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History: Sample articles
African nationalism
Political movement for the unification of Africa (Pan-Africanism) and for national self-determination. Early African political organizations included the Aborigines Rights Protection Society in the Gold Coast in 1897, the African National Congress in South Africa in 1912, and the National Congress of West Africa in 1920.
African nationalism has its roots among the educated elite (mainly 'returned' Americans of African descent and freed slaves or their descendants) in West Africa in the 19th century. Christian mission-educated, many challenged overseas mission control and founded independent churches. These were often involved in anticolonial rebellions; for example, in Natal in 1906 and Nyasaland in 1915. The Kitwala (Watchtower Movement) and Kimbanguist churches provided strong support for the nationalist cause in the 1950s.
After World War I nationalists fostered moves for self-determination. The Fourteen Points of US president Woodrow Wilson encouraged such demands in Tunisia, and delegates to London in 1919 from the Native National Congress in South Africa stressed the contribution to the war effort by the South African Native Labour Corps. Most nationalist groups functioned within the territorial boundaries of single colonies; for example, the Tanganyika African Association and the Rhodesian Bantu Voters Association. One or two groups, including the National Congress of British West Africa, had wider pan-African visions.
By 1939 African nationalist groups existed in nearly every territory of the continent. Africa's direct involvement in World War II, the weakening of the principal colonial powers, increasing anticolonialism from America (the Atlantic Charter in 1941 encouraged self-government), and Soviet criticism of imperialism inspired African nationalists.
Book of the Dead
Ancient Egyptian book of magic spells, known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, buried with the dead as a guide to reaching the kingdom of Osiris, the god of the underworld.
Similar practices were observed by Orphic communities (6th–1st century BC) in southern Italy and Crete, who deposited gold laminae, inscribed with directions about the next world, in the graves of their dead. An ancient Buddhist example is the Bardo Thödol from Tibet. In medieval times, Christians could obtain advice about dying from a book entitled Ars Morendi/The Art of Dying.
Egyptian Books of the Dead were written on papyrus, and were usually illustrated with vignettes. Most books contained a picture showing the heart of the deceased being weighed against Truth, with Thoth recording the results, and a monster waiting to devour the untrue heart. Knowledge of the spells was considered essential for happiness after death, although the concept of reward for a good life began to creep in.
Norman Conquest
Invasion and settlement of England by the Normans, following the victory of William (I) the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The story of the conquest from the Norman point of view is told in the Bayeux Tapestry.
William, Duke of Normandy, claimed that the English throne had been promised to him by his maternal cousin Edward the Confessor (died January 1066), but the Witan (a council of high-ranking Anglo-Saxon advisors, churchmen, and landowners) elected Edward's brother-in-law Harold Godwinson as king. Harold II was killed at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, and Edgar the Aetheling was immediately proclaimed king; he was never crowned, renouncing his claim in favour of William. There were several rebellions against William's rule, especially in the north, which he ruthlessly suppressed in the harrying of the north, when villages and crops were burned and livestock killed. Another notable rising was led by Hereward the Wake in the Isle of Ely. The construction of around 50 castles between 1066 and 1087 helped to establish Norman power in England.
Under Norman rule the English gradually lost their landed possessions and were excluded from administrative posts. In 1085 William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a recorded survey of land and property in the English shires.
The opening years of William's English rule were insecure because he depended on the cooperation of men who had previously served Harold. However, by about 1072 the Norman hold on the kingdom was finally established and the affairs of church and state were completely in Norman hands. The Domesday Book shows the huge extent of Norman landholdings within only 20 years of the Battle
of Hastings.
The break with the past was not complete, for William continued, or adopted, many established Anglo-Saxon institutions and
customs. One exception was the introduction of feudal land tenure, namely the granting of a definite piece of land in return for definite services, under the feudal system.
The Conquest turned England away from Scandinavia and towards France, and brought England more closely into the European stream of political thought.
Peloponnesian War
War fought 431–404 BC between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies, involving most of the Greek world from Asia Minor to Sicily and from Byzantium (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) to Crete. Sparked by Spartan fears about the growth of Athenian power, it continued until the Spartan general Lysander captured the Athenian fleet in 405 BC at Aegospotami and starved the Athenians into surrender in 404 BC. As a result of this victory, Athens' political power collapsed.
The Peloponnesian War was a classic example of a war between a seapower and a landpower, with Athens controlling most of the Aegean and its coasts, and Sparta most of the Peloponnese and central Greece. This partly explains both its length and why so much of the early fighting was peripheral. The Spartans were unable to bring about the decisive battle they wanted by invading Attica,
since the Athenians withdrew within the fortifications of Athens and the Peiraias, their supplies guaranteed by seapower. But, equally, Athenian raids on the Peloponnesian coast were ineffective even when extended by the occupation of permanent bases on and off enemy coasts 425–424 BC, though the pressure this exerted brought about a spectacular Athenian success at Pylos in 425 BC. Following this, an Athenian attempt to win
control of Megara failed, and an over-ambitious plan to knock Boeotia out of the war ended in disaster at Delium in 424 BC. Meanwhile, the Spartans at last devised a means of hitting Athens in a vital spot when they sent an expeditionary force overland to raise revolt amongst its allies in Thrace. However, the death of its charismatic leader Brasidas and that of Cleon, the Athenian principally opposed to negotiations, at Amphipolis, led to a temporary peace in 422/1 BC.
During the early years of the peace Athens made use of the discontent of some of Sparta's allies to engineer an alliance in the Peloponnese and so match Sparta on land. The alliance disintegrated after Sparta's victory at Mantinea in 418 BC, and Athens fatally dissipated its strength by sending an expeditionary force to Sicily in 415 BC. The annihilation of this force in 413 BC shattered Athenian seapower and encouraged Sparta and its allies to make a real effort at sea, Athens' allies to rebel, and Persia to throw its financial weight behind Sparta in the hope of recovering the Asiatic Greek cities lost to Athens in the years following the Persian king Xerxes I's defeat at Plataea in 479 BC.
The great battles of the last ten years of the war were all fought at sea, in the northern Aegean, the Hellespont (present-day Dardanelles), or the Propontis (Sea of Marmara), as successive Spartan admirals strove to cut Athens' supply lines. Athens won a series of victories, notably off Cyzicus in 410 BC and the Arginusae Islands in 406 BC, but the end came with Lysander's destruction of the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC and, after withstanding siege by both land and sea through the winter, Athens surrendered in 404 BC.
Prohibition
In US history, the period 1920–33 when the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was in force, and the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol was illegal. This led to bootlegging (the illegal distribution of liquor, often illicitly distilled), to the financial advantage of organized crime.
The Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, was enforced by the Volstead Act of 1919. It represented the culmination of a long campaign by church and women's organizations, Populists (the Populist movement arose in the late 19th century as a protest by farmers against economic hardship), progressives, temperance societies, and the Anti-Saloon League, who believed that alcohol was a moral and social ill. Although Prohibition did greatly reduce overall alcohol consumption, the result was widespread disdain for the law. Speakeasies for illicit drinking sprang up, and organized crime activity increased, especially in Chicago and towns near the Canadian border, led by notorious gangsters such as Al Capone. Public opinion led to the repeal of the law in 1933 with the Twenty-First Amendment.
Early impetus
In 1846, Maine became the first state to pass a prohibition law. By 1855, various full or partial prohibition laws had been adopted by all the New England states, as well as by some of the northern and Midwestern states. But in some states the courts declared the laws unconstitutional, and in others they were not strictly enforced. The movement revived in the 1880s, and in 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was founded.
Prohibitionists now demanded prohibition amendments in the states' constitutions, so that state courts would not be able to declare the prohibition laws illegal. Many states which declined to pass state-wide prohibition laws adopted a different form of local control, whereby an individual city or town could vote itself dry.
The impact of wartime
The entry of the USA into World War I gave the dry movement enormous impetus. In order to save cereals that could be used for food, Congress enacted laws prohibiting first the manufacturing of spirits and, later, of beers and wines. These laws were intended only for the duration of the war. But the reformers said that what was good for war was good for peace. Congress quickly responded
to this sentiment, and by December 1917 had passed a proposed prohibition amendment to the Constitution.
By the time the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect in January 1920, 33 states already had prohibition laws. The Twenty-First Amendment, which ended prohibition in 1933, protected the states' right to enact their own dry laws by prohibiting the transport of
alcohol between states.
samurai
or bushi
Japanese 'one who serves'
Japanese term for the warrior class which became the ruling military elite for almost 700 years. A samurai was an armed retainer of a daimyo (large landowner) with specific duties and privileges and a strict code of honour. The system was abolished in 1869 and all samurai were pensioned off by the government.
From the 16th century, commoners were not allowed to carry swords, whereas samurai had two swords, and the higher class of samurai were permitted to fight on horseback. It is estimated that 8% of the population belonged to samurai families. A financial depression from about 1700 caused serious hardship to the samurai, beginning a gradual disintegration of their traditions and
prestige, accelerated by the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, in which they had assisted. Under the new Meiji emperor, they were stripped of their role, and many rebelled. Their last uprising was the Satsuma Rebellion 1877–78, in which 40,000 samurai took part.
The rank system established by the first shogun, Yoritomo, from 1180 divided the military into kenin 'housemen' or vassals, mounted samurai, and foot soldiers. The code of behaviour known as bushido developed over the following centuries. Despite the emphasis on loyalty, it was not uncommon for samurai to change sides in battle. The practice of committing suicide on the death of one's daimyo, never obligatory, was banned in 1663. The great warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who unified Japan after the civil wars of the 16th century, separated samurai from their rural base (many had farmed their land in peacetime) and made them live in castle towns. He also introduced a land-taxation system based on rice, and every samurai received a stipend of rice proportionate to his status. All the needs of the samurai household had to be provided for by the sale of surplus rice, and when rice rose less quickly in price than other commodities, the samurai became poorer and poorer. There were also no spoils of war to supplement their resources during the peaceful Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867). Instead, the samurai became bureaucratic administrators and often scholars. After the Meiji restoration, the introduction of universal conscription 1872 ended their military role, and their stipends were converted to government bonds 1876.
Miyamoto Musashi is a classic samurai hero.
slavery, Roman
The Roman Empire probably had as many slaves as free people, and some wealthy Romans owned as many as 10,000 slaves. They were employed on large farms (latifundia), in mines and workshops, as personal slaves in the home, and by the Roman state. Slaves in mining and farming were often very badly treated but a few slaves were trusted secretaries and stewards. Many were freed and some became wealthy slave-owners themselves.
Roman slaves had no rights, and were regarded as personal property; legally, they could have no possessions, and all the produce of their labour belonged to their master. They could not enter into a Roman marriage; the equivalent of marriage between slaves was
called contubernium. Originally an owner had complete power of life and death over his slave but this power was gradually reduced, and in the Christian era the killing of a slave began to be treated as murder.
Public slaves in Rome belonged to the state or to public bodies, such as a municipia (a provincial town), a collegium (a religious body), or to the emperor's staff; some were employed in public duties of a highly honourable nature, for example as keepers of public buildings, prisons, or other state property, while others were employed as road repairers, watchmen, lictors, and scavengers.
While some Roman writers suggested that slaves should be worked to death, as this was cheaper than trying to keep them well, educated Greek slaves could work as doctors and clerks, and could become trusted advisers to their owners (the Roman writer Cicero worries in a letter about the illness of a favoured Greek slave). City slaves who had served their master personally or in business were often freed in his will. Even after 'manumission' from slavery, they did not become full Roman citizens, but 'freedmen' or
'freedwomen'. Some freed slaves bought slaves themselves, and became wealthier than many citizens.
Both Stoic philosophy and, later, Christian teaching, led to a gradual change in attitude to slaves, with legal penalties for ill-treatment, but there was no movement in Rome for abolishing slavery.
Third Reich
or Third Empire
Germany during the years of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship after 1933. Hitler and the Nazis wanted to place their government into the history of Germany for both historical precedent and legitimacy. The idea of the Third Reich was based on the existence of two previous German empires: the medieval Holy Roman Empire, and the second empire of 1871 to 1918.
The term was coined by the German writer Moeller van den Bruck (1876–1925) in the 1920s and was used by the Nazis.
Germany's earlier empires were seen as golden ages of German power and unity, something that Hitler valued greatly. Charlemagne, king of the Franks (a Germanic peoples) from 768 and Holy Roman Emperor from 800, unified much of Western Europe in the 9th century and spread German culture and law across his empire. The kingdom of the western Franks later became France, the kingdom of the eastern Franks became Germany. The empire of Charlemagne and his successors lasted in various forms until destroyed by the French emperor Napoleon I (Bonaparte) in 1806. For Hitler the idea of creating an empire by conquest and then unifying the German people was attractive.
Prussia's unification of Germany by force, including the defeat of Austria in 1866 and France in 1870, was equally inspiring to Hitler. He greatly admired Otto von Bismarck, prime minister of Prussia 1862–90 and chancellor of the German empire 1871–90, who had directed Prussian economic and military might in a campaign of conquest. Bismarck's aggressive expansionist policies fitted in with Hitler's own plans to gain Lebensraum ('living space') for the German people in Eastern Europe. The second empire, or Reich, that began in 1871 had made Germany into a world power, only to see the gains taken away at the end of World War I in the Treaty of Versailles (1919). Hitler never accepted that Germany was defeated in 1918, so for him the second Reich should never have ended.
By using the title 'Third Reich', Hitler was able to place the Nazi regime into the natural flow of German history. Hitler talked of establishing a 1000-year Reich, suggesting that his empire would be greater and more successful than either of the previous two. Since the first and second Reichs were established by war and conquest, Hitler felt justified in expanding the Third Reich by conquest as well, leading to the conflict of World War II.
Viking
or Norseman
The inhabitants of Scandinavia in the period 800–1100. They traded with, and raided, much of Europe, and often settled there. In their narrow, shallow-draught, highly manoeuvrable longships, the Vikings penetrated far inland along rivers. They plundered for gold and land, and were equally energetic as colonists – with colonies stretching from North America to central Russia – and as traders, with main trading posts at Birka (near Stockholm) and Hedeby (near Schleswig). The Vikings had a sophisticated literary culture, with sagas and runic inscriptions, and an organized system of government with an assembly ('thing'). Their kings and chieftains were buried with their ships, together with their possessions.
In France the Vikings were given Normandy. Under Sweyn I they conquered England (where they were known as 'Danes') in 1013, and his son Canute was king of England as well as Denmark and Norway. In the east they established the first Russian state and founded Novgorod. They reached the Byzantine Empire in the south, and in the west sailed to Ireland, and Iceland; Greenland was visited by Eric the Red, and North America, by his son Leif Ericsson who named it 'Vinland'. As 'Normans' they achieved a second conquest of England in 1066.
The origin of the word 'Viking' is disputed, as are the reasons for the sudden expansion of Scandinavian activities in this period, though over-population, the weakness of neighbouring states, and favourable trading conditions were influential factors. Although many Scandinavian peoples were actively trading and raiding in this period, the Vikings were successful because of their superior ships and seamanship, whether in the military longship or in the colonists' broad knarr. Viking ships are preserved in Oslo and in Denmark at Roskilde. Although the Vikings are commonly thought of as pirates, they were capable of organizing politically motivated missions. They had an established system of law and social organization and a rich poetic culture. As they became more settled they took over many of the customs of the areas in which they lived, for example converting to Christianity and subsequently introducing it to Scandinavia.
The Vikings in the British Isles
A signal for the start of Viking raids on the British Isles was the sacking of the monastery of Lindisfarne in 793. Soon Viking rule was established in the Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and parts of north and western Scotland, in parts of Ireland, and increasingly in England, where the Vikings controlled most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, an area known as Danelaw. The kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great resisted strongly, however, and was victorious in 899. The need for organized resistance accelerated the growth of the feudal system. In the 10th century the Scandinavian settlers in England lost their power, reflecting the civil war then raging in Scandinavia, but towards the end of the century raids from Denmark increased, culminating in the invasion and conquest of England under Sweyn I and Canute. They created permanent settlements, for example in York, and greatly influenced the development of the English language.
In Ireland the Vikings founded the cities of Dublin (841), Cork, and Limerick. They were halted, however, by their defeat at the battle of Clontarf in 1014.
The Vikings in France and Spain
Under Charlemagne and his successor, Louis the Pious, the Carolingian Empire proved too strong for the Vikings, but after the latter's death in 840 they raided the areas round the Seine and the Loire frequently, sacking Paris in 845. As in England, they were prepared to be bought off by 'Danegeld'. In 912 the Viking Rollo was granted lands in France which were to form the nucleus of the duchy of Normandy. In Spain and the Mediterranean the Vikings met determined opposition from the Arabs and made only infrequent raids.
The Vikings in the Atlantic
The Vikings had colonized the Faeroes and Iceland by the end of the 9th century. Eric the Red began the settlement of Greenland
about 986, and his son Leif Ericsson discovered 'Vinland' in North America (possibly Newfoundland) 1000, though the Viking colonies that were established there do not seem to have survived long.
The Vikings in Eastern Europe
In the East, the Vikings (known as Rus) traded down the Dnieper and Volga rivers, establishing trading posts at Novgorod and Kiev, where they founded a dynasty. Vikings also served in the imperial guard in Constantinople, where they were known as Varangians. The Swedish Varangians were invited to settle differences among the Slav chieftains in Russia 862.
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