Eastern Hungarian Kingdom

The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom (Hungarian: "keleti Magyar Királyság") is a modern term coined by historians to designate the realm of John Zápolya and his son John Sigismund Zápolya, who contested the claims of the House of Habsburg to rule the Kingdom of Hungary from 1526 to 1570. The Zápolyas ruled over an eastern part of Hungary, and the Habsburg kings (Ferdinand and Maximilian) ruled the west.
 The Habsburgs tried several times to unite all Hungary under their rule, but the Ottoman Empire prevented that by supporting the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom.
The exact extent of the Zápolya realm was never settled because both the Habsburgs and the Zápolyas claimed the whole kingdom. A temporary territorial division was made in the Treaty of Nagyvárad in 1538. The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom is the predecessor of the Principality of Transylvania (1570–1711), which was established by the Treaty of Speyer.
John I's reign.
In 1526, Hungary was defeated by the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Mohács, and King Louis II of Hungary was killed. The Ottomans withdrew their troops and did not then seek to conquer.
Ferdinand of Austria, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, claimed the crown by right of his marriage to Louis' sister Anne. But most Hungarian nobles opposed Ferdinand. They supported John Zápolya, former Voivode of Transylvania, the wealthiest landholder in the country. The Hungarian Diet proclaimed him king, but Ferdinand sent an army which drove John from the country by 1528. To counter the Habsburg influence, John formed an alliance with Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I in 1528, and even swore fealty to the sultan in 1529.
John controlled Transylvania and the eastern part of the Hungarian plain; Ferdinand held Croatia, the western part of the plain, and Upper Hungary.
In 1538, the two sides signed the Treaty of Nagyvárad, which made this division official, and also made Ferdinand heir to John, who was childless.
John II Sigismund's reign.
The Nagyvárad agreement lasted only two years, until John I's son was born in 1540, only nine days before John I's death. The infant John II Sigismund Zápolya was crowned by the Hungarian estates a few weeks later.
For much of John II's reign, Eastern Hungary was governed by his mother, Isabella, with Bishop George Martinuzzi as regent. They were supported by Sultan Suleiman, who recognized John II as king and his vassal.
In 1541, Ferdinand invaded to enforce his claim. Martinuzzi called on Suleiman, who expelled Ferdinand, but took most of central Hungary under direct Ottoman rule as Budin Province. The eastern part of the Hungarian plain remained under Zápolya rule; after 1571 it became known as Partium.
During the 1540s, the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom included the counties of Máramaros, Szabolcs, Szatmár, Közép-Szolnok, Bihar, Külső-Szolnok, Békés, Csongrád, Arad, Csanád, and the Temesköz. The bigger towns, such as Várad or Lippa, were significant centers of state power, warranting predominance over the region's magnates. One of the wealthiest nobles, Péter Petrovics, was the absolute ruler of the Temesköz, but was loyal to the Zápolya family. He cooperated with the regent Martinuzzi. The region from Máramaros County to the Kraszna river was ruled by the Drágffy-Perényi family, Ecsed and Somlyó by the Báthory family, Békés county by the Patócsy, the Maros river valley by the Jaksics family, and the town of Debrecen by the Török family of Enying. Zemplén, Borsod, and Abaúj Counties with their undefined borders were ruled by the Balassa, Losonci, Bebek, and Drugeth families, but they possessed considerable autonomy.
The army campaigns of 1543–44 left only one secure road link to Royal Hungary, along the Vág valley, and this further decreased Habsburg support in the kingdom. In August 1544, commissioners from the central parts of the medieval Hungarian kingdom as counties along the Tisza river participated as equals in the Transylvanian Diet at Torda. The Transylvanian Diet thus became the legal successor of the Hungarian Diets.
The chancellery and the high court at Buda disappeared during the political chaos of 1540-41 and Transylvania could not be administered by the central organs of the Hungarian Kingdom anymore. The apparatus of the "voivode" was inadequate to provide the task of administering a state. Martinuzzi formed a new administrative structure, and established the court at Gyulafehérvár.
The feudal estates lost their power over cases of state.
The Saxons were still Habsburg supporters and adopted a passive stance. Péter Haller, the royal magistrate at Szeben, was the only Saxon at the court of Gyulafehérvár. The Székelys had only few advocates in the circles around the regent and the queen.
King John's supporters usually had no roots within the new confines of the country, however their relatives were found among the senior officials and courtiers in large numbers. The ruling class still expected the reunification of the country, and Martinuzzi always encountered the pressure of this wish and expectation.
Habsburg rule and war.
Martinuzzi and Isabella fell out, and Martinuzzi also turned against the Ottomans. He allied instead with Ferdinand, and compelled Isabella to sign the Treaty of Nyírbátor in 1549, which ceded Transylvania to Ferdinand. Isabella opposed the dispossession of her son and informed the sultan immediately. A civil war followed between Isabella's forces and Martinuzzi's pro-Habsburg troops. Martinuzzi's army besieged the royal residence at Gyulafehérvár in 1550 and 1551.
A Habsburg army marched into Transylvania and the Tisza region, under Giovanni Battista Castaldo. Martinuzzi continued his intrigues, sending feudal tribute to the sultan, and was killed by Castaldo in 1551. John II abdicated as king, and together with Isabella left for Poland.
The sultan, feeling betrayed, sent his army against Hungary in 1552. Veszprém, Drégely, Szolnok, Lippa, Temesvár, Karánsebes, and Lugos fell in the course of the campaign. Only Eger castle, commanded by István Dobó, withstood the Ottoman army. In 1553, Ferdinand withdrew Castaldo's troops from Transylvania. In 1554 the sultan launched another attack against Hungary, occupying Salgó and Fülek.
Restoration of John II.
In 1556 the nobles of Transylvania recalled John II, and elected him Prince of Transylvania at the Diet of Szászsebes; also again acknowledging him as King.
In 1568, freedom of religion was formally recognized by John II in the Edict of Torda.
Treaty of Speyer.
In 1570, John II signed the Treaty of Speyer with Ferdinand's successor, Maximilian. John II again renounced his claim as king of Hungary in favor of Maximilian, thus ending the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. John instead was recognized by Maximilian as "prince of Transylvania and the Partium" ("princeps Transsylvaniae et partium regni Hungariae dominus"; that is, "Prince of Transylvania and Lord of part of the Kingdom of Hungary") from 1570 until his death (1571).
This treaty, like the earlier Treaty of Nagyvárad, endorsed the principle of a united Hungary. Partium and Transylvania were entrusted to John Sigismund Zápolya, as a vassal of Maximilian. As mentioned above, the Zápolyas had already held the Partium, but now the Habsburgs recognized their lordship. In a sense, John Sigismund traded title for territory.
Thus the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom became the predecessor of the Principality of Transylvania (1570–1711). Despite John Sigismund's profession of vassalage to Maximilian, the princes of Transylvania ruled with near complete autonomy, and often paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire. Austria and Turkey contended for supremacy there for nearly two centuries. All reference after 1570 to the king of Hungary refer to the territory known as "Royal Hungary"; references to a prince refer to the "Principality of Transylvania".


Greek revolutionary organizations

This list includes revolutionary organizations aimed at liberating and unifying Greek-inhabited territories into the historical national state of Greece.


Argillichthys

Argillichthys toombsi is an extinct lizardfish from the Ypresian-aged London Clay Formation from Lower Eocene England. It is known from a skull.
See also.
Other notable extinct Cenozoic aulopiforms include:


Osraige

Osraige (Old Irish) or Osraighe (Classical Irish), Osraí (Modern Irish), anglicized as Ossory, was a medieval Irish kingdom comprising what is now County Kilkenny and western County Laois, corresponding to the Diocese of Ossory. The home of the Osraige people, it existed from around the first century until the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. It was ruled by the Dál Birn dynasty, whose medieval descendants assumed the surname Mac Giolla Phádraig.
According to tradition, Osraige was founded by Óengus Osrithe in the 1st century and was originally within the province of Leinster. In the 5th century, the Corcu Loígde of Munster displaced the Dál Birn and brought Osraige under Munster's direct control. The Dál Birn returned to power in the 7th century, though Osraige remained nominally part of Munster until 859, when it achieved formal independence under the powerful king Cerball mac Dúnlainge. Osraige's rulers remained major players in Irish politics for the next three centuries, though they never vied for the High Kingship. In the early 12th century, dynastic infighting fragmented the kingdom, and it was re-adjoined to Leinster. The Normans under Strongbow invaded Ireland beginning in 1169, and most of Osraige collapsed under pressure from Norman leader William Marshal. The northern part of the kingdom, eventually known as Upper Ossory, survived intact under the hereditary lordship until the reign of King Henry VIII of England, when it was formally incorporated as a barony of the same name.
Geography.
The ancient Osraige inhabited the fertile land around the River Nore valley, occupying nearly all of what is modern County Kilkenny and the western half of neighbouring County Laois. To the west and south, Osraige was bounded by the River Suir and what is now Waterford Harbour; to the east, the watershed of the River Barrow marked the boundary with Leinster (including Gowran); to the north, it extended into and beyond the Slieve Bloom Mountains. These three principal rivers- the Nore, the Barrow, and the Suir, which unite just north of Waterford City, were collectively known as the "Three Sisters" (). Like many other Irish kingdoms, the tribal name of "Osraighe" also came to be applied to the territory they occupied; thus, wherever the Osraige dwelt became known as Osraige. The kingdom's most significant neighbours were the Loígis, Uí Ceinnselaig and Uí Bairrche of Leinster to the north and east and the Déisi, Eóganacht Chaisil and Éile of Munster to the south and west. Some of the highest points of land are Brandon Hill (County Kilkenny) and Arderin (on the Laois-Offaly border). The ancient Slige Dala road ran southwest through northern Osraige from the Hill of Tara towards Munster; which later gave its name to the medieval Ballaghmore Castle. Another ancient road, the Slighe Cualann cut into southeast Osraige west of present-day Ross, before turning south to present-day Waterford city.
History.
Origins and prehistory.
The tribal name "Osraige" means "people of the deer", and is traditionally claimed to be taken from the name of the ruling dynasty's semi-legendary pre-Christian founder, Óengus Osrithe. The Osraige were probably either a southern branch of the Ulaid or Dál Fiatach of Ulster, or close kin to their former Corcu Loígde allies. In either case it would appear they should properly be counted among the Érainn. Some scholars believe that the Ō pedigree of the Osraige is a fabrication, invented to help them achieve their goals in Leinster. Francis John Byrne suggests that it may date from the time of Cerball mac Dúnlainge. The Osraighe themselves claimed to be descended from the Érainn people, although scholars propose that the Ivernic groups included the Osraige. Prior to the coming of Christianity to Ireland, the Osraige and their relatives the Corcu Loígde appear to have been the dominant political groups in Munster, before the rise of the Eóganachta marginalized them both.
Ptolemy's 2nd-century map of Ireland places a tribe he called the "Usdaie" roughly in the same area that the Osraige occupied. The territory indicated by Ptolemy likely included the major late Iron Age hill-fort at Freestone Hill and a 1st-century Roman burial site at Stonyford, both in County Kilkenny. Due to inland water access via the Nore, Barrow and Suir rivers, the Osraige may have experienced greater intercourse with Britain and the continent, and there appears to have been some heightened Roman trading activity in and around the region. Such contact with the Roman world may have precipitated wider exposure and later conversion to Early Christianity.
From the fifth century, the name "Dál Birn" ("the people of Birn"; sometimes spelt "dál mBirn") appears to have emerged as the name for the ruling lineage of Osraige, and this name remained in use through to the twelfth century. From this period, Osraige was originally within the sphere of the province of Leinster.
Déisi, Corcu Loígde usurpation and Christianization (c.450–625).
Several sources indicate that towards the end of the fifth century the Osraige ceded a swath of southern territory to the displaced and incoming Déisi sometime before 489. The traditional accounts states that the landless, wandering Déisi tribe were seeking a home in Munster, through the marriage of their princess Ethne the Dread to Óengus mac Nad Froích, king of Munster. As part of her dowry, Ethne asked for the Osraige to be cleared off their land but were repulsed several times by the Osraige in open battle before finally overcoming them through magic, trickery and guile. The account mentions that at this defeat, the Ossorians fled like wild deer (""ossa" in Irish), a pun on their tribal name.
It appears that soon thereafter following this defeat, the hereditary Dál Birn kings were displaced for a period by the Corcu Loígde of south Munster. The Dál Birn remained in control of their northern territory while Corcu Loígde kings ruled the greater portion of southern Osraige around the fertile Nore valley until the latter part of the sixth century and the rise of Eóganachta dominating Munster. The new political configuration, probably the result of an Uí Néill-Eóganachta alliance against the Corcu Loígde, caused a reduction in Osraige's relative status. In 582, Fergus Scandal mac Crimthainn, the king of Munster, was slain by Leinstermen and Osraige was therefore ceded from Leinster as blood-fine payment and attached the kingdom to the province of Munster. Around that time (in either 581 or 583) the Ossorians (also referred to in the Fragmentary Annals as "Clann Connla") had slain one of the last usurping Corcu Loígde kings Feradach Finn mac Duach and reclaimed most of their old patrimony. The Dál Birn returned to full power by the first quarter of the seventh century.
Throughout this period, Ireland and Irish culture was thoroughly Christianized by the arrival of missionaries from Britain and the continent. Osraige appears to have seen a flourish of early Christian activity. Surviving hagiographic works, especially those relating to St. Ciaran of Saighir, attest that Osraige was the first Irish kingdom to receive a Christian episcopacy even before the arrival of St. Patrick; however, some modern scholars dispute this. St. Patrick is believed to have traversed through Osraige, preaching and establishing Christianity there on his way to Munster. An early Irish church was founded in Osraige, perhaps in connection with St. Patrick's arrival in the territory, known as "Domhnach Mór" ("great church"", located at what is now St. Patrick's graveyard in Kilkenny). St. Cainnech of Aghaboe founded two churches in Osraige which later grew in importance: Aghaboe and Kilkenny, each of which successively held the episcopal see after Saighir. Additionally, a host of other early monastics and clerics laboured for the gospel in Osraige, making a lasting impact on the region which still exists down to the present.
Dál Birn Resurgence (c.625–795).
There is confusion among scholars as to the correct enumeration of the Corcu Loígde kings over Osraige, but by the reign of Scandlán Mór (d. 643 ca.) the Dál Birn dynasts regained control of their own territory, but not without intermittent dynastic competition. The late seventh century witnessed an increase in hostilities between the men of Osraige and their neighbors to the south-east in Leinster, especially with the Uí Ceinnselaig. In the middle years of the eighth century, Anmchad mac Con Cherca was the most militarily active king in Munster, and was the first Ossorian king to gain island-wide notice by the chroniclers. Upon his death in 761, Osraige witnessed civil war over the throne and Tóim Snáma mac Flainn, a scion from a different lineage emerged as king. Tóim Snáma was opposed by the sons of Cellach mac Fáelchair (died 735), and presumably Dúngal mac Cellaig (died 772). In 769, he was successful in the battle versus them and they were put to flight. In 770, he was slain, presumably by Dúngal his successor.
During this time the churches of Osraige witnessed a flourish of growth and activity, with notable clerics from Osraige being recorded in the annals and at least one, St. Fergal, gaining international fame as an early astronomer and was ordained bishop of Salzburg in modern-day Austria. However, it is noteworthy that bishop Laidcnén son of Doinennach, abbot of Saighir was slain in 744.
Osraige in the Viking Age (795–1014).
Because Osraige is bounded by major rivers, this period witnessed the establishment of several significant Viking bases on and around the kingdom's borders in the ninth and early tenth centuries; with the Nore, Barrow and Suir watershed systems providing deep access into Osraige's interior. Vikings came into conflict with the Irish on the River Suir as early as 812 and a large fleet sailed up the Barrow and Nore rivers, inflicting a devastating rout on the Osraige in 825. A Norse longphort was planted by Rodolf son of Harald Klak at Dunrally between 850–62 on the border with the neighbouring kingdom of Laois. Other longphort settlements emerged at Woodstown (c.830–860) and Waterford in 914. Consequently, Osraige endured much tumult and warfare but subsequently emerged politically dominant, becoming a major force in southern Ireland and even the one of the most militarily active kingdoms on the island by the middle of the ninth century. Originally granted semi-independent status within the province of Munster, the war-like and victorious rule of king Cerball mac Dúnlainge birthed a dramatic rise in Osraige's power and prestige, despite a heavy influx of Viking marauders to Ireland's shores.
Under the long reign of Cerball mac Dúnlainge between 843/4 to 888, Osraige was transformed from a relatively unimportant kingdom into one of Ireland's most powerful overlordships, which surpassed that of both Munster and Leinster and even threatened Uí Néill hegemony over southern Ireland. There is circumstantial evidence which indicates that early in his reign, Cerball may have even sent emissaries to establish international diplomacy with the Carolingian Empire's western-third under Charles the Bald who was also dealing with Viking threats. He established dual marriage alliances with the High King Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid and successfully forced Máel Gualae, king of Munster to recognize Osraige's formal independence from Munster in 859. The later Icelandic Landnámabók uniquely names Cerball as king of Dublin and the Orkney islands during his reign, yet scholars regard this as an interpolation borrowed from the influential narrative found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, likely composed by Cerball's eleventh century descendant Donnchad mac Gilla Pátraic.
Cerball's descendant king Gilla Pátraic mac Donnchada (r. 976–996) proved an able ruler, and by the late 10th century the hereditary ruling descendants of Osraige had adopted the surname "Mac Giolla Phádraig" as their patronymic. By the late tenth century, Osraige was brought into conflict with the ambitious Dalcassian king Brian Boruma, who gained supremacy over all Ireland before being killed in the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, in which the Ossorians did not partake. The Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib relates a story that victorious but wounded Dalcassian troops were challenged to battle by the Ossorians as they were returning home through Osraige after the battle of Clontarf, but some authors doubt the validity of this story, as the source is widely considered later Dalcassian propaganda.
Osraige during the First Irish Revival (c. 1015 – 1165).
During the period after the decline of Viking threats, many of Ireland's smaller kingdoms became dominated by larger ones, in a natural yet bloody evolution towards centralized monarchy. Various families contended for the high-kingship. Allegiance with Osraige could make or break a king's bid for the high-kingship, although the kings of Osraige never attempted the position themselves. King Donnchadh mac Gilla Pátraic, arguably Osraige's most powerful ruler who brought the kingdom to the zenith of its power, plundered Dublin, Meath and successfully conquered neighbouring Leinster in 1033, held the Óenach Carmán and ruled both kingdoms until his death in 1039. In 1085 and 1114, the city of Kilkenny was burned.
Additionally, major changes to the structure and practices of the Irish Church brought it away from its historic orthodox practices and more in line with the massive Gregorian Reform movement which was already taking place on the continent. Significantly, the Synod of Rath Breasail was part of this movement, likely held in the northernmost territory of Osraige in 1111.
By the early-12th century, fighting had erupted within the dynasty and split the kingdom into three territories. In 1103, Gilla Pátraic Ruadh, king of Osraige and many of the Ossorian royal family were killed on campaign in the north of Ireland. Two new claimants to the throne then emerged, both scions of the Mac Giolla Phádraig clan. Domnall Ruadh Mac Gilla Pátraic was the king of greater Osraige, often called Tuaisceart Osraige ("North Osraige") or Leath Osraige ("Half-Osraige"); and Cearbhall mac Domnall mac Gilla Pátraic in Desceart Osraige ("South Osraige"), a smaller portion of the southernmost part of Osraige bordering Waterford. Additionally, the Ua Caellaighe clan of Mag Lacha and Ua Foircheallain in the extreme north Osraige declared their independence from Mac Giolla Phádraig rule under Fionn Ua Caellaighe. Thus the north and south fringes of the kingdom broke apart from the centre, each with subsequent competing dynasts until the arrival of the Normans. While the north and south extremities of the kingdom were broken away, the majority of central Osraige around the fertile Nore valley maintained greater stability and is most often referred to simply as "Osraige" in most annals for the period.
Despite its fracturing, Osraige was still powerful enough to oppose and inflict defeats upon Leinster. As retribution in 1156–7, the high king Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn led a massive campaign of destruction deep into Osraige, laying waste to it from end to end, and officially subjected it to Leinster.
Decline during the Norman Invasion (1165–1194).
Much of the background drama and initial action of the Norman advance played out on the battlefields and highways of Osraige. The kingdoms of Osraige and Leinster had also witnessed increased mutual hostility prior to the Normans. Significantly, Diarmaid Mac Murchadha, the man who would one day become king of Leinster and invite the Normans into Ireland, was himself fostered as a youth in north Osraige, in the territory of the Ua Caellaighes of Dairmag Ua nDuach who sought to undermine their Mac Giolla Phádraig overlords. In the 1150s, high king Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn made a devastating punitive campaign on the divided Osraige, burning and pillaging the whole kingdom and subjected it to Leinster overlordship. Thus, Diarmaid Mac Murchadha came to intervene several times in the disputes of Ossorian succession. After Mac Murchadha's exile and return in 1167, tension was heightened between Osraige and Leinster by the blinding of Mac Murchadha's son and heir, Éanna mac Diarmat by the prince of greater Osraige, king Donnchad Mac Giolla Phádraig. Mac Murchadha's initial mercenary force under Robert FitzStephen landed close to the border of Osraige at Bannow, took Wexford and immediately turned west to invade Osraige, acquiring hostages as a nominal token of submission. Later still, another auxiliary force under Raymond FitzGerald (le Gros) landed just opposite Osraige's border at Waterford, and won a skirmish with its inhabitants. By 1169, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow) had also landed with a major force outside of Waterford, married Mac Murchadha's daughter Aoife and sacked the city. Later that year, a major conflict was fought in the woods of Osraige near Freshford when Mac Murchadha and his Norman allies under Robert FitzStephen, Meiler FitzHenry, Maurice de Prendergast, Miles FitzDavid, and Hervey de Clare (Montmaurice) defeated a numerically superior force under Domnall Mac Giolla Phádraig, king of greater-Osraige, at the pass of Achadh Úr following a feigned retreat in a three-day battle. Shortly thereafter, de Prendergast and his contingent of Flemish soldiers defected from Mac Murchada's camp and joined king Domnall's forces in Osraige before quitting Ireland for a time.
In 1170, MacMurchada died, leaving Strongbow as the de facto king of Leinster, which in his understanding, included Osraige. At Threecastles, Strongbow and Mac Giolla Phádraig agreed to the Treaty of Odogh (Ui Duach) in 1170, in which de Prendergast saved the life of the prince of Osraige from a treacherous assassination. Osraige was afterwards invaded by Strongbow's troops and an Ua Briain force from Thommond. In 1171, King Henry II of England landed in nearby Waterford Harbour with one of the largest injections of English military strength into Ireland. On the banks of the Suir, Henry secured the submission of many of the kings and chiefs of southern Ireland; including Tuaisceart Osraige's king, Domnall Mac Giolla Phádraig. In 1172, the Norman adventurer Adam de Hereford was granted land by Strongbow in Aghaboe, north Osraige. After Henry was recalled from Ireland to deal with the aftermath of Thomas Becket's murder and the Revolt of 1173–74, Osraige continued to be a theatre of conflict. Raymond FitzGerald plundered Offaly and travelled through Osraige to win a naval engagement at Waterford. Later, a force from Dublin inflicted a defeat on Hervey de Clare in Osraige. In 1175, the prince of Osraige assisted a force under Raymond FitzGerald to relieve the city of Limerick which had been besieged by the forces of Domnall Mór Ua Briain. Later, Gerald of Wales relates a defeat of the men of Kilkenny and their prince by a Norman force from Meath. The noted adventurer Robert le Poer won lands in Osraige, but was later killed there against the natives. In 1185, Prince John, then Lord of Ireland and future King of England, travelled from England to Ireland to consolidate the Anglo-Norman colonisation of Ireland, landing at Waterford near the border of Osraige. He secured the allegiance of the Irish princes and travelled through Osraige to Dublin, ordering several castles to be constructed in the region. The last recorded king of central Osraige was Maelseachaill Mac Gilla Patráic, who died in either 1193 or 1194. However, the kingdom and a continuous succession of rulers remained intact in the north, subsequently called "Upper Ossory" into the mid-sixteenth century.
Upper Ossory and Kilkenny (1192–1541).
After the initial Norman Invasion of Ireland, the famous and formidable William Marshal arrived in Osraige by 1192 and acquired claims to the land through his marriage to Isabel de Clare, daughter of Strongbow and Aoife Mac Murchada, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada. Marshal began stone construction on the large fortification at Kilkenny Castle which was completed by 1195 and was largely responsible for forcing the Mac Giolla Phádraigs from their southern power base around the River Nore; their ancient rights revoked and a decree of expulsion pronounced on the entire clan. The northern districts of Mag Lacha and Ui Foircheallain (henceforth called Upper Ossory which had formerly broken away from Osraige under Ua Caellaighe/Ua Faeláin and Ua Dubhsláine rule since 1103, and which had subsequently seen English settlement from the Normans, thus became targeted by the expelled Mac Giolla Phádraigs and their Ossorian followers for resettlement. This caused a land war in Upper Ossory between those clans already residing there, the new English settlers, and the incoming clans from south and central Osraige driven out by Earl Marshal, which lasted more than a century and a half before the Mac Giolla Phádraigs established full supremacy over the region. Subsequently, the chaos of this poorly recorded conflict caused the then bishop of Ossory, Felix Ua Duib Sláin, to permanently remove the episcopal see from Aghaboe and initiate construction of the cathedral in Kilkenny. Upper Ossory thus remained an independent Gaelic lordship until the mid-sixteenth century, with its Mac Giolla Phádraig rulers retaining claims to the kingship of all Osraige and being recorded as such, or sometimes "King of the Slieve Blooms". The majority of Osriage was divided up and partitioned amongst various Norman adventurers, especially those within the household of William Marshal who arrived to take charge of lands which were claimed by his wife's inheritance. Likely arriving under Marshal was Sir Thomas FitzAnthony who was granted extensive lands in lower Ossory and elsewhere (Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny is named after him) and was an important and successful administrator for the Crown; being made seneschal of all Leinster from 1215 to at least 1223. Upper Ossory was formally incorporated into the Henry VIII's Lordship of Ireland by the submission of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 1st Baron Upper Ossory under the policy of surrender and regrant in 1537. This ironically had the effect of preserving Gaelic culture in Upper Ossory long into the future, since the Crown no longer dealt harshly with the territory. In 1541, The Mac Giolla Phádraig was ennobled as Baron Upper Ossory. Other members of the family were later created Earl of Upper Ossory and Baron Castletown, the last of whom, Bernard FitzPatrick, 2nd Baron Castletown, died in 1927. Because they clung to the last fragments of the kingdom, that Ossorian lineage is marked as one of the oldest known or most continuously settled dynasties in Western Europe.
By the late fourteenth century, members of the Butler dynasty purchased or inherited most of southern Osraige, purchased Kilkenny Castle and used it as an administration centre as part of the Earldom of Ormond (and later Earldom of Ossory), from which County Kilkenny was shired. During this period, Kilkenny ranked very close behind Dublin as the main seat of English power in Ireland, with Parliament meeting there as early as 1293 and recurring many times until 1536. The Bruce Invasion of Ireland saw Edward Bruce temporarily seize Gowran, once a seat of the kings of Osraige. By 1352, the unified formation of modern County Kilkenny had taken shape. In 1367, the Statutes of Kilkenny were enacted attempting to quell intermarriage and commerce between the English and Irish, but to little effect.
Ossorian clans.
In "The Book of Rights", the Osraige are labeled as Síl mBresail Bric ("the seed of Bresail Bric") after Bressail Bricc, a remote ancestor of the Ossorians. Bressail Bricc had two sons; Lughaidh, ancestor of the Laigan, and Connla, from whom the Ossorians sprang, through Óengus Osrithe. Thus, the people of Osraige were also sometimes collectively referred to as Clann Connla. Over time as lineages multiplied, surnames were eventually adopted. The following clans were the native land-holders before the arrival of the Normans:
Notable nobility.
An important Ossorian genealogy for Domnall mac Donnchada mac Gilla Patric is preserved in the Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B 502, also known as The Book of Glendalough, tracing the medieval Mac Giolla Phádraig dynasty back to Óengus Osrithe, who supposedly flourished in the first or second century.
A celebrated king of Osraige (and likely Osraige's most famous monarch) was Cerball mac Dúnlainge, who ruled Osraige vigorously from c. 846 to his death in 888 and was the direct male progenitor of the later medieval Mac Giolla Phádraig dynasts. The Icelandic Landnámabók describes Cerball ("Kjarvalur") as ruler of Dublin and Earl of Orkney and opens with a list of the most prominent rulers in Viking-age Europe, listing this Ossorian king alongside Popes Adrian II and John VIII; Byzantine Emperors Leo VI the Wise and his son Alexander; Harald Fairhair, king of Norway; Eric Anundsson and his son Björn Eriksson rulers of Sweden; Gorm the Old, king of Denmark; and Alfred the Great, king of England. Cerball features prominently in the annals and other historical texts, especially in The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland as an archetype of a Christian king who consistently vanquishes his enemies, especially pagan Vikings. In this chronicle, Cerball is recorded allying with rival bands of Vikings to defeat them during his early career as king. He was also close enough to the Norse–Gaels that he features under the name "Kjarvalr Írakonungr" in several medieval Icelandic pedigrees through his daughters. Cerball was likely the most powerful king of his day in Ireland, even plundering the lands of his brother-in-law the high king, which resulted in the kingdom of Osraige being officially dis-joined from the province of Munster. During his lifetime he is recorded to have even ruled over Dublin (from 872 to 888) and as far as the Orkneys due to his interconnections with his Viking neighbours.
Princess Land (sometimes spelt "Lann") was a noteworthy figure in Irish politics during a critical time in Osraige's history, witnessing its dramatic rise to power under the rule of her brother Cerball mac Dúnlainge, in which she had a hand. She was married to the famous High King of all Ireland, Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid (who reigned from 846 to 862) and gave birth to his formidable son Flann Sinna who was also High King from 879 to 916. (She is thus also the grandmother of High King Donnchadh Donn mac Flainn.)
King Cearbhall's descendant, Gilla Pátraic mac Donnchada, was king of Osraige from 976 to 996, and was the source of the patronymic "Mac Giolla Phádraig". His wife was Máel Muire ingen Arailt, likely an Uí Ímair bride. He was an implacable opponent of Brian Boruma in his expansion over southern Ireland, being captured by him in 983 and released the following year. Later in his reign, he devastated Mide, and was killed in battle against Donnduban mac Imair, prince of Limerick, and Domnall mac Fáelán, king of Déisi.
In 1003, he killed his cousin, King Cellach. In 1016, he killed Donn Cuan mac Dúnlaing, king of Leinster, and Tadc ua Riain, king of Uí Drona. In 1022, he killed Sitriuc mac Ímair, king of Port Lairge (Waterford). In 1026, Donnchad spent Easter with the coarb of Patrick and Donnchad mac Briain. In 1027, he blinded his relative Tadc mac Gilla Pátraic. In 1033, Donnchad also took the kingship of Leinster and held the Fair of Carman to celebrate his over-kingship. In 1039, he led a hosting as far as Knowth and Drogheda., and he died the same year. Gofraid mac Arailt, King of the Isles, through his daughter Mael Muire, appears to have been the maternal grandfather of Donnchad mac Gilla Pátraic, the Osraige king of Leinster. Thus the Mac Giolla Phádraigs or Fitzpatricks of Ossory are probably matrilineal descendants of the Uí Ímair. King Cerball was an ally of their (probable) founder Ívar the Boneless, the Viking king of Waterford. It is also possible that Donnchad's father, Gilla Pátraic mac Donnchada, was somehow a relation of Ívar the Boneless, who had a son named Gilla Pátraic.
Derbforgaill, daughter of Tadhg Mac Giolla Pádraig was married to Toirdelbach Ua Briain, king of Munster and "de facto" high king of Ireland. From him, she bore two sons: Tadhg and Muirchertach Ua Briain, who also later became high king. She reposed in 1098 in Glendalough.
Saints with Ossory connections.
The monastic settlements of Saighir, Aghaboe and Kilkenny were planted by Christian saints. The activity of Christian religious leaders under the patronage of the kings did much to increase the learning, literacy and culture within the kingdom. According to his vitae, Saint Patrick traversed Osraige on his route to Munster, preaching, converting, founding churches and leaving behind holy relics and a disciple named Martin. A number of other saints had connections to Ossory, working both within Ireland and abroad in Britain and Europe:
Historic sites.
Modern Counties Laois and Kilkenny preserve many of the ancient and medieval site associated with the kingdom of Osraige. A long and well-attested sculptural tradition of stone carving, especially the creation of Irish high crosses developed under the Dál Birn / Mac Giolla Phádraig kings of Osraige. Nearly all of Ireland's earliest stone high crosses are found within the ancient kingdom of Osraige or close to its borders. Great examples of this tradition include the fine crosses still preserved at Kinitty, Ahenny and Killamery, amongst other sites. Some historians have asserted that a pre-Norman fortification existed at the site upon which Kilkenny Castle is built; likely the ancient capital of the kingdom. St. Ciarán is said to have founded the influential monastery of Seirkieran, in present-day Clareen. Saighir was the first episcopal seat within the kingdom and was the burial site of the Kings of Osraige. There, the ruins of a monastic site, earthworks, a holy well, the ruined base of an Irish round tower, a medieval defensive motte, numerous early Christian cross-slabs, bases and gravestones can be found, next to a 19th-century Church of Ireland parish. St. Canice founded two important churches in the kingdom, at Aghaboe and Kilkenny, each, in turn, becoming the capital of the diocese after Saighir. Aghaboe Abbey served as Osraige's second ecclesiastical seat, before it was again later relocated to Kilkenny sometime in the twelfth century. St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny city exhibits a well-preserved ninth-century round tower which can be climbed to the top. In April 2004, a geophysical survey using ground-penetrating radar discovered what were likely the original foundations of the twelfth-century cathedral of the diocese of Ossory and another very large structure which was possibly a royal Mac Giolla Phádraig palace; noting that the site bears a strong resemblance to contemporaneous structures at the Rock of Cashel. Jerpoint Abbey, was founded near present-day Thomastown in 1160 by king Domnall Mac Goilla Phádraig. There is some debate as to whether Jerpoint was either Benedictine or Cistercian during its first twenty years, however by 1180, king Domnall Mac Goilla Phádraig brought Cistercian monks from nearby Baltinglass Abbey and it remained such thereafter. A well-preserved 30-meter, capless round tower can be seen at Grangefertagh. In 1999, a hoard of 43 silver and bronze items dated to 970 AD was discovered in a rocky cleft deep in Dunmore Cave, containing silver ingots and conical buttons woven from fine silver. The cave was the site of a recorded Viking massacre in 928.
In 1984, a series of commemorative cast stone panels sculpted by Joan Smith were installed as a facade on the buttress walls of Ossory Bridge which forms part of the Ring Road over the River Nore connecting the N10 from Carlow to Waterford. The facade symbolically depicts the history of the south Kilkenny area from the time of the mythological figure of Oengus Osrithe to the late twentieth century.
Overlap with the Diocese of Ossory.
The Diocese of Ossory was first established in the fifth century with the mission of St. Ciarán of Saighir, the borders of which were permanently set at the Synod of Ráth Breasail om 1111 AD. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Ossory still to this day provides a very close outline of the kingdom's borders. In the earliest times, the chief church in Osraige was undoubtedly Seir Kieran (County Offaly), the chief church of St Ciarán, but at some time in history it had been eclipsed by Aghaboe (County Laois), chief church of Saint Cainnech, and later moved to Kilkenny, which was also founded by the same saint. The record of the Irish annals also points to Freshford, County Kilkenny being of some importance, while archaeological evidence suggests that Kilkieran, Killamery and Kilree (all County Kilkenny) and Domnach Mór Roigni (now Donaghmore, County Laois) were also significant early ecclesiastical sites. Ossory is the only region in Ireland known to have two patron saints; St. Ciarán of Saighir and St. Cainnech of Aghaboe. Due largely to the scholarly work of canon William Carrigan in researching and compiling his four-volume opus "The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory", the history of the kingdom and its peoples is one of the most complete of any in Ireland. Furthermore, the Database of the Monasticon Hibernicum Project launched by Ailbhe Mac Shamhráin lists all known historic monastic foundations associated with the diocese of Osraige.
In literature and culture.
Annals, sagas and historical sources.
The politics and history of the kingdom are well-attested to in the various Irish Annals in which Osraige is often presented as a major kingdom. The Osraige appear as the final opponents of their southern neighbours the Déisi in the cycle The Expulsion of the Déisi. While portrayed as unconquerable in battle, the Osraige are eventually overcome by the Déisi in the end by magic and treachery and thus cede to them the southern territory between the River Suir and the sea which the Déisi ever-after occupied. Strongly associated with the eleventh-century rule of Donnchad Mac Giolla Phádraig (who reigned as king over Leinster until his death in 1039 AD) are the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland which are famous for their heroic portrayal of the ninth-century Ossorian king Cerball mac Dúnlainge in his many victorious struggles against pagan Vikings in Ireland. The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland were believed to be commissioned by Donnchad Mac Giolla Phádraig as historical propaganda for Osraige's eleventh-century rise to power, and likely influenced the creation of other later pseudo-chronicles such as Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib. Within the "Fragmentary Annals", editor and translator Joan Radner has detected a strong focus on Ossorian tradition, especially relating to king Cerbhall mac Dunglange, suggesting the hypothetical "Osraige Chronicle" as a possible source.
The early twelfth-century Irish epic "Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib" portrays the Dalcassian struggle against Osraige and its brief subjugation by Brian Boru. It records some early Viking activity in and around Osraige and ends with the embarrassing account of the Ossorians seeking to attack the victorious and wounded Dalcassian troops returning after the Battle of Clontarf. The Ossorians are recorded as intimidated when they see the wounded Dalcassian troops tying themselves upright to stakes, and withdraw from outright combat, giving harassing pursuit instead. Ironically, Radner suggests this chronicle may have been influenced by the earlier eleventh century "Osraige Chronicle" which lionized king Ceabhall mac Dúnlainge and survives with the "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland".
The kingdom is mentioned in countless surviving poems, songs and other medieval Irish texts. Lebor na gCeart (""The Book of Rights") aims to list the stipends paid to and by the kings of Osraige. The work Cóir Anmann ("The Fitness of Names"") claims to give the etymology of the name "Osraige", along with one its kings, Cú Cherca mac Fáeláin. The kingdom of Osraige with some of its noteworthy characteristics and clans gains some mention in the Dindsenchas (literally "place-lore"), a composite collection of prose and metrical verse which aided in the rote memory of the topography and place-named of Ireland- some of it preserving Irish pre-literary oral tradition. Regarding Osraige, the names of its topographic features and roads are explained, as well as a reference to horse fighting. The twelfth-century Banshenchas (literally "women-lore") composed by Gilla Mo Dutu Úa Caiside of Ard Brecáin, recites a number of key Ossorian kings and queens, and others who descend from them. Additionally, Osraige is mentioned in a poem attributed to king Aldfrith of Northumbria during his exile in Ireland, describing the various things he saw there about the year 685. Certain nobility of Osraige are mentioned in The Prophecy of Berchán, which hints ambiguously at the possibility of Ossorian inter-marriage with the Scottish kings.
The kingdom is sometimes personified in the character of Mícheál Dubh Mac Giolla Ciaráin (Dark Michael), a fictional prince of Osraige in several poems including "Ossorie, A Song of Leinster" by Rev. James B. Dollard and especially "Welcome to the Prince", an eighteenth-century Jacobite poem written in Irish by William Heffernan "Dall" ("the Blind"), and translated into English by James Clarence Mangan.
Nordic literary history records several members of the Ossorian ruling lineage in the sagas. King Cerball mac Dúnlainge himself is listed as "Kjarval, king of the Irish" ("Kjarvals Írakonungs") in the Icelandic genealogies recorded within Njal's Saga, and through his daughters is reckoned as an ancestor of several important Icelandic families. His reign is directly referenced in the Icelandic Landnámabók where he is listed as one of the principle rulers of Europe. His daughter, Eithne, appears as a type of sorceress in the Orkneyinga saga, as the mother of Earl Sigurd the Stout and the creator of the famed raven banner. This would make Earl Sigurd of the Orkneys a possessor of Ossorian maternal lineage. Sigurd also appears briefly in "St Olaf's Saga" as incorporated into the "Heimskringla" and in the "Eyrbyggja Saga". There are various tales about his exploits in the more fanciful "Njal's Saga" as well as the "Saga of Gunnlaugr Serpent-Tongue", "Thorstein Sidu-Hallsson's Saga", the "Vatnsdæla Saga" and in the tale of "Helgi and Wolf" in the "Flateyjarbók". He also appears in the Irish propagandistic work Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib as an opponent of Brian Boruma at the Battle of Clontarf, and his death there is recorded in the Annals of Ulster.
The kingdom of Ossory also features prominently in twelfth-century Norman literature. Two works by Gerald of Wales on Ireland, "Topographia Hibernica" and "Expugnatio Hibernica" pay special attention to some kings of Ossory, its geography and the Norman battles fought therein. Gerald also writes about a fabulous tale involving the werewolves of Ossory. This legend was repeated in Fynes Moryson's 17th-century writing, "Description of Ireland" and in a much later book, "The Wonders of Ireland", by P. W. Joyce, published in 1911. In addition, Ossory features prominently as a setting for scenes in the Norman-French lay The Song of Dermot and the Earl.
The name of the kingdom survives in "The Red Book of Ossory"; a fourteenth-century register of the Roman Catholic diocese of Ossory, and which is associated with Richard Ledred who was bishop of Ossory, from 1317 to 1360. The book contains copies of documents which would have been important for the administration of the diocese: constitutions, taxations, memoranda relating to rights and privileges, deeds and royal letters, as well as the texts of songs composed by Bishop Ledred. The book now resides at the Church of Ireland RCB Library in Dublin, and has been digitized. Geoffrey Keating also records much information and tradition about Ossory in his major work, "Foras Feasa ar Éirinn" (literally "Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland", more usually translated "History of Ireland"). After "Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib", his work is a secondary source for Ossory's opposition to the victorious Dalcassian forces returning from the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, as well as the only known source for information about the important Synod of Ráth Breasail which may have occurred on the northern borders of Ossory, near present-day Mountrath in 1111. The kingdom of Ossory and some of its primary saints are mentioned by the Welsh clergyman Meredith Hanmer in his "Chronicle of Ireland", which was posthumously published by Sir James Ware in 1633. Hanmer himself was briefly active in the Diocese of Ossory in 1598. In 1905, William Carrigan published his authoritative history of the kingdom in "The History And Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory" in four volumes.
Namesakes.
The name of the former kingdom survives in the present-day town names of Borris-in-Ossory and Durrow-in-Ossory, as well as in the now defunct Ossory UK Parliament constituency. The name also survives in the title of the annual Ossory Agricultural Show, a livestock, produce and crafts competition founded in 1898 and patronized by Bernard FitzPatrick, 2nd Baron Castletown, and now held in western Coolfin County Laois. The famous artist Ronald Ossory Dunlop bore the kingdom's name personally, perhaps in part because his mother's maiden name was Fitzpatrick. Three ships of the British Royal Navy bore the name HMS "Ossory". A thoroughbred racehorse named "Ossory" (1885–1889) was owned by the 1st Duke of Westminster. Several Irish-speaking schools in Kilkenny also use the name "Osraí" including Gaelscoil Osraí and Coláiste Pobail Osraí. Ossory Bridge, one of Kilkenny City's main bridges, now has a timber-plank pedestrian bridge running beneath it, which is the longest of its kind in Europe.
Modern Literature.
Ossory features prominently in several works of historical fiction and non-fictional novels, by various authors. The politics of the kingdom at the time of the Norman Invasion have been written about in "Diarmait King of Leinster" (2006) by Nicholas Furlong, as well as by historian and two-time chairman of the Irish Writers' Union, Conor Kostick in "Strongbow: the Norman Invasion of Ireland" (2013). Ossory plays a role in some of the Sister Fidelma mysteries, most notably "Suffer Little Children" (1995) and "The Seventh Trumpet" (2012) written by Peter Tremayne (the pseudonym for Peter Berresford Ellis). Author Morgan Llywelyn, who has written extensively in the genre of medieval Irish historical fiction, often mentions Ossory in her books; especially in "Lion of Ireland" (1980), its sequel "Pride of Lions" (1996), "Strongbow: The Story of Richard & Aoife" (1996) and "1014: Brian Boru & the Battle for Ireland" (2014). "Tavia Osraige" is the name of a fictional character in the novel "Rainseeker" (2014) by Jeanette Matern. Osraighe is the main destination for the protagonist in "Liath Luachra: The Swallowed" by Brian O'Sullivan. "Ars Memoriae", an alternate historical fiction by Beth Bernobich, portrays Queen Áine Lasairíona Devereaux surrounded by courtiers at her court in Osraighe.
Music & Art.
Some battles which took place in the kingdom of Ossory during the Norman Invasion of Ireland, as well as the arrival of William Marshal are commemorated in pictorial form in the modern Ros Tapestry. In 2018, Lise De La Salle composed piano music for each of the Ros Tapestry panels in her Ros Tapestry Suite, naming one "Battles in the Kingdom of Ossory". Heresy Records released "The Red Book of Ossory" by the ensemble Anakronos, which blends medieval music, with jazz and contemporary classical. A black metal band from the US has adopted the name "Osraige". "Ossory Rd" is the name of a single by new age Korean Project.Jinji from the album, "O'Connell". In 2020, Kilkenny-based animation studio Cartoon Saloon released "Wolfwalkers", a movie based upon the old folklore of the werewolves of Ossory. In the film, the legend is brought forward in time to the Cromwellian invasion, where the daughter of an English wolf hunter is befriended by feral Irish girl surnamed "Mac Tíre" on the outskirts of Kilkenny. (Despite her bearing a masculine prefix, the surname is the Gaeilge word for wolf.)
Games.
Because of its strategic position, Ossory often features in modern games which make use of territorial maps of Ireland. The kingdom of Ossory features as a part of the kingdom of Ireland in the computer strategy-games Crusader Kings and Crusader Kings II, both published by Paradox Interactive. In Mount & Blade, Viking Conquest, Osraige appears as a Gaelic Christian faction; one of twenty one factions in the game. Osraige appears as a kingdom in , where it has a deer as a totem, in obvious reference to the kingdom's name, along with other key historic locations in the kingdom. Flann Sinna, the historic half-Ossorian ruler whose mother was princess Land ingen Dúngaile, is a major player in the game as the king of Mide. Historic wargamers have aimed to re-create the pivotal battle of Achadh Úr (present-day Freshford, County Kilkenny) between the invading Cambro-Normans and the defending Ossorians. Ossory also appears as a kingdom in a map of medieval Ireland from Conquer Club. Additionally, the name of the kingdom and some of its symbolic elements appear to have been the inspiration for fictional nation-states in role-playing forums.
News.
In 2014, a man from Mooncoin, Co. Kilkenny, laid a claim to residency in Kilkenny Castle as a supposed direct descendant of the kings of Osraige. In late February 2017, Kilkenny's new Medieval Mile Museum opened to the public, giving visitors a history of the kingdom, and featuring an exhibit which highlights king Cerball's role as a powerful patron of Osraige's early high cross carving tradition.


List of years in Ukraine

This is a list of years in Ukraine. See also the timeline of Ukrainian history. For only articles about years in Ukraine that have been written, see .


Gigantosaurus

Gigantosaurus (from the Greek " and ", meaning "giant lizard") is a sauropod dinosaur genus from the Late Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay Formation of England. The type species, "Gigantosaurus megalonyx", was named and described by Harry Govier Seeley in 1869. Its syntype series consists of several separately discovered sauropod bones found in Cambridgeshire, including two caudal (tail) vertebrae (CAMSM J.29477 and CAMSM J.29478), the distal end of a tibia (CAMSM J.29483), a cast of the right radius (CAMSM J.29482), a cast of phalanx (CAMSM J.29479) and an osteoderm (CAMSM J.29481). It was synonymised to "Ornithopsis humerocristatus" by Richard Lydekker in 1888 and to "Pelorosaurus" by Friedrich von Huene in 1909. Today it is considered a "nomen dubium".
Because of these references Eberhard Fraas incorrectly assumed in 1908 the name was available for other species and he used it, despite it being preoccupied, for African material totally unrelated to the British finds. As a result, the name "Gigantosaurus" factored into the convoluted taxonomic history of the African dinosaurs "Barosaurus", "Tornieria", and "Janenschia". A discussion of this can be found in the main "Tornieria" article.


Thomas Brodie (Royal Navy officer)

Thomas Charles Brodie (1779 – 14 March 1811) was an officer in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a lieutenant, he fought at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and the Siege of Acre in 1799. Promoted to the rank of commander on 14 February 1801, Brodie is one of two people credited with the command of at the Battle of Copenhagen in April.
Promoted to captain in 1802, Brodie spent some time in charge of a group of Sea Fencibles in south-west Ireland. He commissioned the 38-gun in 1808 and served in her in the Mediterranean and West Indies. Brodie died in Jamaica from an unknown illness on 14 March 1811.
Early life and career.
Thomas Charles Brodie was born in 1779. He was the son of William Brodie, a magistrate at the Great Marlborough Street law courts, and the grandson of David Brodie, a Royal Navy officer who fought at the Battle of Porto Bello in 1739 and the Battle of Cartagena in 1741.
Brodie entered the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth in 1791, became a midshipman in 1794 and on 17 February 1798, passed his examination for lieutenant. He served in this capacity, aboard , at the Battle of the Nile. At the Siege of Acre, Brodie was in charge of one of the small gunboats that swept the French trenches with flanking fire, helping to repel repeated French assaults on the city. Brodie was promoted to the rank of commander on 14 February 1801.
Command.
Naval historian Peter Hore claims that, on receiving his promotion, Brodie was given command of and took her into the Battle of Copenhagen in April. Many earlier sources, including William Laird Clowes and William James, disagree, recording William Bolton as her captain during this period but Hore insists that this is incorrect and the original source of this "mistake", "Steel's Original and Correct Navy List (1801)", was out of date at the time. According to Hore, "Arrow" log and muster book, held at the National Archives at Kew, bear Brodie's signature from 25 February 1801 and other documents indicate that Bolton was on half pay in England throughout April.
At the battle, "Arrow" was in a squadron of sloops and frigates, under the command of Edward Riou, that attacked the Danish vessels near the harbour mouth. She was the last to get into position and had to run the entire length of Nelson's line, firing between the ships as she went. Unlike Nelson, Riou obeyed Hyde Parker's famous signal, and had his squadron withdraw. Most of his force had been badly mauled by the shore batteries, having been exposed to fire for up to 2 hours but "Arrow" escaped serious damage, having only just arrived to drop anchor and let off a single salvo.
Brodie was made captain in 1802. He spent some time in command of the Sea Fencibles, that operated between Sheep's Head and Dursey Island in County Cork, before commissioning the newly built in 1808 for service in the Mediterranean and West Indies. Later that year, on 3 October, she captured "Dix Sept Decembre". On 17 January 1810, "Hyperion" in company with and the gun-brig , recaptured the merchant ship, "Tom".
Capture and death.
Brodie was captured and held prisoner while visiting Haiti in 1811. The ship was being resupplied at Gonaives when an English merchant asked for Brodie's protection. Shortly after, the shore batteries unexpectedly fired upon "Hyperion" boats. Three people were killed and Brodie and two other officers were taken prisoner. They were released the following day after the first lieutenant had "Hyperion" beat up a narrow channel and present its broadside to the town.
A few weeks later, Brodie was in Jamaica where, on 14 March, he died from a mystery illness. It was proposed that he had contracted the disease while in captivity on Haiti.


Timeline of Italian architecture

This timeline shows the periods of various architectural styles in the architecture of Italy. Italy's architecture spans almost 3,500 years, from Etruscan and Ancient Roman architecture to Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau, Fascist, and Italian modern and contemporary architecture.
Timeline.
Early period.
AD 313 – The arch of Constantine in Rome. Mostly built in concrete, bricks or marble, Roman Triumphal arch were grandiose and meant to represent victories, prestige, money and power.
AD 800 – Domes become popular and major features in Byzantine architecture in Italy.
Middle Ages.
c. mid-9th century – The Romanesque style emerges in Italy, built with mainly round arches and based on the simple plans of Roman basilicas. They had simple interiors and examples include Modena Cathedral and Verona Cathedral.
AD 832–1094 – St Mark's Basilica in Venice is built; it is a blend of Classical, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles.
c. mid-11th century – Orvieto Cathedral is built, with its beautiful and intricate Gothic patterns and frescos.
1136–1382 – Siena Cathedral is constructed, in a similar style to that of Orvieto, but far more Romanesque-Gothic and was an architectural transformer.
Renaissance and Baroque.
early 15th century – late 16th century – The Italian Renaissance begins, being an artistic, political, architectural, cultural and social movement, originating in Tuscany. Italian architecture is heavily influenced from the Classical ideals of ancient Greek and ancient Roman civilizations.
early 15th century - The Renaissance architectural revolution masterpiece, Florence Cathedral. Completed in 1436, it challenged the ideals of architecture and engineering, especially Brunelleschi's dome.
1456–70 – The Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, which, built by Alberti, was Renaissance, but had a Romanesque-Gothic exterior.
1502 - 10 – Bramante's iconic "Tempietto" is constructed at San Pietro in Montecitorio in the city of Rome. Styles were copied from the classical Temple of Vesta.
mid-late 16th century – As a revenge against the Protestant Reformation, the Counter Reformation begins, and most Italian cities, especially Rome, are remodelled with magnificent "palazzi", fountains and piazzas, as papal patronage invests on architectural splendour.
1568 – The Church of the Gesù in Rome is constructed by Vignola. With an elaborate, powerful and austere facade and rich decorations, it was seen as a prototype for Italian Baroque architecture and is regarded as one of the first buildings in the Baroque style.
1508–80 – Andrea Palladio and his Palladian villas are constructed all over the Veneto. His style became a prototype for Neoclassical architecture, and his designs were copied and imitated for centuries across the world.
1598–1680 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini becomes one of Italy's most influential architects and designers during the Roman and Italian Baroque period, re-designing the columns in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City.
early – mid-18th century – Baroque facades become very popular in churches all over Italy, especially in Southern Italy in cities such as Naples, Lecce, Palermo, Noto, Ragusa and Siracusa. Examples include Syracuse Cathedral, whose Baroque facade was made from 1728 to 1744.
19th century – The period of industrialisation, new glass and metal structures such as the 1865 Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, or the Galleria Umberto I in Naples are constructed.
Modern times.
1863–89 – The impressive Mole Antonelliana in Turin, originally intended to be a synagogue, is constructed. This towering granite spire was for a period in time the tallest building in the whole world.
1950s – The Italian economic miracle being in full-swing, new skyscrapers such as the creative Torre Velasca in Italy's fashion, banking and design capital was built. This 26-floor tower was a pioneer in the usage of reinforced concrete.
late 1950s and early 1960s – The Pirelli Tower is also built in Milan by Gio Ponti and Nervi. It is regarded as one of the finest examples of modernist Italian architecture, and currently dominates the Milan skyline. The city of design and fashion in Europe, Milan, sees an architecture of excellence in the 1950s with unique architects like Giovanni Muzio, Piero Portaluppi, Gualtiero Galmanini, Luigi Pollastri, Gio Ponti, Giannino Castiglioni.


Zadar Philological School

Zadar Philological School () was a 19th-century philological school that operated in Zadar, offering a set of solutions for the issues involved in the standardization of Croatian literary language. It was led by Ante Kuzmanić.
The schools' members initially published articles in the magazine "Zora dalmatinska" ("The Dalmatian Dawn") which they started in Zadar, 1844. As the basis of the Croatian standard language they advocated the old Dalmatian orthography, phonological spelling, and the usage of Ikavian Štokavian dialect which was common to Dalmatia, Bosnia and Slavonia and was used in many important literary works during the history. Later they accepted Gaj's orthography, but kept the Ikavian dialect.
Kuzmanić's associates included Šime Starčević from Lika and Ignjat Alojzije Brlić from Slavonia. The second generation of the Zadar Philological School published in the newspaper "Narodni list", and saw the future in the ideas that circulated from Zagreb and the literary language of Dubrovnik.


San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey

The San Giovanni in Fiore Abbey (Italian: "Abbazia Florense") is an abbey located in the Province of Cosenza, in the Calabria region of southwestern Italy.
History.
12th century.
The abbey's origin date back to Joachim da Fiore's trip to La Sila in Calabria in 1188. Archaeological excavations have shown the presence of Joachim's first edifice, which was finished in 1198, in the "Iure Vetere" locality. The construction of the abbey was approved by Queen Constance of Hauteville after a Joachim's visit in her court at Palermo.
After Joachim's death in 1202, the first monastery and its annexed edifices were burned by a fire in 1214. The monks decided to abandon the location of "Iure Vetere", also due to its difficult climatic situation.
13th century.
In 1215 a site not far from the previous one was chosen, near the Neto river valley. The new abbey was completed in 1230, in the Romanesque style. In later centuries features were remodeled in different styles, including a Baroque style church interior.


Embassy of the United Kingdom, Rome

The Embassy of the United Kingdom in Rome is the chief diplomatic mission of the United Kingdom in Italy, San Marino and the Holy See. It is located on Via XX Settembre in Municipio I. The current British Ambassador to Italy is Jill Morris. The British Embassy to the Holy See is located in a separate building within the same compound. The current British Ambassador to the Holy See is Sally Axworthy.
History.
The Embassy building at Rome's Porta Pia was designed by the British architect Sir Basil Spence, and opened in 1971. It replaced a building on the same location bought by the British government in the 19th century, which had been severely damaged in a terrorist attack in 1946.
The Ambassador's residence, in the San Giovanni area of Rome, was originally the property of an expatriate Russian princess, Zinaida Volkonskaya. It was made available to the British government by the Italian government after the bombing of the building at Porta Pia, and the offices were located there while the new Embassy was being planned and built. It was formally purchased by Britain in 1951.
Outside Rome, there is also a British Consulate-General in Milan, where the senior officer is known as the Consul-General. The Embassy also represents the British Overseas Territories in Italy.


Markos Vafeiadis

Markos Vafeiadis (also spelled as Vafiadis and Vafiades; ; Tosya, January 28, 1906 – Athens, February 22, 1992) was a leading figure of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) during the Greek Resistance and the Greek Civil War.
Pre-war life.
After the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey of 1923, Vafeiadis went to Thessaloniki and Kavala as a refugee. From 1928, he worked in Thessaloniki as a member of the Young Communist League of Greece (OKNE). In 1932, he was imprisoned and sent to internal exile for his political action. After his release in October 1933, he worked as party instructor in many areas of Greece.
At the beginning of Ioannis Metaxas' dictatorship (the "4th of August Regime") he was exiled again to the island of Ai Stratis, but managed to escape in less than a month. Subsequently, he worked in the party's underground organisation in Crete and was one of the leaders of the Chania uprising against the dictatorial regime (July 28, 1938). After the suppression of the uprising, he went to Athens where he was arrested. He was jailed in Akronafplia and was exiled to the island of Gavdos.
Resistance and Civil War.
In May 1941, at the beginning of the Nazi German occupation of Greece, he, along with other Greek military prisoners, escaped from the island of Gavdos and began what was to become the original underground work against the German occupation, initially in Crete, later in Athens, Thessaloniki and eventually all of Macedonia. In 1942, he was elected into the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece and was named supervisor of the Macedonia wing of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). In May 1944, he was elected as a representative of Thessaloniki to the national congress that took place at the village of Koryschades in Evrytania, but was unable to attend. On 30 October 1944, after the withdrawal of the German army, and following battles against the Security Battalions, he entered as liberator in Thessaloniki with his men of ELAS.
In November 1944, his forces liberated Central Macedonia and helped save thousands of Greek Jews from imminent peril from the exiting Nazi regime. In February 1946, Markos Vafeiadis disagreed with Nikos Zachariadis, the general secretary of KKE, who wanted to create a standing communist army. Vafeiadis believed that the forces of the Greek government were too strong, and the best option for the KKE was a guerrilla struggle.
However, in July 1946, Zachariadis appointed him as leader of the communist guerrilla formations. In October 1946, when the General Command of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) was founded, Vafeiadis assumed its leadership, and in December 1947 he was appointed Prime Minister and War Minister of the Provisional Democratic Government.
During the last stages of the Civil War his disagreement with Zachariadis on issues of military doctrine led to his removal from leadership (August 1948) and later from all offices (January 1949). In October 1950, he was ousted from the Communist Party, while he was in exile in the Soviet Union, where he had fled after the breakup of the DSE.
Post-Civil War.
After the end of Joseph Stalin's era, Markos Vafeiadis was restored into KKE and was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the party. However, new disagreement with the party leadership led to his removal from office in January 1958 and to his second ousting from the KKE in June 1964. After the party split in 1968, the so-called "interior" (εσωτερικού) faction of KKE restored him. In March 1983, ending his 33-year exile in the Soviet Union, he returned to Greece and the island of Chios where he later published his "Memoirs". Ηe became a political supporter of Andreas Papandreou and in November 1989 and April 1990, he was honorarily elected into the Greek parliament through the nationwide list of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). In 1984 he was awarded the rank of the General of the Hellenic army.


Dunbeg Fort

Dunbeg Fort () is a promontory fort built in the Iron Age near the modern village of Ventry in County Kerry, Ireland.
Location.
Dunbeg Fort is located on a rocky promontory just south of Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula, looking over Dingle Bay to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The cliffs have eroded since it was built, and much of the fort has been lost to the sea.
The fort's wall cut off access to the triangular promontory, which was later occupied by a single large "beehive" hut.
Near to the fort there is a group of "clocháns", small stone structures also known as beehive huts that seem to have been built around 1000 BC.
A visitor center at the site includes audiovisual displays, an information and craft room and a restaurant and café.
In January 2014 the fort was closed when much of the western wall of the fort fell into the sea due to storm damage. The Office of Public Works and National Monuments Service sent personnel to investigate damage to the site.
The fort was again closed in December 2017 and separately in January 2018 after further damage was inflicted by the season's storms.
Structure.
George Victor Du Noyer described the fort as it was when he visited in 1858.
The fort divided the point of a headland from the main shore with a dry stone wall between in width and about long from one side of the headland to the other.
A passage near the midpoint leads through the wall, which was then high, wide at the top and wide at the base. The lintel is long. The passage widens to inside the fort, with an arched ceiling.
In front of the defensive wall there are four parallel ditches separated by three clay and gravel mounds.
A pathway leads through this defence to the entrance of the fort.
It seems that originally the path ran through a stone passage with a flagged roof as it passed through each mound.
Possibly the earth ramparts were built first, then the rock wall added later to strengthen the defences.
The wall itself was at first thick, with the landward face later built out to as much as near the entrance.
To the right of the entrance passage there is a rectangular room built into the wall.
It is about that can be entered from the passage by a low square opening. A broad bench-like seat is opposite this opening in the passage. To the left of the passage is another, similar room, accessible from the fort through a low square opening, but not accessible from the passage.
The wall contains long, narrow passages on either side of the entrance, which would have been covered over.
They seem to have been inaccessible, so their purpose is not known. The interior of the wall slopes, forming steps, presumably to give access to a parapet.
Inside the fort Du Noyer found traces of several "clocháns", or drystone huts whose layout was no longer clear. There were traces of a wall along the cliff to the west, which is about above sea level. Two parallel walls ran from the fort up to the slopes of Mount Eagle, separating the lands round the Fahan settlement from the land to the east.
Due to erosion in December 2017 and early 2018 substantial damage has been done to the entrance doorway which has been declared unsafe by the OPW and is closed to visitors. Ref RTE News 4 Jan. 2018.
Archaeology.
The date at which the Dunbeg fort was built is very uncertain, although its structure resembles other Western Stone Forts. It may have been built around the same time as Iron Age blockhouse forts in Scotland such as the Crosskirk Fort in Caithness and the Clickimin Fort, Ness of Burgi Fort and Huxter Fort in Shetland.
A sample of wood found in a ditch lying partly under the stone wall was dated to around 580 BC, so the wall is no older than that. Another piece of wood in a deposit overlaying the base of a retaining wall was dated to around 800 AD, indicating that the wall was built before that date.
There is no trace of occupation other than the drystone "clochán" within the fort, which was built in the 10th century AD.
Notes and references.
Notes
Citations
Sources


Lithuanian conferences during World War I

The Lithuanian conferences during World War I refer to ten conferences held by Lithuanian activists during World War I in Switzerland and Sweden. They articulated the vision of independent Lithuanian state free of Russian, German, and Polish influence and as such were an important step towards the Act of Independence of Lithuania in February 1918.
The historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in a union with the Kingdom of Poland from the 1385 Union of Krewo until it became part of the Russian Empire as a result of the Third Partition in 1795. During World War I, Lithuania was occupied by the German Empire and political freedom within Lithuania was restricted by Ober Ost officials. Only one conference, the Vilnius Conference in September 1917, was allowed in Lithuania. The Lithuanians were concerned with the fate of Lithuania after the war as its powerful neighbors (Russia, Germany, Poland) had their own plans. The conferences in Switzerland and Sweden, as neutral countries, provided an avenue for them to discuss political realities and create visions for the future of independent Lithuania. The conferences also facilitated exchange of information and ideas, coordination of financial aid and political efforts.
The first conferences were organized by Juozas Gabrys and held in Switzerland, which became a hub of Lithuanian activities after Gabrys moved there from Paris. He had a talent for public relations and ran the Lithuanian Information Bureau which supplied European powers with information on Lithuania and its aspirations. The first conferences were more meetings and discussions between private individuals, but they steadily grew in clout and recognition.
Conference proceedings.
First conferences.
The first conference was held jointly with Latvians, the northern neighbors of Lithuania, in August 1915, when Lithuania was not yet fully overtaken by German forces. The conference was organized by Juozas Gabrys, who was introduced to Latvian activists by , and Antanas Viskantas. The representatives adopted a resolution which expressed their solidarity with the Entente Powers and condemned atrocities committed by German troops. They resolved to seek wast autonomy (not yet full independence) for a joint Lithuanian–Latvian state that would encompass a territory of . For comparison, present-day Latvia and Lithuania cover approximately . However, the plans for a joint Lithuanian–Latvian independence movement did not materialize and, it seems, the resolution remained the only document calling for a joint Lithuanian–Latvian state.
As war progressed, Gabrys' attitudes shifted in support of Germany which adopted a policy, articulated by Alexander Parvus, supporting various nations seeking autonomy or independence from Russia. In October 1915, together with Estonian Aleksander Kesküla, Gabrys traveled to Stockholm to meet with Martynas Yčas, member of the Russian State Duma, and Stasys Šilingas, an employee of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Kesküla wanted to persuade Yčas to resign from the Duma in support for Germany. Yčas wanted to organize a much broader conference with Lithuanian representatives from Lithuania, Russia, Western Europe, and United States and was disappointed that only Gabrys could attend. Jonas Aukštuolis and also attended the meeting. The meeting, self-declared the First Lithuanian Conference, did not adopt a political statement. Nevertheless, the men established a war refugee relief organization, the Swedish–Lithuanian Aid Committee (), which included chairman Carl Lindhagen, mayor of Stockholm, secretary , editor of "Stockholms Dagblad", and Lithuanian manager Jonas Aukštuolis.
The next conference was held in February 1916 in Fribourg (to confuse the police, conference's documents are dated 1–5 March 1916 in Bern). In addition to Swiss Lithuanians (Vladas Daumantas-Dzimidavičius, Juozas Gabrys, Juozas Purickis, Antanas Steponaitis, Justinas Tumėnas, Antanas Viskanta), it was attended by Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas and . The most important issue on the agenda was Lithuania's relationship with Poland. The Poles sought to resurrect the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which Lithuanians perceived as a threat to their national identity and as an usurpation of their self-determination rights. The conference rejected ideas of a Polish–Lithuanian state and, while fully supporting the Polish bid for independence within ethnographic Poland, asserted their self-determination rights within the ethnographic Lithuania. Also, for the first time, Lithuanians unequivocally raised demands for full independence for Lithuania. After the conference, Lithuanian emigrants did not backtrack and continued to resolutely demand independence. Such demands were met with anger in Russian press which saw the conference as a German propaganda ploy. Both German and Russian agents began tracking Lithuanian activities in Switzerland.
The second conference in Bern was held two months later, in April 1916, in reaction to a speech by Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany, in the Reichstag. Bethmann-Hollweg declared that after the war Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia would not return to Russia. The conference produced a long list complaints against Russia but also emphasized that they did not desire to replace one yoke for another. Therefore, the conference reaffirmed demands for a full independence from both Russia and Germany.
Conferences in Lausanne.
Two conferences were held in Lausanne in summer 1916. The first Lausanne conference was attended by Swiss Lithuanians, Martynas Yčas (who also was chairman of the conference) from Russia, and Vincas Bartuška, Jonas Julius Bielskis, and Romanas Karuža from United States. Notably, representatives from Lithuania were absent as they did not receive travel permits from Ober Ost officials. Attendees read five presentations on activities of Lithuanians in Russia (Martynas Yčas), in United States (Romanas Karuža), and in Switzerland (Vladas Daumantas-Dzimidavičius) and on operations of the refugee aid committee Lituania (Antanas Steponaitis) and Lithuanian Information Bureau (Juozas Gabrys). The conference was passionate and argumentative as representatives tried to decide which great power – Russia or Germany – should be relied on in hopes for future independence. Because Yčas was the chairman, the conference avoided anti-Russian statements but protested against exploitative German policies. One unifying point was the stance against the Central Committee for the Relief of War Victims in Lithuania, chaired by Bronisław Piłsudski and established at the end of 1915 together with pro-Polish landowners. The conference decided to disband it as it presented a threat of Polonization. The conference decided to expand the Lithuanian Information Bureau and establish a permanent institution, the five-member Council of the Lithuanian Nation () in Switzerland, to unite Lithuanian activists in Lithuania, Russia, and United States. The conference expressed its disappointment over infighting among Lithuanian Americans due to political differences and called for a unifying Supreme Lithuanian American Council. It also urged Lithuanians, particularly those living in the United States, to donate more generously towards Lithuanian causes and rebuilding after the war. The conference prepared a memorandum to Pope Benedict XV requesting creation of a Lithuanian archdiocese with the seat in Vilnius and a Lithuanian diocese in the United States. The Lithuanian Information Bureau was tasked with drafting a plan on reestablishing Vilnius University.
The second Lausanne conference was held at the end of the Third Conference of Nationalities (), also known as the Third Congress of Oppressed Peoples, which was organized by the Union of Nationalities () on 27–29 June 1916. Gabrys was heavily involved in the Union and the Lithuanian question was always its priority. The Germans supported the conference as they saw it as an opportunity to create negative publicity against Russia by promoting the plight of nations seeking independence or autonomy from Russia. They invited representatives of Tatars, Kyrgyzstanis, Persians, and other peoples from the Russian Empire. In total, 27 nations were represented by 3000 attendees. The Germans also allowed three Lithuanian representatives (Antanas Smetona, Steponas Kairys, Jurgis Šaulys; Antanas Žmuidzinavičius was initially selected instead of Smetona) to attend, who brought a memorandum, signed by twelve Lithuanian activists, addressed to Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. During the conference, chaired by Paul Otlet, Lithuanian priest Vincas Bartuška read the Lithuanian statement which again repeated demands for full independence. Only two other nations, Poland and Finland, expressed their desire for full independence.
After the Conference of Nationalities, Lithuanians organized their own conference in secret. The second Laussane conference, chaired by Smetona, confirmed resolutions of the first conference, adopted a month before, except for statements condemning Germany. After hearing reports from Lithuanian representatives on deplorable conditions within Lithuania, the conference also called for Lithuanian professionals (doctors, teachers, artisans, businessperson, etc.) to return from Russia, United States, and other communities to Lithuania and help rebuild the country. Right after the conference, Gabrys sent out a memorandum to Ober Ost officials in the name of the not-yet-organized Council of the Lithuanian Nation. The memorandum asked Germans to ease their control of life in Lithuania (censure of letters, travel restrictions, monitoring of activities of various societies) and liberalize education (allow Lithuanians establish their own schools and select teachers). Later, a memorandum in the name of the Swiss Lithuanian Council () was sent out to various foreign diplomatic services, except Russia. The memorandum briefly outlined the history of Lithuania, ethnographic borders of the Lithuanian state, and resolutions adopted by the two Lithuanian conferences in Laussane.
Post Vilnius Conference.
In September 1917, Lithuanians organized Vilnius Conference in German-occupied Lithuania and elected the 20-member Council of Lithuania to represent the nation and establish independent Lithuania. The council delegated Konstantinas Olšauskas and Juozas Purickis, who had to travel to Lithuania with fake passports, to the conference in Stockholm in October 1917. The conference was also attended by vice-chairmen of the council Jurgis Šaulys, representatives from Russia (Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Martynas Yčas, Felicija Bortkevičienė, Stasys Šilingas), United States (Jonas Šliūpas), and Scandinavia (Jonas Aukštuolis, Jurgis Savickis, ). The primary goal was to obtain approval of Lithuanians in Russia and United States for the new Council of Lithuania thus preventing competing claims of representing the nation. While the delegates where skeptical and critical of the council's reliance on Germany, they approved the resolutions adopted by Vilnius Conference and recognized Council of Lithuania as the main representative of the Lithuanian nation.
The conference in Bern in November 1917 was attended by members of the Council of Lithuania (Antanas Smetona, Steponas Kairys, Jurgis Šaulys, Alfonsas Petrulis, and Justinas Staugaitis) as well as Swiss Lithuanians (Vincas Bartuška, Vladas Daumantas, Juozas Purickis, Konstantinas Olšauskas, Juozas Gabrys, Antanas Steponaitis). Maironis attended as a guest. The conference discussed various issues, including territorial claims, relationship with ethnic minorities, strategies for securing independence, rebuilding after the war, form of government (democratic republic vs. constitutional monarchy – majority voted for monarchy, but the decision was not widely publicized). It resolved that the territory should be determined based on ethnographic principles. In particular, the conference deemed that the former Russian Governorates of Kaunas and Suwałki as well as almost the entire Vilna Governorate and four uyezds (districts) of the Grodno Governorate (Białystok, Grodno, Slonim and Vawkavysk) should belong to Lithuania. The delegates did not mention Lithuania's aspirations to the Lithuania Minor, which was then part of East Prussia. Instead of demanding the port of Klaipėda (Memel), they decided to demand Liepāja. Unofficially, Swiss Lithuanians were tasked with the foreign representation, particularly to the Entente powers, thus shielding the Council of Lithuania from German criticism that it was cooperating with German enemies. It was also decided to strengthen the Council of the Lithuanian Nation in Switzerland, chaired by Olšauskas, and keep it separate from the Lithuanian Information Bureau, headed by Gabrys, thus limiting Gabrys' ambitions and paving the way for a wider conflict with Gabrys.
There is little information available on the third conference in Stockholm in January 1918. It is primarily known from an English-language booklet published by Jonas Šliūpas in which he reprinted conference's resolution with a seven-point demand list to Russia and Germany to recognize independent Lithuania, repay war damages, withdraw their armies, include Lithuanian representatives in any peace negotiations. The resolution was also published in "Stockholms Dagblad". The conference was organized during a break in the negotiations of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany, and after the Council of Lithuania adopted the Act of 11 December, which declared Lithuania's independence but called for "a firm and permanent alliance" with Germany. The conference was attended by Jurgis Šaulys, member of the Council of Lithuania, who was expecting to receive Germany's recognition of Lithuania's independence. While waiting, Šaulys organized discussions with Šliūpas, Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Jonas Aukštuolis, .
The last conference was held in Lausanne in September 1918. It was attended by members of the Council of Lithuania (Antanas Smetona, Augustinas Voldemaras, Juozas Purickis, Martynas Yčas, Alfonsas Petrulis), representatives from United States (Vincas Bartuška, Balys Mastauskas, Kazys Pakštas, Juozas Dabužis), Swiss Lithuanians. Instead of increased coordination of efforts, a major ideological dispute further fragmented the Lithuanian independence movement and caused further confusion among foreigners when it aired in Swiss newspaper "Der Bund". Members of the Council maintained that the conference was only an advisory body, while Lithuanian émigrés, particularly Gabrys, wanted to establish an equal or a superior authority in the west. Lithuanians living abroad wanted to minimize any ties with Germany that was losing the war and instead rely on the Entente Powers that would decide the fate of Europe in a future peace conference. Lithuanians living in Lithuania, still occupied by Germany, thought that Germany was the only major power to be taken into account for the foreseeable future. They reasoned that if the Council of Lithuania was to have any sway with the Germans, it had to be the sole authority of the Lithuanian people. According to historian Alfred Erich Senn, it was a major policy error as the Council of Lithuania did gain a reputation of a "German tool" and it impeded Lithuania's international recognition.
Germany surrendered in November 1918 and the conferences abroad lost their purpose. The center of political life returned to Lithuania.


Mediana

Mediana is an important archeological site from the late Roman period, located in the eastern suburb of the Serbian city of Niš. It represents a luxurious residence with a highly organised economy. Excavations have revealed a villa with peristyle, thermae, granary and water tower. The residence dates to the reign of Constantine the Great 306 to 337. Although Roman artifacts can be found scattered all over the area of present-day Niš, Mediana represents the best-preserved part of Roman Naissus. In 1979, Mediana was added to the Archaeological Sites of Exceptional Importance list, protected by the Republic of Serbia.
History.
Constantine the Great (280–337) was born and raised in Naissus. He erected a majestic residence in one of the luxurious suburbs of ancient Naissus, where he often resided and attended to state affairs. Historical records testify it was in Naissus that he passed several laws – in 315, 319, 324, and 334.
After Constantine's death in 337, the imperial residence in Mediana was used by several other emperors, either as a place of rest on their long journeys or during preparations for war. Thus, Constantine's sons, Constantius II and Constans, stayed in Naissus in the winter of 340, for they signed an edict there. Later on, Constans used it as a temporary residence. According to the Hieronimus' Chronicles, after Vetranio, commander of the Danubian army, had been proclaimed emperor in Sirmium, he surrendered the insignia of imperial power to Constantius II in Naissus, doubtless at the imperial villa, in 350.
Julian the Apostate unexpectedly spent some time in Naissus on his expedition against Constantius II, at the end of 361. During his two-month stay, Julian wrote from Naissus long epistles to the Senate, to Athens, Corinth and other Greek towns, explaining his policy and seeking support. Valentinian's stay in Naissus in 364 is attested by several imperial edicts.
According to Olympiodorus of Thebes, Naissus was the native town of another Roman emperor – Constantius III, husband of Galla Placidia, father of Valentinian III.
In 364 AD, Imperial Villa Mediana was the site where emperors Valentinian and Valens met and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors
The residence was abandoned after the city of Naissus was devastated by Attila's hordes in 442.
Site.
The residence was erected on flat terrain, on an area which covers over 400,000 square metres, on a high bank, some distance from the river, at the foot of the hills which frame the Nišava Valley, near a thermal water source. There was a street in the east-west direction which passed on the south side of the villa with peristyle and the granary located 150 metres from it. From this street it was possible to approach these buildings. The central area was occupied by the villa with its open peristyle, nymphaeum and thermae; to the west of the villa was the granary, and somewhat to the north a spacious building with octagonal and circular rooms. To the south of the villa are the remains of several villas and functional service structures. What strikes the eye is that the luxurious buildings of solid material with columns, decorated with marble facing, mosaics and frescoes, are concentrated mainly around the central villa and its peristyle, while the economic buildings are located to the west of the granary towards Naissus.
Villa.
The villa occupies the central position in Mediana. The villa comprises an area of about 6.000 m² (98,6 x 63 m) and included thermae on the west side and a smaller nymphaeum on the east side. The longitudinal axis of the villa is in the north-south direction. The whole northern part was heated. The villa was luxuriously decorated, to which testify the marble columns, basis and capitals of different sizes, reliefs on pilaster capitals and parapet slabs, the remains of wall covering of expensive, multicoloured marble, frescoes, etc. The mosaic floors that covered the whole of the peristyle porch (450 m²) and the audience room have been well preserved. The porch mosaics are geometrical. Figural mosaics are at the entrance of the audience room. The middle part of the audience hall is covered with a broad rectangular field with a geometric pattern, done in the manner of the finest artist. The central part of this structure is a hexagon (3,2 m on the side) with a fountain in the middle, also in the form of hexagon. The lead pipe, used to supply water, can be seen in the middle of the fountain. Smaller spaces surround the hexagon; one of their sides is the polygon of the hexagon. The floor of the nymphaeum is covered with mosaic. The wide outer frame of the hexagon is covered with alternating stylized lotus flowers, and is underlined on the inner side, by a triple border. The lateral spaces about the hexagon are also decorated by mosaic.
Thermae.
Thermae are situated northwest of the villa and were probably connected to it. The entrance to the bath is from the south side. The thermae of Mediana were probably used by the owners of the villa, who could reach them directly from their rooms. The corridor on the way to the baths is decorated by floor mosaics, with geometric patterns of the same quality as the mosaics in the peristyle. The vestibule and apodyterium are covered by brick and the middle room is partly covered with brick and partly with mosaic made here of larger white marble tessarae.
Granary.
The Granary ("horreum") is located about 150 metres west of the villa. This is a spacious rectangular building (91 x 27 m), with the longitudinal axis oriented east-west. Along the west wall there were basins 1.40 m deep, which served for storing liquids, (olive oil and wine).
Water tower.
A water tower ("castellum aquae") was ordinarily found at the end of each Roman aqueduct. Water was supplied from this reservoir to the wells and fountains, basins, thermae and maybe the irrigation canals. Its longitudinal axis is oriented north-south. There is a 10-meter height differential between the water tower site and the valley in which the Mediana buildings are located, providing a head for the fountains.
Churches.
Two Early Christian churches have been excavated, both built simultaneously sometime after 378.
The first church was unearthed in 2000, when a monogram of Jesus was found. Only 8 metres south of the first, a second church was excavated in 2007, among the findings was a bronze ring with a cross. The findings are evidence of Mediana being a highly Christian community.
As of July 2019 the site is closed for visitors with information it is under construction works but without a re-opening date indicated.


Inferior Oolite

The Inferior Oolite is a sequence of Jurassic age sedimentary rocks in Europe. It was deposited during the Middle Jurassic. The Inferior Oolite Group as more recently defined is a Jurassic lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) in southern and eastern England . It has been variously known in the past as the Under Oolite (or Oolyte), the Inferior Oolite, the Inferior Oolite Series and the Redbourne Group.
Outcrops.
The rocks are exposed from Dorset and Somerset eastwards and northwards through the English Midlands to Yorkshire. It is present at depth in the Wessex-Weald Basin, where it reaches its greatest thickness of 120 m.
Lithology and stratigraphy.
The group consists of up to 120 m thickness of oolitic limestones and subordinate sandstones and mudstones laid down during the Jurassic Period. In the East Midlands it consists of (in descending order i.e. oldest last) the Lincolnshire Limestone, Grantham and Northampton Sand formations whereas in the Cotswold Hills it consists of the Salperton Limestone, Aston Limestone and Birdlip Limestone formations.
The limestones are rich in organic material. The ammonite "Parkinsonia parkinsoni", an index fossil for the Bathonian, is native to the Inferior Oolite of Burton Bradstock.
Within Dorset, the Oolite is not subdivided into separately named formations, but is simply considered the Inferior Oolite Formation, sometimes subdivided into the Lower and Upper Inferior Oolite Formations. Within the vicinity of Yeovil it is divided into members which are in ascending order the Corton Denham Member, which predominantly consists of blue siltstone is about 2.5 m thick with the transitional top consisting of green Marl, the Oborne Ironshot Member, the term "ironshot" refers to ferruginised Oolite. The upper portion of which contains intensely bioturbated limestone. Moving Into the Upper Inferior Oolite the Sherborne Limestone Member, which consists of exposed yellow brown fresh grey bioclastic limestone, while the overlying Combe Limestone Member, consists of rubbly limestone and marl, a full stratigraphy of the locality is given below
Vertebrate fauna.
Ornithopod tracks geographically located in North Yorkshire, England. Ornithopod and theropod tracks present in North Yorkshire, England. A supposed dermal spine long thought to be from a stegosaur is actually a caudal vertebra referable to Archosauria indet.