200 résultats pour "centurie"

• Newfoundland and Labrador - Canadian History.

  Precipitation averages about 1,120 mm (about 44 in) yearly in Newfoundland. In Labrador precipitation varies from about 1,020 mm (about 40 in) in the southeast toabout 510 mm (about 20 in) in the extreme north. Heavy winter snowfalls are common, especially in Newfoundland. D Plant Life About one-third of Newfoundland is forested, and most of the rest of the island is made up of barren areas of reindeer moss and lichens. The forests consist almostentirely of conifers. The most important species...

• Bushi philosophy

  (794-1185), they evolved feudal institutions very similar to the feudalism of western Europe in its medieval age. Chief among these institutions was the lord-vassal relationship. Chronicles known as war tales, records of the lives and battles of warriors, depict the intimate personal attachments that bound lords and vassals, telling of vassals prepared to give their lives for their lords at a moment's notice and of lords who bestowed upon vassals the kind of love normally given by fathers to...

• Sumer - history.

  By the 23rd century BC the power of the Sumerians had declined to such an extent that they could no longer defend themselves against foreign invasion. The Semitic ruler Sargon I (reigned about 2335-2279 BC), called The Great, succeeded in conquering the entire country. Sargon founded a new capital, called Agade, in the far north of Sumer and made it the richest and most powerful city in the world. The people of northern Sumer and the conquering invaders, fusing gradually, became known ethnical...

• Robin Hood I INTRODUCTION Robin Hood The legendary hero Robin Hood is a popular figure from English folklore.

  Errol FlynnIn 1938 Australian-born motion-picture actor Errol Flynn won the heart of Maid Marian and defeated his evil foes as RobinHood in The Adventures of Robin Hood.Corbis Some people believe that Robin Hood was an actual person, usually identified as Robert Fitzooth, the earl of Huntington. Others think that Robin was not a real personand that the stories about him developed for historical and cultural reasons. In medieval England, peasant masses struggled to make a meager living while a re...

• Byzantine Empire .

  Emperor Alexius I, founder of the Comnenian dynasty, nevertheless appealed to the pope for aid against the Turks. Western Europe responded with the First Crusade(1096-99). Although Byzantium initially benefited from the Crusades, recovering some land in Asia Minor, in the long run they hastened the empire's decline. Italian merchant citieswon special trading privileges in Byzantine territory and gained control of much of the empire's commerce and wealth. The Byzantines experienced a superficialp...

• Temple (building) I INTRODUCTION Wat Phra Kaeo Thailand has nearly 18,000 Buddhist temples, called wats, throughout the country.

  colonnaded terraces connected by ramps. The surrounding area was planted with trees and flowers during Hatshepsut’sreign and for many years after.Gian Berto Vanni/Art Resource, NY In ancient Egypt, temples were grandiose, built of huge blocks and columns of stone. Often they were enlarged by successive rulers to form strung-out series of templeparts, as in the gigantic Temple of Amon (circa 1550-1070 BC) at Al Karnak. The Nile cliffs were used as settings for temples, such as the massive mortuar...

• Arab Music I INTRODUCTION Umm Kulthum Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum was revered throughout Egypt, North Africa, and the Near East for her powerful voice and improvisational skill.

  The rhythmic structure of Arab music is similarly complex. Rhythmic patterns have up to 48 beats and typically include several downbeats (called dums ) as well as upbeats (called taks) and silences, or rests. To grasp a rhythmic mode, the listener must hear a relatively long pattern. Moreover, the performers do not simply play the pattern; they elaborate upon and ornament it. Often the pattern is recognizable by the arrangement of downbeats. The Rhythm in Arab Music illustration demonstratesa...

• Ancient Greece - history.

  Palace of KnossosThe ancient city of Knossos was a center of the Minoan civilization, an advanced society on Crete named after Minos, a legendaryCretan king. Skilled in such fields as engineering and architecture, the Minoans constructed the palace at Knossos in 1700 bc. Aserious fire at least three centuries later caused the collapse of the palace and foreshadowed the subsequent decline of the city.Wolfgang Kaehler Settlers had begun sailing from Asia Minor to Crete about 6000 BC because the i...

• ?stanbul - geography.

  İstanbul hosts a number of annual cultural events. The İstanbul Cultural Festival, held in the summer, offers music and dance performances in more than 50 venuesthroughout the city, including outdoors at Rumelihisar ı. The city also hosts a summer jazz festival. Turkey is one of the world’s largest producers of motion pictures, anda highly regarded international film festival takes place in İstanbul during the early months of the year. V RECREATION With increasing modernization, recreation is...

• Confucianism.

  IV NEO-CONFUCIANISM After centuries of intellectual and cultural dominance by Buddhism, China began to experience a revival of Confucian thought during the Tang dynasty ( AD 618-907). It was led by poet and essayist Han Yu (Han Yü). Han Yu attacked Buddhism and Daoism, which he believed had kept government officials from seeing how they couldhelp the people. To further public welfare, he urged them to study the way of the ancient sages through the Five Classics . Han Yu almost lost his life f...

• Babylonia - USA History.

  Pharmacology, too, doubtless had made considerable progress, although the only major direct evidence of this comes from a Sumerian tablet written several centuriesbefore Hammurabi. C Legal System and Writing Law and justice were key concepts in the Babylonian way of life. Justice was administered by the courts, each of which consisted of from one to four judges. Often theelders of a town constituted a tribunal. The judges could not reverse their decisions for any reason, but appeals from their...

• United States (Overview) - country.

  parts. IV UNITED STATES PEOPLE When Europeans first reached North America in the 1520s, they encountered other people—Native Americans—and they also encountered a new geography. Someimagined they were entering “a howling wilderness”—an environment filled with exotic flora and fauna but sparsely populated. In reality, they found their way to alandmass that was widely settled. But soon after the Europeans’ arrival, the population of the Americas plummeted, largely because Native Americans lacked...

• Azerbaijan - country.

  second most important industrial center after Baku. A Ethnic Groups Azerbaijan, including the autonomous exclave of Naxçivan, is populated mostly by ethnic Azerbaijanis, who are also known as Azeris. The ethnic composition of thecountry changed due to a civil war between the government of Azerbaijan and Armenian secessionists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Beginning in 1988, when thepeople of Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally decided to secede from Azerbaijan, nearly the entire Azerbaijani popula...

• Turkmenistan - country.

  A Ethnic Groups With Turkmens constituting 77 percent of the population, Turkmenistan is the most ethnically homogeneous of the Central Asian republics. Uzbeks make up the largestminority group, with about 9 percent of the population. Other ethnic groups include Russians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Ukrainians, Azeris (ethnic Azerbaijanis), Armenians, andBaluch. In 1993 a bilateral treaty between Turkmenistan and Russia granted dual citizenship to Russians in the republic. At the 1995 census Russians cons...

• Music I INTRODUCTION World Music Tour Click on the instruments to hear music from around the world.

  Duke EllingtonAmerican composer, bandleader, and pianist Duke Ellington endures as perhaps the most important pioneer in big-bandjazz. Ellington and his orchestra shared a special interdependent relationship: Using the band as his musical workshop,Ellington derived his orchestra’s tone coloring from the unique sound qualities of the group’s individual players. Thisparticular style was later dubbed the “Ellington Effect” by jazz arranger Billy Strayhorn, who also wrote one of the band’ssignature...

• Middle Ages .

  Saints were very important in Late Antiquity. They were considered both models of virtue and powerful miracle workers. One of the most well-known saints of the periodwas Saint Anthony. Anthony gave away all his possessions and left his hometown in Egypt to live alone in the desert and pray. Anthony was one of the first Christianmonks. The word monk comes from a term meaning 'alone.' Gradually Anthony attracted followers, and he eventually became the center of a whole community of monks who wis...

• Holy Roman Empire I INTRODUCTION Holy Roman Empire, political entity of lands in western and central Europe, founded by Charlemagne in AD 800 and dissolved by Emperor Francis II in 1806.

  acquired the imperial title and an area running from the North Sea through Lotharingia (Lorraine) and Burgundy to northern Italy; Louis II received East Francia (theGerman duchies of Saxony, Swabia, and Bavaria). In 870 Lothair’s middle kingdom was divided by the Treaty of Mersen, which gave Lotharingia to East Francia and therest to West Francia. This division created the foundation for today’s states of Germany and France, respectively; however, in the 9th century these were highly fractured d...

• Holy Roman Empire .

  acquired the imperial title and an area running from the North Sea through Lotharingia (Lorraine) and Burgundy to northern Italy; Louis II received East Francia (theGerman duchies of Saxony, Swabia, and Bavaria). In 870 Lothair’s middle kingdom was divided by the Treaty of Mersen, which gave Lotharingia to East Francia and therest to West Francia. This division created the foundation for today’s states of Germany and France, respectively; however, in the 9th century these were highly fractured d...

• France - country.

  In both the Paris and Aquitaine basins, fertile soils derived from limestone and wind-deposited dust, called loess, have supported prosperous agriculture since ancienttimes. Other lowlands in France are scattered and relatively small. They include the Alsace Plain in the east, bordering Germany, the valley of the Rhône River in thesoutheast, and the Languedoc Plain along the Mediterranean coast. A2 Uplands France contains several regions of uplands, the worn down remains of ancient mountain sys...

• Federal Republic of Germany - country.

  B Rivers and Lakes Rivers have played a major role in Germany’s economic development. The Rhine River flows in a northwesterly direction from Switzerland through much of westernGermany and The Netherlands into the North Sea. It is a major European waterway and a pillar of commerce and trade. Its primary German tributaries include theMain, Mosel, Neckar, and Ruhr rivers. The Oder (Odra) River, along the border between Poland and Germany, runs northward and empties into the Baltic; it provides an...

• Renaissance .

  the great writings of ancient Greece and Rome. Intellectuals continued to build on the ideas of the Renaissance during the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, a time when scientific advancements led to a newemphasis on the power of human reason. One of the early Enlightenment thinkers was French philosopher and writer Voltaire. He claimed that the Renaissance was acrucial stage in liberating the mind from the superstition and error that he believed characterized Christian society during the Middl...

• Confucian philosophy, Korean

  neglected by more traditional Confucianism. Read with new eyes, an entirely new level of meaning was uncovered in the ancient texts: they discovered a Confucian foundation for the meditative cultivation of consciousness that had been a particular strength of the Buddhists, and to frame it and provide an account of sagehood equal to Buddhist talk of enlightenment, they found a complete metaphysical system, a Confucian version of the kind of thinking that had been elaborated mainly under Daoist au...

• China - country.

  North China lies between the Mongolian Steppe on the north and the Yangtze River Basin on the south. It stretches west from the Bo Hai gulf and the Yellow Sea to theeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Administratively, North China includes Beijing and Tianjin municipalities; Shandong and Shanxi provinces; most of Hebei, Henan,and Shaanxi provinces; and portions of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Gansu provinces. Humans have lived in the agriculturally rich region of Nor...

• Turkey - country.

  has a general elevation of 900 to 1,500 m (3,000 to 5,000 ft) above sea level. The eastern highlands region is the most mountainous and rugged portion of Turkey; Mount Ararat (Ağrı Da ğı) is the highest peak in the country at 5,165 m (16,945ft). Many Christians and Jews believe it to be the same Mount Ararat mentioned in the Bible as the place where Noah’s ark came to rest. The eastern highlands are thesource for both the Tigris (Dicle) and Euphrates (Fir āt)—two of southwestern Asia’s principal...

• Vietnam - country.

  E Natural Resources Vietnam’s most valuable natural resource is its land, particularly the fertile, alluvial soils in the Red and Mekong deltas. Some 29 percent of the land is currently beingcultivated. Vietnam has some valuable mineral resources, including gold, iron, tin, zinc, phosphate, chromite, apatite, and anthracite coal. Most deposits are located in the northernpart of the country. Few attempts were made to extract these minerals until the French takeover of Vietnam at the end of the 1...

• Native Americans of North America.

  addition to smallpox and measles, explorers and colonists brought a host of other diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, pleurisy, mumps,diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, malaria, yellow fever, and various sexually transmitted infections. Despite the undisputed devastation wreaked on Indian populations after European contact, native populations showed enormous regional variability in their response todisease exposure. Some peoples survived and, in some cases, even...

• Native Americans of North America - Canadian History.

  addition to smallpox and measles, explorers and colonists brought a host of other diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, pleurisy, mumps,diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, malaria, yellow fever, and various sexually transmitted infections. Despite the undisputed devastation wreaked on Indian populations after European contact, native populations showed enormous regional variability in their response todisease exposure. Some peoples survived and, in some cases, even...

• Native Americans of Middle and South America.

  A line that snakes across central Mexico near the Tropic of Cancer forms the northern boundary of Mesoamerica; north of this line rainfall sharply declines and theclimate is much drier. The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica all arose and developed in the area between this line and the Guatemalan highlands far to the south. Richvolcanic soils are found throughout much of the region. A2 People and Languages Mesoamerica was a great melting pot, home to many peoples and interrelated cultures. In...

• Europe .

  D Vegetation Although much of Europe, particularly the west, was originally covered by forest, the vegetation has been transformed by human habitation and the clearing of land.Only in the most northerly mountains and in parts of north central European Russia has the forest cover been relatively unaffected by human activity. On the otherhand, a considerable amount of Europe is covered by woodland that has been planted or has reoccupied cleared lands. The largest vegetation zone in Europe, cuttin...

• Europe - Geography.

  D Vegetation Although much of Europe, particularly the west, was originally covered by forest, the vegetation has been transformed by human habitation and the clearing of land.Only in the most northerly mountains and in parts of north central European Russia has the forest cover been relatively unaffected by human activity. On the otherhand, a considerable amount of Europe is covered by woodland that has been planted or has reoccupied cleared lands. The largest vegetation zone in Europe, cuttin...

• Greek Art and Architecture - USA History.

  The struggle between these two city-states and their allies ultimately led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), which Sparta won. Despite this conflict, the 5th century, often called the Classical period, is usually considered the culmination of Greek art, architecture, and drama, with its highest achievements being the Temple ofZeus at Olympia, the Parthenon in Athens, and the plays of Athenian dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The 4th century, or Late Classical p...

• Ship. I INTRODUCTION Ship, vessel that is buoyant in the water and used

  B1 Biremes Experience soon proved that longer ships posed a new set of problems: They were weaker structurally, more difficult to maneuver, and presented a larger target to anyenemy ship with a ram. In the 8th century BC Mediterranean shipbuilders eliminated these problems with the bireme , a war galley built to accommodate two levels, or banks , of oarsmen. Oarsmen on the lower level rowed oars from ports cut into the side of the vessel, while those above rowed from the deck. This arrangemen...

• Iran - country.

  Zagros mountains. In the more arid central part of the country, wild pistachio and other drought-resistant trees grow in areas that have not been disturbed by humanactivity. Tamarisk and other salt-tolerant bushes grow along the margins of the Dasht-e Kavir. A wide variety of native mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects inhabit Iran. Many species of mammals—including wolves, foxes, bears, mountain goats, red mountainsheep, rabbits, and gerbils—continue to thrive. Others—including Caspian tigers,...

• Native American Architecture.

  B Relationship to the Universe and Nature A more profound difference between European American and Native American perceptions lay in how human beings saw themselves in relationship to the universe andin what they believed their responsibilities were to the natural world and to each other. Most European Americans saw themselves as separate from creation andadversaries of nature, ever struggling to conquer and subdue nature and force it to yield to their will. Native Americans saw themselves as...

• English Literature I INTRODUCTION English Literature, literature produced in England, from the introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present.

  evident. That feature is typical of other Old English literature, for almost all of what survives was preserved by monastic copyists. Most of it was actually composed byreligious writers after the early conversion of the people from their faith in the older Germanic divinities. Sacred legend and story were reduced to verse in poems resembling Beowulf in form. At first such verse was rendered in the somewhat simple, stark style of the poems of Caedmon, a humble man of the late 7th century who w...

• Buddhism.

  Although never actually denying the existence of the gods, Buddhism denies them any special role. Their lives in heaven are long and pleasurable, but they are in thesame predicament as other creatures, being subject eventually to death and further rebirth in lower states of existence. They are not creators of the universe or incontrol of human destiny, and Buddhism denies the value of prayer and sacrifice to them. Of the possible modes of rebirth, human existence is preferable, because thedeitie...

• Religion.

  By the end of the 19th century, scholars were making religion an object of systematic inquiry. Müller’s comparative approach was adopted in many European andJapanese universities, and as a result the common features of world religions (such as gods, prayer, priesthood, and creation myths) were the subjects of sustainedscholarly investigation. In addition, field anthropologists had begun to compile firsthand accounts of the religions of peoples who previously had been dismissed assavages. The stu...

• Atlantic Slave Trade.

  members of the planters’ society. Through most of the years of the Atlantic trade, prices for Africans remained favorable in relation to the price of the crops theyproduced. They were, thus, the best economic solution for plantation owners seeking inexpensive labor. The Atlantic slave trade began as a trickle in the 1440s and grew slowly through the 17th century. By 1700, 25,000 slaves, on average, were crossing the Atlantic everyyear. After 1700 the trade grew much more rapidly to a peak in the...

• Blacks in Latin America.

  Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean the slave population declined at the astonishing rate of 2 to 4 percent a year; thus, by the time slavery was abolished, theoverall slave population in many places was far less than the total number of slaves imported. The British colony of Jamaica, for example, imported more than 600,000slaves during the 18th century; yet, in 1838, the slave population numbered little more than 300,000. The French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti)imported mo...

• Immigration.

  1655, only to lose all of their North American colonies to the British in 1664. These early colonies were often quite cosmopolitan, drawing settlers from many nations.When the English seized New Amsterdam, the city was home to perhaps 1500 residents, including Walloons, Huguenots, Swedes, Dutchmen, and African Americans. C The French and Spanish The French and Spanish also established colonies in North America. The Spanish established the oldest permanent European settlement in Saint Augustine,...

• Immigration - U.

  1655, only to lose all of their North American colonies to the British in 1664. These early colonies were often quite cosmopolitan, drawing settlers from many nations.When the English seized New Amsterdam, the city was home to perhaps 1500 residents, including Walloons, Huguenots, Swedes, Dutchmen, and African Americans. C The French and Spanish The French and Spanish also established colonies in North America. The Spanish established the oldest permanent European settlement in Saint Augustine,...

• Western Music I INTRODUCTION Bizet's Carmen Georges Bizet's Carmen, first performed in Paris in 1875, was a milestone in the history of French opera.

  church ceremonies during the period from the 5th to the 7th century. Roman chant became known as Gregorian chant after Pope Gregory I, the Great, who may havecomposed some of the melodies and who actively encouraged an orderly, ritualized use of music by the church. Because Gregory and later popes preferred Gregorianchant to the varieties that had developed elsewhere in Europe, Gregorian chant eventually superseded most of the others. Gregorian and other chant styles arepreserved in many manuscr...

• Kenya - country.

  threatens fish and other water life in the lake by depriving them of oxygen. Kenya is well known for its game parks—including Masai Mara Game Park and Tsavo National Park in the south, and Marsabit National Reserve in the north—whichattract large numbers of tourists and much revenue. Conservation of wildlife within reserves has thus received high priority. About 13 percent (2007) of Kenya’s totalland is protected. There are 229 (2004) threatened species in Kenya. Threatened habitats include the...

• Delaware - geography.

  D Climate Delaware has generally hot and humid summers and mild winters. D1 Temperature In July, average daytime temperatures are usually in the upper 20°s to lower 30°sC (80°sF) or even higher. But because summer nights tend to be cooler than thedays, July averages are about 24°C (about 75°F). In addition, onshore sea breezes can reduce daytime temperatures along the coast by 3 to 6 Celsius degrees (5 to 10Fahrenheit degrees). January averages range from -1°C (31°F) at Newark, in the north, t...

• Delaware - USA History.

  D Climate Delaware has generally hot and humid summers and mild winters. D1 Temperature In July, average daytime temperatures are usually in the upper 20°s to lower 30°sC (80°sF) or even higher. But because summer nights tend to be cooler than thedays, July averages are about 24°C (about 75°F). In addition, onshore sea breezes can reduce daytime temperatures along the coast by 3 to 6 Celsius degrees (5 to 10Fahrenheit degrees). January averages range from -1°C (31°F) at Newark, in the north, t...

• Byzantine philosophy

  important and most prolific of the Byzantine polymaths, Ioannes Italos, Theodoros of Smyrna, Eustratios of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesos. The last two are better known as commentators on Aristotle. The general outlook of the pre-eminent philosophers of this period, and the particular tendencies in their work, display the basic characteristics of Byzantine philosophy but with some distinctive features, such as an even stronger leaning towards the classical models of Greek philosophy and attempts...

• Silk Road - History.

  and high in value because they were carried on the backs of the limited number of camels in each caravan. Thus, of necessity they were luxury items, not bulky rawmaterials or essential goods for daily use. The oases and towns along the route, which were located in or near remote areas, profited from the Silk Road trade and reliedon it for their existence. The great empires of Persia, China, and Rome, however, could easily have survived without the commerce in luxury goods. V SPREAD OF RELIGION A...

• Indian Art and Architecture I INTRODUCTION Art on the Indian Subcontinent This map highlights places in India and Pakistan where prominent examples of Indian art and architecture have been produced.

  Sun Temple of KonarakThis 13th-century relief depicting a wheel of the chariot of Indian sun god Surya is situated in the Konarak temple. Thetemple, dedicated to Surya, is situated at Puri in the Gulf of Bengal.Keren Su/Corbis The arts of India expressed in architecture, sculpture, painting, jewelry, pottery, metalwork, and textiles, were spread throughout the Far East with the diffusion ofBuddhism and Hinduism and exercised a strong influence on the arts of China, Japan, Myanmar (formerly known...

• Protestantism.

  F England The Anglican Church became the established church in England when Henry VIII assumed (1534) the ecclesiastical authority over the English church that had previouslybeen exercised by the pope. Henry’s motive was to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragón rather than to reform church doctrine, and he imposed severe lawsupholding the major tenets of medieval Catholicism. Under King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, however, the Anglican Church developed a distinctly Protestant creedthat w...

• Slavery in the United States - U.

  tripled, from about 1.2 million to almost 4 million in 1860. The natural growth of the slave population meant that slavery could survive without new slave imports. Natural population growth also hastened the transition from an African to an African American slave population. By the 1770s, only about 20 percent of slaves in thecolonies were African-born, although the concentration of Africans remained higher in South Carolina and Georgia. After 1808 the proportion of African-born slavesbecame tin...