Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian. A founding member of the Annales School of French social history, he specialised in medieval history and published on Medieval France over the course of his career; as an academic, he worked at the University of Strasbourg, the University of Paris, the University of Montpellier. Born in Lyon to an Alsatian Jewish family, Bloch was raised in Paris, where his father—the classical historian Gustave Bloch—worked at Sorbonne University. Bloch was educated at various Parisian lycées and the École Normale Supérieure, from an early age was affected by the anti-semitism of the Dreyfus affair. During the First World War, he served in the French Army and fought at the First Battle of the Marne and the Somme. After the war, he was awarded his doctorate in 1918 and became a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. There, he formed an intellectual partnership with modern historian Lucien Febvre. Together they founded the Annales School and began publishing the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale in 1929.

Bloch was a modernist in his historiographical approach, emphasised the importance of a multidisciplinary engagement towards history blending his research with that on geography and economics, his subject when he was offered a post at the University of Paris in 1936. During the Second World War Bloch volunteered for service, was a logistician during the Phoney War. Involved in the Battle of Dunkirk and spending a brief time in Britain, he unsuccessfully attempted to secure passage to the United States. Back in France, where his ability to work was curtailed by new anti-Semitic regulations, he applied for and received one of the few permits available allowing Jews to continue working in the French university system, he had to leave Paris, complained that the Nazi German authorities looted his apartment and stole his books. Bloch worked in Montpellier until November 1942, he joined the French Resistance, acting predominantly as a courier and translator. In 1944, he was executed by firing squad.

Several works—including influential studies like The Historian's Craft and Strange Defeat—were published posthumously. His historical studies and his death as a member of the Resistance together made Bloch regarded by generations of post-war French historians. By the end of the 20th century, historians were making a more sober assessment of Bloch's abilities and legacy, arguing that there were flaws to his approach. Marc Bloch was born in Lyon on 6 July 1886, one of two children to Gustave and Sarah Bloch, née Ebstein. Bloch's family were Alsatian Jews: secular and loyal to the French Republic, they "struck a balance", says the historian Carole Fink, between both "fierce Jacobin patriotism and the antinationalism of the left". His family had lived in Alsace for five generations under French rule. In 1871, France was forced to cede the region to Germany following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War; the year after Bloch's birth, his father was appointed professor of Roman History at the Sorbonne, the family moved to Paris—"the glittering capital of the Third Republic".

Marc had Louis Constant Alexandre, seven years his senior. The two were close, although Bloch described Louis as being somewhat intimidating; the Bloch family lived at Rue d'Alésia, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Gustave began teaching Marc history while he was still a boy, with a secular, rather than Jewish, education intended to prepare him for a career in professional French society. Bloch's close collaborator, Lucien Febvre, visited the Bloch family at home in 1902. Bloch's biographer Karen Stirling ascribed significance to the era in which Bloch was born: the middle of the French Third Republic, so "after those who had founded it and before the generation that would aggressively challenge it"; when Bloch was nine-years-old, the Dreyfus affair broke out in France. As the first major display of political antisemitism in Europe, it was a formative event of Bloch's youth, along with, more the atmosphere of fin de siècle Paris. Bloch was 11 when Émile Zola published J'Accuse…!, his indictment of the French establishment's antisemitism and corruption.

Bloch was affected by the Dreyfus affair, but more affected was nineteenth-century France and his father's employer, the École Normale Supérieure, saw existing divides in French society reinforced in every debate. Gustave Bloch was involved in the Dreyfusard movement and his son agreed with the cause. Bloch was educated at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand for three years, where he was head of his class and won prizes in French, history and natural history, he passed his baccalauréat, in July 1903, being graded trés bien. The following year, he received a scholarship and undertook postgraduate study there for the École normale supérieure, his father had been nicknamed le Méga by his students at the ÉNS and the moniker Microméga was bestowed upon Bloch. Here he was taught history by Christian Pfister and Charles Seign

Peter Vok of Rosenberg was a Czech nobleman of the House of Rosenberg, descended from the Vítkovci. Rožmberk was a leading Protestant in the unsettled years before Bila Hora. Peter Vok was born in Český Krumlov, the son of Jošt III of Rosenberg head of the house of Rožmberk, his wife Anna of Rogendorf. Fourteen days after Peter's birth, his father died. Peter came under the guardianship of first his uncle Petr V of Rožmberk and Albrecht of Gutnštejn, Oldřich Holický of Šternberk and Jeroným Šlik, he received his early education at home in the castle at Český Krumlov. As he reached adulthood, Peter lived in the shadow of his older brother William. While William was a life-long Catholic, Peter sympathised with Utraquism and joined the Unity of the Brethren. William died in 1592, Peter inherited the Rosenberg holdings. Aged forty, Peter married the much younger Kateřina of Ludanic. An idyllic marriage, with the young Kateřina appreciating the attention paid her by her aging husband, the union began to break down, in part because of Kateřina's worsening mental illness.

The couple had no children, the Rosenberg line ended with Peter Vok. He aged 72, in 1611 and was buried in a Rosenberg tomb in the monastery at Vyšší Brod. Shortly after Peter's death, his nephew Jan Zrinský of Seryna died, as such the whole Rosenberg dominions passed to the Švamberk family. After his death, Peter Vok became the subject of popular legends which characterized him as a generous benefactor and an exemplary Renaissance cavalier. In the modern imagination, he is thought of above all as a lovable rake, his romance with the miller-knight's daughter Zuzana Vojířová is the subject of several stories and the opera Zuzana Vojířová by Jiří Pauer

Kashi Math is a spiritual organisation followed by the Madhva section of Goud Saraswat Brahmins,who are referred as Madhwa Saraswat Brahmins or Vaishnava Saraswat Brahmins. It is one of the ancient Madhva mathas of the Dvaita order. With its headquarters in Brahma Ghat, Varanasi. Kashi Math has followers all over the Konkan belt, prominently in Mumbai, Udupi, Kochi and other parts of Kerala and Karnataka; the principal deities of Kashi Math are charaprathishta idols of Vyasa and Narasimha, who are collectively known as the Vyasa Raghupathi Narasimha. The Kashi Math follows the Guru-shishya tradition where the Guru of the Math initiates a shishya to succeed him upon his Samadhi. Samyamindra Thirtha is the current head of the Math. Prior heads have been: Yadavendra Thirtha -I Keshavendra Thirtha Upendra Thirtha -I Yadavendra Thirtha -II Raghavendra Thirtha Devendra Thirtha Madhavendra Thirtha Jnaneendra Thirtha Yadavendra Thirtha -III Upendra Thirtha -II Rajendra Thirtha Vishnu Thirtha Sureendra Thirtha Vibhudendra Thirtha Sumatheendra Thirtha Vasudendra Thirtha Bhuvanendra Thirtha Varadendra Thirtha Sukrathindra Thirtha Sudhindra Thirtha Samyamindra Thirtha On 7 July 1989, in accordance with the guru-shishya tradition, the guru, Sudhindra Thirtha, initiated a follower into sanyasa so that in due course they would succeed him as the 21st guru.

For reasons not known, serious differences between Sudhindra Tirtha and his appointed successor, Raghavendra Tirtha, became apparent around 2000–2001 amidst concerns about insubordination and integrity. On 19 July 2000, the mathadipathi removed Raghavendra Tirtha from his position of successor by making use of an earlier communication from November 1999 which had requested relief from the tutelage; this removal necessitated the initiation of a new shishya to succeed Sudindra Thirtha and this was done on 20 June 2002 when Samyamindra Thirtha were initiated. Thereafter the tussle among the pontiffs turned into a dispute over the control of the Kashi Math and the ownership of its relics; those relics included about 234 pieces of jewelry and silver articles, as well as 27 idols including the main idol of Vyasa Raghupathi. Raghavendra Tirtha had possession of these items but was ordered by Court in Tirupathi to give them to Sudhindra Tirtha; the Court upheld the status of the senior pontiff and the mathadhipathi, accepted the junior's abdication and directed him to return all belongings of the math and refrain from interfering in its affairs.

A petition seeking a stay on the order was dismissed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The Supreme Court of India confirmed the same on 2 December 2009 and upheld the High Court order recognizing Sudhendra Tirtha as mathadipadi. After months of defying various court orders, Raghavendra Tirtha absconded with the relics and was arrested at Kadapa in October 2011. Thereafter in November 2011, the'parikaras' were handed over to Sudhindra Tirtha. Samyamindra Thirtha became main successor of Kashi Math. Sudhindra Thirtha attained Vrindavan on 17 January 2016 at Haridwar; as per the tradition, Samyamindra Thirtha became the new head of Kashi Math and they took charge on 28 January 2016 at Vyasashram, Haridwar. They are holding the'parikaras' and offering the daily pujas. Gokarna Math Shri Gaudapadacharya Math www.kashimath.org