The Oaths of Strasbourg were mutual pledges of allegiance between Louis the German, ruler of East Francia, his half-brother Charles the Bald, ruler of West Francia made on 12 February 842. They are written in three different languages: Medieval Latin, Old Gallo-Romance and Old High German, all in Caroline minuscule; the Romance passages are considered to be the earliest texts in a language, distinctly Gallo-Romance. The several pledges were spoken at a strategic meeting on 12 February 842 at Strasbourg, with the brothers' assembled armies in attendance and participating in the ceremonies. In addition to their promised allegiance to each other and Charles pledged their solidarity to oppose their eldest brother Lothair, ruler of Middle Francia and, emperor of all the Carolingian Empire Frankish kingdoms as well as Holy Roman Emperor. Louis spoke his oath in the Romance language of Charles' realm, while Charles spoke his oath in lingua teudisca, Germanic, of Louis' realm; the historical nature of the meeting is made more remarkable by the additional, separate pledges that were scripted for the monarchs' armies – in their respective vernaculars – to the effect that, for each "soldier": should their own lord-king unilaterally break the oath just pledged each "soldier of the oath" promises not to help his master against the abused other monarch.

The sole source for the text of the oaths is Nithard's Historiae or De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii, where it is found in Chapter V of Book III. Nithard's work is preserved in a manuscript from the 10th or 11th century and the text of the oaths is on folios 12v-13r-13v. Both kings first made the same preamble speech, a detailed complaint against Lothair; each king swore his individual oath in front of their assembled armies, not in Latin nor in his own language, but in the vernacular of the other's kingdom. The armies swore separate pledges in their respective languages. One version of the pledges was written in the Rhine Franconian dialect of Old High German; the second version is in a form of Romance that can be viewed approximately, as Proto-French. The preamble was written in Latin, as were sections to report the ceremonies; the text is significant to both historians. Linguistically, the text is the first document known to be written in a Romance language, in a form of Gallo-Romance.

The documents shed light on a significant period in the history of the Carolingian-Frankish empire. Historians have long used the coexistence of these bilingual documents to illustrate their theory that, by 842, the empire had begun splitting into separate proto-countries and developing with different languages and customs. However, others of late have come to favour a different hypothesis: that the Frankish Kingdom comprised several regna that since ancient times had maintained different customs and languages. Supporting this theory they note that both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious sent their sons to be raised in the respective regna which they were designated to inherit, in order to better enlist the support of the local populace by becoming familiar with them and their customs; the transcriptions are edited, with abbreviations written out and some punctuation and word boundaries inserted. The image to the right is a scan of the original text. In the transcription below, two asterisks mark the beginning and end of the text visible in this scan.

The following is the Romance vernacular part in its original manuscript form and a close transcription: Treaty of Verdun Carolingian dynasty Sequence of Saint Eulalia List of languages by first written accounts Foerster, Werner. Altfranzösisches Übungsbuch, zum Gebrauch bei Vorlesungen und Seminarübungen. Erster Teil: die Ältesten Sprachdenkmäler. Leipzig: O. R. Reisland. Facsimile of the manuscript: Folio 12v Folio 13r Folio 13v Ayres-Bennett, Wendy. A History of the French Language through Texts. London/New York: Routledge. Cerquiglini, Bernard La naissance du français, Presses universitaires de France, 1991 3rd edition, 2007 Goldberg, Eric J.. Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Hall, Robert A.. "The Oaths of Strassburg: Phonemics and Classification". Language. 29: 317–321. Doi:10.2307/410027. Hartmann, Wilfried. Ludwig der Deutsche und seine Zeit. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Hartmann, Wilfried. Ludwig der Deutsche.

Darmstadt: Primus. Hilty, Gerold. "Review of Francesco Lo Monaco and Claudia Villa, I Giuramenti di Strasburgo: Testi e tradizione". Vox Romanica. 69: 273–276. Holtus, Günter. "Rilievi su un'edizione comparatistica dei Giuramenti di Strasburgo". In Jószef Herman. La transizione dal latino alle lingue romanze. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Pp. 195–212. Lowe, Lawrence F. H.. "The Language of the Strassburg Oaths". Speculum. 2: 310–317. Doi:10.2307/2847721. Rea, John A.. "Again the Oaths of Strassburg". Language. 34: 367–369. Doi:10.2307/410928. Thompson, James Westfall. "The Romance Text of the Strassburg Oaths. Was it Written in the Ninth Century?". Speculum. 1: 410–438. Doi:10.2307/2847162. Wright, Roger. "Early Medieval Pan-Romance Comprehension". In Roger

Arsinoitherium is an extinct genus of paenungulate mammals belonging to the extinct order Embrithopoda. It is related to elephants, sirenians and the extinct desmostylians. Arsinoitheres were superficially rhinoceros-like herbivores that lived during the late Eocene and the early Oligocene of northern Africa from 36 to 30 million years ago, in areas of tropical rainforest and at the margin of mangrove swamps. A species described in 2004, A. giganteum, lived in Ethiopia about 27 million years ago. The generic name Arsinoitherium comes from Pharaoh Arsinoe I, after whom the Faiyum Oasis, the region in which the fossils were found, was called during Ptolemaic Kingdom, the Ancient Greek: θηρίον theríon "beast"; the species epithet of the type species, A. zitteli, was given to it in honor of the eminent German paleontologist Karl Alfred Ritter von Zittel, regarded by some as the pioneer of paleontology in Egypt. The best-known species is A. zitteli. Another species, A. giganteum, was discovered in the Ethiopian highlands of Chilga in 2003.

The fossil teeth, far larger than those of A. zitteli, date to around 28–27 million years ago. While the Fayum Oasis is the only site where complete skeletons of Arsinoitherium fossils were recovered, arsinoitheriids have been found in southeastern Europe, including Crivadiatherium from Romania, Hypsamasia and Palaeoamasia from Turkey; when alive, they would have superficially resembled a rhinoceros. Adults of the species A. zitteli stood around 1.75 m tall at 3 m in length. The most noticeable features of Arsinoitherium were a pair of enormous horns above the nose and a second pair of tiny knob-like horns over the eyes. Portrayed as similar to the ossicones of modern giraffes, they were structurally similar to the horns of modern bovids; the skeleton is robust and the limbs were columnar, similar to those of elephants. Arsinoitherium had a full complement of 44 teeth, the primitive state of placental mammalian dentition, with characteristics suggesting that it was a selective browser. Fossils of Arsinoitherium have been found in: EoceneAydim Formation, Oman Idam Unit Formation, Libya Djebel Chambi, TunisiaOligoceneMalembe, Angola Jebel Qatrani Formation, Egypt Chilga, Ethiopia Erageleit Formation, Kenya Ashawq Formation, Oman Shumaysi Formation, Saudi Arabia New fossils from Ethiopia open a window on Africa's'missing years' Arsinoitherium fact file on BBC Science & Nature: Prehistoric Life Description of Arsinoitherium zitteli from upper Eocene strata in Egypt Vincent L. Morgan and Spencer G. Lucas.

"Notes From Diary––Fayum Trip, 1907". Bulletin 22. Albuquerque: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

Princess Elizaveta Ostrogska known as Elżbieta or Halshka, was a Polish heiress, the only child of Prince Illia Ostrogski and Beata Kościelecka. She wasn born in the Ostrog castle in 1539, she inherited a great fortune. When she was 14, her uncle Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski made her marry Dymitr Sanguszko, starost of Kaniv and Zhytomyr. Soon Dymitr needed to flee because of Infamy and conflict with Sigismund II Augustus I, but he was captured and killed by Marcin Zborowski in the Jaroměř in 1554. In 1555 the King made her marry Łukasz Górka, voivode of Poznań, Kalisz, Łęczyca and Brześć Kujawski again against her and her mother's will, who wanted Halszka to marry Siemion Olelkowicz, Prince of Slutsk. Both mother and daughter fled to hid in the Dominican Church. Prince Siemon slipped into the church dressed like a beggar and secretly married Princess Ostrozka in 1559; the King however ordered Prince Siemon to give Elizaveta back to Górka. The church was besieged, mother and daughter were forced to surrender and accept the King's will.

Her mother, Beata Kościelecka, for many years tried to cancel the marriage with Łukasz Górka. In the meantime, Prince Siemion Olelkovycz Slutski died; when he died, Elizaveta started to participate in social affairs with her husband de jure. Elżbieta lived with Górka in his castle in Szamotuły until his death in January 1573; when she became a widow for the third time, her uncle Konstanty Wasyl made her give him and his son Janusz part of her fortune. She died alone, insane, at the age of 43 in 1582, her tragic fate was a base for the book of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, titled Halszka. Jan Matejko pictured her in the background of Kazanie Skargi. There is a legend about one of the Szamotuły castle towers, that it was the prison for a "dark princess", whose face was hidden behind an iron mask by her husband. House of Ostrogski Lithuanian nobility List of szlachta Lubomyr Wynar. Ostrozky in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 Marek, Miroslav. "Tree of Ostrogski house". Genealogy. EU