1.
Navigator
–
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigators primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times, responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ships captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. U. S. Coast Guard officers that are shipboard navigators are normally cutter qualified at an analogous to the USN officers previously mentioned. Quartermasters are the navigators enlisted assistants and perform most of the technical navigation duties, aboard ships in the Merchant Marine and Merchant Navy, the second mate is generally the navigator. Navigators are sometimes called air navigators or flight navigators. Modern electronic navigation systems made the civil aviation navigators redundant by the early 1980s, in military aviation, navigators are still actively trained and licensed in some present day air forces, as electronic navigation aids cannot be assumed to be operational during wartime. In the worlds air forces, modern navigators are frequently tasked with weapon systems employment and co-pilot type duties depending on the type, model, a naval ships navigator is responsible for buying and maintaining its nautical charts. A nautical chart, or simply chart, is a representation of a maritime or flight region. Nautical charts are essential tools for marine navigation, many countries require vessels, especially commercial ships, Nautical charting may take the form of charts printed on paper or computerised electronic navigational charts. The nature of a waterway depicted by a chart changes regularly, every producer of navigational charts also provides a system to inform mariners and aviators of changes that affect the chart. Radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections, a convenient way to keep track of corrections is with a chart and publication correction record card system. When the time comes to use the chart, he pulls the chart and charts card and this system ensures that every chart is properly corrected prior to use. British merchant vessels receive weekly Notices to Mariners issued by the Admiralty, when corrections are received all charts are corrected in the ships folio and recorded in NP133A. This system ensures that all charts are corrected and up to date, in a deep sea vessel with a folio of over three thousand charts this can be a laborious and time-consuming task for the. Various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic navigational charts, the nature of waterways described by any given nautical publication changes regularly, and a mariner navigating by use of an old or uncorrected publication is courting disaster. Every producer of nautical publications also provides a system to inform mariners of changes that affect the chart, radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections. For ensuring that all publications are fully up-to-date, similar methods are employed as for nautical charts, various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic nautical publications. The navigator focuses on creating the ships passage plans, before each voyage begins, the navigator should develop a detailed mental model of how the entire voyage will proceed
Navigator
–
This page from a
Sailing Directions assists the navigator by providing pictures and descriptions of a harbor approach.
Navigator
–
A 1976 United States
NOAA chart of part of
Puerto Rico
Navigator
–
Modern navigators often enter passage plans on
electronic systems.
2.
Orienteering
–
Orienteering is a group of sports that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Participants are given a map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for officers, orienteering has developed many variations. Among these, the oldest and the most popular is foot orienteering, Orienteering is included in the programs of world sporting events including the World Games and World Police and Fire Games. Orienteering sports combine significant navigation with a method of travel. Because the method of travel determines the equipment and tactics, each sport requires specific rules for competition and guidelines for orienteering event logistics. It is based in Finland and it claims on its website to aim to spread the sport of orienteering, to promote its development and to create and maintain an attractive world event programme. Since 1977 the IOF has been recognised by the IOC There are governing bodies for most of the nations that are represented in the sport of orienteering. These national bodies are the body for that nation. For example, the British Orienteering Federation is the governing body for the United Kingdom. The federation was founded in 1967 and it is made up of 13 constituent associations, for the United States, the national governing body is Orienteering USA. Most nations have some form of governing bodies. These are not rule-making bodies but are there to assist in coordinating clubs within that region, clubs are usually formed at a local level and affiliated to their national governing body. It is clubs who put on events usually open to all-comers, clubs may also put on practice, training, and social events. Open clubs are open to anyone and there is no restriction on joining them. Closed clubs restrict their membership to specific groups, for example, BAOC has restrictions on who may join, principally British Army personnel. The International Rogaining Federation governs rogaining, separate organizations govern competitive mounted orienteering in the United States and Europe. The International Amateur Radio Union governs amateur radio direction finding, Orienteering terms vary within English speaking countries, and in other countries where English is the de facto international language of orienteering
Orienteering
–
World Orienteering Championships 2007 in
Kiev,
Ukraine. Winners of middle-distance event:
Simone Niggli-Luder,
Switzerland, and
Thierry Gueorgiou,
France
Orienteering
–
The international orienteering flag
Orienteering
–
An orienteer at a control point
Orienteering
–
Thumb compass and protractor compass
3.
History of navigation
–
Sailors navigating in the Mediterranean made use of several techniques to determine their location, including staying in sight of land and understanding of the winds and their tendencies. Minoans of Crete are an example of an early Western civilization that used celestial navigation and their palaces and mountaintop sanctuaries exhibit architectural features that align with the rising sun on the equinoxes, as well as the rising and setting of particular stars. The Minoans made sea voyages to the island of Thera and to Egypt, both of these trips would have taken more than a day’s sail for the Minoans and would have left them traveling by night across open water. Here the sailors would use the locations of stars, especially those of the constellation Ursa Major. The Greek poet Aratus wrote in his Phainomena in the third century BC detailed positions of the constellations as written by Eudoxos. The positions described do not match the locations of the stars during Aratus’ or Eudoxos’ time for the Greek mainland and this change in the position of the stars is due to the wobble of the Earth on its axis which affects primarily the pole stars. Around 1000 BC the constellation Draco would have been closer to the North Pole than Polaris, the pole stars were used to navigate because they did not disappear below the horizon and could be seen consistently throughout the night. By the third century BC the Greeks had begun to use the Little Bear, Ursa Minor, in the mid-1st century AD Lucan writes of Pompey who questions a sailor about the use of stars in navigation. The sailor replies with his description of the use of stars to navigate by. To navigate along a degree of latitude a sailor would have needed to find a star above that degree in the sky. For example, Apollonius would have used β Draconis to navigate as he traveled west from the mouth of the Alpheus River to Syracuse, the voyage of the Greek navigator Pytheas of Massalia is a particularly notable example of a very long, early voyage. A competent astronomer and geographer, Pytheas ventured from Greece through the strait of Gibraltar to Western Europe, Pytheas is the first known person to describe the Midnight Sun, polar ice, Germanic tribes and possibly Stonehenge. Pytheas also introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, nearchos’s celebrated voyage from India to Susa after Alexanders expedition in India is preserved in Arrians account, the Indica. Greek navigator Eudoxus of Cyzicus explored the Arabian Sea for Ptolemy VIII, according to Poseidonius, later reported in Strabos Geography, the monsoon wind system of the Indian Ocean was first sailed by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 118 or 116 BC. Nautical charts and textual descriptions known as sailing directions have been in use in one form or another since the sixth century BC, Nautical charts using stereographic and orthographic projections date back to the second century BC. In 1900, the Antikythera mechanism was recovered from Antikythera wreck and this mechanism was built around 1st century BC. The Phoenicians and their successors, the Carthaginians, were particularly adept sailors, one tool that helped them was the sounding weight. This tool was bell shaped, made from stone or lead, when out to sea, sailors could lower the sounding weight in order to determine how deep the waters were, and therefore estimate how far they were from land
History of navigation
–
Map of the world produced in 1689 by
Gerard van Schagen.
History of navigation
–
An 18th century Persian Astrolabe, kept at The
Whipple Museum of the History of Science in
Cambridge, England.
History of navigation
–
Iceland spar, possibly the Icelandic medieval sunstone used to locate the sun in the sky when obstructed from view.
History of navigation
–
The
Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià is a map made between 1457 and 1459 by the
Venetian monk
Fra Mauro. It is a circular
planisphere drawn on
parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter.
4.
History of geodesy
–
Geodesy, also named geodetics, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth. The history of geodesy began in antiquity and blossomed during the Age of Enlightenment, early ideas about the figure of the Earth held the Earth to be flat, and the heavens a physical dome spanning over it. The early Greeks, in their speculation and theorizing, ranged from the flat disc advocated by Homer to the spherical body postulated by Pythagoras, pythagorass idea was supported later by Aristotle. Pythagoras was a mathematician and to him the most perfect figure was a sphere and he reasoned that the gods would create a perfect figure and therefore the Earth was created to be spherical in shape. Anaximenes, an early Greek philosopher, believed strongly that the Earth was rectangular in shape, since the spherical shape was the most widely supported during the Greek Era, efforts to determine its size followed. Platos figure was a guess and Archimedes a more conservative approximation, in Egypt, a Greek scholar and philosopher, Eratosthenes, is said to have made more explicit measurements. He had heard that on the longest day of the summer solstice, at the same time, he observed the sun was not directly overhead at Alexandria, instead, it cast a shadow with the vertical equal to 1/50th of a circle. Legend has it that he had someone walk from Alexandria to Syene to measure the distance, the circumference of the Earth is 24,902 mi. Over the poles it is more precisely 40,008 km or 24,860 mi, the actual unit of measure used by Eratosthenes was the stadion. No one knows for sure what his stadion equals in modern units, had the experiment been carried out as described, it would not be remarkable if it agreed with actuality. What is remarkable is that the result was only about 0. 4% too high. A parallel later ancient measurement of the size of the Earth was made by another Greek scholar and he is said to have noted that the star Canopus was hidden from view in most parts of Greece but that it just grazed the horizon at Rhodes. Posidonius is supposed to have measured the elevation of Canopus at Alexandria and he assumed the distance from Alexandria to Rhodes to be 5000 stadia, and so he computed the Earths circumference in stadia as 48 times 5000 =240,000. Some scholars see these results as luckily semi-accurate due to cancellation of errors, the abovementioned larger and smaller sizes of the Earth were those used by Claudius Ptolemy at different times,252,000 stadia in his Almagest and 180,000 stadia in his later Geography. The Indian mathematician Aryabhata was a pioneer of mathematical astronomy and he describes the earth as being spherical and that it rotates on its axis, among other things in his work Āryabhaṭīya. Aryabhatiya is divided into four sections, the discovery that the earth rotates on its own axis from west to east is described in Aryabhatiya. Aryabhata gives the radii of the orbits of the planets in terms of the Earth-Sun distance as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun and he also gave the correct explanation of lunar and solar eclipses and that the Moon shines by reflecting sunlight. The Muslim scholars, who held to the spherical Earth theory, used it to calculate the distance and this determined the Qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer
History of geodesy
–
Archive with
lithography plates for maps of
Bavaria in the Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation in
Munich
History of geodesy
–
Geodesy
History of geodesy
–
Negative lithography stone and positive print of a historic map of Munich
5.
Mechanic arts
–
Artes Mechanicae, or mechanical arts, are a medieval concept of ordered practices or skills, often juxtaposed to the traditional seven liberal arts Artes liberales. Also called servile and vulgar, from antiquity they had been deemed unbecoming for a free man, hughs treatment somewhat elevates the mechanical arts as ordained to the improvement of humanity, a promotion which was to represent a growing trend among late medievals. The classification of the Artes Mechanicae as applied geometry was introduced to Western Europe by Dominicus Gundissalinus under the influence of his readings in Arabic scholarship, in the 19th century mechanic arts referred to fields of which some are now known as engineering. The mechanic arts were also considered practical fields for those that did not come from good families, related phrases, useful arts, or applied arts probably encompass the mechanic arts as well as craftsmanship in general. The most famous usage of the mechanic arts is in the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. Artes liberales Medieval technology Walton, S. A, an Introduction to the Mechanical Arts in the Middle Ages, AVISTA, University of Toronto,2003
Mechanic arts
–
A high medieval construction site from the
Maciejowski Bible.
6.
Polynesian navigation
–
Traditional Polynesian navigation was used for thousands of years to make long voyages across thousands of miles of the open Pacific Ocean. Navigators travelled to small inhabited islands using wayfinding techniques and knowledge passed by oral tradition from master to apprentice, generally each island maintained a guild of navigators who had very high status, in times of famine or difficulty they could trade for aid or evacuate people to neighboring islands. As of 2014, these traditional methods are still taught in the Polynesian outlier of Taumako Island in the Solomons. Polynesian navigation used some instruments, which predate and are distinct from the machined metal tools used by European navigators. However, they relied heavily on close observation of sea sign. Both wayfinding techniques and outrigger canoe construction methods have been kept as guild secrets, in the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with a degree of certainty. This culture, known as Lapita, stands out in the Melanesian archeological record, particularly characteristic of the Lapita culture is the making of pottery, including a great many vessels of varied shapes, some distinguished by fine patterns and motifs pressed into the clay. Within a mere three or four centuries between about 1300 and 900 BC, the Lapita culture spread 6000 km further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until it reached as far as Tonga, in this region, the distinctive Polynesian culture developed. The Polynesians are then believed to have spread eastward from the Samoan Islands into the Marquesas, the Society Islands, the Hawaiian Islands and Easter Island, there are numerous traditional Polynesian devices used for navigating and/or teaching navigation. These include charts, spatial representations of islands and the conditions around them and they also include non-physical devices such as songs and stories for memorizing the properties of stars, islands, and navigational routes. Harold Gatty suggested that long-distance Polynesian voyaging followed the paths of bird migrations. There are some references in their traditions to the flight of birds. It is also believed that Polynesians employed shore-sighting birds as did many seafaring peoples, one theory is that they would have taken a frigatebird with them. These birds refuse to land on the water as their feathers will become waterlogged making it impossible to fly, when the voyagers thought they were close to land they may have released the bird, which would either fly towards land or else return to the canoe. For navigators near the celestial navigation is simplified since the whole celestial sphere is exposed. Any star that passes the zenith is on the celestial equator, each star has a specific declination, and when they rise or set, they give a bearing for navigation. Stars are learned by compass point, making a star compass, for example, in the Caroline Islands Mau Piailug taught natural navigation using a star compass. The development of sidereal compasses has been studied and theorized to have developed from an ancient pelorus, the Polynesians also took measurements of stellar elevation to determine their latitude
Polynesian navigation
–
Hokule'a, Hawaiian double-hulled canoe sailing off
Honolulu, 2009.
Polynesian navigation
–
Hawaiian navigators sailing multi-hulled canoe, c. 1781
Polynesian navigation
–
Doubled hulled vaka in
Rarotonga.
Polynesian navigation
–
Hawaiian navigator,
Nainoa Thompson, 2003.
7.
Marshall Islands stick chart
–
Stick charts were made and used by the Marshallese to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe off the coast of the Marshall Islands. The charts represented major ocean swell patterns and the ways the islands disrupted those patterns, most stick charts were made from the midribs of coconut fronds that were tied together to form an open framework. Island locations were represented by shells tied to the framework, or by the junction of two or more sticks. The threads represented prevailing ocean surface wave-crests and directions they took as they approached islands and met other similar wave-crests formed by the ebb and flow of breakers. Individual charts varied so much in form and interpretation that the navigator who made the chart was the only person who could fully interpret. The use of stick charts ended after World War II when new technologies made navigation more accessible. The stick charts are a significant contribution to the history of cartography because they represent a system of mapping ocean swells and they also use different materials from those common in other parts of the world. They are an indication that ancient maps may have looked very different, Marshallese navigators used their senses and memory to guide them on voyages by crouching down or lying prone in the canoe to feel how the canoe was being pitched and rolled by underlying swells. The Marshallese recognized four main ocean swells, the rilib, kaelib, bungdockerik, the four types of ocean swells were represented in many stick charts by curved sticks and threads. The rilib swell is the strongest of the four ocean swells and was referred to as the backbone swell and it is generated by the northeast trade winds and is present during the entire year, even when they do not penetrate as far south as the Marshall Islands. Marshallese considered the rilib swells to come from the east, even though the angle of the winds as well as the impact of the ocean currents varied the swell direction. The kaelib swell is weaker than the rilib and could only be detected by knowledgeable persons, the bungdockerik is present year round as well and arises in the southwest. This swell is often as strong as the rilib in the southern islands, the bundockeing swell is the weakest of the four swells, and is mainly felt in the northern islands. The stick charts typically fall into three categories, mattang, meddo, and rebbelib. The mattang stick chart was a chart used for instruction. The meddo chart showed actual islands and their relative or exact positions, the meddo chart portrayed only a section of one of the two main island chains. Rebbelib charts portrayed the same information as a chart. Rebbelib charts, unlike meddo charts, included all or most of one or both chains of islands, stick charts were not made and used by all Marshall Islanders
Marshall Islands stick chart
–
Überseemuseum Bremen 2009 063
8.
Astrolabe
–
An astrolabe is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers and navigators, to measure the inclined position in the sky of a celestial body, day or night. It can thus be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time and vice versa, to survey and it was used in classical antiquity, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance for all these purposes. While the astrolabe is effective for determining latitude on land or calm seas, the mariners astrolabe was developed to solve that problem. OED gives the translation star-taker for the English word astrolabe and traces it, through medieval Latin, to the Greek word astrolabos from astron star, in the medieval Islamic world the word asturlab was given various etymologies. In Arabic texts, the word is translated as akhdh al-kawakib which corresponds to an interpretation of the Greek word, al-Biruni quotes and criticizes the medieval scientist Hamzah al-Isfahani who had stated, asturlab is an arabization of this Persian phrase. In medieval Islamic sources, there is also a fictional and popular etymology of the words as lines of lab, in this popular etymology, Lab is a certain son of Idris. This etymology is mentioned by a 10th-century scientist named al-Qummi but rejected by al-Khwarizmi, Lab in Arabic also means sun and black stony places. An early astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world by Apollonius of Perga, a marriage of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog calculator capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. Theon of Alexandria wrote a treatise on the astrolabe. Some historians attribute the invention to Hypatia, the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, noting that Synesius. Astrolabes continued in use in the Greek-speaking world throughout the Byzantine period, about 550 AD the Christian philosopher John Philoponus wrote a treatise on the astrolabe in Greek, which is the earliest extant Greek treatise on the instrument. In addition, Severus Sebokht, a bishop who lived in Mesopotamia, Astrolabes were further developed in the medieval Islamic world, where Muslim astronomers introduced angular scales to the astrolabe, adding circles indicating azimuths on the horizon. It was widely used throughout the Muslim world, chiefly as an aid to navigation and as a way of finding the Qibla, the first person credited with building the astrolabe in the Islamic world is reportedly the 8th-century mathematician Muhammad al-Fazari. The mathematical background was established by the Muslim astronomer Albatenius in his treatise Kitab az-Zij, the earliest surviving dated astrolabe is dated AH315. In the Islamic world, astrolabes were used to find the times of sunrise and the rising of fixed stars, to help schedule morning prayers. In the 10th century, al-Sufi first described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, in areas as diverse as astronomy, astrology, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, prayer, Salat, Qibla, etc. The spherical astrolabe, a variation of both the astrolabe and the sphere, was invented during the Middle Ages by astronomers and inventors in the Islamic world. The earliest description of the spherical astrolabe dates back to Al-Nayrizi, in the 12th century, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī invented the linear astrolabe, sometimes called the staff of al-Tusi, which was a simple wooden rod with graduated markings but without sights
Astrolabe
–
A modern astrolabe, made in
Tabriz, Iran in 2013.
Astrolabe
–
Astrolabe quadrant, England, 1388
Astrolabe
–
A 16th-century astrolabe, showing a tulip rete and
rule
Astrolabe
–
A treatise explaining the importance of the astrolabe by
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Persian scientist.
9.
Hellenistic period
–
It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
Hellenistic period
–
The
Nike of Samothrace is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of
Hellenistic art.
Hellenistic period
–
Alexander fighting the Persian king
Darius III. From the
Alexander Mosaic,
Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Hellenistic period
–
Alexander's empire at the time of its maximum expansion.
10.
Classical antiquity
–
It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
Classical antiquity
–
The
Parthenon is one of the most iconic symbols of the classical era, exemplifying ancient Greek culture
11.
Islamic Golden Age
–
This period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD. A few contemporary scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries, the metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th-century literature about Islamic history, in the context of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism. There is no definition of term, and depending on whether it is used with a focus on cultural or on military achievement. During the early 20th century, the term was used only occasionally, the Muslim government heavily patronized scholars. The money spent on the Translation Movement for some translations is estimated to be equivalent to twice the annual research budget of the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council. The best scholars and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be the equivalent of professional athletes today, the House of Wisdom was a library established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq by Caliph al-Mansur. During this period, the Muslims showed a strong interest in assimilating the knowledge of the civilizations that had been conquered. They also excelled in fields, in particular philosophy, science. For a long period of time the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians, among the most prominent Christian families to serve as physicians to the caliphs were the Bukhtishu dynasty. Throughout the 4th to 7th centuries, Christian scholarly work in the Greek, the House of Wisdom was founded in Baghdad in 825, modelled after the Academy of Gondishapur. It was led by Christian physician Hunayn ibn Ishaq, with the support of Byzantine medicine, many of the most important philosophical and scientific works of the ancient world were translated, including the work of Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Archimedes. Many scholars of the House of Wisdom were of Christian background, the use of paper spread from China into Muslim regions in the eighth century, arriving in Al-Andalus on the Iberian peninsula, present-day Spain in the 10th century. It was easier to manufacture than parchment, less likely to crack than papyrus, Islamic paper makers devised assembly-line methods of hand-copying manuscripts to turn out editions far larger than any available in Europe for centuries. It was from countries that the rest of the world learned to make paper from linen. Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina played a role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas came to dominate the non-religious thought of the Christian. Ibn Sina and other such as al-Kindi and al-Farabi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Latin and Ladino, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy, during this period, non-Muslims were allowed to flourish relative to treatment of religious minorities in the Christian Byzantine Empire. The Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, who lived in Andalusia, is an example, in epistemology, Ibn Tufail wrote the novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and in response Ibn al-Nafis wrote the novel Theologus Autodidactus
Islamic Golden Age
–
Scholars at an Abbasid library. Maqamat of al-Hariri Illustration by Yahyá al-Wasiti,
Baghdad 1237
Islamic Golden Age
–
A manuscript written on paper during the
Abbasid Era.
Islamic Golden Age
–
Islamic architecture in
Alhambra,
Al-Andalus, in modern-day Spain
Islamic Golden Age
–
The eye, according to
Hunain ibn Ishaq. From a manuscript dated circa 1200.
12.
Kingdom of Majorca
–
The Kingdom of Majorca was founded by James I of Aragon, also known as James The Conqueror. After the death of his firstborn son Alfonso, a will was written in 1262, the Kingdom of Majorca passed to James, who reigned under the name of James II of Majorca. After 1279, Peter III of Aragon established that the king of Majorca was a vassal to the king of Aragon, the title continued to be employed by the Aragonese and Spanish monarchs until its dissolution by the 1715 Nueva Planta decrees. The kingdom included the Balearic Islands, Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, conscious of the fragility of the Kingdom of Majorca, James I undertook the conquest of Cerdanya to unify the new kingdom. He also entered negotiations to arrange the marriage of his son James to Beatrice of Savoy. On the death of James I, the new king of Majorca, James II, preoccupied with diverse problems within the realm, it was not until 1279 when the Majorcan monarch reconciled to have his states recognized as subordinate to the king of Aragon. As a consequence the Kingdom of Majorca could not hold court, by means of the Treaty of Perpignan in 1279, an imbalance of power between the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Majorca was created. This treaty would condition relations between the Kingdom of Majorca and the Crown of Aragon throughout the formers existence, the lack of courts later aggravated the destabilization of a kingdom already on the brink of fracture, which, besides this, lacked any common institution beyond the monarchy. During the Aragonese Crusade, James II of Majorca allied himself with the Pope, as a result, Peters successor Alfonso conquered the kingdom in 1286. However, by the Treaty of Anagni in 1295, James II of Aragon was required to restore the Balearics to James of Majorca. On the death of James II of Majorcas son Sancho in 1324, James III took the throne at the age of nine, the situation was difficult since James II of Aragon did not renounce his claim to the Majorcan throne. While the act solved the problem of succession, it plunged the kingdom into a serious financial crisis. James was forced to develop policies similar to that of Aragons, to that end, he was forced to participate in the war against Genoa, which resulted in the loss of various economic markets for the kingdom. Again, it was necessary to impose new taxes and fines on the Jewish community though this was insufficient to resolve the financial crisis. The problems of the kingdom did not appear to have an end since in 1341, in May 1343, Peter IV invaded the Balearic Islands and followed that in 1344 with the invasions of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya. James III was able to only his French possessions. After the sale of these possessions to the king of France in 1349 and he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Llucmajor on 25 October 1349. Then, the Kingdom of Majorca was definitively incorporated into the Crown of Aragon, the kingdom of Majorca, which had bonds of vassalage with the crowns of France and Aragon, could not remain neutral during the conflicts
Kingdom of Majorca
–
The Kingdom of Majorca.
Kingdom of Majorca
–
Conquest of Majorca by
James I of Aragon (1229)
13.
Ramon Llull
–
Ramon Llull, T. O. S. F. was a philosopher, logician, Franciscan tertiary and Majorcan writer. He is credited with writing the first major work of Catalan literature, recently surfaced manuscripts show his work to have predated by several centuries prominent work on elections theory. He is also considered a pioneer of computation theory, especially given his influence on Leibniz, within the Franciscan Order he is honored as a martyr. He was beatified in 1847 by Pope Pius IX and his feast day was assigned to 30 June and is celebrated by the Third Order of St. Francis. Llull was born into a family in Palma, the capital of the newly formed Kingdom of Majorca. James I of Aragon founded Majorca to integrate the conquered territories of the Balearic Islands into the Crown of Aragon. Llulls parents had come from Catalonia as part of the effort to colonize the formerly Almohad ruled island, in 1257 he married Blanca Picany, with whom he had two children, Domènec and Magdalena. Although he formed a family, he lived what he would call the licentious. Llull served as tutor to James II of Aragon and later became Seneschal to the future King James II of Majorca, in 1263 Llull experienced a religious epiphany in the form of a series of visions. The vision came to him six times in all, leading him to leave his family, position, following his epiphany Llull became a Franciscan tertiary, taking inspiration from Saint Francis of Assisi. After a short pilgrimage he returned to Majorca, where he purchased a Muslim slave from whom he wanted to learn Arabic, for the next nine years, until 1274, he engaged in study and contemplation in relative solitude. He read extensively in both Latin and Arabic, learning both Christian and Muslim theological and philosophical thought. Between 1271 and 1274 he wrote his first works, a compendium of the Muslim thinker Al-Ghazalis logic and the Llibre de contemplació en Déu and his first elucidation of the Art was in Art Abreujada dAtrobar Veritat, in 1290. After spending some time teaching in France and being disappointed by the reception of his Art among students. It is this version that he became known for. It is most clearly presented in his Ars generalis ultima or Ars magna, the Art operated by combining religious and philosophical attributes selected from a number of lists. It is believed that Llulls inspiration for the Ars magna came from observing Arab astrologers use a device called a zairja, the Art was intended as a debating tool for winning Muslims to the Christian faith through logic and reason. Through his detailed analytical efforts, Llull built an in-depth theosophic reference by which a reader could enter any argument or question, the reader then used visual aids and a book of charts to combine various ideas, generating statements which came together to form an answer
Ramon Llull
–
Blessed Ramon Llull,
T.O.S.F.
Ramon Llull
–
Life of Raymond Lull. 14th-century manuscript.
Ramon Llull
–
Illustration from a 1505 edition of
L'arbre de ciència
14.
Portuguese Empire
–
The Portuguese Empire, also known as the Portuguese Overseas, was one of the largest and longest-lived empires in world history and the first colonial empire. It existed for almost six centuries from the capture of Ceuta in 1415 to the grant of sovereignty to East Timor in 2002, the first era of the Portuguese empire originated at the beginning of the Age of Discovery. Initiated by the Kingdom of Portugal, it would eventually expand across the globe, in 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, either by an accidental landfall or by the secret design. Over the following decades, Portuguese sailors continued to explore the coasts and islands of East Asia, establishing forts, by 1571, a string of naval outposts connected Lisbon to Nagasaki along the coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India and South Asia. This commercial network and the trade had a substantial positive impact on Portuguese economic growth. Though the realms continued to be administered separately, the Council of Portugal ruled the country and its empire from Madrid. As the King of Spain was also King of Portugal, Portuguese colonies became the subject of attacks by three rival European powers hostile to Spain, the Dutch Republic, England, and France. With its smaller population, Portugal was unable to defend its overstretched network of trading posts. Eventually, Brazil became the most valuable colony of the era until, as part of the wave of independence movements that swept the Americas during the early 19th century. The third era represents the stage of Portuguese colonialism after the decolonization of the Americas of the 1820s. The colonial possessions had been reduced to the African coastline, Portuguese Timor, the disastrous 1890 British Ultimatum led to the contraction of Portuguese ambitions in Africa. Macau was returned to China in 1999, the origin of the Kingdom of Portugal lay in the reconquista, the gradual reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. There were several motives for their first attack, on the Marinid Sultanate. In 1415 an attack was made on Ceuta, a strategically located North African Muslim enclave along the Mediterranean Sea, although Ceuta proved to be a disappointment for the Portuguese, the decision was taken to hold it while exploring along the Atlantic African coast. At the time, Europeans did not know what lay beyond Cape Bojador on the African coast, under his sponsorship, soon the Atlantic islands of Madeira and Azores were reached and started to be settled producing wheat to export to Portugal. Fears of what lay beyond Cape Bojador, and whether it was possible to return once it was passed, were assuaged in 1434 when it was rounded by one of Infante Henrys captains, Gil Eanes. Once this psychological barrier had been crossed, it became easier to further along the coast
Portuguese Empire
–
The
Conquest of Ceuta, in 1415, was led by
Henry the Navigator, and initiated the Portuguese Empire.
Portuguese Empire
–
Map of Western Africa by Lázaro Luis (1563). The large castle in West Africa represents the
São Jorge da Mina (Elmina castle).
Portuguese Empire
–
Vasco da Gama 's departure to
India, in 1497
15.
Portuguese discoveries
–
Portuguese discoveries are the numerous territories and maritime routes discovered by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration, discovering and mapping the coasts of Africa, Canada, Asia and Brazil, in what became known as the Age of Discovery. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut, Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil, in 1139 the Kingdom of Portugal achieved independence from León, having doubled its area with the Reconquista under Afonso Henriques. In 1297 king Denis of Portugal took personal interest in the development of exports, on May 10,1293 he instituted a maritime insurance fund for Portuguese traders living in the County of Flanders, which were to pay certain sums according to tonnage, accrued to them when necessary. Portuguese imported armors and munitions, fine clothes and several manufactured products from Flanders, Genoese and Florentine communities established since then in Portugal, who profited from the enterprise and financial experience of these rivals of the Republic of Venice. Only the sea offered alternatives, with most people settling in fishing and trading coastal areas, young prince Henry the Navigator was there and became aware of profit possibilities in the Saharan trade routes. Later his brother Prince Pedro, granted him a Royal Flush of all profits from trading within the areas discovered, soon the Atlantic islands of Madeira and Azores were reached. There wheat and later sugarcane were cultivated, like in Algarve, by the Genoese and this helped them become more wealthy. Henry the Navigator took the role in encouraging Portuguese maritime exploration until his death in 1460. At the time, Europeans did not know what lay beyond Cape Bojador on the African coast, in 1420 Zarco and Teixeira returned with Bartolomeu Perestrelo and began Portuguese settlement of the islands. A Portuguese attempt to capture Grand Canary, one of the nearby Canary Islands, at around the same time as the unsuccessful attack on the Canary Islands, the Portuguese began to explore the North African coast. Sailors feared what lay beyond Cape Bojador, and whether it was possible to return once it was passed, in 1434 one of Prince Henrys captains, Gil Eanes, passed this obstacle. Once this psychological barrier had been crossed, it became easier to further along the coast. Within two decades of exploration, Portuguese ships bypassed the Sahara, Henry suffered a serious setback in 1437 after the failure of an expedition to capture Tangier, having encouraged his brother, King Edward, to mount an overland attack from Ceuta. The Portuguese army was defeated and only escaped destruction by surrendering Prince Ferdinand, after the defeat at Tangier, Henry retired to Sagres on the southern tip of Portugal where he continued to direct Portuguese exploration until his death in 1460. In 1443 Prince Pedro, Henrys brother, granted him the monopoly of navigation, war, using this new maritime technology, Portuguese navigators reached ever more southerly latitudes, advancing at an average rate of one degree a year. Senegal and Cape Verde Peninsula were reached in 1445, in 1446, Álvaro Fernandes pushed on almost as far as present-day Sierra Leone and the Gulf of Guinea was reached in the 1460s
Portuguese discoveries
–
The
Cantino planisphere, made by an anonymous cartographer in 1502, shows the world as it was understood by Europeans after their great explorations at the end of the fifteenth century.
Portuguese discoveries
–
Prince
Henry the Navigator, generally credited as the driving force behind Portuguese maritime exploration.
Portuguese discoveries
–
Vasco da Gama lands in
Calicut on May 20th 1498.
Portuguese discoveries
–
The
caravel ship introduced in the mid-15th century which aided Portuguese exploration
16.
Age of Discovery
–
It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered during this period, from the perspective of many non-Europeans, the Age of Discovery marked the arrival of settlers and invaders from a previously unknown continent. This represented one of the most-significant global events concerning ecology, agriculture and it also allowed for the expansion of Christianity throughout the world with the spread of missionary activity, becoming the worlds largest religion. The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa from 1418, in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean by this route. In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon funded Christopher Columbuss plan to sail west to reach the Indies by crossing the Atlantic and he landed on a continent uncharted by Europeans and seen as a new world, the Americas. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, soon, the Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable Spice Islands in 1512, landing in China one year later. In 1513, Spanish Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, thus, Europe first received news of the eastern and western Pacific within a one-year span around 1512. Meanwhile, from the 1580s to the 1640s, Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia, another source was the Radhanite Jewish trade networks of merchants established as go-betweens between Europe and the Muslim world during the time of the Crusader states. Knowledge about the Atlantic African coast was fragmented and derived mainly from old Greek and Roman maps based on Carthaginian knowledge, the Red Sea was barely known and only trade links with the Maritime republics, the Republic of Venice especially, fostered collection of accurate maritime knowledge. Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab traders, between 1405 and 1421, the Yongle Emperor of Ming China sponsored a series of long range tributary missions under the command of Zheng He. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Maritime Southeast Asia, by 1400 a Latin translation of Ptolemys Geographia reached Italy coming from Constantinople. The rediscovery of Roman geographical knowledge was a revelation, both for mapmaking and worldview, although reinforcing the idea that the Indian Ocean was landlocked, a prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages. A series of Europeans took advantage of these to explore eastwards, most were Italians, as trade between Europe and the Middle East was controlled mainly by the Maritime republics. The close Italian links to the Levant raised great curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east, christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of the Levant, from which they gained a greater understanding of the world. The first of these travellers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, dispatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Great Khan, about the same time, Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and subsequently his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, travelled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts, other travellers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia. After returning, he dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar he met in Granada, the Rihla, between 1357 and 1371 a book of supposed travels compiled by John Mandeville acquired extraordinary popularity. These overland journeys had little immediate effect, the Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became more difficult and dangerous
Age of Discovery
–
Cantino planisphere 1502, earliest surviving chart showing the explorations of
Columbus to Central America,
Corte-Real to Newfoundland,
Gama to India and
Cabral to Brazil.
Tordesillas line depicted,
Biblioteca Estense,
Modena
Age of Discovery
–
Ptolemy's world map (2nd century) in a 15th-century reconstruction
Age of Discovery
–
The
Silk Road and
spice trade routes later blocked by the
Ottoman Empire in 1453 spurring exploration to find alternative sea routes
Age of Discovery
–
Replica of
caravel ship introduced in mid-15th century for oceanic exploration
17.
Archipendulum
–
The archipendulum is an ancient ancestor of the spirit level and astrolabe, and was used to check whether a line was horizontal or at a desired inclination. It consisted of a handheld A-shaped construction with a suspended from the top vertex. The horizontal bar of the A was marked at its midpoint, other gradations on the horizontal bar enabled the user to construct or verify inclined lines. The same methods of use apply to the inverted T which is another variant of the archipendulum. Used by the builders of the Egyptian pyramids and from the Indian subcontinent, it was recently described by Johann Heinrich Alsted
Archipendulum
–
Indian mason at work using an archipendulum from
L'Inde française
Archipendulum
18.
Egyptian pyramids
–
The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt. As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids, most were built as tombs for the countrys pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are found at Saqqara, northwest of Memphis, the earliest among these is the Pyramid of Djoser which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, the most famous Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built, the Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence. By the time of the Early Dynastic Period, those with sufficient means were buried in bench-like structures known as mastabas, the second historically-documented Egyptian pyramid is attributed to the architect Imhotep, who planned what Egyptologists believe to be a tomb for the pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep is credited with being the first to conceive the notion of stacking mastabas on top of each other, the result was the Pyramid of Djoser, which was designed to serve as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens. Such was the importance of Imhoteps achievement that he was deified by later Egyptians, the most prolific pyramid-building phase coincided with the greatest degree of absolutist rule. It was during this time that the most famous pyramids, the Giza pyramid complex, were built. Long after the end of Egypts own pyramid-building period, a burst of pyramid-building occurred in what is present-day Sudan, al-Aziz Uthman tried to destroy the Giza pyramid complex. He gave up after damaging the Pyramid of Menkaure because the task proved too huge, the shape of Egyptian pyramids is thought to represent the primordial mound from which the Egyptians believed the earth was created. Pyramids were often named in ways that referred to solar luminescence. For example, the name of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur The Southern Shining Pyramid. While it is agreed that pyramids were burial monuments, there is continued disagreement on the particular theological principles that might have given rise to them. One suggestion is that they were designed as a type of resurrection machine, the Egyptians believed the dark area of the night sky around which the stars appear to revolve was the physical gateway into the heavens. One of the shafts that extend from the main burial chamber through the entire body of the Great Pyramid points directly towards the center of this part of the sky. This suggests the pyramid may have designed to serve as a means to magically launch the deceased pharaohs soul directly into the abode of the gods
Egyptian pyramids
–
A view of the pyramids at Giza from the plateau to the south of the complex. From left to right, the three largest are: the
Pyramid of Menkaure, the
Pyramid of Khafre and the
Great Pyramid of Khufu. The three smaller pyramids in the foreground are subsidiary structures associated with Menkaure's pyramid.
Egyptian pyramids
–
A view of the
Pyramid of Khafre from the
Sphinx.
Egyptian pyramids
–
The Mastaba of Faraoun, at Saqqara
Egyptian pyramids
–
The largely destroyed Pyramid of Djedefre
19.
Compass
–
A compass is an instrument used for navigation and orientation that shows direction relative to the geographic cardinal directions, or points. Usually, a called a compass rose shows the directions north, south, east. When the compass is used, the rose can be aligned with the geographic directions, so, for example. Frequently, in addition to the rose or sometimes instead of it, North corresponds to zero degrees, and the angles increase clockwise, so east is 90 degrees, south is 180, and west is 270. These numbers allow the compass to show azimuths or bearings, which are stated in this notation. The magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han Dynasty, the first usage of a compass recorded in Western Europe and the Islamic world occurred around the early 13th century. The magnetic compass is the most familiar compass type and it functions as a pointer to magnetic north, the local magnetic meridian, because the magnetized needle at its heart aligns itself with the horizontal component of the Earths magnetic field. The needle is mounted on a pivot point, in better compasses a jewel bearing. When the compass is level, the needle turns until, after a few seconds to allow oscillations to die out. In navigation, directions on maps are usually expressed with reference to geographical or true north, the direction toward the Geographical North Pole, the rotation axis of the Earth. Depending on where the compass is located on the surface of the Earth the angle between north and magnetic north, called magnetic declination can vary widely with geographic location. The local magnetic declination is given on most maps, to allow the map to be oriented with a parallel to true north. The location of the Earths magnetic poles slowly change with time, the effect of this means a map with the latest declination information should be used. Some magnetic compasses include means to compensate for the magnetic declination. The first compasses in ancient Han dynasty China were made of lodestone, the compass was later used for navigation during the Song Dynasty of the 11th century. Later compasses were made of iron needles, magnetized by striking them with a lodestone, dry compasses began to appear around 1300 in Medieval Europe and the Islamic world. This was supplanted in the early 20th century by the magnetic compass. Modern compasses usually use a needle or dial inside a capsule completely filled with a liquid
Compass
–
A simple dry magnetic portable compass
Compass
–
A
smartphone that can be used as a compass because of the
magnetometer inside
Compass
–
A military compass that was used during
World War I
Compass
–
Model of a
Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) south-indicating ladle or sinan. It is theorized [
by whom?] that the south-pointing spoons of the Han dynasty were magnetized lodestones.
20.
Atlantic
–
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
Atlantic
–
The Atlantic Ocean as seen from the western coast of
Portugal
Atlantic
–
The Atlantic Ocean, not including
Arctic and
Antarctic regions
Atlantic
–
The Atlantic Ocean as seen from
Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Atlantic
–
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina view of the Atlantic Ocean.
21.
Africa
–
Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
Africa
–
Map of Africa
Africa
–
Africa
Africa
–
Lucy, an
Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered on November 24, 1974, in the
Awash Valley of
Ethiopia 's
Afar Depression
Africa
–
Colossal statues of
Ramesses II at
Abu Simbel, Egypt, date from around 1400 BC.
22.
Henry the Navigator
–
Infante D. Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator, was an important figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discoveries. King John I was the founder of the House of Aviz, Henry encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta, the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. Henry is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration, Henry was the third surviving son of King John I and his wife Philippa, sister of King Henry IV of England. He was baptized in Porto, and may have been there, probably when the royal couple was living in the citys old mint, now called Casa do Infante. Another possibility is that he was born at the Monastery of Leça do Bailio, in Leça da Palmeira, Henry was 21 when he and his father and brothers captured the Moorish port of Ceuta in northern Morocco. Ceuta had long been a base for Barbary pirates who raided the Portuguese coast, following this success, Henry started to explore the coast of Africa, most of which was unknown to Europeans. His objectives included finding the source of the West African gold trade and the legendary Christian kingdom of Prester John, at that time the ships of the Mediterranean were too slow and too heavy to make these voyages. This made the caravel largely independent of the prevailing winds, with the caravel, Portuguese mariners explored the shallow waters and rivers as well as the open ocean with wide autonomy. In 1419, Henrys father appointed him governor of the province of the Algarve, in 1425, his second brother the Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra, made a tour of Europe. While largely a diplomatic mission, among his goals was to seek out material for his brother Henry. Peter returned from Venice with a current world map drafted by a Venetian cartographer. In 1431 he donated houses for the Estudo Geral to reunite all the sciences — grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, for other subjects like medicine or philosophy, he ordered that each room should be decorated according to each subject that was being taught. When John I died in 1433, Henrys eldest brother Edward became king and he granted Henry all profits from trading within the areas he discovered as well as the sole right to authorize expeditions beyond Cape Bojador. Henry also held a monopoly on fishing in the Algarve. When Edward died eight years later, Henry supported his brother Peter for the regency during the minority of Edwards son Afonso V, Henry functioned as a primary organizer of the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437. Henrys younger brother Ferdinand was given as a hostage to guarantee that the Portuguese would fulfill the terms of the agreement that had been made with Çala Ben Çala. The Portuguese Cortes refused to approve the return of Ceuta in exchange for the Infante Ferdinand who remained in captivity until his death six years later, Prince Regent Peter had an important role and responsibility in the Portuguese maritime expansion in the Atlantic Ocean and Africa during his administration
Henry the Navigator
–
Infante Henrique;
St. Vincent Panels
Henry the Navigator
Henry the Navigator
–
Portrait believed to be the true likeness of Henry the Navigator. Detail from the fifth panel of the
polyptych of St. Vincent by
Nuno Gonçalves, c.1470
Henry the Navigator
–
Henry's tomb in the
Monastery of Batalha
23.
Bartolomeu Dias
–
Bartolomeu Dias, a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, reaching the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic, Bartolomeu Dias was a Knight of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of the man-of-war, São Cristóvão. King John II of Portugal appointed him, on October 101487, Dias was also charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, who was a fabled Christian priest and ruler. Dias ship São Cristóvão was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer, a second caravel, the São Pantaleão, was commanded by João Infante and piloted by Álvaro Martins. Dias brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the support ship with João de Santiago as pilot. The expedition sailed south along the west coast of Africa, extra provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast. After having sailed past Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão by December, continuing south, he discovered first Angra dos Ilheus, being hit, then, by a violent storm. Thirteen days later, from the ocean, he searched the coast again to the east, discovering and using the westerlies winds - the ocean gyre. After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás —later renamed Mossel Bay—on 4 February 1488, Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further. It was only on the voyage that he actually discovered the Cape of Good Hope. Dias returned to Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of sixteen months, the official report of the expedition has been lost. Bartolomeu Dias originally named the Cape of Good Hope the Cape of Storms and it was later renamed the Cape of Good Hope because it represented the opening of a route to the east. After these early attempts, the Portuguese took a break from Indian Ocean exploration. Dias only participated in the first leg of Da Gamas voyage, two years later he was one of the captains of the second Indian expedition, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. This flotilla first reached the coast of Brazil, landing there in 1500, Dias perished near the Cape of Good Hope that he presciently had named Cape of Storms. Four ships encountered a storm off the cape and were lost, including Dias. A shipwreck found in 2008 by the Namdeb Diamond Corporation off Namibia was at first thought to be Dias ship, however, Bartolomeu Dias was married and had two children, Simão Dias de Novais, who died unmarried and without issue. António Dias de Novais, a Knight of the Order of Christ, married to Joana Fernandes, daughter of Fernão Pires, Dias grandson Paulo Dias de Novais was a Portuguese coloniser of Africa in the 16th century
Bartolomeu Dias
–
Statue of Bartolomeu Dias at the High Commission of South Africa in London.
Bartolomeu Dias
–
An illustration of the São Cristóvão and São Pantaleão
24.
Indian Ocean
–
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the worlds oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, the Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara, the mine of gems in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar, in Hindi. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf, the oceans continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres in width. An exception is found off Australias western coast, where the width exceeds 1,000 kilometres. The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m and its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m deep, Sunda Trench has a depth of 7, 258–7,725 m. North of 50° south latitude, 86% of the basin is covered by pelagic sediments. The remaining 14% is layered with terrigenous sediments, glacial outwash dominates the extreme southern latitudes. The major choke points include Bab el Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is in this ocean, marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include, The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April, from May until October south, in the Arabian Sea the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are milder. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean warming is the largest among the tropical oceans, and about 3 times faster than the warming observed in the Pacific. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming, and changes in the frequency, among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy River. The oceans currents are controlled by the monsoon. Two large gyres, one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise, during the winter monsoon, however, currents in the north are reversed. Deep water circulation is controlled primarily by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, north of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C, exceeding 28 °C to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude, temperatures drop quickly, surface water salinity ranges from 32 to 37 parts per 1000, the highest occurring in the Arabian Sea and in a belt between southern Africa and south-western Australia
Indian Ocean
–
The economically important
Silk Road (red) and spice
trade routes (blue) were blocked by the
Ottoman Empire in ca. 1453 with the fall of the
Byzantine Empire. This spurred exploration, and a new sea route around Africa was found, triggering the
Age of Discovery.
Indian Ocean
–
Extent of the Indian Ocean according to the
CIA World Factbook
Indian Ocean
–
British heavy cruisers
Dorsetshire and
Cornwall under Japanese air attack and heavily damaged on 5 April 1942
Indian Ocean
–
A
dhow off the coast of Kenya
25.
Ferdinand and Isabella
–
The Catholic Monarchs is the joint title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They married on October 19,1469, in the city of Valladolid, Isabella was eighteen years old and it is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move, the title of Catholic King and Queen was bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defence of the Catholic faith within their realms. Catholic monarchs or kings can also be used in a generic sense, Isabella was named heir to the throne of Castile by her half brother Henry IV of Castile in the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando. She became Queen of Castile in 1474 and her niece, Joanna of Castile, attempted to gain the throne by bringing in the foreign help of Afonso V of Portugal, leading to the War of Castilian Succession. More recently, some speculate that Joanna was the legitimate successor, Isabellas supporters came out ahead in good part due to Aragons support through Ferdinand, and she officially won in 1479 via the Treaty of Alcáçovas. Ferdinand became the King of Aragon in 1479, the Catholic Monarchs set out to restore royal authority in Spain. To accomplish their goal, they first created a group named the Holy Brotherhood and these men were used as a judicial police force for Castile, as well as to attempt to keep Castilian nobles in check. To establish a more uniform system, the Catholic Monarchs created the Royal Council. This establishment of authority is known as the Pacification of Castile. Even after his death and the union of the crowns under one monarch, the Aragonese, Catalan, further, the monarchs continued ruling through a form of medieval contractualism, which made their rule pre-modern in a few ways. One of those is that they traveled from town to town throughout the kingdom in order to promote loyalty, another is that each community and region was connected to them via loyalty to the crown, rather than bureaucratic ties. Ferdinand and Isabella were noted for being the monarchs of the newly united Spain at the dawn of the modern era and they had a goal of conquering the Muslim kingdom of Granada and completing the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The beginnings of a series of known as the Granada War began with the attack on Alhama de Granada. The attack was led by two Andalusian nobles, Rodrigo Ponce de León and Diego de Merlo, the city fell to Andalusian forces in 1482. The Granada War was aided by Pope Sixtus IV by granting a tithe, after 10 years of fighting the Granada War ended in 1492 when Emir Boabdil surrendered the keys of the Alhambra Palace in Granada to the Castilian soldiers. After a number of revolts, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion from Spain of all Jews, the Inquisition had been created in the twelfth century by Pope Lucius III to fight heresy in the south of what is now France and was constituted in a number of European kingdoms. The Catholic Monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile, the bull gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors
Ferdinand and Isabella
–
Ferdinand on the left with Isabella on the right. The inscription above identifies them as "Lord Ferdinand and Lady Isabella, King and Queen of Castille and of Aragon".
Ferdinand and Isabella
–
Isabella and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs
Ferdinand and Isabella
–
Ferdinand and Isabella with their subjects
Ferdinand and Isabella
–
Christopher Columbus at the Court of the Catholic Monarchs by
Juan Cordero, 1850.
26.
Christopher Columbus
–
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
Christopher Columbus
–
Posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus by
Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519. There are no known authentic portraits of Columbus.
Christopher Columbus
–
Christopher Columbus at the gates of the
monastery of Santa María de la Rábida with his son Diego, by
Benet Mercadé
Christopher Columbus
–
Columbus' handwritten notes in Latin, on the margins of his copy of
The Travels of Marco Polo
Christopher Columbus
–
"Columbus map", drawn c. 1490 in the
Lisbon workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus
27.
Indies
–
The East Indies or Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, the name Indies is derived from the river Indus and is used to connote parts of Asia that came under Indian cultural influence. The East Indies may also include the former French-held Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and it does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. In colonial times they were just natives, however, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The major languages in this area draw from a variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections, archaically called Hither India and Further India, the first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia. Historically, the king of Abyssinia was identified with Prester John of the Indies, exploration of these regions by European powers first began in the late 15th century and early 16th century led by the Portuguese explorers. The Portuguese described the region they discovered as the Indies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies, the East Indies, which was also called Old Indies or Great Indies, consisting of India, and the West Indies, also called New Indies or Little Indies, consisting of the Americas. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus, later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the West Indies, while the original Indies came to be called the East Indies. Greater India History of the Americas Indian Spanish West Indies
Indies
–
An 1801 map of the East Indies.
28.
Discovery of America
–
For a very long time, it was believed that Columbus and his crew had been the first Europeans to make landfall in the Americas. Columbus was an Italian–born navigator sailing for the Crown of Castile in search of a route to Asia, to access the sources of spices. This led to the discovery of a New World between Europe and Asia, Columbuss voyages led to the widespread knowledge that a new continent existed west of Europe and east of Asia. This breakthrough in science led to the exploration and colonization of the New World by Spain and other European sea powers. The search for a route to Asia continued in 1513 when Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed the narrow Isthmus of Panama to become the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean. The search was completed in 1521, when the Castilian Magellan expedition sailed across the Pacific, Portugal had been the main European power interested in pursuing trade routes overseas. Their next-door neighbors, Castile had been slower to begin exploring the Atlantic due to the bigger land area it had to re-conquer from the Moors. In 1492 the joint rulers of the Spanish nation conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada and he proposed the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one years time to sail out west into the Atlantic, search for a western route to India, and return. Columbus also requested he be made Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea, appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, the king submitted the proposal to his experts, who rejected it after several years. It was their opinion that Columbuss estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles was, in fact. In 1488 Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal, receiving a new invitation for an audience with King John II and this also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal following a successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa. With an eastern sea route now under its control, Portugal was no longer interested in trailblazing a western route to Asia crossing unknown seas. Columbus traveled from Portugal to Spain to convince the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to finance the expedition, King Ferdinand II of Aragon married Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1469, uniting the two largest kingdoms into what would later be the Spanish Crown. They were known jointly as the Catholic Monarchs, and ruled their kingdoms independently, Columbus was granted an audience with them, on May 1,1489, he presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who referred them to a committee. They pronounced the idea impractical, and advised the monarchs not to support the proposed venture, after continually asking, nagging, begging, and crying for the monarchs to support his plan at the royal court and enduring two years of negotiations, Columbus finally succeeded in January 1492. Queen Isabellas forces had just conquered the Moorish Emirate of Granada, Isabella and Ferdinand received Columbus in the Alcázar in Córdoba to support his plans. The monarchs left it to the treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. Columbus was to be made Admiral of the Seas and would receive a portion of all profits, the terms were unusually generous but, as his son later wrote, the monarchs were not confident of his return
Discovery of America
–
The Virgin of the Navigators by
Alejo Fernández, the earliest known painting about the discovery of the
Americas, 1531–36.
Discovery of America
–
The four voyages of Columbus
Discovery of America
–
Columbus and Queen Isabella. Detail of the Columbus monument in
Madrid (1885).
Discovery of America
–
The "Columbus map" was drawn circa 1490 in the workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus in
Lisbon.
29.
Vasco da Gama
–
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India was the first to link Europe and Asia by a route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and, in this way, the West. Da Gamas discovery of the sea route to India was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism, traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. After decades of trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, the spices obtained from Southeast Asia were primarily pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a monopoly of these commodities for several decades. Da Gama led two of the Portuguese armadas destined for India, the first and the fourth, the latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions, Da Gama was appointed the Governor of India in 1524, under the title of Viceroy, Vasco da Gama remains a leading figure in the history of exploration. Numerous homages have been made worldwide to celebrate his explorations and accomplishments, the Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour. His first trip to India is widely considered a milestone in world history, in March 2016, researchers announced that thousands of artifacts and vessel remains had been recovered from the ship Esmeralda, one of Da Gamas armada, found off the coast of Oman. Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 or 1469 in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, occupied chiefly by fisherfolk. Vasco da Gamas father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand and he rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór of Sines in the 1460s, Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré, scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in order of age, Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama, Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama. Little is known of da Gamas early life, the Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has been claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, around 1480, da Gama followed his father and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal, John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas prospects rose accordingly
Vasco da Gama
–
Vasco Da Gama
Vasco da Gama
–
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
–
Statue of Vasco da Gama at his birthplace,
Sines, Portugal
Vasco da Gama
–
Vasco da Gama leaving the port of
Lisbon, Portugal.
30.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
–
Flag
India
–
The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
–
Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
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