History of Sardinia

Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and other prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans. Initially under the political and economic alliance with the Phoenician cities, it was partly conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC and then entirely by Rome after the First Punic War (238 BC). The island was included for centuries in the Roman province of Sardinia and Corsica, which would be incorporated into the diocese of "Italia suburbicaria" in 3rd and 4th centuries.
In the Early Middle Ages, through the European barbarian movements, the waning of the Byzantine Empire influence in the western Mediterranean and the Saracen raids, the island fell out of the sphere of influence of any higher government; this led to the birth of four independent kingdoms called "Judicates" (Latin: "Judicati"; Sardinian: "Judicados") in the 8th through 10th centuries. Falling under papal influence, Sardinia became the focus of the rivalry of Genoa, Pisa, and the Crown of Aragon, which eventually subsumed the island as the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1324. The Iberian Kingdom was to last until 1718, when it was ceded to the House of Savoy; from Piedmont, the Savoyards pursued a policy of expansion to the rest of the Italian peninsula, having their Kingdom of Sardinia be later renamed into "Kingdom of Italy" in 1861.
Prehistory.
The oldest trace in Sardinia of the anthropomorphic prehistoric primate called "Oreopithecus bambolii" is dated to 8.5 million years ago. In 1996 a hominid finger bone, dated up to 250.000 BC, was found in a cave in the Logudoro region.
Modern humans appeared in the island during the Upper Paleolithic, a phalanx dated to 18000 BC had been found in the "Corbeddu cave", near Oliena. Mesolithic human remains had been discovered at "Su Coloru cave" of Laerru but also in the south (Sirri, Arbus).
Already in the Stone Age, Monte Arci played an important role. The old volcano was one of the central places where obsidian was found and worked for cutting tools and arrowheads. Even now the volcanic glass can be found on the sides of the mountain.
The Neolithic began in Sardinia in the 6th millennium BC with the Cardial culture. Later, important cultures like the Ozieri culture and the Arzachena culture of the late Neolithic and the Abealzu-Filigosa and Monte Claro culture of the Chalcolithic period, developed in the island contemporaneously with the appearance of the megalithic phenomenon.
The dolmens culture, around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, passed with other typical material aspects of Western Europe (e.g. Bell Beaker) through by the Sardinian coast even in Sicily.
Prehistoric and Pre-nuragic monuments and constructions that characterise the Sardinian landscapes are the Domus de Janas (), the menhir and Statue menhir and the dolmens.
Chronology of Pre-Nuragic Sardinia.
Archeological cultures of Sardinia in the pre-Nuragic period:
Nuragic period.
Bronze Age Sardinia is characterised by stone structures called nuraghes, of which there are more than 8,000. The most famous is the complex of Barumini in the province of Medio Campidano. The nuraghes were mainly built in the period from about 1800 to 1200 BC, though many were used until the Roman period. Characteristics of this period are also the holy well temples (for example Santa Cristina, Paulilatino), the megara temples and the Giants' graves.
The Nuragic Sards also produced a vast collection of bronze statuettes and the so-called giants of Mont'e Prama, which might constitute the first anthropomorphic statues of Europe.
It is known that the Sardinians had contact with the Myceneans, who traded with the western Mediterranean. Contact with powerful cities of Crete, such as Kydonia, is clear from pottery recovered in archaeological excavations in Sardinia. The alleged connection with the Sherden, one of the sea peoples who invaded Egypt and other areas of eastern Mediterranean, has been supported by scholars like the professor Giovanni Ugas from the University of Cagliari; this hypothesis has been however opposed by other archaeologists and historians.
The name of the island could result from "Sardus" (known amongst the Romans as "Sardus Pater"), a mythological hero of the Nuragic pantheon.
Early and Classical Antiquity.
Phoenician settlement.
From the 8th century BC, Phoenicians founded several cities and strongholds on strategic points in the south and west of Sardinia, often peninsulas or islands near estuaries, easy to defend and natural harbours, such as Tharros, Bithia, Sulci, Nora and Caralis (Cagliari). The majority of the inhabitants in these cities were of indigenous nuragic stock while the Phoenician element was, although culturally predominant, in minority. The Phoenicians came originally from what is now Lebanon and founded a vast trading network in the Mediterranean. Sardinia had a special position because it was central in the Western Mediterranean between Carthage, Spain, the river Rhône and the Etruscan civilization area. The mining area of the Iglesiente was important for the metals lead and zinc. After the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians took over control in this part of the Mediterranean, around 510 BC, after that a first attempt of conquest of the island in 540 BC ends in failure. They expanded their influence to the western and southern coast from Bosa to Caralis, consolidating the existing Phoenician colonies, administered by plenipotentiaries called "Suffetes", and founding new ones such as Olbia, Cornus and Neapolis; Tharros become probably the capital of the province. Carthage stressed the growing of grain and cereals and prohibited fruit trees.
Tharros, Nora, Bithia, Monte Sirai etc. are now important archaeological monuments where architecture and city planning can be studied.
Roman Empire.
In 240 BC, in the course of the First Punic War, the Carthaginian mercenaries on the island revolted and gave the Romans, who some years earlier had defeated the Carthaginians in the naval battle of Sulci, the opportunity to land on Sardinia and occupy it. In 238 BC the Romans took over the whole island, without meeting any resistance. They took over an existing developed infrastructure and urbanized culture (at least in the plains). Along with Corsica it formed the province of Corsica et Sardinia, under a praetor. Together with Sicily it formed one of the main granaries of Rome until the Romans conquered Egypt in the 1st century BC.
A revolt, led by two Sardo-Punic notables from Cornus and Tharros, Hampsicora and Hanno, broke out after the crushing Roman defeat at Cannae (216 BC). A Roman army of 22,000 infantrymen and 1,200 knights, under Titus Manlius Torquatus, reached Sardinia landing in Caralis and defeating Hiostus, the son of Hampsicora, near Milis. The Romans then met the Carthaginian-Sardinian allied forces in the south of the island, defeating them in a pitched battle that took place between Sestu and Decimomannu, and killing 12,000 men. Another major revolt took place in 177-176 BC when the Balares and the Ilienses were defeated by Tiberius Gracchus, who, according to Livy, killed or enslaved about 80,000 natives. The last organized revolts were repressed by Marcus Caecilius Metellus in 115-111 BC and Titus Albucius in 106. However the Sardinians living in the impervious mountains of the interior resisted the Roman colonization well into Imperial times.
Punic culture remained strong during the first centuries of the Roman domination, however in the long run Romanization prevailed and Latin became the speech of the majority of the inhabitants, ultimately developing into the modern Sardinian language. The Roman religion began to spread among Sardinians as well. Caralis, the provincial capital, Nora and Sulci obtained the status of Municipium within the 1st century AD and a Roman colony named Turris Libissonis (Porto Torres) was founded in the north-west while the village of Usellus become perphans a Roman colony under Trajan. 4 great roads were built: 2 along the coasts and 2 in the interior connecting all the major cities.
During the Roman period, the geographer Ptolemy noted that Sardinia was inhabited by the following tribes, from north to south: the Tibulati and the Corsi, the Coracenses, the Carenses and the Cunusitani, the Salcitani and the Lucuidonenses, the Æsaronenses, the Æchilenenses (also called Cornenses), the Rucensi, the Celsitani and the Corpicenses, the Scapitani and the Siculensi, the Neapolitani and the Valentini, the Solcitani and the Noritani.
In the year 212 AD every inhabitant of the empire became Roman citizen by the Constitutio Antoniniana, better known as the "Edict of Caracalla". At that time, many islanders from the "Municipia" and "Coloniae" were Roman citizens, while those living in the interior were not. Around the year 286 AD, Sardinia was incorporated into the Italian diocese during the empire of Diocletianus, and in 324 AD, under the rule of the emperor Constantine the Great, in the "suburbicaria" Italian diocese, until the conquest by the Vandals in 456 AD.
Middle Ages.
Vandals, Goths and Byzantines.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Sardinia was subject to several conquests. In 456, the Vandals, an East Germanic tribe, coming from North Africa, occupied the coastal cities of the island; they imposed garrisons guarded by African auxiliaries, like the Mauri. The Vandals followed Arianism and deported a number of African Bishops in the island such as Fulgentius of Ruspe. In 533, Sardinia rebelled under the Vandal governor Godas, a Goth, who proclaimed himself "rex" of Sardinia, asking the Byzantines for aid.
In the summer of 533 Vandal forces (5,000 men and 120 ships), led by Tzazo, arrived in Sardinia to stifle Godas' rebellion and conquered Caralis, killing Godas and his followers. In early 534, the Vandals of Sardinia surrendered immediately to the Byzantines when faced with news of the Vandal collapse in Africa; thenceforth the island was part of the Byzantine Empire, included as a province in the Praetorian prefecture of Africa. The local governor sat in Caralis. During the Gothic Wars, much of the island fell easily to the Ostrogoths, but the final fall of the Germanic resistance in mainland Italy reassured Byzantine control. Sardinia was subsequently included in the Exarchate of Africa until its end by the Arabs in 698 AD, when the island was likely aggregated to the Exarchate of Ravenna. In 599 and during the 7th century, the Longobard fleet tried to attack Caralis and Turris Libissonis (Porto Torres), but in vain.
One of the few ethnic Sardinians known from this period was Ospitone, a leader of the "Barbaricinos" (people of Barbagia). According to the Pope Gregory I's letters, a Romanized and Christianized area existed on the island (that of the "provinciales") that co-existed with, in the interior, pagan or semi-pagan cultures ("Gens Barbaricina"). The ruler of one of the latter, Ospitone, converted to Christianity in 594 after a diplomatic exchange. Christianization however remained long influenced by eastern and Byzantine culture.
Other known religious figures of Sardinian origin of that period (5th–6th centuries) are Pope Hilarius and Pope Symmachus.
Saracen raids.
Starting from 705–706, the Saracens from North Africa (recently conquered by the Arab armies) harassed the population of the coastal cities. Details about the political situation of Sardinia in the following centuries are scarce. Due to Saracen attacks, in the 9th century Tharros was abandoned in favor of Oristano, after more than 1.800 years of human occupation while Caralis was abandoned in favor of Santa Igia; numerous other coastal centres suffered the same fate (Nora, Sulci, Bithia, Cornus, Bosa, Olbia etc.). There was news of another massive Saracen sea attack in 1015−16 from Balearics, led by Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī (Latinized as "Museto"), the Saracens' attempt of invasion of the island was stopped by Sardinian Judicates with the support of the Fleets of the Maritime Republics of Pisa and Genoa, called by Pope Benedict VIII.
Judicates (Judicadu).
From the mid-11th century the Judicates ("held by judges") appeared. The title of "Judex" (judge, "judike" in medieval Sardinian) was an heir of that of the Byzantine governor after the creation of the Exarchate of Africa in 582 ("Prases" or "Judex Provinciae"). In the 8th and 9th centuries the four "partes" depending from Caralis grew increasingly independent, after that Byzantium was totally cut off from the Tyrrhenian Sea by the Muslim conquest of Sicily in 827. A letter from Pope Nicholas I in 864 mentions for the first time the Sardinian judges, and their autonomy is clear in a later letter by Pope John VIII, which defined them as "Princes". A letter by Mieszko I to Pope John XV proves that the Judicates were known even in Poland, and that they played a prestigious role in Medieval Europe.
During the judicial era Sardinia had some 300.000 inhabitants, of which slightly more than 1/3 were free. These were subjected to the authority of local "curators" (administrators), in turn subjected to the judge (who also administrated justice and was the commander of the army). The church was also powerful, and at this time it had completely abandoned the Eastern Rite. The late 11th-century arrival of Benedictine, Camaldolese and other monks from the Italian Mezzogiorno, Lombardy and Provence, especially the monasteries of Montecassino, Saint-Victor de Marseille and Vallombrosa, boosted the agriculture in a land which was extremely underdeveloped. The "condaghes" (catalogues, cartularies) of the monasteries, which record property transactions, are an important source for the study of the island and its language in the 11th and 12th centuries. Evidence from the "condaghes" of San Pietro di Silki, in Sassari, and Santa Maria di Bonarcado concerning the children of slaves has been adduced to show that differences in agricultural lifestyles between regions may affect the survival rate of females, hypothetically through increased infanticide of baby girls. The abbacy of Santa Maria di Bonarcado contained more central, upland regions where a pastoral economy dominated and women were less economically useful; among children in that region, sex ratios are highly skewed in favour of men. On the other hand, in the region of San Pietro di Silki, less pastoral, child sex ratios are not skewed abnormally.
There were four (historically known) Judicates: Logudoro (or Torres), Cagliari (or Pluminos), Arborea and Gallura. Cagliari and Arborea and Logudoro (and perhaps Gallura) were united for a time in the 11th century.
The initiatives of the Gregorian reformers led to greater contact between Sardinia and the Italian peninsula, especially through the desires of the judges to establish monasteries with monks from continental monasteries at Montecassino and Marseille. By the 12th century, the Sardinian Judicates, though obscure, are visible through the mists of time. They professed allegiance to the Holy See, which put them under the authority of the Archdiocese of Pisa, superseding the ancient primacy of the Archdiocese of Cagliari on the island.
Often quarreling between one another, the Judicates made a great number of commercial concessions to the Pisans and the Genoese. The Repubbliche Marinare soon became the true masters of the Sardinian economy.
In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, all four Judicates passed to foreign dynasties and the local families were relegated to minor positions. Arborea passed to the Catalan House of Cervera (Cervera-Bas) in 1185, though this was contested for the next few decades. In 1188, Cagliari was conquered by the House of Massa from the Republic of Pisa. Gallura became by marriage – it had been inherited by a woman, Elena – a possession of the House of Visconti, another Pisan family, in 1207. Only Logudoro survived to the end under local Sardinian rulers. However, its end was early. It passed to Genoa and to the Doria and Malaspina families in 1259 after the death of its last judge, Adelasia. Only a year before the others Judicates and the Pisans besieged Santa Igia and deposed the last ruler of Cagliari William III. Gallura survived longer, but the enemies of the Visconti in Pisa soon removed the last judge, Nino, a friend of Dante Alighieri, in 1288.
About the same time, Sassari declared itself a free commune allied to Genoa. In the early 14th century, much of Eastern and Southern Sardinia, including Castel di Castro (Cagliari), was under the authority of Pisa and of the della Gherardesca family, who founded the important mining town of Villa di Chiesa (now Iglesias). Arborea, however, survived as the only indigenous kingdom until 1420. One of the most remarkable Sardinian figure of the Middle Ages, Eleanor of Arborea, was co-ruler of that region in the late 14th century; she laid the foundations for the laws that remained valid until 1827, the Carta de Logu.
Kingdom of Sardinia.
Kingdom of Sardinia in the Crown of Aragon and in the Spanish Empire.
In 1323 an Aragonese army, under Alfonso, son of King James II, disembarked near Palma di Sulcis, in Southern Sardinia. After the fall of Villa di Chiesa the Pisans were defeated again, both by land and sea, at Lucocisterna and in the gulf of Cagliari, and were forced to leave the island, maintaining only Castel di Castro until 1326. The Cagliari area as well as Gallura thus became part of the first nucleus of the Kingdom of Sardinia, established nominally by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297, that was included in the Crown of Aragon.
In 1353 Marianus IV of Arborea, allied with the Doria family, waged war against the Aragonese, occupying much of the island but unable to capture Cagliari. The Peace of Sanluri (1355) ushered in a period of tranquility, but hostilities were resumed in 1365, with Arborea, led by Marianus IV and then, from 1391, by Brancaleone Doria, initially able to capture much of the Island. However, in 1409 the Aragonese crushed a Genoese fleet coming in support the Sardinians, and destroyed the Judicial army at the Battle of Sanluri. Oristano, the Arborean capital, fell on 29 March 1410. William II of Narbonne, the last Judge of Arborea, sold his remaining territories to the Aragonese in 1420, in exchange for 100,000 gold florins.
The loss of the independence, the firm Aragonese (later Spanish from 1479) rule, with the introduction of a sterile feudalism, as well as the discovery of the Americas, provoked an unstoppable decline of Sardinia. In the 1470s an important revolt against the Aragonese was led by Leonardo Alagon, marquess of Oristano, who managed to defeat the viceroyal army but was later crushed at the Battle of Macomer (1478), ending any further hope of independence for the island. The unceasing attacks from North African pirates and a series of plagues (from 1582, 1652 and 1655) further worsened the situation.
In 1527, during the Franco-Spanish War, a French army of 4000 men led by the Italian Renzo da Ceri attacked the north of the island, besieging Castellaragonese and sacking Sorso and then Sassari for almost a month.
In 1566 the first typography of Sardinia was established in Cagliari, while in 1607 and 1617 were founded the University of Cagliari and the University of Sassari.
In the late 15th and in the early 16th century the Spaniards built watchtowers all along the coast (today called "Spanish towers") to protect the island against Ottoman incursions. In 1637 a French fleet led by Henri, Count of Harcourt sacked Oristano for about a week.
Kingdom of Sardinia under the House of Savoy.
Sardinia was disputed between 1700 and 1720. After the War of the Spanish Succession it was assigned to Emperor Charles VI in 1714, Philip V of Spain briefly recovered the island in 1717, but in 1720 the European powers assigned Sicily to Charles VI and Sardinia to the House of Savoy, so Vittorio Amedeo II became the King of Sardinia.
In 1793 Sardinians defeated twice the French invaders. On 23 February 1793, Domenico Millelire, in command of the Sardinian fleet, defeated near the Maddalena archipelago the fleets of the French Republic, which was included with the rank of lieutenant, the young and future Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte. Millelire received the first Gold Medal of Military Valor of the Italian Navy. In the same month, Sardinians stopped the attempted French landing on the beach of Quartu Sant'Elena, near the Capital of Cagliari. Because of these successes, the representatives of nobility and clergy ("Stamenti") formulated five requests addressed to the King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia in order to have the same rights as the Italian mainlanders, but they met with a refusal. Because of this discontent, on 28 April 1794, during an uprising in Cagliari, two Piedmontese officials were killed. That was the start of a revolt (called the "Moti rivoluzionari sardi" or "Vespri sardi") all over the island, which culminated on 28 April 1794 (commemorated today as "sa die de sa Sardigna") with the expulsion of the officers for a few days from the capital Cagliari. On 28 December 1795, insurgents in Sassari demonstrating against feudalism, mainly from the region of Logudoro, occupied the city. On 13 February 1796, in order to prevent the spread of the revolt, the viceroy Filippo Vivalda gave to the Sardinian magistrate Giovanni Maria Angioy the role of Alternos, which meant a substitute of the viceroy himself. Angioy moved from Cagliari to Sassari, and during his journey almost all the villages joined the uprising, demanding an end to feudalism and aiming to declare the island to be an independent republic, but once he was outnumbered by loyalist forces he fled to Paris and sought support from the French to invade Sardinia and make it an independent Republic.
In 1799 King Charles Emmanuel IV was ousted from Piedmont by the French army, and moved his court to Cagliari (his brother and successor Victor Emmanuel I returned to Turin only in 1814). At the end of the 18th century, the Universities of Sassari and Cagliari were restored. In 1820, the Savoyards imposed the "Enclosures Act" ("editto delle chiudende") on the island, a legislative act which turned the land's traditional collective ownership, a cultural and economic cornerstone of Sardinia since the Nuragic times, into private property. This gave rise to many abuses, as the reform favoured the landholders while excluding the poor Sardinian farmers and shepherds, who witnessed the abolition of the communal rights and the sale of the land. Many local rebellions like the Nuorese "Su Connottu" ("The Already Known" in Sardinian) riot in 1868, all repressed by the King's army, resulted in an attempt to return to the past and reaffirm the right to use the once common land.
In 1847, under King Charles Albert, all the administrative differences between Sardinia and the Italian mainland were abolished through the so-called Perfect fusion: this manoveur had been presented as the only possible way to grant equal rights to all inhabitants of the Kingdom, which would become a unitary state and the basic legislation of the future united Italy as well.
New urban plans and new villages (for example Carloforte, Calasetta and Santa Teresa di Gallura) were realised between the 18th and the 19th centuries. They often followed the urban model of Turin, which now was the capital of the Reign of Italy. New infrastructures were built under King Carlo Felice. The main road from the south (Cagliari) to the north (Sassari) was enhanced (the road still exists today and it still bears the name of Carlo Felice). Also, the first ferry route between the island and Genoa was established, using steamboats such as the Gulnara. The first railway was inaugurated in 1871. By the end of the 19th century the Royal Railways had received 30 locomotives, 106 passenger cars, and 436 cargo cars.
The economy was focused mainly on the primary sector (agriculture and sheep husbandry) and on mining. The majority of mining societies operating in Sardinia depended on non-Sardinian capital money. However, in 1848 the Sardinian entrepreneur Giovanni Antonio Sanna achieved the property of the mine of Montevecchio, thus becoming the 3rd richest man of the Kingdom.
United Italy.
Kingdom of Italy.
Most Sardinian forests were cut down at this time, in order to provide the Piedmontese with raw materials, like wood, used to make railway sleepers on the mainland. The extension of primary natural forests, praised by every traveller visiting Sardinia, would in fact be reduced to little more than 100,000 hectares at the end of the century.
With the Unification of Italy in 1861, the Kingdom of Sardinia became the Kingdom of Italy. Since 1855 the national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi bought most of the island of Caprera in the Maddalena archipelago, where he moved because of the loss of his home town of Nice. His house, farm and tomb are now the most visited Sardinian museum ("Compendio Garibaldino").
In 1883 the first train travelled between Cagliari and Sassari, and in these decades were made all the modern public works: roads, dams, schools, sewers and aqueducts, mainly in the cities.
During the First World War the Sardinian soldiers of the Brigata Sassari distinguished themselves, with several being decorated with gold medals and other honours. Following the war, in occasion of Irish independence the ex-combatants organized themselves into a Sardinian nationalist movement, the Sardinian Action Party, but was eventually outlawed in 1926. In 1924, the Italian Parliament led by Benito Mussolini passed a bill (called "la legge del miliardo") to establish a budget of one billion "lire" to develop infrastructure in order to encourage economic development. However, only a portion of the designated funds were ever distributed, and mainly in Cagliari.
The writer Grazia Deledda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926.
During the Fascist period, with the implementation of the policy of autarky, several swamps around the island were drained and new agrarian communities founded. The main communities were in the area of Oristano, where the village of Mussolinia (now called Arborea), populated by people from Veneto and Friuli, was located, and in the area adjacent the city of Alghero, within the region of Nurra, where Fertilia was built, settled, after the World War II, by Istrians and Dalmatians from Yugoslavia. Also established during that time was the city of Carbonia, which became the main centre of mining activity. Works to drain the numerous waste lands and the growth of mining activities favoured the arrival of numerous settlers and immigrants from the Mainland.
The repression by the Fascist regime of its opponents within the region was ruthless. Rural Sardinia showed little interest in the Fascist state, while the urban bourgeoisie from the cities, some of which being repopulated by Italian mainlanders, were its staunchest supporters on the island. Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of Italian Communist Party, was arrested and died in prison. The anarchist Michele Schirru was executed after a failed assassination plot against Benito Mussolini.
During World War II Sardinia was a theatre of bombing; from 1940 the Axis used its airfields for attacks across the Mediterranean, while from 1943 the island was under air attack from the Allies and the cities of Cagliari and Alghero were heavily bombed. (Air raids had also been conducted by an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy in September 1940, shortly after Italy's entry into the war.) German troops were stationed on Sardinia and Corsica - occupied by the Italians - in 1943. By that July, most airbases in Sardinia had been rendered inoperable by Allied aerial bombing. A number of diversionary raids on Sardinia, Operation Hawthorn, were carried out by the Allies in summer 1943 to distract Axis attention from the upcoming invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky. Operation Mincemeat was an elaborate diversion implemented by the Allies to persuade the Axis's intelligence that their planned invasion of southern Europe would take place in the Balkans and Italy and would feature an invasion of Sardinia. This succeeded in diverting Axis troops from Sicily, the real target of the invasion.
The war ended in Sardinia in September 1943, with the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht to Corsica following the surrender of Italy to the Allies under the Armistice of Cassibile, and the island, together with Southern Italy, became free. Allied forces landed on Sardinia on 14 September 1943 and the last German troops were expelled on the 18th.
Italian Republic and Sardinian autonomy.
In 1946 more than 60% of Sardinians voted in favour of monarchy, just as much as in Southern Italy, but a few days later Italy became a Republic. In 1948 Sardinia obtained the status of autonomous region which, while being the highest degree of self-governance since the Judicates era, fell short of many Sardinians' expectations. The first regional elections were held on 8 May 1949. By 1951, malaria was successfully eliminated with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. In the same years the Italian economic miracle led to the birth of Sardinian tourist "boom", mainly focused on beach holidays and luxury tourism, such as in Costa Smeralda. Today about ten million people visit the island every year.
With the increase in tourism, coal decreased in importance. However, shortly after the Second World War a ponderous industrialization effort was commenced, the so-called "Piani di Rinascita" (Rebirth Plans), with the initiation of major infrastructure projects on the island. This included the realization of new dams and roads, reforestation, agricultural zones on reclaimed marsh land, and large industrial complexes (primarily oil refineries and related petrochemical operations). These efforts to create jobs have largely failed due to the high costs of transportation that could not compensate the cheap labor. In the 1950s and 1960s many Sardinians migrated to Northern and Central Italy (Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany and Rome) and the rest of Europe (mostly in Germany, France and Belgium) but also from the interior of the island to the coastal cities of Cagliari, Olbia and Sassari. In the early 1960s with the creation of petrochemical industries, thousands of ex-farmers became specialised workers, and some others would commence to work on the newly established military bases, created primarily for the NATO. Even now, around 60% of all Italian and US military installations in Italy are on Sardinia, whose area is less than one-tenth of all the Italian territory and whose population is little more than the 2,5%; furthermore, they comprise over 35.000 hectares used for experimental weapons testing, where 80% of the military explosives in Italy are used. Ever since, there has always been a local protest movement expressing deep concern over the environmental degradation the military activities would cause.
Nevertheless, since 1973 the international oil crisis caused the firing of thousands of workers employed in the petrochemical industry. Especially because of the failed industrialization plans, Sardinia is actually the most polluted region in Italy, with over 445,000 hectares of contaminated soil still to be remediated.
Among other factors, economic crisis and unemployment aggravated the crime rate, as evidenced by the increasing frequency of phenomena such as kidnappings and political subversion of the Anonima sarda: between the 1970s and the early 1980s, some communist and nationalist militant groups, the most famous being "Barbagia Rossa" and the Sardinian Armed Movement (MAS), claimed several terrorist attempts. In the span of just two years (1987–1988), 224 bombing attacks were reported.
In 1983, for the first time ever a militant of a nationalist party, the Sardinian Action Party ("Partidu Sardu"-"Partito Sardo d'Azione"), was elected president of the regional parliament. Nevertheless, in the 1980s a number of even more radical pro-independence movements were born, some even managing to evolve into parties in the 1990s. In 1999, after a long period of Italian assimilation policies in Sardinia, the languages indigenous to the island were eventually recognized as "historical language minorities" of the Country, and allowed to formally enjoy co-official status alongside Italian.
Also noticeable is the difference between coastal regions and the inland. Coastal regions have always been more open to outside influences. Nowadays Sardinia is most known for its coasts (La Maddalena, Costa Smeralda), the north-western coast near Sassari (Alghero, Stintino, Castelsardo) and Cagliari, because these are easily reachable by ship and by plane.
Today Sardinia is a phasing-in EU region, featured by a diversified economy, mainly focused on tourism and the tertiary. The economic efforts of last twenty years have reduced the supposed handicap of insularity, for example with low cost air companies and information and informatic technologies, thanks to the CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia). The CRS4 developed the first Italian website, and invented the webmail, in 1995, that brought to the birth of several telecommunication companies and internet service providers based on the island, such as Video On Line (1993), Tiscali (1998) and Andala UMTS (1999).


Battle of Cabrita Point

The Battle of Cabrita Point, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Marbella, was a naval battle that took place while a combined Spanish-French force besieged Gibraltar on 10 March 1705 (21 March 1705 in the New Calendar) during the War of Spanish Succession.
The battle was an allied victory (English, Portuguese and Dutch) which effectively ended the Franco-Spanish siege of Gibraltar.
Prelude.
The allies had conquered Gibraltar on behalf of the Archduke Charles of Habsburg on 1 August 1704. The Spanish besieged the city by land, and in that year, the French had made a first failed attempt to attack from the sea in the Battle of Vélez-Málaga.
In January 1705 Philip V of Spain was determined to reconquer the city and had Villadarias replaced by Marshal de Tessé. Tessé realized that Gibraltar would never be retaken as long as the allies could access it from the sea. He therefore ordered Admiral Pointis to block up the place by sea with his squadron of 18 ships of the line. Some of these ships were Spanish under José Fernández de Santillán. Gibraltar was not a permanent harbour yet for the English fleet, which was anchored in Lisbon at the time.
The commander of Gibraltar, Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, despatched an express to Lisbon, desiring Sir John Leake to sail to his assistance. This admiral set sail immediately with five sail of the line and a body of troops. By the morning of 10 March, he had a squadron of 23 English, eight Portuguese ships of various sizes, and four Dutch.
The battle.
Leake's fleet reached the Strait late on the 9th, and laid to during the night. The next morning at about 5.30 a.m., they were within two miles of Cabrita Point, when they saw five sail coming out of the Bay. These proved to be the French ships "Magnanime" (74), "Lys" (86), "Ardent" (66), "Arrogant" (60), and "Marquis" (66). They made at first towards the Barbary Coast, but, finding that they were being gained upon, stood for the Spanish coast. At 9 a.m. Sir Thomas Dilkes in , with the , and a Dutch man-of-war, got within gunshot of "Arrogant", which, after a slight resistance, struck. Before 1 p.m. two Dutch ships took "Ardent" and "Marquis"; "Magnanime" and "Lys" were driven ashore to the westward of Marbella. "Magnanime", in which De Pointis had his flag, ran ashore with so much force that all her masts went by the board. The French subsequently burned "Magnanime" and "Lys".
The rest of the French squadron had been blown from their anchorage by a gale and had taken shelter in the bay of Málaga. They now slipped their cables and made their way to Toulon.
Aftermath.
The Marshal de Tessé, in consequence of this disaster, turned the siege of Gibraltar into a blockade, and withdrew the greater part of his forces on 31 March. Pointis retired from active service after this battle.
Leake had not only scored a remarkable victory, but had saved Gibraltar from attack and had enhanced his already high reputation.


History of Trier

Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate, whose history dates to the Roman Empire, is often claimed to be the oldest city in Germany. Traditionally it was known in English by its French name of Treves.
Prehistory.
The first traces of human settlement in the area of the city show evidence of linear pottery settlements dating from the early Neolithic period. Since the last pre-Christian centuries, members of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri settled in the area of today's Trier.
Roman Empire.
The Romans under Julius Caesar first subdued the Treveri in 58 to 50 BC. No later than 16 BC, at the foot of the hill later christened the Petrisberg, upon which a military camp had been set up in 30 BC and abandoned again a few months later, the Romans founded the city of ("City of Augustus in the land of the Treveri"), which has a claim to being the oldest city in Germany. The honour of being named after the Emperor was only locally shared by Augsburg and Augst in northern Switzerland. Following the reorganisation of the Roman provinces in Germany in 16 BC, Emperor Augustus decided that the city should become the capital of the province of Belgica. Shortly before AD 100, an amphitheatre was built, the signal sign of a city of any importance. By the first half of the second century another major structure, a Roman circus, had reached truly monumental proportions.
Trier rose in importance during the Empire's third-century crisis, as the chief city of the province of Gallia Belgica. From 271 to 274 AD, Trier was the second city of the breakaway Gallic Empire, at first under Postumus, who was proclaimed in Cologne, then under his ephemeral successor, Victorinus, who made his base at Trier, where he had rebuilt a large house with a mosaic proclaiming his position as tribune in Postumus' Gallic Praetorian Guard; the city served again as capital under the emperors Tetricus I and II. From the second half of the 3rd century onwards, Trier was the seat of an archbishopric; the first bishop being Eucharius. In the year 275, the city was destroyed in an invasion by the Alamanni. Diocletian recognized the urgency of maintaining an imperial presence in the Gauls, and established first Maximian, then Constantius Chlorus as caesars at Trier; from 293 to 395, Trier was one of the residences of the Western Roman Emperor, and its position required the monumental settings that betokened imperial government.
A mint was immediately established by Constantius, which came to be the principal mint of the Roman West. A new stadium was added to the amphitheater, to stage chariot races. Under the rule of Constantine the Great (306–337), the city was rebuilt and buildings such as the "Palastaula" (known today as the Constantine Basilica) and the Imperial Baths ("Kaiserthermen"), the largest surviving Roman baths outside Rome, were begun under Constantius and completed "c" 314, constructed by his son Constantine, who left Trier in the hands of his son Crispus. In 326, sections of the imperial family's private residential palaces were extended and converted to a large double basilica, the remains of which are still partly recognisable in the area of the Trier Cathedral ("Trierer Dom") and the church "Liebfrauenkirche". A demolished imperial palace has left shattered sections of painted ceiling, which scholars believe once belonged to Constantine's young wife, Fausta, whom he later put to death.
From 318 onwards Trier was the seat of the Gallic prefecture (the "Praefectus Praetorio Galliarium") which governed the western Roman provinces from Morocco to Britain. The praetorian prefects usually numbering 3–4, were the senior civilian officials taking precedence over all other officials and army officers. They were vice-regents of the emperors who alone with them could pronounce final verdicts. Constantine's son Constantius II resided here from 328 to 340. Roman Trier was the birthplace of Saint Ambrose ca. 340, who later became the Bishop of Milan and was eventually named a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church long after his death in 397. It is also where Saint Athanasius was first exiled by Constantine in 336.
From 367 under Valentinian I Trier once more became an imperial residence until 375. It was the largest city north of the Alps. Gratian resided there for most of his reign until assassinated in 383. It was the capital of Magnus Maximus, who ruled the prefecture of Gaul, as emperor from 383–388. Valentinian II visited the city. In 407, shortly after the invasion of Gaul by the Vandals, Alans and Suebi, the Gallic prefecture was relocated to Arles, on the Rhône.
Roman Trier had been subjected to attacks by Germanic tribes from 350 onwards, but these had been repulsed by Emperor Julian. After the invasions of 407 the Romans were able to reestablish the Rhine frontier and hold northern Gaul tenuously until the end of the 450s, when control was finally lost to the Franks and local military commanders who claimed to represent central Roman authority. During the early 5th century, sources indicate Trier was sacked four times by the Franks. According to Lanting & van der Plicht (2010), this happened in 411 (more probable than 407), 413, 421, and probably 428 or 435. The Huns under Attila also sacked Trier in 451. The city became definitively part of Frankish territory ("Francia Rhinensis") around 485; the last Roman administrator of Trier was Arbogast. As a result of the conflicts of this period, Trier's population decreased from an estimated 80,000 in the 4th century to 5,000 at the beginning of the 6th century.
Middle Ages.
By the end of the 5th century, Trier was under Frankish rule, first controlled by the Merovingian dynasty, then by the Carolingians. The city still maintained a small group of romance speaking inhabitants in the early 8th century. As a result of the Treaty of Verdun in 843, by which the grandsons of Charlemagne divided his empire into three parts, Trier was incorporated into the Kingdom of Lorraine ("Lotharingia"). After the death of Lothair II, ruler of Lorraine, Trier in 870 became part of the East Frankish Empire, later called Germany, under Henry I.
Many abbeys and monasteries were founded in the early Frankish time, including St. Maximin, St. Martin, St. Irminen, St. Maria ad Martyres/St.Mergen and others. The only important abbey that survived wars and secularization by the French at the beginning of 1800 is the Benedictine abbey St. Matthias in the south of Trier. Here, the first three bishops of Trier, Eucharius, Valerius and Maternus are buried alongside the apostle Saint Matthias. This is the only tomb of an apostle to be located in Europe north of the Alps, thus making Trier together with Rome in Italy (burial place of St. Peter the apostle) and Santiago de Compostela in Spain (tomb of St. James) one of three major places of pilgrimage in Europe for Catholics. In 882, Trier was sacked by the Vikings, the Great Danish Army, who burnt most churches and abbeys. This was the end of the systematically built Roman Trier.
Medieval legend, recorded in 1105 in the "Gesta Treverorum", makes Trebeta son of Ninus the founder of Trier.
Also of medieval date is the inscription at the facade of the Red House of Trier market,
being mentioned in the "Codex Udalrici" of 1125.
From 902, when power passed into the hands of the archbishops, Trier was administered by the Vogt of the archbishopric, which developed its own seal in 1149. The Archbishop of Trier was, as chancellor of Burgundy, one of the seven Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, a right which originated in the 12th or 13th century, and which continued until the French Revolution. From the 10th century and throughout the Middle Ages, Trier made several attempts to achieve autonomy from the Archbishopric of Trier, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1212, the city received a charter from Emperor Otto IV, which was confirmed by Conrad IV. In 1309, however, it was forced to once again recognise the authority of the Archbishop, who was at that time the imposing Baldwin of Luxembourg, son of the Count of Luxemburg.
Elected in 1307 when he was only 22 years old, Baldwin was the most important Archbishop and Prince-Elector of Trier in the Middle Ages. He was the brother of the German King and Emperor Henry VII and his grandnephew Charles would later become German King and Emperor as Charles IV. He used his family connections to add considerable territories to the Electorate of Trier and is also known to have built many castles in the region. When he died in 1354, Trier was a prospering city.
The status of Trier as an archbishopric city was confirmed in 1364 by Emperor Charles IV and by the Reichskammergericht; the city's dream of self-rule came definitively to an end in 1583. Until the demise of the old empire, Trier remained the capital of the electoral Archbishopric of Trier, although not the residence of its head of state, the Prince-Elector. At its head was a court of lay assessors, which was expanded in 1443 by Archbishop Jacob I to include bipartisan mayors.
The "Dombering" (curtain wall of the Cathedral) having been secured at the end of the 10th century, Archbishop Theoderich I and his successor Arnold II later set about surrounding the city by walls. This curtain wall, which followed the path now taken by the "Alleenring", enclosed 1.38 square kilometres.
Modern age.
In 1473, Emperor Frederick III and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy convened in Trier. In this same year, the University of Trier was founded in the city.
From 1581 until 1593, intense witch persecutions, involving nobility as well as commoners, abounded throughout this region, leading to mass executions of hundreds of people.
In the 17th century, the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier relocated their residences to Philippsburg Castle in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz.
A session of the Reichstag was held in Trier in 1512, during which the demarcation of the Imperial Circles was definitively established.
With the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), more than two centuries of warfare began for Trier. It was occupied several times by French troops. They besieged and occupied Trier in 1632, 1645, 1673 (the French Army stayed until 1675 and destroyed all churches, abbeys and settlements in front of the city walls for military reasons; the city itself was heavily fortified).
In 1684, with the War of the Reunions, an era of French expansion began. Trier was again captured in 1684; all walls and fortresses were destroyed this time. After Trier and its associated electorate were yet again taken during the War of Palatinate Succession in 1688, many cities in the electorate were systematically destroyed in 1689 by the French Army. Nearly all castles were blown up and the only bridge across the Moselle in Trier was burnt. King Louis XIV of France personally issued the order for these acts of destruction but also gave the command to spare the city of Trier. As the French Army retreated in 1698, it left a starving city without walls and only 2,500 inhabitants.
During the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702, Trier was occupied again by a French army. In 1704-05 an allied British-Dutch army commanded by the Duke of Marlborough passed Trier on its way to France. When the campaign failed, the French came back to Trier in 1705 and stayed until 1714. After a short period of peace, the War of the Polish Succession started in 1734; the following year Trier was again occupied by the French, who stayed until 1737. The last Prince-Elector, Clement Wenceslaus of Saxony, relocated to Koblenz in 1786. In August 1794, French Republican troops took Trier. This date marked the end of the era of the old electorate. Churches, abbeys and clerical possessions were sold or the buildings put to practical use, such as stables.
With the peace treaties of Basel and Campo Formio in 1797, German hegemonic powers Prussia and Austria ceded all German territories on the left bank of the Rhine river to France. Trier became a "de facto" French city. The University of Trier was dissolved in the same year. In 1798, it became the capital of the newly founded French Département de la Sarre. With the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801, Trier became also a "de jure" French city. In 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte signed a concordate with Pope Pius VII, thus stopping defamations of clerics and making Trier a diocese. Its territory was identical with the Département de la Sarre, much smaller than the Archbishopric of Trier had been until 1794. In 1802, the Frenchman Charles Mannay became first bishop of the new founded diocese and, in 1803, the first Holy Mass since 1794 was celebrated in the Cathedral of Trier. Emperor Napoleon visited Trier in 1804. In this time, French Trier began to prosper.
In 1814, the French era ended suddenly as Trier was taken by Prussian troops. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Franco-German borders of 1792 were restored in the 1814 and 1815 Paris peace treaties. The city was proclaimed part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815 and made part of the Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine, with six administrative districts. Trier became seat of one these district administrations, the Regierungsbezirk Trier. Because of the new political situation and the new customs frontiers in the West, the economy of Trier began a steady decline that was to last until 1840. The Province of the Lower Rhine was merged into the Rhine Province in 1822.
The influential philosopher and revolutionary Karl Marx was born in Trier in 1818. His birthplace, the "Karl-Marx-Haus", was opened in 1947 and renovated in 1983.
From 1840 on, the situation of Trier began to improve as the neighbouring state of Luxembourg, an important market for Trier-made products, joined the German Customs Union in 1842. Trier, with a population of 15,500 at this time, produced mainly leather, cloth, wine and tobacco. Iron works were founded in Quint near Trier at this time. An important infrastructural improvement was the introduction of a shipping line operating with paddle-wheel steamers on the Moselle River, connecting Trier, Koblenz and Metz. The first railway line, linking Trier with Saarbrücken and Luxembourg was inaugurated in 1860, followed by the Trier-Cologne line across the Eifel in 1871 and the Moselle Railway to Koblenz in 1879. Minor lines to Bitburg via Irrel along the Sauer River, to Hermeskeil along the Ruwer River and the Moselbahn to Bullay (near Zell) were built later. A sign of increasing prosperity were the first trade fairs in modern Trier in 1840 and 1842.
During the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, Trier also saw protests and conflicts. The city council sent a letter to King Frederick William IV of Prussia, demanding more civic liberties. The lawyer Ludwig Simon was elected to represent Trier in the first German parliament in Frankfurt. After Prussian soldiers killed one citizen and wounded others in a melée, the situation escalated. The people of Trier hoisted black-red-gold flags as democratic symbols, rang the church bells, organized a militia and took away the signs of Prussian rule. A second melée between demonstrators and soldiers, which left two citizens dead, led to a collective outburst of fury. The people began to build barricades and wave the red flag. There were even reports that a statue of the Prussian king was smashed into pieces. Trier was on the eve of a civil war when the commander of the VIII Prussian army corps arrived and threatened to shell Trier. After being confronted with superior Prussian military power, the citizens gave up and removed the barricades. Some citizens were jailed for their democratic attitude; Ludwig Simon emigrated like many others and died in Switzerland. Trier became part of the German Empire during the Prussian-led unification of Germany in 1871.
Second World War.
In September 1944 during the Second World War, Trier was only a short distance from the frontline fighting and was subjected to almost daily bombardment by American artillery. Allied forces carried out three large-scale aerial attacks on the city later in the same year. On December 19 at 15:30, 30 British Lancaster bombers dropped 136 tonnes of high-explosive bombs over Trier. Two days later, on December 21 at 14:35, 94 Lancasters and 47 American fighter-bombers dropped 427 tonnes of ordnance (high-explosive, incendiary and napalm bombs). Another two days after that, 700 tonnes of bombs were released over the city.
According to research by the historian Adolf Welter, at least 420 people were killed in the December 1944 attacks on Trier. Numerous buildings were damaged. During the entire war, 1,600 houses in the city were completely destroyed.
On March 2, 1945, the city surrendered to the U.S. 10th Armored Division with minimal resistance.
Postwar period.
At the end of April 1969, the old Roman road at the Porta Nigra was uncovered. Shortly afterward, on May 12, 1969, the open-air wildlife enclosure in the Weisshaus forest was opened. The University of Trier was reestablished in 1970, initially as part of the combined university of Trier-Kaiserslautern. The evolution of Trier as a university city took a further step forward with the opening on April 1, 1974, of the Martinskloster student residence halls. In 1975, the university once more became independent.
Other significant events of the 1970s include the discontinuation of the 99-year-old "Trierische Landeszeitung" newspaper on March 31, 1974, and the reopening of the restored Cathedral of Trier on May 1 of that same year.
From May 24 to 27 1984, Trier officially celebrated its 2,000th anniversary. In 1986, Roman Trier (the amphitheater, Barbara Baths, Imperial Baths, Constantine Basilica, Igel Column, Porta Nigra, Roman bridge, Dom St. Peter and Liebfrauenkirche) was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site titled "Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier." Another cultural heritage site is St. Paulinus' Church, designed by Balthasar Neumann. During construction of an underground parking lot in October 1988, remnants of Roman fresco paintings were discovered beneath the Viehmarkt. On November 5, the Trier Observatory was officially inaugurated. In the course of excavation work on a further subterranean garage near the Roman bridge, a collection of 2,558 Roman gold coins was discovered on September 9, 1993. The coins have an estimated value of 2.5 million Euro.
From April 22 to October 24, 2004, the State Garden Show was held on the Petrisberg heights and attracted 724,000 visitors.
A new discovery of Roman remains was made in April 2006, when traces of building walls were unearthed during demolition works in the city centre.
A large exhibition on the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great was the largest exhibition in Trier up to date. It ran from the 2nd of June to the 4th of November 2007. Some 1,600 pieces lend by 160 museums in 20 countries were on exhibit in three museums in Trier. In all 353,974 tickets were sold and all three museums counted 799,034 visitors, making it one of the most successful exhibitions in Germany.
Incorporation of municipalities.
Formerly autonomous municipalities and territories that have been incorporated into the city of Trier. Some localities had already formed part of the urban area between 1798 and 1851. In 1798, the city area covered a total of 8.9 square kilometres.
Population development.
At the beginning of the 4th century AD, Trier was the residence of the Roman Emperor and, with an estimated 80,000 inhabitants, the largest city north of the Alps. Through the Middle Ages and up until the start of the Modern Age, numerous wars, epidemics and famines caused the city's population to drop to only 2,677 in 1697. The population began to increase once more in the course of the 18th century, reaching 8,829 in 1801. The onset of industrialisation in the 19th century accelerated this growth. In 1900, the city was home to over 43,000 people. By 1939, this figure had doubled to over 88,000.
The Second World War cost Trier roughly 35% of its population (30,551 people) and the number of inhabitants had dropped to 57,000 by 1945. Only through the incorporation of several surrounding localities into the city on June 7, 1969, did the population once more reach its prewar level. This reorganisation in fact pushed the number of inhabitants beyond the 100,000 mark, which accorded the city of Trier "Großstadt" status. On June 30, 2005, the population of Trier according to official records of the Rhineland-Palatinate state authorities was 99,685 (registered only by "Hauptwohnsitz" and after comparison with other regional authorities).
The following overview illustrates the city's different population levels, according to the "current" size of the city area. Up until 1801, these figures are mostly estimates; after this date they have been sourced from census results or official records of state authorities. From 1871 onwards, these statistics correspond to the "present population", from 1925 to the "resident population" and from 1987 to the "population resident at main domicile". Prior to 1871, the population was recorded using inconsistent survey methods.
¹ Census figure
Literature.
"There is not much literature in English on Trier. The three volumes on Trier's history published by the history department of the University of Trier between 1985 and 1996 represent a complete history including all researches up to the time when they were published. Clemens' 2007 book (Clemens is a history professor of Trier University, earlier he worked at the Roman Museum in Trier) can be viewed as an update."


Kacwin

Kacwin , (, , ) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Łapsze Niżne, within Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It lies approximately south-east of Łapsze Niżne, south-east of Nowy Targ, and south of the regional capital Kraków.
The village has a population of 980.
It is one of the 14 villages in the Polish part of the historical region of Spiš (Polish: "Spisz").


History of Cologne

The German city of Cologne was founded in the 1st century as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
It was taken by the Franks in the 5th century and became an important city of Medieval Germany, the seat of an Archbishop and a Prince-Elector. As the Free Imperial City of Cologne it was one of the centers of the Hanseatic League in the early modern period.
Most of the city was destroyed in the bombing of Cologne in World War II, so it was of limited importance in post-war West Germany. It had returned to its pre-war population by 1959, by which time Düsseldorf was the political center of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Bonn was the (provisional) capital of the Federal Republic. In the late 20th century, Cologne grew into a center of the sprawling Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, with some 12 million inhabitants, just over one million of whom live in Cologne proper (as of 2012), making the city the fourth largest in Germany (after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich).
Early history.
Roman period.
In 39 BC the Germanic tribe of the Ubii entered into an agreement with the forces of the Roman General Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and settled on the left bank of the Rhine. Their headquarters was "Oppidum Ubiorum" (settlement of the Ubii) and at the same time an important Roman military base. In 50 AD the Cologne-born Agrippina the Younger, wife of the Emperor Claudius, asked for her home village to be raised to the status of a "colonia" — a city under Roman law. It was then renamed "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis" (colony of Claudius and the altar of Agrippina), shortened to "Colonia Agrippina" (Colony of Agrippina). In 80 AD the Eifel Aqueduct was built. It was one of the longest aqueducts of the Roman Empire, delivering 20,000 cubic metres of water to the city every day. Ten years later, the "colonia" became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Germany, "Germania Inferior", with a total population of 45,000 people occupying 96.8 hectares.
In 260 AD Postumus made Cologne the capital of the Gallic Empire, which included the Gallic provinces, the German provinces to the left of the Rhine, Britannia, and the provinces of Hispania. The Gallic Empire lasted only fourteen years.
By the 3rd century, only some 20,000 people lived in and around the town. In 310 AD, Emperor Constantine I had a bridge constructed over the Rhine, guarded by the "castellum Divitia". Divitia later became a part of Cologne with the name "Deutz".
The presence of Jews in Cologne was documented in AD 321. When exactly the first Jews arrived in the Rhineland area cannot now be established, but the Cologne community claims to be the oldest north of the Alps. As early as 321 AD, an edict by the Emperor Constantine allowed Jews to be elected to the City Council.
Frankish rule.
Colonia was pillaged several times by the Franks in the 4th century. Two lavish burial sites located near the Cathedral date from this period. In 355 AD the Alemanni tribes besieged the town for 10 months, finally taking and plundering it. At the time, the garrison of Colonia Agrippina was under the generalship of Marcus Vitellus. The Romans re-occupied the city several months afterwards by Julian. The city finally fell to the Ripuarian Franks in 462 AD.
Cologne served as a base for the Carolingian conversion of the Saxons and Frisians. In 795 the chaplain to Charlemagne, Hildebold, was elevated to the newly created archbishopric of Cologne. After the death of Charlemagne, Cologne became part of Middle Francia. Archbishop Gunther was excommunicated in 863 for his support of the divorce and remarriage of Lothair II. In 873 Gunther's successor Wilbert consecrated what would become known as the "Alter Dom" (old cathedral), the predecessor of Cologne Cathedral. With the death of Lothair in 876, Cologne fell to East Francia under Louis the German. The city was burnt down by Vikings in the winter of 881/2.
In the early 10th century, the dukes of Lorraine seceded from East Francia. Cologne passed to East Francia but was soon reconquered by Henry the Fowler, deciding its fate as a city of the Holy Roman Empire (and eventually Germany) rather than France.
Cologne in the Holy Roman Empire.
Later Middle Ages.
Cologne's first Christian bishop was Maternus. He was responsible for the construction of the first cathedral, a square building erected early in the 4th century. In 794, Hildebald (or Hildebold) was the first Bishop of Cologne to be appointed archbishop. Bruno I (925–965), younger brother of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, founded several monasteries here.
The dynasty of the Ezzonids, later Counts of Berg, counted 7 archbishops during that period and consolidated the powers of the archbishopric over imperial affairs. The archbishops of Cologne became very influential as advisers to the Saxon, Salian and Hohenstaufen dynasties. From 1031 they also held the office of Arch-Chancellor of Italy. Their authority culminated under Archbishop Engelbert II of Berg, imperial administrator (Reichsprovisor) and tutor to the emperor's son. Between 1216 and 1225, Engelbert fought for the establishment and security of the archdiocese of Cologne both as an ecclesiastical authority and as a secular territory. This led to his murder in 1225.
Construction of the Gothic cathedral started in 1248 under Konrad von Hochstaden. The eastern arm was completed and consecrated in 1322. Construction of the western arm was halted in 1475, and it would remain unfinished until 1880.
In 1074 the commune was formed. By the 13th century, the relationship between the city and its archbishop had become difficult, and after the Battle of Worringen in 1288, the forces of Brabant and the citizenry of Cologne captured Archbishop Siegfried of Westerburg (1274–97), resulting in almost complete freedom for the city. To regain his liberty the archbishop recognized the political independence of Cologne but reserved certain rights, notably the administration of justice.
Cologne effectively became a free city after 1288, and in 1475 it was formally made a free imperial city, a status that it held until annexed by France on May 28, 1796. The Archbishopric of Cologne was a state in its own right within the Holy Roman Empire, but the city was independent, and the archbishops were usually not allowed to enter it. Instead, they took up residence in Bonn and later in Brühl until they returned in 1821. From 1583 to 1761, all ruling archbishops came from the Wittelsbach dynasty. As powerful electors, the archbishops repeatedly challenged Cologne's free status during the 17th and 18th centuries, resulting in complicated legal affairs, which were handled by diplomatic means, usually to the advantage of the city.
The first pogrom against the Jews of Cologne occurred in 1349, when they were used as scapegoats for the Black Death. In 1424 they were evicted from the city. They were allowed back again in 1798.
Early modern period.
The most significant issue in Cologne for much of the early modern period was whether to join the Reformation, particularly the Reformed strand of Protestantism that had become established in nearby Strasbourg. The long-serving Archbishop Hermann von Wied was interested in reforming Cologne's churches and invited Martin Bucer to lead the process in 1542. Both Bucer and von Wied were expelled by Imperial armies under Charles V. In 1582, Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg converted to the Reformed faith and attempted to reform practices in the city's churches. This was violently opposed by the Wittelsbachs, leading to the Cologne War. The city's population, following the lead of the cathedral clergy, generally preferred the influence of the Pope in Rome to the Archbishop on their doorstep and so the city was spared the worst of the devastation inflicted on the surrounding towns and countryside.
In the period of the persecution of witches (1435–1655), 37 people were executed in Cologne, mostly during the reign of Archbishop Ferdinand of Bavaria in the years 1626 to 1631. One of those executed was Katharina Henot, the first known female postmaster of Germany and an influential citizen. She apparently fell victim to a conspiracy of her enemies among the city authorities after proceedings which were flawed according to the laws of the period.
Long-distance trade in the Baltic intensified as the major trading towns came together in the Hanseatic League under the leadership of Lübeck. The League was a business alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe. It flourished from the 1200 to 1500 and continued with lesser importance thereafter. The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine, Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea, and Lübeck on the Baltic. Cologne was a leading member, especially because of its trade with England. The Hanseatic League gave merchants special privileges in member cities, which dominated trade in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Cologne's hinterland in Germany gave it an added advantage over the other Hanseatic cities, and it became the largest city in Germany and the region. Cologne's central location on the Rhine placed it at the intersection of the major trade routes between east and west and was the basis of Cologne's growth. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were based on the city's major harbor, its location as a transport hub, and its entrepreneurial merchants who built ties with merchants in other Hanseatic cities.
Cologne Cathedral housed sacred relics that made it a destination for many worshippers. With the bishop not resident, the city was ruled by patricians (merchants carrying on long-distance trade). The craftsmen formed guilds, which sought to obtain control of the towns. The guilds were governed by strict rules. A few were open to women. Society was divided into sharply demarcated classes: the clergy, physicians, merchants, and various guilds of artisans; full citizenship was not available to paupers. Political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy.
Modern history.
Napoleonic and Prussian period.
The French Revolutionary Wars resulted in the occupation of Cologne and the Rhineland in 1794. In the following years the French consolidated their presence. In 1798 the city became an arrondissement in the newly created Département de la Roer. In the same year the University of Cologne was closed. In 1801 all citizens of Cologne were granted French citizenship. In 1804 Napoléon Bonaparte visited the city together with his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais. The French occupation ended in 1814, when Cologne was occupied by Prussian and Russian troops. In 1815 Cologne and the Rhineland were allocated to Prussia.
Weimar Republic.
From the end of World War I until 1926, Cologne was occupied by the British Army of the Rhine under the terms of the armistice and the subsequent Peace Treaty of Versailles.
In contrast with to the harsh measures taken by French occupation troops, the British acted with more tact towards the local population. Konrad Adenauer, mayor of Cologne from 1917 until 1933 and a future West German chancellor, acknowledged the political impact of this approach, especially that the British opposed French plans for a permanent Allied occupation of the Rhineland.
The demilitarization of the Rhineland required the fortifications to be dismantled. This was taken as an opportunity to create two green belts ("Grüngürtel") around the city by converting the fortifications and their surroundings, which had been kept clear for artillery, into large public parks. This project was completed in 1933.
In 1919 Cologne University, closed by the French in 1798, was founded anew. It was considered a substitute for the German University of Strasbourg, which became part of France along with the rest of Alsace. Cologne prospered during the Weimar Republic and progress was made especially in governance, city planning and social affairs. Social housing projects were considered exemplary and were copied by other German cities.
As Cologne competed to host the Olympics, a modern sports stadium was erected at Müngersdorf. Early in the 1920s civil aviation was permitted once more, and Cologne Butzweilerhof Airport soon became a hub for national and international air traffic, second in Germany only to Berlin Tempelhof Airport.
Third Reich.
At the beginning of the Third Reich, Cologne was considered difficult by the Nazis because of deep-rooted communist and Catholic influences in the city. The Nazis were always struggling for control of the city.
Local elections on 13 March 1933 resulted in the Nazi Party winning 39.6% of the vote, followed by the catholic Zentrum Party with 28.3%, the Social Democratic Party of Germany with 13.2%, and the Communist Party of Germany with 11.1%. One day later, on 14 March, Nazi followers occupied the city hall and took over government. Communist and Social Democratic members of the city assembly were imprisoned, and Mayor Adenauer was dismissed.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Jewish population of Cologne was about 20,000. By 1939, 40% of the city's Jews had emigrated. The vast majority of those who remained had been deported to concentration camps by 1941. The trade fair grounds next to the Deutz train station were used to herd the Jewish population together for deportation to the death camps and for disposal of their household goods by public sale. On "Kristallnacht" in 1938, Cologne's synagogues were desecrated or set on fire.
It was planned to rebuild a large part of the inner city, with a main road connecting the Deutz station and the main station, which was to be moved from next to the cathedral to an area adjacent to today's university campus, with a huge field for rallies, the Maifeld, next to the main station. The Maifeld, between the campus and the Aachener Weiher artificial lake, was the only part of this over-ambitious plan to be realized before the start of the war. After the war, the remains of the Maifeld were buried with rubble from bombed buildings and turned into a park with rolling hills, which was christened Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Park in August 2004 as a memorial to the victims of the nuclear bombs of 1945. An inconspicuous memorial to the victims of the Nazi regime is situated on one of the hills.
On the night of 30–31 May 1942, Cologne was the target for the first 1,000 bomber raid of the war. Between 469 and 486 people, around 90% of them civilians, were reported killed, more than 5,000 were injured, and more than 45,000 lost their homes. It was estimated that up to 150,000 of Cologne's population of around 700,000 left the city after the raid. The Royal Air Force lost 43 of the 1,103 bombers sent. By the end of World War II, 90% of Cologne's buildings had been destroyed by Allied aerial bombing raids, most of them flown by the RAF.
On 10 November 1944, a dozen members of the anti-Nazi Ehrenfeld Group were hanged in public. Six of them were 16-year-old boys of the Edelweiss Pirates youth gang, including Barthel Schink; Fritz Theilen survived.
The bombings continued and people moved out. By May 1945 only 20,000 residents remained out of 770,000.
The outskirts of Cologne were reached by US troops on 4 March 1945. The inner city on the left bank of the Rhine was captured in half a day on 6 March 1945, meeting only minor resistance. Because the Hohenzollernbrücke was destroyed by retreating German pioneers, the boroughs on the right bank remained under German control until mid-April 1945.
Postwar Cologne.
Although Cologne was larger than its neighbors, Düsseldorf was chosen as the political capital of the newly established Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Bonn as the (provisional) capital of the Federal Republic. Cologne benefited from being sandwiched between the two important political centers of West Germany by becoming home to a large number of federal agencies and organizations. After reunification in 1990, a new situation has been politically co-ordinated with the new federal capital, Berlin.
In 1945 architect and urban planner Rudolf Schwarz called Cologne the "world's greatest heap of debris". Schwarz designed the 1947 reconstruction master plan, which called for the construction of several new thoroughfares through the downtown area, especially the "Nord-Süd-Fahrt" (North-South-Drive). The plan took into consideration that even shortly after the war a large increase in automobile traffic could be anticipated. Plans for new roads had already evolved to some extent under the Nazi administration, but construction became easier now that the majority of downtown lots were undeveloped. The destruction of the famous twelve Romanesque churches, including St. Gereon's Basilica, Great St. Martin, St. Maria im Kapitol and about a dozen others during World War II, meant a tremendous loss of cultural substance to the city. The rebuilding of these churches and other landmarks like the Gürzenich was not undisputed among leading architects and art historians at that time, but in most cases, civil intention prevailed. The reconstruction lasted until the 1990s, when the Romanesque church of St. Kunibert was finished.
It took some time to rebuild the city. In 1959 the city's population reached pre-war numbers again. Afterwards the city grew steadily, and in 1975 the number exceeded one million inhabitants for about a year. The population stayed just below a million for the next 35 years, before again surpassing the million inhabitant mark in 2010.
In the 1980s and 1990s Cologne's economy prospered from two factors. First, the steady growth in the number of media companies in both the private and the public sector. Catering especially to these companies is the newly developed Media Park, which creates a strongly visual focal point in downtown Cologne and includes the "KölnTurm" (Cologne Tower), one of Cologne's most prominent highrises. Secondly, a permanent improvement in traffic infrastructure, which makes Cologne one of the most easily accessible metropolitan areas in Central Europe.
Due to the economic success of the Cologne Trade Fair, the city arranged a large extension to the fair site in 2005. The original buildings, which date back to the 1920s, are rented out to RTL, Germany's largest private broadcaster, as their new corporate headquarters.
Cologne was at the centre of the 2015-16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany. A controversy started after Muslims in Cologne sought to build the Cologne Central Mosque, which was completed in 2017.
Most important for the history of Cologne since the Middle Ages is the Cologne City Archive, which was the largest in Germany. Its building collapsed during the construction of an extension to the underground railway system on 3 March 2009.


Jacob, Margrave of Baden-Baden

Jacob I of Baden (15 March 1407, Hachberg – 13 October 1453, Mühlburg), was Margrave of Baden-Baden from 1431 to 1453.
He was the elder son of Bernard I, Margrave of Baden-Baden and his second wife Anna of Oettingen. Jacob I was a man of deep religious beliefs, well known as a founder of churches. He founded the monastery at Fremersberg and was a major benefactor of the Stiftskirche at Baden-Baden.
According to his father's precepts, only two of his sons were to be considered heirs of the margravate. Therefore, only Charles and Bernard received a secular education; the other children had a strict religious upbringing. George, after taking a religious profession in his youth, returned briefly to the world, but in 1454 reverted to
holy orders and later became Bishop of Metz.
Jacob I was the opposite of his father; Enea Silvio de Piccolomini (Pope Pius II) characterized him as "famous among the Germans for his justice and intelligence".
In his early years he was ruler of the family possessions in Hohenberg, until at the age of 24 he succeeded to the government of Baden. He was described as a pugnacious knight and a frugal father of the state and was popular among the princes as a mediator. Both Emperor Sigismund and Emperor Frederick III, under whom he served, thought highly of him.
When as the result of a miscarriage his sister Agnes fled in the middle of a conflict about inheritance, the Margrave lost his claim to the Duchy of Schleswig. He was so angry that he confined Agnes for the rest of her life in Eberstein Castle in Ebersteinburg. (The incident is remembered as the "Double Disaster of Gottorf").
When in 1427 the Treaty of Sponheim came into force, he gained possessions on the Moselle. In 1442 he bought for 30,000 guilders from the descendants of Walter von Geroldseck half the lordship of Lahr and Mahlberg.
Family and children.
He married 25 July 1422 Catherine, daughter of Charles II, Duke of Lorraine and Margaret of the Palatinate. They had the following children:
He also had an illegitimate son, Rudolf of Baden.


Brighstone

Brighstone is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Wight, 6 miles southwest of Newport on the B3399 road. Brighstone was previously known as "Brixton". The name derives from the Saxon name "Ecgbert's Tun".
Brighstone is the largest village in the area locally known as the Back of the Wight and extends toward Limerstone and Mottistone.
In Roman times a villa was built to the north, to take advantage of the clean waters of the Buddle Brook.
History.
Brighstone history dates back to the 9th century when it was given to the Bishopric of Winchester by King Egbert.
Brighstone parish was formed in 1644. The civil parish comprises the main village of Brighstone together with the smaller villages of Brook, Hulverstone, Limerstone and Mottistone. The entire parish lies within an area of the Isle of Wight AONB and its coastline is designated as Heritage Coast and Site of Special Scientific Interest.
St. Mary's Church, Brighstone is a venerable old church that has stood for more than eight centuries. The village also features Brighstone Shop and Museum, owned by the National Trust, displaying exhibitions on village life in the 19th century and contains a wealth of information about the Brighstone lifeboats.
Today.
Brighstone is popular with tourists for its thatched cottages and local shops. Several large events are hosted in the village each year, including the Brighstone Show, Art exhibitions and the Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival. The local scout hut functions as a Youth Hostel during the summer.
Notable residents.
The village pub is called The Three Bishops, named after three rectors of Brighstone parish who went on to become famous bishops. The first was the 17th-century Bishop Ken who wrote the famous hymns "Awake my soul and with the sun" and "Glory to Thee my God this night". Bishop Samuel Wilberforce became rector in 1830, and used to entertain his father, anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. Wilberforce Road is named after him, and Brighstone's village hall is called the Wilberforce Hall. The third bishop, Doctor George Moberly, was headmaster of Winchester College before becoming rector of Brighstone in 1866 and bishop of Salisbury a few years later.
Another notable person who lived in the village in the 19th century was the clergyman and amateur palaeontologist William Fox, who discovered several species of dinosaur in Brighstone Bay.
Bus routes.
The village is linked to other parts of the island by Southern Vectis bus route 12, serving Freshwater, Totland and Newport as well as intermediate villages.


Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst

Anhalt-Zerbst was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by the House of Ascania, with its residence at Zerbst in present-day Saxony-Anhalt. It emerged as a subdivision of the Principality of Anhalt from 1252 until 1396, when it was divided into the principalities of Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen. Recreated in 1544, Anhalt-Zerbst finally was partitioned between Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Köthen, and Anhalt-Bernburg in 1796 upon the extinction of the line.
History.
It was created when the Anhalt territory was divided among the sons of Prince Henry I into the principalities of Anhalt-Aschersleben, Anhalt-Bernburg and Anhalt-Zerbst in 1252. In the course of the partition, Prince Siegfried I, the youngest son of Henry I, received the lands around Köthen, Dessau, and Zerbst. His son and successor Prince Albert I took his residence at Köthen Castle in 1295. In 1396, the surviving sons of Prince John II of Anhalt-Zerbst again divided their heritage: Sigismund I became Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and his younger brother Albert IV went on to rule as Prince of Anhalt-Köthen.
The principality was recreated, when in 1544 the heirs of Prince Ernest I of Anhalt-Dessau divided their territory and the eldest surviving son, Prince John V, took his residence at Zerbst Castle. The second incarnation, however, lost a lot of territory in 1603 when it was partitioned for a second time with some of its territory being given to Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Plötzkau and Anhalt-Köthen.
By 1606, all Anhalt principalities had turned to the Reformed faith, however, Anhalt-Zerbst returned to Lutheranism in 1644. In 1667, Prince John VI inherited the remote Lordship of Jever in East Frisia. Upon his death in the same year, however, Anhalt-Zerbst lost more of its territory, with Anhalt-Mühlingen and Anhalt-Dornburg being created. The Jever lordship was administrated by Ascanian relatives, it was hit hard by the Christmas Flood of 1717.
In 1742 princes John Louis II and Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg inherited Anhalt-Zerbst. After Christian August's death in 1747, his widow Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp governed the country for her son Frederick Augustus until 1752. She had the new castle at Dornburg built as her thirds from 1750, a lavish baroque palace prepared to host her brother, Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, or her daughter Sophie Auguste Fredericka, who in 1745 had married the Russian crown prince Peter III, to become empress in 1762, better known as "Catherine the Great". However, neither of them ever visited her, and the dowager princess and her son were forced into exile when Prussian forces invaded Anhalt-Zerbst during the Seven Years' War in 1758. Frederick the Great, who had actually proposed the Russian marriage, accused the princess and her son to support Russia, then his war enemy. Johanna Elisabeth died in Paris in 1760 and her son, Frederick Augustus, never returned to Zerbst and continued to live in Basel and Luxemburg. Upon his death in 1793, the Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst came to an end with its territory being divided among the Ascanian princes of Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Köthen, and Anhalt-Bernburg while Jever was inherited by his sister, Catherine the Great, and remained under Russian rule until 1818.
Princes of Anhalt-Zerbst.
Princes, 1252–1396.
"Partitioned between Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen in 1396.
Princes, 1544–1796.
"To Anhalt-Dessau 1796".


Rostock Inheritance Agreement

The Rostock Inheritance Agreement () describes several agreements reached by the Hanseatic city of Rostock with the dukes of Mecklenburg as landlords.
The inheritance agreements should not be confused with the State Constitutional Heritable Settlement (; LGGEV) of 1755, which Duke Christian Louis agreed with the duchy's estates ("Landstände") combining the knights' federation ("Ritterschaft") and the chartered cities eligible for the estates ("Seestädte" and "Landstädte" forming together the "Landschaft"), which also included the city of Rostock. This led to a permanent involvement of the estates in the government of the state and from then on blocked constitutional development in the modern sense. The strength of the estates, opposing dynastic divisions, kept Mecklenburg together, at times partitioned into several branch duchies with each its own government but one common body of the estates. And the power of the estates held down the dominance of the monarchs and successfully blocked absolutism in Mecklenburg.


Llibre del Repartiment (Majorca)

The Llibre del Repartiment is a record book in which the king's scribes recorded the pledges of properties at the completion of a conquest. The document includes only properties that were ceded to the monarch after the conquest of the island of Majorca in 1229. It meticulously recorded the houses or land donations made by James I to the Aragonese and Catalan nobles and ultimately to all who participated in the crusade for the conquest of Majorca. Of course, the properties had been expropriated from the Muslims who had previously inhabited the island of Majorca.
This book is kept in the "l'Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca" in the city of Palma, but actually consists of two volumes: one bilingual in Latin and Arabic, and another in Catalan.
The groups that had greater involvement in the company were Barcelona and Marseille, the first with a total of 877 horses and the second with 636, followed by the Knights Templar which had 525.


Chronicle of Monemvasia

The Chronicle of Monemvasia (; rarely known as the Chronicle of the Peloponnesos) is a medieval text of which four versions, all written in medieval Greek, are extant. The author (or authors) of the account is currently unknown. The "Chronicle", specifically the version from the Iberikon monastery, narrates the events that depict the Avaro-Slavic conquest and colonization of mainland Greece, covering a period from 587 to 805 AD. Despite its compelling narrative, the "Chronicle" is not an actual chronicle. The text represents a compilation of sources involving Avars and Slavs and focuses on the foundation of the metropolitan see of Patras. It is possible that the "Chronicle" was actually used in negotiations with the metropolitan of Corinth over the status of the metropolitan of Patras.
Versions.
The first manuscript of the "Chronicle" was published in 1749 by Joseph Pasinus (or Giuseppe Passini) and his colleagues, Rivautella and Berta, at the Royal Library of Turin. The text was reissued in 1884 by Spyridon P. Lambros along with two other versions, one belonging to the Iberikon monastery and the other belonging to the Koutloumousiou monastery in Mount Athos. Minor corrections were made to all three versions of the "Chronicle" by N. A. Bees who republished the texts in 1909. Three years later (1912), a fourth version was published by Lambros who discovered another text at the Collegio Greco in Rome.
Order of the texts.
There is currently no consensus among modern scholars regarding the chronological order of the four "Chronicle" manuscripts. Lambros argues that the text discovered at the Iberikon monastery is the earliest version. N. A. Bees, however, disagrees with Lambros and finds the Iberikon manuscript to be a later variant of the Turin and Koutloumousion versions. But despite the lack of consensus, recent studies show the Iberikon text to be a later version of the "Chronicle" through its use of the Byzantine dating system whereas the Koutloumousion and Turin texts use the older Alexandrian dating system.
Authorship.
The author (or authors) of the "Chronicle of Monemvasia" is unknown. One hypothesis by J. Koder states that Arethas of Caesarea was responsible for compiling the text. However, Koder's argument was rejected by I. Dujčev based on the "Chronicle's" allusion to Emperor Nikephoros II (r. 963–969), who lived after Arethas. What is ultimately known about the author(s) is his/their ignorance of Balkan geography outside of the Peloponnese, despite basing his/their depiction of Avar attacks on Procopius's description of attacks by the Huns.
Dates of composition.
Scholars are also divergent in their views regarding the exact composition dates of the four "Chronicle" manuscripts. Paul Lemerle argues that the original text was first written in 932 AD when it was used in the Scholion of Arethas. However, Spyridon Lambros believes that the Iberikon text was composed between 806 and 1083, whereas the Turin and Koutloumousion texts were written sometime during the end of the 13th century. N. A. Bees disputes Lambros’s assessment and believes the entire "Chronicle" was developed between 1340 and the 16th century. S. Kougeas dates the composition of the text to after the reign of Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–969) whereas Michael Whitby states that the "Chronicle" was first composed in the Peloponnese in circa 1000 AD. I. Dujčev dates the "Chronicle" to 963–1018 AD, and Florin Curta dates the writing of the text to either the late 10th century or the early 11th century.
Narrative.
According to the Iberikon manuscript of the "Chronicle", the Avars/Slavs conquered Thessaly, Epirus, Attica, and the island of Euboea. As a result, many Greeks retreated to other areas: the inhabitants of Patras fled to Rhegium in Calabria, the Argives fled to the island of Orobe, the Corinthians fled to Aegina, and the Laconians fled to Sicily. The city of Monemvasia, specifically, was built at the time on the coast in an inaccessible region of the Peloponnese by groups that would later be known collectively as Tzakones. Due to the more rugged terrain of the eastern Peloponnese, the areas from Corinth to Cape Malea remained under "Roman" (Byzantine Greek) control. One of the governors of the Peloponnese, a native of Lesser Armenia, came into conflict with a number of Slavic tribes and successfully annihilated them. This unnamed member of the Skleroi family helped make way for the native Greeks to reclaim their lands. Upon hearing these events, Emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811) contributed towards revitalizing the cities, rebuilding the churches, and Christianizing the barbarians.
Derivative works.
Most of the narrative in the "Chronicle" is derived from works by Evagrius Scholasticus, Theophanes the Confessor, Menander Protector, and Theophylactus Simocatta. The author(s) of the "Chronicle", however, used another source in order to write about the Avars and Slavs establishing their rule in the Peloponnese for 218 years. This unknown text may have been a forgery of ecclesiastical origin used by or on behalf of the Bishop of Patras. Despite the source being unknown, it was used in both the Scholium of Arethas and in a letter by Patriarch Nicholas III to Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118).
Reliability.
The historical validity of the "Chronicle of Monemvasia" is still a subject of academic dispute. Peter Charanis, for example, describes the "Chronicle" as "absolutely trustworthy". Kenneth Setton, however, disagrees with Charanis and argues that the "Chronicle" is a "medley of some fact and some fiction". Stilpon Kyriakides finds that the "Chronicle" contains an ecclesiastical bias and that the conquest of Greece by the Avars/Slavs is a myth.
Exaggerations and errors.
There are a number of errors and exaggerations in the "Chronicle of Monemvasia". For example, the city of Monemvasia was not built after the barbarians invaded Greece. In actuality, the city was constructed approximately four to five years (circa 582–583) before the advent of the Avars and Slavs. Another example entails the Corinthians' migration to the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf, which is contradicted by a correspondence (February 591 AD) between Pope Gregory the Great and Archbishop Anastasius of Corinth. Other sources that contradict the "Chronicle" include canons from the Sixth Ecumenical Synod (691–692) held in the Trullian Hall of the Great Palace of Constantinople, as well as the "Taktika" composed by Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (r. 717–741) between 733–746; both sources mention a continued presence of Greeks and church administrative institutions throughout mainland Greece with no indication of long-term Slavic demographic/political overlordship. As for the rebuilding of churches in the Peloponnese, there is no substantial architectural record that corroborates this particular event mentioned in the "Chronicle".
From an archaeological viewpoint, the "Chronicle of Monemvasia" overstates the impact of the Avaro-Slavic invasions of Greece. In Methana, there is no evidence of any widespread disruption of settlement patterns (this is also the case elsewhere in the Peloponnese). The island of Kythera, on the other hand, was abandoned along with other coastal sites due to attacks conducted by one or more Slavic fleets.


Weichsel glaciation


Masovia Governorate

Masovia Governorate ( ) was an administrative unit (governorate) of the Congress Poland.
It was created in 1837 from the Masovian Voivodeship; in 1844 it was merged into a larger Warsaw Governorate.


Busietta

Busietta is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:


Velsdorf

Velsdorf is a village and a former municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the municipality Calvörde.