istoryworld
The Moghuls after Aurangzeb
When the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb is in his eighties, and the empire in disarray, an Italian living in India (Niccolao Manucci) predicts appalling bloodshed on the old man's death, worse even than that which disfigured the start of Aurangzeb's reign. The Italian is right. In the war of succession which begins in 1707, two of Aurangzeb's sons and three of his grandsons are killed.Violence and disruption is the pattern of the future. The first six Moghul emperors have ruled for a span of nearly 200 ...
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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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Age of the dome
The superb Islamic domes of the 17th century fall within two very different groups, even though both descend from the same tradition. In one group, associated particularly with Persia, the gentle curves of the dome are sheathed in ceramic tiles - usually blue. This style reaches its perfection in Isfahan. The other theme, associated with India, concentrates all attention on the subtle shape of the dome itself, making its surface as sheer and simple as possible. For this, white marble is the perfect material. The ...
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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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Venetian mosaics
When the Torcello mosaics are being installed, this cathedral is no longer the most important one in the Venetian lagoon. That honour has passed to St Mark's, where craftsmen in mosaic are busy at the same period. Their labours produce probably the most sumptuous church interior in the world, with every corner a sombre glittering gold. It has been calculated that the mosaics of St Mark's cover an area of about an acre. Dating mainly from the 12th and 13th centuries, these Italian mosaics represent ...
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Rialto and St Mark's
Early in the 9th century the government of the lagoon is transferred to two adjacent islands where the land is a little higher above water level, though in Venice the distinction is a fine one. To either side of the intervening waterway is a rivo alto ('high bank'), from the which the name Rialto derives. The Rialto bridge subsequently joins these two banks. The growing town needs status. In the Christian Middle Ages status requires a distinguished patron saint and, if possible, the possession of ...
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Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
Direct provocation of this kind is untypical of Shah Jahan, but it becomes standard policy during the reign of his son Aurangzeb. His determination to impose strict Islamic rule on India undoes much of what was achieved by Akbar. An attack on Rajput territories in 1679 makes enemies of the Hindu princes; the reimposition of the jizya in the same year ensures resentment among Hindu merchants and peasants. At the same time Aurangzeb is obsessed with extending Moghul rule into the difficult terrain of southern ...
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Voyages of Captain Cook
The voyages of James Cook are the first examples of exploration undertaken on scientific principles. His first expedition, sailing in the Endeavour from Plymouth in 1768, has a scientific task as its central mission. It is known to the astronomers of the day that in June 1769 the planet Venus will pass directly between the earth and the sun. An international effort is made to time the precise details of this transit, as seen from different parts of the world, in the hope of calculating ...
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Strike and Slump
The government temporarily defuses the issue with a subsidy to keep up the level of wages, but this is due to end on 30 April 1926. A few days before this deadline the mine owners offer their final terms, which are so unacceptable to the miners that they interpret them as a lock-out.With the miners staying at home on May 1 the government declares a state of emergency. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) responds by calling a general strike, to start at midnight on May ...
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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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Gothic
The Gothic style, though also used in secular buildings, is most associated with the great cathedrals of Europe. There are certain immediately recognizable characteristics in any Gothic cathedral. The interior gives an impression of lightness and height, with slender columns framing large tall windows and reaching up to support a delicately ribbed stone roof. The exterior is encrusted with a filigree of delicate ornament, again essentially slender and vertical, made up of a blend of elegant statues, bobbly pinnacles, the skeletal patterns of the stone ...
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Two Anglo-Afghan Wars
In January 1842 the British garrison of some 4500 troops withdraws from Kabul, leaving Shah Shuja to his fate (he is soon assassinated). Most of the retreating British and Indian soldiers are also killed during their attempt to regain the safety of India. A British army recaptures Kabul during the summer of 1842, more as a gesture of defiance than as a matter of practical policy - for the decision is subsequently taken to restore Dost Mohammed to his throne. He returns from India in ...
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Chinese architectural tradition
Minor improvements are introduced with the advance of technology. The colourful ceramic roof tiles of Chinese pavilions are an innovation in the Song dynasty in the 11th century. But in broad terms the civic buildings of China retain their appearance through the ages. A good example is the magnificent Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Its colours, frequently restored, are so fresh that the building looks new. But the structure dates from the early 15th century, in the Ming dynasty, and its appearance on its marble ...
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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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Straight walls with windows
One of the best preserved neolithic towns is Catal Huyuk, covering some 32 acres in southern Turkey. Here the houses are rectangular, with windows but no doors. They adjoin each other, like cells in a honeycomb, and the entrance to each is through the roof. The windows are a happy accident, made possible by the sloping site. Each house projects a little above its neighbour, providing space for the window. Not surprisingly, an idea as excellent as this catches on elsewhere and brings with it ...
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Donatello
The larger-than-lifesize St Mark stands in a completely relaxed pose, with his weight on one foot. Folds of loose drapery vividly suggest a projecting knee and jutting hip. The figure has the solid and uncompromising quality of Roman portrait sculpture, even though the beard and long robes seem to echo the saints on the façades of Gothic cathedrals. Donatello's next work for Orsanmichele, probably completed in 1417, has much more openly a classical quality. St George, a clean-shaven young man scantily clad in Roman armour, ...
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Isfahan
The new centre of the city is a vast rectangular space, the Maidan-i-Shah (Royal Parade), designed for parades and polo. At its southern end there rises the most magnificent of Isfahan's swelling blue domes, on the Masjid-i-Shah (Royal Mosque). The tiles are shaped where necessary to fit the curve of the dome, as are those which clad the mosque's circular minarets. The dome is reflected in a great pool in the courtyard. On the east of the Maidan-i-Shah is a smaller blue dome, on the ...
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Baroque Rome
In the transformation of Rome into a baroque city, no one plays a part comparable to that of the sculptor and architect Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. In 1629 he is appointed architect to St Peter's, the creation of which has given a new excitement and dignity to the ancient city. Over the next forty years he provides magnificent features to impress the arriving pilgrims.The first, completed in 1633, is the vast bronze canopy held up by four twisting columns (profusely decorated with the Barberini bees, for ...
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Italian Gothic
Italy comes late to the Gothic style but makes of it something very much its own. To move from the west façade of Chartres cathedral to the equivalent in Siena or Orvieto, dating from two centuries later, is like seeing a play which has been adapted to the extragant demands of opera. These two Italian façades of the early 14th-century, encrusted with ornament and bright with pictorial panels, glow in the warm Italian sun like enormous trinkets. When Italian builders follow the northern Gothic style ...
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Italian Gothic
More typical of Venetian Gothic is the exquisite Ca' d'Oro, built betwen 1421 and 1440. There is a wonderful contrast and harmony between the wall with its nine inset windows on the right (stone with an occasional pattern of space) and the three tiers of balconies with their filigree arches on the left (space with an occasional pattern of stone). This design blends the Gothic with other influences, deriving from Venice's connections with the Byzantine and Muslim east. The result is a beauty, purely Venetian, ...
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