Catégorie : Langues

• Maya Civilization - history.

  III CLASSIC PERIOD Maya Ruins, El SalvadorThe Maya occupied a large part of Central America, and their civilization reached its height between ad 300 and 900. Many ruins ofthe ancient civilization have been excavated in El Salvador, including huge limestone pyramids.Susan McCartney/Photo Researchers, Inc. Classic Maya civilization became more complex in about AD 300 as the population increased and centers in the highlands and the lowlands engaged in both cooperation and competition with each o...

• Mesopotamia - history.

  AssyriaAssyria flourished in the region the ancient Greeks called Mesopotamia. An Assyrian king established what was probably the firstcentrally organized empire in the Middle East, between 1813 and 1780 bc. In defending their territory from nomadic invasions,Assyrians gained a reputation in the ancient Middle East for being relentless and ruthless warriors.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Beginning about 1350 BC, Assyria, a north Mesopotamian kingdom, began to assert itself. Assyr...

• Pyramids (Egypt) - history.

  out, to the king’s burial chamber, which ideally was located directly underneath the pyramid’s center point. Sometimes, in addition to the burial chamber, there werestorage chambers within the pyramid. These chambers held objects used in burial rituals as well as items for the deceased to use in the afterlife. Some of these items werevaluable, and in later years people robbed many of the pyramids and stole the objects. Pyramid of Khafre at GizaThe pyramids at Giza in Egypt are among the best-kno...

• Assyria - history.

  Assyrian ReliefThis Assyrian relief, made of alabaster, was found at the palace of Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad (now in Iraq). It depictstimber from valuable cedars of Lebanon being shipped by sea. More than 2,500 years old, the sculpture is now in the Louvre in Paris,France.Giraudon/Art Resource, NY Assyrian culture resembled that of Babylonia in most respects. Except for the royal annals, for example, Assyrian literature was practically identical with its Babyloniancounterpart, and the...

• Aztec Empire - history.

  and Tlacopan. In 1428 the triple alliance defeated the Tepaneca. Under the Mexica ruler Itzcoatl, his successor Montezuma I, and the Texcocan ruler Netzahualcóyotl, thethree states waged a series of conquests. They eventually established an empire that extended from central Mexico to the Guatemalan border and included many differentstates and ethnic groups, who were forced to pay tribute to the alliance. Tenochtitlán became the dominant power within the alliance. IV AZTEC CIVILIZATION Aztec soc...

• Babylonia - history.

  Below the house was often located a mausoleum in which the family dead were buried. The Babylonians believed that the souls of the dead traveled to the nether world,and that, at least to some extent, life continued there as on earth. For this reason, pots, tools, weapons, and jewels were buried with the dead. B Technology The Babylonians inherited the technical achievements of the Sumerians in irrigation and agriculture. Maintaining the system of canals, dikes, weirs, and reservoirsconstructed...

• Greek Art and Architecture - history.

  powerful independent city-states. From 334 to 323 BC, Alexander the Great extended his father's empire into Asia Minor (now Turkey), Syria, Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan, and as far as India. D The Hellenistic Period (323-31 BC) Although Alexander the Great extended Greek civilization far beyond the Greek mainland and the boundaries of the Aegean Sea, his empire did not survive his death in 323.After Alexander died, his generals and successors divided the empire into a number of kingdoms: Ptolem...

• Ancient Greece - history.

  Palace of KnossosThe ancient city of Knossos was a center of the Minoan civilization, an advanced society on Crete named after Minos, a legendaryCretan king. Skilled in such fields as engineering and architecture, the Minoans constructed the palace at Knossos in 1700 bc. Aserious fire at least three centuries later caused the collapse of the palace and foreshadowed the subsequent decline of the city.Wolfgang Kaehler Settlers had begun sailing from Asia Minor to Crete about 6000 BC because the i...

• Ancient Egypt - history.

  The Nile River runs through the ancient city of Thebes in eastern Egypt. For a time, beginning in 2040 bc, Thebes was the capital ofEgypt.Farrell Grehan/Photo Researchers, Inc. According to inscriptions and documents found by archaeologists, the Egyptians called their country Kemet, meaning “the Black Land,” a reference to the dark, fertile soil that remained after the Nile floodwaters had receded. They also used another term, Deshret, or “the Red Land,” a designation for the desert sands th...

• Zululand - history.

  however, and had to be satisfied with constant raids and with the payment of tribute. Defeated or terrified chiefdoms who attempted to move out of the range of the Zuluarmies added to the general confusion and devastation of southeastern Africa. In 1824 a small British trading settlement was established at Port Natal (later Durban), which fatefully connected Zululand to the colonial world. Shaka welcomed the Britishhunters and traders as suppliers of exotic goods and, because they had firearms,...

• Acropolis - history.

  Peloponnesian War, between Athens and an alliance led by Sparta, finally broke out in 431 BC. Sparta’s alliance defeated Athens, and the Propylaea was never completed. Greek Architectural OrdersThe ancient Greeks developed three major architectural styles, or orders, that determined the major features of a temple facade. TheDoric is the oldest and simplest order. The Ionic and Corinthian orders added a base to the column and developed a more elaboratescheme for the column’s capital. The entabl...

• Aegean Civilization - history.

  powers of the sea, which was central to Cycladic life. IV HISTORICAL RECORD Recent archaeological discoveries, such as the excavated village of Dimini in Thessaly, produced material evidence of a cultural progression from the Neolithic (New StoneAge) to the Bronze Age, which commenced about 3000 BC and of which three phases were recognized: Early, Middle, and Late. A Early Bronze Age Cycladic FigureStylized marble figures, like this one, are distinctive of Cycladic culture, the earliest cultur...

• Jomo Kenyatta - history.

  the challenge to his leadership and appealed for Kikuyu ethnic solidarity. The 1969 assassination of cabinet minister Tom Mboya—a Luo ally of Kenyatta’s—by a Kikuyu ledto months of tension and violence between the Luo and the Kikuyu. Kenyatta banned Odinga’s party, detained its leaders, and called elections in which only KANU wasallowed to participate. For the remainder of his presidency, Kenya was effectively a one-party state, and Kenyatta made use of detention, appeals to ethnic loyalties, an...

• Kwame Nkrumah - history.

  Nkrumah guided the Gold Coast to independence in 1957 under the name Ghana, after an ancient West African empire. IV RULER OF GHANA Nkrumah built a strong central government and attempted to unify the country politically and to muster all its resources for rapid economic development. As a proponent ofPan-Africanism, he sought the liberation of the entire continent from colonial rule, offered generous assistance to other African nationalists, and initially pursued a policy ofnonalignment with ei...

• Mfecane - history.

  they were broken up around 1822 by the Mpondo, under Faku. In 1819 the Zulu defeated the Ndwandwe and took over their former territory. The Ndwandwe were forced north across the Phongolo River. A group of Ndwandwe refugees,led by Soshangane, fled into what is now southern Mozambique, where they overran the local Tsonga people and became known as the Gaza. Soshangane went on to createthe Gaza Empire, which stretched along the coast from Delagoa Bay to the lower Zambezi. In 1826 other Ndwandwe gro...

• Mobutu Sese Seko - history.

  Moroccan and Belgian troops and American and French military assistance. His political opponents formed the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) in 1982, butthe party’s leaders were continually harassed and imprisoned throughout the 1980s. Mobutu consolidated his power by sharing the country’s wealth with political allies, asystem often described as a kleptocracy. Reportedly absconding with billions of dollars in Western aid and export earnings generated by the country's mineral wealth...

• Pan-Africanism - history.

  Edward Wilmot BlydenEdward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) was an early proponent of Pan-Africanism and a leading black intellectual and scholar of Africanculture. Born in the Virgin Islands, Blyden moved to the West African nation of Liberia in 1851 and promoted the repatriation of freeAmerican blacks to Liberia. He hoped that Liberia, as an independent black-ruled nation, would become a beacon of Pan-Africanism,displaying the great achievements of Africans and people of African descent.Library of Co...

• Scramble for Africa - history.

  Sir Henry Morton StanleyAnglo-American explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley was a key figure in the Scramble for Africa. His late 19th-century exploration anddevelopment of the lower Congo River in the name of Belgian king Leopold II led to the creation of the huge Congo Free State asLeopold’s personal property.THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE European competition over African territory in the 1870s heightened once Belgian king Leopold II got involved. Merchants under French government protection had beenadvan...

• Shaka - history.

  eliminate internal opponents, and he crushed and dispersed several groups. In 1827 the death of his mother, Nandi, and his subsequent declaration of mandatory publicmourning again served as an excuse for Shaka to execute his rivals and critics. Such actions, however, simply encouraged others who felt threatened to conspire againsthim. Even his amabutho began turning against him because they were exhausted by the incessant campaigns and wanted an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of theirconquests....

• Slavery in Africa - history.

  Arab Slave TradersThis 19th-century engraving depicts an Arab slave trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara. The trans-Saharan slave trade developed in the 7th and 8th centuries, as Muslim Arabs conquered most of North Africa. The trade grewsignificantly from the 10th to the 15th century and peaked in the mid-19th century.Archive Photos The spread of Islam from Arabia into Africa after the religion’s founding in the 7th century AD affected the practice of slavery and...