1.
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem
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He was a member of the second generation of Dutch Italianate landscape painters. These were artists who travelled to Italy, or aspired to, in order to soak up the romanticism of the country, bringing home sketchbooks full of drawings of classical ruins and pastoral imagery. His paintings, of which he produced a number, were in great demand. His landscapes, painted in the Italian style of idealized rural scenes, with hills, mountains, cliffs and trees in a golden dawn are sought after. Berchem also painted inspired and attractive human and animal figures in works of artists, like Allaert van Everdingen, Jan Hackaert, Gerrit Dou, Meindert Hobbema. Born in Haarlem, he received instruction from his father Pieter Claesz, according to Houbraken, Carel de Moor told him that Berchem got his name from two words Berg hem for Save him. An expression used by his fellows in Van Goyens workshop whenever his father chased him there with the intent to beat him, today his name is assumed to come from his fathers hometown of Berchem, Antwerp. According to the RKD he traveled to Italy with Jan Baptist Weenix, works by him are signed both as CBerghem and Berchem. In 1645 he became a member of the Dutch reformed church, around 1650 he travelled to Westphalia with Jacob van Ruisdael, where a dated piece showing Burg Bentheim is recorded. Maybe Berchem went to Italy after this trip and before he moved to Amsterdam - he is not clearly documented in the Netherlands between 1650 and 1656, around 1660 he worked for the engraver Jan de Visscher designing an atlas. In 1661-1670 he is registered in Amsterdam and in 1670 he moved back to Haarlem, but was living back in Amsterdam by 1677 and he was the uncle of Govert van der Leeuw and his brother Pieter
2.
Highwayman
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A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot, such robbers operated in Great Britain from the Elizabethan era until the early 19th century. In many other countries, they persisted for a few decades longer, the word highwayman is first known to have been used in the year 1617, other euphemisms included knights of the road and gentlemen of the road. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were known as road agents, in Australia they were known as bushrangers. The great age of highwaymen was the period from the Restoration in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Some of them are known to have been disbanded soldiers and even officers of the English Civil War and French wars, no doubt the warlike character of the age multiplied crimes of violence. What favoured them most was the lack of governance and absence of a force, parish constables were almost wholly ineffective and commonplace detection. Most of the highwaymen held up travellers and took their money, some had channels by which they could dispose of bills of exchange. Others had a racket on the transport of an extensive district. Highwaymen, along with rioters and smugglers, defied the government of the time. They often attacked coaches for their lack of protection, including public stagecoaches, the famous demand to Stand and deliver. Was in use from the 17th century, the phrase Your money or your life. He clapped a bayonet to my breast, and said, with an oath, Your money and he had on a soldiers waistcoat and breeches. I put the bayonet aside, and gave him my silver, there were many famous victims of highwaymen. Horace Walpole, shot at in Hyde Park, wryly observed, One is forced to travel, even at noon, during this period, crime was rife and encounters with highwaymen could be bloody if the victim attempted to resist. There is a history of treating highway robbers as heroes. Originally they were admired by many as bold men who confronted their victims face-to-face and were ready to fight for what they wanted, the most famous English robber hero is the legendary medieval outlaw Robin Hood. In 17th- through early-19th-century Ireland, acts of robbery were often part of a tradition of resistance to British colonial rule
3.
Plunder
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The term is also used in a broader sense to describe egregious instances of theft and embezzlement, such as the plundering of private or public assets by governments. The proceeds of all these activities can be described as booty, loot, plunder, spoils, looting by a victorious army during war has been common practice throughout recorded history. For foot soldiers, it was viewed as a way to supplement their meagre income and was part of the celebration of victory. To rob them of their wealth, in other pre-modern societies, objects made of precious metals were the preferred target of war looting, largely because of their easy portability. In many cases looting was an opportunity to obtain treasures that otherwise would not have been obtainable, since the 18th century, works of art have increasingly become a popular target. In the 1930s and even more so during World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in large scale and organized looting of art, looting, combined with poor military discipline, has occasionally been an armys downfall. In other cases, for example the Wahhabi sack of Karbala, not all looters in wartime are conquerors, the looting of Vistula Land by its retreating defenders in 1915 was among the factors sapping the loyalty of Poland in World War I. Local civilians can also take advantage of a breakdown of order to loot public and private property, the novel War and Peace describes widespread looting by Moscows citizens before Napoleons troops enter the town, and looting by French troops elsewhere. Looting can also refer to antiquities formerly removed from countries by outsiders, other examples include the obelisks of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, in the, Pharaoh Ptolemy IX. In the aftermath of the Second World War Soviet forces systematically plundered the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and they sent valuable industrial equipment, infrastructure and whole factories to the Soviet Union. Especially during natural disasters, some find themselves forced to take what is not theirs in order to survive. How to respond to this, and where the line between unnecessary looting and necessary scavenging lies, is often a dilemma for governments, in other cases, looting may be tolerated or even encouraged by governments for political or other reasons. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 explicitly prohibits the looting of property during wartime. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 obliges military forces not only to avoid destruction of enemy property, theoretically, to prevent such looting, unclaimed property is moved to the custody of the Custodian of Enemy Property, to be handled until the return to its owner. Around the same time of the Hyksos invasion and occupation of Egypt, in Genesis 15,14, the despoliation is an act of justifiable vengeance upon the oppressors of Israel. Yet in Exodus, God uses the plagues as an act of mercy to bring a knowledge of himself to Israel, Pharaoh, the Egyptians, and to the ends of the earth. See Hyksos Iconoclasm and Genesis 13,2 and Genesis 15,14 and Exodus 12,36 Following the death of Valentinian III in 455, in 870 AD, the Byzantine city of Melite was captured by the Aghlabids under Sawāda Ibn Muḥammad. The city was destroyed, its churches looted and its population massacred, marble from the citys churches was used to build the castle of Sousse
4.
Gang
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Some criminal gang members are jumped in or have to prove their loyalty by committing acts such as theft or violence. A member of a gang may be called a gangster or a thug, in early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen. In the United Kingdom, the word is often used in this sense. In current usage, it denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. The word gang often carries a connotation, however, within a gang which defines itself in opposition to mainstream norms. The word gang derives from the past participle of Old English gan and it is cognate with Old Norse gangster, meaning journey. In discussing banditry in American history Barrington Moore, Jr, according to some estimates the Thuggee gangs in India murdered 1 million people between 1740 and 1840. The 17th century saw London terrorized by a series of organized gangs, some of known as the Mims, Hectors, Bugles. These gangs often came into conflict with each other, the members dressed with colored ribbons to distinguish the different factions. Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s, Gang involvement in drug trafficking increased during the 1970s and 1980s, but some gangs continue to have minimal involvement in the trade. In the United States, the history of gangs began on the East Coast in 1783 following the American Revolution, the emergence of the gangs was largely attributed to the vast rural population immigration to the urban areas. The first street-gang in the United States, the 40 Thieves, the gangs in Washington D. C. had control of what is now Federal Triangle, in a region then known as Murder Bay. In 2007, there were approximately 785,000 active street gang members in the United States, approximately 230,000 gang members were in U. S. prisons or jails in 2011. According to the Chicago Crime Commission publication, The Gang Book 2012, traditionally Los Angeles County has been considered the Gang Capital of America, with an estimated 120,000 gang members. There were at least 30,000 gangs and 800,000 gang members active across the USA in 2007, about 900,000 gang members lived within local communities across the country, and about 147,000 were in U. S. prisons or jails in 2009. By 1999, Hispanics accounted for 47% of all members, Blacks 31%, Whites 13%. A December 13,2009 The New York Times article about growing gang violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation estimated that there were 39 gangs with 5,000 members on that reservation alone. There are between 25,000 and 50,000 gang members in Central Americas El Salvador, more than 1,800 gangs were known to be operating in the UK in 2011
5.
Irregular military
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Irregular military is any non-standard military, that is, distinct from that of the regular army. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term and it can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the army organization. Without standard military unit organization, various more general names are used, such organizations may be called a troop, group, unit, column, band. Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations and this also applies to irregular troops, irregular infantry and irregular cavalry. Irregular warfare is warfare employing the tactics used by irregular military organizations. This involves avoiding large-scale combat, and focusing on small, stealthy, hit, the words regular and irregular have been used to describe combat forces for hundreds of years, usually with little ambiguity. Due to a chain of command requirements, the regular army is very well defined. In cases where the legitimacy of the army or its opponents is questioned, the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, uses regular armed forces as a critical distinction. The ICRC provided commentary saying that armed forces satisfy four Hague Conventions conditions. The term irregular military describes the how and what, but it is common to focus on the why. Bypassing the legitimate military and taking up arms is an extreme measure, the motivation for doing so is often used as the basis of the primary label for any irregular military. Different terms come in and out of fashion, based on political and emotional associations that develop, here is a list of such terms, organized more or less from oldest to latest. Auxiliaries - foreign or allied troops supplementing the regular army, organized from provincial or tribal regions, in the Imperial Roman army it became common to maintain a number of auxiliaries about equal to the legionaries. Levies - feudal peasants and freemen liable to be called up for military duty. Revolutionary — someone part of a revolution, whether military or not, Guerrilla — someone who uses unconventional military tactics, tends to refer to groups engaged in open conflict rather than underground resistance. Term coined during the Peninsula War in Spain against France, franc-tireur — French irregular forces during the Franco-Prussian War. But is also used in legal cases as a synonym for unprivileged combatant
6.
Skirmisher
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Skirmishers are light infantry or cavalry soldiers stationed to act as a vanguard, flank guard, or rearguard, screening a tactical position or a larger body of friendly troops from enemy advances. They are usually deployed in a skirmish line — an irregular open formation much more out in depth and breadth than a traditional line formation. Their purpose is to harass the enemy — engaging them in light or sporadic combat in order to delay their movement, disrupt their attack. Skirmishers can be either regular army units temporarily detached to perform skirmishing, light infantry, light cavalry, and irregular units often specialize in skirmishing. Though often critical in screening the army from sudden enemy attacks. In modern times, following the obsolescence of such heavy troops, all infantry has become indistinguishable from skirmishers, and those acting as skirmishers are said to skirmish. A battle with only light, relatively indecisive combat is called a skirmish. In ancient and medieval warfare, skirmishers typically carried bows, javelins, slings, skirmishers could also be effectively used to surround opposing soldiers in the absence of friendly cavalry. Once preliminary skirmishing was over, skirmishers participated in the battle by shooting into the enemy formation. Due to their mobility, skirmishers were also valuable for reconnaissance, in classical Greece, skirmishers originally had low status. Often Greek historians ignored them altogether, though Xenophon distinguished them explicitly from the statary troops and it was far cheaper to equip oneself as lightly armed as opposed to a fully armed hoplite – indeed it was not uncommon for the lightly armed to go into battle equipped with stones. Hence the low status of skirmishers reflected the low status of the sections of society who made up skirmishers. Additionally, hit and run tactics contradicted the Greek ideal of heroism, plato gives the skirmisher a voice to advocate flight without shame, but only to denounce it as an inversion of decent values. Skirmisher infantry would gain respect in the subsequent years as their usefulness was more widely recognised. Celts did not, in general, favour ranged weapons, the exceptions tended not to include the use of skirmishers. The Britons used the sling and javelin extensively, but for siege warfare, among the Gauls likewise, the bow was employed when defending a fixed position. The Celtic lack of skirmishers cost them dearly during the Gallic Invasion of Greece of 279 BC, in the Punic Wars, despite the Roman and Carthaginian armies different organisations, skimishers had the same role in both, to screen the main armies. The Roman army of the republican and early imperial periods frequently recruited foreign auxiliary troops to act as skirmishers to supplement the citizen Legions
7.
Ransom
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In typography, the ransom note effect is the result of using an excessive number of juxtaposed typefaces. Early versions of Macintosh system software, up through System 7, the font was not carried over into later versions of Mac OS. The ransom note effect may occur when a web browser uses different fonts to display parts of a web page in different languages or encodings. To avoid this, web browsers try to use the font for as much of the page as possible
8.
Old French
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Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgundy. As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues doïl were contrasted with the langue doc, in these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, at the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language, since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The Capetians langue doïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution. In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues doïl, during the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue doc-speaking territories in the south. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, the earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints lives, the Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text. The first of these is the area of the chansons de geste. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland, a fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodels other two categories—the Matter of Rome and the Matter of Britain—concern the French romance or roman, around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose, the most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar to find, lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères. By the late 13th century, the tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets
9.
Brigade
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A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment, two or more brigades may constitute a division. Brigades formed into divisions are usually infantry or armored, in addition to combat units, they may include combat support units or sub-units, such as artillery and engineers, and logistic units or sub-units. Historically, such brigades have sometimes been called brigade-groups, on operations, a brigade may comprise both organic elements and attached elements, including some temporarily attached for a specific task. Brigades may also be specialized and comprise battalions of a branch, for example cavalry, mechanized, armored, artillery, air defence, aviation, engineers. Some brigades are classified as independent or separate and operate independently from the division structure. The typical NATO standard brigade consists of approximately 3,200 to 5,500 troops, however, in Switzerland and Austria, the numbers could go as high as 11,000 troops. The Soviet Union, its forerunners and successors, mostly use regiment instead of brigade, a brigades commander is commonly a major general, brigadier general, brigadier or colonel. In some armies, the commander is rated as a General Officer, the brigade commander has a self-contained headquarters and staff. Some brigades may also have a deputy commander, the headquarters has a nucleus of staff officers and support that can vary in size depending on the type of brigade. On operations, additional specialist elements may be attached, the headquarters will usually have its own communications unit. In some gendarmerie forces, brigades are the organizational unit. The brigade as a military unit came about starting in the 15th century when the British army, as such a field army became larger, the number of subordinate commanders became unmanageable for the officer in general command of said army, usually a major general, to effectively command. In order to streamline command relationships, as well as effect some modicum of control, especially in regard to combined arms operations. The terms origin is found in two French roots, which together, meant roughly those who fight, the so-called brigada was a well-mixed unit, comprising infantry, cavalry and normally also artillery, designated for a special task. The size of such brigada ranged from a company of up to two regiments. The brigada was the forerunner of the battalion task force, battle group. The brigade was improved as a unit by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus
10.
Banditry
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Banditry is the life and practice of bandits. In modern usage the word may become a synonym for thief, the term bandit originates with the early Germanic legal practice of outlawing criminals, termed *bannan. The legal term in the Holy Roman Empire was Acht or Reichsacht, in modern Italian the equivalent word bandito letterally means banned or a banned person. About 5,000 bandits were executed by Pope Sixtus V in the five years before his death in 1590, marauding was one of the most common peasant reactions to oppression and hardship. The growth of warlord armies in China was also accompanied by an increase in bandit activity in the republican period. He further expanded the field in the 1969 study Bandits, later social scientists have also discussed the terms applicability to more modern forms of crime, like street gangs and the economy associated with the trade in illegal drugs. Bagaudae, bandits around the Pyrenees in the Roman Empire Hajduks, bandits in the Balkans Sardinian banditry Dacoity, Hindi term for banditry Billingsley, — Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary,1885. A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance
11.
Outlaw
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In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the penalty is conspicuously absent. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, women were declared waived rather than outlawed but it was effectively the same punishment. Among other forms of exile, Roman law included the penalty of interdicere aquae et ignis, people so penalized were required to leave Roman territory and forfeit their property. If they returned, they were effectively outlaws, providing them the use of fire or water was illegal, and they could be killed at will without legal penalty. Interdicere aquae et ignis was traditionally imposed by the tribune of the plebs and it was later also applied by many other officials, such as the Senate, magistrates, and Julius Caesar as a general and provincial governor during the Gallic Wars. It fell out of use during the early Empire, in English common law, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a summons to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a crime. Outlawry was a principally pre-Magna Carta phenomenon, the most famous English outlaw was Robin Hood, however, his historical existence is not proved. The term outlawry referred to the procedure of declaring someone an outlaw. In the common law of England, a judgment of outlawry was one of the harshest penalties in the system, since the outlaw could not use the legal system for protection. To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil or social death, the outlaw was debarred from all civilized society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any sort of support – to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting. A more recent concept of wanted dead or alive is similar, an outlaw might be killed with impunity, and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief fleeing from justice — to do so was not murder. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man’s kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay weregild as for a true man. By the rules of law, a criminal outlaw did not need to be guilty of the crime for which he was an outlaw. If a man was accused of a treason or felony but failed to appear in court to defend himself, if he was accused of a misdemeanour, then he was guilty of a serious contempt of court which was itself a capital crime. It was obsolete by the time the offence was abolished in 1938, there was also a doctrine of civil outlawry
12.
Prisoner of war
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A prisoner of war is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the prisoner of war dates to 1660. The first Roman gladiators were prisoners of war and were named according to their ethnic roots such as Samnite, Thracian, typically, little distinction was made between enemy combatants and enemy civilians, although women and children were more likely to be spared. Sometimes, the purpose of a battle, if not a war, was to capture women, a known as raptio. Typically women had no rights, and were legally as chattel. For this he was eventually canonized, during Childerics siege and blockade of Paris in 464, the nun Geneviève pleaded with the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a favourable response. Later, Clovis I liberated captives after Genevieve urged him to do so, many French prisoners of war were killed during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the later Middle Ages, a number of religious wars aimed to not only defeat, in Christian Europe, the extermination of heretics was considered desirable. Examples include the 13th century Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades, likewise, the inhabitants of conquered cities were frequently massacred during the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries. Noblemen could hope to be ransomed, their families would have to send to their captors large sums of wealth commensurate with the status of the captive. In feudal Japan there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, in Termez, on the Oxus, all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto the plain, and divided in accordance with their usual custom, then they were all slain. The Aztecs were constantly at war with neighbouring tribes and groups, for the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, between 10,000 and 80,400 persons were sacrificed. During the early Muslim conquests, Muslims routinely captured large number of prisoners, aside from those who converted, most were ransomed or enslaved. Christians who were captured during the Crusades, were either killed or sold into slavery if they could not pay a ransom. The freeing of prisoners was highly recommended as a charitable act, there also evolved the right of parole, French for discourse, in which a captured officer surrendered his sword and gave his word as a gentleman in exchange for privileges. If he swore not to escape, he could gain better accommodations, if he swore to cease hostilities against the nation who held him captive, he could be repatriated or exchanged but could not serve against his former captors in a military capacity. Early historical narratives of captured colonial Europeans, including perspectives of literate women captured by the peoples of North America. The writings of Mary Rowlandson, captured in the fighting of King Philips War, are an example
13.
Brigandage in southern Italy after 1861
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Brigandage in Southern Italy had existed in some form since ancient times. However its origins as outlaws targeting random travellers would evolve vastly later on in the form of the resistance movement. Some claim that the word brigandage is a euphemism for what was in fact a civil war, rising food prices, the loss of public and church lands, and the loss of feudal common rights pushed many desperate peasants to banditry. These companies-at-arms were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled, while this saved communities the trouble of maintaining their own policemen, this may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them. After the conquest of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in 1861 by the Kingdom of Sardinia, social unrest, especially among the lower classes, occurred due to poor conditions, and the fact that the Risorgimento benefited in the Mezzogiorno only the bourgeoisie vast-land owning classes. Many turned to brigandage in the mountains of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, villages such as Pontelandolfo and Casalduni in the Province of Benevento are famous for the massacre of civilians by the so-called Piedmontese authorities. In total several thousand southerners were arrested and executed, while more were deported or fled the country. In Palermo in 1866,40,000 italian soldiers were needed to put down the Sette e mezzo revolt, many southern Italians held high positions in the new Italian government, such as the 11th Prime Minister of Italy Francesco Crispi. Italians from southern Italy would also go on to play a key role in the ultra-nationalist Fascist movement, carmine Crocco Ninco Nanco Nicola Napolitano A. Maffei, Brigand Life in Italy, A History of Bourbonist Reaction ca. The History of the Mafia, New York, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-13134-6 New York Times, Brigandage in the Two Sicilies
14.
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
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Ferdinand I, was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and he was deposed twice from the throne of Naples, once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805. Ferdinand was the son of King Charles III of Spain, Naples and Sicily by his wife. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his brother, Ferdinand VI. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Ferdinand was styled both Ferdinand III of Sicily and Ferdinand IV of Naples. On 21 January 1799, the Kingdom of Naples was abolished and replaced by the Parthenopaean Republic which lasted until 13 June 1799, Ferdinand was restored to the throne for a while. On 26 December 1805, Napoleon I of France declared Ferdinand deposed again, Ferdinand was restored for the second time following the Austrian victory at the Battle of Tolentino over rival monarch King Joachim I. On 8 March 1816 he merged the thrones of Sicily and Naples into the throne of the Two Sicilies and he continued to rule until his death on 4 January 1825. Ferdinand was born in Naples and grew up amidst many of the monuments erected there by his father which can be seen today, Ferdinand was his parents third son, his elder brother Charles was expected to inherit Naples and Sicily. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in 1759 he abdicated Naples in Ferdinands favor in accordance with the treaties forbidding the union of the two crowns, a regency council presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci was set up. Ferdinands minority ended in 1767, and his first act was the expulsion of the Jesuits, the following year he married Archduchess Maria Carolina, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa. By the marriage contract the queen was to have a voice in the council of state after the birth of her first son, Tanucci, who attempted to thwart her, was dismissed in 1777. He became practically and afterward prime minister. Although not a mere grasping adventurer, he was responsible for reducing the internal administration of the country to a system of espionage, corruption. The French entered the city in spite of the resistance of the lazzaroni. When, a few weeks later the French troops were recalled to northern Italy, Ferdinand sent a hastily assembled force, under Cardinal Ruffo, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo, with the support of British artillery, the Church, and the aristocracy, succeeded, reaching Naples in May 1800. After some months King Ferdinand returned to the throne, the king returned to Naples soon afterwards, and ordered a few hundred who had collaborated with the French executed
15.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
16.
Conscription
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Conscription, or drafting, is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and those conscripted may evade service, sometimes by leaving the country. As of the early 21st century, many no longer conscript soldiers. The ability to rely on such an arrangement, however, presupposes some degree of predictability with regard to both war-fighting requirements and the scope of hostilities, many states that have abolished conscription therefore still reserve the power to resume it during wartime or times of crisis. Around the reign of Hammurabi, the Babylonian Empire used a system of conscription called Ilkum, under that system those eligible were required to serve in the royal army in time of war. During times of peace they were required to provide labour for other activities of the state. In return for service, people subject to it gained the right to hold land. It is possible that this right was not to hold land per se, various forms of avoiding military service are recorded. While it was outlawed by the Code of Hammurabi, the hiring of substitutes appears to have practiced both before and after the creation of the code. Later records show that Ilkum commitments could become regularly traded, in other places, people simply left their towns to avoid their Ilkum service. Another option was to sell Ilkum lands and the commitments along with them, with the exception of a few exempted classes, this was forbidden by the Code of Hammurabi. The levies raised in this way fought as infantry under local superiors, although the exact laws varied greatly depending on the country and the period, generally these levies were only obliged to fight for one to three months. Most were subsistence farmers, and it was in everyones interest to send the men home for harvest-time, the bulk of the Anglo-Saxon English army, called the fyrd, was composed of part-time English soldiers drawn from the landowning minor nobility. These thegns were the aristocracy of the time and were required to serve with their own armour. Medieval levy in Poland was known as the pospolite ruszenie, the system of military slaves was widely used in the Middle East, beginning with the creation of the corps of Turkish slave-soldiers by the Abbasid caliph al-Mutasim in the 820s and 830s. In the middle of the 14th century, Ottoman Sultan Murad I developed personal troops to be loyal to him, the new force was built by taking Christian children from newly conquered lands, especially from the far areas of his empire, in a system known as the devşirme
17.
Calabria
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Calabria, known in antiquity as Bruttium and formerly as Italia, is a region in Southern Italy and forms the traditionally conceptualized toe of the Italian Peninsula which resembles a boot. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro and its most populated city, and the seat of the Regional Council of Calabria, is Reggio Calabria in the Province of Reggio Calabria. The region is bordered to the north by the Basilicata Region, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, the region covers 15,080 km2 and has a population of just under 2 million. The demonym of Calabria in English is Calabrian, in ancient times Calabria was referred to as Italy. The Romans later extended the name to cover Southern Italy and then the entire peninsula, the region is a long and narrow peninsula which stretches from north to south for 248 km, with a maximum width of 110 km. Some 42% of Calabrias area, corresponding to 15,080 km2, is mountainous, 49% is hilly and it is surrounded by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. It is separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina, where the narrowest point between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Punta Pezzo in Calabria is only 3.2 km, three mountain ranges are present, Pollino, La Sila and Aspromonte. All three mountain ranges are unique with their own flora and fauna, the Pollino Mountains in the north of the region are rugged and form a natural barrier separating Calabria from the rest of Italy. Parts of the area are heavily wooded, while others are vast and these mountains are home to a rare Bosnian Pine variety, and are included in the Pollino National Park. The highest point is Botte Donato, which reaches 1,928 metres, the area boasts numerous lakes and dense coniferous forests. La Sila also has some of the tallest trees in Italy which are called the Giants of the Sila, the Sila National Park is also known to have the purest air in Europe. The Aspromonte massif forms the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula bordered by the sea on three sides and this unique mountainous structure reaches its highest point at Montalto, at 1,995 metres, and is full of wide, man-made terraces that slope down towards the sea. In general, most of the terrain in Calabria has been agricultural for centuries. The lowest slopes are rich in vineyards and citrus fruit orchards, the Diamante citron is one of the citrus fruits. Moving upwards, olives and chestnut trees appear while in the regions there are often dense forests of oak, pine, beech. Calabrias climate is influenced by the sea and mountains, mountain areas have a typical mountainous climate with frequent snow during winter. Erratic behavior of the Tyrrhenian Sea can bring heavy rainfall on the slopes of the region, while hot air from Africa makes the east coast of Calabria dry. The mountains that run along the region also influence the climate, the east coast is much warmer and has wider temperature ranges than the west coast
18.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
19.
Joachim Murat
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Joachim-Napoléon Murat was a Marshal of France and Admiral of France under the reign of Napoleon. He was also the 1st Prince Murat, Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and he received his titles in part by being Napoleons brother-in-law through marriage to his younger sister, Caroline Bonaparte, as well as personal merit. He was noted as a daring, brave, and charismatic cavalry officer as well as a flamboyant dresser and was known as the Dandy King. In 1789, an affair forced him to resign, and he returned to his family, by 1790, he had joined the National Guard, and when the Fête of the Nation was organized on 14 July 1790, the Canton of Montaucon sent Murat as its representative. Then he became reinstated into his old regiment, an ardent Republican, Murat wrote to his brother in 1791 stating he was preoccupied with revolutionary affairs and would sooner die than cease to be a patriot. This garnered for him the support of the Republicans, for he rejoined his regiment and was promoted to Corporal in April of that year. By 19 November 1792, he was 25 years old and elated at his latest promotion. As a sous-lieutenant, he thought, his family must recognize that he had no tendency for the priesthood. One of the Ministers had accused him of being an aristocrat, confusing him with the family of Murat dAuvergne. In the autumn of 1795, three years after King Louis XVI of France was deposed, royalist and counter-revolutionaries organised an armed uprising, on 3 October, General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was stationed in Paris, was named commander of the French National Conventions defending forces. This constitutional convention, after a period of emergency rule, was striving to establish a more stable. Bonaparte tasked Murat with the gathering of artillery from a suburb outside the control of the governments forces, Murat managed to take the cannons of the Camp des Sablons and transport them to the centre of Paris while avoiding the rioters. The use of these cannons – the famous whiff of grapeshot – on 5 October allowed Bonaparte to save the members of the National Convention, for this success, Joachim Murat was made chef de brigade and thereafter remained one of Napoleons best officers. Murat then went with Bonaparte to northern Italy, initially as his aide-de-camp and these forces were waging war on France and seeking to restore a monarchy in revolutionary France. Thus, Murats skills in no small part helped establish Bonapartes legendary fame, Murat commanded the cavalry of the French Egyptian expedition of 1798, again under Bonaparte. The expeditions strategic goal was to threaten Britains rich holdings in India, however, the overall effort ended prematurely because of lack of logistical support with the defeat of the French fleet due to British sea power. After the sea battle, Napoleon led his troops on land toward Europe, the remaining non-military expedition staff officers, including Murat, and Bonaparte returned to France, eluding various British fleets in five frigates. A short while later, Murat played an important, even pivotal, role in Bonapartes coup within a coup of 18 Brumaire, along with two others, Napoleon Bonaparte set aside the five-man directory government, establishing the three-man French Consulate government
20.
Naples
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Naples is the capital of the Italian region Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan. In 2015, around 975,260 people lived within the administrative limits. The Metropolitan City of Naples had a population of 3,115,320, Naples is the 9th-most populous urban area in the European Union with a population of between 3 million and 3.7 million. About 4.4 million people live in the Naples metropolitan area, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, a larger colony – initially known as Parthenope, Παρθενόπη – developed on the Island of Megaride around the ninth century BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Naples remained influential after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. Naples was the most-bombed Italian city during World War II, much of the citys 20th-century periphery was constructed under Benito Mussolinis fascist government, and during reconstruction efforts after World War II. The city has experienced significant economic growth in recent decades, and unemployment levels in the city, however, Naples still suffers from political and economic corruption, and unemployment levels remain high. Naples has the fourth-largest urban economy in Italy, after Milan, Rome and it is the worlds 103rd-richest city by purchasing power, with an estimated 2011 GDP of US$83.6 billion. The port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe, numerous major Italian companies, such as MSC Cruises Italy S. p. A, are headquartered in Naples. The city also hosts NATOs Allied Joint Force Command Naples, the SRM Institution for Economic Research, Naples is a full member of the Eurocities network of European cities. The city was selected to become the headquarters of the European institution ACP/UE and was named a City of Literature by UNESCOs Creative Cities Network, the Villa Rosebery, one of the three official residences of the President of Italy, is located in the citys Posillipo district. Naples historic city centre is the largest in Europe, covering 1,700 hectares and enclosing 27 centuries of history, Naples has long been a major cultural centre with a global sphere of influence, particularly during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. In the immediate vicinity of Naples are numerous culturally and historically significant sites, including the Palace of Caserta, culinarily, Naples is synonymous with pizza, which originated in the city. Neapolitan music has furthermore been highly influential, credited with the invention of the romantic guitar, according to CNN, the metro stop Toledo is the most beautiful in Europe and it won also the LEAF Award 2013 as Public building of the year. Naples is the Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, Naples sports scene is dominated by football and Serie A club S. S. C. Napoli, two-time Italian champions and winner of European trophies, who play at the San Paolo Stadium in the south-west of the city, the Phlegraean Fields around Naples has been inhabited since the Neolithic period. The earliest Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, sailors from the Greek island of Rhodes established a small commercial port called Parthenope on the island of Megaride in the ninth century BC
21.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
22.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
23.
History of the Balkans
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The Balkans is an area situated in Southeastern and Eastern Europe. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its common and often violent history regarding centuries of Ottoman conquest, archaeologists have identified several early culture-complexes, including the Cucuteni culture, Starcevo culture, Vinča culture, Linear pottery culture, and Ezero culture. The Eneolithic Varna culture in Bulgaria produced the worlds earliest known gold treasure and had sophisticated beliefs about afterlife, a notable set of artifacts are the Tărtăria tablets found in Romania, which appear to be inscribed with proto-writing. The Butmir Culture, found on the outskirts of present-day Sarajevo, developed unique ceramics, the Kurgan hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European origins assumes gradual expansion of the Kurgan culture, around 5000 BC, until it encompassed the entire pontic steppe. Kurgan IV was identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC, at ca.1000 BC Illyrian tribes appear in parts of northern Albania and all the way aside Adriatic Sea, Dacians in what is today Romania, and Thracians in Thrace and adjacent lands. These three major tribal groups spoke Paleo-Balkan languages, Indo-European languages, the Phrygians seem to have settled in the southern Balkans at first, centuries later continuing their migration to settle in Asia Minor, now extinct as a separate group and language. Later, Hellenistic culture spread throughout the empire created by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, by the end of the 4th century BC Greek language and culture were dominant not only in the Balkans but also around the whole Eastern Mediterranean. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians invaded the Balkans, however, the outcome of the Greco-Persian Wars resulted in the Achaemenids being forced to withdraw from most of their European territories. The Balkans were to free from the Asian empires for at least another thousand years. The Thracian Odrysian empire, probably founded in the 470s BC, after the Persian defeat in Greece, had its capital at Seuthopolis, other tribal unions existed in Dacia at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles. The Illyrian tribes were situated in the corresponding to todays Adriatic coast. The name Illyrii was originally used to refer to a people occupying an area centered on Lake Skadar, however, the term was subsequently used by the Greeks and Romans as a generic name for the different peoples within a well defined but much greater area. In the same way, the territory to the north of the kingdom of Macedon was occupied by the Paeonians, who were ruled by kings. Around 513 BC, as part of the military incursions ordered by Darius I, several Thracian peoples, and nearly all of the other European regions bordering the Black Sea, were conquered by the Achaemenid army before it returned to Asia Minor. Dariuss highly regarded commander Megabazus was responsible to fulfill the conquers in the Balkans, the Achaemenid troops conquered Thrace, the coastal Greek cities, and the Paeonians. Eventually, in about 512-511 BC, the Macedonian king Amyntas I accepted the Achaemenid domination, the multi-ethnic Achaemenid army possessed many soldiers from the Balkans. Moreover, many of the Macedonian and Persian elite intermarried, for instance, Megabazus own son, Bubares, married Amyntas daughter, Gygaea, and that supposedly ensured good relations between the Macedonian and Achaemenid rulers. All in all, the Macedonians were willing and useful Persian allies, Macedonian soldiers fought against Athens and Sparta in Xerxes army
24.
Klepht
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Klephts were highwaymen turned self-appointed armatoloi, anti-Ottoman insurgents, and warlike mountain-folk who lived in the countryside when Greece was a part of the Ottoman Empire. They were the descendants of Greeks who retreated into the mountains during the 15th century in order to avoid Ottoman rule and they carried on a continuous war against Ottoman rule and remained active as brigands until the 19th century. The terms kleptomania and kleptocracy are derived from the same Greek root, κλέπτειν, after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and then the fall of Mistra in the Despotate of the Morea, most of the plains of present-day Greece fell entirely into the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The only territories that did not fall under Ottoman rule were the mountain ranges, as well as a handful of islands and coastal possessions under the control of Venice. This situation lasted until at least 1821, although there were parts of Greece, such as Macedonia and Epirus. This period of time in Greece is known as the Τουρκοκρατία or Turkocracy, Ottoman lands were divided up into pashaliks, also called eyalets, in the case of the lands that form present-day Greece, these were Morea and Roumelia. Pashaliks were further sub-divided into sanjaks which were divided into feudal chifliks. Many Greeks wishing to preserve their Greek identity, Orthodox Christian religion and these bandit groups soon found their ranks swelled with impoverished and/or adventurous peasants, societal outcasts, and escaped criminals. Klephts under Ottoman rule were generally men who were fleeing vendettas or taxes, debts and they raided travelers and isolated settlements and lived in the rugged mountains and back country. Most klephtic bands participated in some form in the Greek War of Independence, during the Greek War of Independence, the klephts, along with the armatoloi, formed the nucleus of the Greek fighting forces, and played a prominent part throughout its duration. Yannis Makriyannis referred to the klephtes and armatoloi as the yeast of liberty, klephtic songs, or ballads, were developed in mainland Greece. Klephtic songs are popular in Epirus and the Peloponnese. The most famous klephtic and modern Greek folk song is The Battle of Mount Olympus and Mount Kisavos, concordance between klepht songs and Homers Iliad was explored by Michael M. Nikoletseas in The Male Totem in Klepht Poetry, Parallels with the Iliad. The famous Greek dish klephtiko, a dish entailing slow-cooked lamb, the klephts, not having flocks of their own, would steal lambs or goats and cook the meat in a sealed pit to avoid the smoke being seen
25.
Greeks
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The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
26.
South Slavs
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The South Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples who speak the South Slavic languages. The South Slavs include the Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and they are the main population of the Southeastern European countries of Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia united the regions inhabited by South Slavic nations – with the key exception of Bulgaria – into a single state. The concept of Yugoslavia, a state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century. Little is known about the Slavs before the 5th century and their history prior to this can only be tentatively hypothesized via archeological and linguistic studies. Much of what we know about their history after the 6th century is from the works of Byzantine historians, in his work De Bellis, Procopius portrays the Sclavini as unusually tall and strong, with a tan complexion and reddish-blonde hair, living a rugged and primitive life. They lived in huts, often distant from one another and often changed their place of abode and they were not ruled by a single leader, but for a long time lived in a democracy. John of Ephesus, in his Ecclesiastical History portrays the Slavs as extremely violent people and they probably believed in many Gods, but Procopius suggests they believed in one, perhaps supreme god. He has often been identified as Perun, the creator of lightning, the Slavs went into battle on foot, charging straight at their enemy, armed with spears and small shields, but they did not wear armour. The lack of understanding may be attributed to matrilineal succession practiced among Southern Slavs and they made their homes in forests, by rivers and wetlands. Jordanes states that the Slavs have their homelands on the Danube, scholars have traditionally placed the Slavic Urheimat in the Pripet marshes of Ukraine, or alternatively between the Bug and the Dniepr. In the 5th century Slavs are mentioned as living north of the Danube in the sources from that era. From the 5th century, they supposedly spread outward in all directions, the Balkans was one of the regions which lay in the path of the expanding Slavs. Regarding the Slavs mentioned by 6th-century Byzantine chroniclers, Florin Curta states that their homeland was north of the Danube and he clarifies that their itinerant form of agriculture may have encouraged mobility on a micro regional scale. Material culture from the Danube suggests that there was an evolution of Slavic society between the early 7th century and the 8th century, as the Byzantines re-asserted the Danubian defences in the mid 6th century, the Slavs yield of pillaged goods dropped. As a reaction to this isolation, and external threats, political. As community elites rose to prominence, they came to embody a collective interest, if that group identity can be called ethnicity, and if that ethnicity can be called Slavic, then it certainly formed in the shadow of Justinians forts, not in the Pripet marshes. The Byzantines broadly grouped the numerous Slav tribes into two groups, the Sclaveni and Antes and they are both first encountered in the lower Danube region
27.
Political corruption
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Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is related to their official duties, is done under color of law or involves trading in influence. Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents, the activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, some political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another, in some cases, government officials have broad or ill-defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually, a state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning rule by thieves. Some forms of corruption – now called institutional corruption – are distinguished from bribery, a similar problem of corruption arises in any institution that depends on financial support from people who have interests that may conflict with the primary purpose of the institution. In politics, corruption undermines democracy and good governance by flouting or even subverting formal processes and it violates a basic principle of republicanism regarding the centrality of civic virtue. More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government if procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, Corruption undermines the legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance. Recent evidence suggests that variation in the levels of corruption amongst high-income democracies can vary depending on the level of accountability of decision-makers. Evidence from fragile states also shows that corruption and bribery can adversely impact trust in institutions, although some claim corruption reduces costs by cutting bureaucracy, the availability of bribes can also induce officials to contrive new rules and delays. Openly removing costly and lengthy regulations are better than allowing them to be bypassed by using bribes. Where corruption inflates the cost of business, it distorts the playing field, shielding firms with connections from competition. Corruption also generates economic distortion in the sector by diverting public investment into capital projects where bribes. Officials may increase the complexity of public sector projects to conceal or pave the way for such dealings. In Nigeria, for example, more than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigerias leaders between 1960 and 1999, University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers estimated that from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 Sub-Saharan countries totaled $187bn, exceeding those nations external debts. In the case of Africa, one of the factors for this behavior was political instability, and this encouraged officials to stash their wealth abroad, out of reach of any future expropriation. In contrast, Asian administrations such as Suhartos New Order often took a cut on business transactions or provided conditions for development, through investment, law and order
28.
Scottish Marches
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Scottish Marches was the term used for the Anglo-Scottish border during the late medieval and early modern eras, characterised by violence and cross-border raids. The Scottish Marches era came to an end during the first decade of the 17th century following the union of the crowns of England and Scotland. The Marches were first conceived in a treaty between Henry III of England and Alexander III of Scotland in 1249 as an attempt to control the Anglo-Scottish border by providing a buffer zone. On both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border there were the West March, the Middle March and the East March and these regions nearly mirrored each other but there was some overlap between the Scottish and English regions. For a time, powerful local clans dominated a region on the border between England and Scotland, known as the Debatable Lands, where neither monarchs writ was heeded, during this era, the Border Reivers were raiders that attacked local residents. There were both English and Scottish clans in these groups, and they would attack regardless of nationality, local farmers would often need to make payments to the various clans as a form of protection money to ensure they are not attacked. These agreements were called Black mal, where mal was an Old Norse word meaning agreement, the word blackmail entered the English language in 1530 as a result. The fluid nature of the border, and the frequent wars between Scotland and England, made the Marches fertile ground for many bandits and reivers who exploited the situation. The reiver period produced one unique feature in the old reiver country—the peel tower. It has also produced a great deal of literature, most famously the works of Sir Walter Scott. Berwick-upon-Tweed, a town on the north bank of the River Tweed, is slightly closer to Edinburgh than to Newcastle. It was fought over many times, between 1147 and 1482, the town changed hands between the two more than 13 times. As late as the reign of Elizabeth I of England, the English considered it worth spending a fortune on the latest style of fortifications to secure the town against Scottish attack, March, Earls of § II Scottish Marches
29.
Border Reivers
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Border reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. Their ranks consisted of both Scottish and English families, and they raided the entire Border country without regard to their victims nationality. Their heyday was perhaps in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the Stewart Kings in Scotland, Scotland and England were frequently at war during the late Middle Ages. During these wars, the livelihood of the people on the Borders was devastated by the contending armies, even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in either kingdom was often weak. Loyalty to a feeble or distant monarch and reliance on the effectiveness of the law usually made people a target for depredations rather than conferring any security, there were other factors which promoted a predatory mode of living. Also, much of the region is mountainous or open moorland, unsuitable for arable farming. Livestock was easily rustled and driven back to raiders territory by mounted reivers who knew the country well, the raiders also often removed easily portable household goods or valuables, and took prisoners for ransom. The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, so long as the people they raided had no powerful protectors and their activities, although usually within a days ride of the border, extended both north and south of their main haunts. English raiders were reported to have hit the outskirts of Edinburgh, the largest of these was The Great Raid of 1322, during the Scottish Wars of Independence, where it reached as far south as Chorley. The main raiding season ran through the winter months, when the nights were longest. The numbers involved in a raid might range from a few dozen to organised campaigns involving up to three thousand riders. When raiding, or riding, as it was termed, the reivers rode light on hardy nags or ponies renowned for the ability to pick their way over the boggy moss lands. They were armed with lances and small shields, and sometimes also with longbows, or light crossbows, known as latches and they invariably also carried swords and dirks. As soldiers, the Border reivers were considered among the finest light cavalry in all of Europe, after meeting one reiver, Queen Elizabeth I is quoted as having said that with ten thousand such men, James VI could shake any throne in Europe. Reivers served as mercenaries, or were forced to serve in English and Scots armies in the Low Countries, such service was often handed down as a penalty in lieu of that of death upon their families. Reivers fighting as levied soldiers played important parts at the battles of Flodden, when fighting as part of larger English or Scottish armies, Borderers were difficult to control as many had relatives on both sides of the border, despite laws forbidding international marriage. They could claim to be of either nationality, describing themselves as Scottish or English as needed and they were badly-behaved in camp, frequently plundered for their own benefit instead of obeying orders, and there were always questions about how loyal they were. The inhabitants of the Borders had to live in a state of constant alert, in the very worst periods of warfare, people were unable to construct more than crude turf cabins, the destruction of which would be little loss
30.
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
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The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes known as the British Civil Wars, formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland and Scotland between 1639 and 1651. The English Civil War proper has become the best-known of these conflicts and included the execution of the monarch, Charles I. The wars were the outcome of tensions over religious and civil issues, religious disputes centered on whether religion was to be dictated by the monarch or the choice of the individual, with many people feeling that they ought to have freedom of religion. The related civil questions were to what extent the kings rule was constrained by parliaments—in particular his right to raise taxes, furthermore, the wars also had an element of national conflict, as Ireland and Scotland rebelled against Englands primacy within the Three Kingdoms. Since 1541, monarchs of England had also styled their Irish territory as a Kingdom, Scotland, the third separate kingdom, was governed by the House of Stuart. With the English Reformation, King Henry VIII made himself head of the Protestant Church of England and outlawed Catholicism in England and Wales. However, Catholicism remained the religion of most people in Ireland and was for many a symbol of resistance to the Tudor conquest of Ireland in the 16th century. In the Kingdom of Scotland the Protestant Reformation was a movement led by John Knox. In 1584, he introduced bishops, but met opposition and had to concede that the General Assembly running the church should continue to do so. The personal union of the three kingdoms under one monarch came about when King James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth to the English throne in 1603 and he showed little interest in his other two kingdoms, Scotland and Ireland. James VI remained Protestant, taking care to maintain his hopes of succession to the English throne and he duly also became James I of England in 1603 and moved to London. In 1625, he was succeeded by his son Charles I who was less skillful or restrained and was crowned in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, opposition to his attempts to enforce Anglican practices reached a flashpoint when he introduced a Book of Common Prayer. Charles confrontation with the Scots came to a head in 1639, see also the English Civil War. Charles shared his fathers belief in the Divine Right of Kings, while the Church of England remained dominant, a powerful Puritan minority, represented by around one third of the members of Parliament, had much in common with the Presbyterian Scots. The English Parliament also had repeated disputes with the king over such subjects as taxation, military expenditure, while James I had held the same opinions as his son with regard to royal prerogatives, he had enough charisma to persuade the Parliament to accept his policies. Charles did not have this skill in human management and so, meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Ireland, tensions had also begun to mount. Charles Is Lord Deputy there, Thomas Wentworth, had antagonised the native Irish Catholics by repeated initiatives to confiscate their lands and he had also angered Roman Catholics by enforcing new taxes but denying them full rights as subjects. Modern historians have emphasised the lack of the inevitability of the wars, pointing out that all sides resorted to violence in a situation marked by mutual distrust
31.
New Model Army
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The New Model Army of England was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and was disbanded in 1660 after the Restoration. Its soldiers became full-time professionals, rather than part-time militia, to establish a professional officer corps, the armys leaders were prohibited from having seats in either the House of Lords or House of Commons. This was to encourage their separation from the political or religious factions among the Parliamentarians, many of its common soldiers therefore held Dissenting or radical views unique among English armies. Ultimately, the Armys Generals could rely both on the Armys internal discipline and its religious zeal and innate support for the Good Old Cause to maintain an essentially dictatorial rule. The New Model Army was formed as a result of dissatisfaction among Parliamentarians with the conduct of the Civil War in 1644, there was also increasing dissension among Parliaments generals in the field. Parliament suspected that many of its officers, who were mainly Presbyterians, were inclined to favour peace with King Charles. The Earl of Manchester was one of the prominent members favouring peace, Manchester and Cromwell clashed publicly over this issue several times. Parliaments senior commander, the Earl of Essex, was suspected of lack of determination and was on poor terms with his subordinates. The tensions among the Parliamentarian generals became a public argument after the Second Battle of Newbury. Some of them believed that King Charless army had escaped encirclement after the battle through inaction on the part of some commanders. In response, Parliament directed the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the body that oversaw the conduct of the War. On 19 December, the House of Commons passed the Self-denying Ordinance, originally a separate matter from the establishment of the New Model Army, it soon became intimately linked with it. Once the Self-denying Ordinance became Law, the Earls of Manchester and Essex, on 6 January 1645, the Committee of Both Kingdoms established the New Model Army, appointing Sir Thomas Fairfax as its Captain-General and Sir Philip Skippon as Sergeant-Major General of the Foot. The Self-denying Ordinance took time to pass the House of Lords, although Oliver Cromwell handed over his command of the Armys cavalry when the Ordinance was enacted, Fairfax requested his services when another officer wished to emigrate. Cromwell was commissioned Colonel of Vermuydens former regiment of horse, and was appointed Lieutenant General of the Horse in June, Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton were two of the only four exceptions to the Self-denying Ordinance, the other two being local commanders in Cheshire and North Wales. They were allowed to serve under a series of temporary commissions that were continually extended. They were intended to reduce the remaining Royalist garrisons in their areas, some of their regiments were reorganised and incorporated into the New Model Army during and after the Second English Civil War. Although the cavalry regiments were well up to strength and there was no shortage of volunteers
32.
James II of England
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James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland, the second surviving son of Charles I, he ascended the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II. Members of Britains Protestant political elite increasingly suspected him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and he was replaced by his eldest, Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. James made one attempt to recover his crowns from William. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamites at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and he lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV. James, the surviving son of King Charles I and his wife. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud and he was educated by private tutors, along with his brother, the future King Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. At the age of three, James was appointed Lord High Admiral, the position was honorary, but would become a substantive office after the Restoration. He was designated Duke of York at birth, invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642, as the Kings disputes with the English Parliament grew into the English Civil War, James stayed in Oxford, a Royalist stronghold. When the city surrendered after the siege of Oxford in 1646, in 1648, he escaped from the Palace, aided by Joseph Bampfield, and from there he went to The Hague in disguise. When Charles I was executed by the rebels in 1649, monarchists proclaimed Jamess older brother as Charles II of England, Charles II was recognised as king by the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of Ireland, and was crowned King of Scotland at Scone in 1651. Although he was proclaimed King in Jersey, Charles was unable to secure the crown of England and consequently fled to France, like his brother, James sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under Turenne against the Fronde, and later against their Spanish allies. In the French army James had his first true experience of battle where, according to one observer, he ventures himself, in the meantime, Charles was attempting to reclaim his throne, but France, although hosting the exiles, had allied itself with Oliver Cromwell. In 1656, Charles turned instead to Spain – an enemy of France – for support, in consequence, James was expelled from France and forced to leave Turennes army. James quarrelled with his brother over the choice of Spain over France. In 1659, the French and Spanish made peace, James, doubtful of his brothers chances of regaining the throne, considered taking a Spanish offer to be an admiral in their navy. Ultimately, he declined the position, by the year the situation in England had changed. After Richard Cromwells resignation as Lord Protector in 1659 and the subsequent collapse of the Commonwealth in 1660, although James was the heir presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, as Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children
33.
Glorious Revolution
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The crisis facing the king came to a head in 1688, with the birth of the kings son, James Francis Edward Stuart, on 10 June. This changed the line of succession by displacing the heiress presumptive with young James Francis Edward as heir apparent. The establishment of a Roman Catholic dynasty in the kingdoms now seemed likely, stadtholder William, the de facto head of state of the Dutch United Provinces, feared a Catholic Anglo–French alliance and had already been planning a military intervention in England. After consolidating political and financial support, William crossed the North Sea and English Channel with an invasion fleet in November 1688. After only two minor clashes between the two opposing armies in England, and anti-Catholic riots in several towns, Jamess regime collapsed, however, this was followed by the protracted Williamite War in Ireland and Dundees rising in Scotland. In Englands distant American colonies, the led to the collapse of the Dominion of New England. By threatening to withdraw his troops, William in February 1689 convinced a newly chosen Convention Parliament to make him, the Revolution permanently ended any chance of Catholicism becoming re-established in England. The Revolution led to limited tolerance for Nonconformist Protestants, although it would be some time before they had political rights. Internationally, the Revolution was related to the War of the Grand Alliance on mainland Europe and it has been seen as the last successful invasion of England. It ended all attempts by England in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century to subdue the Dutch Republic by military force, the expression Glorious Revolution was first used by John Hampden in late 1689, and is an expression that is still used by the British Parliament. The Glorious Revolution is also termed the Bloodless Revolution, albeit inaccurately. Jamess greatest political problem was his Catholicism, which left him alienated from both parties in England. The low church Whigs had failed in their attempt to pass the Exclusion Bill to exclude James from the throne between 1679 and 1681, and Jamess supporters were the high church Anglican Tories. In Scotland, his supporters in the Parliament of Scotland stepped up attempts to force the Covenanters to renounce their faith, when James inherited the English throne in 1685, he had much support in the Loyal Parliament, which was composed mostly of Tories. His Catholicism was of concern to many, but the fact that he had no son, Jamess attempt to relax the Penal Laws alienated his natural supporters, however, because the Tories viewed this as tantamount to disestablishment of the Church of England. The majority of Irish people backed James II for this reason, by allying himself with the Catholics, Dissenters, and Nonconformists, James hoped to build a coalition that would advance Catholic emancipation. In May 1686, James decided to obtain from the English courts of the law a ruling that affirmed his power to dispense with Acts of Parliament. He dismissed judges who disagreed with him on this matter as well as the Solicitor General Heneage Finch, eleven out of the twelve judges ruled in favour of dispensing power
34.
Xaver Hohenleiter
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Franz Xaver Hohenleiter was a notorious German criminal. As a leader of a band of robbers, he was active between 1817 and 1819 in the regions of the Kingdom of Württemberg, the Grand Duchy of Baden. The period towards the end of and immediately after the Napoleonic Wars resulted in the uprooting of a number of people. Furthermore, the year without a summer in 1816 caused famine and an increase in unrest, vagrancy, begging, robbery, Franz Xaver Hohenleiter was born to impoverished herders in Rommelsried, now part of the municipality of Kutzenhausen in the district of Augsburg, Bavaria. His father had been a soldier and became a herder after getting married, the family had a bad reputation and had been convicted of theft. As a child Franz Xaver Hohenleiter worked as a boy but managed to get one winter of schooling where he learnt to read printed texts, although with difficulties. During the following years he led a restless life and he wandered about in Austria, Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, Sigmaringen and Württemberg, begging or finding casual work as a farm hand. Xaver Hohenleiter is reported to have been over six foot tall and his body was muscular, and his posture and gait revealed the former soldier. His face was sun-tanned and he had very white teeth and his face was engulfed by thick sideburns and a goatee. His hair was black, dangling down in braids, hence his nickname Schwaaz Vere. He also wore finely engraved earrings, Xaver Hohenleiter was the leader of a gang of outlaws whose number fluctuated over time. She was part of a trio of women called Dreckete Partie, Michael Friedrich Ludwig Klump, Der schöne Fritz, was born in 1790 in Besenfeld and was associated with Theresia Jeppler, born in the Austrian coastal city of Trieste in 1788. Various other vagrants were part of the gang, each for a period of time before relocating, getting arrested or joining other criminal gangs. The crimes perpetrated by Hohenleiter and his gang were mostly arson, burglary, robbery, extortion and they predominantly targeted isolated farms, smallholdings, hamlets and mills, their loot mostly consisting of food, animals, money and clothes. After committing crimes, Hohenleiter and his companions retreated into the woods where they had a base near Ostrach. The first reported incidents attributed to Hohenleiter and his gang, was the torching of a close to the village of Betzenweiler on 18 December 1817. The same night they also attempted to burgle the mayor of Neufras house, however, they were disturbed and left without any loot. In 1818 the gang stole a pig, weighing three hundredweight, from an isolated farmstead near Offingen
35.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
36.
Robin Hood
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Robin Hood is a heroic outlaw in English folklore who, according to legend, was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. Traditionally depicted as being dressed in Lincoln green, he is portrayed as robbing from the rich. Robin Hood became a folk figure in the late-medieval period. Little John, Much the Millers Son and Will Scarlet all appear and this view first gained currency in the 16th century. It is not supported by the earliest ballads, the early compilation, A Gest of Robyn Hode, names the king as Edward, and while it does show Robin Hood accepting the Kings pardon, he later repudiates it and returns to the greenwood. The oldest surviving ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk, gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, the early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hoods social status, he is a yeoman. While the precise meaning of this changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders. The essence of it in the present context was neither a knight nor a peasant or husbonde, artisans were among those regarded as yeomen in the 14th century. As well as ballads, the legend was also transmitted by Robin Hood games or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and early modern May Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 in Exeter, the Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in the later 15th and 16th centuries. It is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar entered the legend through the May Games, the earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is the 15th century Robin Hood and the Monk. This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48, written after 1450, it contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from the Nottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local sheriff. The first printed version is A Gest of Robyn Hode, a collection of stories that attempts to unite the episodes into a single continuous narrative. After this comes Robin Hood and the Potter, contained in a manuscript of c, the Potter is markedly different in tone from The Monk, whereas the earlier tale is a thriller the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery and cunning rather than straightforward force. Other early texts are dramatic pieces, the earliest being the fragmentary Robyn Hod, each of these three ballads survived in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval legend. The story of Robins aid to the knight that takes up much of the Gest may be an example. The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations, of my good he shall haue some, Yf he be a por man
37.
Corsica
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Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 13 regions of France. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, southeast of the French mainland, a single chain of mountains make up two-thirds of the island. While being part of France, Corsica is also designated as a territorial collectivity by law, as a territorial collectivity, Corsica enjoys a greater degree of autonomy than other French regions, for example, the Corsican Assembly is able to exercise limited executive powers. The island formed a single department until it was split in 1975 into two departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, with its capital in Ajaccio, the prefecture city of Corse-du-Sud. Bastia, the city of Haute-Corse, is the second-largest settlement in Corsica. After being ruled by the Republic of Genoa since 1284, Corsica was briefly an independent Corsican Republic from 1755 until it was conquered by France in 1769. Due to Corsicas historical ties with the Italian peninsula, the island retains to this day many elements of the culture of Italy, the native Corsican language, whose northern variant is closely related to the Italian language, is recognised as a regional language by the French government. This Mediterranean island was ruled by various nations over the course of history but had several periods of independence. Napoleon was born in 1769 in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio and his ancestral home, Maison Bonaparte, is today used as a museum. The origin of the name Corsica is subject to much debate, to the Ancient Greeks it was known as Kalliste, Corsis, Cyrnos, Cernealis, or Cirné. Of these Cyrnos, Cernealis, or Cirné derive from a corruption of the most ancient Greek name of the island, Σειρηνούσσαι, the claim that latter Greek names are based on the Phoenician word for peninsula are highly unlikely. Corsica has been occupied continuously since the Mesolithic era and it acquired an indigenous population that was influential in the Mediterranean during its long prehistory. The Romans, who built a colony in Aléria, considered Corsica as one of the most backward regions of the Roman world, the island produced sheep, honey, resin and wax, and exported many slaves, not well considered because of their fierce and rebellious character. Moreover, it was known for its wines, exported to Rome. Administratively, the island was divided in pagi, which in the Middle Ages became the pievi, Corsica was integrated by Emperor Diocletian in Roman Italy. In the 5th century, the half of the Roman Empire collapsed, and the island was invaded by the Vandals. Briefly recovered by the Byzantines, it became part of the Kingdom of the Lombards—this made it a dependency of the March of Tuscany. Pepin the Short, king of the Franks and Charlemagnes father, expelled the Lombards, in the first quarter of the 11th century, Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from the threat of Arab invasion
38.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
39.
Bushranger
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By the 1820s, the term bushranger had evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up robbery under arms as a way of life, using the bush as their base. Bushranging thrived during the rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner. In other infamous cases, such as that of Dan Morgan, the Clarke brothers, the number of bushrangers declined due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such as telegraphy. Kellys capture and execution in 1880 effectively represented the end of the bushranging era, bushranging exerted a powerful influence in Australia, lasting for almost a century and covering much of the continent. Its origins in a convict system bred a kind of desperado. Native-born bushrangers also expressed nascent Australian nationalist views and are recognised as the first distinctively Australian characters to gain general recognition, as such, many bushrangers became folk heroes and symbols of rebellion against the authorities, admired for their bravery, rough chivalry and colourful personalities. For these and other reasons, attitudes to bushrangers in Australia are at times complex, from this time onwards, the term was used to denote criminals who attacked people on the roads or in the bush. John Bigge described bushranging in 1821 as absconding in the woods and living upon plunder, charles Darwin likewise recorded in 1835 that a bushranger was an open villain who subsists by highway robbery, and will sooner be killed than taken alive. Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters, bushranging began soon after British colonisation with the establishment of Sydney, New South Wales as a penal colony in 1788. The majority of early bushrangers were convicts who had escaped prison and these bushrangers, also known as bolters, preferred the hazards of wild, unexplored bushland surrounding Sydney to the deprivation and brutality of convict life. The first bushranger gang, led by African convict John Caesar, robbed settlers for food, Aboriginal trackers would play a significant role in the hunt for bushrangers. Colonel Godfrey Mundy described convict bushrangers as desperate, hopeless, fearless, rendered so, perhaps, by the tyranny of a gaoler, of an overseer, or of a master to whom he has been assigned. Liberty or Death. was the cry of convict bushrangers, and in numbers they roamed beyond Sydney, some hoping to reach China. Bolters such as the Norfolk Island mutineers seized boats and set sail for foreign lands, others attempted to inspire an overhaul of the convict system, or simply sought revenge on their captors. This latter desire found expression in the convict ballad Jim Jones at Botany Bay, in which Jones, Donahue was the most notorious bushranger of the 1820s, terrorising settlements outside Sydney from 1827 until he was fatally shot by a trooper in 1830. That same year, west of the Blue Mountains, brutalised convict Ralph Entwistle sparked a bushranging insurgency known as the Bathurst Rebellion and he and his gang raided farms, liberating assigned convicts by force in the process, and within a month, his personal army numbered 130 bushrangers. Following battles with vigilante posses, mounted policemen and soldiers of the 39th Regiment of Foot, he, convict bushrangers were particularly prevalent in the penal colony of Van Diemens Land, established in 1803. He was killed by soldiers in 1818, other notorious Vandemonian bolters include the cannibal serial killers Thomas Jeffries and Alexander Pearce
40.
Apennine Mountains
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The Apennines or Apennine Mountains are a mountain range consisting of parallel smaller chains extending c. 1,200 km along the length of peninsular Italy. In the northwest they join with the Ligurian Alps at Altare, in the southwest they end at Reggio di Calabria, the coastal city at the tip of the peninsula. The system forms an arc enclosing the east side of the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas, the name originally applied to the north Apennines. However, historical linguists have never found a derivation with which they are universally comfortable, wilhelm Deecke said. its etymology is doubtful but some derive it from the Ligurian-Celtish Pen or Ben, which means mountain peak. The mountains lend their name to the Apennine peninsula, which forms the part of Italy. They are mostly verdant, although one side of the highest peak, Corno Grande is partially covered by Calderone glacier and it has been receding since 1794. The eastern slopes down to the Adriatic Sea are steep, while the western slopes form foothills on which most of peninsular Italys cities are located. The mountains tend to be named from the province or provinces in which they are located, for example, as the provincial borders have not always been stable, this practice has resulted in some confusion about exactly where the montane borders are. Often but not always a feature can be found that lends itself to being a border. The Apennines are divided into three sectors, northern, central, and southern, a number of long hiking trails wind through the Apennines. Of note is European walking route E1 coming from northern Europe and traversing the lengths of the northern, the Grand Italian Trail begins in Trieste and after winding through the Alpine arc traverses the entire Apennine system, Sicily and Sardinia. The northern Apennines consist of three sub-chains, the Ligurian, Tuscan-Emilian, and Umbrian Apennines, the Ligurian Apennines border the Ligurian Sea in the Gulf of Genoa, from about Savona below the upper Bormida River valley to about La Spezia below the upper Magra River valley. The range follows the Gulf of Genoa separating it from the upper Po Valley, the northwestern border follows the line of the Bormida River to Acqui Terme. There the river continues northeast to Alessandria in the Po Valley, the upper Bormida can be reached by a number of roads proceeding inland at a right angle to the coast southwest of Savona, the chief one being the Autostrada Torino-Savona. They ascend to the Bocchetta di Altare, sometimes called Colle di Cadibona,436 m, a bronze plaque fixed to a stone marks the top of the pass. In the vicinity are fragments of the old road and three ruins of former fortifications, at Carcare, the main roads connect with the upper Bormida valley before turning west. The Scrivia, the Trebbia and the Taro, tributaries of the Po River, the range contains dozens of peaks. Toward the southern end the Aveto Natural Regional Park includes Monte Penna, nearby is the highest point of Ligurian Apennines, Monte Maggiorasca at 1,780 m
41.
William III of England
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It is a coincidence that his regnal number was the same for both Orange and England. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II and he is informally known by sections of the population in Northern Ireland and Scotland as King Billy. William inherited the principality of Orange from his father, William II and his mother Mary, Princess Royal, was the daughter of King Charles I of England. In 1677, he married his fifteen-year-old first cousin, Mary, a Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic king of France, Louis XIV, in coalition with Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith, in 1685, his Catholic father-in-law, James, Duke of York, became king of England, Ireland and Scotland. Jamess reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, William, supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. On 5 November 1688, he landed at the southern English port of Brixham, James was deposed and William and Mary became joint sovereigns in his place. They reigned together until her death on 28 December 1694, after which William ruled as sole monarch, Williams reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him to take the British crowns when many were fearful of a revival of Catholicism under James. Williams victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is still commemorated by the Orange Order and his reign in Britain marked the beginning of the transition from the personal rule of the Stuarts to the more Parliament-centred rule of the House of Hanover. William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650, baptised William Henry, he was the only child of stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal. Mary was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland, eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox, thus William was the Sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth. Immediately, a conflict ensued between his mother the Princess Royal and William IIs mother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William or Willem to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had appointed his wife as his sons guardian in his will, however, Williams mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society. Williams education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard, from April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius. The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince dOrange, in these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange. From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius. While residing in the Prinsenhof at Delft, William had a personal retinue including Hans Willem Bentinck, and a new governor, Frederick Nassau de Zuylenstein
42.
Epping Forest
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Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland near Epping, straddling the border between Greater London and Essex. It is a royal forest, and is managed by the City of London Corporation. It covers 2,476 hectares and contains areas of woodland, grassland, heath, rivers, bogs and ponds, and most of it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. The forest lies on a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Lea and Roding, its elevation and thin gravelly soil historically made it unsuitable for agriculture and it gives its name to the Epping Forest local government district which covers part of it. The name Epping Forest was first recorded in the 17th century, the area which became known as Waltham, and then Epping Forest has been continuously forested since Neolithic times. The former lime/linden Tilia-dominated woodland was permanently altered during Saxon times by cutting of trees. Todays beech-birch and oak-hornbeam-dominated forest was the result of partial forest clearance in Saxon times, the forest is thought to have been given legal status as a royal forest by Henry II in the 12th century. This status allowed commoners to use the forest to gather wood and foodstuffs, and to graze livestock and turn out pigs for mast, but only the king was allowed to hunt there. Forest in the sense of royal forest meant an area of land reserved for royal hunting, where the forest laws applied. In Tudor times, Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have hunted in the forest, in 1543, Henry commissioned a building, known as Great Standing, from which to view the chase at Chingford. The building was renovated in 1589 for Queen Elizabeth I and can still be today in Chingford. The building is now known as Queen Elizabeths Hunting Lodge, and is open to the public, there is another hunt standing, which now forms the core of the Forest HQ at the Warren, Loughton. There were disputes between landowners and commoners, one group of commoners was led by Thomas Willingale who on behalf of the villagers of Loughton continued to lop the trees after the Lord of the Manor had enclosed 550 hectares of forest in Loughton. This led to an injunction against further enclosures, the Epping Forest Act 1878 was passed, saving the forest from enclosure, and halting the shrinkage of the forest that this had caused. Epping Forest ceased to be a royal forest and was placed in the care of the City of London Corporation who act as Conservators, in addition, the Crowns right to venison was terminated, and pollarding was no longer allowed, although grazing rights continued. This act laid down a stipulation that the Conservators shall at all times keep Epping Forest unenclosed and unbuilt on as a space for the recreation. In compensation for the loss of lopping rights, Lopping Hall in Loughton was built as a community building, the City of London Corporation still manages Epping Forest in strict conformity with the Epping Forest Act. This care is funded from Citys Cash, the funds of the Corporation rather than any money for its upkeep coming from local rates or taxes
Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Möens, William John Charles". Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
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