istoryworld
The Greek theatre
In the first Greek theatres the stage is a full circle, in keeping with the circular dance - the choros - from which the theatrical performance has evolved. This stage is called the orchestra (orchester, a dancer), because it is the place where the chorus sing and dance. Epidaurus, built in about 340 BC, provides the best example of a classical Greek theatre. In the centre of the orchestra is the stone base on which an altar stood, reflecting the religious aspect of theatre in ...
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Carracks, galleons and galleys
From 1570 Hawkins experiments with a design in which the high forecastle is eliminated. He proves that a ship with high stern and relatively low bow is faster and more manoeuvrable. With an official post on the Navy Board, he is able to improve the English fleet dramatically before the encounter with the Spanish Armada in 1588 - when the agility of the English vessels wins the day. Hawkins' 'low-charged' design, which acquires the general name of galleon, becomes the standard form for all large ...
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Abu Simbel
When the pharaoh Ramses II decides to create a great monument to himself at the first cataract of the Nile (as if to dominate the defeated southern province of Cush), he conceives the earliest and probably the most impressive of all rock-cut shrines adorned with statuary.At Abu Simbel a sloping sandstone rock rises high above the Nile. Ramses' sculptors and labourers are given the task of hacking into the rock face - to expose first four colossal seated statues of the pharaoh himself (each some ...
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Pilgrims and relics
The pilgrims tramping round Europe have a good time in a good cause (as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales vividly suggests). They pray to the saints whose relics they visit, and the saints - they hope - put in a word for them above. The particular appeal of the Virgin Mary, in addition to her feminine and maternal qualities, is that she has special influence within the family circle. The indulgences available at each shrine provide an added inducement to set out on pilgrimage. Medieval christendom is ...
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The vaulted stone roof
The vault, like the dome, is among the technical achievements of Roman architecture, but the Romans are content to cover their large rectangular buildings (or basilicas) with wooden roofs. This remains the case with the first Christian churches, based on the Roman basilica. And it is still the case with all rectangular Romanesque churches until the last few decades of the 11th century. Before that time naves are either covered with flat wooden ceilings or are open up to the timbers of the roof. The ...
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Steps to independence
Increasingly, during these months, colonists are coming to the view that a complete break from Britain may be the only way forward. In May 1776 the revolutionary convention of Virginia votes for independence and instructs the Virginia delegation to present this motion to the Continental Congress. Early in June, in Philadelphia, a small committee is set up to draft a declaration of independence. Its five members include Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The task of composing the document is left to Jefferson. It is passed ...
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The Book
The Bible (from biblos, Greek for 'book') is the basis of two great religions, Judaism in the Old Testament and Christianity in the New Testament. In each case it brings together a group of documents to tell the story of the founders and early followers of the religion. In doing so it also explains their beliefs. The conventional sources of historical evidence (archaeological remains, written documents) provide few traces of the Old Testament story and none at all of the events described in the New ...
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Henry IV
After winning his kingdom in nine years of continuous war, Henry IV brings France twelve years of very productive peace. The state's finances are put on a sound footing, industry and commerce are encouraged (an ambitious scheme for a network of inland waterways includes the beginning of the Briare canal) and the army is strengthened.In his foreign policy Henry takes the same conciliatory approach as with the bitterly opposed religious factions in France. His aim is to achieve peace on France's borders. To this end ...
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Michelangelo the sculptor
Early in 1499 a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, holding on her lap the dead Christ, is placed in one of the chapels of old St Peter's in Rome. This Pietà is still one of the most beautiful works of art in the mighty new St Peter's, completed a century later. It is by a sculptor who has just turned twenty-four - Michelangelo.The precocious genius receives a commission two years later in his home city of Florence. The authorities want a marble statue of David. ...
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Stone Age graves and temples
In a later stage of this deeply mysterious neolithic tradition the megaliths, previously hidden beneath the mounds of the tombs, emerge in their own right as great standing stones, often arranged in circles. The ritual purpose of such circles is not known. They too, in many cases, have a solar alignment, usually now relating to sunrise at the summer solstice. The most striking of these circles is Stonehenge, in England. The site is in ritual use over a very long period, from about 3000 to ...
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Babur in Kabul
Babur, founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, is one of history's more endearing conquerors. In his youth he is one among many impoverished princes, all descended from Timur, who fight among themselves for possession of some small part of the great man's fragmented empire. Babur even captures Samarkand itself on three separate occasions, each for only a few months. The first time he achieves this he is only fourteen. What distinguishes Babur from other brawling princes is that he is a keen oberver of ...
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Palmyra
The other great staging post on the route to Antioch is also an important site, and today a much more visible one. It is Palmyra, famous as one of the great ruined classical cities. From Doura-Europus, on the Euphrates, the caravans strike west through the desert to the Mediterranean coast. Palmyra is an oasis half way across this difficult terrain. Its wealth derives from its position on the east-west axis from Persia to the coast, in addition to being on the older routes up from ...
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The age of Walpole
The thrust of his policy is lower taxation, increased trade and peace abroad - excellent intentions which Walpole does much to achieve. Late in his administration, and to his distress, he fails to prevent Britain going to war with Spain in 1739 after the dramatic episode of Jenkins' Ear (see the War of Jenkins' Ear). This conflict merges, in the following year, in the broader War of the Austrian Succession.Walpole resigns during the war, in 1742, and retires to Houghton Hall, the house which he ...
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Timur's conquests
Home is Samarkand, the city closest to his birthplace. Timur is busy turning it into a great centre of Muslim architecture and art. Together with the Indian elephants come the best craftsmen of Delhi, who will be set to work in Samarkand - where they join, in 1399, a community of skilled captives from previous expeditions. This is connoisseurship of an unusually violent kind, but it is a genuine passion. Inherited by Timur's descendants, in less rapacious form, it results in a great Timurid tradition ...
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Trial and execution of Charles I
On 2 January 1649 the House of Commons resolves that it is treason for a king to wage war against parliament. At the same time the members pass a bill setting up a High Court to judge Charles Stuart on this charge of treason. The House of Lords rejects the bill, so on January 4 the commons resolve that the House of Commons, assembled in parliament, is the supreme authority in the land and that its enactments have the force of law whether or not ...
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From tents to round houses
Once human beings settle down to the business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, permanent settlements become a factor of life. The story of architecture can begin. The tent-like structures of earlier times evolve now into round houses. Jericho is usually quoted as the earliest known town. A small settlement here evolves in about 8000 BC into a town covering 10 acres. And the builders of Jericho have a new technology - bricks, shaped from mud and baked hard in the sun. In keeping ...
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Magna Carta
Having accepted the document under duress, John immediately sends a request to the pope (now his ally) to have it annulled. Innocent III obliges in August of this same year, 1215. The result is a renewal of the civil war. The king's death in 1216, followed by the succession of his 9-year-old son as Henry III, brings a pause during which more moderate council prevails. When Henry comes of age, in 1225, archbishop Stephen Langton persuades him to reissue Magna Carta in a slightly modified ...
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Pacific islands
The islanders also soon attract the eager attention of another very different group of Europeans - a new breed of English missionaries, committed to taking the Protestant faith to savages as yet unaware of the truth. _x000b_ _x000b_A spate of missionary societies are founded in London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first to arrive in the Pacific is the London Missionary Society, with an expedition to Tahiti in 1797. The islands become a favourite region for gospel work, well before the ...
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British portraits
Reynolds often paints his subjects full length, in splendid poses and in close proximity to a classical column or urn. These are the sort of people who go on the Grand Tour. Their easy self-confidence in Reynolds's canvases revives the great tradition of the English portraits of van Dyck.If anything is missing in these powerful images by Reynolds, it is perhaps the fleeting quality of fashion - a quality abundantly supplied by his slightly younger rival Thomas Gainsborough. When Gainsborough catches William and Elizabeth Hallett ...
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Christianity in Ireland
The most telling images of early Christianity in Ireland are the beehive cells on the inhospitable rock of Skellig Michael, off the coast of Kerry. In these, from the 5th century, Celtic monks live in an ascetic tradition which relates back to the first desert fathers in Egypt. Cold, rather than heat, is here their local penance. Missionary efforts in Ireland during the 5th century - including those of St Patrick - give the Christian religion a firmer footing. By the 6th century the time ...
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