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Between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death raged through Medieval Europe. Historians and biologists have traced the origins of this deadly pandemic to the remote steppes of Central Asia. Plague had certainly erupted there by 1331 but how exactly did it spread from East to West? After ravaging Central Asia, the plague descended on China, India and Persia. In China alone, the plague killed around half of the human population. Despite such destruction, commercial activities continued unabated. This meant that the traders, their vessels and the rats aboard became the agents of infection. As they travelled along the established trade routes of the medieval world, they unwittingly carried the plague with them.

For several years, the Mongols had allowed a group of merchants from Genoa to control Kaffa, a bustling seaport on the Crimean Peninsula. This was highly advantageous for the Mongols as it provided a direct link to Italy’s largest commercial centre and encouraged trade across all corners of their vast empire. Tensions and disagreements, however, were a common feature of this commercial relationship, arising primarily from their religious differences; the Italians were devoutly Christian and the Mongols had been practising Muslims since the 1200s.

‘This Pestilential Disease’

On their yielding the town he had engaged to grant their life, adding that if the Sultan carried out the bargain he would give them freedom and suffer them to carry off their children and wives; if the Sultan did not fulfill his engagements they were to be made slaves.

in his heart,

Turcoples

Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.

They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people.

geography" comes to us from the ancient Greeks,

had been isolated from each other for 10,000 years.

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

On this day in 1128, Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God. 

the Knights Templar organization was founded in 1118. Its self-imposed mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land during the Crusades, the series of military expeditions aimed at defeating Muslims in Palestine. The Templars took their name from the location of their headquarters, at Jerusalem's Temple Mount. For a while, the Templars had only nine members, mostly due to their rigid rules. In addition to having noble birth, the knights were required to take strict vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. In 1127, new promotional efforts convinced many more noblemen to join the order, gradually increasing its size and influence.

While the individual knights were not allowed to own property, there was no such restriction on the organization as a whole, and over the years many rich Christians gave gifts of land and other valuables to support the Knights Templar. By the time the Crusades ended unsuccessfully in the early 14th century, the order had grown extremely wealthy, provoking the jealousy of both religious and secular powers. In 1307, King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V combined to take down the Knights Templar, arresting the grand master, Jacques de Molay, on charges of heresy, sacrilege and Satanism. Under torture, Molay and other leading Templars confessed and were eventually burned at the stake. Clement dissolved the Templars in 1312, assigning their property and monetary assets to a rival order, the Knights Hospitalers. In fact, though, Philip and his English counterpart, King Edward II, claimed most of the wealth after banning the organization from their respective countries.          

The popular statement, " From here to Timbuktu." conjures up images of remote, isolated and distant parts of this earth. Very few people are aware of this ancient city's location, and fewer still ascribe any kind of civilization to this historic area. Timbuktu is located in the western African nation of Mali at the edge of the sahara.

The historic town of Timbuktu is located at the precise point where the Niger flows northward into the southern edge of the desert. As a result of its unique geographical position, Timbuktu has been a natural meeting point of Songhai, Wangara,Fulani, Tuareg and Arabs. According to the inhabitants of Timbuku, gold came from the south, the salt from the north and the Divine knowledge, from Timbuktu. Timbuktu is also the cross-road where "the camel met the canoe." It is to this privilege position that the city owes much of its historical dynamism. From the 11th century and onward, Timbuktu became an important port where goods from West Africa and North Africa were traded.

Goods coming the Mediterranean shores and salt were traded in Timbuktu for gold. The prosperity of the city attracted both black scholars, blacks merchants and Arabs traders from North Africa. Salt, books and gold were very much in demand at that time.

Performing these rituals, known as the Hajj, is the fifth pillar of Islam and the most significant manifestation of Islamic faith and unity. Undertaking the Hajj at least once is a duty for Muslims who are physically and financially able to make the journey to Makkah.

The pilgrimage is the religious high point of a Muslim's life and an event that every Muslim dreams of undertaking.