paragraph_text: Belarus (; , ), officially the Republic of Belarus (, ), formerly known by its Russian name Byelorussia or Belorussia (), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its is forested. Its major economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including the Principality of Polotsk (11th to 14th centuries), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire.

paragraph_text: In the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade including the Ajuran Sultanate, which excelled in hydraulic engineering and fortress building, the Sultanate of Adal, whose general Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmed Gurey) was the first commander to use cannon warfare on the continent during Adal's conquest of the Ethiopian Empire, and the Sultanate of the Geledi, whose military dominance forced governors of the Omani empire north of the city of Lamu to pay tribute to the Somali Sultan Ahmed Yusuf.

paragraph_text: For two and a half centuries from the mid 13th, the politics in the Northern India was dominated by the Delhi Sultanate and in the Southern India by the Vijayanagar Empire which originated as a political heir of the erstwhile Hoysala Empire and Pandyan Empire. However, there were other regional powers present as well. In the North, the Rajputs were a dominant force in the Western and Central India. Their power reached to the zenith under Rana Sanga during whose time Rajput armies were constantly victorious against the Sultanate army. In the South, the Bahmani Sultanate was the chief rival of the Vijaynagara and gave Vijayanagara tough days many a times. In the early 16th century Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire defeated the last remnant of Bahmani Sultanate power after which the Bahmani Sultanate collapsed. It was established either by a Brahman convert or patronized by a Brahman and form that source it got the name Bahmani. In the early 16th century, it collapsed and got split into five small Deccan sultanates. In the East, the Gajapati Kingdom remained a strong regional power to reckon with, so was the Ahom Kingdom in the North-east for six centuries.

paragraph_text: During this period, Europe, North Africa and the Near East fell under increasing domination by the Roman Empire, which continued expanding, most notably conquering Britain under the emperor Claudius (AD 43). The reforms introduced by Augustus during his long reign stabilized the empire after the turmoil of the previous century's civil wars. Later in the century the Julio - Claudian dynasty, which had been founded by Augustus, came to an end with the suicide of Nero in AD 68. There followed the famous Year of Four Emperors, a brief period of civil war and instability, which was finally brought to an end by Vespasian, ninth Roman emperor, and founder of the Flavian dynasty. The Roman Empire generally experienced a period of prosperity and dominance in this period and the First Century is remembered as part of the Empire's golden age.

paragraph_text: It is one of relatively few films directed by Ismail Merchant, who is better known as the producer in the Merchant Ivory partnership, and addresses issues of Hindu subculture in Trinidad and Tobago.

paragraph_text: During the 11th and 12th centuries the Catalan rulers expanded up to north of the Ebro river, and in the 13th century they conquered the Land of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The city of Alghero in Sardinia was repopulated with Catalan speakers in the 14th century. The language also reached Murcia, which became Spanish-speaking in the 15th century.

paragraph_text: East Prussia enclosed the bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. The indigenous Balts who survived the conquest were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Poles and Lithuanians formed minorities. From the 13th century, East Prussia was part of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights. After the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 it became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1525, with the Prussian Homage, the province became the Duchy of Prussia. The Old Prussian language had become extinct by the 17th or early 18th century.

paragraph_text: The Courtesans of Bombay is a 1983 British docudrama directed by Ismail Merchant. A collaboration by Merchant, James Ivory, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The film focuses on a Bombay compound known as Pavan Pool, where women aspiring to work in the entertainment industry dance for donations from a male audience by day and, it is broadly suggested although never specifically stated, work as prostitutes by night. It was broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK in January 1983 and went into limited theatrical release in the United States on 19 March 1986.

paragraph_text: During the Dutch Golden Age in the late 16th century onward, the Dutch Republic dominated world trade in the 17th century, conquering a vast colonial empire and operating the largest fleet of merchantmen of any nation. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world.

paragraph_text: The chapter house has an original mid-13th-century tiled pavement. A door within the vestibule dates from around 1050 and is believed to be the oldest in England.[citation needed] The exterior includes flying buttresses added in the 14th century and a leaded tent-lantern roof on an iron frame designed by Scott. The Chapter house was originally used in the 13th century by Benedictine monks for daily meetings. It later became a meeting place of the King's Great Council and the Commons, predecessors of Parliament.

paragraph_text: A motte - and - bailey castle is a fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled, often forced, labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales following their invasion in 1066. Motte - and - bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. By the end of the 13th century, the design was largely superseded by alternative forms of fortification, but the earthworks remain a prominent feature in many countries.

paragraph_text: The oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences.

paragraph_text: In the first decades of the 19th century, Federal architecture and Greek Revival architecture were dominated by Philadelphia architects such as Benjamin Latrobe, William Strickland, John Haviland, John Notman, Thomas U. Walter, and Samuel Sloan. Frank Furness is considered Philadelphia's greatest architect of the second half of the 19th century, but his contemporaries included John McArthur, Jr., Addison Hutton, Wilson Eyre, the Wilson Brothers, and Horace Trumbauer. In 1871, construction began on the Second Empire-style Philadelphia City Hall. The Philadelphia Historical Commission was created in 1955 to preserve the cultural and architectural history of the city. The commission maintains the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, adding historic buildings, structures, sites, objects and districts as it sees fit.

paragraph_text: The Tripartite Struggle for control of northern India took place in the ninth century. The struggle was between the Pratihara Empire, the Pala Empire and the Rashtrakuta Empire.

paragraph_text: Mumbai Bombay Megacity Mumbai Top to bottom: Cuffe Parade skyline, the Gateway of India (L), Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (R), Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Bandra -- Worli Sea Link. Nickname (s): Bambai, Mumbai city, City of Seven Islands, City of Dreams, Gateway to India, Hollywood of India Mumbai Location of Mumbai in Maharashtra, India Mumbai Mumbai (India) Show map of Maharashtra Show map of India Show all Coordinates: 18 ° 58 ′ 30 ''N 72 ° 49 ′ 33'' E ﻿ / ﻿ 18.97500 ° N 72.82583 ° E ﻿ / 18.97500; 72.82583 Coordinates: 18 ° 58 ′ 30 ''N 72 ° 49 ′ 33'' E ﻿ / ﻿ 18.97500 ° N 72.82583 ° E ﻿ / 18.97500; 72.82583 Country India State Maharashtra District Mumbai City Mumbai Suburban First settled 1507 Named for Mumbadevi Government Type Mayor -- Council Body MCGM Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar (Shiv Sena) Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta Area Megacity 603 km (233 sq mi) Metro 4,355 km (1,681.5 sq mi) Elevation 14 m (46 ft) Population (2011) Megacity 12,442,373 Rank 1st Density 21,000 / km (53,000 / sq mi) Metro 18,414,288 20,748,395 (Extended UA) Metro Rank 1st Demonym (s) Mumbaikar Time zone IST (UTC + 5: 30) PIN code (s) 400 001 to 400 107 Area code (s) + 91 - 22 Vehicle registration MH - 01 (South), MH - 02 (West), MH - 03 (Central), MH - 47 (North) GDP / PPP $368 billion (Metro area, 2015) Official language Marathi Website www.mcgm.gov.in

paragraph_text: Sultan Bahu (‎; also spelled Bahoo; ca 1630–1691) was a Sufi mystic, poet, and scholar active during the Mughal empire mostly in the present-day Punjab province of Pakistan. He belonged to Qadiri Sufi order, and founded the mystic tradition known as Sarwari Qadiri.

paragraph_text: The Aztecs (/ ˈæztɛks /) were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec peoples included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city - states (altepetl), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec empire was a confederation of three city - states established in 1427, Tenochtitlan, city - state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the prehispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521 -- 1821). The definitions of Aztec and Aztecs have long been the topic of scholarly discussion, ever since German scientist Alexander von Humboldt established its common usage in the early nineteenth century.

paragraph_text: Early civilisations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a brief period the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British conquered Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the country became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a democratic nation and then, following a coup d'état in 1962, a military dictatorship.

paragraph_text: Country Start numbered year on 1 January Adoption of Gregorian calendar Denmark Gradual change from 13th to 16th centuries 1700 Venice 1522 1582 Holy Roman Empire (Catholic states) 1544 1583 Spain, Poland, Portugal 1556 1582 Holy Roman Empire (Protestant states) 1559 1700 Sweden 1559 1753 France 1564 1582 Southern Netherlands 1576 1582 Lorraine 1579 1682 Dutch Republic 1583 1582 Scotland 1600 1752 Russia 1700 1918 Tuscany 1721 1750 Great Britain and the British Empire except Scotland 1752 1752

paragraph_text: The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Russia delayed indigenous literacy in Estonia.[citation needed]

Question: What dominated in the south of the country where the director of The Mystic Masseur was born?
Answer: Vijayanagar Empire