Najnovšie - Encyklopédie populárno-náučné - História strana 139 z 161

Our earliest written sources for Greek mythology, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, feature women prominently as drivers of the narratives. Though they occupy a variety of roles and speak eloquently for themselves in every role, these women have been obscured by the assumption that each epic’s central hero, Achilles and Odysseus, respectively, is also its singular hero. And yet, the story of the Iliad is not the story of Achilles, just as the story of the Odyssey is not the story of Odysseus alone. Contrary to centuries of reception, the epics are not only about fearless yet flawed men but rather explore and develop the contours of belonging and community in times of war and peace.The Epic Women of Homer untangles the women of the Iliad and the Odyssey from centuries of narrative constraints to recover their essential meaning and importance. In the process, The Epic Women of Homer challenges the commonplace assumption that the Homeric hero is ‘an individual’ who fights for ‘personal glory’, a misconception further fuelled by a lack of understanding of the oral tradition out of which Homer’s epics emerged in which linguistic and thematic patterning exists at every level. Analysing Homer’s goddesses and heroes through the lens of these patterns, their recurrence and variation reveal them to be preeminent in a wide range of skills, all of which are necessary, and yet the essence of each is in their relationships with others.The Epic Women of Homer re-establishes these goddesses and heroines to their esteemed positions in ancient Greece and reintroduces them to the modern world.

Between 1050 and 1128 the nomadic Seljuq Turks and European Crusaders subjected northern Syria to a series of invasions from the east and west. The migration of militant peoples from the Eurasian Steppe and Western Europe inserted a new set of political elites into a complex frontier zone already beset by numerous conflicts fought along several ethno-cultural and religious contours. Surveying this turbulent chapter of Syrian history from multiple perspectives, this book recalibrates the underlying power dynamics of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Through this regional focus, it reassesses both the impact that the establishment of Turkish and Crusader lordships had upon bilad al-sham (Greater Syria) and the reactions of Syria’s established ruling elite to this unprecedented sequence of events. Providing a unique reinterpretation of the political situation in bilad al-sham during one of the most important periods in Middle Eastern history, this book proposes a new model for understanding the political dynasties of this period and questions the significance ascribed to the establishment of the Crusader States by modern historians.

The Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle Musket embodies a number of revolutionary milestones for Britain; it, and the carbines and short rifles derived from it, were the first rifled firearms to be issued universally to all troops; its design owed more to the French 1777 musket than to its English forbears; it was the first firearm to be produced en masse extensively by machinery; in 1857 it became the first firearm in Britain to be made fully interchangeable.The nature of this new rifle presented a number of challenges for the private contractors who traditionally had supplied military firearms and some unique contract documents specifying standards are shown. Their failure to meet contractual obligations led to the formation of the Select Committee on Small Arms in 1854 to examine its manufacture and procurement. However, its outcome was pre-empted - in that same year the Committee on the Machinery of the United States, was sent to America to examine the machinery used in gun manufacture and given authority to purchase appropriate machines for use at Enfield.Aspects of its manufacture at Enfield are covered in a small number of contemporary accounts. These vary in the detail provided and contain errors which have been noted and corrected.Access to a wealth of specimens, drawings and documents not previously studied or published, has allowed the manufacture of this iconic rifle using these new technologies to be presented in unprecedented detail.

Nestled deep in the Surrey countryside stands the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial. Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, its panels contain the names of nearly 3,500 men and women of the land forces of Britain and the Commonwealth who died in the Second World War and who have no known grave.Among the men and women who names are carved on the memorial are Special Operations Executive agents who died as prisoners or while working with Allied underground movements, servicemen killed in the various raids on enemy occupied territory in Europe, such as Dieppe and Saint-Nazaire, men and women who died at sea in hospital ships and troop transports, British Army parachutists, and even pilots and aircrew who lost their lives in flying accidents or in aerial combat.But the panels also hide a dark secret. Entwined within the names of heroes and heroines are those of nineteen men whose last resting place is known, and whose deaths were less than glorious. All were murderers who, following a civil or military trial, were executed for the heinous offence they had committed. The bodies of these individuals, with the exception of one, lay buried in un-consecrated ground.As Paul Johnson reveals, the cases of the ‘Brookwood Killers’ are violent, disturbing and often brutal in their content. They are not war crimes, but crimes committed in a time of war, for which the offender has their name recorded and maintained in perpetuity. Something that is not always applied in the case of the victim.

Mary Tudor, Henry VIII''s sister, lived a remarkable life. A princess, duchess and queen, she was known as the English Rose for her beauty. Mary Tudor, Queen of France, aims to explore the life of one of the few who stood up to Henry VIII and lived to tell the tale.Henry VIII is well known, but his larger-than-life character often overshadows that of his sisters. Mary Tudor was born a princess, married a king and then a duke, and lived an extraordinary life. This book focuses on Mary’s life, her childhood, her relationship with Henry, her marriages and her relationship with her husbands.Mary grew up in close proximity to Henry, becoming his favourite sister, and later, after her marriage to the French king, she married his best friend, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The events impacting the siblings will be reviewed to examine how they may have changed and shaped their relationship.

The men and women who found themselves responsible for Tudor princes and princesses were chosen for a variety of reasons and came from different backgrounds. The outcome of their labour was almost as varied. These are the stories of the men and women who moulded the Tudors and what happened to them in the throne''s shadow. Amongst their number were gentlewomen, veterans of the Wars of the Roses, a Plantagenet princess, Welsh speakers, royal uncles and the children of convicted traitors. For some, there were rewards, pensions and preferment. For others, there was only disaster. For those who sought power themselves, including Edward VI’s guardians Edward Seymour and John Dudley, the executioner''s axe awaited.Jasper Tudor protected his nephew Henry Tudor during thirteen difficult years in exile, fulfilling the role of bodyguard, secret agent and adviser. Lady Margaret Beaufort advised on the birth, education and marriages of her grandchildren. Princes and princesses were reared from infancy by women whom the ruling monarch could trust. Mother Jak and Sybil Penn became surrogate mothers. Governesses, including Margaret Countess of Salisbury and Lady Margaret Bryan, were loyal, kind and protective. Others, like Anne Shelton, were appointed to make the lives of their royal charge a misery. It was left to Katherine Parr, a strongminded intelligent woman, to exercise her right as Henry VIII’s queen to take a close personal interest in the education of her step-children.Faced with dysfunctional families and turbulent times, governors and governesses faced imprisonment, execution or ruin on behalf of their royal charges. But the rewards were worth the risk.

A pictorial guide to battleship Massachusetts, a WWII veteran and floating museum.  USS Massachusetts (BB-59) is a South Dakota–class battleship. Launched just before US entry into the Second World War, Massachusetts saw action in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters at Casablanca, the Philippines, and Okinawa. The ship survived the war and the scrapyard and is currently on display at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. This is a detailed pictorial history of the ship, including nearly 400 vintage and recent photographs.

Now capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin rose from insignificant origins on swampy soil, becoming a city of immigrants over the ages. Through a series of ten vignettes, Mary Fulbrook discusses the periods and regimes that shaped its character ? whether Prussian militarism; courtly culture and enlightenment; rapid industrialisation and expansion; ambitious imperialism; experiments with democracy; or repressive dictatorships of both right and left, dramatically evidenced in the violence of World War and genocide, and then in the Wall dividing Cold War Berlin. This book also presents Berlin''s distinctive history as firmly rooted in specific places and sites. Statues and memorials have been erected and demolished, plaques displayed and displaced, and streets named and renamed in recurrent cycles of suppression or resurrection of heroes and remembrance of victims. This vivid and engaging introduction thus reveals Berlin''s startling transformations and contested legacies through ten moments from critical points in its multi-layered history.

Harold Godwinson occupied his place in the chronicles for more than twenty years after bursting onto the political sphere when he was barely out of his teens. His role in English history has always been overshadowed by his failure to defend his crown and country against the might of William the Conqueror and his invaders. His demise at the hands of a Franco-Norman hit squad wrought the death knell of Anglo-Saxon rule. Reigning for just ten months, Harold''s accomplishments as dux Anglorum, and later king of England, were undermined by the Norman propaganda that was waged against his memory, long after his grisly end in 1066.But just who was this man, who some historians recall as one of England''s greatest rulers? What were his origins? Is there any truth that he could trace his ancestry to the House of Wessex, and did he really usurp the throne from Duke William, the Bastard of Normandy? In this re-examining of this great historical figure of the eleventh century, we glean new theories and ideas not only about Harold''s life, but also questions historians have pondered upon for years. Did Edward really offer the throne to William? And how much of William''s claim was truth or fictio? aula Lofting presents a thoughtful and careful critique of the previous research. Examining his life through a telescopic view of the primary sources, she offers the reader a more accurate evaluation of who he was, how he died, and what happened to his remains after his death on a field near Hastings on October 1066.

From the start of the war on the Eastern Front, Hitler’s Ostheer, his Eastern Army, would wage a vernichtungskrieg, or war of annihilation, in the East. Never before had such a wide-reaching campaign been fought.Preparations for Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union had included the drawing up of plans and allocation of resources to secure the newly conquered territories. These plans included the premeditated murder of many innocent civilians. Adolf Hitler said as much when in July 1941, shortly after Stalin ordered the formation of partisans, he told his Army High Command: ‘This partisan war has some advantage for us; it enables us to eradicate everyone who opposes us.’Anticipating resistance to Nazi occupation and rule, Hitler instructed the Ostheer to act ruthlessly, not only on the front lines but in the rear areas as well. When, in July 1941, Stalin ordered partisan forces to be created, the stage was therefore set for the largest and most savage conflict ever waged between a modern military force and a guerrilla army. The scale of the partisan and anti-partisan war on the Eastern Front was as costly and bitterly fought as the struggle on the front lines themselves. Employing thousands of primary source documents and scouring eight separate state archives in six countries over a twenty-two-year period, Antonio J. Munoz has produced what can be described as a definitive account of this part of the war behind the front lines in the East during the invasion of the Soviet Union.From the very beginning, the Nazis fought this war ruthlessly, by eliminating not only actual guerrillas, but a good portion of the civilian population. Employing dozens of wartime anti-partisan operational instructions, plus newly-created detailed battle maps and full orders of battle, Dr. Munoz brings this little-known conflict behind the lines into focus for the very first time.The war behind the lines is detailed by district. This includes the Reichskommissariat Ostland region, which comprised the Generalbezirk Estland (Estonia), Generalbezirk Lettland (Latvia), Generalbezirk Litauen (Lithuania), Generalbezirk Bialystok (Northeastern Poland), and Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (Belarus). The book also covers the guerrilla and anti-partisan war in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Ukraine region) as well as in north, central and southern Russia. For Russia proper, anti-partisan operations against the guerrillas are broken down by army group area.Not only are the operations described, but the reader will also learn about guerrilla attacks and how the entire partisan movement grew from year to year, and region to region. Hitler’s War Against the Partisans During Operation Barbarossa documents the whole of the beginning of the savage partisan war between June 1941 and the spring of 1942. Never before has every major, and some minor, anti-guerrilla operation been described in such detail.

About 10 years ago a chance encounter led Bandy to be entrusted with a treasure trove of wartime notes, photos, paintings and ephemera that coalesced themselves into the memoirs of a WW2 RAF Nursing Orderley, LAC Harold Scrafield.A story unfolded through these papers of an older call up, wartime nursing, and travel through the Mediterranean area during the war. Further research found that one of “Scra’s” postings was to a secret medical mission in Yugoslavia. This was Maj Lindsay Rogers’ SOE medical expedition to Titos Partisans organised by Fitzroy Maclean. Of course, this is not described as such in his writings, just as a trip from Bari to Yugoslavia via landing craft, and “escape by HM Gunboat” back to Ancona in Italy. Included inside are many of Scra’s original and unpublished photos, and an amount of his pictures of the partisans both in Yugoslavia and at Bari.Nursing at the Frontline tells of his entry into Carthage, initially sleeping on the hastily dug graves of the German defenders, the story of the units hosts, the White Sisters and the mostly unknown day to day routine of the an RAF Mobile Field Hospital.Scra also finds himself with air operational squadrons, finds time to photograph before and after pictures of the bombing of Monte Cassino, and to deal with death.Now, over 40 years since Scra wrote down his memoirs in long hand, almost 80 since the events he describes and 10 years since Bandy was entrusted with them,  they are published to make for a fascinating read. From Carthage and the White Sisters to the events in Yugoslavia that Scra was involved with. These memoirs take you into the under reported and little known world of the wartime male RAF Nursing Orderly at the sharp end.

Kut: The Death of an Army is the fascinating, yet largely forgotten, story of the British-Indian Army that was besieged in Mesopotamia from 1915 to 1916. It is an expert account of the tragic five-month Turkish siege, in which their enemies essentially outlasted them.The author reveals the day-to-day preoccupations of not only the Anglo-Indian forces, but their enemies the Turks as well as local civilians caught in the chaos. Throughout the campaign, the British were beaten back by the Turks, and the ever-prevailent human suffering of the men, so far away from home in this foreign ground, less than helped the cause: starvation, heavy shelling, inadequate medical supplies and disease were all taking their toll. By the end of the campaign, approximately 30,000 British and Indian soldiers had lost their lives.This informative book will be of interest to anyone wanting a concise and accessible introduction to the conflict and will be essential reading for both students of the First World War, as well as those who have a penchant for military history in general.

The book you hold in your hands is not a standard whisky book. Of course, it does contain information that can be found in countless other books on the subject, such as tasting notes, distillery histories and the general development of the golden liquid we all adore. A whisky book that did not contain such information would be odd indeed, but the emphasis in the following narrative is very much on the darker history of the drink. Whisky noir, if you please.Within these pages can be found cannibals, ghouls and ghosts - unlikely tales that all have one thing in common; whisky. Not just whisky, though, for we are delving deep into the amber gold and turning over a history that has never been told. Until now.Interspersed with whisky quotes, some well-known, other’s more obscure, with this book to hand the reader will never be without an interesting snippet of conversation when sharing a whisky with friends.

The reasons behind the USA''s involvement in Vietnam remain a subject of extensive debate. Initially, America supported the French until their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, which then shifted to backing the South Vietnamese government due to fears of communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia.Why Vietnam delves into the myriad reasons for US involvement, examining theories that date back to 1918 when Woodrow Wilson ignored Ho Chi Minh''s plea for independence at the Treaty of Versailles, through to Johnson''s full commitment to the undeclared war, which restrained the military to a defensive role in protecting South Vietnam instead of an offensive one that would send troops across the DMZ into Laos and Cambodia.The questions of why the USA became involved, whether their involvement was justified, and if the war was ever winnable have been fiercely debated for over 50 years. This book seeks to address these ''whys'' by providing a thorough examination of all contributing factors, from presidential actions to foreign policy, and the social and political climates of the war era.

In the early hours of 14th June 2017, a fire began in a kitchen on the fourth floor of a twenty-four-storey block of flats in West London. A fire that should have been contained within the original compartment ripped up the outside of the building within minutes. Procedures and systems that had worked for decades failed resulting in the loss of seventy-two lives.Yet this was not the first time a breakdown of compartmentation had caused a loss of life. Just eight years earlier, a fire at Lakanal House in South London had claimed the lives of six people. How then could this happen again? Nor was it just one failure as panels, inadequate fire-stopping, construction of the windows, failure of fire doors and the smoke ventilation system all contributed to the rapid fire spread.This book gives a firefighter’s perspective of the deregulation that caused the tragedy and describes what firefighters were confronted with that June night in 2017. It places that deregulation chronologically alongside a career that spanned three decades including nine years in the training department of the London Fire Brigade.It proposes the causes are far deeper and wider than many think. A systemic deterioration of standards in testing of materials, building control, maintenance, inspections, fire safety and enforcement.

Scotland’s history is dramatic, violent and bloody.Being England’s northern neighbour has never been easy.Scotland’s queens have had to deal with war, murder, imprisonment, political rivalries and open betrayal. They have loved and lost, raised kings and queens, ruled and died for Scotland.From St Margaret, who became one of the patron saints of Scotland, to Elizabeth de Burgh and the dramatic story of the Scottish Wars of Independence, to the love story and tragedy of Joan Beaufort, to Margaret of Denmark and the dawn of the Renaissance, Scotland’s Medieval Queens have seen it all.This is the story of Scotland through their eyes.

Johanna van Haarlem looks across the Old Bailey courtroom to the hawk-featured man in the dock. There is no expression on his face. No remorse. And certainly no love. For over 10 years, she had believed he was Erwin van Haarlem, the son she gave up for adoption as a baby in the chaos of Europe in World War Two. She'd embraced him into her family and showered him with all the love he'd missed as a child. Then she lost her son a second time when the police told her the man she now faced in court was an imposter. Apparently his real name was Vaclav Jelinek. But Special Branch, MI5 and even the judge who sentenced Erwin van Haarlem to prison in 1989 as the last Soviet Bloc agent of the Cold War had no clue to his real identity - he was the spy with no name. Using the name Erwin van Haarlem, he was ordered by his masters to spy on the Royal Family and the Labour Party, to infiltrate Jewish groups and plunder the West's nuclear secrets. But his biggest betrayal was to the woman he tricked into believing she was his mother for more than a decade. It was only after British intelligence caught the spy red-handed sending coded messages to Prague from his London flat that Johanna was finally forced to accept that the charming art dealer that she thought was Erwin was a professional liar. She had wanted so much to believe that he was her son that she had ignored one crucial clue that gave him away - his eyes were brown, and her baby's eyes were blue. In A Spy In The Family, investigative journalists Paul Henderson and David Gardner reveal the incredible untold story of the mother who lost her son twice.

The development of rocket and jet aircraft by the Germans before and during the Second World War is something that intrigues all those interested in the history of aviation. The first trials of the V1 (Doodlebug) were carried out with a pilot at the controls, on occasion the world-famous aviatrix Hannah Reitsch. The first encounter with a jet aircraft by Allied airmen is documented here, including the first shooting down of a jet aircraft by an Allied pilot.Rocket and Jet Aircraft of the Third Reich documents the huge problems faced by the German scientists, designers and engineers, and the pressures put upon them by the German High Command. At the end of the war the Americans and Russians struggled to get their hands on these experts and their data whilst the SS were trying to prevent them falling into Allied hands. Heinkel, Henschel, Junkers – and of course Messerschmitt — all feature, amongst other pioneering designers, alongside legendary pilots such as Adolf Galland and Walter Nowotny.

A groundbreaking history of the wars of the Ottoman Expansion, a truly global conflagration that crisscrossed three continents and ultimately defined the borders and future of modern Europe.The determined attempt to thwart Ottoman dominance was fought across five theaters from the Balkans to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from Persia to Russia. This intercontinental melee is expertly re-told in this fascinating new history by historian Si Sheppard.But this is not the story of a clash of civilizations between East and West as you might assume. Europe was not united against the Turks; the scandal of the age was the alliance between King Francis I of France and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Meanwhile, the resistance of the Saadi dynasty of Morocco to Ottoman encroachment played a critical role in denying Constantinople direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. By the same token, though religious imperatives were critical to the motivations of all the key actors involved, these in no way fell neatly along the Christian Muslim divide. Crescent Dawn expertly shows how the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V desired nothing more than to eradicate the Protestant heresy metastasizing throughout his domains, but the threat of Turkish invasion forced him to stay his hand and indulge his Lutheran subjects to ensure a common defense. Nevertheless, the collective effort to constrain the expansion of the Ottoman superpower did succeed with the ultimate victory in 1571 the tipping point in reordering the trajectory of history.Crescent Dawn features some of the legendary figures of the era – from Mehmet the Conqueror, and Suleiman the Magnificent on the Ottoman side, to Charles V and Vasco de Gama on the other – and some of the most exotic locales on Earth – from the sumptuous palaces of Constantinople to the bloody battlefields of the Balkans to the awe-inspiring mountains of Ethiopia. This is a colorful history that brings the great battles of the age to life and clearly shows how the western struggle against the Ottomans constituted the first truly world war.