Arthur Elphinstone, 6th Lord Balmerino

Arthur Elphinstone, 6th Lord Balmerino and 5th Lord Cupar (1688 – 18 August 1746) was a Scottish nobleman and Jacobite, or supporter of the claim of the exiled House of Stuart to the British throne.
As a military officer, he served in both the British and French armies, as well as taking part in Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745, and spent nearly 20 years in exile on the Continent. He was pardoned some years after the first rebellion but following the failure of the latter at Culloden he was taken prisoner, charged with treason, and executed at Tower Hill. Historians of the 1745 rising often refer to him simply as Lord Balmerino, although he did not inherit the title until January 1746 and was for most of his life styled "the Hon. Arthur Elphinstone".
Life.
Arthur Elphinstone was the son of John Elphinstone, 4th Lord Balmerino and 3rd Lord Cupar, and his second wife, Anne Ross or Rose, daughter of Arthur Rose, Archbishop of St Andrews. The family were descended from James (c.1553–1612), a younger son of Robert Elphinstone, 3rd Lord Elphinstone: he had been granted the lands of Balmerino Abbey in Fife by James VI and I, though by the 18th century a series of lawsuits had reduced the family's properties to the barony of Restalrig in South Leith. The Elphinstones were prominent members of the Episcopalian minority of the Scottish church: the burying ground of the ruined church at Restalrig on their estate was used by local Episcopalians throughout the 18th century.
Arthur had three half-brothers from his father's first marriage; Hugh, Master of Balmerino, who died in 1708 at the Siege of Lille, James (1675–1746), a lawyer and judge, and Alexander (d. 1733). He was not initially expected to inherit the family estate and embarked on a military career, being commissioned a captain in Lord Shannon's regiment in March 1714.
As a north-eastern Episcopalian Protestant, Elphinstone has been described as epitomising
the most "ideologically committed" Jacobite supporters. Many Scottish Episcopalians were conservatives who believed the deposition of the Stuarts to have been a breach of natural order, and also opposed the 1707 Union of England and Scotland. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 he fought at the inconclusive Battle of Sheriffmuir on the government side but, reportedly finding this "against his conscience", deserted and joined the Jacobites. The rising subsequently collapsed and he fled the country, possibly to Denmark, before joining the French army.
In 1733, Elphinstone's father obtained a pardon for him and he eventually returned to Scotland: about this time he married Margaret Chalmers or Chambers, daughter of a Captain Chalmers of Leith. His half-brother James succeeded to the title of Lord Balmerino on the death of their father in 1736.
Elphinstone was one of the first to join Charles Edward Stuart during his 1745 attempt to recover the British throne for the Stuarts. While his history of Jacobite activity was undoubtedly a factor, some contemporaries also suggested the family's poor financial standing meant he had little to lose. Alongside David Wemyss, Lord Elcho he was given command of a troop of Charles' "Life Guard"; unlike nearly all other senior Jacobites, he escaped any criticism in the post-rising memoirs by various participants. John Daniel, a colleague in 1745, recorded that Elphinstone's "sole and predominant passion" was "hard drinking", but paid tribute to his loyalty, courage, and gift for languages, noting that "his memory for his years was wonderful". He became the 6th Lord Balmerino in early 1746 following his half-brother James's death, but in April of the same year he was taken prisoner at the Battle of Culloden.
Balmerino was tried before Parliament, along with William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock and George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie. Given his history and previous pardon, he represented himself and offered little in the way of a defence, joking that he only pleaded not guilty in order "that so many ladies might not be disappointed of their show". He was found guilty, attainted and was beheaded on the same day as the Earl of Kilmarnock.
Balmerino went to his execution unrepentant, stating "If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down in the same cause". His insouciant attitude at the time of his trial and execution, joking with bystanders and insisting on taking the axe in his carriage so that Kilmarnock would not be bothered by it, was widely reported in the media of the time. Horace Walpole, in a letter, described him as "the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw [...] at the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man: in the intervals of form, with carelessness and humour". Balmerino's execution is sometimes reported to have taken three blows, though "the first certainly took away all sensation". Like Kilmarnock he was buried in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula: reportedly, at his request, alongside William Murray, Marquess of Tullibardine.


Newtown Jerpoint

The medieval lost town of Newtown Jerpoint is just west of the Cistercian Jerpoint Abbey, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located 3.2 km south west from Thomastown just off the R448 regional road.
In the grounds of the privately owned Jerpoint Park.
St. Nicholas’s Church and graveyard are in the town, where the earthly remains of St. Nicholas of Myra are said to be buried.
Belmore House stands at the top of the town.
Legends.
St. Nicholas who inspired the legend of Santa Claus is believed to have been buried in Newtown Jerpoint some 800 years ago. The grave slab features a cleric with the heads of two knights behind each shoulder and is said to be St Nicholas and the heads, the two crusaders who, so the story goes, brought Nicholas' remains back to Ireland.
Evidence lends some possible credence to this tale as the Normans in Kilkenny were keen collectors of religious relics. And it is known that Norman knights participated in the Holy Land Crusades
Another version of the story tells of a French family, the de Frainets, who removed Nicholas' remains from Myra to Bari, Italy, in 1169 when Bari was under the Normans. The de Frainets were crusaders to the Holy Land and also owned land in Thomastown, Ireland. After the Normans were forced out of Bari, the de Frainets moved to Nice, France, taking the relics with them. When the Normans lost power in France, Nicholas de Frainet moved to Ireland. This story has the relics being buried in Jerpoint in 1200.
Archaeology.
A survey was commissioned in 2007 by the Heritage Council Ireland and the Discovery Programme that used Lidar to show the extent of Newtown Jerpoint.
"One of Ireland’s best surviving examples of a deserted 12th Century Medieval Town" ... Quote from The Heritage Council of Ireland


Mausoleum of Pozo Moro

The Mausoleum of Pozo Moro is a Mausoleum of the Iberians from the end of the 6th century BC, which was discovered in 1970 in excavations made in the Province of Albacete.
Location.
Pozo Moro, near the Spanish community of Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón, lies about 840 m above sea level and 125 km from the Mediterranean coast at the intersection of important ancient roads. Here the road from Carthago Nova (Cartagena) to Complutum (Alcalá de Henares) and the central Spanish plateau met the "Via Heraclea" (also known as the Via Augusta), which ran down the Guadalquivir to Gades (Cádiz) and along the Spanish Levante.
Description.
The Mausoleum was found in pieces in an Iberian necropolis, strewn over a 12 x 12 m area and his since been reconstructed in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España in Madrid. The Mausoleum, which was erected by an Iberian king around 500 BC, is the oldest known Iberian grave monument. The find spots of the rectangular blocks enabled an accurate reconstruction of the structure, which must have been about 10 metres high and have stood atop a three-level square pedestal 3.65 m wide. Four stone lions stood on the corners of the mausoleum, whose walls were decorated with reliefs depicting deities. These sculptures belong to the orientalising phase of Iberian art and are heavily influenced by Hittite and Syrian art.


Jaccoud case

The Jaccoud Case, in French Affaire Jaccoud, also known as the Affaire Poupette, was a Swiss judicial scandal of the 1960s.
Murder of Charles Zumbach.
On 1 May 1958, Charles Zumbach, a seventy-year-old dealer in agricultural machinery, was brutally murdered at his home in Plan-les-Ouates. When his wife came home, she heard four shots and cries for help. Shortly afterwards an unknown man shoved her towards the garden and started shooting at her. Later, she could not recall the appearance of the offender. The perpetrator – perhaps there were several – then returned to the injured Charles Zumbach, and stabbed him to death with a knife before escaping on a bicycle.
Zumbach ran an agricultural machinery business in Plan-les-Ouates, which, it was later revealed, also served as the headquarters of an international gang of criminals and arms dealers led by a former member of the French Foreign Legion who called himself “Reymond”.
The accused, Pierre Jaccoud.
When the police interrogated Zumbach's son André, he said he had received two calls at his workplace (a radio station in Geneva) the night of the killing, but both times the caller hung up without speaking. André Zumbach suspected that the caller wanted to make sure that he was not at his parents' house. Asked by the police whom he suspected of being the caller, Zumbach named Pierre Jaccoud, a prominent Geneva lawyer and politician who had had an eight-year relationship with Linda Baud (whom Jaccoud called "Poupette" – "dolly"). Baud worked as executive secretary at the radio station, had had an affair with André Zumbach, and wanted to leave Jaccoud. Jaccoud had written her many desperate letters to convince her to stay with him. Eight months before the murder, Jaccoud sent nude photos of her to her new lover, André Zumbach. The police suspected Jaccoud of the murder.
Contested expert testimony.
The police searched Jaccoud's apartment in his absence; he was in Stockholm on a business trip in connection with his position as Vice President of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce. They found blood on a coat and a Moroccan knife, but, as later studies revealed, Jaccoud and the victim shared the same blood group, Type O. Erik Undritz, a renowned Basel haematologist, and Pierre Hegg, head of the Geneva Forensic Laboratory, testified that there were also liver cells on the knife. However, this testimony was later contested; the cells could have been of animal origin, and the knife had been stored for some time after the murder. Jaccoud owned two pistols, but neither was the murder weapon. In addition, on the road near Zumbach's house a button was found that matched the buttons of one of Jaccoud's coats. The coat itself was found in a box of used clothing, and was missing exactly one button. On his return in June 1958, Jaccoud was arrested. In prison he suffered a nervous breakdown and spent most of his time in the infirmary.
The trial.
From 18 January 1960 onwards, the trial took place before a jury in Geneva. The case attracted attention far beyond the Swiss borders. For the prosecution, Attorney General Charles Cornu reminded a reporter for "Die Zeit" of a "god of revenge" and "a classical mask of tragedy". Defending Jaccoud was the famous Paris barrister René Floriot. Jaccoud was in a hospital chair. There were many mix-ups; for example, Zumbach's wife did not pick Jaccoud out of a line-up but instead identified a policeman. Linda Baud stated that at the time of the act, she was no longer in a relationship with André Zumbach, but instead with another man. Nevertheless, Jaccoud was found guilty of 'simple manslaughter' and sentenced to seven years in prison minus time served. The jury deliberated for three hours.
Controversy over the verdict.
The verdict in the Jaccoud case is one of the most controversial in Swiss jurisprudence.
At the time, for the Paris press, the case typified Swiss compromise. They regarded Jaccoud as a victim of Genevan Calvinist morality. Floriot said in Paris, "If my client was guilty, he should have received a much heavier sentence; if not, he should have been liberated". He called the case "a second Dreyfus Affair" and blamed the verdict on excessive respect for authority, in this case the prosecution. At the time of the trial, Swiss students infuriated by the insult publicly burned Paris newspapers.
According to Hans Martin Sutermeister, a Bern doctor bent on exposing courtroom injustices, the verdict was nothing more than a miscarriage of justice, whose main cause was inadequate forensic expertise. Sutermeister described Hegg as "an autodidact without a basic education, who had already been wrong more often". Sutermeister, convinced of Jaccoud's innocence, believed that he had known that Baud was no longer dating André Zumbach and that Zumbach had been murdered because he supplied Algerian rebels with $12,000 worth of dud explosives. He pointed out that "Reymond" and his arms dealer friends, unbeknownst to Zumbach, also kept knives and bayonets in the garage, one of which could have been the murder weapon. Sutermeister spent considerable time attempting to show that Jaccoud's conviction was a result of forensic "dilettantism". Hegg had been censured for confusing human and pig's blood in a previous investigation, and had been defended on that occasion by Jaccoud – who had difficulty getting him to pay his fee. At one point Hegg sued Sutermeister for defamation. But he was not alone in disputing the verdict. Horace Mastronardi called it "the greatest judicial error of the post-war years". He and other lawyers tried to have it reversed for "more than twenty years".
Nonetheless, in 1980, the court rejected a final appeal of the case. Pierre Jaccoud died in 1994.
Film.
On 16 June 1974, the case was dramatised in the East German TV series "Fernsehpitaval" under the direction of Wolfgang Luderer with the title "Die Aktfotos" ("The Nude Photographs").


Sarcosaurus

Sarcosaurus (meaning "flesh lizard") is a genus of basal neotheropod dinosaur, roughly long. It lived during the Hettangian-Sinemurian stages of the Early Jurassic, about 199-194 million years ago. "Sarcosaurus" is one of the earliest known Jurassic theropods, and one of only a handful of theropod genera from this time period. Along with "Dracoraptor hanigani" it is one of the two described neotheropods from the lowermost Jurassic of the United Kingdom.
Description.
The holotype is NHMUK PV R4840 a partial skeleton that includes a posterior dorsal vertebra, partial left and right ilia, that are fused to the proximal portion of the pubis, lacking the femoral head. The specimen shows some evidence of skeletal maturity, meaning it is not an early juvenile, but its exact ontogenetic stage cannot be ascertained. Referred specimens include the non mature NHMUK PV R3542 (holotype of "Sarcosaurus andrewsi") that includes a complete right tibia; WARMS G667–690, a partial skeleton of a single individual that includes posterior dorsal vertebra, middle caudal vertebra, dorsal rib fragments, left ilium, right and left pubes, femora and tibiae, proximal end of left fibula, probable distal half of fibula, distal portions of metatarsals IV, II or III proximal half of left pedal phalanx II-1, and three indeterminate bone fragments. "Sarcosaurus" shares certain morphological conditions with other neotheropods, including "Liliensternus liliensterni" (collateral fossae of the metatarsal II with similar development and shape on both sides, larger ratio on the centrum) and "Dilophosaurus wetherilli" (lateral collateral fossa is bigger than the medial one in the metatarsal, middle caudal series proportionately lower and narrower than the middle−posterior dorsal vertebra). "Sarcosaurus" was a bipedal predator, probably able to run fast and catch small prey. The holotype belonged to a 3.5 m long animal whose weight was no greater than 50–60 kg. NHMUK PV R3542 belonged to a larger animal, estimated to have had a maximum length of 5 m and a weight of 140 kg.
History of discovery.
The fossils of "Sarcosaurus" were found in the Lower Lias of England. The type species, "Sarcosaurus woodi", was first described by Charles William Andrews in 1921 shortly after a partial skeleton had been found by S.L. Wood near Barrow-on-Soar, in the Scunthorpe Mudstone. The generic name is derived from Greek "sarx", "flesh". The specific name honours Wood. The holotype, BMNH 4840/1, consists of a pelvis, a vertebra and the upper part of a femur. The preserved length of the femur is . A second species, "Sarcosaurus andrewsi", was named by Friedrich von Huene in 1932, based on a tibia, BMNH R3542, described by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1908 and found near Wilmcote. Confusingly von Huene in the same publication named the very same fossil "Magnosaurus woodwardi". Later he made a choice for "S. andrewsi" to be the valid name. Huene also discussed WARMS G667–690, a partial skeleton also from Wilmcote, both specimens are from the Blue Lias. In 1974 "S. andrewsi" was reclassified as "Megalosaurus andrewsi" by Michael Waldman, on the probably erroneous assumption it was a megalosaurid. A later study concluded the two species to be indistinguishable except for size, but other authors consider any identity to be unprovable as there are no comparable remains and conclude both species to lack autapomorphies and therefore to be "nomina dubia".
Von Huene in 1932 referred a partial skeleton from the collection of the Warwick Museum to "S. woodi" but the identity was unproven; in 1995 it was given the informal name "Liassaurus" but this has remained a "nomen nudum". The specimen is likely one individual, located in the same stratiagraphic position as the holotypic specimen. Unfortunately, there are few available overlapping elements from the specimen and the holotype. Both specimens preserve a relatively complete femur: however, the features of both (an anteromedially directed head, a relatively long fourth trochanter and a trochanteric shelf) are plesiomorphic and thus do not indicate conspecifity or clade membership. It is noted, however, that there are no features which are present in one specimen but not the other. In 2020 WARMS G667–690 was given a comprehensive redescription, which proposed that all three specimens belonged to the same species, "Sarcosaurus woodi".
Phylogeny.
Andrews originally assigned "Sarcosaurus" to the Megalosauridae. The first to suggest a more basal position was Samuel Paul Welles who placed it in the Coelophysidae. Later analyses resulted in either a position in the Ceratosauria, or in the Coelophysoidea. Ezcurra (2012) found "Sarcosaurus" to be the most basal ceratosaur in a large unpublished analysis. In 2018, Andrea Cau in the large analysis of "Saltriovenator" found "Sarcosaurus" to be a dilophosaurid with good amount of support in the data. In 2020, Ezcurra "et al." recovered "Sarcosaurus" as a close relative of Averostra due to the presence of shared characters including an anteroventrally oriented ventral margin of the preacetabular process in lateral view on the illium and a femur with a poorly posteriorly developed fourth trochanter. Their cladogram is shown below:
Palaeoenvironment.
Holotype specimen was collected from strata (bucklandi zone, Sinemurian) that were deposited in epicontinental, shallow, marine settings affected by sea-level fluctuations and a warm, predominantly humid climate. In south-western Warwickshire is represented by the upper part of the Rugby Limestone Member (Hettangian-Sinemurian) of the Blue Lias Formation . with typical lithofacies of alternating mudrocks and generally fine-grained and frequently highly fossiliferous limestones. the Rugby Limestone Member was
deposited at a palaeolatitude of approximately 35° N in a storm-influenced offshore setting. Wilmcote was related to the eastern margin of the Worcester Graben during the Early Jurassic and adjacent to the East Midlands Shelf. The western margin of the emergent London Platform at 60−80 km to the south-east was probably the principal source of terrestrial biodebris.


Baruny

Baruny (, "Baruny", , ) is a village in Belarus, not far from the town of Ashmyany. In the 18th and 19th centuries the local Basilian monastery was famous for its school, where many of young local noblemen such as poet Antoni Edward Odyniec and writer received their primary education. The monastery originally rose into prominence because of the venerated image of Virgin Mary, which is still preserved in the church in our days.


San Pietro, Seano

San Pietro is a Roman Catholic pieve or rural parish church located on Piazza of the same name in the neighborhood of Seano, near the town of Carmignano, province of Prato, region of Tuscany, Italy.
History.
The church is documente in 998 by Emperor Ottone III. other documents cite a church in this region during 1179 and 1218 as a parish dependent of the pieve of Carmignano. In 1447–1518, it became property of the abbey of Monteoliveto in Pistoia. The church became independent of the abbey, when the latter was suppressed in 1782.
The church has a Neo-Romanesque façade and portal dating to 1928. The bell-tower dates to the 19th century. The interior was decorated around 1836 with statues of the apostles by Bartolomeo Valiani. The altar has a 15th-century crucifix, attributed to the style of Francesco di Valdambrino. The church also has a number of works by Giuseppe Santelli. The adjacent Oratory of the "Company of the Body of Christ" has a main altarpiece depicting the "Assumption of Mary with Sts Peter Macario and Roch" by Domenico Frilli Croci, a 16th-century painter.


Sorrento Cathedral

The Cathedral of Saints Philip and James (), commonly known as the Sorrento Cathedral (), is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Sorrento, Italy. The cathedral is dedicated to Saints Philip the Apostle and James the Just, and has been the seat of the Archbishop of Sorrento-Castellammare di Stabia since 1986. It was previously the seat of the bishops and archbishops of Sorrento.
History.
It was first built around the 11th century and was rebuilt in the 15th century in Romanesque style.
The poet Torquato Tasso, the best known citizen of the town, was baptized in the church's baptistery.
Exterior.
The cathedral bell tower has three storeys, and is decorated with a clock. The base of the bell tower dates to the time of the Roman Empire. The façade dates from 1924. The main doors are of the 11th century from Constantinople.
Interior.
The interior, on a Latin cross floor plan, is divided into a nave and two side aisles.
The nave contains round arches and paintings by the Nicola Malinconico, including "Sorrentine Martyrs" and "Four Patron Bishop Saints". There are also paintings by Giacomo del Po ("Assumption", "St. Philip", "St. James").
The marble altar and pulpit and the bishop's throne all date from the 16th century.


Battle of Stilo

The Battle of Stilo (also known as Cape Colonna and Crotone) was fought on 13 or 14 July 982 near Crotone in Calabria between the forces of the Emperor Otto II and his Italo-Lombard allies and those of the Kalbid emir of Sicily, Abu'l-Qasim. .
Abu'l-Qasim, who had declared a Holy War ("jihad") against the Germans, retreated when he noticed the unexpected strength of Otto's troops when he was not far from Rossano Calabro. Informed by some ships of the Muslim retreat, Otto left in that city his wife and children with the baggage and the imperial treasure, and set to pursue the enemy. When Abu'l-Qasim recognized that his flight had no hope of success, he fielded his army for a pitched battle south of Crotone at Cape Colonna. After a violent clash, a corps of German heavy cavalry destroyed the Muslim centre and pushed towards al-Qasim's guards. The emir was killed, but his troops were not shaken by the loss: they even managed to surround the German troops with a hidden cavalry reserve (approx. 5,000 warriors), slaughtering many of them. According to the historian Ibn al-Athir, casualties were around 4,000. Landulf IV of Benevento, Henry I, Bishop of Augsburg, Günther, Margrave of Merseburg, the Abbot of Fulda and 19 other German counts were among them. Otto had to flee the battlefield and swim towards a Greek merchant ship which gave him shelter. Resting in Rossano, he only returned to Rome on 12 November 982.
The defeat forced Otto to flee north, where he held an assembly of primarily north Italian magnates at Verona. He sent his nephew Otto I, Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, back to Germany with the news, but he died "en route". News of the battle did reach as far as Wessex, which is significant of the magnitude of the disaster. Bernard I of Saxony was heading south for the assembly when Danish Viking raids forced him to return. Saxon losses at Stilo had been most severe. At the assemblage, Otto secured his son Otto III's election as King of Italy and a call for reinforcements from Germany. He died the next year before continuing his campaign in the south.
The state of the Mezzogiorno was shaken up. Besides Landulf IV, his brothers Pandulf II of Salerno and Atenulf also died in battle. Though the Kalbid troops were forced to retreat afterwards to Sicily, the Saracens remained a presence in southern Italy, harassing the Greeks and Lombards. Capua and Benevento meanwhile passed to younger branches of the Landulfid family and Salerno was snatched by Manso, Duke of Amalfi.
In Germany, the Elbean Slavs, upon hearing news of the emperor's defeat, rose against their German suzerains under Mstivoj in a great revolt known as the "Slawenaufstand". The Germanisation and Christianisation of the Slavs was put back for decades.


2002 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 2002 in the United Kingdom. This year was the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.


Timeline of prehistoric Scotland

This timeline of prehistoric Scotland is a chronologically ordered list of important archaeological sites in Scotland and of major events affecting Scotland's human inhabitants and culture during the prehistoric period. The period of prehistory prior to occupation by the genus "Homo" is part of the geology of Scotland. Prehistory in Scotland ends with the arrival of the Romans in southern Scotland in the 1st century AD and the beginning of written records. The archaeological sites and events listed are the earliest examples or among the most notable of their type.
No traces have yet been found of either a Neanderthal presence or of "Homo sapiens" during the Pleistocene interglacials, the first indications of humans in Scotland occurring only after the ice retreated in the 11th millennium BC. Since that time, the landscape of Scotland has been altered dramatically by both human and natural forces. Initially, sea levels were lower than at present due to the large volume of ice that remained. This meant that the Orkney archipelago and many of the Inner Hebridean islands were attached to the mainland, as was the present-day island of Great Britain to Continental Europe. Much of the present-day North Sea was also dry land until after 4000 BC. Dogger Bank, for example was part of a large peninsula connected to the European continent. This would have made travel to western and northern Scotland relatively easy for early human settlers. The subsequent isostatic rise of land makes estimating post-glacial coastlines a complex task and there are numerous raised beaches around Scotland's coastline.
Many of the sites are located in the Highlands and Islands. This may be because of the relatively sparse modern populations and consequent lack of disturbance. Much of the area also has a thick covering of peat that preserves stone fragments, although the associated acidic conditions tend to dissolve organic materials. There are also numerous important remains in the Orkney archipelago, where sand and arable land predominate. Local tradition hints at both a fear and veneration of these ancient structures that may have helped to preserve their integrity.
Differentiating the various periods of human history involved is a complex task. The Paleolithic lasted until the retreat of the ice, the Mesolithic until the adoption of farming and the Neolithic until metalworking commenced. These events may have begun at different times in different parts of the country. A number of the sites span very long periods of time and in particular, the distinctions between the Neolithic and the later periods are not clear cut.
Timeline.
Key to predominant "Type":
Citations in the Type box refer to the information in the entire row.
Palaeolithic.
The whole of Scotland was covered in ice sheets during the coldest periods of the Quaternary glaciation and most of Scotland remained glaciated when the cave paintings of Lascaux in France were created, c. 14,000 BC. Humans began to populate Scotland during the current Flandrian interglacial but settlement began much later than in southern Europe due to the adverse climatic conditions further north. So far, a single site has produced the only definite evidence of Upper Paleolithic human habitation in Scotland.
Mesolithic.
The Mesolithic period in Scotland is characterised by rich assemblages of lithic artefacts that indicate the presence of hunter-gatherer communities, most commonly identified by a narrow blade technology and its characteristic microliths. Most common raw material is flint beach pebbles, however, a variety of other types of geology, usually from local sources, is represented. Although stone tools and their production waste represent the vast majority of archaeological evidence form this period, Mesolithic material culture would have been dominated by organic materials (plant and animal materials) that require anaerobic preservation conditions to prevent decomposition (i.e. permafrost, peat bogs, etc.). Organic artefacts cannot survive in acidic soils of Scotland. However, Mesolithic bone artefacts have been found, surviving due to favourable preservation conditions – most are associated with the Obanian tradition. Other common organic finds are shell middens, including mollusc and fish bones, and charred remains, including hearths and hazelnut shells that can provide radiocarbon dates. Most prolific Mesolithic sites are discovered in coastal landscapes, however, this may be a result of research and recovery bias. No Mesolithic burial sites have been uncovered in Scotland to date. However, human remains have been discovered in the Oronsay middens. Additionally, a handful of Mesolithic dwelling sites have been discovered.
Neolithic.
Scotland's Neolithic discoveries portray a radical departure from the earlier hunter-gatherer societies. During this period, complex societies evolve that are capable of creating substantial structures. Development is by no means linear and architectural advances are often followed by periods of stagnation and even reversal. The Balbridie site, for example, is matched by only two others so far discovered in Scotland at Kelso and in the Forth Valley and they are quite dissimilar from both anything found earlier and the monumental stone structures found later. No timber buildings of a similar size were re-created until the Saxon invasions some four millennia later. The great Orcadian Neolithic monuments were constructed contemporaneously with the emergence of the Ancient Egyptian culture, more than 500 years before the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza and almost a millennium before the sarsen stones of Stonehenge were erected.
Bronze and Iron Ages.
From the commencement of the Bronze Age to about 2000 BC, the archaeological record shows a decline in the number of large new stone buildings constructed. Pollen analyses suggest that at this time woodland increased at the expense of the area under cultivation. In Orkney, burials were now being made in small cists well away from the great megalithic sites and a new Beaker culture began to dominate. Bronze and Iron Age metalworking was slowly introduced to Scotland from Europe over a lengthy period. (By contrast, the Neolithic monumental culture spread south from northern Scotland into England.) As the Bronze Age developed, Scotland's population grew to perhaps 300,000 in the second millennium BC. There were evidently significant differences between the lifestyles of Bronze Age peoples inhabiting Scotland. For example, finds at the Traprain Law site (near modern Edinburgh) suggest that the priests there may have overseen ceremonies on a par with their contemporaries on mainland Europe. On the other hand, although the mummifications found at Cladh Hallan in the Western Isles invite comparisons with Egypt, the simple lifestyle of the inhabitants of this settlement contrasts with that of Tutankamun – even if the former's lives may have been preferable to those of the toiling slaves who built Amarna at this time.
During the 1st millennium BC as the Iron Age emerged from the preceding Bronze Age, it becomes legitimate to talk of a Celtic culture in Scotland, although the nature of the resident Pictish civilisation and their immediate predecessors remains enigmatic. The Stirling hoard was found by a metal detectorist in September 2009. It has been described as the most significant discovery of Iron Age metalwork in Scotland and is said to be of international significance.
Sites of uncertain date.
Various sites of importance are as yet undated and difficult to place in the timeline. Others contain items from many different periods whose story has not yet been unraveled or items where the time period and location cannot be easily reconciled. The Hirta and Burghead items may date from the Dark Ages some four centuries or more after the appearance of the Romans and the commencement of the historic era.


Castle Dore

Castle Dore is an Iron Age hill fort (ringfort) near Fowey in Cornwall, United Kingdom located at . It was probably occupied from the 5th or 4th centuries BC until the 1st century BC. It consists of two ditches surrounding a circular area in diameter. Excavated in the 1930s, it was one of the most intensively investigated Iron Age hillforts in Cornwall.
Description and history.
The perimeter of Castle Dore consists of two ditches (bivallate). The inner ditch is circular, measuring in diameter internally, and the outer ditch arced round it from the north to the south-east before widening in the north east to form an entrance. The ramparts (earth banks just inside the ditch) were raised later in the fort's history – from  – the layout remained mostly the same aside from the entrance which was made more complex.
Archaeologist Ralegh Radford led excavations at Castle Dore between 1936 and 1937. Five decades later, the work still represented the most intensive investigation of a hillfort in Cornwall. At the time of Radford's work, archaeologists tended to concentrate on the defences in the course of examining hillforts; Radford, however, investigated the interior and found postholes belonging to huts of at least two distinct phases of occupation.
Radford's initial interpretation was that the fort had been reoccupied in the 5th and 6th centuries AD; however, later reinterpretation based on a greater understanding of post-Roman archaeology concluded that the occupation at Castle Dore was restricted to the Iron Age. The use of radiocarbon dating at other sites lead to greater understanding of the contexts within which Iron Age pottery was found. The dating of the first phase of activity at Castle Dore was revised from the 2nd century BC to the 5th or 4th centuries BC.
During the English civil war, the final defeat of Essex's army was witnessed at the site. On 31 August 1644, whilst attempting a retreat from Lostwithiel to Fowey, Essex was forced to draw up his baggage train and remaining guns within the fort. Just before nightfall one regiment disbanded in disorder signalling impending surrender or death. By morning it was clear that his demoralised soldiers could not be trusted and Essex chose to flee.
References.
Notes
Bibliography


Portland Group (geology)

The Portland Group (defining the Portlandian) is a Late Jurassic (Tithonian) lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) in South East England. The name is derived from the Isle of Portland in Dorset where the strata are exposed and have been extensively worked. Rocks of this age have in the past been called the Portlandian stage by geologists, which corresponds with the late Tithonian stage of the internationally used geological timescale.
Outcrops.
The Portland Group crops out in Dorset on the Isle of Portland, on and near the south coast of the Isle of Purbeck and to the north of Weymouth.
Lithology and stratigraphy.
The rocks include limestones, dolomitic sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone.
It is divided into two formations, the Portland Stone Formation (or 'Portland Limestone Formation') and the underlying Portland Sandstone Formation (or 'Portland Sand Formation'). The Portland Stone Formation is further divided into a lower Portland Chert Member and an upper Portland Freestone Member, both of which are limestones. The Portland Sand Formation is made up largely of dolomites but includes siltstones and fine-grained sandstones in its lower parts.
Use in construction.
The Portland Freestone is a thick member of the Portland Stone Formation and is quarried on the Isle of Portland.


District of Gallarate

The District of Gallarate was one of the four divisions of the , the province of Milan during the Napoleonic Italian Republic. It received the numeral IV and its capital was Gallarate.
The district.
Founded on May 13, 1801, it had a population of 111,120 inhabitants. It was composed by the communes of Gallarate and other communes in the northwestern part of the department.


Castra in Dacia


Battle of Mag Femen

The Battle of Mag Femen took place on 22 August 917 between the Vikings of the Uí Ímair, led by Ragnall, a grandson of Ímar, and the Irish of the Northern Uí Néill, led by Niall Glúndub, High King of Ireland. It was one of two battles involving the Uí Ímair that year, the other being the Battle of Confey, which occurred as a result of the Uí Ímair trying to retake the Kingdom of Dublin which they had lost in 902. The battle began when Niall Glúndub's forces attacked a Viking army at a site identified by the annals as Topar Glethrach in Mag Femen. The Irish initially inflicted the majority of the casualties, but late in the day a host of more troops led by Ragnall reinforced the Viking army, securing victory for the Uí Ímair.
Background.
The ruling Vikings of Dublin, the Uí Ímair, had been expelled from the city in 902 by a joint force led by Máel Finnia mac Flannacán, overking of Brega and Cerball mac Muirecáin, overking of Leinster. However, this expulsion was temporary and Viking raids continued on Irish settlements. In 914 a large Viking fleet sailed to the previously Viking-controlled city of Waterford, and the following year more Vikings settled in Limerick, though Dublin itself remained outside Uí Ímair control. In 917 two prominent members of the Uí Ímair, Ragnall and Sitric Cáech, grandsons of Ímar, sailed separate fleets to Ireland, Ragnall landing at Waterford and Sitric Cáech landing at Cenn Fuait in Leinster. Several native Irish kings gathered forces to try to drive off the Vikings once more, including Niall Glúndub, overking of the Northern Uí Néill and High King of Ireland, and Augaire mac Ailella, overking of Leinster. The Vikings met Niall Glúndub and the men of the Uí Néill in battle at Mag Femen in County Tipperary.
The battle.
According to the "Annals of Ulster" the army of Niall Glúndub marched south to war against the Uí Ímair and halted on 22 August at Topar Glethrach in Mag Femen. A force of Vikings was nearby, and the Irish began the battle by attacking that morning. The battle lasted until the evening, with around 100 casualties between the two sides, most of them on the Viking side. The tide was turned when a large number of reinforcements led by Ragnall arrived, and the Irish fled back to their camp. The "Annals of the Four Masters" give a similar but slightly different account of the battle. In that account one thousand one hundred men died in the battle, not one hundred, and it also says that the Irish fled the battle before the arrival of Ragnall. The "Four Masters" account also enumerates several casualties not listed in the "Ulster" account: the chief of Cairrge Brachaidhe; Máel Finnén mac Donnagáin, chief of Úi Cearnaigh; and Fergal mac Muirecáin, chief of Uí Chreamhthainn.
Both accounts agree that after the battle a small force led by Niall Glúndub encamped against Ragnall's army for twenty nights. Niall sent word to Leinster that they should bring an army to lay siege to the Viking force. The Leinstermen did so, but their force was destroyed and their king Augaire mac Ailella was slain by the army of Sitric Cáech at the Battle of Confey. Augaire's death marked the end of effective opposition to the Vikings' return to Ireland. Sitric led his men on a triumphant return to Dublin, where he established himself as king, while Ragnall returned to England and soon became King of Northumbria.


Despotate of Angelokastron and Lepanto


Ad Turres (Bruttium)

Ad Turres was an ancient town of Bruttium on Via Aquilia, 18 miles from Ad Sabbatum and 13 miles from Angitula. It has been identified with either Maida (by Hazlitt's Classical Gazetteer) or Lamezia Terme ().


Nikolay Turbin

Nikolay Matveyevich Turbin (June 16 (June 4 O.S.), 1832 - after January 3, 1906) was a General in the Infantry (1902) and Russian archaeologist. He was a full member of the Moscow Archaeological Society (1878) and the organizer and first chairman of the Moscow Numismatic Society (1888).
Biography.
Nikolay Turbin was born into a noble family on June 4 (16 O.S.) 1832 in Yelets in Oryol Oblast. At the age of 9, he entered the St. Petersburg Pavlovsk Cadet Corps. Turbin graduated from the Cadet Corps on August 13, 1852, having been appointed to the Jaegersky E. I. V. Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich Regiment. In 1853, the Grenadier Regiment was transferred as ensign in the Life Guards and in 1854 he began to study at the Nikolayev Academy of the General Staff, from which he graduated in 1856. He was assigned to the General Staff and appointed to the service of the Governor-General and Commander of the troops of Eastern Siberia. In January 1858, he was promoted to headquarters captain with transfer to the General Staff. He was sent to inspect the Chinese border and compile a systematic description of the Irkutsk province. In 1859, Turbin headed the convoy of the Imperial Spiritual Mission to Beijing.
In 1862, Turbin returned to the European part of Russia: the division quartermaster of the 2nd Infantry Division (Russian Empire) (March-July 1862), the chief of staff of the 29th Infantry Division (August 1863 - January 1865), the chief of staff of the 30th Infantry Division (Russian Empire) (1865). During the Polish uprising, he was part of the forces of the Vilna Military District (Russian Empire). He was promoted to colonel on August 30, 1865.
From May 30, 1867, he was commander of the 61st Vladimir Infantry Regiment (until January 1877); in 1870 he was given the role of a director of the Mogilev Prison Guardianship Committee. From January 1877 to March 1889, he was Assistant Chief of Staff of the Moscow Military District. During the campaign of 1877–1878, he was a member of the Commission for the preliminary censorship of telegrams received from the war before they were placed in Moscow newspapers. On January 1, 1878, he was promoted to Major General.
He was the head of the Moscow military hospital (from April 29, 1887 to March 13, 1889). He became the commandant of the Vyborg Castle (March 1889 – June 1891) and was promoted to lieutenant general on August 30, 1889.
Head of the 25th Infantry Division (Russian Empire) (June 1891 – March 1896), assistant to the commander of the Priamursky Military District troops with the rank of chairman of the Provisional Administrative Commission for the construction of defensive and barracks premises in the Amur Region (March 1896 – July 1898), assistant commander of the Finland Military District ( May 1902 - April 1905), Member of the Military Council (from April 1905), Acting Finnish Governor-General, Member of the Military Council (July 1905 – January 1906). Dismissed by the general from infantry, with uniform and pension (January 1906).
He was fond of archaeology and numismatics. After the death of his wife, he raised two children.
Archaeological surveys.
While serving in the Mogilev Governorate and Minsk Governorate, and with an interest in archaeology, Turbin participated in archaeological digs in these areas. Together with K.P. Tyszkiewicz, in the 1860s, he undertook excavations in the Minsk and Igumen districts of the Minsk province, in 1870-1872.
In 1877, when he learned about the silver coin of Kiev Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich found in Bykhovsky County (of which there are 5 known), Turbin began active excavations at the village of Obidovichi, but found nothing. Subsequently, Turbin successfully engaged in the excavation of mounds near the village of Dymovo of the Senno district on the border of the Dregovichi and Polotsk Krivichi. He discovered several burials, described them. He also undertook excavations in Turbines in Zaslavl, and was interested in brickwork in Pskov.
Its archaeological materials have not been fully published, they are stored in the State Historical Museum.
In 1866, Turbin petitioned the Ministry of Education for approval of the society of lovers of numismatics, and he became the first chairman of the Moscow Numismatic Society (1888), which was engaged in the study of coins, publication of works and the exchange of information about finds. He collected numismatic and other collections, in 1912 he participated in the International Archaeological Congress (Athens).


Prehistoric Slovakia


Phoulloi

Phoulloi (), also known as Phoulla or Phoullai (Φοῦλλα[ι]), was a Byzantine-era city in the southern Crimea.
The location of Phoulloi remains unknown, and a subject of differing opinions among historians. Proposed identifications with modern settlements include Solkhat and Tepsen in the eastern part of the Crimea, as well as Chufut-Kale and Kyz Kermen near Bakhchysarai in the western part of the peninsula. According to O. Pritsak in the "Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium", "it was
probably located on the trans-Crimean route, approximately halfway between Cherson and Cimmerian Bosporos".
The city is first mentioned by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Menander Protector. It occurs next in the hagiography of the late 8th-century saint John of Gothia, who was held prisoner in the city in 787, and baptized and cured the child of the local lord, before escaping to Amastris. In the 9th century, the hagiography of Constantine the Philosopher mentions the "nation of Phoulloi", who venerated an oak tree and were ruled by an elder.
The "Notitiae Episcopatuum" of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the late 8th and 9th centuries record that the bishop of the Khazars ("Chotziroi") resided near Phoulloi and another place with the Turkic name "Kara Su" ("Black Water"), hellenized as "Charasion" (Χαράσιον) or translated as "Mabron Neron" (Μάβρον Νερὸν) in the "Notitiae". In subsequent "Notitiae", Phoulloi itself appears as the sea of an archbishop. By the 14th century, the local see had been merged with that of Sougdaia, and a metropolitan bishopric of Sougdaia and Phoulloi is well attested in 14th–15th century documents. The fate of the city after that is unknown.


History of the Czech lands

The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800,000 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the archeological site of Red Hill in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people we know by name. One of the Celtic tribes were Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name "Boiohaemum" – Latin for "the Land of Boii". Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.
After the turbulent times of the Migration Period, the Czech lands were ultimately settled by the Slavic tribes. The year of 623 marks the formation of the first known state in the Czech lands, when the Samo united the local Slavic tribes, defended their lands from the Avars to the east and – few years later – won the battle of Wogastisburg against the Franks invading the Czech lands from the west. The next state appearing in the Czech lands after the dissolution of the Samo's state was probably the Great Moravia. The center of its power lied in the area of Moravia and present-day western Slovakia. In 863, Cyril and Methodus - two scholars from Greece - brought Christianity to the Great Moravia and established the first Slavic script – Glagolitsa. The Great Moravia fell during the Magyar invasion at the start of the 10th century.
A new state formed around the tribe of Premyslids, who founded the Duchy of Bohemia. The duchy existed largely within the sphere of influence of the East Franconia and later the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy sided with the Roman Catholic Church during the East-West Schism and in 1212, the duke Ottokar I was granted the hereditary title of king for his service to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The Přemyslid dynasty died out at the start of the 14th century and was replaced by the Luxembourg dynasty. The most notable of the Luxembourg rulers was the Charles IV, who was elected the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He established the Archbishopric of Prague and the Charles University, the first university north of Alps and east of Paris. The start of the 15th century saw the rise of Proto-Protestantic sentiments in the Czech lands. The execution of Jan Hus sparked the Hussite Wars and the religious split that followed them. The Jagiellon dynasty ascended the Czech throne in 1471. They ruled for half a century before the king Louis Jagiellon died in the Battle of Mohács and the empty throne was given to the House of Habsburg.
After the death of the Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, the religious and political tensions grew, resulting in the Second Defenestration of Prague, which sparked the Thirty Years War. Many of the Czech nobles supported the Protestant side and were stripped of their properties as a result. Germanization and recatholicisation of the Czech lands followed. The spread of Romanticism during the late 18th century went hand in hand with the movement of the Czech National Revival. After 1848, the leading representatives of the Czech National Revival increased their political efforts to gain more autonomy for the Czech lands within the Habsburg Monarchy.
The start of the World War I opened the possibility of gaining full independence and formation of a sovereign state. In the Cleveland Agreement of 1915, the Czech and Slovak representatives declared their goal of creating a common state, based on the right of a people to self-determination. After the capitulation of Austria-Hungary three years later, the Czechoslovak Republic became a reality. The so-called First Republic lasted only for 20 years, cut short by the advent of the World War II. Following the end of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took power and the Czechoslovakia became a member of the Eastern Bloc. In August 1968, armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to prevent further attempts at the reformation of the Communist system. At the end of 1989, the Velvet Revolution replaced the Communist regime with a democratic Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. Three years later, Czech and Slovak representatives agreed to the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the formation of separate states. In 2004, the Czech Republic became a member of the European Union.
Ancient times.
Stone Age.
A simple chopper – left by the ancestors of the present-day Homo Sapiens – dated to 800,000 BCE was uncovered in Red Hill in Brno. First evidence of human camps was found in Přezletice near Prague and in Stránská skála near Brno which dates to about 200,000 years after that.
Stone tools were found in the Kůlna Cave in central Moravia, with the estimated age of 120,000 years. More stone tools and the skeletal remains of a Neanderthal man were found at the same site in a 50,000-year-old layer.
Human remains from 45,000 years ago were found in Koněprusy Caves were found in Zlatý kůň at Beroun District. Human remains from 30,000 years BCE were found in Mladeč caves mammoth tusks with complex engravings (again around 30,000 BCE) were found both in Pavlov and Předmostí at Přerov, making south Moravia one of the most important archeological areas in Europe.
The archeological site in Předmostí at Přerov represents the largest accumulation of human remains of the Gravettian culture,
known for creating so-called Venus figurines. One of such figurines is the famous Venus of Dolní Věstonice (29,000–25,000 BCE) found in Dolní Věstonice in south Moravia along with many other artifacts from that time. Another Venus figurine is the Venus of Petřkovice, found in what is today Ostrava. Remains of mammoth hunters from 22,000 BCE were also found in the aforementioned Kůlna Cave along with the remains of reindeer hunters and horse hunters, dated to about 10,000 years later. Approximately between 5500 and 4500 BCE, people of the Linear Pottery culture resided in Czech lands. Their settlement was discovered in Bylany near Kutná hora. Their culture was succeeded by the Lengyel culture, Funnelbeaker culture and Stroke-ornamented ware culture, which coexisted in the Czech Lands during the end of the Stone Age.
Copper Age and Bronze Age.
Corded Ware culture in the north and Baden culture in the south were the predominant cultures in the Czech Lands throughout the Copper Age. With the start of the Bronze Age, Únětice culture appeared. This culture got its name from a village near Prague, where the first discovery was made in the 1870s. Many of their burial mounds were uncovered, mostly in central Bohemia. Urnfield culture is a blanket term for various Bronze Age cultures who cremated their dead and buried the urns with their ashes. Hallstatt culture was the last culture of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The key archeological site of the Hallstatt culture in the Czech Lands is the Býčí skála Cave, where a rare bronze statue of a bull was found. Many of these archeological sites were occupied by multiple cultures throughout the ancient times.
Iron Age.
The area was settled by the Celtic tribes at the start of the Iron Age. The most prominent tribe in Bohemia were the Boii (plural), who gave the area the name of "Boiohaemia" (Latin for "the land of Boii"), which later turned into Bohemia. Before the start of the 1nd century CE, they were pushed out by various Germanic tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards). Traces of Roman army camps were found in south Moravia, most notably near Mušov. The winter camp in Mušov was built to house approximately 20,000 soldiers. The Romans were repeatedly at war with the Marcomanni tribe during the first two centuries CE. Germanic towns are described on the Map of Ptolemaios from the 2nd century, e.g. Coridorgis for Jihlava.
Arrival of the Slavs.
The following centuries of what is known as the Great Migration once again changed the ethnic composition of the Czech Lands. In the 6th century, Slavic tribes, displaced by Langobard and Thuringian tribes began to move into the Czech Lands from the east. They fought with neighboring Avars – Turko-Tartar nomads – who seized the Pannonia and frequently raided the Slavic lands and even the Frankish Empire.
Samo's realm.
In 623 – according to the Chronicle of Fredegar – the Slavic tribes revolted against the oppression of the Avars. During this time, the Frankish merchant Samo allegedly came to the Czech lands with his entourage and joined with the Slavs to defeat the Avars. Thus the Slavs adopted Samo as their ruler. Later Samo and the Slavs came into conflict with the Frankish empire whose ruler Dagobert I wanted to extend his rule to the east. That led to the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, in which the newly established Realm of Samo successfully defended its autonomy. The realm disintegrated after Samo's death.
Medieval times.
Great Moravia.
The realm of Great Moravia probably were established in the area of today's Moravia and western Slovakia in the 830s. It saw the rise of the first ever Slavic literary culture in the Old Church Slavonic language and the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet dedicated to a Slavic language. Glagolitic was later simplified into Cyrillic, alphabet that is today used in Russia and many countries in eastern Europe and central Asia. Glagolitic was created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius, who arrived in Great Moravia in 863 from Thessaloniki in Byzantine Empire. They were invited by the king Rastislav who invited them to introduce literacy and a legal system to Great Moravia. His nephew and successor Svatopluk I's diplomacy was oriented more towards Rome. Great Moravia was taken under the protection of the Holy See in 880 and six years after, he expelled the disciples of Methodius after their teacher's death. During his reign, Great Moravia's sphere of influence reached its peak. After his death, the realm was split among his sons and soon after fell to ruin due to infighting and constant Magyar raids during the start of the 10th century.
Duchy of Bohemia.
Bořivoj from Levý Hradec was the first known member of the Přemyslid dynasty. In 880, he moved his residence to Prague Castle, which laid the foundation of the city of Prague that emerged centuries later. He was a vassal to the kings of Great Moravia and was baptised during the christanisation of Great Moravia by St. Cyril and St. Methodius. His son Spytihněv I together with the head of another major Bohemian tribe Witizla used the collapse of Great Moravia and in 895 swore allegiance to the East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia. Spytihněv's nephew Wenceslaus (later proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church) ruled from 921 and had to submit to the Saxon king Henry I in order to maintain his ducal authority. He was murdered by his younger brother Boleslaus I. Boleslaus I expanded the Duchy of Bohemia eastwards conquering the lands of Moravia and Silesia and areas around Kraków. He stopped paying tribute to the Saxon king igniting a war which he lost and was forced to recognize Saxon suzerainty over the Duchy of Bohemia. The Bishopric of Prague was founded in 973 during the reign of his son Boleslaus II. The bishopric was subordinated to the Archbishopric of Mainz.
In 1002, during the reign of the duke Vladivoj, the Duchy of Bohemia formally became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. After a period of dynastic infighting, Oldřich took power. His son Břetislav I led many ambitious conquests and later revolted against the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III hoping to gain a full autonomy for the Duchy of Bohemia. Despite the initial success in Battle at Brůdek, he couldn't withstand the second invasion of the imperial army and ultimately had to renounce all of his conquests save for Moravia and recognize Henry III as his sovereign. After Břetislav's death, the infighting among Přemyslids continued – a consequence of seniority inheritance laws. Among the more notable rulers belong (Vratislaus II and Vladislaus) who were awarded lifetime titles of kings by the Holy Roman Emperors for their services.
Kingdom of Bohemia.
Late Přemyslids.
In 1212 Ottokar I was granted a hereditary title of the King of Bohemia by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Thus began the Kingdom of Bohemia, which lasted de iure until the end of World War I. His reign marked the start of the German eastward colonization, which over time significantly altered the language composition of the Czech Lands. His son Wenceslaus I had to deal with the Mongol invasion of Europe at the start of 1240s. He managed to defend Bohemia, but Moravian lands were heavily plundered. When the Duke of Austria Frederick II died in 1246 without male heirs, Wenceslaus I tried to secure the Austrian lands by marrying his eldest son Vladislaus to Frederick's nice Gertrude. This plan failed because of Vladislaus's premature death in the year after. Wenceslaus I then decided for the invasion of Austria and he was successful. His successor, Ottokar II, continued the expansion of the realm. He gained more territory south of Austria and led two crusades against the pagan Old Prussians. He was hoping to gain the Imperial crown, but lost in the 1273 election to Rudolf of Habsburg, the first in a line of Habsburg emperors. Rudolf of Habsburg demanded that Ottokar II returns all of the lands he had acquired south of Bohemia. Ottokar refused and waged two wars against the emperor which ended with his death at the battlefield of Marchfeld in 1278.
The crown was passed to his 6-year-old son Wenceslaus II. Otto V, Margrave of Brandenburg ruled as a regent in his stead, later replaced by Záviš of Falkenštejn, who married Ottokar II's widow. In 1290, Wenceslaus II had Záviš beheaded for alleged treason and began ruling independently. Year later, Przemysł II, the king of Poland, was murdered and Wenceslaus II gained the Polish crown for himself. At the end of the 13th century, huge deposits of silver were found in Kutná Hora, which allowed him to start issuing vast amounts of silver coins called Prague groschen. In 1301, another neighbouring monarch died – Andrew III of Hungary, the last male member of the Árpád dynasty. Wenceslaus II married his son Wenceslaus III to Andrew III's only daughter and had him crowned in Székesfehérvár as the King of Hungary. Four years later, Wenceslaus II died – only 33 years old – probably of tuberculosis. Wenceslaus III abandoned his claim to the Hungarian throne, seeing that his rule was only nominal. Władysław the Elbow-high challenged Wenceslaus III's rule in Poland and conquered Krakow in 1306. Before Wenceslaus III could start his retaliation campaign, he was murdered in Olomouc by unknown assassins.
House of Luxembourg.
Wenceslaus III was the last male member of the main branch of Přemyslids. The Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of the House of Luxembourg married his son John to Wenceslaus III's sister Elisabeth and secured for him the Bohemian throne. John of Luxembourg was raised in Paris, didn't speak any Czech and was widely unpopular among the Czech nobility. John never stayed long in the Czech lands, he traveled all across Europe and took part in multiple military conflicts. While crusading in Lithuania in 1336, John lost his eyesight due to ophthalmia, which earned him the nickname John the Blind. A year later he took the side of King Philip VI of France in the Hundred Years' War and died in 1346 in the Battle of Crécy. His eldest son, Charles IV succeeded him on the Bohemian throne.
Earlier in 1346, the Pope Clement VI declared the Emperor Louis IV a heretic and demanded a new Imperial election. Charles IV was the pope's preferred candidate and he was crowned as the King of Romans in November 1346 in Bonn. Charles had been in charge of the administration of Czech Lands since 1333, due to his father's absence and health indisposition. Soon after his coronation as the King of Bohemia and the King of Romans, he settled in Prague and laid the foundations of the New Town expanding the capitol. In 1348 he founded the University of Prague, the first university north of Alps and east of Paris. He also legally established the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ("Corona regni Bohemiae" in Latin), meaning the core territories no longer belonged to a king or a dynasty but to the Bohemian monarchy (crown) itself. In 1355, Charles IV travelled to Rome where he was crowned the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He ruled as the Holy Roman Emperor for over 20 years and managed to secure the title of the King of Romans for his eldest son Wenceslaus IV.
Wenceslaus IV didn't share the governance abilities of his father. In 1393, the torture and murder John of Nepomuk – vicar-general of the archbishop Jan of Jenštejn – sparked a noble rebellion. He was imprisoned for two years at Králův Dvůr and was only released after an intervention from his younger brother Sigismund, who had become the King of Hungary. In 1400, Wenceslaus IV was deposed as the Holy Roman Emperor, mainly due to his failure to address the Papal Schism. Two years later, Wenceslaus IV was briefly imprisoned again, this time by his brother Sigismund, who looted Moravia. After the death of Rupert – who had replaced Wenceslaus as the King of Romans – Wenceslaus IV competed with his brother Sigismund and his cousin Jobst of Moravia for the title of the King of Romans. He ultimately surrendered the title to Sigismund in exchange for keeping Bohemia. In 1414, Sigismund called the Council of Constance, which finally resolved the Papal Schism. It also condemned the teaching of Jan Hus, rector of the University of Prague and a popular church reformist. After Jan Hus refused to retract his teachings, he was burnt alive at stake, which prompted the Hussite Wars. The religious military conflicts stopped in 1434 with the battle Battle of Lipany, but the religious tensions continued on. Although Sigismund became the titular King of Bohemia after Wenceslaus IV's death in 1419, it wasn't until 1436 that he was recognized by the Czech Estates and he died a year after.
House of Habsburg.
After Sigismunds's death the title of the King of Bohemia went to his son-in-law Albert from the House of Habsburg, who died shortly after. The claim to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown was passed to his unborn son Ladislaus, who gained the nickname "Posthumous". He was raised at the court of his distant relative Emperor Frederick III. Although he was crowned the King of Bohemia in 1453, his regent George of Poděbrady continued to effectively rule Bohemia in his stead. Ladislaus died in Prague after fleeing a rebellion in Hungary, aged only seventeen. Many of his contemporaries suspected he was poisoned, but modern examinations of his skeleton proved he died of acute leukemia. With his death the Albertinian Line of the House of Habsburg ended.
House of Poděbrady.
In 1458, the estates of Bohemia elected George of Poděbrady as the new King of Bohemia. He had a difficult role trying to maintain a fragile peace between the Catholic side and the Hussite side, for which he earned the nickname "King of two peoples". Despite his efforts, he ultimately did not succeed and in 1465, the catholic nobles formed the Unity of Green Mountain and challenged his rule. A year after, he was excommunicated by the new Pope Paul II, which gave a justification for the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus to invade the Czech Lands and start the Bohemian–Hungarian War. <br>
House of Jagiellon.
After the king George's death, the war was continued by Vladislaus II from the House of Jagiellon, who was offered the throne of Bohemia by George of Poděbrady himself. After ten years of fighting, the Bohemian-Hungarian War finally ended by signing of the Peace of Olomouc in 1479, in which Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia were ceded to Matthias Corvinus for the rest of his life and both monarchs were allowed to use the title of King of Bohemia. In 1485, Vladislaus II confirmed right of all Bohemian noblemen and commoners to freely adhere either to Hussitism or Catholicism in the Peace of Kutná Hora. After Matthias Corvinus died in 1490, Vladislaus II was elected the King of Hungary and gained all the territories he ceded 30 years earlier. From then on he ruled from Buda. Although Vladislaus II was married three times, he only had two children late in his life: son Louis and daughter Anne. Vladislaus II's two children married two children of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I as a result of negotiations at the First Congress of Vienna, tying the House of Jagiellon and the House of Habsburg together.
A year after that, in 1516, Vladislaus II died and his ten-year-old son Louis II became the king of both Hungary and Bohemia. In 1521 he refused to pay the agreed annual tribute to the new Ottoman sultan, Süleyman I and executed his ambassadors. War ensued, Belgrade fell to Ottoman hands the same year. In 1526, Louis II led his forces against Suleiman I in the Battle of Mohács, which ended with a decisive defeat of the Hungarian army and Louis II drowned during his attempted retreat. He left no heirs and so the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were inherited by Ferdinand I from the House of Habsburg, as was agreed during the First Congress of Vienna.
Part of Habsburg Monarchy.
Protestantism.
After the Battle of Mohács, the Ottomans were unsuccessful in their Siege of Vienna in 1529 and Ferdinand I managed to sign the Treaty of Constantinopole, postponing the Ottoman expansion attempts. Ferdinand and his brother Charles V – who was the Holy Roman Emperor at the same time – had to deal with not only the Ottoman threat, but also with the Schmalkaldic League which formed in 1531 to advance the interests of Lutheran states in the Holy Roman Empire. Largely Protestant Czech nobility had a favorable view of the Schmalkaldic League's goals and so when in 1546 Ferdinand I ordered the Czech estates to raise their army and march against the Protestant Electorate of Saxony as part of the Schmalkaldic War, they did so very reluctantly. The next year the Czech estates refused to gather an army again and rebelled, for which they were punished after the Schmalkaldic League decisively lost the Battle of Mühlberg. As a result, Ferdinand I managed to strengthen his position in the Land of the Bohemian Crown, limit city privileges and begin the process of recatholicization by inviting the Jesuit Order to Prague in 1556. <br>
Maximilian II succeeded Ferdinand I in 1562 and – like his father – ruled from Vienna. He approved Czech Confession ("Confessio Bohemica" in Latin) – a new document confirming religious freedoms – replacing the older Compacts of Basel, that didn't take non-Ultraquist Protestants into account. He also showed his religious tolerance by reaffirming the Statuta Judaeorum – a document providing legal protection for the Jews in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. His son Rudolf II succeeded him in 1576 and in 1583 he moved the royal court to Prague. Thanks to Rudolf's patronage of art, Prague became a major cultural hub of Europe during his reign. He was a reclusive ruler who preferred his hobbies to the daily affairs of the state. In 1605 Rudolf II was forced by his other family members to cede the rule of Hungary to his younger brother Archduke Matthias following the Bocskai Uprising after the Long Turkish War. The differences of opinions between the two brothers ultimately resulted in Rudolf's imprisonment at the Prague Castle and all effective power was given into the hands of Matthias. After Rudolf II's death in 1612 the royal court moved back to Vienna. Matthias didn't have any children – same as his brother Rudolf – and he died six years later, aged 62. <br>
He was succeeded by his cousin Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria. The Diets of Bohemia confirmed Ferdinand's position as Matthias' successor only after he had promised to respect the Letter of Majesty – a document granting religious freedoms, signed by Rudolf II. eight years earlier. Ferdinand II didn't share the religious benevolence of his predecessors. A year after he was crowned, he prohibited the construction of Protestant ecclesial buildings on royal land. That led to protests among the Protestant nobility – who saw it as a violation of the Letter of Majesty – and the Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618, which sparked the conflict that would become the Thirty Years War. The revolting Bohemian estates then chose Frederick V of Palatinate as their new king and gathered an army in preparation of war. They were joined by Lutheran nobility in Austria. Ferdinand II asked his Spanish relative Philip III for help. Spanish army in the Netherlands made sure forces of Protestant Union couldn't join the revolt happening in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and in Austria. After dealing with the Austrian rebels, Ferdinand II decisively defeated Frederick V at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague. Widespread confiscation of property followed, which was then sold to loyal nobles, often of foreign origin. Ferdinand II also had the 27 leaders of the revolt publicly beheaded and strengthened the royal power over the estates. The Lands of the Bohemian Crown and especially Silesia were some of the territories that were hit the hardest by the devastating Thirty Years War. The war continued even after Ferdinand II's death during the reign of Ferdinand III.
Absolutism and National Revival.
Late Habsburgs.
In 1648, the Thirty Years War finally ended with the Peace of Westphalia. Ferdinand III continued the recatholicization and centralization policies of his father. After his death in 1657, he was succeeded by his only surviving son Leopold I. During the fourth Austro-Turkish War in 1663 the Turkish army invaded Moravia before being stopped in the Battle of Saint Gotthard. Leopold continued waging wars with Ottomans and France throughout his long rule. He increased corvée to three days a week which caused the Peasant Revolt of 1680. The infamous Losiny Estate Witch Trials took place between 1678 and 1696 resulting in almost 100 dead. More protests against the increased corvée occurred, but all in vain. In 1705, Ferdinand III's rule ended and his son Joseph I succeeded him. Joseph I planned to enact many administrative reforms, most of which he didn't get the chance to finish, due to his premature death of smallpox. One year before his death he issued letters patent ordering that all Romani people in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown had one of their ears cut off. If they returned after being expelled, all Romani men were to be hanged without a trial. Similar letters patents were published in other territories under his rule and led to mass killings of Romani people. After Joseph I's premature death in 1711, the Austrian throne went to his younger brother Charles VI. <br>
Charles VI had no male heirs and with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 he ensured that all the titles held by him could be inherited by a woman. Charles VI sought the other European powers' approval, which he gained in exchange for various concessions. Regardless, after her father's death, Maria Theresa had to defend her inheritance from the coalition of Prussia, Bavaria, France, Spain, Saxony and Poland in the War of Austrian Succession, that broke out mere weeks after her coronation in 1740. She ultimately managed to defend her title, but paid for it with the loss of Silesia, which became a part of Prussia. That was the ended the unity of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In 1757 during the Seven Years' War, the Prussians invaded Bohemia again and laid siege to Prague, but subsequently lost the Battle of Kolín and were repelled. Maria Theresa wasn't able to regain Silesia and the war ended in a draw. She tried to follow the ideas of Enlightenment, she established compulsory secular primary schools, but also state censorship of books that were deemed to be against the Catholic religion. Because of her marriage to Francis Stephen of Lorraine, all of her children were considered to be members of a new joint House of Habsburg-Lorraine.
House of Habsburg–Lorraine.
After the death of Maria Theresa's husband in 1765, her son Joseph II started to rule with her as a co-ruler and since 1780 as the sole ruler. He enforced many reforms, among the most notable are the abolition of serfdom, Patent of Toleration expanding religious freedom and the dissolution of all monastic orders not involved in education, healthcare or science. As part of his centralization efforts, he also pressed for the expansion of German language to all territories under his rule. Both of his wives died relatively young of smallpox and because he had no sons, he was succeeded by his younger brother Leopold II. Although Leopold II only ruled for two years, he spent several weeks in Prague in 1791 and he let himself be crowned the King of Bohemia. The first Czech Industrial Exhibition was prepared in honor of his visit in Clementinum and the Czech Estates commissioned an opera from Mozart for the occasion. Leopold II was succeeded by Francis I, the first-born of his 12 sons. <br>
In 1805, Napoleon's army attacked Austria and defeated the Austrian and Russian army in the decisive Battle of Austerlitz in south Moravia. In the Peace of Pressburg, Francis I lost many of his territories and soon after, the Holy Roman Empire dissolved, replaced by the Confederation of the Rhine. Following the end of Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna reinstated the Austrian Empire as one of the Great Powers of Europe in 1815. Francis I was a proponent of conservatism and his policies suppressed all of the emerging liberal and nationalist movements in his Empire. He was the first of Austrian monarchs to widely utilize the secret police and he increased censorship. His son Ferdinad I became the Austrian Emperor after him. Because of his frequent seizures, he wasn't capable of ruling and the actual executive power was held by the Regent's Council. In 1836, one year after his succession, he was crowned the King of Bohemia under the name of Ferdinand V. <br>
Throughout the 19th century, the nationalist tendencies and movements in the Czech lands known as the Czech National Revival slowly grew, lead by activists such as Josef Dobrovský, Josef Jungmann or František Palacký. The efforts of the Czech National Revival first peaked during the revolutions of 1848. Ferdinand I was forced to abdicate and his successor was his young nephew Francis Joseph I. When he – after losing the war with Italy in 1859 – also lost the war with Prussia in 1866, the Hungarian representatives forced Francis Joseph I to end his absolutist rule over Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The Czech representatives who hoped for a similar increase in autonomy were left out and the Czech lands remained firmly under the control of Austria.
Austria-Hungary.
The newly formed Real union of Austria-Hungary lasted for the next half-a-century. The policies suppressing the National Revival in the Czech lands under the Austrian government continued, as well as the suppression of the Slovak National Revival under the Hungarian government. The end of the 19th century also was a time of a demographic boom and a rapid urbanization. Population in centers of industry doubled or tripled within a few decades. At the start of the 20th century, Austria's unilateral annexation of Bosnia in 1908 caused the Bosnian Crisis and prompted the eventual assassination of Ferdinand d'Este, sparking the World War I in 1914. Many of the Czech nationalists saw the war as an opportunity for gaining full independence from the Austria-Hungary. Desertion among the Czech conscripts was commonplace and Czechoslovak Legions were formed to fight for the side of Entente Powers. In the Cleveland Agreement of 1915, the Czech and Slovak representatives declared their goal of creating a common state, based on the right of a people to self-determination. When the World War I ended in 1918, the Kingdom of Bohemia officially ceased to exist and a new democratic republic of Czechoslovakia took its place.
Modern times.
Czechoslovakia.
The republic of Czechoslovakia was declared in October 1918. It was a democratic presidential republic. In 1920, it's defined territory was not inhabited only by Czechs and Slovaks, it contained significant populations of other nationalities: Germans (22.95%), Hungarians (5.47%) and Ruthenians (3.39%). The Great Depression starting at the end of 1920's together with the rise of the National Socialist Party in neighbouring Germany during the 1930s caused increasing tensions between the different nationalist groups in Czechoslovakia. In foreign relations the newly established republic relied heavily on its western allies of Great Britain and France. That proved to be a mistake as in 1938, both allied countries agreed to Hitler's demands and co-signed the Munich Treaty, stripping the Czechoslovakia of its borderlands, leaving it indefensible.
German protectorate.
After giving up Sudetenland, the Second Czechoslovak Republic lasted only half-a-year before it's full dismemberment before the start of World War II. The Slovak Republic declared its independence from Czechoslovakia and became Germany's client state, while two days later the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed. During the World War II – given the high level of industrialization of pre-war Czechoslovakia – the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia served as a major hub of military production for Germany. The oppression of ethnic Czechs increased after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by members of the Czech resistance in 1942. After Germany's defeat in 1945, the vast majority of ethnic Germans were forcefully deported from Czechoslovakia.
Rule of the Communist Party.
In February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power in a coup d'état. Klement Gottwald became the first communist president. He nationalized the country's industry and collectivized its farms to form Sovkhozs inspired by the Soviet model. Czechoslovakia thus became a part of the Eastern Bloc. Attempts at a reformation of the political system during the Prague Spring of 1968 were ended by the invasion of armies of the Warsaw Pact. The Czechoslovakia remained under the rule of the Communist Party until the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Post Cold War.
One of the leaders of the dissent, Václav Havel became the first president of the democratic Czechoslovakia. Slovakia's demands for sovereignty were fulfilled at the end of 1992, when the representatives of Czechs and Slovaks agreed to split the Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The official start of the current Czech Republic was set on the 1st January 1993. The Czech Republic became a member of NATO in 1999, and the European Union in May 2004.
See also.
Lists:


List of tallest buildings in Europe by year

This list of tallest buildings in Europe by year ranks the tallest buildings in Europe by year according to height. Only the ten tallest buildings are included for all decades other than those buildings currently tallest in Europe. The current tallest building in Europe is the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which rises and was completed in 2018.
Current Tallest.
This is a list of the tallest completed buildings in Europe. Heights are measured to the structural height, which includes architectural elements, but not communications spires or antennas. All measurements are according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Only the tallest 20 completed buildings in Europe are included.
Historical Tallest.
This is a list of the tallest completed buildings in Europe at the end of recent decades. Heights are measured to the structural height, which includes architectural elements, but not communications spires or antennas. All measurements are according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Only the tallest 10 completed buildings in Europe are included in each section.


Winter Line

The Winter Line was a series of German and Italian military fortifications in Italy, constructed during World War II by Organisation Todt and commanded by Albert Kesselring. The series of three lines was designed to defend a western section of Italy, focused around the town of Monte Cassino, through which ran the important Highway 6 which led uninterrupted to Rome. The primary Gustav Line ran across Italy from just north of where the Garigliano River flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, through the Apennine Mountains to the mouth of the Sangro River on the Adriatic coast in the east. The two subsidiary lines, the Bernhardt Line and the Hitler Line ran much shorter distances from the Tyrrehnian sea to just North East of Cassino where they would merge into the Gustav Line. Relative to the Gustav Line, the Hitler Line stood to the North-West and the Bernhardt Line to the South-East of the primary defenses.
The Gustav Line, though ultimately broken, effectively slowed the Allied advance for months between December 1943 and June 1944. Major battles in the assault on the Winter Line at Monte Cassino and Anzio alone resulted in 98,000 Allied casualties and 60,000 Axis casualties.
Gustav Line.
The Gustav Line stretched across the Italian peninsula and barred the way to Rome for the two Allied armies in Italy: the U.S. 5th Army in the west and the British 8th Army in the east. The Allies' grand strategy in the autumn of 1943 was for the 8th Army to advance through the Sangro River defences, then hook south at Avezzano and enter Rome from the rear while the 5th Army approached from the south.
The center of the Gustav line crossed the main route north to Rome at strategically crucial Highway 6. It followed the Liri Valley and was anchored around the mountains behind the town of Cassino. Above it stood the ancient Benedictine sanctuary of Monte Cassino, which dominated the valley entrance, and Monte Cassino, which gave the defenders clear observation of potential attackers advancing towards the valley mouth. The U.S. 5th Army was held up in front of these positions through the winter of 1943-44. They attempted to flank the position by the landings at Anzio but bogged down quickly there. A bloody and protracted battle was waged over the monastery, known as the Battle of Monte Cassino.
The eastern end of the line was held by the coastal town of Ortona, captured by Canadian forces in the fierce Battle of Ortona in December 1943 which became known as "the little Stalingrad." Failure by the 8th Army to capture Orsogna however put an end to the Allied plans of a strong drive up the eastern coast. Rain, flooded rivers, and high casualties, as well as the departure of General Montgomery, all put a halt to Allied plans until the spring of 1944. The Gustav Line thus fulfilled the wishes of Field Marshal Kesselring of keeping the Allies south of the so-called Winter Line.
Bernhardt and Hitler Lines.
On the western side of the Apennines were two subsidiary lines, the Bernhardt Line in front of the main Gustav positions, and the Hitler Line some 8 kilometres (5 mi) to the rear. The Winter Line was fortified with gun pits, concrete bunkers, turreted machine-gun emplacements, barbed-wire and minefields. It was the strongest of the German defensive lines south of Rome. About 15 German divisions were employed in the defence. It took the Allies from mid-November 1943 to June 1944 to fight through all the various elements of the Winter Line, including the well-known battles at Monte Cassino and Anzio.
The offensive on the Bernhardt line was launched on December 1, 1943, as part of Operation Raincoat. British and American troops took the terrain around Monte Camino and the Mingano Gap within a week and a half of launching the assault but German operations persisted in the area for months.
Some authorities define the Bernhardt Line as crossing Italy from coast to coast following not just the western defensive positions described above but incorporating also the eastern defences of the Gustav Line. Other authorities use the Winter Line name interchangeably with the Gustav Line as defined above.


Bathynectes muelleri

Bathynectes muelleri is an extinct species of polybiid crab and the oldest known species of the genus "Bathynectes". It lived in the Central Paratethys of modern-day Ukraine during the Badenian age(Langhian, middle Miocene ). While extant species of "Bathynectes" live mainly in deep water habitats, "B. muelleri" fossils were found in sediments indicative of shallow water habitats, suggesting the earliest "Bathynectes" originated in shallow waters, and descendent species migrated to deep-water habitats.


Scarborough Formation

The Scarborough Formation is a geologic formation in England. It is part of the Ravenscar Group, and was deposited in the Bajocian of the Middle Jurassic


Murchisoniceras

Murchisoniceras is an extinct genus of cephalopod Nautiloid, that lived during the Silurian from 425 to 416 mya, in what would be Europe, existing for approximately .
Taxonomy.
"Murchisoniceras" was named by Babin in 1966 and is commonly assigned to the Orthocerida; sometimes as "Insertae sedis"
Ivan Kolebaba, 2002, included "Murchisoniceras" in the Palliocerida, an order of orthoconic nautiloids established by Marek, 1998, for those with incomplete connecting rings and suggestions of cameral mantle, along with other similar genera.
Morphology.
The shell of "Murchisoniceras" is generally long and straight (orthoconic). Chambers have organic deposits of calcite which provide counterbalance. Connecting rings in the siphuncle are incomplete. In life, these animals may have been similar to the modern squid, except for the long shell.
Fossil distribution.
"Murchisoniceras" is known from central Europe, Czech Republic, Bohemia.


Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts

Several Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts occurred in 1991, after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 11 March 1990. As a Soviet republic, the Lithuanian SSR did not have a state border with customs or checkpoints. The newly declared Republic of Lithuania began establishing the State Border Guard Service, before it was internationally recognized on 27 August 1991 by the states of the European Community. These posts also became a symbol of its struggle for independence. The Soviet government viewed the customs posts as illegal and sent the OMON (Special Purpose Police Unit) troops against the posts, especially those along the eastern border with Belarus. The unarmed custom officers and armed policemen were harassed, beaten or killed, their cars were stolen or bombed, the posts were burned down or wrecked, and work of the checkpoints was otherwise disrupted. Two of the incidents resulted in the deaths of eight Lithuanian citizens. In total, about 60 officers were attacked and injured, and 23 border posts were burned or destroyed.
Early attacks.
The first incident occurred on 17 December 1990 in Eišiškės. Shift leader Petras Pumputis was beaten, lost consciousness, and was taken to a hospital with a cerebral hemorrhage. The first organized attacks were organized following the events of 11–13 January 1991 in Vilnius when 14 civilians were killed near the Vilnius TV Tower. Soviet troops attacked and burned border posts in Medininkai and Lavoriškės on 27 January. On 1 March, OMON troops fired at a border guard bus returning from Vilnius. Three Lithuanian guards were injured.
In mid-May 1991, various incidents were reported almost daily. On 18 May, Belarusian police captain A. Fiyaz (A. Фиязь) fired at a Lithuanian post in Šalčininkai with a TT pistol; Fiyaz was killed when a Lithuanian officer returned fire with a hunting rifle. Fearing retaliation, the Lithuanian officers were ordered to leave their posts. Officer Gintaras Žagunis did not leave his station in Krakūnai and was killed on 19 May. Žagunis was given a public funeral in the Antakalnis Cemetery. The same night two other posts were burned down. On 23 May, OMON troops from Riga assaulted border posts on the Lithuanian–Latvian border in , Mažeikiai, , Saločiai, . Five Latvian posts were also attacked. The attack on Smėlynė was filmed by Alexander Nevzorov and later shown on Leningrad TV.
Following these attacks, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius officially complained to Boris Pugo, Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs in charge of OMON troops. Moscow denied responsibility for the attacks and claimed that the OMON troops acted without their approval. Mikhail Gorbachev disclaimed any knowledge of the attacks and ordered Pugo to investigate. However, on 24 and 25 May five more posts were assaulted. Lithuania appealed to western countries asking to protest about the actions of the Soviet government. Moscow continued to deny responsibility, but admitted that the actions of OMON troops were criminal. Despite promises to intervene, the attacks continued through mid-June. On 28 June, Moscow took the first actions to discipline OMON – its leaders were called to explain themselves and were reassigned.
Medininkai incident.
The most serious attack occurred when OMON troops from Riga attacked the Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai on the Vilnius–Minsk highway on 31 July 1991. It is thought that the attack took place around 04:00 because a watch belonging to one of the victims stopped at this hour. Seven officers were shot and killed: Mindaugas Balavakas and Algimantas Juozakas (officers of the Special Division ARAS), Juozas Janonis and Algirdas Kazlauskas (officers of the highway police), Antanas Musteikis, Stanislovas Orlavičius and Ričardas Rabavičius (customs officers). Rabavičius died on 2 August in hospital. The only survivor, customs officer Tomas Šernas, suffered severe brain damage and became disabled. The ARAS officers were supposed to provide protection to the post and were armed. However, their weapons were missing from the scene and there were no signs of returned fire. The Lithuanian officers were forced to lie down on the ground and then shot in the head, execution style. Those killed were buried in the Antakalnis Cemetery. The victims were awarded the Cross of Vytis (6 September 1991) and the Medal of 13 January (9 January 1992).
The incident occurred during US President George H. W. Bush's two-day visit in Moscow. Bush specifically addressed the incident in one of the press conferences, but downplayed its importance in the Lithuanian struggle for international recognition and shielded Gorbachev from responsibility. It was speculated that the assailants wanted to embarrass Gorbachev showcasing his inability to control the situation in the dissolving Soviet Union. The attack might have been a response to a treaty between Lithuania and Boris Yeltsin, newly elected President of Russian SFSR. The treaty established formal diplomatic relations and addressed economic and cultural issues between Lithuania and Russia; it was seen as an important step towards recognition of Lithuania's independence. Another version claims that the guards discovered a large smuggling operation.
Investigation and trials.
The attacks stopped after the executions in Medininkai, save for an attack on a post in Kybartai on 22 August 1991 during the August Coup in Moscow. After the coup failed, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Members of OMON dispersed throughout the former union, many of them becoming citizens of Russia. The Lithuanian government attempted to investigate the attacks and prosecute the suspects, but the efforts were hindered by complex extradition requests. In December 1991, the Lithuanians presented to Russia a list of more than 20 people wanted for their involvement in January Events and Medininkai incident. However, the Lithuanians were refused even requests to question witnesses.
In December 2006, the Lithuanian prosecutors issued a European Arrest Warrant for Latvian citizen Konstantin Nikulin, a suspect in the Medininkai killings. He was arrested by Latvian police on 28 November 2007. Nikulin had already been tried and received a suspended sentence of 2.5 years in 2004 for his involvement in the January 1991 events in Latvia. After the trial, Nikulin became a key witness to an unrelated murder and changed his surname to Konstantin Mikhailov (Konstantinas Michailovas) as part of a witness protection program. On 28 January 2008, the Supreme Court of Latvia decided to extradite Mikhailov to Lithuania, and he was jailed in the Lukiškės Prison awaiting trial. The case has some 220 witnesses and volumes of written material. The statute of limitations for murder is 20 years; thus the expiration date would be July 2011. On 11 May 2011, Mikhailov was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mikhailov appealed against the decision claiming innocence while Lithuanian prosecutors appealed against the decision hoping to convict Mikhailov of crimes against humanity. On 6 June 2016, the Appeals Court upheld the life imprisonment sentence and reclassified the crime from murder to "acts against people prohibited by international law" (Article 100 of the Criminal Code of Lithuania). Mikhailov appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Lithuania which started its proceedings on 11 January 2017. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction on 28 February, but Mikhailov submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Other suspects in the Medininkai case, namely commander Czeslaw Mlynnik (Česlavas Mlinykas), Alexander Ryzhov (Aleksandras Ryžovas), and Andrei Laktionov (Andrejus Laktionovas), are citizens of Russia and have not been extradited. In 2009, Ryzhov was tried for organized crime and armed robbery in Saint Petersburg, and in June 2011 he received a 15-year sentence. In December 2010, Lithuanian amended its Criminal Code to allow "in absentia" trials in cases of crimes against humanity. In June 2013, the Lithuanians completed pre-trial procedures "in absentia" for a trial of the three men for crimes against humanity. Lithuania has issued European Arrest Warrants for the three men. All three were sentenced "in absentia" to life imprisonment in October 2016; they are also liable to pay 653,850 euros to the state to cover expenses of state funerals, benefits and pensions to relatives, medical expenses of the survivors, etc. as well as a further 100,000 euros in compensation to each parent, spouse, and child of the killed men. Another suspect, Igor Gorban, was identified by the only survivor Tomas Šernas during Gorban's 2004 trial in Riga. However, Gorban was not charged due to lack of evidence.
Another "in absentia" trial concerns Vilnius OMON commanders Boleslav Makutynovich (Boleslavas Makutynovičius) and Vladimir Razvodov (Vladimiras Razvodovas). They are not implicated in the Medininkai massacre, but are accused of ordering assaults on other border posts and other actions aimed at intimidating the public (in total, 15 specific instances). In July 2015, Vilnius District Court found them not guilty. The decision was appealed by Lithuanian prosecutors. According to unconfirmed reports, Makutynovich died in November 2015. On 24 January 2017, the Appeals Court ruled that the District Court improperly interpreted that crimes against humanity could be committed only in a time of war or other armed conflict and sentenced Razvodov to 12 years imprisonment and 14,000 euros in compensation for damages. Razvodov is believed to live in Russia and Lithuania has issued a European Arrest Warrant for him.