Tài liệu miễn phí Lịch sử - Văn hoá
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Court of Session seems to fix the former in that year--the year, as lovers of historical coincidences will not fail
to remark, of the Solemn League and Covenant.[1]
He came of an ancient and noble stock. The family of Graham can be traced back in unbroken succession to
the beginning of the twelfth century; and indeed there have been attempts to encumber its scutcheon with the
quarterings of a fabulous antiquity. Gram, we are told, was in some primeval time the generic name for all
independent leaders of men, and was borne by one of the earliest kings of Denmark. Another has surmised
that if Graham...
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It was a lovely May morning! The early rays of the sun had not withered the blossoms, or paled the fresh
green of the garden of Charlottenburg, but quickened them into new life and beauty. The birds sang merrily in
the groves. The wind, with light whispers, swept through the long avenues of laurel and orange trees, which
surrounded the superb greenhouses and conservatories, and scattered far and wide throughout the garden
clouds of intoxicating perfume.
The garden was quiet and solitary, and the closed shutters of the castle proved that not only the king, but the
entire household, from the dignified and important chamberlain to...
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Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat. Wide, intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long,
granite-paved, and marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers. The gay Antiochenes, whom
nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from pursuit of pleasure, were taking the air in chariots, in
litters, and on foot; their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the fruit displayed in open
shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the blossom on the trees in public gardens, which made of the city, as
seen from the height of the citadel, a mosaic of green and white....
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A stranger on first entering Arizona is impressed with the newness and wildness that surrounds him. Indeed,
the change is so great that it seems like going to sleep and waking up in a new world. Everything that he sees
is different from the familiar objects of his home, and he is filled with wonder and amazement at the many
curious things that are brought to his notice. Judging the country by what is common back east, the average
man is disappointed and prejudiced against what he sees; but, estimated on its merits, it is found to be a land
of many attractions and great...
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The genius of revolution presided at the birth of the American Republic, whose first breath was drawn amid
the economic, social and political turmoil of the eighteenth century. The voyaging and discovering of the three
preceding centuries had destroyed European isolation and laid the foundation for a new world order of
society. The Industrial Revolution was convulsing England and threatening to destroy the Feudal State.
Western civilization, in the birthpangs of social revolution, produced first the American and then the French
Republic....
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We may think and talk about civilization as one pattern or level of culture, one stage through which human
life flows and ebbs. In that sense we may regard it abstractly and historically, as we regard the most recent ice
age or the long and painful record of large-scale chattel slavery.
From quite another viewpoint we may think of civilization as a technologically advanced way of life
developed by various peoples through ages of unrecorded experiment and experience, and followed by
millions during the period of written history. It is also the way of life that the West has been trying to impose
upon the entire...
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Tho' The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended, was writ by the Author many years since; yet he lately
revis'd it, and was actually preparing it for the Press at the time of his death. But The Short Chronicle was
never intended to be made public, and therefore was not so lately corrected by him. To this the Reader must
impute it, if he shall find any places where the Short Chronicle does not accurately agree with the Dates
assigned in the larger Piece. The Sixth Chapter was not copied out with the other Five, which makes it
doubtful whether he intended to print it: but...
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Fourteen years ago the writer of this volume entered the temple of Freemasonry, and that date stands out in
memory as one of the most significant days in his life. There was a little spread on the night of his raising,
and, as is the custom, the candidate was asked to give his impressions of the Order. Among other things, he
made request to know if there was any little book which would tell a young man the things he would most like
to know about Masonry--what it was, whence it came, what it teaches, and what it is trying to do in the...
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Though it is probable that for a long time to come the mass of mankind in civilized countries will find it both
necessary and advantageous to labor for wages, and to accept the condition of hired laborers (or, as it has
absurdly become the fashion to say, employees), every thoughtful and kind-hearted person must regard with
interest any device or plan which promises to enable at least the more intelligent, enterprising, and determined
part of those who are not capitalists to become such, and to cease to labor for hire....
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It was a beautiful evening at the close of a warm, luscious day in old Spain. It was such an evening as one
would select for trysting purposes. The honeysuckle gave out the sweet announcement of its arrival on the
summer breeze, and the bulbul sang in the dark vistas of olive-trees,--sang of his love and his hope, and of the
victory he anticipated in the morrow's bulbul-fight, and the plaudits of the royal couple who would be there.
The pink west paled away to the touch of twilight, and the soft zenith was sown with stars coming like
celestial fire-flies on the breast of...
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From the glad whinny of the first unicorn down to the tip end of the nineteenth century, the history of Great
Britain has been dear to her descendants in every land, 'neath every sky.
But to write a truthful and honest history of any country the historian should, that he may avoid overpraise
and silly and mawkish sentiment, reside in a foreign country, or be so situated that he may put on a false
moustache and get away as soon as the advance copies have been sent to the printers.
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Cradled in the valley of the Arno, its noble architecture fitly supplementing its numerous natural charms, lies
the Tuscan city of Florence, the birthplace of immortal Dante, the early home of Michael Angelo, the seat of
the Florentine Medici, the scene of Savonarola's triumphs and his tragic end. Fame has come to many sons of
Florence, as poets, statesmen, sculptors, painters, travellers; but perhaps none has achieved a distinction so
unique, apart, and high as the subject of this volume, after whom the continents of the western hemisphere
were named.
Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred and fifty years after...
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To the less narrowly technical reader, the development of the historical sense in one of the earlier culture
peoples has an interest all its own. The historical writings of the Assyrians form one of the most important
branches of their literature. Indeed, it may be claimed with much truth that it is the most characteristically
Assyrian of them all. [Footnote: This study is a source investigation and not a bibliography. The only royal
inscriptions studied in detail are those presenting source problems. Minor inscriptions of these rulers are
accorded no more space than is absolutely necessary, and rulers who have not given us strictly historical
inscriptions...
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The outline and incomplete material of AN UNDIVIDED UNION were left among the papers of the late
William T. Adams (Oliver Optic), and the same notes that were to complete the Blue and Gray--On Land
series also closed the life-work of America's best-known writer of boys' stories.
There has been a constant demand that this unfinished concluding volume be prepared for publication, and
Mr. Edward Stratemeyer, author of the remarkably popular Old Glory series, based upon the
Spanish-American war, undertook the task of picking up the threads of the narrative and carrying it to such a
conclusion as was evidently intended. He has performed the work...
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The perfect calm of an early spring dawn lies over headland and sea--hardly a ripple stirs the blue cheek of the
bay. The softness of departing night lies upon the bosom of the Mediterranean like the dew upon the heart of a
flower.
A silent dawn.
Veils of transparent greys and purples and mauves still conceal the distant horizon. Breathless calm rests upon
the water and that awed hush which at times descends upon Nature herself when the finger of Destiny marks
an eventful hour.
But now the grey and the purple veils beyond the headland are lifted one by one; the midst of dawn rises
upwards like...
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The boat was crowded. Khaki, everywhere khaki; lifebelts, rain and storm, everything soaked. Destroyers,
churning through the waves, played strange games all round us. Some old-time Tommies, taking everything
for granted, smoked and laughed and told funny stories. Others had the look of dumb animals in pain, going to
what they knew only too well. The new hands for France asked many questions, pretended to laugh, pretended
not to care, but for the most part were in terror of the unknown.
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The party system is an essential instrument of Democracy. Wherever government rests upon the popular will,
there the party is the organ of expression and the agency of the ultimate power. The party is, moreover, a
forerunner of Democracy, for parties have everywhere preceded free government. Long before Democracy as
now understood was anywhere established, long before the American colonies became the United States,
England was divided between Tory and Whig. And it was only after centuries of bitter political strife, during
which a change of ministry would not infrequently be accompanied by bloodshed or voluntary exile, that
England finally emerged with a government deriving its...
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Three momentous things symbolize the era that begins its cycle with the memorable year of 1776: the
Declaration of Independence, the steam engine, and Adam Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations. The
Declaration gave birth to a new nation, whose millions of acres of free land were to shift the economic
equilibrium of the world; the engine multiplied man's productivity a thousandfold and uprooted in a
generation the customs of centuries; the book gave to statesmen a new view of economic affairs and
profoundly influenced the course of international trade relations....
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In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in the Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the
shores of the River Yenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathed mountains of Mongolia to
pour its warming life into the Arctic Ocean and to whose mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortest
road for commerce from Europe to the heart of Asia. There in the depths of the still Siberian winter I was
suddenly caught up in the whirling storm of mad revolution raging all over Russia, sowing in this peaceful
and rich land vengeance, hate, bloodshed and...
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The events recounted in this book group themselves in the main about a single figure, that of Count
Frontenac, the most remarkable man who ever represented the crown of France in the New World. From
strangely unpromising beginnings, he grew with every emergency, and rose equal to every crisis. His whole
career was one of conflict, sometimes petty and personal, sometimes of momentous consequence, involving
the question of national ascendancy on this continent. Now that this question is put at rest for ever, it is hard to
conceive, the anxiety which it wakened in our forefathers. But for one rooted error of French policy, the...
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It was early autumn, for the clusters of grapes above me were already purple, and the forest leaves were tinged
with red. And yet the air was soft, and the golden bars of sun flickered down on the work in my lap through
the laced branches of the trellis. The work was but a pretense, for I had fled the house to escape the voice of
Monsieur Cassion who was still urging my uncle to accompany him on his journey into the wilderness. They
sat in the great room before the fireplace, drinking, and I had heard enough already to tell me there was
treachery...
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Of the churches connected with the religious houses which once existed in the county of Dorset, three only
remain to the present day. Of some of the rest we have ruins, others have entirely disappeared. But the town of
Sherborne, once the bishop-stool of the sainted Aldhelm, who overlooked a vast diocese comprising a great
portion of the West Saxon kingdom, has its Abbey now used as its Parish Church. The great Abbey of Milton,
founded by Æthelstan, has handed down to us its choir and transepts--rebuilt in the fourteenth century, after
the former church had been destroyed by fire--and this, though private property, is...
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The etymology of the name Romsey has been much disputed. There can be no doubt about the meaning of the
termination ey--island--which we meet with under different spellings in many place-names, such as
Athelney, Ely, Lundy, Mersea and others, for Romsey stands upon an island, or rather group of islands,
formed by the division of the river Test into a number of streams, which again flow together to the south of
the town, and at last, after a course of about seven miles, empty themselves into Southampton Water. But
several derivations have been suggested for the first syllable of the name....
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In Raphael Petrucci, who died early in 1917, the world has lost one of the ablest and most devoted students
and interpreters of the art of the Far East. He was only forty-five years of age, in the prime of his powers,brimming with energy and full of enterprises that promised richly. Though he did not die in the field, he was
none the less a victim of the war. He had exhausted himself by his labours with the Belgian ambulances at La
Panne, for Belgium was his adopted country. He had a house in Brussels, filled with a collection of Chinese
and Japanese art,...
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The Portuguese began exploring the west coast of Africa shortly before Christopher Columbus was born; and
no sooner did they encounter negroes than they began to seize and carry them in captivity to Lisbon. The court
chronicler Azurara set himself in 1452, at the command of Prince Henry, to record the valiant exploits of the
negro-catchers. Reflecting the spirit of the time, he praised them as crusaders bringing savage heathen for
conversion to civilization and christianity. He gently lamented the massacre and sufferings involved, but
thought them infinitely outweighed by the salvation of souls....
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Before entering upon our subject proper, we think it advisable to explain a few points, simple though they are,
which might cause confusion to some readers. Our experience has shown us that as soon as we use the words
millimeter and degree, perplexity is the result. What is a millimeter? is propounded to us very often in
the course of a year; nearly every new acquaintance is interested in having the metric system of measurement,
together with the fine gauges used, explained to him.
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On my return from the first exploration of the canyons of the Colorado, I found that our journey had been the
theme of much newspaper writing. A story of disaster had been circulated, with many particulars of hardship
and tragedy, so that it was currently believed throughout the United States that all the members of the party
were lost save one. A good friend of mine had gathered a great number of obituary notices, and it was
interesting and rather flattering to me to discover the high esteem in which I had been held by the people of
the United States. In my supposed death...
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Norwich Cathedral stands on the site of no earlier church: it is to-day, in its plan and the general bulk of its
detail, as characteristically Norman as when left finished by the hand of Eborard, the second bishop of
Norwich.
The church was founded by Herbert de Losinga, the first bishop, as the cathedral priory of the Benedictine
monastery in Norwich (a sketch of its constitution at this period will be found in the Notes on the Diocese);
the foundation-stone was laid in 1096 on a piece of land called Cowholme,--meaning a pasture surrounded by
water,--and the church was dedicated to the Holy Trinity....
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The present volume has been published with two main objects. The writer has attempted to exhibit, in outline,
the leading features of the international history of the two countries which, in 1707, became the United
Kingdom. Relations with England form a large part, and the heroic part, of Scottish history, relations with
Scotland a very much smaller part of English history. The result has been that in histories of England
references to Anglo-Scottish relations are occasional and spasmodic, while students of Scottish history have
occasionally forgotten that, in regard to her southern neighbour, the attitude of Scotland was not always on the
heroic scale. Scotland appears...
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IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very crude explanation of natural
phenomena--that to which the name animism has been given. In this stage of mental development all the
various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest
leaves--in the mind of the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, but animated by
motives more or less antagonistic to him.
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