istoryworld
The Old Kingdom
Zoser's funerary example is taken to even more elaborate lengths at Giza by his successors a century later, in the 4th dynasty (c.2575-c.2465 BC). The three great pyramids at Giza are built between about 2550 and 2470 BC for Khufu, his son Khafre (probably also responsible for the sphinx) and his grandson Menkure. This is also the period when the Egyptian practice of mummification begins, aiming to preserve the body for life in the next world. The earliest known example of any part of a ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The crusaders camp outside Constantinople while Alexius, as emperor, tries to raise his debt to the Venetians by taxing the citizens and confiscating church property. For nine months growing resentment within the city is matched by increasing impatience outside. In April the Venetians persuade the crusaders to storm Constantinople and place a Latin emperor on the throne. For the second time they succeed in breaching the walls. The doge of Venice and the leading crusaders instal themselves in the royal palace. The army is granted ...
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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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Hinduism in southeast Asia
Traders from India, increasingly adventurous as seafarers from the 1st century AD, carry Hinduism through southeast Asia. On the mainland (Burma, Cambodia, the southern part of Vietnam) and in the islands (Sumatra, Java), Hindu kingdoms are established. In later centuries impressive Hindu temples are built. Angkor Wat is merely the best known. As in India itself, Hinduism and Buddhism coexist in the early centuries. In southeast Asia, Buddhism eventually prevails and Hinduism fades away (except in the small island of Bali). In India, by contrast, ...
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Edward II and Edward III
In January 1327 Edward II is forced by his wife, Isabella, to renounce the throne in favour of their 15-year-old son, Edward III. Before the end of the year Edward II dies, a captive in Berkeley castle, almost certainly murdered. (His death is soon followed by a gory rumour, fuelled by rumours of the king's homosexuality, that the instrument of death is a red-hot skewer plunged up into the instestines.) For four years Mortimer rules with Isabella in the young king's name, but in 1331 ...
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The emergence of parties
The unanimous election of George Washington in 1789, receiving the vote of every single state elector, is repeated when he stands in 1792 for a second term. But this is the last occasion when there is any such consensus, and in 1796 he resists all pressure to stand for a third term. Instead, on September 19 of that year, he delivers an influential Farewell Address in which he outlines his vision for the nation's future. Party strife begins to emerge during Washington's first term, and ...
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Reformation
Martin Luther, a man both solemn and passionate, is an Augustinian friar teaching theology at the university recently founded in Wittenberg by Frederick the Wise, the elector of Saxony. Obsessed by his own unworthiness, he comes to the conclusion that no amount of virtue or good behaviour can be the basis of salvation (as proposed in the doctrine known as justification by works). If the Christian life is not to be meaningless, he argues, a sinner's faith must be the only merit for which God's ...
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Glazed ceramics
In all the early civilizations, from Mesopotamia and Egypt onwards, pottery is a highly developed craft. An outstanding achievement is the Greek ceramic tradition of the 6th and 5th century BC. But technically all these pots suffer from a major disadvantage. Fired earthenware is tough but it is porous. Liquid will soak into it and eventually leak through it. This has some advantages with water (where evaporation from the surface cools the contents of the jug) but is less appropriate for storing wine or milk. ...
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Its influence
This 10th-century Bukhara tomb holds the germ of the future. Here the dome - as in the Dome of the Rock - is the main exterior feature of the building. In subsequent centuries domes of this kind become steadily more prominent in the Muslim tradition, attracting the viewer's attention by a variety of means - by size or swelling shape, by delicate fluting or white marble or a bright skin of ceramic tiles. Notable examples in the 14th century are a Mongol tomb at Soltaniyeh ...
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The popes at Avignon
In many ways the move to Avignon has a rational justification. This city is close to the main power of the time, France, but it is in another kingdom - that of Naples. It is also the centre of western Europe in a way which Rome could never be. Lines drawn from Britain to Italy and from Germany to Spain would cross close to Avignon. In addition this place is much more secure than Rome. Italy is in a state of anarchy, dominated by warring ...
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A new religion in India
The religion becomes a power in the Punjab under the fifth guru, Arjan. Between 1581 and 1606 he builds many Sikh temples (gurdwaras) and compiles the holy book of the religion (the Granth, consisting of the writings of the gurus themselves together with related Hindu and Muslim texts). More conspicuously, Arjan builds Amritsar as a holy city of pilgrimage for all Sikhs. The strength of his sect is now sufficient to alarm the Moghul emperor, Jahangir. Arjan is arrested for disrespect to Islam. He dies, ...
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Buddhist murals
Monks and pilgrims play an important part in the practice of Buddhism. Both are attracted to caves in remote places. And the profusion of popular stories in Mahayana Buddhism (on topics such as the adventures of Buddha in his previous lives on earth) provides a rich source of material for narrative paintings on the walls of the caves. Two places suggest more vividly than any others the vitality of Buddhist cave painting from about the 5th century AD. One is Ajanta, a site in India ...
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Archbishop and martyr
Politically the murder of Becket loses Henry the wider argument about ecclesiastical control. In the mood following the assassination he has to concede, at any rate in the short term, all the points on which Becket was opposing him. But in other contexts Henry has notable successes. Within months of the murder, in the autumn of 1171, he travels through Wales and on into Ireland. In each he makes settlements greatly to the English advantage. In 1174 (after vigorously suppressing rebellions both in England and ...
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Fortification and siege
The towns which Sargon marches to attack are well fortified - a precaution which has been considered necessary in this part of the world for many centuries. The tower at Jericho dates from not long after 8000 BC. Uruk, a neighbouring city of Ur, provides itself in about 2700 BC with more than 5 miles (8 km) of protective walls. The tools of siege warfare - ladders to scale the walls, shovels and picks to undermine them - are not invented for this purpose. Only ...
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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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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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The war at sea
On October 19 Villeneuve sails from Cadiz, intending to head south and enter the Mediterranean. He has thirty-three ships of the line. Nelson shadows his movement from several miles out to sea, keeping his twenty-seven ships of the line out of sight and receiving information by signal from his frigates. Nelson closes in, off Cape Trafalgar, on the morning of October 21. The battle begins just before noon. Five hours later some nineteen French and Spanish ships have surrendered or been destroyed, with no British ...
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Dutch and English houses
Dutch prosperity in the 17th century results in a very satisfying design of town house. Merchants are eager to have their homes and premises in the limited space fronting the canals of Dutch towns. With numerous middle-class competitors for the available land (as opposed to the small number of noblemen holding power and wealth in other areas of Europe), the typical Dutch town house, several stories high, has a narrow brick façade and generous areas of glass - made possible by the new design of ...
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Balaklava and Inkerman
A British and French army lands near Sebastopol in September 1854. During the next eight weeks there are three battles with Russian forces, at the river Alma in September, at the allies' supply port of Balaklava in October and at Inkerman on the heights just outside Sebastopol in November.Alma is an allied victory but brings little advantage in the central purpose of seizing the fortified port of Sebastopol. The other two battles are inconclusive, with very heavy casualties - Balaklava also being famous in British ...
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Pennsylvania
In 1737 the colony of Pennsylvania decides to claim the full extent of this supposed agreement. Athletes are trained for the occasion; a path is cut through the scrub; on August 25-6 the quickest among them covers sixty-four miles in the day and a half, bringing some 1200 square miles of Indian territory securely into British hands.There is a further irony attached to this loss by the Lenape. When they reject the so-called Walking Purchase, both sides agree to accept arbitration by the Iroquois League. ...
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