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G |
Garter, Order of the
British award for knights
 MORE ABOUT THE ORDER
OF THE GARTER |
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Glasnost & Perestroika
Gorbachev's openness and restructuring.
MORE ABOUT GLASNOST
AND PERESTROIKA |
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Governments, Systems of
A to Z index of the main forms of
governments. Origin of the name. Examples in history.
MORE
ABOUT THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS IN HISTORY |
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Granicus
River
in today's Turkey.
MORE
ABOUT THE RIVER GRANICUS |
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Great Depression
Worst decade for the economy worldwide.
MORE ABOUT
THE GREAT DEPRESSION |
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Great Wall of China
UNESCO World Heritage site but not
visible from the moon.
MORE
ABOUT THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA |
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Guerrilla Warfare
If you are a guerrilla fighter, also spelled
guerilla, you are a person who engages in irregular
warfare. Most likely, you are a member of an independent unit
carrying out harassment and sabotage.
MORE ABOUT
GUERRILLA WARFARE |
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H |
Hanseatic League
Commercial alliance between towns in northern Germany.
MORE ABOUT
THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE |
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Helots
The Helots were conquered Messenians. Messenia was conquered
by the Spartans, who started their conquest around 735 BC.
The Spartans made the Messenians their slaves.
The world Helots derives
from the Greek world Heilotes, which is the plural of
Heilos, which in turn is commonly associated with the
Laconian town Helos that was reduced to serfdom by
Sparta.
The word Helots could also
be related to the Greek word halonai, which means
be captured.
Here you can find the map location
of Messenia. Look for the boxes BC-bc. You will find the
town Helos underneath the letter N of Laconia.
Ancient
Greece (south)
The Helots didn't appreciate the treatment and were able to
stand strong during some revolts, the Messenian Wars. |
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Helvetic
Republic
The French idea of Switzerland. During the
French Revolutionary Wars, France decided to visit /
invade the Swiss and set up a new government, the Helvetic
Republic, which lasted from 1798 - 1803.
MORE
ABOUT THE HELVETIC REPUBLIC |
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Hindenburg (aircraft)
World's largest rigid airship.
MORE
ABOUT THE HINDENBURG |
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Holocaust
Systematic killing of Nazi opponents during
World
War II.
MORE ABOUT
THE HOLOCAUST |
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Holy See
The Holy See is the Vatican. |
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Hudson's Bay Company
Fur trade and much more in Canada.
MORE ABOUT THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY |
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Huguenots
French Protestants.
MORE ABOUT
THE HUGUENOTS |
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Hundred Days, The
Napoleon's last three months or FDR's first three months.
MORE ABOUT NAPOLEON'S 100 DAYS
MORE ABOUT ROOSEVELT'S 100 DAYS |
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I |
Ides
PRONOUNCE IDES
In the Roman calendar the Ides were the middle of a
month: the 15th of March or May or July or October or the 13th
of any other month.
Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides
of March 44 BC, or on March 15, 44 BC. |
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Indo-European
Indo-European dialects are dialects of a
foundation language which originated somewhere on the
southern border of Europe and Asia and spread eastwards and
south-eastwards into Asia and westwards into Europe. Or so
we read in The Celts: a history by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin |
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Inquisition
Invitation to convert to Catholicism.
MORE ABOUT
THE INQUISITION |
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Issus
Historic spot in Turkey.
MORE
ABOUT ISSUS |
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K |
Khmer Rouge
Cambodian native or communist.
MORE ABOUT
KHMER ROUGE |
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L |
Languages
The stuff we say and why we say it the way we do.
MORE ABOUT THE ROOTS AND HISTORY OF LANGUAGES
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L |
Lotharingia
Another word for
Lorraine. Named after king Lothair who was king of
Lotharingia 855 - 869. |
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M |
Man-of-war
An armed
warship. Unless you talk about a Portuguese man-of-war, which is a
jellyfish. It gets rather tricky when you try to refer to a
Portuguese armed warship. |
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Manhattan Project
Successful atomic bomb research.
MORE ABOUT THE
MANHATTAN PROJECT |
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Mayflower
Vessel of the
year 1620.
MORE ABOUT THE MAYFLOWER |
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Mediatization
or Mediatisation. Annexation of smaller states. If you were a sovereign of a smaller
German state in the early 1800s, you had a good chance
to get legally mediatized, or mediatised.
MORE ABOUT THE GERMAN MEDIATIZATION OF THE 1800'S |
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Medising
If you were medising in ancient Greece, you were sympathetic to
Media and the Medes, or more to the point, you were in favor of the
ruling Persians, because in 550 BC,
Cyrus II the Great
had made Media part of the
Persian Empire.
The noun is medism.
SEE A MAP OF
MEDISING STATES IN ANCIENT GREECE |
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Microhistory
The study of
history on a very small scale. More info from
Microhistory.org. |
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Middle Ages
The Middle Ages refer to a time period in European
history from around the 5th century to the 14th century.
Things related to the
Middle Ages are medieval,
which you can also spell mediaeval.
Part of the Middle Ages
were the Dark Ages,
the time roughly between the years 500 and 1000. |
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Mir
The mir is a Russian community council. |
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Mithra
Mithra was
an ancient warrior god of sun and light in Persia and India. In
India it was called Mitra. The god was in popular demand from
the 5th century B.C. until the 3rd century A.D. In Latin and Greek
it was called Mithras.
Interestingly, the Mithraists
celebrated the birth of Mithra on December 25.
Mithradates VI
Eupator was named after this god.
See also
Divine Almanac. |
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Mummies
Esthetically preserved dead bodies, more or less.
MORE ABOUT
MUMMIES |
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N |
New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt's measures against the Great
Depression.
MORE ABOUT THE NEW DEAL |
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Nobel Prize
Award initiated by Swedish inventor
Alfred Bernhard
Nobel.
MORE
ABOUT THE NOBEL PRIZE |
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Numbers and Numerals
Count with ancient sticks OR
Arabic
Numerals, Babylonian Numerals, Chinese Numerals,
Egyptian Numerals, Greek Numerals, Hebrew Numerals,
Roman Numerals.
Knock
yourselves out.
MORE
ABOUT NUMBERS AND NUMERALS |
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O |
Oglala
A branch of the
Sioux tribe.
Crazy Horse was an Oglala. |
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Old Style / New Style Dates
The Old Style Calendar is the
Julian calendar. The New Style
Calendar is the
Gregorian calendar, the one we use
today.
The
switch from Old to New Style Calendar was somewhat choppy, each
country adopted it whenever they were good and ready. France, for
instance, adopted it in 1582 but it took Greece until 1923.
If you have no clue what this is about, here is an example: If you
look up the October Revolution, you might find the dates
given as October 24 - 25, 1917 (November 6 - 7, 1917, New Style.)
Why two dates? Because it took the Soviet Union until
1918 to adopt the New Style Calendar. Which is why the October
Revolution actually took place in November.
Confused? Probably not as much as the
British were when, in order to switch from Old to New Style
Calendar, their September 2, 1752, was followed by September 14,
1752. |
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Okhrana
The secret police of Russia's tsar. Father Gapon was on
their payroll.
MORE ABOUT
FATHER GAPON |
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Oprichniki
The goons that were on
Ivan the Terrible's
payroll. |
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P |
Panticapaeum
Today's Kerch in the Ukraine.
Mithradates
IV Eupator died here.
More info on Panticapaeum provided by the Encyclopedia Ukraine. |
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Papal Legate
If you are a papal legate, then you're a direct
representative of the Pope to a certain country and authorized to
settle any matters regarding the Church. All in all, you are very
powerful.
William
Longchamp was made papal legate for England in 1190. |
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Pax Romana
Roman peace and tranquility from 27 BC - AD 180.
MORE
ABOUT PAX ROMANA |
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Perestroika
Reorganization a la
Gorbachev.
MORE ABOUT
PERESTROIKA |
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Pilgrims
If you are referring to pilgrims, they
can either be a) people who travel in foreign lands or b)
people who travel to holy places for religious reasons. If you
capitalize the Pilgrims then you are talking about c) the
tour group of English colonists who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts in
1620, and who started the first stable colony in New England.
Here's
more about their
voyage and their ship, the Mayflower. |
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Poet Laureate
Alfred
Tennyson was one.
MORE
ABOUT THE POETS LAUREATE |
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Politburo
Heart of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
MORE ABOUT
THE POLITBURO |
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Pontifex Maximus
Highest priest |
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Pope
Head of the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek word papas originally
means father. Later the term was used in the sense of
bishop and patriarch.
LIST OF ALL
POPES |
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Praetor
PronouncE
PRAETOR
Roman high official; judicial officer. |
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Praetorian Guard
Bodyguards of the Roman Emperors.
Constantine the Great
suspended the famous guards. |
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Punic
Language of ancient Carthage. Also all things related to the
Carthaginians.
MORE ABOUT WHAT'S PUNIC |
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Q |
Quaestor
PronouncE
QUAESTOR
Lowest ranking Roman magistrate |
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R |
Red Scare
Extreme anticommunism. The fear of Communists, which on
occasion grew into phobia.
MORE ABOUT
THE RED SCARE |
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Rhine, Confederation of the
Napoleon's buffer states and allies against Prussia and
Austria.
MORE ABOUT THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE |
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Risorgimento
A movement in the 19th century to unify Italy.
Giuseppe Mazzini and
Giuseppe Garibaldi were prominent figures in this movement.
MORE ABOUT ITALY'S WARS OF INDEPENDENCE |
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S |
Sanskrit
Pronounce
Sanskrit
A language of
India. No longer spoken. It goes way back to 1100 B.C. Some think Sanskrit is an even more refined language
than Greek and Latin. |
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Satrap
A satrap was a governor back in the days of the
Achaemenian dynasty and
also in the days of
Alexander the Great.
MORE ABOUT
SATRAPS |
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Scutage
If you owed your lord military service but
didn't serve, you had to pay scutage, a military tax.
John of England
was going to collect scutage from his barons, who should have
supported him on his campaign against France in 1214, but didn't. |
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Second Triumvirate
Mark Antony,
Lepidus, and
Octavian.
MORE ABOUT THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE |
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Secularization
or, Secularisation, occurred when ecclesiastical
belongings were given to secular entities. In other
words, church stuff became lay stuff. This kind of
transfer took place many times in history. One of the
largest incidents of Secularization evolved in 1803.
MORE ABOUT THE SECULARIZATION OF 1803 |
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Serf System
aka Serfdom. The habit of keeping peasants as serfs, who are by definition, but not necessarily
in practice, a little bit better off than slaves.
More or less related terms
are bondservants, bond slaves, menials. |
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Seven Wonders of the World
The top seven list of Ancient Architect Magazine.
MORE ABOUT THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD |
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Ship Money
Tax in the history of England and Wales.
MORE ABOUT
SHIP MONEY |
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Ship-of-the-Line
A sailing warship built to fight in the line of
battle. A Ship-of-the-Line usually has at least two gun
decks. |
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Soviet
A Russian group of people who, as a committee, had
ruling authority.
MORE ABOUT THE SOVIET |
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Spanish Armada
A cheerful group of 130 ships with the bold mission to make
England Spanish. Plenty of guts involved.
MORE
ABOUT THE SPANISH ARMADA |
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Spartacus League
Or Spartacus Party, German organization of extreme Socialists 1916 - 1919, named after Roman gladiator
Spartacus.
Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg were leaders of the
Spartacus League. |
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Stars and Stripes
US flag.
MORE ABOUT STARS
AND STRIPES |
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Stone Age
Way back then. And then some. Rough timeline.
MORE
ABOUT THE STONE AGE |
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T |
Teutonic Order
The Teutonic Knights kicked rear during the Third Crusade and later
in the Baltic regions.
MORE ABOUT THE
TEUTONIC ORDER |
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Titanic
Luxury ocean liner that sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912.
MORE ABOUT THE TITANIC |
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Totalitarianism
According to Oxford English Dictionary, totalitarianism is a system of government which tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated,
and which usually demands the complete subservience of the individual to the State.
Case in point, the Bolsheviks'
all-parties-get-left-behind policy in the
Russian Civil War
1918-1920. |
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Triumvirate
A board of three in ancient Rome.
MORE ABOUT THE
TRIUMVIRATE |
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V |
Valor Ecclesiasticus
Henry's church survey.
MORE ABOUT
VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS |
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W |
Watergate Scandal
President Nixon and his team messing up entirely.
MORE ABOUT THE
WATERGATE SCANDAL |
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Z |
Zemstvo
The zemstvo, or plural zemstvos, were public elected
local councils in Russia, established in 1864.
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Zero, the year
Sometimes you might have to count back
and forth between B.C. and A.D. and find a year missing. Here's the
deal about the year zero: It didn't exist.
There was the year 3
B.C., followed by the year 2 B.C., followed by the year 1 B.C.
followed by the year 1 A.D., followed by the year 2 A.D., followed
by the year 3 A.D.
For all things calendar, check
Claus Tondering's fine site. |
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