the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_embeddings huggingface dataset:
Principality 
 Sometimes the word is also used to mean dependent territories in  Africa, Asia and India, pre-Columbian America and Oceania.
Principality 
 For these, the word princely states is generally preferred, especially if they came under the authority of a European colonial power.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 He was born in Segesvár, Transylvania, - then under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary - in 1431.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The Turks were fighting against the Kingdom of Hungary and this made Wallachia a battle ground between Turks and Hungarians.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The country rulers were struggling with each other, and this was resulting in instability, family disputes and murders.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Sigismund was supporting Vlad II for the throne of Wallachia, and made  Vlad II knight 1431 of the Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconis in Latin).
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The oldest brother, probably named Mircea, was sent by Vlad II  to fight the  war against the Turks in 1444.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Radu, known as Radu III the Fair or Radu the Handsome, the youngest brother, was also Vlad’s most important rival as he continuously tried to replace Vlad on the throne.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 From his first marriage, Vlad the Impaler (or Vlad III) had a son, later prince of Wallachia, as  Mihnea the Evil.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The legend says that the Turkish army surrounded Vlad's castle, the Poienari Castle, led by his brother Radu the Handsome.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 According to legend she remarked that she "would rather have her body be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be captured by the Turks."
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad had another two sons with his second wife Ilona Szilágyi a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Some historians strongly believe they may have also had a daughter named Maria Zaleska (Princess Zaleska).
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad was very likely born in the city of Sighişoara in Transylvania, then a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the winter of 1431.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Although his native country was Wallachia, the family lived in exile in Transylvania because his father had been chased away by pro-Ottoman boyars.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 He gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan and gave up his two younger sons as hostages so that he would keep his promise.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad suffered much at the hands of the Ottomans, and was locked up in an underground prison; however, his younger brother, Radu, caught the eye of the sultan's son.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Impressed by Vlad's knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, Hunyadi pardoned him and took him in as an adviser.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 In 1456, Hungary invaded Serbia to chase away the Turks, and at the same time Vlad III invaded Wallachia.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The constant state of war since the death of his grandfather, Mircea the Elder, in 1418, led to increased crime levels and less agricultural production.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad wanted to eliminate all threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups, such as the boyars.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Rumors say that thousands of citizens of the free towns that sheltered his rivals were impaled by Vlad.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 One captured Dăneşti prince was forced to read his own funeral speech while he kneeled at an open grave before his execution.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 To the end of the 1450s there was once again talk about a war against the Turks, in which the king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus would play the main role.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Knowing this, Vlad stopped paying money to the Ottomans in 1459, and at around 1460, he made a new alliance with Corvinus.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 In the winter of 1461 Vlad attacked and devastated the area between Serbia and the Black Sea, leaving over 20,000 people dead.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 In response to this, the Sultan Mehmed II headed towards Wallachia with an army of 60,000 men in the spring of 1462.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 On the night of June 16 Vlad and some of his men entered the main Turkish camp, wearing Turkish clothing, and attempted to kill Mehmed.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 However, some do not believe that it was likely to happen that a prisoner was permitted to marry into the royal family.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Diplomatic letters and writings from Buda during this time show that Vlad's actual period of imprisonment was short.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The openly pro-Turkish policy of Vlad's brother, Radu was probably a cause in Vlad's good treatment while in prison.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 It is interesting to note that the Russian texts, normally very favorable to Vlad Ţepeş, tells that even in captivity he could not give up his favorite games; he often captured birds and mice which he tortured and mutilated, and some were impaled on tiny spears.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The years before his final release in 1474 (when he began making plans for the reconquest of Wallachia), Vlad lived with his new wife in a house in the Hungarian capital.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Around 1475 Vlad and Stefan Báthory of Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed force of Transylvanians, some dissatisfied Wallachian boyars, and Moldavians sent by Prince Stephen III of Moldavia, Vlad's cousin.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad's brother, Radu the Handsome, died a couple of years earlier and had been replaced on the Wallachian throne by another Turkish candidate, Prince Basarab the Elder, a member of the Dăneşti clan.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 After placing Vlad Ţepeş on the throne, Stephen Báthory and his forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak position.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad had little time to get support before a large Turkish army entered Wallachia to put back  Prince Basarab on the throne.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad's cruelties over the years made the boyars to believe that they had a better chance to survive under Prince Basarab.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Vlad had to meet the Turks with the small forces at his disposal, which were made up of less than four thousand men.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Others say he was killed by disloyal Wallachian boyars in the war against the Turks, or during a hunt.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Others believe Vlad was killed in the war, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 By constant retelling they have become confused and created an ideal picture of a big national hero.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Among the Romanian peasants, Vlad Ţepeş was sometimes remembered as a prince who defended his country.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 All versions agree that Vlad, in response to some real or imagined insult, (perhaps because they refused to remove the hats in Vlad's presence), had their hats nailed to their heads.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cruel and terrible appearance, a long straight nose, distended nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the large wide-open green eyes were enframed by bushy black eyebrows, which made them appear threatening.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 A bull's neck supported the head, from which black curly locks were falling to his wide-shouldered person.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 His famous portrait was rediscovered in the late 1800s, in the gallery of horrors at Innsbruck's Ambras Castle.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs while sharpened stake was forced into the body.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 One tale says 10,000 were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu (where Vlad the Impaler had once lived) in 1460.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Another tale says that on Saint Bartholomew's Day (in August), Vlad the Impaler had 30,000 people of the free Transylvanian city of Braşov impaled.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 One of the most famous woodcuts of the period shows Vlad the Impaler feasting amongst a forest of stakes outside Braşov, while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Other methods include nails in heads, cutting off limbs, strangulation, burning, cutting off noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to animals, and boiling alive.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 His victims included women, children, peasants, great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 However, the vast majority of his European victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and Wallachia.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Most of the merchants there were German-speaking Saxons who were seen as bad people because they were not Romanian.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 He saw the boyars as people who were not loyal (Vlad's own father and older brother were murdered by boyars).
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Almost as soon as he came to power, he gave a party for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The younger nobles and their families were marched north from Târgovişte to the ruins of the Poienari Castle in the mountains above the Argeş River.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 According to the reports, they worked until the clothes fell off their bodies, and then were forced to continue working naked.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 It was reported that an invading Ottoman army turned back when they saw thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the river Danube.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 In 1462,  Mehmed II returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses outside of Vlad's capital of Târgovişte.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Much of the information we have about Vlad III Ţepeş comes from texts published in the Holy Roman Empire in German texts  from 1488 and books written in Russian.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 According to the texts, he was particularly cruel against women and  wanted his people to work hard.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The fictional vampire in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker was inspired by the legends of this Wallachian prince.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The cruel person of the Impaler was a suitable character for Stoker's purposes possibly combined with Oscar Wilde, a poet whom dated Stoker's wife and was outed as homosexual near the making of Stoker's famous novel.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 The events of Vlad's life happened in a region of the world that was still  medieval in Stoker's time.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Although there were vampire tales originating elsewhere, the vampire, as he became known in Europe, largely originated in Southern Slavic and Greek folklore.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire legend.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Stoker's novel was a work in a long series of works that were inspired by the reports coming from the Balkans.
Vlad III the Impaler 
 Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler by Kurt W Treptow, Center for Romanian Studies, 2018, amzn.to/2rYx93U via @amazon
Fertile Crescent 
 The Fertile Crescent is a historical region in the Middle East that includes the Levant, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.
Fertile Crescent 
 These countries on a map together have a shape that is similar to a crescent, so archaeologist James Henry Breasted spoke of the "Fertile Crescent" because he wanted to show the similarities of the cultures of this region in ancient times.
Fertile Crescent 
 Together they cover some 400-500,000 square kilometers, and the region extends from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea around the north of the Syrian Desert and through the Jazirah and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.
Fertile Crescent 
 These areas are in present-day Egypt, Israel, West Bank, Gaza strip, and Lebanon and parts of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, south-eastern Turkey and south-western Iran.
Fertile Crescent 
 The population of the Nile River basin is about 70 million, the Jordan River basin about 20 million, and the Tigris and Euphrates basins about 30 million, giving the present-day Fertile Crescent a total population of around 120 million, or at least a quarter of the population of the Middle East.
Crescent 
 In art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points (usually in such a manner that the enclosed shape does not include the center of the original circle).
Crescent (disambiguation) 
 Crescent (architecture), an architectural structure where a number of houses are laid out in an arc to form of a crescent shape
Crescent (disambiguation) 
 "Crescent" is the literal translation of croissant - a popular buttery French bread in the shape of a crescent moon.
The Levant 
 The Levant is bounded by the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the northern Arabian Desert to the south and Upper Mesopotamia to the east.
The Levant 
 The word "Levant" entered the English language in the 16th century, together with the first English merchant adventurers in the region.
The Levant 
 English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s and the English merchant company signed its agreement ("capitulations") with the Grand Turk in 1579 (Braudel).
The Levant 
 Today, the word "Levant" is usually used by archaeologists and historians  who are talking about the prehistory and the ancient and medieval history of the region, as when discussing the Crusades.
The Levant 
 The term is also used sometimes to refer to modern or contemporary events, peoples, states, or parts of states in the same region, such as Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.
Jordan River 
 The Jordan River ( ,  ) is a river in Southwest Asia that flows through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea.
Jordan River 
 The Jordan drops quickly in a 75 kilometer run to Lake Hula, which is a little below sea level in the Galilee sea.
Jordan River 
 The last section has less gradient, and the river begins to twist before it enters the Dead Sea, which is about 400 meters below sea level and has no outlet.
Jordan River 
 In 1964, Israel began operating a dam that takes water from the Sea of Galilee, a major Jordan River water provider, to the national water carrier.
Jordan River 
 Also in 1964 Jordan built a channel that takes water from the Yarmouk River, a main tributary of the Jordan River.
Jordan River 
 All the shallow waters of the southern end of the sea have been drained in modern times, and are now salt flats.
Jordan River 
 In the Hebrew Bible, the Jordan is referred to as the source of fertility to a large plain ("Kikkar ha-Yarden"), called "the garden of God" (Genesis 13:10).
Jordan River 
 The Jordan is a frequent symbol in folk, gospel, and spiritual music, or in poetic or literary works.
Jordan River 
 Because the Israelites made a difficult journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in The Promised Land, the Jordan can be a symbol of freedom.
Jordan River (disambiguation) 
 Ohio River, called the "River Jordan" by slaves escaping to freedom in the North before and during the Civil War
History of Islam 
 The historical development of Islam has affected political, economic, and military trends both inside and outside the Islamic world.
History of Islam 
 As with Christianity, the concept of an Islamic world is useful when one looks at different periods of human history.
History of Islam 
 The first civil war in Islam, also known as the First Fitna broke out in Islam during the rule of the fourth caliph Ali and lasted throughout his caliphate.
History of Islam 
 The third caliph Uthman ibn Affan had been murdered by rebel Muslim groups who had political motives.
History of Islam 
 After Ali took over, the most important problem he faced was that of punishing those responsible for murder.
History of Islam 
 However many people felt that before accepting the position of the caliph, Ali should have focused his attention on finding and punishing the murderers.
History of Islam 
 A group of people led by Muhammad's wife Aisha, her brothers in law Talhah and Zubair ibn al-Awam refused to recognize Ali's caliphate.
History of Islam 
 They instead raised an army which met Ali's army at Basra in Iraq, originally for the purposes of negotiations.
History of Islam 
 In the night, some fighting broke out, probably out of confusion or due to rebel groups who were involved in the infamous murder.
History of Islam 
 This led to the Battle of Bassorah (also known as Battle of the Camel) in which Ali's party emerged victorious.
History of Islam 
 He too raised the issue of punishing Uthman's murderers and refused to acknowledge Ali as caliph until the issue had been solved.
History of Islam 
 Muawiyah was a kinsman of Uthman and his army pledged to bring to justice the murderers and those who sheltered them.
History of Islam 
 This battle ended in a draw and so both groups decided on arbitration which also did not lead to any concrete decision.
History of Islam 
 Another group of Muslims, The Kharijites who had previously been with Ali, meanwhile rejected him because they felt that he was not following true Islam and conducting business over the caliphate as if it were his own property.
History of Islam 
 In the following years Ali's governors could not prevent his losing provinces to Muawiyah who increased his strength by further expanding his army.
History of Christianity 
 The history of the Christian religion and the Christian church began with Jesus and his apostles,twelve disciples (students) of Jesus Christ for a mission.
History of Christianity 
 Christianity is the religion that is based on the birth, life, death, resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ.
History of Christianity 
 During the Age of Exploration, Christianity expanded throughout the world; it is currently the largest religion of the world.
History of Christianity 
 The religion had schisms and theological disputes that had as result four main branches: the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, Oriental Orthodoxy and Protestant churches.
History of Christianity 
 The decision of St. Peter, was that they did not, and the matter was further addressed with the Council of Jerusalem.
History of Christianity 
 The doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities, and this eventually led to the martyrdom of SS.
History of Christianity 
 The name "Christian" (Greek ) was first used for the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in (Acts 11:26).
History of Christianity 
 The very earliest reports are in these texts: early Christian creeds and hymns and reports about the Passion, the empty tomb, and appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection.
History of Christianity 
 There are reasons to suppose that they were written within a few years of the crucifixion of Jesus and came from the Jerusalem Church.
History of Christianity 
 Christianity thought the Jewish scriptures to be sacred and used mostly the Septuagint translation of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), the Hebrew Prophets and Writings (the rest of the Old Testament books), and added other texts as the New Testament.
History of Christianity 
 Christians professed Jesus to be the God of Israel, having taken human form, and considered Jesus to be the Messiah  (Christ) who had been prophesied about in the Old Testament and so was expected by the people of Israel.
History of Christianity 
 Christianity continued many Judaic practices: liturgical worship, including the use of incense, an altar, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, and a religious calendar, as well as other typical features: an exclusively male priesthood, and ascetic practices (fasting etc.).
History of Christianity 
 The time when most of the apostles had died and their jobs as leaders of the Christian communities in the cities had been taken over by bishops, is called post-apostolic period.
History of Christianity 
 It includes the time of persecutions until Christian worship was legalized under Constantine the Great.
History of Christianity 
 Persecutions in larger scale by the authorities of the Roman Empire began with the year 64, when the Emperor Nero blamed them for the great Fire of Rome as the Roman historian Tacitus reported.
History of Christianity 
 According to Church tradition, it was under Nero's persecution that the saints Peter and Paul became martyrs in Rome.
History of Christianity 
 For 250 years there were times when Christians suffered from persecutions, because they refused to worship the Roman emperor.
History of Christianity 
 The first to legalize Christianity was the Armenian king Trdat the Third, who announced it the official religion in Armenia in the year 301.
History of Christianity 
 Constantine became the first Christian emperor; he had learnt about Christianity from his mother, Helena.
History of Christianity 
 When Christianity was legalized the Church used the same provinces for administration as the imperial government and called them dioceses.
History of Christianity 
 The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism and affirmed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be Theotokos ("God-bearer" or "Mother of God").
History of Christianity 
 Perhaps the most important was the Council of Chalcedon that affirmed that Christ had two natures, fully God and fully man, at the same time.
History of Christianity 
 The Church in the Early Middle Ages saw a "transformation of the Roman world" rather than a "fall of the Roman Empire".
History of Christianity 
 With the Muslim invasions of the seventh century, the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) areas of Christianity began to take on distinctive shapes, and the Bishops of Rome were more interested in barbarian kings than in the Byzantine Emperors.
History of Christianity 
 This led to the coronation of Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800.
History of Christianity 
 Thus the popes, out of necessity, found themselves feeding the city with grain from papal estates, negotiating treaties, paying protection money to Lombard warlords, and, failing that, hiring soldiers to defend the city.
History of Christianity 
 Eventually, the failure of the Empire to send aid resulted in the popes turning for support from other sources, most especially the Franks.
History of Christianity 
 The High Middle Ages is the period from the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the close of the fifteenth century, which saw the fall of Constantinople (1453), the end of the Hundred Years' War (1453), the discovery of the New World (1492), and thereafter the Protestant Reformation (1515).
History of Christianity 
 The Investiture Controversy, also known as the lay investiture controversy, was the most important conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe.
History of Christianity 
 It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII.
History of Christianity 
 The end of lay investiture meant an important loss of royal power, and a loss for ambitious noblemen, for the benefit of Church reform as the pope intended.
History of Christianity 
 If a king left a bishopric vacant, he got the money until a bishop was appointed, when he was supposed to repay the earnings.
History of Christianity 
 Thus, the Investiture Contest was part of the Church's attempt to reform the episcopate and get better bishops.
History of Christianity 
 Pope Gregory VII issued the Dictatus Papae, which said only the pope may make, break, or move bishops to other sees.
History of Christianity 
 With excommunication and a revolt by his dukes, Henry apologized and was forgiven, though the conflict continued.
History of Christianity 
 A similar controversy happened in England between King Henry I and St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.
History of Christianity 
 The English dispute was resolved by a deal in 1107, where the king gave up making bishops but did require an oath of fealty.
History of Christianity 
 The later Concordat of Worms (Pactum Calixtinum) resolved the Imperial investiture controversy with a similar compromise.