Most books at that time were written in Latin, Greek, and Roman which was used in the Catholic Church. Only priests and well-educated people read Latin then. People were forbidden by law from translating the Bible into Italian, English, German, French, or other "local" languages.
Around 1440 the first printed books were made in Europe. The way of printing quickly improved so that large books like the Bible could be made and sold cheaply. It took 300 calf skins or 100 pig skins to print the Bible. The printers then began to print everything that they thought was interesting:- Ancient Greek and Roman writings, poetry, plays, lives of the saints, mathematics textbooks, medical textbooks, Christian stories, erotic stories, books about animals and monsters, advice to princes as to how to rule their people and maps of the world.
Before the invention of the printing press, knowledge belonged to priests, monasteries, and universities. Suddenly, many thousands of people, even merchants could learn far more than they ever could before.
The time of Ancient Greece and Rome, when there were many philosophers, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and mathematicians was seen by people as a Golden Age, a time when things were beautiful, well-organised and well-run. This time had lasted from about 400 BC to about 400 AD.
In the year 1400, in the city of Rome, people would wander around looking up at the ruins of a city that had once been great. Inside the broken walls that had been smashed in 410 AD were the remains of huge temples, sports arenas, public baths, apartment blocks and palaces. Nearly all of them were ruined and could not be used. Nearly all of them were half-buried in the dirt. A lot of them were pulled down to use as building stone. But they showed people what great things could be done. Among the ruins of this once-great city, the people of Rome lived in cottages. They still went to church in the huge churches (basilicas) built by the first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, in the 4th century. They still held a market day in the Ancient Roman market place of "Campo Dei Fiori" ("Field of Flowers").
One day in 1402, into the middle of Rome, came a young man called Filippo Brunelleschi and a teenage boy called Donatello. They were fascinated by everything that they saw. They measured ancient ruined buildings, they drew things and they dug around for weeks looking for bits of broken statues and painted pottery that they could stick together. They were probably the world's first archaeologists. By the time they went back home to Florence, they knew more about Ancient Roman architecture and sculpture than anyone had known for about a thousand years. Brunelleschi became a very famous architect and Donatello became a very famous sculptor.
The city of Florence is really where the "Renaissance" began. In those days, Italy was not one single country. It was lots of little states, all governed in different ways and all fighting or making allies with each other all the time.
Rome was politically powerful because Rome had the Pope, the person in control of the Roman Catholic Church. Because of his very great importance as a spiritual leader, most people and most cities did not want to argue with the Pope, whichever Pope he might be. Because a new pope was elected when the old one died, everyone who was rich and powerful was always hoping it might be a member of their family. It was always a good idea to have several young men in the family trained as priests, just in case. It was also a good idea to be good friends with other rich families. One way to do this was to have lots of daughters and get them to marry rich powerful men from different cities. This was the way that politics worked.
Other cities that were powerful were Venice with its great big navy, Milan which controlled trade with Northern Europe and was very rich, Genoa which controlled trade with France and Spain and was very rich, and Florence, where many people say the Renaissance started.
The power of Florence was not founded on a strong army, on a strong fortress or a good position to control trade. It was founded on banking. The cleverness in business of one single-family was very important in making Florence powerful and the center of Renaissance learning. The family was called the Medici.
Capture of Constantinople
Lava
Lava is magma, hot molten rock that flows through holes in the Earth's crust and onto the surface. Like magma, lava can be either viscous (~thick) or fluid (~thin). Blocky lava is so thick and slow that it barely moves along the ground. Other types of lava, like "pahoehoe", "aa", and "pillow lava", are thinner and flow faster. Lava sometimes sets things on fire. Sometimes it even destroys towns.
"Blocky lava" is cool, stiff lava that cannot travel far from where it was erupted. Blocky lava usually oozes out from a volcano only after an explosion has let out lots of the gas pressure from the place where there is magma. Blocky lava makes jumbled piles of sharp chunks.
Pronounced "pah HOY HOY", "pahoehoe" gets its name from the Hawaiian word for "ropy" because its surface looks like coils of rope. Pahoehoe lava flows slowly, like wax dripping down from a candle, making a glassy surface with round wrinkles.
"Aa" is a Hawaiian word that is pronounced "AH-AH". This lava that has a sharp, jagged surface. This stiff lava pours out quickly and makes a crust that breaks easily. The crust is torn into sharp pieces as the hot lava underneath still moves.
Pillow lava is made when lava erupts underwater. It makes round lumps that are the size and shape of pillows. Pillow lava has a round shape because the lava cools very quickly when it touches water.
They occur wherever mafic or intermediate lavas push out under water. This happens along marine hotspot volcano chains and the constructive plate boundaries of mid-ocean ridges. Pillow lavas occur in the oldest preserved volcanic sequences on earth, the Isua and Barberton greenstone belts. This shows that large bodies of water were on the Earth's surface early in the Archaean. Pillow lavas are used generally to show volcanism occurred underwater in metamorphic belts. Pillow lavas are also found where volcanoes were under ice early before an eruption.
A lava tube is a natural channel formed in flowing lava. The lava continues flowing under the tube's upper surface. Later, when the lava is cooled and solid, the tube remains as a feature in the landscape.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village is an area on the western part of southern/downtown Manhattan. It is sometimes called "The Village". The Village is mainly residential.
Greenwich Village is bordered by Broadway to the east, Hudson River to the west, Houston Street to the south and 14th Street to the north.
Originally, Greenwich Village was a hamlet separate to New York City. The grid plan for its streets is less orderly than in parts of Manhattan that were built later.
The village is located on what used to be marshland. In the 16th century, Native Americans called it "Sapokanikan" which means "tobacco field". In the 1630s, it was turned into pasture by the Dutch, who called it "Noortwyck". In 1664, when the English captured the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet.
In 1712, it officially became a village, and was named Grin'wich in the 1713 Common Council records. Following a yellow fever epidemic in 1822, many New York residents moved to the healthier air of Greenwich; where many stayed. In the 19th century, it was known as Washington Square.
Yoshiki
Yoshiki's solo career includes two classical studio albums: "Eternal Melody" (1993), and "Eternal Melody II" (2005).
Aragon
Aragon is an autonomous community in the northeast of Spain. In the various dialects of Spain it is: in ; in ; in .
Aragon covers the area of the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. It is named after the Aragón river, a tributary of the Ebro.