A Short History of the World (29 page)

45.
These taxes were a key cause of The Peasants Revolt in England in 1381.

46.
During the same Council, those gathered took the opportunity to try the Czech priest, Jan Hus (circa 1369-1415), for heresy. His crime was to complain about corruption in the Church and suggest that the Bible, rather than Church leaders, was the ultimate source of authority for Christians.

47.
The last Byzantine emperor died in the siege.

48.
The Ottoman Sultans would hold the title of Caliph until 1924.

49.
‘Ming’ means ‘bright’ or ‘brilliant’ in Chinese.

50.
These expeditions are said to have included up to 28,000 men on ships up to 300 feet long.

51.
There are unproven theories that the Chinese did actually make it to America.

52.
Why the West Rules for Now
, by Ian Morris, Profile Books.

53.
China also took several steps backwards in other areas, even abolishing mechanical clocks after leading the world in clock construction.

54.
Worlds at War,
by Anthony Pagden, Oxford Edition.

55.
Worlds at War,
by Anthony Pagden, Oxford Edition.

56.
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,
by David Landes, Abacus.

57.
The Hadith is a collection of the sayings of Muhammad, written approximately 250 years after his death.

58.
The Lever of Riches,
by Joel Mokyr, Oxford University Press.

59.
In the early 15th century, five independent kingdoms occupied the Iberian Peninsula: Portugal, Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and the last Muslim stronghold of Granada. In 1469, the Crown of Castile was united with the Crown of Aragon through the marriage of Isabella, heiress of Castile, to Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Aragon. In 1492, this ‘Union of the Crowns’ succeeded in expelling the remaining Muslims from Granada and, when the Kingdom of Navarre was annexed by the Union in 1512, modern Spain was established.

60.
The names of continents are traditionally feminine.

61.
The rest were captured, burned or shipwrecked.

62.
Worlds at War,
by Anthony Pagden, Oxford Press.

63.
Worlds at War,
by Anthony Pagden, Oxford Press.

64.
The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,
by Paul Kennedy. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers © 1989 Paul Kennedy.

65.
Incidentally, the Lutherans and Calvinists came to despise each other.

66.
Not before half a million Protestants were expelled from France.

67.
In which he surprisingly allied with Henry VIII of England.

68.
As long as it was Catholicism or Lutheranism!

69.
The Ottomans would try to capture Vienna again in 1683 and fail again.

70.
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,
by David Landes, Abacus.

71.
This title is still in use by English monarchs today.

72.
The event has gone into history as the ‘Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard’.

73.
This became the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’ only in 1801 with the addition of Northern Ireland.

74.
Upon his death, the king owed up to 15 times the country’s annual revenue.

75.
Over three million Africans were exported to Brazil over the following 300 years.

76.
The Jesuits, unfortunately, ran the printing presses.

77.
Iberia is the part of Europe consisting of Spain and Portugal.

78.
The ban was not revoked until 1720.

79.
The invasion of Beijing caused the last Ming emperor to hang himself.

80.
The Clash of Civilizations
, by Samuel Huntingdon.

81.
The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,
by Paul Kennedy, Fontana Press

82.
The Spanish exchanged Florida for Cuba.

83.
Up to 80 percent of Indians currently confess themselves to be Hindu.

84.
Plassey is an anglicised version of ‘Palashi’, which is located about 150km north of Calcutta.

85.
Europe since Napoleon,
by David Thomson, Penguin.

86.
Despite the Duke of Wellington calling it a ‘damned close run thing’.

87.
A Concise History of the Modern World,
by William Woodruff, 2010, reproduced with permission of Palgrave MacMillan.

88.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,
by Paul Kennedy, Fontana Press.

89.
The word ‘gin’ in this instance comes from the word ‘engine’.

90.
Not everyone was happy that skilled workers were being replaced by unskilled workers whose only required skill was to manage machinery. A group that came to be called Luddites resisted the introduction of new machines by smashing them. The term Luddite is now equated with anyone who resists new technology.

91.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,
by Paul Kennedy, Fontana Press.

92.
Bolivar also became known as El-Libertador, Spanish for ‘the Liberator’.

93.
Though it would not be until 1834 that slavery was finally abolished in Britain’s realm.

94.
Napoleon granted independence to Haiti in the Caribbean for the same reason.

95.
This equals roughly two cents per acre, which equates to about 30 cents in today’s money.

96.
The new Austro-Hungarian Empire became the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire.

97.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917.

98.
Rasputin was eventually murdered in 1916.

99.
Some people estimate that the Spanish flu killed up to 40 million people.

100.
This is not to mention the many millions who died of cholera, typhus, dysentery and other diseases after the war.

101.
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia would both be broken up by the end of the 20th century.

102.
New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote in 1893, the United Kingdom allowed women over 30 the vote in 1918, followed by all women over 21 in 1928. Lichtenstein was the last European country to give women the right vote, doing so in 1984. Women in Bahrain were only given the right to vote in 2001.

103.
According to some estimates some 15,000 officers were shot during the Purges.

104.
The truce lasted until 1941 when the nationalists turned on the communists.

105.
General Francisco Franco, who represented the old order, became dictator and ruled Spain until his death in 1975.

106.
Germany, Japan and Italy were the largest of the Axis powers fighting against the Allied cause, of which the largest powers
 
eventually included Britain, the USSR, the USA and China.

107.
The Eastern Front saw approximately 75 percent of all German war casualties.

108.
Roughly 750,000 Russians alone died in the 900- day siege of Leningrad between September 1941 and January 1944.

109.
The United Nations had been founded in June 1945 with the objective of managing the peaceful settlement of disputes after the catastrophe of World War II. All major decisions were to be taken by the victorious Great Powers of the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China.

110.
The Soviet Union launched a dog into space the month after.

111.
Estimated at 45 million people by Frank Dikötter in his book,
Mao’s Great Famine
.

112.
Why the West Rules for Now,
by Ian Morris, Profile Books.

113.
The Clash of Civilisations,
by Samuel Huntington.

114.
Why the West Rules for Now,
by Ian Morris, Profile Books.

115.
http://www.unglobalcompact.org