#Austria is predominantly Roman Catholic

[lionheartlr]

Discover Austria: A Comprehensive Travel Guide

Austria, a landlocked country in Central Europe, offers a fascinating blend of stunning landscapes, rich history, and vibrant culture. From the majestic Alps to the grand palaces of Vienna, Austria is a destination that caters to every traveler’s dreams. Brief History Austria has a storied past that dates back to ancient times. It was a significant part of the Roman Empire before becoming the…

[royalty-nobility]

Portrait of the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella

Artist: Studio of Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

Date: c. 1615

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

The Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella

Description

The two portraits were made as pendants, or companion pieces, and would have hung side by side. The two figures are turned towards each other in the accepted tradition of pictures of betrothed or married couples, and they look out at us, as if we are witnesses of their union. They are the Archduke Albert of Austria and the Infanta (or Princess) Isabella, joint sovereigns of the Seventeen Provinces of the Spanish Netherlands. Sovereignty was granted to them by Isabella’s father, Philip II of Spain, on their marriage in 1599.

This was a tempestuous time in the history of the Netherlands, which had been ruled by Spain for generations. The Southern Provinces (Flanders) were, like Spain, Roman Catholic, but the Northern Provinces were predominantly Protestant and had fought hard for independence. Albert and Isabella were, in effect, rulers of Flanders only. While their predecessors had determined to Hispanicise Flanders with violent episodes of bitter warfare, Albert and Isabella had a strong sense of duty to the people as well as to the Spanish crown. They set out to create a sense of national identity – Roman Catholic, but with an independent character within the Spanish Imperial domains. They were the most benevolent of the long line of Habsburg incumbents and there was a lull in the worst of the violence. The prosperity this brought was recognised by the population, including Rubens, whose order book for portraits became quickly filled.

The couple were both patrons of the arts, and they influenced taste in painting and sculpture in particular. Albert created Rubens paintre de l’hostel, or court painter, along with two others, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Otto van Veen. They and the court architect, Wenzel Coebergher, became part of Albert and Isabella’s close circle. Albert was particularly fond of Rubens, who named his firstborn son after the Archduke. After Albert’s death in 1621, Isabella became sole sovereign. As a highly educated man, diplomat and devout Catholic, Rubens remained her trusted adviser in the struggle to maintain peace between the divided provinces. Isabella died in 1633, and the brief period of peace died with her.

The paintings are unlikely to be by Rubens’s own hand, but are studio copies. They were possibly made after two originals which are now lost but which are known through prints made after them. Two other portraits of Albert and Isabella that are definitely by Rubens were in his studio after his death and are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.24 (before 1940)

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom. 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral. 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign. 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles. 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. 1607 – Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, is founded. 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance. 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum. 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics. 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday. 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins. 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito. 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. 1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia. 1873 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes the first black president of a predominantly white university in the United States. 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. 1901–present 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies. 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight). 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field.

[daimonclub]

Carnival festival

Venice Carnival in Italy Carnival festival, an article that analyses the meaning of this celebration in the Christian societies with references to the most famous world Carnival parades and the Mardi Gras day. The principle of laughter and the carnival spirit on which the grotesque is based destroys this limited seriousness and all pretense of an extratemporal meaning and unconditional value of necessity. Mikhail Bakhtin Happiness is simply a temporary condition that proceeds unhappiness. Fortunately for us, it works the other way around as well. But it's all a part of the carnival, isn't it? Federico Fellini Like Mardi Gras and Halloween rolled into a public party at the Playboy mansion, Rio during Carnaval is like no other place on earth. And the freak-flags fly like the color guard of an invading army. James Schannep On the world stage we are nothing but poor actors, and sometimes it is useful to be able to mask our sad roles. Carl William Brown During carnival, men wear an extra mask. Xavier Forneret Life is like Carnival..., you don’t know what joke it’s gonna do you! Aida Nasic The mask is as old as humanity itself and it is the symbol of the transformation of man into another ego. O. Eberle Good and evil are matters of habit, the temporary prolongs and the mask, in the long run, becomes the face. Marguerite Yourcenar Modern solidarity is only an attempt to mask one’s own stupidity by doing exercises of false humanity. Carl William Brown You will learn at your own expenses that in the long journey of life you will encounter many masks and few faces. Luigi Pirandello Lent comes after Carnival to remind us that we are dust and not confetti. Franco Lissandrin

Venice carnival masks Each person is but a "theatrical mask", an actor who plays a role and assumes a personality, that contributes to enrich the comic theatricality of human stupidity. Carl William Brown Carnival, season just before Lent, celebrated in some Roman Catholic countries by merrymaking, processions, dancing, and feasting. The word probably comes from the medieval Latin word "carnelevarium", meaning "to take away meat". As a matter of fact during Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival", from "carnelevare", to remove meat. In the past, Catholics were forbidden to eat meat during Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and penitence before Easter. Carnival provided a last opportunity for indulgence and partying before the abstinence and privations of Lent. Today, the word carnival is also used to describe many kinds of public festivities and outdoor amusements. Carnival is celebrated in most countries of Europe and the Americas, especially in predominantly Roman Catholic countries and communities. The first day of the Carnival season varies from country to country. In southern Germany and Austria, where it is known as Fasching, it begins on January 6, the Epiphany, and culminates in festivities two days before Lent. In Cologne and other parts of Rhineland Germany, the season commences at 11:11 on the morning of November 11, and the revelry leads up to the Tolle Tage ("crazy days"), the two days before Lent, which are celebrated with parades, singing, and dancing. In parts of France and southern European countries, Carnival begins on Quinquagesima Sunday, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and finishes on Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday, which remains a day of fasting for Roman Catholics, marks the beginning of Lent.

Italian mask characters When fasting and penitence were more commonly observed during Lent, Shrove Tuesday became a time of feasting, dancing, and general merrymaking. In New Orleans, Louisiana, carnival festivities known as Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday" in French) are celebrated on Shrove Tuesday. The name “Fat Tuesday” comes from the practice of using up any meat and fats in the house before the start of Lent. Some of the most colorful Carnival celebrations take place in Latin America. The dazzling Carnival celebration held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, draws tourists from around the world. It begins on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday and continues for four days and four nights of parades, balls, marching bands, and general revelry. The high point of Rio’s Carnival is a contest among various samba schools that compete for the best costumes, floats, music, and dancing. Carnival dates back to pagan festivals in Roman times that celebrated the return of spring and rebirth of nature. Later on carnival became associated with preparations before the start of Lent. European settlers brought carnival to the Americas, where it was transformed by African and Native American traditions of music and dance. Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Carnival, annual festival marking the final day before the Christian fast of Lent, a 40-day period of self-denial and abstinence from merrymaking. Mardi Gras is the last opportunity for revelry and indulgence in food and drink before the temperance of Lent. The term Mardi Gras is French for "Fat Tuesday."

Masks disguises The date of Mardi Gras varies from year to year, always falling between February 3 and March 9. Although Mardi Gras refers to a specific day, the term often encompasses a much longer period of celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras Day. The Carnival season is marked by spectacular parades featuring floats, pageants, elaborate costumes, masked balls, and dancing in the streets. Some scholars have noted similarities between modern Mardi Gras celebrations and Lupercalia, a fertility festival held each February in ancient Rome. However, modern Carnival traditions developed in Europe during the Middle Ages (5th century to the 15th century) as part of the ritual calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. Today pre-Lenten Carnivals are celebrated predominantly in Roman Catholic communities in Europe and the Americas. Cities famous for their celebrations include Nice, France; Cologne, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. New Orleans, Louisiana, holds the most famous Mardi Gras celebration in the United States. Residents of New Orleans have been celebrating Mardi Gras since the 18th century. Mobile, Alabama, has a lesser known but equally historic Mardi Gras tradition. Mardi Gras is informally observed in many North American cities, usually invoking the spirit of the New Orleans festivities. Not all Mardi Gras celebrations take place in urban areas. Distinctive Mardi Gras traditions are also maintained by the Cajuns, an ethnic group that derives its culture from French Canadian refugees who settled in southwestern Louisiana during the 18th century. In rural Cajun communities, costumed revelers on horseback ride from house to house begging for ingredients to make gumbo, a thick, strongly flavored soup. Other members of the community await the riders and make preparations for a party. Around sunset, the riders make a dramatic entrance, present the crowd with the gumbo ingredients they have gathered, and join the party.

Burlamacco Viareggio Carnival Carnival in Viareggio, Italy. A parade of floats moves through the streets of Viareggio, Italy, during the annual Carnival festival. The floats, created from a variety of materials by the city’s leading artisans, make reference to the major events and personalities of the preceding year. Viareggio Carnival is one of the most important and famous Carnival in Italy, first organized in 1873! The program lasts about 15 days, being the Mardi Gras the last one. In 2022 on February 20th, 24th, 27th and on March 1st, 5th, 12th. The Carnival offers 5 parades of extraordinary and very colorful allegorical wagons at Viali a Mare The huge wagons, that have been charming the visitors for years, made famous the papier-mâché artists in the world, who yearly amaze the audience and challenge each other with incredible technical and artistic creations. The constructor masters are generally inspired by current issues: this year, beyond the characters and the wagons of satirical Italian and international politics. Every parade is composed of a caravan of 14 wagons, 9 dressed up groups, and 9 single masks. Every wagon is high more than 20 meters and 12 meters wide and more than 250 dressed-up figures dance on the “first-class” wagons. More than 25 craft enterprises and one thousand people are the creators of the wagons. Most of them are sons of art who inherited the secrets and the abilities of the work by their fathers and grandfathers. At the end of the Carnival the winners are elected through a merit ranking. The symbol of Viareggio Carnival is the Burlamacco mask, created by the painter and graphic Uberto Bonetti in 1930. The Burlamacco, inspired by the masks of the Art Comedy, was realized in a futuristic style and it sums up 2 interesting moments of Viareggio: white and red colors represent summer and the colors of the umbrellas at the beach during the 1930’s, and then during winter they became the symbol of the Carnival period.

Viareggio carnival parade The festival of Carnival, with its spectacular street parades and vibrant music, has become one of the most potent images of Brazil. Its roots lie in the European Mardi Gras, a lively festival, which precedes the fasting and prayers of the Roman Catholic holy season of Lent. Carnival begins on the Friday before Ash Wednesday and lasts for five days. In Brazil it seems to have first occurred in Bahia in the mid-17th century and in Rio de Janeiro in the 1850s, where it was associated with street parades and elegant private balls. Carnival did not take on its present spectacular form in Rio until the 1930s, when the dance known as the samba emerged in the favelas (shantytowns) of the city. Samba “schools” based in the favelas compete to create the most spectacular groups of extravagantly costumed dancers and original samba songs. In Rio they now parade through the sambadrome (a street stadium) before vast crowds of Brazilians and foreign tourists. The more traditional street parties and balls also continue. Carnival is celebrated throughout Brazil, but the most spectacular celebrations outside Rio take place in Salvador, Recife, and Olinda, although the nature of the events varies. Rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. In the southeastern cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Vitória, huge organized parades are led by samba schools. Those official parades are meant to be watched by the public, while minor parades (blocos) allowing public participation can be found in other cities, like Belo Horizonte, also in the southeastern region. The northeastern cities of Recife, Olinda, Salvador, and Porto Seguro have organized groups parading through streets, and public interacts directly with them. It is a six-day party where crowds follow the trios elétricos through the city streets, dancing and singing. Also in northeast, Olinda carnival features unique characteristics, heavily influenced by local folklore and cultural manifestations, such as Frevo and Maracatu.

Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro The typical genres of music of Brazilian carnival are, in the Southeast Region in general, mostly cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo: the samba-enredo, the samba de bloco, the samba de embalo and the marchinha; and in the Northeast Region including Pernambuco (mostly cities of Olinda and Recife): frevo and maracatu, and Bahia (mostly the city of Salvador): samba-reggae, pagode (also a type of Samba) and the main genre axé music. These rhythms were mainly developed by Afro-brazlians and Pardos, incorporating and adapting many cultural influences, from the percussion beats of Africa to the military fanfares of Europe and iberian music in the use of instruments like pandeiro and cavaquinho. Carnival is the most popular holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. Except for industrial production, retail establishments such as malls, and carnival-related businesses, the country unifies completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night, mainly in coastal cities. Rio de Janeiro's carnival alone drew 6 million people in 2014, with 550,000 being foreigners. Brazilian carnival in essence is a synthesis of European, indigenous, and Afro-Brazilian cultural influences, each group has played an important role in the development of the structure and aesthetic of the Brazilian carnival of today. For instance, the main rhythms used in carnival celebrations were developed by Afro-Brazilians and make use of European instruments like the cavaquinho and pandeiro to create melodies and arrangements, also the fantasies and costumes in the Brazilian carnival borrow concepts from the clothing of the natives, like the use of feathers and the tendency to use lighter pieces of clothing. Historically its origins can be traced to the Portuguese Age of Discoveries when their caravels passed regularly through Madeira, a territory which already celebrated emphatically its carnival season, and where they were loaded with goods but also people and their ludic and cultural expressions. On the same topic you can also read: Storia del Carnevale in Italia e nel mondo Aforismi e citazioni sul Carnvale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaoU6aa-_FE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Oc_resvL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6sHx8dl1S8 Read the full article

[creepingsharia]

“They Shot My Wife in the Head and Cut Our Four Children into Pieces”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, November 2020

Pakistan: Yasmeen and her son, Usman, lay dead and dying from a hail of bullets from their Muslim neighbors; none of the Muslim bystanders “lifted a finger” to help, and Usman eventually died. (Asia News)

by Raymond Ibrahim 

The following are among the abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of November 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Indonesia:  On Nov. 27, Islamic terrorists beheaded a Christian priest and killed three other Christians by slitting their throats in Lembantongoa village.  A Salvation Army church and six Christian homes were also torched during the raid.  While acknowledging that an Islamic militant group was responsible, authorities claimed that the attack was not “religiously motivated.”  One human rights researcher said that this “latest strike was a ‘clear escalation’ of violence against Christians.”

Democratic Republic of Congo: Between November 20-25, members of the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces slaughtered approximately 20 Christians in a number of villages.  According to a clergyman who lost his family in the massacres:

They tried to force some of our Christians to convert to Islam.  They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword.

The clergyman, who was not present during the attacks, added that “the rebel militants intend to establish an Islamist state ruled by sharia (Islamic law).”  Two days after the raids, a journalist reported that the people were still in a state of terror and bewilderment:

There was a throng of Christians flooding the streets in a helpless situation, as well as radical Muslim extremists surrounding five churches.  Ten girls had been raped and 15 girls abducted from the Anglican Church and Roman Catholic Church, with 14 Christians admitted to a hospital in critical condition with injuries to their heads, and others with fractured hands and legs due to the use of guns, machete, clubs, Somali swords and axes.

According to the report, there have been many such attacks on Christians in the weeks and months leading to this one, including where “more than 50 Christians who refused to recant their Christian faith were killed, especially women and children.”

Mozambique:  During the first weekend of November, members of an Islamic State linked terror group slaughtered 50 people in the Christian-majority African nation.  In the words of one report,

Islamic militants turned a village soccer field in northern Mozambique into an execution ground when they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence between Friday, November 6, and Sunday, November 8….   In one attack, gunmen shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ stormed into Nanjaba village on November 6, firing weapons and setting homes on fire. Two villagers were beheaded and several women abducted…..  [A]nyone who refuses to support the jihadists and embrace their beliefs is attacked, and their property set on fire. Thus Christians who refuse to deny Christ are among the victims. The attacks are among the worst seen in recent years in the brutal campaign by militant Islamists to establish an Islamist caliphate in the oil and gas-rich Cabo Delgado province. Desperate people are flooding in to the Christian mission stations for protection.…. More than 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 left homeless in the region since 2017.

Ethiopia:  On Nov. 1, a few hours after federal troops “withdrew unexpectedly,” to quote an eyewitness, 60 armed terrorists stormed a school.  Announcing that they now “controlled the area,” they proceeded to hunt down and massacre at least 54 ethnic Amharas, “mostly Christian women, children and elderly.”  According to the report,

In the latest attack targeting ethnic Amhara, who are mainly Christian, some survivors were able to flee to a nearby forest, while the assailants rounded up women, children and elderly who were unable to run away, before shooting at the defenseless group….  One victim found the bullet-riddled bodies of his brother, sister-in-law and three children in the school compound.  Witnesses said that the attackers dragged some victims from their homes to the school, and reported that a school building and 120 houses were burned down…. This is the latest deadly assault in a spate of massacres in the past month in Ethiopia, which have left several dozen dead, apparently targeting the mainly Christian Amhara ethnic group.

Nigeria: A number of people were killed in the ongoing jihad on Nigeria’s Christians.  A sampling follows:

Nov. 1: “Islamic extremist militants in northeast Nigeria attacked a predominantly Christian village near Chibok, Borno state on Sunday morning, killing 12 Christians and kidnapping women and children… A church pastor was among those killed. Villagers suspected the assailants were militants of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria.”

Nov 6: “Armed Fulani killed four Christians in north-central Nigeria on Friday and the next day kidnapped seven persons, including five daughters of a church pastor.” “To date, the kidnappers have yet to make contact,” Luka Binniyat, a local activist, said: “Kidnapping of Christians is occurring almost on [a] daily basis…”

Nov 17: Christian community leader Haruna Kuye and his son, Destiny Kuye “were sleeping in their home in Gidan Zaki village when they were brutally shot dead,” said a local source. “It was a well-planned murder by evil men who sneaked into the village and headed for his home and unleashed terror. The heartless killers also attacked his wife and daughter, but they survived with injuries” from machetes and gunshot. “Pray for the Christians of Katarma village in Chikun Local Government Area,” he said. “Most Christian villages on that axis have been destroyed in the past three days, many killed, and some kidnapped.”

Nov 26-27: the Rev. Johnson Oladimeji was ambushed and killed by Muslims as he traveled home from to Ikere-Ekiti, where he leads a congregation of the Nigerian Baptist Convention.

28-29: “Fulani herdsmen attacks on predominantly Christian communities in Kaduna state on Saturday night and Sunday morning killed seven Christians.” Two children were also kidnapped and four people wounded.

Pakistan:  On Nov. 9, Muslim neighbors opened fire on and murdered Yasmeen, a Christian mother, and Usman Masih, her only son in front of their home.  According to the report,

On the day of the shooting, Yasmeen left the house around 10:30 and passed Ishrat Bibi [her Muslim neighbor, later described as “a bully and contemptuous woman”] who was holding a stick and began to fight and beat her neighbour. Two months earlier the two had quarreled over the water drain in the street.

At one point Ishrat Bibi called her two sons, Hassan Shakoor Butt and Khizar Shakoor Butt who, having come out with their guns, fired 20-21 bullets at Yasmeen. The latter’s son Usman came out of the house and seeing his lifeless mother went to help her, but he too was hit by shots.

Shabeer Masih [the husband/father of the slain] says that his son lived for about twenty minutes, asking for help, but no one in the village lifted a finger; a car passed by, but no one tried to take the son to the hospital. Usman had become the father of a little girl just a week ago and had another three-year-old daughter. ‘The whole family was very friendly and had good relations with the people of the village,’ adds Shabeer crying.”

Mariyam Kashif, a social activist and Catholic teacher, denounced the murders as “a huge example of intolerance and hatred that spreads against Christians.”  She added that this animus is nourished in the public school system, where “a reform of the curriculum is needed to eliminate all aspects of hatred and contempt. Only in this way will we be able to teach and enlarge hearts, changing the mentality of our society.”

Austria: A Muslim terror attack targeting a Catholic youth group was thwarted at the last minute.  According to the November 27 report (in translation),

[The] killer wanted to cause a bloodbath of the Catholic youth group … during a prayer evening in Vienna. The Islamist failed, however, because of a door that was locked by a timer … 17 children and young people belonging to a Catholic youth group escaped a catastrophe by a hair!…  Seconds later, the assassin was shot down by WEGA [special Austrian police force] officials in front of the city’s oldest church….. The 17 young people escaped the attacker by turning off the lights when the first shots were fired…. The young people stayed in the dark until 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday [Nov. 24]. Then the police gave the all-clear and the 17 boys and girls could go home.

Death to Apostates and Blasphemers

Uganda:  On November 23, Muslim relatives, including uncles and aunts, killed their own 6-year-old nephew because his father—the murderers’ brother, a former Islamic sheikh—had converted to Christianity and refused to return to Islam.  Earlier that day, members of his extended family had a two hour meeting with the apostate, Emmanuel Hamuzah, 38, who repeatedly “refused their demand to renounce Christ.”  Soon afterwards his uncle and four of his siblings came to and attacked Emmanuel outside his house.  His young boy, Ibrahim Mohammad, 6, was outside with him.   “You should renounce this Christian faith, which is a disgrace to our family,” they announced.  “I refused to yield to their demand, and they started fighting me with kicks and blows,” Hamuzah later explained. “I tried to defend myself while the other attackers were stepping on my child’s neck, suffocating him.”  The attackers fled when neighbors responded to the commotion, but his son died.  The family did not report the incident to police in fear of more reprisals.

Two days earlier, on November 21, Muslims killed a Christian pastor and his 12-year-old son. Pastor Wilson Niwamanya and his son Peter were returning home after having delivered Christian literature along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo when four “radical Muslims” armed with blunt objects and a horn-hilted dagger known as a Somali sword stopped them.  According to another Christian worker, who was present but escaped,

When the four attackers emerged from the bush, they immediately caught hold of Pastor Niwamanya, saying, ‘This man must die for disrespecting our religion.’  The attackers began by beating them with blunt objects and thereafter used the sword and stabbed the young boy in the stomach. He died while the pastor and I tried to wrestle the attackers.

Once other motorcycles began to appear, the attackers fled the scene.  The pastor was rushed to a medical center where he later died from wounds to his head.  Earlier, including in the days leading to the attack, he had been receiving threatening text messages, including an order to “stop giving people books that discredit Islam, and if you continue distributing these books, then you are risking your life.”

According to the report,

Pastor Niwamanya, a well-known missionary in the area, had carried out Christian-Muslim debates in 2016, including one in which an Islamic leader openly rebuked him. Islamists began monitoring him after he appeared at an evangelistic event in Masaka in 2010 with evangelist Umar Mulinde, who suffered a horrific acid attack in 2011…   Pastor Niwamanya’s lawyer, Isaac Sendegeya, was shot dead in July 2019 dead by unknown persons. He was 39.  The widow of the deceased pastor has been receiving treatment for a previous attack she suffered for her faith and is in need of financial assistance – as do her surviving children and 15 others at the orphanage the pastor operated.

In another incident in Uganda, Muslims ambushed and butchered David Omara, 64, a Christian pastor and well-known radio preacher, for comparing Christianity and Islam.  According to David’s son, as quoted in a Nov. 6 report, soon after finishing his broadcast,

someone telephoned my father appreciating his presentation.  He then requested him to meet somewhere with some of his friends. We left the radio station. As we arrived at the said place, there came out of the bush six people dressed in Islamic attire, and they started strangling and beating my father with blunt objects.

While beating him, one of the Muslims said, “This man ought to die for using the Koran and saying Allah is not God but an evil god collaborating with satanic powers.” “As they were hitting my father,” the son continued, “with blunt objects and strangling him, I fled to save my life. Two attackers ran after me but could not get hold of me.”  During the deceased’s November 4 funeral,

“Area residents were shocked and saddened by the murder,” the report notes, “and church members were both fearful of further Islamist violence and sorrowful as they mourned at a tearful burial.”  His widow “fainted and collapsed with deep groaning” and, last reported, “was treated for shock that rendered her unconscious,” at a hospital:   “After Electroconvulsive therapy involving stimulation of the brain, she still did not recognize people.”  Pastor David Omara—whom associates lauded for having “worked tirelessly for the kingdom of God to the day he breathed his last breath”—is survived by his (traumatized) wife and eight children, aged between 10 and 30.

Egypt:  A spate of blasphemy related accusations and arrests erupted in November.  “In the past few days,” to quote from a Nov. 20 report, “several arrest warrants have been issued for Egyptian Christians accused of insulting Islam. A young Muslim man was also detained for mocking the hosts of the Cairo-based Holy Quran Radio Station.” Additionally, “On Nov. 11, the Supreme State Security Prosecution investigated two Christians … and referred them to criminal court on the grounds of mocking Islam and insulting religion.” In yet another incident, a Christian teacher and a Muslim girl were arrested on Nov. 11 over comments on Facebook seen as insulting and contemptuous of religion.   “The next day, Nov. 12, the public prosecution ordered the arrest of the teacher, identified as Youssef Hani, and the girl, who goes by the name Sandosa on Facebook, on charges of blasphemy.”  After Hani’s critical comments on Islam were shared on Facebook, social media calls for his death appeared.  “He must be killed,” read one social media post. “Someone volunteer, people, we will not continue to debate with a few absent-minded [Christian] minorities…We will squash them…”

Iran:  On Nov. 15, one month after a convert to Christianity was whipped 80 times, another convert, Zaman Fadaei, was lashed an equal amount of times and for the same reason: sipping communion wine.  He was scourged at Evin Prison, where he has been serving a six year prison sentence for organizing house churches and promoting “Zionist Christianity.” After stating that “Last month, the clerical regime [also] lashed Iranian Christian convert Mohammad Reza Omidi 80 times for drinking communion wine” the Nov. 17 report adds that,

Many Iranian Christians are in prison in Iran for practicing their faith. Heavy bail bonds and exile sentences are additional pressures that the Iranian regime imposes on Christians….   International organizations have repeatedly censured the Iranian regime’s suppression of religious minorities, including the Christian converts, for practicing their faith.

Judges presiding the trials in the clerical regime’s courts have been instructed to consider maximum punishments for religious minorities and particularly the Christian converts.  The Iranian regime criminalizes conversion to Christianity, and severely restricts the faith practiced by Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

Attacks on Churches, Crosses, and Christian Symbols

Austria: According to a Nov. 2 report, as many as 50 young Turks attacked a church in Vienna-Favoriten on Thursday evening, Oct. 29:

The attackers stormed into the parish church of St. Anton in Favoriten, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and kicking pews and other furnishing in the church….  Another Afghan was arrested over the weekend while shouting ‘Islamic slogans’ in St. Stephen’s Cathedral…. Churches in Vienna are now being monitored more closely as part of the patrol service.

Syria: To cries of “Allahu Akbar” (video here), a cross was ripped down from a Greek orthodox church in a region “controlled by U.S.-backed militants,” said a November 1 report.  The cross had been torn down years earlier, when the Islamic State controlled the region, but was restored by locals in an effort “to encourage Christians refugees to return to the city.”  The report adds that

ISIS and Turkey are encouraging a small group to commit these horrible acts. Prior to the ISIS invasion and destruction of the city, it was home to a minority of Christians belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Catholic Church, and various Protestants.

Italy:  On November 25, a 31-year-old Palestinian refugee decapitated the head and cut off the hands of a historical Virgin Mary statue in Marghera, a suburb of Venice (image above).  Video surveillance and a witness on the scene helped identify the vandal.  A translation of an Italian report captures local sentiment at the desecration:

A grim and shocking show for those who believe in that symbol [the Mary statue] and the sense of community of belonging that was deeply wounded by an act of vandalism.  Without head and without hands, almost playing out the violence of an execution, the rage poured out on a mutilated statue, that of the Madonna…  The motive is as yet unclear why he threw himself with such brutality against a statue, a symbol of faith, whether it is a case of mental imbalance, or he acted by virtue of a religious milieu…

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called it a “vile act,” a symbolic “slaughter,” which “wounds our sensibilities.”

France:  On November 19, a Muslim man dressed in a jellabiya, traditional Islamic garb, entered the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand and began chanting in Arabic and doing prostration prayers in the sacred Catholic compound.  A number of passersby grew worried by this display, police were contacted, and, after questioning, the man—who it was determined had not broken any laws—was set free.

General Violence and Abuse

Pakistan:  For two months after kidnapping her, five Muslim men repeatedly gang-raped and tortured a deaf and mute Christian teenage girl.  All this time, police ignored the parents’ pleas to intervene.  It was only when a local authority took up the case that the girl was located and returned to her parents, though only after months of court meetings and trials, as one of the kidnappers insisted the girl had willingly converted to Islam and married him.  According to Juliet Chowdhry, Chairperson for the British Asian Christian Association, as quoted in a Nov. 16 report:

This young woman has suffered the most vile and horrid attack.  There are few women my age that could survive such an ordeal and yet despite her young years, she has shown a strength and faith in God that is remarkable… [A]ll Christian women should be moved to tears at the base cruelty faced by our sisters in Pakistan.  This story should be a wakeup call—but how many of you will actually actively get involved in eradicating this evil?

Egypt:  Due to another Facebook post made by a 22-year-old Christian which was deemed offensive to the Muslim prophet Muhammad, rioting Muslims attacked Christians and their properties in the village where the youth originates (though he was not there).  According to one report,

[T]he Muslim villagers of al-Barsha have resorted to burning the farm huts and yards owned by Copts and located on their agricultural lands. These huts and yards are used to keep the cattle during daytime and to store cattle feed. Six of them were set on fire on the night of 29 November, in response to continuous incitement by fundamentalist Muslims against the Copts….  The hostilities against Barsha Copts go back to 25 November when the village Muslims waged an attack against the Copts with stones and fireballs. The attack took off from one of the mosques in the vicinity of the village’s Islamic Institute to cries of Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) and verbal insults against Christians.

The face of an 80-year-old Christian woman was burned when a fireball crashed into her home.  Church property was also damaged, a stable burned down, cattle stolen, and the windows of Christian homes shattered.

Separately, on the evening of Nov. 8, Nabil Habashy Salem, a 61-year-old Christian businessman responsible for building the only church in Bir al-Abd, Sinai, was abducted in front of his house.   According to the report, Salem had gone out

at 8pm to buy something from a nearby store, when three armed unmasked men stopped him by force in the middle of the busy street. They forced a passing pickup truck to stop, threatened its driver and forced him out at gunpoint. They shoved the senior Salem into the truck and quickly drove away while firing bullets in the air. Those on the street were terrified…; nobody could do a thing. Peter Salem [his son] directly notified the police and filed a report. He sent an urgent plea to President Sisi to interfere in order to find his father, lest he meets the same fate of Bekhit Aziz Lamei who was kidnapped last August from al-Abtal village in South Sinai, and to date has not been found.

Austria: A 19-year-old Afghan refugee struck a 76-year-old Catholic nun in the face in the city of Graz before fleeing.  Thanks to surveillance video, police managed to apprehend him.  According to the Nov. 2 report,

The suspect, already known to the police for drug offenses and assault, has confessed to the crime; his motive is still unclear, police say.  Several anti-Christian incidents have caused a stir in Austria, after last week’s terrorist attack by a man shouting Islamist phrases at a cathedral in France.

Bangladesh: On Nov. 9, armed Muslims attacked a Catholic Christian village, “wounding faithful and desecrating their church — smashing windows and destroying books and other religious items,” states the report. Problems started in late September, when Rafiq Ali, a Muslim man with forged documents seized the land of Josper Amlorong, a local Christian farmer.  On November 9, Amlorong reported the land grab to police and, after confirming that it was his, they evicted Ali.  That evening, a vengeful Ali returned with dozens of armed Muslims who wreaked havoc in the village.  Discussing the temporary land grab, Amlorong said,

Ali and his people forcibly entered my property and took possession of it.  They threatened my life. They told me to leave the land. It is my only piece of land….  If I lost my land, I couldn’t live [he has been battling cancer for the past three years]. Without treatment, I will die….  Being I am Christian, Ali thought I am weak, but I will not leave my land until I draw my last breath.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1)          To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2)          To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

[princessvictoriamelita]

Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (1812-1841) later Countess of Hohenstein.

In the heart of Transylvania, in a predominantly ethnic Hungarian population small town, there is an astonishing relationship to the British Royal Family.

Erdőszentgyörgy (Romanian: Sângeorgiu de Pădure) is a small town in Maros/Mureș County with some 5.000 inhabitants. Its tourist information office is a very fine building, hosting a school until 2009. The Rhédey Castle, in point of fact is more palace than castle. The construction dates originally from the 17th century. The present Neo-baroque building is an early 19th-century remodeling.

This was the childhood home of Claudine, known in Romanian as Claudia, Rhédey, born here in 1812. The castle remained the Rhédey family’s home until 1885.

In 1830 Claudine met Duke Alexander of Württemberg, nephew of King Frederick I of Württemberg. At time – it has been known to happen to others as well – the duke could not speak Hungarian. For that reason, Alexander learnt the Hungarian language and five years later he could marry Claudine.

Due to the German laws relating to the line of succession, she was viewed as being of non-Royal rank and the marriage was declared morganatic. She was denied the title of Duchess. However, she was later created Countess von Hohenstein and her entire family were granted German titles and styled as Dukes and Princesses of Teck.

Claudine and Alexander had three children: two daughters, Claudine and Amelie, and one son, Francis.

Francis married Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. Their eldest daughter, Mary of Teck, was to marry the future King George V.

Regretfully, Claudine Rhédey was to know none of this. Not much is known about Claudine’s later life except that she died in 1841 in either a horse or a carriage accident, while visiting her husband at a military training camp in Austria, at the young age of 29.

Francis became a member of the British Royal Family. He only had one daughter, Mary of Teck who married Prince George, Duke of York in July 1893. When George was crowned as George V in 1910, she became Queen of the United Kingdom. This makes it abundantly clear now that Elisabeth II who is the granddaughter of George V is 6.3 percent Hungarian, since she is the great-great-granddaughter of Claudine Rhédey.

Opposite to the castle there is a Reformed Church. It was first mentioned in 1333 as a Roman Catholic church, but since 1640, probably due to the historical Transylvanian religious tolerance, it served as a Reformed Church.

In 1904, the granddaughter of Claudine Countess Rhédey, Victoria Mary Princess of Wales and placed a memorial plaque in the church.

In 1935, Her Majesty Queen Mary bestowed it a sum through which “the church in which some of her ancestors lie buried (be) improved and restored”.

Transylvanians in Erdőszentgyörgy and elsewehere still remember fondly their young lady, Claudine Countess Rhédey.

[architecture-v-rassias]

Corfu old town.Ionian sea,Corfu island.Greece.

Contax RTS II,Carl Zeiss lenses T*,Sony A 900,Sony lenses,Sony RX10

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Corfu or Kerkyra  Greek: Κέρκυρα, Ancient Greek: Κόρκυρα,Latin: Corcyra; Italian: Corfù) is a city and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality of Corfu island. It is the capital of the island and of the Corfu regional unit. The city also serves as a capital for the region of the Ionian Islands. The city (population 24,838 in 2011) is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since antiquity.

The ancient city of Corfu, known as Korkyra, took part in the Battle of Sybota which was a catalyst for the Peloponnesian War, and, according to Thucydides, the largest naval battle between Greek city states until that time. Thucydides also reports that Korkyra was one of the three great naval powers of fifth century BC Greece, along with Athens and Corinth. Medieval castles punctuating strategic locations across the city are a legacy of struggles in the Middle Ages against invasions by pirates and the Ottomans. The city has become known since the Middle Ages as Kastropolis (Castle City) because of its two castles.

From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility; much of the city reflects this era when the island belonged to the Republic of Venice, with multi-storied buildings on narrow lanes. The Old Town of Corfu has clear Venetian influence. The city was subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the strength of the city defenses asserted itself time after time, mainly because of the effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications. Will Durant claimed that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the Ottomans.

In 2007, the old town of the city was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The municipal unit of Corfu city has a land area of 41.905 km2 (16.180 sq mi) and a total population of 39,674 inhabitants.

The old fortifications of the town, formerly so extensive as to require a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 troops to man them, were in great part thrown down by the British in the 19th century. In several parts of the town may be found houses of the Venetian time, with some traces of past splendour. The Palace of St. Michael and St. George, built in 1815 by Sir Thomas Maitland (1759–1824; Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands) is a large structure of white Maltese stone. Near Gasturi stands the Pompeian style Achilleion, the palace built for the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and purchased in 1907 by the German emperor, William II.

Of the thirty-seven Greek churches the most important are the cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady of the Cave; St. Spiridon's, with the tomb of the patron saint of the island; and the suburban church of St Jason and St Sosipater, reputedly the oldest in the island. The city is the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop; and it possesses a gymnasium, a theatre, an agricultural and industrial society, and a library and museum preserved in the buildings formerly devoted to the university, which was founded by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford (1766–1827, himself the first chancellor in 1824) in 1823, but disestablished on the cessation of the British protectorate.

Based on the ICOMOS evaluation of the old town of Corfu,it was inscribed on the World Heritage List. The ICOMOS experts have noted that "about 70% of the pre-20th century buildings date from the British period" and that "whole blocks were destroyed" in the Old Town by the German World War II blitzes; these were "replaced by new constructions in the 1960s and 1970s". The urban fabric was classified as being predominantly of the Neoclassical period "without special architectural features for which it could be distinguished".

The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose termination in the Venetian citadel (Greek: Παλαιό Φρούριο) is cut off from it by an artificial fosse formed in a natural gully, with a salt-water ditch at the bottom, that serves also as a kind of marina known as Contra-Fossa. The old city having grown up within fortifications, where every metre of ground was precious, is a labyrinth of narrow streets paved with cobblestones, sometimes tortuous but mostly pleasant, colourful and sparkling clean. These streets are called "kantounia" (καντούνια) and the older ones sometimes follow the gentle irregularities of the ground while many of them are too narrow for vehicular traffic. There is promenade by the seashore towards the bay of Garitsa (Γαρίτσα), and also an esplanade between the town and the citadel called Liston  (Λιστόν) where upscale restaurants and European style bistros abound. The origin of the name Liston has several explanations: many former Venetian cities have a square of that name, coming from a Venetian word meaning evening promenade, but it can also refer to the closed-list aspect of an up-scale area reserved to the nobility registered in the Libro d'Oro.

The citadel was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 500 drachmas banknote of 1983-2001.

The city of Corfu has a long tradition in the fine arts. The Philharmonic Society of Corfu is part of that tradition. The Museum of the Philharmonic Society of Corfu presents in detail the musical heritage of the island .

[katemarley]

fanfiction: before the battle

Fandom: Hetalia - Axis Powers Pairing: Austria/Spain Characters: Austria, Spain; mentions of Bavaria, Sweden, and the Imperial City of Nördlingen as Hetalia characters; historical figures Rating: T

Summary: August (Julian calendar)/September (Gregorian calendar) 1634: Thirty Years’ War. Imperial and Bavarian troops are about to besiege the Protestant Imperial City of Nördlingen and its Swedish garrison. The siege gets delayed when Austria and the Imperial commander Ferdinand of Hungary learn about the arrival of the long awaited Spanish army with Spain and its commander, Don Fernando. Antonio inspires his war-weary husband with some much-needed reassurance.

Some basic information in advance:

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), one of the most gruesome wars in the history of mankind, was prompted by a revolt of Protestant Bohemians against the dominion of Habsburg Austria. It was fuelled by increasing religious and political disagreement between Catholic and Protestant countries within the Holy Roman Empire. Soon, it transformed into a European war that was predominantly fought within the HRE. In the early 1830s, the Swedes intervened in order to support the Protestant powers in the HRE.

Nördlingen, situated to the north of the river Danube, was an Imperial City at the time. It was close to Protestant Württemberg as well as to the Catholic powers of (Further) Austria and Bavaria. Despite being Protestant itself, Nördlingen remained loyal to Emperor Ferdinand II (of the House of Habsburg) for a long time. When it was faced with a large Swedish army in 1632, the city defected to the Protestant/Swedish side—a logical decision without viable alternatives, but also one that was largely welcomed by the townsfolk.

Since their names may become a bit confusing:

Ferdinand of Hungary (1608-1657) is Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, son of Emperor Ferdinand II who was to become Emperor Ferdinand III in 1637.

Don Fernando (1609 or 1610-1641) is Cardinal-Infante Fernando de Austria, Archbishop of Toledo, Ferdinand of Hungary’s brother-in-law. He is commonly called “Ferdinand” in English (and German) too but I wanted to avoid confusion with the other Ferdinand.

Austria’s ears hurt from the thunder of the artillery he heard in the distance. He had been suspecting he was getting an ear infection, but the pain he had felt had lessened soon after the cannonade had paused for a while two days ago. So perhaps it was just that he was feeling exhausted from this long war and tense from their preparations to take Nördlingen by storm. The background noise from the ordnance was giving him a headache on top of that.

He liked the quiet. He liked melodic sounds. Music. Not the barbaric noise of war.

It was at least some consolation that his commander actually shared his passion for music. Ferdinand was an educated person; sophisticated; more willing to compromise than his father, the Emperor—or so it seemed. War had the potential to bring out the best and the worst in people; Austria had witnessed this numerous times during his long life. He hoped it would bring out the best in Ferdinand because he found he actually liked the man. Perhaps Ferdinand had the potential to become a better ruler than his father because he seemed to understand that conflicts were never settled by crushing the enemy but always during talks with one’s former enemy.

That was, if Ferdinand lived for long enough, and if there would ever be an end to all this. After sixteen years of war, right in the middle of a siege, peace was a thing that seemed hard to imagine. But Austria needed to imagine it from time to time; needed to remember that there had always been periods of peace and periods of war before this specific war had begun. It was what gave him the energy to pull through the next day; to be the positive and reassuring figure his troops needed to see. He had never been particularly strong physically, but he made up for that shortcoming with tenaciousness, strategic thinking, and skilled fencing on horseback. It was tough, but he was able to do it.

He tried not to think about how it had to be for young people who had possibly never known anything but this war. How many sixteen-year-olds were there in their army? How was it for them? Would they become old enough to see this war end? Perhaps they would live to loathe war, and there would be a period of peace after this one had ended … whenever that might be. It was a hope Austria clung to like a drowning man.

He was interrupted in his fantasies when he sensed someone approaching him. Looking up, he saw Johann Christoph von Adelshofen, one of the colonels of his army.

“Mylord!” he called. “The Spaniards are here!”

“Oh, thank God!” Austria exclaimed. He started to move immediately, mounting his horse with an energy he hadn’t expected have in himself mere moments ago.

Together with Adelshofen, Ferdinand, and a large part of their army, Austria rode to the south of the Schönefeld, a terrain near Nördlingen where their army’s encampment was situated. His heart started to beat faster when, without even consciously intending to do so, his eyes first fell on one knight in shining armour who rode near Don Fernando, the Spanish commander.

The only reason why the Spanish armaments seemed so clean was probably because they had marched through drizzly weather not long ago. Regardless, Austria didn’t want to moderate his inward excitement at the sight of his husband. Spain was beautiful even if he seemed weary from the long ride and even if Austria spotted dark rings under his eyes as he came closer. The mere knowledge that he had come with Don Fernando’s troops sufficed to lift a weight from Austria’s heart and to inspire it with new confidence.

If he could have acted the way he wanted, he would have rushed to Spain and embraced him, but of course that wasn’t possible. Apart from the need to keep face, they also felt the need to downplay the fact that their marriage wasn’t a mere symbol for their shared ruling family, the Habsburgs. The inner circle of their rulers tended to turn a blind eye on their love because they saw it as a vehicle to strengthen the symbolic bond between their family branches. The vast majority of their armies, however—mercenaries, predominantly—were unlikely to do the same.

That was why their greeting remained cordial but formal: The inevitable Spanish kisses on the cheek; the usual courtesies; a short embrace between two warriors, clapping each other on the shoulder. It was something, at the least, but what Austria actually wanted was for him to rest his head against his husband’s shoulder while Spain held him. He wanted to forget his worries about the large Swedish army they knew was advancing on them for just a little while.

Ferdinand, Don Fernando, their commanders, and the two countries retreated to Ferdinand’s command tent where the Imperial commanders gave a short review of their current situation. They explained their maps and plans of the terrain, informing Don Fernando of their hope that Nördlingen would surrender to them before Gustav Horn and Bernard of Saxe-Weimar arrived with the grand Swedish army.

“We were getting ready to storm the city when you arrived,” Ferdinand explained to Don Fernando. “The Bavarians are going to start with that tomorrow now.” He nodded to Maximilian of Bavaria and Theodor, Austria’s brother, who had arrived a little later than the others.

“We should give them one last chance to surrender,” Austria suggested. “The situation has changed. Now they are facing many more besiegers than before. Perhaps they will be more willing to give up now.” They knew the people in the city were almost starved, and there was a disease spreading within it. Maybe they were more willing to surrender once they knew how futile their resistance was.

There was also a part in Austria that wanted to acknowledge Nördlingen had been loyal to the Emperor until he was faced with Sweden’s superior forces. He knew that, in Nördlingen’s stead, he would have done the exact same thing in order to ensure his own survival. Yes, perhaps the decision had been easier for Nördlingen because he was a Lutheran. But the fact remained that he had been loyal to him until two years ago.

“It is worth one last try,” Ferdinand agreed. “Volunteers?”

Adelshofen took one step forward. Ferdinand nodded, and the matter was settled.

Why am I not surprised? thought Austria. Somehow, it always seemed to be Adelshofen who was there when things needed to get done. He appreciated that.

Austria overviewed the Bavarian siege on Nördlingen from a wooded hill. Adelshofen’s attempt to convince Nördlingen to give in had been unsuccessful, and that was why the siege had only been delayed for one day rather than getting cancelled.

“It’s not that the people of this city are unwilling to yield,” Adelshofen had told them. “It’s the Swedish garrison who won’t let them surrender. They’re expecting the Swedish army to come to their aid at any time now.”

And that was precisely why Austria was standing where he was now: To overview the siege but also to keep watch for Horn and Saxe-Weimar’s joint army. The afternoon sun was beclouded by dust from the artillery and smoke from fires at the city wall. Watching a siege was always a grim sight, and Austria knew how it was to be on the other side too; to defend his city, his heart, while cannons were hitting the houses near the wall.

Things needed to get done, he remembered his thoughts from the day before. Laying siege to Nördlingen and eventually storming it was one of these things. Sweden’s army had inflicted the south of the Empire with war, and the only way to stop that was reconquering cities held by the Swedes … and, eventually, facing them in open battle.

That last prospect scared him, but things needed to get done. He sighed. So I better be prepared.

“Rodrigo?” a voice close to him said softly. He wasn’t surprised. He had noticed Spain coming closer for a while, drawing on the strange circumstance that, in times of war, his senses seemed to sharpen themselves without his own doing.

Of course that impression wasn’t true. He had been trained to focus in these kinds of situations since he was little, but it was a thing that came back to him effortlessly, and he was glad about that.

“Antonio.” He sighed again when Spain wrapped his arms around him from behind, this time out of relief. “It’s good to have you here. You shouldn’t have come, but I’m glad you did.”

“There was so little time yesterday,” Spain whispered, ignoring his statement. His lips were pressing little kisses on the nape of Austria’s neck, and Austria was trembling. “I wanted to see you.” Spain’s hands started to roam over Austria’s body greedily, but the only thing he said was: “You’re way too thin.” Austria snorted.

“There’s a war going on,” he said sardonically. “What do you expect.”

“You should still try to pay more attention to your health,” Spain replied dryly. “I don’t think it will be helping matters if you faint on the battlefield out of exhaustion. You have to set a good example and fight.”

“I know that,” said Austria, trying to free himself from Spain’s embrace.

“I’m just worried,” Spain said gently, holding him more securely. “You always eat too less when you’re strung up, regardless of the supply situation.” His kisses became more firmly, extending to the base of his spouse’s neck and to his shoulder. “I just want you to be healthy, and happy.”

Austria wanted to give a bitter laugh—Happy? How could I possibly be happy now?—but he knew Spain was only trying to cheer him up. And in spite of his thoughts, he noticed his body relax into Spain’s embrace too. Perhaps it remembered the staggering love he felt for that man better than he did in this situation. He stopped looking out, turned and wrapped his arms around Spain’s shoulders, clinging to him with a force that surprised even him.

“Oh, Rodri.” Spain kissed his temple. “You’re so smart and so brave, but you sometimes forget that I’m there, too. You don’t have to push trough everything all by yourself.”

So that’s why you’ve come, Austria thought. He didn’t dare to say it because he was afraid he would start crying tears of emotion, and he didn’t want to show Spain how vulnerable he really felt. His husband had turned out to be the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, but he was also the less composed person among the two of them. He didn’t want to throw him off by starting to sob.

“You’re a godsend,” he told his husband solemnly as soon as he had brought his voice back under control. Spain avoided looking into his eyes with a sheepishness that was so adorable it made Austria smile.

“You were right though,” Spain said, still looking away.

“Huh?” Austria took a step back, hands still on his spouse’s shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“Fernando and me are planning to move on towards the Spanish Netherlands as soon as possible,” his husband confided to him. “He is to become Governor-General there, and I have the feeling I should show my face there once again, too.” Austria nodded.

“I’m sure Ferdinand would rather you stayed with us because Heaven knows we need your support, but I know you must not neglect your own lands.” He smiled. “You’re here now, and that’s already more than I could have hoped for.” He took his hands from Spain’s shoulders only to grip his husband’s hands and squeeze them firmly. “Thank you. You don’t know how much your presence means to me.”

“I think I do,” replied Spain with a smirk. “Don’t underestimate me.”

“I don’t.” Austria smiled back at him. It was a tense but sincere smile. “But I hope our enemies will.”

 Notes:

They did indeed: Bernard of Saxe-Weimar underestimated the sheer weight of numbers of the Spanish forces drastically, by about 10,000 men. The Swedish also suffered from errors of judgment and some bad luck, and in the end—after two days of fighting—they took to flight. The Battle of Nördlingen in 1634 was one of the severest defeats of the Swedish/Protestant army, and the Swedes had to retreat northward in order to recuperate.

Consequently, this gave the Imperial/Bavarian/Catholic side time to make a treaty with Protestant princes—the Peace of Prague (30 May 1635). The chief Imperial negotiator was Ferdinand of Hungary who acknowledged he needed to make concessions to the Protestant side for the peace treaty to be successful. Actually, many terms of the Treaty of Prague anticipated terms negotiated for the Holy Roman Empire in the Treaties of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. However, it did not bring an end to fighting within the lands of the HRE because it did not incorporate Sweden—and Catholic France that joined the war on the side of the Protestant Swedes shortly after the Peace of Prague was made. In fact, the fourth phase of the Thirty Years’ War (after the Peace of Prague) was the most gruesome one of the whole decades-long war.

[release-info]

region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great’s heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state. In the Late Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians living in both parts. The Thirty Years’ War brought tremendous destruction to Germany; more than 1/4 of the population and 1/2 of the male population in the German states were killed by the catastrophic war. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Austria and other states, which also controlled land outside of the area considered as “Germany”. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars from 1803–1815, feudalism fell away and liberalism and nationalism clashed with reaction. The German revolutions of 1848–49 failed. The Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and humanities, while music and art flourished. The unification of Germany (excluding Austria and the German-speaking areas of Switzerland) was achieved under the leadership of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871 which solved the Kleindeutsche Lösung, the small Germany solution (Germany without Austria), or Großdeutsche Lösung, the greater Germany solution (Germany with Austria), the former prevailing. The new Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific. By 1900, Germany was the dominant power on the European continent and its rapidly expanding industry had surpassed Britain’s, while provoking it in a naval arms race. Germany led the Central Powers in World War I (1914–1918) against France, Great Britain, Russia and (by 1917) the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as of home territory to be ceded to Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France and Poland. The German Revolution of 1918–19 put an end to the federal constitutional monarchy, which resulted in the establishment of the Weimar Republic, an unstable parliamentary democracy. In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and people lost confidence in the government. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. Hitler quickly established a totalitarian regime. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. First came the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, the annexing of Austria in the Anschluss and parts of Czechoslovakia with the Munich Agreement in 1938 (although in 1939 Hitler annexed further territory of Czechoslovakia). On 1 September 1939, Germany initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland. After forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe. After a “Phoney War” in spring 1940, the Germans swept Denmark and Norway, the Low Countries and France, giving Germany control of nearly all of Western Europe. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the Nazi regime. In Germany, but predominantly in the German-occupied areas, the systematic genocide program known as The Holocaust killed 11 million including Jews, German dissidents, gipsies, disabled people, Poles, Romanies, Soviets (Russian and non-Russian), and others. In 1942, the German invasion of the Soviet Union faltered, and after the United States had entered the war, Britain became the base for massive Anglo-American bombings of German cities. Germany fought the war on multiple fronts through 1942–1944, however following the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 1944), the German Army was pushed back on all fronts until the final collapse in May 1945. Under occupation by the Allies, German territories were split up, Austria was again made a separate country, denazification took place, and the Cold War resulted in the division of the country into democratic West Germany and communist East Germany. Millions of ethnic Germans were deported or fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Western Europe. West Germany was rearmed in the 1950s under the auspices of NATO, but without access to nuclear weapons. The Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was destroyed, the Soviet Union collapsed and East Germany was reunited with West Germany in 1990. In 1998–1999, Germany was one of the founding countries of the eurozone. Germany remains one of the economic powerhouses of Europe, contributing about one-quarter of the eurozone’s annual gross domestic product. In the early 2010s, Germany played a critical role in trying to resolve the escalating euro crisis, especially with regard to Greece and other Southern European nations. In the middle of the decade, the country faced the European migrant crisis as the main receiver of asylum seekers from Syria and other troubled regions.discovery of the Homo heidelbergensis mandible in 1907 affirms archaic human presence in Germany by at least 600,000 years ago.[1] The oldest complete set of hunting weapons ever found anywhere in the world was excavated from a coal mine in Schöningen, Lower Saxony. Between 1994 and 1998, eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins between 1.82 and 2.25 m (5.97 and 7.38 ft) in length were eventually unearthed.[2] In 1856 the fossilized bones of an extinct human species were salvaged from a limestone grotto in the Neander valley near Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia. The archaic nature of the fossils, now known to be around 40,000 years old, was recognized and the characteristics published in the first ever paleoanthropologic species description in 1858 by Hermann Schaaffhausen.[3] The species was named Homo neanderthalensis – Neanderthal man in 1864. The remains of Paleolithic early modern human occupation uncovered and documented in several caves in the Swabian Jura include various mammoth ivory sculptures that rank among the oldest uncontested works of art and several flutes, made of bird bone and mammoth ivory that are confirmed to be the oldest musical instruments ever found. The 40,000-year-old Löwenmensch figurine represents the oldest uncontested figurative work of art and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels has been asserted as the oldest uncontested object of human figurative art ever discovered.[4][5] [6][7] Germanic tribes, 750 BC – 768 AD Middle Ages Early modern Germany death of Frankish king Pepin the Short in 768, his oldest son “Charlemagne” (“Charles the Great”) consolidated his power over and expanded the Kingdom. Charlemagne ended 200 years of Royal Lombard rule with the Siege of Pavia, and in 774 he installed himself as King of the Lombards. Loyal Frankish nobles replaced the old Lombard aristocracy following a rebellion in 776.[46] The next 30 years of his reign were spent ruthlessly strengthening his power in Francia and on the conquest of the Slavs and Pannonian Avars in the east and all tribes, such as the Saxons and the Bavarians.[47][48] On Christmas Day, 800 AD, Charlemagne was crowned Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans) in Rome by Pope Leo III.[48] Fighting among Charlemagne’s three grandsons over the continuation of the custom of partible inheritance or the introduction of primogeniture caused the Carolingian empire to be partitioned into three parts by the Treaty of Verdun of 843.[49] Louis the German received the Eastern portion of the kingdom, East Francia, all lands east of the Rhine river and to the north of Italy. This encompassed the territories of the German stem duchies – Franks, Saxons, Swabians, and Bavarians – that were united in a federation under the first non-Frankish king Henry the Fowler, who ruled from 919 to 936.[50] The royal court permanently moved in between a series of strongholds, called Kaiserpfalzen, that developed into economic and cultural centers. Aachen Palace played a central role, as the local Palatine Chapel served as the official site for all royal coronation ceremonies during the entire Medieval period until 1531.[48][51] The Holy Roman Empire, maps The division of the Carolingian Empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 Territorial evolution of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 to 1806 The Holy Roman Empire at its greatest territorial extent under Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II, 13th century http://bit.ly/2JRE8Gt

[vsplusonline]

Venice Carnival cancelled in Italy in a bid to stop spread of COVID-19

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/venice-carnival-cancelled-in-italy-in-a-bid-to-stop-spread-of-covid-19/

Venice Carnival cancelled in Italy in a bid to stop spread of COVID-19

Italy scrambled Sunday to check the spread of Europe’s first major outbreak of the new viral disease amid rapidly rising numbers of infections and a third death, calling off the popular Venice Carnival, scrapping major league soccer matches in the stricken area and shuttering theaters, including Milan’s legendary La Scala.

Concern was also on the rise in neighboring Austria, which halted all rail traffic to and from Italy for several hours after suspicion that a train at its southern border with Italy had two passengers possibly infected with the virus on board, authorities said. Austria’s interior ministry said it had been informed by Italy’s railway company that two passengers had fever and stopped the train at the Brenner crossing before it could enter Austria.

READ MORE: COVID-19: Two dead, 79 infected in Italy as government shuts down worst hit areas

However, just before midnight Austria’s Federal Railways announced on Twitter the ban had been lifted. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the two people suspected of being infected with the virus on the Eurocity 86 train from Venice to Munich had tested negative and the train would be allowed to continue on its way, according to the ORF broadcast network.

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The decision to call off Venice Carnival was announced by Veneto regional Gov. Luca Zaia as the number of confirmed virus cases soared to 152, the largest number outside Asia.

“The ordinance is immediately operative and will go into effect at midnight,″ said Zaia, whose area includes Venice, where thousands packed St. Mark’s Square. Carnival would have run through Tuesday.

1:17 Trump says U.S. has coronavirus under control, has confidence in China’s president to solve problem

Trump says U.S. has coronavirus under control, has confidence in China’s president to solve problem

Road blocks were set up in at least some of 10 towns in Lombardy at the epicenter of the outbreak, including in Casalpusterlengo, to keep people from leaving or arriving. Even trains transiting the area weren’t allowed to stop.

Buses, trains and other forms of public transport — including boats in Venice — were being disinfected, Zaia told reporters. Museums were also ordered to shut down after Sunday in Venice, a top tourist draw anytime of the year, as well as in neighboring Lombardy, which, with at least 110 confirmed cases, is the epicenter of the viral outbreak.

Authorities said three people in Venice have tested positive for the viral disease known as COVID-19, all of them in their late 80s and who were hospitalized in critical condition.

Other northern regions with smaller numbers of cases are Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont.

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READ MORE: COVID-19: South Korea placed on highest alert while China sees death toll hit 2,442

Italy’s first two cases were a Chinese tourist couple, diagnosed earlier this month and reported recovering in a Rome hospital.

The death on Sunday of an elderly woman, who was already suffering from cancer when she contracted the virus, raised the nation’s death toll to three, said Lombardy regional official Giulio Gallera.

Authorities expressed frustration that they haven’t been able to track down the source of the virus that is spreading in the north and which surfaced last week when an Italian man in his late 30s in Codogno became critically ill.

“The health officials haven’t been yet able to pinpoint ‘patient zero,’” Angelo Borrelli, head of the national Civil Protection agency, told reporters in Rome.

0:33 Coronavirus outbreak: South Korean PM says he feels ‘responsibility’ as cases soar to over 400

Coronavirus outbreak: South Korean PM says he feels ‘responsibility’ as cases soar to over 400

At first, it was widely presumed that the man was infected by an Italian friend he dined with and who had recently returned from his job, based in Shanghai. But when the friend tested negative for the virus attention turned to several Chinese residents who frequent the same cafe visited by the stricken man. But Lombardy Gov. Attilio Fontana told reporters they all tested negative too.

So for now, Borrelli indicated the strategy is to concentrate on closures and other restrictions to try to stem the spread in the country, which already had taken measures early on in the global virus alarm that included banning direct flights from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. Italy has also tested millions of airport passengers arriving from other places for any signs of fever.

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“Worry is understandable, panic, no,″ Premier Giuseppe Conte told a state TV talk show host, who informed him that four bottles of disinfectant hand gel, which normally sell for a few euros a piece, were being hawked for 200 euros on the internet. The interview was conducted by phone in a studio without an audience after authorities requested that the public not be allowed in for health concerns.

READ MORE: All confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ontario cleared

Gallera told reporters in Milan that schools, museums, discos, pubs and theaters would stay closed for at least seven days. But restaurants in Milan and other Lombardy cities outside the main cluster area can still operate since, unlike at concerts and other entertainment venues, in eateries “people are not congregated in one place and there is space between tables,” Gallera said.

Lombardy’s ban on public events also extended to Masses in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation. Venice also was forbidding public Masses, while in Milan, the city’s iconic Gothic cathedral was closed to visitors. School trips inside Italy and overseas were banned.

But in the south, thousands turned out for a visit by Pope Francis in the port city of Bari. The pontiff shook hands with many of the faithful.

In Lombardy, a populous region which includes the country’s financial capital, Milan, nearly all the cases of COVID-19 were in the countryside, mainly in Codogno and nine neighboring towns. In those towns, only grocery stores and pharmacies were permitted to open, and people weren’t supposed to enter or leave the towns.

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0:57 Coronavirus outbreak: Tokyo governor criticizes suggestion London could host 2020 Olympics

Coronavirus outbreak: Tokyo governor criticizes suggestion London could host 2020 Olympics

Melissa Catanacci, who lives on one of Codogno’s main roads, said in the morning, she ventured outside for a stroll along with her husband and two children, ages 10 and 13.

“Every quarter-hour or so a car goes by” on the main road, Catanacci said, speaking by telephone. With businesses closed, the usual Sunday “passeggiata″ — a leisurely stroll through local streets — didn’t last very long, she said.

With school to stay shut through the week, her children were visiting their friends’ houses or inviting them over to hers to break the boredom, she said.

Sporting events were canceled, from children’s team practices to Serie A soccer matches which were to be played in northern stadiums. Those measures were ordered Saturday night by the Italian government.

Dispensers of hand disinfectant were being installed in trains run by the state railways, which also said it was supplying its crews with masks and disposable gloves.

READ MORE: COVID-19 hasn’t affected Canada’s drug supply yet, but experts are watching

Britain’s number of confirmed cases rose to 13, with the positive test results of four Britons who had been aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which had been moored for days at a Japanese port when the ship was quarantined.

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In Austria, security official Franz Lang said the country was considering activating border controls to Italy. Both nations are part of the European Union’s visa- and passport-free zone, but under certain circumstances individual countries can reactivate controls. Lang said the situation would be discussed in meetings Monday, local Austrian media reported.

In Switzerland, which like Austria borders Italy, there was a call for calm.

1:39 Richard Branson says his new cruise ship will overcome coronavirus fears

Richard Branson says his new cruise ship will overcome coronavirus fears

“The news from Italy is worrisome … but it is too early to think that a wave is rolling our way,” Daniel Koch, the head of the department for contagious diseases at the heath office, told the SRF public broadcaster

The German health ministry said it had initiated a phone conference for all European Union public health authorities about the outbreak in northern Italy on Monday.

READ MORE: Containing the novel coronavirus — Is COVID-19 here to stay?

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said that authorities were getting ready for a possible outbreak in France of the new virus. In an interview published Sunday in French newspaper Le Parisien he said he was monitoring closely the “very serious” situation, including in neighboring Italy.

Earlier this month, France reported the first death outside Asia of a person infected with the virus, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.

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Among those in quarantine in Italy were 274 migrants, rescued in the Mediterranean Sea by a charity ship from boats launched by Libya-based traffickers and allowed to disembark in Pozzallo, Sicily.

1:41 Elizabeth May calls for China to ‘focus on the extreme peril’ of Uyghur concentration camps amid coronavirus outbreak

Elizabeth May calls for China to ‘focus on the extreme peril’ of Uyghur concentration camps amid coronavirus outbreak

D’Emilio reported from Rome. Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, and Jill Lawless in London, contributed to this report.

© 2020 The Canadian Press

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[sammy24682468]

"Memory Text: “ ‘At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book’ ” (Daniel 12:1, NKJV)."

"Last week we looked at the counterfeit trinity, Satan (the dragon) and two earthly powers that together will bring persecution against God’s people. One of these powers, the sea beast (Rev. 13:1-10), is described as a composite of a leopard, a bear, and a lion (Rev. 13:2)—images taken directly from Daniel 7:4-6. We saw in week 6 that in Daniel 7—after the rise of Babylon (lion), Media-Persia (bear), and Greece (leopard)—came the final earthly power, Rome. It started out as pagan Rome and then turned into papal Rome, the little horn power of Daniel 7:7, 8; 19-21; and 23-25 that rose directly out of the fourth beast. We saw, too, that many of the characteristics of papal Rome, as depicted in these verses in Daniel 7, reappear in the sea beast of Revelation 13:1-10. Hence, Bible scholars have seen Rome as one of the key antagonists in the end-time scenario of Revelation 13."

John is on the Island looking  back in time while  Daniel  is looking  forward to the future.

"Read Revelation 13:1-10 and go over the reasons why these texts are referring to the papacy, with regard to its role in the past and in the future. Notice specifically just how prominent a role it is given. What does this mean in terms of last-day events?"

"Although God has faithful people in all churches, Scripture does point to a specific role that this institution has played in history and will play in last-day events."

"For centuries the Roman church had been the central religion and, in many ways, the political center of the Western world. A telling example of her power is seen in the story of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who, upon angering Pope Gregory VII, came to the pope’s castle to make peace. There, the Roman emperor was made to wait in an outer court for three days in the winter cold before the pope granted him entrance. Gregory VII, elated with his triumph, boasted that it was his duty to pull down the pride of kings."

The pope had more power than the kings back in those  days.

"Nevertheless, by the late eighteenth century through the influence of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, Rome’s political and religious hegemony had been shattered. One of the popes, Pius VI, actually had been taken captive by the French army in 1798 and died in exile in 1799."

"Revelation 13, however, speaks of a resurgence after the healing of its “deadly wound” (Rev. 13:3). And although Rome today doesn’t have the kind of political power it wielded in the day of Gregory VII, it is an influential force, both religiously and politically, thanks to the popularity of recent popes (for instance, Pope Francis’ speaking to both houses of the U.S. Congress in 2015 was a historical first). According to prophecy, this influence only will grow."

"The beast that precedes this one—long viewed as Rome by Protestants—was depicted as having been given power for forty-two months (Rev. 13:5). The forty-two months are the same as the “time and times and the dividing of time” of Daniel 7:25, or three and a half years (Rev. 12:14), or 1,260 prophetic days (Rev. 12:6)—the time during which the papal power oppressed its opponents. This prophetic time period (using the day-year principle) began with the supremacy of the papacy, a.d.  38, and terminated in 1798, the year that the pope was taken captive. At this time the papal power received its deadly wound, and the prediction was fulfilled."

"About this point in history, near the close of the “forty-two months” (1798), another power appears (Rev. 13:11, Rev. 13:1). It arises this time out of the earth—which is in contrast to many of the previous powers, which arose out of water (see Dan. 7:2, 3)—a symbol of masses of people. “ ‘The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues’ ” (Rev. 17:15, NKJV)."

"For these reasons, and others, this power must be the United States of America, which arose in a relatively uninhabited part of the world and didn’t need to overthrow any major empires in order to do so."

"“What nation of the New World was in 1798 rising into power, giving promise of strength and greatness, and attracting the attention of the world? The application of the symbol admits of no question. One nation, and only one, meets the specifications of this prophecy; it points unmistakably to the United States of America.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 440."

"Although this power is described first as having two horns like a lamb, symbolizing gentleness, it will speak “as a dragon” (Rev. 13:11), indicating a time of persecution such as took place under the previous power. Revelation 13:11-17, then, answers the question about how Rome could exert the influence that prophecy predicts. It will have the might of the United States behind it—that’s how."

"All through sacred history, the Lord constantly had to deal with those who fell into idolatry and other forms of false worship (see Matt. 4:8-10). In the final crisis, as depicted in Revelation 13, the issue of worship will again arise. Here, too, God’s people will have to make a choice about whom they will worship and serve (see Josh. 24:15)."

"In week 2, in the lesson titled “Daniel and the End Time,” we studied the story of three Hebrew boys who were ordered to “worship the golden image” (Dan. 3:5). We saw, too, how Revelation 13 uses language from that chapter in depicting the persecution that God’s people will face in the end times. That is, we may see what happened in Daniel  3 as a precursor to what will happen in the last days, as depicted in the immediate context of the beast powers in Revelation 13. All were commanded to worship the golden image, or they would be put to death in a fiery furnace. Similarly, in Revelation 13, whoever “would not worship the image of the beast [is] to be killed” (Rev. 13:15, NKJV)."

"Babylon always has been the capital of false worship. The Tower of Babel testified to its builders’ desire, like Lucifer, to “ascend above the heights of the clouds” (Isa. 14:14), as well as to its builders’ efforts to save themselves in case of another global deluge. Thus, they refused to believe God’s promise never to bring another flood upon the earth (Gen. 9:8-11)."

"The Neo-Babylonian Empire likewise exalted the work of human hands. Nebuchadnezzar extolled “this great Babylon, that I have built” (Dan. 4:30). Later, King Belshazzar took the golden cups of Solomon’s temple for a feast, and “they drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone” (Dan. 5:3, 4, NKJV). Notice that the true vessels of the temple were filled with intoxicating wine, which deadened the sensibility of all who drank from them. As a result, many in the city perished when Babylon fell. Thus, an outward appearance of truth can deceive us by disguising the deadly “wine of Babylon.” False worship and false ideas are the currency of Satan’s kingdom."

"Babylon has a long history as the capital of false worship; so it is a fitting symbol of an end-time power that deceives the nations."

"Compare the dragon, the sea beast, and the scarlet beast (Rev. 12:3, 13:1-3, 17:3). What are the similarities and differences?"

Hint: what colors are found predominantly in the Roman  Catholic  Church.

"All three beasts have seven heads and ten horns, which represent the sum total of heads and horns of the beasts of Daniel 7. Each successive empire was built upon those that went before. Similarly, the scarlet beast combines elements of the dragon and the sea beast (symbolizing pagan and papal Rome, respectively), as well as of the land beast (Rev. 13:11-14), grouping “all three powers—all of God’s enemies—into a real coalition.”—Jacques B. Doukhan, Secrets of Revelation: The Apocalypse Through Hebrew Eyes (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald® Publishing Association, 2002), p. 162. An additional element in Revelation 17 is the woman who rides on the scarlet beast, symbolizing an illicit union of religious and political powers. This woman contrasts sharply with the pure woman of Revelation 12:"

"Pure Woman (Rev. 12) Harlot (Rev. 17)In heaven On the waters Clothed with the sun Clothed in purple and scarlet Crown of twelve stars Adorned with gold, gems, pearls Attacked by the dragon Supported by the dragon Mother of the remnant Mother of harlots As “the mother of harlots,” Babylon has been busy reproducing itself. The apostate mother church has many apostate daughters. But God does not take ownership of the errors promulgated and atrocities committed by apostate Christianity. His true people, although attacked by Satan, survive through the centuries."

"Revelation 14:8 has already warned people of Babylon’s fall or apostasy from the truth, which eventually leads to the final deception, the mark of the beast (Rev. 14:9-11). This warning will be repeated with much greater power, culminating in one last appeal for God’s people still in Babylon to come out of her and unite with God’s end-time, remnant church (Rev. 18:1-4)."

"Over the years, students of Bible prophecy have been following world events with great interest, particularly as they seem to relate to the end time. Think, for instance, about the role of the United States. As far back as 1851, some Adventists were identifying America as the second beast power (Rev. 13:11-15), which was a very remarkable identification given the status of the United States then. In the mid1800s, the big powers were still the Old World ones: Prussia, France, Austria-Hungary, and England. At that time America had a peacetime army of about twenty thousand men, about one-tenth the number of combatants at the Battle of Waterloo (1815) alone. In 1814, just forty years earlier, the British invaded and burned Washington, D.C. In 1876, Sitting Bull’s braves wiped out General Custer’s Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment. Thus, even after some commentators identified the United States as the power that would one day enforce the “mark of the beast” on the world, the nation was still fighting Native Americans on its own soil, and not always winning either!"

"No question, world events are following as we have believed they would. But still more things need to happen before we reach the end. That’s why, for instance, when discussing the “mark of the beast,” it’s very important to emphasize that right now no one has it, regardless of whether or not they are keeping the fourth commandment."

"Read Revelation 18:1-4. What is happening here, and why is this important for us to remember now? What do these verses teach us about our mission to the world?"

"These verses paint a bleak political, moral, and spiritual picture of the world. They show the malevolent influence of false religious teaching in the world. At the same time, though, they offer great hope, because another angel from heaven lights the world with his glory. Further, God’s faithful people, the ones who haven’t learned yet what they need to know, are called out of Babylon. This means, then, that right up to the end, God’s people who are already out of Babylon have a work to do for those who are still in it."

"Satan’s attack on God’s law is an attack on God"

"Himself, both on His authority and on His government. So in the last days, in the climactic events of the final crisis, Satan will be attacking those who keep “the commandments of God” (Rev. 12:17, 14:12), for they alone will be refusing to pay him homage through his proxies here on earth. The battle that he waged against God in heaven long ago will be continued here on earth, and just as he was defeated in heaven, he will be defeated here on earth. “From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God."

"It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth. To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God’s law, is the object which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be accomplished by casting aside the law altogether, or by rejecting one of its precepts, the result will be ultimately the same. He that offends ‘in one point,’ manifests contempt for the whole law; his influence and example are on the side of transgression; he becomes ‘guilty of all.’ James 2:10."

"—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 582."

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.24

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom. 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral. 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign. 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles. 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. 1607 – Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, is founded. 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance. 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum. 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics. 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday. 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins. 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito. 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. 1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia. 1873 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes the first black president of a predominantly white university in the United States. 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies. 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight). 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field. 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen. 1944 – Börse Berlin building burns down after being hit in an air raid during World War II. 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later. 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland. 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule. 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel. 1967 – Belle de Jour, directed by Luis Buñuel, is released. 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine. 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha. 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War. 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted. 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel. 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests. 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town. 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia. 1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico. 1994 – Four men are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; each one is sentenced to 240 years in prison. 1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board. 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo. 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty. 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people. 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels' Jewish Museum of Belgium. 2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India). 2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7. 2022 – A mass shooting occurs at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States, resulting in the deaths of 21 people, including 19 children.

[samaracomm300-blog]

Samara Alhani

Host Country Report

COMM 300

4/23/2017

Italy

           What would be the most important information an international sojourner must know before traveling to the beautiful country of Italy? Lets first start by getting to know the country from a geographical perspective. The first thing you must know about Italy is its proximity from the United States. Depending on where you are located and depending on what part of Italy you are traveling to your flight time will vary. East coast travelers will have the pleasure of knowing a direct flight is 8 hours, however a one-stop flight could cost you 12 hours. The average flight time for West coast travelers is 21 hours since there are no direct flights.

Italy is located in the Southwestern region of Europe and borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. Across the Adriatic Sea is Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.  France and Spain are two countries that share similar lifestyles, religious values and cultural heritages to Italy. Up until 2004, all three countries were predominantly Roman Catholic. Due to their close proximity, France, Italy, and Spain have all experienced many of the same historical events and all share the same relaxed view of time and punctuality.

The capital of Italy, Rome, is one of the oldest cities in the world and features some of the most famous attractions in all of Europe such as the Vatican Sistine Chapel. Visitors from all over the globe travel to Rome to visit The Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and St. Peter’s Basilica. A few important and monumental cities to include throughout your Italian journey include Milan, Florence, Naples and Venice. Milan is known as the fashion capital of the world and the Italian center of finance, industry and commerce. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is also at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Tuscany is known as the cradle of the Renaissance and boasts famous art from Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Botticelli.

As you plunge deeper into your traveling, Italy intensifies with Naples. Naples is known as Italy in the extreme; it is best known for the birthplace of pizza and Sophia Loren but is also known for it’s “family” of organized crime. Naples is also endowed with a wonderful heritage of monuments and artistic collections. Venice is famously known as the Italian city built on water. Venice is filled with busy canals, palaces built on water, ancient trades and water taxis. As you can see, Italy has plenty to offer and contains countless cities filled with beauty, architecture, food, wine, and shopping.

When traveling abroad not only is it necessary to know what cities you plan on visiting, you also need to know the country’s history. Here is a brief summary of the top ten most important historical dates of Italy. In 753 B.C, Rome was founded, which marked the beginning of the Roman Kingdom. In 509 B.C, after the monarchy was overthrown, Rome became a republic that was ruled by a famous dictator names Julius Caesar. During 1200-1600 A.D, Rome, Florence and Venice all prospered during the Renaissance, which was a time that renewed Italy’s culture and development. In 1861, Italy was unified as a nation by King Victor Emmanuel II. Shortly after, in 1915, Italy entered World War I as an Ally. Throughout 1940-1943, Italy sided with Germany and entered World War II. In 1946, the Italian people voted to end the monarchy and made their country a democratic republic. Catholicism was no longer Italy’s formal state religion in 1984. In 2007, the country’s economy endured a triple-dip recession and has since then seen long-term damage.

The country’s main language is Italian with English, French, Spanish, German, and Basque making remaining the five alternative languages spoken. Italy also has traces of Arabic, Croatian, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Greek, Chinese, Portuguese, Catalan and Hungarian. In 1948, Italy established a constitutional charter, which defines the political and civil liberties of citizens and the principles of government. The president of Italy is the head of the state and is elected every seven years by a college consisting both chambers of parliament and three representatives from each region, very similar to that of the United States.

Religion is also a largely seen and felt entity throughout Italy. Italy has always been a Christian country, with 88% of the population identifying to the Roman Catholic Church. Other religious groups in Italy include over 1 million Muslims, 700,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians, 555,000 Evangelical Protestants, 235,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, and 45,000 Jews.  Religion has played a vital role in Italian history. Christianity has permeated every facet of Italian life. The Vatican is the home of the government of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Pope, who is the spiritual leader of the world’s Roman Catholics. Historically, by virtue of tradition, Italy has seen the Church of Rome as a constant in government and organization of public life. However, in 1984, a concordat signed ended the church’s position as the state religion, abolished compulsory religious teaching in public school and reduced financial contributions.

The class structure in Italy is very similar to that of the United States. Italy consists of high-class entrepreneurs, politicians’ etc. (10%) white collar middle class citizens (17%), urban petite bourgeoisie (14%), rural petite bourgeoisie (10%), urban working class (37%) and rural working class (9%). Traditionally, women were raised to maintain their household and family, however, currently gender roles between men and women have equaled out and adapted to the times. Both women and men can find quality education and job opportunities alike. The gender roles in Italy are very similar to the United States in which more traditional families can stick with a more traditional role for men and women whereas a more progressive family can adopt progressive concepts relating to gender roles.

           There are two main national television organizations in Italy; the state owned RAI channel and Mediaset, which is a commercial network. The third largest player is the Italian branch of Discovery Communications.  Italy contains a variety of newspapers as well including Corrieire della Sear, La Stampa, La Gazzatta dello Spot, Il Messaggero, Il Mattino, and Leggo. It is also important to note that the Cinema of Italy comprises of films made within Italy or by Italian directors since the development of fil in the early 1900’s. Filmmakers and performers have at times experiences both domestic and international success. The most notable and successful actress, Sophia Loren, was the first actress to win an Academy Award for a performance in a foreign language and the second Italian winner after Anna Magnani.

Food throughout Italian culture is known to be a shared experience with family and friends. It’s national dish Ragu alla Bolognese consists of fettucine or tagliatelle, minced beef, unsmoked pancetta, and different vegetables. Food has one of the strongest relationships with Italy and the Italian people. From pasta, pizza, wine, cheese to rich desserts like tiramisu, panettone, cannoli and panna cotta, Italian cuisine consist of simple and very small ingredients.

People in Italy greet eachother by hugging or kissing the cheek. Oftentimes, a handshake will not suffice. Greeting strangers with a simple smile could turn into an hour long conversation where you are invited to dinner and to meet with family and friends. It is an extremely friendly nation, with exceptions in certain regions. A lot of information was covered during this short essay, but like any international traveler, try and do some personal research and homework to get a general feel of what you can expect. Try to take each experience with a grain of salt and really allow yourself to become immersed within Italian culture. It will be one of the most unforgettable travel experiences you will have the privilege of having. And if you end up arriving back to the States a few pounds heavier, don’t worry. You are among many who have often traveled back and noticed the weight gain, it is completely normal and should be expected. You will have plenty of time to work it off.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.24

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom. 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral. 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign. 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles. 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. 1607 – One hundred-five English settlers under the leadership of Captain Christopher Newport established the colony called Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the Virginia coast, the first permanent English colony in America. 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance. 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum. 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics. 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday. 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins. 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito. 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. 1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia. 1873 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes the first black president of a predominantly white university in the United States. 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies. 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight). 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field. 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen. 1944 – Börse Berlin building burns down after being hit in an air raid during World War II. 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later. 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland. 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule. 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel. 1967 – Belle de Jour, directed by Luis Buñuel, is released. 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine. 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha. 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War. 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted. 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel. 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests. 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town. 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia. 1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico. 1994 – Four men are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; each one is sentenced to 240 years in prison. 1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board. 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo. 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty. 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people. 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels' Jewish Museum of Belgium. 2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India). 2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7.

[architecture-v-rassias]

Corfu old town.Ionian sea,Corfu island.Greece.

Contax RTS II,Carl Zeiss lenses T*,Sony A 900,Sony lenses,Sony RX10

Powered by Dell

Corfu or Kerkyra  Greek: Κέρκυρα, Ancient Greek: Κόρκυρα,Latin: Corcyra; Italian: Corfù) is a city and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality of Corfu island. It is the capital of the island and of the Corfu regional unit. The city also serves as a capital for the region of the Ionian Islands. The city (population 24,838 in 2011) is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since antiquity.

The ancient city of Corfu, known as Korkyra, took part in the Battle of Sybotawhich was a catalyst for the Peloponnesian War, and, according to Thucydides, the largest naval battle between Greek city states until that time. Thucydidesalso reports that Korkyra was one of the three great naval powers of fifth century BC Greece, along with Athens and Corinth. Medieval castles punctuating strategic locations across the city are a legacy of struggles in the Middle Ages against invasions by pirates and the Ottomans. The city has become known since the Middle Ages as Kastropolis (🏰 City) because of its two castles.

From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility; much of the city reflects this era when the island belonged to the Republic of Venice, with multi-storied buildings on narrow lanes. The Old Town of Corfu has clear Venetian influence. The city was subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the strength of the city defenses asserted itself time after time, mainly because of the effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications. Will Durant claimed that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the Ottomans.

In 2007, the old town of the city was inscribed on the UNESCO 🌍 Heritage List. The municipal unit of Corfu city has a land area of 41.905 km2 (16.180 sq mi) and a total population of 39,674 inhabitants.

The old fortifications of the town, formerly so extensive as to require a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 troops to man them, were in great part thrown down by the British in the 19th century. In several parts of the town may be found houses of the Venetian time, with some traces of past splendour. The Palace of St. Michael and St. George, built in 1815 by Sir Thomas Maitland (1759–1824; Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands) is a large structure of white Maltese stone. Near Gasturi stands the Pompeian style Achilleion, the palace built for the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and purchased in 1907 by the German emperor, William II.

Of the thirty-seven Greek churches the most important are the cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady of the Cave; St. Spiridon’s, with the tomb of the patron saint of the island; and the suburban ⛪ of St Jason and St Sosipater, reputedly the oldest in the island. The city is the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop; and it possesses a gymnasium, a theatre, an agricultural and industrial society, and a library and museum preserved in the buildings formerly devoted to the university, which was founded by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford (1766–1827, himself the first chancellor in 1824) in 1823, but disestablished on the cessation of the British protectorate.

Based on the ICOMOS evaluation of the old town of Corfu,it was inscribed on the 🌍 Heritage List. The ICOMOS experts have noted that “about 70% of the pre-20th century buildings date from the British period” and that “whole blocks were destroyed” in the Old Town by the German 🌍 War II blitzes; these were “replaced by new constructions in the 1960s and 1970s”. The urban fabric was classified as being predominantly of the Neoclassical period “without special architectural features for which it could be distinguished”.

The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose termination in the Venetian citadel (Greek: Παλαιό Φρούριο) is cut off from it by an artificial fosse formed in a natural gully, with a salt-🚰 ditch at the bottom, that serves also as a kind of marina known as Contra-Fossa. The old city having grown up within fortifications, where every metre of ground was precious, is a labyrinth of narrow streets paved with cobblestones, sometimes tortuous but mostly pleasant, colourful and sparkling clean. These streets are called “kantounia” (καντούνια) and the older ones sometimes follow the gentle irregularities of the ground while many of them are too narrow for vehicular traffic. There is promenade by the seashore towards the bay of Garitsa (Γαρίτσα), and also an esplanade between the town and the citadel called Liston  (Λιστόν) where upscale restaurants and European style bistros abound. The origin of the name Liston has several explanations: many former Venetian cities have a square of that name, coming from a Venetian word meaning evening promenade, but it can also refer to the closed-list aspect of an up-scale area reserved to the nobility registered in the Libro d'Oro.

The citadel was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 500 drachmas banknote of 1983-2001.

The city of Corfu has a long tradition in the fine arts. The Philharmonic Society of Corfu is part of that tradition. The Museum of the Philharmonic Society of Corfupresents in detail the musical heritage of the island .

#Corfu Island

#corfu old town

#medieval

#historical

#culture

#angevins

#italy

#great britain

#ottomans

#music

#philarmonics

#castles

#fortresses

#urban exploration

#island

#greece

#ionian sea

#french

#russians

#old city

#architectural

#architecture

#gardens

#palaces

#ancient greece

#byzantines

#photography

#architectural photography

#sonyphotography

#dell

[architecture-v-rassias]

Corfu old town.Ionian sea,Corfu island.Greece.

Contax RTS II,Carl Zeiss lenses T*,Sony A 900,Sony lenses,Sony RX10

Powered by Dell

Corfu or Kerkyra  Greek: Κέρκυρα, Ancient Greek: Κόρκυρα,Latin: Corcyra; Italian: Corfù) is a city and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality of Corfu island. It is the capital of the island and of the Corfu regional unit. The city also serves as a capital for the region of the Ionian Islands. The city (population 24,838 in 2011) is a major tourist attraction, and has played an important role since antiquity.

The ancient city of Corfu, known as Korkyra, took part in the Battle of Sybotawhich was a catalyst for the Peloponnesian War, and, according to Thucydides, the largest naval battle between Greek city states until that time. Thucydidesalso reports that Korkyra was one of the three great naval powers of fifth century BC Greece, along with Athens and Corinth. Medieval castles punctuating strategic locations across the city are a legacy of struggles in the Middle Ages against invasions by pirates and the Ottomans. The city has become known since the Middle Ages as Kastropolis (🏰 City) because of its two castles.

From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility; much of the city reflects this era when the island belonged to the Republic of Venice, with multi-storied buildings on narrow lanes. The Old Town of Corfu has clear Venetian influence. The city was subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the strength of the city defenses asserted itself time after time, mainly because of the effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications. Will Durant claimed that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the Ottomans.

In 2007, the old town of the city was inscribed on the UNESCO 🌍 Heritage List. The municipal unit of Corfu city has a land area of 41.905 km2 (16.180 sq mi) and a total population of 39,674 inhabitants.

The old fortifications of the town, formerly so extensive as to require a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 troops to man them, were in great part thrown down by the British in the 19th century. In several parts of the town may be found houses of the Venetian time, with some traces of past splendour. The Palace of St. Michael and St. George, built in 1815 by Sir Thomas Maitland (1759–1824; Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands) is a large structure of white Maltese stone. Near Gasturi stands the Pompeian style Achilleion, the palace built for the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and purchased in 1907 by the German emperor, William II.

Of the thirty-seven Greek churches the most important are the cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady of the Cave; St. Spiridon’s, with the tomb of the patron saint of the island; and the suburban ⛪ of St Jason and St Sosipater, reputedly the oldest in the island. The city is the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop; and it possesses a gymnasium, a theatre, an agricultural and industrial society, and a library and museum preserved in the buildings formerly devoted to the university, which was founded by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford (1766–1827, himself the first chancellor in 1824) in 1823, but disestablished on the cessation of the British protectorate.

Based on the ICOMOS evaluation of the old town of Corfu,it was inscribed on the 🌍 Heritage List. The ICOMOS experts have noted that “about 70% of the pre-20th century buildings date from the British period” and that “whole blocks were destroyed” in the Old Town by the German 🌍 War II blitzes; these were “replaced by new constructions in the 1960s and 1970s”. The urban fabric was classified as being predominantly of the Neoclassical period “without special architectural features for which it could be distinguished”.

The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose termination in the Venetian citadel (Greek: Παλαιό Φρούριο) is cut off from it by an artificial fosse formed in a natural gully, with a salt-🚰 ditch at the bottom, that serves also as a kind of marina known as Contra-Fossa. The old city having grown up within fortifications, where every metre of ground was precious, is a labyrinth of narrow streets paved with cobblestones, sometimes tortuous but mostly pleasant, colourful and sparkling clean. These streets are called “kantounia” (καντούνια) and the older ones sometimes follow the gentle irregularities of the ground while many of them are too narrow for vehicular traffic. There is promenade by the seashore towards the bay of Garitsa (Γαρίτσα), and also an esplanade between the town and the citadel called Liston  (Λιστόν) where upscale restaurants and European style bistros abound. The origin of the name Liston has several explanations: many former Venetian cities have a square of that name, coming from a Venetian word meaning evening promenade, but it can also refer to the closed-list aspect of an up-scale area reserved to the nobility registered in the Libro d'Oro.

The citadel was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 500 drachmas banknote of 1983-2001.

The city of Corfu has a long tradition in the fine arts. The Philharmonic Society of Corfu is part of that tradition. The Museum of the Philharmonic Society of Corfupresents in detail the musical heritage of the island .

#Corfu Island

#corfu old town

#medieval

#historical

#culture

#angevins

#italy

#great britain

#ottomans

#music

#philarmonics

#castles

#fortresses

#urban exploration

#island

#greece

#ionian sea

#french

#russians

#old city

#architectural

#architecture

#gardens

#palaces

#ancient greece

#byzantines

#photography

#architectural photography

#sonyphotography

#dell