an influential magazine within the genre after the 1920s, by the end of the 19th century, stories centered on scientific inventions, and stories set in the future, were appearing regularly in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories lent itself to tales of invention in the tradition of Jules Verne, Magazines such as Munseys Magazine and The Argosy, launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried a few science fiction stories each year. In 1908, Hugo Gernsback published the first issue of Modern Electrics and it was an immediate success, and Gernsback began to include articles on imaginative uses of science, such as Wireless on Saturn. In 1920 Gernsback retitled the magazine Science and Invention, and through the early 1920s he published much scientific fiction in its pages, Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics in 1921. However, in 1926 he decided to go ahead, and ceased publication of The Experimenter to make room in his schedule for a new magazine. The editor of The Experimenter, T. OConor Sloane, became the editor of Amazing Stories, the first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926. Initially the magazine focussed on reprints, the first original story was “The Man From the Atom ” by G. Peyton Wertenbaker in the May 1926 issue, in the August issue, new stories were noted with an asterisk in the table of contents. The editorial work was largely done by Sloane, but Gernsback retained final say over the fiction content, Two consultants, Conrad A. Brandt and Wilbur C
38.
Propeller (aeronautics)
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An aircraft propeller or airscrew converts rotary motion from an engine or other mechanical power source, to provide propulsive force. It comprises a rotating hub, to which are attached several radial airfoil-section blades such that the whole assembly rotates about a longitudinal axis. The blade pitch may be fixed, manually variable to a few set positions, the propeller attaches to the power sources driveshaft either directly or, especially on larger designs, through reduction gearing. Most early aircraft propellers were carved by hand from solid or laminated wood, more recently, composite materials are becoming increasingly used. The earliest references for vertical flight came from China, since around 400 BC, Chinese children have played with bamboo flying toys. This bamboo-copter is spun by rolling a stick attached to a rotor between ones hands, the spinning creates lift, and the toy flies when released. The 4th-century AD Daoist book Baopuzi by Ge Hong reportedly describes some of the ideas inherent to rotary wing aircraft, designs similar to the Chinese helicopter toy appeared in Renaissance paintings and other works. It was not until the early 1480s, when Leonardo da Vinci created a design for a machine that could be described as an aerial screw, that any recorded advancement was made towards vertical flight. His notes suggested that he built flying models, but there were no indications for any provision to stop the rotor from making the craft rotate. As scientific knowledge increased and became accepted, men continued to pursue the idea of vertical flight. Many of these models and machines would more closely resemble the ancient bamboo flying top with spinning wings. In July 1754, Russian Mikhail Lomonosov had developed a small coaxial modeled after the Chinese top but powered by a spring device. It was powered by a spring, and was suggested as a method to lift meteorological instruments, a dirigible airship was described by Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier presented in 1783. The drawings depict a 260-foot-long streamlined envelope with internal ballonnets that could be used for regulating lift, the airship was designed to be driven by three propellers. In 1784 Jean-Pierre Blanchard fitted a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, sir George Cayley, influenced by a childhood fascination with the Chinese flying top, developed a model of feathers, similar to that of Launoy and Bienvenu, but powered by rubber bands. By the end of the century, he had progressed to using sheets of tin for rotor blades and his writings on his experiments and models would become influential on future aviation pioneers. William Bland sent designs for his Atmotic Airship to the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851 and this was an elongated balloon with a steam engine driving twin propellers suspended underneath. Alphonse Pénaud developed coaxial rotor model helicopter toys in 1870, also powered by rubber bands, in 1872 Dupuy de Lome launched a large navigable balloon, which was driven by a large propeller turned by eight men
39.
Colonization of Mars
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Mars is the focus of much scientific study about possible human colonization. Its surface conditions and the presence of water on Mars make it arguably the most hospitable of the planets in the Solar System, Mars requires less energy per unit mass to reach from Earth than any planet except Venus. Permanent human habitation on a body other than the Earth is one of science fictions most prevalent themes. As technology has advanced, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth have increased, other reasons for colonizing space include economic interests, long-term scientific research best carried out by humans as opposed to robotic probes, and sheer curiosity. Earth is similar to Venus in bulk composition, size and surface gravity and these include, The Martian day is very close in duration to Earths. A solar day on Mars is 24 hours,39 minutes and 35.244 seconds, Mars has a surface area that is 28. 4% of Earths, only slightly less than the amount of dry land on Earth. Mars has half the radius of Earth and only one-tenth the mass and this means that it has a smaller volume and lower average density than Earth. Mars has a tilt of 25. 19°, similar to Earths 23. 44°. As a result, Mars has seasons much like Earth, though they last nearly twice as long because the Martian year is about 1.88 Earth years, the Martian north pole currently points at Cygnus, not Ursa Minor like Earths. Recent observations by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, ESAs Mars Express, the surface gravity of Mars is 38% that of Earth. Although microgravity is known to cause problems such as muscle loss and bone demineralization. The Mars Gravity Biosatellite was a project designed to learn more about what effect Marss lower surface gravity would have on humans. Mars is much colder than Earth, with surface temperatures between 186 and 268 K. The lowest temperature recorded on Earth was 180 K in Antarctica. Surface water on Mars may occur transiently, but only under certain conditions, because Mars is about 52% farther from the Sun, the amount of solar energy entering its upper atmosphere per unit area is only around 43. 3% of what reaches the Earths upper atmosphere. However, due to the thinner atmosphere, a higher fraction of the solar energy reaches the surface. The maximum solar irradiance on Mars is about 590 W/m2 compared to about 1000 W/m2 at the Earths surface, also, year-round dust storms on Mars may block sunlight for weeks at a time. Marss orbit is more eccentric than Earths, increasing temperature and solar constant variations, due to the lack of a magnetosphere, solar particle events and cosmic rays can easily reach the Martian surface
40.
Science fiction
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Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
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Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
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Star Trek
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Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise based on the television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, simply called Star Trek and now referred to as The Original Series, debuted in 1966 and it followed the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew aboard the starship USS Enterprise, an exploration vessel. The Star Trek canon of the franchise include The Original Series, a series, four spin-off television series, its film franchise. In creating Star Trek, Roddenberry was inspired by the Horatio Hornblower novels, the satirical book Gullivers Travels and these adventures continued in the short-lived Star Trek, The Animated Series and six feature films. The adventures of The Next Generation crew continued in four feature films. In 2009, the franchise underwent a reboot set in an alternate timeline, or Kelvin Timeline. This film featured a new cast portraying younger versions of the crew from the show, their adventures were continued in the sequel film. The thirteenth film feature and sequel, Star Trek Beyond, was released to coincide with the franchises 50th anniversary, a new Star Trek TV series, titled Star Trek, Discovery, will premiere in May 2017 on the digital platform CBS All Access. Star Trek has been a phenomenon for decades. Fans of the franchise are called Trekkies or Trekkers, the franchise spans a wide range of spin-offs including games, figurines, novels, toys, and comics. Star Trek had an attraction in Las Vegas that opened in 1998. At least two museum exhibits of props travel the world, the series has its own full-fledged constructed language, Klingon. Several parodies have been made of Star Trek, in addition, viewers have produced several fan productions. As of July 2016, the franchise had generated $10 billion in revenue, Star Trek is noted for its cultural influence beyond works of science fiction. The franchise is also noted for its civil rights stances. The Original Series included one of televisions first multiracial casts, Star Trek references can be found throughout popular culture from movies such as the submarine thriller Crimson Tide to the animated series South Park. As early as 1964, Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the series that would become Star Trek
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The dictionary definition of anachronism at Wiktionary
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Anachronism". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
