John Wedderburn of Ballindean

Sir John Wedderburn of Ballindean, 6th Baronet of Blackness (1729–1803) was a Scottish landowner who made a fortune in slave sugar in the West Indies. Born into a family of impoverished Perthshire gentry, his father Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, was executed for treason following the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and the young Wedderburn was forced to flee to the West Indies, where he eventually became the largest landowner in Jamaica, making his money in slave sugar. In 1769 he returned to Scotland with a slave, one Joseph Knight, who was inspired by Somersett's Case, a judgement in London determining that slavery did not exist under English law. Wedderburn was sued by Knight in a freedom suit, and lost his case, establishing the principle that Scots law would not uphold the institution of slavery either. Wedderburn ended his days as a wealthy country gentleman, having restored his family fortune and recovered the title Baronet of Blackness.
Ballindean is a country estate midway between Perth and Dundee.
Early life.
John Wedderburn was born in Scotland on 21 February 1729, the son of Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, a Perthshire gentleman who had fallen on hard times. The Blackness in his title is Blackness House in Dundee rather than Blackness in Lothian just west of Edinburgh. Sir John Wedderburn's expectations of an inheritance were not fulfilled and he raised his large family in "a small farm with a thatched house and a clay floor, which he occupied with great industry, and thereby made a laborious but starving shift to support nine children who used to run about in the fields barefoot".
In 1745 Sir John joined the rebellion of Charles Edward Stuart against the Hanoverian crown, serving as a colonel in the Jacobite army before being captured at the Battle of Culloden and hauled off to London to face trial and execution. He was indicted for treason at St Margaret's Hill, Southwark on 4 November 1746, and was found guilty, despite arguing in his defence that he had not personally taken up arms against the Crown, and was executed at Kennington Common on 28 November 1746.
The young Wedderburn made his way to London to plead with such friends as his family still had for his father's rescue and pardon. His mission failed, and he was to witness his father's execution as a traitor by hanging, drawing and quartering, after which he was forced to return to Scotland where he found himself cut off from his inheritance and, without prospects, obliged to take ship to the New World. In Glasgow he found a ship's captain prepared to let him work his passage on a ship bound for the Caribbean.
Career.
Some time in early 1747 Wedderburn landed in the British Colony of Jamaica, an island which had been seized from the Spanish in 1655, and was fast becoming an important centre for the production and export of sugar. The young Wedderburn settled in the west of Jamaica, near Montego Bay, and tried his hand at a number of occupations, even practising for a few years as a medical doctor, despite having no qualifications. He managed to acquire sufficient capital to become a planter, investing in land, slaves and sugar, at the time an immensely profitable business. Wedderburn's sugar plantations prospered and he acquired huge amounts of land and wealth, becoming at one time the largest landowner in Jamaica, with around 17,000 acres of land, around 10% of the island's landmass. Other members of his family followed him, and the Wedderburns built up extensive estates in the colony.
Sugar was big business. In the eighteenth century the British became the largest producers of sugar in the West Indies, and the British people quickly became the commodity's largest consumers. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Indian tea. It has been estimated that the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations created up to one-in-twenty of every pound circulating in the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 18th century.
In 1762 Wedderburn attended a "scramble" (an early form of slave auction) and purchased a young African boy aged 12 or 13 years, named Joseph Knight after the captain of the ship that had brought him to the West Indies. Rather than set Knight to work as a field hand, Wedderburn made him a house servant, teaching him to read and write and having him baptised as a Christian.
Return to Scotland, first marriage and family.
Seven years later, in 1769, Wedderburn returned to Scotland, and brought Joseph Knight with him. He returned to Perthshire where he sought to re-establish his family's respectability, marry and raise a family, and reclaim the title Baronet of Blackness. In 1769 he purchased the Ballindean estate, near Inchture, a village between Dundee and Perth on the northern side of the Firth of Tay. The (NB spelling), the listed building visible today, is an 1832 rebuild.
On 25 November 1769, aged 40 years, Wedderburn married his first wife, Margaret Ogilvy, daughter of David Ogilvy, de jure 6th Earl of Airlie (i.e. from a family like his, attainted by the stain of treason). They married in Cortachy, Angus. They had four children, of whom three survived to adulthood:
Margaret Ogilvy died two weeks after David's birth.
Wedderburn's second wife was Alicia Dundas, daughter of Col. James Dundas, of Dundas. The couple had the following children:
Meanwhile , Joseph Knight fell in love with a servant girl from Dundee, one Annie Thompson, and Wedderburn gave permission for the couple to marry.
Knight -v- Wedderburn.
In around 1778, Knight became aware of the ruling in the Somerset Case in England, which held that slavery did not exist under English law. Perhaps assuming (wrongly) that a ruling in an English court applied equally in Scotland, Knight demanded his freedom, and even asked for back wages, which Wedderburn refused. Wedderburn was indignant, feeling that he had bestowed considerable gifts on Knight by educating and taking care of him. Soon, Thompson was pregnant with Knight's child and Wedderburn dismissed her, refusing Knight permission to go as well. When Wedderburn found Knight packing his bags to leave, he summoned the magistrate and had him arrested and thrown into Perth jail. Knight managed to persuade John Swinton, the deputy sheriff at Perth Sheriff Court, that he was entitled to his freedom. Knight therefore brought a claim before the Justices of the Peace court in Perth, a case that would be known as Knight -v- Wedderburn.
Appeal to the Sheriff.
At first, events moved in Wedderburn's favour. The Justices of the Peace found against Knight, but the latter soon appealed to the Sheriff Court of Perth, who found against Wedderburn, stating that:
Appeal to the Court of Session.
In 1777 Wedderburn in turn appealed to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland's supreme civil court, arguing that Knight still owed perpetual service, in the same manner as an indentured servant or an apprenticed artisan. The case was important enough that it was given a full panel of twelve judges including Lord Kames, the important legal and social historian.
Knight was represented by no less than Henry Dundas, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, who was outraged by Knight's condition. Dundas was in turn helped in the preparation of the case by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, who took a keen interest in the case, lending their considerable weight to Knight's defence. Their argument was that 'no man is by nature the property of another'. Since there was no proof that Knight had given up his natural freedom, he should be set free. Conversely, Wedderburn's counsel argued that commercial interests, which underpinned Scotland's prosperity, should prevail.
In an unexpected decision, Lord Kames stated that 'we sit here to enforce right not to enforce wrong' and the court emphatically rejected Wedderburn's appeal, ruling by an 8 to 4 majority that:
In effect, slavery was not recognised by Scots law and runaway slaves (or 'perpetual servants') could be protected by the courts, if they wished to leave domestic service or were resisting attempts to return them to slavery in the colonies.
Later life and second marriage.
Wedderburn, undismayed by his defeat, devoted the rest of his days to upholding the rights of slaveholders (see London Society of West India Planters and Merchants), and was eventually successful in claiming the title 6th Baronet of Blackness, thereby restoring his family's respectability after the disaster of defeat and humiliation at Culloden.
On 27 December 1780 he married again, this time to Alice Dundas, who was related to Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, the Tory politician. According to research by the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project, there were three boys and four girls born to this marriage. The eldest son, James, died before his father. John (1789–1862) succeeded his half-brother David as the second baronet. (Genealogist Joseph Foster writes that the second baronet's children included David (1835-1882) and William (1838-1918), the third and fourth baronets respectively; the eldest son John had joined the Bengal Civil Service and died in the Indian Mutiny of 1857.) Alexander (1791-1839) was a soldier. The four girls were Maria, Susan, Louisa Dorothea, and Anne. On 9 February 1803, aged 16, Louisa married General John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun. Anne married Sir John Hope, 11th Baronet Hope of Craighall.
John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell recounted meeting John Wedderburn around 1798. He asked whether Wedderburn was "of the family of" Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn, to which the reply was, "The Chancellor is of mine."
John Wedderburn died on 13 June 1803, aged 74 years.
Extended family.
Wedderburn's first cousin Catherine Read, a portrait painter, took in his sisters after the execution of the 5th baronet.
Wedderburn's brother James had several children. One whom he did not acknowledge was Robert Wedderburn, a radical preacher and a tireless campaigner against slavery, who published in 1824 an anti-slavery book entitled "The Horrors of Slavery", printed by William Dugdale and possibly coauthored by George Cannon.
Others of James's children include Andrew Colvile, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company; Jean, who married Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk; and James Wedderburn, Solicitor General for Scotland until his death in 1822. Another son, Peter, went to sea; one of the ships he captained was the "Arniston (East Indiaman)".
His grandchildren included Jemima Blackburn (1823 – 1909), an artist much respected for her observations and illustrations of birds.


John Rozgonyi

John Rozgonyi (; ? – 1471) was voivode of Transylvania between 1441–1458 and between 1459–1461 (for the second time), also ispán of Sopron and Vas Counties (1449–1454), count of the Székelys (1457–1458), Judge Royal of the Kingdom of Hungary. He was married to Orsolya Szilágyi from the House of Szilágyi, they had the following children: John, András, István, Apollónia (who married Benedek Csáky).


Blanche of Burgundy, Countess of Savoy

Bianca of Burgundy (1288 – July 1348), was a Countess consort of Savoy, daughter of Robert II, Duke of Burgundy, and Agnes of France. She married in 1307 Edward, Count of Savoy. She was mother of Joan of Savoy.
In 1346 and 1347, she was an influence at the court of her nephew, Amadeus VI to pursue closer alliances with Burgundy to offset the pending sale of the Dauphiné to France. This led to his brief engagement with Joan of Burgundy, daughter of Philip of Burgundy and Joan I, Countess of Auvergne.
She died July 1348, perhaps from the Black Death.
References.


Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh

The Byzantine Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh () is part of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church (whose members are mostly Rusyns from the Carpathian Mountains, but also Ukrainians, Hungarians, Slovaks, and Croats and their descendants) in the United States.
The Metropolia, which is structured as an ecclesiastical province, itself has four components:
Although Rusyn Americans constitute the majority of members of the Metropolia, the Church has ordinary jurisdiction over the faithful of certain Churches within the Slavic Tradition of the Byzantine Rite that do not have an established hierarchy in the United States, specifically those of the Hungarian, Slovak, and Croatian Greek-Catholic Churches.
When the Ruthenian Catholic Church in Europe was under atheistic Communist rule, and because of persecution, unable to organize publicly, the impossibility of regular communication with it meant that the distant American Metropolia, unable to be treated as a normal metropolia of an Eastern Rite Catholic Church (canons 133–139 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches), has been treated as a sui iuris (autonomous) Metropolitan Church (canons 155–173 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). The Holy See's "Annuario Pontificio" has, however, always listed it not as a separate particular Church but as a Metropolia of the Ruthenian Church.
History.
The Archeparchy of Pittsburgh was originally established, in 1924, as the Apostolic Exarchate for the Byzantine-Rite Faithful of Subcarpathia, becoming the Eparchy of Pittsburgh of the Ruthenians in 1963, the Metropolitan See of Munhall of the Ruthenians in 1969, and changing its name to Pittsburgh of the Byzantines in 1977. The dates of foundation of the suffragan sees are: Passaic 1963, Parma 1969, Van Nuys 1981 (moved to Phoenix in 2010).
The church's Byzantine Catholic Seminary of SS. Cyril and Methodius, established in 1950, is located on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Observatory Hill. In addition to the training of priests, it offers a program in Deacon Formation as well as a Cantor's Institute.
In January 2007 Metropolitan Basil Schott, Archbishop of Pittsburgh promulgated a major revision of two of the major Divine Liturgies (Chrysostom and Basil) of the Byzantine Catholic Church.


Adam Georg von Agthe

Adam Georg von Agthe (12 August 1777 – 26 August 1826) was a major general in the Imperial Russian Army during the Napoleonic Wars. He was also known by his Russian name Egor Andreevich Akhte ().
Biography.
He was born into a Baltic-German noble family. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1796. He fought at the battle of Austerlitz in 1805, receiving a medal for distinction, and fought in the Russo-Turkish War between 1806 and 1811. He was awarded the Order of St George 4th class on 10 March 1812 for the capture of Batina and also fought at the battle of Borodino. He was promoted to major general after the battle of Leipzig in 1813, but was invalided out of the army on 15 April 1816 due to several injuries.


St Aubin on the Hill

St Aubin on the Hill is an Anglican church located in the Parish of St Brelade, Jersey, and is dedicated to Saint Aubin of Angers. Building of the present church began on 4 June 1889, with the laying of the foundation stone by the Bishop of Guildford. It was opened on 13 October 1892.
History.
Saint Aubin was a busy port at least as far back as the 16th century, with its own harbour and Court House. In 1747 a church was built at St Aubin, the first to be erected in the island since the Reformation. This was the result of a petition to the Bishop of Winchester from the merchants of St Aubin in which they made their case for the erection of a chapel of ease, in which they mentioned the difficulty of travelling to St Brelade, a distance of about two miles: "[T]he road to the said Church is very difficult by reason of many rugged steep ascents and descents, and a great way of moving sands, and the said inhabitants are exposed to great fatigue by sheer scorching heat in the summer, and the storms of impetuous westerly winds which usually blows there in Winter …"
The original church was a square building which stood on the site of the present church car park. In 1888 it was pronounced unsafe. A meeting was held on 19 April 1889, and it was resolved that a committee be formed to collect funds and arrange the building of a new church. The foundation stone of the present building was laid by the Bishop of Guildford on 4 June 1889.
The granite of the old building was re-used and the funds raised (£2,500) also allowed extra columns, arches and windows in Mont Mado granite.
St Aubin on the Hill is very fine example of a Victorian Gothic style building. The small north window in the Lady Chapel is notable for being the only Pre-Raphaelite window in Jersey, created by the firm of William Morris from designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. At the north end of the nave, the altar which bears the logo of the St Brelade Group of Churches, and the platform on which it stands, were added in the 1980s under the curacy of Robert Booth. In the early part of 1992 further re-ordering saw the removal of a number of pews and the construction of a platform around the font at the south end.
There were no burials at St Aubin until the 1980s, when authority was granted by the Ecclesiastical Court of Jersey to allow the curate, the Reverend Robert Booth to inter some ashes which had been sent for burial from England.


Mechthild of Sayn

Countess Mechthild of Sayn (c. 1203 – c. 1291), also called Mechthild of Landsberg, Mechtild, Mechtildis or Mathilde, was the wife of Henry III of Sayn. She was an important figure in the Late Middle Ages because of her religious foundations ("Stiftungen").
Life.
Mechthild was the daughter of Margrave Dietrich of Landsberg, son of Dedi the Fat, and Jutta, daughter and heiress of the Thuringian landgrave, Louis III Mechthild was born around 1200, according to other sources around 1203, and around 1215 she married Count Henry III of Sayn. In a deed at Heisterbach Abbey dating to 1216, Mechthild is described as Henry's wife. The trigger for the marriage was a dispute between Dietrich of Landsberg and Henry II of Sayn, whose territories bordered one another. In addition the two were on opposing sides in the German throne dispute at the end of the 12th century. Dietrich, a supporter of the House of Hohenstaufen, owned Altenwied Castle, built by his ancestors; Henry II was for the House of Welf, and built the Löwenburg. In 1205, Pope Innocent III asked whether the dispute could be settled by a marriage between Henry III and Mechthild. The agreement must have taken place no later than 1207, since Dietrich of Landsberg died that year.
When Henry III of Sayn died on New Year's Eve in 1246, he left no heirs. The only daughter of Mechthild was probably born shortly before or shortly after Henry's death and died soon afterwards.
Henry had had his will drawn up at Blankenheim Castle in the presence of the abbots of Marienstatt and Heisterbach during Christmas week of 1246. He decreed that if his unborn child survived, Mechthild should become the sole heir. But if the child died, then Mechthild should have the right to keep all goods until her death, after her death the estate was to pass to the children of Henry's sisters. Henry's sisters were Adelheid, who first married Godfrey of Sponheim-Starkenburg (died 1223?), her second marriage in 1225 was to Eberhard of Eberstein (died 1263?), and the younger Agnes, who married Henry of Blieskastel.
Contrary to Henry's wishes, the Sayn family made claims to the Sayn estate shortly after his death and by 29 August 1247, Mechthild left to the sons of her sister-in-law, Adelheid and the others, the castle and town of Blankenberg, the castle and lands of Hachenburg, Freusburg Castle, Sayn Castle, the castles of Saffenburg and Hülchrath and all the counties and bailiwicks that Henry had owned. Mechthild retained her own Thuringian inheritance and reserved the right to live at the Sayn castle of Löwenburg in the Siebengebirge.
The castle of Waldenburg and the villages of Drolshagen and Meinerzhagen were sold on 20 January 1248 to the Archbishop of Cologne, Conrad of Hochstaden for 2,000 Cologne marks. Mechthild initially held the castles of Altenwied, Neuerburg, Rennenberg and Windeck as well as the villages of Rosbach, Linz, Leubsdorf, Neustadt, Asbach, Winden, Windhagen, Gielsdorf, Sechtem, Nieder- and Oberbreitbach as well as scattered lands and vineyards along the rivers Rhine and Moselle.
On 1 May 1250, Mechthild signed a contract with the Elector of Cologne, Conrad of Hochstaden, at the Neuerburg, according to which all the estates around the castles of Altenwied, Neuerburg, Rennenberg and Windeck passed to the Archbishopric of Cologne after her death in return for a one-off payment of 600 marks and an annual payment of 170 marks. The Neuerburg and the church parish of Breitbach were available for her lifelong use. On 2 March 1261, Conrad's successor, Archbishop Engelbert I renewed the treaty, which was confirmed by Pope Urban IV in 1263.
Mechthild lived at the Neuerburg for a few more years and later moved to Cologne, where she had a residence at Sion Abbey. In 1283, in her will, she decreed that after her death her estate would eventually pass to the Archbishopric. Her date of death is unknown, according to an unconfirmed interpretation of a gravestone in Cologne she may have lived until 1291.
Deeds.
The most important foundations and gifts that Mechthild and her husband made were:
Mechthild's deeds were often recorded in the German language which was exceptional in the 13th century.


August Matthias Hagen

August Matthias Hagen ( - ) was a Baltic German painter and graphic artist. He specialized in landscapes and cityscapes with figures.
Life.
His father was a mill operator. Originally, he was apprenticed to be a carpenter but, while at a private boarding school, began to show some talent for drawing. Unfortunately, due to a childhood accident aggravated by a later illness, he was almost blind in one eye. This had little effect on his artistic ability, apparently, because in 1810, on the recommendation of a local nobleman, he became a journeyman painter in Tartu. However, that didn't turn out well, as he did more manual labor than learning. The following year, he began work in the graphics studio of Karl August Senff, who taught painting and engraving at the University of Dorpat.
In 1820, on the advice of Senff, he decided to go to Germany to sharpen his skills. Sailing to Lübeck, he travelled on foot to Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna. He later took extended hikes through Switzerland and Italy, as far as Rome, keeping detailed diaries and making a huge number of sketches.
Four years later, after getting married in Passau, he returned to Tartu, where he worked as a drawing teacher at a boys' school. His best known works, a series of aquatints commemorating the anniversary of the reopening of the University, date from this period. He then taught at a girls' school from 1829 to 1832. After that, once again taking to the road, he painted scenes throughout Estonia and on islands in the Gulf of Finland.
In 1837, following a successful exhibition in Saint Petersburg, he was designated a "free artist" by the Imperial Academy of Arts and, the following year, succeeded his mentor Senff as Professor of drawing at the University of Tartu. He held that position until 1851, when he was forced to retire due to increasingly poor eyesight. Three years later he gave up painting. Not wishing to remain idle, he discovered that his sight was still good enough to take up photography and his small salon became very popular.
His daughter Julie Wilhelmine also became a well-known painter who married the astronomer Ludwig Schwarz.


Gustav Andreas Tammann

Gustav Andreas Tammann (24 July 1932 – 6 January 2019) was a German astronomer and academic. He served as director of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Basel; as a member of the European Space Agency Space Telescope Advisory Team, and as Member of Council of the European Southern Observatory. His research interests include supernovae and the extragalactic distance scale. Tammann was a former President of the International Astronomical Union Commission on Galaxies.
Education and early career.
Tammann studied astronomy in Basel, Switzerland and Göttingen, Germany. In 1963 he began a longtime working relationship with Allan Sandage at the Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories.
Academic career.
In 1972 he became a professor at the University of Hamburg. From 1977 until his retirement, he was a professor and head of the Astronomical Institute at the University of Basel.
Tammann is the grandson of the physical chemist Gustav Tammann.
Accolades.
In 1991 Tammann became a full member of Academia Europaea, and in 1993 became a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2000 he received the Albert Einstein Medal that is given for "outstanding scientific findings, works, or publications related to Albert Einstein" and the Tomalla Prize for his efforts in measuring the expansion rate of the universe and especially for his pioneering work using Supernovae as standard candles. In 2005 received the Karl Schwarzschild Medal.
The asteroid 18872 Tammann was named for him in 2001.


Castle folk (Kingdom of Hungary)

The castle folk (, or "civis") formed a class of freemen who were obliged to provide well-specified services to a royal castle and its "ispán", or count, in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. They were peasants living in villages formed in the lands pertaining to the royal castle. They tilled their estates collectively.


Andreas Hyperius

Andreas Gerhard Hyperius (1511–1564), real name Andreas Gheeraerdts, was a Protestant theologian and Protestant reformer. He was Flemish, born at Ypres, which is signified by the name 'Hyperius'.
Life.
He had a humanist education, and studied at Tournai and Paris. He was resident in England from 1536 to 1540, and in 1542 was appointed professor of theology at Marburg.
Work.
Hyperius's theology lies between Lutheran and Reformed beliefs. Influenced by Martin Bucer, he was not a strict Lutheran. Jean Calvin endorsed his erudition. His work "De formandis concionibus sacris" (On the Making of Sacred Discourses) was the first Protestant text solely devoted to systematic homiletics, that is, to preaching considered as a branch of rhetoric. The "Methodus theologiae" is a selection from, and method for reading, the Church Fathers.
In his overall approach, Hyperius sought a firm basis in the Bible, rigidly, and held that before practical theology can be put in force, it must be made a part of systematic theological study, and must not be taught fragmentarily. Demanding an immense amount of preliminary reading on the part of the student, covering all practical theology except missions, he held that such reading would involve preparation for the practical work of the ministry. All must be squared with the Bible, or, where the Bible did not contain specific data, with the commandments of love for God and one's neighbor.
In addition, he urged the preparation of a work on church government, including the data of the New Testament, relevant portions of church history, excerpts from the councils, papal decrees, Church Fathers, and works on dogmatics, liturgics, and related materials.
His English translator, John Ludham (vicar of Wethersfield, Essex, 1570-1613), published the "De formandis" as "The Practise of Preaching, otherwise called the Pathway to the Pulpet" (London 1577). Ludham went on to translate Hyperius's posthumously published "De Sacrae Scripturae lectione ac meditatione quotidiana" (Basle, 1569) as "The Course of Christianity: or, as touching the dayly reading and meditation of the holy Scriptures" (London 1579): he then turned to the homilies of Rudolf Gwalther on the prophet Joel (London 1582) before returning to Hyperius for "A Speciall Treatise of Gods Providence" (c. 1588), which included an exposition upon Psalm 107. To this was added an appendix of the Cambridge sermons and disquisitions of Peter Baro.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer emphasised the role Hyperius had played in early Protestantism.


Princess Louise Amelie of Baden

Princess Louise Amelie Stephanie of Baden (5 June 1811 – 19 July 1854) was a daughter of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, and his wife, Stéphanie de Beauharnais.
Family.
Louise Amelia was the eldest of five children born to Karl, Grand Duke of Baden by his wife Stéphanie de Beauharnais (adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte). Her paternal grandparents were Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden and Landgravine Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Her only two surviving siblings were Josephine, Princess of Hohenzollern (mother of Carol I of Romania and Queen Stephanie of Portugal), and Marie, Duchess of Hamilton.
Marriage.
On 9 November 1830 in Karlsruhe, Louise Amelie married her first cousin Gustav, Prince of Vasa in Karlsruhe. He was the only son of the deposed King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (who had been overthrown in favor of his uncle Charles in 1808), and thus had a titular claim to the Swedish throne. Prince Gustav took the title Prince of Vasa, making Louise Princess of Vasa upon their marriage. Some still viewed Prince Gustav as the legitimate heir to the Swedish throne, thus referring to Louise as the Crown Princess. Their marriage, like most alliances of the time, was politically arranged and was unhappy. They lived in Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna and had two children before they divorced in 1843.
Princess Louise died on 19 July 1854 in Karlsruhe.


Clervaux Castle

Clervaux Castle (, , ) in the town of Clervaux in Northern Luxembourg dates back to the 12th century. Destroyed by the fire in the Second World War during the Battle of the Bulge, the castle has now been fully rebuilt. It houses the commune's administrative offices as well as a museum containing an exhibition of Edward Steichen's photographs.
Location.
The castle stands at a height of 365 metres on a rocky spur above the town, surrounded on three sides by a loop in the River Clerve.
History.
The oldest parts of the castle from the 12th century were built by Gerard, Count of Sponheim, a brother of the Count of Vianden. The large palace and the rounded towers are probably from around 1400 when the prosperous Lords of Brandenbourg lived there.
In 1634, Claude of Lannoy built the reception halls, including the large Knights' Hall in the Spanish style of Flanders. In 1660, stables, storerooms and administrative buildings were added. Finally, in the 18th century, new stables were built.
Over the years, like other castles in Luxembourg, Clervaux fell into disrepair although it was partly restored and used as a hotel before it was finally destroyed in the Second World War during the Battle of Clervaux (December 16 to 18, 1944), part of the Battle of the Bulge.
The castle today.
After being fully restored after the war, the castle is now used partly as a museum and partly for housing the local administration.
The south wing houses an exhibition of models of Luxembourg's castles; the old kitchen in the Brandenbourg House. It is a museum devoted to the Battle of the Ardennes.
The upper floors house the permanent installation of the entire complement of 503 original and restored prints, the work of 273 photographers, from the exhibition "The Family of Man", curated by Edward Steichen for The Museum of Modern Art in 1955 and which toured the world to be seen by 9 million visitors. Luxembourg was where Edward Steichen was born in 1879, in Bivange. The exhibition was first presented in the Castle in 1994 after restoration of the prints. The layout of the inaugural exhibition at MoMA is followed in order to recreate the original viewing experience, though necessarily adapted to the unique space of two floors of the restored Castle. Since further restoration of the photographs and displays in 2003 it now incorporates a library and contextualises "The Family of Man" with historical material and interpretation.
The remaining rooms are used for the services of the local administration.
Visiting times.
The castle is open to visitors every day from 10 am to 6 pm except Mondays. It is closed in January and February.


Da Vinci family

The Da Vinci family Italian family from Vinci, Tuscany.


Karl Ludwig von Budberg

Baron Karl Vasilievich Ludwig von Budberg (9 July 1775–8 September 1829) was an Imperial Russian cavalry general and nobleman who participated in the Napoleonic Wars.
Biography.
Born to a noble Baltic German family in the Governorate of Livonia, von Budberg first joined the military at the age of eleven. He participated in the Italian and Swiss expedition and the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel by 1801.
During the War of the Fourth Coalition, von Budberg fought in the battles of Guttstadt-Deppen, Heilsberg, Friedland, and Eylau, at which he was wounded in the arm.
In 1811 he was made chief of His Majesty's Life-Guards Cuirassier Regiment, and maintained this command through the French invasion of Russia and the subsequent War of the Sixth Coalition, where he distinguished himself in numerous battles, including Borodino, Kulm, and Leipzig. He was promoted to Major General in 1813.
In 1816 von Budberg was made commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cuirassier Division, and then commander of the 2nd Hussar Division in 1824. In 1826 he was promoted to Lieutenant General and then fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828, during which he died of a sudden illness.


John Leigh (Yarmouth MP)

Sir John Leigh (1598–1666) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1640 and 1660.
Leigh was the eldest son of Barnaby Leigh of Northcourt in the Isle of Wight and his first wife Elizabeth Bampfield, daughter of Hugh Bampfield of North Cadbury, Somerset. His grandfather, also named Sir John Leigh, had bought Northcourt in 1586, and began the building of the manor house, which still exists.
He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford on 25 October 1616, aged 18. He succeeded to the family estates in 1642. He was knighted at Bewley or Southwick on 1 September 1628.
In 1640, Leigh was elected Member of Parliament for Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) in the Long Parliament. He apparently never spoke in Parliament. He was a colonel of the militia for the Isle of Wight, which was unaffected by the Civil War, from 1642 to 1647 and a Deputy Lieutenant in 1643. He was a commissioner for sequestrations for Hampshire and a commissioner for levying money in 1643. He was a commissioner for assessment for the Isle of Wight from 1647 to 1648. He did not sit in parliament after Pride's Purge in 1648. He was commissioner for assessment for Hampshire in 1648, 1652, 1657 and 1660 and a JP for Hampshire. He was described as a man who had a strong reluctance to quarrel with anyone.
In April 1660, Leigh was re-elected MP for Yarmouth for the Convention Parliament. It is unclear if he stood for election again in 1661. He was commissioner for assessment for the Isle of Wight from 1664 until his death which probably occurred in 1666.
Family.
Leigh married Anne Bulkeley, daughter of William Bulkeley of Nether Burgate, Fordingbridge, Hampshire and had two sons and three daughters, including John, his heir, and Elizabeth, who married Sir Peter Stanley, 2nd Baronet, of Alderley, Cheshire.


List of earthquakes in the Levant

This is a list of earthquakes in the Levant, including earthquakes that either had their epicenter in the Levant or caused significant damage in the region. As it is now, the list is focused on events which affected the territories of modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria and to some degree the adjacent areas of South Anatolia, Cyprus island and the Sinai Peninsula (modern Turkey, Cyprus, Northern Cyprus and Egypt).
Seismic hazard.
The Jordan Rift Valley is the result of tectonic movements within the Dead Sea Transform (DSF) fault system. The DSF forms the transform boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. The Golan Heights and all of Transjordan are part of the Arabian Plate, while the Galilee, Judean and Samarian highlands (West Bank), Coastal Plain and Negev along with the Sinai Peninsula are on the African Plate. This tectonic disposition leads to a relatively high seismic activity in the region.
Earthquakes.
The region has experienced many earthquakes, the most destructive ones being those of 31 BCE, 363 CE, 749 CE, and 1033 CE. The 1759 events, along with the earlier 1202 Syria earthquake, are likely the strongest historical earthquakes in the region. Some of the earthquakes were also followed by a tsunami - notably in 92 BCE, 115, 306, 502, 551, 881, 1202.


Hannah Lightfoot

Hannah Lightfoot (12 October 1730 – before December 1759), nicknamed the 'Fair Quaker', is said to have been the first wife of George III of the United Kingdom.
Biography.
Hannah Lightfoot was born into a Quaker family in St John, now Shadwell, Wapping, Middlesex, now E1, the daughter of Matthew Lightfoot (died 1733), a shoemaker, and his wife Mary Wheeler (died 1760). After the death of her father she lived with her uncle Henry Wheeler, a linen draper in Market Lane, Westminster. She married (apparently without the knowledge of her mother) outside her faith at Keith's Chapel, Curzon Street, Mayfair, on 11 December 1753, Isaac Axford, grocer, of St Martin Ludgate, London. She had absconded from her husband by 1 January 1755, but it was reported on 3 September 1755 that her mother 'was not fully satisfied she was absented from her husband'. The officials of her church reported on 7 January 1756 that she could not be found and agreed that a Testimony of Denial be prepared against her for marrying against their rules. This was read and approved on 3 March 1756. She had been bequeathed £50 by her aunt Hannah Plant in 1748 which she should have received on probate, 9 March 1756. As 'Mrs Hannah Axford formerly Miss Hannah Lightfoot' she was bequeathed an annuity of £40 for life by Robert Pearne of Isleworth, an old friend of the family, in his will dated 26 January 1757 and proved 4 April 1757. Hannah was also mentioned in the will of her mother Mary Lightfoot dated 10 January 1760 and proved 4 June 1760 in which she left the residue of her estate in trust for Hannah, adding 'I am not certain whether my said daughter be living or dead I not having seen or heard from her for about two years last past'. Hannah's husband Isaac Axford remarried in Wiltshire, describing himself as a widower, in December 1759, but he may not have known whether Hannah was dead or alive. His second wife, Mary Bartlett, died in 1791, and he himself died at Warminster in 1816.
Allegations.
George III admired the simple goodness of the Quakers and there is an old story, first published in 1770 but much embellished in the nineteenth century, that, in amusement, linked his name, as an extremely shy teenager of fifteen, with that of Hannah Lightfoot, eight years his senior, who ran away from her husband in 1754 and disappeared. The King, then Prince of Wales, is said to have organised her abduction at or after her marriage to Isaac Axford in 1753 and, according to later stories, to have secretly married and had children by her; two of them were known to history as George Rex (now known to have been born in 1765) and John Mackelcan, born in 1759. Her whereabouts were unknown to her family by 1758. Her husband married again in 1759 describing himself as a widower.
Just a month before the Testimony of Denial was issued against Hannah Lightfoot, the young Prince of Wales had seen a Quaker at a masquerade at Northumberland House. If noted and remarked upon at the time it may account for the story which then arose. In December 1759 the gossips were saying that the Prince had kept a beautiful Quaker for some years, that she had died, and that a child survived. When he visited Quakers in the City in 1761 the joke was that he had been 'thoroughly initiated and instructed by the fairest of the Quaker sisterhood'. And so the story grew. Hannah was advertised for in 1793, apparently without success.
However, the story gained strength and much dubious detail with the publication of the anonymous "An Historical Fragment Relative to Her late Majesty Queen Caroline" (1824), the anonymous "Authentic Records of the Court of England" (1831–2) and the "Secret History of the Court of England" (1832) in which it was stated that a marriage between Prince George and Hannah Lightfoot had taken place in the Curzon Street Chapel on 17 April 1759. Such a marriage would have bastardised the children of George III and given any child of his brother the Duke of Cumberland a claim to the throne. The imposter Olivia Serres, who claimed to be a legitimate child of the Duke, forged a succession of documents to prove these events, including this 1759 marriage.
When Olive's daughter "Princess Lavinia" produced these documents in court in 1866 the case was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice saying 'I believe them to be rank and gross forgeries' and the Attorney General declaring her action as 'a case of fraud, fabrication, and imposture from beginning to end'. The documents are now in The National Archives at Kew (reference J77/44).
Although not accepted by any academic historian these claims are sometimes still asserted: see Kreps in references below.
Portrait.
The above portrait, which is attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, has been linked without proof to Hannah Lightfoot. A guide to the pictures at Knole published in 1839 attributed another painting of Hannah Lightfoot by Reynolds and followed an earlier guide of 1817 in describing the sitter as 'Miss Axford, the Fair Quakeress'. It is a portrait of a woman of fashion (not a Quaker) and it has been suggested that in view of the early uncertainties surrounding the name of the 'fair Quaker' that it may be a portrait of a member of the prosperous Axford family, who were not Quakers, and was later wrongly attributed. It may be a portrait of Miss Ann Axford, a sister of William and John Axford, of Ludgate Hill, grocers, who was alive in 1780.
Cultural references.
Four novels have been based on the Hannah Lightfoot story.


Vallendar

Vallendar is a town in the district Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. 4 km north-east of Koblenz. Vallendar is the seat of the "Verbandsgemeinde" ("collective municipality") Vallendar.
Geography.
Situation.
The town of Vallendar spreads out on the right side of the Mittelrhein opposing the island of Niederwerth, where several creek valleys from the Westerwald meet the Rhine valley. It is situated north of Koblenz and south of Neuwied. East of Vallendar rises the Westerwald, on the other side of the river the Eifel.
Origin of name.
The town's name derives from its situation in the creek valleys. The syllables "val" and have Indo-Germanic roots: "val" means "flowing", whereas "ndar" indicates a "swampy area".
History.
Vallendar is first mentioned around 830–840 AD as the property of the Archbishop of Trier; it was probably, however, of Celtic origin and a lot older (700–600 BC). In 1143 Schoenstatt Abbey was founded. In 1232 the Count of Sayn took possession of the land and began building a castle at the northern edge of the town in 1240. Its foundations today support the Marienburg.
From the 14th century the Archbishop of Trier regained more and more power over the land to become proprietor again in 1681 and in 1767 (for good). Today the Lion of Sayn and the Cross of Trier are evidence of this history in Vallendar's coat of arms.
During the Middle Ages a Palatine high court was located in Vallendar. 1802 the proprietorship went to the Count of Nassau-Weilburg; in 1815 it fell to the Kingdom of Prussia. A rich business life is the reason why Frederick William IV of Prussia granted town rights to Vallendar in 1856. In 1939 Mallendar was added to the town. It was the scene of a military action by the 23rd US Infantry. From 1954 to the 1970s numerous new construction areas were established. Since 1973 the skyline has been dominated by the "Humboldthöhe".
Today Vallendar's appearance is influenced mostly by the internationally renowned Schönstatt and the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and its students.
Economy and infrastructure.
Traffic.
Vallendar is connected to the B 42 and A 48, with the exit Bendorf/Neuwied/Vallendar leading into the city center via B 42.
Vallendar has a train station on the Rheinstrecke.
The KEVAG busses 7/7a and 8/8a connect Vallendar to Koblenz, Bendorf and Höhr-Grenzhausen.
Persons of interest.
Lived in Vallendar:
Trivia.
A city named "Vallendar" is included in the PC game Call of Duty 2. This fictional city also lies on the river Rhine. The players task is to fight retreating German soldiers during World War II. Other than its location on the river the virtual Vallendar has nothing in common with its real world counterpart.


Boris Smyslovsky

Boris Alexeyevich Smyslovsky (also "Smyslovsky-Holmston" and "Holmston-Smyslovsky") (3 December 1897 – 5 September 1988) was a Russian-Finnish general, émigré, and anti-communist. His pseudonyms were "Arthur Holmston" and "Hauptmann" "von Regenau". He commanded the pro-Axis collaborationist First Russian National Army during World War II.
Biography.
Smyslovsky was born in Terijoki, Grand Duchy of Finland (today Zelenogorsk, Saint Petersburg, Russia), and later joined the Russian Imperial Army where he advanced to the rank of captain in the Imperial Guards. During the Russian Civil War he fought against the Bolsheviks in the White army and then moved to Poland, later to Germany. There he attended the Prussian Military Academy. His view was that foreign intervention and help was needed to free Russia from Bolshevism. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he served on the Eastern Front and established training battalions that were used to fight partisans. Smyslovsky was given the command of "Sonderdivision R" ("special division Russia") and became the first Russian in German services to command an anti-Bolshevik unit in World War II. He soon realized that Nazi ideology was at collision with his views of intelligent use of Russian anti-Bolshevik forces and established feelers to Switzerland in case he would need asylum at the war's end.
1st Russian National Army.
Towards the end of the war Germany upgraded its Russian volunteers in the war effort, and Smyslovsky's forces were elevated to the "1st Russian National Army" on 10 March 1945. By April 1945, Smyslovsky had moved his fighters to Feldkirch where he met Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich, the Romanov claimant to the Russian Imperial Crown. The whittled-down army of 462 men, 30 women, and 2 children then moved into neutral Liechtenstein on 2 May 1945, the Grand Duke, however, decided to stay in the US occupied zone in Austria because neither Liechtenstein nor Switzerland would issue him an visa. The Russians were cared for by the Liechtenstein Red Cross. On 16 August 1945, a Soviet delegation came to Liechtenstein in an attempt to repatriate the Russians. Homesick and subject to cajoling and menacing, about 200 of the group agreed to return. They departed in a train to Vienna and nothing was ever heard of them again. The remainder stayed in Liechtenstein for another year, resisting with support of Liechtenstein further pressure by the Soviet government to participate in the repatriation program. Eventually the government of Argentina offered asylum, and about a hundred people left. Smyslovsky was visited by Allen Dulles and other Western military experts to learn more about his expertise regarding the Soviet Union and handed information over to Reinhard Gehlen's espionage system.
According to Alexander Frick, Prime Minister of Liechtenstein, the Russians were at no point in danger of being extradited, and the local population fully supported the government in providing asylum to the Russians. The small population of the country (12,141 in 1945) supported the émigrés (4% of the population) at a rate of CHF 30,000 per month for 2 years and paid their costs to move to Argentina; they did not know that these costs were later to be reimbursed by Germany. While the Western Allies and other countries in Europe complied with Soviet requests to repatriate Soviet citizens regardless of their individual wishes, Liechtenstein was the only country that stood up to these demands and informed the Soviet government that only those Russians who wanted to go home would be permitted to go. Those soldiers of the 1st Russian National Army who chose to return to the USSR were summarily executed by the Soviet military authorities on the way by train to the Soviet Union in Hungary.
Most of the rest went into exile in Argentina, including Smyslovsky. But in 1975, he returned to Liechtenstein with his wife Irene. Smyslovsky died in Vaduz on 5 September 1988.
Movie.
The 1993 French movie "Vent d'est" directed by Robert Enrico, is based on the perambulation of Smyslovsky and his army. The General is played by Malcolm McDowell.


Otto Truchsess von Waldburg

Otto Truchsess von Waldburg (25 February 1514 – 2 April 1573) was Prince-Bishop of Augsburg from 1543 until his death and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church.
Childhood and Education.
Otto was born at Scheer Castle to the Swabian noble House of Waldburg, which, for their support in the German Peasants' War was vested with the title of a hereditary Imperial Seneschal ("Truchsess") by Emperor Charles V in 1526. Designated for an ecclesiastical career, he studied at the Universities of Tübingen, Dole, Padua, Bologna, where he received his degree of Doctor of Theology in 1534, and Pavia. He was a fellow student of Cristoforo Madruzzo, Stanislaus Hosius and Viglius van Zwichem.
At an early age he had received canonries at Trent, Spires, and Augsburg. In 1541 he was appointed Imperial councillor and acted as a strong advocate of the Catholic faith against the Protestant Reformation at the 1542 Reichstag of Speyer. Thereafter, while on an embassy to Rome, was made a papal chamberlain and nuncio for the scheduled Council of Trent.
Career.
On 10 May 1543, the skilled and ambitious man backed by Emperor Charles V was elected Prince-Bishop of Augsburg; in 1544 he was appointed Cardinal of the "titulus" of Santa Balbina by Pope Paul III for settling the dispute with the Emperor upon the concessions he had made to several Lutheran princes of the Schmalkaldic League at the Fourth Diet of Speyer. Otto however urged on a military expedition against the revolting nobles, which the Emperor prepared by forging an alliance with the (Lutheran) Duke Maurice of Saxony, when the Protestants in 1546 sparked the Schmalkaldic War by a preventive strike against the town of Füssen, a possession of the Augsburg bishop.
He remained a loyal supporter of victorious Emperor Charles V, though he was dissatisfied with the terms of the Augsburg Interim and especially had further on to deal with the unruly population of the Imperial City of Augsburg. The conditions in his diocese were dreadful: the clergy were ignorant and depraved, and Protestantism was widespread. He sought to mend matters and to revitalize Catholicism through education, diocesan synods, visitations, edicts and improved religious instruction.. At his residence, he founded the University of Dillingen under Pedro de Soto, now a lyceum, and the ecclesiastical seminary at Dillingen (1549–55). In 1564 he transferred the management of these institutions to the Jesuits.
In 1549–50 and again in 1555 he took part in the papal elections at Rome. The situation of the bishopric worsened in 1552, when it was devastated by the troops of the former ally Maurice, meanwhile Saxon Elector. The emperor's younger brother King Ferdinand I, now in charge and prepared to compromise, concluded the Peace of Passau with Maurice, which led to the 1555 Peace of Augsburg with the Lutheran princes. Otto's advice was no longer in demand and with the abdication of Charles V the next year, his powerful position finally was lost. He once more went to Rome in 1559 and was there made the head of the Inquisition and, in 1562, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. In 1567 he held a diocesan synod at Dillingen.
From 1568 he lived full-time at Rome, where he died. He was a moral, religious man, with great force of character, to whom half measures and shiftiness were foreign. He incurred the hatred of the Protestants for his protest against the Religious Peace of Augsburg.
Cultural references.
A fictional version of him is seen in the third series of Showtime's Emmy Award–winning show "The Tudors". He is played by Swedish actor Max von Sydow.


Otto II, Duke of Swabia

Otto II ( – 7 September 1047), a member of the Ezzonid dynasty, was Count Palatine of Lotharingia from 1034 until 1045 and Duke of Swabia from 1045 until his death.
Life.
He was the son of the Lotharingian count palatine Ezzo (955–1034) and his wife Matilda (979–1025), a daughter of Emperor Otto II and his consort Theophanu. He was a member of the Ezzonian dynasty. Otto's elder brother Herman became Archbishop of Cologne in 1036; his sister Richeza married the Polish king Mieszko II Lambert in 1013.
Upon the death of his father in 1034, Otto succeeded him as count palatine as well as count in Deutz and in the Rhenish "Auelgau", as his elder brother Liudolf had died already in 1031. He also served as protector ("Vogt") of Brauweiler Abbey near Cologne, which had been founded by his parents.
In the conflict with Duke Godfrey III of Lower Lorraine, Otto remained a loyal supporter of the Salian king Henry III. In turn Henry vested him with the princeless Duchy of Swabia, which he had seized upon the early death of Duke Herman IV. At Easter on 7 April 1045 in Goslar, the ducal title was awarded to Otto; in exchange, he gave up the office of count palatine, which was bestowed on his cousin Henry I. Also, his territories in Kaiserswerth and Duisburg devolved onto the crown.
Marriage and children.
Otto married a daughter of Count Hugh IV of Egisheim. He had a daughter, Richenza ( –1083), who married firstly Herman, Count of Werl, and secondly Otto of Nordheim. Another daughter, Hildegarde, married Frederick of Büren, and they were the parents of Duke Frederick I of Swabia. Recently, any matrimonial alliance of Otto has been disputed.
In 1047, Otto died unexpectedly at his castle, the Tomburg, while preparing an imperial campaign against the invading forces of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Count Dirk IV of Holland. He was buried in Brauweiler Abbey; the ceremony was held by his brother-in-law, Bishop Bruno of Toul, the later Pope Leo IX. In 1048, Emperor Henry III appointed Otto of Schweinfurt his successor as Duke of Swabia.


Ulric I, Margrave of Carniola

Ulric I (), also "Odalric" or "Udalrich" (died 6 March 1070), Count of Weimar-Orlamünde, was margrave of Carniola from 1045 and of Istria from 1060 to his death.
Life.
Ulric was the son of Margrave Poppo I of Carniola, whom he succeeded upon his death before 1044, and Hadamut, daughter of Count Werigand of Friuli and Istria.
Ulric married Sophia, the daughter of King Béla I of Hungary and his first wife, Richeza, sister of the Polish duke Casimir I the Restorer. Alternatively, it has been suggested that she was the daughter of Béla and his second wife, Tuta of Formbach, and thereby a sister of King Ladislaus I of Hungary. Another alternative hypothesis makes her the daughter of Tuta and King Peter of Hungary, but that seems highly unlikely. Sophia had been betrothed to Margrave William of Meissen, but upon his early death in 1062 married his nephew Ulric instead. She gave her first husband four children:
On 31 July 1064, King Henry IV of Germany donated land "in pago Histrie ... in comitatu Odalrici marchionis" ("in the country of Istria ... in the county of Margrave Ulric") to "prefato Odalrico marchioni" ("the prefect Ulric, margrave"). Again on 5 March 1067, Henry donated land "in pago Istria in marcha Odalrici marchionis" ("in the country of Istria in the march of Margrave Ulric"), this time to the church Freising. Ulric was recorded as "Odalricus marchio Carentinorum" ("Ulric, margrave of the Carinthians") on his death. A loyal supporter of the Imperial Salian dynasty and backed by his Hungarian brothers-in-law, Ulric was able to enlarge his margraviate down to Fiume, against the resistance of the Patriarchs of Aquileia and the Republic of Venice.


Andrea Morisco

Andrea Morisco (in , "Andreas Mouriskos") was a Genoese pirate active in the Aegean Sea in the late 13th century, who in 1304 entered the service of the Byzantine Empire. As an admiral and corsair, he was active under Byzantine colours until 1308, when he was captured and executed in Cyprus.
Life.
Morisco was a Genoese pirate, active at least since 1279, who had had a successful career fighting against both the Turks and the Venetians. In late 1304, Morisco with his two ships entered the service of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, who gave him the rank of "vestiarios". The Venetians in retaliation attacked him and burned one of his ships, but in 1305, he attacked the island of Tenedos, and with the aid of some passing Genoese ships recovered it for the Empire.
At this time, the Byzantines became involved in open war against the mercenaries of the Catalan Company, whom they had invited to fight against the Turks, but who now had turned against Byzantium. In this war, Morisco supplied the town of Madyta, which was besieged by the Catalans, with food, and intercepted the passage of some Turkish allies of the Catalans from crossing over the Hellespont back into Anatolia—the latter a dubious success, as they proceeded to raid the Byzantine province of Thrace instead. For his service, Andronikos II made Morisco an admiral and gave him and his brother Lodovico the islands of Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos as fiefs.
During one of his fights with the Catalans in the Sea of Marmara, he was defeated and captured by the Catalans, but was able to buy his freedom and returned to Tenedos. In 1306, he was back in action, and along with the Byzantines' Genoese allies participated in the unsuccessful siege of Gallipoli, which was held by the Catalans. In 1307 and 1308, along with other Byzantine-sponsored pirates, Morisco was active in the Aegean, attacking Venetian shipping off the Peloponnese.
In 1308, Morisco was captured by King Henry II of Cyprus, and executed by hanging in Famagusta.


List of rulers of Baden

Baden was an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire and later one of the German states along the frontier with France, primarily consisting of territory along the right bank of the Rhine, opposite Alsace and the Palatinate.
History.
The territory evolved out of the Breisgau, an early medieval county in the Duchy of Swabia. A continuous sequence of counts is known since 962; the counts belong to the House of Zähringen. In 1061, the counts first acquired the additional title of Margrave of Verona. Even though they lost the March of Verona soon thereafter, they kept the title of margrave. In 1112, the title of Margrave of Baden was first used.
For most of the early modern period, the Margraviate of Baden was divided into two parts, one ruled by the Catholic Margraves of Baden-Baden, and the other by the Protestant Margraves of Baden-Durlach. In 1771, the main Baden-Baden line became extinct, and all of the Baden lands came under the rule of the Baden-Durlach line. The reunited margraviate existed until 1803.
During the Napoleonic era, in the imperial reorganisation of 1803, Baden gained a great deal of additional territory, and its rulers were made one of the few prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. However, this pre-eminent dignity lasted only for three years until the dissolution of the empire in August 1806, eight months after the crushing Battle of Austerlitz, when the Electorate of Baden ceased to exist.
Consequently, in 1806, the ruler of Baden took on the title of Grand Duke of Baden and gained additional territory. The Grand Duchy of Baden, within approximately the borders of 1806, continued to exist until the fall of the German monarchies in 1918 when it became the Republic of Baden.
The Margraviate of Baden.
During the 11th century, the Duchy of Swabia lacked a powerful central authority and was under the control of various comital dynasties, the strongest of them being the House of Hohenstaufen, the House of Welf, the Habsburgs and the House of Zähringen. Emperor Henry III had promised the ducal throne to the Zähringen scion Berthold, however, upon Henry's death in 1056, his widow Agnes of Poitou appointed Rudolf of Rheinfelden as Duke of Swabia. Berthold renounced his rights and was compensated with the Duchy of Carinthia and the March of Verona in Italy. Not able to establish himself, he finally lost both territories, when he was deposed by King Henry IV of Germany during the Investiture Controversy in 1077. Berthold retired to his Swabian home territory, where he died the next year. The Veronese margravial title was nevertheless retained by his eldest son, Herman I.
Herman II, son of Herman I and grandson of Berthold, had concluded an agreement with the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty, and about 1098 was enfeoffed with immediate territory by Emperor Henry IV. He chose to establish his residence in Germany, as he had been born and raised there. His lordship of choice was Baden (present-day Baden-Baden), where his father had gained the right to rule by marrying the heiress, Judit von Backnang-Sulichgau, Countess of Eberstein-Calw. In Baden, Herman II had Hohenbaden Castle built. Construction began about 1100, and when it was completed in 1112, he marked the occasion by adopting the title of Margrave of Baden.
House of Zähringen.
Table of rulers.
<small>(Note: Between 1190 and 1515 there were three main numberings of rulers in Baden: the Baden numbering, valid for all divisions of Baden with exception of Hachberg; the Hachberg numbering, valid in the namesake territory; and the Hachberg-Sausenberg, division of the previous, which also adopted an independent numbering for its rulers. With the reunion of Baden in 1503, Baden original numbering ended up prevaling over the others.)


Treachery of the Blue Books

The Treachery of the Blue Books or Treason of the Blue Books () was the publication in 1847 of the three-volume "Reports of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the State of Education in Wales", which caused uproar in Wales for disparaging the Welsh; being particularly scathing in its view of the nonconformity and the morality of the Welsh people in general. The term "Brad y Llyfrau Gleision" ("treachery" or "conspiracy" of the Blue Books) was coined by the author Robert Jones Derfel in response to the Reports' publication.
The inquiry.
The public inquiry was carried out as a result of pressure from William Williams, Radical MP for Coventry, who was himself a Welshman by birth and was concerned about the state of education in Wales. It was carried out by three English commissioners, Ralph Lingen, 1st Baron Lingen, Jellynger C. Symons and H. R. Vaughan Johnson. The commissioners visited every part of Wales during 1846, collecting evidence and statistics. However, they spoke no Welsh and relied on information from witnesses, many of them Anglican clergymen at a time when Wales was a stronghold of nonconformism.
The work was completed in 1847 and printed in November of that year in three large blue-covered volumes ("blue books" being a widely used term for all kinds of parliamentary reports). The report was detailed. It concluded that schools in Wales were extremely inadequate, often with teachers speaking only English and using only English textbooks in areas where the children spoke only Welsh, and that Welsh-speakers had to rely on the Nonconformist Sunday Schools to acquire literacy. But it also concluded that the Welsh were ignorant, lazy and immoral, and that among the causes of this were the use of the Welsh language and nonconformity.
The commissioners often simply reported verbatim the prejudiced opinions of landowners and local Anglican clergy. The more bilious editorial attacks on Welsh culture mostly emanated from Commissioner Lingen and others who worked with him.
Response.
The report's publication resulted in a furious reaction in Wales, led by the bard Robert Jones Derfel. Derfel's book-length response, "Brad y Llyfrau Gleision", was published in 1854 by I. Clarke in Ruthin; it had no immediate political consequences, but was instrumental in the birth of the modern Welsh self-government movement. A measure of the anger aroused by the report in Wales is the subtitle "Brad y Llyfrau Gleision". It is a reference to the infamous "Treachery of the Long Knives" when, according to Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Saxons began their campaign of conquest against the native Britons.
Legacy.
The Books remain an invaluable, although slanted, source of information on mid-19th century Welsh society.
Saunders Lewis, in "Tynged yr Iaith", maintained that the Blue Books were for Welsh history "the most important nineteenth-century historical documents we possess". Such a judgement also reflects the fact that the publication of the reports, and the controversy that followed, was the catalyst for a much greater level of nonconformist involvement in the politics of Wales than hitherto. Critics such as the Reverend Evan Jones (Ieuan Gwynedd), Rev William Rees (Gwilym Hiraethog), Henry Richard, the Rev Thomas Price and Sir Thomas Phillips gained wide publicity for their trenchant criticisms of the reports. Over time these criticisms evolved into an organised political action, which culminated at the General Election of 1868.
Although much discussion of the Blue Books has centered on the essentialist criticism of the Welsh as a people, in his book "Pam na fu Cymru" (2015: published in English in 2017 as "Why Wales Never Was"), Simon Brooks argued that the Blue Books were a fundamentally liberal project in that the authors were sincerely concerned with the material wellbeing of the Welsh, as individuals. The argument that the Blue Books put forward, suggests Brooks, was that embracing the English language would allow the Welsh to achieve their potential and take full part in British civic society.
Accessibility.
Digital scans of the Blue Books (amounting to 1,252 pages) were published online by the National Library of Wales in 2005.


Battle of Cape Sarych

The Battle of Cape Sarych was a naval engagement fought off the coast of Cape Sarych in the Black Sea during the First World War. In November 1914, two modern Ottoman warships, specifically a light cruiser and a battlecruiser, engaged a Russian fleet including five obsolescent pre-dreadnought battleships in a short action.
Background.
On the morning of 17 November 1914, a Russian force consisting of the pre-dreadnought battleships (the flagship), , , "Tri Sviatitelya", , three cruisers, and 13 destroyers under Vice Admiral Andrei Eberhardt struck the Ottoman port of Trebizond. German Admiral Wilhelm Souchon decided to intercept it as it returned to port. At 13:00 the Ottoman battlecruiser "Yavuz Sultan Selim" and the light cruiser "Midilli" sortied from the Bosporus for Sebastopol at high speed. Eberhardt was aware of the Ottomans' departure from port and thus alert for an attack.
The following morning the two Ottoman ships patrolled the Crimean coast in spite of foggy conditions. At 12:05 "Midilli" sighted a Russian cruiser to starboard. "Yavuz" turned to face the cruiser at full speed. Other Russian ships were then sighted to the starboard, and soon five pre-dreadnoughts could be identified. Souchon ordered "Midili" to keep out of range.
Battle.
At 12:20 "Evstafi", with a clear view of the Ottomans, opened fire on "Yavuz", striking and disabling the third starboard casemated gun with its first salvo. The Russian battleships were using a new form of fire-control system that had been devised in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, with "Ioann Zlatoust" directing for all other ships except "Rostislav", which had a different main armament. The 12-inch shell had passed through the casemate armour and barely penetrated a 150 mm plate before detonating. Splinters badly damaged the ship's torpedo net. It also detonated three high explosive shells and set 16 cartridges on fire. The resulting explosion tore a square meter-sized hole in the side of the ship and killed the gun's crew. The flash fire traveled down the munitions elevator and up into the fourth starboard casemate, which was temporarily abandoned.
At 12:02 "Yavuz"s first artillery officer could make out the Russian ships through the fog and ordered the crew to target "Evstafi". The first salvo overshot the ship, though one shell pierced the center funnel and caused splinter damage to the wireless antennae. The Ottomans' third salvo scored two hits on "Evstafi". The first one disabled the forward starboard 6-inch casemated gun and caused casualties among its crew. The second shell penetrated the casemate armour, setting fire to some 6-inch cartridges and detonating in the officers' galley, causing severe damage while some splinters penetrated the deck and went into the boiler room below. A near miss caused extensive splinter damage to an unarmoured part of the ship, destroying a bulkhead in the infirmary.
At 12:24 "Yavuz" began to lose sight of the Russians and turned away, continuously firing on "Evstafi" with its aft guns. Outnumbered, Souchon decided to withdraw. The battlecruiser ceased firing at 12:32 and set a course for Cape Sinop.
Aftermath.
"Yavuz" arrived at Cape Sinop at 8:00 on 19 November. The Ottomans vainly chased five smoke clouds, but failed to make contact with any Russian vessels. At 14:00 on 20 November the battlecruiser returned to the Bosporus. It remained there for the rest of the month.
Analyses.
"Evstafi" was struck five times during the engagement, suffering 34 killed and 24 wounded. "Yavuz" had only been struck once, but lost 13 crew (12 Germans and one Turk). As a result of the ammunition detonation by the battlecruiser's 5.9-inch gun, the Ottomans decided to decrease the amount of ready-to-use shells and cartridges in the casemates.
The Russians realised that they would need to keep their pre-dreadnought battleship squadron intact if they were to successfully engage "Yavuz", thereby restricting their coastal operations. They also concluded that only a handful of their newest destroyers were suitable for independent operations in the Black Sea, as their cruisers were too obsolete to wield successfully against the Ottoman battlecruiser.


Kakhovka

Kakhovka (, ) is a port city on the Dnieper River in Kherson Oblast (province) of southern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Kakhovka Raion (district), it is administratively incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion. Population:
It is home to the KZEZO (Electro-Welding Equipment Plant) as well as the Tavria Games festival.
History.
In 1492 Meñli I Giray established a fortress near the site of today's Kakhovka called İslâm Kermen (later also called "Shagin-Girei", presumably after Şahin Giray). Along with Ğazı Kermen (today Beryslav on opposite side of Dnieper) it served as fortresses that were controlling movement along Dnieper as well as lookout posts for the main Or Qapı (today Perekop) fortress. It was frequently attacked by Cossacks and was finally destroyed by them under the leadership of Ivan Mazepa in 1695. In 1791 the Russian Colonel D.M. Kulikovsky founded the trade town of Kakhovka. Kakhovka was situated in the Tauria district. In 1848 the town obtained city rights. In the 1870s–90s the town was renowned for having a huge population of low-income contractors ("batraki"). According to N.J. Tjezjakov, a Russian economist, between 20,000 and 40,000 batraki would gather in the city at the one time, 80% of them males.
In December 1918, by the decision of the administration of the Dnipro "povit" (uyezd), Kakhovka was declared a city. In August 1920, during the final push in the Russian Civil War to drive the Whites under Wrangel out of the Crimea, Ieronim Uborevich established a bridgehead as part of the Northern Taurida Operation at Kakhovka, which became the site of fierce battles, which Evan Mawdsley described as "probably the closest the Civil War came to world war trench fighting."
During World War II, Kakhovka was captured by the Wehrmacht on August 30, 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. It was released by the 4th Ukrainian Front during the Melitopol offensive in the Battle of the Dnieper on November 2, 1943.
In 1972 the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR gave the city the rank of "city of oblast subordinance" within Kherson Oblast.
Cultural influence.
The 1935 film "Three Friends" ("Три товарища") included the song "Kakhovka" (words by Mikhail Svetlov and music by Isaak Dunayevsky), which became very well known, especially the refrain "" ("We are peaceful people, but our armored train/ Stands [ready] on the siding"). Svetlov chose the site of the little-known Civil War battle for his song because he had grown up nearby and had known the town during the war.


Balymer complex

The Balymer complex is an archaeological complex near the village of Balymer (Балымер), Spassky District, Tatarstan, Russian Federation.
The former trade emporium on the Volga trade route covers an area of 4 km². It was first explored in 1870 by A. I. Stoyanov.
The settlement, graves and tumuli belonged to the Volga Bulgars or the Volga Vikings ("Rūsiyyah") in the 9th-10th centuries, and to the Golden Horde nomads in the 13th-14th centuries.
It has been suggested that it was at Balymer that Ibn Fadlan witnessed the funeral of one of the Rus' chieftains (a ship burial involving human sacrifice).
There is also ample evidence of the Ananyino and Imenkovo cultures, i.e. Finno-Ugric peoples.


Battle of Annan Moor

The Battle of Annan Moor was a battle of the Scottish civil war, part of the intertwined Wars of the Three Kingdoms that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651.
The Royalist army led by Lord Digby and Marmaduke Langdale had been trying to force a passage north to link up with the Marquis of Montrose. The battle took place on 20 and 21 October 1645 when the experienced cavalry commander Sir John Brown of Fordell and his newly raised Scots cavalry regiment defeated the Royalists army. The Royalists lost more than half of their 600 men as casualties or prisoners. The remainder of the Royalist were driven back into England.


Helen Graham (historian)

Helen Graham (DPhil, Oxford) is an English Historian. She is Professor of Modern Spanish History at the Department of History, Royal Holloway University of London.
Overview.
Her research interests social and cultural history of 1930s and 1940s Spain, including the Spanish civil war; Europe in the inter-war period (1918–39); comparative civil wars; the social construction of state power in 1940s Spain; women under Francoism; comparative gender history.


Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 842

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 842 (P. Oxy. V 842 | LDAB 583) is a papyrus manuscript, written in Ancient Greek, discovered during the 1906 excavations in Oxyrhynchus in modern Egypt by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt. It contains a history of classic Greece for the years 396-395 BCE. Along with PSI XII 1304, it makes up the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia.
Background and Description.
Originally consisting of around 230 fragments of various sizes, Grenfell and Hunt were able to piece together all but 53 of them. They produced a transcription of the pieced together fragments, along with two plates and a translation in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 5 in 1908. The manuscript itself is written on the "verso" (reverse) of a papyrus roll that was originally used as an official land-survey register. Though starting off very fragmentary, the final result evidences around 21 columns of text.
The average dimensions of each column is 16.7 cm height by 9 cm width, with the roll height at 21.2 cm.
The script type of the manuscript is an example of the "severe style" or "strenger stil". This is characterised by a sloping, pointed handwriting with alternating thick and thin horizontal and vertical strokes.
According to Grenfell & Hunt, at least two hands were responsible for the manuscript, with the first hand writing most of the manuscript, from Column 1-4, then Column 6 line 27-Column 21. Hand two wrote therefore column 5-6 line 26. Hand one wrote in "a small neat uncial of the sloping oval type... at the end of a line is generally indicated by a horizontal stroke above the final letter... A peculiar characteristic of this scribe is his tendency (especially at the ends of lines) to combine the letters and or and so that the last vertical stroke of the first letter serves also as the first of the second... Diaereses are sometimes placed over ι and υ." Hand two is characterised as writing "smaller and rougher than the first [hand]. At the end of a line is often written as a horizontal stroke; and a diaeresis occurs in v. 44. Stops (high points) are freely employed, a slight space being also left to mark the pause, and sometimes the space occurs where the stop is omitted... A paragraphus is found in vi. 10 marking a transition which the first hand would have ignored... Unlike the first scribe, the second hand writes ι adscript."
Date of Manuscript.
Based on the land register on the "recto" (front) mentioning the 4th and 12th year of an unnamed Emperor, Grenfell & Hunt state that "since the survey was probably written soon after the 12th year, the reign of Commodus, which in Egypt was reckoned from his father's accession and therefore begins with his 20th year, is out of the question ; the reign of Hadrian or Antoninus is as likely to be meant as that of Marcus Aurelius[,]" and therefore "the survey on the recto was, as we have said, written about the middle of the second century, and we should ascribe the text on the verso to the end of that century or the early part of the third." Accordingly, the LDAB gives the manuscript a date range of 150-224 CE.


Torra di Capu Neru

The Tower of Capu Neru () is a Genoese tower located in the commune of Coti-Chiavari (Corse-du-Sud) on the west coast of the Corsica. The tower sits at an elevation of on the Capu Neru headland.
Construction of the tower began 1597. It was one of a series of coastal defences built by the Republic of Genoa between 1530 and 1620 to stem the attacks by Barbary pirates. In 1994 the tower was listed as one of the official historical monuments of France.