# LocalizedText

Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARK_TWAIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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In 1870, he married Olivia Landgon, the well-bred daughter of a wealthy New York family, thus improving his social standing. Six years later, he published 'Tom Sawyer' followed by 'Huckleberry Finn' in 1884. Although he would write many more pieces, these two placed him forever in the pantheon of great writers. Samuel Clemens died in April 1910 at his home in Connecticut.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARTIN_LUTHER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Before Martin Luther turned Christian civilization upside-down, Catholicism was the only game in play. Those who didn’t agree got burned at the stake … or worse. But this single man launched the Reformation in the 16th Century AD when he nailed 95 theses on the door of a German church. And believing has never been the same again (at least, not in the West).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARTIN_LUTHER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born in Saxony in November 1483, Martin’s parents hoped to educate him for a career as a lawyer. In 1501 he entered the University of Erfurt and received a Master of Arts degree, having studied grammar, logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics … all lawyer skills. However, in 1505 he was caught in a horrific thunderstorm and promised St. Anne that he would become a monk if he survived. He did, and he did. The first years of monastic life were challenging, and he failed to find religious enlightenment despite all his praying. He was particularly upset by the immorality, venality, and corruption he witnessed among the Catholic clergy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARTIN_LUTHER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Leaving the Augustinian order, despite being ordained in 1507, Luther enrolled in the University of Wittenberg and was awarded his Doctorate of Theology in 1512. He joined the theological faculty soon after, and spent the rest of his career there. Being a contentious sort, when Pope Leo X announced a new round of indulgences in 1517 to help build St. Peter’s Basilica, Luther was incensed and composed the famed Ninety-Five Theses. These laid out a devastating critique of the Church’s corrupt practices, and he nailed them up on the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg for all to see. Soon enough, with the aid of that new contraption the printing press, the theses spread across Europe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARTIN_LUTHER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Though Luther would have no hand in the bloodshed and misery his protest engendered, he was excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1521 after repeatedly refusing to recant his heresy. He died under house arrest, although still dean of theology at the university, in 1546.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARIE_ANNE_COLLOT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Marie-Anne Collot thoroughly understood art, once a model which inspired portraitists and then becoming a renowned sculptor herself who captured the expressive personas of her subjects. Born in Paris in 1748, Collot was the daughter-in-law of sculptor Etienne Falconet, through whom she would meet the philosopher Diderot and Catherine the Great. The Empress requested a bust of herself, as well as one of Falconet, and Diderot. Her bust of Diderot so captivated Falconet that he destroyed the bust he sculpted himself.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARIE_ANNE_COLLOT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The art of hers that was not lost or is in a private collection is displayed at museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the State Hermitage Museum in S. Petersburg.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_CASSATT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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In an era when women – especially those of genteel background – were expected to devote their lives to marriage and motherhood, few could imagine a demure miss having the tenacity to achieve fame and respect through daubing paint on canvas. Born on the outskirts of Pittsburgh in 1844 AD, Mary’s early schooling prepared her to be a proper wife – classes such as homemaking, embroidery, music, sketching – but despite her father’s objections (he later declared he would rather see his daughter dead than living as a “bohemian”), she enrolled in Philadelphia’s Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 16. This was Mary Stevenson Cassatt.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_CASSATT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In Paris she studied and painted in relative (only her relatives took any notice, and that disapproving) obscurity until 1868, when one of her portraits was selected for the prestigious Paris Salon annual exhibit. But the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War sent Mary – reluctantly – home, where her artistic freedom was extinguished due to her dependence on her father for money. But, Cassatt was contacted by the archbishop of Pittsburgh, who commissioned her to travel to Italy to copy religious works by the painter Correggio. With the money from that, she was able to resume her career in Spain, Belgium, Italy, eventually settling again in Paris.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_CASSATT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Cassatt’s new, experimental work drew criticism for its bright colors and unflattering accuracy, but she drew courage from Degas, whose own pastel paintings were stirring controversy. She contributed 11 of her pieces to the 1879 Impressionists show, and it was a huge success both commercially and critically. While her fellow Impressionists focused on landscapes and street scenes, she became famous for her portraits, especially of women in domestic settings with their children. But commencing in 1915, diabetes stole her eyesight, and for the next 11 years – until her death in 1926 in Le Mesnil-Théribus – Mary lived in increasing darkness.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_KATHERINE_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born in New England in 1738, Mary Katherine Goddard worked with her younger brother to begin a local printing business. While her brother was often away on business, Mary labored on typesetting, printing, and writing with her mother.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_KATHERINE_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The family business moved south, beginning a shop in Philadelphia, PA and then later Baltimore, MD, where Mary’s brother had established Baltimore’s first newspaper, ‘The Maryland Journal.’ In 1775, after running the paper for some time in her brother’s absence, Mary printed “Published by M.K. Goddard” on the paper. That is, until he returned a year later. It was this same year that Mary assumed the role of postmaster, being perhaps the first female to do so in the colonies.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_KATHERINE_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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In 1777, it was from Mary’s printing press that the very first copy of the Declaration of Independence came, and her legacy was set. She lived in Baltimore until her death in August of 1816.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_LEAKEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Mary Leakey (along with her husband Louis, who died in 1972 AD) continued what Darwin had started: searching for the origin of the human species that we know today. Born Mary Douglas Nicol in February 1913 in London, she was the only daughter of a landscape artist who seemingly inherited her father’s talent at sketching. While living in the Dordogne region of France riddled with prehistoric cave settlements, she became interested in Paleolithic archaeology. When her father died in 1926, mother and daughter returned to England where Mary was enrolled in convent schools in Kensington and Wimbledon … but the independent young miss was expelled … twice.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_LEAKEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Given her academic record, university admission was impossible, but Mary – though unregistered – attended lectures in geology and archaeology at University College and at the London Museum. In 1930 she applied for work as a sketch artist at a number of excavations, including that at Hembury, a Neolithic site where she made illustrations of tools. Her efforts there drew the attention of various publishers, and in 1934 she was introduced to Louis Leakey as an artist for his book 'Adam’s Ancestors.' Mary married him in 1936.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_LEAKEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Shortly after wedding, the couple moved to East Africa when Louis was funded for an excavation project at the Olduvai Gorge. Over the following decades they would make several notable discoveries – the 18 million year-old Proconsul Africanus in 1948, the two million year-old Australopithecus Boisei in 1959, and the next year found the fossils of Homo habilis (the “missing link”) and evidence of tool making. When Louis died, Mary Leakey continued her digging and sketching, discovering another important clue to mankind’s ancestry by finding a trail of footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania in 1979. She died in December 1996.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_SHELLEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1797, her mother died shortly after childbirth, and she was raised with a number of half- and step-siblings. Her father, William Godwin, was a philosopher and journalist who believed (scandalously, radically, for that time) that girls should be educated in the same manner as boys. From this rich, albeit informal home education, young Mary was able to publish her first work at the age of ten. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was an acolyte of her father, and the two eloped to Europe when Mary was sixteen.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_SHELLEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The years leading up to the publication of her most famous work, 'Frankenstein,' or 'The Modern Prometheus,' are worthy of the most Gothic tragedy of the era. Estranged from her father because of the elopement and with one half-sister scandalously embroiled with Lord Byron (now in exile in Switzerland), the Shelleys joined Byron's retinue on the shores of Lake Geneva. The events of the summer of 1816 are recounted by Shelley in her prologue to 'Frankenstein,' how the writers challenged each other to write a horror story to share. Someone else in that group wrote a story about a lady whose head was a skull and who peeked through key-holes. They tried their best, no doubt. Frankenstein's place in the canon of literature is undisputed. It is heralded as the first English-language science fiction novel. It explores psychological horror and the interconnection of self-destruction and the fear of creation's power. It drew on a solid knowledge of the scientific discoveries of the age, and then posited how those technologies might be applied in the creation of artificial life. First published anonymously in 1818, Mary was recognized as the author in time.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MARY_SHELLEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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The Shelleys were probably the foremost husband-and-wife English-language writers of their age. Mary took up a close friendship with the volatile Byron, and started working on her own material as Percy's poetry achieved acclaim. When Percy Shelley drowned in a boating accident in 1822, Mary returned to England and continued to publish novels, poems, stories, and other works, managed the literary rights to her husband's works, and secured a comfortable living for herself until her death in 1851. None of her other works achieved the popular success of 'Frankenstein,' but Mary Shelley was able to rise from the considerable personal tragedies of her life to shine as a literary light in her own right.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MASARU_IBUKA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Masaru Ibuka was born in April 1908 AD in Nikko City, and grew into an inquisitive child fond of experimenting with electricity. He became one of the first ham radio operators in Japan, with his call-signs logged as early as 1926. In 1933 he graduated from Waseda University’s School of Science and Engineering and promptly joined the Photo-Chemical Laboratory, a company that processed and duplicated movie film … until the outbreak of war swept him into the Imperial Japanese Navy. In the Navy he would meet his future partner Akio Morita, and continue his research with Nippon-Ko-On (Japan Opto-Acoustic) Industrial. In 1946 Masaru and Akio bought a bombed out radio repair shop in Tokyo and founded Tokyo-Tsushin Kenkyusho, specializing in educational electronics, especially in magnetic recording devices.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MASARU_IBUKA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Shortly after, the pair also created Tokyo-Tsushin Kogya K.K. with Ibuka as president. The company’s future was assured when in 1949 Ibuka developed magnetic recording tape. In 1958 the two companies were merged and renamed Sony Corporation. Following the American invention of the transistor, Ibuka envisioned all sort of consumer applications (the Americans were pursuing military uses primarily); in 1954 Sony became the first licensee – from the Western Electric Company – of the patent for transistors outside the United States. Shortly after, Masaru and his research team produced a transistorized broadcast radio receiver … and civilization changed forever. The company made billions of yen, dollars, rubles, and just about every other currency available.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MASARU_IBUKA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Plunging into research on solid-state electronics, under Ibuka Sony also made breakthroughs in the application of technologies such as the Esaki tunnel diode, Yamada magneto-sensitive semiconductor diode, polycrystalline power ICs, and the Trinitron three-beam color tube. In 1976 he retired as Chairman of the Board from Sony, leaving the company in the hands of hand-picked successors, dying in 1997.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MELITTA_BENTZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The best – and most profitable – ideas are usually simple. And even a housewife can have a simple idea … and get rich.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MELITTA_BENTZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born January 1873 in Dresden, Amalie Auguste Melitta Lisbscher, like most young women, looked to change her name, and did so when she married Johannes Emil Hugo Bentz. Also like most young women of the time, she stayed home, caring for two sons, a daughter, and Hugo of course. One of her tedious daily chores was making the coffee that kept their lives bearable. At the time, coffee – that indispensable fuel for civilization – was prepared with a complicated espresso type percolator; moreover, the process left loose grounds in the bitter brew.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MELITTA_BENTZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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One day, tired of all this, Melitta used a nail to poke holes in the bottom of a brass cup and then lined it with a sheet of blotting paper from her son’s school notebook. And made coffee. The result was outstanding, a more aromatic and flavorful cup without grounds, preparation was quick and simple, and cleanup was relegated to just tossing away the blotting paper. In June 1908 she obtained a patent for her “invention” and in December she launched a company for the sale of coffee filters with a starting capital of 72 pfennig.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MELITTA_BENTZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Although interrupted by the First World War, by 1928 the company had recovered and demand was so high that its 80 employees worked double-shifts. The following year the production facilities of the growing company were transferred to Minden. Despite the devastation of the Second World War and requisition of the factory by occupying Allied troops, in 1948 it resumed production of coffee filters. By 1950, annual international sales were in the neighborhood of 4.5 million Deutschemarks … and growing.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MICHELANGELO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The consummate Renaissance artist, in a demonstration of Michelangelo’s unique status he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was still alive. In his lifetime, he was often referred to as Il Divino (“the divine one”) for his terribilita, the sense of awe-inspiring and impassioned grandeur his best works evoked.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MICHELANGELO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The creator of sculptures such as the “Pietà” and “David,” of frescos such as the Sistine Chapel and 'The Crucifixion of St. Peter,' author of over 300 poems and sonnets (most dedicated to a pious widow named Vittoria Colonna), and architect of the likes of the Laurentine Library (Florence) and Porto Pia (Rome), Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born in March 1475 AD near Arezzo, son of a provincial judicial administrator. In time, the teen was apprenticed in painting to Ghirlandaio and in sculpture to di Giobanni, both well thought of at the time. When his patron de Medici was driven from Florence in 1494, the young artist wandered away to Venice, then Bologna, and finally ended up in Rome at the age of 21.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MICHELANGELO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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He soon acquired several artistic commissions – mostly for cardinals (the only ones who could enjoy the “good” life). More commissions followed, including an ambitious project for the tomb of Pope Julius II; but instead of completing this, the artist was asked to turn his hand to painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, not finishing it until 1512. His fame was nigh universal throughout Europe, after he was appointed the architect for St. Peter’s Basilica in 1546. There was concern that the aged artist would not live to see it completed; in point of fact, he didn’t – dying at his home in Rome in 1564. 


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIGUEL_DE_CERVANTES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born poor; died poor; buried in an unmarked grave in Madrid. Seemingly not much of a legacy … and yet 'Don Quixote,' translated into 60 languages, is considered civilization’s first best seller. Not that its success did Miguel de Cervantes much good, as authors didn’t receive royalties in the 16th Century.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIGUEL_DE_CERVANTES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born somewhere near Madrid in 1547 AD, Miguel was the son of a surgeon, a lowly trade at the time. The family moved several times as Miguel grew up, his deaf father seeking better work prospects. Although the matter of his formal education is debated, it is known that his first published work – poetry in a memorial collection upon the death of Philip II’s queen – appeared in 1569.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIGUEL_DE_CERVANTES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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But, since the sword is indeed mightier than the pen, de Cervantes put aside his poetry and enlisted. He took part in the epic battle at Lepanto aboard the ship La Marquesa, sustaining two chest wounds and a maimed hand. Despite all this, de Cervantes continued to serve as a soldier. In 1575, he had had enough of the bloodshed, and sought to return home. But he was captured by the Turks on the voyage; de Cervantes spent the next five years a slave, only released upon ransom paid.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIGUEL_DE_CERVANTES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Back in Spain, still attempting to earn a living, de Cervantes’ first work was published in 1585, and ignored. Trying to earn some coin as a commissary for the outfitting Spanish Armada, he ended up in prison (twice) on charges of mismanagement. Thus, de Cervantes turned back to writing, and the first part of 'Don Quixote' was published in 1605. The second part saw print in 1615; its author died the following year … still seeking fame and a little fortune.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIMAR_SINAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The chief architect and engineer for three visionary Ottoman sultans, Koca Mi’mar Sinan Aga (or simply Mimar Sinan) was responsible for some 300 major and scores of minor structures across Istanbul and the empire. Everything from prosaic granaries, fortifications, public fountains, bridges and aqueducts, to the magnificent mosques in Edrine (the Selim) and Istanbul (the Shezade). In fact, at last count, historians credit him with 79 mosques, 34 palaces, 33 public baths, 19 tombs, 55 schools, seven madrasahs, 16 poorhouses, and 12 caravansaries, along with all the lesser projects.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MIMAR_SINAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The son of Armenian (or perhaps Greek) Christians, Sinan followed his father into the stonemason’s trade but was drafted into the Janissaries in 1512 AD. Following a period of training and schooling to rid him of those wrong-headed Christian ways, he became a military engineer in the Ottoman army, eventually rising to be Chief of Artillery (and thus the title of Aga). Around the age of 50, his skill in design and construction brought him to the attention of Suleiman the Magnificent and Sinan was appointed the royal architect. For the next 40 years, while the empire was at its height of power and prestige and wealth, Mimar Sinan would faithfully serve the whims of three great sultans. He didn’t stop until he died in 1588 … at the age of 98.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MURASAKI_SHIKIBU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The Lady Murasaki (meaning “Violet”), best known writer of Japan’s glorious Heian period, penned 'Genji monogatari,' perhaps civilization’s earliest novel. Born around 973 AD (or perhaps 975) into a branch of the powerful Fujiwara clan, her approbation Shikibu likely relates to her father Fujiwara Tamatoki, who served in the Ministry of Ceremonies and later as a provincial governor, as it is a title. She was very intelligent, outpacing her brother in their studies, and her father is said to have lamented, “If only you were a boy, how happy I should be!” But he allowed her to read the Chinese classics, considered improper for Japanese females at the time.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MURASAKI_SHIKIBU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In her early twenties, Murasaki was married to a distant relative and gave birth to a daughter, during which she began writing poetry. After the early death of her husband in 1001, having heard of her writing and her brilliant mind, the imperial family brought Murasaki to court where she served as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Akiko. Despite her elevation to court, Murasaki Shikibu did not approve of the frivolous nature of life there, keeping a diary in which she gave vivid accounts of the vapid foolishness.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MURASAKI_SHIKIBU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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She likely began writing in earnest to avoid the tedium, although she may well have started work on 'Genji' before arriving. It is a lengthy, engaging work about the complications in the life of a fictional prince, drawn no doubt from her observations in the imperial court. Upon the death of Emperor Ichijo in 1011, the empress – along with her ladies – went into enforced retirement. Little is known of Murasaki’s life afterward; she is thought to have died around 1031.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MYKOLA_LEONTOVYCH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych was born in December 1877 AD in the Ukraine, fourth generation in a family of village priests. He was murdered in his family’s home in Tulchyn in January 1921 – either by a common burglar or by an agent of the Cheka (Soviet State Security), depending on which “official” version is believed. Between those dates, Leontovych would become the most influential Ukrainian composer, choral master, music teacher, and icon of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MYKOLA_LEONTOVYCH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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After a somewhat checkered school career, Mykola began his theological studies in 1892 at the seminary in Kamianets-Podilskyi, where he took up the violin. He also began writing musical pieces and choral arrangements. When the seminary’s choir director died, Leontovych was offered the post and added secular music – primarily Ukrainian folk songs – to the repertoire.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MYKOLA_LEONTOVYCH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Upon graduation in 1899, Leontovych turned from the priesthood to be a teacher in private and public schools in Kiev and elsewhere to make a living. These stints of employment were broken by periods of study in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It appears that he also turned his hand to composing new pieces based upon Ukrainian themes. His works from this period – including the famous 'Shchedryk' (better known to most as “The Carol of the Bells”) in 1904 – are considered to be masterful creations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_MYKOLA_LEONTOVYCH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Then things got messy in Imperial Russia. With the outbreak of revolution and the declaration of the independent Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1918, Leontovych moved his surviving family to Kiev. But with the capture of the city by the White Russians, noted Ukrainian leaders in the arts and sciences began having “accidents.” Leontovych moved to backwater Tulchyn in late 1919; there he began work on his first symphony. But he didn’t get very far, becoming a Ukrainian martyr instead.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NAPOLEON_BONAPARTE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Everyone in civilization has heard of Napoleon, so this historical entry will skip over the boring bits and get right to the bloodletting.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NAPOLEON_BONAPARTE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born in Corsica, Napoleone di Buonaparte (he later Frenchified his name) was a second lieutenant in the artillery regiment La Fere at the time of the French Revolution. Since France was soon at odds with every European monarchy, there were lots of chances for advancement. He distinguished himself by defeating Austria in Italy in a brilliant campaign culminating in the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797 AD), and then convinced the revolutionary government to strike at England by invading Egypt. But the political situation in France was unstable and Napoleon returned to Paris, giving himself the ultimate promotion in the coup of 18 Brumaire in which the French Directorate was overthrown. In 1804, he made himself emperor.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NAPOLEON_BONAPARTE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
For the next decade, Napoleon I fought off the great and lesser powers of Europe – Austria, Prussia, Russia, England, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sweden, Saxony and everyone else – in an attempt at security, for France and for himself. And beat down each coalition that was cobbled together among former enemies. His battles were legendary, his campaigns still studied by military men. His organizational skills and logistical innovations allowed the motivated French armies and their growing list of allies to take on all comers in all corners of Europe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NAPOLEON_BONAPARTE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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But even Napoleon couldn’t overcome attrition, and eventually his stubborn enemies – who just wouldn’t stay beaten – turned the tide. In Russia and in Spain, the French suffered losses in men and material that couldn’t be replaced. And the coalition allies even learned to cooperate, as at Leipzig in 1813 and at Waterloo in 1815. Even in defeat, so feared was Napoleon that the British imprisoned him on the remote isle of St. Helena, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NICCOLO_MACHIAVELLI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Not many have had their name become synonymous with “cunning and duplicity.” But Niccolo Machiavelli, Florentine diplomat and author of 'The Prince,' is the “father of modern political theory.” Although also publishing several other books, it is his handbook for politicians – whatever the level – on the application of ruthless cunning that has made him (in)famous in civilization.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NICCOLO_MACHIAVELLI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In May 1469 AD, in a period that rival city-states and the major powers of Catholic Europe battled across poor Italy, Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born in Florence, son of the attorney Bernardo and his wife Bartolomea. Moderately well educated in grammar, rhetoric, and Latin, Niccolo was an indifferent scholar. Nevertheless, when the Florentines expelled the ruling de Medici and declared a republic in 1494, young Niccolo became a diplomat for the independent state. Navigating the treacherous waters of Renaissance diplomacy, he earned a reputation for deviousness and shameless intrigue that served the republic well … until the de Medici returned to power in 1512.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NICCOLO_MACHIAVELLI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Having been jailed, tortured, released, and forbidden from any active role in politics, Machiavelli’s empty days gave him the opportunity to read Roman history, ponder the political success of the Borgias (and their ultimate failure to unify Italy), and write political treatises, most notably 'The Prince.' Although Pope Clement VII (and idealists ever since) condemned the book for its supposed endorsement of rule by deceit and fear, it entered the European lexicon of “great works.” Niccolo followed this with his 'Discourses on Livy' (a handbook on how a republic should be structured) and 'On the Art of War' (a work on strategy and tactics). He died in 1527, having lived quietly in a small village outside the walls of Florence for a decade.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NIKOLA_TESLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Genius or grifter, collaborator and competitor to the great Edison, the debate on the legacy of Nikola Tesla rages on. Born in 1856 AD in Smiljan in an Austro-Hungarian Empire tottering towards collapse, Nikola was the son of an Orthodox Christian priest and an inventive mother (Djuka invented a number of household appliances). An intelligent youth, in short order Nikola took degrees at the Realschule in Karlstadt, the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, and the University of Prague. Although he excelled in physics and mathematics, he soon became fascinated with electricity.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NIKOLA_TESLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Tesla began his career as an electrical engineer at the new telephone company in Budapest, where he invented the induction motor. He moved on to the Continental Edison Company in Paris where he designed dynamos. In 1884 he came to the United States to work directly for Edison himself in New York. There he designed electrical equipment, but soon had a falling out with Edison over direct versus alternating current. Tesla was busy creating polyphase AC generators, motors, dynamos and transformers outside of his employment, soon holding forty patents. In July 1888 Tesla was hired by George Westinghouse, Edison’s nemesis; Edison thus fought a losing battle in the “War of the Currents” to protect his investments in DC electricity production and distribution.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_NIKOLA_TESLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Using his newly invented Tesla coil and an AC induction motor, Tesla and Westinghouse astonished the multitude by demonstrating the wonders of alternating current at the World Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Alternating current became the standard for 20th Century civilization. In January 1943 Nikola died alone in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel where he had lived for years (feeding the pigeons but also supposedly inventing a death ray and a means for broadcasting electrical power).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_O_NO_YASUMARO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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O no Yasumaro, who lived in the early 8th Century AD, authored the two texts that form the foundation for the Shinto religion. Born the son of O no Honji, a key figure in the Jinshin War, Yasumaro was a nobleman, bureaucrat, and chronicler in the court of Empress Genmei. At her behest, he completed the 'Kojiki' (“An Account of Ancient Matters”) in 712 and the 'Nihon Shoki' (“The Chronicles of Japan”) in 720.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_O_NO_YASUMARO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The 'Kojiki' is a compilation of ancient chronicles and myths, divided into three parts: the first is an account of the deities of creation of the four islands and the 'Kamijo' (“Age of the Gods”); the second and third sections focus on the first emperors, including the tale of how Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of Amaterasu, descended from heaven to become the progenitor of the imperial line. The 'Nihon Shoki,' more elaborate and detailed, recounts the same events, but focuses on the merits of the virtuous rulers as well as the errors of bad ones. In the process, it lays out the precepts for the “correctness” of the social hierarchy and the “importance” of orderly living … thus, the political and social agenda of Nippon.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_O_NO_YASUMARO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Little else is known of Yasumaro’s life. According to legend, he became head of his clan in 716 and died in 723. No doubt he was welcomed to 'Yomi' (the “World of Darkness”) by the 'Kami' (“spirits” of Japan).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OMAR_KHAYYAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Known chiefly in the West for his 'Rubáiyát,' Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abu al-Fath 'Umar ibn al- Nīshāpūrī al-Khayyām (Omar Khayyam these days) was a Persian mathematician and astronomer of renown throughout the Islamic world. He was born in May 1048 in the town of Nishapur, the Seljuk capital in Khorasan. At some point in his early life, Omar went to Balkh (now in Afghanistan) to study under the Sheik Mansuri, and then later under the famed Imam Mowaffaq Nishapuri. As his studies ended, he began his scientific career writing treatises on various subjects, notably one on geometry and the theory of proportions. Other influential works from this period include one on algebra, a book on music, and the textbook 'Problems in Arithmetic' … all before he was 25 years old.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OMAR_KHAYYAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In 1070, Omar Khayyam moved to Samarkand, there supported by a prominent jurist, which allowed the polymath to work on a complete classification of cubic equations, his most famous book: 'Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra.' Then his 'Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates in Euclid’s Elements,' in which he devoted several sections to the fifth (parallel) postulate, revolutionized geometry; in the process, he laid the initial brick in the edifice of non-Euclidean geometry.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OMAR_KHAYYAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Omar made such a name for himself that the Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah invited him to undertake observations and calculations to reform the calendar. To accomplish this, Khayyam oversaw the construction of a state-of-the-art (for the time) observatory, and soon produced the Jalali calendar. Based on making eight of every 33 years “leap years,” it was more accurate than the Julian calendar in use in Europe, and in 1079 it became the official calendar throughout the expanding empire. After the sultan’s death he served as court astrologer until his death in 1131.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OVID_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The best known poet of Rome, Ovid was nevertheless banished to the bleak town of Tomis on the Black Sea's coast by the Emperor Augustus. Born in March 43 BC Publius Ovidius Naso in the town of Sulmo, he followed one of all those roads that led to Rome to study rhetoric and law along with his elder brother. But when his brother died at the age of 20, Ovidius threw over his studies, along with his father’s hopes for the teen’s career in politics, to become a poet … and a lover.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OVID_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Most of what is known of Ovid’s life comes from his own writings. Married thrice and divorced twice before the age of 30, he fathered one child. As a youth, he travelled about the Empire to Athens and Asia Minor squandering his family fortune until returning home. Unsatisfied with the minor judicial post his father had secured for him there, Ovid abandoned the law and directed his attention to poetry. His first success, penned around 16 BC, was 'Amores,' a collection of erotic poems based on the imaginary Corinna, quite descriptive and quite popular among the Romans bored with blood sports.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_OVID_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Ovid followed this with more love poetry, and eventually produced 'Metamorphoses,' his most ambitious poem – 12,000 lines in dactylic hexameter chronicling history to the death of Julius Caesar. Running afoul of Augustus for unknown reasons, the Emperor had Ovid banished to the barbarian frontier around 8 AD. Although Ovid kept writing, his works were likewise banished from all Roman libraries. Never returning to the great city, Ovid died in 17 AD.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PETER_ILYICH_TCHAIKOVSKY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Nearly everyone immediately recognizes the chords of the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker Suite, the cannon leitmotif of the 1812 Overture, and the allegro gusto of the opening of Swan Lake. These works – as well as numerous other ballets, operas, overtures, symphonies, and concertos – mark Pyotr Tchaikovsky as the greatest Russian (at least) composer of all time.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PETER_ILYICH_TCHAIKOVSKY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born in May 1840 AD, Tchaikovsky’s compositions created while he was a teen were first performed in public in 1865. Pyotr was the second eldest of six surviving children of Ilya and Alexandra (who died of cholera when Pyotr was 14). When he turned 21, although he had honored his parent’s desires for a steady income by taking a clerk’s post in the Ministry of Justice, he enrolled in the newly founded St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1863, Tchaikovsky moved to Moscow where he became a professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PETER_ILYICH_TCHAIKOVSKY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Now employed, he thus launched a prolific composing career, turning out a dozen works – some to critical acclaim and some to public indifference. With the financial success of Swan Lake in 1876, he resigned his post at the conservatory in 1878 to devote himself entirely to composing without the distractions of students and demanding creditors. Eventually, he would churn out 169 pieces, including The Sleeping Beauty (1890) and The Nutcracker (1892) near the end of his life.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PETER_ILYICH_TCHAIKOVSKY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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His personal life was somewhat less successful. Struggling to repress his homosexuality, frowned upon by Russian society, he married a young music student named Antonina in 1877. The marriage lasted only a few weeks. During the resultant nervous breakdown, Pyotr attempted suicide. For the next dozen years he swung through bouts of depression. Tchaikovsky died in 1893 alone in St. Petersburg.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PIERO_DE_BARDI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The most powerful banking and trading company during the Renaissance, the Florence-based 'Compagnia dei Bardi' under the guidance of its patriarch Piero di’ Bardi (named after the family’s founder) would establish branches in England, France, Spain, and elsewhere. It was the money lender to kings (and hence, a “kingmaker”). Even in its declining years in the 14th Century, it would play a notable role in financing early voyages to the New World, including those of Christopher Columbus and of John Cabot.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PIERO_DE_BARDI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The doings of the di’ Bardi have been documented since 1164 AD, when Emperor Barbarossa gave the county of Vernio to Count Alberto. Countess Margherita, last of the decrepit Alberto’s line, sold Vernio to her son-in-law, Piero di Luca di Maso Bardi. By 1338, under Piero the di’ Bardi had established banks in Barcelona, Seville, Majorca, Paris, Nice, Avignon, Marseilles, Constantinople, Rhodes, Cyprus, Jerusalem, and even in chilly London and Bruges. The Bardi provided merchants with “bills of exchange,” essentially checks whereby a debtor in one city could pay a creditor in another. Without this sort of portable cash, trade would have been severely hampered.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_PIERO_DE_BARDI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Piero and his brood also served as moneylenders to the powerful but poor. And this lucrative practice (the interest on loans to kings was high) eventually brought the 'Compagnia' to its knees. During the Hundred Years War in the early 1340s Edward III of England borrowed 900 thousand gold florins (the most stable and valued hard currency of the day) from the Bardi. And Edward promptly defaulted on these loans in 1345, bringing it to declare bankruptcy and so leaving the trading economy of the Mediterranean and most of Europe shattered (until the rise of the de Medici and Pazzi banking firms a century later).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_QIU_YING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Qiu Ying was born around 1494 AD to a peasant family in Taicang and likely learned his craft under the painter Zhou Chen – a practitioner of the Wu School of painting – in the Suzhou region. Despite his humble origins Ying became associated with wealthy and influential art collectors such as Zhou Fenglai, Chen Guan and Xiang Yuanbian; his ability to copy paintings (today termed “forgery”) by earlier artists brought him much favor. In the process, he had the opportunity to copy and master the techniques of great artists in the Song and Yuan dynasties. As his “copying” skills matured, Qiu’s personal style gradually emerged. Soon enough he was producing original works – flowers, gardens, landscapes, architectural drawings – for his wealthy patrons.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_QIU_YING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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His graceful, consummate work – he specialized in the gongbi brush technique – led him to be regarded as one of the “Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty.” Although the Wu School focused on ink washes and delicate colors, Ying also painted in the blue-green shan shui style (painting with mineral dyes). Ying’s use of the brush was meticulous and refined, his decorative painted scrolls orderly and well-proportioned, such as those of the 'Orchid Pavilion,' 'Jingu Garden,' and the 'Manyi Zhigong.' His work received the accolades of the Ming court literati, was highly prized, and hence was highly “copied.” (Indeed, his name was added to countless paintings done by other professional artists, making it difficult to definitively state which is his.) After Zhou Chen passed away, Qiu Ying stood alone for roughly two decades at the apex of Chinese civilization. Ying died around 1552.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_QU_YUAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Living during the Warring States period, Qu Yuan was perhaps the earliest “patriotic” poet, as well as a statesman, diplomat, reformer, and ideologist. Considered one of the four great poets of civilization, he is best known for his volume of poetry 'Chu Ci' (“Songs of the South”). The first reference to Qu Yuan appears in a poem written in 174 BC by Jia Yi, an official banished from the Han court, likening his fate to that of “Qu Yuan.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_QU_YUAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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It is surmised by historians that Qu Yuan was born c. 339 BC and died c. 278 BC, all based upon a somewhat confused biography by the Han dynasty scholar Sima Qian. According to that, Qu Yuan lived in the Chu kingdom where he assisted King Huai in governing. When the resurgent Qin invaded others of the Warring States, Yuan suggested an alliance with the Qin. But jealous ministers convinced the fatuous Huai that Yuan was corrupt; whether false accusations or not, Huai sent Yuan into exile. Soon enough Huai was imprisoned by the Qin and his even more fatuous son took the throne, though not for long.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_QU_YUAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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It was during his exile that Qu Yuan wrote his most famous pieces: 'Li Sao' (The Lament), 'Tian Wen' (Asking Questions of Heaven), 'Jiu Ge' (Nine Songs), and 'Huai Sha' (Embracing the Sand). Upon hearing that Chu had been absorbed by the Qin, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (an auspicious date) the distraught Yuan threw himself into the Miluo River after tying himself to a boulder.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RABINDRANATH_TAGORE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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A Bengali polymath, Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, painter, and novelist best known for being the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1913 AD for 'Gitanjali'). He was born in May 1861 as the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the religious sect Brahmo Samaj, which sought to revive the monistic basis of Hinduism as pronounced in the 'Upanishads.' Tagore was educated, as so many great authors were, at home; at eight, he was writing religious poetry. At 17 he was sent to England to complete his education (his father wanted him to be a barrister), but did not finish and instead returned to India. There he managed the family’s extensive estates, began agitating for social reform, founded an experimental school, and briefly participated in the Indian nationalist movement. And he kept writing poetry, published in Bengal in limited editions beginning in 1882.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RABINDRANATH_TAGORE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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His first volume of translated poetry – 'Sandhya Sangit' – made him a sensation in the West. For the next three decades, Rabindranath would churn out dozens of stories and poems, all quickly translated into European languages and popular worldwide. In fact, his fame became so “luminous” that he embarked on paid lecture tours across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RABINDRANATH_TAGORE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Following the Nobel Prize, Tagore was knighted by the British Empire in 1915; but he resigned it as a result of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In his later years, besides poetry and stories, he turned his hand to song writing, musical dramas, dance dramas, essays, travelogues, and two autobiographies. Plagued by illness for his last five years, Rabindranath dictated his final poem the day before he died in August 1941.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJA_TODAR_MAL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born in Uttar Pradesh to a Hindu family … that’s about all that is known of the young Todar Mal; even his date of birth has been lost to time. He began his bureaucratic career as a scribe in the court of Sher Shah Suri, who ruled northern India from his capital in Delhi. An able administrator, Todar helped Sher Shah establish a postal system in his holdings (Bengal and Bihar), create a standard coinage (the rupiya, or rupee), and extend the Grand Trunk Road from Chittagong to Kabul. The shah also put Todar Mal in change of building a new fortress at Rohtas in the Punjab to limit Ghakkar raids and serve as a barrier to the Mughals to the northwest. It didn't work.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJA_TODAR_MAL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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After the fall of the Sur dynasty, Todar Mal would serve the new Mughal emperor Akbar just as faithfully and ably, pragmatically transferring his loyalty without hesitation. Rising through the ranks, he was made a Wazir and finance minister to Akbar. In that role, Todar transformed the rather lax tax structure (the dahshala) based on a ten-year survey. In 1582 AD the emperor bestowed the title Diwan of the newly conquered province of Gujarat on Todar, making him a Navratna of the royal court.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJA_TODAR_MAL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Now a raja, Todar continued his reforms in the Mughal Empire. He introduced a system of standard weights and measures for trade, established revenue districts and appointed officers to these, and created a settlement system for newly-acquired territories. All of this based on a data collection scheme he devised, one that would be used for centuries across the subcontinent. And he foresaw the significance of having a common tongue for efficient administration of the empire and so promoted Persian as the official language. Todar Mal, having left his imprint on India, died in November 1589 in Lahore. 


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJENDRA_CHOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Not only did Rajendra I, the great Chola king, extend the influence of his already vast empire to the banks of the River Ganges, but across the ocean to coastal Burma, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. And he led a great navy to defeat and plunder the kingdom of the Srivijaya (Sumatra, Java and Malaya), and extracted tribute from the Khmer kingdom of Cambodia.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJENDRA_CHOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born heir to Rajaraja I, Rajendra was made co-regent of the Chola Empire in 1012 AD and formally ascended the throne in 1014. He took a hands-on approach to conquering his neighbors, leading campaigns to the north to defeat the Karnataka, the Western Chalukya and Mahipala, the Pala king of Bengal and Bihar. To complete the task begun by his father, Rajendra led an amphibious invasion of Sri Lanka in 1018, wreaking havoc and overthrowing the ruling Sinhala dynasty.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJENDRA_CHOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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But his greatest achievement may have been leading the Chola navy in sailing across the open waters of the Indian Ocean (an unheard of feat at the time) to attack the wealthy Indonesian Srivijayan kingdoms in 1025. The Srivijayans had dominated the trade routes around the islands and Malaysia for a century or more with their fleets, but had clashed with the expanding Khmer when the Tambralinga king allied with the Srivijayans. The Khmer, having no ships, called upon fellow Hindu Rajendra, who was only too happy to end the Srivijayan control of the seas. In a brilliant series of battles and raids, he sacked their coastal ports and capitals, sending the Indonesian empire into a downward spiral from which it never recovered.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RAJENDRA_CHOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Following a return in 1041 to Sri Lanka to put down a revolt by those unhappy with the benefits of Chola civilization, Rajendra I died in 1044.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RANI_LAKSHMIBAI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born November 1828 AD in the holy city of Varanasi, she was married to the maharaja of Jhansi in May 1842, thus renamed Lakshmibai in honor of the goddess and made a Rani. Unconventionally, her dotting father had her trained in fencing, riding, shooting, even reading and writing – all martial skills that would serve her well later. In 1853, upon the death of the Maharaja and the earlier passing of the couple’s only son, the British East India Company – with typical Anglo greed – invoked the “Doctrine of Lapse” and annexed the state. A year later, the Rani was given an unwanted pension and ordered to depart the palace-fortress.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RANI_LAKSHMIBAI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Lakshmibai attempted to seek legal restitution of her crown but, given that this was in British courts, without success. Somewhat fortuitously, it was at this point that the entire Indian army mutinied in June 1857. Taking advantage of the chaos, five days later the Rani escaped from house arrest, declared open revolt, and attacked the British fort at Jhansi. Although her role has been debated, the British population in the kingdom was massacred to the last child. While the fighting raged across India, Lakshmibai prepared her army. In early 1858 General Sir Hugh Rose invaded, bringing a few thousand regulars and many cannons.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_RANI_LAKSHMIBAI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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The Rani managed to hold on for two weeks until a rebel relief column of some 20 thousand from an adjacent province approached. Unfortunately for the Rani, the British cannon blew apart her combined force. Having evacuated as many of her people as possible from the city and fortress, she led the survivors to join the hopeless effort to overthrow British rule. In June 1858, in Gwalior, she was killed in a stiff little battle with the 8th Hussars Regiment. Fulfilling her dying wish that her body not fall into the hands of the spiteful English, her loyal bodyguards built a funeral pyre on the spot.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_REMBRANDT_VAN_RIJN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The 17th Century painter Rembrandt dominated what was later termed the “Dutch Golden Age.” His innovative use of shadow and light inspired 18th Century portrait artists throughout Europe as well as 19th Century realists. He may well be the greatest of the “Old Masters.” And Rembrandt made money, lots of money … but died impoverished.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_REMBRANDT_VAN_RIJN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born in Leiden in 1606 AD. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn trained as an artist from 1620 to 1625 – having some modicum of talent it seems –learning the basic techniques there and then moving to Amsterdam to master the finer points of smearing paint on canvas. Returning to Leiden, Rembrandt began painting religious and allegorical scenes, small but rich in detail. These were popular and sold well, establishing his reputation across Holland and beyond.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_REMBRANDT_VAN_RIJN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Commencing in 1631, the young artist painted commissioned portraits of Amsterdam’s elite, and did a few of himself as well … perhaps as samples. He also painted several dramatic, large-scale biblical and mythological scenes featuring his contrasts of light and dark and compelling displays of space, mostly to be sold in galleries. In 1642, Rembrandt finished what is considered his masterpiece, 'The Night Watch.'


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_REMBRANDT_VAN_RIJN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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But in the ten years that followed, his output diminished dramatically. Moreover, his extravagant lifestyle finally brought financial ruin; only a legal arrangement avoided his bankruptcy in 1656, by which he was forced to sell off most of his paintings. Despite continuing to paint, he lived in much reduced circumstances. Rembrandt van Rijn died in 1669, and was buried a pauper in the graveyard in the Westerkerk of Amsterdam; as was common for the poor, after 20 years his remains were dug up and destroyed to make room for more paupers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ROBERT_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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By the time of his death in August 1945 AD, Robert Goddard held some 214 patents, had dreamed large (envisioning a rocket reaching the Moon), had touched space (well, 2.6 kilometers in altitude), and is said to be the “father of rocketry.” His 1919 monograph “A Method for Reaching Extreme Altitudes” is considered the classic text of early rocket science. Not a bad legacy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ROBERT_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Goddard enrolled in the Worcester (Massachusetts) Polytechnic Institute in his hometown in 1907, where he became infamous for trying to set off a black-powder rocket from the laboratory basement. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1908, and subsequently took his masters and doctorate degrees in physics from Clark University. In 1912 he accepted a position at the Palmer Labs at Princeton, but soon returned to teach part-time at Clark University where he was free to pursue his “peculiar” interest in rocketry. In 1915, Goddard launched his first successful rocket, this time outside the building at Clark.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ROBERT_GODDARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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But by 1916 his research had become too costly for his modest salary to bear; having gained some interest through his writings, he convinced the Smithsonian Institute the next year to give him a five-year grant totaling 5000 dollars. Clark University also agreed to give him some funding. With this largess, which continued from various contributors, Goddard perfected his earlier ideas, among these two basic advances that made space travel possible: multi-stage rockets, and liquid rocket fuel.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SAMORI_TURE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Samori Touré was born around 1830 AD in the Milo River valley in Guinea, the son of Dyula traders. In the 1850s Samori joined the military forces of Medina to help liberate his mother, who had been captured in a slave raid by its king Sori Birama. Mastering the firearms that were transforming warfare in West Africa, he acquired yet more martial skills serving local chieftains in their petty affairs before setting out on his own.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SAMORI_TURE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Raising and commanding his own army, in 1878 the charismatic Touré declared himself 'faama' (“monarch”) of the Mandinka Empire with his capital at Bisandugu. By the early 1880s his rule had spread from Mali to the borders of British Sierra Leone, the Sudan to the east, and the Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia to the south … reaching its apogee in 1887. Samori later took the title of 'Almami,' a title reserved for Muslim leaders. But the 1884 Berlin Conference partitioned Africa among the European powers, and the French soon cast covetous eyes on Mandinka. Although his tribesmen initially defeated the French, between 1885 and 1889 Touré was pushed steadily deeper into the West African interior.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SAMORI_TURE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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In 1890 he reorganized his army, signed a treaty with the British, and from them obtained (relatively) modern weapons. But in December 1891 the rapacious French were at it again, overrunning the major cities of the region, leaving death and desolation in their wake. Such that an exodus of the entire Mandinka kingdom – at least, the survivors – eastward resulted. Meanwhile Touré’s own forces were conquering large tracts of the Ivory Coast, and in 1893 established a new kingdom with Kong as its capital. Despite his scorched earth strategy, the French pressed onwards.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SAMORI_TURE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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As Samori took up positions in the Liberian forests, however, famine and desertion weakened his forces such that he was captured by the French in September 1898. Exiled to Gabon, he died of pneumonia two years later.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SANTA_CRUZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The foremost naval commander of the age that saw his homeland rise to dominate an empire that spanned the globe, Álvaro de Bazán was the son of a Spanish naval officer. He entered the navy at an early age, being appointed the “Military Governor and Captain of the Fortress of Gibraltar” at the age of eight … although it was his father (Álvaro the Elder), in command of the galley fleet there, who actually ran things.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SANTA_CRUZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In the ensuing years the young Álvaro would see action in naval engagements against the French, the Turks and the Moors, steadily advancing in rank and created Marqués de Santa Cruz in 1569 AD. Two years later, in command of the reserves at the Battle of Lepanto, he played an important role in crushing the hapless Turks. In 1580, de Bazán commanded the fleet that supported the Duke of Alba’s conquest of Portugal, and then defeated a French squadron sent to support a revolt in the Azores. Although his victory was marred by his execution of all the French prisoners in contravention of the rules of war, Philip II made him “Captain-General of the Ocean.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SANTA_CRUZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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It was in this role that Álvaro would undertake the invasion of England to get rid of that upstart Protestant Elizabeth. In 1583, on Philip’s orders, the Captain-General began the thankless task of assembling the ships, provisions and men in Lisbon. Despite difficulties in recruiting, corrupt contractors, English raids, and the interference and nagging of Philip, he succeeded in assembling the greatest fleet Europe had yet seen. But unrelenting strain and work likely led to Álvaro’s untimely death in February 1588.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SANTA_CRUZ_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Command of the Armada was given to the Duke de Medina-Sidonia, thoroughly unfamiliar with naval affairs. How much might civilization have been changed if only de Bazán had lived to lead the Spanish Armada?


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SARAH_BREEDLOVE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Sarah Breedlove – better known as Madam C.J. Walker – was the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and one of the richest African-Americans in history. She was born in December 1867 to recently freed slaves on a cotton plantation near Delta, Louisiana. At the age of 14, she married one Moses McWilliams and in 1885 gave birth to a daughter; when Moses died two years later, Sarah moved on to St. Louis, where she earned enough as a washerwoman to attend night school. There too she “married” John Davis, a man of whom little is known.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SARAH_BREEDLOVE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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During the 1890s Sarah developed a scalp disorder (perhaps due to the lye that was a standard ingredient in hair-care treatments). She began experimenting with home remedies and was hired by Annie Turnbo Malone, an African-American entrepreneur, to promote the products that Breedlove had devised and that Malone would manufacture. In 1905 Sarah moved to Denver with her daughter, where she soon married (officially) Charles J. Walker, who worked in the new, booming advertising business. Charles devised a marketing and advertising campaign under the moniker “Madam C.J. Walker” for her line of African-American hair products. In 1908 she opened a beauty school in Pittsburgh and by 1910, when the couple transferred their company to Indianapolis, the profits were soaring, annual sales being the equivalent of several million dollars.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SARAH_BREEDLOVE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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In 1912, Sarah and Charles divorced, but it didn’t slow down Madam C.J. Walker. While she opened new markets in Latin America, her daughter A’Lelia helped purchase properties in Harlem, recognizing the potential for the New York neighborhood as a base of profit. In 1916, upon returning to the States, Sarah moved into a townhouse in Harlem to manage the company while her daughter ran the production end. Madam Walker died in 1919 at the age of 51 at her new estate in Irvington-on-Hudson.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEI_KOROLEV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Widely regarded as the founder of the Soviet space program and “father of practical astronautics," Sergei Korolev was the chief rocket engineer and spacecraft designer for the USSR during the “space race.” Born in December 1906 AD in the Ukrainian city of Zhitomir, Kororlev managed to survive the First World War, Russian Civil War, Stalin’s purges (during which he was arrested and sent to Siberia), and the Second World War – no mean feat. He was “rehabilitated” in July 1944, and sent to Germany in September 1945 to evaluate captured Nazi missiles and rockets.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEI_KOROLEV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In August 1946, while still in Germany, Sergei was appointed chief of a division in the new NII-1 research institute at Podlipki, responsible directly to none other than Stalin to develop Soviet missile technology based on German designs. As the Cold War grew colder, Korolev was preoccupied as early as 1953 with the use of his two-stage R-7 design to launch a satellite into orbit rather than drop nuclear bombs on the Americans. In 1957 during the International Geophysical Year, when the noisy American press proposed their country should spend millions to be the first to launch such a satellite, Russia promptly joined the “race.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEI_KOROLEV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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With the impatient Khrushchev harassing them, the Russian engineers built Sputnik-1 in less than a month, and Korolev oversaw the construction of a rocket (one only successfully tested once) to carry it. In October 1957, up it all went. In November, Sputnik 2 – with the poor dog Laika aboard (she didn’t return) – took a living Earthling into space for the first time. Korolev died in 1966 at the height of his career, the result of a botched routine surgical procedure.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEY_GORSHKOV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Georgiyevich Gorshkov served as chief of the Soviet Navy for 29 years, during which time he contributed as much as anyone in making Russia a global superpower. Never in peacetime has any nation expanded its navy as rapidly as did the Soviet Union. When Gorshkov took command in 1956 AD, at the age of 45, the Soviet “fleet” was little more than a collection of obsolete coastal vessels that rarely strayed far from port. By the time he retired in 1985, the fleet had 385 submarines, five aircraft carriers, hundreds of destroyers and frigates, and bases in every ocean … making it the Cold War’s second largest navy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEY_GORSHKOV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Gorshkov joined the Soviet Navy in 1931, and soon was in command of various vessels in the Black Sea, advancing rapidly through the ranks thanks to Stalin’s purges. During the Great Patriotic War he distinguished himself in command of a destroyer squadron, and in 1948 he was promoted to Chief of Staff for the Black Sea fleet. Adept at navigating Soviet politics (given the fate of many Soviet officers, a considerable skill to have), he was appointed to Commander-in-Chief of the Navy by Nikita Khrushchev with the directive to create a force capable of challenging Western naval power, a chore Gorshkov continued when Leonid Brezhnev took power in the Kremlin.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SERGEY_GORSHKOV_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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A prolific writer, Sergei steadfastly argued that a powerful fleet, a nuclear fleet capable of waging strategic war, played a unique role as an instrument of influence in peacetime. That same thinking was behind his efforts to promote large Russian merchant marine and commercial fishing fleets. His most significant book, The Sea Power of the State, was regarded by military experts around the world as the seminal work in Soviet naval strategy. According to TASS, Gorshkov died after a long illness in May 1988.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIDDHARTHA_GAUTAMA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Siddhartha, who would one day be known as the Buddha (“the awakened” or “enlightened one”), seemed destined to become one of the most influential individuals in civilization. Born to a king of the Shakyas c. 500 BC, the prince lived in opulence in the palace, shielded from witnessing the miseries and sufferings of the real world. Siddhartha married at 16, and lived quite happily with his beautiful wife for another 13 years in seclusion. But, succumbing to curiosity, one day he slipped out of the palace and was confronted by the realities of human frailty, ignorance, and cruelty.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIDDHARTHA_GAUTAMA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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So overcome was he that Siddhartha the very next day left his kingdom, his wife and son, and most of his nice clothes to lead the life of an ascetic, seeking a way to relieve universal suffering. For the next six years he wandered, thinking; soon he was encouraging those he met to follow a path of balance, the “Middle Way.” He sat under a pipal tree (the now revered Bohdi Tree located at the Mahabodhi Temple), vowing not to rise until the “truth” came to him. After a few days, a vision did, a moment of pure enlightenment … and he arose the Buddha.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIDDHARTHA_GAUTAMA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Armed with his new revelations, Siddhartha was reluctant to teach followers his understanding because it could not be communicated in words. According to Buddhist legend, it was the god Brahma who convinced him to spread his findings. And so the Buddha was off, travelling for the remainder of his 80 years preaching the way of the Dharma in an effort to lead others to enlightenment. The Buddha’s death resulted from either food poisoning or old age (there seems to be some dispute over this) and he finally entered 'Parinirvana.'


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_BOLIVAR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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José de San Martín, the “Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru,” was the military leader of the patriot forces opposing the Spanish in the southern theater of the Latin American wars of independence: Argentina, Chile, and Peru. He began his military career fighting Napoleonic forces in Spain, but he was Argentine by birth, and when the South American colonies began their agitation for independence, San Martín returned home to fight for them. While it may seem strange that someone fighting for Spain would so quickly fight against Spain, the Spain that San Martín loved was one that was (more or less) democratically ruled; this was especially evident a few years after San Martín’s return, when Spanish King Ferdinand VII restored absolute monarchy and alienated Spaniards who sought a republican form of government. In Argentina, San Martín was named to the head of the Army of the North, fighting in Upper Peru and, after the Spanish reconquest of Chile, the Army of the Andes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_BOLIVAR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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The Andes are sharp peaks, and, while the Inca were at home in the rugged terrain, a Western-style army with its cannons and horses was not. San Martín, however, was a master of logistics. He divided his troops into multiple columns so that they could cross the inhospitable terrain with a minimal impact, thus moving the largest army ever to cross the peaks. In battle, too, this practical mind served him well, as he captured Spanish guns and turned them on their owners in the Battle of Maipú, a struggle that established the independence of Chile. He moved onwards, exhorting indigenous populations in Peru to rise up against the Spanish as he went. After the fall of the Spanish viceroy in Peru, San Martín became the new Protector of Peru.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_BOLIVAR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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San Martín was always careful to secure the trust and loyalty of those that he was fighting for. He refused leadership titles in Chile, claiming that Chile needed a Chilean leader, and not an Argentine one, and he hesitated adopting overly liberal reforms in Peru, recognizing that region’s more conservative outlook. During the siege of Lima, in Peru, San Martín hesitated before invading the city, worried about the reception a foreign force might receive there. Further, he called for the emancipation of slaves (a move that one could see cynically – he needed able-bodied men to fight for him, not continue laboring in mines and on plantations). And finally, he stressed the fight for independence as an ideological one, a fight against absolutism, noting parallels between anti-royalist struggles going on in Spain at the same time as the wars in Latin America.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_BOLIVAR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
After the liberation of Peru, Bolívar and San Martín finally met in order to discuss future borders between Colombia and Peru. The meeting – the Guayaquil Conference – was private, but afterwards San Martín resigned his position as Protector and, eventually, left Latin America altogether. Here, one can possibly see parallels between San Martín’s departure and the eventual falling-out between the more ideologically-oriented, democratic Santander and the absolutist Bolívar.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_PETER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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An apostle, a true believer, a martyr, a pope (the Catholics consider him the first such), a saint … a fairly eventful life for a Galilean fisherman. Originally named Simon (renamed Peter by Jesus), the fisherman in Bethsaida was born around 1 BC and was crucified around 67 AD. Nothing is known of his life before he met Jesus, but he and his brother Andrew left everything (including their families) when Jesus pronounced “follow me.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_PETER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Peter’s time with Jesus is put forth in the four canonical gospels, as well as the non-canonical 'Gospel of the Hebrews' and various letters and acts. He became the first apostle ordained by Jesus Christ himself in the early church. Peter served as witness to most of the miracles performed by Jesus and, along with John and James, witnessed the Shekinah Glory in the Transfiguration. Although he did deny Christ “three times” after the latter’s execution, Peter was the first to preach on Pentecost and to proclaim Christ to a Gentile. Peter began writing epistles and traveling to promote the new religion. Having been imprisoned by Herod and rescued by an angel, Peter wisely decided to depart Jerusalem for “another place” (Acts 12:1-18).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SIMON_PETER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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He ended up in Antioch, where he founded a church and served as its bishop for seven years. But he soon set his sights on Rome, the center of the world (at the time). Although “there is not a single piece of reliable literary evidence (and no archaeological evidence either) that Peter was ever in Rome” according to studies published in 2009 and 2013, virtually every Catholic (and most Protestant) scholars believe he was and, together with Paul, established the church there. For their troubles, both were executed during the last years of the reign of Nero.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SOFONISBA_ANGUISSOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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One of the first female artists to establish an international reputation for her portraiture, Sofonisba Anguissola – born 1532 AD in Cremona – was best known for her paintings of royals. The eldest of seven children (six of which were girls) of a noble family, her father Amilcare was guided by the writings of Baldassare Catiglione as to the proper education of young women. So Sofonisba was sent to the household of Bernardino Campi, a prominent local painter, in 1546. Over the next decade, as she mastered her art, she would produce some 30 works, mostly portraits of friends and family such as the well-received 'Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess.'


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SOFONISBA_ANGUISSOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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To promote his daughter’s prowess, Amilcare sent her self-portraits to Pope Julius III and the d’Este’s court in Ferrara. The paintings earned the praise of no less than the artist Michelangelo, whom she met while on a trip to Rome – and for whom she drew 'Boy Bitten by a Crayfish' when challenged to prove her skill. For two years Sofonisba and Michelangelo exchanged sketches, and she received substantial guidance and encouragement.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SOFONISBA_ANGUISSOLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Anguissola’s reputation spread, and in 1559 she was invited to Madrid, to the court of Philip II, where she both painted portraits and was an attendant to the Infanta and the Queen. Around 1571, with a dowry supplied by the king, Sofonisba wed a Sicilian, Fabrizio de Moncada; she was widowed eight years later. Aboard a ship bound back to Cremona, she fell “madly” in love with the captain, a dashing nobleman named Orazio Lomellino. The couple lived happily in Genoa until 1620, quite comfortable thanks to a generous pension from Philip II and Lomellino’s own fortune. During these years she painted little. Survived by Orazio and many nieces and nephews, Sofonisba died in Palermo in 1625.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SONGTSAN_GAMPO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Most “great” prophets tend to be more concerned with the spiritual than the practical. Not so Songtsen Gampo – a warrior-king who is credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet, overseeing translation of the central Buddhist texts from Sanskrit, littering the mountains with Buddhist monasteries, and is therefore now considered one of the three “Dharma kings.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SONGTSAN_GAMPO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Gampo became king of Tibet at the age of 13 when his father Namri was assassinated. To maintain the unity of Tibet and deflect the various plots against the Songsten dynasty, he would spend most of his life crisscrossing the country with his army. While he may well have been the earthly manifestation of Avalokiteśvara, it didn’t do him much good – although he did have six consorts (three that he married), so that may have been some consolation. Seeking allies, in 639 AD he married the Princess Chizun from Nepal and in 641 the Princess Wencheng of the Tang dynasty. According to the chronicles, the Nepalese and Chinese princesses were devout Buddhists (they would later both be deified as incarnations of the goddess Tara), and so converted Songsten Gampo to that faith … and he promptly converted his people (those who knew what was good for themselves). When catastrophic floods devastated the Yarlung valley, they convinced the king to make holy Lhasa his new capital and there build the Potala Palace.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SONGTSAN_GAMPO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Meanwhile, Gampo was busy fighting his other neighbors, beginning with a war with Zhangzhung and various Qiang tribes which “altogether submitted to him” in 634. Next, thwarted by Songzhou, he launched a brief attack on it but finally retreated and apologized. Another war with Zhangzhung ensued, in which its king was ambushed and killed by Gampo’s soldiers around 645. Then came Gampo’s defeat of the Tanguts. Finally, in a dispute with his younger brother Tsensong, he had his sibling burnt to death. A few years later, in 650, Songsten Gampo died of an unknown illness.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_STEPHANIE_KWOLEK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Five times stronger by weight than steel, Kevlar – the para-aramid synthetic fiber of exceptional strength and stiffness better known (to chemists at least) as poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide – has saved countless lives from countless bullets. It was invented by Stephanie Louise Kwolek, a research chemist at DuPont for forty years, in 1965 AD. She invented other things of course (she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995) and won many prestigious awards, but she will forever be linked to bullet-resistant vests.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_STEPHANIE_KWOLEK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born to Polish immigrants in New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1923, Stephanie inherited her love of discovery from her naturalist father John and her love of fabric from her seamstress mother Nellie. At one point in her youth, she wanted to become a fashion designer, but her mother warned her she would probably starve in that profession, so Stephanie became a chemist. When she graduated from the women’s college of Carnegie-Mellon University, she applied for a position as a research chemist with the DuPont Company. The intelligent Kwolek was offered a position and joined the company’s facility in Buffalo in 1946.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_STEPHANIE_KWOLEK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Kwolek was immediately engaged in several projects, primarily the search for new polymers using a condensation process that could take place at lower temperatures than before. In doing so, she unexpectedly discovered that under certain conditions, molecules of rod-like polyamides would form liquid crystalline solutions. These solutions could be spun into fibers of extreme tensile strength, and were resistant to corrosion and flames … Kevlar. Kwolek kept inventing more synthetic materials; she held 17 U.S. patents when she died in 2014, much honored and quite well-off financially (better than most fashion designers, anyway).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUDIRMAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born in a village in central Java in January 1916, Sudirman took up studies at the Dutch Native School in Purwokerto, and then, being a devout Muslim, a Muhammadiyah teacher training college in Surakarta. Dropping out of teacher training, he nevertheless became a teacher (and later headmaster) in 1935 in Cilacap, continuing in this profession until shortly after the Japanese occupation of the islands in 1942. He volunteered to be trained as a battalion commander in PETA (Pembela Tanah Air), the “homeland defense” army established by the Japanese. He took command of a battalion based in Banyumas in 1944, and loyally put down a revolt by fellow soldiers. When Japan’s defeat became inevitable in 1945, Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesia’s independence in August and formed the TKR (Tentara Keselamatan Rakyat, or “People’s Security Army”) in October composed mostly of ex-PETA units.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUDIRMAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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While many of the PETA units had been forcefully disbanded by the Japanese, Sudirman had kept his Banyumas-based regiment together and even persuaded the retreating Japanese to turn their weapons over to him. The resulting arms cache was so large that he was able to distribute arms to other nearby Javanese groups, who thus pledged allegiance to him. His became the best armed and best organized military command in Indonesia in the aftermath of World War II. Sudirman in turn pledged his allegiance to Sukarno.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUDIRMAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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In November 1945, in an election to decide the commander-in-chief of the new nation’s military, Sudirman was chosen. In December, while waiting to be confirmed, he led a “coordinated attack” on Dutch and British forces in Ambarawa, driving them all the way to Semarang … from which the British soon evacuated. For the next five years, although suffering from tuberculosis, he led guerrilla actions against the Dutch, including the brilliant defense of Yogyakarta, then headquarters of the Republic of Indonesia. Sudirman died in Magelang in January 1950, just a month after the Dutch formally transferred sovereignty to the new republic.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUN_TZU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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“Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” Words to live by … especially if one has pretentions to being a great general. However, historians aren’t quite sure whose words these may be.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUN_TZU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The difficulty in ascertaining Sun Tzu’s historicity comes from the early Chinese works which mention him: 'The Spring and Autumn Annals' and the 'Records of the Grand Historian.' Both are internally inconsistent, laden with inaccuracies, self-serving, and marked by conflation of actual events. While these two sources disagree as to where Sun Tzu was born, his family, his education and early life, both state that he was active as a strategist serving Helu of Wu beginning around 512 BC. At the decisive battle of Boju. Sun Tzu is said to have led the Wu forces. Supposedly, his victories for the Wu over the Chu inspired him to set down his precepts in 'The Art of War' (the directly translated title is “Master Sun’s Rules for Army”).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_SUN_TZU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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It has been argued that 'The Art of War' is actually a compilation of several works on strategy that dates to the later Warring States period (475 to 221 BC), or that it was written by Sun Tzu’s descendant Sun Bin, also a famous scholar of the military arts. Almost certainly the accepted version incorporates commentary from later philosophers such as Li Quan and Du Mu. Whatever the case, the approach to military strategy therein is an implicitly Taoist one. Unlike Western thinkers, Sun Tzu argues that “force” (li) is not the center of military strategy; instead, victory and defeat are psychological states. War is not so much a matter of destroying the enemy materially and physically (although that certainly helps) but of unsettling the enemy psychologically.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THEMISTOCLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Themistocles was the savior of Athens – well, perhaps not Athens since the Persians captured and burned it, but of Greece – yet later in life was forced to flee into exile by the Athenians. Born c. 524 BC to the aristocrat Neocles and a non-Athenian concubine, after an unrecorded (and likely unremarkable) childhood Themistocles was elected archon (magistrate) and then Archon Eponymous, the highest office in Athens, a year later in 493 BC. Convinced that the fate of Athens lay with the sea, he initiated the public works that would transform the rocky bays of Piraeus into defensible harbors. Moreover, Themistocles persuaded the citizens that – despite the victory at Marathon – the Persian threat was not over and that Athens must construct a great fleet. Thus, when Xerxes invaded in 480, Athens could float 200 triremes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THEMISTOCLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Taking command of the combined fleet, Themistocles fought the massive Persian navy (reportedly over 1200 ships) to a draw in the bloody three-day skirmish at Artemisium. Even as the Persians rolled over the Spartans and Thespians at Thermopylae and advanced on Athens, Themistocles lured the Persian fleet into the narrow confines of the Straits at Salamis. There – in one of the greatest naval victories of civilization – Themistocles dealt the Persians a decisive defeat. Eventually, unable to supply the land troops, the Persians withdrew, never to threaten the city-states of Greece again.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THEMISTOCLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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But while Sparta and others honored Themistocles with ovations and monuments, in his own Athens he was ostracized thanks to political intrigue (so much for democracy), rumors of collusion with Xerxes, and his own self-serving arrogance. To save his life, Themistocles fled, spending his last years as governor in several city-states still subject to Xerxes. He died in Magnesia in 459 BC.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THOMAS_AQUINAS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” As foolish as this question may sound today, it was seriously considered by Thomas Aquinas, a proponent of scholasticism, who explored the intersection of philosophical aspects of space and the qualities attributed to angels through dialectical reasoning. At a period when the need for rationality as a compliment to faith was of critical importance to a Catholic theology facing challenges from the progressive thinkers of the Renaissance, the Dominican friar Aquinas proved Christianity’s most eloquent and staunchest defender. He is considered to be the founder of “natural theology”; hence he was canonized in 1323 AD.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THOMAS_AQUINAS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born c. 1225 in Roccasecca to the count of Aquino, the five-year-old Thomas was sent to Monte Cassino to study with the Benedictine monks. By 1239 he was enrolled at the University of Naples but secretly joined the Dominican order, receiving the habit in 1244. His family was so disappointed – they had political plans – they had him imprisoned in their fortress at San Giovanni. Finally released after a year, Thomas pursued his studies with the Dominicans in Naples, Paris and Cologne, eventually earning his doctorate in theology. Having learned everything known about God (or, at least, the Christian one), he embarked on a life of traveling, writing, preaching, and lecturing; religious institutions and universities alike vied for “the Christian Apostle” to visit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_THOMAS_AQUINAS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Mostly, he wrote … prolifically, penning some 60 known works spanning a wide range of subjects, from commentaries on the Bible to discussions of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Written from 1265 to 1274, his unfinished Summa Theologica is considered one of the most influential philosophical works in civilization. Having established a theological studies program in Naples, he was summoned to the ecumenical council to meet in Lyon. He set out for it in January 1274, on foot … but died en route.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TITIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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With commissions from the likes of Pope Paul III, King Philip II of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Tiziano Vecellio – Titian – was well-known and well-favored. Born at some point between 1488 and 1490 (church records being what they were), Tiziano spent his early years in Pieve di Cadore, then a Venetian holding. Not much is known of this stage of his life. In 1516 Titian began work on his first major commission, finishing the 'Assumption of the Virgin' two years later for the church Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. His deft use of color and his realistic rendering of the human form immediately made him a star.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TITIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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This led him to gain more commissions from an international clientele, such as the 'The Worship of Venus' for Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and 'Venus and Adonis' for Philip II. (Titian seems to have had a fixation on the Roman goddess of love, for he painted several pieces featuring her.) In 1525 he married Cecilia, who had been his “housekeeper” for five years (and already borne him two sons). In August 1530 Cecilia died and he remarried, although nothing is known of her.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TITIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Titian also turned his hand to portraiture, doing two for Pope Paul III, and in 1532 and 1548 those of Charles V. As a result, the happy Holy Roman Emperor made him a Count Palatine and Knight of the Golden Spur, and his children were made nobles of the Empire. Throughout these last years, he experimented with different styles, developing a freer use of the brush and less realism. Titian continued to paint until his death in Venice in August 1576, likely of the plague.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TOGO_HEIHACHIRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The “Nelson of the East.”  “The Silent Admiral.” “Last of the Samurai.” All used to describe the “Victor of Tsushima,” Tōgō Heihachirō. Born the son of a samurai serving the Shimazu daimyo in Kagoshima in January 1848, one of four brothers, at the age of 15 Heihachirō witnessed the shelling of Kagoshima with impunity by the Royal Navy in retaliation for the Namamugi Incident. When the daimyo of Satsuma established a navy in 1864 to defend Japan’s shores, Tōgō promptly enlisted. He was assigned to the decrepit stern-wheeler 'Kasuga' as a gunner just in time for the Boshin War to erupt. Following the Japanese triumph, Tōgō was selected to study naval matters at the Thames Naval College in 1872.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TOGO_HEIHACHIRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Returning home in 1878, while in command of the 'Naniwa' at the Battle of the Yalu during the first Sino-Japanese War, Tōgō performed brilliantly. In recognition, he was promoted to rear admiral at the war’s end in 1895. In 1903, the naval minister stunned everyone when he appointed Tōgō commander-in-chief of the Combined Imperial Fleet. As it turned out, an adequate choice …


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TOGO_HEIHACHIRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Tōgō took the fleet to sea and promptly defeated an enemy force off Port Arthur. As Japanese ground forces laid siege to the city, Tōgō readied his ships for the arrival of the Russian Baltic Fleet, which had sailed halfway round the world to reach the war. In May 1905, Tōgō took the Russian Admiral Rozhestvensky to task, utterly destroying the enemy in the Tsushima Strait. The war was over.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_TOGO_HEIHACHIRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Dodging retirement, Heihachirō served on the Supreme War Council which advised the Emperor on matters military; more significant, he was appointed to oversee the education of Prince Hirohito in 1914. Numerous honors followed; Tōgō was elevated to koshaku in May 1934 and died the next day at the age of 86.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VIJAYA_WIMALARATNE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born in August 1940 AD in Colombo, Vanigamuni Indrajith Vijeyakumar Mendis Wimalaratne (or just Vijaya) was Sri Lanka’s most – more realistically, only – distinguished general. He spent his career training officers and commanding the forces fighting the freedom (or, depending on one’s view, terrorist) movement known as the “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” (FTTE).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VIJAYA_WIMALARATNE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Wimalaratne joined the Gemunu watch of the Sri Lankan army as a subaltern in 1961 and trained in the methods of jungle warfare in Malaysia. Later he would graduate from the British Army’s Staff College at Camberley. From 1970 through 1991 Vijaya was the course commander for Sri Lankan officer cadets in counter-insurgency and jungle warfare, in the process rising to the rank of major-general. In 1987 he was tasked with forming the new Gajaba Regiment to put his training into practice. His first chance to do so came with the operation to rescue troops trapped by the FTTE in the Jaffna Fort in 1990 and the follow-up amphibious Operation Balavegaya in 1991 to clear the Elephant Pass of rebels.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VIJAYA_WIMALARATNE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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His final appointment was as Commander of Security Forces, Jaffna. Early in 1992, together with other commanders, Vijaya was in charge of planning Operation “Final Countdown” to clear the northern peninsula of the FTTE. In August, Wimalaratne sought to finalize plans by personally reconnoitering the region, accompanied by Major-General Kobbekaduwa, commander of the Northern Sector troops, and Commodore Jayamaha, commander of the Northern Naval Area. It turned out to be a poor decision, although certainly in keeping with his “hands-on” notions of military command. As they were driving back to be airlifted out by helicopter, the Land Rover they were travelling in hit a land mine. Wimalaratne was killed instantly.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VINCENT_VAN_GOGH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Vincent Willem van Gogh was poor and virtually unknown throughout his lifetime. He struggled with mental illness – famously cutting off his ear and offering it to a prostitute – and died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Yet he is considered one of the great impressionist painters, his work notable for its emotion and color; and he was incredibly prolific (maybe his art helped him stay moderately sane), producing some 860 oil paintings, and over 1300 watercolors, drawings, and sketches.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VINCENT_VAN_GOGH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Vincent was born in March 1853 AD in Groot-Zundert, and named after a dead brother. By the time the boy was 15, the family was insolvent, and Vincent took a job at his uncle’s art dealership in The Hague. In 1873, he transferred to the Goupil Gallery in London, where he fell in love with English culture … and his landlady’s daughter. When she rejected his proposal of marriage, van Gogh vowed to devote his life to God.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VINCENT_VAN_GOGH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Failing as a minister, van Gogh wandered to Brussels in 1880 and became an artist, though he had no formal training. He did, however, have contacts among art dealers, and one – his younger brother Theo in Paris – was able to sell a few of his pieces. So Vincent moved on to Paris. Through the next decade he created his impressionist masterpieces, paintings such as 'The Potato Eaters' (1885) and 'Sunflowers' (1888), an inimitable fusion of color and content that would revolutionize civilization’s concept of art.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_VINCENT_VAN_GOGH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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But van Gogh kept suffering bouts of depression after failed love affairs. Theo became concerned, and in 1888 arranged for the artist Gauguin to work with (and watch over) van Gogh while the two were in Arles together. But that didn’t work out, for the ear incident occurred and Gauguin left in disgust. One day in July 1890, Vincent went out to paint as usual … but took a loaded pistol along.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WERNHER_VON_BRAUN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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As a young man, Wernher Von Braun attended a lecture given by Auguste Piccard, a Swiss inventor who reached near-space in a hot air balloon. After the lecture, Wernher told Auguste of his lofty goal to one day travel to the Moon. Three decades later, Von Braun played a key role in the design of the Saturn V rocket; the rocket which propelled Apollo 11 and its crew to the moon.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WERNHER_VON_BRAUN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Von Braun was born in 1912. His passion for space travel was sparked at an early age with the gift of a telescope. This passion would remain a secondary interest as he developed military rocket technology for Nazi Germany. In 1945, he surrendered to the Americans. He was among many scientists to be exonerated of Nazi affiliation. The rest of his life would be dedicated to the pursuit of manned space travel, with the dream of landing on Mars.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WILLIAM_SHAKESPEARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Who hasn’t heard of Shakespeare? His 154 sonnets are the bane of generations of English schoolchildren, and his 38 plays have been performed in hamlets, villages, cities, and metropolises for some 400 years. Over the course of his 20-year career as a playwright, Shakespeare wrote tragedies and comedies that capture a range of the human experience – greed, lust, blood, ambition, betrayal, and braggadocio.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WILLIAM_SHAKESPEARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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No birth records exist for him, but church papers do indicate Will was baptized at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon (a fact the town has never let civilization forget) in April 1564 AD. Third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed heiress. As an official’s son – his father was an alderman and a bailiff – William would have qualified for free tuition, but there’s no record that he ever attended school. However, he must have learned to read and write somehow.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WILLIAM_SHAKESPEARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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After marriage, fatherhood, and a few other distractions, Shakespeare appeared in London in 1592, earning a living as an actor and writer. Despite, or perhaps because of, criticism from the likes of established playwrights such as Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, and Christopher Marlowe, by the late 1590s he became a managing partner of the Lord Chamberlain’s (later “King’s”) Men, a theatrical group. Shakespeare’s plays proved popular with the London audiences, and in 1599 the company built its own theater on the south bank of the Thames named The Globe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WILLIAM_SHAKESPEARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Tradition has it that Shakespeare died on his birthday, in 1616, although some scholars discount this nicety. Shakespeare left the bulk of his estate to his eldest daughter Susanna, and the debate on who actually wrote his great works to posterity.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WOLFGANG_AMADEUS_MOZART_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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No doubt a child prodigy, Mozart had mastered multiple instruments and given his first public recital at the age of six. Wolfgang was sole-surviving son of Leopold and Maria Mozart; his father was a successful concert master at the Salzburg court. Leopold was devoted to his children and recognized their talents at an early age; he began teaching his daughter Maria Anna the piano when she was seven years old while the three-year-old Mozart watched. Mozart proved the better understudy, and within two years had learned not only the piano, but violin and clarinet as well.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WOLFGANG_AMADEUS_MOZART_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In 1762 AD, Leopold took his talented daughter (age 11) and son (age six) to the court of Bavaria for the first of several “European tours.” Mozart continued to learn new instruments, while Maria Anna became a piano virtuoso. In December 1769, father and son departed for an Italian tour, leaving Maria Anna at home with her mother. While there, young Mozart composed his first musical work, an opera for the court of Milan. Returning to Salzburg in 1773, the teenager was given the post of assistant concert master, but soon enough cast about for a better position, touring Mannheim, Paris, and Munich before settling in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_WOLFGANG_AMADEUS_MOZART_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Through the 1780s, Mozart thrived in self-produced and patron-sponsored concerts, often premiering his new works. His effort was prodigious; in one five-week span, he appeared in 22 concerts. And he got married, to Constanze Weber, who would bear him six children. But his pace of production and performance, along with the couple’s extravagant lifestyle – and perhaps his legendary feud with Antonio Salieri – took its toll. His physical and mental health deteriorated suddenly, and in 1791, at the age of 35, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YATSUHASHI_KENGYO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The blind musician Yatsuhashi Kengyō is now considered the “father of modern koto” for, whereas before the 17th Century the stringed instrument was played only in sankyoku ensembles in temples and the royal court, he composed many solo pieces for it and popularized it among the masses. Born in 1614 AD somewhere around Kyoto, Yatsuhashi learned how to play the 13-string koto from a court musician. His teacher was the famous Hosui, himself a student of the equally famous Kenjun. Not much else is known of Yatsuhashi's life, save that he was given the honorary title 'Kengyō' (the highest rank of the organization of blind musicians and masseurs).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YATSUHASHI_KENGYO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Yatsuhashi brought about a new style of koto arrangements, which he dubbed 'kumi-uta,' and changed the traditional (altering anything traditional in feudal Japan was always challenging) tunings, adapting the Hirajoshi scale and Insen scale from the shamisen for use with the koto. Over his lifetime, he composed a number of new pieces for the koto, but the most influential was the masterpiece 'Rokudan-no-Shirabe' (“Study in Six Steps”). It contains all the basic steps in playing the koto. Each 'dan' (or step) has 52 beats with six variations. It is certainly the most played classical pieces for the instrument, and its melody has been arranged for a number of other stringed instruments common in other civilizations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YATSUHASHI_KENGYO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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His innovations were spread across Japan by several of his students, notably Ikuta Kengyō travelled to Edo to found a school there. Another student, Yamada, established his own school, location uncertain. Today most players of the classical koto play in either the Ikuda or the Yamada style, which have slight differences in fingering and sitting techniques. Yatsuhashi died c. 1685, likely in Kyoto.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YI_SUN_SIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Yi Sun-Sin was born in April 1545 AD and destined to be Korea’s greatest (actually, only) naval hero. After passing examinations, he entered into military service to the Joseon dynasty in 1576. Although discharged a couple of times for misconduct, in 1591 he was appointed commander of the naval forces in the port of Yeosu; there he concentrated on training recruits, stockpiling munitions, and designing the kobukson (“turtle ship”). The kobukson was the first ironclad in civilization, its upper deck covered in armored plates, armed with cannons, with smoke pots to obscure the ship. Just in time for the Japanese invasions that commenced in 1592.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YI_SUN_SIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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In four brilliant operations over the course of that year, Yi Sun-Sin’s forces – spearheaded by turtle ships – won fifteen battles and sank hundreds of the flimsy Japanese ships. In recognition, Yi was given command of the combined naval forces of three southern provinces – Jeolla, Gyeongsang and Chungcheong. But following peace negotiations, he was again accused of disloyalty and thus demoted to the rank of common sailor. But when the Japanese launched a second invasion and quickly destroyed most of the Korean fleet, he was promptly restored to his command.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_YI_SUN_SIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Things looked dire for Korea as the Japanese landed, supported by a massive combined fleet of some 300 ships (at least 133 of these warships). Yi managed to gather 13 Korean ships – a mix of panokseon and kobukson – and maneuvered such as to lead the overconfident Japanese into a narrow strait. In the ensuing battle of Myeongnyang in October 1597, the Japanese lost 31 ships (and the commanding Japanese admiral was killed aboard his flagship) while Yi suffered only 13 casualties. But a year later, in December 1598 after Yi Sun-Sin had defeated yet another massive Japanese fleet, he was killed by a bullet during the pursuit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHANG_QIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Around 138 BC, Zhang Qian rode through the tall stone gates of Chang’an, capital of the Han dynasty, headed for the dry and unknown lands to the west of the empire. An officer of the imperial guard, he was at the head a contingent of 100 volunteers. On the northwest border of the Han were the barbarian Xiung-nu (otherwise known in the West as the Huns), a near constant threat. The Han needed allies to curtail the threat, and had heard rumors of the Yueh-chih beyond the Xiung-nu. Unfortunately, Zhang and his delegation were captured by the Huns, and spent the next decade as hostages.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHANG_QIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Managing to extricate themselves from this unpleasantness, Zhang and some of his people crossed the Gobi and passed over the snow-capped Pamirs. They reached the Yueh-chih, who however had no interest in an alliance since the Xiung-nu didn’t bother them (much). So Zhang continued to wander, as far as northern India, and found a surprising number of peaceful and prosperous lands civilized people. The wealth and goods of these lands, not only their jade but agricultural products such as grapes and wine (unknown in China) and powerful horses, excited him. Moreover, these kingdoms proved quite interested in the Chinese trade goods, particularly the silk.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHANG_QIAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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After further adventures, Zhang, his wife and son, and one other companion managed to return to Chang’an, 13 years after setting out. Although he had failed in his mission, Zhang's tales of the western lands and the potential for trade stirred the mercenary hearts of the Chinese. In short order the Han emperors sent forces to drive the barbarians away and open a route to the west, establishing garrisons to protect what would come to be known as the Silk Road, the richest trade route of history.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHENG_HE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The greatest seafarer in 4000 years of Chinese civilization was born c. 1371 AD and raised in the mountainous heart of Asia, hundreds of miles from the nearest port. Moreover, Zheng He wasn’t Chinese, but the son of a minor, Muslim official – the boy’s birth name was Ma Sanbao – in the Mongol province of Yunnan taken captive by an invading Ming army in 1382. Ritually castrated, he was trained as an imperial eunuch and assigned to the court of Zhu Di, the bellicose prince of Yan.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHENG_HE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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By 1390, the renamed Zheng had distinguished himself as a junior officer, skilled at both war and diplomacy, for the prince. The young eunuch became a trusted advisor to Zhu Di and in 1400 when the prince revolted, Zheng served him brilliantly. Defeating the Jianwen emperor in 1402, the prince of Yan established the Yongle line of the Ming dynasty. Seeking to spread Chinese influence, jumpstart the economy, and distract the restless nobles, the new emperor selected Zheng He to outfit and lead a series of missions to the “Western Oceans.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZHENG_HE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Zheng set sail on his first voyage of exploration in 1405, in command of 62 ships; his fleet sailed south, visiting Champa, Siam, Malacca, Java and then west across the Indian Ocean to Calicut and Ceylon. Three more voyages followed in rapid succession, as his ships reached the Arabian coast and sailed down the African. A fifth voyage brought back envoys to the Ming court from 30 kingdoms, and a sixth voyage in 1421 returned them home. Zheng He’s final voyage departed in the winter of 1431, again sailing along Southeast Asia, to the coast of India, into the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, along the coast of Africa. But on the return Zheng He died in Calicut in the spring of 1433.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZOROASTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Born of a “priestly family,” a direct descendant in the royal line of Manushcihar, upon his birth Zoroaster supposedly laughed instead of crying when the god Ahura Mazda descended from heaven to greet him. His message was simple: lead a moral life that would pave the way for eternal bliss … and follow the monotheistic doctrines of the God of Righteousness, Ahura Mazda.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZOROASTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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At the age of 16, Zoroaster was already indifferent to all worldly pleasures … miraculous among teenagers. At the age of 20 he left his home to lead a life of poverty and virtue, wandering about preaching not just in the cities of ancient Iran but the forests and mountains as well. Spending a lot of time in meditation and reflection, on the summit of Mount Sabatam he experienced communion with his god and enjoyed (or perhaps suffered) seven divine, prophetic visions. For the rest of his life, Zoroaster would have conversations with the “Beneficent Immortals” (archangels). And he conquered Ahriman, the Satan of Zoroastrianism. And composed the Gathas, 17 hymns that expounding the divine essences. All this around 600 BC, according to writers such as Plutarch and Diogenes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_GREATPEOPLE_PAGE_GREAT_PERSON_INDIVIDUAL_ZOROASTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Zoroaster also took on the followers of various cults, the Kavis and the Karpan. Their priests turned Vishtasp, the king of Iran, against Zoroaster. But when the latter did not die of starvation in prison – despite not being fed – due to the intercession of his god, the king saw the light. Even more so when the prophet saved the life of the king’s much-beloved black horse. The conversion of the royal family set off a war with the nearby kingdom of Turan, lasting several years. In the process, Zoroaster was killed by one Bratrok-resh, a Turanian, while praying in the Fire Temple at Nush-Adar.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_INTRO_CHAPTER_CONTENT_PARA_1
Text:
Improvements can increase the output of your tiles (such as [ICON_Production] Production, [ICON_Gold] Gold, and [ICON_Food] Food). They also provide access to special bonuses provided by certain resources. If you do not improve your land, your civilization will almost certainly be overwhelmed by more established civilizations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_AIRSTRIP_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
When early aeronauts needed a place to land in a hurry, any field that was fairly level and without things sticking up would serve … much to the surprise of many a farmer. In time, some of these became well-known and often used, thus an “airstrip.” In remote locations around the world, these extended air travel to everywhere. Most consisted of a grassy runway and perhaps some fueling storage tanks and pumps. Not many amenities, but these weren’t intended for tourists and the casual traveler. Unlike aerodromes and airports – although some airstrips did mature into these – airstrips were more for unplanned stops than not, or as a means to land near some backwater settlement. Oil fields, lumber camps, sheep stations, cattle ranches and the like often boosted an airstrip. Some still do.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_BARBARIAN_CAMP_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Historically, barbarians came in two types: those who wandered about and those that settled down. The latter became “civilized” and built cities, empires and such. The former plagued the latter, raiding the borders and upsetting the empire’s citizens. Generally organized along tribal lines, these barbarians – far from the “noble savage” stereotype, most of them really were brutal, cruel and warlike – were nomads, establishing temporary outposts from which to attack civilization and each other as well. When the fun of all that rampaging wore off, or when an organized army showed up and thrashed them, the surviving barbarians would pack up and move on, to establish another outpost sometime later somewhere else. Since it was generally a good idea – if one were a barbarian – not to be easily found by the civilized, the outposts over time were located in more inaccessible (and defensible) places … until, of course, there were no such places left.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_BEACH_RESORT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Seaside resorts have been around since the Roman Empire, the first where folk – rich folk – had the time to spend lying about; the Roman town of Baiae on the Gulf of Naples, the island of Capri and the doomed town of Pompeii were all favored by the elite of the empire. But it wasn’t until the mid-18th Century that the wealthy took to the waters at seaside resorts in droves as part of their conspicuous consumption; the first to cater to the indolent rich was Scarborough in 1720 AD. In 1793 Heiligendamm opened, bringing Europe’s aristocracy to the shores of the Baltic. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the nouveau riche joined them in splashing about in warm waters. Then, as working hours declined and disposable income increased, even the working classes could join them at Brighton, Nice and Coney Island … forcing the filthy rich to go to places like Monte Carlo and Acapulco for their sun and fun.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_CAMP_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Once upon a time, a camp was vital to survival … whether it was a temporary shelter thrown up by wandering barbarians or a semi-permanent hunting camp supplying game, fish or fowl to the growing population. Until mankind learned to domesticate and pen livestock for a more dependable source of meat, hunting camps kept civilization going. In time, camps took on new roles, such as supplying furs, firewood, or trading opportunities with the nearby natives. Today, more often than not, a “camp” – temporary or permanent – is simply a recreational site where the city slickers can “get back to nature.” And now civilized folk hunt game, fish, and fowl for sport rather than survival.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_CHATEAU_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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If one must ask, one cannot afford it. A château is a manor house or country home of landed gentry, usually without fortifications. In the Middle Ages, a château was largely self-sufficient, being supported by the lord's demesne (hereditary lands). In the 1600s, the wealthy and aristocratic French lords dotted the countryside with elegant, luxuriant, architecturally refined mansions such as the Château de Maisons. But many of these stately homes were burned during peasant revolts and populist revolutions. But a few remain as tourist attractions. Today, the term château is loosely used; for instance, it is common for any winery or inn, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_FARM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Once people figured out that it was a lot easier to stay in one place and grow crops, rather than wander about gathering whatever happened to be growing, “civilization” broke out. Around 12,000 years ago, this was the “Neolithic Revolution.” Farming meant that permanent settlements could be self-sustaining, and that the more food that could be harvested, the bigger settlements could grow. Ever since, advances in technology have been making agriculture more efficient: irrigation, machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, GMOs and so forth. Yields skyrocketed.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_FISHING_BOATS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
“Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declared the Lord, “and they will fish for them.” (Jeremiah 16:16) And so it has been since men first cast hooks and nets into the waters, whether from the sea shore or the river bank. Eventually, those fisher folk built boats to pursue the fish into deeper waters. A number of civilizations – from the Polynesians of the Pacific to the Norse along the North Sea – depended upon fishing for food, oil, raw materials, and trade goods. Even where agriculture was viable, fishing boats supplied essentials unavailable by any other means. From small dinghies to large commercial vessels, fishing boats operate out of every port; as of 2004 AD, there were some four million registered fishing boats. Trawlers, seiners, longliners and whalers have prowled the seas for centuries. And some folk even think of fishing as a sport...


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_COLOSSAL_HEAD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The colossal “Olmec Heads,” 17 stone sculptures dating to before 900 BC, are the best known remnants (at least, by tourists) of the once flourishing MesoAmerican Olmec civilization. Carved from a single boulder and then transported many miles, each depicts the head and face of a mature man, likely that of a powerful Olmec ruler, or as some theories would have it,  famous ball players (if so, not much has changed). The massive heads weigh between six (the smallest) and 50 tons (the largest, but unfinished), made from basalt from quarries in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas range near Veracruz. Given that the Olmec had no metal tools, the effort to scatter these sculptures across the countryside was immense … yet another instance of mankind’s desire to leave their mark on the world.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_FORT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Since the first ego-maniacal chieftain threw up a wall of dirt and proclaimed everything behind it his, soldiers have been building fortifications. Whether to pacify new territory, protect the borders, or insure that the ruled didn’t get uppity, the military-minded have dug ditches and moats, planted stakes and spikes, and put up walls of all sorts. Some made such military engineering an art form, such as the Roman legions, which could march through the day and have a fortified camp in place by nightfall. In time, the appearance of gunpowder led to innovations in fortifications; those wooden and stone walls were simply no longer adequate. So, rather than build up, fortifications went down – trenches and bunkers, pillboxes and minefields, barbed wire and “defense in depth.” But the intent remains the same, to protect the troops and keep the civilization safe from both without and within.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Tribal villages were where the unwashed, uncivilized lived. Out beyond the pale. When explorers from “civilized” places arrived in these villages, the natives often greeted them with open arms, gifts, information, awe and respect. Tribal villages were distinguished from civilized settlements by a number of factors – their faiths tended to be experiential, their government local, their economies barter-based, their laws commonsensical, their organizations cooperative (rather than competitive), their social structures straightforward, their families extended, and their culture practical. In fact, some of these tribal villages evolved into cities, where none of that primitivism survived.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_GREAT_WALL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
A fortified border took on new meaning when some civilizations attempted to make sure the uncivilized stayed out. A number of empires built “great walls” – the Roman Hadrian’s Wall, the Chola-Pandya Madukkarai Wall, the Sassanid Great Wall of Gorgan, the French Maginot Line, and, of course, the Great Wall of China. Most were built of earth and stone, most incorporated natural terrain features (hills, rivers, and the like), and most had fortresses or garrisons scattered along their length. They were built in stages, sometimes over a long period of time. In terms of intent, none of these worked very well, for the outsiders managed time and again to “cross” the frontier walls, no matter how great. On the other hand, these great walls did provide a psychological sop to the empire’s citizens, and did deter the less barbaric barbarians from raiding the frontier settlements. With history having passed them by, most of the great walls have fallen into disrepair and obscurity … or become tourist traps.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_KURGAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
For some reason, some of civilization’s greatest feats of engineering and construction are mausoleums and tombs, and, for some reason, these great piles are usually reserved for military and political leaders. For the Scythians these piles were great mounds of dirt, now called kurgans, from the Turkish word for “mound.” It appears that a number of the barbarian nomads of the steppes of Central Asia began interring their leaders in these mounds sometime around the 4th Century BC. By the Early Iron Age, the kurgans of the Scythians and other tribes were truly impressive mounds, some as much as 500 meters (1600 feet) across at the base, and might stand as high as 27 meters (89 feet). So, these tended to stand out on the rolling open terrain of the steppes. And then the Scythians decorated the tumuli with the bodies of slaves and horses, just to insure it got everyone’s attention that here lie a great man (or perhaps woman).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_LUMBER_MILL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
For centuries the purpose of a lumber mill has not changed: logs go in one end, and cut beams, boards, posts, and shingles come out the other. The earliest known sawmill that can be reliably dated is a Roman water-powered mill uncovered at Hierapolis dating to the 3rd Century AD. Small, water-powered mills were common throughout Europe and the Middle East where trees were plentiful, and the designs later went with European colonists so they could start chopping down the virgin forests everywhere else as well. The Industrial Revolution speeded the whole process, as steam railroads could transport the logs to steam lumber mills, and then haul the “finished” (in more ways than one) wood products to market in the booming cities. In time, even the byproducts of the trimming and cutting were used – for paper, fuel, and packing.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_MINE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The extraction of valuable (or sometimes not so valuable) minerals is as much part of civilization as farming or making war. Even in “pre-historic” times, the Neolithic hunter-gatherers dug flint out of seams, creating mines such as those at Grimes Graves (c. 4000 BC). The Egyptians mined malachite, the Greeks silver, the Romans tin and lead, and every civilization since has found something in the earth they needed or wanted. Most of the work until the Industrial Revolution was done by hand, whether the mining was an open pit or underground tunnel, by slaves or wage-slaves using picks and shovels and hammers. Some of civilization's first great corporations were mining concerns, and prospectors pushed the frontiers ever outward. Today, machines do all the hard work – the prospecting and mining and refining. So efficient are they at stripping out everything valuable and moving on that there are currently upwards of 560 thousand abandoned mines in the United States alone.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_MISSILE_SILO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Like everything else rocketry, the Germans pioneered the underground missile silo – building the first such complex near Saint-Omer in 1944. It was intended to store and launch V2s on England, but never entered service due to heavy Allied bombing. The British toyed with the idea of underground launch facilities in the 1950s for their missiles, and even built one, before opting for using submarines to launch their ICBMs. It was the Americans and Russians, however, who really took to the idea of planting nuclear missiles underground – as though that would help in the event of World War III. The primary purpose of the silos was to insure the rapid launch of Soviet UR-100 or American Titan II missiles to insure mutual destruction. Since the Cold War, the Russians have moved most of their ICBMs to submarines, the Americans have about 450 silos still in operation, and China has built a few silos but still favors mobile ICBM launchers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_MISSION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
According to the Catholic Church, missions are religious communities devoted to teaching, tending, and helping the local populace, thus supporting Christ’s ideals. Of course, the Spanish, Portuguese and French missions were also devoted to converting the locals and then “civilizing” them through cultural assimilation. The Spanish missions serve as the traditional template, self-supporting enclaves with churches, dormitories, fields and pastures, gardens, barns, workrooms, hospitals and schools. In places these were even fortified, ready to defend themselves from opposition. Most of the missions in the Americas, Asia, and Africa were administered by religious orders such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Augustinians rather than the Church itself, but the effects were the same. Nonetheless, the missions often served as a nucleus around which European colonizing efforts could coalesce.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_OFFSHORE_OIL_RIG_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
At one time, long ago, an offshore platform was used by primitives for fishing, harvesting kelp, or gathering shells. But once civilization discovered all the uses for oil, offshore platforms became massive constructs anchored in deep waters to squeeze out the oil below the seabed. The first underwater oil drilling was on platforms on pilings in the fresh water Ohio lake St. Mary’s in 1891 AD. The first true offshore rig went up in 1896 at the Summerland field off the California coast near Santa Barbara. Soon enough, offshore platforms were sprouting off the Texas and Louisiana coastline in the 1910s, in the Caspian Sea near Azerbaijan in the 1920s, the Persian Gulf, the North Sea, the Campos and Santos basins off Brazil, and every place else the oil companies set their sights on. Submarine pipelines finally solved the problem of getting the oil ashore cheaply. Although oil rigs are expensive, and occasionally one sinks or leaks, the profits outweigh the costs … at least in the short term.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_OIL_WELL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As J. Paul Getty put it, “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” Ever since the first oil wells were drilled in China around 340 AD, using metal bits attached to bamboo poles, men have been trying to do just that. Throughout the millennium and a half since then, the technology has advanced, spurred by civilization finding new ways to use all the things that come from petroleum: gasoline, lubricants, asphalt, petrochemicals, tar, plastics, fertilizer, pesticides, and a thousand other things. The first “modern” commercial oil well in North America came online in Oil Springs, Ontario, in 1858. Then came the development of the automobile, and humanity’s thirst for oil became insatiable. Since then, wars have been fought for it, regimes toppled because of it, and unchecked pollution has resulted from it. But then too, unbelievable fortunes have been made from it – as Getty could attest.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_PASTURE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Since it is a lot easier to keep track of livestock if they aren’t running loose across the countryside, it wasn’t long after grazing animals were domesticated that a lazy shepherd devised a fence for keeping them in a pasture. Even those pastoralists who practiced transhumance had crude pastures at each end of their seasonal journeys. Pastures (not to be confused with meadows) are typically grazed throughout the summer, and may be purposely planted or simply fenced-off rangeland. The fences can be made of almost anything that will keep the livestock in and the local predators (animal or human) out: rock and stone, posts and rails, thorny brush, barbed wire, or electric wire. In most places, land ownership was tied to fenced pasturage, as in feudal societies or those progressive ranchers in the American West.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_PLANTATION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Not just a fancy sort of farm (although some of them have really nice houses), a plantation is a large agrarian enterprise generally devoted to a single valuable “cash” crop – cotton, tobacco, tea, sugar cane, rubber, coffee and such – tended by resident laborers. The crops are usually, but not always, indigenous to the region, and most of the plantations in history were in tropical or semi-tropical climes. The crops did well with all the rain and heat, and it meant the plantation owner didn’t have to waste money keeping the workers warm. As Europeans spread their empires around the globe, they took the plantation formula with them to the Americas, India and Africa. The produce was not meant for local consumption, but was shipped out to the markets of Europe where the civilized folk could appreciate this rich bounty.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_QUARRY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Once people started building structures out of stone rather than sticks and mud, the need for stone and rock increased. Those came from quarries, an open pit where picks and hammers and chisels (and later dynamite and bulldozers) were used to hack out chunks of marble, limestone, granite, slate, sandstone, or whatever else was useful. As the tools became more sophisticated, slabs could be cut away, and then polished on the site. The oldest known quarries have been located in the Aswan region of Egypt, and the lands of the once Roman Empire are dotted with marble quarries (they needed a lot for all those grand buildings). Whereas the Egyptians and Romans and other civilized ancients mostly used slaves and condemned criminals (life expectancy in quarries not being long), on Easter Island the entire community chipped moai out of quarries. Today, quarry miners are considered skilled professionals.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_SPHINX_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In contrast to the Greek version, the Egyptian sphinx has a human head on a lion’s body, is benevolent, and is the guardian of temples and tombs. Perhaps the first Egyptian sphinx constructed was during the Fourth Dynasty (c. 2500 BC) that depicted the face of Queen Hetepheres II, daughter of famed Khufu. But the sphinx was a common motif among those eternity-obsessed pharaohs; other famous ones include that depicting Hatshepsut and the “alabaster sphinx” of Memphis. Then there is that “Great Sphinx” at Giza that bears the likeness of the pharaoh Khafra (who is otherwise historically insignificant). Smaller ones lined the approaches to tombs and temples, and any number were put at the top of stairways in palaces and public places. By the 18th Dynasty, one could hardly swing a cat in Egypt without hitting a sphinx.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_STEPWELL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
A “stepwell” is a well or pool that can be reached by a set of steps. Although found in other regions, stepwells (known by a variety of names) are prevalent in India and Southeast Asia. The first rock-cut stepwells in India date from around 200 BC, and by 600 AD they were common throughout the Gujarat region; scholars believe that “cylindrical brick-lined wells” were a product of the early Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization. Many of the ancient Indian settlements had stepwells, and the elaborate ornamentation – some as detailed as those of any Hindu temple – show they were highly thought of by the citizenry. Not surprising, given the scarcity of clean water in the area. Alas, the British overseers of the Raj found the hygiene of the wells less than desirable, and so installed pumps and pipes to replace the stepwells in their holdings. Far less picturesque, but certainly more efficient.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_IMPROVEMENTS_PAGE_IMPROVEMENT_ZIGGURAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
When the Egyptians were building pyramids along the Nile, the Akkadians, Sumerians, Elamites, Babylonians and Assyrians were building ziggurats all over Mesopotamia. These were terraced pyramids, sometimes truncated so a temple could be placed on top. The earliest date from the Early Dynastic Period, roughly 2900 to 2400 BC, and the newest found date to c. 600 BC. Sun-baked bricks made up the center, and were faced with fire-glazed bricks that were more durable. Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, the ziggurats were generally solid, with shrines and temples on the summit, occasionally more than one (since one didn’t want to offend any god). Sadly none of the shrines or temples have survived – thanks to war, earthquakes and religious fervor – although the great piles of brick have. There were a number of “great” ziggurats, including the one in Babylon dedicated to the god Marduk which may have inspired the fable of the Tower of Babel.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_INTRO_CHAPTER_CONTENT_PARA_1
Text:
Every civilization has a leader. Some civilizations only have one choice for a leader, while others have multiple leaders from which to choose. Like civilizations, each leader has a unique trait. These traits are different from civilization traits and are specific to each leader, even leaders from within the same civilization. Every leader also has an agenda based on their historical persona, as well as a hidden, random agenda.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_SUBTITLE
Text:
Duke of Swabia, King of Burgundy, King of Germany, King of the Romans. King of Italy, Holy Roman Emperor


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Frederick (later given the sobriquet “Barbarossa” by the unruly Italians he tried to rule) gathered titles like he gathered enemies. By his death in June 1190 AD, he had quite a few of each. When he was done, he’d beaten all challengers... save a distant swift-flowing river. Historians consider him one of the greatest – if not the greatest – medieval Holy Roman Emperors (well, he was the first). Compared to his peers, Frederick Barbarossa’s longevity, ambition, organizational ability, battlefield prowess, political acumen and focused ruthlessness make him seem nigh superhuman in an age civilization refers to as “dark.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born in 1122 into a family that claimed descent from Charlemagne, Frederick was heir to the Duchy of Swabia – one of some 1600 minor duchies and city-states that made up “Germany” – which he took over as ruler in 1147. Being the restless sort, shortly afterwards the new duke accompanied his uncle Conrad III, King of Germany, on the ill-fated Second Crusade. Whereas the French decided on a safer if longer route to the Holy Land, Conrad made to march straight through Anatolia, where his force was decimated at the hands of the Seljuk Turks in the Battle of Dorylaeum and then retreated to the coast, whereupon most of the survivors deserted to make their own way home. But, steadfast Frederick distinguished himself and showed an aptitude for bloodletting. Thus, when Conrad died in 1152, he anointed Frederick his successor rather than his own son (who was, after all, only six years old).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
On 4 March, Frederick was crowned “elected” King of Germany at Frankfurt; five days later, he was crowned King of the Romans in Aachen (not that the Romans particularly wanted him, hence the coronation in a German city). Germany was at the time a squabbling patchwork of princes, dukes, and other feckless royalty claiming holdings ranging from large regions such as Bavaria to some too small to pinpoint on a map (if there were any decent maps to be had). Frederick realized that the only way to restore order was to give them a common goal... the enforcement of German imperial rights in Italy. And, rather than curtail feudalism as was occurring in other realms, he sought to restore it fully and thus bribe the German lords with lavish concessions.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
If Frederick wanted to restore the Germans to the glory they had enjoyed under Charlemagne and Otto the Great by running roughshod over the Italians, however, he needed to pamper the papacy. Besides, Frederick wanted to annul his loveless, and more importantly childless, marriage with Adelheid of tiny Vohberg. In March 1153 he concluded the Treaty of Constance with the Pope Eugene III, whereby Frederick pledged to defend the papacy, make no peace with Sicilians or other enemies of the true church, and retake Rome from uncivil republicans. And he got rid of Adelheid.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
Now with an excuse and the blessings of the Holy Father, Frederick marched south October 1154. First he beat Milan into submission, then sacked and razed stubborn Tortona. Frederick received the Iron Crown, and was thus made King of Italy. Pavia, Bologna, Tuscany, soon enough he approached Rome itself. There he met with the new pope, Adrian IV, in the Vatican. The next day, 18 June 1155, Adrian crowned Frederick I as Holy Roman Emperor in St. Peter’s Basilica amidst the cheering of the German troops and the stony silence of the Romans. The ungrateful locals soon began rioting, and Frederick spent his coronation day bringing peace to the city, at the cost of a thousand dead Romans. Having had a fine first Italian tour, Frederick headed back to Germany with the pope in tow, attacking Spoleto and meeting with an embassy from the Byzantine Emperor along the way.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Upon his return, Kaiser Rotbart (as the Germans called him) found the nobles engaged in their hereditary shenanigans. He settled the unrest with his usual delicacy – by switching the titles and holdings around so that the princes and dukes would lack the support of their new subjects. Thus, for instance, Frederick transferred the Duchy of Bavaria to his cousin, who was Duke of Saxony at the time, and made the former Duke of Bavaria the new Duke of Austria. And so forth. Along the way, he married Beatrice of Burgundy in 1156, thus making him King of Burgundy in 1178.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
No rest for the wicked, as they say. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa led four more invasions into Italy (in 1158, in 1163, in 1166, and in 1174), mostly to sort out – repeatedly – who should sit upon the Chair of Peter. He also intended... several times... to deal with the issue of Norman Sicily, but kept being distracted by revolts in northern Italy and unrest in the Rhineland. In the fifth expedition into Italy, where he was opposed by the Lombard League, which included not just various Italian cities but Sicily and Constantinople as well, the now ageing but still formidable Frederick was defeated at the Battle of Alessandria in 1175. Europe was shocked. When the German dukes refused to bring help, Frederick was decisively beaten at Legnano near Milan in May 1176. The Holy Roman Emperor had no choice but to agree to the Peace of Anagni, by which he recognized Alexander III as pope.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Frederick spent the next decade “peacefully”... getting revenge on the German dukes (including his cousin) who had failed to support his venture into Italy, and putting the Italians in their place yet again by joining forces with local rural nobility in reducing several uppity Tuscan cities. But it seems the old warhorse was restless. He certainly wasn’t soft. In 1189 AD, he joined the Third Crusade, along with France’s King Philip II and England’s King Richard I, at the beckoning of the new pope. But he never made it to face Saladin, for he drowned in June 1190 trying to cross the Saleph River on his horse rather than use a crowded bridge. In some way, a fitting end to Barbarossa (too bad about the horse, though).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
As in history, Germany under Frederick Barbarossa is a powerhouse that can threaten to overwhelm its foes with their productivity and military prowess.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_BARBAROSSA_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
German cities can become productive quickly, adding a 2nd, 3rd, and subsequent districts many turns earlier than their foes. Nearby city-states can easily be absorbed into Frederick's "Holy Roman Empire." Look for him to attack a city-state with fertile lands and resources rather than trying to spend the time to woo it diplomatically. In the Modern era, Germany adds the U-Boat, a premier unit designed to economically disrupt their foes. With their heavy industrial base, Germany can then press forward to victory on any front that they choose.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Catherine de Medici (Gallicized from the Italian “Catrina”) has gotten a bad rap from historians, due in part from her de Medici family ties and in part from her own ruthlessness in keeping the Valois (a distaff branch of the Capetian bloodline) on the throne at all costs. Despite what may be said about her however, without Catherine it is unlikely that the House of Valois would have survived its challenges, nor France weathered its trials and tribulations of the time.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Catherine was borne into the nigh unbelievably wealthy and powerful de Medici family, de facto rulers of Florence, bankers to kings, and pope-makers (her great-uncle was at the time Pope Leo X). By all accounts, her father Lorenzo, made Duke of Urbino by Leo, was “as pleased as if it had been a boy” by her birth. Besides being bright and gifted (“for a girl”), the dukedom meant she could claim noble birth, opening all sorts of opportunities for her. Not the least a number of royal suitors; having spurned James V of Scotland and others, in October 1533 AD – at the tender age of 14 – she wed the second son of the king of France in an arranged marriage engineered by the de Medici pope Clement VII.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
The young bride saw little of her husband, Prince Henri, as he was busy with his many mistresses. But in 1536, Henri’s older brother Francis caught a chill and died, making Henri the Dauphin... and Catherine the Dauphine of France. Not only that, but suddenly Catherine proved to be extraordinarily fertile – and resilient. After eight years bearing no children despite trying mightily, she gave birth to a son in 1544. Following the advice of the famed physician Jean Fernel, who had noticed some anatomical “irregularities” in the couple, the next year she bore a daughter for Henri. Whatever Fernel’s advice had been, it surely worked, for Catherine gave Henri a further eight children (an amazing feat given the incidence of death in childbirth at the time).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
When Henri’s father died in March 1547, Catherine became Queen of France. Although Henri, much enamored of his mistress Diane de Poitiers, treated Catherine with stiff respect, he allowed her no political influence – even giving a château she had sorely wanted to Diane. In 1556, Catherine nearly died giving birth to twins; she was to endure no more pregnancies. She was devoted to her brood, and used the wealth of her family as well as her status as Queen Consort to insure that they had the best education, wanted for nothing, and were sheltered from their father, who took little interest in his children, save his eldest son. Catherine, who had a bit of a reputation as a dabbler in the “black arts” herself, even sent for the famed Nostradamus in August 1556 to come to court and cast the horoscopes of her seven children.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
In June 1559, as part of the proxy wedding of his 13-year-old daughter Elizabeth to King Philip II of Spain, Henri insisted in joining the jousting tournament. Not the best of decisions, since he was badly injured and died a fortnight later. Francis II, already king of Scotland by his marriage to Mary (Queen of Scots), became king of France at the age of 15. In what amounted to a coup, the Guise brothers and the Cardinal of Lorraine moved into the Louvre Palace and effectively seized power. Catherine, using all the political acumen and guile she had inherited as a de Medici, elected to work with the Guise faction.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
As de facto regent, although Catherine had no claim to that position, she set about consolidating her own power and influence. Using her “new-found authority,” she forced Diane de Poitiers to return the crown jewels (which besmitten Henri had given her) along with the château Catherine had once desired; Catherine effectively put the ex-king’s mistress out to pasture. The Queen Mother managed to keep herself out of the Guise’s bloody persecution of the Protestants, as well as the failed plot to overthrow them by the Bourbons. She also made common cause with the new chancellor Michel de l’Hopital in defending the law against attempts to circumvent it by the Guises, notably with regard to their dead-Protestant fixation. But she could also be ruthless in defending her son’s position as king; when the Prince of Condé raised an army and attacked Catholic towns, she ordered him to court and then imprisoned him as soon as he arrived. He was only saved from execution by the sudden death of Francis.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
But it wasn’t all fun and games for Catherine; she also hosted lavish court festivals – the so-called joyeuse magnificences – at the slightest provocation: weddings, anniversaries, christenings, feast days, and just about any other occasion imaginable. It was at such fetes that Catherine’s notorious L’Escadron Volant (“Flying Squadron”) plied their wiles, ladies such as Lady Isabelle de la Tour and Baroness Charlotte de Beaune Semblancay. The “squadron” was a group of fetching young noblewomen Catherine used for the purpose of forming relationships with powerful men of the court, thereby extracting “insider” information of use to Catherine in her schemes. Along with the assassinations and blackmail, such insights helped her fend off threats to both France and her position within it.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Catherine barely missed a step as she became regent to her ten-year-old, Charles IX. If anything, she grew even more powerful. The boy, moody and sickly, cried at his coronation; Catherine kept close tabs on him, and even went so far as to sleep in his bedchamber. In effect, Catherine ruled France, but the nation faced some serious problems. She set about to take care of these in typical de Medici fashion. She called the religious leaders of France, both Catholic and Huguenot, to settle doctrinal differences; when that failed she issued the Edict of Saint-Germain to promote religious tolerance. (Unfortunately, the Duke of Guise attacked and massacred a Huguenot service, thus setting off the 30-year French Wars of Religion.)


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
When Protestant nobles raised an army in response to the massacre in 1562, after failed negotiations Catherine threw the royal army at them. When Protestant Antoine de Bourbon died from wounds, and the volatile Catholic Duke of Guise was assassinated, she issued the Edict of Amboise (the “Edict of Pacification”) in 1563 to end the unrest. Then she rallied both Huguenot and Catholics lords to retake Le Havre from the English, who were meddling again in French affairs. Except for the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, ordered by King Charles IX, things were fairly stable for the “Italian queen.” Then Charles died at the age of 23. Another son, her favorite, was crowned King of Poland in 1573 (which didn't last long) and then King Henri III of France in 1574 AD.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_10
Text:
But Henri, already an adult and in good health both mental and physical, proved not as pliable as his brothers. Although he depended on Catherine to oversee much of the minutia of ruling for a decade, in 1588 at Blois he suddenly dismissed all her appointed ministers to the crown, effectively ending her influence over the government. Henry also moved against the still powerful Guise family, allies of his mother, having the Duke assassinated and eight other members murdered. Catherine, bedridden at the age of 69, was stoic at the news. Within the month, in January 1589, she died.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Although nominally a cultural player, France is a dangerous opponent. Catherine will be aware of what you are up to, and will be able to use Spies and her potent Industrial era army to protect her interests.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CATHERINE_DE_MEDICI_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Like Cleopatra and Qin Shi Huang, France wants to be a major player in the wonder game. Success there should make them major contenders for a Culture Victory. With Catherine at the helm, they should have information on all their rivals, allowing them to focus on just those wonders they can be sure to build first. Second in priority to wonders are well-placed Chateaux, also helpful for Culture Victories. All this [ICON_Culture] Culture should help them move through the Civics Tree quickly, getting to Corps and Armies before many of their rivals. If they have them at the same time as the Garde Imperiale, watch out!


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Cleopatra Thea Philopator was considered quite alluring in her time (although standards of beauty have certainly changed since). She also managed to miss the ravages of time, being dead at the age of 40. But in that short span of years, she had been married to two of her brothers, had affairs with two of the most powerful men in Rome, and lost an empire. A full life by anyone’s standards.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born to Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra V in 69 BC, the young Cleopatra declared herself the reincarnation of the goddess Isis, a typical claim to political legitimacy. After some poisonings and executions among the female Ptolemies, at the age of 14 she was made regent and deputy to her father. Four years later, in March 51 BC, her father died, leaving her and her ten-year-old brother Ptolemy XIII as joint rulers. Although now married to her younger brother, Cleopatra – the seventh of that name to rule – had no intention of sharing power with her sibling.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
By August 51 BC, any pretense of filial harmony had disappeared. Cleopatra dropped Ptolemy’s name from official records and put her face alone on the new coinage. Ptolemy, showing more sense than expected, went into hiding. A palace revolution in 48 BC led by the eunuch Pothinus and Ptolemy’s tutor Theodotus disposed Cleopatra and made Ptolemy XIII sole ruler. Although she raised a rebellion, Cleopatra was soon forced into hiding herself.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Meanwhile, the general Gnaeus Pompey had the bad fortune to be on the opposite side than Julius Caesar in the latest Roman civil war. When things went awry, Pompey fled to Alexandria seeking sanctuary. The somewhat-less-than-genius Ptolemy, on the advice of Pothinus, had Pompey murdered hoping to ingratiate himself with Caesar, a miscalculation of epic proportions. When Julius arrived two days later, he was furious and announced his intention to execute Ptolemy and Pothinus in turn. Pothinus whipped up the local rabble in opposition. Caesar landed his legion. He seized the capital and so inserted himself into the dynastic sibling spat as arbitrator.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
In the ensuing negotiations, Pothinus, acting on Ptolemy’s behalf, was openly insolent to Julius Caesar, another miscalculation (and really bad career move). Cleopatra had herself smuggled into the palace, where she beguiled the 52-year-old Julius. It must have been a spectacular first meeting between the stoic Roman general and fiery Egyptian queen, for nine months later she gave birth to their son. But before that, Caesar declared the sister and brother co-rulers, oversaw renewed nuptial vows, had Pothinus executed, weathered a siege of the palace and put down a rebellion in the city (accidentally burning most of the Great Library there in the process).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Ptolemy XIII, rather than be happy in exile, raised an army and challenged Caesar and Cleopatra, only to be decisively defeated in the Battle of the Nile (another of many in Egyptian history) and drowned in the river. Caesar reaffirmed Cleopatra as ruler of Egypt and married her to her younger brother Ptolemy XIV to keep the locals complaisant (the three legions he stationed in the country may have helped in this). Despite the faux marriage, Caesar and Cleopatra continued their torrid affair, and soon enough went to Rome, dragging along the latest Ptolemy and Caesarion (“little Caesar,” Julius’ son). There Cleopatra and her Egyptian entourage were ensconced in one of Caesar’s country estates, while Caesar’s wife Calpurnia resided in their home in Rome.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
This two-year idyll came to an end with the Ides of March. Caesar had never named his son his heir, choosing instead his grandnephew Octavian. With no prospects in sight in Rome and generally reviled by the power elite – save Caesar’s friend Marc Anthony – Cleopatra returned to Alexandria. Soon enough Ptolemy XIV died, rumored to be at his sister’s hand. Cleopatra made her Caesarion co-regent and her designated successor.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
In the course of the ensuing Roman civil war between the triumvirate headed by Octavian and the assassins of Julius, Anthony came to Egypt. Cleopatra met him with her usual glittering flair, and so charmed him that he chose to spend the winter of 41 BC with her instead of pursuing the war. It must have again been a fun-filled interlude, for in December 40 BC she gave birth to twins fathered by Anthony. Oh, and she had Anthony order the killing of her last surviving sibling, her sister Arsinoe, before the general returned to the battlefield.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Four years later, Anthony returned, ostensibly to make war on the Parthians to the east. But he was caught once again in Cleopatra’s web and married her in an Egyptian rite – although he was currently married to Octavian’s sister. The expansive territories Anthony had conquered in Armenia and Medea were given over to Egypt, and the whole vast Ptolemaic holdings divvied up among Cleopatra, young Caesarion (who was declared by Cleopatra son of Horus and “king of kings”), and Anthony’s twin children. It was the proverbial straw for Octavian, who convinced the Roman Senate to “levy” war on Egypt in 33 BC.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_10
Text:
Following two years of skirmishing, Anthony’s forces squared off with Octavian’s in a naval action off the coast of Actium in western Greece. Decisively defeated, Anthony fell upon his sword – literally. Cleopatra was present at the battle with an Egyptian fleet of her own, but fled before it was resolved (perhaps contributing to Anthony’s demise by doing so). Within months, Octavian invaded Egypt against minimal resistance. Anthony’s remaining troops deserted Cleopatra and opened the city gates to Octavian on the first day of August 30 BC.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_11
Text:
As his troops moved in and surrounded her in the palace, or perhaps her mausoleum, Cleopatra committed suicide by clasping her asp to her bosom (although some claim she took a mixture of hemlock and opium). Caesarion was captured and executed, and Egypt absorbed into the empire. In Rome, Octavian became emperor; in death, Cleopatra became legend.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Cleopatra is Qin Shi Huang's main competitor in the wonder race; however, instead of a Great Wall to hide behind, she uses her charm (and trade benefits) to encourage her powerful friends to attack on her behalf.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_CLEOPATRA_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Egypt starts right along a River where they get bonuses for building districts and wonders. Those wonders become especially valuable with Sphinxes nearby, allowing Egypt to get off to a speedy start in all areas of the game. If Cleopatra can then befriend the other powerful civilizations (perhaps because they are getting [ICON_Food] Food from trading with her) she will be able to continue to move forward with wonders. This will set her up to push toward any victory type, though with both wonders and Sphinxes, she is especially strong playing for a Culture Victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Few can legitimately be called bapu (Gujarati for “father”) of their country; even fewer attained that moniker without shedding a lot of blood. But Mohandas Gandhi, better known around the world as Mahatma (Sanskrit for “venerable”) Gandhi, can. He pioneered the approach of satyagraha (a term he coined, literally “truth force”), or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a tactic he urged to be used to bring independence to his homeland.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Gandhi was born into the Hindi merchant caste in an India still under British rule. The son of the fourth wife of the diwan of the small state of Porbandar, in his youth Gandhi displayed none of the self-effacing benevolence that would mark him as an adult. In fact, his sister once noted that one of his favorite pastimes as a child was “twisting the dogs’ ears.” As a boy, he was also described as “restless as mercury... either playing or roaming about.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Gandhi entered into an arranged marriage at the age of 13 to a 14-year-old girl, the usual custom of the period and place. Apparently he did not enjoy the experience, later calling the practice “the cruel custom of child marriage.” But he seems to have taken advantage of it, since in 1885 AD when he was fifteen, his wife bore him a short-lived child. They would have four more children, all sons, so the “cruel custom” didn’t seem to impede his husbandly duties.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
His marriage led him to take a year off from his secondary education. But Mohandas was a mediocre scholar, as well as being painfully shy, not a good combination when he was in school in Rajkot. One of his terminal evaluations upon matriculation read, in part, “good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting.” With such skills, what other career than that of a lawyer? In 1888 he departed India to London to study to be a barrister.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
His father having just died, Gandhi’s mother did not want him to go, giving him her blessings only after he had promised to abstain from wine, women, and meat. His caste looked upon traveling over the ocean as unclean; when he persisted they declared him an “outcast.” In June 1891 Gandhi passed the bar and set sail for India. He attempted to set up practice in Bombay, but failed miserably – reportedly because he was reluctant to harshly cross-examine witnesses, understandably earning him few clients. Therefore, at the age of 24, Mohandas accepted a year-long contract from the Indian firm Dada Abdulla & Company to represent their interests in Natal, South Africa, another corner of the sprawling British Empire.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Gandhi enjoyed somewhat more professional success in South Africa, but he was troubled by the racial bigotry and intolerance he found there. He spent the next twenty years of his life in South Africa fighting for the rights of ethnic minorities, although recently-discovered writings reveal that he was less than sympathetic to the status of Africans. It was here that Gandhi began to refine and teach his philosophy of “passive” resistance. He was jailed several times for opposition to the aptly-named “Black Acts,” by which all non-whites were required to submit their fingerprints to the government. When the government ruled that only Christian marriages were legal in South Africa, Gandhi organized and led a massive non-violent protest. All this ire stemmed at least in part from some of his early experiences in South Africa, such as being ejected from a first-class railway carriage or beaten by a stagecoach driver for failing to give up his inside seat to a white.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
Despite his seemingly unending protests, Gandhi proved himself something of an imperial patriot in times of war. During the Boer War, he raised a cadre of 1100 Indian volunteers to serve as corpsmen and stretcher-bearers on the front lines; Gandhi and 37 others would eventually receive the War Medal for their service and sacrifice. In 1906 the British were at it again, this time against the Zulu. And Gandhi again raised a volunteer corps for stretcher service (the survivors to be “allowed” to petition for South African citizenship). His close-up and personal observations of the war convinced him that only non-violent methods could hope to prevail against the mighty Royal Army... and maybe not even those.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
In 1915, Gandhi returned to India. Almost immediately he irritated most everyone that mattered there: the British administrators when he expressed his humiliation that he had to speak English in his native land, and the Indian nobility when he chided them for their ostentatiousness, telling them that they should hold their jewels and wealth in trust for their poorer countrymen. Thus Gandhi began his long campaign to free his country from English rule. The Mahatma followed two paths – he tried to shame the oppressors and he demanded sacrifices from the oppressed in opposition. For the next thirty years Gandhi tirelessly exhorted Indians to passive resistance, leading strike after strike, march after march, fasting himself to the point of incapacity, enduring innumerable beatings, and years in prison.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Despite serious setbacks and years of frustration, Gandhi persisted in annoying the powers-that-be. In 1946, with an exhausted military and virtually bankrupt, Great Britain agreed to vacate India, but in doing so decided to divide the colony between Hindu and Muslims, which Gandhi had vehemently argued against. As some 15 million people scrambled to get on the “right” side of the partition line, their movement sparked an outbreak of religious violence, in which Muslims were massacred wholesale in India, with the same fate awaiting Hindus in Pakistan.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_10
Text:
The new countries were in chaos. In response, Gandhi went on a fast, refusing to eat again until the violence ceased. Astonishingly, his fast worked; representatives from both nations and religions promised to stop the killings and begged him to end the fast. He did so, to the relief of millions. Ironically, twelve days later, Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by the militant Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse in the garden of the Birla House.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Gandhi is the ultimate peacekeeping civilization, never declaring war unless he's regaining lost ground. He's growing big cities and hoping no one wants to fight him.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GANDHI_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Gandhi is an early Religion adopter, building Holy Sites, putting Stepwells next to them, and getting strong [ICON_Faith] Faith generation going (which becomes even stronger if he can stay at peace). But he isn't an exclusive Religion player; he'll actually never build Inquisitors, so other Religions can stick around (and reward him with their Follower Beliefs). If he doesn't have a chance to win a Religious Victory, he will try to pursue either the Science or Culture Victories, wherever his chance of victory is best.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_QUOTE
Text:
The artistic mouth recites words; the harsh mouth brings litigation; the sweet mouth gathers sweet herbs.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Historians know little about the semi-legendary (well, almost completely legendary) Gilgamesh. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, considered the first great work of literature, carved in cuneiform on clay tablets some four thousand years ago, he is a demigod of superhuman strength who happens to be king of the city-state Uruk in the Sumerian civilization. Using those big muscles, he built the high walls of Uruk to defend his beloved people against barbarian incursions. He also put them to use constructing ziggurats scattered about the countryside.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
It is generally accepted now that Gilgamesh actually did live and rule in ancient Mesopotamia. There are passing references to him (or at least to names very similar) in a number of non-cuneiform texts that have survived more-or-less intact. In a scroll found at Qumran known as the Book of Giants (c. 100 BC), Gilgamesh appears in the form of one of the antediluvian kings. In a Greek work by the Roman Aelian penned around 200 AD, he is mentioned as the successor to an ancient king of Babylon. Theodore Bar Konai, writing around 800 AD, lists Gilgamesh as last of the twelve kings contemporary with the Jewish patriarch Abraham. And fragments of a text found in the Tell Haddad digs relate that the dead Gilgamesh was buried in the riverbed of the diverted Euphrates by his worshipful Uruk subjects.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
And that’s about it for historical evidence of Gilgamesh’s life. So, back to legend, which is much more entertaining...


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
In the Sumerian tale “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree,” the goddess replants a huluppa tree that had been uprooted in a great storm in her sacred grove near Uruk. She planned for it to grow to the point where she could use it to fashion a chair and a bed. However, the poor tree was beset by a snake “which feared no spell” at its roots, a malevolent female spirit (lilitu) in its trunk, and in its branches the monstrous Anzu bird, which could breathe fire and water. Inanna appealed to her brother the sun god for help in ridding her tree of these pests, but he refused. The mighty Gilgamesh did not, and when he smote the snake, the others fled. Inanna got her bed.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
In another tale, repeated in the Epic, Ishtar – fittingly goddess of love and war – upon seeing the hunky Gilgamesh cleaned up and with his hair tied back is overcome with lust. She pleads with Gilgamesh to become her husband, and promises him a “harvest of riches" in return. But Gilgamesh refuses to be her plaything, and she is so angered that she prevails upon her parents Anu and Antum to let her unleash the “Bull of Heaven” so it can gore the demigod to death. All Uruk trembles as the bull comes down bellowing and snorting; hundreds die as the Earth cracks under its hooves. Gilgamesh’s “companion” Enkidu attacks the bull, and Gilgamesh soon joins him. Together they slay the beast. Ishtar, meanwhile, has climbed upon the famous walls of the city and shouts curses at the warriors but flees when threatened by Gilgamesh. While Ishtar and her followers mourn the bull (and Ishtar tries to figure out what she’ll tell her folks), Gilgamesh basks in his people’s adulation.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
And then there’s the story of Gilgamesh and the Netherworld. This one opens with Gilgamesh complaining to Enkidu that one of his possessions (exactly what isn’t clear: in one translation a drum, in another a ball – giving some idea of what was important in the childhood of the Earth) has fallen into the underworld. Enkidu volunteers to retrieve it. Delighted that someone else is going to take responsibility for his carelessness, Gilgamesh explains at length what his friend must not do down in the underworld if he is to return. He, of course, does all those things. And so Enkidu is stuck, until Gilgamesh convinces the gods Enki and Shamash to open a crack in the ground. Out jumps his friend’s ghost. But not for long.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
In the Epic, stricken by grief over the loss of Enkidu and pondering his own mortality, Gilgamesh travels to meet his ancestor, the sage Utnapishtim who had abandoned his worldly possessions and built a large ship, so surviving the Great Deluge. The old man advises Gilgamesh to abandon his quest for immortality but does inform him of a rare plant that will make the king young again. Gilgamesh finally manages to obtain this plant from the bottom of a river where it grows, but a snake steals it. As the serpent slithers away it sheds its skin and so becomes young again. Disheartened, the king returns to his home.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Nevertheless, Gilgamesh – according to the ancient Sumerian King List – lived to the age of 126 years. Not a bad span even by modern standards, and truly spectacular in an age of famine, war, filth and disease when the merest sniffle could kill. To fill these long years of surviving, Gilgamesh and his son and successor Ur-Nungal rebuilt the temple of the goddess Ninlil in the holy city of Nippur, just down the river from Uruk.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Back to fact... well, maybe. In 2003 AD, a German team of archaeologists claimed to have found the tomb of Gilgamesh, in what was once the riverbed of the Euphrates, buried under the sand of the Iraqi desert. Magnetic imaging equipment, supposedly refined enough to tell the difference between dried sediment and ancient mudbricks, showed garden enclosures, buildings and walls of a palace that includes the demigod’s burial chamber. Military actions since have prevented any attempt at excavation, but it is a fervent hope for all that someday archeologists will dig up mighty Gilgamesh’s bones.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GILGAMESH_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
As the first civilization in recorded history, Sumeria shines right out of the gate. Their War Carts and Ziggurats are buildable from the very first turn, and Gilgamesh's special ability (based on fighting joint wars) comes early too, unlocking with the civic "Foreign Trade." Gilgamesh will build War Carts and get out hunting Barbarian Camps early, so he can take advantage of his Epic Quest ability. He will also scatter the edges of nearby Rivers with Ziggurats to push forward early in [ICON_Science] Science and [ICON_Culture] Culture. Other civilizations will be tempted to ally with Gilgamesh to gain the Adventures with Enkidu bonus while fighting joint wars. With a quick start and a few successful joint wars, Sumeria should be able to move into a dominant position they can maintain to victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Daughter of a king of Sparta, wife of a king of Sparta, mother of a king of Sparta, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Gorgo is that we know much about her at all considering the near complete absence of women in classical Greek history. Even queens are rarely mentioned in the works of Herodotus, Xenophon and Thucydides. Not surprising, for most of the ancient Greek historians were Athenians, and Athenians held that women should not be seen – much less heard – in public. As Pericles supposedly said in one of his speeches: “The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about, whether they are praising you or criticizing you.” Gorgo, by that view, was a stunning aberration.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born around 513 BC, Gorgo was the only child of the Agiad king of Sparta, Cleomenes. Besides ruling Sparta with an iron fist, he pursued an often unscrupulous foreign policy, crushing Argos, intervening in Athenian affairs, helping forge the Peloponnesian League. Gorgo learned a lot from her darling dad. Virtually nothing is known of her childhood; she was likely plain (or mention of her “beauty” would have found its way into the “histories”) but clever, as when she advised her father not to trust Aristagoras of Miletus who was seeking support for an Ionian revolt against the Persians. She was no doubt raised and schooled as were other Spartan girls of noble lineage: taught literacy and numeracy, dancing and singing, to ride bareback and to drive a chariot, encouraged to strenuous exercise daily (including wrestling and gymnastics).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Whatever her other attributes, Gorgo was the quintessential Spartan woman, self-confident and outspoken. Neither vain nor materialistic, if Herodotus’ tales are to be believed (and that’s a stretch, as he was more given to hearsay than fact), she showed Spartan scorn at affectation, once thinking that a visitor to court had no hands because he had slaves dress him. According to another story, a grown Gorgo accused an elegantly dressed visitor of not being able to “play even a female role” among true Spartan women.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
It appears that Gorgo was married to Leonidas I, her half-uncle, by 490 BC when her father died. Sparta was unique in that it had two kings, serving simultaneously. Although both technically had equal power, when Leonidas came to the throne, succeeding Cleomenes in the Agiad dynasty, Gorgo managed to elevate her husband over the other king Leotychidas in terms of influence and decision-making. As queen of a militaristic city-state, her “cleverness” served Sparta in good stead numerous times. Prior to the Persian invasion of Greece in 480, the exile Demaratus sent a warning to Sparta about Xerxes’ plans; to conceal the message, he had it engraved on a piece of wood and then covered with wax. When it arrived, neither the kings nor the five ephors (advisors to the kings elected by the citizens) knew what to make of the seemingly blank slab, until Gorgo advised Leonidas to clear the wax from the wood. There are several instances mentioned in the histories in which she is present in council giving advice to the kings or assembly.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
It is unknown whether the proud queen gave Leonidas more than one child – his son Pleistarchus I – but given her schedule before Leonidas marched away to die at Thermopylae, it is perfectly understandable if she didn’t. And, while other Spartan queens had been accused of adultery (notably Helen), Gorgo is repeatedly portrayed as virtuously rejecting unwanted advances. But then, she is famously cited as having stated that only Spartan women produced real men … so maybe no one else was worthy. According to the later historian Plutarch, aware that his death was inevitable when the 300 Spartans marched north, Gorgo asked her husband what he wanted her to do. Leonidas told her “to marry a good man … bear good children.” There is no record that she followed his advice.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
It is likely that, both before and after the Persians invaded, Gorgo travelled throughout Greece helping Leonidas rally the Greek city-states to a common defense. Virtually all of Leonidas’ reign was dominated by Sparta’s efforts to forge a coalition, especially an alliance with Athens, the leading maritime power. Gorgo in Athens must have been a sensation; after all, in Athens it was considered scandalous for a woman – married or not – to be seen in public … and Gorgo was driving a chariot through the streets. Even more scandalous if while riding about she wore traditional Spartan female attire, consisting of a short, thin skirt and tunic with arms and legs bare, while Athenian women wore heavy clothing that concealed everything save face, feet and hands. Spartan women at the time enjoyed a status and respect unknown by their gender in the rest of Greece, and no doubt Leonidas and Gorgo made the most of that in their negotiations, alternating shock with charm.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
Upon the slaughter of the 300 at Thermopylae, Gorgo’s son became king, with first his uncle and then his cousin acting as regent until Pleistarchus assumed the crown himself in 478 BC. Although it is likely that she continued to offer advice to him and the ephors of Sparta through the rest of the Persian war, with her husband’s death, Gorgo disappears from the recitations of Greek historians. There is no record of her own demise.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Who better to be master of the civic side of life than the Greeks? As a Spartan, Gorgo can use the power and flexibility of the civics system to set up for any kind of victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_GORGO_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Greece leads the early game in [ICON_Culture] Culture output. With Gorgo, it is by going to war and getting [ICON_Culture] Culture from kills, or by putting an Acropolis on a Hill right in the center of her city's districts and wonders. Coupled with a free Wildcard Policy slot, Greece is the government power player throughout the game. Researching the civics that boost their victory strategy, they will have a full slate of Policies in place to help them along the way. The government system is flexible to support any victory path, though a Culture Victory is an easy fit for Greece.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Never satisfied, Harald – later given the epithet Hardrada (loosely meaning “hard ruler”) by his own people – King of Norway tried to claim the Danish crown in 1048 AD (and several times thereafter) and then the English crown in 1066 AD. His quest for the latter was his undoing. But before his death at Stamford Bridge, Harald Hardrada had certainly led an expansive life, travelling to distant lands… and killing people there.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Harald Sigurdsson was born around 1015 AD in Ringerike to Asta Gudbrandsdatter and her second husband, Sigurd, one of the wealthiest chieftains in Scandinavia. Harald spent his youth as most Viking lads did – roughhousing, plying willing Viking maidens, and dreaming heroic dreams. He was the youngest of three half-brothers to King Olaf (canonized a year after his death). The revolt in 1028 forced Olaf into exile in Kievan Rus, from which he returned two years later to regain his throne. During those years the half-brothers, notably Harald, had been whipping up support among the Norwegian chieftains. In the ensuing battle at Stiklestad against the Danish King Cnut (the “Great”), Olaf was killed and Harald wounded.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Having recovered in Sweden, Harald arrived at Novgorod among the Rus with some 500 men and was welcomed warmly by Grand Price Yaroslav “the Wise.” Being sorely in need of fierce warriors and a military leader, Yaroslav wisely welcomed the still-young Harald. For the next few years Harald took part in Yaroslav’s military campaigns, against the Poles in 1031, against several unruly vassals, against the Penchenegs and other nomads. Seeking greater fame and especially wealth, Harald moved on south to Constantinople to take service in 1034 with the Byzantine Empire as so many Vikings did while wandering.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
As a commander in the Varangian Guard, Harald saw action first against Arab pirates in the Mediterranean and on land against their supporters in Asia Minor. According to the skald Arnorsson, who later set down the saga of Harald (likely at his bequest, so the facts may be somewhat exaggerated), by 1035 he commanded all the Guard, served Emperor Michael IV faithfully, fought in battles around Jerusalem, led a Byzantines military expedition to Sicily, and enjoyed a bunch of other adventures. All of which made Harald very, very rich (what with all the plunder and the rewards from the emperor). In 1042, he returned to the Rus, there marrying Yaroslav’s daughter Ellisif now that he had status and much money.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
But all this wandering about and killing people had made Harald home-sick. Cnut’s sons had abandoned Norway to adventure in England, leaving Olaf’s bastard Magnus the Good on the throne. Harald returned to Sweden, rallied an army there, and began raiding the Danish holdings along the Baltic coasts. In 1046 AD, a compromise was reached between Harald and Magnus (perhaps good but not so wise) whereby they would share the rule of Norway – although Harald had to also share half his considerable wealth with the bankrupt Magnus. Two years later, Magnus conveniently died, without a male heir; but the good king decided on his deathbed to divide his kingdom, putting Sweyn Estridsson on the Danish throne and leaving Harald on the Norwegian. Harald was not pleased, and spent the next two decades at war with Sweyn trying to “regain” the throne of Denmark.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Every year, Harald – now nicknamed “Hardrada” – would pillage the coasts of Denmark as he had in the good ol’ days, slaughtering the locals and burning everything that couldn’t be carried back to Norway by ship. In 1048 he ravaged Jutland, and the next year he sacked Hedeby, at the time the most important trading center in Denmark. And so it went for years. But it wasn’t all death and destruction under Harald; he revised the legal code, explored the northern fringes of his lands, and worked to accelerate the spread of Christianity across Scandinavia. He also established a standard coinage for Norway, perhaps so he could increase the taxes. Always a stickler for taxes, he travelled through his realm in winter, accusing farmers and merchants of not paying; his standard punishment was maiming or executing the offender on the spot, so his reign was more solvent than many. Harald eventually even came to terms with Sweyn, signing an unconditional peace in 1064 between the two Viking kingdoms.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
It was about this time that Harald’s designs fixated on the crown of England, just across the North Sea. Upon the death of heirless Harthacnut, son of Cnut and supposed king of England (or at least a large part of it) in 1042, the throne there passed to Edward the Confessor. Harald was busy at the time securing the throne of Norway, so didn’t pay much attention. When Edward died in January 1066, however, Harald Hardrada laid claim to the English throne, and was mightily annoyed when Harold Godwinson, one of Edward’s advisors, was proclaimed instead. The reasoning for Harold’s claim to Britain, though convoluted, seemed to make sense to the Vikings.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
While kings of their respective lands, Harthacnut and Magnus had agreed that should either die, the other would inherit his kingdom to add to the great “Viking Land.” As Harald had become joint king of Norway with Magnus before the latter’s death, Harald argued that the agreement extended to him as well. It was high time that, with the death of Edward in England, the English lived up to the agreement. When they didn’t, he raised an army and sallied forth.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Harald allied with Tostig Godwinson, Harold’s brother, who was peeved that he himself had been stripped of the earldom of Northumbria by old Edward before he died, as well as the Viking earls of Shetland and the Orkneys and even some men from King Malcolm of Scotland. All told, Harald reportedly had about 9,000 troops (others were off plundering, pillaging and generally raising hell) under his direct command when he captured York and then moved south. Harold, who’d been hanging about in southern England awaiting the Norman invasion led by William, now lurched northward with about 15,000 men, including a number of armored knights. These were the difference when the two bumped into each other near Stamford Bridge. In the melee, the unarmored Harald Hardrada was struck in the throat by an arrow and died as he had lived: charging into battle against daunting odds.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Hardrada is a naval power like England and Spain, though he strives to dominate the seas as a springboard for his quick Norwegian strike on coastal targets.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HARDRADA_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Hardrada is the bully of the seas. He picks on civilizations with weak navies, dominating them with his large navies, raiding their coasts, and if their coastal cities aren't protected well enough, striking to conquer them as well. He's especially dangerous in the Medieval period when both the Longship and Berserker are active. Religion (powered by Stave Churches) isn't usually his typical emphasis, though there are nice complementary Enhancer Beliefs (Just War for example) that can complement his military campaigns.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Born the eldest son of Tokiyori, fifth shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and de facto ruler of Japan, Tokimune was from birth acknowledged to be the tokuso (head) of the clan Hojo and rigorously groomed to be his father’s successor. At the not-so-tender age of 18, in 1268 AD he became shikken himself. By the time of his death at the age of 34, Tokimune would have reshaped Japan to its core.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Immediately upon his ascension to shikken-hood, Tokimune was faced with a national crisis. The Mongol emperor of China, Kublai Khan, sent an envoy with the demand that Japan enter into a “tributary relationship” with the Mongols or face invasion and conquest. While many in the Japanese government, including members of the royal family, urged that a compromise be reached, the teen regent defiantly rejected the Mongol demand and sent the emissaries back (in what shape is not recorded).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Four more times the demand was made by Mongol emissaries over the next four years, each time with a similar response from Tokimune. Anticipating Mongol impatience, he dispatched a Japanese force to the southern island of Kyushu to be ready for an invasion. In 1274 it came, as some 25 thousand Mongol and Korean troops seized the small, outlying islands. A divine wind forced the Mongol fleet to return home, and the threat was over … for now.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Despite the invasion, Kublai was a reasonable man, and dispatched five more envoys to negotiate tribute yet again in 1275. They refused to depart without a reply, so Tokimune had them brought to the city of Kamakura and beheaded. In 1279, five more were sent, and they suffered a similar fate. The imperial court, seeing the kana on the wall, ordered all the temples and shrines to begin praying for a victory over the Mongols. Tokimune set about fortifying the shore at likely invasion sites.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
In the summer of 1281, a far more serious force than before – reportedly some 140 thousand Mongols and allies in around 4000 ships – arrived offshore and squared off with the entire Japanese army and navy under Tokimune. Defeated in landings on Tsushima and Shikano islands, the Mongols finally gained a foothold on Iki, but later withdrew to the island of Hirato. Three days later, the Japanese attacked the invader’s fleet, causing considerable losses and consternation – enough so that most of the Mongol commanders sailed back to China, leaving about 100 thousand leaderless troops behind. In August came the famed kamikaze (typhoon) that pummeled the Mongol ships for two days, sinking most of them (including the flagship with the Korean admiral aboard). Shortly thereafter Tokimune’s samurai annihilated the 100 thousand.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Japan was saved, never to be threatened again by invasion until the end of the Second World War. Tokimune could turn his attention to other matters … like practicing Zen meditation and building Buddhist shrines and monasteries, such as the one at Engaku-ji as a memorial to those samurai who had died defeating the Mongols. As a teen and young man, he had been an advocate of the Ritsu sect of Buddhism, but converted to Zen at some point before the invasion. So committed to his faith was he that Tokimune on the day of his death “took the tonsure and became a Zen monk” (perhaps a little late to find true enlightenment).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
Thanks in part to the victory over the Mongols under Tokimune’s guidance, Zen Buddhism began to spread among the samurai class with some rapidity. Some may have truly believed in the teachings; others likely took it up to curry favor with the shikken. This heretofore trivial faith spread first through Kamakura, the seat of Hojo power, and thence to the imperial capital of Kyoto. Tokimune also linked Zen with the “moral” code of bushido (a modern term for an old philosophy) that stressed frugality, martial arts, loyalty and “honor unto death.” Born from neo-Confucianism, bushido under Tokimune was mixed with elements of Shinto and Zen, adding a dose of wisdom and serenity to the otherwise violent code. Eventually, under the later Tokugawa shogunate, some of these teachings of bushido would be formalized in Japanese feudal law.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Besides dedicating shrines to the samurai who had fallen stemming the Mongol horde, Tokimune began several initiatives to help them in more pragmatic ways, although he died before most were implemented (his son, Sadatoki would finish these). Land grants (shōen) were given to the kyunin (officers) and myoshu (land holders) who had not yet been rewarded, and the land that they had sold or pawned to bring troops would be returned to them without penalty; a special commission tokusei no ontsukai (“agents of virtuous rule”) was to see to the details. Another edict insured that shrine lands that had been pawned would be returned to the Zen monasteries at no cost as an expression of gratitude for the prayers said at the time of the invasions.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
But, in the midst of all this largess, Hojo Tokimune died suddenly of an unknown cause after falling ill in 1284 AD. Tokimune had rendered heroic service to Japan, and was idolized for it. But the massive expenditures in fighting off the invasion and spreading Zen weakened the Kanakura shogunate and the Hojo clan (he spent a lot of the family fortune on those shrines), to the point where they would decline and be replaced by the Kenmu Restoration fifty years later and the Ashikaga shogunate shortly after that.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
With Hojo in charge, the "way of the warrior" for Japan is to build a nice, compact coastal empire and mix in Religious and [ICON_Culture] Cultural development with military advancement.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_HOJO_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Japan gets just as good an adjacency bonus from placing Holy Sites and Campuses next to each other as from putting them up against Mountains. So finding good terrain is not a worry for Japan, but instead they can rely on a dense urban layout. Hojo thrive along the coast where his land and naval forces are more effective - watch out for them on water maps! Although they might appear as just a military power, under Hojo's leadership Japan can compete in Religion or [ICON_Culture] Culture effectively. By the 20th Century, their Electronics Industry can kick in and make them a threat to win by [ICON_Culture] Culture.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Virtually all that is known about the lengthy reign of King Afonso I of Kongo comes from his correspondence with the Portuguese kings Manuel I and Joao III. The few contemporaries that were actually present at court had little to say … or little that was written down. Luckily, Afonso’s letters are lengthy, detailed, and at times even insightful; most of these are extended complaints about ill-behaved Portuguese adventurers, colonists, officials and traders.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born Mvemba a Nzinga, firstborn of Mwene Kongo (king) Nzinga a Nkuwu, fifth of the dynasty, the heir apparent was in his 30s when the Portuguese arrived in the capital M’banza Kongo in May 1491 AD, having followed the course of the explorer Diogo Cao. His father promptly converted to Catholicism (perhaps, having heard tales of how the Church converted other kingdoms, a wise decision), taking the Portuguese moniker Joao I for himself; Mvemba got baptized as well, and now was Afonso. Recalled from the Nsundi province that he administered, Afonso studied with “godly” priests and Portuguese “advisors” to the king. According to reports by the priests, he was an enthusiast and “true” disciple of Christianity.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Indeed, so committed to his faith was he, Afonso had native art objects that might offend Catholic sensibilities destroyed, and launched a program encouraging conversion in the province. His alliance with the Catholic Portuguese served him in good stead when his father died. The kings of the Kongo were elected, and there was no guarantee that the convert would succeed his father, despite the old man’s faith. But Afonso’s mother, clever lady, managed to keep the king’s death secret until her son could return to the capital and gather followers. When the announcement was finally made, Afonso was present with his supporters (heavenly and otherwise) and promptly became the Mwene Kongo.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
But all was not roses in the garden of Kongo. Afonso’s half-brother Mpanzu, within a week (pretty fast, given that Kongo had a four-day week), had raised an army to march on M’banza. Renouncing Christianity, his army rapidly grew among those that venerated Nzambi a Mpungu, the creator who existed solely outside the physical world. When Mpanzu tried to storm the capital, according to Afonso, God took a hand. An apparition of Saint James and five “heavenly riders” appeared in the sky and the heathen host fled the battlefield. The miracle, described in a letter by Afonso (so perhaps a bit biased), ended any opposition to his rule.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
Seems the miracle also spurred Afonso I to ensure that his kingdom was on the path of righteousness, for he spent much of his time trying to make Kongo Catholic. He established the “Roman Catholic Church of Kongo,” financing its churches and schools with the royal treasury (mostly taxes taken from the people). By 1516 there were a reported 1000 students in M’banza, where the children were learning to read and write and be good Catholics. Afonso spent a lot of time trying to merge the religious traditions of the Kongo with the Christianity of Europe; it didn’t work. He also sent some his kin to Europe to study, including his son Kinu a Mvemba, who was elevated to a bishopric in 1518 by the Vatican.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
Although a staunch Catholic, Afonso was somewhat less enamored of the Portuguese. While he seemingly was open to modernization, he refused to adopt the Portuguese legal code when pressed, and he blocked laws to allow the sale of land to Portuguese prospectors. But it was the issue of slavery that proved the most contentious. In a series of letters beginning in 1526 AD, Afonso condemned the violence of the Portuguese in building the Atlantic slave trade; in fact, he threatened to shut down the slavers operating from lands under his control. He blamed the destabilization of his country upon the intensifying Portuguese trade in slaves in Kongo’s southern provinces. But many of his own nobles profited from the trade in people, and so the only real limit Afonso managed to enact was a royal committee to determine the status (regarding “free” versus the several states of slavery) of all persons presented for sale.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Despite this, Afonso signed the Regimento of 1512 by which the Kingdom of Kongo accepted Portuguese institutions, granted extraterritorial rights to Portuguese living in the land, and allowed the sale of “legitimate” slaves to Portuguese merchants. With Portuguese help and with Portuguese tradesmen, Afonso rebuilt the capital city using stone. With Portuguese armaments and Catholic blessings, his troops expanded the kingdom south and east. The Kongo crown also controlled all external trade, and Afonso increased the export of ivory and raffia to Europe to fill his coffers, helping pay for all these “modern” benefits.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
As Afonso neared the end of his life, several of his many offspring began maneuvering for the aftermath. In 1539, the aged king avoided assassination while attending Easter services, a plot that included several Portuguese residents of the country. In 1542 (or perhaps 1543, records in Kongo being what they were), Afonso died quietly. His son Perdo succeeded Afonso, but didn’t fare well, being overthrown by one of Afonso’s many grandchildren (this one Diogo by name) a couple years later.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Mvemba's Kongo is a land of apparent paradoxes: a Religious civilization without [ICON_Faith] Faith generation or Holy Sites, and one that can grow to a huge [ICON_Citizen] Population in the middle of the Rainforest.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_MVEMBA_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Kongo's initial push is to grab as much Rainforest or Woods as they can get (which shouldn't be a problem unless Brazil is nearby). Using the Mbanza (which provides plentiful [ICON_Housing] Housing as early as the Medieval era) and [ICON_Food] Food from these Rainforest or Woods tiles, they are able to grow large cities quickly. Mvemba will also pick the largest Religion in the game and get it spread into the majority of his cities so Kongo can duplicate the all of the Belief bonuses (without having had to generate a single point of [ICON_Faith] Faith!) If they do end up with [ICON_Faith] Faith, they can use it to patronize Great People, augmenting their Nkisi civilization ability that already allows them to generate plenty of Great Works with highly enhanced yields. By combining bonus yields from Religion and Great Works, they can be a contender for any victory, though [ICON_Culture] Culture is a perfect fit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The future emperor’s full given birth name was Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bebiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga, of the house of Bragança, the royal line of Portuguese rulers; it’s a lot simpler to just call him Pedro II. Born in December 1825 AD in Rio de Janeiro (the first Brazilian ruler to actually be born in Brazil) to Pedro I and his Austrian wife, Pedro’s mother died when he was a year old; Pedro was raised and classically educated by a succession of governesses and guardians. With a grueling regime of daily studies, great care was taken to foster ethical values and a personality quite different from the impulsive and irresponsible character of his father. His young upbringing explains much about his life: always dignified, seemingly distant, impressively calm and tediously serious.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Being the only male child of Pedro I, his father abdicated in favor of Pedro II to pursue dynastic interests in Europe when Pedro was only five years old. For nine years Brazil weathered a turbulent regency until, in 1840 AD at the age of 14, Pedro was declared of age and crowned within the year. This teenager immediately took an active – and no doubt unsettling to the corrupt politicians, planters and military officers – part in affairs of state. He viewed his royal role as a political arbiter, setting aside his personal preferences in untangling the endemic partisan political disputes. During his reign, Pedro II would preside over 36 different cabinets, most of which had broad public support as he was generally well served by able councilors and ministers he personally selected. By astutely alternating support for the Liberal and Conservative parties, he ensured that both enjoyed a roughly equal time running the country under his leadership, with orderly and nonviolent (more-or-less) transitions between.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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This afforded Pedro II the chance to pursue his belief that Brazil needed to modernize to assure its rightful place in the world. Either directly or through his cabinet, Pedro sponsored the construction of Brazil’s first paved road, the Unido e Industria linking Rio de Janeiro to Juiz de Fora; the first steam railroad running from Santos to São Paulo; first telephone service in 1877; participated in the laying of the first Brazil-Europe submarine telegraph cable; and the issuing of Brazil’s first postal stamp. Anticipating the addiction of the Industrial Age, he encouraged coffee production rather than sugar … although humans have a pretty strong addiction to that too. Indeed, he was increasingly beloved, mainly because every Brazilian was getting richer and their lives getting easier. There was even a feeling of prosperity among the shanty inhabitants along the Amazon.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Foreign relations were not as positive, as several nations became “concerned” by Brazil’s startling economic growth and increasing political clout. Two minor incidents led to the British counsel issuing first an ultimatum followed by an order to the Royal Navy to seize Brazilian merchant ships as indemnity. Pedro refused to acquiesce to the bullying and mobilized his own military in preparation for war against the British holdings in the region; the British government promptly softened its stance and proposed a peaceful settlement through international arbitration. Almost immediately thereafter a year-long undeclared war with Uruguay – ended with the Brazilian occupation of the towns of Salto and Paisandu – demanded Pedro’s attention. No sooner was this conflict settled than Paraguay invaded; the resultant and costly “War of the Triple Alliance” lasted until 1870 and saw an unconditional Brazilian victory. A conflict with the Catholic Church (1872-1875) was resolved through negotiation, but left Pedro bereft of the clergy’s support.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
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Nonetheless, the diplomatic victory over Great Britain and the military ones over Uruguay and Paraguay had made Pedro II more popular than ever among the average brasileiros. He now sought to leverage this popularity into his most enduring legacy – emancipation for the slaves in Brazil. The emperor viewed slavery as the last great obstacle to taking Brazil into the “modern age,” as well as an “affront to God.” He had freed his own slaves in 1840 AD and in 1850 threatened to abdicate unless the legislature declare the Atlantic slave trade illegal, which it promptly did. Realizing that abrupt abolition would wreck Brazil’s economy, Pedro II thought the gradual eradication of slavery would be less traumatic than just ripping off the bandage. In 1871 he oversaw the enactment of the “Law of Free Birth,” by which all children born to slave women were considered free-born citizens of the nation. A series of less contentious laws over the next few years extended ever more rights to Brazilian slaves, culminating in complete emancipation in 1888 AD. The latter, which eroded support for the monarchy among the plantation owners, proved Pedro’s ultimate undoing.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
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A savant in his own right, Pedro II was a vigorous sponsor of education, the arts and the sciences in Brazil. He proved far more intelligent than most of his contemporary rulers, indeed than most people. He won the respect of scholars such as Darwin, Pasteur and Nietzsche, and was friend to artists and authors around the world. A correspondent with Longfellow, Emerson and the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 1876 Pedro II was the first foreign head of state to visit the United States where he travelled across the nation from San Francisco to New Orleans to Washington. American newspapers reported his trip an “unalloyed triumph” as he impressed the people and politicians alike with his frankness, insight and kindness.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
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Seemingly secure in his people’s affections, Pedro now proceeded to indulge his life-long desire to travel. There followed three trips to Europe, and the lengthy visit to the United States. Distracted by these long absences, Pedro found himself increasingly removed from those segments of Brazilian society that he had fostered, namely the upwardly-mobile middle class and a new generation of liberal-minded students. Too, he no longer had the unwavering support of the clergy, the upper classes or the military. Although still beloved by his people, who had a strange way of showing that, in November 1889 a non-violent military coup forced him to abdicate in favor of a republic (which didn’t last long). Aged and ailing, Dom Pedro was forced into exile in Europe, where he died two years later in Paris. Unlike Brazil, France accorded “the Father of his People” a state funeral; in 1925 Pedro’s remains were returned to his homeland, where he was interred in the cathedral in Petropolis he helped finance.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PEDRO_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Pedro will always provide plenty of competition for Great People from his home in the Rainforest. Choosing which Rainforest tiles to keep for adjacency and which to clear to slip in districts is always a tricky decision for Brazil, but when set up properly, their cities can be powerful generators of [ICON_Faith] Faith, [ICON_Culture] Culture, and [ICON_Gold] Gold: all useful commodities when pursuing Great People. Holding Carnivals can also help them earn even more Great People. Carnival's emphasis on Great Artists gives them a slight edge toward the Culture Victory, but Great Person generation can lead them effectively along any of the victory paths.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_QUOTE
Text:
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Arguably the most influential Greek orator and general of his day, Pericles was termed the “first citizen of Athens” by no less than the contemporary historian Thucydides (who did, however, view politics as based upon self-interest and fear, so some allowances should be made for his opinion). Thoroughly self-serving, Pericles made the Delian League – which was to continue the fight against Persia – into an Athenian proto-empire. Too, he sought to make Athens the artistic and cultural center of Greece, and was fairly successful at that. And for his support of fledgling Athenian democracy, he has been termed a “populist” (at which he himself would surely laugh).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born around 495 BC in Cholargos, a suburb of Athens, Pericles was the product of the union between the general and politician Xanthippus and Agariste, a daughter of the powerful Alcmaeonidae family. Herodotus and Plutarch both report that Agariste dreamed a few nights before Pericles’ birth “that she had borne a lion.” Whether the vision related to his future prowess, or the fact that he was born with an unusually large skull – thus the reason contemporary comic authors referred to him as “Squill-head,” so named for the Greek squill, or sea onion (so it was cruel, it was still funny) – Pericles was an introverted youth, who enjoyed practicing rhetoric with the philosopher-scholars his family could afford as tutors.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Given his family connections, it was perhaps inevitable that Pericles would enter the Athenian political arena. At some point in his early 30s he served as leading prosecutor of Cimon, a leader of the conservative faction who had been accused of neglecting Athens’ interests in favor of his own. Although Cimon was acquitted, two years later Pericles managed to have his rival ostracized (expelled from the city for a decade) on charges of Cimon’s aiding Sparta. With that, Pericles became one of the leading lights in Athens’ democratic movement, promoting a populist social policy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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Pericles spent the next decade consolidating his position, and currying favor with the lower classes. One of his first sponsored decrees used state funds to pay for admission to the theater for the poor; another offered generous wages for any who would serve as jurymen in the Athenian high court. In league with other “democrats” (promoting the demos, or commoners), Pericles moved to curtail the role of the Areopagus, the aristocratic council that governed the city, and elevate the Ecclesia, the Athenian assembly. It was crucial, in his view, for Athens to favor the public, which he viewed as an untapped resource and the vital element in future Athenian dominance of Greece. In this, bit by bit, he gave the lower classes access to the political system and public offices from which they had heretofore been barred. So it can be argued that the roots of Western democracy lay in the dreams of empire.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
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In all this politicking, he proved himself a masterful orator, bringing both the skills of the sophist and the logic of the philosopher (and he’d been taught by the best of both) to his speeches. His detractors claimed, however, that his consort Aspasia actually wrote many of his famous speeches – a grave insult to any statesman that they owed their success to a woman, especially in Athens where women were second-class citizens (at best). Outrage over the murder of Ephialtes, an early leader of the democratic movement, gave Pericles the opportunity to consolidate his authority. Without Cimon or others around to oppose him, the now unchallenged leader of the “democrats” became the unchallenged (if one knew what was good for one’s fortunes) leader of Athens.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
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Following the defeat of the second invasion by Persia and the withdrawal of Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, in 479 BC Pericles cobbled together the Delian League, a military alliance of the Aegean city-states to protect Greek interests … or, at least, those that mattered to Pericles. Following a failed attack on the Persians in 454, Athens pushed hard to transfer all of the League’s treasury – amassed from the collection of phoros (“taxes”) by members for the rebuilding of temples destroyed by the Persians – from Delos to Athens. Three years later, another decree by Pericles imposed Athenian weights and measures throughout the League.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
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Pericles set about using the treasury for the glory of Athens, tapping it to fund various building projects, most notably a bunch of structures on the city’s Acropolis: the temple of Athena Nike, the Erechtheum, and the massive Parthenon, begun about 447 BC. He argued that the allies were paying Athens for their defense (it did have the largest fleet) and since that was the case he didn’t have to account for how the money was spent. He also used funds (both his own and the League’s) to support the famed playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes (who weren’t getting rich off all those free performances). Sculptors such as Phidias and Myron beautified the city with works in marble and stone. The philosophers Protagoras, Zeno, and Anaxagoras were personal friends of Pericles, although the great Socrates held himself aloft from the fawning. It could be argued that Pericles funded the Golden Age of Greece … using other people’s 9000 talents of gold.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
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By this point, Pericles had been elected strategos (general) in 458 of the combined forces of Athens and its allies. And soon enough he set off the first Peloponnesian War, at least he did according to Thucydides and to Plutarch, although they were hardly objective observers. Pericles, by all accounts, was convinced that a war for the control of Greece between Sparta and Athens was inevitable. And so he dispatched Athenian forces in 433 to support Corcyra in its squabble with Corinth, a Spartan ally. Perhaps Pericles was looking for a fight, and when Athens rejected Spartan’s demands to cease-and-desist the Peloponnesian League and Delian League had at it. Sparta ravaged the Attica countryside; Pericles evacuated all the people into Athens and prepared to wear down the Peloponnesians. But, in 429 BC, plague struck the crowded city. Among those it claimed … Pericles, who couldn’t debate with an enterobacterium.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Who better to be master of the civic side of life than the Greeks? As an Athenian, Pericles can use the power and flexibility of the civics system to set up for any kind of victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PERICLES_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Leading Greece, Pericles is able to lead the early game in [ICON_Culture] Culture output by allying city-states, or putting an Acropolis on a hill right in the center of his city's districts and wonders. Coupled with a free Wildcard Policy slot, Greece is the government power player throughout the game. Researching the civics that boost their victory strategy, they will have a full slate of Policies in place to help them along the way. The government system is flexible to support any victory path, though a Culture Victory is an easy fit for Greece.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Whether he deserved the sobriquet “the Great” or not, Pyotr Alexeyevich certainly managed some impressive achievements during his four-decade reign over Russia. By his death, Russia had been modernized, westernized, enlightened and revolutionized (at least in terms of culture and science). In a series of successful wars, Peter had gained ports on the Black and Baltic seas and made Russia a “player” in European politics. All-in-all, his legacy still resonates in Russia and Eastern Europe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Peter avoided the limitations of his elder half-brothers, Feodor III and Ivan V, both physically weak and sickly, and the latter of “infirm mind.” Consequently, when Feodor died childless in May 1682, the Boyar Duma chose the ten-year-old Peter to become tsar, with his mother Natalya Naryshkina to serve as regent. But a revolt of the Streltsy (the Russian palace guard), engineered by the ambitious Sophia Alekseyevna, Ivan’s sister and Peter’s half-sister, forced the boyars to proclaim Ivan and Peter to be “co-rulers” with primacy given to Ivan. In the turmoil, some of Peter’s family and friends were killed by the Streltsy on Sophia’s orders … and Peter had a long memory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Sophia was made regent, not that that bothered the young Peter (much) for he was more interested in such pastimes as model shipbuilding, sailing and waging mock wars with his extensive collection of toy soldiers. And his studies. Peter was smart (could say “brilliant”) and his father had installed some of the greatest minds of the Russian Enlightenment – the “learned druzhina” – as his tutors. They indoctrinated him with all those messy concepts popular in Europe at the time: benevolent absolutism, equality (for the non-royal, of course), scientific progress, freedom of speech, the “Republic of Letters,” and a whole host of European customs.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
In the midst of all this learning, his mother sought to distract him with an arranged marriage to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689, but that didn’t work out and ten years later Peter forced Eudoxia to become a nun, banished to the convent at Suzdal. Rather more of a distraction was Peter’s plot to seize power from his half-sister. Getting wind of his plans, Sophia moved first. As the Streltsy revolted, Peter fled to an impregnable Orthodox monastery, there to gather his own forces. In the end, Sophia was overthrown and forced to enter a convent (Peter seemed to have some scruples about killing females). The co-rule with the senile and virtually blind Ivan continued, but now with Peter having the real power.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
Drawing on all that enlightened thinking he’d absorbed, Peter almost immediately implemented sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia in the European manner. He faced a bit of opposition – uprisings by the Streltsy, boyars, Bashkirs and Bulavin Cossacks – but his response was invariably swift and brutal. He implemented his “social modernization” with equal single-mindedness; as an outward sign of the progress Russia was making in becoming civilized (ever an uphill struggle), Peter required his courtiers, officials and officers to shave their beards and adopt modern dress. In fact, he placed a tax on beards and robes in September 1698.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
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But to keep all this progress rolling, Russia needed an easier way to connect with Europe: maritime ports that would open Peter’s realm to the ready exchange of goods and knowledge with the West. To the north, the Baltic was dominated by stiff-necked Swedes; to the south the Ottomans held the Black Sea and the Persian Safavids the Caspian. To even contemplate war with such powerful neighbors, Peter needed allies and supporters among the European monarchs. He set out on his “Grand Embassy” in 1697 to gain them.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
While he didn’t succeed in his plans – forcing Russia to go it alone with the heavyweights – Peter did get to see Europe firsthand, from Amsterdam to London to Leipzig to Vienna, and was enamored. He studied shipbuilding with the Dutch East India Company, and hired shipwrights and seamen to go to Russia. He paid a visit to the famed Frederik Ruysch, who taught him how to draw teeth and collect butterflies. In England, he met with the king and learned about “modern” city planning in Manchester. Unfortunately, a revolt by the Streltsy caused Peter to cut his European vacation short. Arriving home, Peter had some 1200 of them tortured and executed, and finally disbanded the irritating Streltsy and created a new Imperial Guard.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
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Even without allies, Peter got Russia embroiled in war with the Turks. But the outbreak of the Great Northern War forced him to come to a temporary accord with them, although he did manage to hang onto captured Azov, a strategic fortress where the Don River empties into the Black Sea. While the Poles and Lithuanians kept the Swedish king and military genius Charles XII busy by dying a lot, Peter took Ingermanland on the Baltic from the Swedes in 1703 and founded the city of St. Petersburg, destined to be the new Russian capital. By the time Charles got done smashing the Poles, Peter was ready for the Swedish invasion. Skillfully retreating southward, getting defeated periodically, the Russians finally won their great victory at Poltava, effectively ending the war. In the end, in 1721, Peter acquired some nice new additions to his empire: Livonia, Estonia, Ingria and a substantial portion of Karelia.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Peter the Great spent the end of his days reforming again. He took a hand in reorganizing the Russian Orthodox Church; when the traditional head of the church, the Patriarch of Moscow died, the tsar refused to name a replacement as usual and instead created a Holy Synod to govern it. And he created an act that forbade any man to enter a monastery before the age of 50, believing that their productive years were being wasted. He issued a decree establishing compulsory education, abolished the land and household taxes (although, no fiscal fool, he did institute a poll tax), and began the Peterhof Palace for his descendants to enjoy. He never got to see it himself, dying in February 1725 at the age of 52.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Peter’s Russia is the spreading amoeba you don’t want next door. He is great at absorbing all the land, technologies, and civics around him!


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PETER_GREAT_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Peter’s bonuses are ideal for taking over large swaths of territory on the ground. First because each city starts large, and second because Lavras gain extra tiles for their city when a Great Person is expended. Russia’s cities will quickly gain lots of tiles. Couple that with Peter's ability to absorb [ICON_Science] Science and [ICON_Culture] Culture from the leaders in those fields, and you have a very powerful empire that can win any type of victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_SUBTITLE
Text:
King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Sardinia and Sicily, King of Naples, Duke of Milan, King (briefly) of England and Ireland, Lord of the 17 Provinces of the Netherlands


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_QUOTE
Text:
One day, I will be able to look at the map of the world, but will have ceased to be a map of the world. It will be Spain.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Thanks to his Hapsburg predecessors, Felipe (as he was born) inherited a large portion of the world. His lands included not only most of the important bits of Europe, but territories on every continent known to the Europeans – including the Philippine Islands, named after him. In a life spanning 71 years, he proved himself not just a renowned despot, but a man of letters with a love of music and art. He amassed one of the greatest collections of art and rare books in history at San Lorenzo de El Escorial (his palace outside of Madrid). Deeply religious, he also made the Escorial home to a Hieronymite monastery and an Augustinian-run school and the greatest of reliquaries outside the Vatican. His lifetime encompassed Spain’s golden age, for some obvious reasons.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Born in May 1527 AD with far, far more than the proverbial silver spoon, Philip was son to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Infanta Isabella of Portugal. At the age of eleven months, he received the oath of fealty from the Cortes of Castile, and his future was assured. The boy was raised at court, and tutored by such notables as Juan Siliceo (future archbishop of Toledo) and the humanist Juan de Estrella. His martial training was undertaken by Juan de Zuniga, commander-mayor of Castile, and the famed Duke of Alba with whom Philip served during the Italian War of 1542.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
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Convinced that his son was well-prepared, the ailing emperor began abdicating his many thrones to Philip, commencing with those of Sicily and Naples first in 1554. Already Duke of Milan, at the age of 27 Philip II was a king. In 1555, in his most public announcement, Charles informed the States General of the Netherlands that he was retiring to a monastery and Philip would henceforth rule that land. Charles then abdicated the throne of the Spanish Empire in January 1558 with minimal fanfare. Philip now ruled an empire on which, truly, the sun never set.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
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With the exception of such unpleasantries as the execution of the Attorney-General of Aragon when he objected to Philip’s breach of Aragon’s law, the garrisoning of troops in Navarre in breach of its laws, and unlawful appointments of Castilian officials in Pamplona (Philip seems to have found the Spanish laws annoying), Philip’s early reign was fairly benign. He was however a firm believer, obviously, in the divine right of kings – that God had made him king of Spain and that, as God could not make a mistake, neither could he.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
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The first was to his cousin Maria of Portugal in 1543; she died two years later giving birth to the unlucky Don Carlos who, at the order of his father, was later imprisoned in the Alcazar of Madrid where he died after six months. A decade later Philip married Mary I of England, better known as “Bloody Mary,” making him the king-consort of England and Ireland … but Mary died in 1558. Mary was barely buried when it was the turn of Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of King Henri II of France, in 1559 to seal the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis ending the warfare between Spain and France. She did give Philip two daughters, but died herself in 1568. Finally, returning to keeping it in the family, in 1570 he wed Anna of Austria, his niece. She lasted a decade before dying, but she did give him a male heir (who would become Philip III).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
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But it was his troubles with another woman that changed civilization. Philip, by virtue of his marriage to Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, was – or at least considered himself to be – king of England. When Mary passed and those stiff-necked Brits elevated Elizabeth I to the throne instead of accepting Philip’s claim, he was irritated. Worse, Elizabeth promoted the Church of England her father had founded and began dismantling the Catholicism Bloody Mary had reinstated. England was Protestant, again, and that Philip couldn’t abide. Even worse than that, Elizabeth encouraged English colonization of the New World … and gave tacit backing to the English “pirates” that were preying on Spain’s shipping there. It was more than a man could bear.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
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Then, in 1585, Elizabeth sent an English army to aid the Protestant Dutch, in rebellion against Spanish rule. It was the last straw. Two years later, Elizabeth’s favorite Sir Francis Drake captained a successful raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz, destroying a number of Philip’s warships. Rebuilding his fleet, Philip launched the “Spanish Armada” in July 1588; it was an unmitigated disaster. And shifted the balance of power in Protestant England’s favor. Three more armadas were assembled, but the ones in 1596 and 1597 were defeated and the one of 1599 had to be diverted to the Azores to fend off British raids. The Anglo-Spanish War would drag on to a desultory end in 1604, after both Philip and Elizabeth were dead.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
With Spain now weakened, Philip faced an increasing tide of troubles. Revolt in the Netherlands, war against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean, religious wars in France, agitation in the Cortes in several places, involvement in the morass of the Italian Wars at the behest of the papacy, unrest in the colonies. And he was broke. Charles V had saddled Philip with a 36 million ducat debt and a deficit of a million ducats annually. Philip would default on loans four times by 1596. Reduced revenues to the crown from overseas (thanks in part to those British sea dogs) and involvement in so many conflicts only exacerbated matters. Some historians claim that Philip’s financial woes had much to do with Spain’s decline from being a great power in the next century.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
No wonder Philip – although still the most powerful monarch in Europe – took to his bed at El Escorial in September 1598, never to rise again from it.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Philip leads another global naval empire, but unlike England, this one is the leading candidate to win a Religious Victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_PHILIP_II_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Philip wants everyone to adopt his beloved Catholicism. He wants to establish a small empire on the coast of his home continent and then go sailing to find additional settlement spots. If he can’t find places on other continents to settle peacefully, he will use his Conquistadors to force a foothold.  Once there, the Missions and Treasure Fleet civilization ability will ensure that the foreign presence will be lucrative for him. He’s going to push against anyone that isn’t following his Religion until he has turned the entire world to his Beliefs.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_QUOTE
Text:
The reason why China suffered from endless wars is because of the existence of feudal lords and kings. I corrected this.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Autocratic and ruthless, Ying Zheng may have been just what China needed to end the period of the Warring States and unify the realm. Known for the burning of books and the execution of recalcitrant scholars, he also laid the foundation of the Great Wall, created a national system of roads and canals, and sought the elixir of immortality. When he unified China, he considered his achievement so great that he took for himself a great name: Qin (his people) Shi (first) Huang (emperor). Due to his greatness, the title 'Huangdi' would be used by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia. And civilization would be rewarded with the Terracotta Army as a window on that greatness.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
According to the monumental 'Records of the Grand Historian,' the babe Zheng was born to Prince Yiren of Qin and the concubine Zhao Ji in the city of Handan in 259 BC. When Zheng’s father died after a short three-year reign as king, the 13-year-old succeeded to the regality. Since the boy was deemed too young to lead Qin – which was already at war with all the others of the “seven warring states” (Qi, Yan, Han, Wei, Chu and Zhao) – power rested in the hands of the manipulative Prime Minister Lü Buwei.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Soon enough, Lu was plotting against the young king. A really long-term plot. The prime minister had earlier located and promoted one Lao Ai to the court, who soon enough seduced the queen mother Lady Zhao and had two sons by her. In 238 BC King Zheng set out in procession to the great city of Yong. Lao Ai, with Lu’s connivance, seized the queen mother’s great seal, raised an army, and rebelled. Zheng ordered his greatest general Lord Changping to attack; in the ensuing battle hundreds of the rebels were killed and Lao Ai fled. A price of one million copper coins was offered for Lao Ai. Who could resist so much copper? Soon the great fugitive was in custody. Most of his supporters were beheaded, and Lao was torn into five pieces while his entire family (including his sons) was executed to the “third degree.” Lady Zhao was placed under house arrest until her death years later. Lü Buwei committed suicide with poison before he could be taken. By 235 BC it was all over.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Save for surviving a couple of assassination attempts, Ying Zheng could now turn his attention to beating down the other warring states. First to fall was Han, which was overrun around 230. The Qin were blessed with a plethora of able commanders, including the king himself. And was it mentioned that he was ruthless? When Zhao was struck by a natural disaster (unspecified in the histories) in 229, Zheng turned his general Wang Jian loose, who promptly overran the kingdom within a year. By 223, Yan, Wei and Chu had all been defeated and absorbed. No fool, the Tian king of Qi sent 200 thousand of his people, mostly peasants, armed as best he could, to defend his western borders that abutted Qin territory. Unfortunately for him, Zheng invaded from the north, captured the royal family, and annexed Qi. And then proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
With his immediate ambition to rule all China satisfied, the emperor set about reforming it as he wished. First he abolished the hereditary vassal system and established Jun (commanderies), Xian (districts) and Xiang (counties), all sensibly ruled directly by the emperor of course. He standardized Chinese weights, measures, currency – creating the banliang coin around 210 to make taxation much easier to track – and damn near everything else, including the length of cart axles. The latter so that these carts would easily traverse the new road network across his empire. Under his minister Li Si, the Chinese script was standardized, doing away with the variations across the conquered states, thus creating one great language that would stand the test of time.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
But his greatest effort was saved for stamping out all that “fuzzy” thinking that prevailed across China. While the Warring States period was one of blood and fire, it was also one of free thinking and liberal philosophy, giving rise to some of civilization's greatest insights into the human condition. Across the kingdoms, the Hundred Schools of Thought, incorporating Confucian and Taoist teachings with other philosophies, sparked a great golden age. The writings of the School of Mohism (“everyone is equal before heaven”), the School of Yin-Yang (naturalism and the Five Elements), the agriculturalists and syncretists and the logicians, and so forth, profoundly influenced Chinese lifestyles and social consciousness. Since all this thinking and debate among the commoners wasn’t great for an autocrat, Qin Shi Huang decreed that all other schools of thought were banned and that henceforth only “legalism” (follow the law and live a just life) acceptable.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
Commencing in 213 BC, at the instigation of his new, even-more-manipulative Prime Minister Li Si, the emperor ordered that all books – save those on astrology, divination, medicine, agriculture and histories of his great empire – be collected and burned. Those owning prohibited texts, especially the Shi Jing (“Book of Songs”) and the Shangshu (“Classic of History”), were to be punished. According to the Records of the Grand Historian (which must have been an acceptable text), Qin Shi Huang had some 460 scholars buried alive for hiding the banned books. While modern Chinese historians claim that this is but a Confucian myth, it makes a great story. Whatever the truth, it is a fact that the empire sought to control scholarship and thought across its expanse and eliminate intellectual challenges to the emperor’s rule.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Despite all this right thinking, in his twilight years Qin Shi Huang set out – or, rather, sent his minions – to find the elixir of life, a potion which would grant him immortality so he could keep enjoying his greatness. Expeditions were sent by sea (most didn’t return, perhaps wisely given how he reacted to failure), and thrice he himself visited Zhifu Island seeking a rumored “Mountain of Immortality.” But he never found the elixir nor the mountain, and died in September 210 BC during a tour of his eastern territories. So fearful of an uprising if word leaked out was Li Si that he concealed the emperor’s death until the caravan finally returned to the capital Xianyang, where Huang’s second son Huhai (Li Si tricked the elder one into committing suicide) was proclaimed the new emperor.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Qin is the first among emperors and therefore he needs to be first in amazing wonders built for his legacy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_QIN_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
China is the ultimate in isolationist, builder civilizations. Qin can mobilize a more productive workforce than any other leader, and early in the game his Builders can use their charges directly on his beloved wonders. Once in possession of those wonders, their gunpowder weaponry and Great Wall should help them hang onto the land and wonders they have developed. With the Dynastic Cycle ability, they will gain even more from boosts. If they are able to achieve many of these added pushes, their progress through both progression trees should be swift.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known to his foes (and there were many) as Saladin, was a Kurdish noble who rose to command the Arabic armies of the Faithful as the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. Born in Tikrit around 1138 AD, his personal name was Yusuf, but his given name was a laqab; “Salah ad-Din” translates loosely as “Righteousness of the Faith.” And righteous Saladin was, given a military and religious education by his father Najm ad-Din Ayyub, former warden of the fortress at Tikrit. The Ayyub family became embroiled in a feud and was banished from Tikrit – leaving, supposedly, the night Saladin was born – and ending up in Mosul in 1139.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The boy Saladin proved quite bright, and continued his education in Damascus (for which he developed a particular fondness) when his father was appointed commander of the fortress at Baalbek by Imad ad-Din Zengi, atabeg (loosely, “governor”) of Mosul, Damascus, Aleppo and Hama. Saladin was especially good at arithmetic and mathematics, immersing himself in the works of Euclid and in the Almagest. He could cite the genealogies and histories of Arab nobility, as well as the bloodlines of famed Arabian horses (the latter probably less useful than the former). And he could quote the Hamasah, a ten-volume collection of Arabic poetry, at length. But, almost inevitably, he was sucked into the military career expected of him by his family, which included his maternal grandfather Nūr ad-Dīn, who had succeeded Imad as emir of Syria in service to the Seljuk Empire.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Saladin’s military service began at the age of 26 under the patronage of his uncle Asad ad-Dīn Shīrkūh, an influential general in service to Nur al-Din. In a campaign against Crusaders and the Egyptian usurper Dirgham at the behest of the Fatimid caliph al-Adid, Saladin distinguished himself in the sack of Bilbais and at a battle near the Nile west of Giza, where he led the right wing. Proceeding to Alexandria, Saladin entered the city unopposed and, in fact, was welcomed with open arms – and money, arms, supplies. Faced with a superior advancing Crusader-Egyptian force, Asad, being wise, withdrew with the bulk of his army, leaving Saladin and a small troop to defend the city. He did so brilliantly.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Things soon got complicated. Asad became embroiled in a three-way power struggle with Shawar, the vizier of Egypt for the crumbling Fatimid caliphate, who called upon the Crusader King Amalric I of Jerusalem for support. In 1169, Shawar was assassinated (reportedly by Saladin), and then Asad al-Din Shirkuh died later that same year. Although Nur ad-Din chose a replacement – who was not Saladin – for Asad, the Fatimid caliph decided for unknown reasons to appoint Saladin the new vizier of Egypt. In the next few months, Saladin avoided an assassination attempt by resentful Egyptian officials, and decisively put down a revolt by Fatimid regiments. So decisively, in fact, that he never again faced an uprising in Egypt.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
According to Arabic historians, in June 1171 Saladin was “ordered” to reestablish the Abbasid caliphate in Egypt by Nur ad-Din. When al-Adid died, and after Saladin had a few of his officials executed or assassinated, Egypt was firmly under his control. While passing time until the next bump in his fortunes, Saladin outmaneuvered the Templars and sacked Gaza, captured the Crusader castle at Eilat which had been annoying Muslin shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba, and smashed a Nubian invasion, taking the Nubian town of Ibrim. While transporting some of the plunder to Nur al-Din in Damascus as a gift – including “an ass of the finest breed” (showing Saladin’s horse sense) – he took the opportunity to ravage the Crusader holdings. Oh, and he occupied Yemen, driving out the unbelievers lingering there.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Upon Nur al-Din’s death in May 1174, Saladin promptly proclaimed the establishment of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt … with himself as sultan, naturally. Although Nur al-Din’s 11-year-old son had been proclaimed successor as caliph by a group of powerful emirs, Saladin feared anarchy in Syria, and with that the prospering of the infidels. But he faced an untenable choice: seize Syria for himself from the young as-Salih Ismail, forbidden by the Qur'an, or await an unlikely invitation to invade. In sha’Allah, when as-Salih was spirited away to Aleppo by an ambitious uncle who planned to eliminate all his rivals, the emir of Damascus was forced to appeal to Saladin for support.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
It was the hand of destiny at work; Saladin raced across the intervening desert with 700 picked warriors and, joined by emirs and Bedouin tribesmen, he entered Damascus to general acclaim by its citizens (no fools they). Leaving one of his brothers in charge there, Saladin soon reduced other cities that had been loyal to the former caliph. The next year was eventful, with Saladin managing to avoid several assassination attempts (including a couple by the Ismaili sect named the “Assassins”). In the end, the surviving emirs of Syria recognized a good thing and proclaimed Saladin sultan there as well as in Egypt. Making peace with the Assassins and other irritants in his empire, all of whom recognized that it would be righteous to kick the Europeans out of the Holy Land, Saladin readied the forces of Islam.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Saladin’s war against the Christians raged until his death in 1193 AD. Marked by a string of Ayyubid victories and the occupation of most of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, including the holy city itself in 1187, Saladin became infamous across Europe. The result was the Third Crusade – mounted by England’s Richard the Lionheart, Philip II of France, Frederick Barbarossa, among others – marked more by massacres than battles. By September 1191, the Crusader army had been reduced to about 2000 men-at-arms and 50 knights fit for battle. Richard and Saladin finally came to an agreement, the Treaty of Ramla in 1192, whereby Jerusalem would remain in Muslim control but be open to Christian pilgrimages. The treaty proved Saladin’s most lasting legacy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_SALADIN_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Arabia is a Religious civilization that doesn't have to worry about racing to beat the other players to Great Prophets; they can just let a Religion come to them. Once they have established their Religion, then they can quickly move forward on a number of fronts. They will spread their Religion to as many cities as possible to boost their [ICON_Science] Science output, and add a Holy Site to most of their cities to allow them to then add their worship building (which boosts overall city output of [ICON_Science] Science, [ICON_Faith] Faith, and [ICON_Culture] Culture). Their worship buildings are inexpensive for other civilizations to add, too: a smart move for Arabia's neighbors to keep Saladin's wrath at bay.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_QUOTE
Text:
My clothing is a Scythian cloak, my shoes are the hard soles of my feet, my bed is the earth, my food is only seasoned by hunger.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The ancient Scythian “queen” Tomyris is mentioned in the “histories” of Herodotus, Strabo, Polyaenus, Cassiodorus and Jordanes. The French poet Deschamps listed her as one of the nine “Lady Worthies” in his 14th Century ballades. She has been depicted artistically by the illustrious likes of Rubens, Allegrini, Mattia Preti and Gustave Moreau, even though no one knows what she actually looked like. In point of fact, outside a single military engagement reported by Herodotus and repeated by others ad nauseam, little that’s factual is known about Tomyris.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Tomyris was the widow of a Scythian chieftain c. 530 BC who had assumed his leadership of a group of tribes. The chieftainess also had at least one child, the ill-fated (or perhaps just inept) Spargapises, who commanded the first rank of horse-warriors. Meanwhile, Cyrus had taken command in the Achaemenid Empire (too often referred to as the “First Persian Empire”); although he had plans to expand to the south, which would bring him into conflict with powerful Egypt, he had to first secure his eastern borders, where the unpredictable Scythians (of which the Massagetae were a branch) were raising hell.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Cyrus first tried the usual ploy – if you couldn’t avoid trouble, marry it. He dispatched envoys to Tomyris with an offer of wedded bliss. Tomyris, obviously no fool and realizing it was not her that Cyrus courted but her kingdom, replied in the negative. Cyrus, therefore, marched his army to the River Syr Darya; not concealing his hostile intent, Cyrus ordered boats built. No doubt he figured there’s more than one way to skin a horse. Tomyris, in turn, dispatched a message that called for a battle between the two forces (she’d also assembled her host), reading, in part, “leave your useless toil of bridge-making; let us retire three days’ march from the river bank and do you come across with your soldiers; or, if you like better to give us battle on your side, retire yourself an equal distance.” In council, the great king’s advisors recommended having at it on the Persian side.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
But Cyrus was convinced that a different plan would prevail. Upon the advice of Croesus the Lydian, Cyrus agreed to meet the Scythians on their side, crossing the river and marching well inland. There a camp would be established, well stocked with wines and spirits, with which the barbarians were unfamiliar. And it would be guarded by a handful, as Cyrus led his army away to the planned battlefield. But, in truth, the army would march a short ways and await the inevitable attack on the camp by the horsemen. Then, after a suitable time had passed for them to be well intoxicated, Cyrus would fall upon them and thus win the day.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
And so it fell out. The drunken Massagetae-Scythian rabble, led by Spargapises, were overwhelmed, losing a third of their number in minutes with most of the rest captured, including Tomyris’ son. Upon hearing of the debacle, Tomyris dispatched a herald to announce that, since he had been captured “by trickery not in the battle of strengths,” her son was to be released. Cyrus refused, and now-sober Spargapises committed suicide (although Herodotus doesn’t provide any details on this). The enraged mother gathered her horse-archers and allies, and gave battle. According to the old Greek’s account...


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
“The following, as I understand, was the manner of it: First, the two armies stood apart and shot their arrows at each other; then, when their quivers were empty, they closed and fought hand-to-hand with lances and daggers; and thus they continued fighting for a length of time, neither choosing to give ground. At length the Scythians prevailed. The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years. Search was made among the slain by order of the queen for the body of Cyrus. When it was found, she dipped the head of Cyrus into blood and thus insulted the corpse, ‘I live and have conquered you in fight, and yet by you am I ruined, for you took my son with guile; but thus I make good my threat, and give you your fill of blood.’ Of the many different accounts which are given of the death of Cyrus, this which I have followed appears to me most worthy of credit.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
And, with that, Tomyris, warrior-chieftain of the Scythians, disappears from "history" (if she was ever part of it)... as the Scythians themselves would do a few centuries later. But it does make for a rousing tale of a mother’s vengeance.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Tomyris' Scythia is going to be a threat to strike quickly and decisively at any time, especially during the Ancient and Classical periods. Luckily she has a strict code of honor and will never backstab anyone; she'll only be attacking those who deserve it for mistreating others.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TOMYRIS_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
The Scythians are the masters of the open Grasslands and Plains. They are a purely military civilization who wants to settle near Horses and other Pasture-based resources. These locations will let them build plenty of mounted units and find desirable places to plant their Kurgans, a key component to them getting a Religion started (hopefully one where they can worship the God of the Open Sky Pantheon). Be very cautious if Tomyris is on the continent with you - a Surprise War against another civilization means you'll have her at your throat quickly. It'd be much like declaring war on two civilizations at once.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The Emperor Trajan, preceded on the throne by the short-reigning, undistinguished Nerva and followed by that Hadrian, took the empire to its apex of territorial expanse. The able soldier-emperor was in fact officially declared optimus princeps (“the best ruler”) by the Roman Senate, perhaps not impartial but with a certain vantage point. Trajan is also known for his relatively philanthropic reign (at least, compared to most other emperors), launching extensive public building projects and implementing forward-thinking social policies, many of the latter being abandoned by the short-sighted Senate after his death in 117 AD. He is considered to be the second of the “Five Good Emperors” (although Machiavelli coined that term in 1503, so take it with a rather large grain of salt).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica in 53 AD, son of a prominent senator and general, Trajan wasn’t even purely Roman – perhaps for the best. As a youth, he joined the imperial army, a career path in the empire that often lead to good things … assuming one survived the near continuous warfare along the borders. Trajan rose through the ranks rapidly, seeing action on some of the most contentious frontiers, and gaining the respect of powerful men. He was nominated as a consul, made a good marriage into a wealthy family (although contemporary accounts take note of some casual extramarital activities), and was declared by the new Emperor Nerva as his adopted son at the “urging” of the Praetorian Guard.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
When the old emperor died 15 months later, Trajan succeeded him, and shortly thereafter deified Nerva (it helps to have friends in high places). Upon his entry into Rome – Trajan at the time was off on the borders as usual – he gave the plebeians a monetary handout, insuring his popularity with the mob. He also cleverly feigned reluctance to take power, even as he began building pragmatic relationships with wealthy senatorial families. Ironically, one of the dominant themes of Trajan’s tenure was his steady encroachment on the Roman Senate’s traditional prerogatives in decision-making.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Trajan had a taste for construction, and sponsored building projects across the empire as well as in the city itself. He also had a taste for putting his name on these, just in case history should forget he was the emperor. Hence, in time there was Trajan’s Column, Trajan’s Forum, Trajan’s Bridge, Trajan’s Market, the Puente Trajan at Alcantara (Spain), and a lot of roads, aqueducts and other useful constructs scattered about. He also had a weakness for financing triumphal arches to celebrate Roman victories; given the successes his forces had in wars in the East, he had no shortage of opportunities.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
Trajan was, however, more celebrated by the Romans as a victorious general (after all, what’s to get excited about yet another pile of stone compared to more land and slaves). His first conquest was the “client” kingdom of Dacia astride the Danube River, which had been shamefully granted an unfavorable – to Rome, that is – peace by the Emperor Domitian a decade earlier. No sooner was Dacia swallowed whole than Trajan annexed Nabataea (today, southern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia), another client state that had proved annoying. In 113 AD Trajan embarked on his last campaigns, against Parthia in the east, which had had the arrogance to sponsor a king in Armenia that was unacceptable to Rome. Trajan first marched into Armenia and added it to the empire, then went marching about Mesopotamia subduing Parthian cities and client-states. By late 116 it was over, and Trajan had deposed the Parthian king and put a Roman puppet in place over the rump kingdom. But, Trajan’s health was starting to fail; in addition, before he could complete his plan to conquer all Asia Minor, he was forced to pull legions out to deal with some pesky Jewish rebels.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Although he was often absent from Rome, Trajan nevertheless made his presence felt, keeping the mob content and supportive. Among one of his better-received efforts was a three-month gladiatorial spectacle in the Colosseum, in which some 11 thousand people (mostly slaves and criminals) and thousands of “ferocious” beasts died; it supposedly drew over five million spectators. Somewhat more benevolent was Trajan’s organization of the Alimenta, a government fund to support orphans and poor children in and around the city. It was one of several imperial efforts to improve the lot of the Roman citizens, at least those living on the Italian peninsula.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
All these wars and games and buildings and public programs were expensive. So Trajan set about dealing with the financial crisis he inherited. His first effort was the establishment of correctores (auditors) to oversee the civic spending of those technically free Greek cities; they also insured that collection of imperial taxes was on the up-and-up (given the Greek tradition of corruption, a wise move). In 107 AD, Trajan devalued the Roman coinage, lowering the amount of silver in the denarius, and then minted a larger quantity of denarii than any of his predecessors. In short order, despite Trajan’s expensive proclivities, Rome was once again solvent.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
Trajan, feeling ill, set out for Rome from his latest Parthian campaign. But he suddenly died of edema – in bed, a rare feat among Roman emperors – upon reaching Selinus (later renamed Trajanopolis, of course). At the time of Trajan’s death, the Roman Empire had reached its greatest extent, stretching from Hispania to the Euphrates and from the edge of Scotland to the Lower Nile. His successors, starting with Hadrian next, would spend most of their time (when not reveling in debauchery) fortifying those borders.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Rome is the one civilization you can trust to continue to push to be the largest empire in the game. Trajan takes Julius Caesar's words to heart: "Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_TRAJAN_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Rome wants to get cities down quickly and then speed along the path to Engineering. With Engineering in place, Baths can be added to their cities and they will grow rapidly (and expand rapidly with Trajan's free Monuments). Their "All Roads Lead to Rome" ability gives them a steady income from their network of cities ([ICON_TradeRoute] Trade Routes from the interior cities in their empires to foreign lands should work well; not all their [ICON_TradeRoute] Trade Routes needs to be internal). Though all this expansion will lead to conflict, it will likely be just the time that the Legion comes online. The Legion's ability to build Forts comes in two eras earlier for Rome than for other civilizations. Using these effectively is the key in being able to hold onto his expansive and powerful empire.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_QUOTE
Text:
Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and resilience—the virtues that made America.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Scion of a wealthy family, sportsman and explorer, big game hunter, war hero, naturalist and conservationist, patriot, unabashed imperialist, author, politician. Theodore (“T.R.” or “Teddy” to his friends) Roosevelt, Jr., was the most colorful of American presidents, perfectly suited to the Progressive Era. In his role as a member of the State Assembly of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, Vice President to William McKinley, and President of the United States, he promoted the ideals of reform and modernization. In his private life, his stoicism in the face of loss along with his courage in the face of mortal danger contributed to his image as the ideal of American masculinity. From the moment Teddy Roosevelt stepped onto the public stage, he truly was “larger than life.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Born in October 1858 AD, Teddy was a sickly child, afflicted with severe asthma as well as every childhood disease prevalent at the time. Nevertheless, he was “mischievously inquisitive,” and soon developed a passion for zoology, which led to the pastime of taxidermy (any mother’s worst nightmare), beginning with the head of a dead seal from a local market when he was the age of seven. Homeschooled by parents and tutors, Roosevelt proved well-versed in some areas, an indifferent scholar in others. Although he entered Columbia Law School, he viewed the law as “irrational” and “tedious,” and soon dropped out to embark upon a career in politics – famously stating he “intended to be one of the governing class.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
With the backing of the Republican Party, Roosevelt launched his political career by winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in the elections of 1882, and made a mark exposing various corrupt practices in state government and sponsoring bills to improve conditions in cities. But political in-fighting proved as tedious as the law, and he “retired” for the first time to a more adventurous life in the “Wild West.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
T.R., between stints in office annoying influential men and failed election campaigns (he lost, for instance the 1886 mayoral election for New York City by a wide margin), would travel to his Chimney Butte Ranch in the Dakota Territory, vowing there to stay. Although periodically lured back to the East, he repeatedly returned to the West as a rancher and learned to ride, rope and hunt. Teddy even served briefly as a deputy sheriff; his western sojourns are best known through a series of articles and books he authored about the “cowboy way.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
Much as he loved the West, it held no particular affection for him; the severe winter of 1887 wiped out his herd and his investment. Roosevelt returned to the East disheartened. He had, though, gained a great love of the wilderness and "roughing it." That love of adventure would drive him in his much-publicized 1909-1911 safari to Africa (where he and his fellow hunters would kill or trap over 11,000 animals for the Smithsonian Museum) and his 1913-14 expedition to the Amazon (cut short by Roosevelt’s infections and illnesses).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
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The failure of his ranching ventures distressed Roosevelt greatly. But Teddy had already suffered heartbreak. When he was 24, his wife Alice of two years had died two days after giving birth to their daughter in 1884. Less than a day before, his beloved mother Mittie had died of typhoid fever in the same house. The double loss left him bereft and no doubt contributed to his Western fling. But in December 1886, Teddy married his childhood friend Edith Carow, who would give him five more children to gladden his days. Even a happy marriage could not suppress his sense of adventure; during the European honeymoon with Edith, Teddy led a climbing team to the summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which gained him membership in the highly respected Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
With the coming of the Spanish-American War, again sensing adventure and so resigning his post as Asst. Secretary of the Navy, Teddy raised a command of his own – the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, better known as the “Rough Riders.” Lt. Colonel Roosevelt and his men saw action in several sharp fights, most notably the Battle of San Juan Hill, and returned home at the end with considerable notoriety. That notoriety certainly helped his narrow victory in the 1898 gubernatorial election in New York, not the first time Teddy’s image would resonate with the voters. At the GOP convention in 1900, he was put forth and became McKinley’s vice presidential candidate. Swept to a second term in a landslide, the unfortunate McKinley would be assassinated in September 1901; Roosevelt was sworn in as president on September 14.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
T.R. would serve as President of the United States until 1909. Just as he had in the Dakotas and up San Juan Hill, he rode roughshod over convention, special interests, big trusts, and corporate corruption. In short order, he forced arbitration in the 1902 coalminers strike, established federal oversight of railroad rates, initiated the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, and brought more than 40 antitrust suits breaking up monopolies such as Standard Oil and Northern Securities railroad trust. His foreign policy was likewise aggressive... summed up in his "Big Stick" diplomacy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_9
Text:
Teddy based his approach to foreign policy on the old adage of "speak softly and carry a big stick." He himself described it as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis." For Teddy, that meant negotiate peacefully but simultaneously threaten with the big stick - via trade embargo, military action or whatever worked. A proponent of the acquisition of the Philippines and other once-Spanish colonial holdings by the United States to become a globe-spanning power, Roosevelt’s imperialist bent was on display. But two foreign initiatives are his best-remembered legacies: the Panama Canal, and the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded for his task as mediator to end the Russo-Japanese War. In dozens of crises and situations on the world stage, Teddy played a central and usually influential role... waving the big stick.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_10
Text:
Despite his popularity and power, T.R.’s support for Taft as his successor led to a schism in the Republican ranks. While Roosevelt continued to espouse progressive principles, Taft along with many in the party rejected his leadership. When Teddy lost his bid to become the GOP’s presidential candidate, he founded the Progressive Party, commonly known as the “Bull Moose Party” and was promptly nominated its candidate. His platform was simple: “to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics.” Surviving an assassination attempt (though the bullet remained embedded in his chest), Teddy failed to sway enough voters and finished second in the election that brought Woodrow Wilson to office. With that, T.R. withdrew from active politics, although his continuing attacks on Wilson’s policies certainly helped the Republicans regain control of Congress in 1918. In the early morning hours of January 6, 1919, Roosevelt died in his sleep after a night of having breathing problems.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Teddy wields a big stick on his continent, but if you leave him alone he will stay peaceful. Just don't try to outrace him to a Culture Victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_T_ROOSEVELT_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
Early in the game, the only American advantage is +5 [ICON_Strength] Combat Strength on their home continent. They will want to expand fast across their continent and move to gain the support of the nearby city-states. With double-strength government legacy bonuses, their choice of government is important, though Classical Republic and Democracy are the most helpful with America's preference: a Culture Victory. With their Film Studio, National Park bonus, and two post-Industrial unique units, they shine from the 20th Century onwards.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_SUBTITLE
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By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_QUOTE
Text:
Do not let your feelings (very natural and usual ones) of momentary irritation and discomfort be seen by others.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Married to Prince Albert, mother to nine children and 42 grandchildren (eventually making the House of Windsor related to nearly every monarchy in Europe), reigning over Britain and its empire for 63 eventful years, the young Victoria as heiress presumptive was groomed for the throne from a tender age. She would describe her childhood as “rather melancholy.” Her mother was ferociously protective and Victoria was raised isolated from other children under the “Kensington System,” an intricate set of rules and protocols for every facet of behavior. She was banned from meeting anyone deemed “undesirable” (which in her mother’s view was just about everybody).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
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Not surprisingly, the bright young woman – she was extremely well educated by private tutors in the Palace, which she very rarely left – chaffed at all the rules. Upon reaching her majority, the princess made two requests of her father the King: that she be permitted an hour each day to herself free of chaperones, and that her bed be removed from her mother’s suite and she be given a bedroom of her own. In May 1836 AD, she was introduced to Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coberg and Gotha, one of many suitors. She was quite taken by him alone, writing to her uncle, King Leopold of Belgium who had introduced them, to thank him “for the prospect of great happiness... in the person of dear Albert.” But being just 17 years old, she declined any notion of marriage as yet.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Britain was only saved from a likely unfortunate regency under her mother and her mother’s lover the ambitious Sir John Conroy (a prospect feared by King William, who declared he wished only to live until Victoria came of age to rule) by Victoria’s 18th birthday in May 1837. Her father died less than a month later, and she became Queen of Great Britain. One of her first acts was to banish Conroy from her presence and cut all personal ties with the dowager queen. Albert returned to London to renew his friendship with Victoria; they were married five days later at Windsor Castle in October 1839. Whatever his faults, he had a stabilizing and relaxing effect on Victoria, who was also intellectually bewitched by his beliefs in social reform and “modern” innovations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Victoria’s long tenure as queen could be seen as a litany of wars in far-away places: Anglo-Afghan Wars, Opium Wars, Anglo-Sikh Wars, Xhosa Wars, Anglo-Burmese Wars, Crimean War, Anglo-Persian War, Indian Mutiny (which brought her the title of “Empress”), Ashanti Wars, Zulu Wars, two Boer Wars, Mahdist War, and Boxer Rebellion besides other military adventures. The reality of Pax Britannica meant a lot of bloodshed. Instead, however, she left all that foolishness to her many prime ministers and Parliament while she spent her days with her own pursuits... repeated pregnancies and, urged on by Albert, social reform for the lower classes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
England was suffering all the ills (and then some) of an industrial society, and the Crown as embodied by Victoria and Albert took a lead in addressing these. Some believed in the philosophy of self-help, whereby the misfortunate “cured” themselves of whatever ailed them, be it drink, drugs, or poverty. But many believed the government and/or the wealthy should look to better the collective lot of the unwashed masses. Hundreds of charitable foundations, many to which Victoria and/or Albert lent their reputations, were created across England. Social “experiments” such as Robert Owens’ utopian communities were launched. Authors such as Dickens and Thackeray brought attention to the plight of the working classes. Since British royalty still had some influence on affairs of government, if simply that of swaying popular opinion, Victoria weighed in on such reforms as the Elementary Education Act (providing free schooling for every child to the age of ten) and the Matrimonial Causes Act (making divorce a legal rather than religious affair, and allowing a woman to have full control of her own civil rights and finances afterward).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_6
Text:
Meanwhile, Albert’s interest in science as a way of improving the people’s lot, shared by many of the upper class dilettantes who needed something amusing to do, rubbed off on Victoria. The Crown encouraged and even financed at times all those British adventurers traipsing about the world climbing mountains, trudging across deserts and toiling through jungles, killing or collecting exotic animals, going native with primitive tribes, and generally sticking their collective nose in everywhere. Rationalism was running rampant, and even Victoria was curious whether technology could save the social order and check the moral decay. Thousands flocked to see the displays at the Royal Horticulture Society, the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (1851, the first “world’s fair”). On the practical side, the “Great Stink of 1858” led the Crown to help fund the greatest engineering feat of Victorian England: a sewage system in London.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_7
Text:
In December 1861, Prince Albert died of typhoid fever. Heartbroken, the dour and stoic Victoria entered a state of mourning for the rest of her life. Although there were rumors that she took some comfort from John Brown's, her Scottish manservant, devoted and nigh-continuous presence. Whatever their relationship, after Albert’s death Victoria withdrew into seclusion in her castles and palaces, curtailed her public appearances, and rarely set foot in London for the remainder of her life.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_8
Text:
By the time of Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, the British Empire was near its apogee. It was the world’s first true “superpower,” its tentacles reaching into every corner of society, culture, finance, and politics around the globe. The celebration, in accordance with Victoria’s wishes, was reserved – and moral – consisting of a procession and thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey. As Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee approached, Victoria surpassed George III as the longest-reigning monarch in English or Scottish (or most anywhere else) history. Again, she insisted that the Jubilee be a festival of the Empire rather than her rule. In early January 1901, the queen regnant Victoria was feeling “weak and unwell”; she died quietly on 22 January, as dignified and reserved in death as in life.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_CAPSULE_BODY
Text:
Victoria is a polite and gentle young lady as long as she is getting her way.  But if you don’t let her on your continent, she is not amused!


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_LEADERS_PAGE_LEADER_VICTORIA_CHAPTER_DETAILED_BODY
Text:
England (and Victoria) are masters of projecting British power across the globe to every continent.  Initially she will use the Royal Naval Dockyard and her Sea Dogs to gain control of the seas, and then move in with Redcoats during the Industrial era and lock down her positions across the globe. This extended reach will complement England’s doubled Archaeology, allowing them to get a big jump toward a Culture Victory.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_INTRO_CHAPTER_CONTENT_PARA_1
Text:
A unit that survives combat will gain "experience points" (XPs). Once the unit has acquired enough XPs, you may expend them to acquire "promotions" for that unit. There are a large variety of promotions in Civilization VI. Each gives a unit special advantages in battle.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ADVANCED_ENGINES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Unfortunately, early carriers tended to be slow … too slow to keep up with the battleships and cruisers of the main fleet and fulfill their role of providing air support. Also, if left behind by the main fleet, aircraft carriers were terribly vulnerable; just about anything could sink these lumbering, thin-skinned vessels. Thus, the fleet carriers – made possible by interwar advances in engine design. Although the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limited the displacement of carriers to 23,000 tons of water, everyone ignored that. The concept of a fleet carrier was developed in 1931 by American admirals Clark and Yarnell … fast enough to keep up with the fleet and be protected by it. The Essex class of American fleet carriers – driven by Westinghouse geared turbines hooked to eight boilers – became the 20th Century’s most numerous class of capital ship.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ADVANCED_RANGEFINDING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As artillery became more powerful, and able to hit targets further and further away, better and faster ways of calculating the trajectory and point of impact became necessary. The time of open sights and sticking a finger in the air were over. Thus, stadiametric rangefinders … an advance over the Roman dodecahedron rangefinder as described by Julius Caesar in 'De Bello Gallico.' In effect, the stadiametric approach used a modified telescope to calculate distances quickly, based on the principle that in similar triangles, similar sides are proportional, which comes in handy when trying to hit a distant spot – be that a wall, or a moving ship. In fact, by the mid-1800s stadiametric rangefinders were found in every coastal fortification.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SHRAPNEL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
When artillery moved from solid shot to explosive shells, grapeshot was replaced with shrapnel shells, designed to explode above the ground in an airburst and shower those below with lethal little balls; it was invented by Henry Shrapnel around 1780 AD for the British Army. By the Napoleonic Wars it was quite popular among British commanders, although difficult to manufacture and use (the shells had an unfortunate tendency to bury themselves in the ground rather than explode in the air). But by World War I, the kinks had been worked out and both sides used them to great effect.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CHOKE_POINTS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In military terms, a “choke point” is the tactical use of places where the terrain limits the paths by which the enemy can reach a unit’s position – narrow tracks in the woods, narrow valleys in the hills, bridges or fords at rivers, dry spots in marshland, and so forth. Recognizing the choke points is a skill possessed by great and capable officers. By narrowing the enemy’s approach, an army can dictate the course of battle; military history abounds with examples: Leonidas’s defense of the pass at Thermopylae, Godwinson at the battle of Stamford Bridge, Wallace at Stirling Bridge, and, of course, Agincourt where the French were forced to attack through a narrow gap in the woods.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_AMPHIBIOUS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Considered the most complex of operations (now), landing from water into battle didn’t seem to faze the ancient Greeks, Persians, or Vikings. And Alexander the Great’s crossing of the monsoon-swollen Hydaspes to crush King Porus is considered one of the greatest victories ever. Of course, none of them faced coastal artillery, airplanes, and machine guns. But units specifically trained to land from boats and immediately engage the enemy are a relatively modern development. Until Gallipoli, the largest amphibious operation had been the Persian landing at Marathon just prior to the battle. But World War II is marked by far larger conflicts, in Africa and Europe, and across the Pacific.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_AUXILIARY_SHIPS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
While one may have some limited combat (usually defensive) capability, in general auxiliary ships are those that keep the real combat ships functioning at peak efficiency. Without the auxiliaries, no blue-water navy can be efficient, successful, or often afloat. As European navies began to range the oceans during the 1700s and 1800s, those big men-of-war needed support vessels to replenish supplies, make repairs away from ports, and guard those naval bases scattered about the globe. When the age of steam dawned, colliers and later oilers kept the boilers in the destroyers and battleships firing. As navies became ever more diverse, so too did the auxiliary ships; the modern U.S. Navy lists some 86 different types (not counting floating repair docks).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BATTLECRY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The first recorded account of a battle cry is found in the epic Iliad of Homer, but warriors have been screaming into battle since long before. Meant to intimidate the enemy, or perhaps bolster their own courage, many soldiers of civilizations have developed distinctive cries and yells. Among the most famous echoing through history: the 'Alala' of Athens, the several Kipchak shouts, the Mongol cry to urge their horses to battle, 'Vive l’Empereur,' and “Remember the Alamo.” War is a noisy business, it seems.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ARROW_STORM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
It is reported – probably an apocryphal tale – that the Persian envoy trying to convince those stiff-necked Spartans to surrender at Thermopylae said “our arrows will black out the sun,” to which Dienekes replied, “Good, then we will fight in the shade.” Most troops were not quite so complacent about facing an arrow storm, the rapid massed fire of archers onto a particular spot. Whereas most well-trained archers could fire about six arrows a minute, thus creating a pretty dense storm, the English archers armed with longbows were especially proficient at laying down such a rain of death … better even than crossbowmen.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BOARDING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Since – unlike naval ships – sinking an opponent ship brought no profit, pirates and privateers relied on heavily armed and vicious oaring parties to storm the upper decks and so secure the (hopefully) precious cargo. In olden days before the wonder of gunpowder, boarding actions were the primary form of naval combat (far fewer were sunk by ramming) and battles were won on the decks. Boarding parties were armed with a variety of weapons, ever more lethal as time passed: cutlasses and swords, blunderbusses and flintlock pistols, belaying pins and just about anything sharp or blunt. But with the development in the early 16th Century of cannon gunports and deckguns, the use of boarding tactics gradually came to an end.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BOMBARDMENT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Shore bombardment came when Edward III of England mounted bombards on some of his ships besieging Calais in 1347 AD. It has become a popular way of assaulting towns and troops ever since. Turning the fleet’s big guns on civilian targets – factories, docks, warehouses, homes, etc. – was generally frowned upon … until World War I. On 16 December 1914, the Imperial German Navy shelled the British towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby, causing 137 fatalities and widespread public outrage (some of that directed at the Royal Navy for allowing the raid to happen). The British themselves bombarded targets in the Dardanelles, Salonika and Belgian coasts. In the next war, blasting civilians was pretty much left to the air forces, the naval guns being reserved for invasions.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ROLLING_BARRAGE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
A rolling barrage is a method to deliver massed firepower across a broad area, as effective by naval ships as for land-based batteries. The fact that the guns are firing from rolling, moving, unsteady platforms just makes it more challenging for the naval gunners. In effect, the guns are aimed at sequential points, typically 20 to 30 yards apart for modern shells, along a path from a few hundred to several thousand yards in length. With multiple ships firing, this can form a box, a rectangle where everything in the path is flattened. Rolling barrages during World War II proved very effective at blasting the enemy out of built-up areas and fortifications. So it was added to the naval repertoire of destruction.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BREAKTHROUGH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
When a commander commits his heavy cavalry – be they horses or tanks – the hope is to break through the enemy’s defensive line, and then rapidly exploit the gap. Much of the battlefield maneuvering is done to mount a breakthrough attempt – focusing a large force on a small portion of the line – or to insure that reserves are available to plug the gap. For both these, the heavy, mobile units proved best. Once the enemy line is broken, the armor can penetrate deep into the rear or attack the exposed flanks of the units on either side of the breach. In either case, the battle’s probably over.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CAMOUFLAGE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Stealth was always an advantage, especially for warriors fighting a more formidable foe. But the advent of the long-range musket and the Baker rifle made concealing oneself a survival necessity. During the French & Indian War the rifle-armed Rogers’ Rangers wore gray and green uniforms, which blended in with the woodlands. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Portuguese Caçadores favored brown-jackets which helped conceal them. By the time of the First World War, all the major nations – save the French – had given up their red, white, and bright blue uniforms which made such lovely targets.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CHARGE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
There is nothing – at least before tanks spoiled everything – more thrilling and effective than a charge by heavy cavalry; unfortunately, they didn’t occur very often. Battles were rarely fought on level, dry, and open ground suitable for such picturesque battle. By the end of the 14th Century, in fact, most knights dismounted to fight, and their prized destriers were led to the rear … except for the French, but look what happened at Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. But if the cavalry charge did reach the enemy, the shock of contact could overwhelm defensive positions, even those sheltered by field works. But the advent of machine guns, barbed wire, and mines put an end to all that glorious charging.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_RUTTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Before the advent of detailed nautical charts (but after sailors trusted only luck to reach shore safely) a rutter was a mariner’s handbook of sailing directions for navigation – termed a periplus (“sailing around” book) by ancient Mediterranean sailors. These were jealously guarded by navigators and pilots throughout the Middle Ages, for they were the personal record of all one knew about the trade routes they had explored or sailed. During the Renaissance, rutters shared among city merchant-traders made the likes of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice incredibly wealthy. The Age of Discovery brought rutters to even more prominence, as they were the nautical record of how to reach those distant places again. Eventually, all this private knowledge got replaced by nautical charts, and sailing became far less adventurous.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CLOSE_AIR_SUPPORT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In military terms, close air support (CAS) is aerial attacks on enemy ground forces that are in close proximity to friendly forces, demanding coordination with these friendly forces so as not to accidentally bomb and strafe them. There had been some CAS operations during World War I, and the British debuted the first ground attack airplane – modified F.E.2b fighters – in late 1917. After the war, the victorious powers weren’t particularly interested in further research and designs for CAS … but the defeated Germans were. Forbidden strategic bombers by the Treaty of Versailles, the Luftwaffe turned to CAS dive bombers, with the famous Junkers Ju-87 (the Stuka) the first result. Incredibly successful in the Spanish Civil War for the Condor Legion, it proved able to hit enemy positions with near pinpoint accuracy.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_COCKPIT_ARMOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Not long after pilot Louis Quénault and observer Joseph Frantz shot down an enemy plane with a machine gun in aerial combat in October 1914, aircraft engineers started considering how to add armor to protect the most vulnerable part of a fighter plane … the pilot. Unfortunately, weight was a concern for those wooden and canvas planes; any extra affected a fighter’s performance. Nevertheless, the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte and Royal Air Force saw some value in keeping their pilots alive, so a few planes were retrofitted with lightly armored pilot’s seats. By World War II, most fighters had cockpit armor, and shatter-proof canopies, to help deflect all that fire from above and especially below.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_COINCIDENCE_RANGEFINDING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In the 1880s, the British Admiralty – recognizing the improvement of naval guns and ammunition – issued a requirement for a new rangefinder accurate to 3% at 3000 yards. In 1888, professors Archibald Barr and William Stroud built the first coincidence rangefinder that did just that; by 1898 their firm had sold over 150 around the world, most fitted to battleships. The device consisted of a long tube with a forward-facing lens at each end, two prism wedges inside, and an eyepiece in the center; The operator can rotate the prisms until the two images align; the degree of rotation of each will then give the range to a distant target by simple triangulation. Coincidence rangefinders became the naval standard … until replaced by modern laser rangefinders.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_COMMANDO_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Commandos, those soldiers trained in the more esoteric aspects of war – infiltration, climbing, and rappelling, close combat, amphibious operations, and such – are today’s elite troops, from the American Green Berets to the Israeli Shaldag Unit. Although several nations had units trained in unconventional attacks on “high-value targets,” the term “commando” was first used in relation to the Boer bands of militia which raised havoc with the British at the beginning of the 1900s.  So impressed were the British, that in 1941 their Imperial General Staff adopted the name for their volunteer units raised to raid the German-occupied continent. Other militaries soon followed suit with these “special forces.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CONVOY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Naval convoys have been around since at least since the 12th Century, when classes of warships became distinct and different sorts had different, coordinated roles to play in an engagement. During the age of colonization, Spain and Portugal sent military escorts with their lumbering treasure ships to ward off pirates and privateers. Convoy tactics figured prominently during the Napoleonic War, as Britain sought to interdict French grain fleets; several battles – Ushant, Dogger Bank and the Glorious First of June – swirled around convoys. During World War I, a convoy system was instituted by the British Admiralty to counter the threat of German submarines, a policy carried over to the far deadlier Battle of the Atlantic in the next great war.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CREEPING_ATTACK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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During the early stage of the anti-submarine war, during the final run of a convoy escort to drop stern-mounted depth charges on a skulking U-boat contact was lost by the active sound detection system (ASDIC) … giving the German sub the chance to change depth or direction at the last minute. To counter this, the Royal Navy’s 36 Escort Group devised the “Creeping Attack.” Using two ships, one stationary to maintain contact and one to close on the target, the latter releasing its depth charges on a signal from the first. Although the tactic required patience, and took extra time and ships, it proved effective. The arrival of more sophisticated ASDIC, along with forward-throwing Hedgehog and Squid depth charges, made the tactic obsolete – although the British continued to use it to war’s end.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DEBATER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Through most of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, religious “disputations” (formal debates) offered the avowed method of establishing truth in theology. Based on the hoary old traditions of Platonic philosophy, these debates were judged based on the debaters’ citation of “accepted” written works and the usual rhetorical skills of spokesmen. Disputations between Catholic and Jewish theologians (such as that in Paris in 1240) were quite polite; those between Protestants and Catholics (for instance, Regensburg in 1541) somewhat less so. Meanwhile, to the East the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great was hosting disputations between Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian, and Catholic Jesuit holy men as a show of his religious tolerance.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DECK_CREWS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In 1922, with the launch of the USS Langley, it became obvious that dedicated aircraft carriers would need dedicated flight deck (and later, hangar deck) crews for efficient launch and recovery operations, and maintenance of all the temperamental aeroplanes. By the time World War II got started, well-trained deck crews could land, service, and launch a squadron of planes as though their lives depended on it … as they did. The crews became highly organized, with a hierarchy of tasks under the supervision of the likes of the air officer, catapult officer, aircraft directors, signal officers, and dozens of others. Refueling, rearming, and repairs were handled on the flight deck in combat, sometimes even as the carrier was trying to avoid being sunk.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPIKING_THE_GUNS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Light cavalry in the 1700s and 1800s – especially the flamboyant types like hussars and lancers – were generally used for scouting, skirmishing, and raiding. In general, their use on the battlefield was limited until after the fighting, when they were unleashed to run down the fleeing enemy. But upon occasion the light cavalry was used to charge enemy artillery, usually suffering daunting casualties before nearing the guns. Whereupon the gunners would run to the nearest friendly infantry, and the horsemen would dismount to spike the guns, driving a barbed steel spike into the touch-hole and rendering the guns useless. A popular tactic for many decades; indeed, Count Friedrich von Bismarck recommended that every cavalryman should carry spikes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DOGFIGHTING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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At first, military aviation was fairly placid, most reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and the occasional bombing of footsloggers; even in the opening months of World War I, this was the case. Then, a few pilots started taking shots at enemy pilots with pistols. Before anyone knew it, planes were equipped with machine guns (after Fokker solved that problem of shooting through a spinning propeller), and dogfighting began. Adventurous pilots invented maneuvers – such as the Immelmann and Low Yo-Yo – to give themselves an advantage in battle. Victory in a dogfight – unlike knightly jousts, it’s more of a composite of fear and flames – quickly became a matter of technology and technique.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ECHELON_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The use of echelon – in effect, units in the infantry line are arranged diagonally, so as to refuse the flank (for instance, in a right echelon, each is placed to the right and slightly behind the adjacent unit on its left) – dates back to antiquity. The earliest recorded use is when the Thebans attacked the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra with their left wing while they use an echelon formation to refuse their weak right flank; they won … one of the few defeats the Spartans ever suffered. The use of echelon did not pass away with the arrival of gunpowder; the famed Jomini wrote extensively about it in his works on linear tactics, influential on European and American officers for decades after.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ELITE_GUARD_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Many a king, emperor, and general had an elite guard, hand-picked and highly trained soldiers that accompanied him (or her) when he (or she) went on campaign. Although the primary duty of these “imperial” guards was the continued breathing of their commander, they were also the best shock troops available in a battle: better armed, better disciplined, and willing to fight to the death (supposedly). History recounts the stirring exploits of many of these – Persian Immortals, Ottoman Janissaries, the Tang Dynasty’s Forbidden Troops, Napoleon’s Old Guard, and Britain’s Household Division. So these units were much more than just pretty uniforms.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_EMBOLON_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The embolon (Greek for “wedge”) was one of the earliest formations used by ancient warriors, first on land and then on sea. In open sea, the Greek triremes usually sailed in single line, led by the commander’s ship. However, upon sight of the enemy warships, the Greek fleet would deploy into a triangular or trapezoid formation, with the courageous commander’s ship at the tip. This formation meant the enemy had a limited front to fire missiles at, and gave the superior Greek seamen the chance to use their rams to best effect while shielding the sides of the ship ahead – any enemy turning to ram would be instead rammed by the next ship in the wedge. So effective was the embolon that it remained in use, until cannon made it a liability.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_EMPLACEMENT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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If a siege progressed past a few days, the attackers would build earthworks to protect themselves from those angry fellows on the walls defending the town. This was especially useful for keeping the crews manning the siege artillery – be these catapult or cannon – alive, for they tended to draw attention as they sought to batter down the walls. The introduction of gunpowder made this even more essential, as cannon mounted on walls could lob shells quite a distance. Temporary redoubts and emplacements meant the guns could keep firing on the walls until these were breached; in 1453 AD, for example, Mehmed II’s 62 cannon – protected by earthen ramparts – hammered away at the walls of Constantinople for six weeks.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ESCORT_MOBILITY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Light cavalry proved excellent serving as escort to vulnerable bits of the army: commanders and headquarters, supply and medical units, artillery, communications and engineering troops, and such. Upon occasion, they were also assigned to provide security to civilians, notably to settlers and work parties; indeed, during the settling of the American west, South Africa, and Australia, light cavalry accompanied wagon trains, railroad work crews, freight caravans, and even stagecoaches (if somebody or something important was aboard) across territories full of hostile natives. The military escort, generally unhappy with such babysitting duty, tended to hurry these folk along at a brisk pace. Thus, making everyone happier when their destination was reached.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_EVASIVE_MANEUVERS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Bombers – especially four-engine ones – aren’t very maneuverable, and tended to trust to the formation’s massed firepower when attacked by enemy interceptors. So, usually straight and steady was the best defense, and it gave the plane’s gunners at least some chance of hitting their targets. But, upon (desperate) occasion they would engage in aerial hijinks. Lone bombers would try air-braking or the corkscrew (a series of steep diving and climbing turns) when attacked. Against ground fire, these might work, but most bomber pilots preferred to jink to throw off the aim of the AA gunners below. In general, however, none of these worked very well; bombers were still big, lumbering targets.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_EXPERT_CREW_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As the battlefield became more fluid in the 1700s in Europe, various nations created horse artillery – light, fast-moving, and fast-firing artillery that could provide mobile support, sort of a hybrid of cavalry and cannons. Introduced by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War, horse artillery became a staple for all the “modern” armies, and the guns themselves became larger and yet lighter. Thus, battlefield cannon evolved … unfortunately, that meant that the crews needed to be better trained. But it wasn’t until 1915, when Britain established the School of Instruction for Royal Horse and Field Artillery (the world’s first) at Larkhill that such training was available, making its graduates “experts” in fire-and-move artillery tactics.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_EXPERT_MARKSMAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
With catapults, onagers, ballistae, and the like, eyeballing a target worked well enough, given their range and the size of their targets. But as artillery passed into the gunpowder era, with longer ranges and often smaller targets, that wasn’t as effective. Thus, a number of devices were invented to help with the ballistic calculations for cannon. The first recorded device to measure elevation angles was the gunner’s quadrant, c. 1545 AD. In 1742 the ballistic pendulum invented by Benjamin Robins revolutionized artillery fire. And in 1892, the firm of Barr & Stroud were awarded a contract by the British Army for six rangefinders, the very first ones. All these turned gun laying into a science, rather than an art.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_GUERRILLA_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Typically, guerrilla operations entail some sort of “fight and flee” tactic, whereby a small, lightly-armed, fast-moving unit attacks a bigger one, and then gallantly runs away. Using every advantage of cover, camouflage, stealth, and ambush, guerrilla units seek to wear down the enemy’s advantages in numbers and munitions, while simultaneously negatively impacting its will to pursue. But, the main point is to avoid a “stand-up” fight; otherwise the guerrilla force is annihilated.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_INCENDIARIES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Throwing lit torches on spears worked pretty well, but firing incendiary arrows worked even better. Built-up areas throughout history have tended to burn nicely, making defenders decidedly uncomfortable, and so ancient generals quickly found that attacks on cities and districts were more successful when a rain of fiery missiles could be laid down. Flaming projectiles fired from bows, catapults, and cannons have been used ever since the first recorded instances of the Assyrians and the Judeans did so. When gunpowder made its appearance, so did the carcass, a hollow iron projectile filled with a highly flammable mixture to lob over the walls, first used by the French in 1672 AD.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_FLIGHT_DECK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The first flight decks were inclined wooden ramps built on the forecastle of a few warships … just in case this “aeroplane thing” proved useful. The first plane to launch from a warship (USS Birmingham) occurred in November 1910; two months later, the first plane to land on a warship platform (USS Pennsylvania) was piloted by Eugene Fly. The first aircraft carrier that actually had a “modern” flight deck was the converted liner HMS Argus, whose upper works had been cut away and a large wooden platform laid over the hull. It was used to experiment with possibilities, including the construction of a starboard “island” to serve as bridge and chartrooms and briefing room and control tower. The flight deck also proved the primary – actually only – place to park the aeroplanes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_HANGAR_DECK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
It proved unhandy to keep a carrier’s planes all tied down on the flight deck; the aircraft were subject to weather, rough seas, and enemy attentions. By the time of World War II, Japanese and American fleet carriers often carried two or more fighter squadrons, a couple of torpedo-bomber squadrons, at least one dive bomber squadron, and several scout planes. There was not nearly enough room up top for these 80 to 100 planes on a typical carrier. Thus, between the wars naval designers incorporated a “hangar deck” – a carrier’s garage – on the latest. Located two decks below the flight deck, the hangar deck on the USS Eisenhower for instance is 110 feet wide, 25 feet high and 685 feet long … plenty of room for 60 planes, as well as fuel tanks and heavy repair equipment.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_FOLDING_WINGS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Even with hangar decks, things got crowded, especially when dive bombers were added to the aviation complement of the carriers in the 1930s. Since adding another hangar deck was impractical, naval “thinkers” turned to more radical solutions for packing more planes onto fleet carriers … and so folding wings were incorporated into new carrier plane designs. Despite the misgivings of some pilots (who weren’t real keen on the possibility of their wings folding up while aloft), aircraft such as the British Supermarine Spitfire and Fairy Gannet were soon aboard British carriers; by the late 1930s virtually all American carrier planes had been converted to folding wings. The Japanese ones too. Folding wings did mean more hydraulic and electrical maintenance chores, but the added planes seemed worth the trouble.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_FORWARD_OBSERVERS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
A forward observer, or “spotter,” is the one (or ones) set up far in advance of the battery so artillery or mortar fire can be called down on the enemy like the wrath of God … accurately. Because these are indirect fire weapons, so long as a battery commander knew where the target was, impediments to line of sight such as hills, trees, buildings, and such were no problem. Although there had been some use of forward observers since the Crimean War, World War I made them indispensable. Using binoculars and rangefinders, and the terrain for concealment, communicating with the battery commander via field phone or radio, a spotter could change the course of a modern battle with one well-placed and unexpected barrage.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_GARRISON_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
From the French verb 'garner' (“to equip”), a garrison is put in place in a town to protect it, intimidate the residents, rest or train the troops, or simply as policy. The Romans, beset by barbarians on all sides, would often settle retiring veterans in frontier towns, a ready-made garrison of experienced soldiers should necessity demand. For garrisons, fighting from behind walls and well-motivated (since there was no place to retreat to), proved the best defense against attackers. Often the garrison troops had their families with them … also a motivation to defend the place to the death. The ability of garrisons to stave off assaults is the primary reason there are so many sieges in history.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_GRAPE_SHOT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
First used during the Hussite Wars in cannon and “hand-cannon” (clumsy pistols), grapeshot proved very effective against enemy infantry. In effect, grapeshot is a mass of small metal (or even stone) bits packed tightly in the barrel; when fired, the metal bits spread out like buckshot, although with far deadlier results. It was something new in warfare, for ancient artillery simply weren’t capable of such a shotgun approach. At sea, grapeshot was used to clear the decks of enemy ships, although less effective than firing on a dense formation of soft targets in the open. In time, rather than just being shoveled in, the small bits were packed into special shells – canister shot – that broke open when fired.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_GROUND_CREWS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Aeroplanes are complex and fragile machines, especially when they are getting shot at. From the beginning, as early as the American Civil War, military balloons had a dedicated ground crew, those who could fix the craft and keep it flying (well, floating). In World War I, every airbase had its contingent of ground crewmen working to repair, maintain, arm, and service the airplanes. Of course, the fact that they and their facilities were indispensable to the operation made them prime targets for the enemy, so strafing and bombing airfields was conducted on a regular basis. As warplanes became ever more sophisticated, so too did the ground crews … to the point that specialized training now takes months.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_HEATHEN_CONVERSION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
For quite some time, it was tough on organized religion, what with all those other faiths vying for the “hearts and minds” of the people. Buddhists in Japan, Christians in Rome, Hindus in Indonesia … all struggled to bring holy writ to the heathens they faced. Although the Christian conversion of the Roman Empire proceeded by fits and starts, it wasn’t long before the Church had missionaries all over Europe. And then Africa, Asia and the Americas, converting heathens everywhere – by the sword if necessary.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SHELLS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Mortars have been pounding defensive walls for centuries during sieges; the high, arcing trajectory of their bombs and shells are also handy for lobbing explosives over things, thus rendering walls, trenches, bastions, and the like somewhat useless. Most historians consider the Turks’ siege of Constantinople the first use of mortars, which they used to even better effect in the siege of Belgrade in 1456 AD. European mortars were virtually too heavy to move, until Menno van Coehoorn devised lighter ones, using explosive shells to blast walls apart at the siege of Grave. Mortars fell out of favor during the wars of maneuver in the 1800s, but underwent a resurgence in popularity when World War I saw hundreds of miles of trenches dug.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_HELMSMAN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Steering a ship isn’t as easy as it appears; it’s far more than just turning the tiller. Once sails went up, the value of a skilled helmsman escalated considerably, demanding both skill and strength. In Greek triremes, for instance, steering was achieved through two steering oars on either side of the stern controlled by a single kybernetes (“helmsman”), who usually had the Trierarch (“captain”) next to him shouting advice. A good helmsman had a keen sense of how his ship would react to different conditions (wind, swells, currents, and storms) and was able to anticipate the delay between changing the helm and when the ship would respond to the rudder. The same is as true today as then.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SENTRY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The importance of holding the high ground has been recognized since Sun Tzu advised that any general hoping for victory should seize it – or at least make sure the enemy didn’t. It was hard to charge uphill, or throw rocks, javelins, and the like uphill. Conversely, it was easier to charge or throw things downhill. Holding the high ground also provides longer lines of sight than mucking about in valleys. General Ji Ling of the Eastern Han dynasty sent lookouts to positions of high ground to provide early warning of encroaching barbarians. He wasn’t the first, or last, to post sentries on hilltops.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_HOLD_THE_LINE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
On 25 October, 1854 AD, the British 93rd Highland (Sutherland) Regiment was in position, along with a small force of Royal Marines and some Turkish infantrymen, near the British headquarters during the battle of Balaklava. Deployed in line two deep, when the massed Russian cavalry charged, the Highlanders didn’t form square but instead stood their ground. Firing rapidly into the oncoming charge. The Russians broke, the first time that infantry in line had routed an oncoming cavalry charge. Their stand hearted the units to either side, and saved the day. The event was immortalized by William H. Russell, a London 'Times' correspondent, and his description of the “thin red streak tipped with a line of steel” would become “the thin red line” … used ever since to represent courageous composure in the face of onrushing danger.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CAPARISON_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Mankind has used animals in conflict for thousands of years, and soon enough sought to protect these valuable additions to war. What is probably the first man-made “armor” for animals appeared c. 2600 BC in Ur, where the onagers that pulled Sumerian battle carts seem to have worn padded leather chest protectors; the earliest evidence for European horse armor dates to the 8th Century BC when cloth and leather caparisons were worn by Greek warhorses, a practice likely introduced from the East. Although padded caparison would evolve to be more decorative than defensive during the Middle Ages, it remains in use for ceremonial occasions.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_INDULGENCE_VENDOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
An indulgence, according to the Catholic Church, was a way to reduce punishment for ones sins … for a price. Originally, the penance might be a pilgrimage, or doing charitable works. But by the early Renaissance, indulgences were sold for money. Quaestores – professional “pardoners” – practiced the unrestricted sale of indulgences, and one of Gutenberg’s earliest commissions as a printer was wholesale production of indulgences for the German cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus. So bad were the abuses that the practice became a centerpiece for the Protestant Reformation that tore the Church apart.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_INTERCEPTOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Towards the end of World War I, as long-range bombing raids became more fearsome and frequent, several designers began building fighter planes specifically to prevent these; they termed them “interceptor aircraft.” Between the wars, as it became obvious that everyone was going to bomb targets in each other’s homelands (following the Italian Giulio Douhet’s theories), there was a push to design interceptors; these designs took two forms: relatively lightweight and speedy fighters to hit the bombers aloof, and heavier and long-range fighters to operate in adverse weather and at night. During the Cold War, both the United States and Soviet Russia maintained entire wings of interceptors (not that they’d have done much good when the nukes were unleashed).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_LINE_OF_BATTLE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Those thrilling images of towering ships-of-the-line in line of battle discharging broadsides at each other as they sail majestically along being battered to pieces are actually fairly accurate … unlike some other film representations of history. The tactic in which a fleet of warships form a line stern to bow was devised at some point before 1555 AD, when the Portuguese writer Fernão de Oliveira recommended it as the ideal combat formation. Compared to other formations, each ship could fire its broadsides without fear of hitting a friendly ship, all of which were running either parallel or in opposite direction of the enemy ships. During World War I, line of battle was still being used by the battleships and cruisers of the Great Powers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_LONG_RANGE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
By the end of 1943, it had become obvious that the United States needed a very long-range, high-flying strategic bomber to carry the war to the Japanese home islands and the heart of Japanese industry. The Americans developed the Boeing B-29 Superfortress with an operational range of 3250 miles (5230 km) and the British their Avro Lancaster with range of 2530 miles (4073 km). The long-range raids on Japan culminated in the bombs dropped by B-29s on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In the ensuing Cold War, both Soviet Russia and the United States developed ever longer ranged bombers, so as to drop nuclear bombs on the other’s heartland.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DROP_TANKS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Drop tanks were first used during the Spanish Civil War to allow fighter escorts to accompany bombers on long-range missions. When World War II opened, the Luftwaffe used 80-gallon drop tanks to extend the range of the long-range version of the infamous Stukas for ground attack. Throughout the war, every air force made use of these external fuel tanks for every sort of fighter mission, from air patrols to recon flights. Because these tanks made the fighter less aerodynamic, when engaging the enemy, the tanks were usually jettisoned (i.e., dropped on some hapless place below). The postwar introduction of jet fighters only made the problem of range more immediate, as such were notorious for fuel consumption.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_LOOT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Since the fabled Sea Peoples sailed the Aegean around the 14th Century BC, raiders have plundered coastal towns. In classical antiquity the Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, and as early as 258 AD Herulic raiders ravaged towns on the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. Since a pirate fleet couldn’t just sail up to the docks and loot the port (that’s what forts with cannons were for), shore parties were necessary to help take the town and then plunder it. It was during the “Golden Age of Piracy” that shore parties of raiders led by the likes of l’Ollonnais (Maracaibo), Morgan (Panama City), and Drake (Santo Domingo and Cartagena) enjoyed great success … and profit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MARTYR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Every religion seems to have its (long) list of martyrs, those willing to suffer torture and death for their beliefs. Most of them – though not all – had profound effects on their faith, often engendering all sorts to follow their lead in dying for god or gods. Most of them – though not all – are considered “holy” only by those of their faith. After their death, all sorts of their belongings – sandals, nails, bones, cups, and other odd bits – are also considered holy. And all these relics get housed in temples, churches, and monasteries where the faithful can make pilgrimage to see them.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CHAPLAIN_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Every faith has its healers. In antiquity, priests were often also physicians, keeping the faithful healthy in body as well as spirit. A number of early Christian healers are revered as saints by the Catholic Church, and in the Middle Ages several religious orders were founded which maintained hospitals, leper colonies, infirmaries, hospices, and rudimentary medical care for the poor … some still do. The Catholics weren’t alone. Buddha declared, “Bodhisattvas should learn the art of healing in order to help others and to liberate them from suffering”; and Islamic scholars kept the knowledge of the ancient physicians alive through the dark ages of Europe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ALPINE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
While hunters and highlanders have always been adept at trudging across hills and mountains, in general it wasn’t until the Renaissance that formal military units were formed in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, and India with the skills to operate in hilly terrain. Since warfare began, holding the high ground has been important for victory; these alpine formations – usually small – not only scouted the lay of the land but looked to insure it was held by their side.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_OBSERVATION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Germany sent out two waves of surface merchant raiders during World War II, mostly converted refrigerator ships which tended to be faster and have more reinforcement than ordinary merchant ships. Armed with naval guns and a few torpedoes and mines, it was planned they would raise havoc in the Pacific among Allied shipping there … but their greatest advantage may have been that some were equipped with naval radar, able to spot prey over the horizon. In fact, radar served the Kormoran when it surprised and sank the Australian cruiser Sydney in one of the more infamous episodes. Submarines, both Axis and Allied, had to rely on sonar for the purpose of locating distant ships since radar didn’t work so well underwater.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ORATOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Whether quietly teaching the “Word” or loudly pounding the pulpit, the primary method of bringing newcomers into a faith is public speaking, with all the techniques of oratory to draw upon. Indeed, in the Roman Catholic Church, an “oratory” is a place set aside for ecclesiastical public prayer. In the beginning, religious oratory carried only as far as a prophet’s voice, but the mass media age gave it evangelical wings on radio (Billy Sunday, for example) and television (Billy Graham).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DOUBLE_ENVELOPMENT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
A double envelopment is one of the most devastating maneuvers in warfare, a simultaneous attack on both flanks of an enemy formation, usually carried out by highly mobile elements like light cavalry. Sun Tzu contemplated the art of the “pincer” maneuver, but advised against it since an enemy would likely run before it could be completed; if actually trapped by horsemen, he felt the enemy soldiers would fight all the more ferociously since they were doomed anyway. Nevertheless, the double envelopment was used successfully by the likes of Miltiades at Marathon, Alexander at Hydaspes, and Hannibal at Cannae. And Genghis Khan used a rudimentary sort known as the Mongol “horns.” Eventually the Germans perfected it for armored warfare – the blitzkrieg.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_PILGRIM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As Nelson DeMille put it, “We’re all pilgrims … but some pilgrims have better road maps.” A pilgrim is a traveler with a purpose, to reach a holy place – thus a physical and spiritual journey to some special place in some specific belief system. This might be a holy city (Rome, Mecca, and the like), a natural wonder imbued with significance (Mount Sinai, Naj Tunich, the Ganges River, etc.), or something much smaller but just as significant. Inevitably, some of the pilgrims to such places come back having “seen the light,” and insist on sharing their enlightenment.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_PREPARATORY_FIRE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Naval gunfire support (a type of shore bombardment known as NGFS) is the use of naval guns – from primitive mortars to modern rockets – to provide artillery support for ground troops operating near the shore. Modern NGFS is often part of the preparatory fire (“softening up”) for amphibious assaults. During the 17th Century, bomb vessels had two or more mortars mounted to fire explosive shells onto enemy troops on or near the shore. During the American Civil War and the Crimean War, armored monitors made an appearance, along with “floating batteries.” But by World War I, the big guns of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers served better for NGFS. A practice used extensively during the many amphibious operations of the next two major wars.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_PROSELYTIZER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Proselytizing seeks to convert others to one's faith, or at least convince them it has some redeeming points. In the process, proselytizers also seek to eradicate or limit the influence of other religions. Most faiths have those who seek to attract new believers; in the Baha’i faith it is strongly emphasized, and every faithful Mormon goes on a mission proselytizing door-to-door. For many, however, such activity is considered disrespectful, insulting, or annoying. In some countries, in fact, such proselytizing is illegal, and in most it is not condoned in schools, government buildings, and workplaces.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_RANGER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Despite Tolkien’s fancies, real rangers do not talk to the birds and beasts … but they can slip silently through the woods with ease and are deadly marksmen. While a number of elite units in various civilizations had these abilities in the past, the first units to be named such were the colonial ranger units formed by Benjamin Church and by Robert Rogers during the French & Indian War. In 1775 the Continental Congress authorized the formation of eight ranger companies to bedevil the Redcoats during the American rebellion; most European nations soon followed suit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_REACTIVE_ARMOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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As weapons improved, an “arms race” evolved between armor and armor-piercing technologies, one as old as war itself. In the late Middle Ages, inventors tried using padding on the inside and outside of the plate armor in hopes of ameliorating the effects of crossbow bolts and pikes (nothing worked very well). In the World wars, the answer was simply to add more layers of armor; again, it didn’t work very well. After World War II, various types of “reactive armor” were invented. The concept of explosive reactive armor was first proposed by the Russian Bogdan Voitsekhovsky in 1949, with the first production models appearing in the 1960s. Most main battle tanks now carry some form of reactive armor.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_REDEPLOY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Column, line, and square. The basic infantry formations until modern weapons like machine guns and rapid-firing artillery made bunching together butchery. Each formation had its benefits and its non-benefits. The ability to rapidly change from one to another was often the difference between victory and defeat for an infantry unit, and the subject of much training. Thus, redeploying from a mobile column into a line formation, capable of bringing all the muskets or pikes to bear on the battle, was a necessity; and woe to the line that couldn’t form a square quickly when the cuirassiers – “big men on big horses” – charged.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_REINFORCED_HULL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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The widespread use of rams lead, inevitably, to efforts to reinforce the hulls that they smashed so frequently. The Greeks experimented with reinforcing the hulls with extra timbers as bracing, and even built a few very large ships around 200 BC with double hulls, one nested inside the outer: ships such as the Tessarakonteres, Thalamegos, Syracusia, and Leontophoros. Sadly, most of these were so unwieldy and heavy that they maneuvered poorly and tended to sink abruptly. Carthage not only reinforced their hulls with braces, but also their prows so they could smash enemy ships to pieces without self-inflicted damage. When steam came to war, reinforced hulls meant ever thicker steel plating.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_CREW_WEAPONS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Artillery crews – those manning the catapults and cannons – tended to be killed quickly if enemy troops reached them. The crew’s specialty was long distances, not hand-to-hand combat. But, most artillerists were lightly armed in the eventuality of things going horribly wrong; Roman artillery crew, for instance, had pilum to defend against enemy foot-soldiers that reached them, hopefully holding them off until other legionnaires could arrive. With the arrival of gunpowder, and advances in tactics (where cavalry were seen as the primary counter to field artillery), artillery crews were armed with pistols and short swords, and could of course use their tools (ramrods, spikes, shovels, and such) to fend off the unwanted attentions of enemy soldiers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ARMOR_PIERCING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
From the time armored cavalry made their appearance on the battlefield, other armored cavalry was used to try and dissuade them from running over all the rest of the army. During the High Middle Ages, this took the form of opposing bodies of knights armed with jousting lances, tipped with pointy iron or steel socketed heads that could penetrate plate armor (knights usually also carried a sword or dagger to fight when unhorsed). Armored vehicles on the battlefield brought a new batch of armor-piercing weapons: armor-piercing high explosive (APHE), high-explosive incendiary (HEI), high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT), armor-piercing discarding sabot (APDS), and many other shells.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SCHILTRON_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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During their wars of independence, the Scots devised the schiltron formation to counter the English advantages in numbers and weapons, using their 6- to 8-foot pikes to deter both infantry and cavalry, as when William Wallace drew up his schiltrons in a circle at Falkirk in 1298 AD. Schiltrons could be circular, or more commonly rectangular, the latter formations capable of both offensive as well as defensive actions, quite good at pushing back masses of English swordsmen. The first use of the schiltron offensively is credited to Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, a glorious victory for the Scots. Thereafter, rectilinear schiltrons figured in a number of victories (and defeats as well), and the formation was adopted by the Welsh and Flemings as well.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_DEPREDATION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Light cavalry were famed for depredation – not pillage or plunder, which entails carrying stuff off. Among early raiders, this was the most common and effective form of warfare since they generally couldn’t face an organized army in a stand-up fight. These depredations could lay waste to whole regions, the chevauchée (literally, “horse charge”) popular during the Hundred Years War, such as that carried out by the Black Prince in southern France in 1355 AD. The Prophet Muhammed preached the use of depredation during Islam’s initial expansions, a strategy perfectly suited to the highly mobile Arab forces. As a policy, depredation lasted into the Napoleonic and American Civil wars, after which it fell out of favor.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SCOUT_PLANES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Reconnaissance was one of the first tasks when balloons and aeroplanes entered military affairs, and it was even more important on the vast, open oceans. It could prove quite embarrassing for an enemy fleet to sneak into range. Naval scout planes made their first appearance during World War I, usually one-seater craft launched from seaplane tenders or from battleships that had a short flight deck laid atop some of the gun turrets (unfortunately, these could not land, so the pilots had to ditch their planes in the water beside the ship and wait to be rescued). Between the wars, a search for better solutions lead to catapults and arresting gear, and true aircraft carriers made their appearance, each with its compliment of long-range scout planes.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SILENT_RUNNING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Once surface warships – especially the destroyers, corvettes, and frigates – got sonar, things were not nearly as easy for submarine crews. Sonar was developed towards the end of World War I, too late to take a hand in defeating the U-boat “scourge.” But with unusual foresight, by the next big war many of the smaller escort ships had passive sonar and were listening to the depths for sound of a lurking sub so they could drop depth charges and eliminate it. The only way to counter all that pinging for the submarine was to engage in “silent running,” silencing all superfluous noises. Engines were cut, ventilation minimized, and the crew kept quiet … usually silently praying and hoping the enemy above would pass over them unaware.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_AMBUSH_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
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Anthropologists and archaeologists have suggested that Neolithic hunters used ambush on dangerous prey, and later on each other. So the art of taking advantage of concealment and stealth to surprise the enemy, get in a couple of blows, and then run away has been a staple of warfare for a long time. Ambush is intended to hit the stronger enemy hard, cause disproportionate casualties through the element of surprise, and then fade away into the brush rather than stand and fight. It has been the favored tactic of raiders for millennia.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_PURSUIT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
One of the greatest advantages of light cavalry in comparison with heavy was that the light were significantly faster, and therefore ideal for pursuing and taking down defeated enemy troops, stragglers, and camp followers. Indeed, their mobility and speed meant that light cavalry were still being used at the opening of World War I, whereas the heavier types had been disbanded. With the development of armored warfare, the distinction returned, with main battle tanks considered “heavy cavalry” and the armored cars and light tanks, still significantly faster than their lumbering brethren, the “light.” And, when necessary, the mechanized light cavalry can still run over the defeated without slowing down.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPYGLASS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
No one is quite sure who devised the first spyglass, a single optical tube fitted with a ground lens for magnifying objects at a distance, but it seems to have begun in Asia, for it was known that spyglasses were in use in Arab and Chinese empires by 1608 AD when the Dutchman Jacob Metius began producing his commercially. Metius’s apparatus had a 15mm lens at one end and a double concave eyepiece that gave a magnification of about 3x. Not only was it popular with sailors, but soon every general just had to have one … as did their reconnaissance scouts.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_ACE_DRIVER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Occasionally spies have to escape, and the popular image – fostered by far too many action movies – is as the object of a high-speed chase by the nefarious villains or authorities. (In point of fact, if it comes to this pass, the agent will more reasonably try to blend in and slip away by public transport.) But during World War II and the Cold War, several agencies had evasive driving courses for their operatives, teaching them such maneuvers as the J-turn, powerslide, fishtailing, and PIT (“precision immobilization technique”). Historical instances of a spy outracing capture in a vehicle are non-existent, but why spoil a good story?


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_CAT_BURGLAR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Like the infamous (albeit fictional) Arthur J. Raffles or (real) Bill Mason, cat burglars steal valuables. Spies too are occasionally called upon to pilfer things – plans, designs, codes … and artwork. The latter either to embarrass a foreign government, or to reclaim their national cultural artifacts that have been looted or stolen previously. The ability to slip in and out undetected, leaving the authorities baffled, is a skill that has brought more than one master thief to employment in an intelligence service. The most successful heists are never, of course, announced or admitted by either the victims or the agents.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_CON_ARTIST_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The art of the great con according to some successful confidence men – Victor Lustig (who sold the Eiffel Tower … twice), Charles Ponzi (whose “get-rich-quick” scam was named after him), and Ferdinand Demara (known as “the Great Imposter”) – is to “read the mark,” and then cater to his/her greatest weakness(es). Whether seeking to empty a bank account or destabilize an entire economy (such as the German “Operation Bernhard” during World War II), the tricks of con artists and spies often overlap. Both, for instance, use the cackle-bladder regularly, fooling some hapless sap into believing someone has been killed.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_DEMOLITIONS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Sabotage, by spies or members of a resistance movement, is hard to prevent and quite effective.  Pervasive “simple sabotage” (such as slashing tires, contaminating fuel, ruining machine parts, cutting electrical wires, and the like) can be conducted by almost anyone; for really big things – like the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City which destroyed warehouses and ships full of munitions and fuel in July 1916 – it takes training. During World War II, the American OSS (later renamed the CIA) taught hundreds of Allied saboteurs the tricks of identifying key components in machinery… and how to blow them up.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_DISGUISE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Any old thing – wig, glasses, cotton stuck in the cheeks, padding over the belly, or even just a change of clothes – is a disguise, so long as it alters a person’s appearance. Disguise is the stock in trade of actors, criminals, and spies. Generally, disguises in espionage are used briefly to slip in and out of places, usually as someone who ostensibly belongs there; occasionally, as for deep-cover agents, the disguise is somewhat more permanent, and may even entail surgery. So long as the fake appearance matches the forged identity papers, all is well.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_GUERILLA_LEADER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Romantic, historic, drenched in blood: Massoud, Che, Mao, Fidel, l’Ouverture, Avraham Stern, Michael Collins, and hundreds more. For centuries intelligence services have been supporting, financially or materially, guerrilla leaders fighting wars of revolution or resistance. In some cases, this backing is overt, and in others covert. But the goal is the same, to discomfort the power on the other side of the conflict. While these leaders are not (usually) the agents of a spy ring, their irregular warfare nevertheless benefits the sponsor. And brings ever more partisans to their standard.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_LINGUIST_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
For both espionage and counterespionage, being fluent in several languages is a boon. It helps in all sorts of missions, from surveillance to infiltration. While early spies were often recruited solely because of their facility with a language, by the opening salvos of World War II, most intelligence agencies had their own schools to train agents in the language(s) of the enemy. And linguistic complexities made it difficult for some nations to be spied upon, as with the Japanese and Chinese. During the Cold War, both the CIA and the KGB even established institutes to study linguistics seeking to overcome such challenges.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_QUARTERMASTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Who can resist nifty little gadgets? Certainly not those in the field of espionage. Since the first spies used “invisible” ink and hidden weapons, the quartermasters of the world’s intelligence agencies have had an ever expanding inventory of inventions to help in the craft of stealing or protecting secrets. While the list of devices may not be as long as in the James Bond series, the British Secret Intelligence Service – better known as MI6 – supposedly maintains an extensive (and deadly) collection at its headquarters at 85 Vauxhall Cross. But, of course, no one is quite sure what these might be.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_ROCKET_SCIENTIST_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
“Operation Paperclip” was a long-running (1949-1990) OSS/CIA program to bring scientists, engineers, and technicians from Nazi Germany and other countries to work in America on (primarily) rocket and nuclear projects. By the time of its suspension, over 1500 “rocket scientists” had been recruited, blackmailed, or lured to work in and for the United States. As much as American progress, the purpose of the operation was to deny these folk to the Soviet Union, which had its own “Operation Osoaviakhim” doing the same thing. Among the more notable brought to America: Werner von Braun, Kurt Debus, Hubertus Strughold, and Arthur Rudolph.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_SEDUCTION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Seduction, as an espionage tactic, is as old as sin (so they say); in a classic honeypot mission, an illicit liaison would lead to blackmail, by which the patsy would be forced to reveal classified information or perform other chores – in other words, to act as an agent for the seducer. During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet KGB and East German Stasi actively trained agents (termed “swallows” if female or “ravens” if male) to entrap foreigners … the most notorious case being that of the Marine Clayton Lonetree.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SPY_TECHNOLOGIST_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
While espionage has been practiced since the days of Francis Walsingham (“spymaster” to Elizabeth I), the advent of modern warfare made acquisition of information on technology a priority. Such skullduggery reached its peak during World War II and the subsequent Cold War. American operations such as “LUSTY” (to uncover and evaluate German aeronautical technology) and the Technical Air Intelligence Units (to retrieve and analyze Japanese aircraft) characterize this sort of espionage. Later, Soviet and American moles dug about to see what secrets they could steal in research institutions, ministries, and factories - work now done by government-funded hackers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SQUARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
An infantry square is a formation whereby the infantry close ranks, facing outward on all sides, to deter cavalry attack. The Romans, faced with battling horse barbarians numerous times, devised it according to Plutarch; the legions at the battle of Carrhae, for instance, used the square successfully to neutralize the Parthians. The mounted infantry of the Han dynasty dismounted and formed squares in their many battles against the fearsome Xiongnu. The square formation, which fell out of favor during the Middle Ages, was revived in the 14th Century, and would figure prominently during the Napoleonic Wars. Unfortunately, densely packed infantrymen – as in a square – tended to be susceptible to artillery. But they remained the best deterrent to cavalry charges.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_STRAFE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Soon after machine guns were fitted to biplane fighters, pilots with unused ammunition returning from a mission amused themselves diving and firing upon ground targets … usually the poor infantry and supply convoys stuck below in the mud of the Western Front. In short order, generals saw the value in doing so, and so strafing became a part of aerial tactics (it was less dangerous than dogfights). Aviation designers even began building planes dedicated to ground attack, such as the Junkers J.1 with two downwards facing machine guns. Come World War II most of the combatants had warplanes devoted to strafing, most mounting multiple machine guns and some small rockets.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SUPERFORTRESS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Carpet bombing – also known as area bombing, saturation bombing, and the descriptive obliteration bombing – is a wave of bombers dropping large amounts of untargeted explosives to inflict maximum damage on every part of a selected area of land. This indiscriminate bombing of an entire area is quite effective, if expensive in terms of munitions, in leveling fields and farms, industrial areas, neighborhoods, and everything else. The first instance of carpet bombing was that by the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War against enemy forces scattered on the rocky slopes during the battle of El Mazuco. Throughout World War II, all the major combatants resorted to carpet bombing techniques. Eventually, of course, such bombing against areas containing a “concentration of civilians” was outlawed by the 1977 Protocol I of the Geneva Convention.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SUPER_CARRIER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The first ship to be described by journalists as a “supercarrier” was the HMS Ark Royal in 1938, 685 feet long and capable of carrying 72 aircraft (though it didn’t do her much good when torpedoed in 1941). Next, the Americans declared their 45-thousand ton Midway-class of carriers as “super” in 1943; three were completed. But it was the Cold War nuclear-powered carriers of the United States and Russia that might legitimately be called supercarriers. Virtually floating cities, the American Nimitz-class carriers have unlimited range for 20-25 years, driven by two nuclear reactors, carry over 5000 ship and flight crew, have between 85-90 planes and helicopters, and have a displacement between 100-104 thousand tons. And that doesn’t even count the missiles aboard.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SUPPLY_FLEET_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Ships in the age of coal, fuel oil, and diesel used a lot of fuel and munitions during war. A ship tender – or as the Royal Navy termed these, depot ship – was the answer to not having warships shuttle back and forth to port. In effect, these were mobile maintenance bases, able to resupply or repair the ships that did the dirty work. Often these were dedicated to a specific type of ship, as with the British destroyer tenders of the world wars. Almost anything with a large cargo capacity could serve as a tender … and did. In fact, during World War II the Germans used modified Type XIV submarines (nicknamed 'Milchkuh') to resupply U-boats at sea with fuel, motor oil, torpedoes and food.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SUPPRESSION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
According to NATO, suppression is “the application of fire, direct or indirect, to destroy, neutralize or suppress the enemy’s movement.” Before NATO so nicely defined the term, the Royal Army defined it as “fire delivered to render a target temporarily ineffective.” In other words, firing at someone tends to slow them down … a brilliant insight that military commanders had been aware of long before NATO. But suppression fire requires a lot of ammunition fired rapidly, so it wasn’t used often until the advent of industrial age warfare, when it became a common tactic.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_COURSERS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As war evolved, and cavalry evolved into “light” and “heavy,” different types of horses were bred with differing abilities. By the Middle Ages, the destrier – the massive, slow but powerful mount for the knights and nobility – was highly prized; but far more common was the courser, strong and swift. Usually ridden by men-at-arms and squires, these were battle-trained, lightly-armored, and used to operate on the flanks of the battle, riding down archers, artillerymen, and others.  (Meanwhile, of course, the heavy knights on their destriers were duking it out for God, king, and glory in the center.) Valuable, but far less expensive than a destrier, the courser was the workhorse of the medieval army.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_SWIFT_KEEL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As time passed in the salt sea after construction, the hull of a ship became fouled with marine life (notably, barnacles and shipworms) and suffered rot and corrosion. All of which slowed it considerably, and the hull became less streamlined and sturdy. Although various remedies had been tried over the centuries, it was not until the use of copper sheathing was pioneered and developed by the Royal Navy in the mid-18th Century that a “cure” was found (although the American Revolution slowed the refitting). It proved a boon to naval raiders, who found it challenging to find a place to scrape and clean their hull. Thus, British-built raiders such as the copper-sheathed CSS Alabama, Florida and Shenandoah were both fast and able to remain at sea for long-periods.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_TACTICAL_MAINTENANCE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The Englishman Conrad Hal Waddington had been educated as a biologist, and would subsequently be an influential geneticist and philosopher who laid the foundations for “systems biology.” But, with the outbreak of World War II, he answered the call and was promptly assigned to operational research for Coastal Command. The command’s B-24 Liberator bombers were spending an inordinate amount of time grounded for maintenance; Waddington’s team gathered data and concluded that too much time was being spent on preventive maintenance as opposed to repairs necessary to keep the bombers at combat readiness. These findings lead to his concept of "force readiness"; although foregoing regular maintenance might lead to problems with some planes, far fewer were out of action at any given time. In fact, effective flying hours for Coastal Command’s bombers increased by around 60%.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_TANK_BUSTER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The last battles of World War I featured the first appearance of tanks, and generals soon sought a way to destroy these; attacking them from the air seemed a logical approach. But, given that most fighters of the day were unarmored and their weapons could rarely penetrate the tank armor, they weren’t very effective … in fact, the RAF suffered losses approaching 30% among ground-attack aircraft in 1918. But when Europe went at it again in 1939, fighter-bombers devoted to attacking tanks were common, such as the German Stuka, British Hurricane Mk IID, and Russian Sturmovik. As the war progressed, even standard fighters were up-armed with cannons and rockets to make them “tank busters.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_THRUST_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Spears – both those for throwing and those for thrusting – have been used since prehistoric times for the hunt and for war. The ones meant for thrusting tend to be heavier, sturdier, and used with one or two hands. By the Bronze Age, spears with socketed metal heads were the most common weapon; and around the 7th Century BC the Greeks created the phalanx, a close-order formation to utilize thrusting spears up to nine feet long in dense ranks. The unwieldly Greek spear eventually gave way to various pole weapons, which combined the thrust of the spear with the cutting edge of the axe: the halberd, glaive, bill, and pike … the latter the dominate weapon in the 1500s and 1600s.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BOX_FORMATION_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
During World War I, primitive bombers operated in ones, twos, and threes; so the formation they adopted wasn’t really significant, although having overlapping fields of fire to the rear was beneficial. But, the mass bomber raids of World War II were another matter; formations helped defend against enemy fighters, deliver the most bombs on target, and kept the bombers from running into each other. With losses among the first USAAF daylight missions over occupied Europe reaching staggering numbers, Colonel Curtis LeMay developed the combat box formation in August 1942. By December 1942, while losses were still high, these had dropped substantially. In short order, the “Javelin Down” combat box formation was adopted by both the Americans and British for all bombing operations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_BARDING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
As history turned from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages in Europe, the padded armor of caparison was replaced with the barding of plate armor for the noble steeds of the knights. Caparisons didn’t stand up to the increased effectiveness of crossbows, longbows, and pikes, and the horses became primary targets (rather than the well-armored riders). Barding from chest protectors to the full harness of plate armor developed first in the armories of Lombardy. Complete barding consisted of five main pieces: chanfron (face), crinière (neck), croupier (hind quarters), flanchard (flanks) and peytral (chest). Destriers, thus accoutered, would dominate European warfare for three centuries.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_TORPEDO_BOMBER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
In June 1914, Arthur Longmore dropped the first aerial torpedo at the Royal Navy Air Station at Calshot. While aerial torpedoes weren’t used much during World War I (their warheads tended to explode when hitting the water), several nations thought there was potential in them – notably Britain, America, and Japan. During the inter-war years, all three devoted significant efforts to developing more reliable torpedoes and designing special aircraft to deliver these. Torpedo bombers, both land-based and carrier-launched, would prove pretty effective during the upcoming war, as at Taranto and at Pearl Harbor. Although aerial torpedoes are generally obsolete now, naval warfare changed forever under the shadow of the torpedo bombers.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_TORTOISE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The Romans, bedeviled by barbarians who insisted on shooting at them, devised the testudo – or “tortoise” – formation to counter that foolishness. In effect, the outer ranks of a packed formation aligned their shields to form an all-round wall, while those within raised theirs to cover the top. So long as the tortoise held, they were covered from shin to skull. Once the enemy stopped throwing things, the legionnaires could quickly break the formation and get on with slaughtering the savages. Plutarch was the first to describe the testudo, used by Mark Anthony during his invasion of Parthia in 25 BC.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_TRANSLATOR_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Whether a priest, missionary, or even a prophet, it helps to speak the language of one’s flock. Training missionaries in the local tongue (as for instance, the Catholic Church did with missionaries to the Norsemen) and converting holy texts so the locals could read the holy texts themselves has had an enormous impact on the success of all that preaching. Indeed, there is even a patron saint of translation (there are saints for just about everything), one Jerome of Stridon who translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin. But, as the Buddhist monks who translated Indian sutras into Chinese did, sometimes the holy word got adjusted to take account of cultural sensibilities.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MARAUDING_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Heavy cavalry wasn’t much good in urban combat, and the mounted soldiers usually dismounted to join in the looting, despoiling, and such after a city had fallen. Breaching the walls and actually capturing the city was left to the poor infantry and artillery. However, cavalry was very good at terrorizing un-walled neighborhoods, marauding through the streets and riding down civilians and soldiers alike that didn’t get out of their way. Things haven’t changed much between antiquity and modern times; tanks still aren’t very good in street fighting, but are superb at blitzing through the suburbs … Stalingrad, Berlin, Manila, etc.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_URBAN_WARFARE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Some 5500 years ago, before writing was invented to record it, the people of the city of Hamoukar, near rich copper mines, were subjected to the first known instance of urban warfare when an army from the city of Uruk attacked and fought their way through the streets, killing most everyone. Fighting in built-up areas is a tactical nightmare, but by the Middle Ages some military units came to specialize in it. When a town’s walls were breached, these foot soldiers would pour through the gap to end the resistance in hand-to-hand combat (since neither mounted nor missile troops were much use in the narrow confines), as at Jerusalem and Constantinople during the Crusades.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_VOLLEY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Volley fire, which saved those Redcoats more than once, dates back long before muskets; it was used by formations of archers in ancient civilizations to fire a bunch of arrows simultaneously on command, making up for the inaccuracy, slow rate of fire, and limited range of primitive bows. After the first release, usually fire was either done by ranks – as at Agincourt where English longbowmen slaughtered the French knights – or “at will.” Given that most of the militia armies until the 1600s were untrained peasants, the tactic worked fairly well against equally untrained charging militia. When the musket appeared on the European battlefield, the tactic was adopted, likely first by Maurice of Nassau in 1594.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ROUT_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Heavy cavalry comes into its own when it can ride down a defeated enemy, especially those in a chaotic and disorderly rout. An orderly retreat can quickly turn into a rout when heavy cavalry attack units that have already suffered significant casualties; the result: a state of “every man for himself,” ideal for those fast-moving cavalry men with their lances and sabers. In fact, in general more soldiers have been killed in the rout than in the battle. And tanks work just as well as heavy cavalry in turning retreat into rout, as the Germans proved repeatedly during their blitzkrieg across Europe.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_PROXIMITY_FUSES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Some 2800 kamikaze planes sank 34 Allied warships and damaged 368 others during the final, desperate days of the Pacific war … thus about 14 percent of kamikaze pilots got through to score a hit. Given this, little wonder that naval gunners developed their own methods of dealing with diving kamikazes. While light, rapid-fire AA guns such as the Bofors and Oerlikon autocannons could, and did, throw up a lot of metal in the path of the oncoming plane, it was fire of the heavier AA (such as the 38-caliber) that had the punch to knock one out of the sky if they could hit it. But in early 1945, radio frequency proximity fuses – seven times more effective than previous ones – finally became available and turned the tide.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_HOMING_TORPEDOES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Following the development of a prototype self-propelled naval torpedo by the Austro-Hungarians in 1864, and its subsequent manufacture by the British engineer Robert Whitehead, naval warfare evolved yet again. The Germans had a deep interest in torpedo technology, and as the convoy system made things more difficult for the U-boats in World War II, German scientists devised the programmable pattern-running torpedoes. These would follow a pre-set pattern until they ran out of fuel or hit something, perfect against formations of ships. Next came “homing” torpedoes, which used acoustics to pick up the sounds of a wake and follow it to an enemy ship. These two “fire-and-forget” weapon systems made things grim for the Allied convoys for the rest of the war.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_WOLFPACK_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Admiral Karl Donitz coined the term Rudeltaktik (or “tactics of a pack”) to describe his strategy of U-boat warfare in the Atlantic; it was the Allies that used “wolfpack” to refer to the mass-attack of gathered subs against convoys – less accurate, but more metaphoric. As the war progressed, rather than simply wandering about until a target was found for their torpedoes, U-boats patrolled separately but strung out along coordinated lines across convoy lanes. When a U-boat captain spotted a convoy, he signaled the others of the “pack” to gather and launch a series of attacks on the merchants while bypassing their overstretched escorts. It was highly effective, until advances in detection gear and anti-sub weaponry won the Battle of the Atlantic in late 1944.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_ZWEIHANDER_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The 'Zweihänder' (also known as the 'Beidhänder') is a type of two-handed longsword, common during the 16th Century AD and much favored by the German and Swiss Landsknechte. Eventually, so deadly were they against spear and pike-armed units that the Swiss outlawed them, although the Germans kept on until muskets became common. Heavy, long and double-edged, the Zweihänder could chop through spears and pikes with relative ease, and had the reach to do so before the swordsman could be impaled … such as at the battle of Fornovo in 1495. Hardly honorable, but quite effective.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_SHADOW_STRIKE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Why face the enemy head-on when you can hit them from the side? And if you can do it twice, how much nicer?


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_SHADOW_STRIKE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
This was Hannibal's aim in 216 BCE when facing the Roman army during the Battle of Cannae, allowing the enemy to push forward and seemingly divide his forces. But the Romans would soon find their ranks being smashed from both sides by his African forces.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_TWILIGHT_VEIL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
When facing a larger foe, there's no shame in using the tools of deception and misdirection to overwhelm them. Perhaps a little shame, but once you've defeated your foe, who will be left to tell the tale?


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_TWILIGHT_VEIL_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The Twilight Veil is one such technique, using concealment to circumvent an opponent's awareness. If they can't see you, they can't hit you. But beware: it's easy to get lost in the shadows.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_EXPLODING_PALMS_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
There are times when a fighter, in the heat of battle, may find themselves consumed by the red mist of combat. One might even think their palms were exploding with supernatural force. The warrior monks of history are believed to have harnessed this sort of technique, using this "power" to strike down one or more opponents.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_SWEEPING_WIND_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Consider the Twelfth Century CE Buddhist fighting monk, Benkei, who went as far as planning seven moves ahead, arming himself with seven weapons. Benkei's ferocity would become known throughout Japan after he disarmed 999 swordsmen attempting to cross the Gojō Bridge in Kyoto. He would only be defeated by any close-combat fighter's worst enemy: a hail of arrows.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_DANCING_CRANE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Chinese oral history says that the White Crane style of martial arts was created after Fang Qīniáng studied the movement of the animal which gives the technique its name. Today, it's primarily known as a hand-to-hand style, but it was once an armed technique.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_DANCING_CRANE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Don't let the name of the animal fool you—Fang used her observations to develop a versatile style, one which reduced the distance between two opponents.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_COBRA_STRIKE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
There have long been rumors of a prohibited fighting style, an arcane art whose viciousness knew no rival. And some say that this technique had one move, one strike above all others, whose lethality was such that even a casual sparring match could result in one opponent's unfortunate end.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_COBRA_STRIKE_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
While conventional wisdom in the martial world says the Cobra Strike has been lost to history, one wonders if some brave (or reckless) souls were able to keep it alive.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_DISCIPLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
It's a truism of the martial world that when the disciple is ready, the master appears. And sometimes, the disciple isn't ready at all and the master delivers a savage beating which the disciple will feel inspired to tell all of his or her friends about.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_UNITPROMOTIONS_PAGE_PROMOTION_MONK_DISCIPLES_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Some adherents would not only take on the techniques of the master, but the spiritual and religious systems bound up in those techniques—traveling from village to village, nation to nation.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_INTRO_CHAPTER_CONTENT_PARA_1
Text:
Your Religious choices will have a major impact on your civilization. With the introduction of the brand new Religious Victory and Theological Combat, you have new and exciting tools at your disposal to spread your Beliefs to other cities and civilizations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_BUDDHISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
And the wheel turns … that is, the wheel of dharma, the Buddha’s teachings about the path to Nirvana, turns. Followed by more than 350 million people throughout the world today, Buddhism is based on the teachings of revered spiritual leader Siddhartha Gautama, known as the “Supreme Buddha, the Enlightened One.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_BUDDHISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
As the central figure of Buddhism, Buddha was not recognized as a god, nor did he presume to claim a connection to God. Rather, Buddha taught his followers a path to enlightenment based on his own life experience, a distinction that differentiates Buddhism from many of the world’s other major religions.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_BUDDHISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
A one-time prince in a small Indian kingdom until the age of 29, Siddhartha turned to the ascetic’s life after venturing outside the confines of the palace. He meandered around India for a few years, eventually sitting under a fig tree to meditate; there after several days he found enlightenment, and so released himself from the cycle of worldly suffering and arose the Buddha. What this enlightenment entails is both a spiritual knowledge (e.g. the knowledge of one's past lives), a metaphysical one (a knowledge of the workings of karma), and a philosophical one (the understanding of the Four Noble Truths).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_BUDDHISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Buddhism’s primary tenets, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, lay out the means by which one can achieve Nirvana, or peace from unending suffering. In their simplest form, the Four Noble Truths tell us that life is suffering, that suffering arises from our attachment to desires, that suffering ceases when that attachment ceases, and that freedom from suffering is only possible by practicing the Eightfold Path. By giving up desire, one accepts the world as it is, and one is no longer bound by worldly craving - one is free.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_BUDDHISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_5
Text:
There are three major branches of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayna, primarily found in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Tibet, respectively. These differ on some core doctrine - Theravada practitioners see Siddhartha as the only Buddha, and as the Buddha as fundamentally disconnected from the world: the practitioner follows in his path, but cannot contact him. Mahayana practitioners see a large body of enlightened souls who remain behind in order to help practitioners on their own quest. Vajrayana practitioners focus on improving the divine qualities within the human via Tantric practices. Today, about 6% of the world is Buddhist, a number that does not reflect largely secular East Asian populations.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CATHOLICISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Roman Catholicism refers to the theology and doctrine of the Christian church under the auspices of the Holy See, the papacy based in Rome. According to ecclesiastical scholars, Catholicism is distinguished from other branches of Christianity by its commitment to the church’s traditions, to the sacraments, and its priesthood as interpreters of the Bible.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CATHOLICISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The earliest known use of the term “Catholic Church” is by Ignatius of Antioch around 107 AD. The early church was organized based on the rule of three patriarchs, those of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch – to which were later added the patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem. But too many patriarchs tend to muddy the holy waters.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CATHOLICISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Soon, the patriarch of Rome claimed special authority based on the connection between St. Peter and that city. For 1000 years, Roman Catholicism dominated Europe, until the Great Schism of 1054 AD that gave rise to Eastern Orthodoxy, a split that had to do with political struggles between Constantinople and the newly-founded Holy Roman Empire, as well as cultural splits between a Greek-speaking religious world and a Latin-speaking one. Some 500 years later another major division in Christianity occurred with the Protestant Reformation, which saw many in Europe reject the teachings and practices of Catholicism in favor of more personal expressions of belief.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CATHOLICISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Presently, the Roman Catholic Church considers those not in communion with the Vatican to be “non-Catholics” but tolerates differing interpretations of the Bible. A bit of a shift from the days when it burned heretics and most everyone else who differed from the Catholic dogma.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CONFUCIANISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Confucianism is less of a faith and more of a political philosophy based on the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC). Originally introduced as an ethical and social philosophy for the privileged elite, Confucianism has grown to a following of several million in the present day, mainly concentrated in the regions of East Asia.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CONFUCIANISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
During his life, Confucius sought to instill a strong belief in personal morality, social responsibility, and family loyalty, as each person served their “proper” role in society. He set his musings down in the so-called Five Classics. As a humanist philosophy, Confucianism focuses on the ability of every human being to learn, grow, and improve through ethical behavior and consideration for others, and emphasizes the social role of all -- including the ruler.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CONFUCIANISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Following Confucius’ death, his teachings spread for nearly 200 years until attempts at suppressing the philosophy were undertaken in earnest by the Qin Dynasty, which sought to place the ruler above all. The Qin rulers believed that Confucianism was a direct threat to their authority, and, as a result, they had most Confucian books burned, including many of Confucius' original writings. Temples were destroyed across the country, and a few stubborn followers of Confucianism were buried alive.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_CONFUCIANISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_4
Text:
Despite these attempts to wipe out the Confucian teachings, a hidden store of Confucian manuscripts was later discovered in the walls of a scholar’s home, and the religion found new life after the fall of the Qin. In the present-day, the works of Confucianism are studied by folk throughout the world, often as more a political and moral philosophy than a religion.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_HINDUISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
Widely considered the oldest religion still in practice today, Hinduism – or the Sanatana Dharma (the “eternal law”) – is based upon a series of ancient manuscripts known as the Vedas. This collection of Sanskrit texts, encompassing four main scriptural works, is thought to have been written over 3500 years ago. With one billion (and ever growing) followers throughout the world today (most being concentrated in India and Southeast Asia), Hinduism is a fusion of various cultures and traditions, with no single founder nor creed, and as much a way of life as a religion. For some, Buddhism and Jainism are themselves a part of a wider, diverse Hindu practice. While India is the heart of Hinduism, the religion spread across Southeast Asia as well, and Bali, in Indonesia, retains a distinctive local Hindu practice, as do diaspora communities across the world.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_HINDUISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Hinduism has become synonymous with polytheism many places (and, indeed, shares a relationship with European polytheistic traditions). Most traditions emphasize three vital forces in the world: creation (under the god Brahma), sustenance (under the god Vishnu), and destruction (under the god Shiva). Other traditions posit a single, unifying force that governs all aspects of our existence. In Hinduism as well as Buddhism, dharma, or the “Ultimate Reality,” is the universal power or law by which all things that exist are bound, and the notion of karma: a register of deeds, both good and bad, that have a cause-and-effect relationship on how our lives progress.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_HINDUISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
"Hinduism" as a term became widespread during the British colonial era to refer to those who were neither Christian nor Muslim. Over time, Jain and Buddhist devotees carved out their own identities, but Hinduism retained this sense of diversity and variety. Roughly 15% of the world's population is Hindu.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ISLAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The second largest religion in the world, Islam is based on the belief that there is only one true God, who has made his will manifest through a number of prophets on Earth. The most important of these prophets, Muhammad (570-632 AD), recorded God’s words in the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, after suffering a round of visions. From this point forward, Muhammad preached that the only path to salvation was to devote oneself entirely to God through daily prayer, and strict adherence to the laws set forth by Him.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ISLAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The Five Pillars of Islam, the framework through which salvation can be attained, state in their most basic form that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet; one must pray daily to God at the five established times; one must give to the needy to support them; one must fast from dawn until dusk during the month of Ramadan; and one must make a pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj, at least once in a lifetime, during the holy month of Dhu al-Hijjah.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ISLAM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
As was the case with the founding of most religions, Muhammad and his followers were met by staunch resistance from other faiths. Despite this, the message spread across the Middle East following his death. During the Middle Ages, Islam became popular amongst merchants along the Silk Road (including the Southeast Asian maritime Silk Road), and spread along the lines of commerce. Since that time, Islam has splintered into a number of competing branches, the largest being the Sunni and Shia denominations, who differ based on their interpretations of whether to follow Muhammad's appointed followers or his descendants.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_JUDAISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
According to Rabbinic Judaism, a patriarchal God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai while the “Chosen People” were wandering about the desert after escaping from bondage. And it all got written down in the Torah (with some parts morphing into the Christian Old Testament), which forms the foundation of the Tanakh. In point of prosaic fact, it is generally believed by scholars that Judaism first appeared some 3500 years ago, one of the earliest monotheistic religions, as an evolution of several Babylonian religions around the 6th Century BC.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_JUDAISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Although Judaism’s core doctrines have been debated by rabbis for centuries, the Jews believe they are selected by God to be in covenant with him, and that God will send a messiah to bring all of the chosen back to Israel. While many have emerged claiming to be this messiah, for modern-day Jews the real one hasn’t arrived yet. Although the Jews have been persecuted throughout history and scattered across the world, Judaism as a religion has survived and even prospered. The Jewish ethno-religion numbers around 14 million, or roughly 0.2% of the world’s population.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_JUDAISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Despite their inherent differences, many aspects of Judaism are closely tied with both Christianity and Islam, as they are all considered “Abrahamic” religions, all descended from Abraham, the father of both Isaac (ancestor of the Israelites) and Ishmael (ancestor of Muhammed).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ORTHODOXY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The goal of the estimated 300 million Orthodox Christians is to draw nearer to God throughout their lives through theosis, a spiritual pilgrimage to become more “Christ-like”. The earliest recorded use of the term “orthodox” in relation to Christianity was in the Codex Justinianus (c. 530 AD) where it meant “conforming to the creeds of the early Church.”


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ORTHODOXY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
The Orthodox Church traces its roots to the Great Schism. During the 9th and 10th centuries AD the Christian church under the Patriarch of Constantinople made significant conversions among the peoples of Eastern Europe, including Kievan Russia and the Balkans. Doctrinal issues such as the filioque split and the authority of the Pope over the Patriarch in matters religious, exacerbated by the political and economic rivalry of Rome and Constantinople, led to a falling out. The Orthodox Church holds that only it practiced the original and true faith as established by Christ and passed down by the Apostles.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_ORTHODOXY_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
Moreover, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the Eastern Church became ever more isolated from Rome under the relatively tolerant rule of the Turks. Meanwhile the Orthodox Church flourished under the Russian tsars, with lots of converts among the Slavs. Although somewhat diminished by Communist rule and official polilicies of secularism, Eastern Orthodoxy holds fast to the old Christian belief in sin, salvation, and the incarnation of the spirit.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_PROTESTANTISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_1
Text:
The Protestant Reformation, as a movement that would eventually divide Christian Europe, began as a protest in Germany against Catholic doctrine and practices, especially in regard to salvation, justification and interpretation of the Bible. Although with some differences, all the Protestant movements maintained two tenets: that the “Good Book,” rather than papal interpretation, was the sole source of authority for Christians; and that salvation comes only through a personal connection with Jesus as the Christ rather than through a church-appointend intermediary.


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_PROTESTANTISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_2
Text:
Based upon his readings of humanist scholars, in 1517 AD Martin Luther, a German priest in the university town of Wittenberg, published his 95 theses criticizing certain practices of the Catholic Church. His example saw other liberal religious thinkers advance their own critiques of the church; soon “evangelical” Lutheran denominations sprang up across Germany and Scandinavia along with “reformed” creeds in Switzerland under John Calvin. Meanwhile religion became mixed with politics in England and elsewhere, bringing yet more Protestant churches into existence (although Henry’s lust for Anne Boleyn had more to do with the English schism than belief).


Language: en_US
Tag: LOC_PEDIA_RELIGIONS_PAGE_RELIGION_PROTESTANTISM_CHAPTER_HISTORY_PARA_3
Text:
The split in the Catholic faith would ignite a series of religious wars, Christians slaughtering Christians … echoes of which resonate still. Despite numerous movements and divisions within Protestantism since, its many, many (too numerous to keep track of) denominations together number about 670 million members.


