History of metallurgy in the Urals

The history of metallurgy in the Urals stands out to historians and economists as a separate stage in the history of Russian industry and covers the period from the 4th millennium BC to the present day. The emergence of the mining district is connected with the history of Ural metallurgy. The geography of the Ural metallurgy covers the territories of modern Perm Krai, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Udmurtia, Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Orenburg Oblast.
In the late history of Ural metallurgy, periods of formation and development of industrial metallurgical centers at the beginning of the 18th century stand out. For example, the rapid construction and economic growth of more than two hundred metallurgy factories during the 18th to the first half of the 19th centuries until the abolition of serfdom. There was a sharp drop in production rates at the beginning of the 20th century but that was followed by recovery and growth by 1913. In the 20th century, after recovering from the decline caused by the Revolutions and the Civil War, Ural metallurgy had a strategic impact on ensuring the defense of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. In the 21st century, the development of metallurgical enterprises in the Urals is associated with the formation of vertically integrated full cycle companies.
The main milestones in the development of metal production technologies in the Urals include the transition from the old-creek method of iron production to the Kontuaz forge and puddling method in the second half of the 19th century, and the later development of hot blast at the end of the 19th century. Further, the transition to mineral fuel and the introduction of steam engines, and finally the development of open-hearth and Bessemer methods of steel production at the beginning of the 20th century.
Copper smelters of the Urals at the beginning of the 20th century mastered pyrite smelting, which made it possible to process poor sulfur ores. In the pre-war years, the Nizhnekyshtym copper electrolyte plant, the Karabash and Kalatinsky plants were launched. Through syndicates formed, British companies owned 65.5% of the copper mined in the Urals. The gold-platinum mining industry was mechanized. The first Dutch dredges appeared in 1900 at the Unexpected Mine on the Is River, by 1913 the number of dredges in the Urals reached 50, they ensured the extraction of 20% of gold and 50% of platinum. Until 1913, the average production of gold in the Urals was 550-650 pounds per year, platinum - 300-350 pounds per year.[225]
Primitive metallurgy.
The first signs of metallurgical production in the Urals date back to the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. During the Bronze Age, primitive copper-bronze metallurgy was developed among the pastoral tribes of the Urals. The beginning of the development of the Kargalinsky copper ore deposit, located along the Kargalka and Yangiz Rivers, dates back to this period. In the first half of the third millennium BC, centers of copper metallurgy were formed in the Western Urals and in the Kama region, the ore base that served numerous nest deposits of copper sandstone.
The second millennium BC is characterized by the massive spread of copper-bronze metallurgy practically throughout the Urals, the development of new technologies and metal processing. The Seima-Turbino phenomenon of the distribution of high-quality bronze products in the vast expanses of the forest-steppe zone of Eurasia belongs to this period. The centers of metallurgy of the Southern Urals of the 2nd millennium BC include settlements of the Sintashta, Abashevo and Arkaim cultures. The development of bronze metallurgy in the Urals was hindered by the lack of tin deposits, the alloying of copper which allowed to obtain high-quality bronze. Therefore, the metal objects found at the excavations of the Bronze Age settlements are mainly represented by products made of ordinary copper and arsenic bronze.
At the end of the 2nd-beginning of the 1st millennium BC, the most ore-rich upper horizons of the southern Ural copper mines were depleted and abandoned. In the middle of the first millennium BC, metallurgical products were mastered by representatives of Srubnaya culture. In the second half of the 1st millennium BC, there were isolated pockets of Ananyino culture in the Kama-Volga region and Itkul culture in the Urals.
The appearance of iron in the Urals dates back to the 1st millennium BC. In the Kama-Volga region iron products were made from the 8th to the 6th centuries BC, and in the Trans-Urals from the fifth to the fourth centuries BC. In general, the massive penetration of primitive iron metallurgy with the use of forges in the Urals began in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Forest tribes of the northern Urals and in the north of western Siberia mastered iron metallurgy by the end of the 1st millennium BC. In the settlements of the Gorokhovo and Kara-Abyz cultures, along with bronze, iron products were also constantly found.
The 1st millennium AD was characterized by the massive distribution of iron in the Urals and Western Siberia. The oldest blast furnace in the Urals, belonging to the Pyanoborsk culture, was discovered by V. F. Genning at the settlement of Cheganda I, on the territory of modern Udmurtia. Also, for the settlements of the Upper Kama region at the beginning of the Iron Age, the separation of metallurgical production into a separate craft was characteristic, which made up the specialization of entire villages or parts of them. The spread of iron crafts was facilitated by the resettlement of the Ugric tribes of the Petrogrom culture in the Urals. Remains of iron-smelting furnaces of the 6th-9th centuries were found during excavations of hill forts near modern Yekaterinburg.
In the 11th to the 13th centuries, metal goods of Western European artisans began to penetrate the Urals through trade routes, which contributed to the expansion of the range of products smelted by the Ural metallurgists. Excavations at the Kama settlements or hill forts of Idnakar, Vasyakar, Dondykar, Kushmansky, and others have shown that in the 11th to the 15th centuries the main unit for smelting iron was an adobe furnace, which operated on forced blast. The metalworking complexes consisted of forges and tool kits. The development of heat treatment and welding of metals proceeded unevenly throughout the Urals. In the 1st millennium, the main products of metallurgists were items for military and hunting purposes: arrowheads, spears, axes, knives, and fishhooks. From the beginning of the second millennium, agricultural implements began to prevail.
By the end of the 1st millennium, ore mining and its own copper-bronze and iron production in the Urals gradually ceased due to the depletion of available resources, competition with more developed cultures, and ethnographic changes that had begun. The penetration of Russians into the Urals, associated mainly with the abundance of furs in the region, facillitated the infiltration of new technologies, including metallurgical ones. In the 17th to the 18th centuries, abandoned ancient mines served as a kind of indicator for geologists in search of ore. With the help of such finds, the Gumeshev and Kargalin deposits of copper ores, the deposits of the Verkh-Isetsky (Upper Iset) and Kyshtym mining districts, as well as the Mednorudyansk deposit were discovered.
The 14th to the 16th centuries.
During the period of active colonization of the Urals, which began in the 14th to early 15th centuries, there were rumors about the resources of the subsurface of the Perm land and Yugra. But in conditions of danger to the settlers from the indigenous population, industrial land development was practically not carried out. In 1491, Ivan III sent an expedition to the Northern Urals, to Pechora, with the task of searching for silver and copper ores. As a result, a small silver ore deposit was discovered on the Tsilma River, which was quickly developed. Ivan IV declared the prospecting and mining of ores a state monopoly and in 1567-1568 he also sent an expedition to search for silver and copper ores on the Yayva River. The expedition ended in vain. In 1568, Ivan IV allocated extensive lands to Y. A. Stroganov in the Kama region with permission to use iron ores, but with a ban on the use of silver, copper and tin ores, and he had to immediately report their discovery to Moscow.
The active resettlement of Russians to the Urals was facilitated by the agrarian crisis of the agricultural central part of Russia in the 16th century. From 1579 to 1678 the Russian population of Great Perm increased from 2,197 to 11,811 households (by 463%). By 1724, the population of the Urals was already about 1 million people, while the total population of Russia was about 14 million people.
Until the beginning of the 17th century, all of the Ural and Russian metallurgy was local handcrafted production in the form of small peasant blast furnaces and forges, in which all the processes of obtaining finished products were concentrated.
The 17th to the 19th century.
The 17th century.
Beginning in 1618, the government on an almost constant basis organized expeditions to the Urals and Siberia to search for ore deposits. Also, the practice of issuing permits was used, which made it possible to search for ores throughout the territory of the state.
In the 16th-17th centuries, primitive blast furnaces were built by peasant families in the forests adjacent to their villages. The resulting metal pieces were processed into iron in forges or sold. It is known that 40 years before the arrival of Georg Wilhelm de Gennin to the Urals, the peasants of the Aramil settlement smelted iron in small furnaces and sold it, paying tithes to the district office. Even at the beginning of the 18th century, the smelting of ore in small blast furnaces was widespread in many regions of the Urals. In 1720-1722, the artisanal farms of the Kungur district produced 3 thousand poods of iron, 203 poods of strip iron and 897 poods of traditional. Subsequently, artisanal metallurgical production was legally prohibited on the initiative of G. W. de Gennin.
In the 1630s, with the involvement of foreign engineers, the construction of arms metallurgical factories began in the central part of Russia. Despite the construction of more than 20 state and private factories in the central region in the 17th century, the country experienced a shortage of metal and continued to buy it abroad. In 1629, 25 thousand poods of bar iron were bought in Sweden. To meet the needs of the Ural and Siberian enterprises (primarily salt-making) and settlements settled by Russians, iron was purchased in the central regions. At the same time, the cost of the metal increased sharply with the distance to the east due to transport costs [43]. The impetus for the development of the Ural industry at the beginning of the 17th century was the plans of the authorities to create metallurgical enterprises in the eastern regions of Russia. After his trip abroad, Peter I, realizing the shortage of coal in the central regions and the need to strengthen weapons potential, ordered the construction of mining plants in the Urals, providing them with engineers from Tula, Kashira and other factories. The Ural factories were built on the model of factories in central Russia, which, in turn, were created using the French, German and Swedish experience. The rapid development of the metallurgical industry in the Urals in the 17th-18th centuries was facilitated by the abundance of rich natural alloyed (copper, chromium and vanadium) ores in the region, as well as the availability of accessible forest and water resources. The lack of railways led to the development of a large number of small mines. Iron ore reserves were considered practically inexhaustible, while copper ore reserves, on the contrary, were quickly depleted, which led to the closure of 40 copper smelters in the Western Urals in the late 17th - first half of the 18th century.
In the absence of their own specialists in mining and metallurgy, craftsmen were invited from abroad, but they worked mainly in the central regions of the country. In 1618-1622, the Englishman John Water, and in 1626 Fritsch, Gerold and Bulmerr, together with Russian attendants, carried out fruitless expeditions to search for ores in the region of the upper Kama and the Pechora. The Bergman brothers also unsuccessfully searched for ore in 1626 in the Cherdyn region. Only in 1635, the Saxon, Aris Petzold, and the Moscow merchant Nadia Sveteshnikov found two copper deposits, which became the basis of the first copper smelter in the Urals - Pyskorsky. Failures of geological exploration expeditions at the beginning of the 17th century forced the state to weaken its monopoly on exploration for non-ferrous and precious metals. Major rewards were promised for the found deposits. This decision was followed by a series of discoveries of new deposits of copper and iron in the Urals. In particular, thanks to local residents who brought samples of bog ore to the offices of the Turin and Tobolsk governors for a fee, the deposits of the first iron-making plant in the Urals - Nitsynsky - were discovered. In the 1670s, the expeditions, not finding ore in the Penza district, began to advance to the Urals and found silver ores along the banks of the Kama, Yayva and Kosva.
Government incentives for the found ores led to a sharp increase in exploration activity in the Urals. In the second half of the 17th century, the focus of the search shifted from the Kama region to the Verkhotursky district, where a number of large copper and iron deposits were discovered. In 1669-1674, the state organized an expedition to the Trans-Urals to search for silver and gold ores. During the expedition, no suitable ore was found. Rich ores were found only at the end of the 17th century far beyond the Urals, in the valley of the Argun River, on the basis of which, in 1704, the first Russian silver-smelting Nerchinsk plant was launched.
In general, the Ural metallurgy in the 17th century did not go beyond the limits of artisanal production, the central regions received greater development during this period.
Mining factories.
With the appearance of the first factories in the Urals and the establishment of production and economic relations between the authorities and the owners, pronounced features of a subsistence economy appeared: everything necessary to ensure production was prepared and carried out at the factories on their own. Mining factories had their own landholdings, mines, quarries, forestry, stable yards, hayfields, marinas, courts, mills, and various auxiliary workshops. Such industrial and economic complexes were called mining districts and were legally described in the Mountain Regulations of 1806. The first mining plants of the Urals were fortified settlements with defensive structures to protect them from the raids of the Bashkirs.
In total, about 250-260 mining plants of various specializations were built in the Urals and the Kama region: iron foundries, copper smelting, iron-making and processing plants. In total, there were about 500 mining plants in Russia. The first Ural ironworks of the 17th century did not have blast furnaces and were small forges of several smelting furnaces. Such factories include Nitsynsky (founded in 1630), Krasnoborsky (1640), Tumashevsky (1669), Dalmatovsky Monastery Zhelezenskoye settlement (1683, the Kamensky iron foundry was founded on the site of the plant) and the plant in Aramashevskaya Sloboda (1654). The first full-fledged mining plants in the Urals were the Nevyansky and Kamensky plants, founded in 1699-1700 and equipped with blast furnaces, the last mining plant was Ivano-Pavlovsky, launched in 1875. Later, metallurgical plants and mills were already under construction. Actually, the beginning of the history of the mining industry in the Urals is considered to be January 1697, when Governor D. M. Protasyev reported to Moscow about the discovery of iron ore on the Tagil and Neyva rivers. The iron obtained from this ore was studied by Moscow gunsmiths and the Tula blacksmith N. D. Antufiev (Demidov) and was given a high appraisal. On May 10 and June 15, 1697, decrees were issued for the construction of the first Ural factories. And the date of birth of Ural metallurgy is considered to be 1701 when blast-furnace plants were launched and produced the first cast iron.
A specific feature of the Ural mining plants was the obligatory presence of a dam and a pond, which ensured the operation of factory mechanisms through water wheels. Therefore, mining plants were built in close proximity to ore deposits and the river. In a drought, when the water level in the navigable river decreased, the passage of ships was ensured by the synchronous discharge of water from several factory ponds located on the tributaries. The supply of charcoal was provided by the vast forest dachas assigned to the factories. The length of the dams of large factories reached 200–300 m and more (the largest dam of the Byngovsky plant was 695 m long), the width was 30–40 m, and the height was 6–10 m. Due to the climatic conditions of the Urals, it was necessary to maintain a large volume of water in the pond in order to avoid it freezing in the winter. The complete dependence of factories on the availability of water in the ponds led to frequent shutdowns of enterprises or their individual shops for a period of up to 200 days a year. To increase the water pressure, various methods were used: connecting ponds through channels with lakes or other ponds, replenishing ponds from high-mountain reservoirs through gutters. Another difference from European dams was the presence of pine or larch log cabins with valves to regulate the water level in the pond. A wide (up to 10 m and more) slot or "Veshnyak" served to let in excess water during spring floods or in summer after heavy rains. A narrower (about 2 m wide) working slot was intended to supply water to a water conduit - a wooden trough, which was laid along the entire length of the plant's territory and through which water was supplied by a system of wooden pipes and gutters to the impellers of numerous plant mechanisms. The dams of large factories had several slots. All production buildings were located along the working slots. At the same time, industries that required more energy to drive mechanisms were located closer to the dam. Directly behind the dam there was usually a blast-furnace shop, behind it - blast factories, further along the trough there were drilling, stacking, steel, armature and auxiliary factories. The blast furnace was connected to the dam by a bridge across which ore, coal and fluxes were delivered. Almost all the Ural mining plants of the 18th century had two blast furnaces in their composition; in the future, the number of furnaces could increase. Pig iron, as a rule, was sent to a blast factory, where it was processed into blast iron and pounded with hammers. At large factories, the number of hammers reached 8-13.
As a rule, the factory office, the manor house, the houses of the employees of the plant administration, and the church were located on the square in front of the plant. Subsequently, with the expansion of factories, such a layout became environmental stress on factory settlements, which gradually grew into cities. Factory ponds, where industrial waste was dumped, were at the same time a source of drinking water, which contributed to the spread of all kinds of illnesses. The plants located close to each other were eventually united by one settlement: Verkh-Neyvinsky and Nizhny-Verkhneyvinsky plants in Verkh-Neyvinsky, Yekaterinburg and Verkh-Isetsky plants in Yekaterinburg, and others.
The management of state-owned factories was carried out on the military settlements model. Mining superiors, who received the title of generals, were appointed by the authorities. The plant was provided with a military garrison, which partly supported the convoy with products. The work was led by mining officers and craftsmen, who were replaced on average every five years. In 1834, state-owned factories were legally equated with military organizations and their workers with soldiers. The management of private factories was carried out by the factory owners under the supervision of the state. The presence of one owner of factories in different regions contributed to the exchange of experience and technologies between enterprises.
In literature, over time, the term "mining district" became more widely used meaning a historically established complex of enterprises with lands and forests belonging to it, pits, mines, and a mining population living on its territory. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the term "mining plant" is practically not used.
The 18th century.
At the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, the country's need for metal was exacerbated by the outbreak of wars for access to the Black and Baltic Seas. Olonets and Kashiro-Tula plants in the central and northwestern parts of Russia had already depleted forest and ore bases and did not meet the growing demand for weapons-grade metal, and could not produce high-quality metal due to the presence of harmful impurities in the ores, primarily sulfur and phosphorus. These same prerequisites contributed to the shift of priority from the smelting of non-ferrous and noble metals towards iron. After the defeat of the Russian troops at Narva on November 19, 1700, the Swedes were left with all the Russian artillery, which exacerbated the need for accelerated production of guns. To make up for these losses, Peter I gave the order to melt the church bells into cannons and mortars. As a result, 300 cannons were cast in one year.
In 1696, at the initiative of the head of the Siberian order, the Duma clerk A.A. Vinius, the ore found in the Verkhotursky district was sent for examination to the Moscow gunsmiths and the Tula blacksmith N. D. Antufiev (Demidov). The samples were highly appraised, which played a decisive role in government decision-making. On May 10 and June 15, 1697, decrees of Peter I were issued on the construction of the first Ural blast furnace plants. The construction was supervised by the Siberian Order headed by A. A. Vinius. The first craftsmen arrived in the Urals to build the Nevyansk and Kamensk factories in the spring of 1700. By 1717, out of 516 workers at the Nevyansk plant, 118 people came from central Russia, including 52 from Tula, and 66 people from Moscow and the Moscow region. The launch of the first two plants in 1701 showed good prospects for Ural metallurgy. In 1702, the Uktussky, Verkhne- and Nizhne-Alapaevsky plants were launched, supplying metal, including for the construction of buildings in St. Petersburg.
On March 4, 1702, by the decree of Peter I, the unfinished Nevyansk plant was transferred to the private property of N. D. Demidov. He proved to be a talented organizer and was able to significantly increase production volumes, with the support of the authorities. Demidov easily achieved the registration of additional peasants to factories, as well as relaxation in taxes and supervision by local administrations. Since 1716, the Demidovs became the first Russian exporters of iron to Western Europe. In total, the Demidovs built 55 metallurgical plants, including 40 in the Urals. By 1740, the Demidov factories produced about 64% of all Ural and 46% of Russian iron. At the same time, the productivity of the Demidovs' factories was on average 70% higher than that of state-owned.
In April 1703, the first convoy with guns and iron made in the Urals (323 cannons, 12 mortars, 14 howitzers) was sent from the Utkinskaya pier on the Chusovaya River. From the factories, the guns were transported by horse-drawn transport 176 versts to Chusovaya, then they were delivered by water to Moscow or St. Petersburg, wintering in Tver. The first convoy arrived in Moscow in 11 weeks and 6 days, on July 18, 1703. Tests of the first guns, which had been cast in a hurry, were unsuccessful: of the first two guns, one was torn into 20 parts due to the poor quality of the cast iron. Later, in the course of mass testing of the guns, 102 guns out of 323 were torn apart. After that, A. A. Vinius ordered the guns to be tested at the factories before shipment. Later, due to the unsatisfactory quality of the metal and high transportation costs, the manufacture of cannons was moved to the factories of the Central part of Russia. By a decree on 19 January 1705, the smelting of cannons at the Ural factories was terminated.
In the first years of the 18th century, with the launch of the first state-owned and private factories, the production base of mining districts and the management system of the enterprises included in them began to be built. Almost all of the first Ural factories were built by local peasants, who were then assigned to factories. In 1700, the first registration of more than 1.6 thousand peasants to the Nevyansk plant was carried out. In 1703, an additional postscript was made to the same plant, which was already owned by N. D. Demidov. By 1762, about 70% of state peasants were assigned to factories in the Middle Urals and Kamsky Urals. The registered peasants at the factories performed mainly auxiliary work: they prepared firewood for the production of coal and heating houses, mined and fired ore and limestone, transported goods, and erected dams. On December 10, 1719, the privileges of miners were enshrined in law with the Berg Privilege, which allowed representatives of all classes to search for ores and build metallurgical plants. At the same time, manufacturers and artisans were exempted from state taxes and recruiting, and their houses were exempt from the post of troops. The law also guaranteed the inheritance of the ownership of factories, proclaimed industrial activity a matter of state importance and protected manufacturers from interference in their affairs by local authorities. The same law established the Berg Board, and managed the entire mining and metallurgical industry, and local administrations. The provisions of the Berg Privilege were extended to foreign nationals in 1720, and remained in force until the early 19th century.
In the 1720s, V.N. Tatishchev and, later, V. de Gennin, who founded the Yekaterinburg state-owned plant in 1723, were sent to the Urals as leaders of the local mining administration. Tatishchev came into conflict with Demidov, trying to weaken his power at the beginning of his work in the Urals. Demidov complained of infringement in Petersburg, and Tatishchev was recalled. Later, de Gennin, who came to replace Tatishchev, and completed the construction of the plant in 1722-1723, confirmed the abuse of the Demidovs in organizing the work of private plants. In 1720, Tatishchev established the Office of Mining Affairs in Kungur, and in 1722 transferred it to the Uktussky plant and renamed it the Siberian Mining Authority, and then the Siberian Higher Mining Authority. De Gennin transferred the Office to Yekaterinburg in 1723 and renamed the institution the Siberian Ober-Bergamt. The achievements of Tatishchev include creating competition for the Demidovs by inviting other mining companies to the Urals, developing rules for managing mining plants and staffing standards.
In the 1720s and 1740s, the Yekaterinburg plant, which gave rise to Yekaterinburg, was the largest metallurgical plant in Europe. The blast furnaces of the plant were more economical and more productive than the English and Swedish ones, which were considered the best in the industry at that time. If the specific consumption of charcoal per 100 kg of iron in Swedish furnaces ranged from 300 to 350 kg, then in Yekaterinburg the consumption of coal was 150–170 kg.
On January 18, 1721, a decree was issued that allowed factory owners, regardless of whether they had a noble rank, to buy serfs. At the same time, the villages purchased by the tycoon with their population could only be sold together with the factory. Later, these peasants and the factories that used their labor became known as possessory factories. Later, in 1744, the norms for the purchase of peasants with factories were established: in the factories of ferrous metallurgy with one blast furnace — 100 peasants, and in the copper smelters - 200 men for every thousand pounds of copper. The addition of peasants to factories led to unrest and riots, which were suppressed during the 2nd half of the 18th century. Later, until the middle of the 19th century, free labor contributed to the intensive development of the metallurgical industry.
In the first quarter of the 18th century, 20 blast furnaces were built in the Urals, and in 1725 they smelted about 0.6 million poods of cast iron. During the same period, small businesses built several small metallurgical plants: Mazuevsky, Shuvakishsky, and Davydovsky. All of them existed for no more than 40 years. After the end of the Northern War, due to a decrease in demand for ferrous metals, the construction of iron smelters was suspended, mainly copper smelters were built. From 1721 to 1725, 11 plants were built in the Urals, of which only Nizhny Tagil was blast-furnace and iron-making, the rest were either copper-smelting (Polevskoy and Pyskorsky), or copper-smelting and iron-making (Verkhne-Uktussky and Yekaterinburg). In total, from 1701 to 1740, 24 state and 31 private metallurgical plants were built in the Urals, which determined the specialization of the region as a quality industrial metallurgical center. Private factories were characterized by higher profitability compared to state-owned. The growth of iron smelting in the Urals over 25 years (from 1725 to 1750) amounted to 250%: from 0.6 million poods to 1.5 million poods.
In the 1730s, the construction of fortresses and factories began in the Southern Urals, on the lands of the Bashkirs. In 1734, Anna Ioannovna approved the project of colonization of the Southern Urals submitted by the Chief Secretary of the Senate, I. K. Kirilov, and appointed him the Chief Commander of the Orenburg expedition. The tasks of the expedition included the construction of the fortress city of Orenburg, a line of defensive fortresses in order to exclude the raids of the Bashkirs, development of the natural resources of the region, and the opening of trade routes to Asia. In autumn of 1736, 100 versts to the south-east of Ufa and 10 versts from the Tabynsky fortress, the construction of the Resurrection (Tabynsky) copper smelter, the first in the Southern Urals, was started. On May 22, 1744, a decree of the Berg Collegium was issued, which allowed for the purchase from the Bashkirs and other owners of the deposit, forests and land for the construction of mining plants. In the period from 1745 to 1755, 20 factories were built on the territory of Bashkiria. By 1781, there were 38 factories in total. During the years of the Peasant War, 89 mining plants were damaged to varying degrees. With the beginning of the uprising, in the first half of October 1773, the closest private copper plants to Orenburg were seized: Verkhotorsky, Voskresensky, Preobrazhensky and Kano-Nikolsky plants. From November to December, all plants in the Southern Urals (24 plants) were seized. By the beginning of 1774, the uprising covered the Middle Urals, the number of captured factories in January reached 39, in February - 92. Individual factories resumed work for short periods of time in 1774, despite the occupation. With the suppression of the uprising, the work of the factories began to recover. By the beginning of 1775, about two thirds of all the Ural factories were working. By the end of 1775, the least destroyed factories of the Southern Urals began to resume their work.
Since the middle of the 18th century, state-owned Ural factories began to produce gold, and since 1819, platinum. Later, mining was permitted for all Russian subjects, which led to the rapid propagation of gold mines in the Urals. In the 1750s and 1760s, the construction of factories in the Urals continued intensively, thanks to the high profitability of production and the support of the authorities. In addition to the Demidovs and Stroganovs, entrepreneurs Osokins, Tverdyshevs, I. S. Myasnikov, and M. M. Pokhodyashin, as well as officials and nobles: P. I. Shuvalov, M. M. Golitsyn, and A. I. Glebov began to build factories. Only the Yekaterinburg and Kamensky plants remained in the state administration, the rest were transferred to private management. Later, many private factories were returned to the treasury for debts (in 1764 — the factories of Count Shuvalov, in 1770 — Count Chernyshev's, in 1781 — Count Vorontsov's). By the end of the 17th century, the largest companies in Russia were the Demidovs, Yakovlevs, Batashovs and Mosolovs, which produced about half of all iron in the country.
In 1767, about 140 metallurgical plants operating in the Urals made the region a leader in world iron production and secured a monopoly position in Russia in copper smelting. By the end of the 18th century, the number of serf workers in the Ural factories reached 74.1 thousand people, and the number of registered peasants reached 212.7 thousand people. In 1800, the Ural factories produced 80.1% of cast iron, 88.3% of iron, and 100% of copper of the all-Russian production volume. Thanks to this, Russia came out on top in the world for iron production and smelted from 20 to 27% of the world's copper.
From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, problems with the supply of wood worsened at most of the Ural mining plants. The forests of the factory dachas were cut down at a distance of 5 to 25 versts. The old factories had even greater distances: the Kamensk plant had 50-55 versts, and the Nevyansk plant had 40-70 versts. Decrees were issued prohibiting unauthorized logging.
The 19th century.
The industrial revolution at the Ural mining plants consisted of three major stages:
The replacement of wooden bellows with cylindrical blowers in the early 19th century reduced coal consumption by up to 20% and doubled the productivity of blast furnaces. Further development of blast furnace technology was associated with increasing the height of the furnaces, optimizing their profile and increasing the power of the blower motors. Cupola furnaces appeared at factories, and the casting of metals became a separate production. In 1808, serf S. I. Badaev invented a method for producing cast steel, later called Badaevskaya, for which he received his freedom and in 1811 was sent to the Votkinsk Plant to organize production. At the Zlatoust plant since 1828, experiments on the production of cast steel were conducted by P. P. Anosov.
Foreign engineers played a significant role in the development of existing plants and the construction of new ones in the Urals. In the 18th century, up to 600 German metallurgists worked at the factories of the Yekaterinburg Department at various times. At the beginning of the 19th century, 140 craftsmen from Europe were invited to the Izhevsk Arms Factory, and 115 German gunsmiths and steelworkers were invited to the Zlatoust Arms Factory. After the end of the contract, many foreigners remained in the factories as freelance workers.
Administrative changes at the beginning of the 19th century were associated with the approval in 1806 of the Mining Charter, compiled by A. F. Deryabin and later included in part in the Code of Laws of 1832, and the formation of the Mining Department, which was transformed in 1811 into the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs.
In the period from 1801 to 1860, 37 new plants were built in the Urals, including 3 copper smelters. Next to the previously built factories, auxiliary plants were built, which used the wastewater of the main factories and were actually their rolling shops. During the same period, 14 Ural copper smelters were closed due to the refusal of mints' coinage and the transition to paper money. To stabilize the situation, the government in 1834 abolished all taxes from factories, except for tithes. At the same time, the level of copper production at the beginning of the century was reached only in 1826. Since the 1850s, due to the appearance of cheap English, and later — Chilean, North American, and Australian copper on the market, the metallurgical industry of the Southern Urals entered a period of long-term crisis. In 1859, the price of Russian copper in comparison with the level of 1854 had decreased by 50%.
Steam engines were introduced and took root in the Urals slowly. The first steam engines appeared in the Ural factories in the last years of the 18th century. From 1800 to the 1810s, machines often failed and consumed a lot of firewood, which caused their slow spread. In the 1830s, the machines became more reliable, there were machine-building enterprises that designed, assembled, and repaired steam engines. In 1834, the Cherepanovs built the first steam locomotive and the first railway with a length of 853.4 m, designed to deliver ore from the Vysokogorsky mine to the Vysky plant. By 1840, the number of steam engines in the Ural factories reached 73 units. Also in the 1840s, hydraulic turbines became widespread in the Urals, replacing low-performance water wheels.
In the 1840s, the introduction of the Kontuaz method of iron production began at the Ural factories. The Yuryuzan-Ivanovsky plant in 1840 and the Simsky plant in 1842 were the first to switch to it. Subsequently, the Kontuaz forges were built at state-owned factories, and later at private ones. By 1861, 364 Kontuaz forges operated at 37 factories in the Urals. In the 1860s and 1870s, when production was already supplanted by steelmaking, Lancashire forges appeared in the Urals. A more productive puddling process was introduced in the Urals in 1817 in a test mode at the Pozhevsky plant, from 1825-1830 at the Nizhniy Tagil plant, and in September 1837 the Votkinsky plant completely switched to puddling. By 1861, among 58 factories, there were 201 puddling furnaces, 34 gas puddling, 153 welding, and 23 gas welding furnaces. Before the widespread use of steel-making processes in 1857, P. M. Obukhov invented a cheap method, called Obukhov, of steel production at the Zlatoust plant.
The height of the Ural blast furnaces in the 19th century reached 18 meters, which significantly exceeded the height of European furnaces. This advantage made it possible to carry out the blast furnace process on a cold blast with relatively low costs. This led to the later introduction of hot blast in the Urals, although successful experiments on its use were carried out back in the 1830s and 1840s at the Kushvinsky, Lysvensky, Verkh-Isetsky, and other plants. Thanks to the events of the Industrial Revolution in England, the average productivity of blast furnaces in the Ural factories in the second half of the 19th century was already inferior to those in England. So, in 1800, one blast furnace in the Urals produced an average of 91.6 thousand poods of iron, and in 1860, 137 thousand poods. British furnaces produced respectively 65.5 thousand and 426 thousand poods.
Since the middle of the 19th century, rolling production has developed, and steel and iron casting continued to develop. Castings from the Kasli plant have become world-famous. At large factories, rail rolling production was mastered. In 1859, 12.2 million poods of iron were smelted at the factories of the Urals, which was about 2/3 of all iron smelted in Russia.
During the Patriotic War of 1812, many Ural factories were converted to weapons production facilities. The Kamensk plant issued 87,274 poods of artillery pieces during 1810-1813. During the war years, 47 private factories crossed over to manufacturing shells, some of which had never produced such products. Often, production plans were frustrated, and the cast guns did not withstand testing due to haste and unexploited technologies. The victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 did not allow the authorities to identify these problems. At the same time, the war substantially reduced the demand of the domestic market for metal, which led to inflation and long standstills at factories.
The casting of artillery pieces resumed in 1834. Before the beginning of the Crimean War, from 1834 to 1852, the Ural factories cast 1,542 guns instead of the 3,250 ordered, on average, orders for the production of shells were fulfilled by about 23-25 %. Already during the war, the supply of 60-pounder guns was disrupted due to a gap in testing. During the defense of Sevastopol, 900 Ural guns were unsuitable.
The development of the Ural copper-smelting industry in the 19th century was associated with an increase in the height of furnaces, the use of hot blast and coal. Steam engines began to be used to lift the ore to the surface and pump water out of the mines. Copper production has shifted to the Northern and Southern Urals. In the second half of the 19th century, copper smelting began to decline due to the depletion of deposits and reduced demand from mints.
Since the 1820s, gold and platinum mining has been rapidly developing in the Urals. In 1823, there were 309 mines in the region. 105 poods of gold were mined. In 1842, the largest Ural gold nugget weighing 36.04 kg was found at the Tsarevo-Alexandrovsky mine. Platinum was mined at the mines of the Nizhniy Tagil district of the Demidovs, at the Isov mines of the Verkh-Isetsk district, and at the Krestovozdvizhensk mines. In the 19th century, the Urals produced 93–95% of the world's platinum.
In the 18th century and first half of the 19th century, the use of adolescent and child labor was widespread in the mines and factories of the Urals, sanctioned by a number of legislative acts and reinforced in the Mining Statute of 1842. In the 1850s, children and adolescents accounted for 30 to 50% of all workers in factories, and in mines - from 40 to 85%. At the beginning of the 19th century, women were employed in 17% of factories. In the 1850s, female labor was already more widely used, and the proportion of women was about 10% of the workers.
By the time of the abolition of serfdom, the Ural metallurgy was in a deep crisis, which was facilitated by a sharp increase in grain prices in 1857 due to crop failures, especially significant in the Northern Urals. Of the 41 mining districts, 13 had a total debt of 8.1 million rubles, which increased to 12.4 million rubles by the end of the 1860s. The transition to freelance labor led to a sharp reduction in the number of workers in factories. If in 1860 there were 8,663 workers at the seven Goroblagodatsky factories, in 1861 — 7,030, then in 1862 the number decreased to 4,671 people, in 1863 - to 3,097, and in 1864 - to 2,839 people. During this period, there were 154 metallurgical plants of various specializations and gold crafts in the Urals, including 24 state-owned, 78 possessory, and 52 manorial ones. Of these, 115 enterprises were located within the Perm Governorate, 26 in the Orenburg Governorate, and 13 in the Vyatka Governorate.
In 1824, to support the miners, the government established a State Loan Bank. According to the data of 1849, the State Loan Bank pledged the Kanonikolsky, Beloretsky, Voskresensky, Troitsky, Blagoveshchensky, Yuryuzan-Ivanovsky mining districts a total amount of 1,106,995 rubles in silver. In 1851, the Beloretsk Mining District was re-mortgaged to the bank, and in 1852, the Preobrazhensky Plant was mortgaged to private investors in the amount of 300 thousand rubles with the obligation to pay the debt to the bank. In general, the pre-reform level of production at the Ural factories was reached only in 1870. The Government provided support to mining companies in the form of soft loans secured by metals and orders for the construction of railways. The industry was heavily influenced by commercial banks and wealthy entrepreneurs who bought up entire mountain districts. In the 1880s, mining plants began to be incorporated.
In 1870, at the invitation of the Russian government, the Austrian metallurgist P. von Tunner visited an industrial exhibition in St. Petersburg and inspected the Ural metallurgical plants. As a result of this trip, in 1871, he published a book with a description of the factories, in which he noted the technical and organizational backwardness of the metallurgy of the Urals, and the high cost of production. Von Tunner's book eventually became the first systematic description of the Ural mining plants.
The lack of customs regulation of foreign supplies of metals had a negative impact on the development of Ural metallurgy. European metallurgical companies in the 2nd half of the 19th century actively united in syndicates to regulate market prices and control production volumes. The surplus, as a rule, was exported to the Russian markets and sold at low prices. This led to overstocking of markets and lower prices for metals. The amount of unsold metal at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair was 0.9 million poods in 1883, 1.16 million poods in 1884, 1.84 million poods in 1885, and 1.94 million poods in 1886.
In the 1880s and 1890s, 16 metallurgical plants were built in the Urals, including the large Chusovsky (1883) and Nadezhdinsky plants(1896). The old factories underwent significant modernization, including the introduction of mechanical processing plants, the construction of open-hearth shops, power plants, and air heaters. The introduction of hot blast was promoted in the 1860s and 1870s in the factories of the Urals. Rashet blast furnaces equipped with trapping devices for heating the air were used. Despite these successes, since 1896, the Urals has lost the primacy in the share of metal produced to enterprises in Southern Russia. In 1900, the Ural factories smelted 50.1 million poods of iron. The first open-hearth furnaces in the Urals were built in 1871 at Votkinsky and in 1875 at the Perm Cannon Factory. By 1900, there were a total of 42 of the furnace. Bessemerization in the Urals was first introduced at the Nizhnesaldinsky and Katav-Ivanovsky plants. In 1900, 48.9% of the Ural finished ferrous metal was produced by open-hearth and Bessemer methods.
By the end of the 19th century, with the expansion of factories in the Urals, the problems with the depletion of forest resources and environmental pollution intensified.
In 1899, on behalf of S. Yu. Witte, an expedition of scientists headed by D. I. Mendeleev was sent to the Urals, the main task of which was to find out the causes of stagnation in the metallurgical industry. In his report, Mendeleev called the main reasons for the industrial crisis of the Ural metallurgy, off-road conditions, the preserved serf relations between factory owners and peasants, the use of outdated equipment and technologies, the monopoly of large entrepreneurs on ore and forests, and the arbitrariness of local authorities. As a result of the expedition, a plan was drawn up for the development of Ural metallurgy with an increase in the volume of iron smelting to 300 million poods per year, which did not find the support of the authorities.
The 20th to the 21st centuries.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the entire Russian industry was in a deep crisis, the consequences of which affected the factories of the Urals until 1909. In 1909, the Ural iron and steel plants smelted 34.7 million tons of iron, which is 30.9% less than in 1900. During the crisis years, the share of finished iron increased, new markets were searched for, syndicates and associations were created to fight the competition of factories in Southern Russia. To a lesser extent, the crisis affected the copper smelting industry, thanks to continued demand and an increase in customs duties on copper imports. In the first decade of the 20th century, small technically backward factories with worn-out equipment, which had become unprofitable, were closed. Of the 111 metallurgical plants operating in the Urals in 1900, 35 plants were shut down by 1913. In conditions of tough competition, factories were forced to modernize: blast furnaces with a lightweight casing were erected, hot blast was introduced everywhere, steam engines and ore preparation for smelting, furnaces and puddling furnaces were replaced by open-hearth furnaces, more powerful rolling mills were built, and factories received electricity. In the mountainous districts, the optimization and reorganization of capacities were carried out: the final processing was concentrated, as a rule, at the main plant of the district, the rest of the factories provided supplies of iron. During the Russo-Japanese War, the Izhevsk, Perm, and Zlatoust arms factories sharply increased the production of guns, rifles, and shells.
In 1908, the construction of the Porogi electrometallurgical plant for the production of ferroalloys, and one of the first hydroelectric power plants in Russia to provide the plant with electricity began. Until 1931, the plant was the only producer of ferroalloys in the country.
In 1910, an industrial boom began, which continued until the First World War. From 1910 to 1913, the production of iron increased to 55.3 million poods (by 29.9%), finished metal products - up to 40.8 million poods (by 9.6%). But the share of the Ural factories in the all-Russian iron smelting fell to 21.6%. Commercial banks actively invested in the development of the metallurgy of the Urals. The most important role in the Urals was played by the Azov-Don, St. Petersburg International, and Russian-Asian banks. The volume of investments at the turn of the 20th century was estimated at 10.8 million rubles. Modernization and reconstruction of mountain districts continued. In 1911, a new blast furnace with a volume of 150 m³ and an open-hearth furnace with a capacity of 25 tons were launched at the Nizhniy Tagil plant; two Bessemer converters and two new blast furnaces were installed at the Nizhnesaldinsky plant. The Votkinsk plant was reconstructed for the production of steam locomotives and river vessels. The factories that produced weapons were reconstructed and switched over to the production of civilian products. Also in the pre-war years, the concentration of production at large factories increased: in 1914, out of 49 Ural plants, 16 had the productivity of more than 1 million poods of iron per year and produced 65% of the total volume, including 5 factories with a capacity of more than 2 million poods of iron per year. Nadezhdinsky, Nizhnesaldinsky, Zlatoustovsky, Chusovskoy, and Votkinsky produced 36.1% of the total volume.
Copper smelters of the Urals at the beginning of the 20th century mastered pyrite smelting, which made it possible to process poor sulfur ores. In the pre-war years, the Nizhnekyshtymsky Copper Electrolytic Plant, the Karabashsky, and Kalatinsky plants were launched. Through syndicates formed, British companies owned 65.5% of the copper mined in the Urals. The gold-platinum mining industry underwent mechanization. The first Dutch dredges appeared in 1900 at the Neozhidany Mine on the Is River. By 1913, the number of dredges in the Urals reached 50, they ensured the extraction of 20% of gold and 50% of platinum. Until 1913, the average production of gold in the Urals was 550-650 poods per year, while the average production of platinum was 300-350 poods per year.
World War I and Civil War.
The modernization of private and state-owned factories and the construction of railways, which began in the 1910s, were not completed by the beginning of the war. Thinking the war would be brief, the government did not involve the private factories of the Urals in the production of guns and shells until the summer of 1915. As a result, the Ural industry was late in getting involved in providing the army with weapons and equipment. In 1914-1916, state-owned factories maintained the pre-war production of iron, but completely stopped the production of roofing iron in favor of military products. The production of high-grade iron and projectile steel was almost doubled. The sharp increase in production volumes was hindered by the lack of fuel resources, labor, and means for transporting goods. In 1915-1916, due to the lack of fuel in the Urals, 22 blast furnaces were stopped, and 11 furnaces worked at a reduced capacity. The situation was aggravated by the disorganization of railway transportation due to the priority of military needs and the mobilization of qualified personnel. In the summer of 1915, a commission headed by General A. A. Manikovsky was sent to the Urals to negotiate with private factory owners and explore the possibility of private factories participating in the production of military products, and to coordinate the actions of private factories. On November 7, 1915, the Ural Factory Meeting was established under the leadership of the Chief Head of the Ural Mining Department, P. I. Yegorov. In the future, it became obvious that the created administrative apparatus could not fulfill the tasks assigned to it. The difficult situation at the front in 1915 and the acute shortage of weapons forced the government to accept the inflated demands of entrepreneurs. As a result of negotiations, military orders were accepted by private factory owners at increased prices. The total cost of the orders was estimated at 200 million rubles.
The position of the working people worsened during the war years. The working day increased to 12 hours, women and children worked on an equal basis with men, but they were paid half as much. The organization of production was unsatisfactory: the factories received orders that they could not fulfill due to the lack of necessary equipment. After the defeat of the Russian troops in 1915-1916, 87% of the Ural factories switched to the production of military products. With the support of the authorities, commercial companies with the participation of foreign capital developed. In 1915-1918, large machine-building plants were evacuated from the front-line territories of the Baltics and Petrograd, to the Urals. The staff of the arms factories was replenished with evacuated specialists.


Japan Masses Party

The Japan Masses Party (, "Nihon Taishūtō") was a proletarian political party in Japan.
History.
The Japan Masses Party was established in December 1928 by a merger of the Japan Labour-Farmer Party (which had won one seat in the 1928 elections), the Japan Farmers Party, the Proletarian Masses Party and four other working-class parties. With both parties from the right and left having joined the new party, tensions soon arose, resulting in the expulsion of several MPs in May 1929.
With a campaign based on tenancy and unemployment issues, the party nominated 23 candidates in the February 1930 elections, winning two seats. In June 1930, it merged with the National Conference for a United Proletarian Party and the National People's Party to form the National Masses Party.


Tala Mi Saw

Tala Mi Saw (, ) was a princess of Hanthawaddy Pegu. A daughter of King Razadarit (r. 1384–1421), Saw was married to Gen. Smin Bayan. She may have been appointed governor of Martaban in 1442 or 1443 by her brother King Binnya Ran I, after the death of her other brother Viceroy Binnya Kyan.


Dzhevanshir Uyezd

Dzhevanshir Uyezd (), also transliterated as Dzhevanshirsky Uyezd or Javanshirsky Uyezd, was one of the "uyezds" (administrative divisions) of Elisabethpol Governorate of the Russian Empire, with its center in Tartar in 1869–1918.
Geography.
Elisabethpol Governorate consisted of Yelizavetpolsky, Nukhisky, Shusha, Zangezur, Kazakh, Aresh, Dzhebrailsky and Dzhevanshirsky Uyezds Javanshir Uyezd was made up of two parts: the northeastern lowland and southwestern mountainous part of Jraberd. The area covered 4,818.4 square verst. The lower part, called Arran was hot and dry during summers which made the inhabitants move to mountainous areas for the duration of season. The winters were mild and short. The middle part of the uyezd is located on the hills and is enriched with forests. The southern part is located high in the mountains. The highest peaks in mountainous ranges stretching from Gokcha are Murovdag (11,219 ft), Gozeldere-bashi (11,606 ft) and Ginal-dag (11,057 ft). A big part of Javanshir Uyezd is within the Tartarchay basin, which starts high in the mountains near the border with Novobayazidsky and Zangezursky Uyezds and flows through uyezd discharging into Kura. The importance of the river is high as it was used for irrigations means in Javanshir as well as Yelizavetpolsky and Shushinsky Uyezds.
The administrative center of the uyezd was Tartar, located on the Elisabethpol-Shusha road, about 681.6 verst from Elisabethpol.
History.
The territory of Javanshir and Jabrayil uyezds was a part of Karabakh Khanate. In 1869, it was created out of a northern part of Shusha Uyezd. After the Russian Empire ceased to exist and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was founded in 1918, Shusha, Javanshir, Jabrayil and Zangezur uyezds became a part of Azerbaijani-Armenian territorial disputes. In August 1919, as a result of a provisional accord Shusha, Javanshir, Jabrayil were placed under Azerbaijani Governor-Generalship of Khosrov bey Sultanov by the British command.
Population.
According to census held in 1897, the population of uyezd was 72,719, of which 52,041 were Azerbaijani Turks and 19,551 were Armenians.
The uyezd has 213 villages and its population was engaged primarily in agriculture and cattlebreeding with the population in lowland part of uyezd engaged in sericulture and gardening. The mountainous parts above wooden mountains were used as mountain pastures, the lower regions of the highland were cultivated for growing barley and wheat. The lowland area was used for growing cotton, rice and other various plants. The agricultural data from 1891 states the cattle stock numbered 52,800 while small cattle numbered 112,000. There were 34 factories with a total production output accounting to 37,914 rubles.


Ezuriko Kofun Cluster

 is a group of four separate sets of late Kofun period burial mounds in the city if Kitakami, Iwate, in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. The tombs have been collectively designated a National Historic Site in 1979.
Overview.
Located on a river terrace near the confluence of the Waga River with the Kitakami River at an altitude of 70 to 90 meters, the site consists of the Nekoyazu and Naganuma sites (29 tombs), Gojōmaru site (81 tombs), and Yahata site (23 tombs), with a total of some 120 burial mounds. All of "kofun" are dome-shaped, with a diameter of 4.5 to 16 meters and an average height of 0.4 to 0.7 meters. Archaeological excavations were conducted in 1954 by Waseda University on a portion of the site, and identified the "kofun" as being from the late 7th through early 8th centuries. Further investigation was performed by Tōhoku University in 1965. The "kofun" contained stone burial chambers made from piled rounded river stones, the largest of which was 5 meters in length, with a central trench to hold the sarcophagus. In the Gojōmaru district, one tomb was found to contain four chambers. Grave goods included remnants of bladed instruments (swords, daggers, agricultural implements), jewelry ("magatama" beads, cylindrical beads, glass beads, etc.), horse fittings, and shards earthenware pottery.


Zhang Shiying

Zhang Shiying (张世英; born 1921) is a Chinese philosopher. He became a philosophy professor at Peking University in 1952. He began doing research into German Idealism in the 1950s. He emphasized God as a material force in order to justify his analysis into Hegel's theology. In 1972 he published a materialist analysis of Hegel that was translated and commented upon by Alain Badiou. In opposition to the Idealist System,Hegelian Contradiction was interpreted in light of the theory of One Divides Into Two. Since the 1970s he has written works in dialogue with the broader stream of Continental Philosophy, including Husserl and Derrida.
Sources.
Negativity and Dialectical Materialism: Zhang Shiying's Reading of Hegel's Dialectical Logic
Peter Button
The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic
Alain Badiou Tzuchien Tho (ed. and trans.)


List of heads of state of Nepal

The following is a list of the heads of state of Nepal, from the unification of the country and the establishment of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1768 to the present day.


Bara Katra

Bara Katra (; Great Caravanserai), a historical and architectural monument, is one of the oldest buildings in Dhaka. The word Katra may have originated from Arabic word Katara which means colonnaded building. 'Katra/ katara' in Arabic and Persian means 'Caravan (Karwan) Sarai' or simply a 'Sarai'. It is a palatial building dating to the reign of the Mughal dynasty in the Bengal region. It is situated to the south of Chowk Bazaar close to the north bank of the river Buriganga.
History.
Bara Katra was built between 1644 and 1646 AD by Mir Abul Qasim, the "diwan" (chief revenue official) of Mughal prince Shah Shuja. It was intended to be Shah Shuja's residence, but Shah Shuja endowed it to Mir Abul Qasem.
Less than half of the structure remains, and it is in disrepair. The Department of Archaeology has been unable to take charge of the monument owing to litigation and resistance from its owners. The owners have altered the original building and encroached upon it with new construction.
Architecture.
The building follows the traditional pattern of Central Asian "caravanserais" and is embellished as per Mughal architecture. Originally it enclosed a quadrangular courtyard.
The southern wing extends , and fronted on the Buriganga River. In the middle is an entrance set in a three-storeyed projected bay. The gateway has an arched alcove that rises to the second story, above which are the windows of the third storey. The arched main entrance is in the centre of the alcove. The underside of the alcove, spandrels, and surrounding walls are decorated with plastered panels exhibiting a variety of forms, including four-centered, cusped, horseshoe, and flat arches. The main portion of the wing is two-storeyed and bookended by tall projected octagonal towers.
The northern wing was similar, but with a less elaborate gate. The east and west wings were single storey and about long. In the 19th century, Orientalist James Atkinson described the building as "a stupendous pile of grand and beautiful architecture".
The southern entrance leads to a guardroom, then an octagonal domed hall (the ceiling of which is plastered and decorated with net-patters and foliage designs), and finally to the courtyard. On the ground floor of the southern wing, there are five vaulted rooms to either side of the gateway. On the upper floor, living chambers open off of a corridor. Shops and living quarters surrounded the courtyard on all four sides.


Yasovarman II

Yasovarman II () was the ruler of the Khmer empire from 1160 to 1166. He succeeded Dharanindravarman II. In 1165, he was overthrown by the mandarin Tribhuvanadityavarman. His rule ended with his assassination by one of his subordinates.


Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, Smolinskoye

Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah - is an Orthodox church in Smolinskoye village, Sverdlovsk oblast.
The church was granted the status of regional significance on the 28th of December 2001 (the Sverdlovsk oblast Government Decree № 859). The object number of cultural heritage of regional significance is 661710759300005.
Description.
The first mention of the church building in the Smolin village dates back to the second half of the 18th century, when Archpriest Feodor Kochnev consecrated a wooden church on July 5, 1770. The wooden building was badly damaged by a fire in 1822. Already in 1823 a letter was received for the construction of a new capital building.
Today's church building is located in the western part of the village. The temple is a model of the buildings of late classicism and at the same time an example of baroque traditions of the Urals in the second half of the XIX century.
The church is stone, three-table, Sergius. Construction started in 1823. The main temple was consecrated on June 11, 1847, by the letter of Arkady, bishop of Perm in the name of the Prophet Elijah by the local priest Matii Popov. The right limit was consecrated on November 6, 1877 in honor of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, the left limit was consecrated on November 2, 1881 in the name of the Great Martyr Dmitry Solunsky. In 1887-1893 the iconostasis was renovated, the walls of the main church were painted. In 1895 the building was plastered and bleached.
The parish included a chapel in the village of Perebor in the name of St. Stephen, bishop of Perm and a wooden cross at the Smolin caves. The maintenance of the church was allocated 19 rubles annually from the funds of church stores. Also in the village of Perebor since 1892 there was a school of reading and writing.
The building was closed in 1940. Currently not restored, half-destroyed.


Saw Hnit

Saw Hnit (, ; also spelled စောနစ်, , Saw Nit or Min Lulin; 1283–1325) was a viceroy of Pagan (Bagan) from 1297 to 1325 under the suzerain of Myinsaing Kingdom in central Burma (Myanmar). He was a son of the Mongol vassal king Kyawswa, and a grandson of Narathihapate, the last sovereign king of Pagan dynasty. Saw Hnit succeeded as "king" after his father was forced to abdicate the throne by the three brothers of Myinsaing in December 1297.
The brothers put him on the throne, officially styled as the king of Pagan, but essentially their viceroy. His authority amounted to the region around the Pagan city. The viceroy gave his first audience on 8 May 1299. He raised his father's chief queen Saw Thitmahti as his own chief queen. Two days later, the three brothers executed his brother Theingapati and his father Kyawswa.
King Swa Saw Ke of Ava (r. 1367–1400) was a grandnephew of Saw Hnit.
Dates.
Saw Hnit was a son of King Kyawswa. The table below lists the dates given by the four main chronicles.
Ancestry.
The following is the ancestry of Saw Hnit as reported by the "Hmannan Yazawin" chronicle (Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 360, 402–403). He was descended from Pagan kings from both sides. His parents were second cousins, once removed.


Rawat Fort

Rawat Fort () is an early 16th century fort in the Pothohar plateau of Pakistan, near the city of Rawalpindi in the province of Punjab. The fort was built to defend the Pothohar plateau from the forces of the Pashtun king Sher Shah Suri.
Location.
It is 17 km east of Rawalpindi on Grand Trunk Road. The 2nd century Mankiala stupa can be seen from the roof of the fort's mosque. The fort is located approximately 50 miles from the vast Rohtas Fort, which had been built by Sher Shah Suri to establish control of the Gakhar region.
Etymology.
Rawat Fort derives is named from the Arabic word "Rabat" (), meaning "caravanserai" - an inn for caravans.
History.
The fort was founded as a caravanserai in the 15th century by "Salteen-e-Dehli", though the caravan itself may have been built atop a Ghaznavid-era fort that was established in 1036 CE.
The caravanserai was then later fortified in the 16th century by the local "Gakhar" – warrior clan loyal to the Mughal emperor Humayun in order to defend the Pothohar plateau from Sher Shah Suri's forces.
The fort was the scene of a battle between the "Gakhar "chief "Sultan Sarang" and Afghan king "Sher Shah Suri" in 1546. "Sultan Sarang" was captured, tortured, and then executed at the fort by the forces of "Sher Shah Suri", and then buried at the fort.
Layout.
The fort is almost in square form and has two gates. There is also a quadrangular building with a dome in the fort's inner area – an area which also contains many graves. Along the perimeter are several small cells, which may have originally been small rooms rented out to itinerant merchants.
The fort also contains a mosque with three domes. The grave of the Gakkar chief, Sultan Sarang Khan is present within the fort.
His 16 sons, who died there fighting, are also buried inside the fort.
Conservation.
The fort is federally protected as a Cultural Heritage Site of Punjab, and is managed by the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage. In November 2016, a conservation plan was commissioned for preservation of the fort. 50 million rupees were allocated in March 2017 towards the first of two phases of conservation of the Rawat Fort.


Agha Muhammad Reza

Mirza Agha Muhammad Reza Baig (, ), also known by his followers as Pir Ferutupi (), was a Mughal nobleman and Shia Sufi pir from Sylhet, of Iranian origin. He overthrew the Kachari Kingdom and revolted against the East India Company with the assistance of the local peasantry.
Early life and background.
The honorific title "Mirza" was added before his name and "Baig" as a suffix. This was the historical naming convention for the descendants of the Mughal dynasty. The Mughal Empire was defeated by the East India Company in the Battle of Plassey of 1757, and an anti-British sentiment was common among the natives of the Indian subcontinent and especially those related to and being descended from the noble dynasty such as Reza. His parents were Iranians and he was an adherent of Shia Islam.
Reza was based in the Sylhet region of northeastern Bengal. The Collector of Sylhet in the late 18th century, Robert Lindsay, described the Sylhet region as a "hotbed of resistance".
Activism.
Invasion of Kachar.
Reza was a Sufi pir, which enabled him to have the support of thousands of peasants, fakirs and ryots. It is said that he also gained support from Shams ud-Daulah, the Naib Nazim of Dhaka. He made an announcement calling for jihad against the British colonial rulers, who he preached were the reasons behind the problems that the peasants were facing.
In 1799, Reza marched with his followers from Sylhet to the western frontiers of the Kachari Kingdom. Referred to as his "hijrat", it is assumed that Reza planned to gather a larger following and secure a stronghold at Khaspur before facing the British in a war. Claiming to be the Mahdi (promised messiah) and twelfth imam, he promised to free the natives from oppression. Reza conspired with the local Naga and Kuki tribes, who were allied with the Kachari Raja Krishnachandra Narayan, and was able to convince them to join his side.
Raja Krishnachandra deployed several barqandaz (subalterns) to defeat Reza but they were all defeated by the large force, and he was subsequently expelled by Reza from his capital at Khaspur. In defeat, Krishnachandra fled to the nearby hills of northern Cachar, and some of his Hindus subjects were said to have went into hiding in the forests of Cachar or migrated to Sylhet in fear of oppression. According to legend, Krishnachandra wrote many folk songs and poems during his hiding in the hills of northern Cachar.
Rule.
After taking over the throne, many Bengali Hindus converted to Reza's doctrine, which was based on "Shi'ite-Sufism" , and gave allegiance to him. Reza declared independence, and invited other local zamindars and other to join him in his mission, promising them more land if they could liberate their homeland from the British colonial forces. According to Syed Enayatur Rahman, his ancestor, the Zamindar of Taraf Syed Riyazur Rahman was one of those zamindars invited by Reza. Reza also ordered his followers not to pay their taxes to the British East India Company. Reza's capital was said to have been situated in Hailakandi.
Defeat.
After a short while, Reza deployed 1,200 of his men to attack the nearby thana of Bondassye (now Badarpur in Karimganj district) which was under the administration of an East India Company havildar and eight sepoys. He was also said to have attacked the Badarpur Fort.
Raja Krishnachandra, who had taken refuge with the British, notified them of Reza's attack. In response, a force was sent from Sylhet under the leadership of Kalyan Singh. The Kachari army also arrived with 300 men and two grasshopper cannons but were defeated by Reza's forces. On the other hand, Kalyan Singh had defeated Reza and became tempted to take control of Kachar himself. The British Collector of Sylhet, who gained a reinforcement of 70 sepoys, defeated Singh too and ended up in a brawl between the Kacharis. Eventually, the British-employed sepoys drove out the Kacharis and Reza's followers back, leading to 90 deaths in the Kachari side.
Reza escaped but was later arrested on 14 July being sent to a prison in Calcutta. He was given lifetime imprisonment for his crimes.


Dota Gozen

, also known as Tsuchida Gozen, was a Japanese noblewoman and the mother of Oda Nobunaga, a major "daimyō" and politician of the Sengoku period regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan.
Biography.
Dota Gozen's origins are unknown, including her date and location of birth, her ancestry, and her real name. Gozen is assumed to be the daughter of Dota Masahisa, also known as Tsuchida Masahisa, a "samurai" possibly descended from the Rokkaku clan, but this is unconfirmed. Gozen was married to Oda Nobuhide, a deputy "shugo" of Owari Province and the head of the powerful Oda clan. Gozen the mother of Nobunaga, his three brothers, Nobuyuki, Nobukane and Hidetaka; and two of his sisters, Oinu and Oichi.
According to rumors, Gozen did not like her eldest son Nobunaga, notorious in Owari for his eccentric and unconventional behavior, and instead preferred his well-mannered younger brother, Nobuyuki. When Nobuhide died in 1551, Gozen moved to Suemori Castle to live with Nobuyuki, and supported him in the succession crisis that occurred. Although Nobunaga was the legitimate heir as head of the Oda clan, Nobuyuki and other family members plotted against his succession. When Nobuyuki attempted to usurp Nobunaga but failed, Gozen stepped in and asked Nobunaga to take mercy on his brother, which he accepted and turned his attention to other rivals. However, Nobuyuki eventually tried to usurp Nobunaga again and, this time, Nobunaga killed him and destroyed Suemori Castle in the process. Gozen survived both Nobunaga and her grandson Oda Nobutada after their death in the Honno-ji Incident in 1582.
Gozen spent her later life with Nobukane at Tsu Castle until her death on 26 February 1594, and is buried at Shitennō-ji located in modern-day Tsu, Mie Prefecture.


Dimasaua

Dimasaua, also spelled "Dimasawa" and "Dimasava", was the invented name created by 17th-century Spanish missionary Fr. Francisco Colín, S.J., pointing to a tiny isle in southern Leyte whose chief, according to Colín, "gave the most signal service" to Ferdinand Magellan and his crew at the port of Butuan in March–April 1521.
The incident is described in a three-paragraph epitome of Magellan's sojourn in Philippine waters, part of a historical study entitled "Labor evangelica obreros de la compañia de Jesus en las islas Filipinas", which was published 1663 in Madrid.
Principal source of Magellan story.
Colín identified his principal source for his reconstruction of the above episode as Antonio Pigafetta as edited by Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Ramusio was the foremost travel writer of the Renaissance who retranslated back to Italian a French text of Antonio Pigafetta's account of Magellan's voyage. The French text, known today as "Colines" edition in honor of its printer, was done supposedly by Jacopo Fabri who worked on the French translation based on an original Italian text which is now considered lost.
Ramusio's work is entitled "Viaggio attorno il mondo scritto per M. Antonio Pigafetta...tradotto di lingua francese nella Italiana" and is found in a compendium of travel stories, "Primo Volume delle Navigationi et Viaggi...Venetia, gli heredi di Luc Antonio Giunti", 1563. This same translation came out earlier in 1536, anonymously, in book form entitled "Il viaggio fatto da gli Spagniuoli a torno a'l mondo" without the name of the printer and place of publication. Scholars have speculated it was printed by N. Zopini at Venice. The same work, "Delle navigationi"...was first republished in 1550 without any credit as to authorship. It was preceded by Ramusio's "Discorso" where he remarks the French text was done by Fabri, which has never been corroborated by any external evidence. Vol. I was republished in 1554 again without any author's name for the Pigafetta translation. Ramusio's name as the author of the translation came out only in the edition of 1563.
Ramusio corruption of Pigafetta's account.
The Ramusio translation is a hopelessly garbled story of the above incident. In the authentic account of Pigafetta, the port was not Butuan, which was and is not an island, but an island named Mazaua, pronounced "masawa", a word found only in Butuanon and a derivative language, Tausog, and in no other of over 200 Philippine languages and dialects.
In Ramusio's corrupted story Magellan and his crew celebrated a mass at Butuan on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1521. They also planted a big cross atop the tallest hill in the afternoon of the same day. From Butuan, so Ramusio's story goes, they sailed for Cebu passing "Zeilon, Bohol, Messana..." Tantalizingly, Ramusio then talks of the fleet being at "Messana" which was the name given by Maximilianus Transylvanus in 1522 to Mazaua. "Messana" because of its familiarity to Europeans—it's the name of the Italian port where the bubonic plague started—had for a long time supplanted the true name, Mazaua, so that even as late as 1894 when the Italian scholar Andrea da Mosto had expertly transcribed Pigafetta's Ambrosiana codex, which work fully established the text of that manuscript that has essentially been adopted by succeeding historiographers, even then da Mosto used Transylvanus' "Mazana."
The confused timeline of Ramusio's story has Magellan's fleet anchored from March 28-April 4, 1521 at Butuan. Then from Butuan, they sailed for Cebu but all of a sudden are found at "Messana" which in the real story is "Mazaua" where the fleet did in fact anchor on those dates. But, as Ramusio wrongly relates, the real port, Mazaua, is supplanted by Butuan, and Gatighan, the waystation, supplanted by "Messana." It's important to remember this mix-up to have a clear view of which island in the true story Colín's Dimasaua is pointing to.
The precise story, as told by Antonio Pigafetta and the other witnesses, is the fleet had anchored at a tiny — about 3,930 hectares according to Ginés de Mafra - island-port named Mazaua which The Genoese Pilot said was at latitude 9° north, locating the skerry in Mindanao. From Mazaua the Armada sailed for Cebu in the Visayas in central Philippines passing first at a little island called Gatighan. By tracing this route, we are able to determine that Colín's Dimasaua is actually Pigafetta's "Gatighan."
Secondary source, Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas.
Colín's other source was Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas whose story of the above incident was taken from the papers of Andrés de San Martín, the chief pilot-astrologer (cosmographer) of Magellan's fleet. These papers were confiscated from Gines de Mafra who had possession of these papers which were entrusted by San Martín in Cebu way back in April or May 1521. Herrera's version is a faithful account of the incident at Mazaua. He talks of the fleet's anchoring at the isle whose name he spells "Mazagua" which is phonetically the exact equivalent of the Butuanon word "masawa." Herrera's "gu" is a Hispanicized rendition of w which is absent in the Spanish alphabet. His account also refers to a cross being planted atop the tallest hill which Magellan, his men and the chiefs or kings of Mazagua and Butuan participated in.
The version of Herrera was the true account of the incident. His name for the port, Mazagua, was the only correct one ever published from its occurrence in 1521 until 1890 when the same name, spelled differently as "Mazzava", came out in the biography of Magellan written by the English geographer Dr. Francis H.H. Guillemard.
Colín invents "Dimasaua" to linguistically resolve conflict between Ramusio and Herrera.
The friar's dilemma was which version to adopt, Ramusio's or Herrera's. Thinking Ramusio's was the authentic Pigafetta account—an eyewitness testimony that therefore supersedes in importance Herrera's second-hand account—Colín wrote that Butuan was the port where the Easter mass was held. Having settled that issue, he proceeded to deal with Herrera's rendition of the Mazaua episode. Since he had already established that an Easter Sunday mass was held at Butuan, he could not very well use Ramusio's "Messana"--the second stop of the fleet in Ramusio's story—because the name's religious connotation—missa is Spanish for mass, and "na" is Bisaya for already—creates an inconsistency in Colín's story.
Colín thus came up with his invention, "Dimasaua." The word consists of the Bisaya prefix "di" which means not and Herrera's name for the port where an Easter mass was held, "Mazagua." His "Dimasaua" means to say "this is not Herrera's site of the first mass, Mazagua (pronounced "masawa") which I have already located at Butuan." His three-paragraph story on "Dimasaua" has been translated into English by Miguel A. Bernad, S.J., digitized and published on the web at This has been digitized, partly, and published on the Web and the translation of Colin's "Dimasaua" is at https://books.google.com/books?id=NbG7kHtBma8C&pg=PA1&dq=Limasawa&ei=7K9MSY-IGY3WlQTLpKzWBA#PPA3,M1.
Colín's "Dimasaua" becomes "Limasaua".
Five years later after Colín's book had been published, another Spanish missionary Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., revisited the Mazaua incident in his book on evangelization of Mindanao, "Historia de las islas de Mindanao. Progresos de la religion": Madrid, 1667. His sources were the same, Ramusio and Herrera, plus Colín.
Combés had a different version of Ramusio, one that did not refer to a mass being held at Butuan on March 31, 1521 although a cross being planted at a hill is mentioned. This edition of Ramusio is represented by the English translation of Samuel Purchas, "Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgimes, Containing a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others By Samuel Purchas, B.D., Volume II". Glasgow,1625.
Combés, unlike modern historians who explain clearly their operation, i.e., how they manipulate their sources to arrive at a certain point or conclusion, is opaque in his method and in fact does not even fully account for his sources. But evidence—we know what were available to him—and logic, how he handled his sources, give us a clear idea of his operation.
So, Combés essentially follows Colín's solution to the dilemma posed by the conflicting versions of Ramusio and Herrera. He however does not adopt Colín's name for the waystation, Pigafetta's Gatighan. Since his version of Ramusio does not mention an Easter mass, he did not have to negate the idea of a mass being held elsewhere than in Butuan. He comes up with a different prefix, a syllable, that is unheard of in any Philippine language, and is not of French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese provenience. "Li" has no significance in the context of Magellan's travel or any linguistic tradition in the Philippines. There is such a word in Confucian or Chinese literature, but as this relates to the circumnavigation story, it is totally foreign.
In any case, Combés invents the name "Limasawa" by which the tiny southern Leyte isle is known today. Following the route earlier traced, the placename points to Pigafetta's Gatighan which is located by Francisco Albo, the pilot who brought "Victoria" back to Seville, at 10° north latitude just one nautical mile (1.9 km) above the tip of today's Limasawa. In the map of Pigafetta, and in every other map of the Philippines, it is the isle sandwiched between the islands of Bohol and Panaon. Combés's three-paragraph story of "Limasawa" has been translated into English by Miguel A. Bernad, S.J., which has been digitized and published on the web at https://books.google.com/books?id=NbG7kHtBma8C&pg=PA1&dq=Limasawa&ei=7K9MSY-IGY3WlQTLpKzWBA#PPA4,M1.
How "Dimasaua" got eclipsed by "Limasaua".
In 1734 another Spanish Jesuit missionary, Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde, made a map of the Philippines where for the first time the name "Limasava" is shown. He had a revised edition later where in the cartouche Murillo relates Magellan's visit to Butuan where an Easter mass was held on March 31, 1521. His "Limasaua" therefore is not in conformity with Combés's story that does not talk of a mass.
In a later book he wrote, Murillo states the Leyte isle's names were "Dimasaua" and "Limasaua." One sees here the intervention of pure whim and wild chance—two unpredictable elements in history—Murillo just happened to pick a name he fancied at the moment of creating a map not knowing the name had an inconsistency with his intention.
This map became a sensation among European cartographers and was shamelessly plagiarized by them except Jacques N. Bellin who had the intellectual honesty to cite Murillo as his authority. Bellin published his version, which corrected the longitudes and latitudes of Murillo who merely followed Ramusio, the same year Murillo's came out in 1734.
In 1798, paleographer-conservator Carlo Amoretti of Ambrosiana library in Milan discovered the lost Italian manuscript of Antonio Pigafetta which was written in Renaissance longhand. He forthwith transcribed it and two years later published his version with his notes and emendations. In two footnotes on pages 66 and 72 Amoretti surmises that the "Messana" in Pigafetta may be the "Limassava" in the map of Bellin. Amoretti and Bellin had not read the books of Combés and Colín nor the revised map of Murillo with the cartouche. He therefore was not aware that the name "Limasaua" was in fact a negation of Herrera's correct account of the Mazaua episode.
Historians merely repeat other historians.
The old saying history repeats itself is not as true as the truism historians repeat one another. Western navigation historians and Magellan scholars started a tradition of repeating Amoretti's assertion, e.g., Lord Stanley of Alderley (1874), F.H.H. Guillemard (1890), Jose Toribio Medina (1888), Andrea da Mosto (1894), James Alexander Robertson (1906), J. Denuce (1911), and on down the line including Laurence Bergreen (2003). No one subjected Amoretti's dictum to serious critical analysis.
Religious chroniclers in the Philippines went along with the spirit of invention started by Colín and Combés and gave the isle other names: "Limasaba" (Fr. Gaspar de San Agustin,1698); "Bimasaua" (Fr. Juan Francisco de San Antonio, 1738); "Simasaua" (F. Redondo, 1886). No one gave an explanation for these names. These were asserted in the nature of an "ex cathedra" pronouncement.
Only one Western maritime historian, the French Léonce Peillard, bucked Amoretti. In "Le premier tour du monde de Magellan": France, 1991, his transcription with notes and editorial treatment of an extant Pigafetta manuscript, Ms f. 5650, Peillard in footnote 118 on page 314 and footnote 154 on page 317 assert Mazaua is in the latitude calculated by The Genoese Pilot at 9° north and that Mazaua was in fact part of Mindanao ("Elle en fait partie, en realite". It [Mazaua] forms part of it [Mindanao]).
In the Philippines itself, historians obscured the issue by failing—either deliberately or unintentionally—to cite Amoretti as authority for the Limasaua=Mazaua notion, and reframing the way they looked at the incident back to its religious context as Colín and Combés viewed it. Whereas it was viewed by Westerners in terms of anchorage, the Philippine scholars framed Mazaua as "site" where the First mass in the Philippines was held. This is still how most Philippine historians view it.
Up to now, it has not been detected that the two names, "Limasaua" and "Dimasaua" contain in their very core a negation of Herrera's "Mazagua." The two names deny Herrera's story that the mass was held at the island-port of Mazaua.
The critical role of Herrera's "Mazagua" has not been heretofore analyzed except in the paper of Vicente Calibo de Jesus which he read on October 13, 2007 at the annual conference of The Society for the History of Discoveries held at the U.S. Library of Congress, Washington D.C. John N. Schumacher, S.J. did touch on Herrera in an article, noting that "Herrera is the only historian prior to the time of the 19th century publication of Pigafetta, who correctly puts the first Mass in 'Mazagua' which is simply a Hispanicization of Pigafetta's Italian form 'Mazaua' or 'Mazzaua'." Schumacher failed however to discern the hand of Andrés de San Martín. More to the point, he did not detect the negation of Herrera in the two neologisms "Dimasaua" and "Limasaua." De Jesus's paper is the only work on the subject that mentions Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas and probes his significance. References are found on pages 20, 27 and 78 of the paper as revised and published on the site of Italian nuclear scientist Dr. Vasco Caini at http://www.xeniaeditrice.it. The validity of this analysis however has yet to sink in among historians and historiographers.
This analysis has been ignored and disregarded by the National Historical Institute, a government agency of the Philippines, whose role is to help resolve historical questions. It has declared a number of times that Mazaua and Limasaua are one and the same, equating one name that signifies denial of the story of Mazaua by Herrera and the occurrence of an Easter mass. In a decision promulgated in March 1998, NHI dismissed the Ginés de Mafra account as fake, knowing fully that it is genuine. De Mafra in his account located the isle of Mazaua south of 1521 Butuan some below, placing it at 9° north, the exact latitude for Magellan's port given by one of the eyewitnesses, one known to history as The Genoese Pilot. The Institute with full knowledge of its erroneous method of reaching a reconstruction of the past has transformed an honest mistake into what we might call the Limasawa hoax.
References.
—1522b. Log-Book of Francisco Alvo or Alvaro. In: The First Voyage Round The World. Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed. and trans.). Ser. I, Vol. LII, London 1874. pp. 211–236.
—1524a. Primo viaggio intorno al globo terracqueo, ossia ragguaglio della navigazione...fatta dal cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta...ora publicato per la prima volta, tratto da un codice MS. Della biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano e corredato di note da Carlo Amoretti. Milan 1800.
—1524b. Il primo viaggio intorno al globo di Antonio Pigafetta. In: Raccolta di Documenti e Studi Publicati dalla. Commissione Colombiana. Andrea da Mosto (ed. and tr.). Rome 1894.
—1524c. Le premier tour du monde de Magellan. Léonce Peillard (ed. and transcription of Ms. fr. 5650). France 1991.
—1524d. Magellan’s Voyage, 3 vols. James Alexander Robertson (ed. and tr. of Ambrosian). Cleveland 1906.
—1524e. The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan. Lord Stanley of Alderley (ed. & tr. of Ms. fr. 5650 and Ambrosian ms.). London 1874.
—1523f. The Voyage of Magellan: The Journal of Antonio Pigafetta. Paula Spurlin Paige (tr. of Colines edition). New Jersey 1969.
—1524g. Il Primo Viaggio Intorno Al Mondo Con Il Trattato della Sfera. Facsimile edition of Ambrosian ms. Vicenza 1994.
—1524h. The First Voyage Around the World (1519–1522). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (ed. Based on Robertson’s tr.) New York 1995.


Dathappabhuti of Anuradhapura

Dathappabhuti was King of Anuradhapura in the 6th century, whose reign lasted from 539 to 540. He succeeded his father Silakala Ambosamanera as King of Anuradhapura and was succeeded by his brother Moggallana II.


Sarangarh State

Sarangarh was a princely state in India during the British Raj ruled by a Raj Gond dynasty. The emblem of the state was a turtle.
Its capital was in Sarangarh town, now in Chhattisgarh state.
The state had no significant towns except for its capital. Its area was 1,399 square km with a population of 79,900 persons according to the 1901 census.
History.
According to legend Sarangarh state was founded in the first century AD by Gond ancestors that had migrated from Bhandara. It was originally a dependency of the Ratanpur Kingdom and later became one of the eighteen Garhjat states under Sambalpur State The Sambalpur kings favoured Sarangarh owing to its readiness to help their kingdom during military campaigns.
In 1818 Sarangarh became a British protectorate. Between 1878 and 1889 Sarangarh state was placed under the direct administration of British India owing to economic mismanagement and the infancy of the ruler Bhawani Pratap Singh. Sarangarh was a small feudatory state, part of the Chhattisgarh division.
On 1 January 1948 Sarangarh State acceded to the Indian Union.
Rulers.
Sarangarh State was one of several princely states governed by the Raj Gond Dynasty of Gonds. The rulers bore the title 'Raja'


Mai Yinghao

Mai Yinghao (; 15 July 1929 – 28 November 2016) was a Chinese archaeologist. He led the excavation of three major archaeological sites in Guangzhou: the Qin dynasty shipyard, the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, and the Royal Palace and Garden of the Nanyue Kingdom. He served as Director of the Guangzhou Museum.
Career.
Mai was born on 15 July 1929 into a poor family in Panyu, Guangdong, Republic of China. He studied education at Guangzhou University but did not graduate. In September 1952, he began working at the Guangzhou Municipal Cultural Heritage Administration and received training in archaeology.
From 1953 to the 1980s, Mai worked for more than three decades in field archaeology. He led the excavation of a number of major archaeological sites in and near Guangzhou, including the Xicun Kiln (西村窑) in the 1950s, the Qin dynasty shipyard in 1975, the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King (Zhao Mo) in 1983, and the Royal Palace and Garden of the Nanyue kingdom. He also advised on the excavation and preservation of the Nanyue sluice and the two royal mausoleums of the Southern Han kingdom. In addition, he excavated more than 700 tombs dating from the Qin dynasty to the Ming dynasty.
In 1991, Mai Yinghao and Huang Zhanyue (co-leader of the excavation) published the two-volume excavation report "Mausoleum of the Nanyue King of the Western Han" (西汉南越王墓). It won several national awards including the 1993 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Research Award and the 1995 Xia Nai Archaeology Prize (First Class).
Mai was a strong advocate for building on-site museums at major archaeological sites. His efforts resulted in the establishment of the Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King and the Nanyue Palace Museum. He served as Director of the Guangzhou Museum.
Personal life.
Mai was married to Li Jin (黎金), a fellow archaeologist. They had a son named Mai Jia (麦稼).
Mai was diagnosed with cancer in July 2015. He died on 28 November 2016 in Guangzhou, at the age of 87. On 12 December, a special exhibition on his life was held at the Guangzhou Museum.


British North Borneo Herald

The British North Borneo Herald (BNBH) was a periodical magazine in British North Borneo, published between 1883 until 1941 by the government of North Borneo under various official names.
History.
After the entry into force of the Royal Charter for the North Borneo Chartered Company on 1 November 1881, the company faced with the task of creating a functioning governmental structure for the acquired territory. The resolutions passed by the "Court of Directors", the highest administrative body of the company in London, required efficient distribution within the administrative units in North Borneo as well as among the shareholders and investors of the company. For this reason, the first sixteen-page edition of the periodical "The North Borneo Herald and Official Gazette" appeared on 1 March 1883, in Kudat, the first capital of North Borneo.
For the monthly publication of the newspaper and the printing in the Dent Road no. 1, Thomas J. Keaughran, a former reporter of The Straits Times was responsible. The single price was 10 cents, while the annual subscription was 1.50 Straits dollar.
In 1883, Sandakan was raised as the new capital instead of Kudat, and this herald moved their place of publication to the new administration area. The editorial and printing from 1885 to 1891 were by W. J. Rozario. From 1 January 1896, the herald turned into a four-day appearance. The price per issue was still 10 cent, while the annual subscription including postal delivery increased to 2.50 Straits dollar.
The last edition appeared in 1941. Following the Japanese occupation in January 1942, especially when the Japanese marched into the town of Sandakan on 19 January; the journalistic activities were forbidden with immediate effect. The end of the operation under the North Borneo Chartered Company on 26 June 1946 also sealed the fate of the Herald, while the "Official Gazette" continued to exist as a memorandum of the British colonial government until 1963.
Name changes.
Although the herald is usually quoted as "British North Borneo Herald", its official name has undergone several minor changes:
Outsourcing of legal texts.
In accordance with the intention of a governmental news organisation, legislative texts and ordinances had been part of the herald from the very beginning. Even in the edition of the herald on 1 April 1885, these were printed in a separate section of the "Gazette". A section "Official Gazette" was established for the editions from 1 May 1885 to 1891. After that, the British North Borneo Official Gazette was continued as an independent governmental advisor.
Political orientation.
As a governmental report, the herald was not a neutral source as it did not publish any information that was detrimental to the image of the North Borneo government (in the form of the Court of London) or to the share price of the North Borneo Chartered Company. In none of these accounts are there any comments on the trench battles between William Clark Cowie and the highly popular Governors Hugh Charles Clifford and Ernest Woodford Birch, who led in both cases the resignation of the governor. Also the inadequacies of the North Borneo Railway, the catastrophic misjudgment regarding the manganese deposits at Marudu Bay in 1907 and the big fire, which destroyed the sawmill of British Borneo Timber in 1934, were not mentioned.
Used as a reference.
Herald's archival editions are now available in various libraries in Asia and Europe. Among the periodicals, the herald, together with The Straits Times and The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942) is the most important source of knowledge for the history research on North Borneo and the North Borneo Chartered Company.
Comprehensive original editions of the herald are in the Sabah State Archives, The National Archives, Kew and the Singapore National Library. However, in contrast to other magazines, the British North Borneo Herald is not digitally developed for public use.