The Western Schism

After the death of Pope Gregory XI on March 27, 1378, there was a disputed Papal election. The election of the archbishop of Bari, Pope Urban VI caused a division in the Catholic Church. Some favored the Cardinal of Geneva who went under the name of Clement VII.

The two factions were unable to agree and whilst Urban VI ruled from Rome, Clement VII moved into the papal palace at Avignon. Western Europe was split between the two and this marked the beginning of the Great Western Schism. The map belows shows support for Avignon (red) and Rome (blue) during the Western Schism.

By Grand_schisme_1378-1417.png: @lankazamederivative work

Unable to find a solution to the Western Schism, the cardinals held a council at Pisa. At the fifteenth session, June 5, 1409, they decided to depose both popes for being heretics and elect a third in their place as Pope Alexander V.

Benedict XIII and Pope Gregory XII refused to abdicate so now the catholic church found itself with three popes. The situation was further complicated when Alexander V died in 1410 and Baldassare Cossa, a Neapolitan nobleman, who is said to have poisoned Alexander V, was elected under the name of Pope John XXIII.

A council was convened by John XXIII in 1414 at Constance to resolve the issue. This was endorsed by Pope Gregory XII, thus ensuring the legitimacy of any election. The Council of Constance was the largest Church meeting for many centuries.

A second goal of the council was to continue the reforms begun at the Council of Pisa which were largely directed against the Bohemian church reformer  Jan Hus, along with his followers. A safe conduct was issued by Sigismund, the German king (later Holy Roman Emperor), to allow Hus to attend the Council of Constance. However Sigismund repudiated his pledge and Hus was arrested and burned at the stake.

Painting of Jan Hus in Council of Constance by Václav Brožík

The Council of Constance recommended that all three papal claimants abdicate, and that another be chosen. In March 1415, John XXIII escaped from Constance disguised as a postman.

During his absence John was deposed by the council, and upon his return he was tried and found guilty on charges of heresy, adultery, incest and poisoning. The council also secured the resignation of Pope Gregory XII while deposing the second antipope, Benedict XIII, who refused to step down.

The German king Sigismund  organised a European summit in Perpignan, to convince Benedict to resign his office and end the Western Schism. Because of this stubbornness, the Council of Constance declared Benedict a schismatic and excommunicated him from the Catholic Church.

Nearly three years after it was inaugurated, the Council of Constance, succeeded in officially ending the Western Schism by deposing the rival popes and electing a third, Martin V as the new consensus pope on November 11, 1417.

v

Tutankhamun

LIFE 

Tutankhamun was born in c1341. He was the son of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten). His mother was Akhenaten's sister. Her name is not known but his wet nurse was called Maia.

Wooden bust of the boy king, found in his tomb. Wikipedia

He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine taking the throne name Tutankhaten, means "Living Image of Aten."

Tutankhaten wed his half-sister Ankhesenpaaten, daughter of Queen Nefertiti, his step mother, at the age of nine when he ascended to the throne. They had two children, both stillborn.

In his third year on the Egyptian throne, Tutankhaten reversed several changes made during his father's reign. This included ending the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy. 

He changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun to mark a change of worship from Aten to Amun as supreme God.

Tutankhamun was slight of build, and was roughly 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall.

Tutankhamen's garments were dyed red using alizarin, a pigment extracted from the madder plant. 

Tutankhamun reigned as pharaoh of Egypt for nine years before dying in c. 1323 BC.

Tutankhamun's infant daughters are unnamed, being referred to only as "the Osiris" on their coffins.

He is thought to have had a club foot and was buried with 130 staffs and walking sticks.

DEATH

He was only about 18 years old when he died. Tutankhamun's cause of death is still not totally clear. Sickle cell anaemia, epilepsy, malaria, an infected broken leg and assassination have all been suggested. 

Tutankhamun's mummified body contains the oldest known genetic proof of the existence of malaria.

In 2013, CT scans revealed that King Tut was bitten by a hippopotamus, perhaps contributing to his death.

The solid gold coffin of Tutankhamun is 73 inches long. The value of its gold is $4,3 million, but the casket is priceless.

He was buried with a home beer brewing kit in case he felt dry on the other side. 

Equipment similar to that used in backgammon was excavated from Tutankhamun's tomb.

A game box and pieces for playing the game of Senet found within the tomb of Tutankhamun

A dagger found in Tutankhamun's tomb was made from iron from a meteorite. Its finding proved early metal-working in Egypt.

Tutankhamun’s successors tried to erase his name from history. This meant his memory was preserved as the location of his tomb was forgotten, hiding it from robbers. It remained virtually untouched for thousands of years.

EXCAVATION OF TOMB 

In 1914, George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, employed the British archaeologist Howard Carter to lead the archaeological dig in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Excavations and study were soon interrupted by the First World War, but they resumed towards the end of 1917. 

On November 4, 1922, Howard Carter's waterboy stumbled across some steps leading under the desert surface. Carter had the steps partially dug out until the top of a mud-plastered doorway was found. 

Picture below shows the Earl of Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert and Howard Carter at the top of the steps leading to the newly discovered tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922.

On February 16, 1923, Carter opened the sealed doorway and found they led to the burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun.

Tutankhamun's tomb is the only tomb to date to be discovered intact and complete. All others were looted some time during the years. 

The death mask of Tutankhamun, possibly made for Queen Nefertiti, was uncovered for the first time in 3,250 years on October 28, 1925.

The beard of Tutankhamun's golden mask fell off during the cleaning process in the Egyptian Museum in 2014. The workers used epoxy glue to reattach the beard, but since that was not the professional method and permanent damage was done to the mask they were prosecuted for this in 2016.

Tutankhamun's death mask. By Roland Unger

Within a few years of Carter's discovery, rumors of a "curse of the pharaohs" started, emphasizing the early death of some of those who had entered Tutankhamun's tomb. The most prominent was the  Earl of Carnarvon who died two months after the boy king's burial chamber was found. However, a study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years. 

FUN TUTANKHAMUN FACTS

It's estimated that the iceberg that sank the Titanic started to develop during the reign of Tutankhamun.

When London held a Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972, a taxi driver was reported to have taken a man to Tooting Common by mistake.

The comedian Steve Martin released a song in 1978 called "King Tut" in 1978 with a backing group 'The Toot Uncommons'.

Source Daily Express 

Tolpuddle Martyrs

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six farm laborers of Tolpuddle, near Dorchester, England, who in 1834 were transported to Australia for forming a trade union. After nationwide agitation they were pardoned two years later.

In 1833 a group of farm laborers from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle formed a ‘friendly society' or early trade union after their wages fell to six shillings a week – about 30p today.

Led by laborer and Methodist local preacher George Loveless, the men agreed not to accept work for less than ten shillings a week and every member swore a secret oath of allegiance.

James Frampton, the landowner, was determined to stop industrial action; he reported the group to the Home Secretary Lord Melbourne. Melbourne recommended invoking the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797, an obscure law promulgated in response to the Spithead and Nore mutinies, which prohibited the swearing of secret oaths. 

The authorities arrested and put on trial Georger Loveless and five fellow workers George's brother James Loveless, George's brother in-law Thomas Standfield, Thomas's son John Standfield, James Brine, and James Hammett. 

On March 18, 1834 the six were convicted at crown court by a jury of farmers – the men who employed the defendants – and sentenced to seven years in an Australian penal colony for swearing an illegal oath to join their friendly society. 

The sentence caused public outrage and up to 100,000 people attended a demonstration in London. Over 800,000 signed petitions demanding their release and in 1836 the British government granted all six a full pardon. 

Only one man went back to live in Tolpuddle, the rest emigrated to Canada.

The sycamore tree where the union members met and swore their oath still stands today in Tolpuddle. 

The sycamore tree

Source Daily Mail

Slave trade

As a social and economic institution slavery originated at a time when humans adopted sedentary farming methods of subsistence rather than more mobile forms of hunting and gathering.

Slave labor became commonplace during the Ancient Greek and Roman periods, when it was used to cultivate large estates and to meet the demand for personal servants in the towns.

Slaves working in a mine, Ancient Greece

Slaves were created through the capture of enemies, through birth to slave parents, through sale into slavery by free parents, and as a means of punishment.

Slavery declined after the Fall of the Roman Empire until the early ninth century when the Vikings begin selling slaves to Muslims.

Slavery also persisted in central Europe where many Slavonic peoples were captured and taken as slaves to Germany. (Hence the derivation of the word.)

Ireland was a major hub for slavery in the 11th Century, with the Irish kidnapping people in their home country, Scotland and Wales. When slavery was banned in England, it impacted Ireland severely. One of the reasons why the Normans invaded Ireland was because of the Irish refusal to give up slavery.

Slavery also continued in Spain and Portugal where the reconquest of the Peninsula from the Moors in the 15th century created an acute shortage of labor. Captured Muslims became the first victims of the increased use of slavery, but there was soon followed by slaves from Africa, imported by the Portuguese King Henry the Navigator after 1444.

By the mid-15th century slaves were being used for a wide range of tasks, and irregular trading slaves was established between the Guinea Coast and the slave markets of the Iberian Peninsula.

Until the 18th century, Crimea was a center for the slave trade to the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatar raids into Russia and Ukraine are thought to have brought two million into slavery.

Crimean Tatar raiders enslaved more than 1 million Eastern Europeans

Slavery was not practiced in the Americas until Columbus brought it to the Caribbean. Writing of slaves just as he might other goods, Columbus penned in his diary, "We can send from here, in the name of the Holy Trinity, all the slaves and Brazil wood which could be sold."

Queen Elizabeth I of England once said that "if any African were carried away as a slave without his free consent, it would be detestable and would call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertaking." However, after hearing of the immense profit John Hawkins had made from his slaves she took shares in his second slave venture, as well as lending him a ship.

The first 20 African slaves were brought to England's American territories by a Dutch ship. They landed off the coast of Virginia on August 20, 1619 and were then sold into slavery in Jamestown.

Sale and inspection of slave

In 1642 Pope Urban VIII prohibited the enslavement of the indigenous inhabitants of Brazil, Paraguay and the West Indies.

The court of Northampton County, Colony of Virginia, made John Casor the first legally recognized slave in Britain's North American colonies on March 8, 1655.

The conditions on board ships carrying slaves from Africa to Europe or North America were disgraceful. The unfortunate slaves on board were fed twice a day at eight o'clock in the morning and four in the afternoon mainly with boiled rice and yams with beans boiled to the consistency of a pulp and sometimes a small quantity of beef or pork. If they refused to eat their unappetizing fare hot coals were put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch and burn them, and if they persisted in refusing to eat they could be forced to swallow these coals.

The painting c.1830 below by the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas depicts a scene below deck of a slave ship headed to Brazil; Rugendas had been an eyewitness to the scene.

Many of these unfortunate slaves ended up running the kitchens on Southern plantations, and they played a major role in inspiring much of its cuisine. Amongst the dishes and cooking techniques they introduced were hot, spicy sauces, frying grains and vegetables into fritters, and boiling leafy green vegetables.

The first anti-slavery petition in the New World was drafted in the home of Thönes Kunders of Germantown on April 18, 1688. Germantown is an area in Northwest Philadelphia, which had been founded five years earlier by German Quaker and Mennonite families. Kunders hosted the early Germantown Quaker meetings and the Christian group were already prominent in their condemnation of this inhuman trade, with the society's founder, George Fox, speaking strongly against it.

Thones Kunders's house at 5109 Germantown Avenue, where the 1688 Petition Against Slavery was written

The horrors of the slave trade did not go unnoticed in England either, however hard the traders tried to justify their activities. The first sharp prick to the public's conscience came in 1688 with the publication of Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko (about the sufferings of an African prince and his loved one, transported by the English to slavery in Surinam).

Back in 1652, Rhode Island had passed the first law in North America making slavery illegal. However, there's no evidence that it was ever enforced. 122 years later, in 1774, Rhode Island became the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, started the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America during the American Revolution. In 1775 he issued Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offered freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters in order to fight with Murray and the British.

Benjamin Franklin formed the same year with Dr Benjamin Rush, the first Anti-Slavery organisation in America, The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the pair.

Also in 1775 an anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, published African Slavery in America, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence criticized King George III for enslaving Africans, and for over-ruling Virginia’s attempt to ban Slavery. In it, Jefferson called slavery a “cruel war against human nature.” The draft was struck down by the continental congress.

The Northwest Ordinance was enacted on July 13, 1787. It was the first federal law that prohibited slavery in a U.S. territory. The Ohio River served as the boundary between free and slave territory in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.

In the early days of the French Revolution, the new French government, with its motto of "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality", voted on March 8, 1790 to keep slavery in its colonies.

The MP William Wilberforce was the leader of the Clapham Sect, centered on Holy Trinity Church, Clapham in London. The organisation was a fellowship of influential Anglicans who prayed several hours a day to get laws changed, lobbying hard to MPs. Wilberforce was especially devoted to the abolition of the slave trade. He said "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners."

William Wilberforce by John Rising, 1790, pictured at the age of 29

In 1791 the founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote on his deathbed to Wilberforce encouraging him not to give up in his fight against slavery. Two months later the evangelical MP moved in the House of Commons that the import of African slaves be banned but lost the vote 168-88. At this time over 100,000 Africans were being shipped abroad every year and more than half were being carried on British ships.

On February 4, 1794, the French legislature abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic. It was re-established in the French West Indies in 1802 and finally abolished in 1848.

The Slave Trade Act of 1794 was a significant piece of legislation that marked the first major step taken by the United States government towards limiting the slave trade. This act was signed into law by President George Washington on March 22, 1794, and it prohibited American ships from engaging in the transportation of enslaved individuals from Africa to the United States or other countries.

The Slave Trade Act of 1794 also banned the exportation of slaves by American citizens for the purpose of selling them to foreign markets. Although the act did not end slavery in the United States, it represented an important milestone in the nation's evolving attitudes towards the institution of slavery.

As a result of the lobbying efforts by the Abolitionist Movement, the U.S. Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in 1807, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country. It took effect in 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution. All the northern states had ended slavery by 1804, but ownership remained legal in all the Southern states. The 1807 law did not change that—it just made importation from abroad a crime.

Thanks largely to the efforts of William Wilberforce, the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire on March 25, 1807 though all existing slaves were still bound to their masters. Britain was the first Western country to abolish the slave trade.

The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron was formed in 1808. It was tasked with hunting down and stopping Slave Ships.

Slave punishment by Jacques Etienne Arago. 1839.

All slaves in the British Empire were released by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and the British Government paid a huge sum to compensate all the slave owners. It received royal assent on August 28, 1833 and when William Wilberforce heard this on his deathbed, he mumbled, "Thank God that I have lived to witness a day when England is willing to give 20 million sterling for the abolition of slavery."

When Britain abolished slavery, compensation was paid to 46,000 slave owners. The 800,000 freed slaves received nothing.

The largest single compensation payment by the British government to a former slave owner went to Tory Member of Parliament James Blair for his 1,598 slaves in British Guiana.

Britain used 40% of its national budget to free all slaves in the Empire. The amount borrowed to fund this wasn't paid off until 2015.

Presbyterian minister and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, Illinois on November 7, 1837. A newspaper editor whose press was destroyed by vandals three times, he was accused of inciting slaves to revolt when he defended a black man burned at the stake by a mob. When another mob tried to burn down his warehouse, Lovejoy was shot trying to save it. His death helped to galvanize the abolitionist movement.

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass (c. February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. After escaping to freedom on September 3, 1838, he became the most prominent of the black abolitionists and eventually became the first black to hold high political office, as consul-general to the Republic of Haiti.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1841 that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

By 1850, American slaves were worth $1.3 billion, one-fifth of the nation's wealth. That year the United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which decreed that all runaway slaves be brought back to their masters.

1840 poster of slaves for sale in New Orleans

The Kansas–Nebraska Act became law in 1854, establishing the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas, allowing settlers in those territories to determine if they would permit slavery within their boundaries. With the passage of the act, thousands of pro- and anti-slavery supporters flooded Kansas. Violent clashes soon occurred. In one fight, John Brown and his men killed five people in the Pottawatomie Massacre. Later, Southerners destroyed Lawrence, Kansas. Kansas was called "Bleeding Kansas".

In 1856  congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas.

The Great Slave Auction, the largest single sale of slaves in US history, was held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia on March 2 and 3, 1859. Slaveholder and plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler authorized the sale of approximately 436 men, women, and children to satisfy significant debt, much of it from gambling. 

By proclamation in 1862 Abraham Lincoln emancipated all the slaves within reach of his northern armies, thereby interpreting the American Civil War as a crusade against slavery. The picture below shows Abraham Lincoln presenting the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet.

Painted by Francis Bicknell Carpenter in 1864.

President Lincoln signed the Amendment outlawing slavery on February 1, 1865. The amendment was passed by the required three-quarters of the states, and became law on December 6, 1865.

From 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the Americas with only about 10.7 million surviving the journey.

Americana was a city founded by 10,000 Confederate ex-patriots in Brazil at the conclusion of the American Civil War. They founded it so that they could continue the practice of slavery, which was still legal in Brazil at the time.

During the Atlantic slave trade era, Brazil imported more African slaves than any other country. Nearly 5 million slaves were brought from Africa to Brazil during the period from 1501 to 1866.

The slave trade introduced West African rhythms, work songs, chants and spirituals to America, which strongly influence blues and jazz.

Mississippi became the last US State to ratify the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution (abolition of Slavery), passed in 1865 on March 16, 1995. It was later discovered the state authorities failed to complete the proper documentation to officially carry this through until 2013.

Though slavery was abolished in the UK in 1833, the Modern Slavery Act, outlawing human trafficking and forced labor, was only passed in 2015.

While slavery was once institutionally recognized by most societies, it has now been outlawed in all recognized countries the last being Mauritania in 2007. Nevertheless, there are more people living in slavery today than at any prior point in human history. One in 200 people is a slave.

National Freedom Day is a United States observance on February 1 honoring the signing by Abraham Lincoln of a joint House and Senate resolution that later became the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

June 19 is celebrated annually by African-Americans. The celebration of Juneteenth dates back to 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in the Texan city of Galveston with an announcement. As the community listened to the reading, the people of Galveston learned for the first time that all slaves in Texas were free and the Civil War was over. 

Ashton Villa, where Major Granger read the Order. By Nsaum75 at English Wikipedia

Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them in 1862 and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow.

There are an estimated 40.3 million enslaved people in the world today. The transatlantic slave trade, while horrific, involved an estimated 12.5 million people forcibly transported over several centuries.   

Therefore, the current global estimates of modern slavery significantly surpasses the historical figures

Juneteenth is a day of remembrance, reflection, and celebration of African-American history, culture, and achievements. It holds great cultural and historical significance and is observed with various activities, including parades, cookouts, family gatherings, music, dance, and educational events. In recent years, there has been increased recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday, with several states officially designating it as such and efforts underway to establish it as a federal holiday.

Here is a list of songs about slavery.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Christianity Today, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

By 1570 Huguenots ((French Calvinist Protestants) who were, concentrated mainly in the southern and central parts of France, made up around one eighth of the French population. However, King Henry II of France considered the Protestants to be a disruptive influence in French political life. In 1571, he set up a special court, called the "Fiery Chamber", in the Parisian Parliament to fight heresy and persecute the Huguenots.

On August 24, 1572, St. Bartholomew's Day, church bells gave the signal for the terrible massacre of thousands of Huguenots in France. The Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, caused this massacre by frightening the authorities with talk of an impending Huguenot uprising. Her young son, King Charles IX panicked and cried, "Kill them all! Kill them all!"

The mass killing of nearly 10,000 French Huguenots (Protestants) in Paris by Catholics took place six days after the wedding of the Protestant Prince Henry (the future Henry IV of France). to Margaret de Valois. As the result of hysteria created by the non-Protestant members of the French royal family, Catholics in Paris slaughtered many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots in cold blood who had come to the city for the royal wedding. Henry escaped the carnage by temporary feigning a renunciation of his Protestant faith.

Depiction of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre by François Dubois

Philip II of Spain danced for joy at the news of the atrocity, but the remainder of Europe was shocked. Even Russia's Czar, Ivan the Terrible accused the French of barbarism.

From August to October 1572, similar massacres of Huguenots took place in a total of twelve other cities, including Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Bourges, Rouen and Orléans. Both sides prepared for a civil war, which began before the end of the year. Hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled France, some to the East End of London.

Prince Henry became head of the Protestant party in France after escaping from the French court where he had been held prisoner because of his Protestant faith. On becoming the French king he converted to Catholicism. It was a political conversion aimed at bringing an end to the religious wars that had ravaged France for so long

Henry issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which granted Huguenots substantial rights and freedoms. He also restored their old places of worship and granted them permission to build new ones

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a large black stone stele bearing a translation of Ancient Egyptian text, the first recovered in modern times. It was taken from building material in Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta when it was rediscovered on July 15, 1799 during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

The discovered part of the stone is 114.4 centimeters (45 in) high at its tallest point, 72.3 centimeters (28.5 in) wide, and 27.9 centimeters (11 in) thick.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.By © Hans Hillewaert,

Weighing nearly one ton, the Rosetta Stone is inscribed with three versions of a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt on March 27, 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of King Ptolemy V. The texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script and in Ancient Greek. This meant the stone could serve as a translation key, with the Greek portion, in particular, helping scholars crack the hieroglyphics, which had died out around the 4th century.

Study of the decree was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. English physician and polymath Thomas Young "made a number of original and insightful innovations" in the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone in 1814. However, it was 20 years before the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently.

Champollion's table of hieroglyphic phonetic characters with their Demotic and Coptic equivalents (1822)

After British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, they seized the stone and transported it to London. It has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802, and is the museum's most-visited object.

During World War I, bombing scares prompted British Museum officials to move the Rosetta Stone, along with other select artifacts, to a nearby Postal Tube station situated 50 feet underground.

France finally got its chance to host the Rosetta Stone in 1972. The occasion was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Champollion’s Lettre a M. Dacier, which outlined his translation of the artifact's hieroglyphics. It was housed at the Louvre in Paris for a month.

Since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including a long-running dispute over the relative value of Thomas Young's and Jean-François Champollion's contributions to the decipherment, and demands for the stone's return to Egypt.

Source Mental Floss

Restoration (England)

The term Restoration means both the actual event which puts a monarch back in power and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established.

The English Restoration was a period in English history beginning in 1660 after the fall of the puritan republican government and the re-establishment of the English monarchy, Scottish monarchy and Irish monarchy under King Charles II. The term is very often used to cover the whole reign of Charles II (1660–1685).

King Charles II

King Charles II returned from exile in Holland and on May 29, 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. To celebrate Charles' return to the country of his birth, May 29th was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day.

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act, which became law on August 29, 1660, pardoned all past treason against the crown, but specifically excluded those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. Major-General Thomas Harrison, who had been the seventeenth of the 59 commissioners to sign the death warrant, was the first regicide to be hanged, drawn and quartered because he was considered by the new government still to represent a real threat to the re-established order.

Thomas Harrison. By Moustaky 

Charles' coronation in April 1661 marked a reversal of the stringent Puritan morality.

At the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy there were many hundreds of meeting houses including around 300 Baptist churches in Britain. However between 1661 and 1665 a series of statutes named the Clarendon Code was passed by Parliament that abolished Oliver Cromwell's toleration of independent (non-Anglican) congregations. As a consequence the meeting houses were sealed and locked up and the dissenters were forced to meet together for worship in woods and private homes always fearing arrest.

Among these statutes were the 1662 Act of Uniformity, which made the meetings of the Protestant "sects", (such as Baptists) illegal and also made non-attendance at the parish churches a crime. Those ministers who did not conform to the Book of Common Prayer would lose their positions and become Non-conformists. (This is where the word "Non-conformist" comes from.)

The Act of Uniformity also required the new 1662 edition of the prayer book to be used in all churches and some 2,000 ministers who refused to comply were ejected.

The activities of Non Conformists were further clamped down on with the 1664 Conventule Act, which forbade non-Anglican meetings for religious purposes of more than five people and the 1665 The Five-Mile Act, which prohibited Non-conformists from going within five miles of a corporate town and from teaching in schools.

Reformation

The Protestant Reformation in Christianity is a term used to describe a series of events that happened in the 16th century. Because of corruption within the Roman Catholic hierarchy, some people saw a need to reform the church.

The Reformation movement was anticipated from the 12th century by the Waldenses, Lollards and Hussites. They attacked the corruption of the clergy and stressed the importance of Scripture.

The movement became effective in the 16th century when the new centralized absolute monarchies gave support to reform by challenging the political power of the papacy and confiscated church wealth.

During the early 16th century, the papacy was earning a good income by the indulgences system that allowed Christians to purchase remission from penance in purgatory. In 1515, Pope Leo X started a new indulgence campaign, meaning letters excusing you from sin, to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, a church in Rome. Rich people sometimes even bought these in advance, for sins they planned on committing.

Appalled at this Martin Luther, a Catholic monk from Germany, nailed up on the church door at Wittenburg, his 95 Theses, (the standard way of raising issues for debate), arguing that a Christian has had a full pardon from God and no need of indulgences.

Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses

A reformed movement arose in Zurich, Switzerland in 1521 led by merchant Conrad Grebel and theologian Ulrich Zwingli. The adherents emphasized to a large extent the study of the Bible and belief in its supreme authority.

Around the same time, Nicholas Storch found the Abecedarian Anabaptist sect in Germany. Driven from Wittenburg by Luther, Storch traveled through Germany preaching the equality of all men and claiming that as knowledge of the Scriptures is communicated directly by the Holy Spirit, it is wrong to learn to read. He also attacked infant baptism and as a consequence his movement was attacked by both Catholics and Lutherans.

By the mid 1520s, millions of peasants were rebelling against the nobles in the name of equality of the humanity in front at God. Thomas Müntzer, a learned associate of Nicholas Storch, over-enthusiastically encouraged and guided a huge peasant revolt against the army of the princes. Müntzer was particularly inspired by Daniel 2:44, which outlines how the everlasting kingdom of God would consume all other kingdoms.

The revolt was crushed at Frankenhausen and Muntzer was captured and tortured to death on May 27, 1525.

Contemporary portrait of Thomas Müntzer.

Luther opposed their peasant war, lashing out at them in a paper Against the Murdering and Thieving Hordes of Peasants.

Many countries in Europe followed this trend of reformation and the continent was divided by denomination. Though not personally interested in religious reform, King Francis I of France initially maintained an attitude of tolerance, in accordance with his interest in the humanist movement.

After Francis was defeated at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and his subsequent capture, the French Parliament took advantage of the French king's absence and passed such anti-Lutheran laws as banning translations of the Bible into French.

By the turn of the 1530s, the name Protestants was in general use ending the religious unity of Western Europe

By Ernio48 -  Wikipedia Commons

The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V did not wish to see Spain or the rest of Habsburg Europe divided, and in light of continual threat from the Ottomans, preferred to see the Catholic Church reform itself from within. He persuaded Pope Paul III to inaugurate a Catholic Counter-Reformation to counter activities of the Reformation.

The Council of Trent was convened on December 13, 1545 as a reaction to the Protestant Reformation and it proceeded to meet intermittently for eighteen years. On adjourning, Pope Pius IV ratified all its decrees and definitions, which enjoined strict obedience upon all Roman Catholics. The decrees also stressed some points of faith that the Protestants' objections had put in danger such as the reinforcement of the seven sacraments and their beliefs on transubstantiation.

By the mid-17th century the present European alignment had been reached, with a separation of the Catholic and Protestant churches. The Peace of Westphalia of May 15, 1648 recognized Protestants, and is generally seen as the end of this process.

The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, (1648) by Gerard ter Borch

Source Hutchinson Encyclopedia

Prehistoric Man (Diet)

The first humans discovered how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together. The control of fire meant that food, in particular meat, could be eaten cooked. This was a development that had a crucial effect on the anatomy of the eaters. Cooked meat was easier to chew, a factor that contributed to the decrease in size of the jaw and the consequent increase in cranial capacity.

Meat was the main source of food for prehistoric humans. Reindeer meat was a widespread food. Hunters stalked and killed the reindeer which they found crossing their territory and their lives followed the rhythm of the herds' migrations. Other widespread meats were wild Ox and Mammoth, the latter being in America the principle source of meat.

Prehistoric humans lived a nomadic lifestyle, but always stayed close to a water source to ensure they did not become thirsty. Drinking vessels were often made from animal skins, which adapted well to life on the move.

Prehistoric man used flints to cut meat and dig for vegetables. The flint-maker utilized a rock to chip off the pieces of flint, or it was prepared by hitting it against a large stone set on the ground. Tree bark, seashells or tortoise shells were used as containers to collect, transport, preserve, cook and eat food. Spoons cut in a simple fashion out of wood, bone or shells were used both to prepare and eat the meal.

Nettle pudding was a staple of Stone Age man, who made it by mixing nettles and other leaves such as dandelion and sorrel, with barley flour, salt and water.

Almost as old was smoky stew, made with bacon and smoked fish, and meat pudding, a foreunner of haggis and sausages.

Roast hedgehog was a firm favourite 8000 years ago.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Population

HISTORY

In 8000 BC there may not have been more than 8 million humans on earth.

The world population at the time of the birth of Christ has been estimated at about 300 million, which is just below the present US population.

In 1315 Bad weather and crop failures result in famines across north western Europe. Unsanitary conditions and malnutrition increase the death rate. Even after the revival of agricultural conditions, weather disasters reappeared. A mixture of war, famine and plague in the Late Middle Ages reduced the population by half.

At the time of the Black Death in the mid-14th century, the world population was only 370 million.

Miicrobiologist Anton van Leeuwenhoek calculated there was roughly 13.4 billion people back in 1679, based on the population density of his native Holland and its size relative to the rest of the globe.

The world population is estimated to have reached one billion in 1804, with two, three and four billion in 1927, 1960 and 1974 respectively.

July 11, 1987 was designated "The Day of Five Billion" by the United Nations, marking its estimate of the day on which the world's population would pass that figure. Matej Gašpar from Zagreb, Croatia (then SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia), was chosen as the symbolic 5-billionth person concurrently alive on Earth.

The proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world was born on October 12, 1999. Shortly after midnight in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Fatima Nevic gave birth to a historic 8-pound boy. The United Nations Population Fund designated this Bosnian baby was the special six billionth human.

The United Nations declared October 31, 2011 to be 'The Day of Seven Billion' when the world population officially reached that figure. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the United Nations building in New York City on this new milestone about the size of world population and the issues it raises.

The years taken for every billion people to be added to the world's population

Between 1960 and 2010, the world population rose from 3 billion to 6.8 billion. In other words, there has been more growth in population in the last fifty years than the previous 2 million years that humans have existed.

CURRENT POPULATION STATISTICS

Every minute the world's population increases by 146, with 249 births set against 103 deaths.

For every person that dies, 2.39 people are born.

Around the world, 107 baby boys are born for every 100 baby girls, but because women tend to live longer than men, in the total world population there are only about 101 men for every 100 women.

The total weight of the global population is 287 million tonnes, according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. About 18.5 million tonnes of this is down to people being overweight.

There are currently 1.8 billion young people, aged between 10 and 24- years-old.

Demographers say the average couple needs to have 2.1 children to keep the population steady. In Western Europe, that number had dropped to 1.4 by the late 1990s.

The total number of people who have ever lived was estimated by the Population Bureau in 2017 to be 108,470,690,115. The current world population is about 7.8 billion and increases by 2.3 people every second. These figures mean that about one fifteenth of all the people who have ever lived are alive today.

China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan account for half the world's people. More than one in three people are Chinese or Indian.

As a percentage of world population, China's population has declined from 37% to 19% since 1750.

Only 10% of the World’s population lives in the Southern Hemisphere.

If Earth's population was a village of precisely 100 people, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans.

Vatican City (800) and Nauru (9,378) are the states with the lowest populations.

If all the world's countries swapped land masses according to their population sizes, the US, Yemen, Brazil, and Ireland wouldn't move.

Source Daily Express

Pompeii

HISTORY

The town of Pompeii was founded near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, around the year 600 BC. It was established by a group of people from central Italy, the Osci in a location which was already important location for trade by both land and sea.

Pompeii, Italy. Pompeii - Forum and Vesuvius. Brooklyn Museum Archives, 

Pompeii came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, and was conquered and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after it joined an unsuccessful rebellion against the Roman Republic.
While under Roman control, aqueducts were built, which provided the citizens with water.

On February 5, 62 AD Pompeii was severely damaged by a strong earthquake. It may have been a precursor to the eruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius that destroyed the town 17 years later, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash.

POMPEII IN AD79 

By the time of its destruction, Pompeii's population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheater, gymnasium, and a port.

Some shops in the ruined city bore the signs of primitive pizzerias. Colanders and saucepans, strainers and skillets were being used in Pompeii at the time of its destruction.

Homes were decorated with brightly painted walls, statues, furniture, and colorful mosaic floors.
Residents of Pompeii used water-supplied closets hidden in a niche next to the kitchen.

The victims of the Pompeii eruption had excellent teeth. This was linked to both a healthy diet and high levels of fluorine in the air and water near the volcano, Mount Vesuvius.

The earliest permanent amphitheater of which remains exist is one from about 80 BC at Pompeii, in which the arena is sunk below the natural level of the surrounding ground. It is built of stone 445 by 341 feet (136 by 104 meters) and seated about 20,000 people.

Amphitheatre of Pompeii

Pompeii's walls testified that successful gladiators were among the major celebrities of the day. Some of the graffiti read: "Celadius is the hearthrop of all the girls". "Severus-55 fights- has just won again". "The unbeaten Hermiscus was here". "Crescens, the net fighter, holds the hearts of all the girls".

ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS 

Mount Vesuvius began stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, on August 24, 79. The volcano ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of 21 miles (33 km), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 7.8×105 cubic yards (6×105 cu metres) per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings.

The Last Day of Pompeii. Painting by Karl Brullov, 1830–1833

The Italian towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae were buried in rock and ash. Over 2,000 people were killed.

Some people hid in Herculaneum's boathouses for shelter. When pyroclastic flows reached them, they were hit with a heatwave so intense that it instantly boiled and vaporized their brains, making their skulls explode.

Lawyer and author Pliny the Younger wrote a graphic account of the eruption, which killed his uncle.

Although the date of the eruption has long been thought to be August 24, there is much evidence that it may actually have been September 24.

Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748 and the systematic excavation began in 1763. Pompeii is now considered one of the world's most important historical sites because of the way the volcanic ash preserved the city and its people. This gives historians and archaeologists a vivid picture of life in the Roman Empire around 2,000 years ago.

When Pompeii was finally excavated, searchers found evidence of a dog lying across a child, apparently trying to protect the youngster.

Pink Floyd played a concert with no audience at the ampitheatre in Pompeii in 1971. It was the first performance to occur there since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD.

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, Comptons Encyclopedia