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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The date 23 April 1616 marked the end of two eras in world literature; for on that day, two giants of Renaissance letters died. Poet and playwright William Shakespeare died in his home at Stratford-upon-Avon. Farther south, Spanish poet, playwright, and novelist Miguel de Cervantes also passed away.
This Day in World History
Painter, sketch artist, sculptor, architect, civil and military engineer, cartographer, anatomist, physical scientist, botanist, geologist, mathematician, and more — Leonardo da Vinci defined the phrase “Renaissance man.” Born on April 15, 1452, and dying at 67, he produced a body of work that remains unrivaled. Giorgio Vasari, biographer of the great Italian artists of the Renaissance, aptly called Leonardo “truly marvelous and celestial.”
This Day in World History
On April 12, 1204, French and Italian Crusaders breached the walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and one of the richest cities in the world. Their capture of this rich prize launched one of the most destructive sacks of a city in history. But why did Crusaders who set off to win control of the Holy Land from Muslims attach the chief city of the Eastern Orthodox Church?
By Sarah Gregson
It is often said of military wars that the first casualty is truth. As we approach the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic and the war of ideas that often surrounds this tragedy, it is to be hoped that the truth will at least take a few prisoners. Titanic myths have had extraordinary longevity and, as Cox put it, ‘virtually everything that people know, or think they know … can be traced to the press coverage of April-August 1912’. In the lead up to the centenary, however, perhaps some commentators will read some of the work that has been done to challenge these misconceptions.
This Day in World History
On April 10, 1516, the government of Venice officially confined the city’s Jews to one small area of the city—the first Jewish ghetto. This area remained the required home to the city’s Jews until Napoleon took the city in 1797 and abolished it. Nevertheless, the old ghetto remains the center of Venetian Jewry.
By Gerard Toal
Twenty years ago this week, ethnic cleansing began in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Though there were numerous instances of ethnicized violence before this, it was the northeastern town of Bijeljina that became ground zero for a practice the Bosnian war would make infamous. The pre-war population of the municipality was 57,389 (59% Serb), 30,229 (31% Muslim), with approximately ten thousand others who identified themselves as Yugoslavs (the forgotten identity in Bosnia), Croats (only 490) and persons of other or unknown nationality. The recitation of the 1991 census numbers is relevant only because nationality categories mattered to the perpetrators who fell upon Bijeljina and tore it apart.
This Day in World History
On January 2, 1492, Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile, completed La Reconquista (the Reconquest) — the Christian victory over Muslims in Spain — by forcing the surrender of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold. Less than two months later, they signed a decree that signaled the end of the toleration of another religious group within their lands. On March 30, they ordered that all of Spain’s Jews had to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. And those Jews had just four months to make their choices.
This Day in World History
In the wake of France’s defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War, workers and students of Paris joined together to form a revolutionary government called the Paris Commune. Elected on March 26, the Commune was in direct opposition to the conservative national government. Some historians call the period of the Commune’s rule the first working-class revolt. Though historic, the rebellion failed.
This Day in World History
Chafing from four centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire and taking advantage of the Ottoman army’s need to suppress a rebellious local official, the Greek organization Filike Etaireia ( “Friendly Brotherhood”) launched revolts across Greece on March 25, 1821. While it took years for the Greeks to win independence, the day the revolt began is still celebrated as Greek Independence Day.
The Trojan War. The history of piracy. The great naval battles between Carthage and Rome. The Jewish Diaspora into Hellenistic worlds. The rise of Islam. The Grand Tours of the 19th century. The mass tourism of the 20th. We may have missed World Maritime Day on March 17, but we can still admire the watery wonder of the sea and its peoples. And now a quick quiz on the history of the Mediterranean…
This Day in World History
For five years, beginning in 1629, a small group of writers gathered in Paris to discuss literary topics. The group soon came to the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the French throne and a wealthy patron of the arts. He suggested that the body become official, an idea the group grudgingly accepted. On March 13, 1634, they formally constituted themselves as the Académie Française. The Academy has been in operation ever since except for a ten-year hiatus during the French Revolution. The following year they received a charter from the king.
This Day in World History
When his father, Nicholas I, died of pneumonia, Alexander Nikolayevich Romanov succeeded to the throne of emperor of Russia, becoming Czar Alexander II. While his 36-year rule was marked by substantial reforms, it was also dogged by unrest and several assassination attempts.
By Natalia Nowakowska
As the Catholic Church embarks this month upon its observance of Lent, many congregations will be holding in their hands brand new, bright red liturgical books — copies of the new English translation of the Roman Missal (the service book for Catholic Mass), introduced throughout the English-speaking world at the end of 2011 on the instructions of the Vatican.
This Day in World History
On February 26, 1924, Adolf Hitler and nine associates stood trial in a Munich courtroom. The charge was treason — they were accused of trying to overthrow the German republic. That day, Hitler turned the tables to accuse the German leaders who had surrendered in 1918, ending World War I, and created the republican government he so despised: “There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918,” he proclaimed.
This Day in World History
For thirty years, Joseph Stalin had ruled the Soviet Union unchallenged. Less than three years after his death, new Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev shocked the Twentieth Communist Party Congress with a long, angry speech that denounced Stalin.
This Day in World History
Sixty-nine years old, wracked by sciatica, weary of controversy, Galileo Galilei entered Rome on February 13, 1633. He had been summoned by Pope Urban VIII to an Inquisition investigating his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. The charge was heresy. The cause was Galileo’s support of the Copernican theory that the planets, including Earth, revolved around the sun.