History
Ark Of The Covenant
The recovery remains the goal of every modern archaeologist and adventurer. Its purpose was as a container for the ten commandments given on stone tablets by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. According to the book of Exodus, the Ark is made of shittim wood (similar to acacia) and gold-covered inside and out. It was topped by a mercy seat comprising two cherubs also made of gold. It was believed to have supernatural powers due to several events, including causing the death of a man, who attempted to steady the Ark as the oxen hauling it stumbled, bringing down the walls of Jericho in one battle, and showering misfortune on the Philistines after they captured it in another. There are several speculations around the final resting place of the Ark, and whilst it would take a shrewd operator to find it, it would need a brave or even foolhardy person to open it!
Piri Reis map
The Piri Reis Map is a famous pre-modern world map created by 16th century Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The map shows part of the western coasts of Europe and North Africa with reasonable accuracy, and the coast of Brazil is also easily recognizable. Various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia. The map is noteworthy for its depiction of a southern landmass that some controversially claim is evidence for early awareness of the existence of Antarctica. Some scholars claim this and other maps support a theory of global exploration by a pre-classical undiscovered civilization.
Oera Linda Book
The Oera Linda Book is a controversial Frisian manuscript covering historical, mythological, and religious themes that first came to light in the 19th century. Themes running through the Oera Linda Book include catastrophism, nationalism, matriarchy, and mythology. The text alleges that Europe and other lands were, for most of their history, ruled by a succession of folk-mothers presiding over a hierarchical order of celibate priestesses dedicated to the goddess Frya, daughter of the supreme god Wr-alda and Irtha, the earth mother. The claim is also made that this Frisian civilization possessed an alphabet which was the ancestor of Greek and Phoenician alphabets. The current manuscript carries a date of 1256. Internal claims suggest that it is a copy of older manuscripts that, if genuine, would have been written by multiple people between 2194 BC and AD 803.
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 2.0 miles (3.2 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks. It is at the centre of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.The Druids made it in 2400-2500 B.C.
Solor Sheild
Every 11 years, the sun has a temper tantrum that releases a shock wave of anomy of radiation that can wipe out communication,weather sattlelights,GPS,spy planes around 2012
Nazca Lines
They are located in the Nazca Desert, between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. Etched in the surface of the desert pampa sand about 300 hundred figures made of straight lines, geometric shapes and pictures of animals and birds - and their patterns are only clearly visible from the air.
Easter Island
Rapa Nui is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. It's been called the most isolated inhabited territory on Earth, but there is another aspect that sets it apart from any other place on Earth - its hundreds of megalithic human-like statues that face inland from the shore. These enigmatic statues are called moai.Almost all moais were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily worked volcanic ash. The largest one weights up to 165 tons, and its height is almost 22 meters. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.
Greece
The first (proto-) Greek-speaking tribes, known later as Mycenaeans, are generally thought to have arrived in the Greek mainland between the late 3rd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC--probably between 1900 and 1600 BC When the Mycenaeans invaded there were various non-Greek-speaking, indigenous pre-Greek people, practicing agriculture, as they had done since the 7th millennium BC.At its geographical peak, Greek civilization spread from Greece to Egypt and to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Since then, Greek minorities have remained in former Greek territories Turkey, Albania, Italy, and Libya, Levant, Armenia, Georgia etc.), and Greek emigrants have assimilated into differing societies across the globe (e.g., North America, Australia, Northern Europe, South Africa, etc.) Nowadays most Greeks live in the modern state of Greece (independent since 1821) and Cyprus.
The Endeavours
They set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora, and Raiatea to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman's Heemskerck 127 years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first seagoing vessel to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay.Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef, and was beached on the mainland for seven weeks to permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she limped into port in (now named Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies for more substantial repairs, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had discovered. She resumed her westward journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of on 12 July, having been at sea for nearly three years.
Black Holes
Another kind of black hole is called "stellar." Its mass can be up to 20 times more than the mass of the sun. There may be many, many stellar mass black holes in Earth's galaxy. Earth's galaxy is called the Milky Way.An artist's drawing shows the current view of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientific evidence shows that in the middle of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.The largest black holes are called "supermassive." These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together. Scientists have found proof that every large galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is called Sagittarius A. It has a mass equal to about 4 million suns and would fit inside a very large ball that could hold a few million Earth
Pangaea
Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration.The name was coined during a 1927 symposium discussing Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift. In his book The Origin of Continents and Oceans (Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane) first published in 1915, he postulated that all the continents had at one time formed a single supercontinent which he called the "Urkontinent", before later breaking up and drifting to their present locations.
Ozone Layer
Ozone is very rare in our atmosphere, averaging about three molecules of ozone for every 10 million air molecules. In spite of this small amount, ozone plays a vital role in the atmosphere.Ozone is mainly found in two regions of the Earth's atmosphere. Most ozone (about 90%) resides in a layer that begins between 6 and 10 miles (10 and 17 kilometers) above the Earth's surface and extends up to about 30 miles (50 kilometers). This region of the atmosphere is called the stratosphere. The ozone in this region is commonly known as the ozone layer. The remaining ozone is in the lower region of the atmosphere, which is commonly called the troposphere.
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert of Chile covers the northern third of the country stretching more than 600 miles (1,000km), and straddles the southern border of Peru. Bound on the west by barren hills and mountains on the Pacific coast, it extends east into the Andes Mountains. At an average elevation of about 13,000 feet (4 kilometers) it is not only the highest desert in the world, but also one of the coldest, with temperatures averaging between 0°C-25°C.The center of the Atacama, a place climatologists refer to as "absolute desert," is known as the driest place on Earth. For as long as people have been recording rainfall, none has ever been measured in this area. There are some sections of the desert with an annual average rainfall of 0.6 mm to 2.1 mm, allowing for only sparse vegetation. Though limited, the existence of plant and animal life in such a harsh environment testifies to adaptability and determination to survive.Despite extremes and desolation there is stunning beauty. With the Andes as a backdrop the desert contains five snow topped volcanoes, which are the highest volcanoes in the world and the highest elevations in South America.
Terracotta Army
The Terracotta Army was discovered in the spring of 1974 to the east of Xi'an in Shaanxi province by a group of farmers when they were digging a water well around 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the Qin emperor's tomb mound at Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses. For centuries, there had been occasional reports of pieces of terracotta figures and fragments of the Qin necropolis — roofing tiles, bricks, and chunks of masonry — having been dug up in the area. This most recent discovery prompted Chinese archaeologists to investigate, and they unearthed the largest pottery figurine group ever found in China.
Celtic Warriors
For hundreds of years the Celtic warrior represented the quintessential barbarian warrior to the settled people of the Mediterranean Sea. To the Romans, Greeks and other "civilized" people the Celts where a reoccurring nightmare that unpredictably erupted from darker Europe. It was a well earned reputation, and they repeatedly gave the Mediterranean world reason to fear them. Celtic warriors stood a head taller than their Mediterranean opponents and are described as having muscular physics. The Celtic warriors, or Gauls as they were called in the French part of their range, spiked their hair up with lime and wore horned and winged helmets to emphasize their large stature. Their attacks on the battlefield were fearless, wild and Savedge, but they were also skilled
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the leaders of the Byzantine Empire for help to fight Muslim Seljuk Turks expansion into Anatolia; these Turks had cut off access to Jerusalem. The crusaders comprised military units from all over western Europe, and were not under unified command. The main series of Crusades occurred between 1095 and 1291; historians have given them numbers, later unnumbered crusades were also taken up for a variety of reasons. The Crusades were fought by Roman Catholics primarily against Muslims. After some early successes, the later crusades failed and the crusaders were defeated and forced to return home.
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries.They played a major political, military, and cultural role in medieval Europe and even the Near East. They were famed for their martial spirit and eventually for their Christian piety. They quickly adopted the Romance language of the land they settled, their dialect becoming known as Norman or Norman-French, an important literary language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty with the French crown, was one of the great fiefs of medieval France. The Normans are famed both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture, and their musical traditions, as well as for their military accomplishments and innovations.
The Druids
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age. Very little is currently known about the ancient druids because they left no written accounts about themselves, and the only evidence of them is a few descriptions left by Greek and Roman authors, and stories created by later medieval Irish writers.The earliest known reference to the druids dates to 200 BCE, although the oldest actual description comes from the Roman military general Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). Later Greco-Roman writers also described the druids, including Cicero, and Pliny the Elder. Following the invasion of Gaul by the Roman Empire, druidism was suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st-century emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and it disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century, although there were likely later survivals in the British Isles.
Soviet Union
World War II, known as "The Great Patriotic War" in the Soviet Union, devastated much of the USSR with about one out of every three World War II deaths being a citizen of the Soviet Union. After World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied eastern Europe, where Communist governments came to power into the Soviet bloc, whilst in western Europe, capitalist governments were established, with the help of aid provided by the United States. The Cold War developed as the USSR and the United States struggled indirectly for influence around the world.
Nazis
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler legally became Chancellor of Germany, appointed by President Paul von Hindenburg. Although he initially headed a coalition government, he quickly made Hindenburg a figurehead and eliminated his non-Nazi partners. The Nazi regime restored economic prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending while suppressing labor unions and strikes. The return of prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity and made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged, although resistance grew after the onset of military aggression, culminating in the failed 20 July plot in 1944. The Gestapo (secret state police) under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, Socialist and Communist opposition and persecuted the Jews, attempting to force them into exile while taking their property. The party took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations except the Protestant and Catholic churches. All expressions of public opinion were controlled by Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's skillful oratory.
Sapa Inca
The Sapa Inca ("The Great Inca"), also known as Apu ("Divinity"), Inka Qhapaq ("mighty Inca"), or simply Sapa ("The Great One") was the ruler of the Kingdom of Cusco and later, the Emperor of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu) and the legendary foundation of the city of Cusco, but historically it seems to have come into being around 1100. The position was hereditary, with son succeeding father. There were two known dynasties, led by the Hanan and Hurin moieties respectively. The latter was in power at the time of Spanish conquest. The last official Sapa Inca was Atahualpa, who was executed by the Spanish in 1533, though several of successors later claimed the title.
Timbuktu
Timbuktu was founded by the Tuareg Imashagan in the 11th century. During the rainy season, the Tuaregs roam the desert up to Arawan in search of grazing lands for their animals. During the dry season, however, they returned to the Niger river where the animals grazed on a grass called "burgu." Whenever they camped by river they got sick from mosquitoes and stagnant water. Because of these unfavorable conditions, they decided to settle few miles away from the river where they dug a well.
El Dorado
In 1638 Juan Rodriguez Troxell wrote this account, addressed to the cacique or governor of Guatavita.The first journey he had to make was to go to the great lagoon of Guatavita, to make offerings and sacrifices to the demon which they worshipped as their god and lord. During the ceremony which took place at the lagoon, they made a raft of rushes, embellishing and decorating it with the most attractive things they had. They put on it four lighted braziers in which they burned much moque, which is the incense of these natives, and also resin and many other perfumes. The lagoon was large and deep, so that a ship with high sides could sail on it, all loaded with an infinity of men and women dressed in fine plumes, golden plaques and crowns.... As soon as those on the raft began to burn incense, they also lit braziers on the shore, so that the smoke hid the light of day.
Ajanta Caves
The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon, just outside the village of Ajinṭhā.The Ajanta Cavesin Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE with the second group of caves built around 600 CE.The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art as well as frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka.
Peru
In about 1250 BC groups such as the Chavín, Chimú, Nazca, and Tiahuanaco migrated into the region from the north. The Chimú built the city of Chan Chan about AD 1000, ruins of which remain today.The Inca, sometimes called peoples of the sun, were originally a warlike tribe living in a semiarid region of the southern sierra. From 1100 to 1300 the Inca moved north into the fertile Cusco Valley. From there they overran the neighboring lands. By 1500 the Inca Empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean east to the sources of the Paraguay and Amazon rivers and from the region of modern Quito in Ecuador south to the Maule River in Chile. This vast empire was a theocracy, organized along socialistic lines and ruled by an Inca, or emperor, who was worshiped as a divinity. Because the Inca realm contained extensive deposits of gold and silver, it became in the early 16th century a target of Spanish imperial ambitions in the Americas.In November 1995 anthropologists announced the discovery of the 500-year-old remains of two Inca women and one Inca man frozen in the snow on a mountain peak in Peru. Scientists concluded that the trio were part of a human sacrifice ritual on Ampato, a sacred peak in the Andes mountain range. Artifacts from the find unveiled new information about the Inca and indicated the use of poles and tents rather than traditional stone structures. The arrangement of doll-size statuettes dressed in feathers and fine woolens provided clues about Inca religious and sacrificial practices.In 1532 the Spanish soldier and adventurer Francisco Pizarro landed in Peru with a force of about 180 men. Conditions were favorable to conquest, for the empire was debilitated by a just-concluded civil war between the heirs to the Inca throne, Atahualpa and Huascar, each of whom was seeking to control the empire. This internal dissension, plus the terror inspired by Spanish guns and horses—unknown to the indigenous peoples until then—made it relatively easy for only a handful of Spaniards to conquer this vast empire.The Spaniards met Atahualpa, the victor in the civil war, and his army at a prearranged conference at Cajamarca in 1532. When Atahualpa arrived, the Spaniards ambushed and seized him, and killed thousands of his followers. Although Atahualpa paid the most fabulous ransom known to history—a room full of gold and another full of silver—for his freedom, the Spaniards murdered him in 1533.The Spanish destroyed many of the irrigation projects and the north-south roads that had knit the empire together, speeding the disintegration of the empire. By November 1533 Cuzco had fallen with little resistance. In addition, the indigenous population declined rapidly as a result of new diseases brought by the Spaniards, diseases to which the Inca had no immunity. Members of the Inca dynasty took refuge in the mountains and were able to resist the Spaniards for about four decades. However, by 1572 the Spaniards had executed the last Inca ruler, Tupac Amaru, along with his advisers and his family.In 1535 Pizarro founded on the banks of the Rímac River the Peruvian capital city of Ciudad de los Reyes (Spanish for "City of the Kings"; present-day Lima). Subsequently, disputes over jurisdictional powers broke out among the Spanish conquerors, or conquistadors, and in 1541 a member of one of the conflicting Spanish factions assassinated Pizarro in Lima.The Inca civilization had unified what are now Peru, Ecuador, and Bolívia and created an integrated society. The Spanish, whose main aims were plunder and the conversion of native tribes to Christianity, stopped the development of the indigenous civilization. The Spaniards treated the Inca ruthlessly, using their labor to produce the minerals needed in Spain. The result was the creation of a psychic chasm between the Inca and the Europeanized population, a chasm that has endured for more than 400 years.The Spanish introduced a system of land tenure consisting of European landlords and indigenous workers. This system succeeded in solidly establishing a privileged and wealthy-landed aristocracy early in the colonial period. Little was done to educate the masses of peoples. As a result, colonial Peru was a divided society, consisting of a small class that owned the land and controlled education, political, military, and religious power, and of a large, mostly indigenous class (about 90 percent of the total population) that remained landless, illiterate, and exploited.In 1542 a Spanish imperial council promulgated statutes called New Laws for the Indies, which were designed to put a stop to cruelties inflicted on the Native Americans. In the same year Spain created the Viceroyalty of Peru, which comprised all Spanish South America and Panama, except what is now Venezuela.The first Spanish viceroy arrived in Peru in 1544 and attempted to enforce the New Laws, but the conquistadores rebelled and, in 1546, killed the viceroy. Although the Spanish government crushed the rebellion in 1548, the New Laws were never put into effect.In 1569 the Spanish colonial administrator Francisco de Toledo arrived in Peru. During the ensuing 14 years he established a highly effective, although harshly repressive, system of government. Toledo’s method of administration consisted of a government of Spanish officials ruling through lower-level officials made up of Native Americans who dealt directly with the indigenous population. This system lasted for almost 200 years.Revolts for Independence In 1780 a force of 60,000 Native Americans revolted against Spanish rule under the leadership of Peruvian patriot José Gabriel Condorcanqui, who adopted the name of an ancestor, the Inca Túpac Amaru. Although initially successful, the uprising was crushed in 1781. The Spanish tortured and executed Condorcanqui and thousands of his fellow revolutionaries. The Spanish suppressed another revolt in 1814.Subsequently, however, opposition to imperial rule grew throughout Spanish South America. The opposition was led largely by Creoles, people of Spanish descent born in South America. Creoles grew to resent the fact that the Spanish government awarded all important government positions in the colonies to Spaniards born in Spain, who were called peninsulares.Freedom from Spanish rule, however, was imported to Peru by outsiders. In September 1820 the Argentine soldier and patriot José de San Martín, who had defeated the Spanish forces in Chile, landed an invasion army at the seaport of Pisco, Peru. On July 12, 1821, San Martín’s forces entered Lima, which had been abandoned by Spanish troops. Peruvian independence was proclaimed formally on July 28, 1821. The struggle against the Spanish was continued later by the Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar, who entered Peru with his armies in 1822. In 1824, in the battles of Junín on August 6, and of Ayacucho on December 9, Bolívar’s forces routed the Spanish. See Ayacucho, Battle of; Junín, Battle of; See Latin American Independence.Succession of Rulers Independence brought few institutional changes to Peru aside from the transfer of power. Whereas before independence peninsulares held the important government posts, after independence Creoles monopolized power. The economic and social life of the country continued as before, with two groups–Europeans and indigenous people–living side by side but strongly divided. In 1822 leaders of the colony’s independence movement created a centralized government consisting of a president and a single-chambered legislature. However, Spain's refusal to allow Peruvian-born citizens a voice in the colonial administration had done little to prepare Peru for democracy.The years following independence were extremely chaotic. Bolívar left Peru in 1826, and a series of military commanders who had served under him ruled over the nation. Andrés Santa Cruz served until 1827, when he was replaced by José de La Mar, who was in turn supplanted by Agustín Gamarra in 1829. Gamarra ruled until 1833. In the meantime Santa Cruz had become president of Bolivia, and in 1836 he invaded Peru, establishing a confederation of the two countries that lasted three years. After that, Gamarra took power again.The country, however, enjoyed no peace until 1845, when Ramón Castilla, seized the presidency. Fortunately, he proved to be an able ruler, who during his two terms in office (1845 to 1851 and 1855 to 1862) initiated many important reforms, including the abolition of slavery, the construction of railroads and telegraph facilities, and the adoption in 1860 of a liberal constitution. Castilla also began exploitation of the country’s rich guano and nitrate deposits, which were highly valued as an ingredient in fertilizer. In 1864 these deposits involved Peru in a war with Spain, which had seized the guano-rich Chincha Islands. Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile aided Peru, defeating the Spanish forces in 1866. The resulting treaty of 1879 constituted the first formal Spanish recognition of Peruvian sovereignty.In 1873 Peru signed a secret defensive alliance with Bolivia, the purpose of which was to defend Bolivia's nitrate interests against Chile. When a quarrel arose between Chile and Bolivia over the Atacama nitrate fields along the disputed border of the two nations, Peru was drawn into the War of the Pacific, fighting against Chile on the side of its ally, Bolivia.
Ecudor
Approximately 6,000 bc the culture were among the first to begin farming. The Inga lived in the Sierra near present day Quito between 9000 and 8000 BC along an ancient trade route.During the Formative Period, people of the region moved from the hunter-gather a simple farming into a more developed society, with permanent developments, an increase in agriculture and the use of ceramics. New cultures included the Machalilla culture, Valdivia, Chorrera in the coast; Cotocollao, The Chimba in the sierra; and Pastaza, Chiguaza in the oriental region. The Valdivia culture is the first culture where significant remains have been discovered. Their civilization dates back as early as 3500 B.C. Living in the area near The Valdivias, they were the first Americans to use pottery. They navigated the seas and established a trade network with tribes in the Andes and the Amazon. Succeeding the Valdivia, the Machallia culture were a farming culture who thrived along the coast of Ecuador between the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. These appear to be the earliest people to cultivate maize in this part of South America. Existing in the late formative period the Chorrera culture lived in the Andes and Coastal Regions of Ecuador between 1000 and 300 BC.During the pre-Inca period, people lived in clans, which formed great tribes, some allied with each other to form powerful confederations, as the Confederation of Quito. But none of these confederations could resist the formidable momentum of the Tawantinsuyu. The invasion of the Inca in the 15th century was very painful and bloody. However, once occupied by the Quito hosts of Huayna Capac (1593–1595), the Incas developed an extensive administration and began the colonization of the region. The pre-Columbian era can be divided up into four eras: the Preceramic Period, the Formative Period, the Period of Regional Development, and the Period of Integration and the Arrival of the Incas.
Venezuela
Venezuela's territory covers around 916,445 square kilometres (353,841 sq mi) with an estimated population of 29,105,632. Venezuela is considered a state with extremely high biodiversity, with habitats ranging from the Andes mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rainforest in the south, via extensive llanos plains and Caribbean coast in the center and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522, overcoming resistance from indigenous peoples. It became the first Spanish American colony to declare independence (in 1811), but did not securely establish independence until 1821 (initially as a department of the federal republic of Gran Colombia, gaining full independence in 1830). During the 19th century Venezuela suffered political turmoil and dictatorship, and it was dominated by regional caudillos (military strongmen) into the 20th century. It first saw democratic rule from 1945 to 1948, and after a period of dictatorship has remained democratic since 1958, during which time most countries of Latin America suffered one or more military dictatorships. Economic crisis in the 1980s and 1990s led to a political crisis which saw hundreds dead in the Caracazo riots of 1989, two attempted coups in 1992, and the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez for embezzlement of funds in 1993. A collapse in confidence in the existing parties saw the 1998 election of former career officer Hugo Chávez, and the launch of a "Bolivarian Revolution", beginning with a 1999 Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution of Venezuela.Venezuela is a federal presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District (covering Caracas), and Federal Dependencies (covering Venezuela's offshore islands). Venezuela is among the most urbanized countries in Latin America; the vast majority of Venezuelans live in the cities of the north, especially in the capital, Caracas, which is also the largest city. Venezuela is a founder member of the United Nations (1945), the Organization of American States (1948), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (1960), the Group of 15 (1989), the World Trade Organization (1995), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) (2004) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) (2008). Since the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, Venezuela has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports and government revenues. The 1980s oil glut led to an external debt crisis and a long-running economic crisis, which saw inflation peak at 100% in 1996 and poverty rates rise to 66% in 1995 as (by 1998) per capita GDP fell to the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak.The recovery of oil prices after 2001 boosted the Venezuelan economy and facilitated social spending, although the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis saw a renewed economic downturn.
Forestville Mystery Cave State Park
The park is in the Driftless Area, noted for its karst topography, which includes sinkholes and caves. The park itself is about 5 miles (8.0 km) away from Mystery Cave and is approximately 3,170 acres (12.8 km2), with camping, interpretive programs, and hiking, horseback, and cross-country skiing trails. The park is also noted for its cold water streams and excellent trout fishing. The cave includes stalactites, stalagmites, and underground pools, and is a constant 48 °F (9 °C) underground. There are over 13 miles (21 km) of passages in 2 rock layers; the cave is currently being re-surveyed and mapped by volunteers.About 450 million years ago sedimentary rocks were deposited as the land was covered intermittently by shallow seas that ingressed and regressed. Over the eons the alternating deposits of mud and oceanic debris were compressed to form limestone, shale and sandstone layers. Today, these layers are 1,300 feet (400 m) above sea level. Within the last 500,000-one million years, flood waters dissolved along fractures in the limestone bedrock to create most of the cave. Acidic rainwater also sculpted the land above and around the cave, creating thousands of sinkholes and other karst features in the county where the cave is located.The park contains a range of wildlife, from relatively rare species such as glacial snails, and timber rattlesnakes to common species such as deer, raccoon, beaver, mink, opossum, woodchuck, four species of squirrels, and red and grey fox. There have also been at least 175 species of birds recorded in the park. The South Branch of the Root River contains brown trout, brook trout, and rainbow trout.Thomas Meighen, son of one of the town's founders, owned the entire village by 1890, including the general store, and the local residents worked on his property for housing and credit in the store.
Chamber Tombs
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interree than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could also serve as places for storage of the dead from one family or social group and were often used over long periods for multiple burials. There are numerous terms for them depending on the period, design and region in question. Most were constructed from large stones or megaliths and covered by cairns, barrows or earth, but the term is also applied to tombs cut directly into rock and wooden-chambered tombs covered with earth barrows. Grave goods are a common characteristic of chamber tomb burials.In Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe stone-built examples are known by the generic term of megalithic tombs.Chamber tombs are often distinguished by the layout of their chambers and entrances or the shape and material of the structure that covered them, either an earth barrow or stone cairn. A wide variety of local types has been identified, and some designs appear to have influenced others.
Ancient Egypt
The Egyptians began to form a pictographic written language about 5000 years ago, which they continued to use for more than 3500 years, until about 400 AD. Eventually, the pictures they used to represent words came to represent sounds. These symbols, hieroglyphs, or "sacred inscriptions" were adapted for use in everyday life, in addition to their important religious/mystical identity.After 400 AD, the Egyptian language was written in the Greek alphabet, with the addition of several extra letters to represent Egyptian sounds that didn't exist in Greek. This form of Egyptian is called Coptic, and was in turn eventually replaced by Arabic, the language spoken in Egypt today. The ancient Egyptian tongue died out -- only the hieroglyphics remain to remind us that it ever existed.For more than 1000 years, the hieroglyphics were little more than mysterious symbols carved on ancient monuments. All kinds of theories abounded: some thought that they recorded magic spells, others secret religious ceremonies. Then, in 1799, Napolean's army uncovered the key. The Rosetta Stone was discovered when Lieutenant Bouchard's men were remodeling the Fortress at Rosetta. The slab of basalt is inscribed with three texts, each in a different script: one in Demotic, one in hieroglyphics, and one in Coptic. Scholars hoped to use the Greek text to translate the others. Twenty-three years later, the young Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion became the first person in thousands of years to read hieroglyphics.
Tuareg People
The Tuareg (also Twareg or Touareg, Berber: Imuhagh, besides regional ethnyms) are a Berber nomadic pastoralist people. They are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa.They call themselves variously Kel Tamasheq or Kel Tamaja, Imuhagh, Imazaghan or Imashaghen ("the Free people"), or Kel Tagelmust, i.e., "People of the Veil". The name Tuareg was applied to them by early explorers and historians (since Leo Africanus).[citation needed]The origin and meaning of the name Tuareg has long been debated with various etymologies advanced, although it would appear that Twārəg is derived from the "broken plural" of Tārgi, a name whose former meaning was "inhabitant of Targa" (the Tuareg name of the Libyan region commonly known as Fezzan. Targa in Berber means "(drainage) channel", see Alojali et al. 2003: 656, s.v. "Targa".Later (c.500 AD), the Tuareg expanded southward into the Sahel under their legendary queen Tin Hinan from the Tafilalt region. Tin Hinan is credited in Tuareg lore with uniting the ancestral tribes and founding the unique culture that continues to our time. At Abalessa, a grave traditionally held to be hers has been scientifically studied, and was indeed found to contain the remains of a woman, dating from the correct time and buried with items indicating high social status.Tuareg are mostly nomads. For over two millennia, the Tuareg operated the trans-Saharan caravan trade connecting the great cities on the southern edge of the Sahara via five desert trade routes to the northern (Mediterranean) coast of Africa. The Tuareg adopted camel nomadism, along with its distinctive form of social organization, from camel-herding Arabs about two thousand years ago, when the camel was introduced to the Sahara from Arabia. The Tuareg once took captives, either for trade and sale, or for domestic labor purposes. Those who were not sold became assimilated into the Tuareg community. Captive servants and herdsmen formed a component of the division of labor in camel nomadism.
Buddhism
Buddhism (Pali/Sanskrit: बौद्ध धर्म Bauddha Dharma) is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha (Pāli/Sanskrit "the awakened one"). The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end ignorance (avidyā) of dependent origination, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth.Two major branches of Buddhism are recognized: Theravada ("The School of the Elders") and Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"). Theravada has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana is found throughout East Asia and includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Shingon, Tiantai (Tendai) and Shinnyo-en. In some classifications Vajrayana—as practiced mainly in Tibet and Mongolia —is recognized as a third branch, while others classify it as a part of Mahayana. The are other categorisations of these 3 Vehicles or Yanas.While Buddhism remains most popular within Asia, both branches are now found throughout the world. Estimates of Buddhists worldwide vary significantly depending on the way Buddhist adherence is defined. Lower estimates are between 350–500 million.
Sahara Desert
The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. The region has been this way since about 3600 years ago. Then, due to a climate change,the savannah changed into the sandy desert as we know it now. Dominant ethnicities in the Sahara are various Berber groups including Tuareg tribes, various Arabized Berber groups such as the Hassaniya-speaking Maure (Moors, also known as Sahrawis), including Toubou, Nubians, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Hausa, Songhai, and Fula/Fulani (French: Peul; Fula: Fulɓe). Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Bechar, Hassi Messaoud, Ghardaia, and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in Chad.
Maya Architecture
As Maya cities spread throughout the varied geography of Mesoamerica, the extent of site planning appears to have been minimal; their cities having been built somewhat haphazardly as dictated by the topography of each independent location. Maya architecture tends to integrate a great degree of natural features. For instance, some cities existing on the flat limestone plains of the northern Yucatán grew into great sprawling municipalities, while others built in the hills of Usumacinta utilized the natural loft of the topography to raise their towers and temples to impressive heights. However, some semblance of order, as required by any large city, still prevailed.At the onset of large-scale construction, a predetermined axis was typically established in congruence with the cardinal directions. Depending upon the location and availability of natural resources such as fresh-water wells, or cenotes, the city grew by connecting great plazas with the numerous platforms that created the sub-structure for nearly all Maya buildings, by means of sacbeob causeways. As more structures were added and existing structures re-built or remodeled, the great Maya cities seemed to take on an almost random identity that contrasts sharply with other great Mesoamerican cities such as Teotihuacan and its rigid grid-like construction.At the heart of the Maya city existed the large plazas surrounded by their most valued governmental and religious buildings such as the royal acropolis, great pyramid temples and occasionally ballcourts. Though city layouts evolved as nature dictated, careful attention was placed on the directional orientation of temples and observatories so that they were constructed in accordance with Maya interpretation of the orbits of the stars. Immediately outside of this ritual center were the structures of lesser nobles, smaller temples, and individual shrines: the less sacred and less important structures had a greater degree of privacy. Outside of the constantly evolving urban core were the less permanent and more modest homes of the common people.Classic Era Maya urban design could easily be described as the division of space by great monuments and causeways. In this case, the open public plazas were the gathering places for the people and the focus of the urban design, while interior space was entirely secondary. Only in the Late Post-Classic era did the great Maya cities develop into more fortress-like defensive structures that lacked, for the most part, the large and numerous plazas of the Classic.
Denmark
Whenever possible traditional English translations provided by the Danish Palaces and Properties Agency, a national agency maintaining and utilising the states palaces, castles and gardens, have been used to determine whether a property should be called a castle or a palace. When not possible the following guidelines, which are in general keeping with the above translations, and with Wikipedia articles have been used.
Nureberg, Germany, April 14th 1561
Nuremberg, Germany. April 14th 1561. The Hans Glaser wood-cut from 1566, 5 years after the event and in the same year as the Basle report. At sunrise on the 14th April 1561, the citizens of Nuremberg beheld "A very frightful spectacle." The sky appeared to fill with cylindrical objects from which red, black, orange and blue white disks and globes emerged. Crosses and tubes resembling cannon barrels also appeared whereupon the objects promptly "began to fight one another." After about an hour of battle, the objects seemed too catch fire and fell to Earth, where they turned too steam. The witnesses took this display as a divine warning. This report is unique in the annals of Ufology, in that it has never been repeated. There is no record of such "objects" in either local or German national folklore. The surviving Town records from the period, give no indication of any unrest either civil or external. Given the uniqueness of the incident, it appears that something supernatural or paranormal took place.