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A |
Achaean League
Confederacy in ancient Greece.
MORE
ABOUT THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE |
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AD
Stands for anno Domini, which is Latin for
In the year of the Lord.
BC stands for before Christ. More
accurate and religiously neutral are the terms
BCE (before the
Common Era) and CE
(Common Era.) However, we're using AD and BC on
this website because these terms are probably more familiar. |
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Aetolian League
Alliance in ancient Greece.
MORE
ABOUT THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE |
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Albion
PronouncE
ALBION
Encyclopaedia
Britannica explains,
"[Albion is] the earliest-known name for the island of
Britain. It was used by ancient Greek geographers from the 4th
century B.C. and even earlier, who distinguished 'Albion' from Ierne (Ireland) and from smaller members of the British Isles.
The Greeks and Romans probably received the name from the
Gauls or the Celts."
[Here is the bridge
between the Gauls and the Celts. See more under
Celts.]
"The name Albion has been translated as
'white land'; and the Romans explained it as referring to the
chalk cliffs at Dover (Latin albus, 'white')."
Sir Francis
Drake called the area around San Francisco New
Albion.
MAP OF NEW ALBION -
1820
Click to enlarge |
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Archaeology
Digging for ancient history as a profession.
MORE ABOUT
ARCHAEOLOGY |
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Armada
See
Spanish Armada |
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Arthur
In full,
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
MORE
ABOUT KING ARTHUR |
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Atlanta Compromise
Booker T. Washington's take on how to achieve equal
rights for African Americans.
MORE ABOUT THE ATLANTA COMPROMISE |
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B |
Bastille
French fortress, prison, and stumbling stone for revolutionaries of
the
French
Revolution.
MORE ABOUT THE BASTILLE |
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Bataan Death March
Japanese enforced marathon.
MORE ABOUT THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH |
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Batavian Republic
The French idea of Holland.
MORE ABOUT THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC |
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BC
See
AD |
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BCE
See
AD |
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Berlin Wall
West Berlin fenced.
MORE ABOUT THE BERLIN WALL |
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Bithynia
When Rome was going to annex
Bithynia,
Mithradates, king of Portus, felt threatened and started
the
Third Mithradatic War.
And here is Bithynia on a map
Bithynia - Click
map to enlarge |
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Black Death
Fatal.
MORE ABOUT THE BLACK
DEATH |
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Black Hundreds
Shells of pea-sized brains.
MORE ABOUT THE BLACK HUNDREDS |
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Black September
A civil war in Jordan but also a Palestinian extremist group.
MORE ABOUT THE
BLACK SEPTEMBER |
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Bounty, Mutiny of the
William Bligh's ship with a dissatisfied crew.
MORE ABOUT THE
MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY |
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Brezhnev Doctrine,
1968
Leonid Brezhnev's take on solo
performances by other socialist countries.
MORE ABOUT THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE |
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C |
Caliphate
Dominion of a
caliph.
MORE ABOUT
THE CALIPHATE |
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Canterbury Murder
The Canterbury Murder took place in 1170, in Canterbury
cathedral, England. Its victim was Thomas Becket, the
archbishop of Canterbury.
Death was delivered to him by
four of
King Henry's knights.
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Caravel
Favorite vessel of many explorers.
MORE ABOUT THE
CARAVEL |
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Carolingian
Belonging to the
Carolingian Dynasty, a ruling family in western
Europe. |
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Casket Letters
Maybe written by Mary Queen of Scots, but probably not.
MORE ABOUT THE
CASKET LETTERS |
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Casualties
A casualty in a war is a soldier
injured, captured, missing, or dead. |
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CE
See
AD |
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Century
From Latin centuria, which means
a group of one hundred, a century is a time period of a
hundred years. A Roman centurion was an individual in
the Roman army who could boss a hundred Roman soldiers around.
Back to the years: When someone says, "In the 16th
century...," he talks about the years 1501 until 1600. You and
I live in the 21st century, which started in 2001 and ends in
the year 2100. |
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Chamizal Dispute
Or Disputa del Chamizal if you prefer Spanish.
A border dispute between the US
and Mexico that occurred because the border in question, the
Rio Grande / Rio Bravo was on the move. As rivers are.
The cities concerned were El Paso
and El Paso del Norte, aka Ciudad Juárez.
The river moved in favor of the
US. People started to take issue with this matter in 1895.
It took until 1963 and a rechanneling of the river until
this affair was finally settled.
Here we have U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson and Mexican President
Adolfo Lopez
Mateos ready to hug each other, call their mothers, and
unveil the new boundary marker signaling the peaceful end of
the Chamizal Issue. Bottoms up to successful diplomatic relations.
Today, you are welcome to visit
the
Chamizal National Memorial. |
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Cientificos
Enlightened Mexican academics.
MORE ABOUT
CIENTIFICOS |
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Coalitions
Alliances in history.
MORE ABOUT
COALITIONS |
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Cold War
Tension between
the United States and the Soviet Union.
MORE ABOUT
THE COLD WAR |
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Comintern
Communist International, also called the Third
International.
MORE ABOUT
COMINTERN |
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Communism
Concept of common ownership.
MORE ABOUT
COMMUNISM |
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Confederation of the Rhine
Napoleon's buffer states.
MORE ABOUT THE CONFEDERATION OF THE
RHINE |
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Constitutional Convention
The men who got together in 1787 and came up with the
Constitution of the United States. |
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Cuban Missile Crisis,
1962
The closest the world has ever come to a
nuclear war.
MORE
ABOUT THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS |
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Curule Aediles
Higher
magistrate in Rome |
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Cuneiform
Means wedge-shaped and refers to the picture
writing of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The
Behistun
Rock got some good ones on it. It's close to the
Egyptian hieroglyphs but more abstract.
See also the
Flood Tablet. |
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Czar, Tzar or Tsar?
You can spell it either way. The girl would be the Czarina, Tzarina, or Tsarina. |
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D |
Defender of Jerusalem
Orlando, Godfrey, or award.
MORE ABOUT THE DEFENDER OF JERUSALEM |
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Détente
Pronounce DETENTE
According to
dictionary, détente is the relaxation of strained relations or
tensions (as between nations.) It can also be a policy
promoting this.
In other words, détente
is the cherished time during which belligerents have a
moment to get a beer from the fridge and have a quick
smoke. Custom might vary with Muslim belligerents.
Feel free to write this word detente,
without the accent aigu, which is also French and
means acute accent. This thing
´ on the "e."
If you have no clue what all this is about you might
have to clean your monitor. |
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Diadochi
The Diadochi were the successors of
Alexander the
Great.
MORE ABOUT THE
DIADOCHI |
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Divine Almanac
The Who's Who of ancient gods.
LET'S SEE THE DIVINE
ALMANAC |
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Duma
The Duma was an elected parliament and
Nicholas' answer to the
Revolution of 1905.
MORE ABOUT THE DUMA |
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E |
Enlightenment
The Enlightenment took place in the 18th century.
Thinkers and philosophers promoted rational thinking and
progress. Major figures of the Enlightenment were
Voltaire,
Montesquieu,
Rousseau, and
Hume. But
there were many others. |
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Ethnarch
A ruler of a province in the Roman or Byzantine Empire.
Herod
Archelaus was made ethnarch of Judaea, to drive
the point home that Judaea was not an independent
kingdom but just a Roman province.
An ethnagogue is a
leader of a nation. |
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Etymology
The origin of a word and its history.
The etymology experts are the linguists, people who
study languages.
The etymology of the word
etymology goes like this. In the late 14th century,
the Greeks used the word etymologia, which stems
from the Greek word etymos, which means true.
The Greeks also used the word logos, which means
word. If you put the two together and shake them
up a bit you get etymology.
Another example?
Check out the etymology of the word communism.
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F |
Fascism
Pronounce FASCISM
The fascist government prefers a hardcore nationalistic
and dictatorial approach.
The word fascism derives from the Latin word
fasces, which means bundle. The Romans tied a bundle of birch rods and
an ax together with a red strap. Roman high officials
used it as a symbol of their authority.
Later, other
governments used this symbol as well. Dictator
Benito
Mussolini was especially fond of this emblem and
named his political faction, the Fascist Party,
after it. |
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Fireside Chats
Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio messages.
MORE ABOUT FDR'S FIRESIDE CHATS |
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First Triumvirate
Julius
Caesar,
Pompey,
and
Crassus
MORE ABOUT THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE |
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Flanders
Today's Belgium |
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Fronde
French
La Fronde, a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653. |
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