Carolingian Renaissance

Hello, everyone! How long I did not post a string here... But today I want to touch a very important topic in World culture, Carolingian Renaissance... If you search the Internet for information on this issue, you can stumble upon the enumeration of the most epic moments in the life of Charlemagne, similar to his private life and feats: coronation by the pope in Rome or the conquest of the Saxons. But, revival is a cultural phenomenon and it refers to military and political spheres only indirectly. Also, despite the fact that the period is named after this successful and prominent ruler of the Frankish state, the period did not end with the death of Charlemagne, but continued for more than half a century. This period was claimed the Renaissance only in 20th century, before it was believed that the whole history of the middle ages until the Italian Renaissance was completely dark ages a a wild time. But looking closer, several scientists saw a gap in the clouds.

Pope Leo III crowns Frankish king Charlemagne Emperor of West

What was the reason for this cultural gap happened? First, after conquering vast territories, Frankish rulers needed an educated administration in different pieces of the empire to manage these very lands. But after Dark Ages, this was a difficult thing to find them. Secondly, the classical Latin, which was that time an international language, began to come in decline in France. It became harder and harder to maintain communication with the pope. Simultaneously, Latin in France gradually became a Frankish dialect. To remedy the situation, Charlemagne decided to organize something like an academy in his palace and invited the most prominent theologians from Europe, such as Alcuin from the British York or Paul Diacon from Italy and so on.

Detail of the Utrecht Psalter, a masterpiece of Carolingian art

First of all, the Carolingian revival is characterized by the appearance of several hot medieval miniatures. For example, in Utrecht Psalter there are as many as 166 pictures depicting every kind of chants, musical instruments and cleric’s subjects. Naturally, this cultural breakthrough was connected with the clerics: the manuscripts were made by monks, miniatures depict the life of monasteries and saints, architectural trends were implemented in churches and monasteries, music was mostly monotonous Gregorian singing. A list of the most notable works of the era can be seen here. But, there was interest to the ancient manuscripts as well, and it was early time since ancient times. No one century, from the fourth to the fourteenth, was characterized by so many rewritten ancient manuscripts. Even the description of ancient pagan rituals and beliefs did not bother the clerics.

Revival showed itself not alone in the field of art. Charlemagne decided to carry out monetary and legislative reforms as well and even succeeded in it. In general, politically and culturally, Europe that time was even more integrated than currently, IMHO.

7 the Most Famous Castles in the World

7 castles that everyone knows almost since childhood. If you don't know any castle in the list it is worth to read this post. The photos and some information were taken here, the list of the best castles in the world on Histroystack.

1. Windsor Castle. One of the most recognizable castle in the World. It was initially the residence of English kings, today is the main residence of British one. The castle was founded just after Norman conquest of England to control routes via the river Thames and was reconstructed and enlarged by a number of rulers in different times of his history. 
   
2.   Tower of London. It is the second castle in the list located in British territory but it is very similar to Windsor Castle. The Tower of London was also built after conquest of England by the Normans, and has some similarities with one in Windsor. For some centuries it was used as political prison, where some former English rulers were kept. One of them was Anne Boleyn. It also kept in awe many opponents of reigning family.
   
3. Edinburgh Castle. The third and the last castle in British isles in this list. It was built in early stage of wars between England and Scotland and was the main stronghold of the Scots for the centuries. Today it is one of the symbols of Edinburgh and many thousands tourists visit Scotland just in order to see this legendary landmark. The majority of them visit the city in the summer, when Edinburgh hosts Edinburgh festival where the castle becomes very popular venue.
   
4. Rumeli. The single castle in this list outside Europe, but it located just in some hundreds meters from Europe. Usually we associate castle with Western Europe, but it is both very beautiful and historically important. It was built shortly before the turning event in European history - the fall of Constantinople. Turkish sultan Mehmet II, who sometimes is called Mehmet the Conqueror, ordered to built it to facilitate conquest of Byzantium.
   
5. Mont Saint-Michel. Honestly, this architecture object is not true castle, but often included in number of them. Started as a monastery on island, it was fortified for some centuries and get its modern shape only in year 1520. Sometimes Mont Saint-Michel is called one of the symbols of France. Its extraordinary appearance mirroring on surface of water attract attention of crowds of people from all over the World. 
   
6. Château de Chambord. One more castle form France. As Mont Saint-Michel it is not true medieval castle, that was built to resist attacks of cruel enemies. As many analogs of early baroque is was build as mansion of king of France Francis I. Large number of flues, curved sculptures, stylish towers makes the castle the most beautiful one among the wide number of castle on the Loire River.
   
7. Neuschwanstein Castle. The most fabulous castle in this list and in the World at all. Everyone has seen at least once the copy of this castle on Walt Disney's logo. Neuschwanstein Castle inspired Disney's staff to use it also as the castle in some cartoons, such as Cinderella. One notable moment is that the castle located in high mountains in Bavaria region, Germany, so it is integrated in beautiful landscape.
   
   
   

Prince Faisal. One Historical Assassination

Who of the prominent sovereigns was killed while an endeavor to assassinate him? Almost everyone remembers Lincoln, Caesar, maybe Russian czar Alexander II... The series could be lasted by a less prominent person, king of Saudi Arabia Faisal. However the post today will not be about the ruler, but in contrary about the killer.

King of Saudi Arabia Faisal

The assassin, we should mention, was king's relative and was his namesake, Faisal ibn Musaid. He originated from a famous family of Saudis, so one relative of him, Abdurrahman, was a significant magnate and head of the soccer club. Another of relatives was fervent member of a strictly Sunni sect and was killed while a remonstrance struggling against the a television. In Muslim world, an depiction of alive creature is prohibited. That is why the supporters of the Faisal's relative started a strike, in the time of which he was assassinated.

In the UAE, folk have the privilege to get education at any college in the World. It is a question about the citizens in Arabia, however the members of the ruling branch are also have good opportunities. Faisal's brother, mentioned in previous paragraph, got a degree at France, and Khalid was able to learn at several universities in America. However, while studying, the youthful guy was seized by authorities for the sharing the drugs, for that, after Faisal's arrival from the US, the government voided his documents.

Whether due to the documents, or for another causes, however bin Musaid had arranged a bad thing. On sunny morning the ruler carried out majlis, which refers to sort of a king's talk with his visitors. That time the king talked with the foreign representatives, and Faisal attached to them. When the crowd approached to the king, he recognized his nephew and bowed the cheek so the nephew could give smacking kisses, however the nephew made a shot in his own uncle two times. The security guard of the king took out cold steel (except for guns the guys were armed with swords), and grasped the murderer.

At first the murderer was claimed to be insane, however having thought for the situation, guys determined to kill the the guy in the end. Just after the trial, the vehicles reproducers called to arrive and look at the bin Musaid's murder. When the people gathered the assassin's head was cut off with a single hit of the gilded sword, and then the head was shown for twenty minutes on a wood picket for any guy to look at. Soon guys grasped the corpse and the head from picket, and carried these parts in the hospital. Such a pitiful final.

Earth Evolution. The Beginning

Hi, friends! I'm again with you and glad to claim this day is a very joyful day. This time all the secrets of the universe will reveal to you. Why? Because I'm going to talk about the most epic milestones in the evolution of our planet. The history of our planet in pictures.

So, our planet was born many years ago, to be exact, 4.5 billion. There is a mass evidences for this event, among them are the carbon dating of the early continental shields and all the sorts of pieces of iron which fell on early planet. On the moon, by the way, the carbon dating of the pieces of meteorites collected by American astronauts shows the same age. The age of the Sun can also be determined by the relative amount of hydrogen burned in it. This time the Sun has consumed about a third of its reserves. So, the Sun is going to burn eight billion years more, which is the usual life cycle for a star like our Sun.

The sun, by the way, was formed simultaneously with the formation of other objects of the solar system. Maybe a little earlier. All these things were formed from the gas-dust cloud, which supernovas spit out far from themselves during the explosion. After they have recycled light chemicals into heavier ones, stars shrink, and then make a bang. These bangs collected all the dirt 4.5 billion years ago at the site of our star system. And the explosion of next supernova formed a disk shape from the giant cloud and began the process of formation of our little Universe. The rotational moment began to stretch the cloud into an even more flat disk, and the forces of gravity collected its vast amount of dirt in the center. Over time, the enormous pressure and friction of the substance inside him provoked a flash making a vast thermonuclear reactor, which was worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, who believed that every day a Scarabaeus sacer rolls it away out the horizon. These same reactions also caused significant streams of solar wind, which cleared the private space of the star. An additional substance arrived in a rotating disk, in which rings, similar to the rings of the planet of Saturn, gradually were forming.

These rings of the rotational substance were the progenitors of the planets close to the sun. The solar wind blew hydrogen away from the solid planets, and this hydrogen began to gather in the gas planets: the planet of Saturn, the planet of Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. The sum of solid objects initially was more than a hundred. But, as a result of the gravity interaction and the impacts of different celestial bodies, only some of them survived. Our home also suffered from one such collision. A small planet with the size of Mars brutally hit Earth 400 million years after its origin, and spit out a pile of dust and debris into orbit.

The only natural satellite of the Earth, the Moon, was formed from these pieces. According to scientists, life would be very different from the current one and can not be born without this satellite at all. So not all explosions are evil. Then there was no life, no oceans, no continents. So as a result, no one was hurt. The world was still similar to a fluid sphere in imponderability, the shields had not yet formed, the moon turned very close to the Earth and looked many times larger than today. The tides and ebbs were also stunning due to the gravitation of the Moon, and the hill on the surface reached about 30 meters. The world's shields began to shape half a billion years later. This span is not small both to our and Universe standards. Solidifying magma also formed giant reservoirs for collecting water, which began to shape early oceans.

Simultaneously with the origin of continents and oceans, next milestone event occurred. It was the origin of life. Scientists have not came to the conclusion what provoked the inorganic substance to become organic which began to breed, but most likely it happened in some extreme conditions. Someone says that this could happen in the atmosphere during a lightning strike, someone that was in ice, during numerous cycles of freezing and warming. The most likely version is the one about black smokers. No, these are not African Americans who indulge in marijuana, but hot geysers, located at a very deep deepness. High pressure and temperature can serve as a good catalyst for all kinds of chemical processes, as a result of which early cells, protocaryotes, originated. These organisms did not have nuclei and mitochondria, and used carbon gas to make energy.

Well, it is enough for introduction. I'm thinking of continuing the story about the evolution of the Earth in future posts. Did you liked it?

Top 5 Question and Answers Services

Hi, everyone! Today I am going to talk about two vital topic. One of them you see in title of the post. This is Q&A services. You knows, such a websites where you ask a question and a crowd tries to answer it. Another theme I concern in this post is my new passion, early history of Earth. One good article, which I am going to talk about next time, inspired me to study this topic. I and my college Alex rushed to study, ask and answer different questions about evolution of the Earth. Then I choose some most notable of them and decided share my experience and mention about it. So we commence...

• Reddit. Very popular social network. Users can share links, ask questions, answer and comment them. But, unfortunately, our share link didn't get strong response...
• Quora. One of the best services focused on question and answers. It hard to find doubled question. Answers are usually full and comprehensive. The service allows insert images in video and give valuable link. But, our post was marked as uncompleted despite two links to respectable sources and one image. Probably is happened because of high competitions in this question.
• answers.wikia.com. Good service. Does not allow you to enhance your answer with HTML mark-up, but allows to post links. There are a lot of both answered and un-answered questions. But probably this resource have a lack of moderation.
• yahoo.com. Yahoo is one the most popular resources in the Internet, so amount of people using the service is really impressive. Despite its popularity you can see abusing or politically incorrect question, sometimes even images, which are not safe for work. To add a link to your answer you have to gain great reputation answering a lot of question, and it is very difficult. You even cannot share a great link to authoritative source.
• wiki.answers.com. IMHO, Actually, it is not the worse service in the World. A quite ugly in publishing, but good in getting useful informaition.

Konrad von Hochstaden. Statue with vague sense

In the Middle Ages, the Pope was one of the most influential person. He was so powerful that even managed to depose the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, one of whom was forced to kneel in front of the pope and ask for forgiveness for his unrighteous actions. However, not only the popes of Rome stood out on the field of clerics, there were still individuals who left their trace in history. We will talk about one of them today.

  Mr. Konrad von Gochstaden was the son of the canon of the cathedral in Cologne, which our hero will rebuild at the zenith of his influence. Almost nothing is known about his childhood. It isn't even known authentically in which year he was born, in 1198 or 1205. However, already in 1216 he was appointed canon, and 10 years later the rector of the cathedral in Cologne. During the years of his ministry, he earned the reputation of an uncompromising and harsh man. In 1238 the archbishop of Cologne died, and the clergy of the cathedral elected Konrad in a short time. He immediately rolled up his sleeves, decided to take all this stuff into his own hands and entered into a series of skirmishes with neighboring secular rulers and aristocracy, who tried to prevent the cleric reigning alone in Cologne. In the end, he succeeded, the craftsmen raised their heads and took on some of the influence of the notable people, so the practically independent city moved under the authority of the church.

 In 1239, a new round of confrontation between secular power and Rome increased. Initially, our hero took a pro-imperial position, but then, for unclear reasons, he moved to the camp of the viceroy of God on the Earth. After the death of the former opponent of the pope, Emperor Frederick II, Konrad managed to appoint the Roman protege, Henry Raspe, the German king. And when the latter died six months later, Konrad placed on the throne another Pope's king - William of Holland. Among these clashes, the Cologne cleric was able to build something new. In 1248, he laid the new Cologne Cathedral, the construction of which stretched for several hundred years. This really impressive cathedral is one of the largest in Europe, and the German government have to spend a lot of money every year maintain it. By order of Mr. Gokhstaden 15 years later the cathedral in the neighboring city of Xanten was laid.

 
Soon the archbishop and the pope had a tiff. After the death of Archbishop Mainz, the public demanded of Konrad, gaining a serious weight, to be placed on this position, but the Pope decided that he would not reside in two important German provinces simultaneously, and then even deprived him of the title of papal legate in Germany. Following the deterioration in the relationship between the clergy, the relations between the archbishop and King Wilhelm also deteriorated. Von Gohstaden did not give up, and Wilhelm's death awaited him. In the election of the next German king, he sold his vote for a considerable sum of money to Richard Cornwallis, the brother of the King of England Henry III. As a result, Richard became king, and a couple of months later Konrad von Gokhtaden solemnly crowned him in Aachen.

 In 1261 the archbishop died, and grateful townspeople decorated the town hall with a sculpture of him. The sculpture of Konrad stands on a balloon depicting autofellatio. Autofellatio is such an act when a man caresses his own penis with his mouth. What citizens wanted to say by this sculpture is unclear...

Five the Most Interesting Blogs about History

Hello! Today I'm going to tell you about some wonderful blogs. Some of them I read and under some of them I'm even working. Besides I share with you an interesting information about some powerful blog platforms. So, it's high time to commence...

 
 The first blog platform is Weebly. The very flexible editor let you experiment with design and easily combine a post full of media information. This is a wonderful example of a blog implemented on this platform. The blog explains information about very wide rage of topics: from Islam to Haiti Revolution.

Another nice blog is Dreamwidth. The tool this blog offers are not very comprehensive. A quite simple design, but images and links are not difficult to add inside text. Here is an example of a nice blog that contains a lot of curious information, also concerning to history. This blog is written by a friend of mine, Alex Morz.

As you probably know, one of the most popular blog platform in the Internet is Wordpress. Actually, it is the most popular platform and everyone have seen it at least once. Default template of this blog is very modern, you can even don't find a better among free templates. I also have an account on Wordpress, so you can see and appreciate it yourself. An of course I cannot ignore this platform, Blogspot. I have alreade shared with you a wonderful historical resource. It is a blog posting every day information about this day in form of timeline. Enjoy reading every morning about the crucial moments occurred on the day.

As I have mentioned before, there is a little, but interesting project, Newsvine. A quite curious idea is about sharing information right among your community. history4.newsvine.com is an example of a column on this site, but it is only piece of information called there a seeds. An article is larger, but is allowed to post only to experienced users. But the greatest blog, as you know, is this very blog, which you are reading now.

P.S. On the photo the city of Vredefort is taken, famous for its location inside of one of the largest craters in the World. But I am going to talk about it next time.

About the Biggest Crater on the Earth

The largest, one of the oldest, one of the few multi-ringed impact craters on Earth. It's all about the crater Vredefort.
 

The Vredefort crater was formed about 2 billion years ago. For the most meticulous citizens, let's check, 2023 billion years. Life on Earth did not particularly boiling, the most complex organisms on the Earth were simple unicellular organisms. As you probably know, they don't have good memory and do not have their own manuscripts and there are not, therefore, eyewitnesses of it. This event occurred on the territory of modern South Africa, but this place wasn't Africa in that time and it was unlikely the South of it. For a billion years before the supercontinent Vaalbara split while other supercontinent, Rodinia, had not been formed yet. However, the event happened in the right place. A meteorite 10 kilometers in diameter sank right in Kaapvaal Craton, which is not particularly affected neither by plate tectonics or erosion. Most of the other similar craters creased beyond recognition and can only be found on other celestial bodies of the Solar System. For example, on Jupiter's moon Callisto, where you can see a wonderful multi-ring crater.

The crater has a few rings, the widest of which stretches for 300 kilometers in diameter. A hypothetical crater in Wilkes Land is a bit larger, but untill tractors do not remove all the snow from Antarctica, any reliable claims are not possible. In the center of the crater there is a hill, which arose from the splash of molten soil after the fall of the meteorite in the ground and drowned. So that the hole in the center of the Vredefort object, such as ones in the modern volcanos, is not presented. It is also nearly the oldest one, only crater Saharwi in Karelia is older among the known craters on Earth, but Saharwi is not so amusing.

In 1876, the descendants of Dutch settlers founded inside the crater a town konown as Vredefort, after which the geologic object was named. In addition to Vredefort two towns within the crater exist. The largest city in South Africa, Johannesburg, is located just on the external ring of the crater. In 2005, UNESCO declared the crater a World Heritage siteas "the largest, oldest and most deeply eroded meteorite crater found on Earth." As we know, not all of it is true.

This Day in History

Hello, everyone. I'm gonna today suggest you one wonderful blog.

On this blog you can read every day the list of the most important event that occurred on this day on the past. For example, information about the 25th of February, you can find here. Enjoy reading a fresh lavish post every day!

History of Ethiopia Explained

I think it's high time to talk about Ethiopian Empire. Usually people ignore African history, but today I'm going to set a precedent.

So, a short account about Ethiopia... I suggest visiting a wondering resource if you want to know more about history of Ethiopia. Eastern Africa is considered the origin of Homo sapiens, thus people were moving around the Eastern Africa a long time ago. They even spread from here across the world. The Ancient Egyptians also visited this place and called it Punt, or Golden land. The earliest Ancient Ethiopian state, known as Aksum kingdom, was formed in the 1st century. This state became one of the first ones that adopted Christianity. Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded in 4th century, about 6 centuries earlier than Northern and Eastern Europe did it. In the end of 11th century cruel queen of Ethiopian Jews, who were expelled after new Christians asked them to leave their territory, occupied Ethiopia and held it with her successor about 40 years.

It became the turning point in the history of Ethiopia. One guy decided to overthrow one more time the Jews to establish their own dynasty, but for security reasons he married the heiress of the previous king. The name of this guy was Mara Takla Haymanot. This event is considered the foundation of Ethiopian Empire, which lasted until 1974. It's interesting, that the time of this event occurred is unclear, and two dates are suggested: 937 or 1137. Impressive difference. This gentleman did the city of Lalibela his capital, which left us a fewrock-cut churches and Christian cross made from a single piece of metal.

In 1270 next guy raised, and claimed that he was a descendant of King Solomon, the legendary ruler of the Ancient kingdom of Israel, therefore he he is in charge. This fellow was a native of the people called Habesha. For this people Ethiopia gained its name by which it was known for centuries - Abyssinia. Solomon dynasty ruled Ethiopia for major part of its history, from 1270 to 1974, during which it successfully resisted the Arab, Turkish and European invasion. So, from 1529 to 1543 it successfully fought against the neighboring sultanate of Adal, which occupied Abyssinia for a little while, and in one of the battle of the wars emperor David II was killed. In 1636, Emperor Fasilides founded a new capital of the state - Gondar, which left us several interesting structures.

Since year 1769 a period of disintegration of the state began, when small lords were fighting each other, and the power of the emperor became extremely weak. This troubles continued until the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Tewodro II, who managed to consolidate Ethiopia. Soon, however, during a storm Magdala castle by the British troops, the poor man was forced to shoot himself with a gun presented to him by Queen Victoria.

Further, The state of Italy entered the Scramble for Africa, starting a long epic war against Ethiopia. In 1889 the Italian signed a treaty with Emperor Menelik II, however, each party understood it in their own way since of the wrong translation of the word "may" in the agreement as "must". In 1895, Italy dared to attack Ethiopia, but the Battle of Adwa resulted in the former's crushing defeat, securing the first victory of an African state in a war against Europe. In the World War II, forces of the British Empire expelled the Italians out of Africa and returned Haile Selassie I, who would rule the country for other 30 years, to his homeland. By the way Rastafarians worship Haile Selassie I as god and see him as the second coming of Christ.

In 1974, the commie reached Africa... Marxist-Leninist junta supported by Soviet Union again overthrew Haile Selassie, and imprisoned him in jail, where he died shortly thereafter. Further, as communist were using to do, they abolished the monarchy and plunge Ethiopia into the civil war.

The Victory of Excitement

One of the most interesting pages in history of Czech Republic is Hussite wars. For me it's curious that little army of Czech rebels could resist a huge alliance of Holy Roman Emperor and his vassals, especially they archived the impressive success at Vitkov Hill, near Prague.

Hussite wars has religious reason. Bohemia, the name of about of half modern territory of Czech Republic, was mostly Protestant country, as well as some of northern states in Germany. Some years before these events one of the most notable persons went to the European stage. His name was Jan Hus. He tried to reform Catholic church, which had many internal problems. To solve economic problems papacy solt indulgences, which could devalue buyer's sins, even if he had not done any sin yet. So everyone could buy indulgence in advance. Three Popes tried to rule the Western church simultaneously, while one of them was former pirate. To restore the order Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund gathered the Council of Constance. During the discusses the Emperor decided to invite to Hus to talk to him. But it was a trap. Hus was seized and burned at a stake.

This events excited the Czechs to decisive actions. They threw the judge and burgomaster, who were catholic, out of the window of the New Town Hall, which became known as Defenestration of Prague. It is purely Czech term, and they made Defenestration twice. The second happened in two centuries, triggering the Thirty Years' War in Europe. Surprisingly, this home guard managed to resist the forces, gathered by Sigismund. Actually the most of engagements happened near Prague. Empire attempted to beat Hussites in five crusaded, but only due to internal dissension among Hussites the final crusade was successful. But the Czechs took some advantages from treaty with emperor. In hundred years the Reformation stated in Europe, and the face of Christianity changed for ever.