Hodo Sokoli

Hodo Pashë Sokoli or Hodo Dervishi (1836–1883) was an Ottoman Albanian miralay and later one of the leaders of the League of Prizren. He defected from the Ottoman army, when the Ottoman Empire decided to cede the part of Albanian-populated area of Malësia to the Principality of Montenegro and led troops of the League of Prizren against the Montenegrin army.
Life.
Was born in Shkodër in 1836 by the name Et'hem Hodo, to a notable family, son of Mahmud beg Sokoli. The origins of his family was from the village of Dervishej. In 1860 he became commander of the border guards of the lake of Shkodër under Abdi Çerkezi. In 1868 he was promoted to the rank of colonel (bey) and served as the commander of gendarmerie of Shkodër. In April 1880 he became the leader of a League of Prizren committee that opposed the annexation the Albanian-populated areas of Gruda, Hoti, Plava and Gucia to the Principality of Montenegro. Sokoli led 8,000 volunteer troops from Shkodër and Tuzi to defend these areas, which eventually were not ceded to the Principality of Montenegro.
During his chairmanship of an assembly of the League of Prizren on April 17, 1880, attended by 150 Albanian officers of the Ottoman Empire, Sokoli publicly removed his insignia and uniform. Sokoli's decision to forgo his Ottoman military uniform in favour of the Albanian national costume distinguished this symbolic act. In December 1880 the Ottoman general Dervish Pasha captured Sokoli, who was detained in Istanbul, the capital of the empire, and later executed in Erzincan, in 1883.


Mesacanthus

Mesacanthus ('middle spine') is an extinct genus of acanthodian fish from early Devonian Scotland. It is among the more primitive of the Devonian acanthodians.
Description.
"Mesacanthus" body fossils have pectoral, pelvic, anal and dorsal fin spines, as well as a pair of prepelvic spines, which are intermediate between the pectoral and pelvic fin spines. They also have small, unornamented, diamond shaped scales. According to Agassiz, the genus also has a distinct tail in which the upper lobe extends to a sharp point and the lower lobe forms a small triangle. Overall the genus is small (average length = 30mm) and fairly conservative, anatomically speaking, for acanthodians.
Taxonomy.
The genus was erected by Ramsay Traquair in 1888 to accommodate certain species that had been previously assigned to Acanthodes by Louis Agassiz. These species included "Mesacanthus mitchelli", "Mesacanthus pusillus", "Mesacanthus peachi" and "Mesacanthus coriaceus". The genus is found in both Lower Old Red Sandstone and Middle Old Red Sandstone assemblages, with "M. pusillus", "M. peachi" and "M. coriaceus" known from the Middle Devonian and "M. mitchelli" being the only known species from the Lower Devonian. Arthur Smith Woodward formally synonymized "M. peachi" and "M. coriaceus" in 1891. In 2015 a study published in PeerJ reassessed the two remaining Middle Devonian species ("M. pusillus" and "M. peachi") and found that they also could not be distinguished from one another. Hence, only two species from the Orcadian Basin and Midland Valley areas of Scotland are currently considered to be valid: "M. mitchelli" from the Lower Devonian and "M. pusillus" from the Middle Devonian.


Peace of Asti

The Peace of Asti was signed in July 1615 between Spain and Savoy. Based on the terms of the treaty, Charles Emmanuel I surrendered his claims on the principality of Montferrat. The accord was developed after Spain threatened to attack Turin, the capital of Savoy. The treaty ended the War of the Montferrat Succession.


Aleksandr Nemits

Aleksandr Vasilivich Nemits, (Russian: Нёмитц, Александр Васильевич) was a naval officer of Russian Empire, Ukrainian State and Soviet Union. He was commander of the Soviet Navy between February 1920 and November 1921.
Nemits was born in Moldavia, the son of a military judge. He finished the Naval academy in 1899 and joined the Black Sea Fleet he served as assistant to the Naval attache to Turkey and as a gunnery officer. Following the mutinies of 1905 he served as a defence lawyer for the mutineers and managed to spare them from the death penalty.
From 1907 he served on the Navy general staff and commanded the gunboat "Donets". subsequently he commanded a destroyer division and held various staff posts. In 1917 he married Anastasia the sister of the artist Mikhail Vrubel. In 1917 he was promoted to rear admiral and commanded the Black Sea Fleet. In this role on 23 November 1917 he asked the Ukrainian People's Republic to take the fleet under his jurisdiction. On 30 September 1918 the Ukrainian State appointed Nemits as their Minister of Marine. Later in 1918 he joined the Red Navy and fought in the civil war where he was wounded.
In February 1920 he replaced Yevgeniy Berens as commander of the Soviet Navy. From 1924 he was in charge of all Soviet naval and air force academies. He retired in 1947 and lived in Sevastopol.


2000 in France

The following lists events that happened during 2000 in France.
The year 2000 is in particular remembered in France by a media campaign on the conditions of detention of prisoners. A parliamentary board of inquiry was created. The conclusions of the report were that French prisons were both unhealthy and over-populated. The sanitary arrangements were considered to be scandalous. The government of Lionel Jospin launched a programme to renovate and build new prisons.


Kingdom of Italy (Holy Roman Empire)

The Kingdom of Italy (Latin: "Regnum Italiae" or "Regnum Italicum", Italian: "Regno d'Italia", German: "Königreich Italien"), also called Imperial Italy (German: "Reichsitalien"), was one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, and Burgundy. It comprised northern and central Italy, but excluded the Republic of Venice and the Papal States. Its original capital was Pavia until the 11th century.
In 773, Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, crossed the Alps to invade the Kingdom of the Lombards, which encompassed all of Italy except the Duchy of Rome, the Venetian Republic and the Byzantine possessions in the south. In June 774, the kingdom collapsed and the Franks became masters of northern Italy. The southern areas remained under Lombard control as the Duchy of Benevento was changed into the rather independent Principality of Benevento. Charlemagne adopted the title "King of the Lombards" and in 800 was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" in Rome. Members of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule Italy until the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887, after which they once briefly regained the throne in 894–896. Until 961, the rule of Italy was continually contested by several aristocratic families from both within and outside the kingdom.
In 961, King Otto I of Germany, already married to Adelaide, widow of a previous king of Italy, invaded the kingdom and had himself crowned in Pavia on 25 December. He continued on to Rome, where he had himself crowned emperor on 7 February 962. The union of the crowns of Italy and Germany with that of the so-called "Empire of the Romans" proved stable. Burgundy was added to this union in 1032, and by the twelfth century the term "Holy Roman Empire" had come into use to describe it. From 961 on, the Emperor of the Romans was usually also King of Italy and Germany, although emperors sometimes appointed their heirs to rule in Italy and occasionally the Italian bishops and noblemen elected a king of their own in opposition to that of Germany. The absenteeism of the Italian monarch led to the rapid disappearance of a central government in the High Middle Ages, but the idea that Italy was a kingdom within the Empire remained and emperors frequently sought to impose their will on the evolving Italian city-states. The resulting wars between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the anti-imperialist and imperialist factions, respectively, were characteristic of Italian politics in the 12th–14th centuries. The Lombard League was the most famous example of this situation; though not a declared separatist movement, it openly challenged the emperor's claim to power.
The century between the Humiliation of Canossa (1077) and the Treaty of Venice of 1177 resulted in the formation of city states independent of the Germanic Emperor. A series of wars in Lombardy from 1423 to 1454 reduced the number of competing states in Italy. The next forty years were relatively peaceful in Italy, but in 1494 the peninsula was invaded by France.
After the Imperial Reform of 1495–1512, the Italian kingdom corresponded to the unencircled territories south of the Alps. Juridically the emperor maintained an interest in them as nominal king and overlord, but the "government" of the kingdom consisted of little more than the plenipotentiaries the emperor appointed to represent him and those governors he appointed to rule his own Italian states.
The Habsburg rule in several parts of Italy continued in various forms but came to an end with the campaigns of the French Revolutionaries in 1792–1797, when a series of sister republics were set up with local support by Napoleon and then united into the Italian Republic under his Presidency. In 1805 the Republic became a new Kingdom of Italy, in personal union with France.
Lombard kingdom.
After the Battle of Taginae, in which the Ostrogoth king Totila was killed, the Byzantine general Narses captured Rome and besieged Cumae. Teia, the new Ostrogothic king, gathered the remnants of the Ostrogothic army and marched to relieve the siege, but in October 552 Narses ambushed him at "Mons Lactarius" (modern Monti Lattari) in Campania, near Mount Vesuvius and Nuceria Alfaterna. The battle lasted two days and Teia was killed in the fighting. Ostrogothic power in Italy was eliminated, but according to Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea, Narses allowed the Ostrogothic population and their Rugian allies to live peacefully in Italy under Roman sovereignty. The absence of any real authority in Italy immediately after the battle led to an invasion by the Franks and Alemanni, but they too were defeated in the battle of the Volturnus and the peninsula was, for a short time, reintegrated into the empire.
The Kings of the Lombards (, singular "") ruled that Germanic people from their invasion of Italy in 567–68 until the Lombardic identity became lost in the ninth and tenth centuries. After 568, the Lombard kings sometimes styled themselves Kings of Italy (). Upon the Lombard defeat at the 774 Siege of Pavia, the kingdom came under the Frankish domination of Charlemagne. The Iron Crown of Lombardy ("Corona Ferrea") was used for the coronation of the Lombard kings, and the kings of Italy thereafter, for centuries.
The primary sources for the Lombard kings before the Frankish conquest are the anonymous 7th-century "Origo Gentis Langobardorum" and the 8th-century "Historia Langobardorum" of Paul the Deacon. The earliest kings (the pre-Lethings) listed in the "Origo" are almost certainly legendary. They purportedly reigned during the Migration Period; the first ruler attested independently of Lombard tradition is Tato.
The actual control of the sovereigns of both the major areas that constitute the kingdom – "Langobardia Major" in the centre-north (in turn divided into a western, or Neustria, and one eastern, or Austria and Tuskia) and "Langobardia Minor" in the centre-south, was not constant during the two centuries of life of the kingdom. An initial phase of strong autonomy of the many constituent duchies developed over time with growing regal authority, even if the dukes' desires for autonomy were never fully achieved.
The Lombard kingdom proved to be more stable than its Ostrogothic predecessor, but in 774, on the pretext of defending the Papacy, it was conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne. They kept the Italo-Lombard realm separate from their own, but the kingdom shared in all the partitions, divisions, civil wars, and succession crises of the Carolingian Empire of which it became a part until, by the end of the ninth century, the Italian kingdom was an independent, but highly decentralised, state.
Constituent of the Carolingian Empire.
The death of the Emperor Lothair I in 855 led to his realm of Middle Francia being split among his three sons. The eldest, Louis II, inherited the Carolingian lands in Italy, which were now for the first time (save the brief rule of Charlemagne's son Pepin in the first decade of the century), ruled as a distinct unit. The kingdom included all of Italy as far south as Rome and Spoleto, but the rest of Italy to the south was under the rule of the Lombard Principality of Benevento or of the Byzantine Empire.
Following Louis II's death without heirs, there were several decades of confusion. The Imperial crown was initially disputed among the Carolingian rulers of West Francia (France) and East Francia (Germany), with first the western king (Charles the Bald) and then the eastern (Charles the Fat) attaining the prize. Following the deposition of the latter, local nobles – Guy III of Spoleto and Berengar of Friuli – disputed over the crown, and outside intervention did not cease, with Arnulf of Eastern Francia and Louis the Blind of Provence both claiming the Imperial throne for a time. The kingdom was also beset by Arab raiding parties from Sicily and North Africa, and central authority was minimal at best.
In the 10th century, the situation hardly improved, as various Burgundian and local noblemen continued to dispute over the crown. Order was only imposed from outside, when the German king Otto I invaded Italy and seized both the Imperial and Italian thrones for himself in 962.
Imperial Italy.
In 951 King Otto I of Germany had married Adelaide of Burgundy, the widow of late King Lothair II of Italy. Otto assumed the Iron Crown of Lombardy at Pavia despite his rival Margrave Berengar of Ivrea. When in 960 Berengar attacked the Papal States, King Otto, summoned by Pope John XII, conquered the Italian kingdom and on 2 February 962 had himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor at Rome. From that time on, the Kings of Italy were always also Kings of Germany, and Italy thus became a constituent kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the Kingdom of Germany ("regnum Teutonicorum") and – from 1032 – Burgundy. The German king ("Rex Romanorum") would be crowned by the Archbishop of Milan with the Iron Crown in Pavia as a prelude to the visit to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope.
In general, the monarch was an absentee, spending most of his time in Germany and leaving the Kingdom of Italy with little central authority. There was also a lack of powerful landed magnates – the only notable one being the Margraviate of Tuscany, which had wide lands in Tuscany, Lombardy, and the Emilia, but which failed due to lack of heirs after the death of Matilda of Canossa in 1115. This left a power vacuum – increasingly filled by the Papacy and by the bishops, as well as by the increasingly wealthy Italian cities, which gradually came to dominate the surrounding countryside. Upon the death of Emperor Otto III in 1002, one of late Berengar's successors, Margrave Arduin of Ivrea, even succeeded in assuming the Italian crown and in defeating the Imperial forces under Duke Otto I of Carinthia. Not until 1004 could the new German King Henry II of Germany, by the aid of Bishop Leo of Vercelli, move into Italy to have himself crowned "rex Italiae". Arduin ranks as the last domestic "King of Italy" before the accession of Victor Emmanuel II in 1861.
Henry's Salian successor Conrad II tried to confirm his dominion against Archbishop Aribert of Milan and other Italian aristocrats ("seniores"). While besieging Milan in 1037, he issued the "Constitutio de feudis" in order to secure the support of the "vasvassores" petty gentry, whose fiefs he declared hereditary. Indeed, Conrad could stable his rule, however, the Imperial supremacy in Italy remained contested.
Staufer.
The cities first demonstrated their increasing power during the reign of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1152–1190), whose attempts to restore imperial authority in the peninsula led to a series of wars with the Lombard League, a league of northern Italian cities, most of the times headed by Milan, and ultimately to a decisive victory for the League at the Battle of Legnano in 1176, that had as its leader the Milanese Guido da Landriano, which forced Frederick to make administrative, political, and judicial concessions to the municipalities, officially ending his attempt to dominate Northern Italy. From then, Italy became a patchwork of autonomous duchies and city-states only nominally tied to the Holy Roman Empire.
Frederick's son Henry VI actually managed to extend Hohenstaufen authority in Italy by his conquest of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, which comprised Sicily and all of Southern Italy. Henry's son, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor – the first emperor since the 10th century to actually base himself in Italy – attempted to return to his father's task of restoring imperial authority in the northern Italian Kingdom, which led to fierce opposition not only from a reformed Lombard League, but also from the Popes, who had become increasingly jealous of their temporal realm in central Italy (theoretically a part of the Empire), and concerned about the hegemonic ambitions of the Hohenstaufen emperors.
Frederick II's efforts to bring all of Italy under his control failed as signally as those of his grandfather, and his death in 1250 marked the effective end of the Kingdom of Italy as a genuine political unit. Conflict continued between Ghibellines (Imperial supporters) and Guelfs (Papal supporters) in the Italian cities, but these conflicts bore less and less relation to the origins of the parties in question.
Decline.
The Italian campaigns of the Holy Roman Emperors decreased, but the Kingdom did not become wholly meaningless. In 1310 the Luxembourg King Henry VII of Germany with 5,000 men again crossed the Alps, moved into Milan and had himself crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy, sparking a Guelph rebellion under Lord Guido della Torre. Henry restored the rule of Matteo I Visconti and proceeded to Rome, where he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by three cardinals in place of Pope Clement V in 1312. His further plans to restore the Imperial rule and to invade the Kingdom of Naples were aborted by his sudden death the next year.
Successive emperors in the 14th and 15th centuries were bound in the struggle between the rivaling Luxembourg, Habsburg and Wittelsbach dynasties. In the conflict with Frederick the Fair, King Louis IV (reigned until 1347) had himself crowned Emperor in Rome by Antipope Nicholas V in 1328. His successor Charles IV also returned to Rome to be crowned in 1355. None of the Emperors forgot their theoretical claims to dominion as Kings of Italy. Nor did the Italians themselves forget the claims of the Emperors to universal dominion: writers like Dante Alighieri (died 1321) and Marsilius of Padua (c. 1275 – c. 1342) expressed their commitment both to the principle of universal monarchy, and to the actual pretensions of Emperors Henry VII and Louis IV, respectively.
The Imperial claims to dominion in Italy mostly manifested themselves, however, in the granting of titles to the various strongmen who had begun to establish their control over the formerly republican cities. Most notably, the Emperors gave their backing to the Visconti of Milan, and King Wenceslaus created Gian Galeazzo Visconti Duke of Milan in 1395. Other families to receive new titles from the emperors were the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the Este of Ferrara and Modena.
Imperial fiefs in the modern period.
By the beginning of the early modern period, the Kingdom in Italy still formally existed but had "de facto" splintered into completely independent and self-governing city states. Its territory had been significantly limited – the conquests of the Republic of Venice in the "domini di Terraferma" and those of the Papal States had taken most of northeastern and central Italy outside the jurisdiction of the Empire.
In many aspects, the Imperial claims to feudal overlordship over the Italian territories had become practically meaningless: the effective political authority, as well as the power to raise taxes and spend resources, was in the hands of the Italian princes and dukes. However, the presence of the Imperial feudal network in Italy continued to play a role in the history of the peninsula. It gave to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor the pretext to intervene in Italian affairs. Furthermore, the Imperial rights were notably asserted during the Italian Wars by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (also King of Spain and Naples, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy). He drove the French from Milan after the Battle of Pavia, and prevented an attempt by the Italian princes, with French aid, to reassert their independence in the League of Cognac. His mutinous troops sacked Rome and, coming to terms with the Medici pope Clement VII, conquered Florence where he reinstalled the Medici as Dukes of Florence after a siege. Charles V was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown in medieval fashion and, upon the extinction of the Sforza line of Milan in 1535, claimed direct possession of that territory as an Imperial fief. After Charles divided his possession between a Spanish and Austrian branch, Milan became a possession of the Spanish Empire of Philip II of Spain, whereas the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the rights connected to Imperial Italy were transferred to Ferdinand of Austria. Milan continued to be a state of the Holy Roman Empire so that, in his position as Duke of Milan, Philip II was, at least formally, a vassal of Emperor Ferdinand. However, following the reign of Charles V, no Holy Roman Emperor of the Austrian Habsburgs was crowned King of Italy and the title effectively ceased to be used for two centuries and a half.
In 1559, the Kingdom of France ended its ambitions over the Imperial fiefs in Italy, abandoning its claims to Savoy and Milan and withdrawing from Tuscany and Genoese Corsica by the terms of the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, and a special section of the Imperial Aulic Council in Vienna was established to deal with Italian affairs and legal appeals coming from the peninsula. The major imperial fiefs in Italy were known as "Feuda latina", whereas the smaller ones were known as "Feuda Minora". Italian princes sometimes took part in Imperial diets and their forces also joined the Imperial army, as in the case of the Hungarian campaign of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor against Suleyman the Magnificent in 1566. Imperial authority was used by the Austrian Habsburgs to intervene in Italy during the War of Mantuan Succession phase of the Thirty Years' War and to take control of vacant Italian imperial fiefs during the European Wars of Succession of the 18th century: following the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs in 1700, the Emperor proclaimed Milan a vacant Imperial fief and added it to his direct Austrian dominions in 1707 (confirmed by the Treaty of Rastatt at the end of the War of the Spanish succession); the Gonzaga of Mantua were deposed at the Diet of Regensburg in 1708 on charges of felony towards the Holy Roman Emperor and their state incorporated into Austrian Milan; following the extinction of the Florentine House of Medici in 1737, Francis I of Habsburg-Lorraine was invested with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by Imperial diploma; a similar use of Imperial rights allowed the Habsburgs to establish dynastic branches in Parma and Modena.
Emperor Leopold I increasingly asserted his rights over the imperial fiefdoms of Italy from the 1660s with the decline of Spanish power and more overt intervention of the French. In 1687, a new plenipotentiary of Italy was appointed, a position that had been left vacant for over a century prior (the powers of the office had instead been exercised haphazardly by the Aulic Council). In 1690, Prince Eugene tried to levy an imperial tax over Italy to pay for war expenses, the first time such a thing had been done. Then, in 1696, Leopold issued an edict mandating all of his Italian vassals to renew their oaths of allegiance within a year and a day on pain of forfeit. The renewal of fiefdoms incensed the papacy, some of whose own vassals now dug out ancient documents ostensibly proving them to be vassals of the Emperor. Smaller states of Italy saw the Emperor as their protector against larger territories like Savoy and the papacy. Imperial authority strengthened throughout the 18th century, with Lombardy (Milan and Mantua) passing to the Habsburg family as vacant imperial fiefs during the War of the Spanish Succession, the end of the War of the Quadruple Alliance reconfirming the statuses of Tuscany, Modena-Reggio, and Parma-Piacenza (Emilia) as imperial fiefs, and the Habsburgs continuing to rule the Italian territories of their hereditary lands (roughly the modern provinces of Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia). Piedmont-Savoy, on the other hand, remained defiant of Imperial authority despite officially participating in the diet and the duke receiving the title of "Royal Highness" from the Emperor in 1693.
Dissolution.
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the Austrians were driven from Italy by Napoleon, who set up republics throughout northern Italy, and by the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797, Emperor Francis II relinquished any claims over the territories that made up the Kingdom of Italy. The imperial reorganization carried out in 1799–1803 left no room for Imperial claims to Italy – even the Archbishop of Cologne was gone, secularized along with the other ecclesiastical princes. Napoleon's victory in the War of the Second Coalition saw this reconfirmed in the Treaty of Lunéville. In 1805, while the Holy Roman Empire was still in existence, Napoleon, by now Emperor Napoleon I, claimed the crown of the new Kingdom of Italy for himself, putting the Iron Crown on his head at Milan on 26 May 1805. He also directly annexed most of the former imperial Italy (including Piedmont-Savoy, Liguria, and Tuscany) into France. The Empire itself was abolished the next year on 6 August 1806. The Congress of Vienna following Napoleon's defeat did not bring back the Holy Roman Empire nor the Kingdom of Italy.


Italian Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture appeared in the prosperous independent city-states of Italy in the 12th century, later than in Northern Europe. Each city developed its own particular variations of the style. Italian architects preferred to keep the traditional construction methods established in the previous centuries; architectural solutions and technical innovations of French Gothic were seldom used. Soaring height was less important than in Northern Europe. Brick rather than stone was the most common building material, and marble was widely used for decoration. In the 15th century, when the Gothic style dominated northern Europe and Italy, the north of the Italian Peninsula became the birthplace of Renaissance architecture.
Early Italian Gothic (13th century).
The Gothic style was first introduced into Italy in the 12th century by monks of the Cistercian and Franciscan Orders. The Cistercian order was founded in France in 1098 as a breakaway from the Benedictine Order, which the Cistercians considered too lax. The Cistercians were determined to follow more strictly the rules of Saint Benedict. They built austere churches, first in the Romanesque style and then with Gothic features, but with a complete absence of decoration. The Cistercians banned any form of art, sculpture, or stained glass. Bell towers were absent or very simple. Nothing was permitted that did not have an essential practical purpose. These churches were usually far from the centre of cities. The first Gothic structures in Italy were the Cistercian churches of Fossanova Abbey and Casamari Abbey, built on the model of the Cistercian churches in Burgundy, particularly the original Cistercian church, Citeaux Abbey. Casamari was originally built as a Benedictine church, but was rebuilt entirely to meet the standards of simplicity and austerity of the Cistercians. The Cistercians built churches throughout Italy, mostly in the countryside, They went as far as Sicily, where they constructed the unfinished basilica of Morpurgo near Lentini in the Province of Syracuse, begun in 1225.
The spread of the French style of Gothic introduced by the Cistercians was resisted by the hierarchy of the church in Rome. which preferred a return to the earlier style of architecture of Constantine and of Byzantium. The first Gothic church in Rome, Saint Marie of Minerva, a Dominican church, was a copy of Saint-Marie Nouvelle in Florence, and was not begun until 1280.
The Franciscans were founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1208. Their doctrine called for reaching out to the general population with their message, which meant constructing churches with large naves without any visual obstacles for preaching sermons to large congregations. Unlike Cistercian churches, they welcomed art in their architecture. The upper parts of their first major church, the Basilica of San Francesco of Assisi (1228–1253) were decorated with colourful murals by Cimabue depicting the lives of the Saints. The Basilica was in the form of a simple Latin cross, and had none of the aspirations to great height of the French Gothic style. It was built of brick, covered with plaster on the inside. The stained glass windows were reduced in size, simple and colourless.
The Franciscans constructed another important church, San Francesco, Bologna, in (1236–30), which was closer to the French Gothic model. It was built of red brick, beginning a tradition in Bologna architecture that lasted for two centuries. The facade was similar to those of Romanesque churches, but inside it had a more Gothic form, with aisles, an ambulatory with radiating chapels, and flying buttresses. Other important early buildings included the Parma Baptistery by Benedetto Antelami and the Basilica di Sant'Andrea in Vercelli, which showed Antelami's influence.
Siena Cathedral (1215–1263) begun in the mid-13th century, is another major landmark church of early Italian Gothic. Its interior is a mixture of Gothic and Romanesque elements, such as the domed crossing tower, and horizontal banding of the interior columns with polychrome marble. The most striking and original Gothic feature is the decorated screen facade on the west end, with sculptural decoration designed and partly carved by Giovanni Pisano in 1284–1320.
Mature or High Italian Gothic (14th century).
Florence Cathedral.
A number of major Italian Gothic buildings were begun in the late 13th century and completed in the 14th. Florence Cathedral, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, was begun in 1296. It is not exceptionally high, but the interior has a sense of spaciousness created by the merger of the nave and the aisles. The work proceeded very slowly. The campanile, designed by Giotto, was begun in 1334. Work continued after Giotto's death in 1337, first under Andrea Pisani and then, in the 1350s, by Francesco Talenti. The campanile is square and decorated in marble with rectilinear panelling, and follows the Italian Romanesque tradition. It was largely modelled after the older baptistery (1060–1150).
The Cathedral plans were modified between 1357 and 1360 by several committees of painters, sculptors and artists, giving priority to the decoration. The City of Florence took it very seriously as a civic monument, financing it with a tax upon all the male inhabitants of the city, and even lowering the level of the streets around it so it would be more visible. A modified new plan adopted in 1366 called for a massive dome, as wide as the combined nave and aisles, on an octagonal base with three apses. The technical problems of building such a large dome were not solved until the 15th century with a new plan by Brunelleschi. The rather plain original facade was demolished to construct the dome; the present facade was not built until the 19th century. The east end of the cathedral largely retains its original Gothic architecture.
Orvieto Cathedral.
The Construction of Orvieto Cathedral occupied three centuries, from 1290 to 1591, nearly the entire span of the Gothic period. It was begun by Pope Urban IV as a pilgrimage church to display the relic of a proclaimed miracle, the Corporal of Bolsena. The architecture of the facade is in the basic Romanesque style.
In 1309 Lorenzo Maitani, an architect and sculptor from Siena, became the master-builder. He redesigned the plans to give it greater structural integrity and more unified form. The original plan of the facade was modelled after Siena Cathedral. Under Maitani It gradually became a showcase of Gothic art; the interior and upper portions of the facade were decorated with mosaics, sculpted figures and reliefs in marble and bronze. The upper portions of the mosaics on the facade are gilded. In the interior, the most striking features are the banded polychrome columns, and the walls covered with murals.
A number of churches in this period followed the style of San Francesco in Bologna, and were built of red brick, plastered on the inside, instead of stone. The architects of many Italian Gothic churches ignored the French Gothic use of flying buttresses and used wooden tie beams across the nave to support the upper walls.
Late Gothic (Late 14th century).
Milan Cathedral.
Milan Cathedral, also called the Duomo, was begun the late fourteenth century. It was one of the most ambitious Italian Gothic cathedrals, and one of the few that adapted many of the structural features of French Gothic, including the flying buttress and the arched rib vault. Work began in 1387, based generally on the plans of two French Cathedrals, Bourges Cathedral and Le Mans Cathedral, with the plan of a high central nave descending in steps downward over the aisles. At the same time, it followed the Italian preference for great interior space. The planning and early work involved an extraordinary number of prominent master masons from across Europe, including Jean Mignot and Nicolas de Bonaventure from Paris, Hans Parler from Germany, and a renowned Italian mathematician, Gabriele Stornaloco.
Construction continued, with many interruptions, over the centuries; it was not finally completed until 1965. Its remarkable features include its gigantic columns, whose ornate capitals midway up the columns contain statues; the pale pink marble that faces the interior and exterior; and the forest of stone pinnacles that decorates the upper portions. While the interior is thoroughly Italianate in style, the exterior is covered with decorative tracery, similar to the Rayonnant style in Northern Europe.
Venetian Gothic (14th–15th century).
The 14th and 15th centuries saw the construction of a series of new churches in the Venetian Gothic style, including the church of the Franciscans, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, begun in 1340. Built of brick, it featured three naves and an apse with six radiating chapels, and rib vaulting that sprang from massive cylindrical columns. The Dominicans also built a new church, Santi Giovanni e Paolo (15th century), with three naves separated by columns, and Gothic capitals, arches and decoration. A fire in 1419 badly damaged St Mark's Basilica, requiring the construction of a new south facade. It was richly decorated with an assortment of Gothic pinnacles and tabernacles.
The most original examples of Venetian Gothic were not the churches, but the palatial residences built for the Venetian aristocrats and merchants, The Venetian Republic achieved a peak of prosperity in the 15th century, especially after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, which made Venice the trading hub for the Eastern Mediterranean. The Doge's Palace, begun in the mid-14th century but greatly expanded in the 1420s, contained the Doge's apartments, council chambers, law courts, a prison, and the meeting hall for the lower house of the Venetian parliament. The ground and first floor had a double colonnade, while the upper floors were decorated with white and pink marble in delicate geometric designs.
Major examples of aristocratic residences include Palazzo Pisani and Palazzo Foscari, but the best-known example is Ca' d'Oro, or "House of Gold", built between 1421 and 1444 for Marco Contarini. It featured a portico and double gallery that were originally gilded, giving the palace its name.
Civic planning and secular architecture.
Beginning in the second half of the 13th century, Italy produced more examples of secular Gothic architecture than other parts of Europe. The buildings were frequently constructed by the Capitano del Populo of each city, an organization that represented the guilds and the wealthy merchants of the city. Major examples included the Capitano del Popolo in Orvieto, the Palazzo Communale at Piacenza, and the massive Palazzo del Capitano, or Bargello, in Florence. Other Major examples are found in Siena, Florence and Venice. They illustrated the importance of Italian cities as banking centres, and increasing civic pride. These buildings were open to the exterior, with ground-floor loggias, large upper windows, balconies, and outside staircases, and frequently had large halls that were decorated with fresco painting.
Another notable example of Gothic city planning is the fan-shaped Campo, or town square, in Siena, which is dominated by the Palazzo Publico (1298–1348) and the Torre della Mangia, the tallest municipal tower in Italy. Florence constructed a similar municipal palace, the Palazzo Vecchio (1299–1310), though it retained many of the features of a fortress. A major example of a private Florentine palace is the Loggia della Signoria (1370s), next to the Palazzo Vecchio, whose round arches and roofline suggest the coming Renaissance.
Castles and fortifications.
In the Kingdom of Sicily at the beginning of the 13th century, an important civil and military construction programme was promoted by the Sicilian king, Frederick II, who was Holy Roman Emperor and through his mother Constance, Queen of Sicily grandson of the great Norman king Roger II of Sicily. The Emperor called upon the architects and craftsmen who had built the Cistercian monasteries to build castles and fortifications. The most important works include the Castel del Monte in Apulia and the Castello Maniace protecting the harbour of Syracuse, Italy.


Lists of ancient tribes in the Balkans

Lists of ancient tribes in the Balkans


Harjumaa (ancient county)

Harjumaa, () (1200 hides), was an ancient county in what would now be Estonia. It corresponded roughly to the present territory of Rapla County.


Savonlinna

Savonlinna (, , ; ) is a town and a municipality of inhabitants in the southeast of Finland, in the heart of the Saimaa lake region, which is why the city is also nicknamed the "Capital of Saimaa". The town is internationally known for its medieval St. Olaf's Castle and the annual Savonlinna Opera Festival. Its surrounding the enclaved municipality of Enonkoski.
History.
The city was founded in 1639, based on Olavinlinna castle ("St. Olaf's Castle"). The castle was founded by Erik Axelsson Tott in 1475 in an effort to protect Savonia and to control the unstable border between the Kingdom of Sweden and its Russian adversary. During the Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743), the castle was captured by Field-Marshal Peter Lacy. It was held by Russia between 1743 and 1812, when it was granted back to Finland as a part of "Old Finland".
In 1973 the municipality of Sääminki was consolidated with Savonlinna. In the beginning of year 2009 the municipality of Savonranta and a land strip from Enonkoski between Savonlinna and Savonranta were consolidated with Savonlinna. In the beginning of the year 2013, the municipalities of Kerimäki and Punkaharju were consolidated with Savonlinna.
Transport.
Savonlinna is located east of Mikkeli, west of Joensuu and south of Kuopio. It is also from the capital city of Helsinki by road, and some four hours away by train. Flights from Savonlinna Airport to Helsinki take 40–60 minutes.
Education.
The University of Eastern Finland had a campus in Savonlinna, primarily for teacher education. The campus was shut down in 2018.
There is also a XAMK vocational university campus, teaching healthcare as well as process technologies.
There are two high schools in Savonlinna. One of these high schools is specialized in art subjects, which when it started its operation in 1967 was the first specialized high school in Finland as well as in all of the Nordic countries.
Attractions.
The most notable attraction in Savonlinna is the Olavinlinna castle, a 15th-century castle built on an island. Near the castle is also the regional museum. Some other attractions include the forest museum Lusto in the village of Punkaharju, and the Kerimäki Church in the neighboring village of Kerimäki, which is the largest wooden church in the world.
Savonlinna hosts the famous annual Savonlinna Opera Festival, which was held first time in 1912. The operas are performed on a stage built inside the Olavinlinna castle. The city has also hosted the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships since 2000.
Sports.
The ice hockey team of Savonlinna, SaPKo or Savonlinnan Pallokerho, is playing in the second tier Mestis.
The top-tier volleyball team Saimaa Volley plays some of its home matches in Savonlinna. The football team Savonlinnan Työväen Palloseura (STPS), is playing in Kolmonen, the fourth tier.
International relations.
Twin towns — Sister cities.
Savonlinna is twinned with:
In addition, there is non-governmental cooperation with the following cities:


Pope Pius IX and Poland

In the time of Pope Pius IX, Poland had long been partitioned among three neighbouring powers and no longer existed as an independent country. The Polish people lived under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Austrian Empire and Prussia.
Russian-ruled Poles.
The major part of the difficulties that the Pope faced with regard to the Polish people concerned those who were ruled by the Tsar. They faced discrimination and persecution at the hands of the government, which enforced Russification and attempted to separate priests and people from their church.
For the sake of good relations with the government, Pius opposed the Polish nationalist movements that were often making those relations tense. On the other hand, his protests against the government's actions in its Polish provinces were so strong that they led to an intervention by the Austrian Empire, another of the powers who had taken over part of Poland, with the aim of getting the Pope to be silent on the matter.
Attempt to find middle ground.
Faced with problems from revolutionary movements in his Papal States, Pope Pius first tried to position himself in the middle, strongly opposing revolutionary and violent opposition against the governing authorities, while appealing to these for greater Church freedom. After the failure of the Polish uprising in 1863, he sided with the persecuted Poles, loudly protesting their persecution, infuriating the Tsarist government to the point that all Catholic sees were closed by 1870.
Opposition to Polish protests.
Pope Pius opposed Polish protests in 1860 against Russian rule in the part of Poland that fell to Russia in the partitions of Poland, protests allegedly stimulated by the anti-papal mysticism of philosopher Andrzej Towiański and influenced by Adam Mickiewicz. Nor was he pleased with patriotic anti-Russian sermons by the Polish clergy. This was interpreted as bowing to Russian interests and selling his Polish faithful.
On June 6, 1861, Pope Pius IX wrote to Archbishop Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, complaining against unjust accusations by Polish nationalists and enumerating all he had done for the Polish people in the Russian Empire. The Pope repeated his position, that Poles living under Russian rule had to obey Russian laws, while the Russian government had to provide religious freedom.
Polish moderation and religious freedom.
His dualistic appeals for Polish moderation and religious freedom did not appease either party. Russia felt strong on its territory, and Poles had national aspirations, for which they used Catholic churches to meet, talk and inspire emotions with patriotic songs. Continued incidences convinced the assembled cardinals in the Vatican on December 7, 1861, that the conflict was political in nature. Religion was simply a pretext for national Polish aspirations. They advised the Pope to be reluctant in his utterances.
Conflict inside the Church and with Russia.
The conflict continued inside the Church and with the Russian government, which, however, established diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1861. When the Catholic metropolitan, supported by Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, banned patriotic Polish songs in churches, he was labelled a traitor, without gaining much support from the government. The mutual mistrust, persecution and the opening and closing of monasteries and dioceses continued in the following years. However, since the papal delegate was not allowed to have any contact with the clergy, Pope Pius IX recalled his nuncio in 1863. After the Polish upraising in the same year, Pope Pius IX on April 22, 1863, wrote to the Tsar, protesting the expropriation of Church properties, forced conversions, the jailing of the clergy.
Tsar Alexander II replied that only politically revolutionary elements were punished. On August 20, the Pope protested and ordered a prayer novena for the persecuted Church. But the persecutions worsened: 330 priests were deported, a war tax was imposed on the clergy, and 114 Catholic monasteries were closed.
1863 encyclical.
Protests by Pope Pius enraged the Tsar and his regime, and led to an Austrian intervention, urging the Pope to be silent in the interest of the Polish Catholics. The Pope abstained from public protests but issued an encyclical July 30, 1863, in which he praised the heroic fight of the Poles and enumerated destruction and persecution activities by the Russian authorities. In the aftermath, Russia closed the dioceses of Kamieniec Podolski, and banned or exiled bishops and administrators in Warsaw, Chełm and other dioceses. On November 15, 1863, the Vatican published a White Book with some one hundred documents, detailing the conflict. Russia answered with a break of the concordat on December 6, 1863. By 1870, not a single bishop from the Polish provinces of the Russian empire was left in his own diocese.
Austrian-ruled Poles.
Unlike the Poles in the Eastern Orthodox Russian Empire, those who belonged to the Catholic Austrian Empire were able to fully live their faith.


Baroque in Portugal


Casa di Riposo per Musicisti

The Casa di Riposo per Musicisti (literally 'rest home for musicians') is a home for retired opera singers and musicians in Milan, northern Italy, founded by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (whose statue is outside the building) in 1896. The building was designed in the neo-Gothic style by Italian architect, Camillo Boito. Both Verdi and his wife, Giuseppina Strepponi are buried there. A documentary film about life in the Casa di Riposo, "Il Bacio di Tosca" ("Tosca's Kiss" in the US), was made in 1984 by the Swiss director Daniel Schmid.
History.
In the last years of his life, Verdi wrote to his friend Giulio Monteverde:
Of all my works, that which pleases me the most is the Casa that I had built in Milan to shelter elderly singers who have not been favoured by fortune, or who when they were young did not have the virtue of saving their money. Poor and dear companions of my life!"
In 1888, Verdi had already built, equipped and managed a hospital in Villanova sull'Arda, a town bordering the fields of his estate. The following year, he turned to his next philanthropic project, a home for retired opera singers and musicians who had fallen on hard times. In 1889, he wrote to Giulio Ricordi that he had acquired a large piece of empty land in Milan outside the Porta Garibaldi on which he planned to build his Casa di Riposo. He then announced his plans publicly in an 1891 interview in the "Gazetta musicale di Milano". Construction did not begin until 1896, but in the intervening years Verdi and wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, met frequently with the architect, Camillo Boito to plan the project. (Camillo Boito was the brother of Verdi's friend and librettist, Arrigo Boito.) He also sought out information on how other hospices for the elderly were run. In 1895, Verdi made provisions in his will to fund the Casa after his death, bequeathing the future royalties from his operas to the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti - Fondazione Giuseppe Verdi. Construction was completed in 1899, but Verdi did not want any residents to move in until after his death.
References.
Sources


Gephyrosaurus

Gephyrosaurus is a genus of early rhynchocephalian first described and named in 1980 by Susan E. Evans.
They are distantly related to the extant "Sphenodon" (tuatara of New Zealand) with which they shared a number of skeletal features including a large tooth row along the side of the palatine bone (part of the palate) and posterior process of the dentary bone (part of the lower jaw). The type species, G. bridensis, lived during Early Jurassic in Wales, UK. Whiteside & Duffin (2017) described the second species, G. evansae, known from a partial maxilla recovered from Late Triassic (Rhaetian) fissure fills in Carboniferous Limestone in Somerset. They are the only rhynchocephalians to lie outside Sphenodontia in modern definitions of the group, and have been found to be more closely related to squamates in some phylogenetic analyses.
Anatomical Description.
Limbs.
Observation of the skeletal elements of "Gephyrosaurus bridensis" makes it evident that this was very much a lizard-like creature.
It possessed relatively long, slender legs which would allow it to run quickly in pursuit of prey or in escape from larger predators.
While many small lizards are able to climb trees, it is possible this organism was not fully arboreal although it possessed strong legs and claws which would make it possible to climb.
It is unlikely "Gephyrosaurus" was bipedal.
Vertebrae.
Two distinct vertebrae from "Gephyrosaurus bridensis" were described, and these vertebrae are very similar to the modern Rhychocephalian "Sphenodon", providing strong evidence that the two genera are related
Dentition.
"Gephyrosaurus bridensis" possessed pleurodont dentition that is believed to have replaced slowly during the animal's lifetime. In her 1985 paper, Evans suggests that this could be the ancestral state for tooth replacement in lepidosaurs.
Behavior.
"Gephyrosaurus" was a terrestrial reptile and is assumed to be an insectivore that used a patient feeding strategy as it waited for prey to arrive.
High incidence of jaw fractures found among specimens infers that this animal was potentially territorial and would attack those who crossed into their home range.


Stanford Formation

The Stanford Formation is a geologic formation in England. It preserves fossils dating back to the Oxfordian stage of the Middle Jurassic period, around 160 million years ago.


St James Square, Monmouth

St James Square is a historic square in the town centre of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located at the eastern end of Whitecross Street, within the medieval town walls. The area features the Monmouth War Memorial and the controversial, historic Indian Bean Tree. In addition, in 2010, the square was the site of discovery of the first Mesolithic artefacts in Monmouth. St James Square is lined with numerous listed buildings. It is also home to the Monmouth Catalpa Tree.
History and location.
"There are some lovely spots in the town centre, none prettier than St James's Square, with its old war memorial in the shadow of a romantic-looking tree." This is the description of St James Square "(pictured)" in Monmouth, Wales that appeared in "The Telegraph" of 25 February 2006. The Monmouth War Memorial, which commemorates the fallen of the First and Second World Wars, was the work of sculptor W. Clarke of Llandaff. The monument was installed near the western tip of triangular St James Square in 1921, in front of a mature Catalpa, now known as the Monmouth Catalpa Tree.
While St James Square does not appear on the 1610 map of Monmouth drawn by cartographer John Speed, Dixton Gate (East Gate), just east of the square, is shown on the early 17th-century map "(pictured)". St James Square is located within the medieval walls of Monmouth. Whitecross Street extends from Church Street eastward, terminating at the roundabout encircling St James Square. St James Square continues to bring the community together. It serves as the site of ceremonies held on Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
On some maps of Monmouth, the eastern segment of Whitecross Street, from its intersection with Monk Street to its termination on the roundabout, is also given the name St James Square. As a consequence, some buildings along that stretch of street have both Whitecross and St James addresses. In addition, St James Street and Old Dixton Road intersect with the roundabout at its eastern aspect. In 2010, during the course of gas main replacement work at St James Square and Wyebridge Street, Mesolithic era artefacts, including flints, were excavated "(link to photograph of flints below)". This represented the first discovery of Mesolithic human settlement in Monmouth.
The Monmouth Catalpa Tree.
The Catalpa or Indian Bean Tree, one of the oldest and largest specimens in the United Kingdom, was planted on the square about 1900. The grade II listed cenotaph and tree, with adjacent lawn and flowers, are enclosed by railings. In 2005, the Catalpa was the focus of controversy when the Monmouthshire County Council condemned the tree. Other groups in the community joined together to hire a professional to investigate the tree's condition. Eventually, metal rods were installed to support a number of the tree's branches.
The buildings.
St James House "(pictured below)" at 10 St James Square also has an address recorded at Whitecross Street. It is on the north side of the western end of the square. The 18th-century, grade II listed building has a red brick exterior. The three-storey, five-bay house features a tall, arched window above the entrance. The building was part of Monmouth School, used as a boarding house.
12 St James Square is a two-storey, listed building. While the facade is of the 18th century, the original house is believed to be older. The building has a slate roof and stucco exterior.
19 St James Square, Burton House, is an early 19th-century, listed building. The three-storey building has a pebbledash (roughcast) exterior and operates as a guest house.
The Dispensary "(pictured above and below)" in St James Square is also referred to as Cartref. It is recorded as being at 23 St James Square in at least one document. Cartref is a mid-18th-century, Grade II listed building. It is one of 24 blue plaque buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail. The three-storey, five-bay building features a hipped roof of Welsh slate with spike finials and large brick chimneys.
Ebberley House "(pictured above and below)" is also recorded at 23 St James Square in at least one document. It is a grade II listed building, just to the right of the Dispensary. The record held by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales indicates that a "mid 19th century painting shows a pair of double gabled, 17th century houses" at the location. The current exterior appears to be of the 19th century, with stucco over brick. The entrance to the left features a round headed doorway with fanlight and six-panelled door. To the right of the entrance, there is a large, tripartite window. Cast iron railings are present. The house now operates as a bed and breakfast.
25 St James Square is an early 19th-century, listed building. It has a three-storey, two-bay elevation and a pedimented doorway.
33 St James Square "(pictured below)" has an alternate address, 33 Whitecross Street. The grade II listed house is most probably of the 18th century. While the house is three storeys at the front elevation, the rear has a two-storey elevation. There is a circa 1900 canted bay to the right of the entrance, which has a six-panelled door.
The Old Nag's Head "(pictured above and below)" at St James Square and Old Dixton Road is an early 19th-century building which incorporates the remnants of the East Gate, the Dixton Gate. The gate was otherwise demolished and replaced by the turnpike gate on Old Dixton Road. The medieval portion of the tower gate is red sandstone. The half-round tower of unpainted sandstone projects from the north gable of the building. The remaining portion of the inn is painted. The roof is of Welsh slate and there are red brick chimneys.
The Dixton Gate or East Gate "(pictured below and in map above)" at St James Square and Old Dixton Road represents the only standing remains of Monmouth's medieval town walls and gates
other than the Monnow Bridge Gatehouse. Listed with Cadw, it is incorporated into The Old Nag's Head as described above. The red sandstone tower gate has a battered base.
The Old Toll House or Dixton Gate Turnpike at 16 Old Dixton Road and the square is a listed building. The toll house is positioned on the left side of the road, with its canted end facing toward the street. The early 19th-century turnpike toll house has a Welsh slate roof and is painted. This was replaced by the toll house on New Dixton Road after the new street was laid out in 1837.


Vanaja (Finland)

Vanaja is a former municipality of Finland. It was located in Tavastia Proper about north of Helsinki. It is also speculated that it might have been the name for an Iron Age and early Middle Ages settlement found opposite to the Häme Castle.
Iron Age Finnish settlement.
Vanaja is a name commonly used about the excavation site of an Iron Age settlement in central Tavastia, Finland, opposite to the later Häme Castle in Varikonniemi. According to some interpretations it was a proto-urban settlement, but this is contested. The settlement existed roughly during the 6th to 13th centuries. It is possibly the "town of Vanai" mentioned once in a Novgorod chronicle that describes how it was destroyed by Novgorodian forces in 1311 CE.
It has been suggested that the site was abandoned after the attack. As another possible result from the war, the present-day Häme Castle was built on the opposite shore of the Vanajavesi lake soon (some researchers, however, have dated the earliest building phase of the castle to the late 13th century). It took however more than 300 years before there was a town next to it again: Hämeenlinna was established 1639.
According to preliminary estimations, the site was about hectares making it about half the size of the Björkö settlement in Sweden. Excavations have so far covered only a small fraction of the area, and its nature as a town-like settlement or just an ordinary rural site has been disputed. The site was found in 1986.
Vanaja afterwards.
Vanaja () parish was first mentioned in 1324, 13 years after the Novgorod invasion.
Vanaja municipality used to cover all the area around the Häme castle, but eventually it diminished in size and was finally divided between Hämeenlinna, Janakkala, Renko and Hattula in 1967. The most of the municipality is now part of Hämeenlinna.
The medieval church of Vanaja is located about south-east of the Iron Age settlement, on a cape, that may have served as the local place of sacrifice. The oldest Swedish name (Vaan-ö) of the municipality probably originated from the name of the cape, which during springtime floods used to be an island. There was an episcopal manor nearby in the 14th and 15th century.


Moudon

Moudon (, Latin: Minnodunum; ) is a municipality in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It was the seat of Moudon District and is now in the Broye-Vully district.
History.
Montmagny was known as "Minnodunum" or "Minnidunum" during the Roman era. Around 1100, 1154 and 1180 it was mentioned as "Meldun", in 1161 it was "Moudon" and in 1167 as "Meldunum" or "Mildunum".
As ancient Minnodunum, during Roman times, the city was in the country of the Helvetii, on a road from Viviscus (modern Vevey), on the Lake of Geneva, to Aventicum (modern Avenches).
Geography.
Moudon has an area, , of . Of this area, or 46.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 35.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 16.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 2.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.5%. Out of the forested land, 32.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 27.9% is used for growing crops and 17.8% is pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.2% is in lakes and 1.6% is in rivers and streams.
The municipality was the capital of the Moudon District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Moudon became part of the new district of Broye-Vully.
The upper city is located at the confluence of the Mérine and Broye rivers. The lower city stretches downstream along the Broye river. It lies on the intersection of two historically important roads, one from Italy to Burgundy and the other between Geneva and Bern. It consists of the village of Moudon and the hamlets of Plan and Villaret, the northern section of the hamlet of Bressonnaz-Dessous and numerous (mostly medieval) farm house settlements including Alliérens, Beauregard, Belflori, Chalabruz, Cornier, Frémont, La Baume, La Cerjaulaz, La Faye, Le Grand-Pré, Grange-Verney, Gréchon, Montsandon, Valacrêt.
The municipalities of Moudon and Rossenges are considering a merger at a date in the future into the new municipality of Moudon.
Coat of arms.
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is "Per pale Gules and Vert, overall a capital M Or."
Demographics.
Moudon has a population () of . , 37.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 10.8%. It has changed at a rate of 7.2% due to migration and at a rate of 4.7% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (3,474 or 79.5%), with Portuguese being second most common (197 or 4.5%) and Albanian being third (172 or 3.9%). There are 130 people who speak German, 95 people who speak Italian and 2 people who speak Romansh.
Of the population in the municipality 1,203 or about 27.5% were born in Moudon and lived there in 2000. There were 1,036 or 23.7% who were born in the same canton, while 592 or 13.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,308 or 29.9% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 30 live births to Swiss citizens and 27 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 30 deaths of Swiss citizens and 2 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens remained the same while the foreign population increased by 25. There were 41 Swiss men and 31 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 65 non-Swiss men and 57 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 130 and the non-Swiss population increased by 129 people. This represents a population growth rate of 5.9%.
The age distribution, , in Moudon is; 538 children or 11.3% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 692 teenagers or 14.5% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 649 people or 13.6% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 628 people or 13.2% are between 30 and 39, 771 people or 16.2% are between 40 and 49, and 588 people or 12.3% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 427 people or 8.9% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 269 people or 5.6% are between 70 and 79, there are 179 people or 3.8% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 31 people or 0.6% who are 90 and older.
, there were 1,791 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,128 married individuals, 265 widows or widowers and 187 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,720 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 570 households that consist of only one person and 145 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 1,764 households that answered this question, 32.3% were households made up of just one person and there were 9 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 429 married couples without children, 609 married couples with children There were 89 single parents with a child or children. There were 14 households that were made up of unrelated people and 44 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
 there were 296 single family homes (or 40.9% of the total) out of a total of 724 inhabited buildings. There were 189 multi-family buildings (26.1%), along with 124 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (17.1%) and 115 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (15.9%). Of the single family homes 67 were built before 1919, while 16 were built between 1990 and 2000. The most multi-family homes (66) were built before 1919 and the next most (36) were built between 1946 and 1960. There were 3 multi-family houses built between 1996 and 2000.
 there were 2,000 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 712. There were 141 single room apartments and 348 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 1,676 apartments (83.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 204 apartments (10.2%) were seasonally occupied and 120 apartments (6.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 5.9 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.62%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance.
The Ancien Grenier, the Swiss Reformed Church of Saint-Etienne, the Fountain de Moïse (Moses Fountain), the City Hall, the D’Arnay House, the Etats de Vaud House, the Loys de Villardin House, the De Rochefort House, the Tacheron House and the Castle Tower are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Twin Town.
Moudon is twinned with:
Politics.
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 33.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (22.62%), the SP (17.31%) and the Green Party (10.9%). In the federal election, a total of 904 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 41.4%.
Economy.
, Moudon had an unemployment rate of 6.6%. , there were 64 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 21 businesses involved in this sector. 740 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 65 businesses in this sector. 1,619 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 210 businesses in this sector. There were 2,054 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.4% of the workforce.
 the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 2,021. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 50, of which 45 were in agriculture and 5 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 701 of which 405 or (57.8%) were in manufacturing and 251 (35.8%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 1,270. In the tertiary sector; 358 or 28.2% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 174 or 13.7% were in the movement and storage of goods, 88 or 6.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 8 or 0.6% were in the information industry, 33 or 2.6% were the insurance or financial industry, 72 or 5.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 158 or 12.4% were in education and 178 or 14.0% were in health care.
, there were 1,366 workers who commuted into the municipality and 875 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.6 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 11.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 55.5% used a private car.
Religion.
From the , 1,477 or 33.8% were Roman Catholic, while 1,471 or 33.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 21 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.48% of the population), there were 7 individuals (or about 0.16% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 82 individuals (or about 1.88% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 3 individuals (or about 0.07% of the population) who were Jewish, and 506 (or about 11.58% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 5 individuals who were Buddhist, 8 individuals who were Hindu and 24 individuals who belonged to another church. 428 (or about 9.79% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 339 individuals (or about 7.76% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education.
In Moudon about 1,318 or (30.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 341 or (7.8%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule"). Of the 341 who completed tertiary schooling, 55.7% were Swiss men, 23.5% were Swiss women, 14.4% were non-Swiss men and 6.5% were non-Swiss women.
In the 2009/2010 school year there were a total of 665 students in the Moudon school district. In the Vaud cantonal school system, two years of non-obligatory pre-school are provided by the political districts. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 155 children of which 83 children (53.5%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 347 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 269 students in those schools. There were also 49 students who were home schooled or attended another non-traditional school.
, there were 514 students in Moudon who came from another municipality, while 136 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
Transportation.
The municipality has a railway station, , on the Palézieux–Lyss railway line. It has regular service to , , , and .


Siege of Corfinium

The Siege of Corfinium was the first significant military confrontation of Caesar's Civil War. Undertaken in February 49 BC, it saw the forces of Gaius Julius Caesar's Populares besiege the Italian city of Corfinium, which was held by a force of Optimates under the command of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. The siege lasted only a week, after which the defenders surrendered themselves to Caesar. This bloodless victory was a significant propaganda coup for Caesar and hastened the retreat of the main Optimate force from Italia, leaving the Populares in effective control of the entire peninsula.
Background.
Over the previous decade Julius Caesar had scored a series of military victories in the previously unconquered lands of Germania, Britannia, and most prominently Gaul during the Gallic Wars. These victories in the name of the Roman Republic, along with previous reforms he had made as consul, won him massive popularity among the people and the Roman Senate was becoming increasingly fearful of the political power he had come to wield. This situation was exacerbated by the sheer number of legions Caesar had managed to amass, sometimes illegally, during his years on campaign. Those in opposition to Caesar had come to rally around Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"), regarded as Rome's greatest general and a former ally of Caesar's during the time of the First Triumvirate.
The Senate was planning to prosecute Caesar for war crimes upon the end of his proconsular term as governor of Transalpine Gaul, Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul, and Caesar was determined to become consul for the year 49 BC so as to retain his legal immunity. In December 50 BC he wrote to the Senate asking if he could run for Consul "in absentia" without having to physically return to Rome where he could be apprehended; he also agreed to disband his legions if Pompey did the same. Caesar wished to make clear that Pompey had also been given extraordinary commands in Hispania just as he had in Gaul, and therefore the two men should be treated equally in this matter. A majority in the Senate did not wish for a civil war and a motion was passed showing they were open to the idea of both Pompey and Caesar leaving their provincial commands, even if such votes still showed that Caesar's resignation was preferred over Pompey's. Pompey himself would only comply if Caesar did so first, likewise Caesar could not agree to these demands and wished for Pompey to be the one to act first, and as a result a deadlock ensued. Eventually, the Senate rejected his requests and instead demanded he disband his legions and return to Rome immediately, or be labelled an enemy of the people. Caesar saw this as an illegal act against his right to hold his army until his proconsular governorships expired.
On 1 January 49 BC Caesar sent former tribune of the plebs Gaius Scribonius Curio to Rome with an ultimatum letter. This letter was read aloud to the Senate by the new tribunes Marcus Antonius and Quintus Cassius Longinus who were also Caesar loyalists. It once more made the claim that Caesar would leave his command if Pompey also agreed to do so. In response the Senate once again voted to strip Caesar of his command and demand he return to Rome; a second vote on the subject was held after negotiations broke down and the tribunes used their special veto to block the motion from carrying. It is here that the Senate passed the "senatus consultum ultimum", enabling emergency powers and overriding the tribunes' veto.
At the same time Caesar was officially declared an enemy of the Republic and leading Populares such as an tribunes Curio, and Marcus Caelius Rufus fled to regroup with Caesar in Ravenna.
Caesar considered his actions carefully and then crossed the Rubicon on 11 January 49 BC with Legio XIII, declaring that "the die is cast". By advancing under arms into the Roman home province of Italia, and beyond the boundaries of his own provinces where he held "imperium", civil war was ignited between the forces in support of Caesar and those in support of the Senate led by Pompey.
At his disposal Caesar had 12 legions; 10 of these were veterans of his campaigns wintering beyond the Alps in Gaul, while the remainder consisted of 22 cohorts recently raised in his province of Transalpine Gaul. These forces were complimented by auxiliaries and allies that Caesar had accrued in Gaul and Germania. In total it is estimated that this would account for 30,000 - 45,000 men. Pompey and the Senate had a much larger pool of resources and men to draw upon but only 2 legions were present in the home province at the beginning of 49 BC, both stationed in southern Italy. Both these legions had been recently transferred from Caesar's command, to take part in a planned war against Parthia, and had spent years fighting for him so their loyalty was far from certain. Pompey did have 7 fully trained legions stationed in Hispania, however these had had little to no real combat experience and were far removed from the current theatre of operations. In the long term the Optimates were confident that they would be able to crush Caesar. The Spanish legions could be recalled, new recruits were being levied in Italy, and in the eastern provinces Pompey possessed a vast network of clients and allies from which he could call upon for wealth and men. Armies take time to train and mobilise but if given that time it was perfectly reasonable to assume that Caesar could be overwhelmed.
Prelude.
Caesar immediately began a swift advance down the Italian Peninsula and made his first base at Ariminum, it was either at this point or previously at Ravenna that he addressed his men. He spoke of the terrible injustices wrought upon him by his enemies, of his sadness at how his old friend and ally Pompey had turned against him through jealousy, and of how the Senate had trampled on the rights of the tribunes' veto. His words greatly roused the assembled men who were intensely loyal to Caesar.
Marcus Antonius was given command of 5 cohorts and sent to capture Arretium, a task which he succeeded in. Caesar himself then conducted operations against Pisaurum, Fanum Fortunae and Ancona, and capturing each city with a single cohort. Gaius Scribonius Curio was then acquitted with 3 cohorts and sent to capture Iguvium; the tribune who was holding the city withdrew his forces and retreated for he feared that the inhabitants were too favourable towards Caesar's cause which allowed Curio to take the city and receive the adulation of the crowds. A similar feat was replicated when soon after Caesar marched on Auximum which was being held by Publius Attius Varus. The senate within the city visited Varus and made it known that they would not support any action against Caesar whom they viewed as a respected general of the republic. Varus, shocked by this declaration, fled the city with his men who then in turn deserted him and were welcomed into the fold by Caesar.
The quickness of this advance led to panic in Rome and Pompey, possibly under the impression that Caesar would only dare to attempt such direct action with a far larger force, made the unprecedented decision to abandon the defence of Rome and evacuate the Roman Senate from the Eternal City. He sent orders for all of his nearby forces to march south to Apulia in order to regroup and await the arrival of the overwhelming strength of the legions out in the provinces. According to Caesar, the panic was so great that the consul for the year Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, who was sent to empty the Roman treasury by order of the Senate, only got so far as opening it before fleeing on account of a rumour that Caesar was approaching the capital.
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Caesar's long time rival and the newly appointed replacement proconsul of his province of Transalpine Gaul, ignored Pompey's orders and instead fortified his men within the city of Corfinium which lay on the road to southern Italy. Ahenobarbus had managed to muster 22 cohorts from Etruria and nearby provinces, and another 13 cohorts were raised by Lucius Vibullius Rufus and brought to the city, meaning the equivalent of three legions were available for its defence. These were all raw recruits and as a result Pompey sent numerous letters urging against the defence of the city, knowing they were at a severe disadvantage against Caesar's veterans who had spent the last decade fighting with him in Gaul. He believed it would be more prudent for the force to link up with his own men (currently Legio I, Legio II and a large number of new conscripts) further south in Apulia. Nonetheless, Ahenobarbus was unmoved as he believed that he outnumbered Caesar 3 to 1 and on the contrary urged Pompey to instead bring his men north to Corfinium.
Moving south along the Adriatic seaboard, each passing settlement greeted Caesar warmly and provided for the needs of his army. Even Cingulum which had been built and paid for by Titus Labienus, Caesar's former lieutenant who chose to side with Pompey, gladly cooperated. During this time Caesar had sent for the remainder of his men to join him from their winter quarters and was soon strengthened by Legio XII meaning he had two legions at his disposal. Advancing through Picenum he soon accepted the surrender of the city of Asculum and sent Curio to capture two more cities and raise recruits for the upcoming siege of Corfinium. Caesar remained at Asculum for one day before breaking camp again. Approaching Corfinium Caesar's forces engaged in a brief skirmish with a detachment of five cohorts from the garrison sent to demolish a bridge three miles west of the city, after they were defeated he advanced and encamped his men outside of the city walls on February 15. At the outset of the siege Caesar had 2 legions against Ahenobarbus' 3 legions defending Corfinium.
Siege.
Upon Caesar's arrival outside the city Ahenobarbus strengthened the city defences, had his men man the walls, and sent messengers to Pompey requesting troops to relieve the siege. He argued that by trapping the attackers against the walls between two armies then supplies could be easily cut off and the force routed. Additionally, he warned that without the reinforcements it was possible that his 33 cohorts and a large number of senators within the city could fall into Caesar's possession. He also made a pronouncement that every private soldier who participated in the defence of Corfinium would receive four acres from his own estate.
Meanwhile, Caesar learned the nearby Optimate-controlled city of Sulmo which lay seven miles beyond Corfinium was sympathetic to his cause and he sent Marcus Antonius with five cohorts of Legio XIII to see to its capture. Upon seeing the approach of Caesar's standard the inhabitants opened the gates and graciously met with Antonius who accepted the loyalty of the seven cohorts stationed within. The former commanders Quintus Lucretius Vespillo and Gaius Attius attempted to flee the scene but Attius was captured and brought along with the legions to unite with Caesar.
Caesar himself spent three days entrenching his men and scouring the nearby countryside for food and supplies. It was during this time that Caesar received reinforcements of his own in the form of Legio VIII, 22 newly recruited cohorts from Gaul and 300 auxiliary cavalry units from the king of Noricum all of which were stationed in a separate camp under the command of Curio, positioned on the opposite side of the city. Caesar then resolved to surround Corfinium with a vallum and a series of forts.
As the construction of these works was nearing completion the messengers returned and Ahenobarbus learned that Pompey had refused his request for reinforcements stating that such an ordeal was too risky and that Ahenobarbus had acted against his advice and orders. Despite this Ahenobarbus announced to his men that Pompey would be coming to their assistance in due course. He then attempted to flee the city only for his escape to be foiled by the multitude of blockades and devices surrounding his position.
Having uncovered the true nature of Pompey's response, this escape attempt was subsequently discovered by disgruntled senior officers within the city and they came together in agreement that despatches should be sent to Caesar that they would open the gates and deliver Ahenobarbus to him alive. It is also possible that Ahenobarbus was planning an evacuation at this point and it was the prospect of long campaigns abroad with Pompey which motivated them to abandon their leader. On the fourth night of the siege Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, who had previously fled the city of Asculum upon seeing Caesar's advance and taken refuge in Corfinium, appeared on the walls and asked for an audience with Caesar which he was duly granted. Once in Caesar's presence he begged for his own life to be spared, citing the prior friendship between the two men, and Caesar encouraged him by claiming "that he had not left his province to do mischief, but to protect himself from the injuries of his enemies; to restore to their dignity the tribunes of the people who had been driven out of the city on his account, and to assert his own liberty, and that of the Roman people, who were oppressed by a few factious men". Spinther then returned into the city and spread word of Caesar's clemency which allayed many fears. It was claimed that Ahenobarbus had asked his physician to provide him with poison but upon hearing of Caesar's mercy was delighted to hear that he had only been administered a sleeping draught.
The Greek historian Appian, writing almost 200 years after the events, gives a far briefer description of the siege than Caesar. He simply writes that Ahenobarbus was apprehended by his own men while trying to flee before being handed over to Caesar.
Aftermath.
The following day Caesar ordered that all senators and their children, tribunes and equites within the city be brought to him. In total 50 of these such men were presented including Domitius Ahenobarbus and his son, Lentulus Spinther, as well as prominent senators such as Lucius Vibullius Rufus and Sextus Quintilius Varus. Caesar made sure that these men fully understood the kindness he was showing them and the justness of his cause before allowing them to go free. Many of these men immediately fled to Pompey. The treasury of Corfinium, some 6,000,000 sesterces, was also delivered to Caesar though this he returned to Ahenobarbus as he knew it to be public funds raised by Pompey to pay the garrison and did not wish to appear to be more restrained with the lives of men than he was with their wealth. The 33 cohorts previously under the command of Ahenobarbus swore new oaths to Caesar, bolstering his forces considerably with the strength of roughly 3 legions.
Caesar's stay at Corfinium lasted seven days in total and after accepting its surrender he immediately broke camp and set out into Apulia to pursue Pompey. Upon learning of Caesar's victory Pompey began to march his army from Luceria to Canusium and then on to Brundisium where he could further retreat by crossing the Adriatic Sea to Epirus. As he began his march Caesar had with him six legions, having immediately sent Ahenobarbus' legions under Curio to secure Sicily; they would later fight for him in Africa. Pompey would be soon be besieged in Brundisium by Caesar's army, though despite this his evacuation was a success.
The leniency shown by Caesar to the defenders of Corfinium was typical of the strategy he would employ throughout the remainder of the civil war. It was a significant propaganda victory, Caesar had shown clemency towards those he defeated from the outset of the war but never to a group so distinguished as this or made up of men so bitter in their hatred towards him. By appearing to forgive his enemies and restraining his troops from taking any plunder he had ensured that the peoples of Italia, who were largely apathetic to the politics of the civil war, would remain welcoming to him. In this regard his approach made practical sense.
Ahenobarbus was deeply surprised by the treatment he had received as he and Caesar shared a great enmity; after being dismissed from Corfinium he briefly retired to Cosa in Etruria before sailing to Massilia where he once again unsuccessfully defended a city against Caesar's supporters in the Siege of Massilia.


Hohenzollern-Haigerloch

Hohenzollern-Haigerloch was a small county in southwestern Germany. Its rulers belonged to the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern. It became part of the neighboring Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1767.
History.
The more famous younger Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern family became Burgraves of Nuremberg, Margraves of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia, and finally Emperors of Germany. Unlike their northern relatives, the Swabians remained Catholic.
The county of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch was created in 1576, when Karl I of Hohenzollern died and his lands were divided between his three sons:
All three territories were located in south-western Germany and were fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. The area is now part of the German Land of Baden-Württemberg. Hechingen, Sigmaringen, and Haigerloch were the capitals of the three states.


History of modern Macedonia (Greece)

In the 19th century, the national revival in the Balkans began; national and religious antagonism flared, and conflict was heightened by the Ottoman policy of playing one group against the other. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire lost control over the major sections of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, each of which claimed Macedonia on historical or ethnical grounds.
In the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), which terminated the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, Bulgaria was awarded the lion's share of Macedonia. However, the settlement was nullified by the European powers in the same year (see Congress of Berlin), and Macedonia was left under direct Ottoman control.
After the Greco-Turkish war of 1897, which proved a disaster for Greece, Bulgarian nationalism started strengthening in Macedonia. Thus it came about that on the feastday (20 July) of the Prophet Elijah in 1903 there was an uprising, known as the Ilinden Uprising, which the Ottoman army soon suppressed.
Greek Struggle for Macedonia.
The rising, however, made plain the danger that Macedonia might be lost for ever, which stimulated a general mobilisation on the part of the Greeks. So it came about, in 1904, that the armed Greek Struggle for Macedonia began, lasting until 1908. During this period, units made up of volunteers from the free Greek state, from Crete and from other areas poured into region of Macedonia in solidarity with the local Makedonomáchoi (, "Macedonian fighters"). Together, they confronted the Bulgarian forces in an attempt to assert hegemony over the central and southern parts of Macedonia.
Balkan Wars.
The Balkan Wars (First and Second), of 1912–13 put an end to five centuries of Ottoman domination in Macedonia.
First Balkan War.
The antagonisms between the Christian states (Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria) still persisted, and after the successful conclusion of the First Balkan War, they resurfaced, especially over the partition of Macedonia. In Treaty of London, 1913 the allies (see:Balkan League) disagree about the division of Macedonia.
Second Balkan War.
Greece and Serbia turned against Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, and the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) left Bulgaria only a small share of Macedonia, the rest of which was divided roughly along the present lines.
In 1913, following the Treaty of Bucharest, the region was divided among Greece, which took Greek Macedonia (composed from the Vilayets of Salonica, and Manastir); Serbia, which took Vardar Macedonia (today, the Republic of North Macedonia); and the areas of Ottoman Kosovo that were part of the Macedonian region - today, South Kosovo. Bulgaria took what is now Blagoevgrad Province from the Salonica Vilayet. This was followed by massive population movements. Thousands of Macedonian Bulgarians fled to Bulgaria.
World War I and National Schism.
Venizelos was in support of the Allies and wanted Greece to join the war on their side, while the pro-German King wanted Greece to remain neutral, which would favor the plans of the Central Powers. The disagreement had wider implications, since it would also affect the character and role of the king in the state. The unconstitutional dismissal of Venizelos by the King resulted in a deep personal rift between the two and in subsequent events their followers divided into two radically opposed political camps affecting the wider Greek society.
With the landing of Allied forces in Thessaloniki with Venizelos' permission and the unconditional surrender by the King of a military fort in Macedonia to German-Bulgarian forces, the disagreement of the two men started to take the form of civil war. In August 1916, followers of Venizelos set up a provisional state in Northern Greece with Entente support with the aim of reclaiming the lost regions in Macedonia, effectively splitting Greece into two entities.
After intense diplomatic negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Entente and royalist forces (an incident known as Noemvriana) the king abdicated, and his second son Alexander took his place. Venizelos returned to Athens on 29 May 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially joined the war on the side of the Allies, emerging victorious and securing new territory by the Treaty of Sèvres.
Treaty of Lausanne (1923).
The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) put an end to the traditional Greek policy of the "Great Idea". This allowed the Greek governments of the inter-war years to turn their attention to the country's domestic affairs and to the building of the modern Greek state. The population exchanges among Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria after 1923 resulted in the replacement by Greek refugees from Asia Minor of most of the Slavic and Turkish elements in Macedonia.
Macedonia experienced a radical demographic transformation with the arrival of the Greek refugees; the Greeks, who had been the 43% in 1913, were estimated to constitute 89% of the population of Macedonia by 1928.
Bulgarian relations with Yugoslavia (before 1929 the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) remained strained over the Macedonian question. Frontier incidents were frequent, as were Yugoslav charges against Bulgaria for fostering the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), a nationalist group that used violence, in Yugoslavia. Macedonian agitation against Serbian rule culminated (1934) in the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia by a Bulgarian nationalist at Marseilles.
World War II.
In World War II, following the Italian invasion on 28 October 1940, Greece repelled the initial Italian attack and a counter-attack in March 1941. When the German invasion, known as Operation Marita, began on 6 April, the bulk of the Greek Army was on the Greek border with Albania, then a vassal of Italy, from which the Italian troops had attacked. German troops invaded from Bulgaria, creating a second front. The Greek army found itself outnumbered in its effort to defend against both Italian and German troops. As a result, the Metaxas defensive line was quickly overrun by the Germans, who then outflanked the Greek forces at the Albanian border, forcing their surrender. Greece's territory was divided into occupation zones run by the Axis powers, with the Germans proceeding to administer the most important regions of the country themselves, including Thessaloniki. Other regions of the country were given to Germany's partners, Italy and Bulgaria. Thrace and eastern Macedonia were occupied (1941–44) by Bulgaria, which sided with the Axis Powers.
The occupation ruined the Greek economy and brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population. At the same time the Greek Resistance was formed in Macedonia as well as in the rest of Greece. These resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers, fought against the collaborationist Security Battalions, and set up large espionage networks. The Greek Resistance killed 21,087 Axis soldiers (17,536 Germans, 2,739 Italians, 1,532 Bulgarians) and captured 6,463 (2,102 Germans, 2,109 Italians, 2,252 Bulgarians), for the death of 20,650 Greek partisans and an unknown number captured.
Greek Civil War.
Much of the Greek Civil War was fought in Macedonia. The Communist Party of Greece or KKE and the Democratic Army of Greece or DSE were heavily established in Macedonia. The National Liberation Front was established by Slavic speakers who associate themselves with Yugoslavia who resided in Greece, to assist with the war effort, in return for minority status recognition and rights. However, when the DSE lost the Greek Civil War thousands of people who fought for the Communist side fled Greece, taking thousands of ethnic Macedonian children from the Greek region of Macedonia with them.
Tension over the region of Macedonia continued in the early postwar years. During the Greek Civil War there was much conflict between Greece and Yugoslavia over Macedonia, and the breach between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria after 1948 helped to make the Macedonian question explosive. However, with the settlement of the civil war and with the easing of Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations after 1962, tension over Macedonia was reduced. A 1982 amnesty law stated "Free to return to Greece are all Greeks by Genus who during the civil war of 1946–1949 and because of it have fled abroad as political refugees, despite that Greek citizenship has been taken away from them" had the right as Greeks, to take back their Greek citizenship and return, including the Macedonian Greeks, but excluding those who identified as non-Greeks, who were mainly ethnic Macedonians.
Macedonia today.
Today Macedonia (, "Makedonia") is Greece's largest geographical region and it occupies the northern part of the country.
Since the administrative reform of 1987, the region is subdivided into three Regions:
The geographical region of Macedonia also includes the male-only autonomous monastic republic of Mount Athos.


List of years in Croatia

This is a list of years in Croatia. See also the timeline of Croatian history. Each article deals with events in Croatia in a given year.


Anta do Alto da Toupeira

The Anta do Alto da Toupeira, also called the "Anta da Toupeira" or the "Anta de Salemas", is a Neolithic dolmen, or megalithic tomb, situated in the parish of Lousa in the municipality of Loures, in the Lisbon District of Portugal. It dates back to the Chalcolithic.
The Anta is hidden by a clump of trees about 100 metres to the south of the Cave of Salemas. It is one of several archaeological sites within the same area, including the cave. Although probably identified by the 19th-century Portuguese archaeologist, Carlos Ribeiro, it was first studied and drawn on 17 January 1944 by the German archaeologists, Georg and Vera Leisner, but no excavations were carried out until November 1959 when Vera Leisner and O. V. Ferreira made some limited excavations and corrected the previous plan. These led them to describe the dolmen as a polygonal chamber necropolis without the usual entrance corridor associated with similar dolmens in the area. They estimated its dimensions as being 5.5 metres by 5 metres, with a maximum height of two metres. Five limestone slabs of the Late Cretaceous epoch survive on the site, one of which is believed to have been the roof of the tomb. Although further research has yet to be carried out, other archaeologists believe that further excavation could result in the discovery of an access corridor.
Excavations have yielded a number of findings but archaeologists are confused as to whether these came from the Anta, from the cave, or, indeed, from a second Anta, which appears to be referred to by the Leisners but has not since been identified. Items found have included a cylindrical idol, an axe of amphibole, a copper chisel, a copper arrowhead, and a pendant. These items are kept at Lisbon’s Geological Museum ("Museu Geológico").