Sun, Apr 8, 2001
The once immensely rich silk route, crucial to cultural and commercial East-West exchanges, was outdated by naval alternatives. It became the target of rival Western archaeologists in a colonial era race. It was looked down upon by the then weak, decadent empire as 'foreign devils' and thieves in such places as the Takla Makan desert of present Uiguristan, rich in caves. Prominent is the devotion of a stunning succession of imported religions, even Zoroastrism, Ancient Persia's dualism. Other sites testify to completely vanished outpost cities and even realms, such as Stein's findings in Laulan.
Sun, May 2, 2004
Thousand years of glorious empire, rising from Tiber town to political center of the then known (mainly Mediterranean) world, and from republic to absolute monarchy, a formally republican constitution under Caesar's 'divine' heirs. An icon symbol of fittingly monumental size is the Colosseum, theater for bread and games at unprecedented scale and a type of 'microcosm' of the imperial centralism. The basis of Rome's world dominance was the superiority of its legions. One more plausible of countless contradictory theories about the fall of Rome was their decay, as power and wealth bread general decadence so mercenaries from the very Germanic barbarian invader race took the place of citizens which spelled the long-term end, after the spread, persecution and ultimate adoption of Christianity. Constantine the Great consecrated the split of the empire, only the Byzantine east would survive another millennium while the West could only temporize and partially civilize migratory invasion.
Sun, May 16, 2004
The story of master general Hannibal, born to lead Carthage in the epic last phase of the Punic Wars against arch-enemy Rome, a rising land empire of a different, territorial type unwilling to tolerate the Phoenician colony's commercial superiority annex coastal colonization along the Mare Nostrum. Hannibal excels in battles, but ultimately looses the war against Rome after laying siege to it only to be challenged in his own home territories.
Sun, Sep 12, 2004
A century before Columbus and Magellan, Chinese emperor Zhou-Di's giant junk sailing fleet explored and could well have dominated the world seas, but was abandoned after his death for internal political reasons. Thus the scene was left to European explorers, whose rivaling princes and chartered companies started a race for control of the immensely rich trade in spices - later various other colonial produce, such as silk and tea, making them rich enough to dominate the world in other ways too. In the British case, they were rulers of no less than a fifth of the globe.
Sun, Jun 11, 2006
The unsettling true story of the First Crusade, an orgy of Christian fanaticism and violent opportunism, 1095-99. Byzantine emperor Alexios asked the pope for help in his desperate defense against the Sedjuk Turks, but instead of a knightly contingent got huge waves of only low-class desperadoes, committing plunder without military experience. He was relieved to set them on the road to Jerusalem through Asia Minor, at least they regained Nicaea for him, fought the Turkish Saracens and succeeding against odds to found crusader states for some of their noble generals, who thus broke their promise to the legitimate but Orthodox emperor. The first was Antiochia, through treason.
Sun, Jun 18, 2006
The first Crusade continued, 'crowned' by the conquest of Jerusalem, drowned in another sea of blood, Jewish as well as Muslim. The crusader territories, the Jerusalem realm and its vassals (Antioch, Edessa and Tripolis) and the military orders (Templars and St.John's Hospitallers) are under 'guerilla' siege from Muslims. The Muslims themselves are internally divided by the Sunni-Shiah-schism and political divisions, until the ruthless Ayyubite usurper Saladdin re-united Egypt and Greater Syria. After the Second and Third Crusade, starring French viz. English kings Philip August and Richard the Lionheart, the Catholic implantation was only prolonged, not saved. The ultimately inevitable results were disastrous in the Orient, even to this day.
Sun, May 27, 2007
August 1793: Lord McCartneys British delegation on its way to the imperial capital Peking is amazed to discover the Great Wall, and by their Chinese escort's utter indifference about it. The present wall was build under the Ming dynasty. In 1541 the sinified Mongolian ruler Altan Khan who has established a capital in Chinese fashion asks to establish trade, but after the emperor has his delegation executed the nomads invade and devastate; a new commanding general was ordered to assure the empires northwestern defense by building a long wall along nine pre-existing forts, partially renewing a 1000 AD wall, with advanced observation posts. In 1550 the Khan's first major attack with 30,000 men is halted, but he promises to get to Peking and another attack at a small pass allows him so, yet his terms are only trade relations, which are soon broken off again while the Great Wall is gradually elaborated, over 4000 kilometer along the Ming empires northern borders. The army and even more commandeered rural workers were used, at extreme expense in material, effort and victims during 90 years, corruption still increases the financial cost; the garrisons are substandard. In 1644 a farmers revolt reaches Peking, where the Ming emperor hangs himself, general Li seizes the throne. The Manchu nomads are let in by the last loyal general and found a new imperial dynasty, the Ching.
Sun, Jun 3, 2007
In the 14th century BC, pharaoh Echnathon ruled with his mysterious, beautiful queen Nofretete from Amarna, his new capital build in the desert and abandoned immediately after his reign, like his new, monotheistic religion, which made the royal couple sole mediator with the gods, eliminating the mighty priesthood. Legends and monuments exalted her happiness and rise to unprecedented 'co-regentship', even in military success. She disappeared even during his reign, but how? Now archaeologists try to prove if hers is one of the clearly royal mummies found in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, which are diagnosed by computer-tomography (CT). All other indications fit, but the severed arm in scepter-holding position is not her previously presumed mummy's. Then another Luxor grave near Tuth's is found to hold a perfectly fitting sarcophagus, only the cartouche is removed, which would fit young successor Tuth's restoration; CT proves it's not Nofretete, but probably a close relative, apparently Echnathon himself. One of two female mummies with him may well be the queen's; the younger shows a major head wound, apparently incurred during her life, perhaps even murder- it may be another wife of Echnothon's, Kia, perhaps Tuth's mother, disappeared shortly after his birth, perhaps murdered as a rival by Nofretete, who could be the elder mummy, but comparison with preserved hair proves it's not her, but Tuth's grandmother, Echnathon's mother-in-law, presumed to have opposed his religious revolution. In the wadi of the abandoned capital Amarna, fragments of royal sarcophagi indicate the mummies -none are there- were later re-interred in Luxor.
Sat, Jun 9, 2007
The story of British egyptologist Howard Carter, who crowned fifteen years of tireless searching for the missing grave of child-pharaoh Tutanchamun, made possible by the mecenate of Lord Carnarvon, with the most fabulous find in the history of archeology, only to find that was only the start of further years of efforts against physical, legal and other obstacles. Interlaced are scenes from the present treasure hunt in the Valley of the Kings, both official and by grave robbers supplying the international smuggle trade.
Sun, Jun 17, 2007
The great pyramid of pharaoh Cheops at Gizeh, arguably the most perpetual human creation, certainly served the purpose of enabling the king eternal life among the stars, but how exactly? A robot which enters narrow shafts inside and in the underground labyrinth from the sphinx to the pyramid, possibly used as a scary dark initiation course, is used to investigate the literally hard facts. Outside, the search is for the tombs of the humbler builders of the most monumental royal tomb and their intricate life during decades of well-planned work, which prove too elaborate to be a mere slave camp, rather a privileged village of superior craftsmen, and next to it, exceptionally behind a stone wall, a huge storage area, the whole is even considered a new step in the development of a court-centered modern state model.
Sun, Jun 24, 2007
Piramesse was Pharaoh Rames II the Great's new capital at the Nile, called 'house of the son of Ra', peopled by some 100,000 subjects and littered with glorious monuments, but quickly fell in total disuse after his over 60 year long reign, even its site was forgotten and covered by the moving Nile delta. In the 1920s, the French archaeologist Pierre Montet's diggings in Tanis made him believe it could well be Piramesse, but his assistant remarked too many finds don't fit, and all Ramses statues lacked the base. Over half a century later the Austrian Manfred Bietak discards Montet's simplism and tries to reconstruct the Nile shifting and drying-up, testified by hight lines and modern dating of ceramic finds from daily life, far too few from Ramses II's time for Tanis to be Piramesse- his massive monuments seem moved centuries after Ramses. Bierak and German colleague Edgar Posch focus next on the better fitting Pelusian Nile-arm, which indeed yields daily life period finds, especially near the Qantir temple site, yet no visible trace of monuments, just fields, which soon prove rich in mysterious artifact fragments. Then a uniquely preserved bronze horse tackle part and horse-toilet are found, indicating major garrison stables from Ramses's age, and parts of war chariots, royal guards equipment known generally to be stationed at the Pharaonic capital. Modern prospection scanners allow to identify foundations under the fields, of a size fitting the royal capital, divided east-west in upper - and lower class quarters, with a giant Amun-temple; the palace is probably under the modern town. The also find why the metropolis was abandoned: the Nile arm dried up, so the royal seat had to be moved westward to Tanis, and numerous major Ramses-monuments were also moved to a specific quarter there, an astonishing operation in itself without modern equipment.
Sun, Jul 1, 2007
The story of the search for the story of Hattusa, the lost capital of the long forgotten empire of the Hatti, alias Hettites, whose ruler was in its time strong enough to be recognized even by the mighty Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II as his fellow Great King, and a remarkable feat of Bronze Age engineering complete with sewage, at an impractical but impregnable site in landlocked Central Asia Minor (now Anatolia, Asian Turkey). Archeological finds and cuneiform tablets, in both their own (long illegible, finally deciphered as Indo-European) and foreign languages in several well-stocked libraries, testify to the militarily superior technology, religion and mythology, court and army life, society and laws of the half a millennium long primordial, then completely obliterated people, and its surprisingly sudden, tragic end, presumably trough a fratricidal palace coup and arson during a dramatical famine.
Sun, Jul 8, 2007
The discovery, exploration and especially history of the Lambayeque culture, which succeeded to the Moche in and the around the valley bearing their people's name in northern Peru. Untill the Inca empire reduced them to a province, and its governor took his place on the highest, the 26 adobe pyramids of the dynasty's first capital Tucume -a larger cluster then any of the Pharanoic or Mayan capitals, in total they erected 250- were the seat of their priest-king and his high nobles, testimony to their power and the widely trading nation's wealth, which lasted until the advance of the Conquistadores caused them, in vain, to bring the supposedly unprecedentedly displeased gods a massive mass-sacrifice of men, women and children who willingly bend over to have their throats slid fast and fatally before the great fire which ended the use of the site.
Sun, Jul 15, 2007
This is the German version of "Constantine", the fifth episode of the internationally co-produced docu-drama "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" (see there for a full historical summary), using the dramatized scenes in full but some alternative off-screen text and interviews, about how Constantine the Great ultimately triumphed over his rivals in the civil wars into which Diocletian's Tetrarchy dissolved, forged a new, strong Byzantine empire, de facto the senior of the Western Roman empire, ended the persecution of Christianity, converted to it and laid the foundations for its later formal adoption as new state religion.
Sun, Jul 22, 2007
This is the German version of "The Fall of Rome", the sixth and last episode of the internationally co-produced docu-drama "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" (see there for a full historical summary), using the dramatized scenes in full but some alternative off-screen text and interviews, about the Visigoth king Alaric's various moves to get his people, forced to migrate West by eastern nomads, a new home inside the Roman empire, ultimately leading to the take-over in phases of the Western empire, which had already transferred its imperial seat to Ravenna and lost its military might but still proved a hard nut to crack due to emperor Honorius and his court's lies and treachery.
Sun, Jul 29, 2007
Engineer Ludwig Borchardt, who worked in Egypt since 1895 and wed the wealthy archaeologist Mimi he met there, discovered many treasures, including the legendary, 3500 years old bust of revolutionary monotheist Pharaoh Echnathon's mysterious, unprecedentedly powerful queen Nofretete ('the beautiful one has come') on December 6, 1912 in their new capital Amarna's ruins. It's now the main attraction in Berlin's Egyptian Museum, the world's first 'cover girl' since its 1924 first exposition. A recent German archaeological find in Amarna seems to be the matching body. Modern archaeologists Dr. Cornelius von Pilgrim, professor Barry Kemp and Dr. Olaf Matthes reconstruct Borchard's search and intimate knowledge of the fake trade, and try to verify the rumor the bust would be a deliberate fake by Borchardt who also bought finds and would have smuggled some 15,000 pieces to Berlin, or a copy would have replaced it during the 1944 Nazi evacuation; a tomographic Rontgen scan finds an invisible calcareous portrait inside the famous plaster face. Egypian archeology chief Zahi Awass demands the bust's return to Cairo.
Sun, Aug 12, 2007
The exceptionally valuable treasure of the cathedral of former imperial 'Pfalz' (palatial seat) Quedlinburg, over two dozen masterpieces of medieval imperial art, such as the Samuel evangeliary, which is later offered on the black market, was taken by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler's SS just before the Second World War; twelve of the valuable pieces disappeared in 1945 from its safe place in a castle cellar, but before the US Fourth Cavalry regiment took the city or by an American officer's doing? The First National Bank branch in Whitewright, an insignificant town in Texas, is where Dr. Willi Korte, a German historian and lawyer, who made his name by finding incriminating documents in Washington, D.C. about UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim's Nazi-linked past, hoped to end his long treasure hunt for it, initiated by Dr. Goldmann from the Prussian arts foundation, finding the late Texan veteran John Thomas Meadow, then an art student and First Lieutenant in the US Army, had every single necessary opportunity, with an FBI-supported claim, and finds in two unsightly cartons the coveted precious content, now returned to Quedlinurg; only two pieces remain lost.
Sun, Aug 19, 2007
In the early decades of the 20th century, Sir Arthur Evans's finds at Knossos made the Minoean civilization, 3500 years ago, resume its place as first literate culture in Europe, although he couldn't decipher the alphabet, forcing him to and allowing a lot of imaginative interpretations. He also declared an ivory and gold statue, like the stone one which he baptized the snake goddess, believing it the maternal main Minoan deity, authentic and arbitrarily declared a palatial building a royal grave. In our age, the Canadian Alexander McGillivray, who became an archaeologist as an Evans fan, found however at Palikastro an undoubtedly authentic Minoean 'kouros', a male statue which he considers a deity, and hence questions Evans' view on Ancient Crete's religion. It is known that Evans used a French artist's services who produced both reconstructions and brilliant replicas and even 'could have been' made-up pieces, often sold openly, even to major museums worldwide. Modern dating found the snake goddess ivory nearly 3000 years too young.
Sun, Sep 9, 2007
Australian researchers went trough the original logbook of the HMS Bounty, the legendary Royal Navy exploration ship commanded by captain William Bligh, by his own hand, used in the Admiralty trials against the mutineers and against him, but as the expert restorer Anthony Zemmit found later while pages were replaced, including the day of the mutiny, expertly and also in Bligh's hand, obviously by himself. It enabled this more realistic version then the movies, which is completely different, even the age difference between the duty-prone commoner Bligh and the young impoverished aristocrat Fletcher Christian was in fact negligible. Sailing in 1787, Bligh was in fact a progressive captain (only holding a lieutenant rank), exceptionally concerned with his exceptionally young crew's health and used flogging far less then average at the time. The paradisaic life on Tahiti and its disastrous effect on virtue, health (VD) and discipline is quite true. After nine months Bligh couldn't understand the men found it difficult to return to rigid Navy life, blaming them and especially Christian for futilities and presumed coconut theft. Apparently Christian had a nervous breakdown and staged the mutiny in panic, and almost half the crew preferred marooning to taking his side, pulling off an amazing 5,000 miles sailing to Timor, while only luck brought Christian his refuge on Pitcairn.
Sun, Sep 16, 2007
In the early summer of 1799, the German baron Alexander von Humboldt set out for the Orinoco stream in the then still practically unexplored, largely un- or wrongly mapped upper Amazonian with his intimate friend, French physician and botanist Aimé Bonpland, Indian porters-rowers and the best available scientific instruments, which he knew exactly how to use, care for and repair. His original, pen-illustrated journals document many details, even how he sort of fled the Prussian capital Berlin, with precise and elaborate ambitions to study both many details and the way how nature and anthropology fit together, the topic of his main work, Kosmos. The South Americans still remember his studies of Indians, thousands of species etcetera as the continent's true discovery. They spared no efforts, regardless of danger and physical discomfort, with unprecedented scientific devotion and respect for the natives.
Sun, Oct 14, 2007
This docudrama, interlaced with documentary commentaries and modern day scenes, tells the story of the 1883 volcanic mega-explosion of the then since 200 years dormant Krakatau on a homonymous minor Indonesian island near Java, the most populous island in the then colony of the Dutch East Indies, which caused a tsunami and over 30,000 fatal victims. Main characters are a superstitious native fisherman, a local Dutchh colonial official and his wife, and about 20 kilometers further in the capital Batavia (now Djakarta), another official and his assistant, a scientist, who left the most reliable contemporary documentation, which allowed very elaborate modern study.
Sun, Nov 11, 2007
Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was completely covered in lava and ash at the Vesuvian eruption in 79 AD. Its luxurious nature in Roman days is sketched, alternating with the story of its accidental rediscovery in the late 18th century and subsequent excavation and scientific study, which continue even today on this exceptionally rich, complete site. Unfortunately the first dig in Herculaneum, ordered by the Napolitanean king Carlo III, was a terrible example of ruthless treasure hunting for collecting purposes only, without any real sense of history, and causing even more irreparable damage then the volcano itself. A few years later it was Pompeii's turn, where Swiss engineer Karl Weber started some proper documenting, against the backward Spanish royal 'archeologist' in charge; a Saxon real archaeologist had to sneak around as the court refused him access. A villa near Herculaneum which escaped the royal robbery contained a unique papyri scrolls library.
Sun, Nov 18, 2007
For long archaeological digs in Egypt were little more then brutal treasure-hunts, even using explosives, the measure of success being gold and art. An 18th century pioneer of more scientific Egyptology was Auguste Mariette, a leading researcher for demotic hieroglyphs and a major digger in Saqara, the major graveyard for prominent Pharaonic subjects and old dynasties, where about 70% remains to be excavated, fortunately now under strict government supervision. Grave robbing and black market in antiques remain big business, but today an even greater threat are the moisture and heating tourists bring instead of the stable desert climate in no longer sealed tombs. A contemporary pioneer assisting Mariette, the Prussian Heinrich Bruchs, realized the value of their find, the tombs of the Apis bulls, supplementing to the chronology of the pharaohs s each bull was linked to one reign. Recently writings were found in Abydos from the 'scorpion kings' before the traditional 'first dynasty' of the unifier of Upper Egypt. A trail of thirty digs along the Nile brought Brugs and Mariette upstream to the other major capital, Thebes annex Luxor. Mariette was rewarded with the nobiliary rank of pasha for the findings they offered the khedive, who ruled Egypt, built the predecessor of the present Egyptian Museum in Cairo for, and received the directorship of its governing archaeological council. Mariette, Heinrich and his brother Emil, initially a black marketeer, also pioneered digging in the Valley of the Kings, and the nearby 'royal cachette' necropolis.
Sun, Jun 1, 2008
The episode combines modern research in the mainly unexplored, over 1500 known sites of the Indus culture with pioneering work in colonial British India. First general director John Marshall, who realized the Indian subcontinent (mainly Sind province, in present Pakistan) had a superior Bronze Age culture like Egypt and Mesopotamia from about 5,000 BC, but also found at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa it was very different, engineering amazingly well but for daily life, not glorious ruler and religious monuments; Robert Wheeler, his last successor before Indian and Pakistani Independence, tried to prove it was a warrior empire culture too, by a presently rather discredited theory about its end, supposedly in bloody warfare.
Sun, Aug 31, 2008
The story of the discovery, in ancient subterranean caves, of the oldest testimonies to human -animistic- religion: the realistic, partially symbolic Ice Age paintings (mainly of Animals). These paintings were found in Altamira (Cantabria, northern Spain, 1679), Lascaux and Chavet (1984, also France, 35,000 years; twice as old, yet already showing perspective). Modern technological means show (dramatized/computer-animated scenes) the artists' methods, how life is thought to have been like then and which concepts prehistoric man apparently had. At least as old are carved figures from the southern German Danube region; shamanistic tribal religions (as in Siberia) may, to a degree, continue their tradition. The main cult purposes plausibly included mystic initiation.
Sun, Sep 7, 2008
A series of mining sites from the Mediterranean to Turkestan and its manufacturing, caravan - and shipping trade and various uses all over the Ancient world, especially in rich countries like Pharaonic Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Minoian (Crete) and Mycenean (peninsular Greece) Aegeis, show the economic, ecologic, technological, strategic and general cultural importance, context and implications of bronze, the then revolutionary metal alloy made from copper (after which Cyprus is named in Greek) and tin, for the epoch (after the Stone Age) which is named after it. Interlaced are short reconstructions and archaeological research scenes. Alternative main products included amber and salt.
Sun, Sep 14, 2008
Moderns researchers believe the historical sources that Bram Stoker based the vampire element of his famous Dracula horror epic on didn't vaguely concern the Transsylvanian prince, who impaled Turkish prisoners of war to terrorize the Muslim 'heathens', but more ad rem the erratic life and death of an authentic superstitious early 18th century Austrian princess, Eleonore Amalia. Born Lobkowitz, spouse and heiress of the Schwarzenberg prince of Krumau, on the Moldau, who was killed by the Holy Roman Emperor in a hunting accident. She used the Ancient method to milk a wolf (hence the howling, which terrorized the commoners) supposedly inducing the birth of a male heir, her documented extravagant expenses on dubious medicine, excessive 'medical' bleeding, her bizarre funerary fate etc. The theory concludes the contemporaries probably tied her story in with old vampire superstitions.
Sun, Sep 21, 2008
First part of a BBC-ZDF co-produced geology series, on the different faces and aspects of volcanoes - the generally feared fire-breathing mountains whose violent magma flows, ash clouds and toxic gasses have shattered terror-struck wildlife, people and their possessions since times immemorial. Thomas Reiter visits some planetary regions with major volcanic activity and explains the important part volcanoes played in the very origin of life on earth.
Sun, Sep 28, 2008
German astronaut Thomas Reiter explains the enormous role of the oceans on our planet. They carry enormous energy stemming from earth-moon gravity and solar energy and redistribute it, causing major streams and winds influencing climate. Recent ecologic research shows even more intricate and extensive effects on life forms, adding weight to the dangers of global warming and pollution beyond all expectations. Temporary closure of the Gibraltar strait caused the Mediterranean to dry up repeatedly, only 1.6 million years ago causing African elephants trapped on Sicily to evolve into a dwarf variety. Oceans themselves are constantly reshaped by tectonic continental drifts, like the one now splitting Africa (will take a few million years).
Sun, Oct 12, 2008
Ice and snow, aren't just prominent in weather and feared in avalanches. In the long term, cumulative snow layers compressed into ice masses form glaciers. These glaciers actually move up to hundreds of meters a year, thanks to water pockets in the lower layer, which frictions on rocky surfaces, polishing even the hardest mountains. In geologic time frames, ice age phases embody dramatical climate change -with colossal consequences for all life- and reshape the face of the earth, over and over, relatively fast.
Sun, Oct 19, 2008
This finale of the geology series discusses the conditions for life on Earth, as we know it, to evolve or be wiped out. Most notably water and an atmosphere to protect the Earth from meteors, like the giant one which wiped out the dinosaurs. Ironically geologist coined the term Athropocene for the present era in which the greatest force threatening earth is home-made: Man, whose Greenhouse effect alone may perish life on earth in a geological whisper.
Sun, Dec 28, 2008
Charles Darwin, son of a wealthy English family or Trinitarian protestants, initially planning a life of leisure or entering the religious ministry, chose instead to pursue his fascination for nature. His social standing enabled to board the HMS Beagle on a cartographic world tour. He barely suffered witnessing the harsh flogging regime of his hard-line Tory host, captain Fitzroy, but stumbled upon evidence for his theory of evolution. Despite initial scientific acclaim, realizing the theological implication Genesis isn't literally true made him wait 20 years, after the loss of a daughter which made him question his faith, when another could have beaten him to the post, to publish his On the Origin of Species, starting an unprecedented controversy which lasts till today, denied by so-called Creationists. Thus the impeccable scientist is sometimes considered a heretical icon.
Mon, Jan 26, 2009
In this first of four episodes on brilliant modern age inventors, the story of young Austrian engineer Josef Ressel is explored. He designed, while still a student, about 1812, a revolutionary ship propulsion screw in the Adriatic port city of Triest, then still part of the Austrian Habsburg empire, but fell prey to an international plot.
Sun, Feb 8, 2009
This episode examines the late 19th century story of how the telephone was developed, starring Alexander Graham Bell and other inventors. Furthermore it sketches the complexity of the modern worldwide telecommunications network, which started with and still essentially uses the principles of telephony, as well as its dangers.
Sun, Mar 8, 2009
The legendary Saxon elector Friedrich August I 'the Strong' ruled since his elder brother's early death in 1694. His private cabinet chief, Count von Fleming, left records on the Saxon "sultan's" Machiavellian power play and court life. A crucial part of this was buying the votes of the Polish people to become its king, after converting strictly Lutheran Saxony to Catholicism, against his Prussian wife. This required a tax reform, after breaking the estates' power by uncovering corruption. He won little real power, but imperial trappings and glory. August turned his 'provincial' capital Dresden into the Versailles on the Elbe. A war against Sweden with Russia was nearly fatal.
Sun, Mar 15, 2009
16th century North Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo was and is extremely famous, yet aspects of his life were not known. Modern research deduces more from his work, especially the manuscript thousand pages of sharp observations, even his fingerprints. He challenged all taboos and was uniquely polyvalent in his intellectual and creative talents. Furthermore it sketches the context of his birthplace, the village of Vinci he was named after, being the son of a farm daughter and a notary in Milan who couldn't recognize him out of wedlock. He probably had a homosexual relationship -potentially a capital crime- with one or more of his liv-in students, allegedly all attractive adolescents.
Lawrence is known to many only as the war hero, but actually developed a passionate interest from a very young age in (especially military) history, as a small middle-class boy -actually a bastard, as he was to discover to Victorian horror, driving him into embarrassed isolation- which he pursued in brilliant archeology studies, producing a pioneering study of crusader castles, for which he visited and carefully surveyed nearly all known sites, mainly throughout the Ottoman empire, proving himself fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable in Oriental culture and religion. This experience made him a prime recruit for the British First World War effort, assigned to the Cairo-based 'Arab' bureau, Middle East intelligence, which detailed him with a single colleague to map the strategically vital Sinai desert, between Turkish provinces and the Anglo-Egyptian Suez canal, in a mere six weeks producing a scientifically amazing survey. Later he was charged with uniting the Arab tribes as allies against the repressive Turkish army in armed resistance, paying and concerting sheiks and leading the daring campaign trough the Nefud desert to take the Red Sea port of Aqaba from the nearly undefended land-side. He was marked by the experiences of having to execute an Arab to prevent a fatal feud and capture while spying by the Turks who gave the presumed deserter a shattering taste of abuse in every sense after which he was helped to escape. Realizing the Britsh and French governments has planned to divide the ex-Turkish Arab provinces after the war, he had to keep quit and felt betraying his Arab friends out of dutiful patriotism, uneasy till his death in a motorbike accident.
In 1575 the young self-taught Scottish instrument maker officially presents his steam engine for the English mining industry. It was the result of 18 years of tireless private research, wrestling with business debts and famous rival inventor Smeaton, who resorts to intrigues and sabotage. This episode also sketches modern use of the extremely important invention.