826 résultats pour "century"
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Arabic Literature
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INTRODUCTION
Arabic Literature, literature written in the Arabic language, from the 6th century to the present.
The life of the Prophet Muhammad also generated its own literary sources, primary among which is the hadith. The hadiths were a collection of the Prophet's sayings and actions, transmitted through a chain of authorities said to go back to Muhammad himself. The two most famous collections of hadiths are those of al-Bukhari andMuslim in the 9th century. These works provide a wealth of information covering all aspects of a Muslim's life, from prayer to personal, social, and business conduct. The...
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Italian Literature
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INTRODUCTION
Italian Literature, literature written in the Italian language from about the 13th century to the present.
Dante’s Inferno and PurgatoryThis illustration comes from a late Gothic edition of The Divine Comedy by the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Lucifer,the devil, is at the center of Earth, and the mouth of hell, the inferno, opens below him. At the opposite pole is a mountainleading to purgatory. The manuscript is in the National Library in Florence, Italy.Scala/Art Resource, NY Dante is one of the great figures of world literature. He is remarkable for the loftiness of his thought, the vividne...
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English Literature
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INTRODUCTION
English Literature, literature produced in England, from the introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present.
evident. That feature is typical of other Old English literature, for almost all of what survives was preserved by monastic copyists. Most of it was actually composed byreligious writers after the early conversion of the people from their faith in the older Germanic divinities. Sacred legend and story were reduced to verse in poems resembling Beowulf in form. At first such verse was rendered in the somewhat simple, stark style of the poems of Caedmon, a humble man of the late 7th century who w...
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Modern Art
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INTRODUCTION
American Gothic
American Gothic was painted by the 20th-century American artist Grant Wood in 1930.
while at the other side a woman in black appears to mourn the end of her participation in the dance. Click on the buttonsto learn more.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. In view of this diversity, it is difficult to define modern art in a way that includes all of 20th-century Western art. For some critics, the most important characteristic ofmodern art is its attempt to make painting and sculpture ends in themselves, thus distinguishing modernism from earlier forms of art that had con...
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German Literature
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INTRODUCTION
German Literature, literature written in the German language from the 8th century to the present, and including the works of German, Austrian, and Swiss authors.
Till EulenspiegelThe medieval peasant Till Eulenspiegel appears in many German folktales as a trickster who outwits people in positions ofauthority. In this image his first name is spelled Tyll.Keystone Pressedienst GmbH The rise of the middle class in the 14th and 15th centuries and the struggles of the peasants against the nobility culminated in the great 16th-century religiousrevolution known as the Reformation. This movement was reflected in literature, especially by Martin Luther, whose tra...
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Industrial Revolution
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INTRODUCTION
Industrial Revolution, widespread replacement of manual labor by machines that began in Britain in the 18th century and is still continuing in some parts of the world.
The most important advance in iron production occurred in 1784 when Englishman Henry Cort invented new techniques for rolling raw iron, a finishing process thatshapes iron into the desired size and form. These advances in metalworking were an important part of industrialization. They enabled iron, which was relativelyinexpensive and abundant, to be used in many new ways, such as building heavy machinery. Iron was well suited for heavy machinery because of its strength anddurability. Because of t...
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Modern Dance
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INTRODUCTION
Modern Dance, tradition of theatrical dance unique to the 20th century.
Though both had their own interests and styles, their collaboration helped establish modern dance as a 20th-century artform. Shawn helped overcome prejudices against men in the new field of modern dance.E.O. Hoppé/Corbis Because a dance language involves elements such as posture, use of the body’s weight, and the character of movements (sinuous, angular, and so forth)—as well asspecific movements of the head, torso, hands, arms, legs, and feet—most creators of modern dance have considered it ess...
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Baroque Art and Architecture
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INTRODUCTION
German Baroque Architecture
The baroque style of architecture flourished in Germany in the 18th century.
C Early baroque styles Conversion of Saint PaulItalian baroque painter Caravaggio painted scenes of realism and drama, often selecting lofty, religious themes anddepicting them with lower-class characters and settings with dramatic spotlighting. With its unidealized characters andfocus on the horse’s body, his Conversion of Saint Paul seems to record a stable accident, not a miraculous conversion byGod. This work was painted in 1601 and is in the Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, Ita...
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Tragedy
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INTRODUCTION
Euripides
Unlike other 5th-century BC Greek playwrights, tragic poet Euripides addressed the plight of the common people, rather
than that of mythic heroes.
SenecaSeneca was a Roman philosopher, dramatist, and statesman. His tragedies later influenced Renaissance dramatists,including William Shakespeare. The bust of Seneca shown here is a Roman copy of a Greek original.Art Resource, NY Aeschylus is one of the best known of the ancient Greek tragic playwrights. The author of some 90 plays, he established many of the conventions of the tragic dramaticform, which he perfected throughout his career. Aeschylus's skillful use of poetic language and brilli...
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Indian Music
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INTRODUCTION
Classical Dance of South India
The southern Indian kathakali is a dance drama that dates from the 17th century.
Sangita Ratnakara, was written in the 13th century. However, subsequent writers tended to focus on the emotional connotations of individual ragas, associating them with moods, performance times, colors, and deities, and grouping them in terms of families. The modern theoretical system began in the 16th century, when ragasbegan to be classified according to scale—72 in the Karnāṭak system and 10 principal ones in the Hindustani. The 72 mela, as the Karn āṭak scales are called, are derived thro...
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Art Nouveau
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INTRODUCTION
Detail of Art Nouveau Decoration
This detail of a door decoration from a building constructed in the early 20th century in Milan, Italy, illustrates the stylistic
themes associated with art nouveau.
Wallpaper by William MorrisIn the early 19th century manufacturers began to mass-produce wallpaper, and the quality of designs suffered. WilliamMorris, a British artist who had become interested in the design of household furnishings and items for everyday use,began to create handmade wallpapers that he integrated into the overall design of the home. This artichoke design isbased on stylized plant motifs, a common theme in art nouveau designs.Art Resource, NY Art nouveau in Britain evolved out o...
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Winston Churchill
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INTRODUCTION
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945, 1951-1955), widely regarded as the greatest British leader of
the 20th century.
sufficient tools to break the stalemate on the western front and he worked on developing armored fighting vehicles (tanks) to break the deadlock and end theslaughter. As the lines hardened on the western front, Churchill focused on a campaign to force open the Dardanelles Strait, controlled by the Ottoman Empire, to give the Allies adirect route to Russia through the Black Sea. Such a move would bring much-needed supplies to the Russian armies and eliminate the Ottomans from the war. Whenthe nav...
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Geoffrey Chaucer
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INTRODUCTION
Geoffrey Chaucer
Fourteenth-century English poet and public servant Geoffrey Chaucer wrote verse renowned for its humor, understanding
of human character, and innovations in poetic vocabulary and meter.
Tale of the Wife of BathThe Canterbury Tales by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer contains 22 verse tales and 2 prose tales presumably told bypilgrims to pass the time on their way to visit a shrine in Canterbury, England. An excerpt from the tale of the Wife ofBath is heard here. The wife relates that she has been married and widowed five times but the church has recognized onlyone marriage. You can follow the Middle English text and modern translation as you listen to the audio excerpt.The Wife of...
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Japanese Literature
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INTRODUCTION
Japanese Literature, literature of Japan, in written form from at least the 8th century
AD
to the present.
The Man’yō’sh ū contains about 4,500 poems, most of them composed in the Nara period (710-784). Some of the poems are far older, however, and some of the verses date to earlier collections that have not survived. The work demonstrates a gradual change from basic verses on simple subjects to more sophisticated expressions with a broad range of subject matter. This text also shows the development of poetic forms such as the tanka (short poem), a form structured around alternating lines of 5 an...
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Mesopotamian Art and Architecture
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INTRODUCTION
Mesopotamian Art and Architecture, the arts and buildings of the ancient Middle Eastern civilizations that developed in the area (now Iraq) between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers from prehistory to the 6th century
BC.
arts. III EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD Figures from Tell AsmarCreated around 2700 bc, these stone figures are from the city of Tell Asmar in what today is Iraq. From the Temple ofAbu, the statuettes stood in watchful prayer with the wide, staring eyes often found in Sumerian sculpture. The figuresare in the Iraq Museum, Baghdād, Iraq.Art Resource, NY The first historical epoch of Sumerian dominance lasted from about 3000 BC until about 2340 BC. While earlier architectural traditions continued, a ne...
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Richard Wagner
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INTRODUCTION
Richard Wagner (1813-1883), German composer, conductor, and essayist, one of the most influential cultural figures of the 19th century.
May 1864 he was summoned to Munich by the 18-year-old King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who settled Wagner's debts, paid him a generous allowance, and provided himwith housing. Wagner was soon joined in his new home by Cosima von Bülow, Liszt’s daughter and the wife of German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow. Wagnerand Cosima began a relationship that produced three children before the dissolution of the Bülows' marriage in 1870. Mounting hostility toward Wagner by members ofLudwig’s court resulted...
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- World Chess Champions, 1859-present The world chess champion was an informal title from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.
- England in XVIII century
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William Faulkner
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INTRODUCTION
William Faulkner
Twentieth-century American novelist William Faulkner wrote novels that explored the tensions between the old and the
new in the American South.
Faulkner’s “powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel.” He also wrote numerous short stories, many of the best of which werepublished in book form in Go Down, Moses (1942) and The Collected Stories (1950; Pulitzer Prize, 1951). In-between his fiction works, which until late in his career did not always pay well, Faulkner wrote screenplays for Hollywood; two of his more prominent scripts were for the motion pictures To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big S...
- LA 20th CENTURY-FOX
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Igor Stravinsky
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INTRODUCTION
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian American composer, one of the most influential figures of music in the 20th century.
Schoenberg's disciple, the Austrian composer Anton Webern. Gradually Stravinsky drew more and more on serial techniques—integrating them into his own approach,as he had done with every previous musical influence—in works such as the cantata Threni (1958), the Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1959), and his last major work, the Requiem Canticles (1966). In 1967, in his mid-80s and failing in health, Stravinsky conducted a recording of his music for the last time. He died on April 6, 1971,...
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Mao Zedong
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INTRODUCTION
Mao Zedong (1893-1976), foremost Chinese Communist leader of the 20th century and the principal founder of the People's Republic of China.
outside the government was also muted because the educated elite remembered the turmoil of the “Hundred Flowers” and “Antirightist” campaigns of 1957. Mao’srelationship with intellectuals was an uneasy one, and he was critical of the gap between the lives of the urban educated elite and the rural masses. These tensions wereamong the underlying causes of the Cultural Revolution, a period of social unrest and political persecution launched by Mao in 1966. Mao mobilized youth into the RedGuards to...
- Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), American motion-picture actor, who became the most famous international sex symbol of the 20th century.
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), German American architect, the leading and most influential exponent of the glass and steel architecture of the 20th-century International style.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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INTRODUCTION
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an 18th-century Austrian classical composer and one of the most famous musicians of all time,
came from a family of musicians that included his father and sister.
The opera, Mitridati, rè di Ponto (Mithridates, King of Pontus), was produced in 1770 in Milan under Mozart’s direction with success. Also that year the pope made Mozart a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur. A Salzburg and Germany From 1775 to 1780 Mozart was based mainly in Salzburg working for the archbishop Hieronymous von Colloredo. Although dissatisfied with the low pay and limitedopportunities his employment offered, Mozart composed many works during this period, including his first...
- Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Aenesidemus (1st century BC)
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Ernest Hemingway
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INTRODUCTION
Ernest Hemingway
Twentieth-century American author Ernest Hemingway wrote novels and stories that reflected his rich life experiences as
a war correspondent, outdoor sportsman, and bullfight enthusiast.
In his early work Hemingway used themes of helplessness and defeat, but in the late 1930s his writing began to reflect concerns about social problems. His novel To Have and Have Not (1937) and his play The Fifth Column, published in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938), strongly condemned economic and political injustice. Two of his best short stories, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” were part of the story collection. In thecla...
- Maria Callas Maria Callas (1923-1977), American-born Greek operatic soprano, the preeminent prima donna (lead female opera singer) of her day, and the first modern soprano to revive forgotten operas of the 19th-century bel canto repertoire.
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Rome (Italy) - geography.
country’s best, and in the summer at the Baths of Caracalla. The city also has some 20 theaters and 6 major concert halls, which offer a varied repertory during the fall,winter, and spring. The museums of the city deal with all aspects of the arts and sciences and are among the world’s finest. The oldest art collection in Rome, housed in the CapitolineMuseum, was established in 1471 and contains exceptional antiquities. Among other Roman museums are the National Museum of the Villa Giulia, which...
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Portraiture
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INTRODUCTION
Portraiture, visual representation of individual people, distinguished by references to the subject's character, social position, wealth, or profession.
CaracallaCaracalla is a Roman portrait bust in marble of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, probably done circa ad 215. Theson of Septimius Severus, Caracalla (as he was known) was a brutal man whose qualities come through in this piece withits dramatic realism. The bust, which is now in the Louvre, Paris, evidently served as the inspiration for Michelangelo’sbust of Brutus more than one thousand years later.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York The first representations of identifiable ind...
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Book
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INTRODUCTION
Kelmscott Chaucer
The Kelmscott Chaucer was published in 1896 by William Morris' company, the Kelmscott Press.
B Medieval European Books Illustration of Saint Mark in the Ebbo GospelsThis is a page from the illuminated manuscript known as the Ebbo Gospels (about 816-835). It depicts Saint Mark lookingheavenward for inspiration as he writes his gospel account, and is drawn in an expressive, energetic style typical ofmedieval art of that period. The full name of the Ebbo Gospels is the Gospel Book of Archbishop Ebbo of Reims. This pagemeasures about 25 by 20 cm (about 10 by 8 in).Bridgeman Art Library, Lo...
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Western Music
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INTRODUCTION
Bizet's Carmen
Georges Bizet's Carmen, first performed in Paris in 1875, was a milestone in the history of French opera.
church ceremonies during the period from the 5th to the 7th century. Roman chant became known as Gregorian chant after Pope Gregory I, the Great, who may havecomposed some of the melodies and who actively encouraged an orderly, ritualized use of music by the church. Because Gregory and later popes preferred Gregorianchant to the varieties that had developed elsewhere in Europe, Gregorian chant eventually superseded most of the others. Gregorian and other chant styles arepreserved in many manuscr...
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Metropolitan Museum of Art.
B Ancient Near Eastern Art The objects in this department range from a vast geographical area in southwest Asia and northeast Africa from around 5000 BC to around AD 600. Notable works include Assyrian reliefs from the palace of King Ashurnasirpal II at Calah (now Nimrud, Iraq), Sumerian sculpture, Anatolian ivories, Iranian bronzes, and Achaemenidand Sassanian works in silver and gold. C Arms and Armor This department is renowned for its collection of European armor from the Middle Ages (5t...
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Puzzle.
Visual puzzles involve searching a picture to find hidden or disguised figures or answering a question about some part of a visual illusion. For instance, the popular 19th- century prints of American lithographic company Currier & Ives featured hidden people, animals, and other objects. A 16th-century painting from Bukhara, Uzbekistan,of a camel includes hidden figures of 17 people, 10 rabbits, a monkey, and a dragon (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City). B Mathematical Puzzles and Logic...
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Geographic Exploration.
The commercial reason for exploration has been a consistent driving force. In 1492 the great navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic Oceanseeking a new, shorter, and cheaper route to reach the riches of East Asia, and Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa for much the same reason.Yet similar investigations of the profitable eastern trade had already been made by Arab sailors. Arab trading ships were sailing from the Arabian Sea to southeasternAsia probab...
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Geographic Exploration - explorer.
The commercial reason for exploration has been a consistent driving force. In 1492 the great navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic Oceanseeking a new, shorter, and cheaper route to reach the riches of East Asia, and Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa for much the same reason.Yet similar investigations of the profitable eastern trade had already been made by Arab sailors. Arab trading ships were sailing from the Arabian Sea to southeasternAsia probab...
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Slavery in Africa.
The spread of Islam from Arabia into Africa after the religion’s founding in the 7th century AD affected the practice of slavery and slave trading in West, Central, and East Africa. Arabs had practiced slave raiding and trading in Arabia for centuries prior to the founding of Islam, and slavery became a component of Islamic traditions.Both the Qur'an (Koran) (the sacred scripture of Islam) and Islamic religious law served to codify and justify the existence of slavery. As Muslim Arabs conquered...
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Protestantism.
F England The Anglican Church became the established church in England when Henry VIII assumed (1534) the ecclesiastical authority over the English church that had previouslybeen exercised by the pope. Henry’s motive was to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragón rather than to reform church doctrine, and he imposed severe lawsupholding the major tenets of medieval Catholicism. Under King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, however, the Anglican Church developed a distinctly Protestant creedthat w...
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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...
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Capitalism.
Physiocracy is the term applied to a school of economic thought that suggested the existence of a natural order in economics, one that does not require direction from the state for people to be prosperous. The leader of the physiocrats, the economist François Quesnay, set forth the basic principles in his Tableau économique (1758), in which he traced the flow of money and goods through the economy. Simply put, this flow was seen to be both circular and self-sustaining. More important, however...
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Toys.
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INTRODUCTION
Toys, objects that serve as playthings for children. Although the
clay. These readily available elements were also used to make more elaborate toys as human society advanced. Archaeologists have found primitive, handmade toys such as wooden or cloth dolls, clay marbles, and terracotta figures that date back thousands of years. In ancientEgypt, Greece, and Rome, people placed dolls or clay figures in the graves or tombs of children for them to play with in the afterlife. The yo-yo may seem like a 20th-century fad, but it actually dates back at least 2,500 years...
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Ship.
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INTRODUCTION
Ship, vessel that is buoyant in the water and used
B1 Biremes Experience soon proved that longer ships posed a new set of problems: They were weaker structurally, more difficult to maneuver, and presented a larger target to anyenemy ship with a ram. In the 8th century BC Mediterranean shipbuilders eliminated these problems with the bireme , a war galley built to accommodate two levels, or banks , of oarsmen. Oarsmen on the lower level rowed oars from ports cut into the side of the vessel, while those above rowed from the deck. This arrangemen...
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Renaissance
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INTRODUCTION
Renaissance, series of literary and cultural movements in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.
the great writings of ancient Greece and Rome. Intellectuals continued to build on the ideas of the Renaissance during the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, a time when scientific advancements led to a newemphasis on the power of human reason. One of the early Enlightenment thinkers was French philosopher and writer Voltaire. He claimed that the Renaissance was acrucial stage in liberating the mind from the superstition and error that he believed characterized Christian society during the Middl...
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Renaissance .
the great writings of ancient Greece and Rome. Intellectuals continued to build on the ideas of the Renaissance during the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, a time when scientific advancements led to a newemphasis on the power of human reason. One of the early Enlightenment thinkers was French philosopher and writer Voltaire. He claimed that the Renaissance was acrucial stage in liberating the mind from the superstition and error that he believed characterized Christian society during the Middl...
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Acting
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INTRODUCTION
Lee Strasberg
American acting teacher Lee Strasberg was best known for his association with the Actors Studio, of which he became the
artistic director in 1951.
truthfully felt those emotions at the moment they expressed them. Finding the true feeling in the proper place and time on stage, however, was a problem that Aristotleaddressed less well. He concluded that acting was an occupation for the gifted or insane. How to cross the artistic boundary beyond feigned emotions and flat imitation obsessed many Greek actors. In 315 BC the tragedian Polus carried the real ashes of his recently deceased son in an urn to stimulate a sense of genuine grief when h...
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Silk Road - History.
and high in value because they were carried on the backs of the limited number of camels in each caravan. Thus, of necessity they were luxury items, not bulky rawmaterials or essential goods for daily use. The oases and towns along the route, which were located in or near remote areas, profited from the Silk Road trade and reliedon it for their existence. The great empires of Persia, China, and Rome, however, could easily have survived without the commerce in luxury goods. V SPREAD OF RELIGION A...
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Greek Art and Architecture - USA History.
The struggle between these two city-states and their allies ultimately led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), which Sparta won. Despite this conflict, the 5th century, often called the Classical period, is usually considered the culmination of Greek art, architecture, and drama, with its highest achievements being the Temple ofZeus at Olympia, the Parthenon in Athens, and the plays of Athenian dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The 4th century, or Late Classical p...
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Uruguay (country) - country.
Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution of Uruguay. Three-quarters of the people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There are also sizable Protestantand Jewish congregations. The official language is Spanish, which in Uruguay has been influenced by Italian vocabulary and pronunciation. C Education Uruguay has one of the highest rates of literacy in Latin America, at 98.2 percent of the adult population. Six years of primary education is compulsory, and Uruguay isone of the few n...
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Illustration
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INTRODUCTION
Illustration, pictorial material appearing with a text and amplifying or enhancing it.
Hypnerotomachia PoliphiliThe Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in a Dream), a work attributed to Dominican monk Francesco deColonna, was first published in Venice, Italy, in 1499 by Aldus Manutius. Its text and its beautiful woodcut illustrationsinfluenced Renaissance art and architecture. This illustration shows the book’s protagonist, Poliphilus, asleep under a tree.The Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource, NY The first illustrated book with a text printed from movable type was pro...
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Paris (city, France) - geography.
and its vibrant public square, frequented by street performers, soon became among the most popular landmarks in the city. West of the Pompidou Center is Les Halles, the site of the central market of Paris from the 12th century until 1969. The market was subsequently replaced by the Forum LesHalles, a multilevel underground complex featuring a shopping mall, museums, the Paris film library ( vidéothèque ), and a sports center. The street level of Les Halles features a garden, the Jardin des Halle...