the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
These Paschal tables were thin books in which each annual date was separated from the next by a more or less considerable blank space.
In these spaces some monks wrote down the important events of the year.
The writing of these Annals was begun at the end of the 7th century and among the Irish – see the Annals of the Four Masters, the Annals of Ulster, the Annals of Innisfallen and the Annales Cambriae or Annals of Wales, one of the earliest sources for King Arthur.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is also in annalistic, year-by-year form.
In the 9th century, during the Carolingian Renaissance, these Annals became the usual form of contemporary history.
There were the Annales Einhardi, the Annales Laureshamenses (or "of Lorsch"), and the Annales S. Bertini.
They were written officially in order to preserve the memory of the more interesting acts of Charlemagne, his ancestors and his successors.
At this stage, the Annals now began to lose their primitive character, and became more and more Chronicles.
But the term was still used for many documents, such as the Annals of Waverley.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, consul, lawyer, political theorist and philosopher.
He is often thought to be one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
His Latin is thought to be the model of Classical Latin.
He introduced Greek philosophy to the Romans.
Cicero was heavily involved in the politics of the Roman Republic.
After Julius Caesar's death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony.
In the power struggle, Cicero attacked Antony in a series of speeches.
Cicero was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate.
He was executed in 43 BC by soldiers working for the Triumvirate.
Everitt, Anthony 2001, Cicero: the life and times of Rome's greatest politician, Random House, hardback, 359 pages,
Haskell, H.J.: (1946) This was Cicero,  Fawcett publications, Inc. Greenwich, Conn. USA
Rawson, Elizabeth (1975) Cicero, A portrait, Allen Lane, London
Taylor, H. (1918).
Cicero: A sketch of his life and works.
Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.
Links to Cicero resources
University of Texas Cicero Homepage
The Internet Encyclopædia of Philosophy
Works by Cicero
Perseus Project (Latin and English): Classics Collection (see: M. Tullius Cicero)
The Latin Library (Latin): Works of Cicero
UAH (Latin, with translation notes): Cicero Page
De Officiis, translated by Walter Miller
Cicero's works: text, concordances and frequency list
Biographies and descriptions of Cicero's time:
At Project Gutenberg
Plutarch's biography of Cicero contained in the Parallel Lives
Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope, Volume I – Volume II
Cicero by Rev. W. Lucas Collins (Ancient Classics for English Readers)
Roman life in the days of Cicero by Rev. Alfred J. Church
Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero by W. Warde Fowler
At Heraklia website
Dryden's translation of Cicero from Plutarch's Parallel Lives
At Middlebury College website
Prætor Brutus
News article on a museum-guide robot named after him
43 BC deaths
In boxing, the term heavyweight is used for a specific group of people based on weight.
A heavyweight is a boxer who weighs more than 201 lbs.
At 201 pounds 91 kg and below is cruiserweight.
Boxing organizations created many divisions so that fighters could fight people of the same size but mostly because more champions are created thus more profit.
The first heavyweight champion under modern rules was John L. Sullivan.
Famous heavyweight champions have included Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Vitali Klitshko, Tyson Fury and Lennox Lewis.
Genealogy is the study of family history.
It is the study of family relationships and ancestry (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.).
It is a popular hobby in the United States and in many other countries.
Some people show their family history using a family tree.
A family tree is a diagram of the members of a family.
With a family tree you use lines to show how people are related, for example, people who are married or have children.
Some people keep track of their family history data in a genealogy database on their computer.
Examples of data that a person would save are dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths.
Other information that might be saved are records of military service, census records which show where ancestors lived at a certain time, immigration data, education, occupations, and even photos of the ancestors.
The person building the database can usually decide to save many kinds of data—news articles, stories that were told in the family (oral history), information on religious ceremonies, wills or inheritances, information from family letters, customs, or how world or local events affected the family.
The advantages of using a genealogy database are that it helps to keep the data organized, especially when relationships change; it can generate several types of charts or tables with the data filled in; it may make it easier to share data with others; and it takes up less room than paper and notebooks.
They may want to help someone be reunited with their family after war, natural disasters, foster care, or adoption, or find living relatives.
They may have an interest in history and want to know how and where their family lived during interesting times of history.
They may want to track hereditary diseases that may be passed from parents to their children. (
This would overlap with the study of genetics.)
The Mormons believe that they can give baptisms and other religious rites to their ancestors to help them in the afterlife.
This belief drives them to find as many of their ancestors as they can, and they have collected many genealogy records from around the world.
Some people use genealogy to keep track of money, land and power so that they can inherit what belongs to their family.
These people use genealogy to help it stay in the family and prevent false claims to the wealth, land or power.
Niels Bohr (7 October 1885  18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who helped discover quantum physics, the structure of the atom, and the atomic bomb.
Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1922 for, in short, discovering the quantization of atomic energy levels.
He worked also in a project of physicists known as Manhattan Project.
He married Margrethe Nørlund in 1912.
One of his sons was Aage Bohr, who was also an important physicist.
Aage won in 1975 his own Nobel prize.
Niels Bohr worked also with Albert Einstein.
He is also considered one of the most important physicists of the 20th century.
Niels Bohr is also known for winning an award of smelling elephants anus tubes.
Niels Henrik David Bohr, or Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark,1885 as the son of Christian Bohr, who was also professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen.
Bohr's mother was Ellen Adler Bohr and was Jewish with a rich family of bankers and politicians.
Niels was also the brother of Harald Bohr.
Bohr was a mathematician, a physicist, and funnily enough, was a football player of the national team.
In 1905 the Royal Danish Academy of Science organized a competition.
Niels Bohr participated with some experiments in surface tension.
He used the laboratory of his father in the university, because he knew it since he was a boy.
His work won the prize.
For this reason, he decided to stop the studies of philosophy and mathematics and changed to physics.
Bohr did experiments in the Trinity College in Cambridge under the direction of J.J. Thomson.
After it, he went to the University of Manchester under the direction of Ernest Rutherford.
On the basis of the theories of Rutherford, he published his theory of electrons.
He introduces the theory of electrons traveling in orbits around the nucleus of the atom in 1913 and the chemical properties of the orbit.
He introduced the idea that an electron can drop from a higher energy orbit to a lower one.
Then it can emit a photon of discrete energy.
This is the basis of quantum theory.
Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe Nørlund Bohr had four sons.
Their oldest died in a tragic boating accident and another died from childhood meningitis.
The others went on to lead successful lives, including Aage Bohr, who became a very successful physicist and, like his father, won a Nobel Prize in physics, in 1975.
Danish Jews
Danish physicists
Scientists from Copenhagen
Danish Nobel Prize winners
Świnoujście  () is a town in Pomerania, northwestern Poland, with about 42,000 people ().
It is situated on the Swina river, which flows into the Baltic Sea.
In Świnoujście is the largest and longest beach in Poland.
Świnoujście is also a health resort and has a modern harbour.
The ferry terminal (run by the Polish Baltic Shipping Company) provides ferry berths and facilities for passenger services to Sweden and Denmark.
There are lines to Malmo in Sweden, Copenhagen and Ronne (Bornholm) in Denmark.
Official website of Świnoujście
Tourist Information for Swinemünde
Sky Odyssey (or The Sky Odyssey in Japan) is an action/adventure flight simulator (or flight videogame) for the SonyPlayStation 2.
It was made by Cross, published by Activision and was sold in store’s in the year 2000.
The game's music was made by Kō Ōtani, who also made the music for Shadow of the Colossus, different types of Gamera films, and many other anime.
Activision games
PlayStation 2-only games
A landform is a word that describes a form of land.
Each type of landform is defined by its size, shape, location, and what it is made of.
List of landforms
Slope landforms
cuesta
escarpment (scarp)
gully
knoll
rock shelter
terrace & terracettes
valley shoulder
Coastal and oceanic landforms
abyssal fan
abyssal plain
archipelago
atoll
barrier island
bay & gulf
baymouth bar
beach & raised beach
beach ridge
boondock
dune system
estuary
fjord
headland
isthmus
island, islet, island arc, archipelago & atoll
machair
Ocean ridge & oceanic trench
salt marsh
shoal
stack & stump
tombolo
cut landform
Wave cut platform
Fluvial landforms
anabranch
bayou
Carolina Bay
ox-bow lake
riffle
stream terrace
valley and vale
Mountain and glacial landforms
arête
crevasse
corrie or cwm
dirt cone
drumlin
drumlin field
esker
U-shaped valley
glacial horn
hanging valley
inselberg
kame delta
moraine
mountain & mountain range
outwash fan and outwash plain
tunnel valley
Volcanic landforms
Butte
Cinder cone
lava dome
lava flow & lava plain
Mid-ocean ridge
Volcanic island
Volcano, shield volcano &  composite volcano (or stratovolcano)
Erosion landforms
Landforms made by erosion and weathering usually occur in coastal or fluvial areas, and many are listed under those headings.
Some other erosion landforms that are not listed in those categories include:
lavaka
limestone pavement
rock formations
tea table
Deposition landform -- landforms produced by deposition of load or sediment (usually coastal or fluvial).
Eolian landform - landforms produced by wind weathering.
Landform Design
The Piri Reis map is a map of the world drawn on a parchment of gazelle skin by a Turk named Piri Reis (Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed) in 1513.
This map has been used to support claims for a pre-modern exploration of Antarctica.
Shadow of the Colossus is a Japanese-made action-adventure video game made and sold by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEI) for the PlayStation 2.
The game was sold in North America and Japan in October 2005, and was then sold in Europe and Oceania in February 2006.
The game was made by SCEI's International Production Studio 1, the same video game makers that made the game Ico.
The game is about a person called Wander, a young man who must travel across a large area on a horse and destroy sixteen giant creatures called the colossi to bring back the life of a dead girl.
The game is not a normal action-adventure type of game because there are no towns or dungeons to explore, no characters to talk to, and no enemies to destroy other than the colossi.
Shadow of the Colossus has been described as a puzzle game, because each colossus has a weakness which must be found and somehow used to defeat the colossi.
A remake game title Shadow of the Colossus (2018) released for PlayStation 4.
Video games developped in Japan
Most of these Verbandsgemeinden were established in 1969.
Formerly the name of the administrative units was Amt.
Most of the functions of municipal government for several villages are consolidated and administered centrally from a larger or more central village among the group, while the individual villages (Ortsgemeinden) still maintain a limited degree of local autonomy.
Settlements in Rhineland-Palatinate
Settlements in Saxony-Anhalt
Collective municipalities in Germany
Osburg is a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
It is near Trier.
As of 31 December 2018, 2,422 people lived there.
Farschweiler is a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
As of 31 December 2018, 802 people lived there.
A Requiem (or Requiem Mass) is a Eucharist service in the Roman Catholic Church to pray for the repose of the soul of someone who has died.
There are special words for a Requiem Mass. They are in Latin.
The best-known part of the Requiem Mass starts with the words “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” (“Give them eternal rest, O Lord”).
This is why it is called a “Requiem”.
Many composers throughout the centuries have composed music to these words.
The word “Requiem” can mean a piece of music which sets the words of the Requiem Mass.
In the Renaissance church music was generally polyphonic.
This sort of music, which has several voices weaving in and out of one another, is the kind of music used at the time for requiems.
The composer Johannes Ockeghem is an example of a composer who wrote such music.
The most famous Requiem from the 18th century is the one by Mozart.
Many musicians think it was one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.
It was left unfinished when Mozart died.
In the 19th century many composers wrote Requiems.
Most of these were written for performance at concerts, not for church services, but they still used the Latin words of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass.
Luigi Cherubini wrote a Requiem in C minor for the annual remembering of the execution of Louis XVI.
He wrote another Requiem in D minor, which he wrote for himself.
It was performed at his own funeral.
Giuseppe Verdi wrote a very exciting Messa da Requiem (1874) which sounds very operatic.
Verdi rearranged some of the text (words) of the traditional Requiem Mass.
Brahms wrote a work which he called Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem).
It is unusual because, instead of setting the traditional Latin words, he took some words from the German translation of the Bible.
In 1888 Gabriel Fauré wrote a Requiem which uses an orchestra without violins except for a solo violin in the movement called “Sanctus”.
In 1900 he made some changes and added an important baritone solo.
In the 20th century many composers continued to write Requiems.
The most famous one is Britten’s War Requiem (1961).
The message of this work is that war is cruel and pointless.
Britten uses the Latin words of the Requiem Mass, but also some English poems by Wilfred Owen who was killed in the First World War.
The baritone and tenor soloists who sing these English words represent the German and the English soldiers.
The work was written for Coventry Cathedral which had been rebuilt after the old cathedral had been totally destroyed in World War II.
Different parts of a Requiem
Older Requiems
Introitus: Requiem aeternam dona eis, domine
Dies irae: Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla
Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe
Lux aeterna
For example, Mozart's Requiem follows this.
In his requiem, the Lux aeterna (written by someone else) is the same as the Introitus, with different words.
Mozart's "Requiem" with the completion of its unfinished musical score of musicologist Robert Levin.
Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.
Carlos Kalmar, conductor.
Dvořák's "Requiem".
Fauré's "Requiem". (
together with works of Nielsen and Sibelius).
Petri Sakari, conductor.
Newer Requiems
Graduale (same text as Introitus)
Tractus: Absolve domine
This sequence was fixed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century.
It was slightly modified in the Second Vatican Council.
New completion of the original uncompleted musical score of Mozart's Requiem by the musicologist Robert Levin.
Live concert.
Fauré's Requiem.
Middle C is the name given to the musical note C which is in the middle of the piano keyboard.
It is not actually quite the middle note of the keyboard, but very nearly, and of all the Cs on the piano it is the one nearest to the middle.
When writing Middle C in music notation it is just below the stave when using the treble clef and just above the stave when using the bass clef.
This is shown in the first and last notes of the musical example below.
The Middle C sits on a ledger line (an extension of the stave written just for one note).
When starting to learn the piano, most books make their easiest pieces start on Middle C.  This is because the right hand can then play tunes using 5 notes (C to G) using white notes only (no sharps or flats).
It is also easy to recognize Middle C in notation.
It is also a help to find the correct place to sit at the piano (Middle C is opposite the player's "middle" (tummy)).
One problem can be that young children learning the piano may think that all pieces start on Middle C.  Pieces can start anywhere on the keyboard.
Middle C is the lowest note of the flute.
It is a fairly low note for a child or woman to sing, but a fairly high note for a man to sing.
A principality (sometimes also called princedom) is a country which is ruled by a prince or princess.
Principalities were common in the Middle Ages.
Some principalities that still remain today are Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein.
Examples of subnational principalities are Asturias (Spain).
Some states claim to be principalities but are not recognised by other countries: Sealand (a Sea Fort off the English coast), Seborga (a small town in Italy), the Principality of Hutt River in Australia and the Principality of Minerva in the Pacific.
These states are examples of micronations.
Sometimes the word is also used to mean dependent territories in  Africa, Asia and India, pre-Columbian America and Oceania.
For these, the word princely states is generally preferred, especially if they came under the authority of a European colonial power.
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, is more commonly known as Vlad "Țepeș" (the Impaler) .
He was born in Segesvár, Transylvania, - then under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary - in 1431.
He was the Prince of Wallachia and ruled there three times, in 1448, 1456–1462 and 1476.
In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of his cruelty.
These legends gave Bram Stoker the idea for his main character in the popular Dracula novel.
Wallachia was placed between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks were fighting against the Kingdom of Hungary and this made Wallachia a battle ground between Turks and Hungarians.
The rulers of Wallachia  were chosen by the Romanian aristocrats, called boyars.
The ruler was often from a noble house, sometimes an illegitimate prince born outside of marriage.
The country rulers were struggling with each other, and this was resulting in instability, family disputes and murders.
Vlad the Impaler was born in 1431.
His father was Vlad II Dracul.
His mother is unknown.
Vlad II was married to princess Cneajna of Moldavia.
He had several mistresses.
Vlad III was raised by Cneajna with the help of her household.
He had two brothers, Mircea born c. 1430 and Radu born 1435.
He also had a half-brother, Vlad the Monk born around 1425-1430.
Vlad II went to the court of Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxemburg as a young man.
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).
The oldest brother, probably named Mircea, was sent by Vlad II  to fight the  war against the Turks in 1444.
This war called the Battle of Varna was lost.
Mircea and his father died in 1447.
Vlad's half-brother.
Vlad the Monk  was  waiting in Transylvania for a chance to rule Wallachia.
Vlad the Monk was a monk until he became prince of Wallachia in 1482.
From his first marriage, Vlad the Impaler (or Vlad III) had a son, later prince of Wallachia, as  Mihnea the Evil.
His first wife, whose name we do not know, died during the war 1462.
Vlad III the Impaler was fighting against the Turks.
The legend says that the Turkish army surrounded Vlad's castle, the Poienari Castle, led by his brother Radu the Handsome.
Vlad's wife threw herself off the tower into the Argeş River below the castle.
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 had another two sons with his second wife Ilona Szilágyi a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Some historians strongly believe they may have also had a daughter named Maria Zaleska (Princess Zaleska).
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.
Sighişoara was a military fortress at that time.
He was born as the second son to his father Vlad Dracul.
He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome.
Although his native country was Wallachia, the family lived in exile in Transylvania because his father had been chased away by pro-Ottoman boyars.
A hostage of the Ottoman Empire
Vlad's father was  pressured by the (Turkish) Ottoman sultan.
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 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.
Radu was released and converted to Islam, and he was allowed into the Ottoman royal court.
These years had a great influence on Vlad.
They shaped Vlad's character.
He was often whipped and beaten by  the Turks for being stubborn and rude.
He developed a well-known hatred for Radu and for Mehmed, who would later become the sultan.
Short reign and exile
Vlad's father and Vlad's older brother, Mircea, were dead at this point.
The Turks invaded Wallachia and the Sultan put Vlad III on the throne as his puppet ruler.
His rule at this time was short; Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and chased him away the same year.
Vlad fled to Moldavia and was put under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II.
Bogdan was assassinated.
Vlad took a chance and fled to Hungary.
Impressed by Vlad's knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, Hunyadi pardoned him and took him in as an adviser.
Later, Hunyadi made him the Kingdom of Hungary's candidate for the throne of Wallachia.
In 1456, Hungary invaded Serbia to chase away the Turks, and at the same time Vlad III invaded Wallachia.
Both invasions were successful.
Hunyadi suddenly died of the plague.
Vlad became prince of Wallachia.
Main reign (1456–62)
Vlad was spending most of his time at the court of the city of Târgovişte.
He made laws, met foreign ambassadors, judged in  trials.
He reinforced some castles and  probably enjoyed hunting with his friends.
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.
Trade had almost disappeared in Wallachia.
Vlad tried to solve these problems with severe methods.
He needed an economically stable country.
Vlad wanted to eliminate all threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups, such as the boyars.
This was done mainly by killing them and reducing the their economic role.
The Wallachian nobility had connections with the Saxon merchants.
The Saxons lived in the free towns of Transylvania, making trade flourish.
Vlad cut their towns trade privileges with Wallachia, and started war against them.
Vlad gave key positions in the Prince’s Council to people of lower rank who were loyal to him.
Vlad preferred to knight men from the free peasants.
Vlad III was always on guard against the Dăneşti clan.
Some of his attacks into Transylvania may have been efforts to kill or capture Dăneşti princes.
Several members of the Dăneşti clan died at Vlad's hands.
Rumors say that thousands of citizens of the free towns that sheltered his rivals were impaled by Vlad.
One captured Dăneşti prince was forced to read his own funeral speech while he kneeled at an open grave before his execution.
Personal crusade
There was a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom.
Following family traditions, Vlad decided to side with the Hungarians.
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.
Knowing this, Vlad stopped paying money to the Ottomans in 1459, and at around 1460, he made a new alliance with Corvinus.
The Turks did not like this and tried to remove him from power but they failed.
In the winter of 1461 Vlad attacked and devastated the area between Serbia and the Black Sea, leaving over 20,000 people dead.
In response to this, the Sultan Mehmed II headed towards Wallachia with an army of 60,000 men in the spring of 1462.
With his army of 20,000-30,000 men Vlad was not able to stop the Turks from entering Wallachia.
The Turks occupied the capital Târgovişte (June 4, 1462) and chased Vlad away.
Vlad was hiding and made small attacks on the Turks.
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.
Later the Turkish army retired and left Vlad’s brother, Radu the Handsome, as the new ruler prince.
Vlad was living in exile because he was afraid of the boyars of Wallachia.
Vlad escaped to Hungary but he was put in prison there.
The exact time of Vlad's captivity is not known for sure.
Apparently his imprisonment was not too dangerous.
He was able to gradually win his way back into the favor of King Matthias.
He was able to meet and marry a member of the royal family (the cousin of King Matthias).
However, some do not believe that it was likely to happen that a prisoner was permitted to marry into the royal family.
He had two sons with his new wife.
Vlad also became a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
Diplomatic letters and writings from Buda during this time show that Vlad's actual period of imprisonment was short.
The openly pro-Turkish policy of Vlad's brother, Radu was probably a cause in Vlad's good treatment while in prison.
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.
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.
His sons were about ten years old when he reconquered Wallachia in 1476.
Return to Wallachia and death
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'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.
When Vlad's army arrived, Prince Basarabs army fled, some to the Turks, others in the mountains.
After placing Vlad Ţepeş on the throne, Stephen Báthory and his forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak position.
Vlad had little time to get support before a large Turkish army entered Wallachia to put back  Prince Basarab on the throne.
Vlad's cruelties over the years made the boyars to believe that they had a better chance to survive under Prince Basarab.
Even the peasants, tired of the cruelty of Vlad, abandoned him.
Vlad had to meet the Turks with the small forces at his disposal, which were made up of less than four thousand men.
There are several variants of Vlad III the Impaler's death.
Some sources say he was killed in battle against the Turks near Bucharest in December of 1476.
Others say he was killed by disloyal Wallachian boyars in the war against the Turks, or during a hunt.
Others believe Vlad was killed in the war, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards.
Still other reports claim that Vlad was accidentally killed by one of his own men.
Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to Istanbul preserved in honey.
The sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that Kazıklı Bey was dead.
The exact place of his grave is unknown.
Tales and legends about Vlad stayed a part of folklore among the Romanian peasants.
By constant retelling they have become confused and created an ideal picture of a big national hero.
Among the Romanian peasants, Vlad Ţepeş was sometimes remembered as a prince who defended his country.
But sometimes he is remembered as a very cruel and often capricious ruler.
There are several events that are common to all tales.
One tale is about foreign ambassadors whom Vlad Ţepeş was meeting at Târgovişte.
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.
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.
His face and chin were shaven but for a moustache.
The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head.
A bull's neck supported the head, from which black curly locks were falling to his wide-shouldered person.
Vlad III Ţepeş has been described as very cruel.
The old Romanian word for dragon is Dracul, which in modern Romanian means "devil".
In Old Romanian, it means "dragon".
Dracul was the name given to his father, Vlad II, by other members of the Order of the Dragon.
Impalement was Ţepeş's preferred method of torture and execution.
His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs while sharpened stake was forced into the body.
Vlad often had the stakes arranged in patterns.
The most common pattern was a ring outside of a city that was his target.
The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim.
The corpses were often left there for months.
One tale says 10,000 were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu (where Vlad the Impaler had once lived) in 1460.
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.
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.
Impalement was not his only method of torture.
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.
His victims included women, children, peasants, great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants.
However, the vast majority of his European victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and Wallachia.
Most of the merchants there were German-speaking Saxons who were seen as bad people because they were not Romanian.
He saw the boyars as people who were not loyal (Vlad's own father and older brother were murdered by boyars).
Almost as soon as he came to power, he gave a party for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter.
These nobles were part of the conspiracy around his father's death.
Vlad, to avenge his father's death, had all the assembled nobles arrested.
The older boyars were impaled on the spot.
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.
The boyars and their families were forced to work for months rebuilding the old castle.
According to the reports, they worked until the clothes fell off their bodies, and then were forced to continue working naked.
Very few survived the building of Vlad's castle.
Vlad Ţepeş is also believed to have tortured and impaled some of the Turkish forces.
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.
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.
Many of the victims were Turkish prisoners of war.
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.
These were entertainment in a society where the printing press was new.
The texts were reprinted over the thirty years following Vlad's death.
The German texts said Vlad Ţepeş was a person who terrorized the land and killed innocents.
The Russian texts said his actions were justified, because Vlad helped them.
The texts agree on some details.
According to the texts, he was particularly cruel against women and  wanted his people to work hard.
Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to be killed because of that.
The vampire legend
The fictional vampire in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker was inspired by the legends of this Wallachian prince.
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.
The events of Vlad's life happened in a region of the world that was still  medieval in Stoker's time.
Although there were vampire tales originating elsewhere, the vampire, as he became known in Europe, largely originated in Southern Slavic and Greek folklore.
The vampire tale is virtually absent in Romanian culture.
Vampirism became part of the popular culture in Europe beginning in the late 17th century.
Philosophers in the West began to study the phenomenon.
It was during this period that Dom Augustine Calmet wrote a famous text on vampirism in Hungary.
It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire legend.
Stoker's novel was a work in a long series of works that were inspired by the reports coming from the Balkans.
Florescu, Radu R.; McNally, Raymond T. (1989).
Dracula: Prince of Many Faces.
Little Brown and Company.
Radu R., Florescu; McNally, Raymond T. (1994).
In Search of Dracula.
Treptow, Kurt W. (2000).
Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula.
Center for Romanian Studies.
Babinger, Franz (1992).
Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time.
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
Vlad Tepes - Dracula Between Hero and Vampire
Vlad III Dracula
Vlad's History
Vlad's Biography
The Tale of Dracula Russian manuscript circa 1490, with English translation (MS Word format)
The Real Life of Dracula
Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000) (TV)
Coins attributed to Vlad III Tepes
1431 births
1476 deaths
Romanian leaders
The Fertile Crescent is a historical region in the Middle East that includes the Levant, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.
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.
All these lands are watered by important rivers: Nile, Jordan, Euphrates and Tigris.
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.
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.
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.
The crescent was long used as the symbol of Byzantium.
Now it is the main symbol for the religion Islam.
The origin of the Islamic crescent
MathWorld article on geometric "Lune"
Worldwide Moon Sighting Reports
Crescent (Amtrak), an American passenger train
Crescent Engineering College, a private engineering college in Vandalur, Chennai (Madras), India
Crescent School, an all-male private school in Toronto, Canada
Crescent (Dallas), an ornate office tower in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas, Texas, United States
Crescent (John Coltrane), a 1964 album by John Coltrane
Crescent (album), a 2003 album by Gackt
Crescent (architecture), an architectural structure where a number of houses are laid out in an arc to form of a crescent shape
Crescent (pigeon), a breed of domestic pigeon
"Crescent" is the literal translation of croissant - a popular buttery French bread in the shape of a crescent moon.
Crescent, a Swedish bicycle brand manufactured by Nymanbolagen
the Crescent meteorite of 1936, which fell in Oklahoma, United States (see meteorite falls)
Crescent is also often found as part of street names.
Such streets are often (but not always) curved in some way.
Crescent Records, a record label
HMCS Crescent, a WWII Royal Canadian Navy destroyer.
The Crescent, a defunct department store chain.
Crescent Arms, a firearms manufacturer bought by Savage Arms.
The Levant is a term in geography that refers to an area in the Middle East.
It includes the historic areas of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Syria.
The word "Levant" entered the English language in the 16th century, together with the first English merchant adventurers in the region.
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).
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 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.
Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II
http://www.levantine.plus.com/index.htm .
Levantine Heritage Site.
Includes many oral and scholarly histories, and genealogies for some Levantine Turkish families.
France and the Levant from 1920
The Levant - a region in of the Middle East
Southern Levant - area of The Levant
Île du Levant - French island in the Mediterranean
Levant, Maine - town in Penobscot County, Maine, USA
Levant, Cornwall - a town in Cornwall, England
Levant - the primary annual publication of the Council for British Research in the Levant
Impression, soleil levant - the French name for the Monet painting Impression, Sunrise
Levant Company - English company formed to trade with the Middle East
Levant Mine - tin mine on the western coast of Cornwall
Levant Sparrowhawk, bird of prey
USS Levant, sloop-of-war in the United States Navy 1837–1860
The Jordan River ( ,  ) is a river in Southwest Asia that flows through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea.
Many people think it is one of the world's most sacred rivers.
Its tributaries are:
The Hasbani (senir,  hasbani), which flows from Lebanon.
The Banias ( hermon,  banias), that comes from a spring at Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon.
The Dan ( dan,  leddan) with its source at the foot of Mount Hermon.
The Ayoun ( ayoun,  ayoun), which flows from Lebanon.
The four rivers join to form the Jordan in northern Israel, near kibbutz Sede Nehemya.
The Jordan drops quickly in a 75 kilometer run to Lake Hula, which is a little below sea level in the Galilee sea.
Then it drops much more in about 25 kilometers to the Sea of Galilee.
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.
Two major tributaries enter this last section from the east: the Yarmouk River and Jabbok 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.
Also in 1964 Jordan built a channel that takes water from the Yarmouk River, a main tributary of the Jordan River.
This caused great damage to the ecosystem.
Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouk's waters.
In modern times, 70% to 90% of the waters is used for human purposes and the flow is much smaller.
Because of this, and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, the sea is shrinking.
All the shallow waters of the southern end of the sea have been drained in modern times, and are now salt flats.
The water from the Jordan is a very important resource to the dry lands of the area.
It is a source of conflict between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
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).
There is no regular description of the Jordan in the Bible.
The New Testament states that John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan (Matt.
3:13).
Symbolic importance
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.
Also, the Jordan can mean death itself, with the crossing from life into Paradise or Heaven.
SMART - Multilateral project for sustainable water management in the lower Jordan Valley
An old map of the Jordan River from the 1800s
Rivers of Israel
Rivers of Syria
Jordan River, a tributary of the Dead Sea in Southwest Asia
Jordan River, Tasmania
River Jordan, British Columbia, a hamlet and river on Vancouver Island
River Jordan, Cornwall
Jordan River, New Zealand, in the South Island
Jordan River (Michigan), a tributary of Lake Charlevoix
Jordan River (Utah), a tributary of the Great Salt Lake
Jordan River (Virginia), a tributary of the Rappahannock River
Ohio River, called the "River Jordan" by slaves escaping to freedom in the North before and during the Civil War
Muslim history began in Arabia when Muhammad recited the Quran in the 7th century.
The historical development of Islam has affected political, economic, and military trends both inside and outside the Islamic world.
As with Christianity, the concept of an Islamic world is useful when one looks at different periods of human history.
Early Muslim history
After Muhammad passed away, the Muslim leadership was assumed by Abu Bakr.
He was followed by Umar, Uthman ibn Affan and then Ali.
These four are called the Rashidun caliphs which means The Righteous Caliphs.
The word caliph means religious and spiritual leader.
Under these caliphs Islam became one of the most important religions of the middle East.
Administrative offices of the Muslim nation were established.
Under Umar more than two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire was conquered by the Muslims.
Umar also started the Muslim calendar.
Islamic civil wars
The First Fitna
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.
The third caliph Uthman ibn Affan had been murdered by rebel Muslim groups who had political motives.
After Ali took over, the most important problem he faced was that of punishing those responsible for murder.
However many people felt that before accepting the position of the caliph, Ali should have focused his attention on finding and punishing the murderers.
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.
They instead raised an army which met Ali's army at Basra in Iraq, originally for the purposes of negotiations.
In the night, some fighting broke out, probably out of confusion or due to rebel groups who were involved in the infamous murder.
This led to the Battle of Bassorah (also known as Battle of the Camel) in which Ali's party emerged victorious.
Aisha was escorted back to Medina honorably after the battle by Ali.
This battle however did not entirely finish the tension in the Muslim empire.
Ali was soon challenged by Muawiyah, the governor of the Muslim provinces of Syria.
He too raised the issue of punishing Uthman's murderers and refused to acknowledge Ali as caliph until the issue had been solved.
Muawiyah was a kinsman of Uthman and his army pledged to bring to justice the murderers and those who sheltered them.
This reference to people who are sheltering the murderers was towards Ali and his followers.
Accordingly, the two groups met and fought a battle, called the Battle of Siffin.
This battle ended in a draw and so both groups decided on arbitration which also did not lead to any concrete decision.
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.
In the following years Ali's governors could not prevent his losing provinces to Muawiyah who increased his strength by further expanding his army.
Ali had shifted the capital of the caliphate from Medina to Kufa in 656.
He was killed by a Kharijite assassin in Kufa in 661.
BBC Islamic History Special
Chronological history of Islam and Muslims up to current time
Islam: 662AD - Present
Internet Islamic History Sourcebook
A history of Islam in America
Brief history of Islam
Chronological history of Islam
A history of Islamic culture
Islamic Civilization
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.
Christianity is the religion that is based on the birth, life, death, resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Christianity began in the 1st century CE after Jesus died and was resurrected.
Starting as a small group of Jewish people in Judea, it spread quickly throughout the Roman Empire.
Despite early persecution of Christians, it later became  the state religion.
In the Middle Ages it spread into Northern Europe and Russia.
During the Age of Exploration, Christianity expanded throughout the world; it is currently the largest religion of the world.
Most of the first Christians were ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes.
An early difficulty came from non-Jewish converts.
There was the question if they had to "become Jewish" before becoming Christian.
The decision of St. Peter, was that they did not, and the matter was further addressed with the Council of Jerusalem.
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.
Stephen and James the Great and expulsion from the synagogues.
Thus, Christianity got an identity distinct from Judaism.
The name "Christian" (Greek ) was first used for the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in (Acts 11:26).
Worship of Jesus Christ
Sources for the beliefs of the apostolic community include the Gospels and New Testament Epistles.
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.
There are reasons to suppose that they were written within a few years of the crucifixion of Jesus and came from the Jerusalem Church.
Jewish continuity
Christianity kept many practices from Jewish tradition.