1.
M67 grenade
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The M67 grenade is a fragmentation hand grenade used by the United States military. The M67 hand grenade has an effective casualty radius of about 15 meters, the M67 grenade has a spherical steel body that contains 6.5 oz of composition B explosive. It uses the M213 pyrotechnic delay fuze, the M67 grenade weighs 14 oz in total and has a safety clip to prevent the safety pin on the grenade from being pulled accidentally. The safety pin prevents the safety lever, or spoon on the grenade from moving and releasing the striker which initiates the grenades fuze assembly. The M67 can be thrown 30 to 35 metres by the average male soldier and its fuze delays detonation between 4 and 5 seconds after the spoon is released. Steel fragments are provided by the body and produce an injury radius of 15 metres, with a fatality radius of 5 metres. To deploy the M67 grenade, the user first removes the safety clip from the grenade, next, the grenades pull ring is grasped with the non-throwing hand while maintaining a firm grasp on the body of the grenade and safety lever with the throwing hand. The pull ring and safety pin assembly are fitted so that a right-handed thrower can grasp the grenade with the assembly on top. A left-handed thrower should grasp the grenade with the assembly on the bottom. The user then pulls the grenade and pull ring assembly apart, at this time, the fuse remains unfired, as the throwing hands thumb is holding the safety lever down. When the grenade is thrown, the safety lever will fly free, when the delay element has burned approximately 4 to 5 seconds it will initiate the grenades explosive filler, causing a large number of metal fragments to be projected at high velocities. The thrower and friendly personnel in the vicinity should take cover to protect themselves from unintended injury, the M33 was the original successor to the M26 fragmentation grenade. It was essentially identical to the M67, but lacked the safety clip that is fitted to the safety lever of the M67 and this is a variant of the M67 fitted with the M217 impact fuze and a safety clip on the safety lever. The M68 has the same statistics and markings as the M67 except it has a red-painted fuze, the M69 grenade is used for grenade training to safely simulate the M67 grenade. The fuze screws into the body, and is replaceable after use, the simulator produces a report and small puff of white smoke when properly employed. The M69 has a lever and a blue body. This is to indicate that it is a practice grenade rather than a live fragmentation grenade like the M33 or M67. Argentina, Used in the Falklands War by the Argentine forces, United States hand grenades FAS—Fact sheet Additional photos of the M67
2.
Grenade
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A grenade is a small bomb typically thrown by hand. A variety of hand grenades exist, the most common being explosive grenades designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time, Grenadiers were originally soldiers who specialized in throwing grenades. The word grenade derives from the French word for an explosive shell. Its first use in English dates from the 1590s and it is likely derived from Old French pomegranate and influenced by Spanish granada, as the fragmenting bomb is reminiscent of the many-seeded fruit. Rudimentary incendiary grenades appeared in the Eastern Roman Empire, not long after the reign of Leo III. Byzantine soldiers learned that Greek fire, a Byzantine invention of the century, could not only be thrown by flamethrowers at the enemy. The use of Greek fire spread to Muslim armies in the Near East, in China, during the Song Dynasty, weapons known as Zhen Tian Lei were created when Chinese soldiers packed gunpowder into ceramic or metal containers. In 1044, a military book Wujing Zongyao described various gunpowder recipes in which one can find, according to Joseph Needham, the Chinese also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed-out cannonball shells with gunpowder. The mid-14th-century book Huolongjing, written by Jiao Yu, recorded an earlier Song-era cast iron cannon known as the flying-cloud thunderclap cannon, the manuscript stated that, The shells are made of cast iron, as large as a bowl and shaped like a ball. Inside they contain half a pound of divine fire and they are sent flying towards the enemy camp from an eruptor, and when they get there a sound like a thunder-clap is heard, and flashes of light appear. If ten of these shells are fired successfully into the enemy camp, the first cast iron bombshells and grenades did not appear in Europe until 1467. A hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt. Lots of the grenades obtained their original blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentially dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. In 1643, it is possible that Grenados were thrown amongst the Welsh at Holt Bridge during the English Civil War and these grenades were not very effective and, as a result, saw little use. Improvised grenades were used from the mid-19th century, being especially useful in trench warfare. In the American Civil War, both sides used hand grenades equipped with a plunger that detonated the device on impact, the Union relied on experimental Ketchum Grenades, which had a tail to ensure that the nose would strike the target and start the fuse. The Confederacy used spherical hand grenades that weighed about six pounds and they also used Rains and Adams grenades, which were similar to the Ketchum in appearance and mechanism. Improvised hand grenades were used to great effect by the Russian defenders of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War
3.
Weapon
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A weapon, arm, or armament is any device used with intent to inflict damage or harm to living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, self-defense. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, something that has been re-purposed, converted, or enhanced to become a weapon of war is termed weaponized, such as a weaponized virus or weaponized lasers. The use of objects as weapons has been observed among chimpanzees, however, this can not be confirmed using physical evidence because wooden clubs, spears, and unshaped stones would not have left an unambiguous record. The earliest unambiguous weapons to be found are the Schöninger Speere, the first defensive structures and fortifications appeared in the Bronze Age, indicating an increased need for security. Weapons designed to breach fortifications followed soon after, for example the battering ram was in use by 2500 BC, although early Iron Age swords were not superior to their bronze predecessors, once iron-working developed, around 1300 BC in Greece Alex Webb, Metalworking in Ancient Greece. Domestication of the horse and widespread use of spoked wheels by ca.2000 BC, led to the light, the mobility provided by chariots were important during this era. Spoke-wheeled chariot usage peaked around 1300 BC and then declined, ceasing to be militarily relevant by the 4th century BC. Cavalry developed once horses were bred to support the weight of a man, the horse extended the range and increased the speed of attacks. Ships built as weapons or warships such as the trireme were in use by the 7th century BC and these ships were eventually replaced by larger ships by the 4th century BC. European warfare during the Post-classical history was dominated by groups of knights supported by massed infantry. They were involved in combat and sieges which involved various siege weapons. Knights on horseback developed tactics for charging with lances providing an impact on the enemy formations, whereas infantry, in the age before structured formations, relied on cheap, sturdy weapons such as spears and billhooks in close combat and bows from a distance. As armies became more professional, their equipment was standardized and infantry transitioned to pikes, pikes are normally seven to eight feet in length, in conjunction with smaller side-arms. In Eastern and Middle Eastern warfare, similar tactics were developed independent of European influences, the introduction of gunpowder from the Far East at the end of this period revolutionized warfare. Formations of musketeers, protected by pikemen came to dominate open battles, the European Renaissance marked the beginning of the implementation of firearms in western warfare. Guns and rockets were introduced to the battlefield, firearms are qualitatively different from earlier weapons because they release energy from combustible propellants such as gunpowder, rather than from a counter-weight or spring. This energy is released very rapidly and can be replicated without much effort by the user, therefore even early firearms such as the arquebus were much more powerful than human-powered weapons. During the U. S. Civil War various technologies including the gun and ironclad warship emerged that would be recognizable and useful military weapons today
4.
Fragmentation (weaponry)
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Fragmentation is the process by which the casing of an artillery shell, bomb, grenade, etc. is shattered by the detonation of the explosive filler. The correct technical terminology of these pieces is fragmentation – although shards or splinters can be used for non-preformed fragments, preformed fragments can be of various shapes and size and are normally held rigidly within some form of matrix or body until the high explosive filling is detonated. These casing pieces are often referred to as shrapnel, though this is the result of the original term being culturally genericized due to its uniquely memorable phonology. The use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, the fragmentation bombs were filled with iron pellets and pieces of broken porcelain. Once the bomb explodes, the resulting shrapnel is capable of piercing the skin, for this bomb you take tung oil, yin hsiu, salammoniac, chin chih, scallion juice, and heat them so as to coat a lot of iron pellets and bits of broken porcelain. Then fill in to a case of cast iron making a fragmentation bomb, when it bursts, it breaks into pieces that wound the skin and break the bones and blinds their eyes. The modern fragmentation grenade was developed during the 20th century, the Mills bomb, first adopted in 1915 by the British army, is an early fragmentation grenade used in World War I. The Mk 2 grenade was a fragmentation grenade adopted by the American military based on the Mills bomb, the term shrapnel is often incorrectly used to refer to fragments produced by any explosive weapon. However, the shrapnel shell predates the modern high-explosive shell and operates via a different process. A shrapnel shell consists of a shell casing filled with steel or lead balls suspended in a resin matrix, when the projectile is fired, it travels a pre-set distance along a ballistic trajectory before the fuse ignites a relatively weak secondary charge in the base of the shell. Since the cone of impact is small, shrapnel shells needed to be carefully sighted. Detonating on impact after being fired, whereas a shrapnel shell would ineffectually fire its contents only a few feet into the air in a cone-shaped pattern, another artillery round very similar to shrapnel is canister shot, sometimes called case shot. Canister shot is a sheet metal casing filled with steel or lead balls. Upon firing, the casing fractures as it exits the muzzle of the gun and dispenses the balls from the gun’s muzzle much like a large shotgun
5.
Mechanical advantage
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Mechanical advantage is a measure of the force amplification achieved by using a tool, mechanical device or machine system. Ideally, the device preserves the power and simply trades off forces against movement to obtain a desired amplification in the output force. The model for this is the law of the lever, machine components designed to manage forces and movement in this way are called mechanisms. An ideal mechanism transmits power without adding to or subtracting from it and this means the ideal mechanism does not include a power source, is frictionless, and is constructed from rigid bodies that do not deflect or wear. The lever operates by applying forces at different distances from the fulcrum, as the lever pivots on the fulcrum, points farther from this pivot move faster than points closer to the pivot. The power into and out of the lever is the same, power is the product of force and velocity, so forces applied to points farther from the pivot must be less than when applied to points closer in. This is the law of the lever, which was proven by Archimedes using geometric reasoning, if the distance from the fulcrum to the input force is less than from the fulcrum to the output force, then the lever reduces the input force. The use of velocity in the analysis of a lever is an application of the principle of virtual work. The requirement for power input to a mechanism to equal power output provides a simple way to compute mechanical advantage from the input-output speed ratio of the system. The power input to a train with a torque TA applied to the drive pulley which rotates at an angular velocity of ωA is P=TAωA. This shows that for a mechanism the input-output speed ratio equals the mechanical advantage of the system. This applies to all mechanical systems ranging from robots to linkages, gear teeth are designed so that the number of teeth on a gear is proportional to the radius of its pitch circle, and so that the pitch circles of meshing gears roll on each other without slipping. The speed ratio for a pair of meshing gears can be computed from ratio of the radii of the pitch circles, where NA is the number of teeth on the input gear and NB is the number of teeth on the output gear. The mechanical advantage of a pair of meshing gears for which the gear has NA teeth. This shows that if the output gear GB has more teeth than the input gear GA, and, if the output gear has fewer teeth than the input gear, then the gear train reduces the input torque. If the output gear of a gear train rotates more slowly than the input gear, in this case, because the output gear must have more teeth than the input gear, the speed reducer will amplify the input torque. Mechanisms consisting of two connected by a chain, or two pulleys connected by a belt are designed to provide a specific mechanical advantage in power transmission systems. Where NA is the number of teeth on the input sprocket, for a toothed belt drive, the number of teeth on the sprocket can be used
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
8.
Pomegranate
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The pomegranate, botanical name Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree in the family Lythraceae that grows between 5 and 8 m tall. The fruit is typically in season in the Northern Hemisphere from September to February, as intact arils or juice, pomegranates are used in baking, cooking, juice blends, meal garnishes, smoothies, and alcoholic beverages, such as cocktails and wine. The pomegranate originated in the region of modern-day Iran, and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region and it was introduced into Spanish America in the late 16th century and California, by Spanish settlers, in 1769. It is also cultivated in parts of Arizona and California, in recent years, it has become more common in the commercial markets of Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The name pomegranate derives from medieval Latin pōmum apple and grānātum seeded, possibly stemming from the old French word for the fruit, pomme-grenade, the pomegranate was known in early English as apple of Grenada—a term which today survives only in heraldic blazons. This is a folk etymology, confusing the Latin granatus with the name of the Spanish city of Granada, garnet derives from Old French grenat by metathesis, from Medieval Latin granatum as used in a different meaning of a dark red color. This derivation may have originated from pomum granatum, describing the color of pomegranate pulp, or from granum, referring to red dye, the French term for pomegranate, grenade, has given its name to the military grenade. A shrub or small tree growing 6 to 10 m high, P. granatum leaves are opposite or subopposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, 3–7 cm long and 2 cm broad. The flowers are red and 3 cm in diameter, with three to seven petals. Some fruitless varieties are grown for the flowers alone, the edible fruit is a berry, intermediate in size between a lemon and a grapefruit, 5–12 cm in diameter with a rounded shape and thick, reddish skin. The number of seeds in a pomegranate can vary from 200 to about 1400, each seed has a surrounding water-laden pulp — the edible sarcotesta that forms from the seed coat — ranging in color from white to deep red or purple. The seeds are exarillate, i. e. unlike some species in the order, Myrtales. The sarcotesta of pomegranate seeds consists of cells derived from the integument. The seeds are embedded in a white, spongy, astringent membrane, P. granatum is grown for its fruit crop, and as ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and gardens. Mature specimens can develop sculptural twisted-bark multiple trunks and an overall form. Pomegranates are drought-tolerant, and can be grown in dry areas with either a Mediterranean winter rainfall climate or in summer rainfall climates, in wetter areas, they can be prone to root decay from fungal diseases. They can be tolerant of moderate frost, down to about −12 °C, Pomegranate grows easily from seed, but is commonly propagated from 25 to 50 cm hardwood cuttings to avoid the genetic variation of seedlings. Air layering is also an option for propagation, but grafting fails, P. granatum var. nana is a dwarf variety of P. granatum popularly planted as an ornamental plant in gardens and larger containers, and used as a bonsai specimen tree
9.
Greek fire
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Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantines typically used it in battles to great effect. The impression made by Greek fire on the western European Crusaders was such that the name was applied to any sort of weapon, including those used by Arabs, the Chinese. These, however, were different mixtures and not the Byzantine formula, Byzantine use of incendiary mixtures was distinguished by the use of pressurized nozzles or siphōn to project the liquid onto the enemy. The composition of Greek fire is unknown and it remains a matter of speculation and debate, with various proposals including combinations of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter. Incendiary and flaming weapons were used in warfare for centuries prior to the invention of Greek fire and they included a number of sulfur-, petroleum-, and bitumen-based mixtures. Incendiary arrows and pots containing combustible substances were used as early as the 9th century BC by the Assyrians and were used in the Greco-Roman world as well. Furthermore, Thucydides mentions that in the siege of Delium in 424 BC a long tube on wheels was used which blew flames forward using a large bellows, Greek fire proper, however, was developed in c. He had devised a sea fire which ignited the Arab ships, thus it was that the Romans returned with victory and discovered the sea fire. If this is not due to confusion of the events of the siege. Indeed, the 11th-century chronicler George Kedrenos records that Kallinikos came from Heliopolis in Egypt, within a generation, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had fallen to the Arabs, who in c. 672 set out to conquer the imperial capital of Constantinople. Greek fire was used to great effect against the Muslim fleets, helping to repel the Muslims at the first and second Arab sieges of the city. Utilisation of the substance was prominent in Byzantine civil wars, chiefly the revolt of the fleets in 727. In both cases, the fleets were defeated by the Constantinopolitan Imperial Fleet through the use of Greek fire. The importance placed on Greek fire during the Empires struggle against the Arabs would lead to its discovery being ascribed to divine intervention. As a warning, he adds that one official, who was bribed into handing some of it over to the Empires enemies, was struck down by a flame from heaven as he was about to enter a church. This, however, was not enough to allow their enemies to copy it. Greek fire continued to be mentioned during the 12th century, however, although the use of hastily improvised fireships is mentioned during the 1203 siege of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, no report confirms the use of the actual Greek fire
10.
Caltrop
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A caltrop is an antipersonnel weapon made up of two or more sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base. Caltrops were part of defenses that served to slow the advance of horses, war elephants and they were particularly effective against the soft feet of camels. In more modern times, caltrops are still effective when used against wheeled vehicles with pneumatic tires, the modern name caltrop is derived from the Latin calcitrapa, such as in the French usage chausse-trape. The synonymous Latin word tribulus gave rise to the modern Latin name of a plant, Tribulus terrestris, whose spiked seed case can injure feet and this plant can also be compared to the starthistle, Centaurea calcitrapa, which is sometimes referred to as the caltrop. A water plant with similarly-shaped spiked seeds is called the water caltrop, according to Quintus Curtius, iron caltrops were used as early as 331 BC by Darius III against Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela in Persia. They were known to the Romans as tribulus or sometimes as murex ferreus and they were also used in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. As a chariot of this sort does not always meet with plain and level ground, and if one of the horses be either killed or wounded, it falls into the enemys hands. A caltrop is a composed of four spikes or points arranged so that in whatever manner it is thrown on the ground. It amounts to a widely spread iron tripod about three inches long with another leg sticking vertically upward, so that however you throw it down, there is no doubt that the most inscrutable Indian treading on a caltrop would be shocked into noisy comment. The fact that one has been found would seem to suggest that they were used little. The Japanese version of the caltrop is called makibishi, makibishi were sharp spiked objects that were used in feudal Japan to slow pursuers and also were used in the defence of samurai fortifications. Iron makibishi were called tetsubishi, while the makibishi made from the seed pod of the water chestnut. Both types of makibishi could penetrate the thin soles of shoes, such as the waraji sandals, punji sticks perform a similar role to caltrops. These are sharpened sticks placed vertically in the ground and their use in modern times targets the body and limbs of a falling victim by means of a pit or tripwire. During the Second World War, large caltrop-shaped objects made from reinforced concrete were used as anti-tank devices, much more common were concrete devices called dragons teeth, which were designed to wedge into tank treads. Large ones weighing over 1 tonne are still used defensively by the army to deny access to wheeled vehicles, as dragons teeth are immobile, the analogy with the caltrop is inexact. These were used by the Germans to defend beaches at Normandy, tetrapods are concrete blocks shaped like caltrops, which interlock when piled up. They are used in the construction of breakwaters and other sea defences, as they have found to let the water pass through them
11.
Old Parliament House, Athens
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The Old Parliament building at Stadiou Street in Athens, housed the Greek Parliament between 1875 and 1935. It now houses the countrys National Historical Museum, the site was occupied originally by the house of the Athenian magnate and politician, Alexandros Kontostavlos. After Athens became the capital of Greece in 1833, King Otto selected it as temporary residence, pending the construction of the Royal Palace. In 1835, a dance and banquet hall was added to the house, and after the 1843 Revolution, which forced King Otto to grant a constitution. In October 1854, however, the burned down in a fire. Construction of a new building began in August 1858, with the foundation laid by Queen Amalia. During the interim, Parliament had been housed on the back of the square in a building, hastily erected in 1863. The Hellenic Parliament would remain in the building from 1875 until its move to its current location in the Old Palace in 1935, after the parliament was moved, the building housed the Ministry of Justice. In 1961 the building underwent extensive restoration and became the seat of the National History Museum, in front of the building stands a large bronze equestrian statue of General Theodoros Kolokotronis. The bronze statue of the commander in chief of the Revolution of 1821 is a work of sculptor Lazaros Sochos, and was originally placed at the beginning of Kolokotronis street. It was transferred to its current location in 1954, during the restoration of the Old Parliament Building and its pedestal features bronze reliefs of the Battle of Dervenakia, and of a session of the Peloponnesian Senate during the Greek Revolution. The statue faces Stadiou Street, Kolokotronis turns his head towards the Parliament House and his hand is pointing the way where, during the 19th century. According to a joke, the hero of the Revolution was showing parliamentarians that, because of their subservience to the King. The museum houses the collection of the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece and it is the oldest collection of its kind in Greece, and prior to its transfer to the Old Parliament, was housed in the main building of the National Technical University. The collection is displayed in the corridors and rooms of the building, Old Parliament, From Action to Memory, from the Foundation of the Hellenic World Official site of the museum Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs
12.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
13.
Ingolstadt
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Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the River Danube, in the centre of Bavaria, as of 31 December 2014, Ingolstadt had 131,002 citizens. It is part of the Munich Metropolitan Area, which has a population of more than 5 million. The Illuminati, a Bavarian secret society, was founded in Ingolstadt in the late 18th century, Ingolstadt is a setting in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, where the scientist Victor Frankenstein creates his monster. It is the site of the headquarters of the German automobile manufacturer Audi, defence aircraft manufacturer Airbus, Ingolstadt Central Station has been connected to Nuremberg by a high-speed rail link since May 2006. Ingolstadt also has a passenger station at Ingolstadt Nord. Covering an urban area of 133.35 square kilometres, Ingolstadt is geographically Bavarias fourth-largest city after Munich, at its largest point the city is about 18 km from east to west and from north to south about 15 km. The city boundary has a length of 70 km, the city boundary is about 14 km away from the geographic centre of Bavaria in Kipfenberg. The old town is approximately 374 metres above sea level and the highest point, the lowest point of the Schutter confluence with the Danube is at 362 m above sea level. Ingolstadt uses Central European Time as throughout Germany, the time lag is 14 minutes. The city is expanding at the northern and southern banks of the Danube in a flat bowl. The Ingolstadt basin borders the Jura foothills, located south and is to the north of the Donau-Isar-Hügelland, in the southwest is the Donaumoos while in the east the lowland forests of the Danube reach into the urban area. It is the second largest hardwood floodplain on the Danube, the Sandrach, the former Southern main branch of the Danube, partly forms the Southern city border. In the north, the Schutter flows through from the west reaching the Danube near to the Altstadt, Ingolstadt was first mentioned in a document of Charlemagne on 6 February 806 as Ingoldes stat, the place of Ingold. Circa 1250, Ingolstadt was granted city status, Ingolstadt was the capital of the Duchy of Bavaria-Ingolstadt between 1392 and 1447. Ingolstadt was then united with Bavaria-Landshut, Louis VII, Duke of Bavaria ordered the building of the New Castle, whose form was strongly influenced by French Gothic architecture. In 1472 Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria founded the University of Ingolstadt which became the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, in 1800 it was moved to Landshut and eventually to Munich. The University of Ingolstadt was an important defender of the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation era, Ingolstadt is where William IV, Duke of Bavaria wrote and signed the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot in 1516
14.
Early thermal weapons
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Incendiary devices were frequently used as projectiles during warfare, particularly during sieges and naval battles, some substances were boiled or heated to inflict damage by scalding or burning. Other substances relied on their properties to inflict burns or damage. These weapons or devices could be used by individuals, manipulated by war machines, the simplest and most common thermal projectiles were boiling water and hot sand, which could be poured over attacking personnel. Other anti-personnel weapons included the use of hot pitch, oil, resin, animal fat, smoke was used to confuse or drive off attackers. Substances such as quicklime and sulfur could be toxic and blinding, fire and incendiary weapons were used against enemy structures and territory, as well as personnel, sometimes on a massive scale. Large tracts of land, towns and villages were frequently ignited as part of a scorched earth strategy, incendiary mixtures, such as the petroleum-based Greek fire, could be launched by throwing machines or administered through a siphon. Sulfur- and oil-soaked materials were sometimes ignited and thrown at the enemy, or attached to spears, arrow and bolts, some siege techniques—such as mining and boring&mash, relied on combustibles and fire to complete the collapse of walls and structures. Towards the latter part of the period, gunpowder was invented, which increased the sophistication of the weapons, and led to the eventual development of the cannon and other firearms. Development of the weapons has continued ever since, with modern war weapons such as napalm, flame throwers. Fire-raising and other destructive strategies can still be seen in modern strategic bombing, the destruction of enemy possessions and territory was a fundamental strategy of war, serving the dual purpose of punishment and deprivation of resources. Until the 5th century BC, the Greeks had little expertise in warfare and relied on a strategy of devastation to draw the enemy out, they destroyed crops. Centuries later, the Byzantines recommended this strategy, even though they had developed siege technology, fire was the easiest way of harrying and destroying territories, and could be done easily and quickly by small forces. King Edward II of England pursued one raiding party in 1327 by following the lights of burning villages, one estimate records the destruction of over 2000 villages and castles during one raid in 1339. As well as causing the destruction of lands, foods and belongings, 13th century Mongol armies regularly sent out small detachments from their main forces to start grass fires and fire settlements as diversions. Devastation by fire was not only used as a tactic, some countries and armies employed scorched earth policies on their own land to deprive invading armies of all food. The English ran out of food and had to abandon the campaign, kitchener employed scorched earth tactics to subdue Boer forces in South Africa when three years of warfare had resulted in a stalemate. Such acts of aggression were not limited to wars against territorial enemies, Alexander the Great suppressed a revolt in Thebes, Greece in 335 BC, after which he ordered the city to be torched and laid waste. Alexander ordered a similar arson at Persepolis in 330 BC and it was a policy which was repeated throughout the period
15.
History of gunpowder
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Gunpowder is the first physical explosive and propellant. Before its invention, many incendiary and burning devices had been used, the invention of gunpowder is usually attributed to experimentation in Chinese alchemy by Taoists in the pursuit of immortality, and is popularly listed as one of the Four Great Inventions of China. It was invented during the late Tang dynasty but the earliest record of a written formula appeared in the Song dynasty. It was employed in warfare to some effect from at least the 12th century in such as fire arrows, bombs. While the fire lance was eventually supplanted by the gun, other weapons such as rockets continued to see use in China, Korea, India. Bombs too never ceased to develop and continued to progress into the day as grenades, mines. Gunpowder can also be used for purposes such as fireworks for entertainment. The evolution of guns led to the development of artillery during the 15th century, Firearms came to dominate early modern warfare in Europe by the 17th century. The use of technology also spread throughout the Islamic world and to India, Korea. The so-called Gunpowder Empires of the modern period consisted of the Mughal Empire, Safavid Empire. The use of gunpowder in warfare during the course of the 19th century diminished due to the invention of smokeless powder, Gunpowder is often referred to today as black powder to distinguish it from the propellant used in contemporary firearms. Although it is impossible to know if he was referring to gunpowder. The next possible reference to gunpowder appeared in the year 300 during the Jin dynasty, a Taoist philosopher by the name of Ge Hong wrote down the ingredients of gunpowder in his surviving works, collectively known as the Baopuzi. In 492, Taoist alchemists had noted that saltpeter, one of the most important ingredients in gunpowder, burns with a purple flame and this was probably because some weapons were deemed too onerous or ineffective to deploy. One of the first, if not the first of these weapons was the fire arrow, a later account of this event corroborated with the report and explained that by let fire is meant things like firebombs and fire arrows. Afterwards fire arrows started transitioning to rocket propelled weapons rather than being fired from a bow and these fire arrows were shown to the emperor in 970 when the head of a weapons manufacturing bureau sent Feng Jisheng to demonstrate the gunpowder arrow design, for which he was heavily rewarded. In 1000 a soldier by the name of Tang Fu also demonstrated his own designs of gunpowder arrows, gunpowder pots, and gunpowder caltrops, for which he was richly rewarded as well. One surviving source circa 1023 lists all the working in Kaifeng while another notes that in 1083 the imperial court sent 100,000 gunpowder arrows to one garrison and 250,000 to another
16.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
17.
Leo III the Isaurian
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Leo III the Isaurian, also known as the Syrian (Greek, Λέων Γ΄ ὁ Ἴσαυρος, Leōn III ho Isauros, was Byzantine Emperor from 717 until his death in 741. He put an end to the Twenty Years Anarchy, a period of instability in the Byzantine Empire between 695 and 717, marked by the rapid succession of several emperors to the throne. He also successfully defended the Empire against the invading Umayyads and forbade the veneration of icons, Leo, whose original name was Konon, was born in Germanikeia in the Syrian province of Commagene. After the victory of Justinian II, Konon was dispatched on a mission to Alania. Konon was appointed commander of the Anatolic theme by Emperor Anastasius II, on his deposition, Konon joined with his colleague Artabasdus, the stratēgos of the Armeniac theme, in conspiring to overthrow the new Emperor Theodosius III. Artabasdus was betrothed to Anna, daughter of Leo as part of the agreement, Leo entered Constantinople on 25 March 717 and forced the abdication of Theodosios III, becoming emperor as Leo III. The new Emperor was immediately forced to attend to the Second Arab siege of Constantinople, the Arabs were Umayyad forces sent by Caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik and serving under his brother Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. They had taken advantage of the discord in the Byzantine Empire to bring a force of 80,000 to 150,000 men. Careful preparations, begun three years earlier under Anastasius II, and the resistance put up by Leo wore out the invaders. An important factor in the victory of the Byzantines was their use of Greek fire, the Arab forces also fell victim to Bulgarian reinforcements arriving to aid the Byzantines. Leo was allied with the Bulgarians but the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor was uncertain if they were serving under Tervel of Bulgaria or his eventual successor Kormesiy of Bulgaria. Sulayman himself had died the year and his successor Umar II would not attempt another siege. The siege had lasted 12 months, having thus preserved the Empire from extinction, Leo proceeded to consolidate its administration, which in the previous years of anarchy had become completely disorganized. In 718 he suppressed a rebellion in Sicily and in 719 did the same on behalf of the deposed Emperor Anastasios II and his military efforts were supplemented by his alliances with the Khazars and the Georgians. The new measures, which were embodied in a new code called the Ecloga, published in 726, met some opposition on the part of the nobles. The Emperor also undertook some reorganization of the structure by creating new themata in the Aegean region. Leos most striking legislative reforms dealt with matters, especially iconoclasm. After an apparently successful attempt to enforce the baptism of all Jews and Montanists in the empire, a majority of the theologians and all the monks opposed these measures with uncompromising hostility, and in the western parts of the Empire the people refused to obey the edict
18.
Flamethrower
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A flamethrower is a mechanical incendiary device designed to project a long, controllable stream of fire. They were first used by the Greeks in the 1st Century AD, in modern times, they were used during World War I, and more widely in World War II. Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid, some project a long gas flame, most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which is considered safer. They are used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity and they can be designed to be either carried by the operator or mounted on a vehicle. Modern flamethrowers were first used during the trench warfare conditions of World War I and they can be vehicle mounted, as on a tank, or man-portable. The man-portable flamethrower consists of two elements, a backpack and the gun, the backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas, a three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to maintain the balance of the soldier carrying it. The gas propels the liquid out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe. The igniter can be one of several systems, A simple type is an electrically-heated wire coil, another used a small pilot flame. The flamethrower is a potent weapon with great impact upon unprepared soldiers. This has led to calls for the weapon to be banned. It is primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements, typically, popular visual media depict the flamethrower as short-ranged and only effective for a few meters. Flamethrowers pose many risks to the operator, the first disadvantage was the weapons weight, which impairs the soldiers mobility. The weapon is limited to only a few seconds of time since it uses fuel very quickly, requiring the operator to be precise. The weapon was very visible on the battlefield, which caused operators to become immediately singled out as prominent targets, Flamethrower operators were rarely taken prisoner, especially when their target survived an attack by the weapon, captured flamethrower users were in some cases summarily executed. Finally, the effective range was short in comparison with that of other battlefield weapons of similar size. To be effective, flamethrower soldiers must approach their target, risking exposure to enemy fire, vehicular flamethrowers also have this problem, they may have considerably greater range than a man-portable flamethrower, but their range is still short compared with that of other infantry weapons. The risk of an operator being caught in the explosion of his weapon due to enemy hits on the tanks is exaggerated in Hollywood films
19.
Near East
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The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. Despite having varying definitions within different academic circles, the term was applied to the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire. The term has fallen into disuse in English and has replaced by the terms Middle East. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines the region similarly, but also includes Afghanistan while excluding the countries of North Africa and the Palestinian territories. Up until 1912 the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania, Macedonia and Southern Thrace, the Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as the sick man of Europe. The Balkan states, with the exception of Bosnia and Albania, were primarily Christian. Starting in 1894 the Ottomans struck at the Armenians on the grounds that they were a non-Muslim people. The Hamidian Massacres aroused the indignation of the entire Christian world, in the United States the now aging Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, leaped into the war of words and joined the Red Cross. Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as the Eastern Question and it now became relevant to define the east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the 19th century Near East came into use to describe part of the east closest to Europe. The term Far East appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, near East applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant, which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte, or government. Those who used the term had little choice about its meaning and they could not set foot on most of the shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire. Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included, one was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast, de facto independent since the 18th century, formerly part of the empire at its apogee. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through the Ottoman Empire or neighboring Russia, in the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of the man of Europe left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by Near East. It is now used only in historical contexts, to describe the countries of Western Asia from the Mediterranean to Iran. There is, in short, no universally understood fixed inventory of nations and they appear together in the journals of the mid-19th century
20.
Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
21.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
22.
Wujing Zongyao
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The Wujing Zongyao, known in English as the Complete Essentials for the Military Classics, is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044. It contains the earliest known written formulas for gunpowder, made from saltpeter, sulphur, the book was compiled during the Northern Song dynasty by scholars such as Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du and Yang Weide, whose writing influenced many later Chinese military writers. The compendium was published under the auspices of Emperor Renzong, who authored the books preface. The book covers a range of subjects, everything from naval warships to different types of catapults. In addition to formulas for gunpowder, the compendium contains details on various weapons such as incendiary bombs, fire arrows, incendiary projectiles, grenades. The Wujing Zongyao was compiled under the sponsorship of Emperor Renzong of Song. A team of Chinese scholars compiled the treatise of the Wujing Zongyao from 1040 to 1044 and its chief editor was Zeng Gongliang, while he was assisted by the prominent astronomer Yang Weide and the scholar Ding Du. After five years, the book was published with a preface authored by Emperor Renzong, historian Peter Lorge theorizes that the purpose of the compendium was to disseminate military knowledge to a wider government audience. Emperor Renzong was concerned that many officials were unfamiliar with the military classics, Lorge remarks that Zeng Gongliang, the chief editor, was a government official rather than a military general. The book was written to be read by other government officials. Parts of the Wujing Zongyao were copied form older sources, historian Ralph D. Sawyer calls it essentially a cut-and-paste job, the book contains many passages from earlier classical military writings whose original authors are left unidentified, a common practice at the time. During the Song dynasty, the Wujing Zongyao was appended to two books, the Xingjun xuzhi and the Baizhan qifa, which were written by anonymous authors. The Wujing Zongyao was one of 347 military treatises listed in the chapters of the Song Shi. After the original was lost, there was only a number of surviving copies rewritten by hand. Nevertheless, from a copy of the Wujing Zongyao, it was remade into a newly published edition in 1231 AD during the Southern Song dynasty era. Then there was an edition of the entire Wujing Zongyao in 1510 AD. After the edition of 1510 was printed, other Ming Dynasty copies were made and this included the Jiajing edition, the Wanli edition of Quanzhou, and the Wanli edition of Jinling by Tang Xinyün. During the Qing Dynasty it was reprinted in two different editions during the 18th century, and again in 1934 with the Shanghai edition
23.
Joseph Needham
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Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham CH FRS FBA was a British scientist, historian and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, in 1992, the Queen conferred on him the Companionship of Honour, and the Royal Society noted he was the only living person to hold these three titles. Needham was the child of a London family. His father was a doctor, and his mother, Alicia Adelaïde, née Montgomery, was a composer from Oldcastle. Needham was educated at Oundle School before attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in 1921, an Oxbridge MA in January 1925 and he had intended to study medicine but came under the influence of Frederick Hopkins, resulting in his switch to biochemistry. His three-volume work Chemical Embryology, published in 1931, includes a history of embryology from Egyptian times up to the early 19th century and his Terry Lecture of 1936 was published by Cambridge University Press in association with Yale University Press under the title of Order and Life. In 1939 he produced a work on morphogenesis that a Harvard reviewer claimed will go down in the history of science as Joseph Needhams magnum opus. Although his career as biochemist and an academic was well established, his career developed in unanticipated directions during, three Chinese scientists came to Cambridge for graduate study in 1937, Lu Gwei-djen, Wang Ying-lai and Shen Shih-Chang. Lu, daughter of a Nanjingese pharmacist, taught Needham Chinese, igniting his interest in Chinas ancient technological and he then pursued, and mastered, the study of Classical Chinese privately with Gustav Haloun. Under the Royal Societys direction, Needham was the director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office in Chongqing from 1942 to 1946, during this time he made several long journeys through war-torn China and many smaller ones, visiting scientific and educational establishments and obtaining for them much needed supplies. His longest trip in late 1943 ended in far west in Gansu at the caves in Dunhuang at the end of the Great Wall where the earliest dated printed book - a copy of the Diamond Sutra - was found. The other long trip reached Fuzhou on the east coast, returning across the Xiang River just two days before the Japanese blew up the bridge at Hengyang and cut off part of China. In 1944 he visited Yunnan in an attempt to reach the Burmese border, everywhere he went he purchased and was given old historical and scientific books which he shipped back to Britain through diplomatic channels. They were to form the foundation of his later research, on his return to Europe, he was asked by Julian Huxley to become the first head of the Natural Sciences Section of UNESCO in Paris, France. In fact it was Needham who insisted that science should be included in the organisations mandate at a planning meeting. He devoted his energy to the history of Chinese science until his retirement in 1990, in 1948, Needham proposed a project to the Cambridge University Press for a book on Science and Civilisation in China. Within weeks of being accepted, the project had grown to seven volumes and his initial collaborator was the historian Wang Ling, whom he had met in Lizhuang and obtained a position for at Trinity. The first years were devoted to compiling a list of every mechanical invention and abstract idea that had been made and conceived in China
24.
Huolongjing
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The Huolongjing is a 14th-century military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen of the early Ming dynasty in China. Its intended function was to serve as an outline for the use of fire weapons involving gunpowder. The Huolongjing provides information on various compositions, which are given names such as magic gunpowder, poison gunpowder. Among the bombs described, there are hollow cast iron grenade bombs, shrapnel bombs, mine devices include land mines and naval mines as well as the latters use of a complex trigger mechanism. Although the book was published sometime during the 14th century as a compilation of material written since the late 13th century, the Huolongjings main purpose was to provide a collected summary of gunpowder weapons in use up until the end of the 14th century. He described the uses of magic gunpowder, poison gunpowder, or blinding and burning gunpowder in warfare. For this, Jiao Yu wrote, even flying in the air cannot escape the effects of the explosion. During the 14th century, Chinese gunpowder solutions had reached their maximum explosive potential, at least six formulas in use by the Chinese that were considered to have reached the maximum explosive force for gunpowder. The root of all this was the 1044 military handbook, the Wujing Zongyao, later, Wei Xing of the Song Dynasty was said to have created a gunpowder formula of saltpetre, sulphur, and willow charcoal for his projectile carriages for launching fire–stones up to 400 yards. Its value in festival entertainment could be seen in firework displays and he advised that a piece of hemp cloth should be used to strengthen the wad of paper and sealed with molten pine resin. Although he described the fire arrow in great detail, it was mentioned by the much earlier Xia Shaozeng, although written in 1630, the Wulixiaoshi of Fang Yizhi said that fire arrows were presented to Emperor Taizu of Song in 960. By the time of Jiao Yu, the fire arrow had taken on a new meaning. The simple transition of this was to use a tube instead of a bow or ballista firing gunpowder-impregnated fire arrows. The historian Joseph Needham wrote that this discovery came sometime before Jiao Yu during the late Southern Song Dynasty, at the front end there is a carton tube bound on to the stick, where the rising gunpowder is lit. When you want to fire it off, you use a frame shaped like a dragon, in the late 14th century, the rocket launching tube was combined with the fire lance. This involved three tubes attached to the same staff, as the first rocket tube was fired, a charge was ignited in the leading tube which expelled a blinding lachrymatory powder at the enemy, and finally the second rocket was fired. An illustration of this appears in the Huolongjing, and a description of its effectiveness in obfuscating the location of the rockets from the enemy is provided, the Huolongjing also describes and illustrates two kinds of mounted rocket launchers that fired multiple rockets. Rockets described in the Huolongjing were not all in the shape of fire arrows
25.
Jiao Yu
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Jiao Yu was a Ming dynasty military officer under Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the dynasty and became known as the Hongwu Emperor. He was entrusted by Zhu as an artillery officer for the rebel army that overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty. As a senior adviser and general, he was appointed to the venerable and noble status of the Count of Dongning. He edited and wrote a military treatise that outlined the use of Chinese military technology during the mid 14th century based on his military campaign of 1355 AD. However, descriptions of gunpowder weapons in his treatise derive from Song Dynasty materials on battles against the Khitans, Jurchens. Before Jiao Yu took up the cause against the ruling Mongols over China, like Jiao Yu, Daoren accepted the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, but in military affairs Jiao was convinced that he had inherited the skill of the ancient Sun Tzu. After Jiao Yu became his protege, Daoren urged Yu to join the cause of Zhu Yuanzhangs rebellion, Daoren had also shared with him various literary works on fire-weapons and their recorded uses in battle. After joining his ranks, Jiao Yu became one of Zhu Yuanzhangs trusted confidants in the Red Turban Rebellion against the Yuan dynasty, Zhu was impressed with Jiaos knowledge of firearms which he had earlier acquired from Daoren, yet Zhu wanted to test their abilities. Zhu ordered his officer Xu Da to provide a demonstration of their destructive capabilities, with the aid of Jiaos fire-weapons, Zhus army, once stationed in Hezhou among a plethora of different rebel groups in surrounding towns, conquered Jingzhou and Xiangzhou in one expedition. In the second expedition the provinces of Jiang and Zhe, and in the campaign the entire province of Fujian was taken. After this, Zhus army captured the whole of Shandong in one campaign, Zhu finally drove the Mongols north in 1367, establishing a new capital at Nanjing soon after while Beijing became the secondary capital. After the successful rebellion and establishment of Zhu as the Ming dynastys new Hongwu Emperor, Jiao was eventually appointed as the head officer of the enormous Shen Zhi Ying Armory, where multitudes of manufactured guns and artillery were deposited for storage and safekeeping. The Hongwu Emperor established a new Gunpowder Department in the administration of the capital. This is what fire-weapons are all about, along with the scholar, general, and court adviser Liu Bowen, Jiao Yu became an editor of the 14th century military treatise known as the Huolongjing. The Nanyang publication of the book, known as the Huolongjing Quanzhi featured a preface written by Jiao Yu much later in 1412 AD, the oldest passages found in the Huolongjing were collected from sources no earlier than circa 1270 AD. Although Jiao Yus biography does not appear in the History of Ming, Yu was mentioned in Zhao Shizhens Shenqipu, He Rubins Binglu and his text Huolongjing was reprinted in the 19th century, during the late Qing Dynasty. The Huolongjing, compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Zhi and it provided information for, Various gunpowder compositions Descriptions of the Chinese hollow cast iron grenade bomb Descriptions of the Chinese fire arrow. Descriptions of fire lances and proto-guns, Descriptions of hollow, gunpowder-packed exploding cannonballs Descriptions of handguns with possible serpentines used as components in matchlocks
26.
Fire lance
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The fire lance was a gunpowder weapon that appeared in 10th century China during the Jin-Song Wars. It is considered to be a proto-gun, the predecessor of the cannon. Fire lances were relatively short range weapons and were used to give its user an advantage in close quarters combat, the first fire lances consisted of a tube, usually bamboo, containing gunpowder and a slow match, strapped to a spear or other polearm weapon. Once ignited, the tube would ideally eject a stream of flames in the direction of the spearhead. Co-viative projectiles such as pellets or pottery shards were later added to the gunpowder. Upon firing, the gunpowder charge ejected the projectiles along with the flame, metal fire lance barrels appeared around the mid 13th century and these began to be used independently of the lance itself. The independent metal barrel was known as an eruptor, and became the forerunner of the hand cannon, the first fire-lances appeared in the Song dynasty as early as the year 950 and were mentioned in the military text Wujing Zongyao of 1044. They were at this point antipersonnel weapons, in 1163 fire lances were attached to war carts known as at-your-desire-carts used to defend mobile firembomb trebuchets. In the late 1100s shrapnel such as iron pellets and porcelain shards were added to the gunpowder tube. Some fire lances discarded the spearhead altogether and relied solely on their firepower, by 1232 the Jin were also using fire lances, but with improved reusable barrels consisting of durable paper material. Jin soldiers also used them in combat and in one instance. In 1259 a pellet wad that occluded the barrel was recorded to have used as a fire lance projectile. By 1276 fire lances had transitioned to metal barrels, the metal-barreled fire lance began to be used independently of the lance around the mid to late 13th century. These proto-cannons which fired co-viative projectiles, known as eruptors, were the forerunners of the hand cannon, needham, Joseph, Science & Civilisation in China, V,7, The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3. Little Bit of Info on the Fire Lance Medieval Chinese Armies, ISBN 1-85532-599-3 Chinese Siege Warfare, Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity
27.
Dunhuang
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Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market, best known as a platform for selling illegal drugs. As part of the web, it was operated as a Tor hidden service. The website was launched in February 2011, development had begun six months prior, initially there were a limited number of new seller accounts available, new sellers had to purchase an account in an auction. Later, a fee was charged for each new seller account. In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down the website, on 6 November 2013, Silk Road 2.0 came online, run by former administrators of Silk Road. It too was shut down, and the operator was arrested on 6 November 2014 as part of the so-called Operation Onymous”. Ulbricht was convicted of eight charges related to Silk Road in U. S. Federal Court in Manhattan and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, Silk Road was founded in February 2011. The name Silk Road comes from a network of trade routes started during the Han Dynasty between Europe, India, China, and many other countries on the Afro-Eurasian landmass. Silk Road was operated by the pseudonymous Dread Pirate Roberts, who was known for espousing libertarian ideals, two other individuals were also closely involved in the sites growth and success, known as Variety Jones and Smedley. In June 2011, Gawker published an article about the site led to Internet buzz. Once the site was publicly, U. S. Senator Charles Schumer asked federal law enforcement authorities to shut it down, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, australian police and the DEA have targeted Silk Road users and made arrests, albeit with limited success at reaching convictions. In December 2013, a New Zealand man was sentenced to two years and four months in jail after being convicted of importing 15 grams of methamphetamine that he had bought on Silk Road. In May 2013, Silk Road was taken down for a period of time by a sustained DDoS attack. On 23 June 2013, it was first reported that the DEA seized 11.02 bitcoins, then worth $814, Ross Ulbricht was alleged by the FBI to be the founder and owner of Silk Road and the person behind the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts. He was arrested on 2 October 2013 in San Francisco at 3,15 p. m. PST in Glen Park Library, Ulbricht was indicted on charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and attempting to have six people killed. Prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht paid $730,000 to others to commit the murders, Ulbricht ultimately was not prosecuted for any of the alleged murder attempts. The FBI initially seized 26,000 bitcoins from accounts on Silk Road, an FBI spokesperson said that the agency would hold the bitcoins until Ulbrichts trial finished, after which the bitcoins would be liquidated
28.
Cast iron
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Cast iron is a group of iron-carbon alloys with a carbon content greater than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its low melting temperature. Carbon ranging from 1. 8–4 wt%, and silicon 1–3 wt% are the main alloying elements of cast iron, Iron alloys with less carbon content are known as steel. While this technically makes the Fe–C–Si system ternary, the principle of cast iron solidification can be understood from the simpler binary iron–carbon phase diagram, cast iron tends to be brittle, except for malleable cast irons. It is resistant to destruction and weakening by oxidation, the earliest cast iron artefacts date to the 5th century BC, and were discovered by archaeologists in what is now Jiangsu in China. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture, during the 15th century, cast iron became utilized for artillery in Burgundy, France, and in England during the Reformation. The first cast iron bridge was built during the 1770s by Abraham Darby III, cast iron is also used in the construction of buildings. Cast iron is made by re-melting pig iron, often along with quantities of iron, steel, limestone, carbon. Phosphorus and sulfur may be burnt out of the iron, but this also burns out the carbon. Depending on the application, carbon and silicon content are adjusted to the desired levels, other elements are then added to the melt before the final form is produced by casting. Cast iron is melted in a special type of blast furnace known as a cupola. After melting is complete, the molten cast iron is poured into a furnace or ladle. Cast irons properties are changed by adding various alloying elements, or alloyants, next to carbon, silicon is the most important alloyant because it forces carbon out of solution. A low percentage of silicon allows carbon to remain in solution forming iron carbide, a high percentage of silicon forces carbon out of solution forming graphite and the production of grey cast iron. Other alloying agents, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, titanium and vanadium counteracts silicon, promotes the retention of carbon, nickel and copper increase strength, and machinability, but do not change the amount of graphite formed. The carbon in the form of graphite results in an iron, reduces shrinkage, lowers strength. Sulfur, largely a contaminant when present, forms iron sulfide, the problem with sulfur is that it makes molten cast iron viscous, which causes defects. To counter the effects of sulfur, manganese is added because the two form into manganese sulfide instead of iron sulfide, the manganese sulfide is lighter than the melt so it tends to float out of the melt and into the slag
29.
Holt, Wrexham County Borough
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Holt is a medieval market town and local government community in the county borough of Wrexham, Wales. It is situated on the border with England, Holt Castle was begun by Edward I shortly after the English invasion of Wales in 1277. The district has occupied since at least the Roman period. A brickworks supplied clay tiles and pottery to the Roman fort of Deva Victrix, the works was located just downstream from the modern town. In the early 20th century, six kilns, a house, sheds. Three Bronze Age burial urns have also found in Holt. There is a market cross in the centre of Holt. The church of St Chad has parts dating to the 15th century, a Grade I listed 14th-century sandstone bridge links Holt with the English village of Farndon across the River Dee. Records from the county court of Chester in 1368, state that, upon the fifth Arch from Holt standeth a Tower or Gatehouse of Fortification. Upon the other end of the fortificacion next unto the manor of Farndon next unto the Manor of Farndon is layd out in Masons Works a Lyon to the full passant, and like Lyon is upon the gates of Holt Castell. The county of Chester doth repair the bridge to the Lyon, despite this he, Thomas Myddelton and their forces took the bridge on 9th November 1643 when they cast some grenados amongst the Welshmen. Thomas Pennant recorded ten arches in 1754 but Hubbard in Buildings of Wales only saw eight, the third arch, viewed from the Holt river bank, shows the strengthened arch where the drawbridge once stood. An electoral ward in the name exists. This ward stretches west to Abenbury and has a population taken at the 2011 Census of 3,587. Leigh Richmond Roose, a Welsh footballer and international goalkeeper from Holt
30.
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
31.
Jacobitism
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The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, the original Latin form of James. Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746, the strongholds of Jacobitism were parts of the Scottish Highlands and the lowland north-east of Scotland, Ireland, and parts of Northern England. Significant support also existed in Wales and South-West England, the Jacobites believed that parliamentary interference with the line of succession to the English and Scottish thrones was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end recusancy, in Scotland, the Jacobite cause became intertwined with the clan system. The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Cockade, White Rose Day is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of the birth of the Old Pretender in 1688. From the second half of the 17th century onwards, a time of political, the Commonwealth ended with the Restoration of Charles II. During his reign the Church of England was re-established, and episcopal government was restored in Scotland. The authorities attempted some accommodation with Presbyterian dissidents, introducing official Indulgences in 1669 and 1672 and this was particularly true of the followers of the Reverend Richard Cameron, soon to be known as the Cameronians. The government increasingly resorted to force in its attempts to out the Cameronians. The reigns of the last three Stuart Kings – Charles I, Charles II and James II and VII – were marked by growing Royal resistance to this developing consensual model of government. In part the Kings were inspired by the development of Royal Absolutism in contemporary Europe, exemplified particularly strongly by their neighbour and contemporary, Louis XIV of France. In part, however, the apologists of royal authority based their claims on a just assessment of the powers claimed by England, in 1685, Charles II was succeeded by his Roman Catholic brother, James II and VII. In addition to sharing his familys absolutist views of government, James attempted to introduce religious toleration of Roman Catholics, in Seventeenth-century Europe, being a religious outsider meant being a political and social outsider as well. James tried to encourage the participation in life of Roman Catholics, Protestant Dissenters. Such attempts to broaden his basis of support succeeded in antagonising members of the Anglican establishment, in England and Scotland, James attempted to impose religious toleration, which helped the Catholic minority but alarmed the religious and political establishment. Then in 1688 Jamess second wife had a boy, bringing the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, on 4 November 1688 William arrived at Torbay, England. When he landed the next day, at Brixham, James fled to France, in February 1689, the Glorious Revolution formally changed Englands monarch, but many Catholics, Episcopalians and Tory royalists still supported James as the constitutionally legitimate monarch. Forces of Cameronians as well as Clan Campbell Highlanders led by the Earl of Argyll had come to bolster Williams support, the convention set out its terms and William and Mary were proclaimed at Edinburgh on 11 April 1689, then had their coronation in London in May
32.
Battle of Killiecrankie
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Although it was a stunning victory for the Jacobites, it had little overall effect on the outcome of the war and left their leader dead. Their forces were scattered at the Battle of Dunkeld the next month, the battlefield has been included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland and protected by Historic Scotland under the Scottish Historical Environment Policy of 2009. The battle is remembered in four known as The Braes o Killiecrankie. William of Orange, invited to England by certain key members of a Parliament displeased at having a Catholic king, King James fled the country on 23 December, and, in February 1689, the English Parliament declared that, by fleeing, James had abdicated. Parliament then offered the throne jointly to William and Mary, the Protestant daughter of James to whom William largely owed his claim to the throne, Scotland was a divided country politically, culturally, and religiously. The Stuarts had ruled Scotland since the time of Robert II in the late 14th century, a convention held on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh decided that the Scottish government would pledge loyalty to William of Orange. A number of people opposed this, including many of the Highland clans and John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee, Dundee left the Convention, planning with others loyal to King James to summon another convention at Stirling in Jamess name. The others, irresolute, decided to attend the Edinburgh Convention once more and he refused, and with some retainers retired to his home, Dudhope Castle near Dundee. Instead, the Estates declared him a rebel and a fugitive on 30 March, on 4 April they declared that King James had forfeited the throne, and on 11 April offered it to William and Mary. Dundee raised the standard on Dundee Law, and left for the Highlands to raise an army. When Dundee went north, he was pursued by a force of about 3,500, led by General Hugh Mackay of Scourie. Dundee, moving quickly, outmanoeuvered Mackay, and on 16 May arrived in Glenroy, with a total of some 1800 men, Dundee marched, in hopes of meeting Mackay on grounds favourable to the Highlanders. Unable to do so, he retreated back to Glenroy, where he arrived on 11 June, many of the Highlanders returned to their homes, but some remained. Blair Castle was in a key position that access to the Lowlands. It was owned by the Marquis of Atholl, he headed south to Bath to take the waters for his health. His heir, Lord Murray, was on the governments side, Dundee ordered Patrick Steuart of Ballechin, a relative of the Murrays, to hold Blair Castle for the King, Lord Murray ended up besieging his own castle. Dundee learned that Mackay was at Perth, on his way to assist in taking Blair Castle, Dundee was determined to intercept Mackay near Blair Atholl, astride the road through the hills that Mackay would have to pass. Many of the clans had not arrived yet, but he set out anyway, Ewen himself also had a force of about 240 Camerons with him at the time, and tried to catch up while he dispatched his sons to raise support along the path of march
33.
Battle of Glen Shiel
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It was the last close engagement of British and foreign troops in Great Britain. It is sometimes known as the Nineteen and this battlefield has been included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland and is protected by Historic Scotland under the Historic Environment Act 2011. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Philip V was accepted as King of Spain in exchange for several concessions. Great Britain received control over Spanish possessions, such as Menorca and Gibraltar, philips plans to restore Spanish power would lead to a violent clash with Britain. Philip and his Italian counsellor, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, carried out a campaign in the western Mediterranean, in 1717,8,500 infantrymen and 500 cavalrymen sailed from Barcelona and occupied Sardinia without difficulty. The next year,38,000 troops did the same with Sicily, Spain then declared war, with Alberoni deciding to take the initiative and stir up trouble in Britain to forestall an attack on the Iberian Peninsula. Alberoni decided to meddle in the disputes, supporting the Jacobite claims. The original plan had two phases, George Keith, tenth Earl Marischal would infiltrate Scotland with 300 Spanish marines to raise the Western clans and it was a feint intended to divert British forces. The main fleet, with 27 ships and 7000 men under James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, would disembark in South West England or Wales, the resulting alliance would march east to besiege London, depose George I and enthrone James Stuart. Three weeks after leaving Cadiz, Ormondes fleet encountered a storm near Cape Finisterre which dispersed and damaged most of the ships, Ormonde was forced to withdraw the ships to several Spanish havens. By then, Keith had already left the Spanish port of Pasajes and occupied the Isle of Lewis, Keith could not proceed to Inverness and established his headquarters in the castle of Eilean Donan. The two Spanish frigates returned to Spain, the Spaniards were accompanied by William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, who was chief of the Clan Mackenzie, the Earl Marischal, and the Marquess of Tullibardine, and some Irish officers. They were joined by several hundred Highlanders, including members of the Clan Mackenzie, Clan MacRae, Robert Roy MacGregor, some days later, the main body of the troop went south to stir up the Highlanders, leaving a small garrison at the castle. The Jacobite forces were to be led by the Earl of Seaforth and also John Cameron of Lochiel, 18th Captain and Chief of Clan Cameron and their plan of action was to capture Inverness. At the beginning of May, the Royal Navy sent five ships to the area for reconnaissance, in the evening, under the cover of an intense cannonade, the ships boats went ashore and captured the castle against little resistance. The Spanish prisoners were put on board HMS Flamborough and taken away to Edinburgh, the Jacobite army had advanced about 12 miles from Eilean Donan, as far as the narrows of Glen Shiel where a mountain spur almost blocks the valley. The great natural strength of the Jacobite position had been increased by hasty fortifications, a barricade had been constructed across the road, and along the face of the hill on the north side of the river entrenchments had been thrown up. Here the main body was posted, consisting of,200 men of the Regiment Galicia from Spain, under its Colonel, Don Nicolás de Castro Bolaño,150 men of the Clan Cameron, under their chief Cameron of Lochiel
34.
Golden Age of Piracy
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The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation given to usually one or more outbursts of piracy in the maritime history of the early modern period. The modern conception of pirates as depicted in culture is derived largely, although not always accurately. The colonial powers at the time fought with pirates and engaged in several notable battles. Powell uses the only once. Its golden age may be said to have extended from about 1650 to about 1720, Pirate historians of the first half of the 20th century occasionally adopted Fiskes term Golden Age, without necessarily following his beginning and ending dates for it. This idea starkly contradicted Fiske, who had denied that such Elizabethan figures as Drake were pirates. Of recent definitions, Pringle appears to have the widest range, as early as 1924, Philip Gosse described piracy as being at its height from 1680 until 1730. Bottings definition was followed by Frank Sherry in 1986. In a 1989 academic article, Professor Marcus Rediker defined the Golden Age as lasting only from 1716 to 1726, angus Konstam in 1998, reckoned the era as lasting from 1700 until 1730. David Cordingly, in his influential 1994 work Under the Black Flag, defined the age of piracy as lasting from the 1650s to around 1725. Rediker, in 2004, described the most complex definition of the Golden Age to date, most of these pirates were of Welsh, English, Dutch and French origin. This involved considerable seaborne trade, and an economic improvement. The buccaneers migration from Hispaniolas mainland to the more defensible offshore island of Tortuga limited their resources, the growth of buccaneering on Tortuga was augmented by the English capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. In the 1660s, the new French governor of Tortuga, Bertrand dOgeron and these conditions brought Caribbean buccaneering to its zenith. A number of factors caused Anglo-American pirates, some of whom had cut their teeth during the buccaneering period, the fall of Britains Stuart period had restored the traditional enmity between Britain and France, thus ending the profitable collaboration between English Jamaica and French Tortuga. The devastation of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbeans attractions by destroying the pirates chief market for fenced plunder. Furthermore, much of the Spanish Main had simply been exhausted, at the same time, Englands less-favored colonies, including Bermuda, New York, and Rhode Island, had become cash-starved by the Navigation Acts. This set the stage for the piracies of Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Robert Culliford
35.
Trench warfare
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The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire, mines, the area between opposing trench lines was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties, with the development of armoured warfare, emphasis on trench warfare has declined, but still occurs where battle-lines become static. Field works are as old as armies, Roman legions, when in the presence of an enemy, entrenched camps nightly when on the move. In the early modern era they were used to block possible lines of advance and they played a pivotal role in manoeuvring that took place before the Battle of Blenheim. The lines were captured by the French in 1707 and demolished, the French built the 19-kilometre-long Lines of Weissenburg during the War of the Spanish Succession under the orders of the Duke of Villars in 1706. These were to remain in existence for just over 100 years and were last manned during Napoleons Hundred Days, the French built the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra during the winter of 1710–1711, which have been compared to the trenches of World War I. They ran from Arras to Cambrai and Valenciennes where they linked up with existing defensive lines fronted by the river Sambre and they were breached in the 1711 campaign season by the Duke of Marlborough through a magnificent piece of manoeuvring. During the Peninsular War, the British and Portuguese constructed the Lines of Torres Vedras in 1809 and 1810, nor were fortifications restricted to European powers. British casualty rates of up to 45 percent, such as at the Battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, proved contemporary firepower was insufficient to dislodge defenders from a trench system. Fundamentally, as the range and rate of fire of rifled small arms increased and this was only made more lethal by the introduction of rapid-firing artillery, exemplified by the French 75, and high explosive fragmentation rounds. The increases in firepower had outstripped the ability of infantry to cover the ground between firing lines, and the ability of armour to withstand fire and it would take a revolution in mobility to change that. Trench warfare is associated with the First World War of 1914–18. Both sides concentrated on breaking up attacks and on protecting their own troops by digging deep into the ground. Trench warfare was conducted on other fronts, including Italy. Trench warfare has become a symbol of the futility of war. To the French, the equivalent is the attrition of the Battle of Verdun in which the French Army suffered 380,000 casualties, Trench warfare is associated with mass slaughter in appalling conditions
36.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
37.
Ketchum Grenade
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The Ketchum Hand Grenade was a type of grenade used in the American Civil War. It was patented on August 20,1861 by William F. Ketchum and they were used in battles such as Vicksburg and Petersburg. The grenades have the appearance of a ball, or a skinny dart. They assured landing on the nose, which was backed by a cap that set off the main powder charge in the body. The grenades were largely inefficient because they had to land on their nose to detonate, in one incident Confederates caught them in blankets and hurled them back at the attackers. Ketchums came primarily in 1,3 and 5 lb. varieties, the most recognized Confederate copy is the Raines Grenade, it was even less effective. In most cases, the body was the same, but a long cloth streamer was substituted for the fins, the grenade was a three-piece weapon, consisting of the plunger, casing, and tailpiece. This proved to be difficult, especially in the fray of battle, the wood tailpiece was removed to place the powder charge inside the shell, and then set firmly back in to hold the powder within. Trajectory had to be an arc in order for the plunger to detonate the piece, a small pressure spring attached to the side of the plunger stem held the plunger in place during flight. The grenade was stabilized by four thin paper fins set into a wood tailpiece protruding from the rear of the projectile, when William F. Ketchum demonstrated his new invention of a grenade that could be thrown like a dart, observers were very impressed with its explosive power. However, Union troops who used the Ketchum grenade in great numbers in their attacks at Port Hudson found its limitations. Wright, described the scene from the Confederate side of the assault and this time many of them exploded and their character was at once revealed to our men. Always equal to any emergency, they devised a scheme. The Port Hudson State Historic Site has in its collection a recovered fragment from a 1-pounder Ketchum hand grenade
38.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
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Union (American Civil War)
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The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantities of munitions and supplies. The Midwest provided soldiers, food, horses, financial support, Army hospitals were set up across the Union. Most states had Republican governors who energetically supported the war effort, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war in 1861 but in 1862 was split between the War Democrats and the anti-war element led by the Copperheads. The Democrats made major gains in 1862 in state elections. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio, in 1864 the Republicans campaigned under the National Union Party banner, which attracted many War Democrats and soldiers and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket. The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare took place along the southern border, prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers wives, widows, orphans, and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered to escape the draft, Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially New York City with its massive anti-draft riots of 1863 and in some remote districts such as the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania. In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as the North, both then and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was the South. The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacys secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the United States of America, in foreign affairs the Union was the only side recognized by all other nations, none of which officially recognized the Confederate government. The term Union occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Union, for the United States of America, is repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV. Even before the war started, the preserve the Union was commonplace. Using the term Union to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the political entity. In comparison to the Confederacy, the Union had a large industrialized and urbanized area, additionally, the Union states had a manpower advantage of 5 to 2 at the start of the war. Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources, meanwhile, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force
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Confederate States of America
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The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in February 1861 before Lincoln took office in March, after the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South – Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina – also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The government of the United States rejected the claims of secession, the Civil War began with the April 12,1861, Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In spring 1865, after four years of fighting which led to an estimated 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered. Jefferson Davis later lamented that the Confederacy had disappeared in 1865, Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union. Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the Five Civilized Tribes located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty. A Unionist government in parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal, as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers, the most notable advance was Shermans March to the Sea in late 1864. Much of the Confederacys infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads, plantations in the path of Shermans forces were severely damaged. Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Daviss administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, after four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. Shortly afterward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Davis was captured on May 10,1865, and jailed in preparation for a treason trial that was ultimately never held. The U. S. government began a process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many areas, the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure
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Russo-Japanese War
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The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan, Russia sought a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean for their navy and for maritime trade. Vladivostok was operational only during the summer, whereas Port Arthur, since the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian encroachment on its sphere of influence. Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in the Siberian Far East from the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, through threat of Russian expansion, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a buffer zone between Russia and Japan. The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its strategic interests, after negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack. The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, the complete victory of the Japanese military surprised world observers. The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japans recent entry onto the world stage and it was the first major military victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one. Scholars continue to debate the historical significance of the war, after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Meiji government endeavored to assimilate Western ideas, technological advances and ways of warfare. By the late 19th century, Japan had transformed itself into an industrial state. The Japanese wanted to be recognized as equal with the Western powers, the Meiji restoration had always been intended to make Japan a modernized state, not a Westernized one, and Japan was always an imperialist power, looking towards overseas expansionism. By the 1890s it had extended its realm across Central Asia to Afghanistan, the Russian Empire stretched from Poland in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east. With its construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the port of Vladivostok, in the Tsushima incident of 1861 Russia had directly assaulted Japanese territory. Between the Meiji Restoration and its participation in World War I, the first war Japan fought was the First Sino-Japanese War, fought in 1894 and 1895. The war revolved around the issue of control and influence over Korea under the rule of the Joseon dynasty, from the 1880s onward, there had been vigorous competition for influence in Korea between China and Japan. The Korean court was prone to factionalism, and was divided by a reformist faction that was pro-Japanese. In 1884, a coup attempt was put down by Chinese troops. A peasant rebellion led by the Tonghak religious movement led to a request by the Korean government for the Qing dynasty to send in troops to stabilize the country
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Mills bomb
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Mills bomb is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades used by the British Army, william Mills, a hand grenade designer from Sunderland, patented, developed and manufactured the Mills bomb at the Mills Munition Factory in Birmingham, England, in 1915. The Mills bomb was inspired by a design by Belgian captain Leon Roland. Roland and Mills were later engaged in a patent lawsuit, the Mills bomb was adopted by the British Army as its standard hand grenade in 1915, and designated the No.5. The Mills bomb underwent numerous modifications, the No.23 was a variant of the No.5 with a rodded base plug which allowed it to be fired from a rifle. This concept evolved further with the No,36, a variant with a detachable base plate to allow use with a rifle discharger cup. The final variation of the Mills bomb, the No, 36M, was specially designed and waterproofed with shellac for use initially in the hot climate of Mesopotamia in 1917, but remained in production for many years. By 1918 the No.5 and No.23 were declared obsolete, the Mills was a classic design, a grooved cast iron pineapple with a central striker held by a close hand lever and secured with a pin. The Mills was a grenade, after throwing the user had to take cover immediately. A competent thrower could manage 15 metres with reasonable accuracy, the British Home Guard were instructed that the throwing range of the No.36 was about 30 yards with a danger area of about 100 yds. The heavy segmented bodies of pineapple type grenades result in a pattern of fragmentation. After the Second World War Britain adopted grenades that contained segmented coiled wire in smooth metal casings, 36M Mk. I remained the standard grenade of the British Armed Forces and was manufactured in the UK until 1972, when it was completely replaced by the L2 series. The 36M remained in service in parts of the world such as India and Pakistan. Mills bombs were still being used in combat as recently as 2004 e. g. the incident which killed US Marine Jason Dunham, the No.5 Mk.1 was the first version. The lever was protected by metal ears flanking the top that could be used to locate it in darkness and it was first issued in May,1915 but wasnt in general issue until mass production caught up a year later in 1916. The Mk.2 had a stronger safety lever. 23, the model, first appeared in 1917. The No.23 Mk.1 had a redesigned, narrower baseplug that was centrally threaded underneath so it could attach the rifle rod, the Mk.2 and Mk.3 were product-improved versions designed to make it cheaper and easier to produce
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War Office
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The name War Office is also given to the former home of the department, the War Office building located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. During August 2013 it was announced that the former War Office building would be sold on the open market. The War Office developed from the Council of War, an ad hoc grouping of the King and his military commanders which managed the Kingdom of Englands frequent wars. It was equivalent to the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy, and the Air Ministry, the department had several London homes until it settled at Horse Guards in Whitehall during 1722, where it was to remain until 1858. The first War Office Secretary at War is usually said to have been William Blathwayt and it was, however, a fairly minor government job which dealt with the minutiae of administration rather than grand strategy. Issues of strategic policy during wartime were managed by the Northern and Southern Departments, from 1704 to 1855, the job of Secretary was possessed by a minister of the second rank, although he was occasionally part of the Cabinet. Many of his responsibilities were transferred to the Secretary of State for War after the creation of more senior post during 1794. The job of Secretary at War was merged with that of the Secretary of State for War during 1855, during 1855 the Board of Ordnance was abolished as a result of its perceived poor performance during the Crimean War. This powerful independent body, dating from the 15th century, had directed by the Master-General of the Ordnance. The disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War resulted in the consolidation of all duties during 1855 as subordinate to the Secretary of State for War. He was not, however, solely responsible for the Army and this was reduced in theory by the reforms introduced by Edward Cardwell during 1870, which subordinated the Commander-in-Chief to the Secretary for War. His resistance to reform caused military efficiency to lag well behind that of Britains rivals, the management of the War Office was hampered by persistent disputes between the civilian and military parts of the organisation. The government of H. H. Asquith attempted to resolve this during the First World War by appointing Lord Kitchener as Secretary for War, making him the first, however, this was thought unsatisfactory, during his tenure, the Imperial General Staff was virtually dismantled. Its role was replaced effectively by the Committee of Imperial Defence, the War Office decreased greatly in importance after the First World War, a fact illustrated by the drastic reductions of its staff numbers during the inter-war period. On 1 April 1920, it employed 7,434 civilian staff and its responsibilities and funding were also reduced. During 1936, the government of Stanley Baldwin appointed a Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister during 1940, he bypassed the War Office altogether and appointed himself Minister of Defence. Clement Attlee continued this arrangement when he came to power during 1945, during 1964, the present form of the Ministry of Defence was established, unifying the War Office, Admiralty, and Air Ministry. The records of the War Office are kept by The National Archives with the code WO and it contains about 1,000 rooms across seven floors, linked by 2½ miles of corridors
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Aylmer Haldane
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General Sir James Aylmer Lowthorpe Haldane, GCMG, KCB, DSO was a senior British Army officer with a long and distinguished career. In September 1882, after attending the Edinburgh Academy and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, on 18 February 1886, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and on 8 April 1892 to the rank of captain. Between 1894 and 1895, Haldane was part of the Waziristan Field Force, Haldane fought in the Second Boer War in South Africa, where he was taken a war prisoner. While imprisoned in Pretoria, he planned the escape which made Winston Churchill famous, Haldane failed to escape at the same time and later complained of Churchills lack of regard for those who should have escaped with him. However, Haldane later managed his own escape and he was military attaché with the Imperial Japanese Army from July 1904 to September 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, and accompanied Japanese forces into Manchuria. Promoted to brevet colonel, Haldane was appointed a CB on 16 March 1906, from 1906 to 1909, he served as assistant director of military intelligence. On 1 October 1909, Haldane was promoted to temporary brigadier-general, Haldane fought in World War I initially as General Officer Commanding 3rd Division, then part of the British Expeditionary Force. He was given command of 6th Army Corps in France in 1916, after the end of the war, Haldane was appointed General Officer Commanding Mesopotamia 1920 remaining in that post until 1922, he retired in 1925. Haldane died on 19 April 1950, at his home in London and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery, order of the Sacred Treasure, Japan,1905. Haldanes published writings encompass 6 works in 8 publications in 1 language and 311 library holdings, a brigade of the old army,1914, relating to operations of 10 Infantry Bde, France, Aug–Nov 1914. Haldane, Lieutenant General Sir Aylmer The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, a soldiers saga, the autobiography of General Sir Aylmer Haldane. A Soldiers Saga, the Autobiography of General Sir Alymer Haldane, London, William Blackwood & Sons,1922. Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War
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Board of Ordnance
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The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London, the Board also maintained and directed the Artillery and Engineer corps, which it founded in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the Board of Ordnance was second in only to HM Treasury among government departments. The Board lasted until 1855, at which point it was disbanded, the introduction of gunpowder to Europe led to innovations in offensive weapons, such as cannon, and defences, such as fortifications. From the 1320s a member of the Royal Household, the Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe in the Tower of London, became responsible for the procurement, storage. His office and main arsenal were located in the White Tower and this Privy Wardrobe in the Tower grew, both in size and significance, after the start of the Hundred Years War. In the following century, the influence of the Privy Wardrobe and its staff receded, a distinct Office of Ordnance began to establish itself at the Tower, staffed in the 1460s by a Master, a Clerk and a Yeoman. In the 1540s, under Henry VIII, the Ordnance Office was expanded, new officers were appointed and their principal duties clarified. In 1671, the Ordnance Office took over the work of the Office of Armoury at the Tower, at this time the Ordnance Office began to take on oversight of the nations forts and fortifications. In 1683, by now known as the Board of Ordnance. These detailed Instructions continued, with little change, to provide the working framework for the Board. From the mid-16th century onwards, the Board of Ordnance had six principal officers, merbury was present at the Siege of Harfleur and at the Battle of Agincourt. By 1450 Master of Ordnance was a permanent appointment, firmly based at the Tower of London, until 1544 the Master had generally managed the day-to-day activities of the Ordnance Office. Thereafter the Lieutenant had day-to-day oversight of the Boards activities, while Master had more the role of a statesman, from the seventeenth century through till 1828 the Master-General routinely had a seat in Cabinet, and thus served as de facto principal military adviser to the government. Some of the most illustrious soldiers of their generation served as Master-General, Marlborough, Cadogan, Cornwallis, Hastings, Wellington, from its earliest years, the Ordnance Office was staffed by a large number of Clerks to manage its substantial administrative functions. A number of officials reported to the board, including furbishers, proofmasters, keepers and fireworkers. Two appointments stand out, as they were appointed by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm, namely the Master Gunner of England and these were the senior technicians on the staff. The Treasurer of the Ordnance was another important officer of the department and this office was instituted in 1670, the post was consolidated with several others in 1836 to form that of Paymaster-General
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Grenade". Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 578.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
