He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it in the next semester.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I hated history at school. I could never see the point of it. This might have had quite a lot to do with going to a Roman Catholic School. I mean, how can one take a history teacher seriously if she tries to excuse the Roman Catholic Church for its history of religious persecution, torture and murder? This murderous history, together with the Roman Catholic Church's attacks on science and learning over the ages, are totally inexcusable. There is no justification for this sort of thing. To say, the Inquisitors felt it was their duty to torture their victims to save them from the even worse torments of Hell, is simply to show how sick and insane this institution had become. To stand in front of a class of children and spout such drivel, simply shows that the church is still producing people who are all but certifiably insane and then putting them in positions of authority over young people, thus dooming those young minds to a similarly warped view of reality.
Taking the above paragraph into account, you will soon begin to realise that my current knowledge of history is still very limited. Consequently, the topic discussions on this page, will be little more than a collection of links to other websites, stuck together with a brief descriptive glue. As for the selection of topics there is little or no rhyme or reason to it. I simply select whatever appeals to me at the time. If you wish for order you may need to look elsewhere.
What follows here is little more than a group of references to a number of websites such as Wikipedia and the Spartacus Schoolnet website. Along with these references you will find quite a lot of blatent plagiarism. The only thing you will find that is uniquely my own is the selection of items for discussion.
Having not studied history at school I cannot claim any serious knowledge of it now. However, occassionally I have come across something in a work of art, which has been inspired by historical events or people, to some degree or other, and I find I want to know more. For example: When I first read the novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov I discovered an intriguing mention of a romanised Jewish Historian named: Flavius Josephus. Josephus was of interest to one of the characters in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, a certain Mikhail Alexandravich Berlioz, because Josephus was an historian of Jewish history who lived from AD 37 to AD 100. Consequently, if Jesus had existed Josephus might have been expected to have written about him. In the first chapter of The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Alexandravich Berlioz insisted that neither Josephus nor Philo of Alexandria had mentioned Jesus. Apparently, in the real world, this is a matter of some controversy. As you can see if you refer to http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/testimonium.htm there is a passage in Josephus's Jewish Antiquities in which Josephus does in fact appear to refer to Jesus. However, the authenticity of this particular passage is disputed. The controversy alone is enough to make the study of some of Josephus's writings an interesting activity.
I am ashamed to say that, until very recently, I had not read a single one of Shelley's poems. I was also extremely ignorant of the history of the Peterloo Massacre. However, some six months ago or thereabouts someone mentioned that Shelley had written a poem on the Peterloo Massacre. They asked me if I was familiar with it. I told them I was not and then looked it up on Google. It was then I discovered The Mask of Anarchy. Obviously Shelley had heard of the Peterloo Massacre, had been angered by it, and had written this poem in response to it. The poem is one of great power and passion and I found I wanted to know more about the event itself. Looking it up on Google I found a brief history of the event at: http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/peterloo.htm.
The second verse of Shelley's poem reads:
I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
There is a reference to Lord Castlereagh at the Spartacus Schoolnet Website. This website is extremely useful, both for a study of the Peterloo Massacre and also for a study of Shelley's poem. This is because,in addition to Lord Castlereagh, many of the other protagonists are also mentioned. In fact the site contains an entire web of pages, in which the relationships between the various protagonists and, where appropriate, the institutions they served, is outlined in amazing detail. The Spartacus Schoolnet website also contains a more detailed account of the Peterloo Massacre at: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRpeterloo.htm
It seems to me that an awful lot was happening in 1492. In addition to Christopher Columbus discovering America, Ferdinand and Isabella captured Granada in that year. Ferdinand and Isabella were the King and Queen who, by their marriage, united Castille and Aragon and thus gave birth to Spain. They were also the King and Queen responsible for starting The Spanish Inquisition.
Rodrigo Borgia, himself a Spaniard, was Pope in Rome, having been elected in 1455 as Pope Alexander VI. His famous daughter Lucrezia celebrated her tenth birthday in 1492.
The Medici family were in power in Florence. Indeed Lorenzo di Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, as he was otherwise known, died that very year.
Michelangelo Buonarroti was seventeen years old in 1492. At that time he was studying at a school set up by Lorenzo di Medici. With the death of Lorenzo di Medici in that year, the school broke up and Michelangelo was given permission to study anatomy at the hospital attached to Sto Spirito. You can find more biographical information about Michelangelo's life in art at: www.artchive.com.
Leonardo Da Vinci was 40 years old in 1492. Meanwhile, the young girl who would one day model for his Mona Lisa was just 13 years old.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, author of The Prince was 23 years old in 1492.
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