istoryworld
Phonetics and the alphabet
Phoenician is a Semitic language and the new approach to writing is adopted by the various Semitic groups in Phoenicia and Palestine. Versions of it are used, for example, for Aramaic and Hebrew. Only the consonants are written, leaving the vowels to be understood by the reader (as is still the case today with a widespread Semitic language, Arabic). The contribution of the Greeks, adapting the Phoenician system of writing in the 8th century BC, is to add vowels. For some they use the names ...
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Optical signals
This system is finalized during the Napoleonic wars as the Signal Book for the Ships of War, issued by the Admiralty in 1799. This is the code used by Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805, to fly from his masts the message 'England expects that every man will do his duty'. His signals lieutenant later reveals that the admiral told him to transmit 'England confides..', but he suggested the change because 'expects' was in the code as a word whereas 'confides' would have to be spelt ...
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The Forty-Five
Charles Edward Stuart seems to be offered an unrepeatable opportunity when France declares war on Britain in 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession. He participates in early French plans for invasion of Britain. These are soon abandoned, but events in 1745 - with Britain losing to France in the campaign on the continent - convince the young prince that he stands a chance of success in Scotland even without foreign support.Charles lands in the Hebrides early in August 1745. The Jacobite Highland clans ...
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Michelangelo the painter
Michelangelo's concept for the ceiling of the chapel is as bold as his execution of the figures. An elaborate architectural perspective draws the eye up past alcoves, in which huge figures sit, to ever-receding panels which eventually display a series of narrative scenes. These vast but distant-seeming panels along the centre of the ceiling (each about 10 by 18 feet) tell the story at the start of Genesis - from God's creation of the universe to the famous spark of life (from the Creator's finger ...
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Brunelleschi and the Duomo
Brunelleschi's greatest claim to fame in his own day is connected with a medieval rather than a Renaissance building. In his childhood Florence's cathedral (the Duomo, built during the 14th century) has had only a temporary covering over the central space where the nave and transepts cross. The intention has always been to build a dome, but the Florentines have been too eager to impress the world with the scale of their cathedral. The space to be spanned is 140 feet across, some 35 feet ...
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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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Mastabas and pyramids
The Saqqara pyramid uses stone in small pieces, almost as if it were still mud bricks. But soon the pharaohs bring stone architecture to a peak of monumental grandeur in the pyramids at Giza. The first of these, the Great Pyramid, is built for the pharaoh Khufu from about 2550 BC. The stone is now cut in massive blocks, and the angle of the steps is filled in to give the true pyramid shape (see building methods in Egypt). This is the largest building ever ...
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The caravan
This trade route brings prosperity to Petra, a natural stronghold just north of the Gulf of Aqaba on the route from the Red Sea up to the Mediterranean coast. In the heyday of the kingdom of Israel, around 1000 BC, this important site is occupied by the Edomites - bitter enemies of the Israelite kings, David and Solomon. In the 4th century BC the Edomites are displaced by an Arab tribe, the Nabataeans. They soon come into conflict with new neighbours in Mesopotamia, the Seleucid ...
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Easter Island
The famous statues on Easter Island are first described in 1722, the year in which the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen visits and names the island on Easter Day. They must have been carved over a long period, for there are about 600 of them, between 10 and 20 feet high, with the largest weighing some 50 tons. They may have been created at any time between the first arrival of people on the island, probably in about500, and the visit of the Dutch in the ...
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An inspiring inheritance
Alexander is born in Pella, the Macedonian capital, at about the time his father becomes king of Macedonia. Philip II's expansion of the kingdom, an unfolding saga of glory and excitement, is Alexander's boyhood. At an early age he proves himself well equipped to share in these military adventures. He is only sixteen when he is left in charge of Macedonia, while his father campaigns in the east against Byzantium. During his father's absence he crushes a rebellious tribe, the Thracians. As a reward he ...
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Dutch and English houses
In 1689 a Dutch prince, William III, becomes king of England. His accession to the throne prompts a fashion for the Dutch style. England, like Holland, is rapidly becoming more prosperous. Streets of town houses are being built in London and many provincial towns, such as Bath. The English version of the Dutch house is more severe and classical, particularly when built in stone (as in Bath), but it has the same elegance deriving from a repeated vertical alignment and a generous display of sash ...
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French delicacies
There is a sudden lightening of the tone in French society in the second decade of the 18th century. The treaty of Utrecht, concluding the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, seems to promise the end of the almost continuous warfare which has characterized the long reign of Louis XIV. And the death of the king himself, in 1715, offers possible liberation from the stifling formality which has been the mark of his court.In these same years a young artist, Antoine Watteau, is producing ...
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The life
The London theatres are closed for fear of the plague during 1592 and 1593 apart from brief midwinter seasons, but in 1594 things return to normal and Shakespeare's career accelerates. He is now a leading member of London's most successful company, run by the Burbage family at the Theatre. Patronage at court gives them at first the title of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. On the accession of James I in 1603 they are granted direct royal favour, after which they are known as the King's ...
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Fra Angelico and San Marco
The Dominican order has among its ranks a superbly talented painter. As a friar he is referred to as 'brother' (frater in Latin, fratello in Italian), and the name by which he becomes known is Fra Angelico - the angelic brother. From 1443 Dominicans in Florence employ him to provide contemplative images for the walls of their convent of San Marco. Over the next four years he and his assistants create an extended masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art - though they would not have thought ...
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Greek architecture in the colonies
Many of the most impressive buildings from this early period are outside the Greek mainland. Between about 530 and 460 the people of Paestum, a Greek colony in southern Italy, build three great temples. All three survive, providing a powerful image of the sturdy confidence already achieved in the Doric style. The famous optical tricks of Greek architecture are already in use: the gradual swelling of a column from top and bottom to its central point to avoid its seeming wasp-waisted (technically called entasis) and ...
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The Old Kingdom
The period known as the Old Kingdom runs from the 4th to the 6th of Manetho's dynasties and begins several centuries after the unification of Egypt. During the intervening period little is known of the pharaohs except their names, deriving from stone inscriptions (from as early as the 1st dynasty the Egyptian civilization enjoys the advantages of writing, soon to be followed by a sophisticated calendar). Of some pharaohs even the names are missing.The change to more solid evidence comes in the time of Zoser, ...
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The Flavian emperors
Vespasian has the great advantage, on coming to power, of having two adult sons. The elder of the two, Titus, already has considerable military experience. For the first time, in almost a century since the beginning of the empire, the question of the succession need not be a pressing affair of state. In the event both sons follow Vespasian on the throne, the three of them being known (from their family name of Flavius) as the Flavian emperors. While frugal in his own life, and ...
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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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The Arabic script
A stele, or inscribed column, is set up at Tema in northwest Arabia. Dating from the 5th century BC, its inscription is the earliest known example of the writing which evolves a millennium later into the Arabic script. The script is developed from the 1st century BC by the Nabataeans, a people speaking a Semitic language whose stronghold at Petra, on a main caravan route, brings them prosperity and the need for records. Writing is not much needed by the nomads of Arabia, but when ...
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Villa and country seat
The single most imitated aspect of Palladio's style is his use of columns and pediment as a portico in front of a house (his model being the Pantheon in Rome). In broader terms the balance and the relative simplicity of classical design are his hallmark. Palladio's most striking influence is seen in the great houses of 18th-century England. By then part of his appeal is in reaction against a very different and far from reserved style which has intervened during the 17th century - that ...
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