Showing results by author "Kelly Mass" in All Categories

When we think of the Renaissance, we often think of paintings. And indeed, many painters and sculptors were part of the artistic transformation the Renaissance caused. But there was more. The Renaissance basically formed a period of collective enlightenment and freedoms that put an end to certain tyrannies and false notions from the Middle Ages. Advocates of a "long Renaissance" might put its start in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. Let’s take a look at what the extensive time period of the Renaissance provided, and what it leaves us with today.

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages started with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. Population decrease, counter-urbanization, the collapse of central authority, invasions of countries, and mass movements of tribes, which had started in late antiquity, continued into the early Middle Ages. The massive movements of tribes formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. Explore more about this long time in history, a dark time when people faced countless challenges to their survival.

The Crusades are one of those dark chapters in history that we would rather forget, especially religious people. In name of the church, or other religions, like the Muslim faith, people killed, destroyed, looted, and burned cities to the ground. There is nothing “holy” about attacking and plundering, yet this is what they did. In this book, we’ll explore some of the most important crusades everyone should know about. You will learn to understand better why people started them, what drove them to continue, and what ended them.

The Gilded Age was a period in American history that covered the late 19th century, from the 1870s till around 1900. The Gilded Age was a period of great financial development in the United States, specifically in the North and West. The time saw an increase of countless European immigrants, as American incomes were considerably higher than those in Europe, specifically for experienced workers, while industrialization demanded an ever-increasing labor force. The Gilded Age was also a time of severe poverty and inequality.

Here we have it: We may be looking at the years 2020-2021 and think a certain virus has been bad for the world population. However, what happened in these two years is nothing, proportionally, to the hundreds of millions of people who got wiped out by rat infestations spreading insanitary bacteria, resulting in the disease and death of huge parts of the European population in the mid-centuries.

Thanks to ancient Greece, we know more about philosophy, politics, the democratic system, mythology, art, the Olympics, and many, many lingual references imbedded in almost every European language. Ancient Greece has had a significant impact on many concepts we still hold true today.

When we think of Ancient Egypt, we picture movies with mazes, pyramids, traps, mummies, and symbols. And although some of these things were definitely part of it, there is so much more to this ancient civilization. Ancient Egypt was a North African society that grew in the lower banks of the Nile River, in what's now the nation of Egypt. Let’s explore some of the most important features of that society today, and try to grasp what transpired in the culture, the thoughts, the problems, and the development of the Egyptian region more than 5,000 years ago.

In the Early Middle Ages, the Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group that resided in England. They traced their roots back to the arrival of incomers to Britain in the fifth century. The contact between a Germanic tribe and native British populations led to the Anglo-Saxon identity. A lot of the native tribes ultimately incorporated and embraced Anglo-Saxon society and language. The Anglo-Saxons established the idea and Kingdom of England, and the modern English language owes practically 26 percent of its vocabulary to them, including the great bulk of words used in daily discussion.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, referred to as Ivan the Terrible in English, was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the very first Moscow ruler to declare himself Tsar of Russia from 1547 to 1584. Ivan's rule was marked by Russia's change from a Middle Ages state to an empire under the control of the tsar, but at a big cost to the people and the nation's long-lasting economy. Let’s talk about his life, his legacy, his evil deeds, and the way things occurred in history.

From 1924 to his death in 1953, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet politician who ruled the Soviet Union. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers from 1941 to 1953. He obtained complete control of the party and the federal government by 1937. War atrocities and crimes against humanity have been committed by Stalin. If you want to know more about that, listen to the audiobook.

St. Petersburg's structures lie over the skeletons of the press-ganged servant workers who worked to build it, giving it the label "the city built on bones". Historians approximate that 100,000 18th-century serfs are buried underneath the city's stunning Italianate estates and large Parisian-style streets. They were drawn from all around the Russian Empire at the time. They dedicated their lives for the magnificence of Imperial Russia, and the city they built, St. Petersburg, stands as a testament to the Russian state's single-mindedness.

Stalingrad has changed names. It's now called Volgograd and is still one of the largest cities in Russia. But we can't ignore the fact that for a significant time in history, it was called Stalingrad, named after the tyrant and leader of the Soviet Union in the Second World War, Joseph Stalin. Let's explore the history of this city during the Second World War, and why the battles fought there were so horrendous and pivotal in history. It is just one of the bloodiest engagements in the history of warfare, with an approximated two million general losses.

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and self-declared holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor, and achieved massive power in late Imperial Russia. Rasputin was born into a peasant family in the Siberian town of Pokrovskoye. In the year 1897, while on a journey to an abbey, he had a spiritual conversion experience. In the year 1903 or the winter of 1904-1905, he checked out Saint Petersburg, where he drew in certain church and social leaders. In November 1905, he met Emperor Nicholas and Empress Alexandra, and ended up a social figure.

Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, May 2, 1729—November 17, 1796), typically called Catherine the Great, ruled as Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, making her the nation's longest serving female ruler. Following the assassination of her spouse and second cousin, Peter III, she rose to power. Russia grew bigger, its civilization was rejuvenated, and it was acknowledged as one of Europe's great powers during her reign. Catherine the Great has been mentioned so many times in Russian history, it’s definitely good to study to understand the background of the country more.

Leon Trotsky was a Ukrainian-Russian Marxist revolutionary, political thinker, and political leader who lived from November 7, 1879 to August 21, 1940. He developed a variation of Marxism referred to as Trotskyism after being a communist ideologically. After the Tsarist monarchy was toppled in the February Revolution of 1917, Trotsky went back to Russia and signed up with the Bolshevik faction as a leader. He was a popular figure in the November 1917 October Revolution, which deposed the new Provisional Federal government, as head of the Petrograd Soviet.

From May 7, 1682 till his death in 1725, Peter the Great or Pyotr Alekséyevich governed the Tsardom of Russia, and ultimately the Russian Empire, collectively ruling before 1696 with his older half-brother, Ivan V. He got ports on the Azov and Baltic Seas, created the structure for the Imperial Russian Navy, ended undisputed Swedish control in the Baltic, and launched the Tsardom's development into a much larger empire. In 1721, he changed the former title of Tsar to the title of Emperor, and he created the city of Saint Petersburg, which stayed Russia's capital till 1917.

The Crimean War was an army war between Russia and an alliance of France, the Ottoman Empire, the UK, and Sardinia that lasted from October 1853 to February 1856. The rights of the Christian minority in Palestine, which became part of the Ottoman Empire, were the immediate reason for the war. Longer-term elements included the Ottoman Empire's fall, the Russian Empire's development at the time of the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French desire to safeguard the Ottoman Empire to maintain the Concert of Europe's balance of power. 

The Hittites were mentioned in the Bible. They were an Anatolian people that contributed to creating a kingdom in Kussara before 1750 BC, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom between 1750 and 1650 BC, and finally an empire based upon Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1650 BC. Under uppiluliuma I, the empire reached its peak in the mid-14th century BC, when it ruled over much of Anatolia and areas of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

The history of India is long and complicated. It dates back to thousands of years before Christ, according to historical analysts, and it involves wars, peoples, different spiritual movements, claims of independence, merging of empires, and various cultural aspects.

This book focuses on the history of several kings and queens. Learn about Anne Boleyn, her execution for treason, and her political and religious upheaval, and Bloody Mary, or Mary Tudor, the queen who took on the Protestant revolt. In France, learn about Charlemagne, King of the Franks, King of Lombardy, and Emperor of the Romans; Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest women in Western Europe; and Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the French Revolution. Last, return to England with Queen Victoria and Richard the Lionheart.