1.
June
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June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the second month to have the length of 30 days. June contains the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the day with the most daylight hours, and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, June in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to December in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the astronomical summer is 21 June. In the Southern hemisphere, meteorological winter begins on 1 June, at the start of June, the sun rises in the constellation of Taurus, at the end of June, the sun rises in the constellation of Gemini. However, due to the precession of the equinoxes, June begins with the sun in the sign of Gemini. The Latin name for June is Junius, ovid offers multiple etymologies for the name in the Fasti, a poem about the Roman calendar. In ancient Rome, the period from mid-May through mid-June was considered inauspicious for marriage, ovid says that he consulted the Flaminica Dialis, the high priestess of Jupiter, about setting a date for his daughters wedding, and was advised to wait till after June 15. Plutarch, however, implies that the month of June was more favorable for weddings than May. Certain meteor showers take place in June, the Arietids takes place May 22 to July 2 each year, and peaks on June 7. The Beta Taurids June 5 to July 18, the June Bootids take place roughly between 26 June and 2 July each year. The Secular Games were held roughly every 100 years in either May or June and these dates does not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar. In Catholic tradition, June is the Month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, african-American Music Appreciation Month ALS Awareness Month Caribbean American Heritage Month Crop over, celebrated until the first Monday in August. The birth flowers are rose and honeysuckle, the zodiac signs for the month of June are Gemini and Cancer
2.
July
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July is the seventh month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and the fourth month to have the length of 31 days. It was named by the Roman Senate in honor of the Roman general, Julius Caesar, prior to that, it was called Quintilis. It is on average the warmest month in most of the Northern hemisphere, the second half of the year commences in July. In the Southern hemisphere, July is the equivalent of January in the Northern hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, Dog days are considered to begin in early July, spring lambs, born in late winter or early spring, are usually sold before July 1. In Ancient Rome the festival of Poplifugia was celebrated on July 5, Ludi Apollinares on July 13 and for days afterwards. This list does not necessarily imply either official status nor general observance, season of Emancipation April 14 to August 23 Honor America Days, June 14 to July 4 In Catholic tradition, July is the Month of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. Group B Strep Awareness Month National Hot Dog Month National Ice Cream Month July 23, Amavasya Phi Ta Khon Dates are selected by village mediums and can take place anywhere between March and July. July 2 Flag Day Palio di Provenzano Police Day World UFO Day July 3 The start of the Dog Days according to the Old Farmers Almanac, Emancipation Day Independence Day Womens Day July 4 Birthday of Queen Sonja Dree Festival, celebrated until July 7. Its birth flowers are the Larkspur or the Water Lily, the zodiac signs for the month of July are Cancer and Leo
3.
August
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August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the fifth month to have the length of 31 days. In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere. In many European countries, August is the month for most workers. Certain meteor showers take place in August, the Perseids, a major meteor shower, typically takes place between July 17 - August 24, with the days of the peak varying yearly. The star cluster of Messier 30 is best observed around August and this month was originally named Sextilis in Latin, because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year. About 700 BC it became the month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days, in 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus. According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs and these dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar. August is the month with highest birth rate in the United States, augusts birthstones are the peridot and sardonyx. Its birth flower is the gladiolus or poppy, meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage, the Western zodiac signs for the month of August are Leo and Virgo. This list does not necessarily imply either official status or general observance. H, sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyans Accession Day. Ferragosto Māras Mothers Day National Acadian Day Virgin of Candelaria, patron of the Canary Islands
4.
Leap year
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A leap year is a calendar year containing one additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected, a year that is not a leap year is called a common year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, each year has 366 days instead of the usual 365. In the Bahai Calendar, a day is added when needed to ensure that the following year begins on the vernal equinox. For example, Christmas Day fell on a Tuesday in 2001, Wednesday in 2002, the length of a day is also occasionally changed by the insertion of leap seconds into Coordinated Universal Time, owing to the variability of Earths rotational period. Unlike leap days, leap seconds are not introduced on a regular schedule, in the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar in most of the world, most years that are multiples of 4 are leap years. In each leap year, the month of February has 29 days instead of 28, adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a tropical year by almost 6 hours. Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a tropical year is slightly less than 365.25 days. For example, the years 1700,1800, and 1900 were not leap years, over a period of four centuries, the accumulated error of adding a leap day every four years amounts to about three extra days. The Gregorian calendar therefore removes three leap days every 400 years, which is the length of its leap cycle and this is done by removing February 29 in the three century years that cannot be exactly divided by 400. The years 1600,2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1700,1800,1900,2100,2200 and 2300 are common years, by this rule, the average number of days per year is 365 + 1⁄4 − 1⁄100 + 1⁄400 =365.2425. The rule can be applied to years before the Gregorian reform, the Gregorian calendar was designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter remains close to the vernal equinox. The Accuracy section of the Gregorian calendar article discusses how well the Gregorian calendar achieves this design goal, the following pseudocode determines whether a year is a leap year or a common year in the Gregorian calendar. The year variable being tested is the representing the number of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Care should be taken in translating mathematical integer divisibility into specific programming languages, if then else if then else if then else February 29 is a date that usually occurs every four years, and is called leap day. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, the Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a calendar and named many of its days after the syzygies of the moon, the new moon. The Nonae or nones was not the first quarter moon but was exactly one nundina or Roman market week of nine days before the ides and this is what we would call a period of eight days
5.
Gregorian calendar
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The Gregorian calendar is internationally the most widely used civil calendar. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582, the calendar was a refinement to the Julian calendar involving a 0. 002% correction in the length of the year. The motivation for the reform was to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes and solstices—particularly the northern vernal equinox, transition to the Gregorian calendar would restore the holiday to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when introduced by the early Church. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe, the last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923. Many countries that have used the Islamic and other religious calendars have come to adopt this calendar for civil purposes. The reform was a modification of a made by Aloysius Lilius. His proposal included reducing the number of years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Lilius also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the moon when calculating the date of Easter. For example, the years 1700,1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are. The canonical Easter tables were devised at the end of the third century, when the vernal equinox fell either on 20 March or 21 March depending on the years position in the leap year cycle. As the rule was that the full moon preceding Easter was not to precede the equinox, the date was fixed at 21 March for computational purposes, the Gregorian calendar reproduced these conditions by removing ten days. To unambiguously specify a date, dual dating or Old Style, dual dating gives two consecutive years for a given date, because of differences in the starting date of the year, and/or to give both the Julian and the Gregorian dates. The Gregorian calendar continued to use the calendar era, which counts years from the traditional date of the nativity. This year-numbering system, also known as Dionysian era or Common Era, is the predominant international standard today, the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. A regular Gregorian year consists of 365 days, but as in the Julian calendar, in a leap year, in the Julian calendar a leap year occurs every 4 years, but the Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years. In the Julian calendar, this day was inserted by doubling 24 February. In the modern period, it has become customary to number the days from the beginning of the month, some churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, delay February festivals after the 23rd by one day in leap years. Gregorian years are identified by consecutive year numbers, the cycles repeat completely every 146,097 days, which equals 400 years
6.
Islamic calendar
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The Islamic, Muslim, or Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries and it is also used by Muslims to determine the proper days of Islamic holidays and rituals, such as the annual period of fasting and the proper time for the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Islamic calendar employs the Hijri era whose epoch was retrospectively established as the Islamic New Year of AD622, during that year, Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib and established the first Muslim community, an event commemorated as the Hijra. In the West, dates in this era are usually denoted AH in parallel with the Christian, in Muslim countries, it is also sometimes denoted as H from its Arabic form. In English, years prior to the Hijra are reckoned as BH, the current Islamic year is 1438 AH. In the Gregorian calendar,1438 AH runs from approximately 3 October 2016 to 21 September 2017, four of the twelve Hijri months are considered sacred, Rajab, and the three consecutive months of Dhū al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Ḥijjah and Muḥarram. As the lunar calendar lags behind the solar calendar by about ten days every gregorian year, the cycle repeats every 33 lunar years. Each month of the Islamic calendar commences on the birth of the new lunar cycle, traditionally this is based on actual observation of the crescent marking the end of the previous lunar cycle and hence the previous month, thereby beginning the new month. Consequently, each month can have 29 or 30 days depending on the visibility of the moon, astronomical positioning of the earth and weather conditions. However, certain sects and groups, most notably Dawoodi Bohra Muslims and Shia Ismaili Muslims, use a tabular Islamic calendar in which odd-numbered months have thirty days, in Arabic, the first day of the week corresponds with Sunday of the planetary week. The Islamic weekdays, like those in the Hebrew and Baháí calendars, the Christian liturgical day, kept in monasteries, begins with vespers, which is evening, in line with the other Abrahamic traditions. Christian and planetary weekdays begin at the following midnight, Muslims gather for worship at a mosque at noon on gathering day which corresponds with Friday. Thus gathering day is regarded as the weekly day of rest. A few others have adopted the Saturday-Sunday weekend while making Friday a working day with a midday break to allow time off for worship. Inscriptions of the ancient South Arabian calendars reveal the use of a number of local calendars, at least some of these calendars followed the lunisolar system. For Central Arabia, especially Mecca, there is a lack of epigraphical evidence, both al-Biruni and al-Masudi suggest that the Ancient Arabs used the same month names as the Muslims, though they also record other month names used by the pre-Islamic Arabs. Nevertheless, the Islamic position equating Nisan with Dhū al-Ḥijja has prevailed, for a comparison between the Islamic and pre-Islamic months, see Islamic and Jahili months. The Islamic tradition is unanimous in stating that Arabs of Tihamah, Hejaz, the forbidden months were four months during which fighting is forbidden, listed as Rajab and the three months around the pilgrimage season, Dhu al-Qa‘dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, and Muharram
7.
Battle of Spercheios
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The Battle of Spercheios took place in 997 AD, on the shores of the Spercheios river near the city of Lamia in central Greece. It was fought between a Bulgarian army led by Tsar Samuil, that in the year had penetrated south into Greece. The Byzantine victory virtually destroyed the Bulgarian army, and stopped its raids in the southern Balkans, the major historical source on the battle comes from Greek historian John Skylitzes whose Synopsis of Histories contains a biography of the then reigning Byzantine Emperor, Basil II. After the success of the Bulgarians in the Battle of the Gates of Trajan in 986, Byzantium descended into a civil war, Tsar Samuil took advantage of the situation. He managed to seize many castles in the surroundings of Byzantiums second largest city, in 991 the Byzantines managed to capture Roman of Bulgaria but this did not stop Samuil who was now de facto the only emperor of Bulgaria. In 996 Samuil defeated the forces of the strategos of Thessalonica and marched to the south, eventually threatening Larissa, on his way back he met a Byzantine army on the opposite side of the Spercheios river, led by the Domestic of the West, Nikephoros Ouranos. Basil II had appointed Ouranos commander of all Balkan and Greek territories of the Byzantine Empire and he followed the Bulgarian army and confronted it after the Bulgarians went through the Thermopylae pass on the river of Spercheios. Due to heavy rainfalls, the river had swollen and flooded an area on both shores. The Bulgarians camped on the shore and the Byzantines on the northern. The two armies remained thus encamped for several days, Samuil was confident that the Byzantines could not cross, and neglected taking measures to protect his camp. Ouranos however, sought and found a ford, leading his army across during the night, the Bulgarians were not able to put up effective resistance, and the larger part of their army was destroyed and captured. Samuil himself was wounded and he and his son Gavril Radomir evaded capture by feigning death among the bodies of their slain soldiers while around 12,000 of their men were said to be captured. After nightfall they set off to Bulgaria and in the Pindus mountains gathered what was left of their army, due to the difficult 400 km journey to Ochrid his arm healed at an angle of 140°. According to Yahya of Antioch, Nikephoros Ouranos returned to Constantinople with one thousand heads of Bulgarian soldiers, the battle was a major defeat of the Bulgarian army. At first Samuil showed readiness for negotiations but upon the news of the death of Bulgarias official ruler Roman in prison, he proclaimed himself as sole legitimate tsar, although Samuil initially managed to recover the Byzantines decisively took the lead in the war. In 1014 they decisively defeated the Bulgarians and conquered the country, according to Skylitzes the victory was entirely Ouranos achievement and Basil II is credited with little besides appointing him to the office of Domesticos. Йордан Андреев, Милчо Лалков, Българските ханове и царе, Велико Търново,1996
8.
Samuel of Bulgaria
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Samuel was the Tsar of the First Bulgarian Empire from 997 to 6 October 1014. As Samuel struggled to preserve his countrys independence from the Byzantine Empire, his rule was characterized by constant warfare against the Byzantines, in his early years Samuel managed to inflict several major defeats on the Byzantines and to launch offensive campaigns into their territory. In the late 10th century, the Bulgarian armies conquered the principality of Duklja and led campaigns against the Kingdoms of Croatia, but from 1001, he was forced mainly to defend the Empire against the superior Byzantine armies. Samuel died of an attack on 6 October 1014, two months after the catastrophic battle of Kleidion. His successors failed to organize a resistance, and in 1018, four years after Samuels death, Samuel was considered invincible in power and unsurpassable in strength. Similar comments were even in Constantinople, where John Kyriotes penned a poem offering a punning comparison between the Bulgarian Emperor and Halleys comet, which appeared in 989. During Samuels reign, Bulgaria gained control of most of the Balkans as far as southern Greece. He moved the capital from Skopje to Ohrid, which had been the cultural and military centre of southwestern Bulgaria since Boris Is rule, because of this, his realm is sometimes called the Western Bulgarian Empire. Samuels energetic reign restored Bulgarian might on the Balkans, and although the Empire was disestablished after his death and his mother was Ripsimia of Armenia, the daughter of King Ashot II of Armenia. The actual name of the dynasty is not known, Cometopuli is the nickname used by Byzantine historians which is translated as sons of the count. The Cometopuli rose to power out of the disorder that occurred in the Bulgarian Empire from 966 to 971, during the reign of Emperor Peter I, Bulgaria prospered in a long-lasting peace with Byzantium. This was secured by the marriage of Peter with the Byzantine princess Maria Lakapina, during these years the Byzantines and Bulgarians had entangled themselves in a war with Kievan Rus Prince Sviatoslav, who invaded Bulgaria several times. After a defeat from Sviatoslav, Peter I suffered a stroke, Boris was allowed back to Bulgaria to take his fathers throne, restore order and oppose Sviatoslav, but had little success. This was allegedly used by Nicholas and his sons, who were contemplating a revolt in 969, the Rus invaded Byzantine Thrace in 970, but suffered a defeat in the Battle of Arcadiopolis. The new Byzantine Emperor John Tzimiskes used this to his advantage and he quickly invaded Bulgaria the following year, defeated the Rus, and conquered the Bulgarian capital Preslav. Boris II of Bulgaria was ritually divested of his insignia in a public ceremony in Constantinople and he. Although the ceremony in 971 had been intended as a termination of the Bulgarian Empire. Count Nicholas, Samuels father, who had ties to the royal court in Preslav
9.
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
10.
Nikephoros Ouranos
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Nikephoros Ouranos, Latinized as Nicephorus Uranus, was a high-ranking Byzantine official and general during the reign of Emperor Basil II. A well-educated man, he wrote a manual and composed several surviving poems. Very little is known of Ouranoss origin, his years or his family. A prōtospatharios and asēkrētis Basil Ouranos, possibly a relative, is attested. Nikephoros Ouranos himself first enters history in the early 980s, during negotiations between Byzantium and the Emir of Baghdad for the return of the rebel general Bardas Skleros. Once in Baghdad, however, Ouranos was accused of trying to poison or to negotiate in secret with Skleros. It is very likely that the charges against him were orchestrated by Basil Lekapenos and he remained in prison in Baghdad until after Bardas Skleros himself was let go in late 986, and was back at Constantinople in 987. By that time, Basil Lekapenos had fallen from power and had died, following their success, the Bulgarians had penetrated deep into Greece, raiding and pillaging even unto Corinth in the Peloponnese. In 997, Ouranos assembled his forces at Thessalonica and marched south to meet them, while the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, upon hearing of his coming, turned north. The two armies met on the banks of the river Spercheios in Central Greece, which was flooded due to heavy rainfall in the preceding days. Both armies thus encamped on opposite shores of the river, the Bulgarians, confident that the Byzantines could not cross the river, neglected to station guards. Ouranos, however, found a ford further upstream, crossed his army over during the night, the battle was a rout, as the majority of the Bulgarian army, caught unawares, was either killed or captured. Even Tsar Samuel and his son were wounded and only escaped by lying among the slain, Ouranos continued campaigning in the area over the next years, although no information on his operations is provided by the chronicler Skylitzes, our main source. In December 999, Ouranos was appointed doux of Antioch in Syria, in 1000–1001, Ouranos quelled an uprising by two Syrian Bedouin tribes, the Noumeritai and the Ataphitai. In 1005–1007, he was engaged in operations against the Arab rebel Al-Asfar, nothing is known of Ouranos after that date, although the fact that a successor as doux of Antioch was not appointed until 1011 may mean that he continued to occupy the office until that date. The 10th century saw a revival in the practice of writing encyclopedic works, including military manuals, Nikephoross Taktika represent the final example among the latter, and were written while he was governor of Antioch. The work consists of 178 chapters, which can be divided into the following parts, Chapters 66–74 are derived from the 1st-century author Onasander. Chapters 75–175 and 176–178 likewise are derived from ancient authors, of Ouranoss own additions, chapter 63 deals with raids into enemy territory
11.
Spercheios
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The Spercheios, also known as the Spercheus from its Latin name, is a river in Phthiotis in central Greece. It was worshipped as a god in the ancient Greek religion, in antiquity, its upper valley was known as Ainis. In AD997, its valley was the site of the Battle of Spercheios, the river begins in the Tymfristos mountains on the border with Evrytania and flows to the east through the village Agios Georgios Tymfristou, entering a wide plain. It flows along the towns Makrakomi and Leianokladi, and south of the Phthiotidan capital Lamia, the river flows through an area of former wetlands, that have been reclaimed for agriculture. It empties into the Malian Gulf of the Aegean Sea 13 kilometers southeast of Lamia, in antiquity, the mouth of the river was the site of Antikyra, which was famed for its black and white hellebore. Several studies have been conducted regarding the rivers hydrological regime and its silt has slowly filled the Malian Gulf, turning Thermopylae from a narrow pass into a wide plain. Homers Iliad names the river as the father of Menesthius, one of Achilless lieutenants, antoninus Liberalis notes the tradition that Cerambus was punished for claiming that the nymphs of Mount Othrys were the daughters of Spercheios by Deino. Antoninus Liberalis also relates the account that Spercheios and Polydoras son was Dryops, king of Oeta, la vallée du Spercheios des origines au IVe siècle
12.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
13.
Legatus
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A legatus was a general in the Roman army, equivalent to a modern general officer. Being of senatorial rank, his superior was the Proconsul. In order to command an army independently of the Proconsul, legates were required to be of praetorian rank or higher, a legate could be invested with propraetorian imperium in his own right. Legates received large shares of the booty at the end of a successful campaign. The men who filled the office of legate were drawn from among the class of Rome. Due to his advanced senatorial status, a legatus was entitled to five fasces and this rank was also the overall legionary commander. This post was appointed by the emperor. In a province with one legion, the legatus was also the provincial governor, but in provinces with multiple legions, each legion had a legatus. The legatus could be distinguished in the field by his helmet and body armour, as well as his scarlet paludamentum. The latter was a scarlet waist-band tied around his waist in a bow. Legatus was also a term for an ambassador of the Roman Republic who was appointed by the senate for a mission to a foreign nation and this is the sense of the word that survives in the phrase Papal legate. Military of ancient Rome portal List of Roman army unit types
14.
Western Christianity
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Western Christianity consists of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, and a variety of Protestant denominations. The name has applied in order to distinguish these from Eastern Christianity. Today, the distinction between Western and Eastern Christianity is not nearly as absolute, due to the spread of missionary activities, migrations. The adjectives Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity are thus used to refer to historical origins rather than present geographical locations. For most of its history the church in Europe has been divided between the Latin-speaking west, whose centre was Rome, and the Greek-speaking east, whose centre was Constantinople. Cultural differences and political rivalry created tensions between the two churches, leading to disagreement over doctrine and ecclesiology and ultimately to schism, like Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity traces its roots, directly or indirectly, to the apostles and other early preachers of the religion. In Western Christianitys original area Latin was the principal language, Christian writers in Latin had more influence there than those who wrote in Greek, Syriac, or other Eastern languages. With the last-named form of Eastern Christianity, reunion agreements were signed at the Second Council of Lyon and the Council of Florence, but these proved ineffective. The rise of Protestantism led to divisions within Western Christianity, which still persist, and wars—for example. In and after the Age of Discovery, Europeans spread Western Christianity to the New World, Roman Catholicism came to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Protestantism, including Anglicanism, came to North America, Australia-Pacific and this Western version also has the additional phrase God from God, which was in the Creed as adopted by the First Council of Nicaea, but which was dropped by the First Council of Constantinople. The date of Easter usually differs between Eastern and Western Christianity, because the calculations are based on the Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar respectively, for example, the Church of England continued to observe Easter on the same date as the Eastern Church until 1753. Even the dates of other Christian holidays differ between Eastern and Western Christianity, Western Christianity makes up about 90% of Christians worldwide, with the Roman Catholic Church accounting for over half and various Protestant denominations making up another 40%. Hussite movements of 15th century Bohemia preceded the main Protestant uprising by 100 years and evolved into several small Protestant churches, waldensians survived also, but blended into the Reformed tradition
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Eastern Christianity
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Eastern Christianity consists of four main church families, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East, as well as the Eastern Catholic Churches. The term is used in contrast with Western Christianity, the term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination. Some Eastern churches have more in common historically and theologically with Western Christianity than with one another, the various Eastern churches do not normally refer to themselves as Eastern, with the exception of the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoots. Eastern Christians do not share the religious traditions, but do share many cultural traditions. Christianity divided itself in the East during its early centuries both within and outside of the Roman Empire in disputes about Christology and fundamental theology, as well as national divisions and it would be many centuries later that Western Christianity fully split from these traditions as its own communion. The Eastern churches differences from Western Christianity have as much, if not more, to do with culture, language, for the non-Catholic Eastern churches, a definitive date for the commencement of schism cannot usually be given. Oriental Orthodoxy separated after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, since the time of the historian Edward Gibbon, the split between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church has been conveniently dated to 1054, though the reality is more complex. This split is referred to as the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodox Christians accept the decisions of the First seven Ecumenical Councils, the Eastern Orthodox Church is organized into self-governing jurisdictions along geographical, national, ethnic, and/or linguistic lines. Eastern Orthodoxy is thus made up of 15 or 16 autocephalous bodies, smaller churches are autonomous and each have a mother church that is autocephalous. This is in contrast to the Catholic Church and its various Churches, members of the latter are all in communion with each other, parts of a top-down hierarchy. The majority of Catholics accept both the Filioque clause and, since 1950, the Assumption of Mary and this puts them in sharp contrast with the Eastern Orthodox. Yet some Catholics who are not in communion with the Catholic Church side with the Eastern Orthodox here and reject these teachings and it is estimated that there are approximately 240 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in the world. Today, many adherents shun the term Eastern as denying the universal character. They refer to Eastern Orthodoxy simply as the Orthodox Church, hence, these churches are also called Old Oriental churches. Oriental Orthodoxy developed in reaction to Chalcedon on the limit of the Byzantine Empire and in Egypt. In those locations, there are also Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, thereafter it was often known, possibly inaccurately, as the Nestorian Church in the West. Surviving a period of persecution within Persia, the Church of the East flourished under the caliphate and branched out, in the 16th century dynastic struggles sent the church into schism, resulting in the formation of two rival churches
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Papal bull
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A Papal bull is a specific kind of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Roman Catholic Church. It is named after the seal that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it. Papal bulls have been in use at least since the 6th century, but the phrase was not used until around the end of the 13th century, and then only internally for unofficial administrative purposes. However, it had become official by the 15th century, when one of the offices of the Apostolic Chancery was named the register of bulls, by the accession of Pope Leo IX in 1048, a clear distinction developed between two classes of bulls of greater and less solemnity. The majority of the bulls now in existence are in the nature of confirmations of property or charters of protection accorded to monasteries. In an epoch when there was much fabrication of such documents, a Papal confirmation, under certain conditions, could be pleaded as itself constituting sufficient evidence of title in cases where the original deed had been lost or destroyed. Since the 12th century, Papal bulls have carried a seal with the heads of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul on one side. Papal bulls were issued by the Pope for many kinds of communication of a public nature. Papyrus seems to have used almost uniformly as the material for these documents until the early years of the eleventh century. Popularly, the name is used for any Papal document that contains a metal seal, today, the bull is the only written communication in which the Pope will refer to himself as Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei. For example, when Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree in bull form, while Papal bulls always used to bear a metal seal, they now do so only on the most solemn occasions. A Papal bull is today the most formal type of public decree or letters patent issued by the Vatican Chancery in the name of the Pope, the body of the text had no specific conventions for its formatting, it was often very simple in layout. For the most solemn bulls, the Pope signed the document himself, following the signature in this case would be an elaborate monogram, the signatures of any witnesses, and then the seal. Nowadays, a member of the Roman Curia signs the document on behalf of the Pope, usually the Cardinal Secretary of State, and thus the monogram is omitted. The most distinctive characteristic of a bull was the seal, which was usually made of lead. On the obverse it depicted, originally somewhat crudely, the early Fathers of the Church of Rome, the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, identified by the letters Sanctus PAulus and Sanctus PEtrus. Each head was surrounded by a circle of globetti, and the rim of the seal was surrounded by a ring of such beads. On the reverse was the name of the issuing Pope in the nominative Latin form, with the letters PP, for Pastor Pastorum
