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...scientists have uncovered a hidden feature underneath a medieval castle in Milan, Italy, that researchers once could only speculate about based on a sketch of Leonardo's from around 1495 and references in other historical sources — underground passageways that were likely intended for soldiers to use in the event that the castle's defenses had been breached.The discovery, which the Politecnico di Milano announced in January, came about through a series of surveys that aimed to digitize the 15th century Sforza Castle's underground structures through nondestructive methods such as ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning...Biolo and her team originally intended to digitize...

During renovations at a former Tudor hunting lodge known as The Ashes, which is located in Inglewood Forest, Cumbria, workers exposed rare sixteenth-century wall paintings, according to a statement released by Historic England. The Grotesque-style artworks were brought to light upon removal of sections of more recent plaster work that had been covering up the 450-year-old images. The scenes, which were created using a secco technique in which pigments are applied to dry plaster, feature fantastical beasts and decorative foliage thought to imitate textile designs of the period. "The combination of motifs discovered here is unusual even by national standards,"...

Muslims are still trying to "avenge" themselves — including through acts of terrorism — against historical Christian victories over Islam from more than a millennium ago, such as the battle of Tours in France, in 732. Meanwhile, the city council of Vienna has been more than happy to appease Muslims against the man who saved Vienna from Islam in 1683 — all in the name of combatting "Islamophobia." ... a special look at what Vienna has become since opening its doors to Islam: ... Leftist domestic terrorists are fire-bombing Tesla dealerships and harassing owners across the country. They must face...

He became famous for his love affairs, but Casanova was also a writer, diplomat and spy. Born in Venice 300 years ago, his name still resonates around the world. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova admires his tall, slender figure in the gold-trimmed mirror as he adjusts his wig. Everything needs to be perfect as his latest lover is on her way. Oysters, venison and champagne are ready. The beauty Casanova is waiting for is enchanted by the setting. After dinner, the seducer urges her into the bedroom, where they indulge in a night of lovemaking. "Feeling that I was born for the...

The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) (2013 Remaster) | 4:37 Fleetwood Mac | 1.87M subscribers | 804,047 views | November 14, 2018

Built as Byzantium around 657 BC and then renamed Constantinople in the 4th century CE after Constantine the Great made the city his capital, the city of Istanbul officially received its present name on this day in 1930. Surprisingly, the capital of the Byzantine Empire was not renamed after the Ottomans captured it in 1453. Variations of “Constantinople” continued to be used by the Turkish-speaking conquerors long after they took control of the city. “It’s a fact that the Ottomans called Istanbul ‘Kostantiniyye,’ among other names, in thousands of their official documents,” said Christoph Herzog, chair of Turkish studies at...

Discover the incredible journey of Pope Julius II, famously known as The Warrior Pope, who revolutionized the papacy from 1503 to 1513. Born Giuliano della Rovere, his path to power uniquely intertwined ambition, charm, and ruthlessness, influenced by his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV. Learn about his rise from an impoverished noble to the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, his exile in France, and his strategic return to Rome, ultimately becoming Pope Julius II. Witness how he combined military prowess with artistic patronage, commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. This video delves into his military campaigns, political maneuvers, and artistic legacy...

William Shakespeare’s birthplace is being “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”. Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust owns buildings linked to the Bard in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The trust also owns archival material including parish records of the playwright’s birth and baptism. It is now “decolonising” its vast collection to “create a more inclusive museum experience”.

William Shakespeare's birthplace will be de-colonised over fears that portraying his success as the 'greatest' playwright 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy'. Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust owns buildings in the playwright's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. It wants to 'create a more inclusive museum experience' and announced it will move away from Western perspectives after concerns were raised that Shakespeare's ideas were used to advance 'white supremacy' ideas. The trust also said that some of its items could contain language or depictions that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. It comes amid an ongoing backlash against the writer. Some productions of his works...

Via Aleteia, here’s another very interesting thing on the musical front. At the beginning of the 20th-century, archeologists working at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem discovered a set of organ pipes and a bell carillion. They have since been kept at the Holy Land Museum run by the Franciscan custody. According to the musicologist who is working on them, Dr David Catalunya, they had been brought to the Holy Land by the Crusaders in the early 12th century, and then hidden for safe-keeping during a Muslim invasion. They are in a very good state of preservation; Dr Catalunya...

A more than 500-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Sweden isn't a Viking vessel after all, scientists have found.A 15th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden may be Scandinavia's oldest shipwreck built in the innovative "carvel" style — a design that gave it the strength to carry heavy cannons, archaeologists say.The wreck at Landfjärden, south of Stockholm, is one of five in the area that have been known since the 1800s. They were commonly thought to have been from ships dating to the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066).But last year, maritime archaeologists at Vrak, the museum of wrecks in...

Spain led the Holy League to defeat the Ottoman Turkish Navy at the Battle of Lepanto near Corinth, Greece, in 1571. Hilaire Belloc wrote in The Great Heresies (1938): "This violent Mohammedan pressure on Christendom from the East made a bid for success by sea as well as by land. ... The last great Turkish organization working now from the conquered capital of Constantinople, proposed to cross the Adriatic, to attack Italy by sea and ultimately to recover all that had been lost in the Western Mediterranean. ... There was one critical moment when it looked as though the scheme...

Spanish Armada, the great fleet sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1588 to invade England in conjunction with a Spanish army from Flanders... 30,000 troops belonging to the veteran army of the Spanish regent of the Netherlands, the duke of Parma...After nearly two years' prep... the Armada sailed from Lisbon in May 1588 under the command of the duke of Medina-Sidonia... an experienced administrator... but he had relatively little sea experience. The Spanish fleet consisted of about 130 ships with about 8,000 seamen and possibly as many as 19,000 soldiers. About 40 of these ships were line-of-battle ships...The...

Starting in May 2010, The Washington Examiner reported, drawing on emails obtained by Citizens United, “Clinton Foundation staff pushed Hillary Clinton’s State Department to approve a meeting between Bill Clinton and a powerful Russian oligarch as her agency lined up investors for a project under his purview.” His name was Viktor Vekselberg of Renova (a Clinton Foundation donor) and the project under his purview was the Skolkovo Innovation Center, which is being built near Moscow. The following month, Bill Clinton would receive $500,000 for a speech in Moscow from a Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the...

The name “Prussia” itself originated in the Middle Ages when pagan tribes inhabited the area adjoining the Baltic Sea between Pomerania and Lithuania. These tribes were conquered by the Roman Catholic Order of the Teutonic Knights in the 1200s, who organized the territory into a fiefdom of Poland. The region was ruled by a succession of the Knights’ grand masters for the next few centuries. But when Albert I of the Hohenzollern family became the Knights’ grand master, he converted to Lutheranism. He recast the Teutonic States as the secular Duchy of Prussia in 1525, becoming the first major Continental...

By 1259, following the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after the death of Möngke Khan, the Golden Horde became a fully autonomous political entity. It absorbed and replaced earlier nomadic confederations, notably the Cuman-Kipchak federation, and established itself as a dominant force in Eurasia. Batu Khan led the infamous Mongol invasions of Kievan Rus’, Poland, and Hungary between 1237 and 1242. The destruction wrought during these campaigns allowed the Horde to subjugate key principalities of Rus’, which became tributary states. Batu’s forces halted their European campaigns only after the death of Ögedei Khan in 1241, which required Mongol leaders to...

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, also known as the Dual Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed by a compromise agreement between Vienna and Budapest, consisting of two sovereign states with a single monarch who was titled both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The empire was geographically the second-largest country in Europe and the third-most populous, spanning almost 700,000 square kilometres and containing 52 million people. It was a major European power in the years prior to World War I, occupying much of central Europe and containing a rich mix of...

In the late 18th century, Russia, Austria, and Prussia finished with the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This state was a union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that had dominated Eastern and Central Europe for centuries.., But before its era of weakness, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a power to reckon with. It controlled a large chunk of territory spanning from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Lithuania’s history began in the early 13th century when local pagan Baltic tribes organized themselves into a single state. By 1230, the chieftain Mindaugas emerged as the leader...

Poland is the only country in the world to invoke Napoleon in its national anthem. Andrzej Nieuwazny explains how Bonaparte has retained a hold over Polish imagination throughout the last two centuries. Edouard Driault, the great historian of the Napoleonic period, used to say that Poland `is more Napoleonic than France'. Although this remark may seem to be exaggerated, the durability and the strength of the legend of Napoleon in Poland cannot be doubted. The Poles are the only people in the world to sing about Bonaparte in their national anthem. Napoleon's rule in France lasted for only fifteen years,...

Concerning President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring new federal buildings to show a preference for "classical architectural style" which includes Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco, referencing the architectural traditions of Greek and Roman antiquity. . . Behold (above) the federal building and courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama by HBRA Architects. And, no, it was not conceived when Andy Jackson was fighting the Battle of Emuckfaw against the “Red Stick” Creek Indians in 1814. Rather, it went up in 2012, a rare example of neoclassical design executed in our time. For the most part, though, the decades-long trend...