A language of
India. No longer spoken. It goes way back to 1100 B.C. and is the
wet dream of all linguistics nerds. Some think Sanskrit is an even more refined language
than Greek and Latin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Zemstvo
The zemstvo, or plural zemstvos, were public elected
local councils in Russia, established in 1864.
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.
Greco-Persian Wars
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 to
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
is more:
