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Slavery in Ancient India: Greek, African, Criminal and Volunteer Slaves | Suite101.com - 2 views

  • What was
  • the nature of slavery in Ancient India? What kind of people were slaves? Was it possible to escape?
  • e moment of birth, be freed together with her child. Of course, no one can minimize the misery of being enslaved and it is almost certain that many masters were able to disregard these kinds of rules but, nevertheless, at least some structure of protection were provided. These were supplemented by both Hindu and Buddhist precepts, which will also have been influential in affecting the behaviour of some people. A large number of slaves appear to have been sourced from Greece and Greek colony cities. This is shown both by written records and by illustrations of the people involved. The female slave armies that protected the king’s harem were frequently known as Ionians and fought hard to maintain the traditions, names and language of their homelands. Other slaves were bought by traders from the west, bringing people from Africa, Arabia and from time to time, no doubt, the European mainland as well. Traders in eastern waters surely did the same, with slaves brought from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It was also possible for free-born Indians to become slaves, perhaps through a court decision after having committed a serious crime. Others might be enslaved as a result of war or trafficking but it was also possible for people to put themselves up for enslavement. They could put their freedom at stake as surety for a cash loan or for a gambling stake. However, enslavement need not be permanent. A financial arrangement could be made in these cases but, if worst came to worst, slaves were allowed one chance to try to escape and, if they managed to get away, they were permitted to claim their freedom permanently. Ads by Google Microsoft® Private Cloud Microsoft.com/readynowBe Ready For The Future. Learn More About Microsoft® Private Cloud! MA in Ancient Greek www.brandeis.edu/gsasGenerous scholarships for 1-year Master's @ Brandeis. Learn more. Native Americans indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comNews, Culture, Events and More. Visit Our Site & Stay Up To Date! document.getElementById('adsense_placeholder_3').innerHTML = document.getElementById('adsense_ad_3_hidden').innerHTML; Copyright John Walsh. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication. John Walsh - I am a lecturer in business with a wide range of interests. These include anything relating to East and Southeast Asia, especially ... Print Article var addthis_share = { templates: { twitter: '{{title}}: {{url}} via @suite101' } } var addthis_config = { ui_language: "en", ui_cobrand: "Suite101", ui_header_color: "#FFFFFF", ui_header_background: "#336666", data_track_clickback: true } http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html#_=1321539691113&count=horizontal&dnt=&id=twitter_tweet_button_0&lang=en&original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fjohn-walsh.suite101.com%2Fslavery-in-ancient-ind
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  • lavery has existed in India since the time of the Mauryas at least. However, since Indian society has throughout been subject to the strictly-enforced caste system, the differences between those in the lowest caste and the lot of the slaves are not very great and, in some cases, it may have been better to be a slave. For example, a low caste person had to work constantly to obtain food and water while slaves occasionally (although not very often) could have time off from work. Laws also existed as to what sort of treatment it was permitted to use with slaves: they could be beaten on the back but not the head, for example, while a woman who was made pregnant by her master would, at th  e
  • S &nbsp;lavery has existed in India since the time of the Mauryas at least. However, since Indian society has throughout been subject to the strictly-enforced caste system, the differences between those in the lowest caste and the lot of the slaves are not very great and, in some cases, it may have been better to be a slave. For example, a low caste person had to work constantly to obtain food and water while slaves occasionally (although not very often) could have time off from work. Laws also existed as to what sort of treatment it was permitted to use with slaves: they could be beaten on the back but not the head, for example, while a woman who was made pregnant by her master would, at th &nbsp; e moment of birth, be freed together with her child. Of course, no one can minimize the misery of being enslaved and it is almost certain that many masters were able to disregard these kinds of rules but, nevertheless, at least some structure of protection were provided. These were supplemented by both Hindu and Buddhist precepts, which will also have been influential in affecting the behaviour of some people. A large number of slaves appear to have been sourced from Greece and Greek colony cities. This is shown both by written records and by illustrations of the people involved. The female slave armies that protected the king’s harem were frequently known as Ionians and fought hard to maintain the traditions, names and language of their homelands. Other slaves were bought by traders from the west, bringing people from Africa, Arabia and from time to time, no doubt, the European mainland as well. Traders in eastern waters surely did the same, with slaves brought from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It was also possible for free-born Indians to become slaves, perhaps through a court decision after having committed a serious crime. Others might be enslaved as a result of war or trafficking but it was also possible for people to put themselves up for enslavement. They could put their freedom at stake as surety for a cash loan or for a gambling stake. However, enslavement need not be permanent. A financial arrangement could be made in these cases but, if worst came to worst, slaves were allowed one chance to try to escape and, if they managed to get away, they were permitted to claim their freedom permanently. Ads by Google Microsoft® Private Cloud Microsoft.com/readynow Be Ready For The Future. Learn More About Microsoft® Private Cloud! MA in Ancient Greek www.brandeis.edu/gsas Generous scholarships for 1-year Master's @ Brandeis. Learn more. Native Americans indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com News, Culture, Events and More. Visit Our Site &amp; Stay Up To Date! document.getElementById('adsense_placeholder_3').innerHTML = document.getElementById('adsense_ad_3_hidden').innerHTML; Copyright John Walsh . Contact the author to obtain permission for republication. John Walsh - I am a lecturer in business with a wide range of interests. These include anything relating to East and Southeast Asia, especially ... <IMG s
  • &nbsp;lavery has existed in India since the time of the Mauryas at least. However, since Indian society has throughout been subject to the strictly-enforced caste system, the differences between those in the lowest caste and the lot of the slaves are not very great and, in some cases, it may have been better to be a slave. For example, a low caste person had to work constantly to obtain food and water while slaves occasionally (although not very often) could have time off from work. Laws also existed as to what sort of treatment it was permitted to use with slaves: they could be beaten on the back but not the head, for example, while a woman who was made pregnant by her master would, at th &nbsp; e moment of birth, be freed together with her child. Of course, no one can minimize the misery of being enslaved and it is almost certain that many masters were able to disregard these kinds of rules but, nevertheless, at least some structure of protection were provided. These were supplemented by both Hindu and Buddhist precepts, which will also have been influential in affecting the behaviour of some people. A large number of slaves appear to have been sourced from Greece and Greek colony cities. This is shown both by written records and by illustrations of the people involved. The female slave armies that protected the king’s harem were frequently known as Ionians and fought hard to maintain the traditions, names and language of their homelands. Other slaves were bought by traders from the west, bringing people from Africa, Arabia and from time to time, no doubt, the European mainland as well. Traders in eastern waters surely did the same, with slaves brought from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It was also possible for free-born Indians to become slaves, perhaps through a court decision after having committed a serious crime. Others might be enslaved as a result of war or trafficking but it was also possible for people to put themselves up for enslavement. They could put their freedom at stake as surety for a cash loan or for a gambling stake. However, enslavement need not be permanent. A financial arrangement could be made in these cases but, if worst came to worst, slaves were allowed one chance to try to escape and, if they managed to get away, they were permitted to claim their freedom permanently. Ads by Google Microsoft® Private Cloud Microsoft.com/readynow Be Ready For The Future. Learn More About Microsoft® Private Cloud! MA in Ancient Greek www.brandeis.edu/gsas Generous scholarships for 1-year Master's @ Brandeis. Learn more. Native Americans indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com News, Culture, Events and More. Visit Our Site &amp; Stay Up To Date! document.getElementById('adsense_placeholder_3').innerHTML = document.getElementById('adsense_ad_3_hidden').innerHTML; Copyright John Walsh . Contact the author to obtain permission for republication. John Walsh
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    India slavery system and the caste system.
Kalina P

Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed (2011 Version) - 2 views

  • , “Make love not war,” and then -- down at the bottom -- “Screw it, just make money.”
  • A Florida woman wrote to tell me that, before reading it, she’d always been annoyed at the poor for what she saw as their self-inflicted obesity.
  • . I started with my own extended family, which includes plenty of people without jobs or health insurance, and moved on to trying to track down a couple of the people I had met while working on Nickel and Dimed
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  • widely read among low-wage workers. In the last few years, hundreds of people have written to tell me their stories: the mother of a newborn infant whose electricity had just been turned off, the woman who had just been given a diagnosis of cancer and has no health insurance, the newly homeless man who writes from a library computer.
  • t things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.
  • earned less than a barebones budget covering housing, child care, health care, food, transportation, and taxes -- though not, it should be noted, any entertainment, meals out, cable TV, Internet service, vacations, or holiday gifts. Twenty-nine percent is a minority, but not a reassuringly small one, and other studies in the early 2000s came up with similar figures.
  • -- the skipped meals, the lack of medical care, the occasional need to sleep in cars or vans -
  • The economy was growing, and jobs, if poorly paid, were at least plentiful.
  • many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained
  • a healthy diet wasn’t always an option. &nbsp;And if I had a quarter for every person who’s told me he or she now tipped more generously, I would be able to start my own foundation.
  • and and was subsisting on occasional cleaning and catering jobs. Neither seemed unduly afflicted by the recessi
  • suicide a “coping strategy,” but it is one way some people have responded to job los
  • Media attention has focused, understandably enough, on the “nouveau poor” -- formerly middle and even upper-middle class people who lost their jobs, their homes, and/or their investments in the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that followed it, but the brunt of the recession has been borne by the blue-collar working class, which had already been sliding downwards since de-industrialization began in the 1980s.
  • were especially hard hit for the simple reason that they had so few assets and savings to fall back on as jobs disappea
  • cut back on health care.
  • e to moves and suspensions of telephone service
  • Food i
  • “food auctions,” which offer items that may be past their sell-by dates.
  • urban hunting. In Racine, Wisconsin, a 51-year-old laid-off mechanic told me he was supplementing his diet by “shooting squirrels and rabbits and eating them stewed, baked, and grilled.” In Detroit, where the wildlife population has mounted as the human population ebbs, a retired truck driver was doing a brisk business in raccoon carcasses, which he recommends marinating with vinegar and spices.
  • ncrease the number of paying people per square foot of dwelling space -- by doubling up or renting to couch-surfer
  • “people who’ve lost their jobs, or at least their second jobs, cope by doubling or tripling up in overcrowded apartments, or by paying 50 or 60 or even 70 percent of their incomes in rent.”
  • g members of my extended family, have given up their health insurance.
  • - a government safety net that is meant to save the poor from spiraling down all the way to destitutio
  • The food stamp program has responded to the crisis fairly well, to the point where it now reaches about 37 million people, up about 30% from pre-recession levels.
  • ? There is a right to food stamps. You go to the office and, if you meet the statutory definition of need, they h
  • elp you. For welfare, the street-level bureaucrats can, pretty much at their own discretion, just say no.
  • Delaware residents who had always imagined that people turned to the government for help only if “they didn’t want to work.
  • ace a state-sponsored retraining course in computer repairs -- only to find that those skills are no longer in demand.
  • 44% of laid-off people at the time, she failed to meet the fiendishly complex and sometimes arbitrary eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits. Their car started falling apart.
  • Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
  • TANF does not offer straightforward cash support like Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which it replaced in 1996. It’s an income supplementation program for working parents, and it was based on the sunny assumption that there would always be plenty of jobs for those enterprising enough to get them.
  • When the Parentes finally got into “the system” and began receiving food stamps and some cash assistance, they discovered why some recipients have taken to calling TANF “Torture and Abuse of Needy Families.” From the start, the TANF experience was “humiliating,” Kristen says. The caseworkers “treat you like a bum. They act like every dollar you get is coming out of their own paychecks.”
  • 40 jobs a week
  • miles a day to attend “job readiness” classes offered by a private company called Arbor, wh
  • were “frankly a joke.”
  • , “applying for welfare is a lot like being booked by the police.”&nbsp; There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting, and lengthy interrogations as to one’s children’s true paternity. The ostensible goal is to prevent welf
  • fraud, but the psychological impact is to turn poverty itself into a kind of crime.
  • The most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalized in America.
  • Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
  • Most cities, for example, have ordinances designed to drive the destitute off the streets by outlawing such necessary activities of daily life as sitting, loitering, sleeping, or lying down. Urban officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about such laws: “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a St. Petersburg, Florida, city attorney stated in June 2009, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges...”
  • the criminalization of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty.
  • ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container.
  • ban on begging
  • grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington, D.C. -- the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Phu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972.
  • “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless?”
  • , led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leadi
  • way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities are effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you’re “littering”; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect. And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.”
  • e government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement.
  • &nbsp;Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt.
  • The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too.
  • r staggering level of incarceration,
  • g. And what public housing remains has become ever more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing number of cities, proposed drug tests for residents.
  • The safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.
  • official level of poverty increasing -- to over 14% in 2010 -- some states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty, using alternative sentencing methods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missing court appointments. But others, diabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes,” but charging prisoners for their room and board, guaranteeing they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
  • a higher minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation, and all the other things we, uniquely among the developed nations, have neglected to do.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets
  • But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they’re down.
megan s

List of Indian inventions and discoveries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Button, ornamental: Buttons—made from seashell—were used in the Indus Valley Civilization for ornamental purposes by 2000 BCE.[1] Some buttons were carved into geometric shapes and had holes pieced into them so that they could attached to clothing by using a thread.[1] Ian McNeil (1990) holds that: "The button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old."
  • Calico: Calico had originated in the subcontinent by the 11th century and found mention in Indian literature, by the 12th century writer Hemachandra. He has mentioned calico fabric prints done in a lotus design.[3] The Indian textile merchants traded in calico with the Africans by the 15th century and calico fabrics from Gujarat appeared in Egypt.[3] Trade with Europe followed from the 17th century onwards.[3] Within India, calico originated in Calicut.[3] Carding, devices for: Historian of science Joseph Needham ascribes the invention of bow-instruments used in textile technology to India.[4] The earliest evidence for using bow-instruments for carding comes from India (2nd century CE).[4] These carding devices, called kaman and dhunaki would loosen the texture of the fiber by the means of a vibrating string.[4]
  • The words for "chess" in Old Persian and Arabic are chatrang and shatranj respectively — terms derived from caturaṅga in Sanskrit,[11][12] which literally means an army of four divisions or four corps.[13][14] Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape.[15] This game was introduced to the Near East from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.[13] Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others carried it to the Far East where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.[15] Chaturanga reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the expanding Arabian empire.[14][16] Muslims carried Shatranj to North Africa, Sicily, and Spain by the 10th century where it took its final modern form of chess.[15] Chintz: The origin of Chintz is from the printed all cotton fabric of calico in India.[17] The origin of the word chintz itself is from the Hindi language word चित्र् (chitr), which means a spot
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  • Coherer, iron and mercury: In 1899, the Bengali physicist Jagdish Chandra Bose announced the development of an "iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector" in a paper presented at the Royal Society, London.[19] He also later received U.S. Patent 755,840, "Detector for electrical disturbances" (1904), for a specific electromagnetic receiver. Cotton gin, single-roller: The Ajanta caves of India yield evidence of a single roller cotton gin in use by the 5th century.[20] This cotton gin was used in India until innovations were made in form of foot powered gins.[21] The cotton gin was invented in India as a mechanical device known as charkhi, more technically the "wooden-worm-worked roller". This mechanical device was, in some parts of India, driven by water power.[4] Crescograph: The crescograph, a device for measuring growth in plants, was invented in the early 20th century by the Bengali scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose.[22][
  • Perhaps as early as 300 BCE—although certainly by 200 CE—high quality steel was being produced in southern India also by what Europeans would later call the crucible technique.[24] In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in a crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon.[24] The first crucible steel was the wootz steel that originated in India before the beginning of the common era.[25] Archaeological evidence suggests that this manufacturing process was already in existence in South India well before the Christian era.[26][27][28][29] Dock (maritime): The world's first dock at Lothal (2400 BCE) was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt.[30] Modern oceanographers have observed that the Harappans must have possessed knowledge relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting course of the Sabarmati, as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering.[30] This was the earliest known dock found in the world, equipped to berth and service ships.[30][31] It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements, and their effects on brick-built structures, since the walls are of kiln-burnt bricks.[32] This knowledge also enabled them to select Lothal's location in the first place, as the Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuar
  • location in the first place, as the Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuar y
  • Incense clock: Although popularly associated with China the incense clock is believed to have originated in India, at least in its fundamental form if not function.[33][34] Early incense clocks found in China between the 6th and 8th century CE—the period it appeared in China all seem to have Devanāgarī carvings on them instead of Chinese seal characters.[33][34] Incense itself was introduced to China from India in the early centuries CE, along with the spread of Buddhism by travelling monks.[35][36][37] Edward Schafer asserts that incense clocks were probably an Indian invention, transmitted to China, which explains the Devanāgarī inscriptions on early incense clocks found in China.[33] Silvio Bedini on the other hand asserts that incense clocks were derived in part from incense seals mentioned in Tantric Buddhist scriptures, which first came to light in China after those scriptures from India were translated into Chinese, but holds that the time-telling function of the seal was incorporated by the Chinese.[34] India ink, carbonaceous pigment for: The source of the carbon pigment used in India ink was India.[38][39] In India, the carbon black from which India ink is produced is obtained by burning bones, tar, pitch, and other substances.[39][40] Ink itself has been used in India since at least the 4th century BCE.[41] Masi, an early ink in India was an admixture of several chemical components.[41] Indian documents written in Kharosthi with ink have been unearthed in Xinjiang.[42] The practice of writing with ink and a sharp pointed needle was common in ancient South India.[43] Several Jain sutras in India were compiled in ink
  • Indian clubs: The Indian club—which appeared in Europe during the 18th century—was used long by India's native soldiery before its introduction to Europe.[45] During the British Raj the British officers in India performed calisthenic exercises with clubs to keep in for physical conditioning.[45] From Britain the use of club swinging spread to the rest of the world.[45] Kabaddi: The game of kabaddi originated in India during prehistory.[46] Suggestions on how it evolved into the modern form range from wrestling exercises, military drills, and collective self defense but most authorities agree that the game existed in some form or the other in India during the period between 1500-400 BCE.[46] Ludo: Pachisi originated in India by the 6th century.[47] The earliest evidence of this game in India is the depiction of boards on the caves of Ajanta.[47] This game was played by the Mughal emperors of India; a notable example being that of Akbar, who played living Pachisi using girls from his harem.[47][48] A variant of this game, called Ludo, made its way to England during the British Raj.[
  • Ruler: Rulers made from Ivory were in use by the Indus Valley Civilization in what today is Pakistan and some parts of Western India prior to 1500 BCE.[64] Excavations at Lothal (2400 BCE) have yielded one such ruler calibrated to about 1/16 of an inch—less than 2 millimeters.[64] Ian Whitelaw (2007) holds that 'The Mohenjo-Daro ruler is divided into units corresponding to 1.32&nbsp;inches (33.5&nbsp;mm) and these are marked out in decimal subdivisions with amazing accuracy—to within 0.005 of an inch. Ancient bricks found throughout the region have dimensions that correspond to these units.'[65] Shigeo Iwata (2008) further writes 'The minimum division of graduation found in the segment of an ivory-made linear measure excavated in Lothal was 1.79&nbsp;mm (that corresponds to 1/940 of a fathom), while that of the fragment of a shell-made one from Mohenjo-daro was 6.72&nbsp;mm (1/250 of a fathom), and that of bronze-made one from Harapa was 9.33&nbsp;mm (1/180 of a fathom).'[66] The weights and measures of the Indus civilization also reached Persia and Central Asia, where they were further modified.[66] Seamless celestial globe: Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, it was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in between 1589 and 1590 CE, and twenty other such globes were later produced in Lahore and Kashmir during the Mughal Empire.[67][68] Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal globes without any seams, even with modern technology.[68] These Mughal metallurgists pioneered the method of lost-wax casting in order to produce these globes
  • Simputer: The Simputer (acronym for "simple, inexpensive and multilingual people's computer") is a self-contained, open hardware handheld computer, designed for use in environments where computing devices such as personal computers are deemed inappropriate. It was developed in 1999 by 7 scientists of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, led by Dr. Swami Manohar in collaboration with Encore India, a company based in Bangalore.[69][70] Originally envisaged to bring internet to the masses of India, the Simputer and its derivatives are today widely utilized by governments of several Indian states as part of their e-governance drive, the Indian Army, as well as by other public and private organizations.[71][72] Snakes and ladders: Snakes and ladders originated in India as a game based on morality.[73] During British rule of India, this game made its way to England, and was eventually introduced in the United States of America by game-pioneer Milton Bradley in 1943.[73] Stepwell: Earliest clear evidence of the origins of the stepwell is found in the Indus Valley Civilization's archaeological site at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan.[74] The three features of stepwells in the subcontinent are evident from one particular site, abandoned by 2500 BCE, which combines a bathing pool, steps leading down to water, and figures of some religious importance into one structure.[74] The early centuries immediately before the common era saw the Buddhists and the Jains of India adapt the stepwells into their architecture.[74] Both the wells and the form of ritual bathing reached other parts of the world with Buddhism.[74] Rock-cut step wells in the subcontinent date from 200-400 CE.[75] Subsequently the wells at Dhank (550-625 CE) and stepped ponds at Bhinmal (850-950 CE) were constructed.[75] Stupa: The origin of the stupa can be traced to 3rd century BCE India.[76] It was used as a commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics.[76] The stupa architecture was adopted in Southeast and East Asia, where it evolved into the pagoda, a Buddhist monument used for enshrining sacred relics.[76] Toe stirrup: The earliest known manifestation of the stirrup, which was a toe loop that held the big toe was used in India in as early as 500 BCE[77] or perhaps by 200 BCE according to other sources.[78][79] This ancient stirrup consisted of a looped rope for the big toe which was at the bottom of a saddle made of fibre or leather.[79] Such a configuration made it suitable for the warm climate of most of India where people used to ride horses barefoot.[79] A pair of megalithic double bent iron bars with curvature at each end, excavated in Junapani in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have been regarded as stirrups although they could as well be something else.[80] Buddhist carvings in the temples of Sanchi, Mathura and the Bhaja caves dating back between the 1st and 2nd century BCE figure horsemen riding with elaborate saddles with feet slipped under girths.[81][82][83] Sir John Marshall described the Sanchi relief as "the earliest example by some five centuries of the use of stirrups in any part of the world".[83] In the 1st century CE horse riders in northern India, where winters are sometimes long and cold, were recorded to have their booted feet attached to hooked stirrups.[78] However the form, the conception of the primitive Indian stirrup spread west and east, gradually evolving into the stirrup of today.http://en.wikipe
Garth Holman

The Assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 BC - 4 views

  • In January of 49 BC, Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River in Northern Italy (see Caesar Crosses the Rubicon, 49 BC) and plunged the Roman Republic into civil war. Caesar's rival, Pompey, fled to Greece. Within three months Caesar controlled the entire Italian peninsula and in Spain had defeated the legions loyal to Pompey. Caesar now pursued Pompey to Greece. Although outnumbered, Caesar crushed the forces of his enemy but not before Pompey escaped to Egypt. Following Pompey to Egypt, Caesar was presented with his rival's severed head as a token of friendship. Before leaving the The Assassination of Caesar region, Caesar established Cleopatra as his surrogate ruler of Egypt. Caesar defeated his remaining rivals in North Africa in 47 BC and returned to Rome with his authority firmly established. Caesar continued to consolidate his power and in February 44 BC, he declared himself dictator for life. This act, along with his continual effort to adorn himself with the trappings of power, turned many in the Senate against him. Sixty members of the Senate concluded that the only resolution to the problem was to assassinate Caesar
  • The Plan: "The conspirators never met openly, but they assembled a few at a time in each others' homes. There were many discussions and proposals, as might be expected, while they investigated how and where to execute their design. Some suggested that they should make the attempt as he was going along the Sacred Way, which was one of his favorite walks. Another idea was for it to be done at the elections during which he bad to cross a bridge to appoint the magistrates in the Campus Martius; they should draw lots for some to push him from the bridge and for others to run up and kill him. A third plan was to wait for a coming gladiatorial show. The advantage of that would be that, because of the show, no suspicion would be aroused if arms were seen prepared for the attempt. But the majority opinion favored killing him while he sat in the Senate, where he would be by himself since non-Senators would not be admitted, and where the many conspirators could hide their daggers beneath their togas. This plan won the day."
  • "...his friends were alarmed at certain rumors and tried to stop him going to the Senate-house, as did his doctors, for he was suffering from one of his occasional dizzy spells. His wife, Calpurnia, especially, who was frightened by some visions in her dreams, clung to him and said that she would not let him go out that day. But Brutus, one of the conspirators who was then thought of as a firm friend, came up and said, 'What is this, Caesar? Are you a man to pay attention to a woman's dreams and the idle gossip of stupid men, and to insult the Senate by not going out, although it has honored you and has been specially summoned by you? But listen to me, cast aside the forebodings of all these people, and come. The Senate has been in session waiting for you since early this morning.' This swayed Caesar and he left."
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  • The Attack: "The Senate rose in respect for his position when they saw him entering. Those who were to have part in the plot stood near him. Right next to him went Tillius Cimber, whose brother had been exiled by Caesar. Under pretext of a humble request on behalf of this brother, Cimber approached and grasped the mantle of his toga, seeming to want to make a more positive move with his hands upon Caesar. Caesar wanted to get up and use his hands, but was prevented by Cimber and became exceedingly annoyed. That was the moment for the men to set to work. All quickly unsheathed their daggers and rushed at him. First Servilius Casca struck him with the point of the blade on the left shoulder a little above the collar-bone. He had been aiming for that, but in the excitement he missed. Caesar rose to defend himself, and in the uproar Casca shouted out in Greek to his brother. The latter heard him and drove his sword into the ribs. After a moment, Cassius made a slash at his face, and Decimus Brutus pierced him in the side. While Cassius Longinus was trying to give him another blow he missed and struck Marcus Brutus on the hand. Minucius also hit out at Caesar and hit Rubrius in the thigh. They were just like men doing battle against him. Under the mass of wounds, he fell at the foot of Pompey's statue. Everyone wanted to seem to have had some part in the murder, and there was not one of them who failed to strike his body as it lay there, until, wounded thirty-five times, he breathed his last. "
Garth Holman

World-History | Medieval Knights - 1 views

  • Knights might have been professional soldiers but that didn't mean they had to act like one. In the early days of feudalism, knights often ate at the same table as the lords and ladies of the manor
  • They often belched, spit, and put their feet directly on the dinner table. The refined ladies and lords were appalled. So, a code of honor was drawn up that we now call Chivalry.
    • Garth Holman
       
      So Chivalry comes as a way to correct their personal bad behavior. 
  • This stems from the Medieval Knights Code of Chivalry and the Vows of Knighthood.
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  • There were at least 17 rules to the knights code of chivalry and vows of knighthood. The most important were to serve God, serve their liege lord (the King), be courteous to all women (though what they meant was all women of the noble class), and to defend the weak. Other rules included to fight for the welfare of all, to live by honor and glory, and to refrain from the wanton giving of offence; basically, don’t act like ye olde arse.
    • Garth Holman
       
      Rules for the knight to follow. 
  • this was meant to defend the elderly, women and children, but of the upper class. Knights were often brutal to peasants and it was considered acceptable because of the low social status of the peasants.&nbsp;
    • Garth Holman
       
      Poor Peasants? 
  • From this, came rules like if a woman was of equal or higher status, he should stand when she enters a room and sit only after she does, the best foods at a meal should be offered to her, and when walking on the sidewalk, the man should walk closest to the street. This was to protect the woman from getting spattered with mud and the contents of chamber pots (buckets that were used as toilets) that were thrown out windows. It was a way to show that the gentleman honored the woman to have the poop hit him instead.
  • nights kept their skills sharp by competing in tournaments known as jousts where two heavily armored horseman race at another at high speed
  • Medieval tournaments brought knights and lords together in friendly competitions to show off their skills at hand to hand combat, horse back riding, and of course, jousting
  • A head shot for example was the most damaging but also the most difficult target, and therefore was awarded the most points.
  • Cash prizes, called a purse, would be given to the winners and this was the best way to move up the social ladder if you didn't get a chance to show off your skills on the battle field.&nbsp;
    • Garth Holman
       
      Maybe you can win the "PURSE" in your blog! 
  • To become a knight was a long and difficult path.
  • sent to live in the castle with his Lord where his training would begin around the age of seven
  • road to knighthood he was known as a page. A page's training involved learning to ride a horse and receiving religious instruction from the priest of the manor. And, when he wasn't riding or praying, a page spent his days running errands and serving the ladies of the manor. He would also be taught to dance, sing, and play a musical instrument which were considered honorable qualities for a knight to have.
  • a page would be promoted to the role of squire. A squire worked directly with his knight. The squire learned skills from his knight (who was also his Lord) such as sword fighting and hand to hand combat. The squire pretty much acted as personal assistant to his knight, polishing his armor, caring for his horse, and even waiting on him at meal times. During times of battle, it was the job of the squire to help his Lord into the armor and look after him if he was wounded. He also had the awful task of cleaning out the armor which, after a long day on the battle field would be covered in all sorts of bodily fluids.
    • Garth Holman
       
      Like pee He he!
  • "I promise on my faith that I will in the future be faithful to the lord, never cause him harm and will observe my homage to him completely against all persons in good faith and without deceit." -A Typical Oath of Fealty
    • Garth Holman
       
      NOTE: loyalty, homage, never cause harm, good faith.  You had to be a trustworthy to be a knigh! 
  •  
    Learn how a Knight becomes a knight and how Chivalry impacts you!
Garth Holman

Socrates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method,
  • and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand.
  • Socrates appears to have been a critic of democracy,[15] and some scholars interpret his trial as an expression of political infighting.[16] Claiming loyalty to his city, Socrates clashed with the current course of Athenian politics and society.[17] He praises Sparta, archrival to Athens, directly and indirectly in various dialogues. One of Socrates' purported offenses to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. Rather than upholding a status quo and accepting the development of what he perceived as immorality within his region, Socrates questioned the collective notion of "might makes right" that he felt was common in Greece during this period. Plato refers to Socrates as the "gadfly" of the state (as the gadfly stings the horse into action, so Socrates stung various Athenians), insofar as he irritated some people with considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness.[18] His attempts to improve the Athenians' sense of justice may have been the cause of his execution.
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  • Socrates initially earned his living as a master stonecutter.
  • found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety ("not believing in the gods of the state"),[20] and subsequently sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock.
  • Socrates had an opportunity to escape, as his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. He chose to stay for several reasons: He believed such a flight would indicate a fear of death, which he believed no true philosopher has. If he fled Athens his teaching would fare no better in another country, as he would continue questioning all he met and undoubtedly incur their displeasure. Having knowingly agreed to live under the city's laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would have caused him to break his "social contract" with the state, and so harm the state, an unprincipled act. The full reasoning behind his refusal to flee is the main subject of the Crito.
  • After drinking the poison, he was instructed to walk around until his legs felt numb. After he lay down, the man who administered the poison pinched his foot; Socrates could no longer feel his legs. The numbness slowly crept up his body until it reached his heart. Shortly before his death, Socrates speaks his last words to Crito: "Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt."
  • and freedom, of the soul from the body.
  • dialectic method of inquiry, known as the Socratic method or method of "elenchus", which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as the Good and Justice. It was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. To solve a problem, it would be broken down into a series of questions, the answers to which gradually distill the answer a person would seek. The influence of this approach is most strongly felt today in the use of the scientific method, in which hypothesis is the first stage. The development and practice of this method is one of Socrates' most enduring contributions, and is a key factor in earning his mantle as the father of political philosophy, ethics or moral philosophy, and as a figurehead of all the central themes in Western philosophy.
  • One of the best known sayings of Socrates is "I only know that I know nothing". The conventional interpretation of this remark is that Socrates' wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates believed wrongdoing was a consequence of ignorance and those who did wrong knew no better.
  • Socrates believed the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth.[citation needed] He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates felt this was the best way for people to grow together as a populace
sasha p

Slavery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

shared by sasha p on 16 Nov 11 - Cached
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work . [1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
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  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work . [1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage
  • Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures . [3] The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history , [4] remaining as high as 12 million [5] to 27 million, [6][7][8] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world's population in history. [
  • Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3] The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history,[4] remaining as high as 12 million[5] to 27 million,[6][7][8] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world's population in history.
  • Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the traditional form of slavery. It is the least prevalent form of slavery today.[10]
  • Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[3] Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BC in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San[disambiguation needed&nbsp;]-like tribe.[16] Slavery is rare among hunter–gatherer populations, as slavery is a system of social stratification. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[17] The earliest records of slavery can be traced to the oldest known records, which treat it as an established institution, not one newly instituted. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, stated that death was prescribed for anyone who helped a slave to escape, as well as for anyone who sheltered a fugitive.[18] The Bible refers to slavery as an established institution.[3] Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as almost every other ancient civilization, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[3] Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.
Garth Holman

Martin Luther Biography - 0 views

  • His parents were from peasant stock, but had high ambitions for their intelligent, eldest son
  • Bachelors and Masters degrees in Theology. He was in his first year of Law School in Erfurt when an incident occurred that would change the course of European history.
  • Two weeks later, Luther joined the Augustinian Order in Erfurt; his father was furious.
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  • Many Christians of the late Middle Ages had a great fear of demons and devils, and were terrified of ending up in hell. Mortality rates were high and life was very uncertain due to disease, accidents, childbirth and wars. Luther shared those fears and his first years in the monastery he was tormented with the idea that all men were hopeless sinners in the sight of God and unworthy of salvation.
  • reason, he was sent to teach theology at the University of Erfurt, and in 1511, at the University of Wittenberg, where he received his Doctorate in Theology. In Wittenberg he was also the parish priest assigned to minister to the citizens of the town.
  • A major source of church funding during this period was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was a "get out of purgatory card" that could be obtained for oneself or others by paying a certain sum to the church.
  • The Pope was selling offices and indulgences to get money for an ambitious building program which included the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. The Pope's representative, the Dominican Father Tetzel, encouraged people to buy the indulgences with the jingle, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings The soul from Purgatory springs"
  • telling them their loved ones were crying out to be released from suffering.
  • He was shocked by the lack of morality and piety of the local clergy and by the luxurious lifestyle of the Pope Leo X, a member of the Medici family. Pope Leo was known for his expensive tastes and was fond of hunting, gambling and carnivals. The papacy was at a low point in its history and others had been calling out for reform prior to Luther.
  • He came to the conclusion there was no evidence in the Bible for believing the Pope had power to release souls from Purgatory.
  • He wrote out a list of his objections to the practice; he named 95 issues he wished to dispute.
  • On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his ninety-five theses, or points of discussion, on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The document was in Latin and invited other scholars to debate the statements set out.
  • The 95 Theses were translated into German and widely distributed throughout Germany, courtesy of the printing press.
  • There is no question, however, that Luther wrote the list and sent a copy of it to Prince Albert of Mainz.
  • The reaction of the Church initially was to try and suppress the attack on indulgences by suppressing Martin Luther.
  • The protest against the indulgences set off a conflagration which, step by step, resulted in most of Northern Europe breaking away from the authority of the Catholic Church.
  • It was clear by this time that there could be no coming together on these issues, since the very authority of the Pope was called into question.
  • The Church did act to curb the worst abuses of indulgences, but it was too late.
  • Luther was given safe conduct to attend the meeting and defend his positions. At the Diet of Worms, Luther was shown a table with a pile of his books and other writings. He was offered the opportunity to recant, but refused. Luther's reply was written down as he spoke it: "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason -- I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other -- my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen." The printed document released after the Diet of Worms also contained the famous words, "Here I stand, I can do no other."
  • but he was now considered an outlaw.
  • declaring Luther a heretic and ordering his death.
  • He spent nearly a year there, writing furiously and fighting depression and numerous physical ailments. It was in a small study in the castle in 1522 that he translated the New Testament from Greek into German and profoundly influenced the form and standardization of the German language.
    • Garth Holman
       
      Maybe one of the most important ideas.  He gave the people the bible in the local language, so more people could read what the bible said...not have someone tell them.  See this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#Surviving_copies  
  • in Luther's absence numerous leaders had sprung up, each with his own interpretation of doctrine, and most having far more radical views than Luther.
  • Priests wore ordinary clothing and grew their hair, services were performed in German, monks and nuns were leaving the cloisters and getting married. Some groups were smashing images and statues in the churches and dragging priests away from the altars.
  • He convinced a couple of the more radical preachers to stop preaching or leave town.
  • twelve who had been smuggled out in herring barrels.
  • However, he impulsively announced he was marrying Katharina von Bora, to the great surprise of his friends.
  • Many were inspired by Martin Luther's challenge to the authority of the Church to challenge the secular powers as well.
  • Martin Luther wrote an appeal to the aristocrats to restore order by force.
  • Both sides were angry with Luther: the nobles blamed him for stirring up the people and the peasants blamed him for encouraging the nobles to use violence against them.
  • Luther wrote to and met with other leaders of the Reformation, such as Zwingli, to try and produce a unified statement of belief for the reformed church, but nothing came out of it because they were not able to agree on many of the doctrinal issues.
Eric G

Hone the Top 5 Soft Skills Every College Student Needs - US News - 0 views

  • "hard" skills like writing, mathematics and science
  • Soft skills include the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and the willingness to learn through experience, and are applicable across multiple disciplines and careers.
  • five important soft skills college-bound students require.
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  • People who succeed only when working alone will struggle in college and beyond
  • majority of careers require collaboration.
  • young people do not know how to effectively carry on a conversation and are unable to do things like ask questions, listen actively and&nbsp;maintain eye contact.
  • The current prevalence of electronic devices has connected young individuals to one another
  • An inability to employ these skills effectively translates poorly in college and&nbsp;job interviews, for instance.
  • solve problems in creative ways and to determine solutions to issues with no prescribed formula.
  • They must be able to
  • Students who are accustomed to learned processes, and who cannot occasionally veer off-course, will struggle to handle unanticipated setbacks
  • Students can improve problem-solving abilities by enrolling in classes that us​e experiential learning
  • Students can improve this skill by assuming responsibility in multiple areas during high school&nbsp;–
  • It is imperative that they be fully self-sufficient in managing their time and prioritizing actions.
  • The ability to track multiple projects in an organized and efficient manner, as well as intelligently prioritize tasks, is also extremely important for students long after graduation​​.
  • The best way for students to develop this skill as they prepare for college is to search for leadership opportunities in high school.
  • Both in college and within the workforce, the ability to assume the lead when the situation calls for it is a necessity for anyone who hopes to draw upon their knowledge and "hard" skills in a position of influence.
  • or gaining professional employment experience
    • Eric G
       
      The first soft skill is collaboration, which means working with other people appropriately in a group.
  • These skills will again be important not only in college,&nbsp;where students must engage with professors to gain references and recommendations for future endeavors,&nbsp;but beyond as well.
    • Eric G
       
      The second soft skill is communication, which means to have a conversation with someone.
  • Students should also try new pursuits that place them in unfamiliar and even uncomfortable situations
  • Whatever structure students may have had in high school to organize their work and complete assignments in a timely manner will be largely absent in college.
    • Eric G
       
      The third soft skill is being able to solve problems with little help.
    • Eric G
       
      The fourth soft skill is being able to manage your time when it comes to homework and projects.
  • While it is important to be able to function in a group, it is also important to demonstrate leadership skills when necessary.
    • Eric G
       
      The fifth soft skill is being a leader and having good leadership skills.
  • Soft skills include the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and the willingness to learn through experience, and are applicable across multiple disciplines and careers.
  • It is imperative for college-bound students to function efficiently and appropriately in groups, collaborate on projects and accept constructive criticism when working with others.
morgan m

Slavery in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 2 views

  • The history of slavery in India is complicated by the presence of factors which relate to the definition, ideological and religious perceptions, difficulties in obtaining and interpreting written sources, and perceptions of political impact of interpretations of written sources.[1] If current scholarly interpretations of various literary sources are accepted, then slavery as forced appropriation of labour, skill or sexual gratification appears to have existed in various forms from the pre-500 BCE period, though never as a legitimate and generally acceptable widespread practice. Historical consensus points to an intensification of slavery under India's Islamic period.[2][3][4][5][6] For instance, K. S. Lal discussed in his work "Muslim Slave System in Medieval India" the import of African slaves to India by Muslims through the Middle East, a trade never undertaken by India's indigenous religions due to limited contact with Africa. Often, claims about slavery in India, and the sources they are based on, need to be analyzed with special attention to context. Some modern scholars appear to treat most claims of slavery by Persian or Arabic chroniclers as propaganda or exaggeration for military and political glorification, whereas similar arguments are not applied to the textual claims of the epics, the Smriti, or other pre-Islamic Indian texts (Levi admits the possibility of exaggeration on the part of Muslim chroniclers but accepts Basham's claims based on Mahabharata without such doubts.[1]) Susan Bayly of Cambridge University noted in her work "Caste, Society and Politics" that India was never a monolithic caste society [7] with noted shifting and fluidity of the caste structures in some parts of India, and its non-existence in others. Irfan Habib notes in his study of the agrarian system of Mughal India, that in many parts of the country, caste barriers were fluid, and the working classes formed a type of vast labour pool, from which specializations were formed as and when needed without consideration of caste.
  • The slave appears to have retained degrees of control over money, property, right to compensation or wage for labour, and had the right of redemption, and deceiving or depriving a slave of these rights is also a punishable offence. Slavery also appears to have been of limited duration or of temporary status, as only specific conditions are given for slavery for life
  • Employing a slave to carry the dead, or to sweep human waste, remnant of meal, stripping or keeping in nudity, hurting or abusing, violating the chastity (of a female slave), causes the forfeiture of the value paid for the slave (although it is not clear whether this earns the slave his or her freedom). In the same paragraph, however, it is stated that the violations of the chastity of nurses, female cooks, or female servants of the class of joint cultivators or of any other category shall at once earn them their liberty. A master’s connections with a nurse or pledged female slave against her will is a punishable offence, (for a stranger the degree of offence is higher), and rape is specifically mentioned as particularly offensive with high penalties as well as forfeiture of sale price.[10] In fact if a child is born to the female slave as a result of sexual union with the master, then the mother and child have to be freed immediately.
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  • For an Arya, slavery appears to have been
  • limited to the person who has sold himself, and not automatically to his family or offspring, as the status of the offspring as Arya is categorically emphasized. A slave is also guaranteed to not only whatever he has earned without prejudice to his master’s work, but also any inheritance he has received from his father.
  • As for prisoners of war, enslavement does not appear to have been automatic, as it is stated that an Arya who is captured in war can only be ransomed for an amount proportionate to the damage or dangerous work done by the captive at the time of his capture (or half the amount
  • Slavery begins to appear in explicit and extensive reference in surviving historical records following the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century. Many chroniclers claim that his campaign of 1024 in which he sacked Ajmer, Nehrwala, Kathiawar, and Somnath was particularly successful in garnering more than 100,000 Hindu slaves for the Muslim general.
  • The history of slavery in India is complicated by the presence of factors which relate to the definition, ideological and religious perceptions, difficulties in obtaining and interpreting written sources, and perceptions of political impact of interpretations of written sources.[1] If current scholarly interpretations of various literary sources are accepted, then slavery as forced appropriation of labour, skill or sexual gratification appears to have existed in various forms from the pre-500 BCE period, though never as a legitimate and generally acceptable widespread practice. Historical consensus points to an intensification of slavery under India's Islamic period.[2][3][4][5][6] For instance, K. S. Lal discussed in his work "Muslim Slave System in Medieval India" the import of African slaves to India by Muslims through the Middle East, a trade never undertaken by India's indigenous religions due to limited contact with Africa.
  •  
    Slavery in Inida
  •  
    slavory in india
  •  
    This descibes the caste system in india
Garth Holman

Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest - North Carolina Digital History - 1 views

shared by Garth Holman on 19 May 14 - Cached
  • had been isolated from each other for 10,000 years.
    • Garth Holman
       
      If they have been isolated, how would that make them different? 
  • the human inhabitants of the “old” and “new” worlds developed vastly different cultures, languages, and religions; they found different ways of adapting to their different envinronments; and their bodies over hundreds of generations became resistant to the diseases of their different worlds. When the two great land masses were rejoined by European exploration, the resulting exchange of people, crops, animals, ideas, and diseases — called the “Columbian exchange” — changed both worlds forever.
  • Within a hundred years this small European nation had claimed the better part of two continents
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  • disease.
  • They go as naked as their mothers bore them, even the women, though I only saw one girl, and she was very young. All those I did see were young men, none of them more than thirty years old.… They do not carry arms and do not know of them, because I showed them some swords and they grasped them by the blade and cut themselves out of ignorance
  • They ought to make good slaves for they are of quick intelligence, since I notice that they are quick to repeat what is said to them, and I believe that they could very easily become Chirstians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. God willing, when I come to leave I will bring six of them to Your Highnesses so that they may learn to speak
  • Columbus believed he had every right to take their land and make them into “servants.
  • With the native population gone, the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa to grow their sugar cane
  • superiority to their enemies who had rejected Christianity, and they developed rules of war based on that superiority — including the right to enslave the people they conquered. Once Spain was reconquered, Muslims and Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be expelled from Spain.
    • Garth Holman
       
      Forced + Fled = INQUISITION
  • In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico from Cuba with 11 galleons, 550 men, and 16 horses — the first horses on the American continent. Within two years his conquistadores, conquerors, had won control of the Aztec kingdom that spanned most of present-day Mexico and Central America.
    • Garth Holman
       
      How could this happen?  How could an empire of millions be destroyed and conquered by 550 men? 
  • One of Cortés’ soldiers had smallpox, and he started an epidemic that killed a third of the population of the Aztec empire.
  • Cortés for the deity Quetzalcoátl, or Plumed Serpent, who according to prophesy would return from the east to reclaim his kingdom — perhaps in 1519. When Cortés arrived — from the east, with fair skin, riding four-legged creatures never before seen in Mexico, wearing shining armor and looking for all the world like someone who wanted to reclaim a kingdom — Moctezuma feared that he might be Quetzalcoátl and did not immediately meet him in battle.
  • What Cortés and his men saw in Tenochtitlán horrified them.
  • The Spanish, more convinced than ever of their superiority, forced most of the people of Mexico to convert to Christianity. Priests burned Aztec books and destroyed idols and temples. Indigenous people were enslaved to work in gold mines. Disease reduced the population of Mexico from more than 20 million when Cortés arrived in 1519 to about 2 million by 1600.
  • By the 1600s, Spain was easily the most powerful kingdom in Europe.
  • We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifteen million.…
  • They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house.
  • With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim’s neck, saying, “Go now, carry the message,” meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.
David W

Pope Urban II orders first Crusade - Nov 27, 1095 - HISTORY.com - 5 views

  • On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of "Deus vult!" or "God wills it!"
  • By the end of the 11th century, the Holy Land—the area now commonly referred to as the Middle East—had become a point of conflict for European Christians. Since the 6th century, Christians frequently made pilgrimages to the birthplace of their religion, but when the Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem, Christians were barred from the Holy City. When the Turks then threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I made a special appeal to Urban for help. This was not the first appeal of its kind, but it came at an important time for Urban. Wanting to reinforce the power of the papacy, Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.
  • Urban delivered a rousing speech summoning rich and poor alike to stop their in-fighting and embark on a righteous war to help their fellow Christians in the East and take back Jerusalem. Urban denigrated the Muslims, exaggerating stories of their anti-Christian acts, and promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • European nobles were tempted by the prospect of increased land holdings and riches to be gained from the conquest. These nobles were responsible for the death of a great many innocents both on the way to and in the Holy Land, absorbing the riches and estates of those they conveniently deemed opponents to their cause. Adding to the death toll was the inexperience and lack of discipline of the Christian peasants against the trained, professional armies of the Muslims. As a result, the Christians were initially beaten back, and only through sheer force of numbers were they eventually able to triumph
    • Garth Holman
       
      God Wills it  -- this was the call.  All who went on Crusade were to paint a RED cross on their shirt to show they were on a mission for GOD. 
    • Garth Holman
       
       So Jews, Christians and Muslims all "share" the holy land.  But the Muslim Turks closed the pilgrimage route and said they were going to attack their neighbors, so Byzantine Emperor asks for help and Pope URBAN II sees a way to gain more power.  And The crusades begin. 
    • Garth Holman
       
      Urban asks rich (Kings/Nobles) and poor (peasants) alike to travel and free the holy land. He did not tell the whole truth, but added a little to make it sound worse.  Then he promised "A FREE PASS TO HEAVEN" for all who go and destroy Muslims.  The words Absolution (forgiveness) and Remission (take away) all sins=your free pass. 
    • Garth Holman
       
      People did not just go to "Serve G-D" but to gain wealth and power.  Christians only win one time and then lose the next six Crusades, but the impact of these events changed history forever. 
    • Nicole G
       
      Pope Urban II died in 1099 that was two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem and The Christians won and made it back to the Europe. 
    • parker g
       
      Truuuu
    • Garth Holman
       
      This is the key phrase: promised absolution and remission of sins for all who died in the service of Christ.  What does this mean? 
    • Kanrry K
       
      It means that your sins will be forgiven.
    • David W
       
      This is the beginning of all wars.
megan s

Ancient Greece Inventions - 7 views

  • Ancient Greece Inventions
    • megan s
       
      Thanks to whoever highlighted this :)
  • It is thought that they were one of the first to use a Canon although it did not use gunpowder. By using compressed air, these canons were able to hurl a projectile over long distances.
  • One well-known ancient Greek invention is the Antikythera mechanism. Believe it or not, this was a type of calculator that is thought to have been invented some 2000 years ago. As a matter of fact, many people consider this to be the world's first computer,
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Another one of the ancient Greek inventions that is rather interesting is that of the shower. Although nothing was known about germs at that particular time, the Greeks thought that it was a healthful practice to wash the body with water. The fact that there were showers during this time period is recorded in various art murals that have been excavated
  • The ancient Grecian Empire was not only known for its unprecedented warfare, it was also known for some of the inventors and inventions that took place during that time. Most of these inventions occurred during the fifth century B.C. but that was really only the start of the ancient Greek inventions that we have a record of. Some of the most well-known of these ancient Greece inventions occurred even after the Roman Empire had come into power.
  • It would be easy to discuss many of the ancient Greeks inventions that took place which were associated with warfare. Almost everybody is aware of the fact that Alexander the Great and his conquests were some of the most renowned throughout all history. In just a short period of time, he and his army overtook most of the then known world and if his life would not have been cut short, he would have continued his conquests. There were, no doubt, many ancient Greek inventions which helped to make his conquests successful. The one invention that I will discuss, however, is the canon. It is thought that they were one of the first to use a Canon although it did not use gunpowder. By using compressed air, these canons were able to hurl a projectile over long distances.
  • The ancient Grecian Empire was not only known for its unprecedented warfare, it was also known for some of the inventors and inventions that took place during that time. Most of these inventions occurred during the fifth century B.C. but that was really only the start of the ancient Greek inventions that we have a record of. Some of the most well-known of these ancient Greece inventions occurred even after the Roman Empire had come into power.
  • It would be easy to discuss many of the ancient Greeks inventions that took place which were associated with warfare. Almost everybody is aware of the fact that Alexander the Great and his conquests were some of the most renowned throughout all history. In just a short period of time, he and his army overtook most of the then known world and if his life would not have been cut short, he would have continued his conquests. There were, no doubt, many ancient Greek inventions which helped to make his conquests successful. The one invention that I will discuss, however, is the canon. &nbsp;It is thought that they were one of the first to use a Canon although it did not use gunpowder. By using compressed air, these canons were able to hurl a projectile over long distances. &nbsp;One well-known ancient Greek invention is the Antikythera mechanism. Believe it or not, this was a type of calculator that is thought to have been invented some 2000 years ago. As a matter of fact, many people consider this to be the world's first computer, although it was nothing like the computers that we see today. Through the use of a complex system of gears, it was able to calculate the relative positions of the sun, moon and stars whenever a date was entered. This is one of the ancient Greeks inventions that was truly far ahead of its time. The ancient Greeks were also well known for their work that took place under water. Aristotle first described this type of contraption some 2400 years ago. It is thought that this is one of the ancient Greeks inventions that was used in order to salvage the floor of the ocean for various items. It is unknown what other applications this ancient Greek invention had but it was ingenious that they were able to come up with the concept. &nbsp;Another one of the ancient Greek inventions that is rather interesting is that of the shower. Although nothing was known about germs at that particular time, the Greeks thought that it was a healthful practice to wash the body with water. The fact that there were showers during this time period is recorded in various art murals that have been excavated . It is hard to know what other ancient Greeks inventions were in existence during that time. One thing's for certain, they were a society that was rather enlightened and well ahead of their time. Perhaps with some more archaeology work on our part, we may be able to discover that they were behind some other ingenious ideas as well.
  • One well-known ancient Greek invention is the Antikythera mechanism. Believe it or not, this was a type of calculator that is thought to have been invented some 2000 years ago. As a matter of fact, many people consider this to be the world's first computer, although it was nothing like the computers that we see today. Through the use of a complex system of gears, it was able to calculate the relative positions of the sun, moon and stars whenever a date was entered. This is one of the ancient Greeks inventions that was truly far ahead of its time.
  • Another one of the ancient Greek inventions that is rather interesting is that of the shower. Although nothing was known about germs at that particular time, the Greeks thought that it was a healthful practice to wash the body with water. The fact that there were showers during this time period is recorded in various art murals that have been excavated.
  •  
    The invetions of ancient Greece
  •  
    This website has many inventions for ancient greece
  •  
    The invetions of ancient Greece
Harsajan Gill

Rome.info > Fall of the Roman Empire, decline of ancient Rome - 5 views

shared by Harsajan Gill on 13 Dec 11 - Cached
    • Josh B
       
      This shows many more reasons and ideas then the website link from 7aworldhistory, it also is very helpful
    • Garth Holman
       
      Maybe you should add to the online textbook...it is time for you to leave a legacy?
    • Garth Holman
       
      I see Josh, you joined the wiki. I will wait to see what you add and change.
    • Jamie F
       
      There was probably one event that led to all these events.
    • Jack S
       
      People spent money on Churches instead of the keep up of the Roman Empire.  When there is no keep up.  Roads, Buildings, ect fall apart and then the vikings came and made Rome even worse
  • ...33 more annotations...
    • Jack S
       
      They had no money to keeps up the aqueducts that lead to dirty water.  They also built with lead pipes which made people sick.  This could be a huge reason why people died.
    • Jack S
       
      they also had to raise taxes to keep up an army and protect the borders.  There were also less people to pay those taxes.  (Final Blows Article)
    • Jack S
       
      In the end there is going to be chaos! People are going to want a leader who is strong and holy to lead them.  They are going to want there country to be the best.
    • Garth Holman
       
      You are so right Jack, From an organized soicety with a centeral government to a place of CHAOS. Well said.
  • Fall of the Roman Empire
    • Garth Holman
       
      Do these sound like anything you see in the world today?  
    • Swathi S
       
      Yes. It is like how technology will most likely take over the world.
    • Alexander R.
       
      It sounds a lot like today. With the technology advancing we get smarter, but when we don't advance our technology we suffer.
    • Garth Holman
       
      What about the Unemployment? Moral Decay and values? Urban Decay? Inflation? Are these part of our world?
    • mukul g
       
      Well most of them are, but not all of these. Unemployment is happening right now in the world. But Moral decay and values are not used today.
    • Garth Holman
       
      Really: google the term Moral Decay in America and see if people think this is happening.
  • Public Health
  • Decline in Morals and Values
  • Political Corruption
  • Unemployment
  • Inflation
  • Urban decay
  • THE FINAL BLOWS For years, the well-disciplined Roman army held the barbarians of Germany back. Then in the third century A. D. the Roman soldiers were pulled back from the Rhine-Danube frontier to fight civil war in Italy. This left the Roman border open to attack. Gradually Germanic hunters and herders from the north began to overtake Roman lands in Greece and Gaul (later France). Then in 476 A. D. the Germanic general Odacer or Odovacar overthrew the last of the Roman Emperors, Augustulus Romulus. From then on the western part of the Empire was ruled by Germanic chieftain. Roads and bridges were left in disrepair and fields left untilled. Pirates and bandits made travel unsafe. Cities could not be maintained without goods from the farms, trade and business began to disappear. And Rome was no more in the West. The total fall of the Roman empire.
  • Inferior Technology
  • Military Spending
    • Margo L
       
      How come nobody went after the attackers?
    • Harsajan Gill
       
      Empire had trouble picking the new throne so they DO NOT have efficient way, so they sell it to ANYBODY who has the highest bid. Before even that they would pick a RANDOM guard to become it if he wins.
    • Harsajan Gill
       
      This led to the other events because instead op picking a system to get it done faster instead of wasting months of choosing who randomly they could still be advancing in government and there organized military.
    • Margo L
       
      I bet the romans were terrified when the people attacked. It must be scary to the Romans because they made a lot of accomplishments.
    • kyle s
       
      It was difficult for choosing an emporer. during the next 100 years they had 37 DIFFERENT emporer and 27 of the 35 were assasinated.
  • most difficult problems
  • choosing
  • new emperor
  • new emperor
  • empero
  • never
  • created
  • effective system
  • determine
  • new emperors
  • began
  • selling
  • throne to
  • highest bidder
  • 37 different emperors
  • assinatio
  • 25 of whom
  •  
    This site explains these ideas in more detail. 
Garth Holman

Castles in Medieval Times - 0 views

  • &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Large stone castles were built in Europe from about the 1100’s to about the 1500’s. These huge buildings served not only to defend the country from foreign invaders but as the basic tool in preserving the king’s and the nobles’ power over the land. The social system was very rigid in the Middle Ages.
  • Under Feudalism, the basic social structure in this time, all land was held by the king. The king gave pieces of this land to various high nobles, in return for their help in fighting his wars or in putting down rebellions. Not only did the higher nobles have to fight for the king themselves, they had to supply a certain number of lesser lords and other knights to help fight also. These higher nobles then gave some of their land to lesser knights, in return for their help in battle. Below all the knights were the serfs, who actually farmed the land. They gave a portion of their crops each year to the lord who ruled over them, in return for use of the land and protection.
  • castles as symbols of their power for all to see.
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  • A man’s son inherited his lands and his obligations to fight
  • The castle was both a residence for the lord and his family, and a fortification. It was a strong place for the lord to defend himself against his enemies (and the king’s enemies, and his overlord’s enemies), a safe place for him and his knights to return to, and a place to live which emphasized his power.
  • &nbsp; Castles were built to keep out enemies. When an attack was expected, the drawbridge was raised, the gates and portcullis were closed, and archers were stationed on the towers.
  • The walls were not only high, in a well-planned castle, but they were arranged as much as possible so that anyone climbing the walls could be shot at from two directions.
  • The castle’s defenses invited a great deal of ingenuity from the attackers. Rolling wooden towers, covered with thick hides to stop arrows and kept wet so they could not be set on fire, were brought up to the walls in an attack. Sometimes they even worked. Catapults threw heavy stones at the walls to make a breach or loads of rocks (or diseased livestock, or fire bombs) over the walls. The battering ram—generally used against a door—was an old favorite.
  • he knights and their servants and their mounts all had to eat, as did the lord, his family, and his servants and officials, and their families. Many castles grew certain types of food inside their walls, to add variety to the diet of those inside the castle, but it was not nearly enough to feed the people in the castle, much less their guests. Castles might have beehives, herb gardens, fruit trees or a fishpond. Because the land inside the castle walls was not enough to feed all these people, they got their food from the peasants who farmed outside, and from hunting. There were restrictions on hunting by the peasants, and sometimes it was forbidden entirely, so that the lord and his retainers would have plenty of game to hunt. Hunting was also a major recreation for the lord and his men.
Kalina P

Cold War - History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts - 0 views

  • “containment.”
  • President Harry Truman (1884-1972) agreed. “It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.”
  • deadly "arms race
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced
  • that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." Stalin followed suit.
  • the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed poisonous radioactive waste into the atmosphere.
  • ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards
  • attack drills in schools and other public places
  • Cold War was a constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
  • first man-made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit.
  • Sputnik
  • 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army
  • Space Race was underwa
  • creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.
  • U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set food on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.
  • hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.
  • forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these "blacklisted" writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade
  • include anyone who worked in the federal government. Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths" became commonplace.
  • military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south
  • but the war dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.
  • . The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial "Third World" Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam, where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the re
  • new approach to international relations.
  • Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywher
  • nstead of viewing the world as a hostile, "bi-polar" place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing. At the same time, he adopted a policy of "détente"–"relaxation"–toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.
  • , he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the worl
  • redefined Russia's relationship to the rest of the world: "glasnost," or political openness, and "perestroika," or economic reform
  • the Berlin Wall–the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.
John Woodbridge

Medieval beliefs about sin and forgiveness » English Lit Resources from Cross... - 1 views

  • Sin, in Christian teaching, consists of disobedience to the known will of God
  • Medieval Church inherited and taught the doctrine of original sin, the belief that all human beings share in collective guilt as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the Fall of Humankind, together with an ongoing predisposition to disobey God
  • needed to be cleansed through baptism
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • taking part in this, believers symbolically shared in the victory paid for – and won by - Christ over the power of sin (known as the atonement).
  • Celebrating mass
  • Everyone
  • sermons that people learnt Bible
  • few laypeople had direct access to the text of the Bible.
  • Sermons had several functions:
  • The idea of purgatory was based on the obvious fact that most people are neither extremely good nor extremely evil.
  • To educate people about the Christian faith and the Church’s rituals and practices To make known the contents of the Bible, the Church’s interpretations of the Bible, and also the lives of saints To help people understand the system of confession and to prepare for their confession to their parish priest in a careful way To explain about sin and virtues.
  • Venial sins were relatively small faults and shortcomings. The individual could confess these privately to God Mortal, or ‘deadly’, sins were wrong acts committed consciously and deliberately. They therefore placed the soul in serious danger and the Church taught that, in normal circumstances, they could only be forgiven through the sacrament of penance and by confession to a priest.
  • believed that being too absorbed in the life of the body and material things was bad for the soul.
  • The simple food monks and nuns were supposed to keep to The regular fasting periods that all Christians observed during the Church year.
  • repentance means the person wants to turn away from undertaking wrong behaviour and actively decides to do so henceforward.
  • The priest would hear the confession and talk to the penitent to ascertain that they truly repented and resolved to do better in future. The priest then pronounced absolution, declaring that Christ forgave the sins of the truly repentant.
  • Penance&nbsp; This means an action which demonstrates that someone has repented of their sins. The priest might order a penitent, for example, to do one of the following for a period: Go on pilgrimage Fast (abstain from food) Donate alms to the Church or the poor.
  • knowledge of the Christian faith came, above all, from preaching and teaching, week by week from parish priests.
  • people,
  • would not go straight to heaven after death either. Instead, they would spend a period in the spiritual state of purgatory where they could ‘pay for’ / atone for sins committed on earth
  • It was believed that, whilst still alive, people could undertake deeds that would speed either themselves (in the future) or a dead friend or relative through this process
  •  
    Discussion of sin, celebration of mass, importance of a sermon, confession, repentance, confession, penance, and purgatory
Cameron G.

The Middle Ages for Kids - Common People, the Manorial System - 1 views

  • If the manor land was sold or reassigned to a new owner, the serfs stayed with the land.
  • Serfs had many jobs on the manor including craftsmen, bakers, farmers, and tax collectors
  • They had to do the job they were assigned to do.&nbsp;
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Serfs could buy their freedom from the manor, but where would they get the money?
  • If a new lord took over the manor, he would need the serfs for labor.
  • Peasants were free to leave if they wished
  • Peasants worked the land and made the goods in exchange for protection.
  • Other than that, their life was just like a serf's life.
  • A few peasants escaped the hard work on the farm by joining the church. But most lived and died on the manor where they were born.
  • Everyone had to pay taxes to the lord
  • To pay the crop tax, some crops went to the lord, and some they kept. To pay the bread tax, some bread they made went to the lord, and some they kept. To pay the coat tax, some of the warm coats they made went to the lord, and some they kept.
  • Everything was paid in barter. Coinage or money did not exist on the manor.&nbsp;
  • People believed that the only way to get to Heaven was to follow the teachings in the Bible.
  • The common people could not read or write.
  • The priest told them who they must marry and when. You had to do everything the priest said if you wanted to get to heaven.&nbsp;
  • peasants and serfs were mostly content with their lot.
  • work kept everyone on the manor fed and comfortable, including themselves.&nbsp;
  • They were not slaves. These people could not be bought and sold. But they could not leave the manor without permission.
Ivy V

Athenian democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 9 views

  • Athens is one of the first known democracies.
  • It remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy where the people do not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but vote on legislation and executive bills in their own right. Participation was by no means open
  • of Athenian freedom. The greatest and longest lasting democratic leader
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. During the 4th century BC, there may well have been some 250,000–300,000 people in Attica. Citizen families may have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 will have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. In the mid-5th century the number of adult male citizens was perhaps as high as 60,000, but this number fell precipitously during the Peloponnesian War.
    • ed h
       
      Population matters to direct democracy
    • arman b
       
      what if the greek didn't have many people?
    • erick j
       
      If Greeks didn't have as many people, they would get more work done.
  • There were three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6000), the council of 500 (boule) and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, but running at least on some occasions up to 6000). Of these three bodies it is the assembly and the courts that were the true sites of power — although courts, unlike the assembly, were never simply called the demos (the People) as they were manned by a subset of the citizen body, those over thirty.
    • erick j
       
      Did wealth matter to your position in government?
    • Mike Pennington
       
      Yes, wealth played a direct role in just how much power you had in ancient Greece. The Patricians, or wealthy, had slightly more power in making decisions and passing laws.
    • glever g
       
      Why did wealth affect anything?
  • Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population (of males) that actually participated in the government was about 20%. This excluded a majority of the population, namely slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics. The women had limited rights and privileges and were not really considered citizens. The restricted movement in public and were very segregated from the men. Also disallowed were citizens whose rights were under suspension (typically for failure to pay a debt to the city: see atimia); for some Athenians this amounted to permanent (and in fact inheritable) disqualification. Still, in contrast with oligarchical societies, there were no real property requirements limiting access
    • molly c
       
      It is interesting to learn that Athenian men had to serve in the military.
    • glever g
       
      Not really if you were in that position then you would think that that would be sensible.
  • The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly (ἐκκλησία ekklêsia). Unlike a parliament, the assembly's members were not elected, but attended by right when they chose. Greek democracy created at Athens was a direct, not a representative democracy: any adult male citizen of age could take part, and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lot. The assembly had four main functions; it made executive pronouncements (decrees, such as deciding to go to war or granting citizenship to a foreigner); it elected some officials; it legislated; and it tried political crimes. As the system evolved these last two functions were shifted to the law courts. The standard format was that of speakers making speeches for and against a position followed by a general vote (usually by show of hands) of yes or no. Though there might be blocs of opinion, sometimes enduring, on crucial issues, there were no political parties and likewise no government or opposition (as in the Westminster system). Voting was by simple majority. In the 5th century at least there were scarcely any limits on the power exercised by the assembly. If the assembly broke the law, the only thing that might happen is that it would punish those who had made the proposal that it had agreed to
    • Garth Holman
       
      Here is some great information about the Assembly of ancient Athens
    • Mike Pennington
       
      Yes Matt, the Athenian government eventually fell during the Peloponnesian Wars. It was weakened by the Persian Wars, but as soon as Sparta truly set it's sights on defeating the every-expanding Athenians they were in danger. The war itself indirectly led to the fall of Athens, during the second and third years of fighting, disease broke out in Athens and devastated the population. It took Sparta and its allies nearly 30 years to destroy the city of Athens. The Spartans also used the help of the Persians.
  •  
    Did the government ever fall or come close to falling?
jclenk

Ancient Civilizations | Ancient History for Kids - 1 views

  • This massive&nbsp;Arid climate&nbsp;makes it a strange place for a large population of people
  • It flows north through the Sahara creating a long oasis in the desert eventually dumping into the Mediterranean Sea
  • The Nile River is the world’s longest river
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • The Nile is divided into sections by&nbsp;cataracts. &nbsp;A cataract is a rocky area that creates a waterfall or rapids. &nbsp;There are six cataracts in the Nile river.
  • &nbsp;As the water level lowered, it would leave behind rich fertile soil for farmers
  • Fresh water, irrigation, fertile soil--this is why people called it the "gift" of the Nile.
  • Around 6000 BCE the climate began to change, which might explain why many humans changed from hunting and gathering to farming. &nbsp;Before civilization, early humans came to the Nile River to hunt, fish, and gather food, but gradually as people learned to farm and domesticate animals (about 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE), and therefore live in permanent settlements, areas around the Nile became more crowded.
  • The change from nomadic hunter-gatherers to civilized living followed the same pattern as other places around the world: farming provided extra food, which allowed the division of labor, which allows the development of government and religion and creates social classes.&nbsp;
  • Historians call them Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt
  • We know so much about the Egyptians because there are so many written resources and because their culture lasted so long with few interruptions
  • Another reason we know so much about Egypt is because they made their architecture out of stone, which has lasted for the most part.&nbsp;
  • Religion was a the center of Egyptian life. &nbsp;Egyptians believed in many Gods, so they were&nbsp;polytheistic.
  • Later Egyptians would call their kings “pharaoh”. &nbsp;Egyptian people believed the pharaoh was a living God, so the Egyptians developed a&nbsp;theocracy, or a government ruled by religious leaders. &nbsp;This is important to understanding why Egyptian people were so willing to give their grain to the Pharaoh and build him or her incredible temples—they thought the Pharaoh was a living God that would be with them forever in eternity.
  • The most well-known ritual was mummification. &nbsp;Egyptians believed in life after death, and they wanted the body to look life-like. &nbsp;Anyone could be mummified if they had enough money
  • Egyptians were a very advanced civilization due to their inventions and technology. &nbsp;Egyptians developed a writing system called&nbsp;hieroglyphs&nbsp;that combined pictures and symbols. &nbsp;Eventually, they created an alphabet from their symbols. &nbsp;In 1822 CE a European explorer found what is called the&nbsp;Rossetta Stone (left picture)--a stone with the same message written in 3 different languages, which finally allowed historians to translate ancient hieroglyphs. Egyptians developed a 365-day calendar and used a number system based on 10. Egyptians figured out amazing ways to cut stone to use in their temples and&nbsp;obelisks. &nbsp;An obelisk is a tall narrow monument that becomes more narrow as it goes up. &nbsp;They created a writing material similar to paper called&nbsp;papyrus&nbsp;from reeds found in the Nile. &nbsp;Egyptians were excellent ship builders and excelled at mathematics. &nbsp;They used fractions, decimals, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and basic ideas of geometry. &nbsp;Egyptian art and architecture is famous and has been reused and copied by many other civilization including Greece, Rome, and even the United States
  • Egyptian life depended on what social class you were a part of.
  • At the top of society was the Pharaoh. &nbsp;Below the Pharaoh was the royal court (Pharaoh's family), high priests, government officials, and scribes and nobles (rich land owners). &nbsp;Below them were doctors and engineers, craftsman, and then farmers and unskilled workers at the bottom. &nbsp;Egyptians did use some slaves, but slavery is hardly mentioned in their writings.
  • Bread was the main food source, but they would have eaten meat during festivals.&nbsp;
  • Egypt's history is divided into six different time periods
  • creating Egypt's first dynasty. &nbsp;He defeated some enemies and united Upper and Lower Egypt into one civilization.
  • One of the first major Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom was Djoser. &nbsp;His temple was one of the first pyramids Egyptians tried to build. &nbsp;It was a "step pyramid" and it started the tradition of building pyramids as a burial ground for Pharaohs. Although the term "Pharaoh" wasn't used until much later, we will keep using it to refer to Egyptian kings.&nbsp; &nbsp;
  • Hatshepsut was a women Pharaoh. &nbsp;Her tomb is an amazingly long ramp leading to a temple that has been cut out of a mountain. &nbsp;Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to start a new religious tradition of worshipping only one God. &nbsp;Worshipping one God is called&nbsp;monotheism. &nbsp;This did not sit well with the polytheistic population that has honored many gods for thousands of years.&nbsp; After Akhenaten's death his monuments were destroyed and his name was removed from the list of kings. Years later he was often referred to as, "the enemy". Akhenaten's son would also become famous, thousands of years later when his tomb was found perfectly preserved. His name was Pharaoh&nbsp;Tutankhamen--he is known and King Tut. He became Pharaoh at age 9 or 10 and ruled for only 9 years.
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